Back in the classroom after 2 ½ years on zoom. It turned out I did not need my little voice magnifier, which was a great relief. I told the students about the course, tried out some of my old jokes, had each of them introduce him or herself, and generally had a ball. The room has a big screen and a projector connected to a computer on a side table and my assistant, Dr. Alexander Campbell (same person who recorded and posted my lectures on Karl Marx, my lectures on Freud, and my lectures on Kant) took charge of posting slides on the screen as I asked for them. It was just another class on the first day of the semester at UNC but for me it was a big deal and I enjoyed it enormously.
Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly clear that Merrick
Garland is going full speed ahead against Trump and I may yet have the great
pleasure of seeing him hauled off to jail in an orange jumpsuit.
Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteThis is also good news:
https://www.wonkette.com/dems-in-array-as-republicans-scrounge-seat-cushions-for-cash-to-buy-ads
I am pleased to read about your successful first lecture. I can well imagine that there is a great qualitative difference between "zoom" and physically present people. It's hard to imagine that digital faces are the future of teaching.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Trump's outfit is concerned, I would like to note that I would like to see hand and ankle cuffs with the orange dress.
The fabulous Trump Prison Collection would be incomplete without a designer muzzle.
ReplyDeleteI start teaching at UPEI on September 7 this year and will teach Philosophy of Humour and Existentialism (2 courses) in person with online archiving of the course.
ReplyDeleteBut I am now more worried that I should be building a fall out shelter in my basement or at least buying all the mortar and blocks and supplies needed to construct one in a matter of days. I think that Putin is about to explode all academic plans with a really dangerous plan or desperate war tactic.
From the Manchester Guardian, online blog, August 18:
"Ukraine: Russia is planning a 'provocation' at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, intelligence agency warns Ukraine’s military intelligence believes that Russia is planning a “provocation” at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant tomorrow.
“The occupiers announced an unexpected ‘day off’ at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station. On 19 August, only operative personnel will be at the ZNPP. Entry to all other employees will be closed,” defence intelligence of Ukraine tweeted."
If Putin were to cause the world's greatest nuclear accident ever in Southern Ukraine as a way to shock the world and end the war with surrender so that scientists can come in and stop the radiation dust spread, or radioactive water flowing into the Black Sea.
A major nuclear accident according to so-called "preppers" would mean that many people would try to stay sealed up for about 3 weeks to let the fallout fade to non-lethal levels. Many people would get sick near Ukraine in Europe or Turkey or even Russia, so this is an absolutely mad plan. The eclipse of reason in action in the mind of a dictator desperate to win a war at any cost. If Putin blames the accident on Ukrainians, he could also retreat into a bunker himself with his family and not get poisoned while the masses die from fallout.
It is much more likely for a nuclear accident to happen in an urban war today than for any side to launch extreme hydrogen bombs which cause much more destruction. Fallout is a slow poisoning process and would take months as it spread through clouds and rain or water. War harms the environment more than any industrial pipeline leaks, or corporate poisoning, and Putin has crossed a new red line with nuclear terrorism.
In a Greek tragedy, the chorus would find a way to kidnap Putin and bring him to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant radiation chamber, chain him to a whipping post, and let him confess his wrongs to the world as he is poisoned by the previous nuclear accident in Ukraine and his video confession becomes a warning to all the other dictators of the world: do not fight wars with nuclear reactors! One of the poisons that the KGB used to kill Russian dissidents was radioactive tea, that would be too good for the former KGB agent Putin however. He needs punishment from the world for his threats and insane actions.
Blowing Zaporizhzhia won't end the war. Russia could well lose all or most of its precious land bridge to Crimea at which point Ukraine might take out the Crimean side of the bridge that spans the Kerch Strait, isolating the peninsula. If serious fallout goes over Europe, maybe we go to DEFCON 2. Putin has already miscalculated by invading Ukraine. I call shenanigans.
ReplyDeleteQuite an imagination there. I'd settle for a stroke, heart attack, or a "heart attack."
Dear Tony,
ReplyDeleteWhile all this sturm and drang over our official enemies provides quite a bit of material for your Humour and Existentialism courses, may I suggest, in case you run out of material, an inspection of the shenanigans of our beloved leaders at home (over whom we have more - hardly any - control). To wit:
"...in order to secure passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, Schumer assured Manchin that after Biden took his victory lap, he would quietly introduce another bill to “ease the regulatory burden” on energy companies. Now Schumer has made this sleazy deal public, benignly calling it a “permitting reform” package. The IRA bill was bad enough to begin with. Now they’ll gut the regulations that would have modestly constrained how bad the bad things will get....[and] as part of the IRA, Biden has now given the greenlight to the largest oil and gas sale in US history–Lease Sale 257, which spans 80.8 million acres across the Gulf of Mexico."
Rather satirical don't you think? Biden's victory lap? Yet all eyes riveted the hapless thug Putin, as the clock ticks down. Kudos for climate funding on the lips of pundits far and wide? Best estimates (IPCC) are that we will cross into irreversibility and life on earth as we have never seen it in the early 2030s.
Sleepy Joe running victory laps with fires all around is an image hard to unimagine. More suitable for a Greek tragedy too.
"...History always repeats itself twice - the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce...." (Karl Marx)
ReplyDeleteIf it would be still a tragedy, we say in the sense of Sophokles, then we could still talk ourselves out with the fact that we never had an alternative for our omissions. The fate had us from the beginning of all times in the Grip and we needed, in the best case, only time around this Faktum Brutum to recognize and to accept. Then we could still burn out both eyes before the curtain falls, or we become happy like Albert Camus Sisyphus.
The choice, in effect, was the climate provisions in the bill that passed or nothing.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteIt's puzzling that Manchin would be satisfied with such a deal. Assuming Schumer could get it out of committee and bring it to the floor (perhaps post-election) he would still need 50 votes for it. Since, at a minimum, Bernie wouldn't vote for it, that means Schumer would need Republican votes. Beyond that, it would have go through the House where the same partisan dynamic would be at work, and Pelosi would have to be in on the game. Doesn't seem anything like a slam-dunk.
A.K.
ReplyDeletefor your excellent point, and for clarity, may i suggest:
Were it still in the stage of Tragedy, say in the Sophclesian sense, we might excuse ourselves with the claim that we never had an alternative to our derelictions. Fate had us firmly by the scruff since the very beginning of all time and all that was needed was time to recognize and accept this Factum Brutum. We could still then, before the final curtain falls, burn out both eyes lest we become happy like Albert Camus's Sisyphus.
LFC, same difference...."the choice"
ReplyDeleteHere is an August appeal from Ukraine World online magazine to the world from Ukrainian philosophers to punish Russia for its continuing crimes:
ReplyDelete"We appeal to you in a case that is already well known: in occupied Mariupol, the Russian administration is arranging cages and other “court” trappings in order to conduct a demonstrative trial of the defenders of Mariupol, and in particular those of Azovstal. In this way, Russia once again violates its agreements – this time with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations, which promised to conduct a further exchange of prisoners of war – promises which the defenders themselves and all of Ukrainian society perceived as guarantees. Russia is also violating the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which guarantee the rights of prisoners of war. The legal worthlessness of the planned trial is obvious.
Therefore, we urge you to raise a wave of protests around the world and prevent the holding of this sort of “tribunal,” which is completely contrary to generally accepted international laws on the treatment of prisoners of war. We ask you to protect these particular people who have shown miracles of heroism and endurance, and to prevent their mental and physical annihilation. Let us remember that Russia has already killed more than fifty prisoners of war from Mariupol and Azovstal, blowing them up on July 28 in detention in Olenivka, and this crime was added on top of all the previous ones that went unpunished.
If international institutions enter into any agreements with the Russian authorities, they should be aware that they are responsible for compliance with these agreements. You cannot just shrug your shoulders and utter your own powerlessness. During the Russian war in Ukraine, the Moscow authorities has so often humiliated international institutions and individual Western politicians that the world should eventually recollect such a thing as honor.
We know that Russian propaganda managed to attach to the fighters of “Azov” the frightening label “neo-Nazis.” However, in the eyes of the Ukrainian people, these are patriots who, at the highest level of sacrifice, performed their military duty and laid down their arms only after the international community guaranteed them life. Equating their self-sacrifice with “Nazism” is a pathetic attempt by the Kremlin propagandists to come up with a “legitimate” basis for waging war with Ukraine, which, in turn, is criminal.
Unfortunately, this label of “neo-Nazis” has become for some politicians in the world a convenient “screen,” behind which it is easy to hide their inaction. We invite everyone who is concerned about the ideological posture of the “Azovians” to reject bias and take a closer look at their specific actions. And compare them with the actions of the Russian authorities and Russian war criminals, against the background of which the crimes of the Nazis of the Second World War turn pale. Why are these inactive people at the same time not hesitating to give the Russian criminals a hand and to even negotiate with them “in a friendly way,” helping them “save their face”?!
Part 2 of Ukraine World appeal:
ReplyDelete"Another crime being prepared by the Russian authorities in Mariupol is only a striking detail in the bigger picture of the moral catastrophe in which the Russian people have found themselves at the behest of their leadership. We agree with Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas that “to stop the Kremlin’s war machine and bring war criminals to justice, we need to understand the roots of Russian imperialism.” And we are grateful to the eminent representatives of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania, who signed a joint appeal to the European Union, in which they actually recognize that Russia’s current war crimes in Ukraine are rooted in the non-condemnation of the crimes of the communist regime, which the real neo-Nazis in the Kremlin are so proud of.
We also appeal to all those who are trying to save the remains of international security system smashed by Russia. Is it not obvious that it won’t be possible to glue the broken jug together? In the face of Russia’s cynical impunity, all the institutions that were designed to guarantee peace and security in the world after the Second World War are paralyzed: the UN, including its Security Council, OSCE, Red Cross, etc. And the more the world tries to appease Russia in an effort to avoid the nuclear phase of the Third World War, the more they corrupt the aggressor and bring this war closer.
It is time to realize that we must immediately create a global space of understanding and interaction in order to begin to form a new security system. Otherwise, the Kremlin will continue to mock international law, reveling in its impunity, as planned for the coming days in Mariupol. Russia has not only put itself beyond human civilization, but also threatens the very existence of this civilization. So, it should be held accountable now before it has committed the irreparable."
The December First Initiative Group
Olia Hnatiuk Ihor Kozlovsky Myroslav Marynovych Yaroslav Yatskiv Volodymyr Yermolenko Ihor Yukhnovskyy Yevhen Zakharov Yosyf Zisels
Dear Jerry Fresia, I am a Canadian philosopher and teach at the University of Prince Edward Island. I try very hard not to pay any attention to domestic American political horse-trading and lobbying and bribing of public officials coopted by corporate wealth, Biden's failing to act against climate destroyers, and the return of Donald Trump to politics and his ability to raise funds online. Domestic politics in the USA has looked like a disaster and its scandals do spillover into my neighboring state and economy, but we Canadians don't take responsibility for stopping the escaped mental patients and quasi-crime families running American business and the legal system that protects its political elites and their domination.
ReplyDeleteFrom a Canadian perspective, a third, more socialist political party is needed in the USA to get past the Democrat versus Republican stranglehold on the oppressive legal system which keeps corporate America on top of the game and the underclasses in their places and no real political options for liberation.
Tony Couture: I am now more worried that I should be building a fall out shelter in my basement.... I think that Putin is about to explode all academic plans with a really dangerous plan or desperate war tactic.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Manchester Guardian, online blog, August 18:
"Ukraine: Russia is planning a 'provocation' at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, intelligence agency warns Ukraine’s military intelligence believes that Russia is planning a “provocation” at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant tomorrow."
...
If Putin were to cause the world's greatest nuclear accident ever in Southern Ukraine as a way to shock the world
You left out the part where Russia had already announced earlier that they were concerned the Ukrainians would try to stage an incident at the nuclear reactor.
Reuters: Russia says Ukraine planning 'provocation' at nuclear plant
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-ukraine-preparing-provocation-during-un-head-visit-zaporizhzhia-2022-08-18/
It should be obvious why the Russians seized the nuclear power plant back in March and have continued to hold it since then. During his televised addresses in February as he was launching the invasion, Putin cited Russia's worries that Ukraine might try to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities. A Ukrainian diplomat had previously stated that this was one of their intentions.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-24/full-transcript-vladimir-putin-s-televised-address-to-russia-on-ukraine-feb-24
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/vladimirputindonbassandukraine.htm
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/16/ukraine-may-seek-nuclear-weapons-if-left-out-of-nato-diplomat
Russia's main leverage has also been as the energy hegemon. Controlling the opponent's largest nuclear reactor helps solidify that position.
Now, there has been shelling of the site since then, with an marked increase in the past week (coinciding with UN Sec Guterres' visit to Ukraine). Ukraine claims the Russians are shelling the site. Why would Russians intentionally be attacking a site that their own forces are holding?
What makes more sense is that Ukraine is looking to drum up more sympathy for their plight and keep the weapons and dollars/euros flowing in from their Western allies. Their propaganda managers want more stories about alleged Russian atrocities (as in attacking maternity hospitals and massacring civilians at Bucha) and fewer about corruption and disorganization in Zelenskyy's administration being covered in Western media.
David Palmeter: It's puzzling that Manchin would be satisfied with such a deal. Assuming Schumer could get it out of committee and bring it to the floor (perhaps post-election) he would still need 50 votes for it. Since, at a minimum, Bernie wouldn't vote for it
ReplyDeleteBiden signed the bill into law this week. And Sanders voted for it.
As usual, Sanders made a big deal of grandstanding about how much he disagreed with the bill, but then he got right in line with the rest of the Dem leadership and voted for it.
And why wouldn't Manchin be satisfied with the the legislation? It's a big giveaway to fossil fuel companies generally, and to Manchin's personal interests specifically. It will increase fossil fuel production just when we should be drastically curtailing it.
Tucked into the massive climate bill President Joe Biden signed into law this week is a one-sentence provision that could give a huge financial boost to a single energy company.
The provision, found on page 687, provides $700 million in grants to mitigate the methane emissions....
Though unknown to the broader American public, Diversified Energy has spent years cultivating a relationship with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the chief architect of the Inflation Reduction Act. It has opened a field office in West Virginia and contributed more money to Manchin than any other candidate in this election cycle.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/manchin-linked-company-could-reap-millions-from-climate-law/
Joe Manchin’s Price for Supporting the Climate Change Bill: A Natural Gas Pipeline in His Home State
To accommodate the West Virginia senator, Democratic leadership agreed to legislation streamlining permits for the often-stalled Mountain Valley Pipeline and removing jurisdiction from a court that keeps ruling against the project.
https://www.propublica.org/article/manchin-gas-pipeline-climate-change-bill
The climate measure President Joe Biden signed Tuesday bypasses the administration's concerns about emissions and guarantees new drilling opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. The legislation was crafted to secure backing from a top recipient of oil and gas donations, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, and was shaped in part by industry lobbyists....
[The act] buoys oil and gas interests by mandating leasing of vast areas of public lands and off the nation's coasts. And it locks renewables and fossil fuels together: If the Biden administration wants solar and wind on public lands, it must offer new oil and gas leases first.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/08/18/climate-change-inflation-reduction-act-oil-gas/7837956001/
With Biden's approval ratings in the tank and Dems knowing that they have no accomplishments to run on in November, they needed something, anything, that they could try to spin as a major legislative victory. Thus, this caca.
ReplyDeleteEric,
I was referring to "another bill" that Jerry Fresia mentioned at 3:38 above. I should have been clearer about that.
The really important question is whether, *on balance*, the bill will reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than it will increase them. If you look up what environmental groups are saying about the bill, the answer to that, I surmise, will be yes. Of course Manchin had to get concessions, and so did Synema, bc otherwise the bill wouldn't have passed.
ReplyDelete"From a Canadian perspective, a third, more socialist political party is needed in the USA to get past the Democrat versus Republican..."
ReplyDeleteWe should all keep in mind that in our FEDERAL PRESIDENTIAL system, any center-right to far left party that is effective will only help the Republican Party.
Eric, as long as there is a Senate we will have this happening. There are lots of good things in that bill.
Also, it's in nobodies interest to blow the Zap Plant. It is sad to see the tankie buy in to Russian propaganda. However, given Russia storing military gear around the plant and given the general incompetence of Russian forces, an accident is not out of the question. BTW, I believe Putin has considered Russian territory (including Crimea) off limits and if struck bad things will happen. We now see that an ammo dump in Belgorod Oblast has again gone boom and there have been several serious strikes in Crimea.
As mentioned previously, one commentator on international affairs whom I trust is Raul Sohr who appears nightly on CNN-Chile.
ReplyDeleteAbout the incidents in the Ukrainian nuclear reactor, Sohr says that while both sides lie all the time, it seems improbable that if the Russians have control of the reactor, they are shelling it.
So I agree with Eric above.
Rachel Maddow is paid $30 million a year to do one show a week on MSNBC.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder then that she helps cheer on the Democrats' "Inflation Reduction Act" that Biden just signed into law:
For the first time in 30 years of trying, the Democrats have finally passed a bill to let Medicare negotiate lower drug prices.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRKaFFLh348
While that statement is factually correct, it is journalistic malfeasance of the highest order to say only that about this provision of the new law.
Most folks after hearing or reading Maddow and other sloppy, or, frankly, dishonest, journalists describing the drug-negotiation provision of the law will think that Medicare is now going to be able to negotiate prices for most or all drugs. They will be sorely mistaken.
This law will require Medicare to negotiate prices for only 10 medications starting in 2026, rising to a maximum of a mere 20 medications after 2028. Those paltry numbers are not going to make much of a dent in the costs the government pays for medications overall, when judged against the much stronger provisions progressives outside government had been demanding and what even Bernie Sanders' earlier Senate bills and Elijah Cummings' House bills had called for.
And for the vast majority of Medicare beneficiaries, that part of the law won't reduce any of their direct costs for medications.
That is just one of the relatively pharma-friendly aspects of the law. There are numerous other limitations on the negotiation process that most media reports are not mentioning.
For example, medications will be excluded from this process for their first decade after entering the market (9 years for regular medications, 13 years for biologics). Another example is that the range of prices allowed for consideration in the negotiation will be tied to what manufacturers had been charging all non-Federal wholesale buyers in the US prior to the negotiation. The legislation calls this "the non-Federal average manufacturer price." Sanders' earlier bills would have tied the negotiation to average prices the manufacturer charged multiple other countries (eg Japan, Germany, Canada). So even on this point, the US will continue to spend much more than other countries do.
And, of course, the trump card will be that at the end of the day the pharma-controlled president and Senate will install a pharma-friendly puppet as HHS secretary, who will negotiate prices in pharma's interest.
" ...it seems improbable that if the Russians have control of the reactor, they are shelling it."
ReplyDeleteIt also seems improbable that the Ukrainians who own and need the plant which is on their territory that they seek to reclaim would engage in actions that would destroy that asset and in the process render the surrounding area unusable. Russia is playing games.
Eric, I suggest you check out the history of Social Security. It has been amended many times because the compromises that our system makes inevitable are hard to fix. This (and the $2K cap) is an improvement over the original law. Also the 8% cap needed to happen.
decessero said...
ReplyDelete"A.K. for your excellent point, and for clarity, may i suggest:"
thank you decessero, that sounds better.
Tony,
ReplyDeleteI too would like to see a genuine opposition (to or seriously for the mitigation of capitalism) party in the US; however, only a multiparty system could permit that otherwise a strong third party would have to negotiate with its closest rival prior to the general election to see which party would withdraw or fold it's platform in with the 3rd party in order to successfully compete with the furthest right party and win a majority of electors in the electoral college. Otherwise a 3rd party entry, if it is on the left, will only ensure the victory of the party furthest to the right. Single-member districts and plurality elections also work to weaken the chances of progressive third parties from winning state and other federal offices. The People's Party, for example, in 1896 had about 45% support in about 25 states (this is from memory so I may be off) but had to join with the Democrats for the general election and still lost. It's a two party system.
LFC
I disagree. The question isn't about just reducing aggregate accumulation of green house gases. It's about survival of the species. Many horrified scientists argue that we are already over the cliff, so the question may be moot. But if we aren't over the cliff the question comes down to the taking of radical measures such as ending the use of fossil fuels nearly immediately. It's not going to happen.
check out these scientists protesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAlQO1WlpSE&ab_channel=District34
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hDOHahIleaY
LFC and others re climate, just read this:
ReplyDeleteThe Loire, the longest river in France. It's gone now. It evaporated. That hasn't happened in at least 2000 years, and likely not at any time in recorded human history.
for s.w.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/ProgIntl/status/1560236747052630017
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThanks. I'm subscribed to Progressive International myself.
Jerry, the New Democratic Party (Canadian version of the Labour Party), is our long standing socialist option and they have never come close to winning a majority. They have been able to get us public health care and some improvements, but realistically speaking will never win power and keep it. The human is the revolutionary animal by nature, but he or she does not agree with themselves enough to make genuine progress. When reason is eclipsed, we should never expect philosophy to save the world and lead us into moral unity.
ReplyDeleteFor anyone thinking that the Ukraine war is cooling off and won't escalate further, here is some interesting news: an alleged assassination attempt in Moscow of a prominent Russian philosopher, Alexander Dugin, who has been called Putin's brain or geopolitical guru, on August 19:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62621509
The attack killed his daughter Darya instead and blew up their vehicle with a bomb or drone missile (unknown means right now). The irony here is that Alexander Dugin was supposed to be riding in that vehicle and changed his mind at last minute for some mystical reason (God told him to switch, he would think in retrospect). Dugin is an extreme Russian nationalist and mystic, close to Dostoevsky in thinking that Russia has a god-given mission to save the world from liberalism, and author of many books on geopolitics and Heidegger and the history of philosophy. He is a follower of the Russian version of fundamentalist Christianity and thinks God is guiding him in his vicious attacks on Ukraine and its people (who must submit to their geopolitical fate and merge with Russia).
Darya Dugin was part of the very large Russian media/propaganda machine and its network of far-right extremists and oligarchs which have displaced the communists, and not an innocent family member driving her father to a conference. This "just" assassination will really anger Putin and suggests that Putin's own family or children are also about to be targeted. All is fair in war??? Nuclear terrorism, exploding vehicles, torture, rape, looting and with cameras every where now, the world of social media is flooded with horrors.
I am trying to understand Russian propaganda and its differences from Western propaganda today. The main source I have found is by British military analyst Keir Giles and is a scholarly compendium of literature on the subject: Handbook of Russian Information Warfare.
ReplyDeletehttps://css.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/resources/docs/NDC%20fm_9.pdf
This source appears to be contents or notes from a course for the Nato Defense College and is dated November 2016. I am wondering if any readers of this blog know of any better scholarly sources for understanding how Russia conducts information warfare. Putin was a propagandist in the KGB and his latest speech, from August 17, 2022, which represents the current main propaganda line of the Russians in condensed form can be found here:
https://katehon.com/ru/article/mnogopolyarnyy-mir-i-konec-gegemonii-zapada
I use Google translate to change these texts to English and here is Vladimir Putin's "argument" for his actions:
"The situation in the world is changing dynamically, the contours of a multipolar world order are being formed . More and more countries and peoples are choosing the path of free, sovereign development based on their identity, traditions and values.
These objective processes are counteracted by Western globalist elites, provoking chaos, inciting old and new conflicts, implementing a policy of so-called containment, and in fact - undermining any alternative, sovereign paths of development. Thus, they are trying with all their might to preserve the hegemony , power that is slipping out of their hands, they are trying to keep countries and peoples in the grip of a neo-colonial order. Their hegemony means stagnation for the whole world, for the whole civilization, obscurantism and the abolition of culture, neoliberal totalitarianism .
Any means are used. The United States and its vassals rudely interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states: they organize provocations, coup d'état, civil wars. Threats, blackmail and pressure are trying to force independent states to submit to their will, to live by rules that are foreign to them. And all this is done with one goal - to maintain its dominance, the model that allows you to parasitize the whole world, as it was centuries before, and such a model can be kept only by force.
That is why the collective West, the so-called collective West, is purposefully destroying the European security system, forging ever new military alliances. The NATO bloc is moving east, building up its military infrastructure, including deploying missile defense systems and increasing the strike capabilities of offensive forces. In words, this is hypocritically declared to be the need to strengthen security in Europe, but in reality, just the opposite is happening. At the same time, the proposals on mutual security measures put forward by Russia in December last year were simply ignored once again.
They need conflict to maintain their hegemony . That is why they prepared the fate of cannon fodder for the people of Ukraine, implemented the “anti-Russia” project, turned a blind eye to the spread of neo-Nazi ideology , to the massacres of the inhabitants of Donbass, pumped and continue to pump the Kiev regime with weapons, including heavy ones."
How can Westerners understand Putin's geo-political propaganda?
I read that the car belonged to her father and that she had her own car. If the Ukrainians were capable of planting a bomb in Dugin's car, I'd assume they would pick a higher value target - probably one with stars.
ReplyDeleteMore their speed (Belgorod Oblast):
https://twitter.com/i/status/1560384840066895874
Maybe it's the translation but the speech strikes me as somewhat lame.
"The NATO bloc is moving east..." LOL! Let's fix it: "I engaged in a war of aggression that led Sweden and Finland to renounce their long standing policies of neutrality and join NATO and led NATO to move its forces eastward." That's better!
Meanwhile the "cannon fodder" is probing Crimea, the grain is flowing out, and still more arms are flowing in.
Film maker Oliver Stone has made very controversial remarks about Ukrainian death squads or assassins wanting to kill him for his film about Ukraine and any enemies of Ukrainian nationalism. See his interview with Lex Fridman (episode #265 of his podcast series) for example:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygAqYC8JOQI&ab_channel=LexFridman
Oliver Stone's argument is pro-Putin and has drawn much more controversy due to his popular interviews with Putin. Was Oliver Stone right that Ukraine or its agents are acting as death squads and pursuing extra judicial executions by bombs, drones, etc.?
The attempted assassination of Ukrainian arch-enemy and philosopher Alexander Dugin on August 19, which the Ukrainian government spokespersons have now denied any involvement in as it was in Moscow, can be observed by this (tabloid) report:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/19571946/putins-guide-alexander-hospital-bomb-killed-daughter/
The bomb of unknown origin killed Dugin's 30 year old daughter and constant companion, Daria, also working as a political analyst. Alexander Dugin was in another vehicle behind his daughter and came upon the wreck moments later. He is now in hospital due to her death by apparent death squad.
CIA drones were robot and distant controlled death squads, Mossad uses death squads to assassinate its worst enemies, Russia has death squads to kill off dissenters and deserters, China has death squads which help steal the organs of human dissidents and criminals for their world-wide transplant services, UK has James Bond or simulated death squad licensed to kill for national security, many terrorist groups have death squads or suicide bombers or assassination programs. The Wagner Group mercenaries are another form of death squad, as would be American military contractors who will kill state enemies for the right profit. Death squads, whether organize crime, terrorists or state counter-terrorist intelligence agents, have often done their dirty work without punishment and violate us all by not understanding what Leo Tolstoy called "the law of violence."
Tolstoy wrote in 1908: "The essence of the mistake of all political doctrines...lies in the fact that the people of this world have considered, and still consider, that it is possible, through violence, to unite people in such a way that everyone submits, without resistance, to the same structure of life and guidance for conduct that results from it. ... All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do. And therefore those who are coerced will only do that which they do not wish to do while they are weaker than the tyrants and cannot avoid doing it from fear of the threats for not fulfilling what is demanded. As soon as they grow stronger they naturally not only cease to do what they do not want to do, but, embittered by the struggle against their oppressors and everything they have had to suffer from them, they first free themselves from the tyrants, and then, in their turn, force their opponents to do what they regard as good and necessary" (p 162-3, A Confession and Other Religious Writings).
Ukrainians are in no position to be pacifists like Tolstoy or Gandhi, but their collective belief in independence has led them to reciprocate with their own secret death squads. Tolstoy preached a kind of Christian message that most Ukrainians today apparently do not believe in, perhaps because they have switched faith to an American-influenced message of profiting from respecting the relentless laws of violence and the God of War, not love. Tolstoy wrote: "The dreadful superstition that it is possible to foresee the future shape of society serves to justify all kinds of violence in the name of that structure"
(A Confession and Other Religious Writings, p 216). That is tyranny of the ideal of liberalism or nationalism or fascism, idealism joining with death squads to be more effectively ideal.