When was the last time we got involved with a foreign military adventure for a valid reason honestly presented?
Iraq?
Afghanistan?
Viet Nam?
At some point when a woman’s husband has cheated on her 7 times, and insists he honestly has to work late with the barely legal double D cup administrative assistant, she has to start defaulting to extreme skepticism.
For anyone who missed it American citizens are the wife in this metaphor and the three letter agencies, and Europes pretend democratic “leaders” are the cheating husband.
Said the same to my wife yesterday. It’s so damn obvious. Yet so many can’t (won’t) see it, just further weakening my appraisal of the general population’s intelligence and yes perspective. I didn’t think that was possible post Covid. This an excellent and timely piece that the FB “I stand with Ukraine” virtue idiot patrol needs to read. Not that it will sink into their thick skulls.
I love how the least educated people are those with the highest levels of faux outrage. Imagine being ignorant and acting like you're not....and being loud about. I suppose they like getting raped by our government.
Those boomer women with signs are the same ones who were comfortable with pensions, investments and social security still flowing into their accounts and jetting to Florida for winter while Covid chaos was going around all of them. Horrible sacrifices exacted to save their old arses supposedly, among other evil reasons for what happened .. I’m a boomer. I cannot forgive. Nor forget.
When those boomer women were nineteen they were carrying signs sayin make love not war. What happened? I can’t understand. Maybe their brains are fried on all the pot they’ve smoked.
They probably are devastated by the news that the jabs didn't work & caused all kinds of problems & they just can't admit that. They bought the left's narrative hook, line, & sinker and just can't admit they were duped. too prideful.
Funny, I’m a boomer, and many of my friends are boomers and we never fell for any of this garbage! Boomers split into 2 distinct groups, just like folks these days. Some of us hippies went left, some went right. Just sayin’!
Nice. I’m a tiny circulating island of dissonance here where I live. I have a couple of Gen Xers I can talk to. Sat at a table of 4 boomers last week. I went home fuming after the actual gang up. Of course not all are buying this. Covid scared them sh$tless and off the rails they went. My church too. My former church, that is. I’m on the beginning timeline of boomer births.
True that. I was working on the U of I campus while new hubby went to school (19 yo) . I’ve never smoked pot nor chewed a gummy these days. Neither has my husband. Sometime stoned students sat in the halls flashing peace signs. The Vietnam war was going on and snagged my husband later after graduation. I got why the anti war demos because hubs was perfect cannon fodder.
Do you read the NYT? or Watch CNN, ABC, CBS or NBC? Just curious. The people in my sphere that are firmly in the boomer category do those things. Not saying everyone, but a good chunk.
This isn't an issue of education, it's an issue of groupthink. Many US foreign policy experts have argued against expanding NATO eastwards since the 1990s (not a typo). John Mearsheimer in 2015 said that the West was leading Ukraine "down the primrose path" and the end result was that the country was going to get "wrecked". The problem is that the establishment elite and the foreign policy "blob" decided that they all knew better, and here we are after hundreds of thousands dead and Ukraine indeed wrecked.
Facebook is censoring this piece. It is instantly removed and marked as spam. It happened to me and several other commenters on here. So much for Zuckerberg claiming he was ending censorship. 🤬
The late Gonzalo Lira RIP risked his life and lost it to render the service of illuminating the creation of Zelensky by his sponsor, who is a well - known oligarch. His role as “President-Good Guy-Hero” was created, including the production company that made the program, by his oligarch-patron as a TV series that ran for years, conditioning the minds of the chuckle-head “marks” who were thus “entertained” and conditioned to accept the vision of Itchy-Nose in the Role of Leader for the People.
The chessboard cartoon is great as far as it goes but I would love to see a graphic representation that shows a pile of discarded, bloody kings and queens and the entities that are deciding which kings and queens to keep safe and which to allow to be sacrificed. I have not read Machiavelli, maybe he elucidated it in The Prince, but I would like to see some “blow by blow” descriptions of the art of raising large armies, arraying them against each other, while at the same time staying safe in secret while in ultimate control of the whole show.
Have you seen the outrage of professors re: ..., well pretty much everything? Or the outrage of those who consider themselves to be highly educated due having a masters in chick studies or similar?
On our trip to Italy last year we met a young, newly married couple. When I expressed sadness over the war the bride told us her husband was in the military and would be returning to fight. I remember thinking I was looking at a dead man and young widow. I think of them often when watching the news. Who in their right mind would put the replacement generation of a relatively small country in front of Russia’s military? Zelenskyy should not be allowed to leave with his loot. He should be conscripted to work in the hospitals tending the broken bodies of his war and rebuilding homes destroyed.
This is one of the dangers of a “democracy”. Not to sound like a pompous elitist, but frankly, I have lost confidence in the general public to understand the historical and geopolitical context to make informed decisions.
I think the general public do understand things well enough: that they have nothing to gain from the endless war, and no reason to keep prolonging it by sending billions to Ukraine. It’s the intellectuals who believe in making war.
OK...but we need to look at the "wife" at some point, too, yes? We must ask if and how she's aided and abetted?
Insisting her husband's a "good guy" despite evidence to the contrary. Insisting her husband has the best of intentions and sets a good example -- despite evidence to the contrary. Insists it's always the other women at fault -- despite evidence to the contrary.
How long does the wife get to default to extreme skepticism before 𝒉𝒆𝒓 character comes into question?
Sure…but at some point at both the individual level and societal one, all conduct must be weighed against some moral scale — regardless of the reasons for the conduct.
A woman — wife — who relentlessly makes excuses for her husband’s immorality because she insists on believing provable falsehoods? Insists on excusing conduct that has brought destruction to herself and others? Then she has both a psychological problem, as well as a moral one.
The same goes for a country — this country, in particular. Belief in its goodness despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and excuses made for its murder and destruction? That country — this one — the “exceptional nation” has both a psychological problem and a moral one.
Iraq was a lie: no WMDs and they knew it, they had nothing to do with 9/11 (that would be Saudis, Mossad, and probably CIA)
Afghanistan: was sort-of a lie, depending on what the truth is re: Osama's involvement in 9/11. But the idea that we should invade and occupy a nation to get 1 guy who could easily leave that country was ridiculous. Dude was hanging out in Pakistan, our great friend and ally. Then we killed him (supposedly) but stuck around to... do what?
VN: Gulf of Tonkin was fake, admitted to even by our own government now.
I'd say the last legit war was the Mexican-American war. I define legit as being somewhat honest about the intentions, but mostly about whether it benefited American interests or not. Getting big chunks of territory to settle your own people is always of benefit. All wars since then have been Bankers Wars.
we basically caused ww2 in europe by interfering in ww1 and allowing an uneven and unsustainable peace. the treaty of versailles is what created the soil for nationalist fascism in europe.
ww1 was pure US jingo. so was the spanish american war.
And world war 1 itself was pure idiocy stumbled into by Europeans because of a bunch of entangling military alliances. Europe is basically Americas loser teenage friend that skips class regularly, deals weed in gym class, and wants to get smashed on mad dog 20/20 before drag racing. They are a bad influence on America.
While it certainly is true that the US contributed to the conditions paving the way for German fascism, by letting France and the UK impose their frankly sadistic terms at Versaille, it is not fair to say the USA cause WW2.
The factors contributing to the war are too many and interlaced to point to any one single malefactor as being guilty. The sad reality is that the conditions conspired to cause a situation that could only be resolved by a war.
This begs the question: If you could go back in time to 1938 and assassinate Hitler, would it have prevented WWII? Most likely no. Hitler didn't create the zeitgeist, the zeitgeist created Hitler. He just knew how to articulate it better than most.
International Banksters were/are the cause of all wars since the creation of "Central Banking". Wars cost LOTS of money...when the U.S. was taken over by europe's central banksters in 1913, both world wars conveniently created enough "debt" to seal the deal of world dominance for their "industry".
Research true history...how the Federal Reserve came to be in a "free" country where a central bank was outlawed by Declaration AND Constitutional contract for the first time in world history... it will send a flash of intense anger up ANY true American's spine. Politicians could not be so eager to kill peoples children, fathers, brothers, sisters etc. in wars if they didn't have endless phoney (debt) money to finance them with
If the U.S. hadn’t entered WWI then, to simplify, Britain, France, and Germany would have remained stalemated in their trenches until either the three major belligerents settled the war on whatever agreeable terms would end the carnage or their populaces would have overthrown their governments/monarchy
this. Europe leveraged American power to dominate the peace treaty in ways that wouldn't have been possible. Idealistic Wilson thought he could rearrange all of Central Europe to his ideas.
He admitted , on his deathbed that he had been hoodwinked by Europe’s most powerful international bankers into pushing the Federal Reserve act which allowed Americas wealth to be exported for WW I, WW 2 etc etc
great comment. An even better question may be what percentage of wars have we got involved with that were for a valid reason honestly presented. Definitely not WWI, very questionably WWII, don't know enough about Korea to say....on it goes, with very few the wiser for it.
I agree with this take 100%. I could write a thousand word comment...but it would be repetitive. Incisive on all fronts. Bravo.
I'll just say this:
Zelensky is tasked with prolonging the war for a variety of reasons, but the main one in my mind is he loses his power because he will no longer be able to dole out millions to the oligarchy if he doesn't keep the meat grinder going. He has no incentive to seek peace.
He's a dead-man walking and he didn't figure it out until he flew back to meet with Hauptsturmführer Starmer.
But hey let's give the guy a break, 45 minutes is a long time to go without blow.
What she's describing is an iOS on-screen keyboard thing. If you're using a regular Windows computer, you can use System > Character Map to point-click-copy individual special characters to your clipboard.
Directly on the keyboard on iPhone, press and HOLD a letter. Then slide your fingertip to the choice you seek, and lift. Samsung keyboard and access to other non-English orthography is vastly superior. On my old Note, I could press and hold a letter until the choices appear, and then LIFT and then flawlessly select the option desired. Samsung is more geared toward non-English orthography, instead of the US centric style of the iPhone. Also, you don’t need to leave their default keyboard just to insert a period or comma, as there are actual keys for this. Other punctuation is accessible by the press and hold on the default keyboard, with fancier stuff on selectable keyboards.
You can set Word up to do a non-spacing umlaut over probably any letter, and choose your own key combination to make it happen whenever you want. Then you can copy and paste the result if you like.
Choose Insert > Symbols > Symbol > More Symbols... to get the little control window that lets you select characters. Where it says Character code:, type in '0308', which is Unicode for non-spacing diaeresis (umlaut). To use it once, you can just insert from there, and have it go over the previous letter.
To make it a convenient permanent option, click on the Shortcut Key... button. With the cursor flashing in the field where it says Press new shortcut key..., press some key set of your choosing using Ctrl or Alt, like say Alt+u or something, and hit Assign. From there on, you can always get an umlaut over the preceding letter just by typing Alt+u after it. Then you can copy it from Word and paste it here:
ËV̈ËR̈ŸT̈ḦÏN̈G̈
Note that this will probably go away the next time Word updates unless you have it saved to your template file or something. I've never figured out that part very well.
Literally all they did was just make imperialism and forever wars left-coded. They just swapped out the 🇺🇸 for the🏳️⚧️ ✊🏿🏳️🌈, and continued down the path of totalitarianism and imperialism without breaking stride.
And this simple re-brand turned all the Boomers into Dick Cheney. The history and context is irrelevant to these people. All the 🇺🇦 flag waving and hysterical response to the Trump policy pivot is just a Pavlovian response to symbols they’ve been conditioned to revere.
Thank God those retards aren’t in charge anymore. May they continue to fade further and further into irrelevancy.
As a female boomer I object! I was on to the scam from the very start. As a whole however it’s clear that all the mainstream sources of information are geared to the professional managerial classes and maintaining influence over this group. That’s why today this group is often the most delusional but also in support of the current thing. Group think is heavily enforced among the PMC with the rapid removal of independent thinkers from positions of influence or they just never advance at all. .Covid speeded up the process. However the older crowd is also still under the spell of the same influences having spent a lifetime consulting mainstream sources given they were the only sources available. Many are largely unaware of how much these sources have pivoted to strictly brainwashing, though that was always part of the job, today it’s the entire purpose.
Same here, Libertarian Boomer who read a great deal and understood it was a proxy war and that billions were being laundered through Ukraine and the installed burlesque dancer fake president.
You're absolutely right that it is more of a class divide than a generational one. I mostly singled out the Boomers because (1) it's fun, and (2) they were singled out in the article. Sorry for the offense! But it really is, as you say, the PMC that falls for all of this, across generations.
Having said that though, and having been raised by PMC Boomers (and I mean Boomers. Imagine the most PMC, boomerist couple you can, and that's my parents), they are particularly susceptible to the Pavlovian conditioning and particularly ill-equipped to navigate the contemporary information landscape.
The Civil Rights movement is their religion. Just associate anything with the Civil Rights movement, however absurd the association, and they are all for it, and anyone who isn't for it is a literal Nazi. And any narrative that isn't being advanced by cable news and the New York Times is Russian disinformation. There's no getting through to them.
I was joking. 🙃 and also there is truth to what you say. I can just imagine your parents. I honestly I come by these people constantly and I am always on the other side of every issue. I also notice most just have simply absorbed the mainstream media viewpoint…which is almost always wrong! It’s not hard to correct them given that media rarely uses primary source material for their claims while many in independent media built their businesses on primary source material in order to counteract the numerous lies being propagated on the public.
PMC boomer here as well. I know the type you're speaking of, which includes dear relatives of mine. And yet, we had political divides between right and left, Democrats and Republicans when we were school kids, and it's not clear to me that most of us ever changed our minds to join the other party.
I agree that the Civil Rights movement became the religion of the left. The perk is that it allows White leftists to morally bully White conservatives with demands for intolerable concessions of their race and culture that the White conservatives can't reply to for fear of saying something that would provoke an unwinnable row with Blacks, who have their own, understandable, smoldering rage against Whites in general. The Civil Rights movement handed that advantage to them, and young and old wokies still play that game to this day, with a few less reliable expansion slot add-ins.
I'm not so sure that all boomers fit the stereotype. But the ones that do steamrolled the rest of us into quiet grumbling decades ago, and have become the iconic face of our generation.
Thanks, Kittykat. I'm a "young" boomer, and I get so tired of seeing everyone equate "boomer" with "stupid, entitled liberal." There is plenty of stupid entitlement that spans ALL generations...from teenagers who can't figure out what sex they are, to their Gen X parents who think anything less than a McMansion is a hovel, to the "silent generation" that thinks their medical doctors are gods. EVERY generation has stupid. Wish everyone would stop acting like boomers are the devil incarnate.
Don’t take it personally. When trying to make sense of societal issues and to organize thoughts generalizations are helpful even though many don’t fit the stereotype. Still stereotypes are useful.
The “boomer hate” rampant through social media is yet another divisive psyop pile of poop for younger generations to step into. The social wars have always been about class, and anything else is a purposeful distraction. Just for the record, boomers near my age group, the draftable class (hint: low middle class, white, not PMC or ivy leagues) have forever burned into our brains the reality of war. Dying in a jungle was a real and present threat growing up, especially seeing our brothers, cousins, and friends coming back in body bags, or maimed, or psychologically damaged. I remember a family friend after his tour ended in 1971, a once fun loving kid, now with a vacant stare and a disturbing level alcohol consumption. As much as Nixon was despised, I am grateful that he ended that steaming pile of shit they called a “police action” AKA Vietnam war.
What’s been memory holed, is how “the greatest generation” AKA parents of the boomers, were all in on Vietnam, as they were still brainwashed into the patriotic ideals of defeating communism through war. Mothers, though, began to wake up when their sons arrived home in body bags. After Vietnam, younger boomers such as myself were submitted to a cornucopia of psyops such as shaming war protesters, eliminating creative and critical thought in college, and replacing psychedelics with dangerous and addictive drugs. The effects of all this were not felt immediately, yet changed much. War dissent was never to be allowed again. When Bush 2 declared “…this will not be another Vietnam…” what he meant was dissent would never be allowed, and he was right, and he went on to create another Vietnam. The PMC raised boomers were all in, the rest of us knew the truth.
I'm a boomer (just about to turn 70), and I'm appalled at my generation's newfound love of war. We marched against the Vietnam war as teenagers. What went wrong with us?
Being in Vietnam wasn’t necessary when your older brother, cousins and friends came home in body bags, or without limbs, or with that vacant stare, the message hit home hard. And being white, low middle class, we knew we were next, only saved by Nixon. Only the the boomer elites from blue cities, that were sheltered from the draft, think it’s fun to warmongering with the blood of others. A whole decade of music, written by boomers, spelled all this out. Sadly now forgotten.
Yeah. I know first hand. My dad was never the same. Half his platoon didn't make it back. He said the "tunneling running" was the most terrifying part about it.
So you're right; by extension those close to those in combat.
Or had the imagination and thoughtfulness and anti-authoritarian streak to eventually realize what it really was? My own trajectory is the opposite, from naively romantic hawk when young, to detester of imperialistic war at the other end of life, without benefit of personal war experience.
It's hard to underestimate the massive debt of gratitude we owe to Musk for taking over Twitter and canning the censorship. It not only opened the floodgates to non-narrative points of view but made the Leftists look like complete fools for fighting against free speech.
Yes I think it’s more ‘current thing’ than supportive of war. They are given a narrative and their peers and employment enforce it. It’s rather totalitarian actually as everything becomes increasingly political. Not a good sign I think as power has concentrated and states have merged with trans national corporate power, everything, and everyone has become subsumed into the system.
I’m not a Dick Cheney. Let’s remember Donald Trump is a boomer. Many of us boomers had brothers, boyfriends, cousins who went Viet Nam while the crazies protested the war. No we didn’t belong there, but the rest of us made the country go. In my mind those Viet Nam protestors were the same as the green and blue hair tattooed, pierced nose crazies waving the Ukraine and Palestinian flags. Uneducated about world history.
Vietnam could've been worthwhile if we'd fought to win. It (or maybe Korea) was the origin of military adventurism with timid female lawyer-approved rules of engagement.
That said, the first rule of international relationships is "never volunteer to bail out the French".
Biden started the Ukraine war when he announced in December 2021 that Ukraine should join NATO. He knew better than to say that, so did RIce, Nuland, Blinken and every other fool he listened to. There were no wars with Trump 45.
“so let’s keep that in mind. this country is only 34 years old.”
There is a reason why my knowledgeable European friends still refer to it as “The Ukraine”.
Because in their minds, and their superior knowledge (superior to the idiots that got us into this mess) of the history of the Eurasian landmass, ‘Ukraine’ is not a real country. And never has been. Not for 1000s of years. It’s a territory. Whose borders have been fought over and shifting. For 1000s of years.
Ukrainians are a real ethnicity, with their own language and culture. They want their own homeland, one independent from the Russians who deliberately starved to death millions of them less than a century ago.
to some extent, yes. but the lines that were drawn included a lot of ethnic russians who wound up not too keen on being in ukraine and were discriminated against heavily.
i also question just how much of a "homeland" they got vs a hyper corrupt oligarchic kelptocracy.
this is not a story with any real good guys in it as prime political movers. just victims.
Ukrainians got a two-fer: a homeland and a kleptocracy. Happens a lot in history.
They are horribly led, but that does not eliminate their sense of of independence.
Stalin did his level best to ethnically cleanse his lands after the war, pushing millions of people in boxcars to prevent the situation now occurring. Somehow, the Russians got.to stay in all the lands they conquered. Marty Made has a great podcast on the brutal aftermath of Communist takeover in E Europe. This is fresh in the minds of millions and is the reason for the hatred of Russia.
Precisely, gato. There are no "good guys' on either side. Period. Full stop. Ukraine simply became a breeding ground of corruption, money laundering, and a human and sex trafficking hellscape to name a few delightful activities.
el gato malo, making reference to your explanation of WWI setting the stage for WWII, ethnic Germans found themselves behind a new border, too, after the WWI debacle. That new line made them members of the newly-restored country of Poland.
Similar treatment befell those Germans as befell the Russians in Donbas and Luhansk. Hitler asked many times for the mistreatment and murdering of those Germans -- now "Polish" nationals -- to stop...
I made no comment either way, MrsS. I merely pointed out a similarity of circumstances between the misfortune that befell ordinary Germans who found themselves in a new country after WWI and modern Ukrainians after the fall of the hellhole Soviet Union.
Do you know that I’m saying? IOW, do you know what happened to those German people after WWI and what happened to those Russians (of Donbas and Luhansk) who found themselves in a new country, Ukraine?
I am very aware. Sorry if my sarcasm didn’t come across properly. And I agree with your comment. We are not allowed to discuss Germans as having a reason for doing what they did. But it’s ok to discuss Ukraine. One is socially acceptable. One is not.
Yeah the OP makes a fair point, Ukranians are a real people as much as e.g. Poles, as much as the land of "Poland" has changed wildly due to the lack of natural borders and the big neighbors. But indeed the current borders are as arbitrary as (iirc) Kruschev transferring Donetsk and Luhansk to Ukraine (within USSR) as some internal politics thing
As the Balkans should have taught us, the only stable national borders are based on ethnicity and common culture. Internationalist midwits famously don't think that's a factor because every city they fly to has Starbucks, as per a unusually inspid media article several years ago.
I would accept correction, but I think that was Crimea. I've seen a map that indicated that the ethnic Russian parts in the east and south were globbed together with the Ukrainians of the west and center by Lenin around 1922, at the end of the Russian Civil War, as an administrative region. Crimea was added to that in 1954, under Khrushchev.
If you want to look at a mess that makes Ukraine (in Swedish, it's Ukraina so the issue of whether or not to add "the" doesn't come up) look easy, do a delve on the history of Moldavia.
Rus capital was Kiev. Not Moscow. Ukraine is not a territory. It had one of the first universities in Europe. Rich in farm land and minerals, it has been conquered many times. The culture is very different than Russian culture. The excellent propaganda machine has convinced "experts" that Ukrainian History is actually Russian. The west is ignorant and clueless.
“It’s honestly still not clear to me what they were trying to do”. ……From a Serbian POV it is crystal clear that this was a ‘rinse and repeat’ of what NATO and the west did throughout the 90’s in Yugoslavia when Russia was on its knees. It’s called Balkanization and there is plenty of money to be made on the way for those in the right positions. The steps were all laid out in advance. Provoke, sanction, colour revolution and carve up the spoils both financially and geographically. Simple plan, but sometimes…….’the best laid plans……..’.
Some cats have vocations. One of mine treats his responsibility to hack up a hairball on the dog's bed at least once every 24 hours in the same way an 11th C. Gregorian monk would have treated the Divine Office.
“so let’s keep that in mind. this country is only 34 years old.”
And most important, with respect to the history you mention, Ukraine has no demos, no monocultural society. Drawing lines on a map does not make a nation or a stable body politic. The examples from history are plenty. Multiculturalism and diversity is not strength, it is cause for conflict and war. There are numerous language a culture groups in Ukraine.
Zelensky talks about his people, Ukrainians, of whom about 20% are ethnic Russian and Russian speakers, yet he has banned the Russian language. Only a tyrant bans “his people” from speaking their language and practicing their religion by shutting down their churches.
Looking at the photo of him with the EU reptiles plus slithy tove Starmer, the phrase “ birds of a feather” springs to mind.
Zelensky who has banned political Parties, imprisoned political opponents, shut down all media except his own mouthpiece, is in good company with these warmongering, democracy and freedom lovers who suppress freedom of speech of their own citizens, , close down media outlets too “far right”, gaol people for speaking out, exclude political Parties with popular support because they are “far right”.
agree apart from your depiction of starmer which is an unjust insult to brillig and all others gyring and gimbling in the wabe.
starmer is just another chinless wonder british warmonger who has lost sight of how geopolitically irrelevant the UK has become and wants a foreign distraction from the the war they are losing at home.
More than 20% are Russian speakers including Zelensky himself. His commander in chief is Russian from Russia. Multiculturalism doesn’t explain the fall of Ukraine.
Ukraine was created as a Soviet Republic in 1923 by lines drawn on a map. It explains the conflict between the ethnic groups, particularly where minorities are mal-treated - read up about Yugoslavia another created State post-WWI around diverse cultural groups or if you like read about Austro-Hungary diverse cultural groups which lead to WWI when Serbia (and others) wanted independence, or British India when the British left in 1948. Multiculturalism = conflict and war… always.
There never was a US interest, And there never will be a US interest in the war in Ukraine. It is Wag the Dog Redux! Time to end it. Trumpies doing exactly the right thing.
Really? It has always been an US interest to destroy good relations between Germany and Russia, hence the destruction of Nordstream2 and the long project (since 1994) of provoking this war. Of course the complete stupidity, or even treachery, of today’s european leaders helped a lot.
The destruction of the natural relationship between the EU and Russia which would empower Europe once again to become a fearfull economic counterpart was the main reason to start this war.
This purpose accomplished Trump can wrap it up nicely now as Europe is in shambles and Russia’s trust destroyed.
From a C&C comment earlier today: ‘Trump is the only leader of the Western world who does not want to see anybody's children turned into dead meat just to make money for the people who'll never send their own kids to war.’
They were protesting at a ski resort? Entitlement at its finest! Considering the cost of a daily lift ticket tends to be $100. Most can't afford that today. Why are they protesting and not skiing? Seems like a giant waste of time.
very nice quote at the end. also important to remember that the US did not support Ukraine out of charity, and love of whatever weak democracy existed there. It was always done as investment in weakening Russia.
We have become a world of haters. "So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind." Ecc. 2:17 So many professing to be of the Faith absent the heart transplant necessary. Endless trainings for life's jobs and worldly endeavors. yet the handbook of true life disregarded. War will save us from our enemies, not in this life or the next. God's Word, His truths, His Spirit, the only real answer. "But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works." James 2:18 His Word is a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path. Be....in it.
When was the last time we got involved with a foreign military adventure for a valid reason honestly presented?
Iraq?
Afghanistan?
Viet Nam?
At some point when a woman’s husband has cheated on her 7 times, and insists he honestly has to work late with the barely legal double D cup administrative assistant, she has to start defaulting to extreme skepticism.
For anyone who missed it American citizens are the wife in this metaphor and the three letter agencies, and Europes pretend democratic “leaders” are the cheating husband.
Said the same to my wife yesterday. It’s so damn obvious. Yet so many can’t (won’t) see it, just further weakening my appraisal of the general population’s intelligence and yes perspective. I didn’t think that was possible post Covid. This an excellent and timely piece that the FB “I stand with Ukraine” virtue idiot patrol needs to read. Not that it will sink into their thick skulls.
I love how the least educated people are those with the highest levels of faux outrage. Imagine being ignorant and acting like you're not....and being loud about. I suppose they like getting raped by our government.
Those boomer women with signs are the same ones who were comfortable with pensions, investments and social security still flowing into their accounts and jetting to Florida for winter while Covid chaos was going around all of them. Horrible sacrifices exacted to save their old arses supposedly, among other evil reasons for what happened .. I’m a boomer. I cannot forgive. Nor forget.
When those boomer women were nineteen they were carrying signs sayin make love not war. What happened? I can’t understand. Maybe their brains are fried on all the pot they’ve smoked.
Maybe their brains are damaged from all the jabs they took.
They probably are devastated by the news that the jabs didn't work & caused all kinds of problems & they just can't admit that. They bought the left's narrative hook, line, & sinker and just can't admit they were duped. too prideful.
Actually boomer brains are fried due to the heavy use of lead in paint and gasoline when they were young. Not a joke.
Funny, I’m a boomer, and many of my friends are boomers and we never fell for any of this garbage! Boomers split into 2 distinct groups, just like folks these days. Some of us hippies went left, some went right. Just sayin’!
I “feinted”: Left, then right. When I was Left, all the warmonger neocons were Right. “Someone” inverted the paradigm, around 2020.
Nice. I’m a tiny circulating island of dissonance here where I live. I have a couple of Gen Xers I can talk to. Sat at a table of 4 boomers last week. I went home fuming after the actual gang up. Of course not all are buying this. Covid scared them sh$tless and off the rails they went. My church too. My former church, that is. I’m on the beginning timeline of boomer births.
True that. I was working on the U of I campus while new hubby went to school (19 yo) . I’ve never smoked pot nor chewed a gummy these days. Neither has my husband. Sometime stoned students sat in the halls flashing peace signs. The Vietnam war was going on and snagged my husband later after graduation. I got why the anti war demos because hubs was perfect cannon fodder.
Me too, Janet. Me too.
Do you read the NYT? or Watch CNN, ABC, CBS or NBC? Just curious. The people in my sphere that are firmly in the boomer category do those things. Not saying everyone, but a good chunk.
this boomer does not, nor do I partake of Yahoo news, MSN news, PBS, et al. We're all alternative news in my household.
Man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.
– William Shakespeare
"apparel oft proclaims the man"
- also that Billy Shakespeare guy
"Imagine being ignorant and acting like you're not"
*Dunning and Kruger have entered the chat*
With a Z axis for the degree to which they realize the internet is forever
Too common
They think the Govt loves them.
hope they like building their own gulags
Except they won’t. They will be “the victims”.
They'll outsource it to mexicans, then blame their kids for not being able to get jobs in the new gulag industry.
Lolol.
This isn't an issue of education, it's an issue of groupthink. Many US foreign policy experts have argued against expanding NATO eastwards since the 1990s (not a typo). John Mearsheimer in 2015 said that the West was leading Ukraine "down the primrose path" and the end result was that the country was going to get "wrecked". The problem is that the establishment elite and the foreign policy "blob" decided that they all knew better, and here we are after hundreds of thousands dead and Ukraine indeed wrecked.
Facebook is censoring this piece. It is instantly removed and marked as spam. It happened to me and several other commenters on here. So much for Zuckerberg claiming he was ending censorship. 🤬
Gatos post?
Yes, I was trying to reply to the comment above yours mentioning facebook. I’m not sure how it ended up under your comment.
No worries.
The late Gonzalo Lira RIP risked his life and lost it to render the service of illuminating the creation of Zelensky by his sponsor, who is a well - known oligarch. His role as “President-Good Guy-Hero” was created, including the production company that made the program, by his oligarch-patron as a TV series that ran for years, conditioning the minds of the chuckle-head “marks” who were thus “entertained” and conditioned to accept the vision of Itchy-Nose in the Role of Leader for the People.
The chessboard cartoon is great as far as it goes but I would love to see a graphic representation that shows a pile of discarded, bloody kings and queens and the entities that are deciding which kings and queens to keep safe and which to allow to be sacrificed. I have not read Machiavelli, maybe he elucidated it in The Prince, but I would like to see some “blow by blow” descriptions of the art of raising large armies, arraying them against each other, while at the same time staying safe in secret while in ultimate control of the whole show.
Zelensky is like a puppy watching a game of chess
Ukraine will happily accept them on the front. Oddly, haven't seen a single person jump on a plane. They seem to regard the idea as insulting.
It seems we’ve gone from the covid ‘take a shot’ for the greater good to ‘take a bullet’ for the greater good!
Have you seen the outrage of professors re: ..., well pretty much everything? Or the outrage of those who consider themselves to be highly educated due having a masters in chick studies or similar?
Yes. I had to escape CA early in the scandemic to take refuge in FL.
It was all around me
"All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting."
George Orwell
On our trip to Italy last year we met a young, newly married couple. When I expressed sadness over the war the bride told us her husband was in the military and would be returning to fight. I remember thinking I was looking at a dead man and young widow. I think of them often when watching the news. Who in their right mind would put the replacement generation of a relatively small country in front of Russia’s military? Zelenskyy should not be allowed to leave with his loot. He should be conscripted to work in the hospitals tending the broken bodies of his war and rebuilding homes destroyed.
WELL SAID! "Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war."
Otto von Bismarck
I think it goes like this: "I'm going to explain something to you, and I'm going to be blunt... but I'm not sure that'll be enough."
Oh, if only that could work.
stealing this
This is one of the dangers of a “democracy”. Not to sound like a pompous elitist, but frankly, I have lost confidence in the general public to understand the historical and geopolitical context to make informed decisions.
I think the general public do understand things well enough: that they have nothing to gain from the endless war, and no reason to keep prolonging it by sending billions to Ukraine. It’s the intellectuals who believe in making war.
It would be like cloning a Neanderthal and asking him/her/they/them to read this piece and disseminate it. Ain’t ever gonna happen.
OK...but we need to look at the "wife" at some point, too, yes? We must ask if and how she's aided and abetted?
Insisting her husband's a "good guy" despite evidence to the contrary. Insisting her husband has the best of intentions and sets a good example -- despite evidence to the contrary. Insists it's always the other women at fault -- despite evidence to the contrary.
How long does the wife get to default to extreme skepticism before 𝒉𝒆𝒓 character comes into question?
Until April of 2025?
I think you also need to factor in the industrial scale propaganda to which our naive wife has been subjected.
Sure…but at some point at both the individual level and societal one, all conduct must be weighed against some moral scale — regardless of the reasons for the conduct.
A woman — wife — who relentlessly makes excuses for her husband’s immorality because she insists on believing provable falsehoods? Insists on excusing conduct that has brought destruction to herself and others? Then she has both a psychological problem, as well as a moral one.
The same goes for a country — this country, in particular. Belief in its goodness despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and excuses made for its murder and destruction? That country — this one — the “exceptional nation” has both a psychological problem and a moral one.
💯
Yes, it takes 2
“When was the last time we got involved with a foreign military adventure for a valid reason honestly presented?”
Never.
Iraq was a lie: no WMDs and they knew it, they had nothing to do with 9/11 (that would be Saudis, Mossad, and probably CIA)
Afghanistan: was sort-of a lie, depending on what the truth is re: Osama's involvement in 9/11. But the idea that we should invade and occupy a nation to get 1 guy who could easily leave that country was ridiculous. Dude was hanging out in Pakistan, our great friend and ally. Then we killed him (supposedly) but stuck around to... do what?
VN: Gulf of Tonkin was fake, admitted to even by our own government now.
I'd say the last legit war was the Mexican-American war. I define legit as being somewhat honest about the intentions, but mostly about whether it benefited American interests or not. Getting big chunks of territory to settle your own people is always of benefit. All wars since then have been Bankers Wars.
WWII?
we basically caused ww2 in europe by interfering in ww1 and allowing an uneven and unsustainable peace. the treaty of versailles is what created the soil for nationalist fascism in europe.
ww1 was pure US jingo. so was the spanish american war.
And world war 1 itself was pure idiocy stumbled into by Europeans because of a bunch of entangling military alliances. Europe is basically Americas loser teenage friend that skips class regularly, deals weed in gym class, and wants to get smashed on mad dog 20/20 before drag racing. They are a bad influence on America.
"One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans" (1888).
Otto von Bismarck
Here I have to protest.
While it certainly is true that the US contributed to the conditions paving the way for German fascism, by letting France and the UK impose their frankly sadistic terms at Versaille, it is not fair to say the USA cause WW2.
The factors contributing to the war are too many and interlaced to point to any one single malefactor as being guilty. The sad reality is that the conditions conspired to cause a situation that could only be resolved by a war.
This begs the question: If you could go back in time to 1938 and assassinate Hitler, would it have prevented WWII? Most likely no. Hitler didn't create the zeitgeist, the zeitgeist created Hitler. He just knew how to articulate it better than most.
"A generation that has taken a beating is always followed by a generation that deals one."
Otto von Bismarck
International Banksters were/are the cause of all wars since the creation of "Central Banking". Wars cost LOTS of money...when the U.S. was taken over by europe's central banksters in 1913, both world wars conveniently created enough "debt" to seal the deal of world dominance for their "industry".
Bingo. They win either way, both with industrial war footing production and the rebuild of the destruction.
You nailed it.
Research true history...how the Federal Reserve came to be in a "free" country where a central bank was outlawed by Declaration AND Constitutional contract for the first time in world history... it will send a flash of intense anger up ANY true American's spine. Politicians could not be so eager to kill peoples children, fathers, brothers, sisters etc. in wars if they didn't have endless phoney (debt) money to finance them with
If the U.S. hadn’t entered WWI then, to simplify, Britain, France, and Germany would have remained stalemated in their trenches until either the three major belligerents settled the war on whatever agreeable terms would end the carnage or their populaces would have overthrown their governments/monarchy
this. Europe leveraged American power to dominate the peace treaty in ways that wouldn't have been possible. Idealistic Wilson thought he could rearrange all of Central Europe to his ideas.
"What can a mere French minister do when associated with Lloyd George, who thinks he is Napoleon, and Woodrow Wilson, who thinks he is Jesus Christ?"
Georges Clemenceau
Maybe, but that in no way means the USA was responsible for WW2.
The Hitler Project, funded by Bank of England, Royal Dutch Shell, the Duke of Windsor, Prescott Bush, etc.
There are some that consider WWI and WWII to have been a Thirty Years War.
The Dulles Brothers drafted the Treaty of Versailles
https://unbrandednews.com/the-dulles-brothers-changed-the-20th-century-but-have-you-heard-of-them/
"War is a Racket"
Major General Smedley Butler, USMC
https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html
WWII should be renamed Wilson's War.
Not to be confused with "Charlie Wilson's War" which was a moderately funny movie.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472062/
He admitted , on his deathbed that he had been hoodwinked by Europe’s most powerful international bankers into pushing the Federal Reserve act which allowed Americas wealth to be exported for WW I, WW 2 etc etc
"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."
George Orwell
1776
"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."
George Orwell
Never. I once believed otherwise. But I was also once young and stupid
#MeToo
That's the old saying; first to know, last to believe.
great comment. An even better question may be what percentage of wars have we got involved with that were for a valid reason honestly presented. Definitely not WWI, very questionably WWII, don't know enough about Korea to say....on it goes, with very few the wiser for it.
I agree with this take 100%. I could write a thousand word comment...but it would be repetitive. Incisive on all fronts. Bravo.
I'll just say this:
Zelensky is tasked with prolonging the war for a variety of reasons, but the main one in my mind is he loses his power because he will no longer be able to dole out millions to the oligarchy if he doesn't keep the meat grinder going. He has no incentive to seek peace.
He's a dead-man walking and he didn't figure it out until he flew back to meet with Hauptsturmführer Starmer.
But hey let's give the guy a break, 45 minutes is a long time to go without blow.
I just shorten it to Stürmer.
I love it
Dead man walking. I wonder at what moment in time he figured this out. Z-man needs to quickly do a Steve Miller - Take the money and run!
Im thinking that Dollar Store Napoleon should exile to St. Helena before it's too late
I love umlauts!
If I could figure out how to put umlauts into my text, I'd umlaut EVERYTHING!
ü option key press u
It's not on my keyboard. Must be some sort of hidden "cheat code" to activate it.
What she's describing is an iOS on-screen keyboard thing. If you're using a regular Windows computer, you can use System > Character Map to point-click-copy individual special characters to your clipboard.
Directly on the keyboard on iPhone, press and HOLD a letter. Then slide your fingertip to the choice you seek, and lift. Samsung keyboard and access to other non-English orthography is vastly superior. On my old Note, I could press and hold a letter until the choices appear, and then LIFT and then flawlessly select the option desired. Samsung is more geared toward non-English orthography, instead of the US centric style of the iPhone. Also, you don’t need to leave their default keyboard just to insert a period or comma, as there are actual keys for this. Other punctuation is accessible by the press and hold on the default keyboard, with fancier stuff on selectable keyboards.
I like "düm and glüm"
Excellent Jimmy
Just put an e after the vowel you want to umlaut. It's an acceptable way to spell the same German word. Fuehrer, e.g.
Yes, you can do that, but it lacks that Teutonic oomph of an umlaut.
The Teutonic Umlaüts would have been a great band name for a metal band in the 90s
Têütönic Ümläûts?
Over here, we always got a good laugh out of the band-names Blue Öyster Cult and Mötley Crüe.
And a good air-guitar session out of their music!
wow. So totally
It’s never too late!
TIL. Good point.
There are a lot of text options on your phone, I'll bet.
Just my 2¢
Yes, but not on my laptop. I have big thumbs. My texts look like: Hkjg om yuggf jhjff.
So you're like an IKEA Furniture name generator. Nifty.
Yes, I sent my resume to IKEA but they never replied back.
You can set Word up to do a non-spacing umlaut over probably any letter, and choose your own key combination to make it happen whenever you want. Then you can copy and paste the result if you like.
Choose Insert > Symbols > Symbol > More Symbols... to get the little control window that lets you select characters. Where it says Character code:, type in '0308', which is Unicode for non-spacing diaeresis (umlaut). To use it once, you can just insert from there, and have it go over the previous letter.
To make it a convenient permanent option, click on the Shortcut Key... button. With the cursor flashing in the field where it says Press new shortcut key..., press some key set of your choosing using Ctrl or Alt, like say Alt+u or something, and hit Assign. From there on, you can always get an umlaut over the preceding letter just by typing Alt+u after it. Then you can copy it from Word and paste it here:
ËV̈ËR̈ŸT̈ḦÏN̈G̈
Note that this will probably go away the next time Word updates unless you have it saved to your template file or something. I've never figured out that part very well.
YES!!!!!!! GLORIOUS!!!!!!
Höld the vowel key for a sec ánd you get æll thé choîcẽs.
So do I but I'm allergic to eggs. Okay, okay, I'm going.
🤣
TIL
If the war ends, he finally gets to own a suit: one made of concrete from Jimmy Hoffa Men's Outfitters
Yeah the only real estate he's going to end up with is a nice tight plat of 9' X 4' X 6'.
His shelf life expired when Trump grabbed him by his pu$$y in the oval office the other day.
More likely he ends in a cloud of dust, right after the missile strike.
😂😂
Literally all they did was just make imperialism and forever wars left-coded. They just swapped out the 🇺🇸 for the🏳️⚧️ ✊🏿🏳️🌈, and continued down the path of totalitarianism and imperialism without breaking stride.
And this simple re-brand turned all the Boomers into Dick Cheney. The history and context is irrelevant to these people. All the 🇺🇦 flag waving and hysterical response to the Trump policy pivot is just a Pavlovian response to symbols they’ve been conditioned to revere.
Thank God those retards aren’t in charge anymore. May they continue to fade further and further into irrelevancy.
As a female boomer I object! I was on to the scam from the very start. As a whole however it’s clear that all the mainstream sources of information are geared to the professional managerial classes and maintaining influence over this group. That’s why today this group is often the most delusional but also in support of the current thing. Group think is heavily enforced among the PMC with the rapid removal of independent thinkers from positions of influence or they just never advance at all. .Covid speeded up the process. However the older crowd is also still under the spell of the same influences having spent a lifetime consulting mainstream sources given they were the only sources available. Many are largely unaware of how much these sources have pivoted to strictly brainwashing, though that was always part of the job, today it’s the entire purpose.
Same here, Libertarian Boomer who read a great deal and understood it was a proxy war and that billions were being laundered through Ukraine and the installed burlesque dancer fake president.
You're absolutely right that it is more of a class divide than a generational one. I mostly singled out the Boomers because (1) it's fun, and (2) they were singled out in the article. Sorry for the offense! But it really is, as you say, the PMC that falls for all of this, across generations.
Having said that though, and having been raised by PMC Boomers (and I mean Boomers. Imagine the most PMC, boomerist couple you can, and that's my parents), they are particularly susceptible to the Pavlovian conditioning and particularly ill-equipped to navigate the contemporary information landscape.
The Civil Rights movement is their religion. Just associate anything with the Civil Rights movement, however absurd the association, and they are all for it, and anyone who isn't for it is a literal Nazi. And any narrative that isn't being advanced by cable news and the New York Times is Russian disinformation. There's no getting through to them.
I was joking. 🙃 and also there is truth to what you say. I can just imagine your parents. I honestly I come by these people constantly and I am always on the other side of every issue. I also notice most just have simply absorbed the mainstream media viewpoint…which is almost always wrong! It’s not hard to correct them given that media rarely uses primary source material for their claims while many in independent media built their businesses on primary source material in order to counteract the numerous lies being propagated on the public.
But not all of us. Even amongst the PMC, there are some of us who read and think
Exhibit A: Jane Fonda. Currently slagging off DJT.
PMC boomer here as well. I know the type you're speaking of, which includes dear relatives of mine. And yet, we had political divides between right and left, Democrats and Republicans when we were school kids, and it's not clear to me that most of us ever changed our minds to join the other party.
I agree that the Civil Rights movement became the religion of the left. The perk is that it allows White leftists to morally bully White conservatives with demands for intolerable concessions of their race and culture that the White conservatives can't reply to for fear of saying something that would provoke an unwinnable row with Blacks, who have their own, understandable, smoldering rage against Whites in general. The Civil Rights movement handed that advantage to them, and young and old wokies still play that game to this day, with a few less reliable expansion slot add-ins.
I'm not so sure that all boomers fit the stereotype. But the ones that do steamrolled the rest of us into quiet grumbling decades ago, and have become the iconic face of our generation.
You just described my blue collar boomer parents to a tee!
Thanks, Kittykat. I'm a "young" boomer, and I get so tired of seeing everyone equate "boomer" with "stupid, entitled liberal." There is plenty of stupid entitlement that spans ALL generations...from teenagers who can't figure out what sex they are, to their Gen X parents who think anything less than a McMansion is a hovel, to the "silent generation" that thinks their medical doctors are gods. EVERY generation has stupid. Wish everyone would stop acting like boomers are the devil incarnate.
TBH, what is a "boomer"? A boomer can be a Woodstock Hippie or a 3-tours of Vietnam special forces dude.
Don’t take it personally. When trying to make sense of societal issues and to organize thoughts generalizations are helpful even though many don’t fit the stereotype. Still stereotypes are useful.
@LP- THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALL OF THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TY!!!
The “boomer hate” rampant through social media is yet another divisive psyop pile of poop for younger generations to step into. The social wars have always been about class, and anything else is a purposeful distraction. Just for the record, boomers near my age group, the draftable class (hint: low middle class, white, not PMC or ivy leagues) have forever burned into our brains the reality of war. Dying in a jungle was a real and present threat growing up, especially seeing our brothers, cousins, and friends coming back in body bags, or maimed, or psychologically damaged. I remember a family friend after his tour ended in 1971, a once fun loving kid, now with a vacant stare and a disturbing level alcohol consumption. As much as Nixon was despised, I am grateful that he ended that steaming pile of shit they called a “police action” AKA Vietnam war.
What’s been memory holed, is how “the greatest generation” AKA parents of the boomers, were all in on Vietnam, as they were still brainwashed into the patriotic ideals of defeating communism through war. Mothers, though, began to wake up when their sons arrived home in body bags. After Vietnam, younger boomers such as myself were submitted to a cornucopia of psyops such as shaming war protesters, eliminating creative and critical thought in college, and replacing psychedelics with dangerous and addictive drugs. The effects of all this were not felt immediately, yet changed much. War dissent was never to be allowed again. When Bush 2 declared “…this will not be another Vietnam…” what he meant was dissent would never be allowed, and he was right, and he went on to create another Vietnam. The PMC raised boomers were all in, the rest of us knew the truth.
I pray Trump stops the war machine for good.
be the first one on your block to have your son come home in a box . . .
i think you are totally right that boomer vs gen x, millenial, techy (or whatever) is just another way to divide us.
too bad it's so obviously working.
I’m a female boomer as well. I never bought into it. However, I see alot of damage being done. I have thoughts about why.
I mentioned my Son & discussed some. I don’t see a positive for bringing them ip here. I also see many young women involved in this.
I'm a boomer (just about to turn 70), and I'm appalled at my generation's newfound love of war. We marched against the Vietnam war as teenagers. What went wrong with us?
The ones that know better are the ones that were actually in combat theatre?
Being in Vietnam wasn’t necessary when your older brother, cousins and friends came home in body bags, or without limbs, or with that vacant stare, the message hit home hard. And being white, low middle class, we knew we were next, only saved by Nixon. Only the the boomer elites from blue cities, that were sheltered from the draft, think it’s fun to warmongering with the blood of others. A whole decade of music, written by boomers, spelled all this out. Sadly now forgotten.
Yeah. I know first hand. My dad was never the same. Half his platoon didn't make it back. He said the "tunneling running" was the most terrifying part about it.
So you're right; by extension those close to those in combat.
Or had the imagination and thoughtfulness and anti-authoritarian streak to eventually realize what it really was? My own trajectory is the opposite, from naively romantic hawk when young, to detester of imperialistic war at the other end of life, without benefit of personal war experience.
Completely anti-war since I learned of them. I’ll be 66 later this month.
They still don't realize that they've always just mindlessly Supported the Current Thing.
Thank Loki that Musk bought TwiXer. It's the only crack in their propaganda foundation. But it's been rooted out now.
It's hard to underestimate the massive debt of gratitude we owe to Musk for taking over Twitter and canning the censorship. It not only opened the floodgates to non-narrative points of view but made the Leftists look like complete fools for fighting against free speech.
Yes I think it’s more ‘current thing’ than supportive of war. They are given a narrative and their peers and employment enforce it. It’s rather totalitarian actually as everything becomes increasingly political. Not a good sign I think as power has concentrated and states have merged with trans national corporate power, everything, and everyone has become subsumed into the system.
exactly.
stupidity at scale becomes evil
100%
I’m not a Dick Cheney. Let’s remember Donald Trump is a boomer. Many of us boomers had brothers, boyfriends, cousins who went Viet Nam while the crazies protested the war. No we didn’t belong there, but the rest of us made the country go. In my mind those Viet Nam protestors were the same as the green and blue hair tattooed, pierced nose crazies waving the Ukraine and Palestinian flags. Uneducated about world history.
See my response above re: singling out boomers. You’re right- it isn’t fair. The divide is more about class and location than generations
Vietnam could've been worthwhile if we'd fought to win. It (or maybe Korea) was the origin of military adventurism with timid female lawyer-approved rules of engagement.
That said, the first rule of international relationships is "never volunteer to bail out the French".
Yup. Mike Benz lays it all out
Biden started the Ukraine war when he announced in December 2021 that Ukraine should join NATO. He knew better than to say that, so did RIce, Nuland, Blinken and every other fool he listened to. There were no wars with Trump 45.
He said publicly that he was okay with a Minor Incursion of Russia into The Ukraine.
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/20/1074466148/biden-russia-ukraine-minor-incursion
“so let’s keep that in mind. this country is only 34 years old.”
There is a reason why my knowledgeable European friends still refer to it as “The Ukraine”.
Because in their minds, and their superior knowledge (superior to the idiots that got us into this mess) of the history of the Eurasian landmass, ‘Ukraine’ is not a real country. And never has been. Not for 1000s of years. It’s a territory. Whose borders have been fought over and shifting. For 1000s of years.
Nothing has changed.
100%. Just lines drawn on a map with no meaningful demos.
"Stay within the lines. The lines are our friends."
Ukrainians are a real ethnicity, with their own language and culture. They want their own homeland, one independent from the Russians who deliberately starved to death millions of them less than a century ago.
to some extent, yes. but the lines that were drawn included a lot of ethnic russians who wound up not too keen on being in ukraine and were discriminated against heavily.
i also question just how much of a "homeland" they got vs a hyper corrupt oligarchic kelptocracy.
this is not a story with any real good guys in it as prime political movers. just victims.
Ukrainians got a two-fer: a homeland and a kleptocracy. Happens a lot in history.
They are horribly led, but that does not eliminate their sense of of independence.
Stalin did his level best to ethnically cleanse his lands after the war, pushing millions of people in boxcars to prevent the situation now occurring. Somehow, the Russians got.to stay in all the lands they conquered. Marty Made has a great podcast on the brutal aftermath of Communist takeover in E Europe. This is fresh in the minds of millions and is the reason for the hatred of Russia.
Just wanted to say great points, Doc.
Thanks, Rikard.
Yes. They give us false choices, which are just two sides of the same coin, but both end up with the results the overlords want
Precisely, gato. There are no "good guys' on either side. Period. Full stop. Ukraine simply became a breeding ground of corruption, money laundering, and a human and sex trafficking hellscape to name a few delightful activities.
el gato malo, making reference to your explanation of WWI setting the stage for WWII, ethnic Germans found themselves behind a new border, too, after the WWI debacle. That new line made them members of the newly-restored country of Poland.
Similar treatment befell those Germans as befell the Russians in Donbas and Luhansk. Hitler asked many times for the mistreatment and murdering of those Germans -- now "Polish" nationals -- to stop...
WWI and II history and Hitler’s evilness are not to be debated here. It is the only thing we are told that is true. Come on!!
I made no comment either way, MrsS. I merely pointed out a similarity of circumstances between the misfortune that befell ordinary Germans who found themselves in a new country after WWI and modern Ukrainians after the fall of the hellhole Soviet Union.
Do you know that I’m saying? IOW, do you know what happened to those German people after WWI and what happened to those Russians (of Donbas and Luhansk) who found themselves in a new country, Ukraine?
I am very aware. Sorry if my sarcasm didn’t come across properly. And I agree with your comment. We are not allowed to discuss Germans as having a reason for doing what they did. But it’s ok to discuss Ukraine. One is socially acceptable. One is not.
Yeah the OP makes a fair point, Ukranians are a real people as much as e.g. Poles, as much as the land of "Poland" has changed wildly due to the lack of natural borders and the big neighbors. But indeed the current borders are as arbitrary as (iirc) Kruschev transferring Donetsk and Luhansk to Ukraine (within USSR) as some internal politics thing
As the Balkans should have taught us, the only stable national borders are based on ethnicity and common culture. Internationalist midwits famously don't think that's a factor because every city they fly to has Starbucks, as per a unusually inspid media article several years ago.
I would accept correction, but I think that was Crimea. I've seen a map that indicated that the ethnic Russian parts in the east and south were globbed together with the Ukrainians of the west and center by Lenin around 1922, at the end of the Russian Civil War, as an administrative region. Crimea was added to that in 1954, under Khrushchev.
My bad, appreciated. Similar point then
Yes. No disagreement with the gist of your comment.
If you want to look at a mess that makes Ukraine (in Swedish, it's Ukraina so the issue of whether or not to add "the" doesn't come up) look easy, do a delve on the history of Moldavia.
It's a right horror-show and no mistake.
ain't sacrificing my boy for that
Me neither. Nor for Israel. Only the USA.
amen, John
Rus capital was Kiev. Not Moscow. Ukraine is not a territory. It had one of the first universities in Europe. Rich in farm land and minerals, it has been conquered many times. The culture is very different than Russian culture. The excellent propaganda machine has convinced "experts" that Ukrainian History is actually Russian. The west is ignorant and clueless.
“It’s honestly still not clear to me what they were trying to do”. ……From a Serbian POV it is crystal clear that this was a ‘rinse and repeat’ of what NATO and the west did throughout the 90’s in Yugoslavia when Russia was on its knees. It’s called Balkanization and there is plenty of money to be made on the way for those in the right positions. The steps were all laid out in advance. Provoke, sanction, colour revolution and carve up the spoils both financially and geographically. Simple plan, but sometimes…….’the best laid plans……..’.
What a complete shit show starting with NATO and years of encroachment on Russia...
Let's be for real... There aren't any "good" guys here except the ONE who is trying to stop all the killing and senseless deaths...
Excellent piece. You earned your catnip today!!
Cats don't earn catnip. Their people earn the right to give it to them. Unlike dogs, cats don't do work - they just have hobbies.
Some cats have vocations. One of mine treats his responsibility to hack up a hairball on the dog's bed at least once every 24 hours in the same way an 11th C. Gregorian monk would have treated the Divine Office.
Ah, Cat vespers.
Amen.
“so let’s keep that in mind. this country is only 34 years old.”
And most important, with respect to the history you mention, Ukraine has no demos, no monocultural society. Drawing lines on a map does not make a nation or a stable body politic. The examples from history are plenty. Multiculturalism and diversity is not strength, it is cause for conflict and war. There are numerous language a culture groups in Ukraine.
Zelensky talks about his people, Ukrainians, of whom about 20% are ethnic Russian and Russian speakers, yet he has banned the Russian language. Only a tyrant bans “his people” from speaking their language and practicing their religion by shutting down their churches.
Looking at the photo of him with the EU reptiles plus slithy tove Starmer, the phrase “ birds of a feather” springs to mind.
Zelensky who has banned political Parties, imprisoned political opponents, shut down all media except his own mouthpiece, is in good company with these warmongering, democracy and freedom lovers who suppress freedom of speech of their own citizens, , close down media outlets too “far right”, gaol people for speaking out, exclude political Parties with popular support because they are “far right”.
agree apart from your depiction of starmer which is an unjust insult to brillig and all others gyring and gimbling in the wabe.
starmer is just another chinless wonder british warmonger who has lost sight of how geopolitically irrelevant the UK has become and wants a foreign distraction from the the war they are losing at home.
More than 20% are Russian speakers including Zelensky himself. His commander in chief is Russian from Russia. Multiculturalism doesn’t explain the fall of Ukraine.
Ukraine was created as a Soviet Republic in 1923 by lines drawn on a map. It explains the conflict between the ethnic groups, particularly where minorities are mal-treated - read up about Yugoslavia another created State post-WWI around diverse cultural groups or if you like read about Austro-Hungary diverse cultural groups which lead to WWI when Serbia (and others) wanted independence, or British India when the British left in 1948. Multiculturalism = conflict and war… always.
There never was a US interest, And there never will be a US interest in the war in Ukraine. It is Wag the Dog Redux! Time to end it. Trumpies doing exactly the right thing.
Really? It has always been an US interest to destroy good relations between Germany and Russia, hence the destruction of Nordstream2 and the long project (since 1994) of provoking this war. Of course the complete stupidity, or even treachery, of today’s european leaders helped a lot.
The destruction of the natural relationship between the EU and Russia which would empower Europe once again to become a fearfull economic counterpart was the main reason to start this war.
This purpose accomplished Trump can wrap it up nicely now as Europe is in shambles and Russia’s trust destroyed.
From a C&C comment earlier today: ‘Trump is the only leader of the Western world who does not want to see anybody's children turned into dead meat just to make money for the people who'll never send their own kids to war.’
GREAT feature, thank you for your efforts. An entire generation of Ukrainian men are dead.
Pride comes before the fall .
They were protesting at a ski resort? Entitlement at its finest! Considering the cost of a daily lift ticket tends to be $100. Most can't afford that today. Why are they protesting and not skiing? Seems like a giant waste of time.
they can't ski. they are just there for the attenion
Exactly. Could imagine sitting between two of these types of people on a transatlantic flight?
I'd rather have Pete Buttigieg check out my Hemorrhoids.
whoaaaa
Lmao!
You, Sir, have a truly gruesome imagination.
I would volunteer to take them to the top of the mountain and give them a "ski lesson".
Ski-base jumping. Parachute optional.
very nice quote at the end. also important to remember that the US did not support Ukraine out of charity, and love of whatever weak democracy existed there. It was always done as investment in weakening Russia.
We have become a world of haters. "So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind." Ecc. 2:17 So many professing to be of the Faith absent the heart transplant necessary. Endless trainings for life's jobs and worldly endeavors. yet the handbook of true life disregarded. War will save us from our enemies, not in this life or the next. God's Word, His truths, His Spirit, the only real answer. "But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works." James 2:18 His Word is a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path. Be....in it.