There Is A Pattern Here: And Clinton - Despite Her Efforts - Only Served To Point It Out In Her Interview...,

I am insufficiently informed as to how the Russian internal economy works at this point to fully parse Hitlery's assertions.  But, even without that information it is possible to infer some things.

Resource economies are not unusual among developing nations, and Russia has had less than thirty years to date in order to redevelop and modernize its’ infrastructure. Why would anyone expect a fully industrialized economy without the financial basis upon which to build one? Perhaps those leftist economists have expected too much in the face of the kinds of sanctions regimes leveled upon them to prevent just such an economy as they are claiming he is unwilling to create? In light of the present situation, they may now be more forgiving of having invested in guns rather than butter. It is they, after all, who are possessed of hypersonic weapons that we have no defense from.

Investments of any sort are subject to a cost benefit analysis; industrialization costs money, and one might forgive them for declining what the IMF has to offer in view of what has been required of those who take them up on their loans in the past. That may have rendered full integration into the Western economy on their terms unwise in the face of the kinds of hostility that have faced them since the fall of the Soviet Union. Slower growth appears to have benefited them, and Putin appears to have tamed his oligarch problem in the process.

The Russian economy that evolved under Putin from the basket case that US shock therapy left is now sufficiently diversified to handle all of the shocks that the west has leveled upon it. That would imply that it is not being handled in such a way as to sow chaos and mine it for the benefit of oligarchs, as it was initially designed to do by Larry Summers’ Harvard boys. 

Present day Ukraine would be a perfect example of how that paradigm works out; Kolomoisky is clearly not a Putin, and it was not Russia that Bidens’, Kerrys’, Pelosi’s, Clinton’s and Romney’s kids were invested in. It sounded like Clinton was trying to make that case, but it has been her own cadre of political wrecking balls that have left the kinds of devastation which would normally result from such actions. If there is a “mean neighbor” out there trying to strip Ukraine of its’ assets, one might first look at the efforts made on behalf of Shell and Monsanto to do precisely that in 2014 rather than the Gazprom that has done yeoman’s work in stabilizing Russia’s foreign exchange.

“…just like boosting defense contractor revenues was not the primary reason for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.” 

It was a nice bonus, but Iraq, Libya, Iran and Venezuela were never in a position to eliminate the petro-dollar/reserve currency as handily as Russia presently is. Nevertheless, there appear to be a lot of bankers who have found other nations gold and foreign reserves to be irresistible. The proposed playbook WRT Russia appears to be identical. Russia has not featured the cast of characters that we routinely find pirating them away while they are common as dirt here in our own failing Monopoly board paradigm. 

The irony is that Hillary is like a broken clock in that clip.

First, one of the consistent critiques of the Putin regime by Russian leftists is that his government has spent the past twenty years or so transitioning to a so-called “semi-peripheral, resource-based” economy. That is – export lower-end goods, such as natural resources and low-processed materials, and import higher-end products. [E.g. export raw material for fertilizer, import finished fertilizer.] Then take the euro and dollar surplus thus received, and instead of investing it internally (as would have been done in the Soviet era) export it back to the West both as oligarchic wealth and as central bank deposits abroad, thus also creating a shortage of euros and dollars internally and artificially depressing the exchange rate (further inflating private fortunes – in rubles). Komolov has done multiple presentations and papers on this, and other left-wing or left-leaning economists have as well.

So in a sense, yes, the Putin regime, instead of building up the internal economy and industry, either dismantled it or let it go fallow so as to pour everything into this semi-peripheral scheme. But that was not a “failure” of policy – it was the policy, designed to benefit specific groups. Putin, thus, from the standpoint of the socio-economic elites that back him, has been an incredibly successful president. One might even call him the Russian Obama or some such, if framed in those terms.
This, incidentally, is exactly how a bourgeois republic of any kind is supposed to work, after adjusting for local nuances.

Secondly, she notes that “Putin now wants to take what Ukraine has”. Well, to be sure, when the war is finally over, or at least when the situation is stabilised, then yes, one would fully expect the oligarchs close to the government to engage in vigorous redistribution of formerly Ukrainian assets (land, port facilities, mines, whatever), not to mention in competing for fat reconstruction contracts. This was not the primary reason for going to war, of course, just like boosting defence contractor revenues was not the primary reason for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. But it is a nice bonus, and again, exactly the way imperialism (as in, highest form of capitalism) is supposed to function. Incidentally, she also very quickly elides when it comes to listing what is it exactly that Ukraine “has” that Putin “wants – because Ukraine, too, had downshifted into a peripheral-type resource-export economy over the past three decades, so essentially Russia is not getting any new industry or technology or whatnot; Russia is getting more of the same resources, plus an infusion of cheap labour, plus, of course, some security enhancements offset by countervailing nonsense happening elsewhere such as Finland wishing to join NATO.

[For fun, look up the length of the Finnish-Russian land border and then consider that this is the stretch that NATO will now have to “defend” against “Russian aggression”…]

Idiots Who Say 'I Stand With Ukraine' Don't Seem To Realise That Russia Does Too!

This is not about fascism or nazism or Galician nationalism, which all so many cynical ways to inflame grunts on the ground. From day 1 Ukraine has been the new Albania, a black state run by a huge interlocking global mafia. It was designed so, a place where a black market in girls, drugs, intelligence, guns, money laundering and electronic warfare could thrive and proliferate like a tumour inside Europe and Russia. The Russians wanted to clean it up. I bet most of the Ukrainians did too. 2014 was a mafia coup with eyes on land grabs in the East. The first Donbass war was fought against the foot soldiers of the capos.

A good friend of mine was caught up in a marriage scam in Kiev about a decade ago, two years before the coup. It was an utterly lawless town by his account and he was shocked to say he'd felt far safer in Lagos, Kinshasa or even Soweto. From the moment he arrived the taxi driver suggested a hired bodyguard/interpreter connected to various organisations in order to smooth his trip out. When he pulled the plug after 3 days goons paid him a scary visit at his hotel room after which he was lucky to make his way straight to the airport and camped there for 24hrs until his rescheduled flight. All up he forked over somewhere between $5-6K in payoffs. It made 1980s El Salvador look civilised. He later heard horror stories that might have been his story with a different ending.

Ukraine has to be taken and cleaned out because it is a collection of organised criminal fiefdoms. The empire needs it because it is a blackbox in Europe: nothing that goes in comes out, and nothing that comes out can be traced. One can only guess at the volume of untraceable goods and services that have flowed through there since 1992. I'd guess more than anywhere else in the last 200 years. That's a huge chunk of Ukraine's value to the West.

Imagine a cartel of organized criminals demanded protection payments from you. Imagine you were able to resist their depredations in collaboration with other locals similarly threatened. Now imagine that your government backed the criminals (because they were cartel shills) and you spent the next eight years terrorized by both your government and the cartel.

Now imagine the US, UK and Europe also backed the cartel against you. But Russia said 'enough'.

We shouldn't forget what happens to those who say 'enough' in the face of such coalitions. If anyone has seen the documentary 'Excellent Cadavers' (2005) you'll know what I mean. And I guess we can also simply point to the Kennedys and remind ourselves never again bring a knife to a gunfight. One must be like 'Robespierre L'Incorrutible' and mix virtue with terror.

Shutting Ukraine down is not an ethnic, political, ideological or territorial imperative, but a civilisational imperative. If it can be done there one can turn to the US/UK/EU and begin the real work. Russia is raining on the West's cosy black-ops parade in Ukraine where old-fashioned criminal scams are concealed under layers of misdirection ("hey let's put Nazi symbols on their uniforms, it'll keep everyone guessing and the skinheads we hired will dig it"). But there is something really archaic about it all: think about what Cicero disclosed about Verres' operation in Sicily in the 70s BC, or even before that how Italian tax-farmers were allowed to do what they like in the province of Asia—until the locals had enough and called in Mithridates. The scams are as old as the hills: slavery, theft, extortion, rackets, land-grabs, forced migration. The genius of the western psyop is to have its public smell shit and say its roses.

About the child-exploitation. That alone must be an immense operation with many dimensions—blackmail, extortion, laundering. But the suffering inflicted on thousands of girls is a crime without justice. Unless Russia can lay hands on the evidence. Wouldn't that be a dossier worth publishing online.

Russia Has Provided Full Online Disclosure Of Who In The US Government Funded Ukraine BioWeapons

"During a briefing on the findings of the Russian Defense Ministry’s investigation into the purportedly US-funded bioweapon labs in Ukraine, Chief of Russia’s Radioactive, Chemical, and Biological Protection Forces Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov made several statements:

• The special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces made it possible to stop criminal experiments on civilians of Ukraine;
• Ukraine is a training ground for the West for the development of biological weapons components and testing of new samples of pharmaceuticals;
   
• The Russian Ministry of Defense has information about the Pentagon's experiments on Ukrainian citizens in a psychiatric hospital near Kharkov;
   
• The United States tried to hide their participation in biological experiments on patients of a psychiatric hospital in Ukraine;
   
• Fake money distributed in 2020 in the LPR were infected with a strain of tuberculosis resistant to anti-tuberculosis drugs;
   
• Collection of biomaterials from Ukrainians by epidemiologists of a Bundeswehr Institute confirms the military focus of research in Ukraine;
   
• The information available to the Russian Defense Ministry confirms the implementation of the US offensive military biological program in Ukraine;
   
• The leaders of the Democratic Party are the ideologists of the US military-biological activities in Ukraine;
   
• Pfizer, Moderna, Merck and other pharmaceutical companies are involved in US military biological activities in Ukraine;
   
• Military biological projects on the territory of Ukraine, in addition to the United States, are being implemented by Germany and Poland;
   
• US specialists are testing new drugs bypassing international safety standards, reducing the cost of research;
   
• Ukrainian government agencies are involved in military biological activities in the country along with Pentagon contractors;
   
• At the end of April, ten more UAVs were found in the area of Kakhovka, equipped with containers and equipment for spraying biorecipes.
• Russian forces had obtained evidence suggesting Kiev attempted to infect residents of the Slavyanoserbsk district of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) with a highly pathogenic strain of tuberculosis in 2020.

“Leaflets made in the form of counterfeit banknotes were infected with the causative agent of tuberculosis and distributed among minors in the village of Stepovoe,” Kirillov said, adding that the organizers of this crime took into account the behavior of children, which includes “putting things in their mouth” and handling food without washing their hands.

"Kirillov stated that the results of the bacteriological studies confirmed the resistance of the isolated bacteria found on the leaflets to first and second line anti-TB drugs, which meant that the disease caused by them was much more difficult and expensive to treat.

"He went on to quote the conclusion of the Lugansk Republican Sanitary and Epidemiological station, which stated that “the infection of the banknotes was most likely artificial, since the material contains extremely dangerous strains of the pathogen in a concentration that can ensure infection and the development of the tuberculosis process.”

"Kirillov added that the LPR TB dispensary also noted signs of “deliberate, man-made contamination of leaflets with biomaterials of high pathogenicity.”

"Russian officials also claimed that the Pentagon had been allegedly conducting “inhumane” experiments on the patients of at least two psychiatric institutions in Kharkov. “The main category of experimental subjects was a group of male, highly physically exhausted patients aged between 40 to 60 years,” Kirillov said.

"The experiments were run directly by foreign specialists that had arrived in Ukraine through third-party nations to conceal the US’ involvement. The specialists were abruptly evacuated from the country earlier this year, shortly before the Russian military operation kicked off, Kirillov noted.

“In January 2022, the foreign citizens who conducted the experiments were urgently evacuated, and the equipment and drugs they used were taken to the western regions of Ukraine,” he said. "Last week, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, told RT that the service had “clearly identified” multiple Americans involved in the military biological research in Ukraine, including Pentagon employees, as well as companies closely associated with the US military. According to Russian estimates, Washington poured more than $224 million into biological research in the country between 2005 and early 2022, Bastrykin stated.

"US officials have confirmed the existence of “biological research facilities” in Ukraine, but said Washington only provided what they called “assistance” for efforts that did not involve the development of bioweapons..."

Have You Talked At Any Length With A Full-On Victim Of The Anti-Russian Hysteria?

thesaker  |  The U.S. and its NATO puppies cannot possibly come to grips with their perplexity when faced with a staggering loss: no more entitlement allowing exclusive geopolitical use of force to perpetuate “our values”. No more Full Spectrum Dominance.

The micro-picture is also clear. The U.S. Deep State is milking to Kingdom Come its planned Ukraine gambit to cloak a strategic attack on Russia. The “secret” was to force Moscow into an intra-Slav war in Ukraine to break Nord Stream 2 – and thus German reliance on Russian natural resources. That ends – at least for the foreseeable future – the prospect of a Bismarckian Russo-German connection that would ultimately cause the U.S. to lose control of the Eurasian landmass from the English Channel to the Pacific to an emerging China-Russia-Germany pact.

The American strategic gambit, so far, has worked wonders. But the battle is far from over. Psycho neo-con/neoliberalcon silos inside the Deep State consider Russia such a serious threat to the “rules-based international order” that they are ready to risk if not incur a “limited” nuclear war out of their gambit. What’s at stake is nothing less than the loss of Ruling the World by the Anglo-Saxons.

Alastair Crooke called my attention to a startling, original interpretation of what’s goin’ on, offered in Russian by a Serbian analyst, Prof. Slobodan Vladusic. His main thesis, in a nutshell: “Megalopolis hates Russia because it is not Megalopolis – it has not entered the sphere of anti-humanism and that is why it remains a civilization alternative. Hence Russophobia.”

Vladusic contends that the intra-Slav war in Ukraine is “a great catastrophe for Orthodox civilization” – mirroring my recent first attempt to open a serious debate on a Clash of Christianities.

Yet the major schism is not on religion but culture: “The key difference between the former West and today’s Megalopolis is that Megalopolis programmatically renounces the humanistic heritage of the West.”

So now “it is possible to erase not only the musical canon, but also the entire European humanistic heritage: the entire literature, fine arts, philosophy” because of a “trivialization of knowledge”. What’s left is an empty space, actually a cultural black hole, “filled by promoting terms such as ‘posthumanism’ and ‘transhumanism’.”

And here Vladusic gets to the heart of the matter: Russia fiercely opposes the Great Reset concocted by the “hackable”, self-described “elites” of Megalopolis.

Sergey Glazyev, now coordinating the draft of a new financial/monetary system by the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) in partnership with the Chinese, adapts Vladusic to the facts on the ground (here in Russian, here in an imperfect English translation).

Glazyev is way more blunt than in his meticulous economic analyses. While noting the Deep State’s aims of destroying the Russian world, Iran and block China, he stresses the U.S. “will not be able to win the global hybrid war”. A key reason is that the collective West has “put all independent countries in front of the need to find new global currency instruments, risk insurance mechanisms, restore the norms of international law and create their own economic security systems.”

So yes, this is Totalen Krieg, Total War – as Glazyev spells it out with no attenuation, and how Russia denounced it this week at the UN: “Russia needs to stand up to the United States and NATO in its confrontation, bringing it to its logical conclusion, so as not to be torn between them and China, which is irrevocably becoming the leader of the world economy.”

 

The Panicdemic Separated Nudgeable Softheaded Sheep From Rational Hardheaded Goats...,

naomiwolf  |  On driveway after driveway of the ex-Brooklynites, of the former weekend people — (and I confess that I too was once a weekend person, but something has happened to me in the last two years that has changed me even more than my change of home address) there were now Ukrainian flags. Not American flags. No one cared or even asked about the town halls being closed for the past two years. Tyranny overseas was more pressing than the rights that had been suspended just up the road.

Otherwise most things were almost back to normal! Almost pre-2020 normal!

The masks had recently come off. Hudson, New York, and Great Barrington, Massachusetts, the two cities nearest us, and also, by chance, both left-leaning, had also been two of the maskiest and most coercive of places when it came to pandemic policies and pandemic cultures. Now businesses were being allowed to reopen.

(I’d been fired from my Great Barrington synagogue because I’d dared to invite people over to my house at the depth of the pandemic — if they had wanted, as adults, affirmatively, to join me — to watch the Zoom Friday Evening Shabbat service together. Shocking behavior on my part, I know.)

As if a switch had been flicked, now the cruel moral judgments, the two-tier society, the mandates, the coercions, the nasty looks, the desperate masked children with their laboring breath, the loneliness, the desolate centrally-planned economies — had evaporated and were no more.

A memo from a political consultancy had gone out to the DNC, warning about how these policies spelled defeat in the midterms, and Pouf! — a whole retinue of “mandates” messaged as if they had been matters of life and death, a raft of Board of Health demands, a plethora of social strictures, and baroque instructions on how and when to discriminate against one’s fellow Americans — vanished, like the smoke from an unwelcome cigarette on a breezy veranda. An MSNBC commentator said, in a logical non sequitur, that now that vaccines were available for kids, in-person office life would resume.

Overnight, a new concern, a new moral signifier, was presented, wholly formed: and it involved a conflict area half a world away. Now, war is always bad and invasions are always cruel; but I could not help noticing that there are wars, refugees, invasions and conflict areas around the world, and that only this one — this one one — demanded the attentions of my irksomely cultish and uncritical former tribe. I could not help noticing that the dozens of devastated conflict areas and war zones being totally ignored by the ex-Brooklynites — from Ethiopia, where there have been 50,000 deaths since September, to Sri Lanka, with its catastrophic food shortages, to Mexico’s drug war, which has led to 300,000 deaths, to Afghanistan, where women are being rounded up and people are being shot in the street — do not involve white people who look like the ex-Brooklynites; and for various other reasons, are not attracting a lot of television cameras.

You’d think the ex-Brooklynites, with their expensive educations, would bear those complexities in mind.

But no; the ex-Brooklynites are so easily led, when it comes to anyone invoking their particular moral high ground.

When they are directed to pay attention to one conflict out of dozens, and ignore the rest, no matter how dire the rest may be, they do so. Just like, when they were instructed to present their bodies uncritically to an untried MRNA injection and to offer up the bodies of their minor children, they did so. When they were asked to shun and to discriminate against their blameless neighbors, they did so.

So the great apparatus of messaging about COVID was switched off, almost overnight, as the politics clearly soured and as Republicans consolidated an increasingly popular, multiracially inclusive, transpartisan-ly appealing freedom message; and the comms apparatus simply replaced the COVID drama with a new, equally gripping European-conflict drama.

Digital Choice Architectures Increase Behavioral Inefficiency

laidlawscholars  |   The internet has been appraised by economists for reducing search costs and increasing market efficiency. This article argues that economists should adopt a more critical view of digital markets because only a small part of the internet is easily accessible to consumers through search engines and this information is easy to be presented suggestively. The digital choice architecture is explored through the concept of digital nudges, which could be used to guide people to make better choices in digital environments.

Digital nudge is defined as an aspect of a digital choice architecture, which alters people’s decisions online in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing economic incentives. This is a similar definition to how Thaler and Sunstein (2008) defined the general nudge. Weinmann et al. (2016) define digital nudges as “the use of user-interface design elements to guide people’s behaviour in digital choice environments.”

The goal of a nudge is to help people to make better decisions. However, often the elements of choice architecture lead people to make worse decisions. This kind of use of choice architecture is defined as “sludge”. (Thaler, 2018)

More and more decisions are being made online and these decisions can be influenced by considering psychological principles when designing the digital choice architecture. An excellent example of the use of the scarcity effect (Cialdini, 2007) is a hotel booking website advertising that you are booking the last room available. Similarly, the same site might benefit from the social proof effect (Cialdini, 2007) by saying that ten people are looking at the same room as you. A streaming service might attempt to hook you into watching multiple episodes in a row by automatically starting the next episode, which is an example of cognitive ease. (Kahneman, 2011) A smartphone might send out a notification informing you about a personal situation at a mobile game to lure you in with a method similar to nudging by presentation. (Thornhill et al., 2019; Acquisti et al., 2017)

Creating a digital choice architecture, where the user ends up making biased decisions is relatively easy and cost-effective. Our literature review found multiple examples of well-functioning digital nudges which show how digital choice architecture can impact people’s decisions online.

According to economic theory, reduced search costs will lead to improved and more efficient competition because comparing prices is easier and more information is available. Electronic marketplaces have been appraised for reducing search costs. (Petersen et al., 2002; Bakos, 1997; Goldfarb & Tucker, 2019) More efficient competition is good for the consumers because they can receive the best possible prices, quantity, and service.

However, the downside of electronic marketplaces is that altering the digital choice architecture is relatively easy making it possible to sludge consumers into buying your company’s product. Even though consumers might have access to more information online, the way in which information is presented also matters a great deal.

 

Another issue is with search engines, which can only access a small part of the internet. Furthermore, consumers are likely to click on only the first results offered by search engines.

Digital nudges

Multiple ways of digital nudging have been proposed. Already in 2002 Mandel and Johnson found that even changing the colours or background photo of a website can prime people to make different choices online.

 

Search "Cass Sunstein" Here To Know The Origin Of The Disinformation Governance Board

 twitter  |  Interesting long thread from the Last Refuge

(1) The FBI is the codependent agency for Antifa.
(2) Homeland Security (DHS) is run by U.S. Intel agencies under the umbrella of the ODNI office.
(3) Nina Jankowicz works for U.S. Intelligence.
(4) "Disinformation" is information adverse to the interests of U.S. Intel.

(5) Big tech social media companies operate on joint access databases of the U.S. govt.
(6) As a result of #5, tech data processing costs are essentially subsidized.
(7) FB, Insta, YouTube, MS, Google, and all tech platforms operating on AWS are connected to intel.

(8) Twitter as a private company is adverse to this preestablished relationship.
(9) ODNI office as well as DHS, DOJ and FBI domestically have self-interest in blocking Musk.
(10) Starlink presents problem for pre-established ISP control nodes for internet traffic surveillance.

(11) Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) is well aware of this relationship between U.S. Intel and Social media.
(12) Current network of U.S. surveillance state is authorized by congress through SSCI notification.
(13) National Security shields prevent disclosure.

(14) Current surveillance system has been active for ten full years.
(15) Budget is hidden by using Ominibus and Continued Resolutions.
(16) Retaining opaque budgeting is why Congress stopped using ordinary budgetary processes.
(17) Last federal budget passed Fiscal Year 2008

(18) Expanded data processing and social media user metadata required massive expansion of data library.
(19) Funding for expansion delivered in federal infrastructure spending.
(20) Federal broadband expansion covered expenses for expanded server library and data processing.

(21) U.S. citizen data is all inclusive.
(22) Two-factor authentication sold under auspices of user security, was critical USIC developmental tool.
(23) U.S. Digital Identity database already exists.
(24) Database and geolocation used in J6 investigation is simple example of use.

(25) Current emphasis for future network expansion is facial recognition program to put it all together.
(26) China is approximately 5 years behind U.S. development of surveillance state.
(27) Huawei operation was/is to identify technology behind U.S. system and replicate.

It's Not Just Fauci: Power-Sunstein An AssClown Two-Fer That Doesn't Bode Well....,(REDUX from 3/8/21)

WaPo |  Almost all conversations about roadblocks Trump faces or opposition to his initiatives centered on what was perceived as the media’s biased portrayal of him and his administration, rather than on anything the Democrats were doing.

Republicans and conservatives have grumbled about unfair coverage from the “mainstream media” for decades. But the Trump era has brought us to a new plateau, one where the media has moved from adversarial to oppositional. Many observers, on both right and left, have come to see the media as the leader of the resistance.

If you care about journalism, it’s a disturbing trend. Many in the media would undoubtedly lay much of the blame on Trump’s “fake news” attacks. But peruse the pages or websites of most of our nation’s leading news providers, and it’s easy to understand why such a perception has taken hold, apart from Trump’s claims. 

Former Democratic president Jimmy Carter’s widely reported comments in Maureen Dowd’s recent New York Times column about the media’s coverage of Trump were a welcome acknowledgment of the obvious from someone other than a Trump loyalist. 

“I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about,” Carter said. “I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.” 

Out of curiosity, I checked the Democratic National Committee’s website this week. Some of the headlines were: “Trump abuses role as commander-in-chief in latest lie.” “Tom Perez on Trump’s executive order to sabotage Americans’ health care.” “Trump’s lapdog Pence must return wasted taxpayer dollars.” 

That’s what you would expect from the opposition party. The problem is, headlines accusing Trump of “sabotage,” “lies” and more are not uncommon from our major media outlets. That’s why I was curious whether the DNC was still bothering to employ a press staff when it has been made so redundant.

We're Witnessing the Implementation of Cass Sunstein's Vile Wet Dream...,(REDUX from 11/1/17)

WaPo |  Almost all conversations about roadblocks Trump faces or opposition to his initiatives centered on what was perceived as the media’s biased portrayal of him and his administration, rather than on anything the Democrats were doing.

Republicans and conservatives have grumbled about unfair coverage from the “mainstream media” for decades. But the Trump era has brought us to a new plateau, one where the media has moved from adversarial to oppositional. Many observers, on both right and left, have come to see the media as the leader of the resistance.

If you care about journalism, it’s a disturbing trend. Many in the media would undoubtedly lay much of the blame on Trump’s “fake news” attacks. But peruse the pages or websites of most of our nation’s leading news providers, and it’s easy to understand why such a perception has taken hold, apart from Trump’s claims. 

Former Democratic president Jimmy Carter’s widely reported comments in Maureen Dowd’s recent New York Times column about the media’s coverage of Trump were a welcome acknowledgment of the obvious from someone other than a Trump loyalist. 

“I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about,” Carter said. “I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.” 

Out of curiosity, I checked the Democratic National Committee’s website this week. Some of the headlines were: “Trump abuses role as commander-in-chief in latest lie.” “Tom Perez on Trump’s executive order to sabotage Americans’ health care.” “Trump’s lapdog Pence must return wasted taxpayer dollars.” 

That’s what you would expect from the opposition party. The problem is, headlines accusing Trump of “sabotage,” “lies” and more are not uncommon from our major media outlets. That’s why I was curious whether the DNC was still bothering to employ a press staff when it has been made so redundant.

Rule Of Law: Elite, Establishment Politics, Psyops, And Livestock Management Methods (REDUX from 5/13/15)

Kahneman |  Another scholar and friend whom I greatly admire, Cass Sunstein, disagrees sharply with Slovic’s stance on the different views of experts and citizens, and defends the role of experts as a bulwark against “populist” excesses. Sunstein is one of the foremost legal scholars in the United States, and shares with other leaders of his profession the attribute of intellectual fearlessness. He knows he can master any body of knowledge quickly and thoroughly, and he has mastered many, including both the psychology of judgment and choice and issues of regulation and risk policy. His view is that the existing system of regulation in the United States displays a very poor setting of priorities, which reflects reaction to public pressures more than careful objective analysis. He starts from the position that risk regulation and government intervention to reduce risks should be guided by rational weighting of costs and benefits, and that the natural units for this analysis are the number of lives saved (or perhaps the number of life-years saved, which gives more weight to saving the young) and the dollar cost to the economy. Poor regulation is wasteful of lives and money, both of which can be measured objectively. Sunstein has not been persuaded by Slovic’s argument that risk and its measurement is subjective. Many aspects of risk assessment are debatable, but he has faith in the objectivity that may be achieved by science, expertise, and careful deliberation.

Sunstein came to believe that biased reactions to risks are an important source of erratic and misplaced priorities in public policy. Lawmakers and regulators may be overly responsive to the irrational concerns of citizens, both because of political sensitivity and because they are prone to the same cognitive biases as other citizens.

Sunstein and a collaborator, the jurist Timur Kuran, invented a name for the mechanism through which biases flow into policy: the availability cascade. They comment that in the social context, “all heuristics are equal, but availability is more equal than the others.” They have in mind an expanded notion of the heuristic, in which availability provides a heuristic for judgments other than frequency. In particular, the importance of an idea is often judged by the fluency (and emotional charge) with which that idea comes to mind.

An availability cascade is a self-sustaining chain of events, which may start from media reports of a relatively minor event and lead up to public panic and large-scale government action. On some occasions, a media story about a risk catches the attention of a segment of the public, which becomes aroused and worried. This emotional reaction becomes a story in itself, prompting additional coverage in the media, which in turn produces greater concern and involvement. The cycle is sometimes sped along deliberately by “availability entrepreneurs,” individuals or organizations who work to ensure a continuous flow of worrying news. The danger is increasingly exaggerated as the media compete for attention-grabbing headlines. Scientists and others who try to dampen the increasing fear and revulsion attract little attention, most of it hostile: anyone who claims that the danger is overstated is suspected of association with a “heinous cover-up.” The issue becomes politically important because it is on everyone’s mind, and the response of the political system is guided by the intensity of public sentiment. The availability cascade has now reset priorities. Other risks, and other ways that resources could be applied for the public good, all have faded into the background.

cognitive infiltration (REDUX from 1/16/10)

SSRN | Many millions of people hold conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States. Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law. The first challenge is to understand the mechanisms by which conspiracy theories prosper; the second challenge is to understand how such theories might be undermined. Such theories typically spread as a result of identifiable cognitive blunders, operating in conjunction with informational and reputational influences. A distinctive feature of conspiracy theories is their self-sealing quality. Conspiracy theorists are not likely to be persuaded by an attempt to dispel their theories; they may even characterize that very attempt as further proof of the conspiracy. Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light. (Cass Sunstein is President Barack Obama's appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs)

Joe Biden Indisputably The Worst President In U.S. History

caitlinjohstone |  Antiwar libertarian hero Scott Horton has a viral tweet going around which reads simply, “Biden’s refusal to attempt to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine is the greatest scandal in American political history.”

Biden's refusal to attempt to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine is the greatest scandal in American political history.

— Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow) May 5, 2022

Kind of smacks you in the face, doesn’t it? I’ve never seen anyone put it quite like that before, but if you think about it, how could it not be true?

It’s just a simple fact that the Biden administration is actually hindering diplomatic efforts to negotiate an end to this war, and that it has refused to provide Ukraine with any kind of diplomatic negotiating power regarding the possible rollback of sanctions and other US measures to help secure peace. Washington’s top diplomats have consistently been conspicuously absent from any kind of dialogue with their counterparts in Moscow.

Statements from the administration in fact indicate that they expect this war to drag on for a long time, making it abundantly clear that a swift end to minimize the death and destruction is not just uninteresting but undesirable for the US empire. Ukrainian media report that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Zelensky on behalf of NATO powers that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not.”

And this isn’t just another war. This is a proxy war being waged by one of the world’s two top nuclear forces against the world’s other top nuclear force. This is more serious than Iraq. It is more serious than Vietnam. It is more serious than any US war that has happened in the lifetime of anyone likely to be reading these words, because Russia has increasingly valid reasons to believe its very existence as a nation is being threatened. This is therefore a war that could very easily result in the death of everyone on earth.

The US Secretary of “Defense” has openly said that America’s goal is to “weaken” Russia in this war. Biden himself has made statements which can only be interpreted as calls for regime change in Moscow. US officials have been leaking to the press claims that US intelligence has directly facilitated the killing of Russian generals and the sinking of a Russian war ship.

The imperial political/media class are not even denying that this is a US proxy war anymore. In an alarmingly rapid pivot from the mass media’s earlier position that calling this a proxy war is merely an “accusation” promoted solely by Russia, we’re now seeing the use of that term becoming more and more common in authorized news outlets. The New Yorker came right out and declared that the US is in “a full proxy war with Russia” the other day, and US congressman Seth Moulton recently told Fox News that the US is at war with Russia through a proxy.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got to realize we’re at war, and we’re not just at war to support the Ukrainians,” Moulton said. “We’re fundamentally at war, although it’s somewhat through proxy, with Russia. And it’s important that we win.”

 

Leadership Comparison: Russian vs. NATO Leadership In Ukraine

stratpol  |  Response to Mr. Myard, on the United States / Russia confrontation in Ukraine.

If a good part of your analysis on the risks of the Ukrainian conflict getting out of hand seems correct to me, I come back to the sentence: “The information provided by the Americans was decisive in countering the Russian advance, of which the army proved incapable. to adapt, due to outdated military concepts.”

Former "Situation-Intelligence-Electronic Warfare" Chief of the Joint Operational Planning Staff, I do not at all share this part of the analysis which is based on an inaccurate "situation assessment" which is, in fact, the conclusion from a biased Atlanticist position, aimed at making the Ukrainians believe that Russia is weak, in order to push Ukraine to resist until the end and let it envisage, with Western help, a victory. Here is my argument:

Until proven otherwise, Russia has not declared a partial and even less general mobilization of its forces to carry out this “special operation”. As part of Operation Z, it has so far used only 12% of its soldiers (professionals or volunteers), 10% of its fighter planes, 7% of its tanks, 5% of its missiles and 4% of its artillery. Everyone will observe that the behavior of the Western ruling elites is, until now, much more feverish and hysterical, than the behavior of the Russian governance, calmer, more placid, more determined, more sure and master of itself, of his action and his speech. These are facts.

Russia has therefore not made use of its immense reserves (reserves which hardly exist any more in the EU). She has more than a week's worth of ammunition as she demonstrates every day in the field. We are not so lucky in the West where the shortage of ammunition, the obsolescence of major equipment, their insufficient maintenance, their low DTO (Technical Operational Availability), the absence of reserves, the lack of training of personnel , the sample nature of modern equipment and many other elements do not allow us to seriously consider, today, a military victory for NATO against Russia. This is the reason why we are content with an “economic” war, hoping to weaken the Russian bear.

Let's come to the quality of the military leadership of the Russian side and compare it to that of the “Western coalition”.

On February 24, the Russians urgently embarked on a pre-emptive “special operation”, preceding by a few days an assault by kyiv forces against the Donbass.

This operation was special because most of the ground operations were going to take place in a sister country and in areas where a large part of the population was not hostile to Russia (Donbass). It was therefore not a classic high-intensity operation against an irreducible enemy, it was an operation in which the technique of the Russian steamroller, crushing the opposing forces, infrastructures and populations by the artillery (as in Germany during the ^2nd World War) was impossible to envisage. This operation was special because it was more, in the Donbass, an operation to liberate a friendly population, hostage of the Ukro-Nazi reprisal battalions, and martyred for 8 years ., an operation in which civilian populations and infrastructure were to be spared as much as possible.

This operation was therefore truly special and particularly difficult to conduct, always bearing in mind the contradictory requirements of obtaining victory by advancing and occupying the ground, while sparing the population and the civilian infrastructure and the lives of its own soldiers.

In addition, this operation has been carried out, so far, in numerical inferiority (nearly one against two), while the ratio of forces on the ground required in offensive is 3 against 1, and even 5 against 1 in zone urbanized. The Kievan forces have also perfectly understood the interest of entrenching themselves in the cities and of using the Russian-speaking and Russophile civilian populations as a human shield...

I observe that, on the ground, the Russian forces continue to advance, day after day, slowly but surely against a Ukrainian army which has achieved its general mobilization, which is aided by the West, and which is supposed to fight for his land...

Question the quality of Russian leadership, engaged in a very complex military operation, conducted in numerical inferiority, in which everything must be done to avoid excessive collateral damage. seems to me to be a huge error of assessment. We also all too often lend to the Russians, in the West, war intentions or aims that they never had, just to be able to say that these objectives have not been achieved.

It is true that NATO has never bothered with scruples to crush under the bombs the civilian populations of the countries it attacked (often under false pretexts), to force these countries to ask for mercy. (Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.). More than a million NATO bombs have been dropped since 1990 on the planet, causing the direct or indirect death of several million individuals in the most total indifference of Western public opinion.

Before coming to the examination of the Western leadership, for comparison with the Russian leadership, let us note that NATO took 78 days of bombardment and 38,000 aerial sorties to force little Serbia to ask for an armistice. Remember that Serbia is 8 times smaller than Ukraine and 6 times less populated, and that it was attacked by NATO, without a UN mandate, in a balance of power of more than ten to one. Has anyone in the West wondered then about the quality of NATO's leadership, which took 78 days to defeat its Serbian adversary with such a balance of power? Has anyone questioned the legality of this action launched under a false pretext (false Racak massacre) and without a UN mandate?

Ukrainians In The Russian Meat Grinder: Attack, Dig-In, Then DIE...,

readingjunkie | Here’s the thing, as correctly observed by CNN, the Ukrainian strategy of holing up in densely populated cities and using human shields is very effective. There is also enough passive and sometimes even active loyalty from the civilian population for this strategy to work without significant backlash. So why are Ukrainians suddenly doing the opposite? Why not get out of the kill zone in the Donets basin and retreat to more defensible positions? Furthermore, why is the West enabling this strategy by funneling billions of dollars of equipment into a meat grinder where most of it is just destroyed immediately? Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to retreat, even if this means abandoning their equipment?

Refusing to capitulate to Russia is morally indefensible, but from a pragmatic point of view, it would make sense, if there was a chance of the situation improving. If the Ukrainian army were to escape from Donbass, that would presumably give the Zelensky government more bargaining power at the negotiation table. But instead they’re sitting in their fortifications and being destroyed wholesale.

Without artillery support in good quantity the Ukrainian military has no chance to hold the line and to stop Russian moves. Any unit which attempts is hold the line will simply be mauled by Russian artillery until it is no longer able to fight. That is happening now. As the Ukrainians have orders not to leave or move their defense lines they either have to give up or die defending them.

By giving ‘hold the line’ orders the Ukrainian leadership is contributing to the Russian demilitarization of the Ukraine.

It is the ‘west’ that is preventing Zelensky from suing for peace.

The ‘west’ has fallen for its own propaganda. It believes that the Russian troops near Kiev were defeated by Ukrainian forces. In reality they retreated in good order after the diversion they constituted was no longer needed. The ‘western’ fairytale that they were ‘defeated’ gave hope that Russia could be ‘weakened’, as the U.S. Secretary of State said.

The war will hardly ‘weaken’ Russia. But the war will destroy the Ukrainian military and many, many of its men.

So no matter which way you look at this situation, it seems unsustainable, both for Ukraine and for NATO. While the writers at Moon of Alabama are probably correct that there is downward pressure on Kiev to keep their forces committed in Donbass, there is another possible explanation. Here’s my theory on what is happening.

Russia is using their contract soldiers, and spent years rotating them all through large-scale training exercises, including the exercise they just finished in February. Thanks to this, they rolled into this war with a warm start, as opposed to a cold one. They can perform adequately on a strategic and operational level. Tactical inadequacies in the face of a real-life enemy could be quickly corrected.

As for the Ukrainian side, it looks like they are a NATO-quality force rebuilt from the ground up after their serious failures in 2014-15. As individuals and small units, they can hold their own against their Russian and often win, especially with the added advantage of being on the defensive. The problem is that so far they have never demonstrated the ability to push back Russian forces and retake ground. And no, recapturing terrain that the enemy voluntarily abandoned doesn’t count. Ukrainians recapturing suburbs around Kiev was a victory in the same sense as water filling a bowl. Wars are won by shaping the battlefield to your advantage and forcing the enemy to conform to it. Flowing into channels the enemy created for you is the opposite of winning.

Eight years was enough time to build a huge army almost from scratch, but it was not enough time to properly train them to function at anything higher than a battalion level, and I think we are seeing that deficiency play out in Donbass. In previous months they couldn’t maneuver to exploit Russian mistakes and tactical defeats, and now they can’t maneuver to escape destruction. Aside from losing a huge number of their vehicles, they don’t have the doctrine and cohesion to move 40-100 thousand men to safety.

The logistical complexity of uprooting and moving that many people is enormous and there is also the morale factor. Standing your ground is one thing, but if these soldiers moved westward in a clear retreat, there would be an overwhelming urge to desert and go home, and that’s what many of them would probably do.

Ukrainians can’t capitulate, they can’t retreat, so all they can do is stay where they are and die. Rather than conserve their resources, Kiev is doing the opposite and sending a continuous stream of additional men and equipment to be destroyed in the Donbass pocket.

Elvira Nabiullina: Even Russia's Central Bank Chief Is Vastly Superior To Ours The Feds

NYTimes |  For the second time in less than a decade, Elvira Nabiullina is steering Russia’s economy through treacherous waters.

In 2014, facing a collapsing ruble and soaring inflation after barely a year as head of the Central Bank of Russia, Ms. Nabiullina forced the institution into the modern era of economic policymaking by sharply raising interest rates. The politically risky move slowed the economy, tamed soaring prices and won her an international reputation as a tough decision maker.

In the world of central bankers, among technocrats tasked with keeping prices under control and financial systems stable, Ms. Nabiullina became a rising star for using orthodox policies to manage an unruly economy often tethered to the price of oil. In 2015, she was named Central Bank Governor of the Year by Euromoney magazine. Three years later, Christine Lagarde, then the head of the International Monetary Fund, effused that Ms. Nabiullina could make “central banking sing.”

Now it falls to Ms. Nabiullina to steer Russia’s economy through a deep recession, and to keep its financial system, cut off from much of the rest of the world, intact. The challenge follows years she spent strengthening Russia’s financial defenses against the kind of powerful sanctions that have been wielded in response to President Vladimir V. Putin’s geopolitical aggression.

She has guided the extraordinary rebound of Russia’s currency, which lost a quarter of its value within days of the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. The central bank took aggressive measures to stop large sums of money from leaving the country, arresting a panic in markets and halting a potential run on the banking system.

In late April, Russia’s Parliament confirmed Ms. Nabiullina, 58, for five more years as chairwoman after Mr. Putin nominated her to serve a third term.

“She’s an important beacon of stability for Russia’s financial system,” said Elina Ribakova, the deputy chief economist of the Institute of International Finance, an industry group in Washington. “Her reappointment has symbolic value.”

Cleaning up the banks

Besides her record on monetary policy, Ms. Nabiullina has drawn praise for pursuing a thorough cleanup of the banking industry. In her first five years at the bank, she revoked about 400 banking licenses — essentially closing a third of Russia’s banks — in an effort to cull weak institutions that were making what she termed “dubious transactions.”

It was considered a brave crusade: In 2006, a central bank official who had started a vigorous campaign to close banks suspected of money laundering was assassinated.

“Fighting corruption in the banking sector is a job for very courageous people,” said Sergei Guriev, a Russian economist who left the country in 2013 and is now a professor at Sciences Po in Paris. He called her program flawed, though, because it was largely limited to private banks. This created a moral hazard problem that left state-owned banks feeling comfortable taking on lots of risk with the protection of the government, he said.

Ms. Nabiullina’s integrity has never been questioned, added Mr. Guriev, who said he had known her for 15 years. “She’s never been suspected of any corruption.”

 

Speaking Of Russian Transcripts - Today's Victory Parade

kremlin.ru  |  Comment Summary: Our Cause Is Just. Everything else is merely conversation...,

The parade was reviewed by Defence Minister, Army General Sergei Shoigu. The commander of the parade was Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Army General Oleg Salyukov.

The parade featured 11,000 servicemembers and 131 pieces of military equipment.

The column marching through Red Square comprised 33 parade units of officers, sergeants and soldiers of all branches of the Armed Forces, personnel of other security, defence and law enforcement agencies, cadets and students of military academies, Young Army members and Cossacks. The parade column of female servicemembers included cadets of six military educational institutions this year: the Military University, the Military Academy of Communications, the Military Logistics Academy, the Military-Space Academy, the Military Air and Space Defence Academy, and the Military Academy of Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Protection (NBC Protection Military Academy).

The mechanised column, headed by the legendary Т-34–85 Victory Tank, featured Taifun-K, Taifun-VDV and Tigr-M armoured vehicles, BMP-2 Berezhok, BMP-3 and Kurganets-25 infantry fighting vehicles, T-72B3M, Т-90М Proryv and the latest Т-14 Armata tanks, Tornado-G rocket systems, Iskander-M operational tactical missile systems, S-400 Triumf, Buk-M3 and Tor-M2 air defence systems, and Yars strategic systems driving over the cobblestone paving of Red Square. Uran-9 strike robots were carried on truck beds.

* * *

Address by the President of Russia at the military parade

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Fellow Russian citizens,

Dear veterans,

Comrade soldiers and seamen, sergeants and sergeant majors, midshipmen and warrant officers,

Comrade officers, generals and admirals,

I congratulate you on the Day of Great Victory!

The defence of our Motherland when its destiny was at stake has always been sacred. It was the feeling of true patriotism that Minin and Pozharsky’s militia stood up for the Fatherland, soldiers went on the offensive at the Borodino Field and fought the enemy outside Moscow and Leningrad, Kiev and Minsk, Stalingrad and Kursk, Sevastopol and Kharkov.

Today, as in the past, you are fighting for our people in Donbass, for the security of our Motherland, for Russia.

May 9, 1945 has been enshrined in world history forever as a triumph of the united Soviet people, its cohesion and spiritual power, an unparalleled feat on the front lines and on the home front.

Victory Day is intimately dear to all of us. There is no family in Russia that was not burnt by the Great Patriotic War. Its memory never fades. On this day, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the heroes march in an endless flow of the Immortal Regiment. They carry photos of their family members, the fallen soldiers who remained young forever, and the veterans who are already gone.

We take pride in the unconquered courageous generation of the victors, we are proud of being their successors, and it is our duty to preserve the memory of those who defeated Nazism and entrusted us with being vigilant and doing everything to thwart the horror of another global war.

Therefore, despite all controversies in international relations, Russia has always advocated the establishment of an equal and indivisible security system which is critically needed for the entire international community.

Last December we proposed signing a treaty on security guarantees. Russia urged the West to hold an honest dialogue in search for meaningful and compromising solutions, and to take account of each other’s interests. All in vain. NATO countries did not want to heed us, which means they had totally different plans. And we saw it.

Another punitive operation in Donbass, an invasion of our historic lands, including Crimea, was openly in the making. Kiev declared that it could attain nuclear weapons. The NATO bloc launched an active military build-up on the territories adjacent to us.

Thus, an absolutely unacceptable threat to us was steadily being created right on our borders. There was every indication that a clash with neo-Nazis and Banderites backed by the United States and their minions was unavoidable.

Let me repeat, we saw the military infrastructure being built up, hundreds of foreign advisors starting work, and regular supplies of cutting-edge weaponry being delivered from NATO countries. The threat grew every day.

Russia launched a pre-emptive strike at the aggression. It was a forced, timely and the only correct decision. A decision by a sovereign, strong and independent country.

The United States began claiming their exceptionalism, particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, thus denigrating not just the entire world but also their satellites, who have to pretend not to see anything, and to obediently put up with it.

But we are a different country. Russia has a different character. We will never give up our love for our Motherland, our faith and traditional values, our ancestors’ customs and respect for all peoples and cultures.

Meanwhile, the West seems to be set to cancel these millennia-old values. Such moral degradation underlies the cynical falsifications of World War II history, escalating Russophobia, praising traitors, mocking their victims’ memory and crossing out the courage of those who won the Victory through suffering.

We are aware that US veterans who wanted to come to the parade in Moscow were actually forbidden to do so. But I want them to know: We are proud of your deeds and your contribution to our common Victory.

We honour all soldiers of the allied armies – the Americans, the English, the French, Resistance fighters, brave soldiers and partisans in China – all those who defeated Nazism and militarism.

Comrades,

Donbass militia alongside with the Russian Army are fighting on their land today, where princes Svyatoslav and Vladimir Monomakh’s retainers, solders under the command of Rumyantsev and Potemkin, Suvorov and Brusilov crushed their enemies, where Great Patriotic War heroes Nikolai Vatutin, Sidor Kovpak and Lyudmila Pavlichenko stood to the end.

I am addressing our Armed Forces and Donbass militia. You are fighting for our Motherland, its future, so that nobody forgets the lessons of World War II, so that there is no place in the world for torturers, death squads and Nazis.

Today, we bow our heads to the sacred memory of all those who lost their lives in the Great Patriotic War, the memories of the sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, grandfathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, relatives and friends.

We bow our heads to the memory of the Odessa martyrs who were burned alive in the House of Trade Unions in May 2014, to the memory of the old people, women and children of Donbass who were killed in atrocious and barbaric shelling by neo-Nazis. We bow our heads to our fighting comrades who died a brave death in the righteous battle – for Russia.

I declare a minute of silence.

(A minute of silence.)

The loss of each officer and soldier is painful for all of us and an irretrievable loss for the families and friends. The government, regional authorities, enterprises and public organisations will do everything to wrap such families in care and help them. Special support will be given to the children of the killed and wounded comrades-in-arms. The Presidential Executive Order to this effect was signed today.

I wish a speedy recovery to the wounded soldiers and officers, and I thank doctors, paramedics, nurses and staff of military hospitals for their selfless work. Our deepest gratitude goes to you for saving each life, oftentimes sparing no thought for yourselves under shelling on the frontlines.

Comrades,

Soldiers and officers from many regions of our enormous Motherland, including those who arrived straight from Donbass, from the combat area, are standing now shoulder-to-shoulder here, on Red Square.

We remember how Russia’s enemies tried to use international terrorist gangs against us, how they tried to seed inter-ethnic and religious strife so as to weaken us from within and divide us. They failed completely.

Today, our warriors of different ethnicities are fighting together, shielding each other from bullets and shrapnel like brothers.

This is where the power of Russia lies, a great invincible power of our united multi-ethnic nation.

You are defending today what your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought for. The wellbeing and security of their Motherland was their top priority in life. Loyalty to our Fatherland is the main value and a reliable foundation of Russia’s independence for us, their successors, too.

Those who crushed Nazism during the Great Patriotic War showed us an example of heroism for all ages. This is the generation of victors, and we will always look up to them.

Glory to our heroic Armed Forces!

For Russia! For Victory!

Hooray!

Four Hundred Pound Plus Preachers In Purple Support The Ukraine War Machine

BAR  |   On April 4, 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave one of the most significant speeches of his career. In “Beyond Vietnam - Time to Break Silence ” King declared his unequivocal opposition to the war in Vietnam. His very public break with Lyndon Johnson was greeted with derision, including from his own allies, who believed that the president was an ally who should not be attacked. The NAACP board passed a resolution calling King’s statement a “serious tactical mistake” that would neither “serve the cause of civil rights nor of peace.” The media joined in the condemnation, with the New York Times characterizing his comments as “facile” and “slander.” Even Black newspapers such as The Pittsburgh Courier judged his remarks to be “tragically misleading.”

It is important to remember this speech in which he declared that the United States was “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” There are individuals and organizations who routinely claim King’s mantle until they fall prey to the war propaganda promoted by the present day purveyors of violence.

The Rev. Dr. William Barber is sadly one such person. In an April 30, 2022 email on the subject Moral Clarity About Our Own Atrocities he made many specious arguments on the issue of war as it pertains to U.S. policy in Ukraine.

“To see the butchery at Bucha or the massacre at Mariupol and do nothing would be to forfeit any claim to moral authority. We know this instinctively. It is why, despite the political gridlock on Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats have acted swiftly to approve historic military aid to Ukraine. In the face of such a moral imperative, it would be anathema for either party to ask, “How are we going to pay for it?”

There is no independent investigation of what the Biden administration and corporate media label as “massacres.” No one who claims to act in the interests of humanity should praise the historic levels of military aid to Ukraine, an oligarchic kleptocracy under U.S. control which depends upon military and police support from openly neo-Nazi formations. So blatant are the connections that in past years members of congress have moved to ensure that these groups are denied U.S. aid .

Furthermore, Rev. Barber ought to know that questions of funding for domestic needs must always be raised. Joe Biden is requesting $33 billion in aid to Ukraine, which means money for the military industrial complex, after ending stimulus payments and other support for struggling people in this country. Barber opens his email with the story of a woman who lost children in her care to a child welfare agency after the termination of the child tax credit program plunged her into poverty. It is disturbing to see Barber’s attempt to have it both ways, demanding help for the poor while also supporting the system that keeps them in their condition.

The child tax credit which kept families afloat disappeared, along with enhanced unemployment benefits, anti-eviction protection, and free covid related treatments to the uninsured. The much vaunted Build Back Better bill is dead and Biden seems uninterested in resurrecting it. It is reasonable to ask the Biden administration for a monetary accounting  and for an explanation of how their actions led to a humanitarian disaster for the Ukrainian people, mass theft from Americans’ public resources, and a risk of hot war with the Russian Federation.

Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign are preparing for a  Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls taking place on June 18, 2022. His ill conceived email was meant to bring attention to this event but instead he brought attention to the deep connections that liberal politics has with right wing forces. Barber is not alone in his capitulation as members of congress who claim to be progressive march in lock step with imperialism and austerity which create suffering in this country and around the world.