Ukraine Thing

 So that Ukraine Thing continues to fester like a huge open sore that can't heal. It shouldn't have happened to begin with, and once it did, it should have been quickly closed and heavy doses of antiseptic applied, but that's not what we're getting. Just the opposite, mostly. Let's see how much bigger the wound can get, eh?

Sure. Why not? Our rulers must be bored with themselves.

I've said here and in other fora that Russia has their reasons for the invasion of Ukraine and for going Grozny on the neo-Nazi resistance thereunto. I don't like what the Russians did and are doing, and I think they should stop and leave. But that's not going to happen as long as Ukies (oh dear, insults so soon?) are being supplied and re-supplied by the USandNato with mercenaries and materiel to keep the conflict going indefinitely -- and with an increasingly bloodthirsty urge to take the battle all the way to Moscow, burn the Kremlin and hang Putin no matter the risks or consequences to the whole wide world.

Whoever is running this thing, if anyone, doesn't care what happens to the rest of us. Certainly they don't care about the Ukrainians, so many of whom have fled the country so as not to "get caught in the crossfire."

I read a statistic that the population of Ukraine had fallen some 30% since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and with the advent of the war, another 20-25% had fled, many of whom will not be returning but will scatter and serve as a boost to the declining population of the rest of White Europe. Oh what a tangled web is woven.

It may be that Ukraine is headed to extinction as a viable state. In some ways it goes with the long-term depopulation of the American Heartland. It drives me nuts that so many of the hot-shot observers of American politics have no idea at all what's going on outside their fancy urban and suburban bubbles and could even begin to hypothesize that "rural America" elected Trump. Then do the diner tour to "prove" (ha) what they already believed. 

People. There simply aren't enough people in "rural America" (definition lacking) to elect anyone to national office, let alone a President. I believe the statistic now is that the population is 89% urban and 10% and change "rural." They think the election of 2016 was "so close."No it wasn't. Hillary won the popular vote in a veritable landslide, but she lost the election because of the Electoral College which awards votes by state. By this means, "rural America" won the presidency for Trump. But even that's not true. No, it wasn't "rural America." It was largely a matter of suburban votes for Trump and voter suppression in places like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. But so what?

The point is that Rural America is largely depopulated, and depopulation seems to be the prime objective of the Ukraine War -- on both sides. The Ukrainian state ceases to exist except as an appendage to one or the other Sides. The Ukrainian people are left to flounder, suffer, and be exploited no matter who marches in the Victory Day Parade -- if there is one.

The risk of course is that this whole Thing is gonna blow up. It's getting very close, and it looks like the double-dog daring  stage has been reached, and half the world is on tenterhooks wondering how much longer it will be before the Nukes start flying.

Our Rulers clearly want that outcome. 

They are playing a very, very sick game.

And there's not a good gottdammed thing we can do about it.

Deplorable.

Lost Horizons

I thought I'd just drop this here.  

 James Hilton condensed a conversation between Connolly and the High Lama (about the war to come) in his novel Lost Horizon, 1933, and put it in the Preface to the 1936 edition: 

"It will be such a storm as the world has not seen before. There will be no safety by arms,, no help from authority, no answer in science. It will rage till every flower of culture is trampled, and all human things are leveled in a vast chaos... The Dark Ages that are to come will cover the whole world in a single pall; there will be neither escape nor sanctuary, save such as are too secret to be found or too humble to be noticed ..."

 

How much happier one would be to dismiss all this as thoroughly out-of-date, than to admit, as one must, that in 1936 it has become more terrifyingly up-to-date than ever! 

 

The War to Come did come, of course, soon enough, and it was worse, much worse, than the previous world war, and yet most people survived, most of "civilization" endured, most of the ruins were cleared, most of the earth recovered more or less well, and we carried on. Hilton's vision was shared by many others at the time. They knew or sensed that the Great War had concluded nothing, that another round of the fight would be coming, and no matter the efforts to forestall it, the world would be plunged into darkness for the duration yet again. 

And here we are again on the precipice of darkness, chaos and annihilation of civilization. Many of us share the vision of absent future, destroyed by the vanities of the powerful and not very clever few who rule over us. They cannot seem to stop themselves. War-fever and bloodlust have spread so widely now that I don't see any way for the ruling classes to back away from the brink. 

Let's hope they do, but how many people hoped the same in 1914, 1939, and on and on and on. Only occasionally -- and almost accidentally -- did wiser heads prevail. This time around, I'm not seeing any wiser heads atop the rulers.

How Close Are We to Nuclear Annihilation?

I'm seeing more and more commentary opining that we are well and truly into WWIII, the War some were claiming Hillary was going to start with her no-fly zone suggestion over Syria c. 2016.

She explained, perhaps inartfully, that a no-fly zone over Syria would only happen via negotiation with Russia, and she was not proposing a unilateral declaration. But of course, as is the way with political campaigns, her clarification was ignored, as was, interestingly, Trump's proposal for a refugee "safety-zone" -- essentially a no-fly zone by another name. Oh well, water under the bridge.

The point, I think, about Hillary was that she was belligerent toward Russia. Trump was anything but.

Anti-Russia belligerence was part of US government foreign policy from way back, at least tracing to the depths of the Cold War, intensifying rather remarkably during the Obama regime. It was painfully obvious that Obama and Putin did not get along, but why was never entirely clear. At times it seemed like there was a deep seated racist component, one I may have noticed and written about at the time but I'm too lazy to look it up right now. 

For what it's worth, there has long been a foreign policy outline that involves the dismemberment of the Russian Federation -- already much smaller and weaker than the Soviet Union -- and essentially remaking the parts into Western satrapies for easy exploitation and control. Russia has resources, after all, and according to our rulers or those who rule our rulers, those resources are "ours."

An independent Russia must be destroyed. 

China would be next.

This plan goes back decades, and you can bet the Kremlin has been well aware of it. 

It wasn't implemented -- at least not fully -- because Russia is armed with nuclear weapons and was believed to be skilled and ready to use them if the Motherland was existentially threatened.

Well here we are.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February was quite a surprise to practically everyone. Many simply didn't think Putin was that stupid. Even Zelensky and his backers in Kiev didn't think it would happen, and when it did, they were caught on the back foot. That's putting it mildly.

I said at the outset that either Kiev would capitulate quickly, or Russia would "go Grozny" on their asses. Grozny is the Chechen capital that was leveled and its defenders annihilated by Russia in two Chechen Wars in the '90s. Tens of thousands are said to have perished. 

Kiev did not capitulate but become even more belligerent as the invasion proceeded. There is considerable evidence that Russia has experienced significant losses while inflicting considerable damage on Ukrainian targets. Large parts of several cities have been reduced to ruin, mullions have been displaced -- about 10% of the population has become refugees in other parts of Europe -- and in essence, the Ukrainian economy, which wasn't much to begin with except for the looting by Ukrainian oligarchs, has ground to a halt.

Nuclear saber rattling has been going on since the outset of the invasion; threats from Moscow, retaliatory threats from the US and Nato. 

Of course those of us who remember the history of Cold War saber rattling are aware that we came very close to nuclear war with the Soviet Union several times during the era, and the whole routine of preparing for and (possibly) surviving if the button should be pushed was part of conditioning the population "just in case." I still have a Civil Defense pamphlet, "Surviving Nuclear War," and there are a couple of old radios around the place with CONELRAD emblems ("tune to 640 or 1240 on your AM radio dial for news and information in the event of an emergency..."). Together with Duck and Cover drills, air raid siren tests, and the location of public shelters and the building of backyard shelters this was what people of a Certain Age lived with for decades of their childhood and adolescence. 

I remember calculating how far from likely Bomb targets I lived, and it was never more than a few miles. 

Most of that conditioning faded as the Cold War ended -- or we thought it did. 

The various invasions and attacks since 2001, however, revived some of the terrifying images of the past, and the relentless marches to war the US and Nato have engaged in against enemies real and imagined, far and near have been deeply troubling to many of us.

Why this constant drumbeat of War and More War?

And why war against Russia?

Of course, it's been the Plan All Along. One day it had to happen. 

And here it is.

So how close are we to nuclear annihilation? I'd say very.

The war in Europe is creeping beyond Ukraine, and there are growing calls for Ukraine to attack and march to Moscow, burn the Kremlin, hang Putin, blah, blah, blah. It's not likely, but war-fever does strange things to people, and there is some intense war-fever among certain political interests. Ukraine and Zelensky are way over the edge. Bloodlust seems to be their sole animating force these days.

As they say, this can't end well.

We live considerably farther from likely targets now, so there's that, but the prevailing winds will still blow, and we are still downwind. Oh well!

No is no perceptible anti-war/anti-nuke movement today. I think people are just weary of... everything. The pandemic, increasing precarity, inflation, war and rumors of war, climate catastrophe. There seems no end to it all, and no escape either. 

So what's to be done? 

I've said that the nuclear trigger won't necessarily be pulled by either the US and Nato or by Russia. There are other nuclear players in the world, and some of them are getting antsy. If, say, Israel or North Korea (among other players) decide the time is ripe to rock and roll with nukes, how will the major players respond? 

We think of ourselves as the center of the Universe, but things can happen at the margins (the butterfly effect) that can change everything in a twinkling. The US and Nato are playing with fire and gasoline in their proxy war with Russia in the Ukraine, but something might well happen elsewhere that could trigger a global war of annihilation that would actually result in a longed for (by some) population drop. And then...?

This roller coaster ride we've been on may be nearing the end. 

OK

So the Ukraine Thing is becoming very strange, turning inside out. Just what is going on, we don't know, partly because there is almost no non-narrative based on the ground reporting, no livestreaming, no embeds, no honesty, either. 

It's all propaganda, every bit of it, at least up to now. This is the ninth-tenth-thirteenth-fourteenth day since the Russian incursion. We've seen the same building blow up again and again, the same satellite still image of the same long-long convoy stalled outside Kiev/Kyiv, the same crying woman in the subway, the same neonatal unit in the bomb shelter, the same hospital bombed to smithereens, the same pregnant woman carried away from the ruins... well, it's the same over and over.

Now we're told that the assault on the nuclear plant wasn't quite what we were told before. The reactors were never in danger, there was no radiation leakage, the Ukrainian staff is still on the job, the Russians are in control of the plant, nothing to see here, move along. 

And so on. Again and again, "Move along."

One thing I've made note of repeatedly is that Putin's grievances have some basis in fact, and yet that does not justify an invasion. USandNato propaganda insists there is no basis for Russian grievances. No Nazis, no genocide, no oppression of Russian speakers, and furthermore Ukraine has always existed, and Ukrainians and Russians are totally different people. This is absurd.

Ukraine is a democracy dagnabbit! 

Uh. No.

But let's get some clarity, ok? If our rulers actually believe the bullshit they're spewing, then we've got to come to grips with some things and we better do it quick. I think it was DW that did one of the more interesting "fact checks" on Putin's grievances, declaring them all "false" and yet in the little explanations, admitting they were all at least partly true.

Let's see if I can find it.

Ja, here we go.  

First grievance and objective: "Denazify" Ukraine.

DW declares it "false" because someone in Sweden said that Zelensky is Jewish and was elected by an overwhelming majority (true)... therefore.... what? There are no nazis in the government and military of Ukraine?

Wellllllll, not exactly.

The entire propaganda apparatus in the USandNato uses the formula that because Zelensky is Jewish and was elected by an overwhelming majority, Putin's complaint about Ukrainian nazis is bogus.

Let's see what DW says further about it, tho: "there are far-right groups..." and during the Euromaidan uprising "individual far right groups" (whatever that means) were involved, but today, far-right groups like the notorious Azov Battalion are integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard, so.... what? Not nazis now? Or what? 

And while there have been scandals regarding the far-right in the Ukrainian military they were exposed, So... so...? Again, they admit a basis for the complaint but deny its validity because "Zelensky is Jewish."

This is absurd, but oh well. Let's go on.

Complaint: Nato troops advancing toward Russia's borders. Is this true? DW says it's "misleading" and then admits it is true, getting more true every day, only it's not in formation, so what's the problem, eh?  Ukraine is not (or was not) being admitted to Nato despite all the alliances, bases, and training with Nato that were in place and expanding prior to the Russian invasion. It wasn't just Ukraine. Oh no. 14 formerly Warsaw Pact countries have joined Nato, four of them bordering Russia, and they all have Nato troops and ordnance on their borders. 

Complaint: Russia must defend itself from Nato aggression and the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk under the UN Charter chapter 7 article 51.

This gets tricky. Russia launched a preventive war which UN charter allows under very limited circumstances which Russia has invoked but Nato denies. Russia claims that Nato activities and troops on its borders are a provocation and a threat; Nato's activities in Ukraine were explicitly a threat to Russia, and the Zelensky government made other explicit threats (including reacquiring nuclear weapons) which precipitated action by Russia against Ukraine.

This argument is essentially the same one the USandNato used against Afghanistan and Iraq, the first with UN concurrence, the second without. Does this constitute "justification?" Well, obviously, if the USandNato does it, yes. If Russia or any other nation (except Israel) does it, no.

Complaint: Genocide by Ukrainian nazis against Russian and Russian speaking civilians. Again, tricky. "Genocide" has a very specific definition in international law, and what the Ukrainian civil government, armed forces and militias have been doing since 2014 technically fits that definition, though the scale of "genocide" in Ukraine is debatable. And it is genocide against Russians and Russian speakers within the borders of Ukraine. Indeed, since the start of the Russian incursion, it's only gotten worse, with rumors of nazi-ish death squads activated to liquidate pesky-Ruskies who've not fled to Russia or the Donbas already.

There is no genocide according to DW because there haven't been any documented "mass killings" of Russians and Russian speakers -- despite the fact that there have been -- and even if there weren't, "genocide" is not at all limited to Babi Yar type mass executions of many thousands at one go or to Auschwitz type extermination camps. Of course DW -- and all the rest of Western propaganda media -- knows this, but what they know doesn't matter when the truth is to be masked no matter what in service to a narrative.

And that narrative says that Russia's behavior is bad -- it is. That narrative says that Ukraine's behavior is above reproach -- it isn't. That narrative claims that the USandNato are doing their utmost on behalf of enabling Ukraine to defend itself without going directly against Russia -- debatable. And that Ukraine and the USandNato have never, ever done anything to antagonize the Russian bear -- demonstrably false.

I've been an anti-war activist since Vietnam, and I'm not about to change my stripes now. I have no brief for any side in this conflict. They're all wrong and they're all doing wrong in a very dangerous Guns of August - Missiles of October manner for which there is no excuse, none. Our ruling classes are out of their minds, following urges that date back very far but which are invalid in the current circumstance. In fact, there are so many far more important things they should be dealing with but utterly refuse to. They want war and they will have it come what may.

We the rabble have no choice in the matter.

Welcome to Eternity.

The Russian Invasion of the Ukraine -- or Something

I'm just catching up with some of the overnight news on matters Russian and Ukrainian. No, I really didn't expect what I've been seeing, and what I'm seeing is not (quite) the "all out invasion" that has been predicted in Washington, London, and Brussels for months. It's something else. A sort of Russian net thrown over the Ukrainian Republic (as it came to be styled in Soviet times) to be reeled in -- or not -- at leisure. In other words, it seems the Kremlin/Putin is seeking to control Ukraine from afar, but not to possess its rotten hulk.

Hmm.

Putin's recapitulation of Russian/Ukrainian historical connections seems pretty accurate to me. Revisionism is strong in the West, and the assumption of long time Ukrainian full "independence" from Russia is simply absurd. There never was such a time. Russia and Ukraine are so intimately intertwined historically that it is all but impossible to disconnect them. 

But the Kagan clan (including that Horrible Nuland Person) at State (and similarly minded colleagues in London and Brussels) together with a passel of NGOs (some funded by Pierre Omidyar) and a vicious cohort of Ukrainian Nazis (I mean the real thing) and fascists have been hard at work trying to do just that. 

Why?

For the Horrible Nuland Person, it seems to be very deeply personal. I don't know what the deal with her is. She has Ukrainian Jewish ancestry, and I can well imagine that her Russophobia comes from ancestors who faced pogroms during the fading days of the Russian Empire, but... damn all. Hooking up with actual Ukrainian Nazis to de-Russify the Ukraine? It doesn't make sense. The pogroms were horrifying, but the Ukrainian Nazis were loading Jews into the transport trains when they weren't machine gunning them on the spot. These people exterminated Ukrainian Jews in great numbers and way too recently to be "forgiven." 

The Russians in their Soviet garb did not. If anything, they were much rougher on the Orthodox Church; something not happening now.

It was pointed out in some post I saw recently that much of the current Ukrainian oligarchy and government including Zelensky is Jewish, and in effect, the Nazis and fascist militias and security forces have been operating to protect them and on their orders. Turn about? I don't know.

So whatever the Kagans and the Horrible Nuland Person are doing, it isn't (quite) out of an implacable historical need for revenge for things done to Jews in Ukraine and Russia. It's something else, something even darker. But I don't know what.

The Vindman Twins (also Ukrainian Jews) might have some insight, but they've been holding it close to their chests. I think they know what is going on and pretty much why, but for whatever reason, they stay pretty quiet about it. They are as anti-Russian as the Kagans, though not so belligerent.

Both Ukraine and Russia are effectively captive to oligarchs who managed to steal everything of value as the Soviet Union collapsed. They hold on to their ill-gotten gains very tightly. It is my (limited) understanding that though Ukrainian oligarchs and Russian oligarchs are rivals, they are also interrelated, and both sets of oligarchs launder their money in the US and Britain and elsewhere, and they are deeply tied into the Western looting and finance economy (and the Trumps as well as -- apparently -- the Bidens). In other words, they're all kleptocrats, and for some unknown reason (at least to me) they all expect to profit handsomely from this war, if war it is.

I won't say it's a Phony War, but it was really unexpected by me. I thought Putin was smarter than this. Russia and the United States and Nato do not need a physical (what do they call it? "Kinetic"?) conflict right now. There are too many other pressing crises. Or....? Are the other pressing crises the reason for this diversion? Is it a diversion?

Russia, Ukraine, Europe and North America (US and Canada) are all facing crises that could conceivably lead to disintegration. The underlying crisis is irreversible climate change forcing huge population and economic disruptions that can't be stopped or avoided. We long ago passed the tipping point, and there's no way out now. The West and Russia have not taken these matters seriously -- at least not for most of their populations. On the other hand, China among others in the East is taking it seriously and has been taking mitigation actions. 

Putin was mighty angry as he announced his intentions the other day. Mighty, mighty angry. He had his reasons, but still. What is this really all about at bottom?

One thing it obviously is is "catapulting the propaganda." The messaging war may be the most important factor. Detaching or reintegrating Ukraine from/to Russia seems the least of the interests. Who can tell the most compelling story, create the most believable narrative seems to be the underlying motivation. The Western version strikes me as simply revisionism,  but isn't Russia's story revanchist,? Are they tussling over territory or is it legitimacy? Or both?

I wish it weren't happening. There are too many other things that need to be addressed. Our political leadership chooses not to address those things and instead has decided that "warfare" is the most important thing. They're mad, quite mad. And that goes for Vladimir Vladimirovich as well. They need to back off, sit down and shut up.

Twenty Years On

I was going through old papers, burning the ones that didn't need saving -- meaning most of them -- and one that was kind of striking was the receipt from the Executive Hotel Pacific in Seattle for a five day stay, 9/10/2001 - 9/14/2001. The total was just over $600, whatever the Government rate was (I think it was $105 in Seattle at the time). The hotel is across the street from the Central Library and my room (on the 5th floor?) faced the construction site. The old library was being demolished in preparation to construct the new gleaming one that stands on the site today. I remember waking up to the sound of what I thought was a pile driver and a wailing siren. It was just about 6am.

I washed up and kept hearing the siren and pile driver. I remember looking out the window at the construction site. Didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The morning was a little bit foggy. I turned on the teevee, and the news on every channel running news was showing the burning World Trade Center Tower, the hairdos and makeup jobs expressing puzzlement, most seeming to think it was an accident that probably involved a small private plane. And then a large, four engine jet, probably a commercial airliner, appeared out of nowhere on the screen and struck the second tower. I think the talking heads were talking with the camera on them when this happened. It may or may not have been split screen. I'm not sure now. 

But suddenly, the talking heads seemed to realize what was happening was no accident. They were still puzzled. But two planes into two towers was no coincidence. Their ear pieces were were no doubt filled with chatter from producers and floor directors and such. I watched for a while, switching channels, and just after 7:00am, I called the office to find out what the plan for the day would be. "Come in," I was told. "We'll do what we can."

What that was, who knew?

I continued watching the news until shortly after the Pentagon was hit, and then I walked to the office a few blocks away.

What we did was watch the news on the big screen and try to get direction from HQ in DC. They initially said continue with our original schedule. I was conducting training classes, so that's what I was to do for the interim. The class was a disaster. Half the students didn't show up, and those that did couldn't concentrate, so we broke up and went into the meeting room to watch the news on the big screen. Everyone was sent home early, the class told to return in the morning to pick up where we left off. 

Surprisingly, or maybe not, we were able to complete the training the following day, and I spent the next two days in Seattle strategizing ways to get home (no commercial flights, remember?) and helping out with office things when I could. Everyone was in a daze, uncomprehending really. No one that I was aware of was in a rage of bloodlust determined to go war-rampaging in the Middle East. The news was on the big screen, but we only watched occasionally. Nobody actually knew what was going on or what would happen, and HQ in DC was not at all communicative. 

Finally, I was able to rent a car from Alamo and a colleague and I loaded up and headed south. Took two days. We were practically silent the whole way, in shock. Much shaking of heads at the news on the car radio. "This will not turn out well." No, no it won't. And no it didn't. One tragic thing has led to another and to many, many others since. 

I applaud getting out of Afghanistan -- even when Trump announced it. It was the right thing to do, as I believed sincerely that going into Afghanistan on the side of myriad murderous warlords was wrong. Afghanistan was not the cause of the 9/11/2001 attacks, and it wouldn't be the cause of the Endless Wars our rulers decided to conduct. Afghanistan wasn't even a side-show to all of that and yet it bled like any other war-theatre, and hundreds of thousands of Afghans died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time or they wore the wrong kind of clothes or the war-gamers in Florida wanted/needed a kill for the win. It was a foolish goon show that did nothing at all to lift either Afghanistan or the US or perhaps especially Nato from the mire of neo-imperialism.

It's supposedly "over". We'll see.

I left government service in 2009, fed up with the increasing insanity within. That's what I saw. A creeping but unstoppable insanity that was consuming government and those who served. It became worse, much worse, upon the election of Barack Obama, and that's when I became convinced I had to get out. I know many of my colleagues saw the same trends, and many got out before I did. Some died. 

On the internet we discuss how Bad this or that Leader is, how deeply antithetical Government is to the wants and needs of The People -- however we define that mass -- and how grotesque the Government is and has been, yada-yada, world without end. 

It's team sports. It's a game. Nothing fundamental ever changes. We may rail and argue constantly, but how many have any intent to change anything for the better or even understand there may be something better to change to? We coulda. We shoulda. We didn't.

So here we are.

Biden is providing a pause to the general insanity of Government, but the overall trend remains the same. The continuing hysterics over the withdrawal from Afghanistan shows how deeply compromised and corrupted the so-called "defense" industry and almost all the media has become -- or maybe they always were. To me, it's most stark on BBC where there appears to be a neo-imperial cult in charge, and where nothing at all is ever permitted to counter the Official Narrative that Afghanistan was Wonderful under the rule of the Imperial Powers/USA, and everything has gone to shit under the Taliban, though sotto voce, you might hear something like (shh, it's the way most Afghans want it....shhhh). 

Getting out was a matter of my own sanity. Getting as far away as I prudently could was part of that. And then one day the Madness came silently up behind me and thwacked me solidly on the head. I still have a divot in my brow-ridge where that tomahawk (come on!) hit me. That was a reminder that I'm not that far away from it at all. It can come up behind us at any time and Thwack! 

Twenty years on, everything is different, but nothing really has changed. 

Moar War, War Fever, Scandal! Scandal! Scandal!

What a freaking mess. What have we done to deserve this? [I'm sure the many targeted peoples under the bombs raining down on them from the Empire Above wonder the same damn thing...]

Views from Damascus overnight resemble Baghdad on Shock n Awe night so many years ago. Remember? I don't know anymore whether people do. There's been so much misery, mayhem and bloodshed Over There, it's hard to keep track, isn't it?

The proximate cause of the latest "coalition" air strikes (primarily from off shore missile launches) of yet another Middle Eastern city is the supposed use of prohibited chemical weapons against a rebel stronghold in the suburbs of Damascus.

Whether it actually happened and who did it if it did is subject of some dispute. There are statements that it didn't happen at all. There are statements that it was staged. There are statements that it was done by outside forces. There are statements that it was done by the rebels themselves... Yadda, yadda.

None of us is in a position to know. Whether our military and civilian rulers know much more than we do is a mystery. All we can say with any certainty is that the protagonists of these wars and rebellions tend to be dissemblers.

The launching of retaliatory missiles is essentially de rigeur these days. It's what's done to show the non-compliant who's the boss. It hasn't worked very well with the Assad regime, and it doesn't seem to quell rebellions either. It's just a Thing. Blowing shit up is the way things are done by the Empire and by the Rebel Alliance. Sometimes I think they cause misery for the fun of it.

So they just blow things up. People are in the way, oh well!

Jeepus, I hate this. I was going round and round about the Stephon Clark Thing in Sacramento. My point was that I just want the killing to stop, and he didn't quite get it. Huh? Whut?

The killing. To. Stop.

We seem to be locked into this situation where killing is the number one option when things go sideways or there's a perception of a threat of some sort. When police kill, they're just taking their cue from our Dauntless Leaders. Killing is their Go To solution to practically everything. They're no too bright are they?

Meanwhile the White House (and many other prominent elements of society) are enveloped in one scandal after another. I don't think we've ever had a mobbed up gangster sitting on the throne, but we do now, and our institutions have no idea how to deal with it/him. He's been hamstrung in various ways, but that's not sufficient. He uses what powers he has remaining for making much mischief and propping up his frail ego. This is hardly presidential, but I don't think it much matters any more.

The presidency itself has long since been diminished by various unfortunate and unpleasant occupants and their scandals, deceptions, and military adventures. It's close to time for something else again.

The Ruling Class seems happy to have the Rabble wallowing in it. Distraction? Sure. Entertainment? Yep. A masque?

The downward spiral seems inescapable.

And yet, there must be hope somewhere.

Bombs Away!

Idiot Trumpists continue to believe that they have slain the dragon once and for all. The Dynasties --- Bush and Clinton -- have been consigned to the dustbin of history so all is well, a new day dawns and joy will reign forever and ever, amen. Unless you're a Clintonite, in which case may every torment and evil descend upon you and your evil spawn forever and ever.

Amen.

We're led to believe that this weekend will mark the Big Man's showdown with the Evil North Koreans who will be annihilated -- whether or not they provoke their own demise. We're told that large portions of Pyongnang and Seoul have been evacuated, "just in case" this is the Big One. We're told that the Mother of All Bombs was dropped on some remote cave complex (shades of Bin Laden) in Afghanistan by Himself's Army -- on their own account, not ordered by either the White House or the Winter Palace. Thus, so the theory is starting to go,Our Own General Turgidson could actually set in motion an irreversible nuclear launch with no call back provisions. General Jack D. Ripper will claim it is to protect his precious bodily fluids, and the US Government, such as it is, will rule the ruins from its various bunkers around country and the world.

Only 20 or 30 million Americans may be lost in the hostilities, but oh well. They can be replaced, right?

Now what this looks like -- appearances can be deceiving of course -- is that the Generals have taken over US foreign affairs and look to produce results (ie: "get the job done") through intimidation, violence and/or annihilation of any and all designated foes. All of the current wars have been ramped up, and more are starting, with death and destruction on an geometrically increasing path. This is supposed to tame the natives by teaching them a lesson they will never forget.

Yes, well. That always works out, doesn't it?

The State Department is being dismantled -- or so it seems -- and the current SoS is limited to keeping up appearances -- but he actually doesn't do anything.

The Three Letter Agencies that spy on all of us everywhere around the world, and some of which conduct "operations" against various foes at home and abroad, appear to have had their wings clipped somewhat in favor of the higher ranks of the military.

As for Trump himself, he appears to have been neutered. Once he turned over power to the Generals, that was it. They don't care what he thinks (assuming...) and they don't care what he says. A great big FU to the (former) Powers That Be.

At one time, a military coup wasn't considered out of the question to deal with the increasingly crazy-making and faltering domestic government. Well, it looks like the coup has taken place with regard to foreign adventures and it may be exercising more and more domestic power as well -- hard to say what with the chaos in Washington and Palm Beach.

Chaos, however, will not be allowed to persist. Trump and his cronies haven't demonstrated that they can control it. They create it, after all. Ergo, intervention is likely -- even as Trump tries to meet the requirements of "presidenting."

I think Trump would be just as happy turning over the government to the military. His happiest time seems to have been when he was in military school (graduated 1964, the year "Dr. Strangelove" was released). He could do anything, and they'd let him.

Now, as an old man, that experience may well be informing his actions as President. Only to find that like the New York Military Academy (now owned by Chinese) what he thinks is his freedom to do what he will...isn't.

Ah well...

What have we done to deserve this?

WAR!

Yesterday marked the hundredth anniversary of the US entry into World War I, a transformative exercise to say the least.

So what does El Caudillo do? He authorizes a missile strike on a Syrian airbase while at dinner with China's Xi Jinping at the Winter Palace in Florida. Hm. Who'd a thunk?

This is supposed to be the Peace-Maker, Deal-Maker God-Emperor who will keep the US out of Syria, make nice with the Russians and preserve, protect and defend us from that horrid warmonger Hag who was just itching to engage in nuclear annihilation with Putin.

Clintons, Obamacrats, and all they represented delenda est! 

Of course it was all fantasy and bullshit, but what the hell. We saw our politics fall through the looking glass a long time ago, and there seems to be no way back. Fantasy and bullshit rule for the duration. Make the most of it.

I pointed out a long time ago that there was never much difference in the policies of Clinton vs Trump on most matters. Their rhetoric tended to emphasize differences, but when you drilled down, their policies were close, in some cases identical. Where they differed was in implementation -- whether radical and harsh (as Trump wanted)  or incremental and "softer" (as Hillary seemed to want -- it was never clear with her.)

So here we are now with Trump executing Hillary's Syria policies without a qualm, a near 180° turn around from statements out of the Regime just days ago.

Of course, things change. Assad (once again) "gassed his own people." The way he does. Ergo, something had to be done. After all, such monstrousness cannot be allowed to stand!

Never mind that Assad may not have intended any such thing, but in WAR!!! strange things happen.

Never mind the hundreds of civilians (including "beautiful babies") slaughtered in Mosul by an American air attack the other day. "Collateral damage, too bad, so sad."

Gotta root out them terrrisss.

Ya.

It's all stupid -- much as WWI was -- and follows a course of events that cannot be controlled.

We should know that by now.

And even Caudillos and God-Emperors cannot make events conform to desires.

They say the cable news nets are wetting themselves with delight over WAR!!! frenzy. Not surprising. It is their stock in trade. They enjoy slaughter for its own sake, for the ratings boost, for the patriotism of it all.

But no.

This won't end well.

Any more than WWI did.

What a whirled.

Pondering the Paris Thing

The attacks in Paris happened while Ms Ché and I were at a literary event which was part of the Fall Open House at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe where she is a student in the Creative Writing program. She was reading her poetry along with a number of other BFA and MFA student writers, and afterwards, we went out to dinner and yakked and had a great time and had no idea that anything untoward had happened in Paris until we got home some hours later and I saw something on the Intertubes about more than 100 dead due to terrorist attacks. I pulled up France24 English service, but the news reports weren't really helpful to understand what had happened, and the visuals showed literally nothing more than dozens of emergency personnel standing or milling around. Over and over again, the same shots of emergency personnel standing around.

Yet over 100 were dead due to explosions and gunfire at six locations throughout Paris. At first, I thought they meant there were attacks in 6 cities in France, but I realized they were all in Paris. One of the explosions happened at a McDonalds across the street from the Stade Francais where Franscois Hollande was attending a soccer game. Oh my. That seemed to be the feature story on the news, and truthfully, I was perplexed by the whole thing.

Most of the dead and injured were at a concert venue. The rest were scattered around in various neighborhoods. France was now "at war." What would France do to retaliate? All or almost all of the perpetrators of the attacks were said to have been killed, either at their own hand (suicide bombs?) or by police gunfire (cf: Charlie Hebdo summary executions), so who exactly was France "at war" with?

Ah, and then there was the matter of the borders and all those Syrian (and Iraqi and Afghani) refugees pouring into France and the rest of Europe as the Middle East descends into yet another level of Hell.

Yes, the answer would be, as it must be, "Keep them out!"

Yes, of course, that's what this was really about, wasn't it? Keeping the refugees (migrants as they are known) out of France, ultimately out of Europe. And of course out of the USofA. This is a clash of civilizations, isn't it? The Crusades redux. Or delayed revenge for the Crusades and centuries of colonial exploitation and oppression.

Or something.

So "we are at war." Again. Or Forever?

In revenge for the attacks in Paris, France launched aerial bombing sorties into Syria. Sounds like a plan, no? Tubthumpers throughout the Western World (once known as The Free World, right?) went through their tried and true xenophobic and vengeance routines, and the masses were induced to yet another level of fear of the Other, yet more outpourings of grief, yet more candles lit in honor of the dead, more lights in tricolor bathing buildings everywhere. "We are all Parisians!" "Vive la France!" "Paris Strong!"

It's become a ritual. Whenever terror strikes candles are lit, masses of people gather to mourn, buildings are bathed in colored lights, vengeance attacks are launched on targets far away, politicians posture, and yet more of what passes for "liberty" is taken away from the masses.

Security becomes the watchword and the most important thing. But security how and for whom? To do what?

The Western government response to terror attacks seems highly ritualized since the aftermath of 9/11, and it seems to be always the same -- domestic political posturing, limitations on or eliminations of liberties and freedoms for ordinary people, police crackdowns at home and vengeance attacks ("war") abroad.  The result is always more terror attacks which kick start the cycle once more.

This ritual cycle seems to be universal. Almost like there's a manual of instructions issued to every Western government that says, "this is what must be done" when there is a terror attack by those swarthy foreigners of Muslim extraction.

But wait. There have been terror attacks in Western countries for as long as I've been alive, and until 9/11, they were not responded to this way. Far from it. Military response was almost unheard of. What a waste of resource, right? Governments did not make "war" against terrorists, the idea would be considered insane. Large scale rebellions -- such as that in Northern Ireland -- might have a quasi-military response. But even then, the idea of "total war" against Irish rebels (for example) would have been seen as madness.

Because it was madness.

And yet, since 9/11, such madness has ruled judgement in Western capitals. A terror attack (by Muslims) must be responded to in a certain ritual fashion and no other. Subsequent terror attacks are guaranteed. In fact, nothing is really done to prevent them. The response seems to always lead to the creation of more instability in Moslem countries, more civil war, and the creation of more terrorists.

The cycle continues in perpetuity.

It's madness.

If Peace Will Come

I haven't seen the latest update, but as of last night, a ceasefire had been brokered between the pathetic and barbarous Ukrainian "army" and the resistance fighters in the rebel oblasts in the south and east.

Comprehensive peace has not been brokered, far from it, and with recent resistance advances including an offensive to take Mariupol, combined with crippling Kiev losses (the Saker says upwords of 40,000 Kiev recruits and draftees have "died" -- exactly how is a matter of conjecture) the likelihood is that the resistance will press whatever advantage it has and hold on to whatever territory it controls. This is how these sorts of things tend to go, no?

Reports in Western media -- to the extent there have been any during the Ukrainian civil war -- have tended to glorify the mighty-mighty Kiev junta forces battling bravely against the combined hordes of Genghis Khan and Stalin. Of course the visuals, to the extent there were any, proved the lie of the propaganda. The blasted cities and the ruined villages were implied to have been the result of rebel bombardments of innocent Ukrainian sites, massacres were implied to have been committed by the rebels, and any territory was being recovered from the Russian-backed rebels, or from the Russians or from Putin himself.

It was all nonsense and lies, as was made clear by the few intrepid reporters on the ground who managed to keep their wits and heads and told the truth in something close to real time.

The Odessa Massacre on May 2 was an eye-opener, to say the least. Dozens were burned alive in the Trade Union House, many others shot on sight by rampaging Right Sektor thugs, and others still succumbed to toxic smoke inhalation when the building was burning after being set alight by the Molotov cocktails thrown from the crowd of "patriots" outside. A few were likely beaten to death by thugs in the crowd when they tried to escape the building, and some few succumbed to mortal injuries they sustained when they jumped from windows in that stairwell where the fire burned most fiercely.

I watched what was happening on the livestream as it was taking place, and though the viewpoint with the livestreams is always narrow, what I saw was obviously at variance with Kiev's and the Western media's efforts to portray the Odessa Massacre as the fault of the victims alone.

The civil war got under way in earnest after that, the Kiev junta realizing that if the truth were to will out over the propaganda, the junta likely could not be sustained. Defensive positions were taken up by the resistance to the junta in the Donbass, troops marshaled by Kiev were assembled, and the fight was on.

Cities, towns and villages were shelled and burned -- by Kiev, not the Resistance -- and a million or more civilians were made refugees. It was like multiple Sieges of Sarajevo during the civil war in the Former Yugoslavia. Monstrous. But we got little real news once Graham Phillips stopped reporting from the area and the VICE News squad appeared to become embedded with the Kiev forces.

The MH-17 passenger jet was apparently shot down somehow, with the loss of nearly three hundred souls, and of course, "Putin" (the Devil) was blamed for it, though even at the earliest stages of reporting about it, the likelihood was that Kiev was behind the tragedy -- somehow.

The confusion surrounding what happened to the plane has been magnified by the relentless anti-Putin propaganda from Kiev and the West, and by the adamant refusal of the Western governments involved in the "investigation" to share or release data from the flight recorders and air traffic controllers. It's an obvious cover-up. If the plane was shot down by fighter planes tailing it, as some eyewitnesses assert, then the reasons for a cover up are plain to see.

But we don't know, and we may not know for a year or more of continued obfuscation. If then.

Meanwhile, the propaganda out of Kiev and Western media celebrated victory after victory by the Glorious and Manly Troops of Kiev in their furious and relentless battles against the Putin-driven slaves of the East.

The Glory never stopped -- until it did, last week. Word came that hundreds, maybe even thousands of Kiev's Glory Troops had been wiped out, many others deserted and ran away, huge volumes of equipment had been abandoned and seized by the rebels and the jig was up. Kiev could not resupply the remnant troopers, and there was nowhere for the Glory Troops to go, even if they could retreat or advance. They were surrounded, their equipment was used up or destroyed, there would be no more Victory.

Even the Freaks in Kiev understood what had happened. There was no more Ukrainian Army, and the National Guard (Nazi Storm Troopers) had been decimated. Resupply was impossible. The Rebels had -- apparently -- won.

Putin issued a roadmap for a ceasefire, and in Minsk, the Kiev junta broke bread with the Rebel leaders, the plan was discussed, modified, and agreed.

The guns, at least most of them, fell silent for the first time in months.

People breathed, for a moment, a sigh of relief.

Of course, the competing Sides in this proxy civil war have an interest in keeping it going for as long as needs be. The Sides being US-EU-NATO vs Russia. The people of Ukraine matter not at all to the Sides. The people of Ukraine can be sacrificed with no loss to the Sides. In fact, the destruction of the physical plant of the Donbass and the displacement of  a significant portion of the population seems to be in the interests of both Sides, and it's been accomplished to a surprisingly efficient degree. Thousands have died -- possibly tens of thousands, it's hard to say -- and cities, towns and villages have been laid waste. More than a million have been sent scrambling as refugees.

The political objectives of the Rebels seem to have been agreed to -- something that could have happened to stave off the civil war in the first place -- and the remnant Kiev troops appear to be able to return home unmolested.

It's as if the civil war didn't have to take place at all if this was to be the outcome.

Except that it seemed to me from very early on that physical destruction and depopulation of the Donbass was the point of the exercise, and once that was accomplished -- as it apparently has been -- there was no point in going on with it. Ceasefire!

Well, we'll see. NATO and Washington are hinting darkly that they are preparing for another round sooner rather than later, and Putin-the-Devil has been known to rattle a few sabers himself suggesting in passing that if he wanted he could "take Kiev" in two weeks; oh, and don't forget, Russia still has nukes.

Ahem.

So it goes. For the people of the Ukraine, I hope this is the end of the military campaign against a portion of the population, but you never know when freaks are in charge -- as they certainly are in the West.

We shall see.

Stephen Cohen was on Democracy Now! yesterday before the ceasefire was agreed-to. Here is what he had to say:



Seems pretty obvious to me...

What A Weekend

Wild? Not so much for us, no, but the sense that things are spiraling ever more out of control into disruption and chaos can't be avoided.

There was the continuing turmoil in Africa, Ukraine and the Middle East, of course, deadly turmoil that's become a litany of grief backgrounding practically everything else. It's still far enough away that we can pretend it has little or no effect on our everyday do-dah lives, but it has been going on so long, and it has been so bloody and vicious the mind and soul reels. That Our Rulers think it quite divine is sickening; that Western governments for the most part are the instigators and funders and suppliers of the ongoing misery is worse. And worst of all is the fact that we, the Rabble, seem to have no influence at all on the course of events playing out before us.

That's been true for many long years now.

In a northern suburb of St. Louis, MO, a young man named Michael Brown was shot dead by a police officer, apparently for the crime of walking while Black. We know this crime well in the United States of Goddamn, for it has been something of a truism from the nation's founding that if you're Black, get back. Do what the officer says, and you might get hurt a little less than otherwise. You mouth off and you get shot.

What happened in this case, I don't know. The fellow who was with Brown was interviewed by CBC and he described the incident in chilling detail. They were walking in the middle of the street. An officer pulled up beside them and told them to get on the sidewalk. They said they were near their destination and they would be out of the street momentarily. The officer continued on his way, the young men continued on their way. The officer suddenly backed up his vehicle and nearly hit Brown and his friend as he maneuvered the vehicle to cut off both lanes of the street. The officer suddenly opened the door of his vehicle, right into the legs of the young men, and when they didn't move or fall, the officer fell back into the car. The officer grabbed Brown by neck and then the arm and tried to pull him into the car. Brown resisted. The officer pulled his gun and said "I'll shoot you," and fired inside the vehicle. Brown was apparently hit but he escaped. From the account, it's not entirely clear whether Brown or the officer was hit, however. The officer got out of the car with his gun drawn and pursued Brown. He shot Brown once (again). Brown turned to face the officer with his hands up and fell to his knees wounded. The officer continued to approach Brown, firing his weapon as he did. Brown fell dead on the street.

It's an absolutely chilling account of a summary execution in the street in front of an apartment complex in Ferguson, Missouri, an account that has been backed up by many witnesses. Essentially, what is reported in the interview is what most of them saw. A police officer firing at a wounded young man on his knees who's hands were in the air. Oh my god in heaven. When will this madness end?

Needless to say, Brown's family and citizens and residents of Ferguson were upset. They protested. Rumors flew. There were more protests, and the police formed cordons, got the dogs out, got their riot gear on and threatened the protesters. Some of them looted a number of stores and burned another -- the site where Brown was at first was alleged to have stolen a cigar (though the accusation has since been withdrawn).

There were continuing protests yesterday at the Ferguson police headquarters. Police cordons continued and arrests were made, apparently arbitrarily (at least from what I saw).  There were town hall meetings and further protests yesterday, while the police continued their cordoning and blank faces in the midst of growing resident anger.

The FBI announced a parallel investigation into what happened to Brown and pundits expressed their views, mostly defending the police and condemning the "rioters."

Anger grew, and last night there was more unrest in Ferguson; tear gas was fired and more arrests were made.

From what I could tell, the primary issue was that people were fed up with the cops and the impunity by which they were able to get away with such actions as the summary execution of Michael Brown in the streets of their town. They wanted and demanded, justice. The blank faces of authority not only denied them their demands, they enforced a strange code of justice that presumed those making demands to be at fault for their own arbitrary treatment by authority.

According to the iron protocols of police culture, the victim is always at fault. The officer, never.

Of course, this is the very same protocol used by Israel in its continuing conflict with the Palestinian  prisoners of Gaza and the West Bank. The victims, the Palestinians, are always at fault; the Israelis, never.

They are supported by the government of the United States -- which tends to parrot Israeli talking points word for word, and which supplies the weapons that are used by Israel against the Palestinians.

We see the same dynamic and rhetoric in the Ukrainian conflict, with the added Israeli twist of calling protests and  resistance "terrorists."

This weekend marked the 50th Anniversary Reunion of PCPA Theatrefest Alumni. Ms Ché and I were both part of the PCPA Company for eight seasons over ten years, from the early 70s to the early 80s, and we would have liked to have been at the reunion, but it was not to be. The trip out to California was a bit too much for me still.

On the other hand, we are getting reports from a friend who is there and the Facebook page has been filling up with photos and stories and memorabilia, so there is that vicarious connection. It's nice to see that so many folks from Our Day -- 30-40 years ago -- are still alive.  This is good.

Then again, I learned one of the PCPA folks from Back When died yesterday. Robin Williams was only there one summer, in 1973 and was cast in "The Music Man" and "Caucasian Chalk Circle." It was our first season there, and Williams made quite an impression on us and practically everyone else that summer. He was a free spirit, wild and full of mischief. He was easily one of the nicest people and one of the funniest people to assemble that summer, but he was so hard to tame he was something of a challenge for directors and occasionally for other cast members. There was a dark undercurrent behind his humor and mischief, though, and we learned some things about him and his life that were not so happy. I don't remember the details, but they were serious enough to elicit a good deal of empathy.

I don't know whether he was invited to attend the Anniversary Gala last night. I hope so, but we haven't received a report yet on last night's festivities, so we don't know the full story.

When I found out he'd died,  after thinking about all those people who were still alive, it was a stark reminder of our mutual mortality.

Rest in peace. For Robin and for so very many others who have passed on this Blood Summer...

Just A Thought

More and more people are waking up to the danger signs all around us and more and more of them are combining forces to try to stop the Neo-Imperial madness engulfing the globe. Whether it will be enough remains to be seen.

Liars, Thieves and Murderers -- The Empire of Chaos and Disruption Knows No Bounds

This year marks the 400th Anniversary of Don Juan de Oñate's exile from New Mexico and the New World. That may seem like a minor footnote in history, and for many people, it is. Oñate is not well known outside of Texas and New Mexico, but for many people here, especially Hispanos and Pueblo Indians, his record of conquest, chaos and cruelty cannot be forgotten. Though 400 years have passed since he was sent back to Spain for those very crimes and failings, his legacy lives on as an undercurrent in New Mexican society -- which may have something to do with the levels of police and public cruelty we are experiencing today.

Oñate's advent north of the Rio Grande was a disaster for the indigenous inhabitants whom he seemed to take immense pleasure in slaughtering and crippling, thieving from, lying to, and otherwise disrupting as he and his colonists made their way through the Puebloan communities proclaiming the Mercy of Christ and the suzerainty of Felipe Rey de Castile, Leon, y Aragon, and then killing them, crippling them, raping their women, enslaving the survivors and looting their pueblos.

Those were the days. Complaints were made, and in due time, Oñate would be recalled from New Mexico, trial would be held, and ultimately Oñate would be returned to Spain where he lived out his remaining years as a minor functionary to the King. 

This Blood Summer of Chaos and Disruption seems to be an echo of those times we thought we'd gotten past. Perhaps we haven't. At least in those days, appeal could be made to the King when the sub-rulers he set over his domains got out of control. Some record could be made and at least an attempt at justice and redress could be made. Now there's no one to intervene and seemingly nothing to be done.

Will there be no end to the madness of our rulers? As the world -- at least a goodly portion of it -- spirals ever further into the pits of perdition, one must ask: what must be done, and by whom, to halt the madness, bring dignity and peace to the multitudes, end the suffering of the innocent, repair and renew the global environment, and do those other things so necessary to survival and sanity?

Among the many tomes in our library of the obscure and forgotten, we have a number of books written in glum apprehension between the wars (that is between WWI and WWII) that either predict a New War Just Around the Corner or which posit means and methods to avoid one. The enemy is posited to be Germany and Japan, just as they would be in the end. There are a few anti-communist/anti-Russian volunes, but mostly the concern is over the aggression of Germany and Japan in Europe and Asia and the lesser but still worrisome aggression of Italy in Africa. As much as the capitalist class loathed and despised the nascent Soviet Union, they did not see it as an expansionist and aggressive threat. That would come at the end of World War II when, having defeated the totalitarian expansionist German Nazis and Japanese Empire, attention was turned to the prostrate, ruined Soviet Union as the New Threat. There always has to be an existential threat, doesn't there?

Europe and Japan would be rebuilt along Anglo-American capitalist lines (with a bit of Socialism thrown in to calm the restive masses for a while) and the Soviet Union would be ham-strung and boxed and allowed to play in Eastern Europe so that no one in the West need concern themselves with that region for the time being.

Red China was the New Dragon in the East. It was, of course, the offspring of Red Russia. Dealing with that unanticipated result of the Japanese defeat in WWII would take up most of the energy of the Western powers -- ultimately leading to military stalemate in Korea and military disaster and defeat in Vietnam.

There's little doubt that the totalitarian governing systems that expanded during the period between the wars were ruled by liars, thieves and murderers, as all large scale governing systems seem to be, including the vaunted Democracies. The totalitarians were just more overt about it, let's say, so it was obvious. There was no lack of liars, thieves and murderers in ruling positions within the "democratic" Imperial nations. The case could be made -- and some made it -- that for all their fine words about self-determination and democracy and whatnot, the Imperial West (particularly Imperial Britain, but no less so France and Belgium... and the United States) were monstrous in their colonial enterprises.  Liars, thieves and murderers only begins to describe what what unleashed on the uncivilized peoples of the world by those powers.

Ridding the world of the "uncivilized" peoples (sub-humans, actually) was something of an idealized goal. It could be accomplished by extermination when necessary -- viz: the various conquests and exterminations of the Native Peoples of the Americas -- or by conversion and/or assimilation. But the point was to make over all of the "uncivilized" peoples into some version of "civilized" and subservient or to make them be gone.

This was the Western European colonial enterprise in a nutshell.

And here we are again.

All of the current blood-lettings and slaughter-fests under way this summer appear to be some version of the colonial wars of yore, conquests for the purposes of subjugation, extermination, control and extraction of resources, and destruction of so-called primitive cultures which threaten the brutal and cruel cultures of the West and the powers they wish to assert over everyone on earth.

Here we go again.

None of these neo-colonial wars seem to be going well, but they do go on a very long time just the same. The victims pile up in ever-growing stacks of bodies, streets run with blood, cities are laid waste. There is a repeating cycle of disruption and destruction, revolt and suppression, and with each cycle, the cruelties become normalized.

New Mexicans may have been able to get rid of Oñate when time was, but getting rid of him did not get rid of his legacy, and even the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 -- viciously revenged in the de Vargas Reconquista of 1692-95 in which thousands of Indians were slaughtered -- did not fully restore what now had passed.

The cycle of violence and destruction we're in today will no doubt pass, and perhaps some of those responsible will be judged and a sense of justice restored, but what used to be cannot be restored -- and perhaps it shouldn't be.

May we nevertheless learn to be better.

Playing Rough in the Abattoirs

The summer slaughter season seems to be just revving up if the news out of the various global abattoirs is any indication. Yesterday's slaughter and destruction in Gaza seems merely a warmup for what is to come in that corner of creation, and the saber rattling over the Malaysian plane crash in Ukraine is looking more and more like the prelude to a military attack on Russia. Even a light tap could have immense repercussions.

Is this 2014 or 1914?

Has no one learned anything?

Or is this merely the playing out of the "Creative Destruction" and "Chaos for Change" theory so beloved of post modern economics and the rump nations states that exist to serve financial and economic elites?

Those who love to blame the victims for their dire situation and fate are having a field day.

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For the record, Chris Floyd has been writing up a storm on these topics over at his place. Check it out.

The Ayman Mohyeldin Thing at NBC

I was quite struck by Ayman Mohyeldin's reporting from Gaza for Al Jazzera during the horrid Cast Lead operation by Israel against Gaza; he was intrepid, obviously trying to true and accurate reporting, and he was clearly affected by the carnage he witnessed and the lies of the Israelis about it. All of this made for compelling news.

Later, he was assigned to the occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo, and he appeared to be one of the only reporters on the scene who actually knew what was going on, who the major players were, and who could conduct his investigations in native Arabic and thus get closer to the truth than most other reporters. Richard Engel also speaks Arabic and has been widely respected for his reporting on events in the Middle East, but Ayman was able to get even closer to the principals and the action.

Ayman was on Democracy Now! in 2010 and gave a fairly comprehensive account of his background.

When Ayman joined NBC News, apparently at a huge increase in salary, his reports were somewhat less intense and frequent, but they were sometimes more informative and often quite personal, making the people he featured into real and very human, mostly victims, of the carnage unleashed upon them.

The other day, he was a witness to the slaughter of four children on a Gaza beach and the wounding of several more in front of his hotel. He helped to rescue and treat the survivors. He reported quite passionately what he saw and did during the incident, and his reports were widely considered outstanding first-hand accounts of a terrible tragedy.

Strangely, though, his reports were not featured on NBC Nightly News, in fact, there was not mention of him. Richard Engel, reporting from Tel Aviv was made the lead reporter on the story, a story which was covered extensively on the program, and during which Engel appeared to report accurately and pulled no punches, using footage shot by Ayman's team.

It was just that Ayman himself was missing from the story and the reporting. It seemed odd to say the least.

The next day, Glenn Greenwald reported that Ayman had been abruptly "pulled from Gaza" by an NBC executive and was not being permitted to report on the story any more. The story of the 4 children killed on the beach in Gaza was modified to include Israeli defenses of it, and eventually the story was all but scrubbed, or at least was no longer featured on news cycles.

Down the Memory Hole?

Or something even more sinister? Observers noted that as the story of the children killed on the beach faded, more and more Israel-centric stories appeared, often with no recognition of a Palestinian point of view, and featuring intense denunciations of Palestinians/Hamas to the exclusion of any reporting on the miseries and death the Palestinians -- especially in Gaza --  are enduring as a result of Israeli operations and bombardments. As the death toll rises, the victims more and more are being dehumanized and blamed.

As a rule, Engel has not engaged in that kind of reporting, and to the extent I know anything about it, Ayman never did.

Many are questioning Ayman's removal from Gaza reporting for NBC, but if I recall correctly, he was also expelled by the Israelis from Gaza during the Cast Lead operation and had to report from the border fence rather than from inside Gaza. Engel is widely respected in the field, so he's not the worst replacement for Ayman under the circumstances. The issue is that Ayman was replaced at all without explanation or reason given. He was just gone suddenly, completely and inexplicably.

Of course Greenwald is speculating on motives the way he does, but NBC is keeping mum, and apparently Mohyeldin has been successfully gagged.

Americans have fewer and fewer reliable sources of news from areas of conflict, and while he was reporting from Gaza, Ayman Mohyeldin was one of the few whose reports could be considered both informative and accurate. While I wouldn't consider Richard Engel to be a complete propagandist and tool, he does have a very different approach, one that is based in a certain viewpoint about the United States and its role in the Middle Eastern conflicts (not necessarily a positive one, but one that starts from the American viewpoint) and so his focus tends to be less involved with the realities of Palestinian life under siege and attack -- which was a specialty of Mohyeldin's -- and more how it all looks from an American perspective.

Some of Ayman's reports before he was pulled:

Innocent and Gone: Israeli Strike on Gaza Kills Four Children

All in with Chris Hayes

 Andrea Mitchell Reports

He also Tweeted extensively about the events he witnessed and provided numerous images on his Instagram account.

By now, we all know that commercial as well as much alternative news is very tightly controlled in the West and the United States in particular in order to promote a particular version of events; we could go into extraordinary detail about how our "news" is often intended not so much to inform as it is to shape opinion and promote propaganda, to set narratives, and to extend the power of elites. 

Ayman was not immune from the pressures to conform to those interests, but his reporting was a distinct contrast to those who saw their role as one to support rather than challenge or provide other insights than the dominant narrative (which we have notices is nearly universal throughout the media).

Ayman Mohyeldin's reporting was actually a small portion of a whole, and his removal doesn't affect that whole to any great extent. What it does is narrow the narrative NBC has been marketing. That's a business decision that will mean that the public which relies on NBC News will have less information by which to understand events in the Middle East, and the less information they have, the more closely the public opinion can be manipulated.

The more we see this happening, the fewer alternative points of view we have to consider. 

None of this is new, but to see it again, so starkly, is more than a little disturbing.

I'm sure we will see more examples as time goes by and the grip of the oligarchs tightens. 

----------------------------------------
UPDATE: According to word out of NBC, breathlessly announced and spread via internet outlets, Mohyeldin will be returning to Gaza this weekend. NBC's announcement is terse and uninformative, the way they tend to be, but Mohyeldin twitted thus:

 

Thanks for all the support. Im returning to #Gaza to report. Proud of NBC's continued commitment to cover the #Palestinian side of the story
— Ayman Mohyeldin (@AymanM) July 18, 2014

There is a good deal of high stepping blogger triumphalism at the moment, but exactly what happened is still as murky and mysterious as ever, and we will likely never know the full story.

How the Fascists (Continue to) Win

This is the longest version I've so far seen of the military action in Mariupol, Ukraine on May 9, Victory Day, during which a number of residents were killed and wounded as troops-behaving-badly fired on outraged crowds -- "terrorists" all.

Other versions keep cropping up. And reports from elsewhere in the restive south and east of Ukraine tell very similar stories of gunfire and bloodshed by the so-called military of the so-called Kiev government.  Also, there have been extensive reports of shellings, bombardments and fire-bombings of numerous sites in the region under contention, leading to unconfirmed reports of hundreds dead and wounded.

Ultimately, it doesn't take a lot of killing to enforce control. Not that the so-called military of the so-called Kiev government has so far been able to accomplish that aim...

Note that in the video, there is no telling what the military objective of the so-called troops might be. They are simply rampaging on a holiday, and the crowd -- which is quite large and quite brave -- will have none of it. They taunt and denounce the so-called troops lustily. While I don't understand the language well enough to follow a conversation, I understand some of what they are saying:

Fa-schis-ti!

Nyet-nyet terrorista!

And so on. These people are angry that their celebration has been interrupted by some kind of violent chaos brought on by the so-called military of the so-called Kiev government, and they are remarkably fearless in letting the so-called troops know how they feel.

While they initially keep their distance from the so-called troops, first one woman and then another,  arms out and hands up, decide to break ranks from the crowd and approach the "troops" shouting denunciations along the way. Once these brave and indomitable women fearlessly push forward, men in the crowd do likewise and continue taunting and denouncing while the so-called "troops" attempt to establish a perimeter.  To what object, who knows.

Eventually, members of the crowd confront the so-called troops from very close range. Military vehicles are dashing about. One of the men who'd been taunting the so-called troops is shot, though the shooting itself isn't shown in this video, just the aftermath as he is crumpling into the street. Another video shows the shooting and the aftermath, as other members of the crowd attempt to tend his wounds. He was shot in the chest.

Other men are arguing with and taunting the so-called troops, and more are shot, first one man in casual clothes on the plaza across the street from the man who was first shot, then a man in a suit who crumples on the plaza while holding on to someone else, then another in front of a kiosk (that shooting isn't seen in this video).

The videographer gets closer and closer to the so-called troops, and as he does he sees a man in the crowd with a gun pointed toward the so-called troops, apparently firing, and he sees someone with what looks like a Molotov cocktail, and I distinctly hear the videographer say, "Provocateurs?" or the Russian equivalent of it.

Kiev-coup supporters have made much of the fact that there was someone with a gun in the crowd and that someone had what looked like a Molotov cocktail in the crowd as justification for calling the crowd "terrorists" and for shooting and killing people in the crowd.

Indeed, the so-called troops continue to fire into the crowd, and one man -- alleged to be the one with the gun, though I don't think it is him -- is seen after he is shot in the head in front of the coffee tent, blood gushing from his wound; another is shot in the leg beside the tent.

The so-called troops retreat while continuing to fire as the crowd advances, taunting and denouncing and tending to the wounded.

The utter fearlessness of the Mariupol residents in the face of gunfire from the so-called military of the Kiev coup-regime is remarkable, something I doubt we'd see under similar conditions in this country.

So far, at any rate, we haven't seen this sort of situation in the United States, where there is an actual military operation in the midst of a civilian population, but it could happen despite posse comitatus and other provisions against it.

If it did happen in this country, the military would win almost instantly. It's not at all clear that will be the upshot of the so-called operations being conducted in the south and east of Ukraine, in part because enough of the people are putting up enough of a largely unarmed resistance, and enough of the alleged military are reluctant or refuse to fire on civilians.

So the coup-regime and its sponsors have brought in militias and mercenaries to do their dirty work, or so they say. Young and bloodthirsty men are -- they say -- being recruited from among the soccer ultras, and most especially the Right Sektor (ie: Nazi) and Svoboda (ie: Fascist) partisans to go to the East and South and make mayhem, death, and destruction happen. Mercenaries are said to be coming from all sort of conflict regions to apply their special wet-work talents to controlling and eliminating resistance to the Kiev coup-regime in Ukraine.

According to reports they are cowards, but that doesn't prevent them from causing chaos and destruction, and that's what any good Fascist would want to see in order for their power to manifest and ultimately to succeed. What they do is make it impossible for stability and a status quo to be established unless it is under the authority and control of the coup-regime and its forces. By this means, a relative handful of killers and destroyers are able to overcome and control large and often resistant populations.

The tactics are right out of the Nazi playbook of yore. By preventing any routine or stability from occurring except as they will it under their own authority and control, resistance eventually dissipates. By committing essentially random acts of violence, killing and wounding more or less randomly, and by destroying property both randomly and using targeted destruction against designated "enemies" they are able to assert their power over a largely unarmed population that by and large is unwilling or unable to use the same tactics against them.

This is how they win despite their unpopularity and widespread resistance to them. These are the tactics that were used in Iraq and Afghanistan by the so-called coalition which attempted to conquer them, and whose legacy is still apparent despite withdrawal.

One thing that keeps being overlooked or forgotten is that much of Europe was ruled by Fascist and quasi-Fascist governments at the outbreak of World War II. It was not, by any means, a contest between "liberty" and its opposite despite how the war in Europe was being marketed. The Axis was Fascist, and so were nearly all the Allies -- with the notable exception of the Soviet Union, which initially was being destroyed and rent asunder by the Nazis.

What we see in Ukraine and elsewhere is a remarkable resurgence in Fascist and even Nazi fortunes as one after another formerly social democratic government succumbs to the power and authority of essentially Fascist interests, and those which resist integration into the System -- even if they are Fascist themselves -- are relentlessly destroyed.

I'd like to think that the Fascists will be defeated by the Resistance, but it really doesn't work that way, never has. Recall, the Fascist Franco won the Spanish Civil War, in part by being the most ruthless bastard and the last man standing. His Fascist regime endured for the rest of his life, as did many (MANY) similar Fascist regimes all over the world, though especially concentrated in Latin America.

Spain is essentially back in Fascist hands, as is much of Europe. Ukraine is following the same pattern.

The USA has its own version thereof.

Resistance does not thwart Fascism.

The question is, what does...?

Mercs in Ukraine?

Sure. Why not?

There have been reports of merc sightings in the shadows of the upheavals in Ukraine from the beginning, and almost certain descriptions of the snipers in Kiev as mercenaries hired by Svoboda and the Right Sektor. Many observers have claimed they've been hearing unaccented English spoken among some of these shadowy forces, just before some Antimaidan dissenter is shot or otherwise incapacitated, and it is reported that the FBI and CIA -- among other US agencies -- are coordinating the crackdown on dissent and separatism in the East and throughout the country.

Given what has been noted so far in the efforts of the Kiev coup-regime to hold onto the East (Donbass) in spite of the people's defiance and refusal, there are no doubt death squads on the pattern of so many we've seen in the past) operating throughout Ukraine. They may be concentrated for now in the Donbass, but there's no reason to think their assignments and territory won't be expanded as resistance to the Kiev coup-regime's program of suffering and exploitation -- under the direction of the IMF, EU, USA, and NATO --  increases.

Mercs are an essential part of the program, especially when -- as in the case of Ukraine -- poorly paid and trained native "troops" refuse to fight their brothers and sisters.

Of course, media announcements of "The 400" or however many Academi (or are they Blackwater?) mercs there are in Ukraine look to be quite obvious propaganda to inspire terror among the refusniks and rebels. It's obvious they have no fear of the so-called "army" forces arrayed against them, as so many of the videos uploaded from the region testify. Perhaps they will fear the mercenaries, then, eh? The ones who have no qualms about liquidating the untermenschen wherever they encounter them. 

If Ukraine isn't already swarming with international mercs -- they don't have to be Americans, do they, hmm? -- ready to shed plenty of native blood for the cause of the bankers and exploiters and financiers and oppressor-class, it soon will be, no?

Monstrous.

Still Trying to Do Amateur Forensics on the Odessa Massacre

This is the most complete video I've so far seen of the interior of the Trade Union House in Odessa where so many were killed on May 2.



Video streaming by Ustream

I confess, I haven't seen it all yet, as I've been juggling a whole bunch of other stuff, including an injured cat. But what I have seen confirms some of my previous suspicions.

Most of the building was not burned at all. The deadly fire was in the entrance lobby and the rear stairwell with which the lobby connects. From the indications in this and other videos of the interior after the flames were put out, and from testimony of survivors I've read, once the Anti-Maidan activists gained entrance to the building on May 2 -- whether they broke in or were let in to the entrance lobby remains to be determined -- they erected a makeshift barricade from materials at hand. The remains of that barricade are still visible in the video above. Those remains are mostly metal, and exactly what was in the barricade is hard to determine from the ashes, scraps and twisted bars that could be seen when the video was shot on May 4. It appears from the burnt debris of the barricade that it was fairly substantial.

Based on what's in other videos I've seen, it appears that the fire started in the lobby, probably in the barricade itself, after several Molotov cocktails were hurled through the entrance doors. One of the doors appeared to be open as the flames consumed whatever was inside, and they all seemed to have glass panels, which could have been broken by the mob outside. Consequently, the doors didn't provide any substantial protection.

There are now a number of videos posted which show the nearly free access Right Sektor thugs had to the building both before and after the fire started. They were able to break in at the side entrances, and dozens of them were roaming the place seeking out and murdering victims all through the time that
Anti-Maidan activists were attempting to shelter inside. This is of interest in part because they were inside the building as the fire in the entrance lobby suddenly and spectacularly raced up the stairwell, killing what appeared to be more than a dozen people almost instantly.

Visible in the early videos of the charred bodies on the steps are makeshift barricades that those on the steps appeared to have erected to prevent people from coming down the steps. This suggests to me that there were Right Sektor thugs roaming the upper floors before the fire started, and there are videos of people in the windows of the upper floors waving the Ukrainian flag -- to loud and raucous cheers below -- as the fire was burning and people were trying to get out of the windows of offices at the front of the building.

This link is to quite a long video that shows efforts of people to escape the building by climbing out front windows. It also shows efforts at rescue made by members of the crowd prior to the arrival of the fire brigade hoses and ladders. At one point, a man in a red jacket or sweatshirt is seen hurling a Molotov cocktail at the building, apparently aiming for some of those trying to escape. He is admonished by another man in the crowd, and he seems disappointed that his efforts were not appreciated. He appears later to hurl invective (one assumes) at those trying to escape the building. There is also a portion of the video where someone appears in a top floor window waving a Ukrainian flag to the lusty chants of "U-krai-na!" from the crowd below, as terrified people stand or crouch in the windows.

Once the fire brigade arrives, they are able to put the fire in the lobby out within a very short time.

Numerous videos show Right Sektor access to the building.

Here are a few links:

 http://youtu.be/lkqfL8gf1Qg

http://youtu.be/5Z8WzYegg5o

 http://youtu.be/yt2XoYCohEI
(above link is to a 1:17:22 video compilation which includes many scenes inside the building from the POV of rampaging Right Sektor thugs. Also shows a lot of dead bodies of people who didn't die in the fire.)

 http://youtu.be/9pUGJud91VY
(This one appears to show the first stage of the fire in the lobby, but not the outbreak itself. There is also a shot of someone holding a Ukrainian flag in a fourth floor window as the fire is burning in the lobby below.)

 http://youtu.be/qvKTe7QnLeo
(In addition to much else, this one shows the fire brigade at the back of the building and fires burning on the second and fourth floors of the stairwell.)

 http://youtu.be/FEXmGQEoruw
(Thugs rampaging inside, a fire burning on the stairway. Fire appears to be from a Molotov cocktail tossed through the window. No one appears to notice....)

http://youtu.be/NeARQM1HLF8
(WARNING: Graphic. This was live video taken as soon as news cameras could get in the building; many burned bodies, also bodies of people apparently shot inside or otherwise killed inside.)

http://youtu.be/d7cB_u89bbo
(This is some of the video I saw live on the Vremya Odessa livestream the night of May 2; there are bodies in unburned offices that have been trashed, and one in a stairwell. These people were most likely murdered rather than overcome with smoke.)

http://youtu.be/xPwbpVbF6R8
(This is an infamous video taken from Right Sektor POV immediately after most of the survivors had gotten out. There are dead bodies, and efforts are made to prove the "terrorists" are Russian. They aren't successful. Pisses 'em off.)

People tried to barricade themselves in offices for protection and sometimes they were successful. But there appear to have been many murders inside as well.

Of course the Odessa "authorities" have no interest in investigating those murders, only the ones they say took place at the riots and among the mob outside -- murders they say were caused by "Anti-Maidan" elements.

This is, as I've said before, a purely Nazi tactic. Accuse the victims of what the perpetrators have done, and "prove" it through whatever means necessary.

It's shameful enough that the so-called "government" in Kiev and its local appointees in Odessa are pulling this shit; worse though is the support they're getting from all the capitals of the EU/NATO/US axis, every single one. They're all denying that Right Sektor and other fascist thugs are responsible for any of the atrocities of the past week. Couldn't be. As all the racist thugs are Russian under Putin's direct order and control. Everyone knows that.

Still, I ask, how did the fire that killed so many people get started, and what fueled it to such intensity and prolongation?*

It's a question that goes to the nature of the fire itself, who started it and how, and how was it sustained for such a long time in an portion of the building that provided so little fuel?

The Odessa Massacre itself has become an iconic event in the current Ukrainian crisis, one that no doubt will be remembered down the ages. Propaganda is so intense around it that truth is liable to be hidden for some time to come.

Yet in the barrage of propaganda we're exposed to, it's important, in my view, to at least try to understand what really happened.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: I have since seen a Vremya Odessa interview with one of the investigators of the May 2 Massacre, and he said -- at least to the extent I was able to translate what he was saying -- that there was no explosion in the building, and that the fire shot up the back stairwell as if up a chimney, which is what I had suspected all along. The question remains, though, what caused a fire that had been burning in the lobby for a while to suddenly shoot up the stairwell, catching so many people in its smoke and flame.

Several things come to mind:

1)The fire was initially burning in the south end of the lobby. Early video shows no fire visible through the two northern entrances.

2)The door to the south entrance was open, however, which allowed flames and smoke to escape from the lobby to the front of the building.

3)The windows in the stairwell were broken out at some point which I haven't been able to determine. There were defenders on landings throwing stones and other objects out of the broken windows at the mob below. Members of the mob were hurling Molotov cocktails into the building through the broken stairwell windows.

4)For some time there was very little smoke coming out of the broken stairwell windows, and then suddenly there was a great deal of smoke and flames were seen shooting through the second floor windows. That's when men (and at least one woman?) jumped out of the stairwell windows, some apparently from the top floor, landing in the parking area at the foot of the stairwell, most badly injured. According to recent statistics, seven victims died in "falls" -- one assumes that means jumping out of windows. Eight were killed by gunshots. The rest of the now 48 dead died in the fire, either overcome by flame or by smoke or both. One man made it half way out of a window before he was overcome and his burnt body remained half-way out of the window until after the fire was extinguished and the bodies were collected.

5)The suddenness of flame and smoke racing up the stairwell -- when there had been very little smoke and no flame (except that caused by Molotov cocktails hurled from below) coming out of the stairwell previously, despite the fact that a fire was burning vigorously in the lobby -- suggests that either the direction of the wind changed, blowing smoke and flame from the front of the building toward the back, or some highly flammable material suddenly caught fire which massively increased the amount of smoke and flame in the lobby which could only escape through the stairwell. Of course, both could have happened simultaneously.

6) Members of the mob are seen in some videos throwing materials from the debris outside the front entrance toward the entrance doors. I haven't seen any video that shows that any of the debris they were hurling toward the front entrance actually made it inside,  but it could have. Among the debris being thrown toward the entrance were tires, pallets and other wooden debris, no doubt in order to feed the fire.

7)In one of the videos of the fire's aftermath in the lobby, there are two relatively large burnt metal containers on the steps. Did they contain a flammable liquid? There's no way to know from the video. But if they did contain something like gasoline, they might not have exploded, but they could well have burst into flame with sudden and significant force of both flame and smoke.

I will say that some of the mob outside the building seemed shocked, even horrified, when they realized what was happening, and many helped to rescue people from the burning building. Nevertheless, many of those who escaped the fire were badly beaten by the mob, and dozens were arrested and held by the police until they were released after loud and forceful protests.