I just got home from a 6 hour long trip to get my daughter to college. On the way home, I was alone in the van, driving through the huge Ocala National Forest, and I wanted to listen to some music and just think. While I was going through the 32GB of music on my player I realize that there were two artists whom I used to love but whose music I did not want to listen to: Yuri Shevchuk and Boris Grebenshchikov (aka “BG”). But let me backtrack first and explain.
I love Florida and I am happy here. But my nostalgia for Russia is like an open wound, always open, always hurting. One of the ways I found to transport myself to Russia, if just a little bit, is to listen to Russian music. Sometimes, doing this makes the pain even worse, but often this works like a kind of short-acting anesthetic: I feel like I am at home, amongst my people, where I can let my guard down and just be myself, if only for the duration of a song or two. Truly, this is hard to explain and only an exile can really understand how powerful a song from back home can hit you when you are far, far way, even in a beautiful place. And I have been away for 20 years now…
And yet today, I did not want listen to my two favorite singers. Something in me told me that it would only hurt, but provide no comfort. Why?
First I bash some Russians
I used to say that one should never conflate the artist and his/her talent with his/her political views. Even during my years of rabid anti-Communism I loved to listen to Mercedes Sosa and I still love to listen to Richard Strauss, even though he, unlike Wagner, was, if I am not mistaken, a bona fide Nazi. Listening to Bill Evans (my favorite Jazz musician) does not mean that I endorse heroin any more than listening to Bach (my favorite Baroque composer) makes me a Protestant.
And yet I don’t want to listen to Shevchuk or BG any more.
Shevchuk’s hatred of Putin is so stupid and so crude that it got him on a very short list (just under 40 names, iirc) of “Russian friends of the Ukraine” issued by the Ukronazi junta in Kiev (the list of banned Russian personalities currently includes, iirc, over 600 names, including Pushkin) . As for BG, he actually traveled to Odessa to and joined Mikhail Saakashvili on a barbecue party where BG sang for the man.
Now I know that both Shevchuk and BG have fried their brains – Shevchuk pickled his with vodka while BG shrunk his own with LSD and other drugs.
But my problem is not with their brains, it is with their heart! How does their heart not tell them that the conflict in the Ukraine is not just ‘a’ conflict, but the armed expression of the most rabid and hate-filled russophobia ever. How can they not know, not feel, that even the German Nazis never had so much hatred for Russia in their hearts as the Ukrainian nationalists?! Conversely, how do they not realize that those fighting for the freedom of the Donbass are not just your garden variety separatists but quite literally modern day heroes who took up arms to resist absolute, genocidal evil?
There is another Russian singer whom I love: Vladimir Vyssotskii (1938-1980) who wrote a beautiful song called the “Ballad about Struggle” in which he describes how when children read books about heroes always imagine themselves in the role of the hero but that it is important as an adult to really take a stance against evil. You can check out this song interpreted by a Novorussian solider with subtitles from Tatzhit here: http://10.16.86.131/novorossiya-militiaman-singing-ballad-of-the-struggle-by-vysotsky-eng-subs/. I would like to translate just the last part of the song again, not so much in a poetic way (something I am quite unable to do), but in an attempt to convey the key ideas:
You cannot forever live in dreams
Fun times do not last very long
There is so much pain around
Try to pry open the hands of the dead
And grab the weapon they hold
And see for yourself, having grabbed the still warm sword
And donned the combat armor
The true value of things
Find out for yourself whether you are a hero or a coward
And experience the real taste of combat
If you have never had your meat off a knife
And if you have just observed it all with your arms crossed
And if you have never challenged the traitor or the torturer in combat
Then it means that your life was entirely worthless and vain
But if you hacked your way with your father’s sword
And if you have swallowed your tears
And if you have found out the true value of things
In a real combat
Then the books your have read as a kid were the right ones.
I first heard the song when I was 17 and for me it was clear: my life would be the proof of my own worth and the worth of my upbringing. At that moment I decided that I would not just stand by and observe, but that I would fight evil as soon as I could identify it. True, I was naive and ignorant, and instead of making my own judgments about what was good and evil, I swallowed the propaganda which was fed to me by my family and the society I lived in. But that desire to stand up for what is right and good and to oppose evil is something which I never lost, even when I understood that the ideals of my youth were wrong.
There is a point to this digression and it is this: I believe that no matter how talented artists like Shevchuk and BG are, both their life and their talent are wasted because they missed this key moment in Russia’s history: the moment when absolute evil showed it ugly face yet again and attacked. What this also shows to me is the total disconnect between these artists and the people they supposedly take their inspiration from: the Russian people (who support Putin at the 85%+ range). And that is, alas, an old Russian disease.
It is the curse of the Russian people that our (supposed) intelligentsia always feels like it needs to validate itself by opposing the regime in power: to be a “real artist” you just have to be in opposition to whomever is in power – it gives you this special “chic” of a self-declared “conscience of the people”, a sort of “martyr by proxy” where the artist himself is left completely unmolested and lives the good life, but somehow “feels” and “expresses” the sorrow of those (innocent ones, of course!) whom the regime “persecutes”. And Shevchuk fell into that trap. And if that was the full extend of his personal dislike for Putin I would not give a damn about his views. But Shevchuk’s dislike for Putin is so ideologically driven that it follows that whatever Putin does is also, by definition, bad. Even when Putin stands up to the Nazis in Kiev or the AngloZionist Empire. As for BG – his position is even worse. He does not give a damn about “politics” or “governments” at all. Which would be all well and dandy if it wasn’t for the fact that others, much less privilege than him, are sacrificing their lives or limbs to oppose evil. And so, indeed, And if you have just observed it all with your arms crossed. And if you have never challenged the traitor or the torturer in combat. Then it means that your life was worthless.
Yehuda Bower put it even more simply:
Thou shalt not be a victim.
Thou shalt not be a perpetrator.
And above all,
Thou shalt not be a bystander.
For all their immense talent, Shevchuk and BG completely missed the key moment where their heart should have told them to take a stand. But their hearts remained silent. And so I don’t want to listen to them any more.
And that feeling of not wanting to listen to them is not limited to them.
Next, I bash a few Americans Leftists
For years I have listened to David Rovics whom I interviewed for this blog and whom I called the “beautiful voice of the American resistance”. His amazing lyrics, always set to beautiful melodies, where like a breath of fresh air in a country where the zombification of the general public has reached truly Orwellian levels. Sure, I was baffled how Rovics could clearly not “get it” about 911, but I also realized that he was what I called a “Chomskyite”, i.e., somebody who “unless Chomsky said so” just does not see things. Just like Amy Goodman or the folks at Real News Network. And Chomsky did not “say so”. So Rovics, like a big part of the so-called “progressive” or “liberal” “Left” in the USA, did not know what to make of the conflict in the Ukraine. For the very same reason Shevchuk got stuck in this own logical fallacy: Putin.
American Liberals and Progressives are stuck because fundamentally they are still very much part of the system. Sure, they have disagreements with the Federal Government and with the mainstream politics, but when push comes to shove, they are stuck, unable to really cut their “mental umbilical cord” is you want. The best example of that mental paralysis of the US Liberals/Progressives is their blindness about 911: not only has the controlled demolition of WTC 1 2 and 7 been proven beyond reasonable doubt, but the Federal Government has basically admitted that 911 was an inside job (see sidebar).
[Sidebar: for those who have not read this here, I will repeat it: The US government has admitted , thought NIST, that WTC7 feel in free fall acceleration for 2.25 seconds. Why is that important? Simply because that means that a number of floors of WTC7 disappeared instantaneously and symmetrically from under the roof of WTC7 (free fall acceleration means no resistance besides air). There is only one possible way to remove a section of a building instantaneously: by explosive power. Yes, the admission by Uncle Sam that WTC7 feel for at least 2.25 seconds is an implicit admission that explosives were used. And since Uncle Sam has admitted that only explosives can explain what was observed on September 11th, Uncle Sam has therefore also admitted that this was a controlled demolition an ‘inside job as no outside actor, nevermind some semi-mythical ‘al-Qaeda’ could have had access to a super secret building like WTC7. Only Uncle Sam could have rigged that building to bring it down in a few seconds.]
The problem for the US Liberals/Progressives is that they have to reject this evidence because of its implications: that the US ‘deep state’ was willing and capable of murdering thousands of innocent US citizens to embark on a series of imperialist wars. That, to a typical US Liberal/Progressive is literally crimethink and, therefore, totally unacceptable. The more sophisticated members of the US Liberals/Progressives also realized that there was no way that the Administration of Dubya Bush could have had the time to rig the towers or, for that matter, to write up the huge Patriot Act. This had to be done long before Dubya got into the White House. So clearly some elements of the Democratic Party were “on it”. Rather than accept the evidence at hand, the Liberals/Progressives preferred to simply look away and pretend like this never happened.
Same thing with Putin: the entire US corporate media and all the talking heads have declared urbi at orbi that Putin is a dictator, a tyrant, a dangerous ex-KGB man with a maniacal drive for power. That he is allied to evil and ruthless Russian oligarchs and shadowy “secret service” types who, together, are concocting devious plans to restore the Evil Empire, occupy the Baltics, even possibly Poland, and to bring world civilization and progress to a bloody end. He wants to kill all homosexuals, he threatens to nuke the planet and he wants to be a Czar. He is both the “new Hilter” and the “new Stalin”. Having endorsed this load of crap, how could they possibly declare today that Putin is not the cause of the civil war in the Ukraine or that the AngloZionist Empire is supporting bona fide Nazis who use ballistic missiles, multiple rocket launchers and chemical weapons against their own population?
Again, the facts must be wrong therefore they must be rejected.
And so David Rovics, the “beautiful voice of the American Resistance” has literally nothing to say about this war. He is all over Palestine, Ferguson or even Walmart – but a real genocidal Nazi regime in Europe is, apparently, beyond his field of vision.
And, in conclusion, I address the “noble Europeans”!
The European society is as thoroughly purged from any real spirituality as it if filled with dogmas. I won’t list them all here – this rant is already too long – but I will only mention the main one: the “Dogma of Dogmas” in Europe is that Nazis are bad, bad, bad, bad!! Very bad. Like really so unspeakably bad, that they are way worse than all the others. The Nazis committed the Crime of Crimes and no civilized European would ever EVER want to have anything to do with those evil, evil, evil, evil Nazis!!
The civilized European is so outraged with the Nazis that he is willing to ban any type of putatively racist speech. He is willing to jail any historian who would dare to question the officially accepted narrative about the so-called “Holocaust” or the obligatory figure attached to it (the Holocaust is the only genocide which has an official figure – 6 million – attached to it under an unspoken but nonetheless mandatory dogma. Try suggesting, say, 5,5 million or, God forbid, even less and you will immediately be suspected of being a Nazi which, as I have mentioned, is bad, bad, bad, bad!!!). And while historians go to jail, the civilized Europeans are sending money and weapon to a REAL Nazi regime in Kiev. For the life of me I cannot imagine a worse hypocrisy. Apparently, Nazis are only Nazis when they go after Jews. When they go after Russians, they are not “real” Nazis. The anti-Jewish Nazis are bad, bad, bad, bad and bad, but the anti-Russian Nazis are, apparently, rather good, maybe even “good, good” (only 2x “good” as to not be as good as the anti-Jewish Nazis are bad).
So please allow me to be rude here and remind everybody that the majority of “civilized Europeans” did nothing or very little to oppose Herr Hitler and only minority truly did resist (the strongest resistance was in Serbia and Greece – two countries which nowadays the “rich” Europe is trying hard to destroy). That the majority of Europeans did nothing, or again, very little to stop the mass murder of Jews and that the Europeans did not liberate themselves from the Nazi yoke, but that they were liberated by “Communist Russian hordes” who account for 80% of all the destroyed Nazi military might (the remaining 20% were picked up by the Anglos, very late in the game). Off all people on the planet, the Europeans ought be the very last ones to ever show some sympathy for a Nazi regime, especially one focusing its genocidal hatred against the country which reduced the promised “1000 years Reich” to a mere 12 years. Forgive me, my dear Europeans, but if your “anti-Nazism” is reduced to jailing historians while fully siding with Nazi Banderists in Kiev – it is absolutely worthless!
The moral yardstick of the Ukrainian war
These examples all point to the same reality: the war in the Ukraine has turned into a moral yardstick separating those who “read the right books” and those who are “not a bystander” from those who are, forgive my language, simply full of shit (those offended by my choice of words can replace it with “scatophores” – sounds better, right?).
There are, I suppose, circumstances where one can respect his opponent. But there are also circumstances which make that quite impossible. The civil war in the Ukraine is, at least for me, such a situation. Backing the junta in Kiev – regardless under what pretext – is not only wrong, it is deeply dishonorable. In fact, it is despicable. I don’t give a damn of what people think about Putin or, for that matter, about Russia and the Russian people. I really don’t! And I can forgive those who were initially confused or ignorant. But too much time has passed, things have become so crystal clear that even the dumbest of ignoramuses has had the time, by now, to connect the dots. And I don’t care if you are Russian (like Shevchuk and BG), American or European. If you have anything but total disgust with the evil freak show in Kiev I have nothing but contempt for you.
The Saker
You hit the nail on the head when you write:
“Apparently, Nazis are only Nazis when they go after Jews. When they go after Russians, they are not “real” Nazis. The anti-Jewish Nazis are bad, bad, bad, bad and bad, but the anti-Russian Nazis are, apparently, rather good, maybe even “good, good”
How are the US neocons, who underwrite the ethnic cleansing in Donbass, any different than the Nazis they support in Kiev?
They are not; For me, the way I understand the Neo-con ideology is they are a modern version of 1930’s Nazi party, even patterning their “law’s” after those of Nazi Germany (i.e. “Patriot Act”) and they even have their Reichstag, in the 9/11 WTC destruction false-flag event. They have infiltrated and corrupted this US Gov’t since Paperclip (it was corrupt before them, but they made it worse) So if there is a difference, it’s because of modernization. I could say other things about the depth of their evil and treason against us, but I shall not, and avoid getting into a rant.
How are the US neocons, who underwrite the ethnic cleansing in Donbass, any different than the Nazis they support in Kiev?
They are not. I have always said that Zionism and Nazism are the two sides of the same coin. They hate each other, yet they are also very much alike.
> Les extremes se touchent .<
Extremes meet (in the end)
“I have always said that Zionism and Nazism are the two sides of the same coin.”
https://riversong.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/coin.jpg
Certainly, your context is different, but a bit of irony!
Well, the US neo-conservatives are overwhelmingly Rightwing Jews, with a few Sabbat Goy stooges thrown in for local colour. That rather makes their support for the Nazis in Ukraine, who worship the Ukrainians who helped the Nazis turn the region into a slaughter-house for Jews 70 years ago, truly evil. Of course, as is thoroughly repressed in the ‘Free World’, the Zionists co-operated at many stages with the Nazis during WW2, in return for assistance in the migration to Palestine. As the head of the American Jewish Congress, Stephen Wise, said in 1934, ‘…if I had to choose between Eretz Yisrael and its upbuilding and defence of the Galuth ( the Jewish diaspora outside Palestine) I would say then that the Galuth must perish’. Or perhaps Ben-Gurion, in 1938, sums up the Zionazi mentality even more clearly, ‘
‘If I knew that it was possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to over to England, and only half of them by transferring them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the lives of these children, nut also the history of the People of Israel’.
I’m rather afraid that in a world dominated by the radical Evil of the Zionazi and US ruling elites, and all their vile minions in the West and elsewhere, support for murderous racist Nazis is only to be expected. Like attracts like.
Now there is a ‘rant’ that I can respect!
Bravo, Saker! Bravo!
Saker,
I do sense your pain, I share it, it is the existential pain of anyone in the world who does have a conscience, and cannot be a bystander when another human being is killed.
Took a while to find, and my ram got so loaded up it crashed my machine, but, you can get it here (since the link given didn’t work)…
http://www.mediafire.com/view/agvdb74jb4qx6cy/How_I_became_a_dedicated_9-11_Truther.pdf
Would like very much to read that, but it is utterly unreadable. It came up in 4 pt. type and cannot be enlarged beyond that. In addition, zooming “in” makes it even smaller, and zooming “out” makes it larger, (up to 4 pt.) the opposite of normal.
Go to that page and click the download button at the top and you get an ordinary PDF file you can read offline.
Alternatively if you press view and look at the bottom there are size controls including page fit, which works on my machine (auto looks good, and so does page width — page fit isn’t good on my machine). You can play with those and see.
I just downloaded it.
Like, you one of the bigger issues for me is not the evil, which, like you point out is so clear, but the total denial of it by the majority of people.
For that William Lind suggests how tactically the next war would be fought back in 1989:
Into the Fourth
A psych ops war where lying and terrorism are focused on both the adversary and the domestic population.
Propaganda as a technology has reached a very high level of efficacy far surpassing even the earlier practitioners from the 30s. At the same time peoples spiritual immunity has reached an all time low.
Contagion is a term also used by (crowd) psychologists.
So a here is a curious harmony:
2 x 666 = 1332 the Black Plague with fleas the vector of contagion
3 x 666 = 1998 the Spiritual Plague (aka the War of Terror) with media the vector of contagion
Your right we should be more hygienic with our media…
John
Propaganda brainwashing doesn’t need to be very sophisticated when it is ubiquitous. The West’s indoctrination advantage is the 100% Groupthink of its MSM functionaries. There is never any dissent anymore from the Imperial narrative. Whereas only a couple of decades ago you could find some variation in the content, that made the world look less black and white and Manichean, that treated the readership as a little more sophisticated than a Trump follower, today the propaganda is totalised. The sheer laughable impertinence of a Western presstitute lecturing Russia or China on ‘Freedom of the Press’ is nauseating, if you’ve trawled through the brainless filth of the Murdoch Evil Empire, or even the vicious hate-machine that is the once ‘liberal’ Guardian. The thing that immediately strikes one is that the presstitutes must these days be selected entirely for ideological reliability and intelligence does not rate, because the lies and hypocrisy are so illogical, and transparently false, but like true followers of Goebbels, they rely on eternal repetition as the philosopher’s stone that turns propaganda shite into ‘bright shining lies’ aka, in the West, ‘the Truth’.
Amen,to this article.I’m a 100% in agreement.I really can’t imagine how a single Russian (the stupid West,I condemn.But least its expected here.),could support fascists,in Ukraine or out of Ukraine.Those s..m wanted to, and did in many cases, kill your people (and still do). What kind of a morally bankrupt person do you have to be, as a Russian, to support nazis. There was an article in the Russian press the other day about Russian nazis that had volunteered to fight their own people in Ukraine ,were now demonstrating.They had been promised Ukrainian citizenship by Poroshenko,but so far he’s forget about that.And some of them were afraid of being deported back to Russia.I commented on the post that when they get back patriots should provide them a “neck-tie party”.
Bob, the USA is like Mordor in the interminable Tolkien riposte to the Ring of the Niebelung (I prefer the Wagner, myself). A magnet for Evil, a cynosure for every Rightwing psychopath on Earth, and the very manifestation of human psychopathy in action. That the USA adds deranged narcissistic self-delusion as to the real nature of its society, its ideology, its history, its ‘Manifest Destiny’ and, above all else, its diabolical ruling elite, to its genocidal aggressions, merely heightens the horror of it all.
Saker, bravo, a five-star rant of rants!
The key paragraph that takes down Hollywood, Politicians, Talking Heads, the panoply of pomposity.
“to be a “real artist” you just have to be in opposition to whomever is in power – it gives you this special “chic” of a self-declared “conscience of the people”, a sort of “martyr by proxy” where the artist himself is left completely unmolested and live the good life, but somehow “feels” and “expresses” the sorrow of those (innocent ones, of course!) whom the regime “persecutes”.
Indeed, where’s U2, Bruce, and so many who give self-serving concerts for the “others” in carefully scripted feel good form. We don’t need hucksters selling their next albums or films. We need people screaming about children torn to shreds and women violated and old people blown into chunks mid-day in the park.
Ultimately, we need more rants from all people. Trump is ranting and it works amidst the horseshoe*t of a campaign.
Rants that ring the gong of truth are good.
I’ve been watching some 70th anniversary of the Chinese ending of the Imperialist Japanese horrors. Most people have no conception of the maniacally evil Japanese that are being resurrected and honored and re-established by Abe. Folks, what the hell did you think 9 days of Chinese and Russian naval exercises was about across the Sea of Japan?
This moment in history those with a Vineyard, a Fort, a megaphone of any sort, especially on the Internet must provide solid information, free debate and righteous rantings.
It’s an American legend: Paul Revere. The British are coming! The Nazis are not only coming, they are here and they are a killing machine in Banderastan. Shout it out.
Japs and Nazis out of their cages again.
By the way, thank you for mentioning that there may be a link between the russia/china joint naval landing training and japan. I hadnt thought of that. Very interesting, thank you so much.
That is an excellent no holds barred stream of consciousness.
Must have taken some time to write or do you use a ‘voice to text machine’ that grabs your thoughts as you drive?
I wrote that as soon as I got home.
Sharing your feelings, Saker!
Thanks
shed
thanks for reading
I’m pretty much in agreement with your comments except about David Rovics and the (Canadian in this case) left in general. Everyone I know on the left understands that 9/11 (the New York one, not the CIA coup in Chile) was an inside job by the deep state and people involved in the Project for a New American Century, who formed the core of the Bush regime. Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Cheney, etc., specifically called for a “New Pearl Harbour” to rally the American people behind their desire to abuse the U.S. uni-polar world power position in the post-Soviet world for world domination.
Having met and talked with David Rovics several times, and being one of his $50 a year sustainers, I can say with some confidence he understands 9/11 was not carried out by a handful of “Arab terrorists”, and in fact, could not happen without the direct assistance of top officials in the intelligence services and pentagon who wilfully ignored and mis-directed intelligence reports and arranged for the U.S. Air Force to be in northern Canada and Alaska on that day, and for a fake “exercise” replicating an aircraft hijacking to be scheduled at the same time so as to delay any response while the Air Traffic controllers tried to determine whether the hijacking reports were “real world or exercise”, just to scratch the surface of the issue.
Anyway, generally good rant, but as someone who knows many people on what you might call the far left of the political spectrum, including myself, I can assure you we DO NOT believe for a minute that the many False Flag “attacks” from the Reichstag Fire to MH17 are anything but excuses to carry out the agenda of what is appropriately currently called the “One Percent”.
Incidentally, one of David’s songs about 9/11 has a line in the chorus to the effect ” . . . Is this another Reichstag Fire?”
You know, im a 9/11 truther/far leftist but I still think the reichstag fire was still just a fire…
But whether it was or not doesnt really matter at this point.
Rovics certainly sings about 9/11 as an inside job in “Reichstag Fire”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGYwN5rsvyI
The real issue is not Rovics and similar folks, it is “establishment” types, whether left, right, green, or libertarian. They won’t get funded or invited to things if they challenge the narrative.
Also, the anti-Nazi laws in the West seem more about preventing figuring out what actually happened during the war years and why, as opposed to fighting Nazis. After all, lots of Nazis ended up in important positions in the West.
I also spoke to Rovics about that. While he thinks that there were screwups and that some people seem to have advance knowledge, he does not believe that it was an “inside job” or that the WTC 1,2 and & were brought down by controlled demolition. Maybe he has reconsidered since.
Bravo Saker – a Rant that delivers the FULL nine yards !!!
Saker – I hope you read this
Back in the Summers 2012 and 2013 we spent considerable time in Alushta – Crimea.
We got to know and got very close with a Musician couple who performed in the Lidiya Hotel and had done every summer for prior 7 years .
Our musician friend in Alushta, is now obvious to me a mentor and re-enactment of your aforementioned “Shevchuk”. The man had extreme talent and could sing and perform marvelously. (My wife just played a song of Shevchuk’s – who she – like you “once” admired as a talented musician/singer)
However – our friends talent and replicating of “Shevchuk” went further than vocal talent.
When the Kiev saga started unraveling in early 2014 – my wife (who is Ukraine/Russian) started realizing that our friend was not morally attached to former Russia as she was.
My wife and I had started putting in place Visa applications etc for him and his also EXTREMELY talented Violinist wife to come down to New Zealand and look and most likely relocate.
This as you can most likely fathom by now – all turned to dust over his unbelievable exposure of hatred towards his Russian roots.
Some people are born evil, some achieve evil and some have evil thrust upon them. In a world dominated by the greatest force for evil in history, the USA, its ruling elite, their compradore accomplices around the planet, and the cancerous and life-hating ideology of Free Market capitalism, which is simply human psychopathy in action, the habits of evil have been forcibly projected on societies everywhere. Insatiable greed, xenophobia, lack of human compassion or empathy, egomania, all drummed into our heads 24/7 by a totalitarian MSM, advertising and ‘entertainment’ Moloch. The wonder is not that so many succumb to this omnipresent evil, but that so many still resist it.
“These examples all point to the same reality: the war in the Ukraine has turned into a moral yardstick separating those who “read the right books” and those who are “not a bystander” from those who are, forgive my language, simply full of BS”
Well said.
Dear Saker,
You are so dead on regarding the noble Europeans. To me as a Frenchman things are looking so hysterically insane that I cannot help to admire the formidable might of the MSM. it’s so powerful that it can make most of my compatriots swallow the enormity of Bernard-Henri Levy (a pseudo-intellectual pretending to be a philosopher, despite not having ever written something of note) parading in Kiev next to Nazi wannabes.
Sidebar : BHL is the go-to man for US/Ziopropaganda wherever needed, and this goes back to the Yugoslavia wars, through Libya and Syria. Never got a scratch to his reputation despite having staged photo shoots in war zones, numerous times. Famous for his yellow propaganda about the Sarajevo siege, which saw him inaugurate the tradition of staged shoots, continued successfully in Libya.
At the same time we are stuck in a kind of time loop, made of an endless Holocaust revival, grainy black and white movies, and sentencious lectures about the evil of 70 years ago. We have the Gayssot laws, criminalizing *any* discussion about the Holocaust. It’s just as you say, and even worse. Just say 5,99 instead of 6 millions, and you can go to jail / get fine / and of course have your reputation destroyed in an instant.
OK I get it that the French were kind of a mixed bunch with regards to nazi occupation (I could say that after 90.000 dead, 3 million+ prisoners, all this coming after a the first world war in which we lost 1,4 mil young guys, it may have been understandable that we weren’t so hot about fighting but whatever). But to be patronized by these neocon nutjobs who are at the same time screaming for more wars (just check Laurent Fabius, our foreign minister, a warmonger who would put Bibi to shame) and scolding the US for not killing enough, it’s just… I could cry and laugh at the same time.
BHL is one of the most evil and, at the same time, most vapid and empty man out there. He just got out of his usual life of degenerate luxury to order Hollade (aka “couille molle”) to bomb Libya and then returned to his orgies. In my opinion he ought to sit in the box for the accused at an international tribunal under the accusation of “aggression” which is the highest crime according to the Nuremberg standards. If Julius Streicher deserved to hang, than I don’t see how BHL would not deserve at least the same sentence.
There is one person even more despicable then BHL. That is Slavoj Zizek.
BHL at least is a member of a tribe and he works for the tribe. He uses every kind of possible lie and manipulation in order to get things done. He should be hanged, no doubt about that. But Zizek is worse! Zizek is Slovenian and he is promoted by the AZ elites into “the leading philosopher of the world.” I don’t think that in history of humankind we had such mediocre idiot proclaimed to be the leading philosopher of the world.
In the 19th century we had Kant, Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, Nietzsche, etc.
Earlier in France we had Voltaire, Holbach, Diderot etc.
Now we have Zizek and BHL !!!
This is the age of the total fall of the civilization.
The Wend, can I add AC Grayling, currently flogging his tattered wares and magnificent coiffure here in the Antipodes. There are so many of these frauds, Imperial lickspittles who can dress up the most craven service to power and regurgitation of Imperial balderdash with pseudo-philosophical clap-trap. Naturally they demand local interlocutors of staggering idiocy, ignorance and sycophancy, and we have lots of that type, posing as ‘interleckjools’ and congratulating themselves on winning ‘The Battle of Ideas’.
There is one person even more despicable then BHL. That is Slavoj Zizek.
LOL! Believe it or not, but since Zizek was so heavily promoted like some kind of “mandatory philosopher” I never read a word of his. I have no interest in anything the modern society is thrilled by. I guess I “suffer” from oppositional-defiant disorder ;-)
Was forced to sit through a documentary about Zizek, and his nonsensical, rambling, preposterous utterances were thoroughly annoying to begin, then quite amusing. His nervous tics, like constant nose rubbing were, I thought, some sort of device to distract the viewer from the vapidity of his maunderings. Chomsky skewered him pretty completely as well. He’s just another pseudo-intellectual imposter and fraud, in this age of phoneys.
Zizek is an idiot (he supported Pussy Riot and the bombing of Serbia in 1999), but on a point he is right, and it is a point that can help to understand this “progressive” mood: Zizek says that the official (leftist) ideology is the “progressive center”: that is to focus in progressive but non-materialistic causes, individual-identity building causes (ecologism, feminism, multiculturalism); but leave the real “big game” (economics and capitalism) at second place in the best (radical left), or assume the Neoliberal consesus on it in the worst (socialdemocracy). European Left has become a middle-class sect. That’s why there is not Left now in Western Europe (except Greece, die Linke and some others), because real wrking class is alienated by those discourses.
And I am not saying taht feminism or ecologism are bad or “Sorosian” per sen, but the fake-“leftist” policy of sublimating them and to isolate them from an objective social class analysis and policy it is.
BHL and all the other propaganda Streichers and Goebelleses. Would run out of rope, I’m afraid. Perhaps a labour gang cleaning up depleted uranium in Fallujah and Libya might be more poetic justice.
Actually, Raul Hilberg in his thorough study “The Destruction of the European Jews” puts the total number of Jews systematically killed by Nazis and their accomplices at 5.1 millions.
He has not been accused of anything nor shunted of anywhere.
Very true! But that is because of his stature. He also endorsed the work of Norman Finkenstein and was never bothered for that either (at least as far as I know). Besides, when I wrote about daring to quite 5,5 million or even less, I was being tongue-in-cheek. It get’s dangerous once you go down to much more realistic figures in the 1-1,5 millions range (for camps only). Furthermore, challenging the use of gaz chambers and/or crematoria will also get you in jail. As will any challenge to the idea that Hitler and his aides ever had a “Final Solution” plan. Bottom line: there is plenty of 100% *legitimate* historical research which has been put out of bounds in the name of an “only officially accepted” version of history. That, by itself, is an affront to common sense and freedom of thought.
BHL is, of course, the pitiful embodiment of Zionazi evil and narcissistic self-regard with his open shirt and pectoral merkin, but there are others. Zemmour, Bruckner, Finkeilkraut, all united by their ‘Chosenness’ (like Fabius, another monster)all xenophobes and racists, Rightwingers (Bruckner even diversified into climate destabilisation denial). They dominate the sordid wreckage of what was once French intellectual life like Gullivers in Lilliput, but only because they and their ilk have reduced France to Lilliput.
Sorry, but I admire Zemmour. I am NOT saying that I endorse his Islam bashing, but I admire him nonetheless. I find him intellectually impeccably honest, courageous and very strong as an advocate for his idea. He is also very well read. I would never put him in the same list as you do. But, of course, this is a matter of taste. I think that Finkelkraut, BHL, Marek Halter, Glucksman and all the rest of them are contemptible frauds. But Zemmour is, I think, the real thing. A “Gaulliste pur et dur” and I admire that in him. But I know that Soral thinks that Zemmour is always just doing catch-up to him. There is some truth to that. Lastely, Zemmour seems to be a really nice guy – a lot of charm in that little dude…
No?
Maybe I am partial to him
Cheers,
The Saker
I was judging Zemmour on the strength of his proposal to be rid of France’s Moslems. I will, naturally, bow to your clearly greater knowledge, and well nigh impeccable judgment, of his overall character. The others, as you say, are a rogues’ gallery.
Very nice article by Mr. Saker.
It is good he brought out his very feelings and moral view.
Everybody of us should be frank at least to himself.
It is crucial to make clear for own children where we stand in this world, that counts.
As I will always remember where I was on 9/11 and afterwards just hungry for the facts to stipulate without any bias my definite position. The same regarding mass lynch murdering in Odessa etc.
It isn’t simply that artists want to oppose the regime in power; it is that they are opposed to the society they are in. This used to be pretty common in the West till the West went off the deep end at some point. It is harder to be opposed to the freak show that goes on in many Western countries these days.
In a way, it is a sign that Russia isn’t dead yet that artists still hate Russia. If someone like Madonna or Marilyn Manson likes your country, what does that tell you?
What’s wrong with Marilyn Manson ? I don’t get it ??? Can you clarify ?
He is certainly not the same as Madonna or Britney Spears (or at leats he used to be different back in the 90’s when I was following his career).
As far as I remeber Britney openly supported Bush in his invasion of Iraq, Madonna converted to Kabalah, while Marilyn Manson gave a fantastic interview against Clinton’s bombing of Serbia, and I am very thankfull to him for this.
If he changed, I would really, really , really appreciate to know !!
What’s wrong with Marilyn Manson ?
How about a guy running around with paint on his face and a girl’s name?
Not my idea of what a man ought to be.
YMMV of course!
ziogay…hmm…not sure I liked that the first time around.
What is your idea of a man exactly?
Greetings! I deeply appreciate your condemnation of the varieties of hypocrisy expressed by many euroamerican artists and progressives. On one point, however, I beg to differ. As I share with you a love for (much of) the music of Richard Strauss, I think it should be made known that while Strauss collaborated with the Nazis in his role as President of the Reichsmusikkammer, he can hardly be regarded as a “bona fide Nazi”. Strauss for one thing was relieved of his high post after his incriminating correspondence with Stefan Zweig (a Jew) was intercepted by the Gestapo. Though definitely a self-serving opportunist when it came to advancing the cause of “serious” music, Strauss was basically devoid of political instincts.He was never a member of the Nazi Party and he adamantly refused to refer to Hilter as The Fuhrer. In his essay “Strauss and the Third Reich” Michael Walter judges Strauss’s antisemitism as the product of careless intellectual interia, the composer’s speech-style reflecting the conventions of gentile discourse during the bygone Wilhelminian era.
In 1941 Strauss was rebuked by Goebbels, who told him bluntly that “Tomorrow’s culture is different from yesterday’s culture! And you, Herr Srauss, are from yesterday!” In general, because Strauss’s daughter-in-law was Jewish, the composer frequently found himself in a precarious position in seeking to protect her from the henchmen of the regime. Eventually things reached the point where on January 24, 1944 Bormann instructed party officials to cease having any personal contact with the ageing composer. Six months later Strauss was denied the right to travel abroad.
Strauss’s behavior under Nazi rule had its sordid aspects, but is quite unfair to think of him as one with the barbarian horde, for whom he had nothing but cold Wilhelminian contempt.
I might be wrong and if I am, I take my words back. And yet, I was under the impression that when he composed his absolutely superb “Metamorphosen” (one of the most amazing and lyrical compositions I ever heard), he did so specifically moved by the distress over the collapse of the Third Reich. Is that not so? My understanding is that while Strauss had no great love for Hitler, he was a supporter of the kind of society National-Socialism promised to build.
But if I am wrong – I stand corrected :-)
Thanks!
From all the biographical material I have read, I very much doubt that Richard Strauss had any love left for the Third Reich by the mid-1930s. By then he recognized the direction things were going. His post-war Metamorphosen is a lamentation for the loss of everything Strauss held dear – serious music, opera houses, his gracious estate in Bavaria, and a number of close friends. Quite towards the bottom of the list are the Jews, gays, gypsies and left intellectuals who perished in the War. Strauss has been criticized on good grounds for inverting his priorities, putting a death of music before the death of strangers. But that was his limitation as a bourgeois family-man who lived the Nazi nightmare in something like a state of shock.
I assure you, Dear Saker, that you may listen to Strauss’s glorious late works – Metaphorphosen, the oboe concerto, the Duett-Concertino, the Four Last Songs, the opera Capriccio – with an untroubled conscience.
This rant must be read on NPR and broadcast on CNN and BBC. Alas, this will never happen.
Your words are a voice of sanity in the world of insane Zionist-controlled western MSM propaganda designated to create a horde of zombies, unable to think for themselves.
It seems that people living in EU and other US colonies as well as in Imperial Homeland itself will not understand anything, until chaos they brought to people of Eastern Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Libya and other nations – will not return to their, still relatively replete, dressed and peaceful little world. They will wake up only when bombs will start falling on their heads, when destruction, disease, hunger – all that they brought to others – will eventually return to their own homes.
What causes me more strangeness, being Brazilian, it is the passivity of the European people, especially the younger ones, at what the Americans are doing in the world, especially in Europe itself. In addition to the Ukraine, where almost led to a full-scale war on the continent, now we see the problem of refugees, an anthill that was trampled and scattered by the Yankee boots, making the lives of those people and countries were destroyed … I always had that thought that the Europeans, with their high scholarly rate, this would have a more critical and accurate with respect to such subject.
It’s scary, really scary, live in a world in which social media can end a career or even a person’s life, or even be decisive for the collapse of an entire country, as we see in Ukraine.
And it’s ironic because the internet has a HUGE range of information for anyone who seeks knowledge, but people are really enslaved by Facebook (see what Snowden tells us about this) and Whatsapp. A generation turned into “zombies”, unable to realize that your whole life can be monitored, and your information, ALL accessed when the “Five Eyes” want it.
Your Rant should be done as Podcast. It would have additional power in your forceful voice, bringing it to a deep emotional level beyond the written version.
A vivid rant. I guess writing it must have felt good.
One regret from mine: that among the groups you address to, you did forget to include pro-Putin Russians. Hmmm… :-)
One reminder about the conclusion: when you write that “too much time has passed, things have become so crystal clear that even the dumbest of ignoramuses has had the time, by now, to connect the dots”, that’s forgetting the basic fact that, not only “dumbest of ignoramuses”, but in fact most people not only in America and Europe, but also China, India, Africa, etc… are just NOT INTERESTED ENOUGH by what happens in Ukraine to take the time to build their own independent opinion. They will repeat either “Russia bad, US/NATO good”, or “US/NATO bad, Russia good”, depending on what their usual news sources feed them, anyway it won’t be an informed judgment.
And these people don’t deserve to be despised nor insulted. The Ukraine crisis is regarded as far more important from a Russian point of view than, say, from a Chinese, Japanese, Indian, American, Brazilian, even French or German point of view. This for obvious historical and cultural reasons. There is nothing shocking nor shameful in not all peoples on this planet being interested to the same degree in that crisis.
One regret from mine: that among the groups you address to, you did forget to include pro-Putin Russians.
Uh, that would be me I suppose LOL!!
pro-Putin Russians are 85%+ of Russians.
And I fully agree with them.
What else could I say?
Alexis, even though these sleepers that you defend, are perhaps innocent, and only sleeping, in your opinion…its them that are allowing this cabal of nuclear gangsters to threaten our planet….because these ‘innocents’ too afraid their taxes might go up…
Honestly, in my opinion, its the well-to-do middle class professionals, like my parents were…that are supporting the idiots in power…If the well-to-do middle classes of every ‘first world nation’ were to get the ‘real deal’ and not the MSM…(their choice)….then the threats that threaten our planet would end.
rant: It is the Mother of all rants–you get them all-the equivocators (good), the Nazis,(bad) and the pressitutes ( ugly). Mostly people do not realize that what is happening in Donbass where every day is like what the Israelis do to Gaza but the only reason why the “evil ones” can not totally get away with it ( 6,000 plus dead in a year) is that the people of DPR and LPR have the capacity to fight back and to hold them at the gates. I am just waiting for the day when whoever decides that the whites of the eyes are close enough pulls the plug on all the restraints. And it will come. Then where one stands will be very clear.
“The moral yardstick” by The Saker is incomplete.
Hear me out.
The other day,at a conclave of our Anarchist Collective, I explained why I had ceased contributing (missives) to this Saker website.
I had repeatedly expressed much the same points as in this Saker rant, and exercised the additional discipline of suggesting some ways to combat this conjunction of imperialist horrors.
I repeatedly asked for other suggestions – than mine.
I remember the momentary high when “Ann” paid me a positive compliment after one of my missives.
I told my comrades, the Saker website was the best voice of liberty on the planet. It still is. Unfortunately, it has no competition in the fields of honesty, historical accuracy, intelligent supporters (I did not say the supporters of the Saker are intelligent, or courageous – they may be, or not). The Saker website is the best; it is good; but the point is – there are no comparable websites to measure it with. Prison Planet, Huffington Post, Nation Magazine, Agent Goodman, Agent Sanders, do I need a verb?
This website is incomplete. There you have it. I’ve been ignored. I’m out of line.
The Key point is: The Saker sighs, “Finally.” (Actually, key point with suggested remedies)
1. The major terrorist power and danger to the world’s people, is the imperialist Zionist Oligarch controlled government of the United States.
2. Without its being brought to justice by way of a popular revolutionary (and it would be revolutionary) Restoration of its Democratic Republic, the republic which was assassinated in the Coup d’etat in Dallas (an earlier 9/11 False Flag), there will be no way, no Yellow Brick Road out of this descent into imperialist barbarism.
IMAGINE, another War in Europe, and what do wars in Europe tend to lead to? Worldwide Conflagrations. The False Flag slaughter of 9/11 led to the coup d’etat against the democratically elected government of Yanukovich, and the butchery of Syria, and a dozen other major international terrorist barbarities – committed by the Jewish American Financial Oligarchs.
3. And the Saker has singled out (and with good reason) the lack of support for the people of Novorossya, as the KEY vital Moral failure for all who otherwise pretend to ‘progressivism.’ The Saker concludes: “the war in the Ukraine has turned into a moral yardstick separating those who “read the right books” and those who are “not a bystander” from those who are,”
4. I know none of you will read (or admit to having read) this final entry, but I’ll try it, once again. The upcoming 2016 American Electoral Circus presents us with a priceless opportunity to enter upon the stage of history and do some good.
As the Saker understands, the Dem gang and the Repub gang are the two key organizations in the -Pretend to be a democracy- American Circus. The Oligarchs need this show to be well received in order that they may give the people the Saker has just lectured the excuse to go along with the terrorist (and anti-Russian) Oligarchs (and vote democrat gang).
These individuals will pretend that there is a Democrat that is somewhat less evil than a Republican, and they will, at the last minute, line up and cast a vote for Hollywood Obomber (er, Clinton-2, Zionist and pro-Kiev Sanders, or a Kardashian). A few might even support, at the last minute, a so-called ‘3rd Party candidate (absorb some political energy from the opposition, and thereby, by begging for scraps at the 2 gang table, validate the 2 gang Circus Show).
If we don’t act soon, the opportunity to break with the American puppet (to the Zionist Financiers) Oligarchs, and raise the VISION of a new Alternate, and highly moral solution, the opportunity to establish a Bright Shiny New American Republic, will be lost, perhaps forever.
5. I predict that this Opportunity will not be seriously approached on this website (or any other).
The most powerful Zionist Anglo American government will not be effectively (or even slightly) challenged. And the “Moral Yardstick”???
Let the Russians fight alone! As they did in WW II.
We of the AC are doing what we can. It isn’t much. It is not our fault. But that does not make us feel any better.
For the Democratic Republics!
IMAGINE
Dear Peter J.Antonsen,
Frankly, I am confused by your comment. I think that it suggest that I did something wrong, but I have no idea what this might be. Could you please clarify and clearly spell out what you are exactly blaming me for?!
Kind regards,
The Saker
Peter, since I know you a little bit, and much of what you raise is relevant in the macro-view, let me say this: It just seems odd to me to put it the way you do, concerning the micro-view of specific persons here or the community in general . Because, other than your referencing your group AC a few times and giving a few short descriptions of what they are about in your own words, I do not have any real sense (website, manifesto, whatever) of what AC is, other than something you are involved in and passionate about. Like Jefferson and Lennon, neither of which moves me in the least,. by the way! But I don’t ignore anyone of good will that is trying. Especially if they have a sense of humor. Meanwhile, to each his own, until it results in tragedy for the other.
I asked point blank at least twice (simply because, on many issues of wide scope, you are advanced, relative to your and my neighbors) why “anarchist” (why libertarian, is my same point as you have some tendencies in that direction…..Austrian School, the Paul dad and son team, etc) ??………….. Why think small, if that is what the enemy (Brezinski, explicitly) wants, ie “small states”, groups, entities, whatever, that can be “easily controlled” ? No answer. Yet.
I appreciate this site too. A lot to learn here, and something, occasionally, to contribute. Wish I had more time to keep up with all of it. But complain that Saker or the regulars don’t jump on your band wagon or mine? That would never occur to me. No one can do everything and Saker works two jobs and puts every full-time blogger I know in my short exploration of that sphere, to shame. I hope he’s around for decades and after Russian civilization beats back the onslaught, once more, he does not retire, and helps with the clean-up here, as long as health and age permit. Na Zdarovia, Saker!
An electoral breakthrough against oligarchy in the USA would definitely be a massive victory. But until the intelligence community is cleaned up, the next JFK would have a life expectancy of just days. These things are being worked on (huge, daunting task!), but I would hazard a guess that only a massive shock and debilitation of the oligarchy will ever allow an American leader of 1/4 the quality of Putin to come anywhere near power. Meanwhile, electing and protecting such people and cleaning up the problem of more than a century of subversion of this republic and the turning of it into a morally despicable Empire piece of shit, will be a marathon for any individual life, that will need to be continued long after you and I are gone, principally by Americans. Each individual , with zero guarantees,needs to do what they can according to what they can comprehend and do to make it possible for the fight to be carried on, with more favorable future prospects, by others decades hence.
Many here have no expectations that your hopes or mine, as Americans are worth troubling with, for good reason! There appear to be better levers on the situation elsewhere, and from their perspective, as non-Americans, (or even as Americans!) they are most certainly correct, aren’t they?? When there is some realistic lever to pull in assisting us, from abroad, I think some will overcome their hatred of our backward and brainwashed population to lend some help. But the Americans here committed to creating those cracks need to persist with or without those that are concentrating first on other flanks of the same world struggle against oligarchy, and take on the toughest nuts to crack: family, friends, neighbors, etc. themselves.
I’d say “do yourself what you wish Saker would do” but I don’t want to be so flippant. Truth is he covers more usefully, many US flanks, after dealing with things more directly Russian in nature or relevance than almost all US bloggers I know of, but there are a few more you should appeal to and not dismiss, and argue with, and collaborate with, where possible. And no, none of those you mentioned above. And nothing Austrian or nut job or liberal mush-head pseudo or zero resistance to Empire.
I will respond to your email in more detail. Endure, even when validation is not what or in the form that you had hoped for. I hope some Americans can add something for us both.
I don’t comment on your posts for a few reasons.1st,(and most importantly) I usually agree with them.Most people comment when they don’t, or they want to add something.2nd,what can I add,that you haven’t said.Yes,that is what needs to be done.But,3rd,how can it be done.That you don’t comment on.And considering the laws today and the NSA,its probably best you don’t.While I certainly don’t like or approve of the ISIS thugs.I was quite appalled that a 17 year old honor student in the US was sentenced to 11 years in prison for “aiding terrorism” for posts supporting ISIS on his Twitter account.That gives a whole new meaning to “free speech” in the US.
Dear Peter Antonsen, sometimes Peter, your posts are not completely understandable for speed readers. and honestly isn’t that all any of us do on the computer screen ?
I guess what you’re disappointed about is that Saker has never called for a revolution ? Am I right ?
Peter, some people come to this world to ‘do’ (revolutionaries) and others come to this world to ‘create’ (artists) and others come to this world to ‘think’ … (The Saker crew) … we are all ‘allowed’ to be here. Ok ?
Its like Paul (not ll) said…”Why should the elbow say to the ankle ‘You are not needed’ ? And “Why should the ear say to the tooth ‘You are not me'”
Saker is Saker and PJA is PJA…both allowed on this big planet…there’s room for us all…
And I guess my final question to you Peter is this…what do you want Saker to do for you ?
Ann
ps…I wonder if you are becoming like another very interesting and well-liked commenter of the past…David Chu….he was so worried about the nuclear bomb threat that I really think he kind of ‘broke’…I hope he still reads Saker’s blog, and I hope you will to, if you do indeed ‘give up on us’,
Because frankly, we’re all here to learn…that’s what Saker’s is all about. And …
That is actually the most important part of living on earth.
Love Ann
Ann,
Firstly and mostly,
I love you all at Saker.is. Specially- The Saker, who has such intelligence, tolerance, and competence.
The truthful information you reveal to the readers represents the most successful effort in decades. Without the truth, where would we be?
I apologize to all for any perceived (or actual) insults from my missive.
*I am asking, specially residents of the USA, to approach their moral responsibility to transform American government from a terrorist imperialist body, to a Peace Acting Democratic Republic. The upcoming 2016, Presidential electoral circus, with its heightened coverage of political issues, presents an opportunity to educate and rally some (better than none), opposition
to the Oligarchs.
To Mind and Soul: I am not suggesting an illusory “electoral breakthrough,” but an effort to create an Alternate Power Center (shadow revolutionary government) to resist and weaken, and one day replace the current Zionist American Oligarch government. An example of this political method can be viewed in France, where Dieudonné and Soral and their supporters attempt to rally an Alternate Political Base around the ideals of “Equality and Reconciliation.” They also advocate France’s regaining its sovereignty, as we must, for the USA. This is the method I believe has the best chance of success, Alternate Government and Alternate Morality. Or, we can do nothing; that is always an option. Death is also always an option (it is an inevitability).
**I asked here and at home for serious approaches to resisting the terrorist imperialists – in their own (and ours) home. It is inadequate to demand the Russians, or their leaders, or anyone else, to do all our fighting for us. What can we do here? – In the Belly of the Beast??? Any suggestions? I have recommended, consistent discussion of the political reality in America, and suggestions for improvement (how do we return the ring to the fire?). This discussion can be pursued, person to person, and in any media possible. We might utilize leaflets, signs, rallies, meetings, and alternate CONSTITUTIONAL election centers (such as colleges, work centers, back alleys, bars, coffee houses, etc.).
The Anarchist Collective is a loose conglomeration of a few Good Old Boys, writers, poets, a bus driver, a mover, a carpet installer, a retarded (er retired) professor of history, and a couple of wives and exs who think we are nuts.
Uncle Bob, many thanks as well. I asked for some feedback and I received some.
No more coffee for me!
IMAGINE
Coffee is basic food group, along with chocolate cheese cake and pizza. Coffee is what revolutions are built on.
@PJA
I remember your appeal a while ago, your call for ideas and participation which is now repeated, and my reaction is today the same as then: a wave of vague sympathy for the idea as such and vehement rejection for the serious will to realize it. Because “how can he think anyone will ever get anywhere with it”. What revolution?
We have learned during the last years that the Great Socialist October Revolution” was a zionist plot, we observed the nazi plot of the Majdan revolution, we are disgusted at the nazi-BHL-revolution in Libya and every other functioning country in the region except one, and we read in the, uh, ‘Protocols’ that “WE stood behind it”, already, which means “WE who wrote the ‘Protocols’ or endorse them”…. in other words, that all “genuine” revolutions are not genuine but engineered by forces that are outside of the people doing the revolution, probably alien to their country, their traditions, goals and their burning needs that drive them into a revolution, and more often than not mainly enemies of both the revolutionaries and their targets. “A Revolution” seems to be just the thing you want to start – something that must be thought out and done quickly because today the situation is such that we can/should no longer wait. Thus: in 2015 a call for idea for a revlution at the polls in 2016.
My antipathy against such a sympathetic impulse is the result of a quick calculation of the chances to succeed: around 0%. “And even if you got through it all…”, JFK II would have a short service life expectancy. In other words, in my view (and everybody else’s who posts here) The System is so %^&* up that any idea of changing it from within its framework seems absurd. Should America collapse within the next months… the framework would be different. At least one should think so, but in (West) Germany the old nazis system was not changed at all, it was supported by the victors and simply continued, which can be seen and understood today much more easily than in 1945 or 1949 or 1954. If America collapses tomorrow, the first to shout “They failed! We must create a new and better America!” would be the agents of the bancrupt institutions, trying to recover from a momentary set back. The nazis’ camouflaged march through the inevitable enemy institutions of “democracy” after the defeat of 1945 was planned and prestructured by Gehlen since the spring of 1942, and Bormann organized a nice retreat in Argentina for “Hitler” fleeing from Berlin in 1945 since the mid 30s (read Grey Wolf)…
The real way real revolutions are done (by a group like AC which wants to do a revolution) seems to be a process of centuries or at least decades, during which a whole new framework for the interacting of society has to be thought out and prestructured, preorganized. We only know of two such instances: The Great French (Bourgeois) Revolution, and the Great Russian Socialist Revolution. The first was directed against a system which suppressed ordinary people (the vast majority) by not giving them any of the rights the few enjoyed. One could define this as a juridical problem, and the New Order which was thought out, logically, before one could try a coup to install it, was a mainly a New Juridical Order: everyone has the same rights, the right to rule the others will be given by elections in which to participate again everybody has the same right… and in case these new laws are not followed there is a juridical system that will eliminate every traspassing of the initial noble ideas. A central idea was The Partitioning of The Powers – without such a simple and central idea no revolution seems to be possible, it would not really make sense and therefore attract not enough support. Early after the French Revolution it became clear that equal Rights mean little if the life situation of those entitled are radically different, i.e. as long as the vast majority is poor, and a small minority very rich. A certain Marx – a zionazi hack, we have learned by now – spent his whole life studying, analysing, and denouncing how social injustice comes into existence and is then upheld and aggravated… a case similar to the US today but minus Marx’ theory and the revolutionary practice of Marx himself (as organiser, agitator) and his followers, and thus without a reason why the existing US system should be changed or abolished. The central idea of this revolution was Social Equality, and it was realized, on the whole, in all socialist countries, and in short time brought results that seem much more stunning today than then, since we have now seen so many “absolutely necessary revolutions” which brought exactly nothing positive and only augmented the misery in the afflicted countries. What Revolution, then, to aim at for 2016 in America? On which grounds? Based on what simple but great idea? That The Rotschilds must stop owning the Fed? So that everything will be fine afterwards?
According to little ole me the next problem to solve because it marrs the lives of everybody is that of globally organized Fraud, the Rule of Lies, which, as one of its many extensions, will make sure that nothing PJA and the AC ever undertake will ever make any impact. The Rule of Law and the Strive for Social Justice are now generally accepted – only problem: it’s a lie, you cannot count on it when it matters. Someone must… e.g. by a full life of studying the subject, and by organizing a big movement of collaborators and supporters… find the real nature of this problem, and a short and convincing jingle expressing it, and real world methods of dealing with it. Of establishing and securing an unseparatable connection of the words and their meaning, for instance, so that we no longer live in Orwellland where “war=peace”, and everybody nods in disgust because nothing means nothing anyway anymore. The fight for secure messaging on the internet is one first step in that direction, a very small part of the whole problem. All abuse of the Justice system brought to us by the Bourgeois Revolution is possible only because a law saying “The guilty will be punished” means nothing today. Very courageous souls try, from time to time, on sites like this one, something like “thinking the unthinkable” – e.g. “those responsible for the 9/11 murders should be accused for murder and punished”… but we all know, this is just a bad joke, because: the laws are there and unequivocal, including the law that the law must be followed and applied – only NOT… it’s only a lie, and we all know it. Insinuating that a law that “must be followed” could really be followed one day is therefore ridiculous, uh, very funny. Isn’t it?
So, PJA and CA – what about setting yourself a realistic goal, like winning the US elections of 2060 with a plan to solve the FED Problem from 1913 and all others by adopting the program of the Great Truther Revolution, which hopefully will be formulated until then, and asking here for volunteers?
Cheers, bimboplumpe.
Great post Saker. Sums my feelings just about the same way. Can’t blame the people without computers as they only have our media as a source of info.I have finally figured out who wrecked ukraine It was the damn ukrainian canadians.Stephen Harper visits his high school friend, president of ukrainian canadian congress who happens to live on my sisters street.This ukrainian pig drives around with a “kill Putin ” sticker on his car and and the cops willl not do anything about it. It was their interferance and money and lack of understanding the complexities of ukraine that finally divided it for good.Just watch the ukrainian program on saturdays to hear the lies and the stinking propaganda .They must mention ukraine at least 10 times /minute.
“It’s a lucky man, a very lucky man, who is committed to what he believes, who has stifled intellectual detachment and can relax in the luxury of his emotions – like a tipsy traveller resting for the night at wayside inn.”
― Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin
Saker,
Persons like Goodman and those at Real News or any of the other mainstream liberal/progressive “news” organizations are not only complicit with empire and its devilish evils because they are mainly supporters of and validate the democratic party and obama, as representing the interests of the people, but also because they are primarily concerned with keeping their sweet jobs with all of the associated perks. If they spoke out that would go away. They are part of corporate media.
The elites in America and the EU are and have always been nazi’s. They supported them before, during and after WWII. Why would they be disgusted?
Great rant! I love your passion.
Yes, I remember well that wolf in sheep’s clothing Goodman and her promotion of the NATO bombing of Libya, it made me sick to my stomach watching her praise the ‘necessary action’ in order to dispose of a ‘maniacal tyrant’. I do wonder, does Goodman and crew ever follow up a story? Maybe they can do an investigative piece on the hell hole that is post NATO Libya, perhaps do a break down analysis of the before and after.
The hypocrisy these types are capable of knows no bounds.
The Donbass may be the current moral yardstick, but for me it was always Libya, Libya pulled the cloak on all these closet warmonger liberals, they have all been exposed. Russia’s failure with regard to Libya was also a disgrace beyond measure, something I have never been able to come to terms with. What happened to Libya, and the way it happened still pains me, I feel a visceral pain in my heart, such an injustice must never be forgotten.
Libya was a monstrous crime, in full pursuit of the ‘Zionist Plan for the Middle East’, to destroy all the states of the region and shatter them into fragments, plus sundry Imperial objectives to expel the Chinese and destroy Libya’s plans for an African gold dinar, Central Bank and Monetary Fund, all anathema to the Empire. The Western MSM coverage was, as expected, utterly evil, despicable and mendacious from go to now. Goodman, one assumes, is simply being a good tribal loyalist. The dimension of treachery is vital, too, what with Gaddafi having co-operated with the Evil Empire for years, only to be stabbed in the back, then up the rear (proof that psychopaths of US ‘Special Services’ were on site)by the West. And, even today, as Libya lies in Hellish ruins, the Imperial arse-lickers resolutely refuse to apologise for what they did. Really, our slim hope of escaping from the horror of the world of 2015 must begin with the realisation and proclamation of the truth that the world is controlled by evil monsters, and, as long as they remain dominant, human self-destruction is merely a matter of time.
Well said – and I agree 100%
The World watched Murder on a grand scale – and did nothing.
Look at the Libyans still dieing from trying to escape the “hell hole” created by our wonderful democracy and its Leaders !!!!
Makes me sick :-((
NZ, what really enraged ne was NATO declaring that only ’32’ ‘civilians’ died, when the truth was tens of thousands and the country bombed to rubble. Real racist, xenophobic hatred and a lust for genocide drives the Zionazi controlled Western states, apeing Israeli barbarity. One example, where an entire family of three generations was almost entirely exterminated in their home, apparently because the long retired patriarch was one of Gaddafi’s revolutionary colleagues back in 1969, was the work of daemons, but what actions of the West in the world today are not?
еще music !
I realy like this one :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=90&v=ZrGM66VMojs
Fine rant. Thanks.
Serbs, Greeks and Russians are loathed by the Pharisee’s, for it is in the heart of these people that true Christianity continues to live on, despite the Ottomans, Bolshevist’s and NATOist’s attempts to bring them to into subjugation.
Saker, I may have missed something, but is something preventing you from going back to Russia? I’m considering relocating so Sochi in the next decade if possible.
Cheers
Dear Saqr,
I think there are some profound words of Pelevin that are worth citing here:
История человечества (…) – это история массовых дезинформаций. И не потому, что люди глупые и их легко обмануть. Люди умны и проницательны. Но они с удовольствием поверят в самую гнусную ложь, если в результате им устроят хорошую жизнь. Это называется «общественный договор». Промывать мозги никому не надо – они у цивилизованного человека всегда чистые, как театральный унитаз.
The history of mankind (…) is the history of mass disinformation. And not because human beings are stupid and easily deceived. Human beings are intelligent and perceptive. But they gladly believe in the most abominable lies, if someone will set them up with a good life as a result. This is called the “social contract”. No brainwashing is required – a civilized person’s brain are always as clean as a toilet bowl in a theatre.
http://lenta.ru/articles/2015/08/17/snuff/
As to the Left, I think you are beating a dead horse here. The inner strength of the European Left was that the USSR (with all of its obvious defects, that by the way were clear enough in the West, even to its sympathizers) still provided a real solidaristic alternative to the exploitative Anglo-Saxon model. After the defeat of the Alternative Model the Left in all of the Western World has been scientifically emasculated, bought out, neutralized, exterminated, it is no more. An example of how it was done is discussed for instance here: http://off-guardian.org/about-2/
“It was a very simple idea – ‘buy up the opposition to neoconservative American ideas – and neutralise it with a daily diet of pro-Pentagon, pro-Washington, shabby indoctrination’. Unwanted old left-wingers were quietly pushed aside. Ambitious Americans like Hadley Freeman were shoved forwards. New right-wing writers were hired….”
This has been done systematically, scientifically in all of the European Countries. Now the common citizen, deprived of any instrument of collective organization (such as were previously the Socialist Parties, Trade Unions, independent newspapers – certainly not faultless, but still providing some degree of dialectic in the political discourse) is the helpless victim of the incessant propaganda of fully controlled MSM. He is angered by the heinous behaviour of his pretended representatives in fueling war in a European country, trampling over any principle of decency, righteousness and human respect for pure greed and lust of power. You can feel the voice of this angered, common citizen in the constant flux of protests (interestingly, both from the Left and the Right) that populate public discussion forums, however this protest still cannot find a collective, organized way to become visible and politically effective.
I did an explanation of the Azov battalion symbols on facebook. It’s called Ukraine for Dummies. Quite instructive. Don’t know if it will come through, but here it is:
https://www.facebook.com/gary.flo/media_set?set=a.10204857960262655.1073741827.1048740785&type=3&pnref=story
Their symbols come from the Wewelsburg Castle, headquarters of the SS (“Schutzstaffel”) division of the German NAZIs during WWII, chosen to implement the “final solution”. The “Wolfsangel” (wolf’s hook) and “black sun” are symbols of the SS. What more can you say to ignorant Europeans and Americans? “Never again” seems to mean until next time…
This is what happens when you ban symbols. People eventually forget what they mean and don’t immediately recognize them for what they are. Clearly the azov battalion chose the wolf’s hook for that reason – can you imagine the response to openly using the swastika? Yes, I know, those have appeared here and there, but most of that stuff looks shopped – no doubt by people trying to expose the AB, but unfortunately having the opposite effect of appearing to portray them as nazis, which makes them appear as if they aren’t.
An example of how far the idiocy of banning nazi symbols can run:
http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/2/t/136722.aspx
fantastic rant Saker – fully deserves to go viral.
When I think of the carnage, killing, destruction…I can only marvel at the indifference of too many.
I have never understood indifference.
I hope I never will.
Thanks again for expressing so eloquently what some of us feel.
Speaking of moral yardsticks: Looks like Stalinist hate speech or apologia is going to be considered tres passe in Mr. Putin’s Russia
http://russia-insider.com/en/russia-redouble-efforts-commemorate-victims-stalinism/ri9422
Angelo,
Totally agree.
What was done to Libya – and especially Gadaffi – was a crime beyond belief.
A friend, who worked for an African head-of-State, once met him and his all-female bodyguard (I’ve wondered many a time what became of those valourous women).
She absolutely loved him – surprisingly so (to me anyway) given her bizarre admiration (like so many colonials ) for British royalty (though no longer – working in London for one of the heavyweight dowagers of the British aristocracy has cooled her enthusiasm no end..) Found him gracious and intelligent.
Say what you like about him, he was committed to the betterment of his people. I wonder how many of those malcontents are happy with the turn of events?
eimar, I remember hearing, quite surprisingly, a journalist on NPR stating plainly, at the time, that the NATO destruction of Libya was unanimously opposed by the African Union. But, hey, they’re just….fill in your favourite racist epithet….and real people, really ‘Chosen’ people, wanted Libya destroyed. The report disappeared, was, of course, not repeated in the Western MSM sewer, and the journalist, who sounded African-American, probably suffered a nasty career derailment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5sojEApR0U
“the current Ukrainian – a “nationally conscious” one – is a Russian person who wanted to stop being Russian so much, that he ceased to be a person”. (c) Mikhail Leontyev.
I think that it can be traced to Shevchuk and BG too…
Exactly my feelings!!! Being also so utterly disgusted with my braindead heart- and gooney-less fellow (western) Europeans I’m filling a semi with our stuff and will be moving east asap.
Thanks for this marvelous rant!
Kind regards,
Jan
Ity’s a good rant, and yet I think of (have felt like) a fish who says “BTW — we are living in water, you know”, while the other fish give strange looks and some ask ‘what is water?”.
So — we are living in end-stage imperialist capitalism. What else could be expected from monkey-brained human?
It also reminds me of the opening of the old Kung Fu series:
“Old man, how is it that you hear [the grasshopper at your feet]?”
“How is that you do not?”
How is it that so many people do not see? And how can their perceptions be opened in the face of such propaganda and deception? Perhaps the first thing is to show them propaganda and deception and how it works within them? Worth a try, I think, and it doesn’t have to start with big and controversial issues because the blindness to small things is essentially the same, and the big lies are based on the same advertising principles and manipulation used to sell hairspray and aftershave, originating from the same sources. Seeing the evil of nazis is not all that different from seeing the evil of other commercial products which are supposed to make one more sexy and powerful, or even to give one’s life meaning.
Still under the illusion we ‘evolved’ from apes eh? You are suffering from a prime delusion, all the while feeling somehow detached at the inevitability of evil, yours is an interesting form of apathy.
I do wonder how the modern intellectual came to see himself as an ‘evolved’ ape without even a shred of evidence to support the claim. It’s fascinating that the atheists will pounce on the believers for their incorrigible faith, all the while they themselves cling to scientific delusion which lacks even the basic beauty of spiritual truth.
Maybe I should refer to the atheist monkey believers as Lucy worshippers?
We didn’t evolve from apes — we are apes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape
…
The family Hominidae, known collectively as the great apes, include orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans;[1][2][3][4] alternatively, this family clade is also known as the hominids.
…
Apathy — is that what has had me fighting fascism for over 50 years?
Listen — you’re entitled to your beliefs, religious or otherwise, but don’t try to talk to me about evidence. I’m not going to argue with you about the overwhelming evidence for evolution — that’s generally pointless — but if you really wanted to know there are tons of evidence around, including on the web, so don’t try to give me the line about there being no evidence.
And don’t feel so superior to me as far as ‘spiritual’ things go because Ive been delving into that for longer than I’ve been fighting fascism or learning about science and evolution, or even rational critical thought.
You go your way and I’ll go mine, thank you.
blue on September 01, 2015 · at 6:07 am UTC said:
“And don’t feel so superior to me as far as ‘spiritual’ things go because Ive been delving into that for longer than I’ve been fighting fascism or learning about science and evolution, or even rational critical thought.
You go your way and I’ll go mine, thank you.”
blue, I suspect you actually feel superior to Angelo.
Is everyone with some Bronx upbringing so far up ***
blue, the theory of evolution by Darwin is backwards…the apes devolved from us. We dropped them off at earlier stages….
And Angelo, the Pharoah worshipped Christ in another form, before He was born.
Whatever you to think, go right ahead. You want get into religious dogma and not go further, that’s your affair, but don’t try to push your religious stuff on me. It’s an interesting and useful story, but it’s only a story and artistic expression — not fact.
This is what is offensive about religion, and it’s not far from what is offensive about any belief system, religious, political, economic, artistic, or whatever, based on feeling, bias, conditioning, ignorance, or whatever it is based on something other than reason, knowledge, and empirical evidence, being pushed on others.
Knowledge of evolution has gone way beyond Darwin now, and the amount of evidence for it is overwhelming. It’s basis of current biological understanding.
No, apes did not ‘devolve’ from humans. The record is in both the fossils, and more importantly in the genetic material.
Aside from any possible ‘spiritual’ realities which may exist, in physical terms humans are just another animal, operating by the same biological processes that all life forms on the planet do. Whether any person chooses to learn about and understand it that is up to them, similar to how a person may choose to learn about medicine, linguistics, cooking, or anything else, but if someone tells me, seriously, that my knee hurts because there’s a demon in it, I’m going to ignore them.
It’s not that I feel superior to Angelo, but I understand evolution and that it is fact and he doesn’t.
You think that no one can have knowledge that others don’t have? You think spending time and effort to learn things counts for nothing and that everyone’s opinion in an area is as good as anyone else’s?
I spent my life learning and working to understand things, including areas of science and philosophy. So now I should just forget all that and say — well this other person who gets it all wrong has as good an opinion as I do — and while I’m at it I might as well perform open heart surgery and not worry about the people who spent a lifetime learning about medicine?
You want play a stupid distorted post modern game trying to put me down and tell me I have some psychological problem with my ego because I learned things that some others haven’t or that every person is ‘equal’ to everyone else in all things despite working to develop their knowledge? Or that no one’s opinion can be wrong?
Forget about it! And there’s your Bronx street wisdom for you.
@blue “Forget about it! And there’s your Bronx street wisdom for you.”
My comment /the-moral-yardstick-of-the-ukrainian-war-saker-rant/comment-page-1/#comment-139791 was actually made with Angelos’ comment, as follows, in my mind:
“It’s fascinating that the atheists will pounce on the believers for their incorrigible faith, all the while they themselves cling to scientific delusion which lacks even the basic beauty of spiritual truth.”
and your response:
“And don’t feel so superior to me as far as ‘spiritual’ things go because Ive been delving into that for longer than I’ve been fighting fascism or learning about science and evolution, or even rational critical thought.”
You make it sound like not only do you know more about the living reality but also what, if anything, happens in a possible hereafter.
Since you haven’t been dead yet you seem, to me, supercilious compared to the blind in faith.
Of course they are blind in that regard but no more than you.
How do you know I’ve never been dead?
This is beginning to drift away a little bit… /Mod
“This is beginning to drift away a little bit… /Mod”
True, but it does serve to illustrate a central point of the Saker’s rant. How is it possible, given all the evidence at hand, to believe something, anything, that has no basis in fact?
Isn’t this the identical polemic to 9-11, or the nazification of Ukraine? The evidence is there, or at least enough of it to draw a rational conclusion, and yet people cling firmly to their beliefs and refuse to accept the facts.
If you’re going to be a true skeptic, you also have to be skeptical about your own cherished beliefs.
I don’t think that irony is lost on everyone here.
“This is beginning to drift away a little bit… /Mod”
Mod, i’m, mostly, very interested in what blue has to say [even though I can sometimes seem to act as his master baiter :-)]. I have entered some previous “nature of reality” comment with blue and would really appreciate if the rest of his post was entered.
Perhaps he was going to reflect that he is God, which I wouldn’t necessarily dispute http://www.iawwai.com/ScienceAndReligion.html
Anyway, please?
There is no rest of the post — that one line was it. But it is laden with meaning and implications.
As for my being god (have you read Mark Twain’s The Stranger, BTW?) the word is pretty much meaningless to me — I am ignostic on this.
As for reality and religion, I see a huge problem with being stuck not only on duality, but on how people tend to limit reality simple and naive perceptions, such as distinctions between matter, energy, consciousness, spirit, space and time, and even good and evil.
There’s a pragmatism available, without getting one’s head in the clouds or resolving, or trying to resolve, these strange abstractions. And a pragmatic approach clearly shows up the problems with fascism, empire, capitalism war, and violations of what most of perceive as basic human rights, or at least the rights of ‘me the person’ who does not want to be bombed or tortured or impoverished, golden rule style. This is where empathy, mirror neurons, turn about fair play, and general principles and laws come in — as well as cybernetic principles.
In short, we can express these issues in terms of morality but they are pragmatically superfluous. Evolution is pragmatic too — whether we think it represents some ultimate philosophical or ‘spiritual’ truth, or whether it is purely physical or a manifestation of some ‘higher’ or ‘deeper’ reality, the thing explains a huge host of questions and works extremely well. If it doesn’t jive with one’s religious beliefs – well, that’s for the believer to work out as he wants, but we can expect everyone not to stop a course of antibiotic treatment early and let resistant strains of bacteria develop, or let people play around carelessly with GMOs, or synthetic chemicals, which produce things people’s (and other life forms) bodies never evolved to be able to handle — or let genetic cross contamination wipe out established species of crops.
One does not have to ‘believe’ in evolution to understand how it works and to stop killing everything off by ignoring it. One doesn’t have to not believe that god said he won’t destroy humans again (quoted by at least one US politician) to see global climate disruption as real and stop making it worse, or do away with nuclear weapons.
Ever hear about a strung out druggy who though he could fly and flew off a 15 story building — until he hit the pavement? Or about the nut who was going to establish a thousand-year reich?
(So I guess that’s my rant…)
blue on September 01, 2015 · at 10:59 pm UTC said:
“As for my being god (have you read Mark Twain’s The Stranger, BTW?)”
No, but I should.
Yes — but it is still about religious belief and dogma. There are many people who would say ‘of course you have died before; we live and die through many incarnations’, so there’s a point to it.
If we are going to have a decent society we need more than just religious or political dogma; we need some sound reasoning and philosophical ethics that most people can accept, pragmatically (such as golden rule), and some empirical evidence for the normative values being workable (and that does exist, even if one has to search around geographically and historically).
Saying I haven’t been dead yet is a statement of faith (and even I don’t know with much certainty). Trying to reach unanimity or consensus on such a question may be fruitless — but we can likely agree that people should not be heedlessly killed or allowed to die, and that everyone can have their own religious ideas and practices, and also like whatever sort of art and music they want, as long as we can agree on the basic rules of living harmoniously in a society, based on evidence which everyone can access, and test with predictable results.
blue on September 01, 2015 · at 10:31 pm UTC said:
“Saying I haven’t been dead yet is a statement of faith”
It wasn’t – I said that without believing it. It was meant as a (now known as successful) strategy to extract your further comment.
blue, I wouldn’t waste your time or energy on those who profess spiritual truth but spew vitrol.
Angelo, do you know the definition of incorrigible? Perhaps your “faith” is….
according to Merriam-Webster:
a (1) : not reformable : depraved (2) : delinquent
b : not manageable : unruly
c : unalterable, inveterate
http://www.rt.com/news/313857-mephistopheles-relief-petersburg-protest/
Hands off Mephistopheles! Hundreds protest destruction of demon statue in St. Petersburg
Published time: 31 Aug, 2015 04:48
Up to 500 people gathered in a St. Petersburg street where a statue of the demon Mephistopheles had been smashed earlier in the week under suspicious circumstances, to object to what they believe is the willful destruction of the city’s cultural heritage.
“This is our city! This is our building!” chanted the demonstrators, who were encircled by police cars, with multiple cameras looking on.
[…]
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-russia-mephistopheles-protest-20150830-story.html
500 protest destruction of Mephistopheles sculpture in Russia
The sculpture was a small landmark in St. Petersburg, a city noted for its striking architecture. It is not clear who removed it last week, although a group which identified itself as Cossacks claimed responsibility. City authorities said they have found fragments of it amid construction refuse.
The disappearance raised fears of growing religious intolerance in Russia. This month, several activists ransacked an exhibition of Soviet-era non-conformist artists near the Kremlin, shouting that the works offended Christians.
“I’m actually in shock from what’s going on in our country, where some people think they have the right to destroy architectural monuments,” said Oleg Mitskevich, one of the demonstrators Sunday.
Associated Press
————————-
And the Ukrop fanatics destroy statues of Lenin and things associated with Russia.
And the Taliban destroys ancient statues of Buddha.
Israel destroys Muslim artifacts and sites.
Other examples everywhere.
So what’s the difference between all these political/religious fanatics?
Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to believe.
Side note:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles (/ˌmɛfɪˈstɒfɪˌliːz/, German pronunciation: [mefɪˈstɔfɛlɛs]; also Mephistophilus, Mephistophilis, Mephostopheles, Mephisto, Mephastophilis and variants) is a demon featured in German folklore. He originally appeared in literature as the demon in the Faust legend, and he has since appeared in other works as a stock character.
…
late 16th century — not even a ‘real demon’ but like destroying a statue of Tolkien’s Sauron or Darth Vader — or Old Khottabych. Those ignorant people wrecked a 1914 stone relief of a fictional character from a German Renaissance writer, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Georg_Faust .
blue, it smells of continued Zionazi subversion, another manufactured ‘outrage’ to add to the propaganda hate stew. A country under siege by evil and intractably aggressive forces must always be on guard against both Fifth Columns and local hyper-chauvinists and extremists.
And some try to say that humans think differently from apes and we don’t have just glorified monkey brains.
CAIR news briefs..
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=edb29d6c-bc42-43fd-94fe-4f4dd919ee06
CAIR Calls for Protection of Tennessee Muslims Following Another Sheriff’s Anti-Islam Comments
CAIR today called on public officials to act to protect the civil rights of Tennessee’s Muslim community following anti-Islam remarks by another of that state’s sheriffs. Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond told members of the Hamilton County Pachyderm Club on Monday that he plans to urge other Tennessee sheriffs to monitor Muslims in their jurisdictions. Hammond also claimed that Muslims are planning to take over the state and said, “Islam is communism with a god.”
Video: CAIR-Dallas Rep Says Superintendent’s Anti-Muslim Remarks Sent Insulting Message
[…]
————————–
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120816141537.htm
…
The human brain, with its unequaled cognitive capacity, evolved rapidly and dramatically.
“We wanted to know why,” says James Sikela, PhD, who headed the international research team that included researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine and the National Institutes of Mental Health. “The size and cognitive capacity of the human brain sets us apart. But how did that happen?”
“This research indicates that what drove the evolutionary expansion of the human brain may well be a specific unit within a protein — called a protein domain — that is far more numerous in humans than other species.”
The protein domain at issue is DUF1220. Humans have more than 270 copies of DUF1220 encoded in the genome, far more than other species. The closer a species is to humans, the more copies of DUF1220 show up. Chimpanzees have the next highest number, 125. Gorillas have 99, marmosets 30 and mice just one. “The one over-riding theme that we saw repeatedly was that the more copies of DUF1220 in the genome, the bigger the brain. And this held true whether we looked at different species or within the human population.”
…
Blue, you’ve conflated variation with species change, your evidence is non existent. Evolution exists but in a vastly different respect to that which materialistic science would suggest. The leap in logic and reason which is evidenced by evolutionary biologists is a sordid display of self deception. Describing variations and mutations as evolution is an error, and does not suggest species change, and it never has. There is absolutely nothing that supports the notion of species change.
The apathy I am describing is that which exists within your written word, I don’t need to hear about how much you have fought this, that, or the other thing, what you convey with your words says enough – “what can we expect from monkey-brained human”? Your lack of understanding as regards evil reveals the depth of your materialistic ignorance. You think evil is some extension of the animal kingdom? That because humans ostensibly have monkey brains that we are doomed by our own stupidity? Yours is a self fulfilling prophecy, which applies to you and those who think like you, but it does not apply to me or the few others who know that man is a spiritual being that is evolving through the material (temporal) world.
I am not allowed to be religious, I don’t agree with the modern day Church doctrine, neither Catholic nor Orthodox because they have both turned their back on the reality of human reincarnation, which I believe was always part of Christ’s message. I have recollection of living in another time, perhaps that makes me crazy in the eyes of the contemporary scientist, and most assuredly in the eyes of the psychiatrist who think they have mapped the human mind, I would even be called a heretic by the Church I was baptized in, but the fact remains, we are spirit and the material world is merely a temporary manifestation of the permanent Spirit.
Blue, when you pass over onto the other side, we can discuss the matter a bit more, you might be a bit more receptive at that point.
Angelo on September 02, 2015 · at 1:13 am UTC said:
“I have recollection of living in another time”
I don’t doubt that – you seem sincere.
Angelo said:
“I don’t agree with the modern day Church doctrine, neither Catholic nor Orthodox because they have both turned their back on the reality of human reincarnation, which I believe was always part of Christ’s message.”
Interesting – do you mind providing more detail of which part of the message makes you believe that?
Thanks.
“And how can their perceptions be opened in the face of such propaganda and deception?”
Practice has suggested that you cannot easily convince anyone of anything to a level where they act upon the conviction, but that they need to convince themselves on the bases of their “own ” experience.
Some practice suggests that in the short run inertia/passivity can be reenforced given a certain pre-existing level of ideological immersion of the “objects”, especially if they perceive themselves to be “subjects”.
However since the world and phenomena within it are laterally dynamic, ensuing attempts at reenforcement requires greater application and dosage, which brings “discomfort” to some that sometimes manifests itself in cognitive dissonance.
Practice shows these processes can be catalysed, with the unconscious cooperation of the opponents, by encouraging/facilitating “situations” conducive to cognitive dissonance.
Practice has shown that as a consequence of the above and other factors, your suggestion of:
“Perhaps the first thing is to show them propaganda and deception and how it works within them?”
often gives rise to resentment, often leads to resort to belief and ideological immersion, often leads to resort to “authorities” and ideological immersion, often leads to an abhorance of doubt which is bridged by resort to “certainty” and ideological immersion – for example the notion of “trolling” – and is not a productive or wise strategy.
Strategy is always a function of purpose, and the “evironment” is laterally dynamic.
Hence a lateral strategy is required to facilitate the purpose.
You may have noticed that perhaps 18 months ago some were of the opinion that Russian “perception management” was so ineffectual that they required US advisors, despite the Russians having US advisors, mostly for the purpose of window dressing. It appears that this trend has receded.
Some perhaps are still wedded to the notion that the “US” is the font of all knowledge in effective propaganda.
However many analysts at the CIA and the NSA disagree, hence part of the reason for the pursuit of big data and the surveillance state, which are not only markers of insecurity but also afford opportunities for lateral challenge.
Wu-shu, characterised as “Kung Fu” in some circles, is better understood as a participant than as a voyeur.
In further illustration.
Another immersive consequence of binary logic is the tendency to limit focus thereby obfuscating inter-connectedness and the simultaneous, although attempts are made by “parallel processing” and other techniques grounded in binary logic..
http://orientalreview.org/2015/09/01/us-media-building-newspaper-curtain-against-a-fabled-foe/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/02/global-capitalism-and-the-culture-of-mad-violence/
http://russia-insider.com/en/media-criticism/dear-guardian-editors-why-no-one-believes-you-anymore/ri9458
http://www.globalresearch.ca/britains-neoliberal-farce-the-working-poor-the-massacre-of-the-middle-class/5473189
As to the demise of the “middle class”, since they can in some respects be characterised as acting as a suspension system; removal of suspension systems focus energy and increase system oscillation and facilitate system destruction..
Mr. Corbyn the candidate for leadership of the Labour Party in the “United Kingdom” can be said to wish to rebuild the suspension system to minimise system oscillation, a typical role of social democracy in the linear paradigm of political systems based on commodity production.
However in times of oscillation, increased or otherwise, it is difficult keeping parts in necessary proximity to effect repair.
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/syriza-insider-confirms-tsipras-tried-take-russia-ride/ri9463
The link on the 9/11 first post does not function.
Thank you for this magnificent “rant” Saker. It comes from the head and from the heart. Your knowledge and your sense of justice have few equivalents on this world and we are grateful to you for sharing your taught.
There is a global war going on between that tiny .0001 (the super-elite) and the rest of the world, and that tiny minority is supported by a company of prostitutes, an army of vassals and a crowd of sheeples. A “system” is progressively built that consolidates the power of that minority and becomes impermeable to significant change.
At some point the “system” will crumble under its own weight and a new order will be generated. That time is rapidly approaching and the signs are all there for the eye that see and the hear that hear. There is a saying: need creates function. Some solution will appear and will start a new round. At some point history will end and we will be left with the soul that we have cultivated. Religions are generally very consistent about what happens at that time.
You can pick-up any sub-element of that society of perdition and find common elements. A drop of water can give you a taste of the ocean. The role of the artists is particularly relevant at this time because these people are supposed to elevate the heart and the soul. Using their talent to serve the Masters is the worst form of prostitution.
I would like to single out one courageous artist who has expressed her views from the heart about the current carnage in Ukraine and is the object of vile hostility and aggression. I am talking about Valentina Lisitsa, a Ukrainian-American classical pianist. It all started in April of this year when the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) cancelled her concert because she spoke out against Kiev’s ‘anti-terror operations’ in eastern Ukraine. This act of cowardice was not enough. Now Lisitsa is under fire again because Dutch airline KLM is removing her music from its in-flight entertainment program.
In both cases Valentina was punished after being attacked by vicious individuals operating from that criminal ukronazi group comfortably established in western Canada. One member is Inna Thorn, a Ukrainian woman who resides in Canada, and member of an openly anti-Russian and anti-Putin group called “Russian-speaking Ukrainian Nationalists”. Her lies include an accusation that Valentina “celebrates terrorists responsible for taking down MH17 and killing close to 300 people on board including nearly 200 Dutch citizens”. A blatant lie and a vicious slander.
Continue to speak from the head and from the heart Saker. This is what makes us human beings, and fundamentally different from those who have lost their heart and soul.
” A “system” is progressively built that consolidates the power of that minority and becomes impermeable to significant change.”
When valves are closed boilers often explode.
The seeking of consolidation and/or full spectrum dominance are vectors of system oscillation and dissolution, as illustrated throughout “history”.
Somedays after Donbas fighting first started unfolding, my husbond fastened the black-orange ribbon to rear-view mirror in our car (we are in Serbia). Although I was not less overwhelmed by the same events, I found the gesture a bit childish, to be honest. But it was interesting, to see people commenting on it warmly, asking where could they get one, or coming across someone who also had it displayed (car, children stroller, key chain, backpacks etc.). Our news are much like those of the West, but it was easy for us all to get it.
The same reason which allows us to “recognise it instantly”, prevents, I think, most Americans to do so. When I see the dissident voices in America, which are mainly left, there is a line they dare not cross – that is side with Russia. It is equal to treason in public space in a way siding with no other (antagonist) country is. If I was aloud to generalise and simplify, I would say that Russia is engraved as The oposite of freedom in English. And not a freedom, but the freedom ideal USA stands for. That is why even when they are criticing USA conduct in Ukraine, they follow up with a kind of “must sidebar”: I am not saying Russia is not oppresive / Putin is not a tirant… , or just prefer to stay silent on the whole matter. The ideal self-image mirroring in that semantics, which is at risk of being jeprodised, has deeper roots then the cold war, it has to do with concept of freedom itself.
About this two Russians which sing for the Ukrainian Junta and “against power”, and also the newly tried Sentsov and Kolchenko, has two visions, one is “inner-Russian” and the other is “International”. This issue is important why the liberals (and some Leftists) go along with the nazis in Russia.
The “Inner-Russian” dimension of the issue gos in two directions: one of that is that all this political trends (form the radical Right of the Russian March, to the “anarchists” Pussy Riot, Voina and similars) have the similar basis: he middle-classes of Moscow and Piter. So it is no rare they coincidence in “opposition” marchs, that Mark Feigin is teh lawyer of Savchenko (Ukrainian pilot), Goriachev (Nazi) adn Pussy Riot (Anarcho-something). This three trends have also other thing in common: their desconnexion with the “real Russians”, the Russians worried of their welfare.
About the ideological plant, in a past article of mine in this blog I stated their similarities (and there in a link; Mikhail Leontiv explains it): “Europe”, the “European way” of Russia, and the idealization of Ukraine as the “European Russia” or “the Russia which succeded being Europe”: Today I have read an interview to a Russian in the ranks of Azov, Aleksandr Valov I think he was. He said that “Ukraine is the real Russia, the true heir of Rus (…) because it stayed in Europe, not in Asia”. Both, Nazis and Liberals condemn the “cut from Europe” of the “Asian” leaders of Moscow (Nevski, Dolgoruki, Ivan III, Ivan IV). For ones “Europe-democracy, Asia-despotism” and for other “Europe-superior white race, Asia-yellow inferior race”; but both are against the “historical course of Russia” ans “Asian power”.
Saker said here “Zionists and Nazis probably hate each other, but are the two sides of the same coin”: The same goes for Russian Liberals and Fascists.
Among the international dimension of the problem, we see in this “anti-Kremlin Russians” the same trends of the European Left. One, which is barely mentioned in the article is the “opposition” to the power. That is, for this people, only exists the “power” and ” the martyr opposition”; the “authority or authoritarianism” and the “antiauthoritarianism or libertarianism”. They do not analyze the historical features of a concrete Sate, its project,its ruling classes, its international factors. They only want to “topple the authority”. This post-68 ideology which has infected the left is the key for the Soros-managed “color revolutions”, “Arab Spring” and so on. (By the way, there where also pathetic “leftist” gropus in Maidan, the Spilka, the Union of Autonomoous Workers, the Left Opposition in Ukraine and so on. The influence of thi leftist grous was non -the biggest leftist Ukrainian organizations, the KPU, and Borotba, oppossed Maidan- but gived the alibi to the European “leftists”).
The other factor of the “international dimension”, is that the post-68 left and it’s derivates hate Russia. Some of them because they ome from the anti-Soviet left, others because come form the pro-Soviet left, but want to be “pardoned” by the stablishment. So they see Novorossia and Putin the continuation of the “devil USSR”. In fact, they think that Russia “Needs to westernize” to “get rid of its authoritarian trends” and to become “a legitimate actor”. Here they become the toys of Soros and the “Western upremacy project”.
By the way, Saker, I share some of oyur feelings. I was very, very fond of Ukrainian folk mmusic, and I was able to tay hours and hours listeening to it. Now not. Now, sometimes I listen int, but with some of “caution” sensation, or disgusting sensation. Now I am not able to hear more than two-three sings continued.
That whole “having to be oppositional to be an artist” connects pretty strongly to an essay written around a century ago by the founder of Russian Marxism, Georgi Plekhanov. In “Art and Social LIfe” Plekhanov claimed there were two broad views about the relationship of the arts to social life. One view was that of “art for art’s sake” and the other view was that art involved the “expression of judgements on the phenomena of life”. Now Plekhanov argued that when the artists were at odds with the society they lived in, they defended an “art for art’s sake” viewpoint; when they were in harmony with the society around them, and took a more “utilitarian” view, then the following applied:
(from Plekhanov) ” the so-called utilitarian view of art, that is, the tendency to impart to its productions the significance of judgements on the phenomena of life, and the joyful eagerness, which always accompanies it, to take part in social strife, arises and spreads wherever there is mutual sympathy between a considerable section of society and people who have a more or less active interest in creative art.”
So perhaps those who insist that to be a genuine artist one must be “at odds” with the society they live in are simply those who have never experienced that mutual sympathy that Plekhanov wrote about? But whose fault is that? – we might ask. It’s the fault of those with an impoverished view of art. And there’s plenty of that to go around.
Right on! A voice of sanity and reason. One thing I’ve found among people I speak with about this is that they don’t really know much about it and don’t have an opinion on it either way. They do at least recognize that the anti-Putin rhetoric from our officials and the media is ridiculous.
1) As far as I remember Shevchuk some time in 2014 changed his attitude toward Maidan and even send humanitarian aid to Donbass paid for from his own pocket.
2) Better listen to Letov and his Grazhdanskaya Oborona. His political views were simple – “I’ll always be against” against communism in USSR and against democracy (party member of National Bolsheviks) in Russia. And best music ever to come from Siberia.
Forgot to give a link. Beautiful video made from Letov’s song and footage from documentary:
http://youtu.be/xIDbDXqVBSc