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| Silverfiddle Rant! |
"Alternative views are now tantamount to championing tyranny."
Another bit of wisdom from the essay labeled by some as Russian propaganda:
"War is not sports-betting, where one can feel good about siding with the underdog from the comfort of a couch or a bar. It is geopolitics in its most visceral, existential form: wagers have real costs involving human lives, and they are settled only with power and political will."
I have never taken Krystal Ball seriously, but I do now...
"...we have with very little debate committed ourselves to all-out economic warfare."
Andrew Bacevich: Peak Thomas Friedman Bullshit?
Friedman figures prominently among those claiming to have divined the essential character of the present age. His key finding: tech-driven globalization has rendered old-fashioned power politics obsolete.That Vladimir Putin has somehow not received the memo or has chosen to ignore its dictates is beyond flabbergasting.What Friedman ought have written is this: “By invading Ukraine, Russia has demolished what little remained of the lucrative line of bullshit that I have been peddling for the past twenty or so years.” But don’t count on any such admission to be forthcoming.
Ben Domenech rejects both the neocons and the neo-isolationists...
As in so many areas of American life, in the realm of foreign policy we have placed our trust in the experts, and see them squander and abuse it, leaving Americans feeling ignored and disrespected. It is time to listen to them, and in so doing, chart a path toward a clear-eyed foreign policy that maintains order, security, and peace, while seeking our national interest above all.
Remember how people used to get upset when presidents shared intelligence with our enemies?
Bari Weiss invites Niall Ferguson, Walter Russell Mead and Francis Fukuyama to her podcast to discuss Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Excellent discussion and erudite commentary from Ferguson and WRM. Ignore Fukuyama. Every time he speaks he sounds like a foolish twit.
Ukraine confirms that America's post-Cold War unipolar moment is dead: over the weekend, the talk shifted (again very Corona-like) from fifteen days to flatten the Tsar to an acceptance that this is a long-term thing - that, for a while at least, "a gas station masquerading as a country" (in John McCain's characteristically stupid sneer) has succeeded in rolling back the great European liberations of three decades ago.
Fifth Column Podcast #348 w/ Matt Taibbi "Richard Perle in New Jersey, Putin in Hell, Ukraine in Crisis"
The first twenty minutes or so is an interesting and unique discussion of the situation's background. Taibbi lived in Russia for years and has been all over Eastern Europe. They discuss the implications and potential fallout from supranational corporations and global financinal institutions "canceling" and "deplatforming" nations. I know nobody's in the mood for such "Russian propaganda" from libertarians and old school liberals, but they are in no way defending Russia. Taibbi is a dedicated pacifist, but he admits he wants to see Putin and his army smashed, humiliated and defeated.
"Russia... If you're listening..."
Neocon simpletons hammered John Mearsheimer because he turned out to be right, and the Russian Ministry of Defense quoted from his clear-eyed and prophetic 2014 essay.
This triggered the Chickenhawks of Couchistan to fire off unimaginative, low-yield tweets like this:
“Now wondering if the Russians didn’t actually get their narrative from Mearshimer et al. Moscow needed to say West was responsible for Russian invasions (Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, Ukraine), and not their own greed and imperialism. American academics provided the narrative.”
Brace yourself. The pro-Ukraine Euphoria will fade into rage as the clumsy but cruel Russian machine overwhelms the brave Ukrainians. I pray I am wrong.
What say you?
More Links:
Unbelievable, but some good commentary has been coming from MSNBC...
As a proud but sadly lonesome member of the much-maligned and woefully unrepresented faction of American foreign policy opinions that advocates nuking the dogshit out of Russia for the fun of it, even I find the narrative that Russians were howling at the moon and grunting and pointing and banging rocks together until Mearsheimer and Kennan and Kissinger and other FP academics wrote retroactive apologias for them. Last I heard from Mearsheimer, late January this year, he was advising anyone that would listen that Russia not only wouldn't invade Ukraine but also that they wouldn't dare to. In this, he's not all that different than Thomas Friedman hedging the bet that countries with a McDonald's restaurant in them won't go to war with each other. Sorry not sorry, but the analysis should have stopped with "Russians grunt and point and bang rocks together." That remains historically and sociologically accurate, going back to Strabo's dismissal of them in the 7th Century BCE. Russians are stupid, period. This is not an insult, it's a cold, hard fact. All analysis beyond that is just so much hand-wringing about what to do with a rabid dog.
ReplyDeleteThere's no point in nitpicking for example, the letter sent to President Clinton advising that expanding NATO westward was "opposed across the political spectrum in Russia." Russia then as now was a monopole of political repression. Not one of those "foreign policy experts" polled jailed opponents of the Russian government, much less the graveyards of Putin's ire. The fact that many former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact states wanted to join NATO (and in the case of Ukraine and Georgia, still do) and did puts that "advice" to the lie. "Russia's going to put on a cape and be Supermad if they lose the power over its neighbors it once had." Wow, you sobered up from frat parties and tuition-based book-thumbing for that, Captain Obvious? There's that side, but also the other side: "So what, who cares?" The nations that joined NATO did so *because* of their history under Russian dominance.
ReplyDeleteThey may not be the Soviet Union anymore, but they're still Russians. What Russia wants is a big ol' box of not NATO's problem. Sucks to suck.
Please don't respond to the spambots. We all know who they are.
DeleteI saw Russian spambot and just went for the headshot lol. Sorry.
DeleteEurope, despite having nice buildings with nice furniture inside, people who speak nicely, nice art, nice music, etc, still manages to host a war on average every 20 years.
ReplyDeleteThe US has a solid record over the past 75 years of starting wars it cannot finish.
Our "leaders" and "experts" are continually being "surprised" by world events.
We need a better class of leaders and experts, and we need a higher order of thinking that what we have now.
I'm rubbing off on you lol. I've often pointed out that Europe has consistently had a war on its soil an average of every 20 years since Philip of Macedon.
DeleteThe scary statistic is that they've had war on their soul around 50 times since World War 2.
I do disagree with the idea that the US has "started wars it can't finish" though. "Blame America First" theatrics are so Obama and MySpace relics. I thought we were done with that. Europeans have never needed America to coax them into killing each other.
DeleteI hear you, TC, but trust me, I am not channeling known Chomsky or the code stinkos.
DeleteI want us to conduct business smartly.
We need a better class of leaders and experts, and we need a higher order of thinking that what we have now.
DeleteThe money shot. We've needed that for several decades now. Every 4 years or so, we keep hearing from one camp or the other that "the adults are in charge".
Yet all we ever get are toddlers and tantrums.
As I posted over at Politics Rewritten, we're not getting a better class of leaders and experts. We're getting "Reality politicians" like AOC, instead.
DeleteThe spectacle/SHOW must go on!
...although the reality players within in this Congressional/ political "play with in play" may change!
DeleteThe Media can be such an unreliable form of poison, as it often tends to "blow back upon the poisoner.... sometimes, even years later (ala "Ukraine on Fire").
DeleteFor a dose of hope based in rational analysis, go listen to the latest Colette podcast with a Canadian military man who is also a professor at I think their equivalent of our war college
ReplyDeletehttps://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3Mud2hvb3Noa2FhLmNvbS9yc3MvcG9kY2FzdC9pZC81MDIz/episode/OWUyYTMxN2QtNTJmNi00ZWRhLWFkY2UtZTIxOGE2YTQxMjNl?ep=14
Quillette podcast
DeleteI just listened. I'm not sure there's "hope" in the conclusion that Russia's options for capturing Kyiv are down to pushing thousands of their soldiers through a fatal and futile meat grinder, or cracking open the bottled sunshine with tactical nukes. The only deterrent to Russia using tactical nukes is America saying "F around and find out."
DeleteI don't know, I guess to me the rays of hope were the Russians maybe really are as incompetent as the press propaganda is saying they are. I agree, there is no sunny way out of this.
DeleteAh SF, it was always an imperfect world. :)
ReplyDeleteOliver Stone's "Ukraine on Fire"... here. Watch it while you still can...
ReplyDeleteWhose side is he on?
DeleteNot the UniParty's. His are mainly interviews with the pro-Russian factions and Russian officials like Putin.
DeleteIn other words, it's the "horses mouth" of Russian propaganda. I'm sure it was well planned in advance by Putin & Co. just as 2004/2014 Ukrainian revoutions were by CIA.
DeleteIt was released in 2016.
Deletefrom CTH:
DeleteIn a remarkable display of propaganda and Big Tech effort to erase history, thereby shaping public opinion, YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc, has deleted the award-winning Oliver Stone documentary “Ukraine on Fire.” Apparently, the truth about the history of Ukraine is against the interests of the current global order who are seeking to exploit the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
I think it pretty well exposes the "historical" dirty hands of both the US and Russia, as well as some interesting "familial" tidbits like the marriage of a former US DoS official to the former president of Ukraine (I suspect she was CIA).
DeleteRegardless of the film content, I disagree with censoring it, and that includes corporate censorship.
DeleteWatching Oliver Stone eat Vladimir Putin's droppings is not my idea of a worthwhile use of an hour and a half of my time. Don't censor it, but don't put porn in the history section of the library either.
DeleteThe Weekly Standard is here, beamish. You can read their war porn there. Not everybody wants to kill commies for Krystol.
Delete...or need I remind you, FORMER commies.
DeleteThe "real" ones are in Bejing and DC today.
DeleteTheir "propos" are all over the evening news every evening.
Delete...and their "racial justice" subsidies all passed in the House last night under their $1.5t "Porkubus" spending bill. Should be plenty war porn funded their. For the PEOPLE!
Delete...and $0 for new border walls. For the MEXCAN people!
Delete...but plenty of new "diversity/inclusion" funds for the Director of National Intelligence.
Delete...so we can send them off to DoS posts as "honeypots" to marry national elites in other country's and foment the spread of "American" commie-ocracy.
DeleteMeanwhile, back in beamish's dorm...
DeleteIs Fauci in KYIV salvaging his virus from his Biolabs there? Just wondering if he got what he needs to lockdown the American people in their homes for the next two years...'
DeleteJoe,
DeleteFauci won't need to salvage his virus from Ukrainian biolabs. We're coming up on a gasoline-fuel oil lockdown, a lockdown due to prohibitive prices for any pleasure driving and for keeping our home thermostats at tolerable settings.
Wind 'em up and watch 'em go lol.
DeleteYou got all of that out of an Oliver Stone film? Without dropping LSD?
Who said there were no drugs involved? ;)
Deletepoisoning people is funny teehee
DeleteOliver Stone, in a nutshell.
...my son...
Deletee-r-r-r... Oliver Stone's son? ;)
Deleteerratum- Roger Stone's son? ;P
DeleteAOW
DeleteWhat do you call the play?
Joe C
The House-trap.
Shakespeare, "Hamlet" (Act II Sc ii)
DeleteJoe C:
Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Ha!
'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
LSD-25... Polonium-210... potato, patahto
DeleteEnter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
DeleteFriends both, go join you with some further aid.
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius(-210) slain,
And from his mother’s closet hath he dragged him.
Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.
...and as "hysterics" we are all reduced to shouting in the wilderness...
ReplyDelete:P
Delete...a 'virtual' wilderness at that.
ReplyDelete...driven to madness, yet not alone. :(
ReplyDeleteBiolabs since 2005? American people did not know? I think the USA should be considered just as mad!
ReplyDeleteLets face it, they succeeded in distracting us with their Afghan and Iraq adventures...
DeleteThis has been Publicly Available Information the entire time. Americans generally, simply don't care about any information that isn't spoon-fed to them by cable news or their favorite partisan venue.
DeleteBut all the cool kids have been calling it all a Qanon conspiracy...
Deletehttps://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/02/ukraine-biolabs-conspiracy-theory-qanon/
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/feb/25/tweets/there-are-no-us-run-biolabs-ukraine-contrary-socia/
Apologies to Bertrand Russell, but its bullshit all the way down...
There was at one time a non-partisan element to the "spoon feeding"... which started running all downhill after Watergate. It's all partisan click-bait now. We've been reduced to "emoting" rather than "reasoning".
Delete