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.

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. 

The Leering Sphere or The Bomb in New Mexico

Today July 16, 2018, is the 73rd anniversary of the detonation of the first atomic bomb at Trinity Site in New Mexico.

Santa Fe Opera interpretation of The Gadget -- "Dr. Atomic" 2018 Season

This titanium sphere -- or was it stainless steel? -- hung menacingly over the entire production of Peter Sellars' and John Adams's "Dr. Atomic" which opened at Santa Fe Opera last night [July 14], shortly before the 73rd anniversary of the detonation of the world's first atomic bomb at the Trinity Site in New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range (then the  Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range.)

The Gadget as it was called, memories of The Gadget, the enormity of what was created at Los Alamos -- a bare 25 miles from the semi-outdoor Opera House ("the audience can see Los Alamos from their seats" quoth librettist and director Peter Sellars in one of the talks we heard before the performance), and the aftermath of the atomic bomb test at Trinity Site, July 16, 1945, some 200 miles south of Los Alamos resonate profoundly in New Mexico, in some ways more profoundly than anywhere else in the world except Japan.

There were far more US nuclear tests outside Las Vegas, NV, and in the Pacific than in New Mexico (just one -- the first one --that we know of in our backyard) but ultimately the atmospheric tests elsewhere became a kind of twisted Cold War entertainment - "whoa, wouldja lookit that!" -- that was sometimes shown to school kids before their Duck and Cover exercises to scare the  shit out of them (how well I remember.)

"Dr. Atomic" deals with the tragic story of Dr. J, Robert Oppenheimer ("Oppie") at Los Alamos and Alamogordo, New Mexico, in the hours leading up to the first atomic bomb test and its echoes through time to today. 

It's a complex story that doesn't exist in linear time, and apparently the complexity and non-linearity as well as the often jarring contemporary musical score can be off-putting to some opera-goers though it wasn't apparent opening night. It was a full house. The audience's attention was as intense as the music and performances. The response was enthusiastic.

I overheard one rather fancy looking woman talking during intermission: "My friend told me I wouldn't like it. Well, I rather think I do," she said. Indeed.

I can't say I "liked" it, no. But I will say I was quite taken with it and had no problem staying for its 3 hours and 20 minute length (with intermission) and the interminable after performance getting-out-of the-parking-lot minuet. (I said to one of the parking boys, "At this rate, we'll be here all night." He grinned and said, "That's only because my co-workers are incompetent. Have a safe trip home!!" Chuckle,)

We got home at 2:45 am tired but moved.

We've been semi-immersed in the story of nuclear weapons and the struggle against them in New Mexico for as long as we've been here, for almost as long as we've been coming here (more than 35 years now). I've written several pieces about it, about visiting Trinity site, about going to Los Alamos, about duck and cover, and so on and so forth. No one of my generation escaped fear of the looming mushroom cloud. It was the defining image of the post WWII era, one that seems to have been largely forgotten now or set aside by the younger generations. Thoughts of nuclear annihilation, instant incineration, barely reach consciousness except under the most extraordinary circumstances these days. And then the images seem to be off the mark.

Hardly anyone seems to understand what a nuclear weapon is or does anymore. And maybe that's a good thing.

Peter Sellars said he tried to maintain the classical tragic unities of time and place, and he tried to tell the story of the tragedy of what happened not just to Oppenheimer but for many of those who worked on developing The Bomb and of course for the hundreds of thousands of Japanese who died as a result of its use.

It's pointed out during the opera that many more Japanese civilians died during the firebombings of Tokyo and Yokahama that preceded the use of nuclear weapons on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To say, then, an atom bomb is a unique horror is something of a stretch, no? No, it's not a stretch at all when one bomb can cause in an instant more destruction than thousands dropped over a period of hours or days.

The scientists at Los Alamos agonized over the use of nuclear weapons, and hundreds tried to convince Washington authorities not to use the creation of their laboratories on populations -- ever, if possible. Of course, then and now, there was a contrary faction who dearly wanted to use nuclear weapons, not just for effect, either.

Particularly torn by his creation was J. Robert Oppenheimer himself. A point is made that he is driven mad by what he has created. He never fully recovers, and in a sense, his creation kills him -- as well as many, many more.

Sellars reconceived the production for Santa Fe. For one thing, the production takes place within sight of Los Alamos (if you look hard!), and within hailing distance of Trinity. Those of us who live here and have paid attention know these places and these stories rather well. Earlier productions (we have a DVD of one, I believe it was in Amsterdam) focused more on the story telling than on its meaning, and they were visualized much more completely. The DVD production uses a close replica of The Gadget that is brought out at a particular time to be hoisted onto the tower, whereas in Santa Fe the Sphere that represents The Gadget and much else is never not there; its presence looming -- and leering -- throughout.

Sellars said the shiny Sphere was meant to reflect the audience, but it doesn't really do that (at least not from where we were sitting in cheap seats toward the back of the orchestra section.) What it reflected instead were the lights on stage which had the effect of creating many different facial expressions, from evil and bloodthirsty to almost benign. It was remarkable and mesmerizing. The picture above was taken by your correspondent some time before the beginning of the performance, and it is one of the many instances when the "eyes" of the Sphere gazed impassively on the scene before it.

In this production, too, Sellars made a conscious and mostly successful effort to include Native Americans on stage and integrated into the story in somewhat the same way they were part of the story of the creation of the Bomb. This is Indian Country, the events happened in Indian Country, and the effects are still felt throughout Indian Country -- particularly on the uranium miners in Navajoland and at Laguna Pueblo. That deadly effect is not dealt with directly in the opera. Sellars was asked by a Diné gentleman at one of the talks whether he'd included the miners, and he wouldn't answer directly. He said something about the "effects on everyone then and now" are included, but that isn't what he was asked. In fact, there is no mention of miners at all. There is only passing mention of Downwinders -- people who were unwittingly affected by the fallout from the Trinity test,. But at least they are there -- actual Downwinders on stage -- along with dancers from the Tesuque, Santa Clara and San Ildefonso Pueblos. They performed a ceremonial corn dance prior to the performance of the opera -- as a healing gesture -- and then returned in the second act as a Presence, representing the Original Peoples upon whom and among whom but not by whom this monstrosity of war was created and perpetrated.

The presence of the Indians helped to ground the production but I felt they were not integrated into it the way  they might have been -- and that that was probably their choice. It's not their story, and they're not telling. They could and one day probably will tell their own story, though, and it will be quite different.

As we were making our way to the parking lot before the performance, there were sheriffs deputies along the road, signs saying "Ticket holders only beyond this point" and at the entrance to the parking lot a young man asked to see our tickets. He said there were protests expected, and they had to check. Hm. As we were making our way from the parking lot to the Opera House, a young man in the high priced parking area near the venue asked that we take some literature  from the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition protesting the production and the proposed increase in nuclear weapons development in New Mexico. This was intended, said the literature, to make New Mexico the sole production site for "plutonium pits" -- something I'd never heard of -- that were the essential cores of nuclear bombs.

They were protesting the production because they saw it as a celebration of nuclear weapons and war.

Uh. No. It's not. Far from it. That's the thing about tragedy. It doesn't celebrate.





No.

This must be stopped and it must be stopped now.

The entire mass media is gearing up to cheer on nuclear annihilation -- doesn't matter who gets it -- as a late summer diversion from whatever important thing is going on.

This sickens me.

But there you are.

The depravity of our rulers and their handmaidens is boundless.

Rough Times

The point of "Dr. Strangelove" is that we are ruled by a class of madmen who actually want to blow the world to smithereens. It is their mission in life. "We'll Meet Again" indeed.

This movie was released in 1964, not long after the assassination of President Kennedy (a 20th century pivot point) and just as President Johnson was ramping up the Vietnam War due to the false reports of an NV attack on US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. False reports. It didn't happen, but because killing gooks or whomever is a necessity for new presidents, it was used to justify the escalation of US force in Vietnam regardless.

In Dr. Strangelove's world, such a non-event would be perfect to justify launching the nukes. It didn't matter whether it was real; nuclear annihilation certainly would be. Yippee! We're all gonna die!

Here we are more than 50 years later, and we see a kind of twisted replay is taking place. What actually happened in Syria or N. Korea or any of the other hot spots the US is making hotter doesn't matter a whit. What matters is whether the propaganda sufficiently justifies more bloody business up to and including nuclear annihilation.

For all the unsupported belief that Trump would keep the US out of war while Mrs Clinton was sure to get us into a nuclear war with  Russia post-haste, some of us Boomers actually had an understanding of the mindset of both candidates, where they were coming from when it came to Use of Force. Neither was pristine by any means, and both came of age during the "Dr. Strangelove" era.

I'm sure both saw the movie during the summer or fall of 1964 as well, and they've probably both seen it several times since.

The impression it made on them, however, was probably quite different.

The issue is simple enough. Hillary went to public school in Chicago. Public school students of the era were socialized (and propagandized) to fear Communism and to fear the Bomb more. Ms. Ché and I were in Los Alamos yesterday (home of the nuclear annihilation labs, dontchaknow). She was reading some of her poetry at the White Rock Library. One of her poems deals with the topic of duck and cover, instant incineration, and all of that and what we were trained to do and believe if the final button was pushed. That kind of conditioning stays with you. It doesn't go away. You can't  really free yourself from.

The upshot of it is that you do not push that button no matter what.

In "Dr. Strangelove" of  course, while leaders tried to prevent the catastrophe, the madmen (militaryjakes) had their way anyway, and Oops! Apocalypse ensued.

Trump had a different kind of conditioning and socialization during the era; he was a student at the New York Military Academy, they say because he'd been such a trouble-maker at his previous private school. Yes, well.

NYMA was at the time associated with West Point which was just down the road. During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, West Pointers on President Kennedy's staff were advocating launching a nuclear first strike against Cuba and the Soviet Union; "it would be survivable."

Yes, right.

It's always been known that some people would survive an all out nuclear war, and that the ruins would only glow for a relatively short time. Reconstruction might be difficult but it would be possible, and the horror of what happened would eventually fade from the survivors' memories. Life of a sort would go on.

None of this was shared with public school students who were being conditioned in one way regarding the Bomb and its effects, but it was an article of faith in the military and was a kind of doctrine in military schools throughout the country.

That's what Trump was taught. And it looks like he still believes it wholeheartedly.

"You can survive, and it's worth the wreckage." To win.

Trump may or may not try for an alliance with Russia -- I'd say he wants to do it, but the current situation won't allow it. But what would this alliance gain? In alliance, the two most heavily armed nuclear powers would be able to threaten annihilation of any competing power (eg: China) and they would be able to follow through. I think that's the point.

It's not to make peace, it's to threaten and control the rest of the world -- and to destroy it if there is a lack of compliance.

Gangster rule, in other words.

Sounds like a plan, no?

Meanwhile, our military has apparently been given free rein to do as they will wherever they are engaged in combat, and the other day, they dropped the Mother of All Bombs on what they said was a "ISIS cave and tunnel complex" in Afghanistan. Whether or not it was targeted on such a facility and whether or not there were casualties is still a matter of some dispute, much as the missile action against the Syrian airfield was maybe not as effective as it was touted to be -- intentionally.

Both actions, it seems to me, were designed to "message" rivals and enemies: Watch that shit or you're next.

It is unlikely that Mrs Clinton would do this sort of thing so overtly, but you never know.

If the skeptics are right, neither action really did all that much, and the demonstrations of US might may have been counter-productive much as the Special Forces raid in Yemen was.

Massacres for the sake of messaging do not inspire confidence or loyalty.

Bombing just to bomb likewise. Vietnam was a good example of how these things unravel. But lessons learned are soon forgotten.

The nuclear annihilation clock edges closer to midnight.

And there's essentially nothing we, the Rabble, can do about it but hunker down and pray.

Rough times indeed.

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?

The Chaos Is Deliberate

Stunning. It's hard to imagine that so many people are apparently so blind to the strategies being employed to keep the anti-fascists and all the rest of the Trump opposition off balance and fearful.

Of course one of those strategies is induced chaos.

It's classic. Now that they've captured the mechanisms of government, Trump and his operatives want to rule and to continue to rule. They knew there would be opposition though maybe not the extent of it nor its full nature, but their political theory says that injecting as much chaos into the system as possible as quickly as possible is the best and possibly only way to ensure their success.

So here we are.

Yet some observers are in deep denial about it, as if nothing is really wrong, as if the System will somehow magically right itself -- after a period of turmoil -- and everything will go on as it should.

Ie: Revert to the status quo ante.

Well, no. That's not going to happen.

The situation is chaotic, unstable, and no matter what happens from here on, it cannot revert to any prior state. The systems were fragile to begin with, and the strain is becoming too great to maintain appearances let alone to preserve, protect and defend.... what used to be.

Nihilists are loving it, and some of my anarchist and revolutionary friends believe this is "It" -- our experiment in constitutional self-government is coming to an end, and nothing can save the situation.

Could be.

In fact, I've long suspected the End of the Republic is nigh, and the advent of Trump and his cronies in the White House signifies that the End has Come.

They clearly do not believe in the rigmarole of Constitutional Self Government," feh. They're busy setting up a kind of quasi-fascist dictatorship/autocracy, based on principles we thought were dead and buried long ago, but which we're finding out are very pleasing to certain types of yahoos and others who desperately wish to be ruled by someone like Trump. A bully and an abuser. A conman with a highly unstable and unpredictable character. A white supremacist. A sexist/misogynist/homophobe/germophobe. A "Destroyer of Worlds." An out of control freak. A representative of his class.

They will defend Trump and his cronies come what may, and very often their defenses and apologetics are based in implacable hatred for the Clintons ("Clintooons!"), Obama ("0bomba!") and Democrats ("Dims!")

I've tried to study this phenomenon a little bit; it's not easy due to the tendency of a few online screamers to repeat and repeat and repeat the same tired tropes, with no ability on their part to see beyond their hatreds and personal desires to see others ("Clintonite scum!") suffer. They use charged and violent rhetoric casually, and they typically wait for word from on high to adjust their talking points to reflect the latest "position" of their Leader. It's all very cult-like in that way.

Some of these people deny the chaos underway, in part because their Dear Leader sometimes denies it. Whatever he says is Law, no matter his lies and contradictions.

On the other hand, some embrace the chaos, because they seem to think it's what's necessary to "shatter the Establishment once and for all!!!!!" Yes, well.

What they don't seem to understand -- in fact, most people seem to be in denial about it -- is that "shattering the Establishment" through this kind of chaos also shatters the systems by which the nation has governed itself for centuries. Ie: the whole thing is thrown in the dumpster, burned and buried.

It's over. Once and for all.

None of the nihilists have any idea what to replace it with. The true believers seem to think that Trump and his cronies know best, and they will institute a grand New America, The Way It's Supposed to Be.

I see the chaos spreading, and it will ultimately engulf us all. I don't think there's any escape. There are rumors of war going around -- of course, this is no surprise -- that should give pause to even the True Believers, but of they can't let reality interfere with their dreams. If what's being rumored comes to pass, not only do the systems collapse, but an End such as people of my generation marinated in for most of our childhoods becomes reality. Trump is from that generation, too. And he seems to be of the opinion that such an End is desirable, and that he and his cronies will survive and prosper.

Well only if we let them.

The other side of this chaotic situation is that it can sweep them away too.

Hang on. We ain't seen nothin' yet.

The Nuclear Annihilation Gambit

One of the most frequently retailed "truths" during the presidential campaign was that Mrs. Clinton would surely get us into a nuclear war with Russia -- and Mr. Trump would save us from it.

I find that this "truth" is still being widely retailed as a defense of Trump. Some commenters maintain that this "truth" alone was sufficient reason to vote for him and to cleave loyally to him, come what may.

It's completely irrational. It's still being promoted as if it were established fact, but there never was any truth to it. It is no more true that Mrs. Clinton would get us into a nuclear war with Russia than Mr. Trump  saved us from it.

I've tried to briefly explain why that is so in other fora, but it's not an easy concept for some people to grasp. They are so convinced of the "truth" they've been fed about the certainty of Mrs. Clinton's nuclear warmongering and the salvation of Mr. Trump's lack of belligerence toward Russia  that they  simply can't wrap their minds around the idea that neither of them were advocating or trying to start nuclear war with Russia, and that there is a constant and inherent risk of nuclear war regardless of who is in the White House. It's simply a fact that the United States and Russia are not the only nuclear players on the face of the earth.

It is particularly difficult for those who didn't live through the Cold War to recognize what was going on with all the Putin-bashing and Russia blaming from the Clinton campaign. Its devolution since the election is frankly bizarre.

First: based on their campaign rhetoric, neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. Trump was likely to launch a nuclear first strike against Russia.

Second: there was no sign whatever that anyone in the Kremlin, least of all Tovarich Putin, was in any way inclined to launch a nuclear attack against the US.

Third: the anti-Russia/anti-Putin campaign rhetoric and propaganda used by Mrs. Clinton and her surrogates was transparent, often ridiculous, over the top, ill-advised and potentially very dangerous.

Fourth: on the other hand, it was a tried and true tactic directly out of the Cold War play book. It's called Brinkmanship. Dr. Kissinger was one of its chief practitioners back in the day. Dr. Kissinger and Mrs. Clinton were/are buddies.

Fifth: Brinkmanship was practiced throughout the Cold War. The threat of instant incineration and mutually assured destruction over both the Soviet Union and the United States was used as a negotiating tactic in order to establish and sustain a certain dynamic tension and world order. So long as the Soviet Union was able to project strength and wisdom as a counter to US imperialism and greed, neither side was able to fully dominate the other. It was in the interests of both to find accommodation. They did so, over and over again.

Sixth: Mrs. Clinton was not about to launch a nuclear first strike against anyone; Mr. Trump showed no interest in launching a nuclear first strike against Russia.

Seventh: if there is a nuclear first strike, it would more likely be launched by Israel or Pakistan, both of which are under increasing social, political, economic and emotional strain and both of which have governments that perceive an existential threat to their national existence -- from both internal and external forces.

Eighth: if a nuclear attack is launched by one of the other nuclear armed states, it would present a clear and present danger and an almost insoluble dilemma for both the US and Russia. I'm sure it's all been gamed out by both governments, but what would be done in the actual event is an open question.

Ninth: a US president does not have independent authority to launch a nuclear first strike. It would be incumbent for anyone receiving such an order to disobey. Mrs. Clinton could not launch a nuclear first strike on her own, and she knows it. Mr. Trump may or may not know it. He may not care.

Tenth: Brinkmanship as practiced by the Clinton campaign and as is still being retailed by neocons, parts of the government intelligence community and the media is stupid, counter productive, and borderline insane. But it never meant that Mrs. Clinton would launch a nuclear attack or that Mr. Trump would prevent one.

The idea that she would and he wouldn't is an article of faith. It has no basis in reality or truth.

Here's part  of the reason why:

Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump and I all grew up during the Cold War. Mr. Trump is two years older than Mrs. Clinton and I, and his educational and social experience during the 50s and 60s particular is very different than those of us who were students in public school -- like Mrs. Clinton and I were.

Public school students all over the country were conditioned to fear and loathe the Soviet Union and Communism and to anticipate nuclear annihilation at any time. Because the Soviets were Evil, we were told to believe that they wanted to conquer and exterminate us. Were it not for the strength and resolve of our leaders in Washington and our firm belief in our system of capitalism and democracy, they would win.

Of course this was all propaganda. My fifth grade teacher essentially said as much after we were exposed to yet another anti-Soviet propaganda film in the cafetorium. He was, of course, investigated for Communist sympathies and other purported crimes... that's the way things were then.

We weren't told and we weren't supposed to know what was actually going on in the world. But as we got older, we learned more and more of what lay behind the curtain.

Our rulers were playing a game with the Soviet Union, a game which the Soviets were playing as well. It was a game of dominance, but the intent was stalemate. In other words, the point was to keep a certain level of threat and tension between the two superpowers without leading to nuclear holocaust.

When the Soviet Union dissolved, that game of necessity stopped. Without a Soviet threat, without a Communist enemy, the US governmental premise itself came close to collapsing. There was no purpose to much of the US government anymore.

It took the designation of Iraq and Iran and ultimately most of the Muslim Middle East, South Asia and North Africa as Enemies du Jour to restore in confidence in the intelligence and military sectors that they had some purpose and meaning.

And it's been a shit - show ever since.

When the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia were sufficiently wrecked, attention turned to Russia as the next target for the wrecking crews. There have long been plans in the MIC/Intelligence community to dismantle the Russian Federation and loot whatever remains of state and private wealth, in order -- they say -- to prevent the rise of any rival to US hegemony. I understand that China is also on the list for dismantlement.

Supposedly any potential rival will face the same treatment in the by and bye.

While some of our ruling clique are convinced that a nuclear war is desirable and survivable, most clearly are not. Mr Trump and Mrs Clinton both have nuclear survivalists in their policy shops, but there never was any sign that those men and women were in charge of policy.

A complicating factor with Russia is Edward Snowden's asylum there. Until that happened, Russia and Putin were at least nominal "partners" with the US in world affairs. Maybe it was at arms length, maybe it was a tense relationship, but it was not overtly hostile most of the time.

When Snowden was granted asylum and provided a highly public internet platform by his hosts, all that changed.

And so here we are.

If the Ukrainian Nazis had access to nuclear weapons, I have little doubt they would have glassed Moscow and Leningrad long ago. Provided of course that Kiev hadn't been turned into a radioactive ruin first.

The danger of nuclear annihilation is a constant. We are not free of it no matter who is in the White House, but the likelihood of either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton launching a nuclear first strike against Russia -- or provoking the Kremlin into launching a first strike against the US -- has always been next to nil.

Obama Has No Agency

I see this over and over again in the chorus of denunciations of Hillary Clinton.

She and she alone is responsible for every foreign policy disaster and every act of war committed by Our Rulers, if not since Time Began, at least since she was elected to the Senate.

The President has no agency whatever; he is merely a bystander of the raging warmongering and disastrous foreign policy decisions of La Clintoon.

This would be silly of course -- were it not for the fact that Darth Cheney was authoritatively asserted to be the deus ex machina of all the warmongering and foreign policy disasters of the Bush 2 Regime. Ergo, it's only natural that La Clintooooon is the originator of all the foreign (and no doubt domestic) policy catastrophes of the Obama Regime.

The idea is that Presidents are merely the tools of others whose nefarious and bloody schemes they give the nod to but have no input into. They don't even have to give the nod to these schemes, they just have to stay out of the way.

In this manner, The Hag is blamed directly for Iraq, Libya, Syria, Honduras, etc., while no mention is made of Presidents Obama or Bush or the various other departments and agencies in the Executive Branch or Congress and their involvement - if any - in these disastrous and bloody efforts. Hm.

In fact, the implication is that neither Obama nor Bush 2 (nor apparently Darth) had anything to do with them. It was solely Mrs. Clintoon who brought them on. And if The Hag is elected to the Presidency, all bets are off; there is a very high probability that she will start a nuclear war with
Russia. God save us all.

Such absolute power The Hag has been wielding since Time Began. Gee. Who knew?

This is a partial transcript of a speech delivered by Mr. Trump on Hallowe'en which illustrates the point:

Hillary led us to disaster in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya. ... Hillary and our failed Washington establishment have spent $6 trillion on wars in the Middle East, and now it’s worse than it’s ever been before. 

Had Obama and others gone to the beach, Obama could have gone to the golf course, we would have been in much better shape. 

We shouldn’t have gone into the war, and she thinks I’m a hawk. Oh, Donald Trump.
...
Imagine if some of the money had been spent, $6 trillion in the Middle East, on building new schools and roads and bridges right here in Michigan. 

Now Hillary, trapped in her Washington bubble, that’s blind to the lessons, wants to start a shooting war in Syria in conflict with a nuclear armed Russia that could drag us into a World War III. 

Okay, folks. She – I’ll tell you what. She will get us into World War III. She will get us into World War III. I will tell you that. She’s incompetent. She will get us into World War III. 

The arrogant political class never learns. They keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. They keep telling the same lies. They keep producing the same failed results.

It appeared at b's place, "Moon of Alabama," one of the leading objectively pro-Trump sites on the ostensibly "progressive" InterTubes.

I generally like b's analysis of the Syria conflict and the other conflicts which the United States Empire is tangled up in, but he fails badly when he -- and others -- blame them all on Hillary and denies (or almost denies) any agency to the President and the Foreign Policy Establishment and War Department shops which come up them and implement them. Hillary has never had the powers imputed to her. No president or cabinet member does.

If she were President, she would not have the kind of absolute power that is imputed to the Presidency -- power imputed only if she or Trump occupies the Big Chair, not when Bush 2 or Obama is in the office.

I realize this is political rhetoric, not a genuine understanding of how the government works, but still, it's jarring.

The rhetoric says that Hillary -- the Hag -- is directly and solely responsible for every war and every foreign policy disaster in recent history, and she will start World War III on top of it if she is allowed to ascend to the Throne. Mr. Trump, on the other hand, it is asserted, has been an active opponent of every war and every foreign policy disaster in recent history and will prevent World War III from his perch in the White House once he ascends to the Throne.

This is because he's just a businessman, and she's a warmongering neoCon hawk politician and grifter, don't you see?

Well, no. That's not quite how it is and has been. Nor are the assumptions of who will start and who will prevent the ultimate annihilation particularly accurate.

The President's powers and authorities are considerable, but they are also constrained by Congress, the Constitution, precedent, and custom. The Bush 2 Regime broke a lot of the historic constraints on Presidential power and authority, beginning with its lawless installation by the Supreme Court. That lawless act enabled much of the lawlessness to come. The lawless legacy of the Bush 2 Regime still reverberates, and the Obama Administration has utilized aspects of Bush 2's lawless legacy in its own pursuit of national/imperial goals.

Not all constraints on Presidential  powers and authorities were lifted with the installation of the Bush 2 Regime, but it's truly shocking how much was transformed by Bush and his appointees including Darth Cheney.

Nevertheless, with some exceptions, none of them had independent authority. Not the President, not Darth, not Rummy or Condi or any of the rest of them. They were all linked together and they had to operate as a team, with the connivance of Congress and a compliant media, or the whole thing would have fallen apart. Bush 2 was the coach, the man in charge, and he was the one who set and enforced policy -- on the advice and counsel of his team, but also on his own directive.

This is how Presidencies operate, even when they go rogue as Bush 2's Regime did. They have to. For the President, despite all, is not an autocrat.

Came Obama and he was rather quickly disabused of independent notions of what he could and couldn't do in office. The constraints on him were interestingly much greater than those on Bush 2, who seemed to be able to do whatever he wanted at home and abroad. The situations were different of course, but more than that, the Bush 2 Regime was intimately tied into existing permanent power structures within government. These were the players and the practices that were baked into government from long before. Cheney, for example, had been part of the governing clique -- whether he was in or out of office -- for decades; so too Rummy. Colin. Not so much Condi or some of the others, but Bush himself was the son of a President who understood how the machinations of power within government worked and knew who to call on to get things done the way he wanted them done. In other words, the Bush 2 Regime came into office as Members of the Club of Rule/

Obama had no such advantages. Good heavens, no. He was a neophyte newcomer -- and a Negro for gawd's sake. He had to be -- and was -- put in his place right quick. He had few or no allies in the permanent government, and he found out that his freedom of action was strictly constrained, not only by his youth and inexperience, but by opposition in both parties to pretty much anything he wanted to do. Biden could run some interference with the Senate, but Biden fell under many of the same constraints Obama did, as he was never a full member of the Club.

So that brings us to The Hag and her position as Secretary of State. According to the current myth, She had unlimited and total power to do as She wanted in Her position, and Obama had none. According to the myth, She was operating Her foreign policy independently of the White House and Obama didn't even know what she was doing. Or something like that.

She, as Big Dog's Woman, had all Power -- just as Big Dog did -- from the moment she entered the Senate if not before. Why, She might even have been the True Power behind Big Dog's Throne. Imagine it.

This is nonsense. She could not operate independently any more than Colin or Condi could when they were Secretaries of State, nor can Kerry do so now. They are the creatures of the White House, and they follow the policy decisions made in the Oval Office. Even Maddy Albright had to do that when she served Clintoon I.

They have input into those decisions, of course, but they don't make those decisions independently.

She -- the Hag -- did not start or lead the wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria or any other place, nor could She have done so as a Senator or Secretary of State. And as President, She cannot start World War III independently.

Much as one likes to believe She can and will, that's not how these things happen, if they happen.

There is a whole series of agreements that have to be reached within the administration and the permanent government (aka The Deep State) before a -- say -- nuclear war can begin, particularly if it is a war of aggression which it would almost have to be given Russian reluctance to engage in mutual annihilation.

In addition, the public has to be convinced that nuclear annihilation is the preferable course of action, because reasons.

The anti-Russian/Putin propaganda campaign is in full swing, of course. It appears to be designed to induce Regime Change on the model of so many others since the destabilization and collapse of the Soviet Union, but it's not entirely clear what's going on. There are elements of pure ridiculousness and pretend in it that make little or no sense. Trump's contrariness over it doesn't mean he doesn't go along with it. He may simply have a different -- and more personally profitable -- view of how to exploit it. Exploit it, believe me, he will, whether or not he ascends to the White House.

What he says on the campaign trail about not going to war with Russia is essentially meaningless -- as he is well-known for re-negotiating deals after closing the sale to get out of whatever it was he promised to make the sale. That's his way, and it's the way of his class. Nothing these people say is confirmed until they actually do something, and what they do is exploit every weakness they can find for personal gain and profit. If that means lying to the rubes, so what?

In government, though, you have to play the game more subtly. You can say anything you want on the campaign, but in office you have to follow certain rather strict rules or... you're out or at least you will be tied up in knots. Examples there are many. Some quite recently, too.

In other words, Presidents have to get along with, and likely go along with the permanent government and their own administration. The President's ability to start or stop something is therefore limited.

But it does not mean Presidents have no agency at all. Far from it.

Yet Obama is asserted to have no agency in his own Presidency. Clintoon controlled it and still does, The Hag, and were she President, I guess she would control the whole wide world from her perch in the Oval Office.

Amazing.

But there you are. That's what happens in hotly contested elections in which a Clinton is a candidate (it happened during the Clinton I Regime, too. And we know what a rollercoaster/game show that was.)

I would say that as a general matter, Presidents are not as directly powerful as they are made out to be. They are not monarchs nor are they autocrats, though the Presidency itself is modeled on heads of state and government of historic Britain and Rome.

Compared to many other heads of government, Presidents have both too much power and too little. Their constraints have mostly to do with their advisers, cabinets and the inertia of the permanent government (Deep State). Congressional constraints are limited, but they can operate either for or against Presidential prerogative. A prime minister, on the other hand, operates in conjunction with his or her party and the party's majority in parliament. Their party is always part of the permanent government, so the constraints put upon the prime minister  by the permanent government are somewhat less than those put on a president from either party (parties function a little differently in a parliamentary system.)

A prime minister will generally have a less rocky road in office, but there are exceptions. On the other hand, there are some things a prime minister won't do that a president might.

They say a president has a completely free hand in foreign policy and war powers, with no constraints at all. It certainly looked that way in the Bush 2 Regime, but what they did required an amazing amount of coordination and cooperation between branches of government and TPTB up and down the line. Were it not for the media's complicity and lies, much of what the Bush 2 Regime did, including the disastrous war of aggression on Iraq would not have been possible.

I wonder whether the permanent government and the neoLibCon Overclass have learned any sort of lesson from that debacle or if they are capable of Lessons Learned. If they have learned, it might be the wrong lessons.

The idea that The Hag has had ultimate power since her Senate days is of course ridiculous. But what she would do in office is a valid concern as it ought to be with any President. I doubt she would instigate a nuclear Armageddon with Russia, partly because of the conditioning she and almost everybody else of her generation (my generation as it were) got regarding the permanence of nuclear annihilation and the results of instant incineration. The United States has never gone mano a mano against a nuclear armed power partly because of that conditioning.

Cold War brinkmanship was another thing altogether, and aspects of it have been revived to assert American hegemony over rivals. For how many years was the US Government threatening war against Iran, for example? Note how it was resolved. That was brinkmanship in action. Much the same procedure is taking place with regard to Russia, with interesting results. Both sides are operating cautiously, though the rhetoric out of DC is hot. Not so much out of Moscow, though. That's how the game is played, and it was played much the same way during the Cold War. And as was the case during much of the Cold War, there are constant backchannel communications between the Kremlin and DC -- partly in order to keep things from going nuclear.

Hillary actually made a comment during one of the debates which clued me into what is probably going on: she said that a No Fly Zone over Syria would only occur as a negotiated agreement between the US, Syria and Russia, it would not be imposed unilaterally. Its purpose would be to provide a safe-haven to civilians attempting to escape  the conflict zone.

It makes sense, and it is likely that just that sort of negotiations are going on right now. The rhetoric is warmongering, but that is not necessarily what the discussions are about. The Russians and Syrians have temporarily halted air attacks on East Aleppo, for example, as a means of fostering dialog and allowing the escape of civilians who wish to leave. It's a difficult process because of the nature of the conflict and the many disparate parties involved, but it appears to be taking place nonetheless.

It will not lead to WWIII under the circumstances.

And yet the fear being whipped up is all about the impending nuclear exchange between Superpowers.

And everyone knows that's what The Hag intends to do once she's in the Big Chair.

That's not how these things work.

The President has agency, but it's not that of an autocrat.

Obama is in charge of the current regime, just as Bush 2 was in charge of the previous one, but their authority is and was not absolute. At some point, it would be nice if Americans understood how their government actually works.

Oh well....

Nuclear Annihilation! Instant Incineration! Run For Your Lives! We're All Gonna Dieeeeeee!

Jebus.

The fear and frenzy over Our Impending Doooooom! has reached fever pitch. So many online commentators are certain that The Hag will get us into a nuclear war with Russia -- over Syria, Ukraine or someplace -- that they are literally freaking out over it. We Are Doomed!

Now stop, I say. Stop. It. Right. Now.

The fear of Nuclear Annihilation time-honored tactic for control of domestic populations used by both the US/NATO and the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War, though neither power had any intention of using nuclear weapons against the other -- except in the most extreme circumstance, a circumstance that never arose.

But boy was the fear of what might happen ever useful and effective.

What we're witnessing right now is a classic example of Cold War style Brinkmanship and propaganda which is being exploited to the max by both sides with the undeniable implication that one or the other will engage in a nuclear first strike --- and we're all gonna die!

Over Ukraine. Over Syria. Over... well, something, somewhere, somehow, some time.

And Putin is a Madman.

This whole frenzy depends on the underlying belief that Putin is a Madman who will sacrifice Mother Russia and the Russian people to demonstrate how low hanging and clangy his big brass balls are...

Right.

No. That's not how Brinkmanship works.

Yes, there are plenty of neoCon cage rattlers in the US/NATO governments who appear to want to engage in a Nuclear Holocaust with the Soviet Union, erm, Putin's Russia. Russia Hate is that strong, and "destroying" Russia is their aim.

But that can only happen if Putin is the Madman the propagandists try to make him out to be. I say he is not. Nothing like it.

And he has absolutely no intention of sacrificing Mother Russia to slow or stop the Imperial Juggernaut.

The cage rattlers will not get their Nuclear Holocaust, not this time, and with any luck, not ever.

But the fear of what might happen will continue to be ratcheted up, the better to control domestic populations, not so much to strike fear in rivals.

The propaganda campaign against Russia started up in earnest as Edward Snowden settled into what appears to be a very comfortable exile as the guest of the Russian Federation. I have long felt that the Snowden Thing started out as a Black Op -- part of a rivalry between The Agencies, meant to provide an upper hand to one faction of security/spy agents over another. The initial exposures of domestic spying by the NSA, for example, didn't tell us anything (much) that we didn't already know or suspect. Greenwald, et al., had to scramble to point out that this was confirmation of what we knew/suspected and that was the main point of the revelations, and that was good!

Whatever. There was little more than proforma outrage from the powers that be, styling to be seen as responsible adults and all that. But when details of foreign spying operations were published, everything changed. What The Agencies were doing to foreign governments was not supposed to be released, I guess, and at that point -- starting before then, of course -- Snowden became a real persona non grata, and his protector Putin became The Evil One as far as the propaganda machine was concerned.

In addition, WikiLeaks, which once seemed like a Honeypot to snag various malcontents, but as Snowden accomplice and helper, was subjected to increasingly intense pressure from all sides.

I think that much of the anti-Putin and anti-Assange propaganda is due in large measure to the continued presence of Snowden as guest of the Kremlin, and that (temporary) resolution to the current Brinkmanship will be found in withdrawing the Russian welcome extended to Snowden.

He's the card Putin can play to bring a (temporary) end to the present state of affairs.

That doesn't mean that it won't happen again (it most likely will; the Imperial Project is relentless, and the dismemberment of the Russian Federation is a long-ago announced goal); but its current iteration will become inoperative.

In the meantime, it's worthwhile to review how Brinkmanship works, and to understand that Putin at least is no Madman.

See all of this as a shadowplay, not as reality.

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...

The New Normal: This Is The Way The World Works... Now

The Ukrainian Thing seems to have stalled for the moment, as the mighty troops sent to smoke out the terrorists holding those public buildings in the Eastern Sector have an annoying tendency to run away or get caught by the refusniks. It would be funny if this were some fictional place in Mittel Europe pre-WWII, and the Marx Brothers made a movie about it.

Oh wait.

But it's the real thing. Insofar as these things are ever "real" -- in the sense that ordinary people and/or the high and the mighty can ever know fully what is really going on and the consequences thereof... it's real enough. People are being shot and killed and kidnapped and manhandled and otherwise being put through the wringer -- one that looks very much like gangland behavior under chaotic, ruthless, and lawless conditions. Everybody has their stick, their bat, their AK-47, their new camo uniform, their balaklava...

At least there are some productive uses for all the old tires in Ukrainia. Wouldn't want them to go to waste.

Meanwhile, the posturing by the principals goes on and on and on and on, in a kind of dance or minuet, something we haven't seen in quite this way since the run up to the tragedies in Afghanistan and Iraq. Because the principals are behaving now very much the way they did then -- though they say that they have taken military adventuring off the table and they are clearly trying to fight an old-fashioned proxy war through their surrogates on the ground in Ukrainia -- people everywhere are nervous as heck. No doubt the survivalists are stockpiling even more goods for the ultimate End of Times they sincerely believe is so soon to come.

This is all dangerous as heck, given the fact that the Superpowers are involved, the nuclear armed states, the Global Terror States of times gone by, when only they, the USA and the Soviet Union, had nukes and were brandishing and rattling them at one another...

So it is once again... except... for something. Something has changed.

Oh, that's right. One of the Superpowers, the other one, the Soviet Union, no longer exists. And its successor, the Russian Federation ("Russia") is a pale shadow of its former incarnation. A picked apart pale shadow of what it once was at that, ringed with hostile and in some cases competitive independent states aligned with, often hosting the military of, the vaunted "West" -- led by the USofA. So... what's this all about?

I've pointed out several times now what I think is going on, really going on, and though I haven't gotten much into why (the Global Great Game interests me less than its consequences to the ordinary people on the ground), I have little doubt that what's happening is the result of a Game-play that went wrong. It's "real" in that real people are being made to suffer for the forced and unforced errors of their Betters (as always, no?) and it's "real" in that the capture by the EU of the EU's Eastern Partnership nations (Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia) is a fundamental policy objective.

Regardless of what happened in Kiev, in other words, the EU, NATO and the US would have been pursuing policy goals to capture ever more territory and peoples from the orbit of the Russian Federation. It's apparently hard-wired into the EU's self-conception as technically assisted by the US.

Russia, for its part, has not been able to resist, and really hasn't resisted until now. Even now, the Russian resistance is more guerrilla-esque than military. What happened in Vilnius last November -- and its consequences in Kiev -- seems to have taken the Kremlin by as much surprise as it did in Brussels, Berlin, London and Washington.

Yanukovych was apparently expected by all parties to sign the Integration Agreement he was presented with at the Vilnius Conference of the EU's Eastern Partnership on November 29, 2013, and he refused. They say that he saw the actual terms of the agreement for the first time at that meeting, on the last day of the meeting, and he balked. Those terms -- which I seem to have misplaced the link to for the moment -- were devastating to the Ukrainian people, forcing them ever further into poverty, and they basically turned over the very fragile sovereignty of Ukraine to unelected technocrats and strategic wonks at the IMF, the European Central Bank, and NATO. Under the terms Yanukovych was presented, Ukraine would effectively become a colonial possession of the EU and NATO.

He was expected by all concerned -- including the Kremlin, apparently -- to sign away what limited patrimony Ukraine had in order to receive an economic package from the EU/IMF that would primarily benefit Ukraine's Russian creditors. Shockingly, he said no.

Nyet.

Oh.

Almost immediately protests and demonstrations formed in the Maidan Square in Kiev, somewhat patterned on the Color Revolution/Occupy model (with some interesting and important differences), and Yanukovych's government was subjected to typical subversion and destabilization tactics that have long been employed by "Color Revolutionists" in Eastern Europe and around the world. Occupy never used those tactics, which may be a clue to why Occupy never overthrew any government. It wasn't trying to. That wasn't its purpose. But overthrow and replacement of governments was very much a part of the main objective of Color Revolutions, including the "Orange Revolution" that had occurred in Kiev in the winter of 2004-2005.

Yanukovych had messed with his masters in Brussels, Berlin, London, Washington -- and Moscow, apparently -- and he had to go, one way or another.

And so it would be. The Maidan Model included a level of violence that had not been seen in these Color Revolutions previously, a truly shocking level of violence culminating in shadowy and unknown snipers firing on the crowds assembled at the square. Prior to that still mysterious event, however, the police had been routinely firebombed with Molotov cocktails, and armed and violent gangs of fascists and Nazis (yeah, the real thing) had patrolled the perimeters and enforced "discipline" on the crowd and they periodically stormed and took over government buildings in the center of Kiev and in other towns in Western Ukraine.

Much of what is being done in the East now is based quite closely on the Maidan Model, albeit with the absence of the large crowds of demonstrators that were typical of the Maidan protests. The difference has to do, I'm sure, with the fact that the crowds in Kiev were fired on by those snipers... the same could easily happen to large crowds elsewhere. It has happened in other cases.

Snipering the crowds of protestors was typical of the 2013 post-coup Cairo Model of dispersing demonstrators; they were shot at, and many were killed or wounded, by snipers strategically emplaced around the pro-Morsi demonstrations. So it would be in Kiev as well. This tactic tends to limit the number of demonstrators who will turn out... it also has an effect on who and what demonstrators will support.

The coup-regime in Kiev, as it's called, has agreed to the terms that the EU/IMF/NATO et al tried to impose on the Yanukovych government, with the proviso, apparently, that the funding not go to Russian creditors, only to EU creditors. Interesting.

When Yanukovych balked in Vilnius, Russia -- specifically Putin -- was blamed, though it's not at all clear that Putin engineered the last-minute refusal by Yanukovych to sign on the dotted line. Russia had offered a different deal to Ukraine, but its terms were only slightly less onerous and exploitative. The issue seemed to be one of a tug-of-war between the EU and RF for Ukraine's future. The people were not to be consulted. They were simply to be led. In whichever direction the leadership and elites (in this part of the world, read: "Oligarchs") wanted to go.

Apparently, Yanukovych wanted to blaze his own path, and thought he could do it best under Russian aegis.

Well, that didn't work out.

In other words, Yanukovych's refusal triggered a cascade of unanticipated events that no only led to his overthrow and ouster and the installation of an EU/NATO approved coup-regime in Kiev, but to the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and the stalemate now in place on Ukraine's eastern borders, which stalemate could lead to some kind of nuclear exchange between the EU/US/NATO -- out of sheer incompetence if not strategy.

I say these were not anticipated events, in part because most of it looks to be ad hoc, even the Maidan protests that were clearly rather carefully organized and remarkably well presented via professional public relations efforts. The preparations for the Maidan protests had clearly been made in advance and were carried out as efficiently as possible, but there were so many uncoordinated aspects of it that didn't fit the pre-conceived and arranged pattern of these sorts of things. The enormous stage and the demagoguery  that was conducted from it seemed to me to be one of those ad hoc rather than pre-planned arrangements. Even the snipering that climaxed the demonstrations seemed to be ad hoc rather than pre-planned. The use of Nazis and fascists as shock troops may well have come about spontaneously.

In other words, while the demonstrations and assemblies seemed pretty well planned in advance (if, for example, the Yanukovych government refused some aspect of the EU integration agreements) the fact that he refused the whole thing was the surprise, and the response became much more spontaneous, vigorous -- and violent -- than was anticipated.

I've pointed out that the ground was laid long before the uprising by the hundreds of "educational" and "democracy" NGOs that had been operating in Ukraine for decades before the Maidan protests. Many of them were dedicated to EU "integration" -- and that has been the focus of the Kiev coup-regime ever since they seized power in February.

The coup-regime was allowed to seize power, however. They didn't have the means or authority to seize it on their own. Yanukovych's flight from Kiev seems to have been arranged by the Kremlin, a flight which enabled the almost immediate installation of a pre-selected group of financiers, technocrats and Nazi-bullies to rule. But it couldn't have happened if Yanukovych hadn't fled. That he did so under a Russian wing indicates to me that the Kremlin was OK with his overthrow, and indeed may have been behind it. (He was, after all, a bumbler at best.)

What the Kremlin is not OK with is the EU/NATO/US take over of Ukraine without recognition of Russian national interest. The fact that the Kiev coup-regime and its backers deny there is a legitimate Russian interest in Ukraine is the key flashpoint which can -- especially through the incompetence of the elites involved -- lead directly to severely unpleasant consequences, such as an unfortunate nuclear exchange.

The partition and dismemberment of the Russian Federation is one of those long term projects of the ruling class in the West that won't soon be accomplished and won't soon go away. Russia is to be eliminated as a major global influence and power according to long-standing neo-conservative principles. Once that's accomplished, then China.

These are insane principles, but they're now the New Normal.

It's the way the world works.

Nuclear Panaceas

This is something of an expansion on yesterday's post, which was itself more of a placeholder than a fully thought out piece. There were literally so many things swirling in my mind yesterday, like the whirlwinds on the Jornada de los Muertos, the Journey of the Dead, the name the Spanish conquistadores gave to the plain on which the Trinity Test took place.

"Other-worldliness" was very much a factor in the adventure. Even getting to the Site -- especially the slower-than-slow progress through the Stallion Range Gate -- was part of the Other World sense of it all. Once inside the gate, we passed by the site where I remember seeing ruins of temporary classroom and other buildings, fabric walled, torn to shreds, with desks and chairs and chalkboards still in them when I was there before, but now they were gone, just the platforms and concrete pads on which they stood still visible.

That reminded me somehow of a place near where I once lived in California. It had been a transit camp for Japanese internees, one that was quite notorious in its day. It once consisted of row on row of drab and dreary barracks into which the Japs (as they were known) were crammed until transport was available to haul them to their final camp at Tule Lake or Manzanar or wherever.

Apparently after the War, there had been a big fire, and all the hutments and barracks and latrines and whatnot had burned to the ground. The site had been abandoned and had pretty much returned to the wild. If the military or anyone else owned it, there was no sign.

However, though the buildings were gone, the concrete pads on which they stood were still there when I was living nearby (I was then about 12 or 13). And the pads were littered with charred wood and broken and fused glass, a lot of which was green. There were no artifacts that I can recall, though there might have been some basins or door knobs or what have you lost in the weeds that surrounded the pads and had grown up through the cracked asphalt that had once been roadways between the buildings.

I didn't know what this place had been for some time after I first explored the ruins. Then my mother told me. She knew. She'd been stationed at the air base not far from this site during the War. She knew what it was and what it was for because it was right there when she was stationed at the base (she'd joined the Women's Army Air Corps) and everyone on base knew why it was there and what it was for. It was the transit camp for the Japs -- both when they were headed out to the distant concentration camps and when they were finally allowed to return to what was left of their homes in 1945. In between times, the military had occupied the buildings as additional base housing.

At that time, I could barely imagine what had happened during the War, though talk about it and movies about it, and reminiscence about World War II were ever-present during my childhood. We often think about the Depression as being the formative social and cultural factor of 20th Century America, but it was actually World War II -- the War which changed everything.

My mother had been friends with a Japanese American farm family before the War, and briefly, once they were rounded up for the concentration camps, she had taken care of their farm, hopeful that they would not be away for very long. But the farm was much more than she could handle, and when she heard that they would be gone "for the duration," she turned its care  over to an Anglo neighbor who was not particularly friendly with the family who was sent to Manzanar or Tule Lake or one of the other internment camps.

Soon thereafter, she joined the Women's Army Air Corps, she found herself stationed near where the Japanese American family had been held before they were taken to wherever it was they were going.

Photo by Dorothea Lange, May, 1942, Japanese American family being escorted to their barracks at a transit camp for internees

These were quite miserable shelters, not even up to standards of chicken coops, which is what my mother had called them. "Not fit for human beings". She said that what had happened to these people was an outrage, completely uncalled for. And she blamed a single individual for it: Earl Warren, in 1942 California Attorney General, who was the force behind the forces that sent the Japs to the concentration camps. He was the one who demanded it incessantly, went to Washington and got the orders from the President that put the whole dreadful business into motion. Earl Warren, who would become governor. He had ambitions, didn't he? It was easy to pander to the prejudices of California's Anglo population. And Warren was no slacker when it came to pandering...

But after he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by Eisenhower, he changed. 180°, almost. Brown vs Board of Education in 1954 started a process of anti-Jim Crow and civil rights legislation and court findings that would transform the deep racial animosities and other prejudices held by so many Americans into... something else. They're not gone, not by a long shot, but they no longer hold such sway over American society and sense of justice.

Well, not like they once did at any rate.

After we passed by the pads and platforms of the no longer present temporary buildings inside the Stallion Gate on the way to Trinity Site, I spotted something reddish-brown by the side of the road. I couldn't make out what it was until we were passing right beside it and I saw the ribs sticking up: OMG, it was a cow, the carcass of a cow which had apparently perished right beside the base road and whose innards had been consumed by ravens and buzzards and coyotes and whatnot, leaving only hide and bone...

A cow? How did a cow get there? This was on base, and so far as I know, they don't run herds there. There are wild animals and hunting is permitted from time to time, but there are no cattle... are there? Maybe it got through the fence somehow and found itself unable to return to its own herd outside the boundary and perished from... lack of water? The sparseness of the forage? Loneliness? What had happened? I couldn't imagine, but I could easily imagine the presence of the cow was never even noticed by base personnel until it was too late, and then, with no orders to move it from beside the road, it was simply left to the coyotes and ravens and buzzards to deal with...

Much further on down the road, where turned off the main road to get to Trinity Site itself, there were a couple of camouflage tent-like structures near the intersection, somewhat resembling duck blinds, full of electronic equipment and a solitary soldier sitting forlorn inside them. Hum. What could they be? Beside these little tents there were bristling antennae and other sorts of gimcracks of no identifiable purpose, and I wondered, "Are they monitoring wildlife or our own selves as we head ever further into the base?" Were they monitoring our cell phones (which didn't work, by the way -- there wasn't even car radio reception on most of this journey of the dead... ) or our movements? We were ordered not to deviate off the road during our trip to Trinity Site and not to take pictures anywhere on base but at Trinity Site itself. But we saw some vehicles pull off the road here and there and saw people taking pictures where they were ordered not to. There are, after all, bunkers and other artifacts of the Trinity Test along the way to the Site, but I noticed the signs and placards that once identified them weren't maintained and no longer had legible contents.

Unlike formerly, too, at the Site itself, there were no longer any buses out to the restored McDonald Ranch where the Gadget had been assembled (though the nuclear core was inserted right under the tower where it would be hoisted up and detonated on July 16, 1945.) I had missed going to the McDonald Ranch due to time constraints when I visited the Site in 2010 and I had hoped to go this time, but a sign at the Gate said that the McDonald Ranch house was "temporarily closed" for reasons unstated.

Where the Gadget was assembled 

I wanted to go out there (it's about 2 miles from the test site) partly because one of the pioneer houses nearby our own is practically identical. It's a typical style of New Mexico homesteaders and pioneers near the turn of the 20th Century but you'd never know it existed because it doesn't fit the architectural "Style" imposed in Santa Fe and common elsewhere in New Mexico, thanks to Carlos Vierra and his friend John Gaw Meem.

Ah, but no. Not this time. Maybe next time, maybe not. There are houses like this and ruins of houses like this all over New Mexico, pioneer houses that were built of adobe and roofed with corrugated iron (called "tin") with tall, narrow windows and rough stone walls around them, built when the area was opened for homesteading around the turn of the 20th Century. Many are abandoned, as the pioneer ranch house we live in had been abandoned, because it is just too difficult to make a living out on the llano in New Mexico. The weather is too wild and unpredictable, the water is too scarce, the struggle for living too intense. It's hard to settle down and remain. The Native peoples long ago knew this, and they thought perhaps the Spanish and later the Anglos who went out in the desert and high plains to raise their livestock and to grow their crops and to build their towns were a bit mad. Or maybe they were a lot crazy. They may have had a few good years and then the droughts and the winds and the harshness of the land and the tiring work of bare survival drove them out.

Their ruins are everywhere.

The 'Gadget' on the tower before the Trinity Test, 1945 (Los Alamos National Laboratory picture)

One of the tower's stanchions after the test

And that's part of what Trinity Site represents in a less personal way. The McDonalds, at whose ranch house the Gadget was assembled, left -- they say "evacuated under protest" -- when the military took over the site for the Alamagordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in 1942, less than thirty years after the ranch was built. The house sat abandoned until the Trinity test was decided on in 1945.

Afterwards, the place was abandoned again and left to ruin until its restoration in 1984.

Typical.

McDonald Ranch House, 1974

It is said that the reason for the Trinity Test was to see whether a plutonium implosion bomb would work or not. The Little Boy uranium bomb along with several mockups had been shipped to Tinian Island in the Pacific before the test of the Gadget, and shortly after the Trinity Test, the components for the Fat Man bomb (of which the Gadget was an example of its interior) were flown to Tinian from Kirtland Field, and were assembled on Tinian for use on Nagasaki.

The stated reason for the Trinity Test was scientific, but the actual use of the bombs on Japan was political, both to accelerate the surrender of Japan, and to demonstrate to the Soviets that the United States was prepared to... what, exactly? Do anything?

The idea, obviously, was to instill fear in any potential enemy such as the Soviet Union -- already designated the Enemy of the Moment after the capitulation of Nazi Germany -- of what the United States was capable of and willing to do in pursuit of its national/international interests. While many of the nuclear scientists involved in the creation of these weapons advised against their use on human populations preferring that demonstration detonations be utilized instead, the politics of war then -- and perhaps now -- insisted that only the actual use of these weapons against the Enemy himself would be effective. It's the principle of the only thing these people understand... that we heard all the time during the Afghanistan and Iraq misadventures, and which was a typical perspective regarding "The Enemy" through all the Cold War "police actions."

Burning them alive was considered to be a highly appropriate way of Enemy extermination and disposal, especially in the Pacific and Japan during the later stages of World War II. Firebombing was used in Europe as well, but the results -- in Hamburg and Dresden especially -- seemed far too much like the results of the Nazi concentration camps' efforts to dispose of the super abundance of dead bodies that accumulated toward the end of the war.

On the other hand using flamethrowers against Japanese soldiers was considered a kind of sport, and the firebombings of Tokyo, Osaka and Yokohama were celebrated as particularly appropriate punishment for the Japs. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in these pre-nuclear bombings, whereas the total number of casualties from the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is thought to be just over 120,000. The point was that these incinerations took only one bomb each, whereas hundreds of bombs were necessary to obliterate other Japanese cities. Efficiency! American know how!

During the Iraqi retreat from Kuwait in 1991, American forces unleashed a grotesque bombing raid on what is known as the Highway of Death. Thousands of retreating Iraqis were incinerated in that episode, but there were many other incidents in which the US blasted civilian targets as well, most notably on a bomb shelter in Baghdad, in which several hundred civilians were slaughtered.

All this, of course, was long ago. Nuclear weapons and nuclear energy were once seen -- or at least promoted -- as panaceas for a troubled world and suffering mankind, the bombs to "keep us safe," and the nuclear plants to provide us with "unlimited energy." Neither has quite worked out as promised. The bombs don't keep us safe, and nuclear energy is a chimera at best. There is no known way to maintain the radioactive waste products produced, and there is no way to ensure the safety of nuclear power plants in any event.

The nuclear demons unleashed at Trinity Site almost 70 years ago still haunt us and the world in general. Some still believe that enough people could survive a nuclear holocaust to make it worthwhile to consider -- or at least an interesting experiment.

J. Robert Oppenheimer Manhattan Project lead scientist saw it differently:




I'm with Oppie on this.

We'll meet again, I'm sure... in spirit if not in the flesh...