Links and Notes for February 25th, 2022

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

Table of Contents

• COVID-19
• Economy & Finance
• Public Policy & Politics
• Journalism & Media
• Art & Literature
• Technology

COVID-19

Three international studies of the origins of coronavirus refute the fabricated Wuhan “lab leak” claim by Benjamin Mateus (WSWS)

“The understated form in which the conclusions are reported by the US scientists is striking, In no way do the authors trumpet that these are ironclad results against the lab leak theory. The presentation takes the form of a courtroom case where the defense provides extremely strong circumstantial evidence that their client was not at the scene of the crime and could not have committed the murder. The authors of the current studies know full well how politically dangerous the issue has become. In a courageous and principled way, providing rigorous proof, they present the evidence succinctly, in a straightforward and detached manner.”

Economy & Finance

Buy the Coal Plant to Stop It by Matt Levine (Bloomberg)

“A strategy that is more likely to work is to play market makers against each other. E.g., hit the bid of one trainee trader and then cover your short by lifting the offer of another trainee trader as the market goes your way because the first trainee has been unloading the risk. Rinse and repeat until everyone is back from gardening leave. Note that this strategy will hurt your relationship with the market maker banks if found out and is considered bad behavior. Just hire one inflation trader, set off the daisy chain of gardening leaves, and then ask for markets from the six trainees filling in on the six inflation desks. The markets will be all over the place because no one knows anything, so you can make a bunch of money from the illiquidity you created through personnel changes.”

“Look I am a simple game designer, I just want to make fun video games, but the reality is that the market is clamoring for transferable cryptographically protected hats for video game characters and I am in a unique position to provide those hats at a low cost. I have a fiduciary responsibility to my shareholders and frankly I’d be a fool not to rush into selling NFTs, even if it’s stupid.”

Bored Apes Go to Court by Matt Levine (Bloomberg)

“Plaintiff’s Bored Ape has significant value; this is unquestionable. For example, Justin Bieber purchased Bored Ape #3001 for 500 ETH, or $1.3 million at the time of the transaction. Bieber’s Bored Ape has a rarity score of only 53.66 and a rarity rank of #9777. In contrast, Plaintiff’s Bored Ape has a rarity score of 138.52 and a rarity rank of #1392. It is in the top 14% rarity, and it is significantly rarer than Bieber’s. Thus, Plaintiff’s Bored Ape’s value is arguably in the millions of dollars and growing as each day passes.”

What is this utter bullshit?

“I know this is normal now, this is just life in 2022, this ship has sailed. Still, imagine telling a federal judge “see, my cartoon ape is vastly more valuable than Justin Bieber’s because it is in the top 14% rarity, so please award me millions of dollars of damages against the exchange that negligently allowed someone to buy my ape for 0.01 ETH.”

““What is an ETH,” the judge might reasonably ask.

““The ape is a computer image, what does it mean that someone else possesses it, or that it is rare,” the judge might reasonably ask.

““Why can’t you just right-click and save it, then you’d have your ape back,” the judge might reasonably ask.

““Who is Justin Bieber,” the judge might reasonably ask.”

“[…] the path by which we have arrived here is strange. The idea of crypto was to create a sort of property that could be evidenced through code, where ownership was decentralized and permissionless rather than intermediated through some traditional authority. And it worked, and NFTs became worth millions of dollars, which made them far too valuable to be subjected to the uncertainty of decentralized permissionless ownership. And so now if someone takes your apes on the blockchain, you can try to get them back in federal court. “Why is this my problem,” the judge might reasonably ask.”

“The basic idea is to manipulate the market in one direction when it’s easy to move prices, and then trade out of your position when it’s hard to move prices. The best part would be reading the headlines in the financial press — Bond Market Distrusts Fed, Predicts Runaway Inflation — and chuckling to yourself “no, that’s just because we hired Jane and she’s skiing this month.” It is in general hard to know which financial prices reflect a consensus among informed professionals about underlying economic reality and which financial prices reflect, like, five traders were out late drinking last night so the market today is broken.”

“I assume there won’t be too much of this; it is unusual for someone to simultaneously be (1) a billionaire professional hedge fund activist with the money and skill to contest a proxy fight at a large public company and also (2) interested in pushing for change at a company for purely humanitarian reasons. Still! The lesson of Engine No. 1, and of the focus on ESG in general, is that it is possible to win a proxy fight without owning very many shares yourself, if you can appeal to the ESG interests of big institutional shareholders. I am not sure I’d expect Carl Icahn to win a proxy fight here, but a few years ago I would have been shocked to see him even start one. Now the ESG proxy fight seems almost normal.”

Public Policy & Politics

Oliver Stone: American Exceptionalism Is on Deadly Display in Ukraine (Scheer Post)

This was an excellent interview, providing a lot of background.

“Any serious person should read the Chinese-Russia declaration. You may disagree with all of it, but you’ve got to read it. Five thousand words. What are they talking about? How did these two very different countries—which by the way had racial tensions historically, didn’t get along even in the heyday of communism, were shooting at each other. […] So somehow or other, they’re alarmed about us. They’re alarmed about American hegemony. And you know, one is a communist country—China, still; one is an anti-communist country, Russia, I don’t think there’s any question; Putin does not want a return to any kind of communist state of any sort. And yet this is a cry for reason, this statement saying, what are you guys doing? What is this Western alliance? Do you still think you can control the world and not pay attention to what we’re concerned about?”

The podcast Episode 205: Ukraine (with Ames) Part 1 by TrueAnon (Patreon) was very good. Episode 206: Ukraine (with Ames) Part 2 by TrueAnon (Patreon) is just as good.

“We wash ashore on the banks of the Dnieper with Radio War Nerd’s Mark Ames for a Special War in Ukraine????? two parter. In this first hour we detail Ukraine’s complicated road to independence, the various oligarchs, gangsters and western leaders jostling for control and the bloody coup that set the stage for todays conflict.”

At 37:00, they discuss how illogical it would be to actually invade and try to install a puppet government. This is still the accusation today, with the invasion having actually started. At this point, though, I keep reading every couple of days how Russia’s troops are just outside of something and ready to march on something that they were on the cusp of marching on a few days before. It’s like one of those optical illusions where it looks like something’s moving, but it’s not. Or a sound that constantly swells, but never actually seems to change in register.

At 48:00 or so, they discuss Minsk II and how they think that any attempt to implement it will cause civil war in Ukraine. They compared it to an Israeli prime minister who would try to give back part of the occupied territories or close some settlements. He or she would be shot and the country would drown in civil war. The prediction is that Ukraine would be similarly impatient with an overtures about giving up more territory. Given that two of the territories are strongly interested in increased federalization and less central control—and that Russia is supporting this, with military—it’s unclear whether Ukraine would now be willing to go to the negotiating table. They were forced to before, signed the treaty, and then never implemented it. I’m not sure that’s an option now.

At 56:00, they discuss the rise and election—and subsequent severe decline—of Zelenskyy. He is a jew in a very antisemitic country, he spoke Russian during his campaign and ran on reconciliation with Russia. He did none of that. His approval rating was in the basement, even below that of Joe Biden, at the beginning of the invasion. There were some factions within Ukraine who wanted to get rid of Donetsk and Luhansk because they’re “too Russian”, that Ukraine would be less corrupt if they were to purge themselves of the evil, asian influence. What I’m saying is: Ukraine is quite racist. Not necessarily more than other countries, but they are not an open, understanding, and forgiving people. The country is in this situation because it refuses to compromise on basic, race-based beliefs. It hates part of its own population, but won’t give up the regions where they live.

At 1:02:00, they discuss the last 18 months of history in the region, including Zelenskyy’s explicit threat that Ukraine was going to invade and re-take Crimea. Blinken and Biden and the Atlantic Council sounded their full-throated approval and support. The Russian began their build-up.

I don’t know how much of that is accurate, but most of it jibes with what I’ve read elsewhere. Mark Ames has been a Russian-speaking, on-the-ground reporter in Russia and Ukraine and Asia for decades. He is hated online by the PMC/liberal (Professional Managerial Class) “journalists”, which makes him more credible. Brace and Liz both seem to be incredibly well-read on the subject.

At 1:09:00,

“Mark Ames: It’s amazing how many times they [the CIA] has been caught lying—I mean, we can go back and back and back, the last twenty years […] We’re so bad at lying now that the W campaign to back the Iraq war looks like total genius propaganda. Today, they just fucking sloppy, but what they can do ,,, we think the Internet empowers us, and, in some ways, it kind of does, because at least we can get our voices heard, but they have the resources to flood information space with multidimensional bullshit. […]”

The CIA and its minions basically release carefully cropped and edited “satellite” imagery to their army of Twitter accounts to make it look like there is a broad consensus, that the information is unimpeachable. For example, they released several pictures of Russian “buildup” that had carefully cropped out the decades-old buildings and bunkers that would have revealed that the suspicious vehicles were parked on something that had been a Russian base for a long time. It was a Russian military installation, but it wasn’t “new”.

In the video Ukraine Crisis by Redacted Tonight (Portable.TV), Lee Camp interviews Ben Norton about Ukraine. Norton and Camp provide excellent background and history. The 3-hour interview with Mark Ames on TrueAnon has more information, but this interview is a concise overview.

Paradoxes of Pacifism by Justin E.H. Smith (Hinternet)

“The student exchange program that had brought me to Russia had the general spirit of a victory tour, and we were subtly encouraged by the American organizers of this Russian sojourn to enlighten the locals about the virtues of entrepreneurialism, as if we were making first contact with an island-bound tribe and instructing them in the usage of Tupperware or contraception.”

“I’m certainly not making the argument that Russia is currently retaking its own territory, but only that Ukraine’s absolute right to twenty-first-century independence does not at all follow from its having the oldest monasteries.”

“In this sense Putin—like Stalin before him—wants it both ways in Ukraine: he wants to project the image of Russia as vulnerable to western encroachment, while at the same time he’s not above the tsarist strategy of fabricating a crisis to occupy Bessarabia, Bukovina, eastern Poland, or the Baltic States.”

“In Ukraine today, keep in mind that the coterie of war planners around Putin are his KGB henchmen, and they will see the Russian army as a bunch of plodders, incapable of lightning black ops to solve a thorny political problem. Note that Putin has tasked the FSB (the Federal Security Service and successor to the KGB) to liberate Kiev—an organizational rebuke to the Russian army.”

“I recently bought a political map of Europe in 1930 (to understand the times in which I am living), and it shows the western border of Russia (there is no Ukraine), running down from Leningrad to the Romanian border (I am sure Putin has the same map).”

“Here’s an irony of history: at the 1945 Yalta Conference (in Crimea, of all places) Russia argued that Ukraine was an independent country and worthy of its own vote at the United Nations, while the United States and Britain argued that it was a region within Russia. I guess history isn’t what it used it be.”

“In 1992, in part to threaten both independent Moldova and Ukraine, Russia took possession of Transnistria (officially, it’s the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic and nothing more than a spur of land along the Dniester River—but still a wedge in the side of Ukraine), which along with the breakaway republics of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Artsakh (aka Nagorno-Karabakh) will be among the first, I am sure, to recognize the sovereignty of the people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, if not a puppet regime in Kiev.”

Russia at War by Matthew Stevenson (CounterPunch)

“Eventually one side will concede the match, and the other side will move into Kiev (if Russia wins) or Kyiv (if Biden prevails). Then in six months Ukraina 6.0 will be released, and everyone can play again.”

“In Ukraine, Russia would prefer to decapitate the Kyiv government and manage the country as a wholly-owned subsidiary with its own board of directors and security personnel to meet the incentive and sales goals. But as the Americans discovered in Afghanistan, an invasion force of 180,000, even with cruise missiles and cyber warriors, can take a capital but not hold it.”

“The United States invested some twenty years in the pacification of Iraq and in the end has nothing to show for it. The same is true in Afghanistan where, before the United States had its rendezvous with destiny, the Soviet Union had a go against the likes of the Taliban and came up empty. You would think that by now someone would have learned something about the invasion business.”

Did We Provoke Putin’s War in Ukraine? by Patrick Buchanan (Antiwar.com)

“Unable to get a satisfactory answer to his demand, Putin invaded and settled the issue. Neither Ukraine nor Georgia will become members of NATO. To prevent that, Russia will go to war, as Russia did last night. Putin did exactly what he had warned us he would do. Whatever the character of the Russian president, now being hotly debated here in the USA, he has established his credibility. When Putin warns that he will do something, he does it.”

“The US establishment has declared this to have been a Russian war of aggression, but an EU investigation blamed Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for starting the war.”

“In 2014, a democratically elected pro-Russian president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown in Kyiv and replaced by a pro-Western regime. Rather than lose Sevastopol, Russia’s historic naval base in Crimea, Putin seized the peninsula and declared it Russian territory. Teddy Roosevelt stole Panama with similar remorse.”

WWII Redux: The Endpoint of U.S. Policy, from Ukraine to Taiwan by John V. Walsh (CounterPunch)

“The United States is stoking tensions in both Europe and East Asia, with Ukraine and Taiwan as the current flashpoints on the doorsteps of Russia and China which are the targeted nations. Let us be clear at the outset. As we shall see, the endpoint of this process is not for the U.S. to do battle with Russia or China but to watch China and Russia fight it out with the neighbors to the ruin of both sides. The US is to “lead from behind’ – as safely and remotely as can be arranged.”

“Why should the U.S. Elite and its media pour out a steady stream of anti-China and anti-Russia invective? Why the steady eastward march of NATO since the end of the first Cold War? The goal of the U.S. is crystal clear – it regards itself as the Exceptional Nation and entitled to be the number one power on the planet, eclipsing all others.”

“This goal is most explicitly stated in the well-known Wolfowitz Doctrine drawn shortly after the end of the first Cold War in 1992. It proclaimed that the U.S.’s “first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet union or elsewhere….” It stated that no regional power must be allowed to emerge with the power and resources “sufficient to generate global power.” It stated frankly “we must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global power.””

“The economist Michael Hudson puts it succinctly in a penetrating essay, “America’s real adversaries are its European and other allies: The U.S. aim is to keep them from trading with China and Russia.””

“One way of looking at WWII is that it was a combination of two great regional wars, one in East Asia and one in Europe. In Europe the U.S. was minimally involved as Russia, the core of the USSR, battled it out with Germany, sustaining great damage to life and economy. Both Germany and Russia were economic basket cases when the war was over, two countries lying in ruins. The US provided weapons and materiel to Russia but was minimally involved militarily, only entering late in the game. The same happened in East Asia with Japan in the role of Germany and China in the role of Russia. Both Japan and China were devastated in the same way as were Russia and Europe. This was not an unconscious strategy on the part of the United States. As Harry Truman, then a Senator, declared in 1941: “If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible.. . ””

For those who need a little help with American history: Harry Truman would be elected president in 1945.

“If Europe is plunged into a war of Russia against the EU powers with the U.S. “leading from behind,” with material and weapons, who will benefit? And if East Asia is plunged into a war of China against Japan and and whatever allies it can drum up, with the U.S. “leading from behind,” who will benefit? It is pretty clear that such a replay of WWII will benefit the U.S. In WWII while Eurasia suffered tens of millions of deaths, the US suffered about 400,000 – a terrible toll certainly but nothing like that seen in Eurasia. And with the economies and territories of Eurasia, East and West, in ruins, the U.S. will emerge on top, in the catbird seat, and able to dictate terms to the world. WWII redux.”

Ross Douthat and the Great Resignation by Dean Baker (CounterPunch)

“We could have had trade policy that was designed to put our doctors, dentists, and other highly paid professionals in direct competition with their lower paid counterparts in other countries. (We could have created rules that ensured high standards.) This policy would have had the exact same logic as the conventional economists’ gain from trade story, although in this case the winners would be less-educated workers who would benefit from lower cost medical care, legal services, and other services provided by the most highly-educated workers, which would raise their real wages. But this path for globalization was never on the agenda, perhaps because the people designing and writing on trade policy directly benefited from the course trade policy actually took.”

Russia-Ukraine is an Information War, So Government Intelligence Needs More Scrutiny Than Ever by Patrick Cockburn (CounterPunch)

“Information wars are always a component of military conflicts, potential and actual. Usually, security services play a large role in orchestrating them. But these propaganda wars are dangerous because they tend to fly out of control and demonising an opponent hinders negotiations. Political leaders, for their part, tend to believe an unhealthy amount of their own propaganda and often act as if it was all true.”

“There is also the danger that stories of the dastardly things the other side may be planning to do will start off a panic among people who really are in the firing line.”

I wonder this about people fleeing Kiev. I hope they’re not being driven out of their homes for nothing. Actually, I hope that they fled needlessly and can soon go back home.

New Data Shows US Government Has Been Bought For $14 Billion by Lee Camp (Mint Press News)

““According to the poll, 44 percent of participants said they viewed the Republican Party negatively, 34 percent that they viewed it positively and 21 percent said they were neutral. … The Democratic Party’s ratings in the poll were fairly similar, with 48 percent saying they viewed the party negatively, 33 percent saying they viewed it positively and 18 percent saying they were neutral.” Plus, I imagine those positive numbers are actually higher than they should be, because anyone willing to take an NBC News phone poll is already not the sharpest tool in the insane asylum.”

When Boring People Turn Dangerous: Canada’s Insane Power Grab by Matt Taibbi (TK News)

“Here in the U.S., Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Citigroup* were repeatedly busted for violating federal fraud statutes, but authorities showered all three with billions in cash and logistical aid to help them acquire Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual, and Wachovia. Because it’s awesome? To help rich crooks? Get even richer?”

“There was a significant heightening of “Democracy is overrated” rhetoric after Trump’s election, but the “No More Screwing Around” bugle-call didn’t really sound until the coordinated removal of Alex Jones from Internet platforms in August, 2018. This move was celebrated almost universally because Jones is a demented lunatic, but it was still a deeply un-American kind of move. Jones was a perfect fit for the old-school “Even a goddamned werewolf is entitled to legal counsel” defense of civil liberties, but Facebook, Apple, and YouTube put a very public kibosh on that, and it proved a turning point.”

They’ve now banned RT and Lee Camp from YouTube, a move Lee’s been predicting would happen for a long time now. The videos are still available on RT’s web site and on Portable.TV, but no-one will go there except those who already know where to look. Let’s be honest, though, YouTube hasn’t been recommending videos from RT for the longest time anyway, so those videos are all but invisible to 99.9% of YouTube’s users even without blocking them in Europe. And now, with the fall of RT America, they’re de-facto banned in the States as well.

“In their minds, the fact that they had the power to remove purveyors of extremist rage and “It makes the frogs gay!” conspiracism at any time essentially made it their fault that any of those people were still on the air. This is when you started to hear previously liberal intellectuals use language like, Why are we allowing this? A perfect recent example is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wondering aloud “why Tucker Carlson is allowed” to be an asshole on television, or Washington Post media writer Margaret Sullivan asking how Joe Rogan dodged “accountability” for his unacceptable vaccine views.”

“Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe is currently arguing Fox broadcasts are treason; sooner or later, there will be a serious effort to yank the channel from the air, because these people are delusional enough to think an extreme move like that would change hearts and minds. The situation long ago passed the point of absurdity.”

“This Soviet concept of guilt by association will now put it in the minds of everyone — not just in Canada but everywhere, since we’ve already seen these efforts reach into the pockets of American GoFundMe donors — that not only speech but their money might be disappeared, or frozen, because of their views, or the views of someone they know. This is madness, the kind of thing that sparks revolutions.”

“But in the age of Trump, Brexit, January 6th, and Covid, we’re more and more being asked to sympathize with the authoritarian urges of the Trudeau set. How hard they have it, surrounded by Rogans and Honkers and other saboteurs, while tasked with stopping Covid, Putin, and white supremacy. If only we’d just shut up and give them more tools!”

“Meanwhile, news came out that Trudeau was announcing the Emergencies Act would need to stay in place for a while, because of potential “future blockades.” Open-ended preventive autocracy, in Canada. Who had that on a Bingo card? Justin Trudeau? Chrystia Freeland? Christ, it’s like waking up to learn the cast of The Office has declared the Fourth Reich. Boring people are dangerous, too.”

The Cyber Social Contract by Chris Inglis and Harry Krejsa (Foreign Affairs)

“China, initially held up as a quintessential case of liberalization-by-commerce, did precisely what techno-optimists thought impossible: it tamed the Internet, harnessed cyberspace, and subverted the digital revolution into a digital dystopia that Beijing now seeks to export to aspiring authoritarians worldwide.”

Europe, for example, where Russian channels are now not just marked as “from a foreign power” but outright banned. CNN rides on, spewing their CIA garbage.

“Russia, whose Soviet forebears were partly defeated by the free flow of information, is now a virtuosic purveyor of disinformation, digital manipulation, and cyber-enabled geopolitical blackmail.”

And the U.S.? No comment, of course. Israel? No comment, of course. The authors are just regurgitating the standard line. Self-censoring. Readers walk away with the impression that only Russia and China are a problem. This is ludicrously slanted and bad. How can you not mention the leading source of cyber-attacks? C’mon, people. I suppose the authors know on which side their bread is buttered.

If you’re interested in reading the details of a ten-year long hacking operation conducted by the NSA, see Details of an NSA Hacking Operation by Bruce Schneier (Schneier on Security). The research was conducted by Pangu Lab in China. So, I guess if you want to read about Chinese and Russian hacking, you read American news sites and, if you want to read about American hacking, you read Chinese ones.

“With ironclad data security, operators could trust automated software to distribute power with an unprecedented level of sophistication. Southern sunshine could backstop Iowans staring down winter storms, while offshore winds in Maine could charge electric vehicles up and down the East Coast.”

How? You have to transport that power via power lines. It doesn’t just magically appear where you need it, undiminished. Jesus, is this the level of editing we can expect from Foreign Affairs Magazine? I expect them to lie about U.S. cyber-attacks, but it’s just pathetic to see them purveying this science-free version of how power grids work.

“If China or Russia had fewer plausible avenues for subverting the digital infrastructure that underpins the United States’ conventional tools of deterrence, the calculus of strategic competition would likely shift significantly in favor of the United States. The United States would also stand to benefit if China and Russia were prevented from prepositioning malware in critical U.S. infrastructure, thereby decreasing Beijing and Moscow’s ability to wield asymmetric weapons in a crisis.”

Um, yeah, obviously. Jesus, how much do you guys get paid to write this stuff? A nice job if you can get it, I guess. Also, the U.S. need not be considered because its cyber attacks would be a priori legitimate, were they even to exist.

“The resulting international ties would help constrain the spread of Beijing and Moscow’s surveillance technologies and digital authoritarianism.”

We’re just always at war, angels vs. demons, always in a war mindset. This is so boring and counterproductive. The NSA puts holes in our software. The Navy compromises Tor. Not a word in this article about how they endanger everyone’s cyber-safety. You can’t solve a problem you can’t see. This article is not serious.

I’ll Be Against the Next “Good War” Too by Freddie deBoer (SubStack)

“[…] as a democratic citizen, my primary responsibility is my own country. And (conveniently or inconveniently, I’m not sure) my own country also happens to be the greatest threat to the self-determination of other countries in the world.”

Agree 100%. This was always Chomsky’s answer to people questioning his focus on American crimes.

“[…] why is the United States allowed to ceaselessly extend its military dominance to more and more parts of the globe, where Russia is not? Why can NATO expand indefinitely, where the United States would never allow other countries to form strategic partnerships with Russia or China? If Canada wanted to develop a strategic partnership with Russia − which is not really fantastical, given their geographic and economic entanglements − the United States would never, ever permit it. So why must Russia permit Ukraine to join NATO?”

Because we cheat all of the time. No-one expects the U.S. or NATO to behave honorably or well, so everyone else has to. If no-one annoys the big seething bully in the room, nothing bad happens. Sure, we’re all under his thumb, but it’s better than war.

However, if someone irritates the beast, then the beast does not back down. It flips the table and starts throwing plates. It’s everyone else’s job to appease and deescalate. Stop whistling, stop filliping, stop wearing squeaky shoes, whatever it takes. Just get out of the way and calm down the beast. Give it what it wants.

And we certainly can’t have two seething bullies. That’s why we support the destruction of anyone who tries to stand up to the bully. We can’t envision a world without bullies, so we help the bully we have maintain his peaceful, if repressive reign. At least there’s no open war. It’s literally the best we can imagine happening, at this point.

So that’s why everyone wants Russia to back down: because they already know that NATO won’t. Russia can be reasoned with, no matter how many imprecations we throw her way. We know that our “side” cannot. It’s like living next to a volcano: you can’t make it go away. You can’t move the village. It demands sacrifice? You throw in a virgin. The volcano demanded Russia.

Also, it’s not a surprise that people are against Russia. They’ve been primed for it. Everyone hates Russia and considers them subhuman in the same way that they consider Middle Easterners to be subhuman and incapable of real civilization. The Chinese as well are considered to be an alien race, incapable of western-style empathy. What a joke.

The no-fly zone is the same kind of thing: it doesn’t mean no-one gets to fly there. It means NATO threatens open air-war and expects Russia to back down. Then only NATO gets to fly there. It doesn’t mean that “no-one” gets to fly there, despite the name. NATO and the U.S. will be flying all over that zone.

We are cheering for the devil we know to win, out of fear or to curry favor.

My fervent hope is that Russia will be allowed to deescalate when they choose to. I fear people will want to exact 100% damage, press their advantage, reap their pursued reward, and they won’t even notice when their side becomes the overt aggressor. They won’t care because destroying evil is justifiable, no matter what happens.

I don’t see many people concerned about a solution. They’re prioritizing punishment and revenge. If they can only have one, they’ll take revenge. All without bothering to even think of their own interests. We are a primitive, stupid species, still acting like we were on the Serengeti, picking up a stick and look for something to swat with it at the slightest provocation. This is a useful tool for those whose agenda led to this situation in the first place.

Economist covers after Bush's invasion and Putin's

“We have this habit of literally surrounding our antagonists with troops, then getting angry at them for supposed aggression and belicosity. Iran had American troops on almost every flank for years and years. (Kind of thing that might make you want to have a nuclear option to deter aggression.) Russia’s border is so vast no one could encircle them, but I invite you to consider what the American western wall and Pacific stronghold might feel like for the Russian government.”

“The United States long ago declared the entirety of the Western hemisphere off-limits to any other great power, and we’ve spent centuries deposing legitimate leaders, assassinating undesirables, and crushing democratic movements in our half of the globe. And we’re lecturing the Russians about letting its nearest neighbor have self-determination? I”

“The question is not whether Putin will let the Ukrainian people determine their own future. They question is whether we are so deluded as to believe that the United States and an eventual Ukrainian puppet government would let them either, in any sort of real way.”

“If our country is really dedicated to keeping China in check, as the Very Serious People demand, can it also extend NATO protections to Ukraine and other potential applicants, given that the vast majority of NATO’s combat capacity is simply the United States military?”

Germany just promised to grow its military by leaps and bounds. They’ve been trying to get support for this for years, but when were refused by clear-headed citizens. After five days of doom-scrolling Twitter, Germans are now indoctrinated and softened up enough to approve it with wild enthusiasm and self-righteous jubilance.

“{…} a painful realization about the United States: We can’t be the country those Iraqis wanted us to be. We lack the wisdom and the virtue to remake the world through preventive war. That’s why a liberal international order, like a liberal domestic one, restrains the use of force — because it assumes that no nation is governed by angels, including our own. And it’s why liberals must be anti-utopian, because the United States cannot be a benign power and a messianic one at the same time…. Some Iraqis might have been desperate enough to trust the United States with unconstrained power. But we shouldn’t have trusted ourselves.”

“When people are agitating for war, they imagine a frictionless universe in which intent determines outcome. But the law of unintended consequences rules, and even aside from the inevitable civilian casualties, the very real possibility that we could lose, and the potential for nuclear conflict, there are all manner of ways American intervention in Ukraine could go sideways. That is the unmistakable lesson of the past two decades of conflict for the United States − it can always get worse in ways you never foresaw.”

“People thought we were going to war to free Iraqis, depose a dictator, and stop future terrorist attacks on the United States. Instead, we invaded Iraq to reestablish imperial dominance, ensure access to cheap oil, and to punish some vaguely Middle Eastern-looking people after we were humiliated. It doesn’t matter how sincere the more idealistic war supporters were; the mandates of the war machine rule.”

“A lot of left-leaning people quietly resent having to repeatedly formally oppose wars and lick their chops at the opportunity to finally pull out their dick. (Will Noah Smith grab a rifle and fight? I’m guessing no!) I am not so moved. Looks like there’s another war on. I’m against it.”

War Propaganda About Ukraine Becoming More Militaristic, Authoritarian, and Reckless by Glenn Greenwald (SubStack)

“Kinzinger’s fantasy that Russia would instantly obey U.S. orders due to rational calculations is directly at odds with all the prevailing narratives about Putin having now become an irrational madman who has taken leave of his senses — not just metaphorically but medically — and is prepared to risk everything for conquest and legacy.”

“It is genuinely hard to overstate how overwhelming the unity and consensus in U.S. political and media circles is. It is as close to a unanimous and dissent-free discourse as anything in memory, certainly since the days following 9/11. Marco Rubio sounds exactly like Bernie Sanders, and Lindsay Graham has no even minimal divergence from Nancy Pelosi. Every word broadcast on CNN or printed in The New York Times about the conflict perfectly aligns with the CIA and Pentagon’s messaging.”

“The mammoth instability and risks that would be created by collapsing the Russian economy and/or forcing Putin from power, leaving the world’s largest or second-largest nuclear stockpile to a very uncertain fate;”

“[…] it was precisely that moral zeal that enabled so many people to get so carried away, to be so vulnerable to having their (often-valid) emotions of rage and moral revulsion misdirected into believing falsehoods and cheering for moral atrocities in the name of vengeance or righteous justice. That moral righteousness crowded out the capacity to reason and think critically and unified huge numbers of Americans into herd behavior and group-think that led them to many conclusions which, two decades later, they recognize as wrong.”

That is definitely what’s happening today: an unquestioning Manichean division with Ukraine/NATO/Europe on the side of the angels. They must do something. A no-fly zone is something. Let’s do that.

“The endless flood of morally righteous messaging, the hunting down of and subsequent mass-attacks on heretics, the barrage of pleasing-but-false stories of bravery and treachery, leave one close to helpless to sort truth from fiction, emotionally manipulative fairy tales from critically scrutinized confirmation. It is hardly novel to observe that social media fosters group-think and in-group dynamics more than virtually any other prior innovation, and it is unsurprising that it has intensified all of these processes.”

The right thing to do is for Russia to leave. The right thing to do is for NATO to disband. The right thing to do is for everyone to stop selling weapons to everyone else.

For that, we would diplomacy. And we no longer have diplomats, nor patience for them. War is literally the only answer we know. Sanctions are war on civilians, so, no, that’s not not war.

“But we are way past the point where anyone cares about what is or is not factually true, including corporate outlets. Any war propaganda — videos, photos, unverified social media posts — that is designed to tug on Western heartstrings for Ukrainians or appear to cast them as brave and noble resistance fighters, or Russians as barbaric but failing mass murderers gets mindlessly spread all over without the slightest concern for whether it is true. To be on social media or to read coverage from Western news outlets is to place yourself into a relentless vortex or single-minded, dissent-free war propaganda.”

”Fuck it!” Russia’s Final Break With the West by Niccolo Soldo (Fisted by Foucault)

“Much like how the USA would never tolerate a Chinese client regime in Mexico with nukes pointed at it, the Russians have shown that they won’t tolerate NATO in Ukraine. For the past few months, head Russian diplomat Lavrov has patiently explained to the West that NATO in Ukraine is a non-starter for them, and that they will take actions to ensure that their national security interests are protected. These security interests come at the cost of Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea in 2014, and now over the Donbass as of yesterday.”

“Ukraine is disposable in American eyes. That warmongering bitch Vicki “Fuck the EU” Nuland (she runs Russia policy in the US State Department) must be laughing her […] ass off at how stupid the Ukrainians are to willingly sacrifice themselves for her project to surround, neutralize, and dismember Russia. All is going according to plan.”

“The USA is more than happy in seeing Kiev occupied by Russian forces, because it kills the NordStream 2 pipeline, and opens up new business for American LNG companies, as well as bigger business for US arms exporters.”

“The ideal situation to them is to see the Russians invade, overextend themselves, and fall into an Afghanistan-type quagmire, in which Ukraine is set ablaze, and Ukrainians, backed by massive arms deliveries from the USA, engage in a partizan/mujahidden guerrilla war with Russian forces to drain Russia and to embarrass it. Who cares how many Ukrainian cities are levelled, how many civilians die? It will all be pinned on Vladimir Putler [sic] anyway […]”

“Up until two days ago, Russia has insisted that the Donbass remain a part of Ukraine, but that its incorporation be guided by the Minsk Agreement. Minsk was dead a long time ago, as Ukraine refused to talk to the separatists, but is now de jure dead as Russia has recognized the two breakaway republics there. By doing this, Russia is creating client states like it already has in Georgia and Moldova. These serve not just as tampon zones, but allow Russia to negate formal entry of these countries into antagonistic organizations.”

“Vladimir Putin’s speech on Monday reflected the exasperation with the West and the USA in particular. The most important highlights were:”

1. The USA is agreement incapable (meaning it will constantly renege as it changes administrations)
2. Russia expects sanctions no matter what it does
3. The USA does not respect Russian national security concerns

Hard to argue with any of these.

Big Tech spent decades skirting geopolitical issues. That’s no longer an option by Tim De Chant (Ars Technica)

“Authoritarian governments have long used democratic societies’ penchant for open discourse against them, and such a move would help to undermine that strategy and level the information battlefield somewhat.”

…as they become more and more authoritarian themselves. You can’t see the irony here? That you want to control the media that your own citizens see in order to combat propaganda from a government that … controls what media their citizens see? How are you not seeing this?

You are all a bunch of bozos.

Ukraine asks Musk for Starlink terminals as Russian invasion disrupts broadband by John Brodkin (Ars Technica)

“It’s not clear how quickly service will be deployed or how widely it will be available, as the ongoing war will obviously make the project challenging. CNBC reporter Lora Kolodny today shared a Facebook post from a person in Ukraine who said they got the “green light” to use Starlink, but it’s not clear if it was already set up.”

Dude, it doesn’t matter. This is all meme-y bullshit. Ukraine is becoming a meme country to try to win the info-war. Kind of like GameStop became a meme stock.

I just saw an article called Russia’s Money Is Gone by Matt Levine (Bloomberg) and I wonder how that impacts the world economy, right? The world has now seen that the financial system is not as safe it purported to be. They are also seeing that the U.S. is not only willing to upset the whole financial system for its purposes, but is actively toying with blocking media sources as well. “My way or the highway” has never been clearer than now.

The U.S. doesn’t take any responsibility for having created the situation we have now. It doesn’t acknowledge that it’s been in Russia’s role many times before. It just sanctimoniously says tells everyone the way it’s going to be and no one says a word. They all parrot their support for its chosen plan.

Moscow Stock Exchange Can’t Open as Russian Stock Prices Collapse on Foreign Exchanges by Pam & Russ Martens (Wall Street on Parade)

“Putin started an unprovoked war in Ukraine and now finds himself losing a serious financial battle at home. Anything connected to Putin is now toxic: that includes his country’s currency, its stock exchange, its banks, its major corporations, and its central bank. Even Russia’s vodka is being removed from shelves in Canada and the U.S.”

Fine, fine, sure, OK. But you have admit that the reaction is completely other than what happens when the U.S. invades anywhere. Literally none of that happens. When the U.S. invades, stocks and the dollar go up.

God, I hope this horseshit takes everything else down with it.

“Putin, whose mental status is now being questioned around the globe, hiked tensions further over the weekend by announcing in a televised statement that he was putting his nuclear-armed forces on high alert.”

Of course he’s insane, right? No other explanation. I think it’s sad that even the Martens’s are parroting the notion that Putin must be mad as a hatter to go down fighting. He’s going down, of course. But perhaps it’s not surprising to see that Russia’s trying to make the world at least be honest about what it does. On the other hand, the world seems impenetrable to irony and completely devoid of introspection, so it’s likely that it will buy its own bullshit about what happened.

Take a look at this neat chart in the article Conspiracy-proof archeology by Elmer of Malmesbury (LessWrong):

Who helped win WWII?

“Ask the same question about history several times, and it becomes meta-history. This survey caught live footage of collective memory being overwritten by the victors. Presumably, this happened in a somewhat liberal democracy with a somewhat free press, maybe with a little help from entertainment. It didn’t require a totalitarian power deliberately distorting history to manipulate the masses. But the masses were still manipulated somehow.”

Don’t Look Now by James Howard Kunstler (Clusterfuck Nation)

“The scant news coming out of Ukraine is so infected with propaganda that it’s impossible to know exactly what’s going on there these early days of the Russian invasion. Some interested parties say that Russia is getting its ass kicked by a Ukrainian resistance. More temperate reports suggest that Russian forces are proceeding methodically to capture and neutralize Ukraine’s meager military assets. Apparently, Ukraine and Russia are holding a diplomatic parlay today at the Belarus border. You might style that as “peace talks,” but who knows? There are no real functioning international news agencies anymore.”

“An alternate narrative to the CIA’s scare story would follow the Occam’s Razor rule that the simplest explanation is probably the truth — namely, that there was no other way to stop Ukraine’s shelling and mortar attacks against the ethnic Russian population in the Donbas which, by the way, was carried out with US-gifted armaments. And there was no other way to disabuse the USA from the idea that Ukraine should join NATO and thereby become a missile launching base on Russia’s border.”

It’s so sad to see what’s happening with Russia. The bear is goaded and stabbed and then, when it lashes out, we all cheer, as it is killed. Toreadors do the same with bulls. But Russians are real people. That gets lots in the mix. They attacked Ukraine, yes. But you have to see that attack in the context of a bigger picture where a multitude of attacks on the Russian state—none of which would ever be acknowledged as an attack—led up to it. Now Russia has given the west the excuse it needs to weave its own special history of how this all went down, dumber than a Michael Bay movie. It literally doesn’t matter what the context is, because they’re going to get Russia. They’re destroying the banks and starving the people and their businesses and their livelihoods and everyone cheers! So good! They all deserve it because Ukraine! We are truly monsters without principle.

How We Got Here: A Brief History of the Ukraine Conflict by Ted Rall

“The fall of the Soviet Union was followed by three decades of nearly constant provocation and encirclement by the United States and its Western allies. Putin decided enough is enough; here’s where we draw a line on the steppe.”

“Sam Biddle of the Intercept reported last week that “Facebook will temporarily allow its billions of users to praise the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi military unit previously banned from being freely discussed under the company’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy.”

“For Americans, an enemy of an enemy is always a friend. Unlike Russia, Americans don’t live next door to a country that welcomes Nazis into its military.”

“[…] it is impossible to accurately assess the current crisis in the far reaches of Eastern Europe without considering Russia’s motivations. After years of encirclement in a one-sided Cold War directed at Russia, a Ukraine that is anything less than at least neutral (or ideally an ally) is simply too close for Moscow’s comfort.”

Mr. Fish: Never Forget 9-11Watching the west’s reaction to Putin’s invasion makes me wonder something. We hear very much that Putin grossly underestimated the response and that he’s made a huge miscalculation and that he’s stupidly and blindly failed to foresee this situation. Maybe, maybe. But, maybe he did see this more-or-less coming and anticipated the west undermining all of its own principles to fall all over itself attacking Russia in all the ways that they can.

Who’s going to trust the western financial system anymore, when it can just be turned off? Who’s going to trust western media when they transmit only transparent lies? Things are happening now that will be very difficult to take back. Things have come, as they say, to a head. It’s like when the attack on 9-11 pales in comparison to what America did to itself afterwards. Perhaps this will be a bit like that: the ostensible retaliations will turn out to be a series of self-owns that, while inflicting significant short-term damage to Russia, end up harming the western countries themselves much more, in the long term.

I’ve heard many complain about how disappointed they are in the Swiss leadership because it has not shrugged off its neutrality to take a side, as so many Swiss citizens have unquestioningly done. I hope they continue to consider their options carefully and to only act when they have adequate and accurate information. People are welcome to express their opinions and evince their support without any or with unsubstantiated evidence. No-one cares about their Twitter feeds or their stupid LinkedIn posts. But I hold the government to higher standards. Their decisions have long-lasting effects.

Update 2022-03-07: Switzerland has broken neutrality. No other indignity visited upon the world was worth doing it, but now, finally, something terrible enough has happened that Switzerland broke neutrality and issued sanctions. The Palestinians, Iraqis, Yemenis, Afghans, Congolese, and so on would like a word.

Four Ways to Counter Russian Aggression That Don’t Risk Nuclear War by Branko Marketic (Jacobin)

“The denunciations of Putin’s invasion that have come thick and fast over the last week are entirely correct, with the world remarkably united in its disapproval. World leaders have criticized Putin for trampling international law, violating another country’s territorial integrity, making ordinary people pay the costs for his own geopolitical priorities, and more.

“But these denunciations lose their moral force when the governments making them are themselves engaged in the same kind of behavior. This isn’t referring to recent history, like the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but active humanitarian disasters and criminal acts of aggression going on this very minute.

“Washington, for instance, is right now causing a massive humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan — the country it occupied for twenty years — due to its decision to freeze, then steal, the country’s foreign reserves.”

This is at least as bad as the invasion of the Ukraine, but no-one cares. Nearly literally no-one. We can round down to zero and lose no real accuracy. The U.S. was not banned from the Olympics for needlessly and senselessly and brutally stepping on the neck of a country it only recently stopped occupying after 20 years. No-one said a fucking word. No exclusion from SWIFT, not sanctions. Literally, nothing happened. America is allowed to occupy countries while Russia is not. Even if Russia’s reason is more credible than that of the U.S.—it doesn’t matter. The U.S. literally stopped occupying Afghanistan less than a year ago and now stands there, telling the world, that occupying other countries is super-bad and all of those fucking idiots just nod their heads in approval and adulation and masturbatory glee, hoping that the U.S. will shower them with some exports. WTAF.

Everyone Loses in the Conflict Over Ukraine by Ralph Nader (Scheer Post)

“Sanctions against Russia will soon boomerang in terms of higher oil and gas prices for Europeans and Americans, more inflation, worsening supply chains, and the dreaded “economic uncertainty” afflicting stock markets and consumer spending.”

The propaganda in America is so strong and people so vastly under-informed that they don’t even see that their renewed and vigorous support for a war that they, even as recently as a month ago, overwhelmingly did not support, is 100% opposed to their own interests. Only the usual suspects will get richer. We really don’t have time for this shit, but sure, let’s run out the clock on climate change. Why not? Again, Russia shouldn’t invaded, but it’s only really a cornered, wounded bear that eventually just starts to think “hey I’ll just take as many of you with me as I can, if it’s going to go down this way.”

Putin the Apostate by Matt Taibbi (TK News)

“Not unlike Donald Trump, Putin made a wager early on that his country would fare better taking the nationalist path than it would as a vassal state to a global economic system he believed was declining. Now that he’s made such a dramatic commitment in that direction, his story is destined for the same treatment in the Western press as Trump’s election, as an unspeakable evil whose origins are a taboo subject. Anyone who even brings them up must be an apologist. What sort of person cares from whose womb the devil emerged?

“Condoleezza Rice was on Fox Sunday, where host Harris Faulkner asked her to comment on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, saying, “When you invade a sovereign nation, that is a war crime.” Rice answered with a straight face: “It is certainly against every principle of international law and international order.” This dovetailed with Mitt Romney saying Putin’s invasion is “the first time in 80 years a great power has moved to conquer a sovereign nation,” and EC chief Ursula von der Leyen claiming Putin has “brought war back to Europe,” as if a whole range of events from Iraq to Afghanistan to Kosovo never took place.”

As for Germany: I think Angela Merkel got an encrypted e-mail from Putin over the weekend that just read “Gern geschehen”.

Is Putin Considering Using Nukes on NATO? by Patrick Buchanan (Antiwar.com)

“In a week, he has become a universally condemned and isolated figure, and his country has been made the target of sanctions by almost the entire West. He is being depicted as an aggressor, even a war criminal, who is brutalizing a smaller neighbor, which, in its fierce and brave resistance, has taken on the aspect of a heroic nation.

“The world is rallying to Ukraine.”

“The world”. Except for China and Africa, sure, yeah. But they don’t count in our eyes anyway. Never have. Might that be part of the problem? So, the western media says unequivocally that Ukraine (and, by implication, NATO) is the good guy and Russia is the bad guy. Full stop. No more questions.

“Eventual defeat is becoming visible, and Putin probably cannot politically survive such a defeat.”

So now the story is: Putin planned horribly. Ukraine fought valiantly. Putin won’t “win” (we defined for him what it means to win) in the short-term and “faces defeat”. He will respond by dropping a nuke in order to avoid defeat (as if dropping a nuke isn’t admitting defeat in a very real way). Sure, sure, I guess … that’s how Roland Emmerich would write it.

“Finland, and Sweden, it is now being said, should be invited into NATO.”

You don’t “invite” anyone to NATO. They apply. Finland and Sweden have had that option for decades and haven’t taken it. Are they likely to be swept up in the propaganda of the moment and change their decades-long military policies because of an invasion in Ukraine? Sure, why not? Maybe I can buy an NFT of it. Nothing makes any sense anymore. It’s like people want a nuclear war because it would be cool to post about.

From my LinkedIn feed, which has become a Ukrainian news source of late:

“Ukraine is now fighting not only for themselves but also for all of us, for the world peace. While they are risking their lives for everyone this is the least what I can do to show my personal support and it might be insignificant but this is my two cents into winning this war against terrorist regime occupying Moscow.”

OMG, dude, could you gobble the CIA’s knob a bit more? This is literally what they want you to believe. Dude quit his job at a Georgian bank because of this stance. That’s wonderful: live by your principles! But, man, you should probably figure out what’s going on before you do that. Lemme guess: he’s going to start at Deutschebank or Goldman Sachs soon without a single qualm. 🤷‍♂️

NATO goes to war against Russia by WSWS Editorial Board (WSWS)

“The non-membership of Ukraine in NATO is, and has been for several years, largely a fiction. Already substantially armed and with weapons pouring in, Ukraine is the front line in a war aimed at regime change in Moscow and the complete subordination of Russia to NATO.”

“German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced Sunday that $110 billion in additional funding would be provided for the German military, nearly twice the amount of its annual budget, and that Germany will also be supplying direct military aid to Ukraine.”

This is literally the reason they did this. This was the end-game for goading Russia into acting. 🍾in Germany and whoever supplies them with weapons! No-one is talking about diplomacy (other than rumors that Zelenskyy and Putin are meeting somewhere): the first and only reaction is to fight. First we fight, then we talk. Sure, sure, Putin invaded. But whatever happened to not sinking down to the enemy’s level? Oh, right, we need to sell a fuck-ton of weaponry first.

“UK Foreign secretary Liz Truss said Sunday that she “absolutely” supported British citizens traveling to Ukraine to serve as combatants.”

OMG, like ISIS? Or, wait, what? No? Is that not the same thing? You know, citizens traveling to fight in other countries’ armies? The virtue-signaling is strong in this one.

I think that the world’s reaction to Russia is good? Like, it’s all virtue-signaling and feels a bit overblown, but it’s also good to show what happens when one country invades another. There are consequences. Unfortunately, most of the damage inflicted is, as always, on the people themselves, who had very little do with the invasions plans.

Still, consequences. But only for Russia. Literally no other country has paid anywhere close to this much for an invasion or occupation. Not France (Libya, Mali, etc.), Britain (Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan), the U.S. (OMG Everywhere), Israel (West Bank, Gaza, a little bit of Syria), Saudi Arabia (Yemen). No, this feels like a battle in a war. It doesn’t feel like the people exacting punishment on Russia are doing it because they really care about countries not invading other countries. They seem to be all roped in to NATO’s war on Russia. They would like us to believe it’s for moral reasons, but the same people couldn’t care less when it’s not Russia doing the invading, so that clearly can’t be it.

It also feels a bit like they all couldn’t care less if they burn Russia to the ground. Elites everywhere are rejoicing as the online-idiot clown-parade does its work for them. Will there be a war when a cornered rat/bear doesn’t see a better way out? Who knows? Who cares? Consequences are for others! Diplomacy is for pussies! Let’s all get down on Putin’s level, in the mud.

YouTube blocks RT and Sputnik as Russia tells media not to say “invasion” by Jon Brodkin (Ars Technica)

“Google said today that YouTube is blocking RT (formerly Russia Today) and Sputnik throughout Europe. “Due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, we’re blocking YouTube channels connected to RT and Sputnik across Europe, effective immediately,” Google Europe announced on Twitter. “It’ll take time for our systems to fully ramp up. Our teams continue to monitor the situation around the clock to take swift action.””

Yes, yes, yes, dogpile! Brigade! All in! We don’t want to listen to a word that Sauron and his minions have to say! Eliminate them all! BLOODLUST!

I f#*@ing love this so hard. Google is censoring entire channels as punishment for those channels censoring words. If only we could figure out how to generate electricity from irony and hypocrisy, humanity would be saved.

The U.S. and NATO seem hell-bent on teaching everyone the lesson that no-one fucks with them. They are the absolute rulers of the world and the world chimes in with its full-throated approval, lapping up its propaganda and regurgitating it as it were its own thoughts. They even think that they can teach China a lesson as well as Russia. NATO acts like its indomitable and hopes that the world buys its bullshit. It sanctions wherever it likes, it sells weapons wherever it likes, and it thinks that there will never be any blowback. Maybe it won’t be another 9-11, but for a country deep in an inflation at the same time that it’s in an asset bubble of epic proportions, it seems like it might think about possible repercussions of its financial activity abroad.

Trading Losses in Ukraine by Ted Snider (Antiwar.com)

“The details are developing and fuzzy. Ukraine seems to be willing to discuss neutrality; Russia seems to be willing to negotiate prior to surrender. Russia’s conditions seem to be an agreement by Ukraine to be neutral, to abandon NATO membership and to reject US and NATO weapons in their territory.”

“If Ukraine were to renounce desires to ascend to NATO and promise not to host NATO troops or weapons, that would seem to satisfy a significant part of Russia’s demand and represent a loss for the US.”

Odd as it is to say about a country like Ukraine, you can probably still trust their word more than you can trust that of the U.S.

“NATO made a very big mistake in pushing its alliance right to Russia’s borders; Putin made a very big mistake in losing his patience and illegally and brutally invading Ukraine.”

“Instead, Russia’s actions have led much of the world to see it as the aggressor, recasting the US as the world’s protector.”

With a little help from western media, yes. I like how the second part immediately follows.

The Finland Option May Still Save Ukraine by Ted Galen Carpenter (Antiwar.com)

“Today’s Ukraine might have enjoyed that same status, if had not succumbed to the West’s siren song of someday becoming a full NATO partner. In the light of recent developments, though, the Kremlin likely will regard the Austria model as insufficient. The Finland version is about the best that Kyiv can hope for now.

“If Zelensky and other Ukrainian leaders are wise, they will accept the basic features of Moscow’s first demand. (They also likely will have to accept a significant territorial amputation – the “independence” of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.)”

“Meeting Moscow’s related demand – for demilitarization – should not be all that taxing either. It may have benefited certain elements in the United States (especially weapons manufacturers and other members of the notorious Military-Industrial Complex) for Ukraine to become a NATO military pawn, but it never served the legitimate interests of Ukraine’s government or people.”

This is the sensible thing to do, that results in the least amount of suffering for everyone. This is not what will happen. The world has been primed to first want to destroy Russia and to “save” Ukraine, without any clear idea of what that means—because most people live in a world with a plot about as complex as that of a Stephen Segal movie. They want revenge first and think that they can “win” peace through war without any more suffering. Or they think that they’ll be able to justify any suffering by blaming it on the enemy, so that’s all good. Those pushing the hardest are those least likely to feel the brunt, as usual.

De-escalate the situation. Give Russia what it wants and they’ll go home. They would have stayed home if you’d given them what they wanted before they invaded. You can’t have what you want—that option doesn’t exist. It never did. We’re were we are now because one rogue superpower dictates to the world, using its economic and military might to enforce its empire—and weapons manufacturers control that superpower.

“Washington led Zelensky down the primrose path with a cornucopia of US weapons and security funding, the prestige of Ukraine’s participation in joint military exercises with US and NATO forces, and the illusory prospect of NATO membership. Ukraine is now paying a bloody price for succumbing to such blandishments. Ukrainian leaders need to look to their own country’s best interests and strike the most favorable deal they can with Russia. The West is not coming to rescue Ukraine, and Ukrainians must face that bitter, disillusioning reality. The Finland option may be their only way out of a horrible situation.”

I just heard that Switzerland has now also leveled sanctions against Switzerland. Fucking morons. This was such a dumb thing to give up neutrality for. The rest of the world’s jumping off of a bridge! It must be a great idea. Let’s do it, too. No downside! YOLO.

Why don’t you just go ahead and fucking ask to join NATO while you’re at it? You’re already buying jet fighters from the empire. Why not? It’s not like you have any principles left.

Maybe we can also kick all Russians out of Switzerland? Would that help?

There are no adults in the room anymore.

Now I just saw the headline that Apple halts all device sales in Russia in response to invasion of Ukraine by Andrew Cunningham (Ars Technica), which will be taken to mean that Apple is taking a principled stance. It is doing no such thing. It is taking sides in a war. If it were taking a principled stance, then it would halt device sales in all countries that have encroached on other territory, like Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Unites States, for starters. But they’re not doing that. They’re brigading and virtue-signaling. They made a calculation that it would be better for business to do this at this moment, in this climate than not to do it. They don’t really want to stop selling phones to Russians. It’s just that they know that the PMC (Professional Managerial Class) in the west is very likely to generate more sales than Russia in response to this move.

Microsoft and Google have responded in the same way.

“Microsoft has removed RT and Sputnik’s apps from the Windows Store and limited their presence on its Bing search engine, while YouTube has blocked RT and Sputnik content in Europe and demonetized their content elsewhere.”

YouTube is blocking videos already

Canceling an entire country. Amazing times we live in. I’m sure it beats negotiating, talking to them, or any other form of diplomacy. Russians can’t be reasoned with. They’re like the bugs in Starship Troopers: they can only be eradicated. Perhaps we won’t wipe them from the face of the Earth, but we can wipe them from people’s minds. Next up: Wikipedia removes their entry on Russia.

From Sanctions produce chaos in Russian financial system by Nick Beams (WSWS)

“Yesterday, the French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire was even more explicit. He said the West was using sanctions to wage “total economic and financial war against Russia, Putin and his government. We will provoke the collapse of the Russian economy.””

Culture blocked. Finances blocked. Exports blocked. Burn that fucking country to the ground. Do NOT talk to them. Do NOT ask quetions. They—and only they—deserve it! Direct your anger eastward, toward Emmanuel Goldstein.

How is this not war yet? How has NATO maintained plausible deniability that they’re not at war with Russia? Their actions will lead to more suffering and isolation for the Russian people than an outright attack would engender.

At this point, I hope these fools tear their financial house down on top of themselves.

And I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve seen this picture on LinkedIn over the last week:

Zelenskyy Family

OMG leave me alone. This is madness.

Ukraine asks ICANN to revoke Russian domains and shut down DNS root servers by Jon Brodkin (Ars Technica)

“Several Internet experts say that granting Ukraine’s request would be a bad idea. Executive Director Bill Woodcock of Packet Clearing House, an international nonprofit that provides operational support and security to Internet exchange points and the core of the domain name system, wrote a Twitter thread calling it “a heck of an ask on the part of Ukraine. As a critical infrastructure operator, my inclination is to say ‘heck no’ regardless of my sympathies.””

Yeah, no shit, heck no. I hope there are some adults left … but, yeah, sure, go ahead and set the precedent that parts of the Internet can be turned off like a light switch. Just go “full China” as a response to authoritarianism. No irony there. Don’t sweat it.

“Meanwhile, other researchers joined the chorus of people opposing the Ukraine government’s request. “It’s the complete opposite of what we need. We should make sure that the Russian people are seeing what is happening and what their government is doing,” security researcher Runa Sandvik told CyberScoop.”

So far, this one seems to be the bridge some people aren’t willing to cross. Destroy the Russian financial system? No problem. Block all of their information in the west? Check. Not an issue. Done without asking.

Russia places extraordinary demands on OneWeb prior to satellite launch by Eric Berger (Ars Technica)

“[…] on Wednesday the chief of Russia’s space program, Dmitry Rogozin, issued two demands before acceding to the launch. One, he said, OneWeb must guarantee that its satellites will not be used for military purposes. And two, the UK government must give up its ownership of OneWeb.”

Yeah, that does seem extraordinary, even unreasonable. To think that Russia would want the company to promise those things is beyond the pale, because Russia is the only bad guy here, ammirite? To ask OneWeb to disassociate itself from a sworn enemy (UK) that is too chicken to declare official war but instead delivers weapons to prolong a proxy war in Ukraine is ludicrous. We need those satellites for our Interwebz. How monstrous is Russia anyway?

Fuck it: just promise it to them and then renege, like we always do. It’s not like Russia doesn’t know we’re going to do exactly that anyway. It’s not like there’s a downside for reneging on a deal with a known ultimate evil like Russia, is there? Let’s be serious here: Russia is to NATO as the new Native Americans were to the U.S.: an unqualified evil entity that lived on resources that were rightfully the U.S.‘s (or NATOs, in the recent case) and that you could endlessly fuck over and scapegoat and gaslight until they just fucking died already. All of them. Genocide is too good for that kind of evil, no?

Share Prices of Russia’s Largest Companies Drop to Pennies on the London Stock Exchange Today by Pam & Russ Martens (Wall Street on Parade)

“As a result, the Moscow Stock Exchange has shuttered stock trading for the third day in a row and it’s been left up to investors to attempt to exit their Russian stocks on the London Stock Exchange.”

They’re obviously not worth nothing all of sudden. This price move has as little to do with fundamentals as the soaring value of massively overvalued startups and IPOs. What’s interesting is that traders that want to virtue-signal and get out of Russian securities right now will be forced to do so at pennies on the dollar because they can’t trade on the Moscow exchange, where the companies would presumably be trading higher.

What does it mean for these companies to be at pennies now instead of hundreds of dollars? Who knows? Who even knows why prices are where they are anymore? Is it because people genuinely believe that these companies will be worth nothing in the future, that Russia is doomed, and that all of its companies will be destroyed and none allowed to continue extracting the natural resources on which their value is based? Maybe? Do people believe that they will all be abolished and that new western companies will be gifted those resources instead? As in old Iran? Maybe? Or is this a reverse meme-stock craze where certain stocks are flattened instead of raised up, but for totally stupid reasons that have nothing to do with the value of the companies? That’s a bingo.

This might very well end up cutting off the nose to spite the face. Good. Break everything.

France is only just pulling out of Mali. What the hell where they doing there? No-one knows and no one cares. Probably humanitarian stuff. It’s easy to be 100% for Ukraine and against russia when you’re utterly ignorant of world affairs. It’s not a principle if you apply it only to one country, but not any of the others. That’s just punishing an enemy and has nothing to do with principle.

Oil at 110$ per barrel and russia out of the LNG market. Looks like we saved fracking, everybody!

This is discrimination. Replace Russians with Jews or niggers and you’d be shocked at the NYT home page.

Again, a country should be punished for invading another country. This currently punishment of Russia is wildly out of proportion with anything that’s ever been done before. It’s like curb-stomping someone for jay-walking. How was Russia to know that the blowback would be so vicious when literally no other country has been punished for doing the same thing since … (checks notes) … Iraq for invading Kuwait.

That the world is gleefully dogpiling Russia now shows two things:

1. Everyone hates Russians. They’re just sneaky, dirty, drunken people who deserve whatever punishment they get. Everyone seems to be on the same page here. They do not see the irony that most of them spent the last couple of years fighting for BLM in the streets and are now cheering as one country is singled out as the lone criminal element on the planet.
2. We could have done this all along, to any country, had we wanted to. It was always within the world’s power to yank on the leash of any country that got wildly out of line. But we only chose to do it against Russia. Why? Because Russia is fucking weak, man. Because Russia has to be taught a lesson for standing up for itself and its stupid “security”. Fuck them.

I am being wildly sarcastic above. I am saddened to watch the world be capable of such blatant and wild hypocrisy while praising themselves in the mirror for being so awesome and upstanding. They’re breaking their arms patting themselves on the back for being the heroes in the simplistic story that they believe is the actual story. They’re mostly too dumb and uninterested and ignorant to even try to learn what the actual context is.

I Am Asking for a Coherent Set of Consistent Principles That Are Equally Applied to the United States and Russia by Freddie deBoer (SubStack)

“Any minimally-honest answer would acknowledge that NATO exists as an antagonist to Russia. That’s it. Once upon a time you would have said “the USSR” instead of Russia, but despite the fact that the Russian people achieved a bloodless revolution and removed the government that was the locus of so much anger NATO kept on opposing the interests of Russia and its people. This must be a remarkably weird state for Russians to occupy, having this huge international alliance that exists entirely to restrain and threaten your country, a proud country that (like the United States) believes itself to be a world power.”

“We have this concept called the Monroe Doctrine, which refers to America’s assumption that it gets to act as a singular omnipotent hegemon in the western hemisphere, literally half the globe. Countries in the Americas simply are not permitted to enter into military alliances with American antagonists. That we reserve for ourselves the limitless right to dictate the affairs of other countries, in our own hemisphere or the other, is such a deeply-ingrained element of the American psyche that people who pride themselves on their independence and critical thinking never spend a moment in their lives really grappling with it.”

“Of all the immense hypocrisies that are being trafficked in these days, the constant repetition of the term “self-determination” is the most absurd. Self-determination is a moral and political principle; moral and political principles only have meaning when they are applied equally. Have we extended self-determination towards Cuba with 60+ years of crushing embargos and constant attempts to destabilize their government? Are we extending self-determination to Venezuela, where a popular government that’s perceived as antagonistic to American interests has been undermined in every conceivable way?”

“I have been saying that there is such a thing as cause and effect in the world, and that while it’s certainly emotionally convenient to say that Putin is just a crazy dictator acting purely on whim, that idea simply doesn’t fit with the facts. That expanding NATO to Russia’s border would result in Russian aggression was eminently predictable and in fact repeatedly predicted.”

“I don’t know what kind of weird moral world people are living in where they think it’s some irrelevant dodge to maintain the essential notion of universalism.”

NATO floods Ukraine with weapons by Andre Damon (WSWS)

““Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and the United States have already sent or are approving significant deliveries of military equipment to Ukraine,” NATO said.”

I wonder what her face looks like when she realizes that nothing will happen to them because she’s literally helping those other power-hungry rich men by helping destroy Russia? Also, the world will forget about Ukraine just like it did last time.

The React project is getting in on supporting refugees. A noble cause. Dan Abramov writes that,

“Second, getting the message out about one crisis does not hurt people affected by a different crisis. This is why the “whataboutism” is mostly a distraction, and we will not spend time seriously entertaining it.”

Cool, Dan. Bending the world’s entire humanitarian output toward exactly the people that the world’s hegemony wants you to pay attention to makes you a saint and in no way a tool. The second sentence kills all discussion about any possible context about why the entire western world suddenly cares so much about interventions. Asking why now and not the previous twenty times when it wasn’t Russia is not a valid question, according to this mindset. It’s the kind of mindset that America and NATO love. Keep it up.

It’s Different, They’re White: Media Ignore Conflicts Around the World to Focus on Ukraine by Alan MacLeod (MintPress News)

“If the perpetrator is our enemy, and there is political capital to be made from highlighting their crime, then the media will deem the victim “worthy” — especially if the victim is a pro-U.S. figure. If, however, you die at the hands of the U.S. or its allies, you can expect little sympathy or coverage from the media, especially if you are a Communist, Muslim, or any other designation that renders you unworthy of media attention.”

“Summing up the orgy of casual prejudice was Daily Wire journalist Michael Knowles, who tweeted, “It just occurred to me that this is the first major war between civilized nations in my lifetime.””

Check out this tweet for a video compilation of more ignorant statements by the world’s media.

“Turning the outrage tap on and off is a key way in which media manufacturers consent for U.S. foreign policy, hiding certain atrocities from our gaze and placing others on our screens. To be clear, Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine should, of course, be making headlines around the world, and victims should be mourned and perpetrators condemned. However, the vast qualitative and quantitative disparity between coverage of the attacks on Yemen, Somalia and Syria and the attack on Ukraine, which received almost 400 times the attention of the other three combined, is another stark example of how the media is outraged at war only when it wants to be.”

“Americans are united in rejecting Russia’s attack on Ukraine. A recent poll found that only 6% of the public consider its invasion justified, as opposed to 74% against. This suggests that if the media covered U.S. imperialism in the same way it covers its Russian equivalent, then those wars would end immediately. But they do not. And the Ukraine coverage underlines that this is a choice they are making every day.”

The war in Ukraine: The questions that must be asked by Editorial Board (WSWS)

“In reporting on the conflict, the distinction between journalism and propaganda has been obliterated. Everything is presented in black and white, and the media gives no space for the brain to work. According to the universal narrative, Russia invaded Ukraine because there is a monster called Putin, just as there were monsters named Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and Slobodan Milosevic.”

“Germany is not alone. In a break with Japan’s entire post-World War II history, then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed that the country station US nuclear weapons on its territory. Last week, Switzerland broke hundreds of years of neutrality and initiated sanctions against Russia, a move without precedent in half a millennium.

“Can one believe that these massive changes in geopolitical relations, long in the planning, are simply a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine?”

International censorship mounted against Russian state-affiliated media outlets by Kevin Reed (WSWS)

“There have been other recent acts of online censorship of left-wing and anti-war views, such as Spotify’s removal of a “Moment of Clarity” podcast by Lee Camp. Camp, who has noted the correspondence of the invasion of Ukraine by the Putin regime and the numerous aggressive wars by US imperialism over recent decades, tweeted, “My podcast ‘Moment of Clarity’ has been removed from @Spotify. Let it be known—you can do anti-women, anti-trans or racist content on Spotify but you can’t be anti-war. That’s not allowed.”

“Camp also tweeted, “So once everything except US pro-war propaganda has been banned from TV & internet, will you feel safe then? Will everything be better then?””

Lee Camp is banned, not for his affiliation with RT on his show Redacted Tonight, but for his own podcast Moment of Clarity. I suppose Chris Hedges’s On Contact, an award-winning interview show on RT has also now been banned. That certainly makes things easier for managing the narrative. There are no pesky, alternative views to bother with.

Chris Hedges Banned from YouTube

Everything’s going just fine! I’m glad we don’t live in an authoritarian state … imagine those poor people who have no access to alternative views?

Chris Hedges is a renowned and award-winning anti-war journalist who had a show on RT because it was the only network that would air “interviews anti-establishment intellects & activists not to be heard anywhere else.” Lee Camp has also been banned now, with Redacted Tonight banned from YouTube and his podcast Moment of Clarity kicked off of Spotify. You can say whatever you like, except you better not be anti-war. You can still get the content direct from rt.com, but that’s as good as disappeared for most people.

Ukraine has Fought Heroically, But Putin will Not Let His ‘Special Military Operation’ Become a Fiasco by Patrick Cockburn (CounterPunch)

“Russia had hitherto made only limited use of its heavy artillery and air force to eliminate centres of resistance in the cities”

“The Russian air force and heavy artillery was scarcely used, despite traditional Russian reliance on overwhelming firepower.”

“But even those units which have advanced into Ukraine have not necessarily been used. The 1st Guards Tank Army and the 20th Army were waiting outside Kharkiv on Tuesday, but were not yet attacking it. The Russian air force was described by one expert on the Russian armed forces as “missing in action”.”

“The only credible explanation for the repeated tactical and strategic missteps of the Russian army is that Putin had genuinely convinced himself that he was not launching a real war but a low intensity policing operation. As a result of this extraordinary piece of wishful thinking on Putin’s part, the Russian units which moved into Ukraine on 24 February acted as if they were on peace time manoeuvres.

“No attempt had been made to prepare the Russian soldiers for the fighting, which the Kremlin continues to soft pedal and claim that western accounts are exaggerated.”

One reading of this is that Russia thought it would be a cake-walk. Another one is that Russia wanted to “invade” but without really invading or causing any damage. That is, they wanted it to look like an invasion, but their hearts weren’t into actually treating Ukraine like an enemy to be eliminated.

Journalism & Media

The bird site demands content by Ryan Broderick (Garbage Day)

“There are a lot of internet users who, after a decade of exposure to viral media, have had their minds so thoroughly warped by trending content that they believe that reacting to popular internet culture is not just a replacement for a personality, but some kind of moral duty. It seems social platforms have not only eroded newsrooms by decimating the ad industry, but they have also, in the process, turned everyone into emotional trauma gig workers, convincing hundreds of thousands of average people to carry the burdens that used to be reserved for the few who wished to become journalists and accept the horrors that come with that job.”

Art & Literature

Leibniz reflecting on your plight as a being-toward-death or whatever (interview with Justin E.H. Smith) by Richard Marshall (3:16 AM)

“Leibniz does indeed drop his earlier talk of “corporeal substances”, but this isn’t because he comes to believe that no real composite beings can result from infinite ensembles of co-perceiving simple substances, but rather because he has found better language for describing corporeal substances: namely, he calls them “animals”, “plants”, “fish”, “worms”, etc.”

“I think, from a comparative anthropological point of view, the fetishization of reason reduces ultimately to an expression of a society’s ungrounded self-contentment in view of its supposed possession of a unique je-ne-sais-quoi that other societies lack. This is very common. When 20th-century anthropologists asked Polynesian islanders why they thought themselves superior to white people, the answer was that we the Polynesians have kastam while white people do not: but the very word they were using was a deformation of the English word ‘custom’, which had been imported by the anthropologists in the first place. I strongly suspect Pinker uses ‘reason’ much the way the islanders were using ‘kastam’: as a je-ne-sais-quoi that is supposed to make us special somehow.”

“The real tragedy with social media in particular is that we are constrained to use them as if they were a viable venue for the pursuit of deliberative democracy, when in fact what they are is something more like a deliberation-themed video game, in the same way that Grand Theft Auto is a stolen-car-chase-themed video game.”

“More deeply, in nature as well there are many networked systems with which, whether by coincidence or by real analogies in the evolution of natural and artificial systems, the internet has some significant features in common. So to consider the ontology of the internet is to place it within a broader category of systems or entities that also includes such things as fungal growths and subterranean tree-root networks.”

“I still just want to learn about as many things as possible; that mania’s only gotten worse, in fact, since the day I mistakenly went off to grad school in philosophy. And so I take people like Margaret Cavendish and Aristotle as my models. As the latter said, riffing on Heraclitus as he held up a sea-cucumber while standing knee-deep in a tide pool on Lesbos: “Here too dwell gods.””

Technology

Here Comes the Full Amazonification of Whole Foods by Cecilia Kang (NY Times)

“Amazon is starting to open checkout-free Whole Foods stores – you scan your palm, the store watches you & maintains a virtual shopping cart, and you just walk out when you’re done.”

Yeah, that doesn’t sound creepy AF. Do you see how iterative behavior modification leads us to a place where we just kind of expect and accept that stores know who we are and what we’re buying?