107

War or Images of War?

Edward Curtin

Experienced foreign policy analysts such as Ray McGovern, Scott Ritter, and Pepe Escobar, while agreeing that the Biden administration is clearly guilty of provoking Russia over Ukraine, are divided over whether it will lead to war.

All agree that Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine and that it is clearly justified in demanding safe borders by insisting US/NATO withdraw troops and missiles from the countries surrounding it, stop NATO’s “open door” policy, stop putting nuclear weapons in Europe, etc.

Clearly such demands are consonant with the US’s own historical demands for safe borders, evidenced most clearly in the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 when the world nearly suffered a nuclear war over Soviet missiles in Cuba. And equally obvious is the fact that the American posture today is hypocritical in the extreme and can only be accepted by propagandists and those ignorant of history.

The Biden administration must assume that most people are ignoramuses and that its obvious belligerence and blatant propaganda will pass as some sort of defense of freedom, even when the US engineered a Ukrainian coup d’état in 2014 in support of Neo-Nazis when Biden was President Obama’s vice-president. But that was nearly eight years ago, which is an eternity in a country of amnesiacs.

Whether this US persistent aggression is a propaganda charade or not, it is a most dangerous game.

In December 2021, Russia claimed that the US was preparing a false flag event to provoke a Russian response. This was dismissed or ignored by the western media as absurd. Recently, however, the Biden administration has been pounding the message that it is Russia that is preparing a false flag event to blame on Ukraine in order to justify a Russian invasion.

The western press, led by The New York Times, CNN, The Guardian, and the Washington Post – stenographers for the CIA, British intelligence, and the Pentagon – have become more hysterical by the day pushing this lie without any evidence whatsoever. It is sardonically comical.

If evidence doesn’t exist, of course, it can be manufactured, as with “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, etc. It’s easy as pie. To call these media the Yellow Press is an understatement.

When Russia accuses the US of using “information terrorism,” it is of course correct. For we are living in an MKULTRA mind control operation with multiple facets.

Ukraine, Covid, economic warfare, etc. – a hydra-headed monster whose goal is total control of regular people, who are treated as morons incapable of reason and the most basic logic. Toward confirming and strengthening this premise, the media provide a daily menu of mixed and contradictory messages meant to confuse, confound, and mess with people’s sense of their own ability to understand the world.

If the public is to be convinced that the Russians have started a war, it will be attempted not so much through words as through images, as Gustave Le Bon predicted long ago in his book, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind.

In analyzing the “crowd mind” in 1895, he was addressing the anxiety the middle class was feeling because of popular unrest. The fear of popular unrest, such as the truckers Freedom Convoy in Canada and the Yellow Vests in France, is today a major factor in the propaganda war waged by the elite press. Call it class warfare.

Le Bon argued that the crowd thinks in images, not words, and it is through images that the rulers can control them. Freud agreed with his basic premise that people in groups occupied an “hypnotic state,” while adding that this was also true for individuals who craved illusions.

Pessimistic as it was, Le Bon’s point about the crowd thinking in images – “The image itself immediately calls up a series of other images, having no logical connection to the first” – was picked up by all the influential propagandists, including the American father of the euphemistically named “public relations” industry, Edward Bernays.

Today it is all about images, still and moving ones.

Thus, one can expect to see the media using photos and film to create an emotional response in the population to convince it that Russia, not the US is the villain in this standoff.

Yet again, it may not be a standoff, for it is possible that the Biden administration is really intent on war because they have become completely untethered from reality and think such a war is winnable.

Perhaps they think they can entice Russia to take their bait and do something that can be spun as an “invasion” of Ukraine. This would run counter to Russia’s longstanding, patient diplomatic efforts to resolve these matters and to convince the US/NATO that the unipolar era is over and now that it is a multipolar world there must be an end to the encircling of Russia with US/NATO troops and weapons.

We shall see.

I don’t know whether there will be a major war or not, but I know how it will be managed. I’ll give you six guesses, as does The New York Times with its newly acquired word game, Wordle. The Grey Lady also knows the answer.

It’s not “censor,” for that’s six not five letters and they’ve censored the words already. It’s not “slave,” for they have prohibited that word since some people might find it offensive or get the idea that censorship is used to create slaves to the lie. It is, as required, five letters and begins with the letter “I”.

Try to picture it. It’s easy if you try.

Edward Curtin is an independent writer whose work has appeared widely over many years. His website is edwardcurtin.com and his new book is Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies.

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Kostis Ververidis
Kostis Ververidis
Feb 24, 2022 7:10 AM

Image
like they did with the plandemic

paul
paul
Feb 23, 2022 6:27 PM

We’ll soon sort out Johnny Russian, by jingo!!!
Liz Truss and her little tank will make short work of those Ruskies.
Then Ben Wallace will re stage the Charge of the Light Brigade and really show Putin what’s what.

Brazen-aware
Brazen-aware
Feb 23, 2022 11:18 AM

Wonderful read thank you Edward

mgeo
mgeo
Feb 22, 2022 11:38 AM

Speaking of images of war, one mainstream TV channel, supposedly reporting news on Ukraine, included a clip of what I think is called Katushya, in action. This small version is a matrix (maybe 4×4) of cannons all firing in rapid sequence. Of course, there was no explanation for the clip. It was last used in Afghanistan, and maybe Iraq and/or Syria.

rubberheid
rubberheid
Feb 22, 2022 3:48 PM
Reply to  mgeo

“grads” are the same? remain used extensively as i understand, very much in service.

Olenna
Olenna
Feb 22, 2022 10:35 AM

I stumbled across this article by chance. Or kismet. Either way, I’m impressed & relieved at the quality of Edward Curtain’s writing style. I didn’t think there were any real writers, journalists, left.
I’ve subscribed, I’ll gladly support, and will follow Edward’s work.
Intelligent comments too. Not much I can add it than once you unplug things come into focus as needed.
We’ve seen this movie so many times, remakes, trilogies, and comic book heros. Remember what Ricky Gervasis said about the last one.
The ‘bad guys’ are always Russian, or Middle Eastern. They’ve shaped our beliefs about them using movies.
China is never the bad guy. They even produce some beautiful warrior movies. Israel isn’t the bad guys either. Turks are. Romanians, Hungarians. Yeah, those are the images we’ve been fed.

Putin went on record first about the FF event but didn’t elaborate. Ned Price on the other hand basically told us the whole playbook. Crisis actors, fake deaths & bombings. Our guys are using Old footage of other wars. The average American won’t know the difference. That’s why it was important to expose what the media has done in the past.
Even now an acct on Telegram is posting all these photos of Putin’s aggression. All staged or old news clips.
Russia doesn’t want war. But he’s in his rights to do what is necessary for the good of his own country. The Zionist destroyed that country for the last hundred years. Maybe he’s simply a Russian Trump.

rider
rider
Feb 22, 2022 8:29 PM
Reply to  Olenna

Totally agree.

NickM
NickM
Feb 22, 2022 8:24 AM

“Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine”

Correct. Putin prefers to re-unite peacefully with its former Ukraina by local plebiscite, as he did with Crimea. And as he is now doing with the Donbass republics.

Kiev is next (the original capital of Russia) whose holy bells still chime to Russian ears.

That is why NATZO has withdrawn its political and military “instructors” from Kiev, and re-positioned them to prepare a new capital in Lwow far West of river Dnieper, in former Polish Galicia, which province is the true home of Ukrainian nationalism. Whether Poland will want Galicia back, or whether NATZO will set it up as a synthetic entity like Kosovo is (and like “Ukraine” has been since 2014) remains to be seen.

McMurphy
McMurphy
Feb 22, 2022 10:47 AM
Reply to  NickM

Good comment. Pepe Escobar disclosed some interesting details of the events in country 404 (aka Ukraine) in his usual style here: “War Inc.Throws an Invasion Party and No One Shows Up”

rubberheid
rubberheid
Feb 22, 2022 3:50 PM
Reply to  NickM

+ 1

NickM
NickM
Feb 22, 2022 5:55 AM

And while the people of Canada conduct their lonely struggle for freedom from World Economic Federation tyranny, the freedom fighters in Ukraine gain a powerful ally. Putin signs ‘immediate’ recognition of Donbass regions:

https://thesaker.is/to-end-this-momentous-day-mr-putin-signing-the-decrees-with-the-two-republics/

Tim Drayton
Tim Drayton
Feb 22, 2022 12:58 PM
Reply to  NickM

I see. Putin is supposedly anti-WEF. I wonder why he’s a regular at Davos.

rubberheid
rubberheid
Feb 22, 2022 3:52 PM
Reply to  Tim Drayton

the donbass is being assimilated into NWO, its feisty freedom lovers have no place in this new world. Putin’s the man to do it.

Ulrich Golling
Ulrich Golling
Feb 22, 2022 8:07 PM
Reply to  Tim Drayton

He actually, according to Schwab himself, was one of his “Global Leaders”. I have no idea whether he still is with the program, but he definitely played along in the “Corona plandemic”.

charles kint
charles kint
Feb 23, 2022 3:19 AM
Reply to  NickM

speaking of WEFwe have already seen what this “reset” is going to be like , the super rich elites have doubled their wealth over the past C years and we will end up owning nothing and being very happy
Who in his right mind believes that

mgeo
mgeo
Feb 23, 2022 8:46 AM
Reply to  NickM

MSM badly needs to drown out bad news and lack of “progress” on covid.

Any person of Russian origin has the right of return. Russian citizens cannot be extradited to other countries. Russia has stated eplicitly in the past that it will protect its people abroad. Don’t expect MSM to tell you this mirror image of US imperial hysteria.

Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Feb 21, 2022 2:20 PM

Interesting to note that the West’s ‘intelligentsia’ seem incapable of imbibing any rational mode of thought encompassing, and belief-system on some subjects but not others. There seems to be a mental mechanism that blocks out any thoughts that might give rise to discomfiture and a dormant and nasty irrationalism which this discomfiture precipitates.

In one particular instance the there was the interviewer who was making the most inane assertions – assertions which he himself seemed totally to believe. The interviewer was a gentleman called Trevor Phillips – who was/still is a right on-lefty, defender of minority rights and all the other preoccupations the current political left.

During this monotone presentation he was able to repeat parrot-fashion all the platitudes of the Anglo-American establishment and did so with obvious gusto.

I got to thinking that this was like the ‘two minutes hate’ in Orwell’s 1984. All middle-class kids had been brought up to believe this nonsense and seemed passionately to believe it. This was the ‘outer’ party, the hate machine that wanted to fight and kill and to use another Orwellian phrase ”smash the faces opponents with a spanner.”

And these people have supposed to have a higher education and been to the best institutions available.

The Anglo-American political and ideological elites are frankly beyond the pail. The sooner they make their exit from the stage of history, the better.

Penelope
Penelope
Feb 21, 2022 6:33 AM

Biden is such an oafish caricature that one wonders if we’re being prepared for his replacement. Or a coup by a charismatic leader to set off a civil war. What is occurring is so silly and so transparently false that it must have an additional intention than the obvious.

Why am I still so surprised at these inmates after watching Darth Vader in his Klingon suit/

les online
les online
Feb 21, 2022 12:40 AM

Among todays electronic mail – the latest edition of the weekly ‘Rubikon’,(German). It contains 30 articles, and, surprisingly, only one bearing on The Ukraine Problem… Surprising given that though Germany is part of The Ukraine Question which all English speaking country’s media are very concerned about, Germany, if Rubikon is anything to go by, is considering things with loads less Hysteria…
Diplomatic Slippery Slope. https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/diplomatisches-glatteis

Rubikon also includes an article about a book i’ve not heard of, ‘Inverted Totalitarianism: Actual power structures and their destructive effects on our democracy.’ Sheldon.S.Wolin..
Promo: ‘Democracy can continue to exist as a facade as long as it does not seriously interfere with the exercise of power and domination.’ Clearly Comrade Trudeau believes such…
The Tyranny of The Educated. https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/die-tyrannei-der-gebildeten

When all the interesting weekend reading material arrives in the post late in the weekend, or on Monday, what vantages has the net over snailmail ?

les online
les online
Feb 22, 2022 8:07 AM
Reply to  Johnny

Thanks, mate…
I’ve got Wolin’s book on order. My wonder is why i’d not heard of the book ’til now.
Maybe everyone had their tuppence worth and Moved On ?
Just hope that the Revolution isnt over by the time i finish reading the book,,,

Annie
Annie
Feb 20, 2022 11:35 PM

100s of thousands died in Iraq for a few terrorists that supposedly died in the planes?!?Thats like shooting every shoplifter that looks like they maybe a shoplifter because some shop on corner got robbed and the robber got shot in the first place???Does anyone see the shear ridiculous of this?why has no politician pointed this out it’s just so mind numbing,How could they of fooled us like this?Me included.

Jeffrey Strahl
Jeffrey Strahl
Feb 21, 2022 1:47 AM
Reply to  Annie

No “terrorists” were proven to be on any of the planes. Some of those mentioned as terrorists stepped forward to say they were still alive.

grr
grr
Feb 21, 2022 8:56 AM
Reply to  Jeffrey Strahl

And were there planes? New videos released shows none. The CGI videos that MSM used show planes of course. Planes that magically morph in to nothingness.

Phantasm
Phantasm
Feb 21, 2022 10:23 AM
Reply to  Annie

comment image

John Goss
John Goss
Feb 21, 2022 12:15 PM
Reply to  Phantasm

That image says it all. Tony Blair should be made to pay for this crime. You can tell he knew about it. Even that lying toad could not cover this up.

John Goss
John Goss
Feb 21, 2022 12:19 PM
Reply to  John Goss

This of course is the MSM version. Talks of suicide not murder.

rubberheid
rubberheid
Feb 21, 2022 9:58 PM
Reply to  Phantasm

indeed.
or is any of it real?

i watched all the hans blix shtuff at this time. then,

when all this happened – kelly, invasionshit, i didn’t have TV or pc at time and had stopped buying newspapers well before.. heard about days down the line. what a simpler life… maybe not in Iraq

called it as another of superknightmaltoidsoulsucked demonbliar’s antics straight off at time. ….

who knows,

?

Martin Usher
Martin Usher
Feb 20, 2022 9:36 PM

I think any invasion will be to keep the two sides apart in the east. Lobbing shells at each other should be severely discouraged, its only a provocation, so a responsible power should be using their powers of persuasion (and force, if necessary) to keep things from escalating. The only lasting solution in the east is political; any attempt to subjugate the people by force is going to end in a Northern Ireland type situation.

Anyone with even a superficial understanding of the history of the area is going to know what is and what is not possible. I clearly regard NATO as at fault here; its not a beacon of freedom to many, it represents the European powers that were expelled from this region during WW2 at some considerable cost to the inhabitants. (The US’s understanding of history and cultures is regrettably rather crass as we’ve all learned from its ham-fisted interventions in countries in the furtherance of peace and democracy.)(In Vietnam War parlance “they had to destroy the village to save it”.)

So action in the East may already be ongoing. It won’t be a full scale invasion but rather attempts to keep the peace on the front lines. Here ‘the west’ is at a bit of a disadvantage; we stick out like the proverbial sore thumb but unfortunately despite our best efforts to culturally differentiate between people from Russia and Ukraine they’re effectively indistinguishable to us outsiders.

les online
les online
Feb 20, 2022 9:28 PM

The 1966 movie “The Russians Are Coming” was shown on local TV Sunday arvio.
Replete with a cast of likeable American characters, and a bumbling lead intent on protecting his family. The Russians, or all but the young Russian Lover Boy who , near the end of the movie promises to write soppy love letters to the lead actors chaste (just like America), desperate-to-jump-into-bed-with-a-foreigner daughter, all look like Khrushchev..
The story ends well. all is well. The Enemies realise The Others are Human. The American towns folk escort the Ruskis in their submarine back out to sea, protect them from the governments war planes sent to bomb the Ruskis back to hell –
The towns folk giving their government a very anarchic finger… Wonderful Image…

Winston Smith thought, “Only the common folk can put an end to War.”

DaveMass
DaveMass
Feb 21, 2022 7:23 AM
Reply to  les online

Yeah I remember that movie!
A bit soppy, but the basic message in a time of McCarthy, etc.,
That peoples are nor not evil, only governments (Zhuo EnLai?)
The Russians did and do ‘Love their children too’…

Ort
Ort
Feb 20, 2022 8:53 PM

Speaking of “images”, I’m surprised that this bit of history hasn’t been mentioned:

When artist Frederic Remington was dispatched to Cuba in 1897 by William Randolph Hearst to document the expected war, Remington cabled “There will be no war.”

Hearst cabled back: “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”

damer65
damer65
Feb 20, 2022 8:44 PM

I guess the word is “Image”

Jeffrey Strahl
Jeffrey Strahl
Feb 20, 2022 8:01 PM

Oceania vs Eurasia vs Eastasia…..all a distraction. All the power centers are in on the global Great Reset scam, but will likely fight over the pieces at some point, if not now (and not likely now) then later. None of them are our friends. The whole global complex needs to come down.

Penelope
Penelope
Feb 20, 2022 6:18 PM

IMHO if we see any real apparent danger of direct confrontation it merely means that Russia is IN ON the theater/distraction-from-mandates. We must remind ourselves that it is by no means clear that Putin is a leader whose primary interest is the welfare of his country, or even that his power derives mostly from his leadership position rather than his position within the gangster-elite.

Putin has cooperated with the West regarding war in the past– notably when MI6 & CIA announced days before Russia that the downing of the Russian airliner over Sinai was committed by Islamists. This was the pretext for Russia to convert her air-only action in Syria to boots-on-the-ground. Of course continuing war in Syria was in Russian interests on that occasion, since the Iranian pipeline which was to cross Syria was a rival to Russian supplies.  

The downing was an incredibly obvious hoax. The engine was not even the correct engine; it sat on the sand & did not penetrate (engines that fall from the sky break concrete.) The wings after being “bombed off the plane” flew themselves right side up & landed still connected by the top of the plane; they were so pristinely undamaged that they had to blacken them for subsequent photos. 

Putin didn’t seem too eager to escalate in Syria, but neither did he deny the MI6/CIA story– altho sources on the ground maintained that no such flight had taken off! Putin finally announced that a piece of the wreckage was going to be transported to Moscow where they had a machine that wd tell them whether there had been explosives. I’m not kidding you; that’s what he said. Days later he finally agreed w the story. Obviously the usual collection of the pieces and reassembly didn’t take place.

And finally, if one examines Putin’s meteoric rise from being under investigation to head of state within a few short years after meeting Kissinger, and his continued meetings w Kissinger. . . .

My point: There are so many layers of deception that we cannot be certain that Putin & Biden are in any way acting to further the interests of their countries.  Why shd we assume Putin is when we know Biden isn’t?

Jeffrey Strahl
Jeffrey Strahl
Feb 20, 2022 8:03 PM
Reply to  Penelope

Oops, looks like you’re offended a Putin groupie.  😀  Good post.

Edith
Edith
Feb 20, 2022 9:07 PM
Reply to  Penelope

Putin went to the young leaders school of WEF. Does anyone need to know any more?

Martin Usher
Martin Usher
Feb 20, 2022 9:41 PM
Reply to  Penelope

If you’re going to mix in pipelines and what-have-you then you might find it interesting that the Black Sea is not only shallow but reckoned to be one large potential gas field.

martin
martin
Feb 21, 2022 2:52 AM
Reply to  Penelope

The wings after being “bombed off the plane” flew themselves right side up & landed still connected by the top of the plane; they were so pristinely undamaged that they had to blacken them for subsequent photos. “

That reminds me of the wings ghosting thru the steel perimeter beams of the World Trade Centre Tower in perfect alignment.

Did Putin ever point that out? Or anyone else in power? This is the world as it is, everybody knows at the upper level, I’m not sure that it even says much about who is in who’s pocket. The economic and military rivalries are probably conducted within that context, that’s all. The theatre is only for the benefit of the middle class whose support they need.

I often wondered why ‘they ‘ need to go to such lengths when they have all the power, but they need the middle class and their misguided morality and intellegence. You can’t have everybody in the know or the inate goodness of people comes in. But you do wonder how low in the organisations the ‘know’ goes.

Penelope
Penelope
Feb 21, 2022 7:21 AM
Reply to  martin

Martin, I read somewhere that a Russian satellite was in perfect position to have pictures of whatever did or didn’t hit the World Trade Center Towers. If Russia is an enemy of US gangster-elites it wd’ve been a spectacular leak.

Yes, that’s my favorite 9/11 image too– the outline the plane leaves as it enters the building– a perfect outline of the plane including the wings, which of course are strong enough to cut thru steel girders. A looney tunes cartoon.

Re: How far down people are “in the know” — at the time of John Kennedy’s assassination I heard that the French had published a book on it which was actually banned in the US.

I remember three other hoaxes by the Russians. You may remember the one where the Russian ambassador to Turkey is offed on-camera while attending a function in an art gallery. The silliest part is that after the gunman has killed his man & stands there waving the gun about & shouting the cameraman stands there calmly videotaping him– and the other terrified witnesses who don’t run out of the building. No, they stay & hide behind the upturned tables so the cameraman can tape them too. The gunman is finally “killed” and falls in one of those postures that have occult meaning, with the foot of one bent leg under the other knee, sort of like the number 4. There is still limited footage of this hoax here.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2016/12/19/russian-ambassador-turkey-assassinated-graphic-ath.cnn

Maggie
Maggie
Feb 21, 2022 6:02 PM
Reply to  Penelope

/and you must recall watching the ‘Woolwich ‘beheading’. Where there was no blood running from the victim, only bright red paint on the weapon? None even on the clothing of the assassins? Then rather than running away, the perps spent 15 mins being filmed chatting to passers by. One woman even shoves her shopping trolley passed Michael and his meat cleaver. Ooo she looked so – unconcerned? And the children on the bus who were filming became impatient and asked how long this scene would take because they had been promised to go for goodies after they had taken part in this bit of the film? When the Armed Police eventually arrived from the station round the corner, supposedly top marksmen/women, they only managed to wound one of them in the ankle? God, the story we were spun for weeks was straight out of the 911 playbook. This young man was from a devout Christian professional family. His friend had been killed in the M|E. He had got himself involved with Mi6 who hounded him to help them in their fight against terrorism.. I don’t think they realised when they agreed that they were patsies. For all we know they are still in prison? Or maybe they are working in Nigeria? Micheal’s brother was an Mi6 asset working as a teacher in the ME Of course, that was before the word went out to kill ALL potential terrorist patsies outright to avoid an entangled story line, and an obvious false flag that people could film and pick apart.. We did have a couple more minor ones after this, but I think the ethnic minorities have wised up to what’s in store for them if they’r approached to take part in a “Keep Britain Safe from Terrorists Drill.” One of the last ones, “The Fishmonger Hall Massacre” on Westminster Bridge. The ‘assassin’ got up when he thought all the cameras were gone. That story ran and ran until people were suitably frightened and calling for armed Police on our streets…. It’s noticeable that all the patsies have criminal backgrounds (well they would be wouldn’t they) so are easy targets for recruitment/blackmail.. Except the guys they chose for the 7/7 drill were Social Workers and teachers with social consciences.
STREET THEATRE THE WOOLWICH BEHEADING (conspiracy-cafe.com)
.

Maggie
Maggie
Feb 21, 2022 6:04 PM
Reply to  Maggie

I forgot to add, all this took place OUTSIDE AN ARMY BARRCKS where NONE of the Soldiers came out to help their beheaded comrade?

Maggie
Maggie
Feb 21, 2022 3:15 PM
Reply to  Penelope

Hi Penelope As usual, I find myself aligned to your thinking.. I’ve spent the morning reading and researching an article by Chris Hedges on Consortium News – “Democrats, the more effective Evil.”
This is THE most intensely magnified observation, and without any doubt at all IMO, “IS” THE REASON behind the attack against Russia (China next?)
Have a read.. I would love to know your thoughts.. I believe if everyone had to read this, then The Zionist States of Amerika would be finished over night becasue there would be no support for anything that comes out of their mouths or back sides as was the case with G double ya, with Biden a close second… The only ones resisting this information will be the primates who are incapable of reading or even knowing what the word research means?
Sorry for the length but I couldn’t decide what to leave out… It is actually longer. 😬
On point particularly for me is:

>>>An economic crisis means a political crisis. And a political crisis is traditionally solved by WAR against enemies inside and outside the nation. The Democrats are as guilty of this as the Republicans. WARS can get started by Democrats, such as Harry S. Truman in Korea or John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, and perpetuated by Republicans. Or they can get started by Republicans, such as George W. Bush, and perpetuated by Democrats such as Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Bill Clinton, without declaring WAR, imposed punishing sanctions on Iraq and authorized the Navy and the Air Force to carry out tens of thousands of sorties against the country, dropping thousands of bombs and launching hundreds of missiles.(Murdering 1.5 innocent men,women,and children in the process).

The WAR INDUSTRY, with its $768 BILLION MILITARY BUDGET, (more than the rest of the world put together) along with the expansion of Homeland Security, the FBI, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the National Security Agency, is a bipartisan project.

The handful of national political leaders, such as Henry Wallace in 1948 and George McGovern in 1972, who dared to challenge the war machine were ruthlessly hounded into political oblivion by the leaders of both parties.

Biden’s bellicose rhetoric towards China and especially Russia, more strident than that of the Trump administration, has been accompanied by the formation of new security alliances such as those with Japan, Australia, and Great Britain in the Indo-Pacific.

U.S. aggression has, ironically, pushed China and Russia into a forced marriage, something the architects of the Cold War, including Nixon and Kissinger with their opening to China in 1971, worked very hard to avoid. President Putin and President XiJinping, after their meeting recently in Beijing, issued a 5,300-word statement that condemned NATO expansion in eastern Europe, denounced the formation of security blocs in the Asia Pacific region, and criticized the AUKUS Trilateral Security Pact between the US, Great Britain and Australia. They also vowed to thwart “color revolutions” and strengthen “back-to-back” strategic coordination.

Warmongering by the Democrats always comes wrapped in the mantle of democracy, freedom and human rights, making Democrats the ‘more effective salespeople for War’. Democrats eagerly lined up behind George W. Bush during the calls to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of “humanitarian intervention” and “liberating the women of Afghanistan”, who would spend the next two decades living in terror, burying family members, many of them their children.

Even when Democrats, including Barack Obama, criticized the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq while running for office, they steadfastly voted to fund the Wars to “Support our Troops” once elected. Now, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, says “an Assault on Ukraine is an Assault on Democracy,” the same argument Democrats clung to a half-century ago while launching and expanding the disastrous war in Vietnam.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, is currently crafting legislation he proudly calls “The mother of all sanctions bill.” The bill led in the House by Gregory Meeks of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also a Democrat, demands that the administration “not cede to the demands of the Russian Federation regarding NATO membership or expansion.”

NATO expansion to Ukraine along Russia’s borders is the central issue for Moscow. Removing this for discussion obliterates a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Sanctions under the legislation can be imposed for anything deemed by Ukraine to be hostile. The sanctions cannot be lifted until an agreement is reached between the government of Ukraine and Russia, meaning Ukraine would be granted the authority to determine when the U.S. sanctions will end.

The proposed sanctions, which target Russian Banks, the NordStream2 natural gas pipeline, state-owned enterprises and leading members of the Government and Military, including President Putin, also calls for blocking Russia from SWIFT, the international financial transaction system that uses the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

“The legislation would grant at least $500 million in foreign military assistance to Ukraine, in addition to the $200 million in new assistance sent over the last month,” writes Marcus Stanley. “This makes Ukraine the third leading recipient of U.S. military assistance globally, after Israel, and Egypt. While it wouldn’t come close to giving Ukraine the ability to combat Russia on its own, it may come with U.S. military advisors that would increase the danger the U.S. would be drawn into a conflict. The bill also takes steps to DIRECTLY INVOLVE COUNTRIES BORDERING RUSSIA in negotiations to end the crisis, which would make it much more difficult to reach an agreement.”

While cutting Russia off from SWIFT will be catastrophic, at least in the short term, for the Russian economy, DIRECTLY pushing Russia into the arms of China to create an alternative global financial system that no longer relies on the U.S. dollar will cripple the American empire. Once the dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency the dollar will precipitously drop in value, perhaps as much as by two-thirds, as the pound sterling did when the British currency was abandoned as the world’s reserve currency in the 1950s.

Treasury bonds, used to finance America’s military-based balance-of-payments deficit and the ballooning government budget deficit, will no longer be attractive investments for countries such as China. The nearly 800 U.S. military outposts abroad, sustained by debt — the Chinese have lent an estimated $1 trillion to the U.S. on which they collect hefty interest — will dramatically shrink in number. Meanwhile, the massive U.S. interest payments, at least in part, will continue to fund the Chinese military.

THE U.S. DOMINATION OF THE WORLD ECONOMY, after 75 years, IS ‘OVER’. It is not coming back. We manufacture little, short of weapons. Our economy is a mirage build on unsustainable levels of debt. The pillage orchestrated by the capitalist elites and corporations has hollowed the country out from the inside, leaving the infrastructure decayed, democratic institutions moribund and at least half the population struggling at subsistence level.

Chris Hedges: Democrats, the More Effective Evil – Consortium News

Penelope
Penelope
Feb 21, 2022 8:34 PM
Reply to  Maggie

Maggie– thanks for the lengthy post. My few comments:

–John Kennedy didn’t start the VietNam war; in fact was going to stop it AND dismantle CIA AND had already started issuing US-Treasury-issued silver certificates as an add’l currency.

–All that you say regarding US/Russian confrontation is apparently true. However we must remember that it’s easier to buy off the leadership than to defeat a country militarily.

–It is more than possible that the Russian and Chinese leadership are joined with the West’s gangster-elite in the plan for the NWO. The confrontation between them may be theater or limited to jockeying for relative power. They wd of course administer their areas of the NWO.

–What is certain is that neither the Russian nor Chinese govt practices freedom & democracy at home. Nor is there the slightest indication that they have such a vision for humanity.

Vagabard
Vagabard
Feb 20, 2022 5:46 PM

An invasion is ‘very, very likely and very, very imminent’
https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-crisis-russia-planning-biggest-war-in-europe-since-1945-pm-warns-as-loud-explosions-heard-in-donetsk-12546847

“Everything that we see indicates that invasion is very, very, highly likely and very, very imminent.”

Which takes probabilistic language to new levels. We now know what’s in Schrodinger’s Box. No need to open it up and see. Collapsing wave functions is for amateurs.

A cat? Live cat? Dead cat? No cat? Cat with kittens? A dog? That’s for mere mortals to speculate over. We have our models. They never fail

Near certainty for the elites. Probability, opinion and speculation for the masses.

Which reminds of Samuel Butler’s novel ‘Erewhon‘ about a dystopian land, where the only subject on offer at university was ‘hypothetics’ (or speculation). And where being ill (or testing positive(?)) constituted a crime, punishable by being locked up (quarantine). But that’s another story. 😀 

Edith
Edith
Feb 20, 2022 9:08 PM
Reply to  Vagabard

Not enough aries in the mix of planetary carry on at the moment.

Penelope
Penelope
Feb 21, 2022 7:25 AM
Reply to  Vagabard

Vagabard, it just proves that somewhere in some parallel universe the Russians are invading Syria (and Biden is a genius– no, probably not even in an alternate reality)

rubberheid
rubberheid
Feb 21, 2022 10:03 PM
Reply to  Vagabard

aye, maybe, possibly ; ) lol

but aye, somethings gonna go in this sphere… probably just the freedom of the free peoples of Donbass……

: (

Annie
Annie
Feb 20, 2022 4:13 PM

As much as I love offgaurdian and many of their speakers,Please don’t prop up this phyop.This is obviously a distraction from the covid narrative because that is falling apart.We have dealt with a lot in two years,Trying to keep our sanity now it’s always Russia in the mix when they have no more cards.I grew up with the Cold War threat I’m not interested anymore I’m done with these buffoon’s in governments,Just blow us up already be done with it stop dragging it out I don’t care.😬

clanger
clanger
Feb 20, 2022 4:28 PM
Reply to  Annie

Spot on, exactly how I feel

ophiaps
ophiaps
Feb 20, 2022 5:08 PM
Reply to  Annie

The commi’ss coming to get us.
 😀 

Maggie
Maggie
Feb 21, 2022 5:07 PM
Reply to  ophiaps

Who will they be? Communism ceased to be in 1991… They have been Progressive Capitalists ever since? Mr P and his team have spent millions modernizing and bringing their people into the 21st century. They have gone from rags to riches in less than 20 years and are getting better and better. Whilst the UK and US have gone from riches to rags since 1980…

hotrod31
hotrod31
Feb 20, 2022 11:15 PM
Reply to  Annie

a distraction from the covid narrative” Haahhh, Haaahhh! I like that. And the Cov1984 is a distraction from the ‘Great Reset’ … and throw in the coming tsunami of economic collapse, etc. Whoa, life’s a total mirage at the moment.

dom irritant
dom irritant
Feb 21, 2022 12:10 AM
Reply to  Annie

indeed, for half a century living with cnd(why is it a death rune in their symbol) all part of the fear/op

Maggie
Maggie
Feb 21, 2022 5:18 PM
Reply to  dom irritant

Better still Dom why does the combination of ALL the symbols for Convid, Delta and Omicron overlaid become the symbol for freemasonry?
Triangle, Square. Elliptical (eye).. It may just be a coincidence? Just saying…

Maggie
Maggie
Feb 21, 2022 3:31 PM
Reply to  Annie

Hi Annie, That is precisely what the War Hawks are waiting to hear…Because if enough people “Aren’t interested or don’t care how many innocents are going to die – again” then that gives them carte blanche to do as they please, with no fear of a repercussion from the proletariat?…
Please take the time to read the ‘essay’ I have written above. I’m sorry it is long, but felt it was important that we read and get on the same page. You do know that we – the people of the world are ONE COLLECTIVE CONCIOUSNESS? And we can defeat this evil cancer, by joining our thoughts and praying that they are removed, and that innocent lives are spared.

wardropper
wardropper
Feb 20, 2022 3:47 PM

The James Bond films were fun, but what a false picture they painted – both of our ‘good-guy” spies, and of “the enemy”…
Clearly the otherwise intelligent people who now work in the ‘secret’ services still cling to a long-gone era – the early 1950s – and they will continue to believe that their world is real until they die.

You can bet your boots that today’s Bond, ‘M’, ‘Q’, Blofeld and Moneypenny are all pretending to be quadruple-vaxxed, while actually never going near Pfizer for anything except pills for certain intimate dysfunctions.

As others here have said, our best bet is to construct, and live in, our own reality, because theirs is decrepit junk, destined for the pit.

Annie
Annie
Feb 20, 2022 4:19 PM
Reply to  wardropper

So true 👍

Mr Y
Mr Y
Feb 20, 2022 5:12 PM
Reply to  wardropper

> As others here have said, our best bet is to construct, and live in, our own reality, because theirs is decrepit junk, destined for the pit.

Amen.

rubberheid
rubberheid
Feb 21, 2022 3:37 PM
Reply to  wardropper

+ 1

moneycircus
moneycircus
Feb 20, 2022 3:07 PM

Here’s the good news: The war in Ukraine is hot air from the mouths of Western politicians, even as the autonomous region of Donetsk evacuates its civilians.

The bad news: The other war is real and it may be won without firing a shot. The target is Britain, U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Australia. They are under assault and The Investors are molding the world in their image.

The two wars are a single project, being orchestrated by the same people for the same purpose: which is to seize property or deny it to others.

https://moneycircus.substack.com/p/crisis-update-canadas-truckers-dispersed

Annie
Annie
Feb 20, 2022 4:25 PM
Reply to  moneycircus

Russia is a distraction always has been,When their house of cards start trembling let’s bring in the Russians or the Chinese just keep people fearful,Sorry to say governments i know your dirty little game time to make the psychopaths fearful power to the people.

ophiaps
ophiaps
Feb 20, 2022 4:49 PM
Reply to  moneycircus

your alive we did wonder where you gone  😀 

rubberheid
rubberheid
Feb 21, 2022 3:38 PM
Reply to  ophiaps

and where’s Gezza these days?

NickM
NickM
Feb 21, 2022 9:15 AM
Reply to  moneycircus

+10. Right on the button. The fake Russian war against Ukraine was set up to distract our attention from the real Anglo Zionazi Capitalist war.

“The other war is real and it may be won without firing a shot. The target is Britain, U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Australia.”

Howard
Howard
Feb 20, 2022 1:58 PM

The question becomes: which is more reliable as a mode of thought – words or images? Since words are entirely human made, images would seem the superior mode.

But then, do people get their images from the world around them or from the imaginary world of infotainment?

Since most have never seen Russia, any old image will do. And since virtually everyone in the US has grown up with the image of Russia as a spooky sort of place filled with bad things, the American people could accept almost anything attributed to Russia.

Uncle Joe could announce tomorrow that Russia has invaded Gooney-Pooney Land and must be stopped at all costs. And most Americans would spend the next 60 seconds wondering why they hadn’t heard of Gooney-Pooney Land till now.

So it’s not words versus images; it’s thinking versus absorbing.

Worth 1,000 Words
Worth 1,000 Words
Feb 20, 2022 2:45 PM
Reply to  Howard

Where in the World?

Unlabeled images of landscapes that could be taken from numerous places across the world.
And from Bob Villa, of all people, 35 Places in America that look like foreign countries.
And Australian Landscapes – photos, that look like they could have come from other geographic regions/countries.
Seeing is believing?
Well, not always.

Edwige
Edwige
Feb 20, 2022 3:07 PM
Reply to  Howard

“the image of Russia as a spooky sort of place”.

Russia is the Kremlin and the Kremlin is Russia, that’s all anyone needs to know. Catherine Merridale even wrote a book to that effect, ‘Red Fortress’ which I’ve had the misfortune to read (they were practically giving it away – like they do when the message is an important one to the agenda). Merridale works for Oxford University, unsurprisingly.

Perhaps a Russian history could write a history of the UK with the thesis that the City of London embodies all anyone needs to know about the country? It’d probably be closer to the truth.

Howard
Howard
Feb 20, 2022 3:14 PM
Reply to  Edwige

Yes. Only in the ultra-sophisticated West could anyone imagine that a country bigger than some continents can be summarized by one tiny place on the map – and understood by endlessly studying what goes on in that tiny place.

wardropper
wardropper
Feb 20, 2022 3:54 PM
Reply to  Howard

The Germans call them “Fach-Idioten”, which, as well as being most satisfying to pronounce, signifies those whose expertise in a single area is matched only by a catastrophic ignorance in every other area.

Unfortunately, they have all the top jobs today…

Penelope
Penelope
Feb 20, 2022 6:21 PM
Reply to  wardropper

wardropper, I WISH what’s happening were a result of mere ignorance, rather than intention.

wardropper
wardropper
Feb 20, 2022 7:21 PM
Reply to  Penelope

Oh I certainly agree with that, Pen.

I am not referring to the ‘authorities’, but the countless minions who are trained as under-graduates to become their robots.
The top jobs are indeed filled by them.

The actual ringleaders remain in the shadows, their activities are not accurately described as ‘jobs’, and they know exactly what they are doing, and what they intend doing.

S Cooper
S Cooper
Feb 20, 2022 1:56 PM

“Just Following Orders, the Scamdemic Gestapo Nazis enforcing the Big ‘Lie’, the Big Cull, the Great Ripoff, the Grand Enslavement.”
comment image
comment image

“Nazi Boy and the Reich need to Fall, NOW!”

S Cooper
S Cooper
Feb 20, 2022 3:48 PM
Reply to  S Cooper

“A Corporate Fascist Propaganda Crew from Joseph Goebbels Television and their Scamdemic Gestapo Nazi Protection Squad.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusCirclejerk/comments/swoz5i/msm_forced_to_flee_vancouver_border_crossing/

“The war racketeer corporate fascist eugenicist oligarch mobster psychopath Nazis lie and lie and lie and lie and lie. It is in their nature to lie. It is pathological.”
comment image

“They also are haters, such haters. That is also pathological.”

Martin Usher
Martin Usher
Feb 20, 2022 9:47 PM
Reply to  S Cooper

My mother was a veteran of what we’d call ANTIFA demosntrations back in the 1930s (e,g, Cable Street). She said that the demonstrators carried marbles as a way of destabilizing police horses. (She also said that it wasn’t a good idea to get caught with a pocket full.)

This was only 90 years ago. Things don’t change that much, do they?

Edith
Edith
Feb 20, 2022 9:11 PM
Reply to  S Cooper

At least the German perpetrators didn’t hide their faces.

sam quentin
sam quentin
Feb 20, 2022 1:33 PM

I worked for a long time in media, Journalism and “news”.
I also worked in digital multimedia production.

I was surprised when first entering the worlds of media, Journalism and “news” to discover that it was common practice for Reporters, Journalists, “news” Producers & such to use stock footage from media clearing houses, for most “news” segments.
They would just purchase recycled footage of other past events, like wars or other events, and insert that old footage into their own “current” stories.

In other words, many of the same audio, images, video & such that I was using for promos, commercials, marketing material, PR & such were also being used for “news”.
What we’re often told that we’re seeing is not what we’re really seeing, in the context we’re being told.

There is an entire industry & many businesses whose sole purpose is to gather, archive & catalog media for sale for use by BOTH the entertainment AND journalism/”news” industries.
It’s far cheaper & easier to simply download media clips from archives than to actually sends Reporters & journalists out on location to get new media of actual events.

Remember the revelations that some images of supposed mass “covid” deaths were actually recycled old footage from past movies?
And/or CBS recycling footage of “overflowing” hospital wards in Italy in a segment of “covid” in NYC?
This practice is quite common.

I was watching a FOX News story this morning of supposed “escalation of fighting” on the Ukraine/Russia border, and it sure looked like a movie set.
Complete with “Reporters” running away from supposed bombings, shellings & such.
And even contained “shocking” images of blown-up vehicles (which sure looked like props, as they looked quite old & staged).
Perhaps it was real footage, but coming from a Production background, it sure seemed fake/staged.

Howard
Howard
Feb 20, 2022 3:19 PM
Reply to  sam quentin

Undoubtedly you can tell whether the footage is real or, as you say, archived matter simply by looking at the names of the reporters.

The kind of reporters who would enter a dangerous area would not be the kind of reporters whose actual report Western media would ever use.

Sam Quentin
Sam Quentin
Feb 20, 2022 3:49 PM
Reply to  Howard

Hardly.
Stock images are most often those sought & archived that are generic enough to avoid time/place/personality recognition.
These mega-firms that archive & make these stock media available aren’t idiots.
Plus you fail to account for prop/”theater” (i.e. movies & such) type production & footage.

Beware trying to talk about what you don’t possess greater knowledge of.

I would love to hear more about your extensive career & background in professional multimedia production.

I find it interesting how so many people just want to mindlessly argue about what they don’t know.
Rather than engage in greater consideration, and learn more.

Much of the population of the world has had much of their senses of relevance, self-worth, validations & such effectively removed.
Thus a growing number of people can only argue & fight against each other, as they desperately seek to reclaim some semblance of relevance.

Howard
Howard
Feb 20, 2022 5:08 PM
Reply to  Sam Quentin

I’m not sure what exactly you’re saying (maybe I need a refresher course in English 101). But, if you’ll pardon my bluntness, you seem like someone who incorrectly interprets what others say (or write).

As to my comment, there are two categories of expertise: being trained in a given field; and observing what goes on around you.

One need not have ever worked in media, journalism and news to observe strikingly obvious trends. One such obvious trend is that most reporters have settled into a comfortable life as stenographers for the ruling elites. Consequently, they could be counted on to report whatever they’re told – which includes using any archived materiel provided them.

Please tell me what aspect of this observation constitutes an argument against your original comment.

Otherwise I would have to conclude that maybe you didn’t understand the field you were in as well as you think you did.

Penelope
Penelope
Feb 20, 2022 6:29 PM
Reply to  Sam Quentin

Hardly, Media is entirely controlled as everyone knows. On many occasions we’ve outed a military action that’s supposedly in– say Syria– as really happening in Delhi.

Or a crowded ICU in one country replaces an empty one in the US.

rubberheid
rubberheid
Feb 21, 2022 10:08 PM
Reply to  Sam Quentin

admins, how “toxic” is signing up for a red button compared to already being allowed to comment….
; )

Researcher
Researcher
Feb 20, 2022 3:55 PM
Reply to  sam quentin

Yes. The terrorist and war footage used in the news is always staged or fake. Propaganda dissemination for mass markets using fear campaigns, for the purposes of racketeering.

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the US public believes is false.” William Casey, CIA Director.

ophiaps
ophiaps
Feb 20, 2022 5:00 PM
Reply to  Researcher

Stock images they use repeated stock phazers .repetition is hypnotism.
Go back get English translator check out the covid briefing in each language and your notice virtually the same stock phazers and stock images even graphs.at virtually the same time period.

comment image

ophiaps
ophiaps
Feb 20, 2022 5:01 PM
Reply to  ophiaps

smart means painful = dumb = stupid
comment image

dom irritant
dom irritant
Feb 21, 2022 12:40 AM
Reply to  ophiaps

Secret. Militarised. Arms. (in) Residential. Technologies

damer65
damer65
Feb 20, 2022 8:49 PM
Reply to  ophiaps

Stupid Moron Authorises Requirements To End Ruse

Hele
Hele
Feb 21, 2022 7:19 AM
Reply to  ophiaps

Is that a real person?

clanger
clanger
Feb 20, 2022 4:34 PM
Reply to  sam quentin

“Drop the dead donkey”

dr death
dr death
Feb 20, 2022 6:55 PM
Reply to  sam quentin

there is an excellent book written by dr udo ulfkotte exposing the CIA fakery that controls all supposed ‘western’ ‘news’ agencies, publishing etc…. he was at one time editor at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung… and furthermore it’s imbecile friendly and easy reading..

his damascene moment was during the Iraq war when he was compelled to report (as an ’embed’) on fake staged incidents by american alphabet, spooky goons … who were running the media psy-op..

His book was called ‘bought journalists’ and he was probably murdered by the goons that buy them….

of course none of this should in anyway be surprising to anyone vaguely aware of our very own MI7 and the BBC…

oscar71
oscar71
Feb 20, 2022 1:23 PM

Isn’t this whole thing nothing more than a justification for the recent $770BN funding for the US war machine… I mean industry. The same industry no doubt fuelling the misinformation and brainwashing of the masses.

WarGasm
WarGasm
Feb 20, 2022 2:22 PM
Reply to  oscar71

The Great Corporate Vaccine Giveaway is waning….
Gotta keep sending more public money to the Big Asset Management firms & Big Banks.

The largest shareholders of Big Pharma “vaccine” makers like Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, et al include:
Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, Fidelity, the Capital Group, Invesco, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and other CARTEL members.

The largest shareholders of Big Defense war makers like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Huntington Ingalls, General Electric, et al include:
Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, Fidelity, the Capital Group, Invesco, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and other CARTEL members.

The War on Drugs, the War on Terrorism, the War on “The Virus”, the War on the “East”, etc., each keep sending ever-greater quantities of money, wealth & power to the neo-feudal Lords.
A Permanent War Economy.
Courtesy of BOTH the “left” and “right”.

Anne
Anne
Feb 20, 2022 12:15 PM

Ze gaan lekker samen Europa verdelen, dat is de bedoeling 🙁

siamdave
siamdave
Feb 20, 2022 12:03 PM

‘must assume that most people are ignoramuses’ – well, I mean, it’s pretty clear fro all kinds of evidence that a very large number of people in the US and a lot of other places*are* ignoramuses, including quite a large percentage of ‘public figures’ … whether that reaches ‘most’ or now is just kind of semantics … it’s not a good sign for the future ..

Carnyx
Carnyx
Feb 20, 2022 12:09 PM
Reply to  siamdave

Why not deploy our legions fresh from the conquest of Afghanistan?

sam quentin
sam quentin
Feb 20, 2022 1:08 PM
Reply to  siamdave

Authoritarianism begets greater Authoritarianism.

The more that Authority takes over more roles, responsibilities & lives of more people, the less those people can do, and think for themselves.
The less those people can do & think for themselves, the more Authority is needed.

“Learning” goes way beyond textbooks and lectures.
Much true learning is reliant on life lessons.
Which is better street smarts of book smarts?
BOTH.

Those “street smarts” can & should include the abilities to discover, observe, witness, try…even fail, with that failure serving as greater opportunity to learn from our own mistakes.
Those mistakes often serve as a means of employing greater reasoning, logic, problem solving and other critical thinking skills.
Those mistakes can & should serve as lessons to learn to take greater responsibility for our own actions.
When the state assumes greater control over more aspect of our lives, affording itself more control & responsibility for more things, and offering its Citizens more “protections”, dependence & such, more people lose the abilities to engage in those greater reasoning, logic, problem solving and other critical thinking skills.
And lose the critical skill of taking personal responsibility for themselves and their actions.
Leading to greater ignorance.

Much contemporary thought/belief holds that the so-called “Dark Ages” (actually an absence of the Enlightenment of knowledge, knowledge formerly present in the Classical Greek period) was a result of the fall of Rome.
Yet I hold the distinct possibility/notion that growing ignorance amongst more Roman citizens, officials, and society is what led to the fall of Rome.
The Roman Statesman & pre-humanist Philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero noted the decay of truly Enlightening knowledge lead to that fall of Rome. As did others.

Cicero worried greatly about the Dictatorship of Julius Caesar, and butted heads with Autocratic leaders like Mark Antony.
Cicero witnessed how the growing levels of state control were leading to greater levels of general & widespread ignorance.

A book entitled The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, that I strongly recommend, details & outlines much of this ignorance.


The Dunning Kruger effect
– The ignorant are too ignorant to recognize their own ignorance.
Thus they tend to think they know more than they truly know, tend to hold less regard for other info & opinions, and tend to place more confidence in what they think they know.

Charles Darwin had a similar observation/opinion when he wrote that “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.“.
That concept, taken to it’s logical extension, means that in those times, by those people whom think they are at the height of knowledge, are in fact rather at the height of ignorance.

The one who engages in conversation,” Cicero wrote,
should not debar others from participating in it, as if he were entering upon a
private monopoly; but, as in other things, so in a general conversation he should
think it not unfair for each to have his turn
.”

Chevrus
Chevrus
Feb 20, 2022 2:26 PM
Reply to  sam quentin

Very educational, thanks for compiling that!

Sam Quentin
Sam Quentin
Feb 20, 2022 2:51 PM
Reply to  sam quentin

“Which is better street smarts **or** book smarts?”

Oops, typo.

JWK
JWK
Feb 20, 2022 4:50 PM
Reply to  sam quentin

Regarding mistakes, and learning from them, the by far most effective means of learning anything, no member of the oligarchy will ever even admit they made one.
I’ve found the most effective, and quickest way to learn a thing, is to make mistakes and FIX THEM. The effort required to fix them is an incentive to “fix” that mistake in one’s mind, and avoid it in the future. Unfortunately, the oligarch’s ego won’t allow them to do so.

Penelope
Penelope
Feb 20, 2022 6:33 PM
Reply to  siamdave

Only 3% of Americans were for the War of Independence.

Grafter
Grafter
Feb 20, 2022 11:53 AM

untethered from reality and think such a war is winnable.”

The definition of insanity.

Carnyx
Carnyx
Feb 20, 2022 11:53 AM

They will have their war if they are so intent on it. But the question is who will fight it for them? Here in the UK they’ve always relied on the White Working Class do their fighting and dying but it hasn’t gone unnoticed how they have been marginalised, disenfranchised and held in utter contempt by their aloof globalist ruling masters, So I wouldn’t count on them turning up, no matter what heart-strings the likes of The Sun and Mirror try to tug. So who does that leave? The Rainbow army? Don’t think Ivan is going to care too much about pronouns as he is sticking a sawtooth bayonet into your guts. They won’t fight…unless it’s on Twitter. Maybe the big-mouthed Neocon Chickenhawks who infest the defence establishment along the Rupert’s in the Officer Corps…. Nah not them either. They’re all just hot air and wind. What about their beloved migrants… you know the one’s fleeing ‘our’ created conflicts… oh wait.

I think they’ll get their war… but it won’t remain in Ukraine for long… it will be fought on our streets and in our homes… and maybe that is the true plan.

Isn’t Putin a WEF fellow too?

Edwige
Edwige
Feb 20, 2022 1:10 PM
Reply to  Carnyx

The evidence that Putin was a WEF YGL comes from Schwab mentioning him in a list of YGLs he gave in an interview in Costa Rica in 2019.

There are some problems with the claim – specifically that Putin would seem to have been too old for the programme. However there are also some problems about Putin’s stated age – the guy doesn’t seem to age!

Was Schwab bigging up the WEF? Did he simply make a mistake? Or did he reveal a truth that’s since been buried because it would jeopardise the plausibility of their planned Cold War 2.0 (or 3.0 or 4.0 or whatever number we’re now on)? Putin seems only too happy to address the WEF and hasn’t challenged the fundamentals of convid.

Carnyx
Carnyx
Feb 20, 2022 1:48 PM
Reply to  Edwige

Depends on how long YGL program has been going for… may have been known under a different guise.

As you’ll know the WEF has been about since the very early 70’s

Putin was very chummy with Klaus during Cyber Polygon. I know people like to paint Putin as some kind of saviour, but he ain’t and those in Russia have being very keen to implement the same agenda.

They all piss in the same pot

Penelope
Penelope
Feb 20, 2022 6:43 PM
Reply to  Edwige

Edwige, re Putin’s age: There’s a conspiracy theory in Russia that this Putin is a lookalike of the old Putin.

I am personally convinced that Biden isn’t Biden. He has brown eyes & many people say Biden had blue. I simply notice the difference in the ears. But a puppet is a puppet.

NukItru
NukItru
Feb 20, 2022 10:36 AM

Imagine all the people.