Constitutional reform in Russia and a new infowar
Alex Herbert
There have been and continue to be changes in Russia regarding the alignment of political forces, reactions to external stimuli and the strategic prospects of the state.
The first signs of change can be found in Vladimir Putin’s address to the Federal Assembly, which announced upcoming changes to the country’s Constitution. On January 15th Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced the resignation of his government, which was immediately accepted, he motivated this step by the need to give the President freedom of action to implement his plans. It became clear that the problem of transferring presidential power from Putin to a new candidate, which occupied the minds of Western politicians, had entered the resolution stage.
Russia has long been under sanction pressure and international ostracism, this has not lost its strength despite the absurdity of supporting the Ukrainian-Polish-Baltic bloc which is also dispensing it. The country has long occupied that conveniently vacant niche of “the main enemy of Western civilization”, which the PRC also aims to share – this is the mainstream Western media representation of the situation.
In a world infused with the idea of opposing the interests of the leadership of various states, any changes are taken as a chance to weaken the enemy. As it should be in an era of serious trials, Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse appeared on the horizon: Crisis, Coronavirus, Instability. The coiled spring of intrigue, in the background of which the preparations for constitutional reform and the referendum are taking place, is twisting more and more.
A number of planned changes to the Constitution have a pronounced social orientation. The Russian leader has been constantly using the term “social state” in relation to the country’s established system of government in his recent speeches. These statements declare the primacy of the interests of the people of the Russian Federation and evolve a plan for the further development of social benefits, preferences and institutions.
On the other hand, after some hesitation and maneuvers in the information field and inconsequent statements, Vladimir Putin took a very decisive step. There is no doubt that cosmonaut Tereshkova’s presentation of the proposal to “reset the counter to zero” for all previous presidential terms in the context of the reconstruction of the Constitution had been agreed with the Kremlin and was the result of decisions taken there.
With the current realities of the political situation, this part of the political and constitutional reform has come to the fore in the discourse and become the number one topic, not least for Western MSM … but not the procedure for paying maternity capital or the role of the state Council in the architectonics of power in Russia.
There is no doubt that the hearts of the Western political community, which is generally negative towards modern Russia, now joyfully beat in unison: this is it, this is our new motive for inflating discontent and growing opposition in a rather amorphous and generally monolithic society!
And those horsemen of the Apocalypse… The maneuvers of the Russian delegation at the OPEC+ parley was a shock and led to the release of accumulated negativity in the world economy. Nothing new: the collapse of world indices, the rapid fall of securities, the disappearance of wealth. When the first wave subsided, it became clear that the Russian economy was seriously affected.
And although high-ranking officials explained to Russians that the economic buffer created over the “good” years is able to ensure the fulfilment of all obligations for 5-6 years, Russians look at the rapidly increased dollar exchange rate and as before do not tend to believe the hollow statements of the authorities. The growth of negative economic expectations pales only in the background of anxiety in the face of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
This is now a perfect environment for the West to develop new examples of “colour revolution” in their fight against objectionable regimes. This technique, which has nothing to do with the social revolutions of the last century, develops destabilisation in a country on the back of objective difficulties.
There is only one condition for success – sufficient funding. And there is always enough “combustible material” in any capitalist country, you can look, for example, at neighboring Ukraine, where marginal Tonton Macoutes escaped from the state of “reserve labour” and imposed the will of their master-oligarchs on society in the only way familiar to right-wing militants – violence.
There is of course “sufficient funding” available for the West to attempt such destabilisation in Russia, MSM are focusing on that Presidential term reset to the exclusion of other elements of the reforms. But a new media strategy is being tested…
A source in an international PR agency, which did a job for a clandestine British-American PSYOP unit, forwarded us a curious video from YouTube. It is disguised as a “citizen journalism” vox-pop, is devoted to Russia and Putin and asks passers-by…
… the West deal with Russia with restraint and employ continuous dialogue, should we keep that policy or should we get tougher and impose sanctions from hell?”
The responses are predictable.
We will not give the video itself any exposure here, but present some screenshots instead. So there’s the new strategy: mimic “citizen media” and alt-media styles. Young people with new cameras on the streets in the UK are being weaponised in this cynical new infowar.
The video shocked the agency’s employee who couldn’t accept that young people were being used and kept in the dark about the motive, and threatened to blow the whistle if the “channel” was not stopped dead in its tracks. But there will be others who won’t be so choosy. Our source says that there is a plan to develop a swarm of such political “podcasts” directed towards Russia.
The aim is to have it all picked up by some of Russia’s “new media” and young globalist “influencers” to foment and grow anti-Putin sentiment at home, to present such pods as “widespread” international “condemnation” or as popular opinion. It’s Russia’s current international policy that angers the “Comrade Wolf” as Putin called the US Deep State, but the latter plans to get back at him where it hurts most – not in Syria or Ukraine, but at home.
Is it necessary to pursue this constitutional reform in such circumstances? Will all this lead to chaos, deterioration of the situation of workers and serious opposition in society? Will Putin’s power pass the next stress test? We’ll know very soon.
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Thank you. Admin
…oh and just another thing you mysterious moderators,if you were operating this site in Russia you’d face up to five years in prison as Putin has just declared new emergency measures for spreading fake news!
…. and this really is a fake news site,incidentally go to RT International and follow the BS they’re peddling about covid 19,no fucking mention of what’s happening in Russia,ie,its in lockdown
But feel free to put this one down,or actually start to write something useful
No doubt, if this isn’t simply a global panic – which evidence for will become harder to buy the longer it goes on – then Russia certainly appears to be on board with the narrative at the moment. A refreshing change?! 😉
The article seemed to me strange. Many controversial, often false statements.
For instance:
1)
.
I do not agree with this statement. International ostracism towards Russia… But what exactly is its “internationality”?
Internationality implies a wide worldwide/global reach.
Let’s look at this aspect.
The question is ‘Is Russia ostracized?’.
So, is Russia ostracized by China, India? No.
Note that only these two countries in total make up about 29% of the world’s population.
Further,
What about Syria, Israel, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, the monarchies of the Persian Gulf? The answer is no.
What about South America? The answer is no.
What about the African continent? The answer is no.
What about the Asian republics of the former USSR (each of which occupies a key geopolitical position, which means it is fundamentally important) – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia …? The answer is no.
I did not name all, but the above is already more than enough.
The fact is that, as Minister Lavrov has repeatedly stated, Russia has good relations with the vast majority of countries in the world. I emphasize – with the vast majority.
A hate campaign (ok, let’s call it ‘ostracism’) against Russia is conducted only by a small group of countries, this is an absolute minority. Basically, these are countries of the so-called ‘collective West’. But, by the way, even among them, not everyone is determined to see the enemy in Russia.
The core of anti-Russian politics is the well-known and, in principle, permanent narrow group, which includes the USA, England, Canada, Poland, as well as the Baltic Limitrophs (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia). Unfortunately, these countries are incurable – cave Russophobia has long changed their brains. Here even the most experienced and good doctor will not help. Therefore, it is pointless to expect from them a change in attitude towards Russia.
Not so long ago, a territorial entity called Ukraine joined this narrow group. However, the curators/owners of this project are known. So an independent opinion is in doubt here.
Given the above, I do not think that ostracism against Russia can be called “international,” as the author of the article wrote.
2)
Again, I disagree.
Maneuvers of the Russian delegation at the OPEC+ parley? But… what ‘maneuvers’?
The author of the article, of course, has the right to have his own opinion. But still, the facts should be noted. And the facts are that what happened on the oil market is essentially the responsibility of KSA, not Russia. The Russian Federation was not at all the initiator of breaking the OPEC + agreement. The initiators were the Saudis. Just to remind that Russia proposed to extend the valid agreement for a further period. The Saudis refused this, and in return put forward absolutely unacceptable conditions (a 1.5 million barrels per day reduction in oil production), well aware that their conditions would not be accepted. Btw, in addition, Saudi Arabia has announced to its customers that it will increase production to 12.3 million barrels per day from the previous level of 9.8 million barrels per day, and also offered significant discounts. This caused the collapse of stock quotes.
So, rather, we must talk about the ‘maneuvers’ of Saudi Arabia, not Russia.
In my opinion, it is very strange that the author of the article is trying to make Russia responsible for the collapse of the OPEC + deal.
3)
1. The vast majority of Russians are not affected by the growth/fall of the ruble exchange rate (mean, in practical terms). People live their ordinary lives. They don’t care what quotes the exchange shows, how much the ruble grew or fell. The overwhelming majority of the Russian population does not play on the stock market, does not conclude exchange transactions. Only a small part of the country’s population (~7,5%) has currency deposits.
A recent survey showed that 63.6% of Russia’s population does not have any savings at all. In such circumstances, people are indifferent to the dollar exchange rate; it does not play any role in their life.
Given this, it is rather doubtful to associate the depreciation with distrust of the authorities.
2. ‘the hollow statements of the authorities’ ?
I wonder why they are hollow, on the basis of which the author of the article made such a conclusion? In reality, on the contrary, people tend to trust the authorities. This is confirmed by several facts – when the exchange rate changed, the Russians did not flee en masse to exchange offices urgently to sell the currency. People do not urgently take their deposits from banks. People do not feverishly take everything from store shelves. There is no mass departure of people from the country.
The published statistics also show that for the most part people are following the instructions of the authorities (recommendations not to go out, calls to stay home, etc.)
If people were tend not “to believe the hollow statements of the authorities” (as the author of the article claims), it is unlikely that all of the above would be relevant.
–
In general, the article gives the impression that its author was mentally stuck somewhere in 2011-2012.
Then there were known events in Moscow, but the result of those events, it would seem, was to demonstrate to all ‘doubters’ the futility of attempts to undermine power in Russia (not to mention the coup d’etat). However, even after 8–9 years there are still people who, apparently, are seriously considering the likelihood of a “Ukrainian scenario” in Russia. The author of the article seems to be from such people.
The situation and reality have long changed. Today, Russia is not the country that was in 2012.
In my opinion, the author’s fundamental mistake is that he sees Russia as a country where one can do what was done in Ukraine.
This is not true.
Zaghari Ratcliffe was rightly jailed for similar shenanigans in Iran, training opposition thugs and extremists for “BBC Media Action.”
Such people need to be suppressed with the utmost ruthlessness as soon as they show their ugly faces.
They should be hanged from the first convenient lamp post or stuck up against the nearest wall and shot.
The alternative is to sit back and watch your country being destroyed by foreign saboteurs, thugs and terrorists, like Syria, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ukraine.
Dealing summarily with this vermin saves thousands and hundreds of thousands of lives.
If this pitiful psy-op is the best that GCHQ can manage against Russia, then I think we can all confidently predict that it will fail–just all the other plots against Russia have failed since Putin came to power.
As far as who rules Russia is concerned, strictly speaking, that’s an internal matter for the Russians alone to fret over. But if anyone asks for my own personal opinion, I will be happy to answer thus: if I were a Russian, I would demand the right to continue voting to keep Putin for as long as he is willing and able to serve. Putin is the greatest statesman alive today, and probably the greatest since Bismarck. He is a ruler of superior moral, psychological and intellectual aptitude. Whenever the subject of Putin is raised in the West and our so-called ‘élites’ start foaming at the mouth and go into paroxysms of rage, I detect more than a whiff of envy! They wish their own people loved them half as much as the Russian people love Putin.
Slava Rossiya! Slava Putina! 😀
Okay. You’re probably right. But let’s not go over the top here. Adulation of leaders is usually bad long-term news, and no leader of quality should become dependent upon fawning masses either. That all belongs in the propaganda sphere, and not in the world of real events and real lives.
The italian dead doctors list has been edited to not show the dates of birth. Wish I’d have saved it but last night it was surprising to see that the oldest doctor was born in 1926 with a few from the 30s but most from the 40s and 50s the exception being a 49 year old dentist.
I wonder if anyone managed to get a screenshot?
https://portale.fnomceo.it/elenco-dei-medici-caduti-nel-corso-dellepidemia-di-covid-19/
Found it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20200328152430/https://portale.fnomceo.it/elenco-dei-medici-caduti-nel-corso-dellepidemia-di-covid-19/
Dates of birth present on this one!
????? Translation please. Not many here are fluent in Italian…
Don’t think you need a translation for dates of birth but here is one anyway https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://web.archive.org/web/20200328205712/https://portale.fnomceo.it/elenco-dei-medici-caduti-nel-corso-dellepidemia-di-covid-19/&usg=ALkJrhgH3CRBA4JLjtZ_sqRNuJSkd1GNjQ
For future reference you can go to https://translate.google.com/ enter the web address you want then click the blue text underneath to open the page
Nice work. I always say that the easiest part of propaganda is not telling the whole story or simply not telling the story at all.
Why did Maggie need a translation when it’s just a list of names and dates to look at?
Golly, and I thought that doctors were immortal and never had health issues!
Notoriously unhealthy bunch from what I’ve heard (at least in the UK).
I understand alcoholism is very prevalent amongst them, the explanation being the highly stressful nature of their calling. I can well believe it, although I have no personal evidence of this.
Meanwhile…
4:39 pm Mar 31
Among the 40,000-plus medical workers, who came to aid Hubei, none have been infected with coronavirus: Chinese central govt official
——-
I understand eating pork is normal in both countries.
However one of them seems to actually be spouting pork pies!
And the answer is in the headline translation
‘List of doctors who died during the Covid-19 epidemic’
That’s just a list of doctors who died DURING the epidemic and not OF the Covid! There is no claim they were actual working! Given the age of most of them.
I would like to thank the off-Guardian for providing a space of discussion. I was caught off-guard between having resigned my job and my departure for a distant monastery, far away from the noise, which has had to be postponed because of the confinement and the ban on travels. I need to get on with the preparations to be able to leave as soon as restrictions are removed. It was interesting to see what
exchanging through the internet consists in, interesting one last time to immerse myself in the noise. Good luck and courage to all whatever may be your views, whatever may be your aims.
Thank you Anita.
Let’s see when the restrictions are removed.
I hope you find what you are looking for – ‘away from the noise’
The noise is, indeed, most uncomfortable for educated people with normal sensibilities and a healthy respect for life and nature. My own feeling is that it is no longer so easy to escape, since the global reach of the evil in our midst is enormous, but I envy you having taken the decision to do so. Good luck to you too.
From the Cato Institute
‘Ad hominem has always been a feature of politics, but Senator John McCain (R-AZ) – now deceased – elevated it to a new level earlier this week. The incident occurred when McCain came to the Senate floor to ask for unanimous consent to move forward on a vote formally bringing Montenegro, a small country in the Balkans, into the NATO alliance. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) objected. McCain responded by suggesting Paul was a traitor to his country and accusing him of “working for Vladimir Putin.”
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) objected as follows.
“Currently, the United States has troops in dozens of countries and is actively fighting in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen (with the occasional drone strike in Pakistan)…In addition, the United States is pledged to defend 28 countries in NATO. It is unwise to expand the monetary and military obligations of the United States given the burden of our $20 trillion debt.’’
”That seems like a reasonable position to hold, and one that certainly not one that requires the epithets listed above. Indeed, many of America’s most reputable officials and academics have opposed post-Cold War NATO expansion for substantive reasons. George Kennan, perhaps our most famous Cold War diplomat and widely considered to be the father of the United States’ containment strategy, famously opposed NATO expansion in the 1990s, writing in the New York Times that expanding NATO would be a “fateful error” that would “inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion” and “restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations.” Like Senator Paul, Kennan also worried about the problems of credibility and over-extension. Would McCain accuse Kennan of treason?
In 1995, a group of almost two dozen retired Foreign Service, State Department, and Department of Defense officers who served during the Cold War signed an open letter opposing NATO expansion on grounds similar to Paul and Kennan. They argued it risked exacerbating instability and “convincing most Russians that the United States and the West are attempting to isolate, encircle, and subordinate them.” The signatories included Paul H. Nitze, former Secretary of the Navy and Deputy Secretary of Defense, as well as Jack F. Matlock, Jr., former Ambassador to the USSR, and John A. Armitage, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs. Were these gentlemen also secret Russian moles?”
The above can be described as a Foreign Policy realism, as opposed to the nut-case liberal-interventionism, regime change policy, which has been in the ascendant since 9/11. Interesting to note that the R2P interventionism, dovetails nicely with the neo-con regime change death wish. The NY-Times, Washington-Post, and Guardian all grandstanding for full-on confrontation with Russia.
I always wonder where this collective insanity started. The collapse of the Soviet Union perhaps circa 1990, or 9/11. Unmistakably, however, NATO is on a collision course with Russia with the liberal MSM in the vanguard.
Where is George Kennan when you need him!?
NATO should have been disbanded when the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist.
It has been shown that the reason it was not, was the successful lobbying of the Clinton administration by the Armaments industry in the US. The “Military-Industrial Complex.”
The MIC funds much of the American media and bribes it’s politicians. Why do they hate Russian so much? “Go figure” as they say in the US!
What if the actions of America and Russia were ultimately controlled by a single entity that maintained faux conflict as a means of keeping the pot boiling – re: global instability and insecurity as a means of distraction whilst other pernicious stratagems are put into play?
This seems to me a very likely scenario. Almost a certainty. It amounts to sheer lunacy, but so many ridiculous things in modern politics, economics and systems of justice suddenly make a great deal of sense when seen in the light of that lunacy.
Alex Herbert asks if it is necessary for Russia to pursue constitutional reform in the current geopolitical environment, as if the country can afford to wait until it changes in Russia’s favour. The truth is, there is no ideal time to carry out such reform and it probably should have been done sooner rather than now when the Russian President is pushing 68 years of age. Whatever the Russians do or don’t do, the Americans and the British will always use Russian action or inaction as an opportunity to undermine Russia in some way.
The proposed reforms including Tereshkova’s suggestion still have to be put to a public referendum so the question of whether Putin can gain another possible two terms as President is not his to answer; it relies on the popular will. That happens to be called democracy.
“political and constitutional reform has come to the fore in the discourse and become the number one topic, not least for Western MSM ”
Wtf has the Western MSM any right to critically analyse and smear Russia in their ongoing agendas of vilification towards a country whose people bear no such animosity towards ourselves. America is the most politically corrupt nation on the planet with other European” allies” coming a close second. The Western MSM need to do us a favour, get their heads out of their ass and start looking in the mirror.
I have a question for the author: why is the Russian government now implementing the same draconian measures of the West regarding this supposed pandemic, especially after speaking out against these measures? By doing so is it not proving as totalitarian (since even assuming there is a pandemic, these measures are at best futile, at worst will generate worse problems) as its own oppressors (i.e. the imposers of the sanctions)? When fighting an oppressor, if you let its mentality affect you, it defeats the purpose so to say. You might as well give in. Also given their geographical proximity and connections with the rest of Asia, and their respect for Asian thoughts, they must know that much, possibly most, of Asia, has not implemented such measures and are doing fine. For the consequences of these measures will weaken a country that only recently has begun to recover from a total crash, all the more so since everything is done by powerful groups and countries to prevent its recovery.
So is the Russian government not what it seems to be, and one should be wary of it as much as some other governments? In which case, any other country relying on its support, should be careful.
Already once it left the entire third world in the lurch: thats when Asia and so on lost the capacity to withstand the globalization process.
Or is this the only/best means they found to ensure that a coloured revolution does not take place and the country be not destabilized?
“So is the Russian government not what it seems to be, and one should be wary of it as much as some other governments? In which case, any other country relying on its support, should be careful.”
Anita, as an old tennis hero of mine used to say “You cannot be serious !”.
None of the rulers is the friend of the common people.
Just because two farmers Mr Smith and Mr Jones have boundary disputes, and are always arguing and launching legal cases against each other, doesn’t mean that Mr Jones is a friend of Mr Smith’s animals.
At the end of the day whatever disputes Smith and Jones have with each other, they are both still farmers.
…and the animals are fattened and slaughtered.
That may be, but it would be unfair to dismiss the incredible feat their government has done:
a country which literally collapsed like a pack of cards, where in the 90s millions died of malnutrition and hunger, put back on a stable footing within such a short time, despite the incredible forces trying to prevent this. It would also be unfair to dismiss its role in both preventing the advent of a 3rd world war in the last years, as well as the protection of the populations of countries like Syria. Also without the counter-force it has come to represent, the totalitarianism implemented today elsewhere might have happened earlier, and any hope of a return in the near future to societies suited for humans would be far more remote without the existence of a counter-force. For better or worse the main counter-force has been Russia recently, and thus if it is unable to continue live up to the role it has adopted, the consequences could be extremely serious. This is evidently not to say that the government is ideal or one should agree with it in all its aspects, especially economic ones.
Absolutely!
Russia has indeed been saved by Putin since 2000 – agreed. western oligarchs were able to plunder Russia at will in the 90s. Obviously they hate Putin – he put an end to that.
The West is now struggling internally against its collapsing financial system, grinding pauperization amongst most of its population and increasing social division. All of these issues are of course intimately connected to each other.
All countries have to produce something to afford consumption. Russia has vast natural resources, China is the workshop of the world with 5000000 STEM graduates per year, Germany has high-end technological knowhow, Saudi-Arabia has oil.
The US and the UK, in particular, have kidded themselves for 30 years that their ‘Service economies’ entitle them to just as much consumption as ever. In reality their ‘financial service’ sectors on Wall Street and in the City have been skimming the world economy for decades. They produce nothing.
Externally the West faces the strategic partnership of Russia and China, together with their sattelites. The de-dollarization process which has been and is being implemented by this strategic partnership is what accounts for the emnity of the US and the UK.
Globalisation csused much of production to relocate from the West to Asia in particular over the last 30 years. Since then, western living standards have been sustained, since then to the extent that they have been, by debt.
That game is now at an end.
As someone who has been to some extent pro Putin and seen Russia as a vital bulwark against unipolar globalism I am hugely disappointed.
The extent of the fakery is mind-boggling. Putin is one of the globalists unless I am much mistaken.
I would go with “I am much mistaken”!
I suggest actually watching some of his press conferences and lectures. Some are on YouTube. No “globalist” could argue so convincingly against globalism, or come up with such credible alternatives.
I’ve pondered this too. I think it’s possible that Putin sees the continued promotion of a covid lockdown a good thing, as it’s helping promote the dollar collapse. It the whole world is in lockstep due to this terrible plague, the longer it goes on, the more chance to crash the american economy beyond repair. Maybe the plane from the start, he was very quick to close boarders with China, was this one small move in helping to frighten other governments?
That’s a good question, and I admit I don’t have a ready answer. It’s also closely related to the question of why certain other countries–such as China–are also going along with this Corona lockdown. Many people also wonder why Russia and China don’t tell the truth about 9/11, etc., etc. All I can do is speculate, and I suspect that Russian and China think they can game these narratives to their advantage somehow. If that’s not the reason, then I have no idea what is. I am certainly open to theories on the subject.
Russia and China might even consider it beneath their dignity to address 9/11 at all, since the bad smell from it has been a global experience for some time now.
???
Hey I just talked to a Russian in London who has been working in a pub refit and they got to drink all the beer for free because it would be thrown away , but his group leader and the big guys wouldn’t let him drink the lager or guiness because they wanted that for themselves – he said that a lot of them had got the Covid – but he recovered within hours – he puts it down to the fact he ended up drinking the real ales.
Which he never liked before because it is not fizzy or cold and tastes bad. But he reckons its cured him because everyone else is really ill with covid and he is fine.
Spot on
😁
I’m a real ale drinker, the beer is still alive with yeasts and other good organisms. Not convinced though that they can kill a virus. His experience is anecdotal to say the least.
However, if he drinks lots of vodka that’s a different matter, strong alcohol does destroy viri and bacteria.
I’ve never heard of alcohol being prescribed as a medicine to treat the flu.
😅
John, try squeezed lemon juice, a spoonful of honey with added hot water and a shot of single malt next time you have a throaty infection.
A few of those every twelve hours and you will soon be returning to the land of the active and fit.
In Ireland during the Spanish flu it was poteen and prayer was the recommended medicine.
If the flu didn’t kill you the poteen would.
Snap Rhys, I had written my post before scrolling down and seeing yours. Seems we are from a similar era. 😃
I never used any prescribed medicine for the flu, I just waited for it to pass!
Amen, Padre!
Where have you been living John. My Granny swore by hot toddies, she would have been 122 this year had she lived.
Whenever anyone showed signs of colds and chest infections she would get out the aspirin, warm a small bottle of ginger, add squeezed lemons, a spoon of honey and a good tot of whiskey, to be sipped as required. And rub us front and back with Vicks. Then tuck us up in bed until it passed. Never failed. My Mum continued the ritual, as did I, and now my daughter does the same for the boys. Though we replaced aspirin with paracetamol.
Off course the sure way to avoid colds and viruses is to make sure you eat masses of vitamin C laden foods… which I’m afraid not many people do these days. Lots of parents prefer to give children a pack of crisps or sweets as snacks because it’s too difficult to chop up an apple, banana, orange and some black grapes? My grandchildren love to do this themselves now, and are ace at making smoothies.
My guess is you’ve never lived in Russia))
Why do you think children’s cough mixture has alcohol in it?
1. To create a future addict.
2. To increase vulnerability to other diseases, which will require yet more medication.
3. I’m joking. That wouldn’t even qualify as a conspiracy theory – well, not tonight anyway…
😆
😅
Will in future covid show to have been no more than outdated beer as nets between people and older orders would suggesting it? Only the green shoots of time could say this. Not even kids of social media or their lenses know exact the arrange. Sure covid makes arrange question does Trump get it?
😄
Brilliant
😜
“he said that a lot of them had got the Covid”
A lot of people think they’ve got it or have had it – how can they be sure?
Maybe they have, but TBH as I have said many times before, I think it’s just like a mild case of flu that has been blown up out of all proportion.
😷 😂
And those who die are dying of pneumonia, as people always have done.
A family member told me today that they were sure they had got the CoVid a month ago.
They didn’t go to the doctor or get anything prescribed, then they recovered.
Nothing they said indicated to me anything other than seasonal ‘flu.
Ok ok enough already its gone midday and before the site gets taken down for spreading fake news and I end up plastered all over the media – HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY EVERYONE.
You gotta have a laugh
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣👍👍🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
now back to the doom and gloom.
lol, thanks dung, you nearly had me there …
I knew that wasn’t the Groanin I’d come to know… I 😉
Can you get it on prescription?
Can you get it on the national health?
“Russia has a state-controlled Internet and as long as the West does not, and relies on the social media companies to police themselves (which, with with hundreds of millions of users, is an almost impossible job, anyway) – the Russians are going to continue stirring the pot. Hancock states: ‘It is hard to deny the ongoing information warfare campaigns have produced some degree of both social fragmentations and political destabilisation with the United States, Great Britain, Spain, and within the EU nations as a whole.’ (p. 321) ‘Some degree’, yes, a but a long way short of significant just yet. Divisions can only be amplified, not created, by the Russian trolls and bots. There is no evidence yet that Russian operations had any significant effect on the election of Trump, or the ‘leave’ vote during the EU membership referendum in the UK. (Though, having written, that I’m not sure what such evidence would look like . . . .)”
https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster76/lob76-creating-chaos.pdf
I think you’ll find that the internet is quite open in Russia, but subject to laws as everywhere else.
You’re clueless, Postkey. What on earth are you doing here parading your ignorance about Russia and peddling all that tosh?
Play the wo/man, not the ball?
Really? Do you actually think all the other readers who’ve unanimously downvoted your comment are seeing you, personally, or your transparently asinine and unqualified opinions?
No answer was the stern reply.
Britain has become the go to planner and executor of psyops. Most of the money raised for the White Helmet propaganda group was spent hiring advertising/marketing agencies to ensure the message reached the right people…..and young people are always the right people. Ask Joshua Wong.
All those useless media degrees weren’t entirely useless after all.
The changes in leadership around the world are only ever superficial.
‘Leopards and spots’ comes to mind.
(Apologies to all leopards).
I sometimes wonder whether stark reality will ever impinge upon that superficial world. Seems to me that stark, physical, natural reality always does impinge sooner or later, so I also sometimes wonder if I will see that happen in my lifetime. I bet it won’t be pretty, but at least it will be very dramatic. After all, putting two diametrically opposed electrical poles together is usually “very dramatic”, and just look what we have here: A shagged out political system – which hasn’t the faintest idea what it is doing – in diametric opposition to natural forces which have billions of years of experience behind them. There will be tears, and it’s not hard to see where they will be shed.
How stupid can The Guardian and Simon Tisdall be? Look at this headline:
No man can be ‘perpetual’.
I couldn’t find that one article about the Russian entrepreneur who fled Russia and is now a wine merchant in London. He complained that after Putin came to power all companies had an FSB guy embedded in the company. That was at the time when Russians started to learn that there must be a tax code and that taxes must be paid. The Australian government had people embedded in some big name US companies to ensure they started paying normal taxes.
I have trust in the Russian people that they will take some action should Putin or his successors behave like Stalin which I do not think is likely.
Blaming all evils on Russia goes back at least to the times when the Teutonic hordes were given the boot by Nevsky at Lake Novgorod, 1200s. German Goth bad blood, always present in nearby states, has lusted after Russia and her resources forever. What is interesting in recent times is how that standard, when dropped by the Nazis and Operation Barbarossa in the 1940s, was picked up by Washington DC and Wall Street, neither one a stranger to German influence in fomenting a Cold War, thru CIA’s General Reinhard Gehlen and his network, blaming our own “acts of state” on Russia, via Oswald, and now a brand new variation on all those old themes, centuries old, with the “Peach Fuzz Oswald” aka Ed Snowden using Russia as his sanctuary base for the current chicaneries of “false defectors” or what have you. None of which fools FSB any more than Lee Harvey fooled KGB.
“For those who have ears, let them hear.”
I don’t really know enough about Putin, but considering who his opposition is, I have to believe, as I always did of Castro (from the time I could read, or see, anyway), that he surely can’t be all bad. Not by a long shot.
When Oliver Stone asked him point blank about the email hacks here, a year or two ago, he answered straight up, “That’s an internal affairs of yours.”
I was sure of that from the get go, just as much as I was sure Ms. Condoleeeza Rice was talking smack about WMD in 03, or bilge about WTC before that. I told people as much, early and often, just so I’d have real time witnesses later on, at least beyond the prestidigitary internet, child of DARPA and counter-insurgency “tool”, only to prove a point: there’s a pattern here.
Constant endless lying and 180° Spin with The Big Lie here, “states-side”, to our baffled public.
Wall Street created the Nazis to defeat the USSR.
Well, yes, Mr. Conspiranoid, all the best evidence points that way. I just thought it would be more effective if I let someone else make that point for me.
Thanks for answering the bell! (Your nom de plume might as well be mine, I even use ‘noid in one of my sobriquets, to boot….)
And Im definitely a Conspiracy Realist.
In “Dark Money”, 2016, Jane Mayer brings to light how the Koch Brothers’ father, Fred, co-founder of The John Birch Society, built an oil refinery for Stalin, and the Luftwaffe refinery for Hitler.
He (and Wikipedia, last time I checked) glories in denouncing Stalin and communism and commie’s in general, but neither makes mention of Koch’s lucrative assistance to the 3rd Reich, which fueled planes that rained death on London in the Blitz, and not much later, also on his own countrymen.
But the cat is now out of the bag. Thanks to Mayer’s fine book.
I doubt the book will impact upon any surviving Kochs in the slightest, however.
They might lose a friend or two, but they can buy whatever it takes to ease an insignificant loss like that.
WTF has Russia’s future and internal affairs got to do with Simon Tisdall? This is liberal humanitarianism for you. It is a prelude to war. These puffed-up, self-righteous idiots are the indispensible instruments of the deep-state and its homicidal maniacs.
Well said.
Damn, you articulated my sentiments immaculately, Francis. Every single word.