The problem is in Western education. I've talked to ordinary English people online many times. And every time they found out that I was from Russia, they started writing something about vodka and that Moscow was not the best place on Earth. This is an extremely low level of education. Just below the baseboard. At the same time, everyone in England is sure that they are better educated than Russians. Lol.
There are a lot of stupid people around - but most British people listen to what people say. Putin and Xi are head and shoulders above our politicians because they address the issues. They don't just slag people off. Tell all your Russian friends not to dismiss us over what our so-called leaders say. For me what made me really, really angry was the refusal to invite Russia to the Memorial ceremonies for the last war. Mr father was on the northern convoys. He told me what went on. He had nothing but admiration and profound gratitude for the role of Russia. After the war it was the soldiers vote that put the Labour Government into Downing Street - they KNEW where the war was really won. And Russia WILL prevail in Ukraine. But before you celebrate take a day for tears.
Well, I'm the opposite. This tragic Western-driven conflict has opened my eyes to your nation’s remarkable history and culture, which I knew little about before the 2014 coup. That coup, orchestrated by Bandera ultranationalists, neocons, and intelligence agencies like the CIA and MI6, was a disgraceful manipulation.
Living near Tower Bridge, I sometimes imagine the day a righteous fireball erupts over the building where nearly a thousand traitors feast at the public trough, and I would call it justice.
Garbage in garbage out for the most part courtesy of a constantly lying media while many are increasingly just struggling to get by & do not take a lot of notice of wider issues, all against a background of the results from nearly 50 years of a slo-mo version of the Neoliberal shock therapy inflicted on Russia in the 90's that accelerated here after the 2008 crisis, resulting among other things of the once industrial Midland & Northern heartland cities fully earning the title of shitholes while we wait for a potential IMF bailout & a Tony Blair led digital ID rollout against a background of increasing measures to curtail free speech.
Many still hang on to the remaining fumes of the past glories of empire in the sense that we are somehow still exceptional. You were able to reverse the damage caused by people like Larry Summers, but alas I doubt very much that we will be able to achieve the same result as I see no sigh of a Putin & we simply do not possess the resources within what is an increasingly divided country. They threw 16 billion on the table to loot your wealth & failed while the only consolation for me is that for the likes of me & many others, we as was the case under Neoclassical economics, would not see very much of that loot anyway,
I wish you & yours all of the best possible outcomes.
Reading the warmongering statements of politicians everywhere and their obvious disconnect with their voters’ real priorities makes you wonder what alternative reality these people are living in.
To reinforce Aurelian: I think it remarkable that the Russian Govt. which has actual recent experience of missile attacks on its country by NATO controlled proxies has not, for example, destroyed the UK Air Force base on Cyprus. Or, the military supply staging areas for Ukraine in Poland. An admirable bit of self discipline.
The lack of appreciable harm to Western countries that want to provoke Russia feeds into a fantasy of invulnerability. And a very strange, although explainable, generational inability to remember the bombing of Berlin/London 85 years ago also helps. The Russians, it seems, have better memories although the Germans should too! And England.
There is an odd disconnect. I am reading “The Overman Culture” by Edmund Cooper at the moment and weird fiction like that does not seem so weird now. That in itself says something.
One difference between the UK military and the American is that he latter will tell the President when something isn't winnable, such as invading Iran.
Our lot will accept any mission, no matter how unrealistic and do their best. May be no one is telling Euro leaders that this is impossible.
The arrival of the men in white coats would be a really good thing but a very, very large number of them would be required to take away the delusional leadership of the West.
I had always assumed a reasonable level of competence existed amongst our leadership, but I now realise that I have been fooling myself and the current group are batshit crazy. We can thank our lucky stars that Putin and Xi seem to be sane and reasonable.
Would love to know what they both think of the current shitshow. Unimpressed, I would think.
As a Russian, I share the common view among my people that the wars of NATO/the West with either Russia or China in our time will simply not happen except very indirectly by proxy.
The atlantic bloc is simply not capable, societally, politically and economically, of actually sending any of their own men to war with a peer state, and so when (of, if you're feeling hopeful, if) Russia decides to settle its grievances with the Baltics, or perhaps even Finland, the NATO will simply make a lot of noise and shirk from their erstwhile allies.
That doesn't mean the countries themselves won't fight, of course, but with the post-Ukrainian Russian army, it'll be less of a war and more of a summary beatdown.
Well, if the EU/UK didn't want 'Islamic invaders', they shouldn't have aided and abetted, and in some cases instigated the destruction or pauperisation of various countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
They are enemies so why is the UK letting them drown their culture? That’s a rhetorical question. It doesn’t really matter because Evil Old Christian Colonizing Whitey has already been outbreeded by the Africans and Asians and in a few generations will be gone then the DEI races can celebrate.
The current crop of Western [European] leaders seem to have a default decision making process which chooses the most irrational and asanine outcome on virtually every issue, based on their quasi-religious view of the world. So I expect that they really do think that "war" with Russia would be a good idea, for reasons which they articulate and many others that they don't. And if I can perhaps "see" this, then maybe the Kremlin can too? And I do not expect that any US leader is prepared to risk any sort of attack on CONUS simply to bail out the EUUK from its folly - indeed they may even consider it US interests to forment a conflict of some nature which entangles two strategic rivals.
Damn, Aurelien, you have punctured one of my favorite daydreams: the taking out of "Reality TV stars, Internet influencers, overpaid footballers, advertising executives, AI snake oil salesmen, Private Equity managers."
But, at least to many of us in the US, we seem to be the offspring in an increasingly dysfunctional family, headed by bickering, irrational, psychotic and, often, purely evil, adults. We try to keep our heads down, complete our daily tasks: feed the pets and the younger children, try to scrounge some food either from the garden or the local grocery, where prices keep rising, take out the trash, teach the younger kids to read and count. But the 'adults' keep getting louder and crazier, breaking the furniture and crockery, attacking each other with butter knives and frying pans and 'forgetting' to give us our weekly pocket money.
The house roof leaks, the plumbing clanks, the back porch steps rotted away, and last week the well ran dry. Do we keep trying to live with this or do we start to pray that the adults in the next town over, who seem to be a bit more benign, raid us, kill off our crazy 'parents' and allow us to breathe. Or, maybe kill us off, which option, some days, seems to be preferable to the current life.
Damn, Aurelien, you have punctured one of my favorite daydreams: the taking out of "Reality TV stars, Internet influencers, overpaid footballers, advertising executives, AI snake oil salesmen, Private Equity managers."
Not to mention Ursula Von der Leyen and the Eurovision Song Contest.
"... a general war between the US/Europe and either Russia or China." First thought, Oceania, Eurasia, and East Asia will have their innings. Was Orwell prescient or simply observant? I experienced World War II as a child safely in the United States, but I remember Pearl Harbor and Colin Kelly, blackout drills, fuel and food rationing, military convoys passing through the tiny village in which I lived, formations of fighters and bombers headed northeast on their way to Britain, North Africa, Sicily and D-Day (My father's much. younger brother was at all three.) and finally pictures of one of the concentration camps, the heaps of dead bodies. In that limited sense I experienced war. That was my childhood. Does that make me better qualified to expound on war? Not at all. In the West, in Oceania, there is bold talk followed by more bold talk. In Russia and China less talk but planned acquisition of the tools of war. Those missiles that the Russians have demonstrated. The battle hardened army they have in the field, China's anti-ship missiles, and and its growing navy. Talk is countered with observable fact and an unspoken message. Western political leaders, or so they see themselves, posture, look into the cameras and promise a rearmed Europe in three years, five years, a time period beyond their dreams of continuing in office. It is not even smoke and mirrors. The United States thrashes and flails, verbally. Last evening I watched a documentary about the impact on German POWs arriving in 1943 of the reality of the United States. It's wealth and dynamism, its modernity, as compared to Germany. What impressed me here in 2025 is how that dynamism, the industrial might, is entirely a thing of the past. However much our politicians may prance and bray, it is "as sound and fury, signifying nothing."
China does not want war. Russia did not want war. It is the declining west that needs war - but short and quick and decisive. Long wars and their bloodshed is not their type of war. Russia will take their time and wear them down.
Yes, but as Aurelian has indicated, these US and European leaders are basically unhinged from reality. And unhinged people don't act in rational ways. Which can lead, at the very least, to unexpected outcomes.
As usual, Aurelien, you are a bringer of antiseptic sunshine to my in-box in this dreary corner of Germany. Throughout the nightly news unicycle here, as elsewhere, entertained by troupes of all-singing all-dancing elves endlessly harping on Russia-Russia-Russia-Terror-Organization-Hamas-Terror-Organization-Hamas…a kind of learned helplessness starts to descend on the postprandial hypotension-afflicted. Turning the damn flat screen off may not be best diplomatic practice if your mate insists on this nightly Mass. So, if you’re anything like me, your inner defence mechanism might come to resemble that of Byron the Bulb’s Existential Blues. Channelling our plugged-in future, Pynchon describes the Bulb’s absurd position.
"Byron, as he burns on, sees more and more of this pattern. He learns how to make contact with other kinds of electric appliances, in homes, in factories and out in the streets. Each has something to tell him…Someday he will know everything, and still be as impotent as before. His youthful dreams of organizing all the bulbs in the world seem impossible now—the Grid is wide open, all messages can be overheard, and there are more than enough traitors out on the line. Prophets traditionally don't last long—they are either killed outright, or given an accident serious enough to make them stop and think, and most often they do pull back. But on Byron has been visited an even better fate. He is condemned to go on forever, knowing the truth and powerless to change anything. No longer will he seek to get off the wheel. His anger and frustration will grow without limit, and he will find himself, poor perverse bulb, enjoying it."
Meanwhile, with the “West” and its very special client raining holy extermination on a tiny ancient enclave, we might almost be forgiven for a lapse of attention over Ukraine. But not for too long. Of course, if you happen to be on grovelling terms (I’m looking at you, G7) with the penultimate incarnation of Uncle Sam—flaccidly clinging to his lucrative gig until he croaks, or at least until making good on his promised makeover of a rocky islet in the middle of San Francisco Bay (into, one suspects, a super bunker—all at starving taxpayers’ expense) & this: 'Trump Riviera' Gaza plan: Highways named after Gulf leaders and an Elon Musk 'smart zone' —it’s all good.
In lieu of the decaf, nicotine patches and ®Zoloft keeping polite self-medicated society afloat, I still prefer a bottle in front of me to a frontal lobotomy. On the other hand, after three digestif glasses of a decent red, I’ve been known to wax a bit apocalipstick and commence muttering (sometimes energetically) at our friendly news elves. And poor perverse bulb that I am, enjoying it.
The psychosis is driven by Western mass media & the rich class handful who own & deliver it all, in a dynamic feedback loop of detachment from reality & diminishing empathy. (Actually causing the blocking of empathy toward the 'official enemy' targeted outgroups at the Medial Prefrontal Cortex of the brain. It's what 1930s Germany & Italy did & Israel & Kiev doing now, among others.) The only way out of this without a lot more war, is to break the media-politics monopoly feedback loop, & enable the more normally retained empathy of the masses to find proportionate expression in the public discourse we call 'media'. It's actually a lot easier to do this than you may think - all the necessary technical needs are already present....
There's one policy for a 'new' politics that we should all adopt, setting aside others to achieve it, in order to open the democratic path for all the issues we care about to be resolved.
The rich class control all the Western mass media which (mis-)'informs' our votes. No surprise nothing changes -except to get worse as their propaganda grip tightens.
We don't have to put up with this any longer - we can easily create a different structure for a public mass media sector that faithfully represents majority (non-rich) citizens' interests.
There should only be two options for mass media businesses - either as a private/commercial (shareholder) controlled entity, or as a member controlled Co-operative type entity in a (new) Commons 'public' sector, under direct citizens' 'votes' control.
(Eg., the 'public' sector BBC Depts. could choose one or the other - no more corrupt Gov appointee run fake 'public' media.).
Mass media in Western societies is near all owned & delivered by a small group of wealthy elites, & significantly funded via advertising by a handful of large Corporations. That can have its place in providing public discourse & entertainment non-critical to 'democracy', but it should not be the only model for media with power (& reach).
We can easily create a system where citizens control a similar size sector of the media directly, through non-profit media Commons/Common Ownership structured publishers/providers, which exclude all private capital & revenue income. (Instead, they are controlled by members with equal voting rights, like Worker Co-ops or Community Businesses.)
In this sector, their only permitted income comes from our currency issuer Govs (at zero cost), but not directly. Instead of Gov directing which Commons Media enterprises get grant funding, citizens, equally, disburse the funds via an annual voucher system, whereby they sponsor their preferred Commons media provider(s).
This simple system ensures full democratic participation in a sector of mass media, & thus the political discourse which elevates politics to power, and we need it now, before humanity's path to its own self-destruction becomes irreversible.
Thank you for this, very insightful! Sadly, the collective psychosis seems to have a very compelling power and also seems to spread like a virus. And it is impossible, as far as I know, to talk a psychotic out of their psychosis. When an insecure and fearful character is flooded with overwhelming emotions of hatered, scapegoating and paranoia, the waters of unconscious will break loose. I wonder if lithium in drinking water might help? It seems to diminish suicides in populations, and war is a form of suicide, at least for average people.
While Mr Macron is upgrading hospital capacity for casualties, Mr Merz, on the other side of the border, is desperate to increase the number of reservists in the meagre German army. From next year, all young men and women turning 18 will be asked if they wish to die for and kill for their country (obligatory military service was suspended in Germany in 2011). Young men are obliged to answer. The options are still yes or no. Wars don't just happen; they are being made by our politics in the West with its incredible talent of feeding dissociation.
Apparently, you need to re-read Goering's words on the subject.
Anyway, if european men have sense enough not to fight, the european rulers will simply offer Africans, Asians, Latin Americans, whatever, citizenship in exchange for enlistment. No, europeans won't like it, but they won't be asked, not in this case, either.
I don't think Goering had the last word on any subject, especially as he is dead and gone and unlamented. You seem to think 'European rulers' can always win what they want - that's the same mistake that Goering made.
It's beautiful that aurelien finishes by saying we need 'men in white coats'.
Because it beautifully epitomises the whole western mindset up to and including, as we see, it's journalists, reporters, observers, 'intellectuals'.
And what is that mindset?
That help must come like Superman from the skies, by some miracle appearance of a saviour.
Never, ever, ever by the efforts of the people.
The west would sooner imagine that aliens would suddenly arrive and bring peace to the planet than imagine that the people might become informed, interested, take agency, become functional and fix things.
Even though, nominally, of course, the people are who is running the show.
I note it is suggested Russia would deal with nato quick time
".....end the war quickly in their favour by striking key enemy facilities...." and it then goes on to prescribe the specific actions that would bring this about.
What I see is that in nearly four years of trying Russia seems to have been unable to do this to Kiev.
On current performance I would not bet on them to succeed against nato as described. Not at all.
Far too much text for few arguments, which happens far too often, is always a terrible waste of time.
War with Russia and China is more likely to be caused by economic interests and the surrender of sovereignty by states, which always occurs through trade, even among so-called allies. Russia, for example, stopped following the rules when it was announced that Ukraine was opening its market to the EU. America no longer wants to follow the economic rules after China outplayed America's economic system.
Wars are also often relocated to smaller countries because then you can generously forgo nuclear weapons and still whip your population into submission while simultaneously pursuing the economic interests of some.
The problem is in Western education. I've talked to ordinary English people online many times. And every time they found out that I was from Russia, they started writing something about vodka and that Moscow was not the best place on Earth. This is an extremely low level of education. Just below the baseboard. At the same time, everyone in England is sure that they are better educated than Russians. Lol.
There are a lot of stupid people around - but most British people listen to what people say. Putin and Xi are head and shoulders above our politicians because they address the issues. They don't just slag people off. Tell all your Russian friends not to dismiss us over what our so-called leaders say. For me what made me really, really angry was the refusal to invite Russia to the Memorial ceremonies for the last war. Mr father was on the northern convoys. He told me what went on. He had nothing but admiration and profound gratitude for the role of Russia. After the war it was the soldiers vote that put the Labour Government into Downing Street - they KNEW where the war was really won. And Russia WILL prevail in Ukraine. But before you celebrate take a day for tears.
Well, I'm the opposite. This tragic Western-driven conflict has opened my eyes to your nation’s remarkable history and culture, which I knew little about before the 2014 coup. That coup, orchestrated by Bandera ultranationalists, neocons, and intelligence agencies like the CIA and MI6, was a disgraceful manipulation.
Living near Tower Bridge, I sometimes imagine the day a righteous fireball erupts over the building where nearly a thousand traitors feast at the public trough, and I would call it justice.
Garbage in garbage out for the most part courtesy of a constantly lying media while many are increasingly just struggling to get by & do not take a lot of notice of wider issues, all against a background of the results from nearly 50 years of a slo-mo version of the Neoliberal shock therapy inflicted on Russia in the 90's that accelerated here after the 2008 crisis, resulting among other things of the once industrial Midland & Northern heartland cities fully earning the title of shitholes while we wait for a potential IMF bailout & a Tony Blair led digital ID rollout against a background of increasing measures to curtail free speech.
Many still hang on to the remaining fumes of the past glories of empire in the sense that we are somehow still exceptional. You were able to reverse the damage caused by people like Larry Summers, but alas I doubt very much that we will be able to achieve the same result as I see no sigh of a Putin & we simply do not possess the resources within what is an increasingly divided country. They threw 16 billion on the table to loot your wealth & failed while the only consolation for me is that for the likes of me & many others, we as was the case under Neoclassical economics, would not see very much of that loot anyway,
I wish you & yours all of the best possible outcomes.
Like - for some reason clicking the like button doesn't work for me.
I think that is a very profound and wise essay.
Reading the warmongering statements of politicians everywhere and their obvious disconnect with their voters’ real priorities makes you wonder what alternative reality these people are living in.
To reinforce Aurelian: I think it remarkable that the Russian Govt. which has actual recent experience of missile attacks on its country by NATO controlled proxies has not, for example, destroyed the UK Air Force base on Cyprus. Or, the military supply staging areas for Ukraine in Poland. An admirable bit of self discipline.
The lack of appreciable harm to Western countries that want to provoke Russia feeds into a fantasy of invulnerability. And a very strange, although explainable, generational inability to remember the bombing of Berlin/London 85 years ago also helps. The Russians, it seems, have better memories although the Germans should too! And England.
There is an odd disconnect. I am reading “The Overman Culture” by Edmund Cooper at the moment and weird fiction like that does not seem so weird now. That in itself says something.
But it also says a lot about the patience of Russia.
One difference between the UK military and the American is that he latter will tell the President when something isn't winnable, such as invading Iran.
Our lot will accept any mission, no matter how unrealistic and do their best. May be no one is telling Euro leaders that this is impossible.
What is that damn King standing for?!
The whole royal family has no actual role except to be a soap opera.
Thanks Aurelien.
The arrival of the men in white coats would be a really good thing but a very, very large number of them would be required to take away the delusional leadership of the West.
I had always assumed a reasonable level of competence existed amongst our leadership, but I now realise that I have been fooling myself and the current group are batshit crazy. We can thank our lucky stars that Putin and Xi seem to be sane and reasonable.
Would love to know what they both think of the current shitshow. Unimpressed, I would think.
As a Russian, I share the common view among my people that the wars of NATO/the West with either Russia or China in our time will simply not happen except very indirectly by proxy.
The atlantic bloc is simply not capable, societally, politically and economically, of actually sending any of their own men to war with a peer state, and so when (of, if you're feeling hopeful, if) Russia decides to settle its grievances with the Baltics, or perhaps even Finland, the NATO will simply make a lot of noise and shirk from their erstwhile allies.
That doesn't mean the countries themselves won't fight, of course, but with the post-Ukrainian Russian army, it'll be less of a war and more of a summary beatdown.
You are right. They can PLAY at war but nobody will fight it.
The EU can’t even get rid of the rapist violent Islamic invaders drowning their culture and resources.
Well, if the EU/UK didn't want 'Islamic invaders', they shouldn't have aided and abetted, and in some cases instigated the destruction or pauperisation of various countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
They are enemies so why is the UK letting them drown their culture? That’s a rhetorical question. It doesn’t really matter because Evil Old Christian Colonizing Whitey has already been outbreeded by the Africans and Asians and in a few generations will be gone then the DEI races can celebrate.
The current crop of Western [European] leaders seem to have a default decision making process which chooses the most irrational and asanine outcome on virtually every issue, based on their quasi-religious view of the world. So I expect that they really do think that "war" with Russia would be a good idea, for reasons which they articulate and many others that they don't. And if I can perhaps "see" this, then maybe the Kremlin can too? And I do not expect that any US leader is prepared to risk any sort of attack on CONUS simply to bail out the EUUK from its folly - indeed they may even consider it US interests to forment a conflict of some nature which entangles two strategic rivals.
Damn, Aurelien, you have punctured one of my favorite daydreams: the taking out of "Reality TV stars, Internet influencers, overpaid footballers, advertising executives, AI snake oil salesmen, Private Equity managers."
But, at least to many of us in the US, we seem to be the offspring in an increasingly dysfunctional family, headed by bickering, irrational, psychotic and, often, purely evil, adults. We try to keep our heads down, complete our daily tasks: feed the pets and the younger children, try to scrounge some food either from the garden or the local grocery, where prices keep rising, take out the trash, teach the younger kids to read and count. But the 'adults' keep getting louder and crazier, breaking the furniture and crockery, attacking each other with butter knives and frying pans and 'forgetting' to give us our weekly pocket money.
The house roof leaks, the plumbing clanks, the back porch steps rotted away, and last week the well ran dry. Do we keep trying to live with this or do we start to pray that the adults in the next town over, who seem to be a bit more benign, raid us, kill off our crazy 'parents' and allow us to breathe. Or, maybe kill us off, which option, some days, seems to be preferable to the current life.
Damn, Aurelien, you have punctured one of my favorite daydreams: the taking out of "Reality TV stars, Internet influencers, overpaid footballers, advertising executives, AI snake oil salesmen, Private Equity managers."
Not to mention Ursula Von der Leyen and the Eurovision Song Contest.
"... a general war between the US/Europe and either Russia or China." First thought, Oceania, Eurasia, and East Asia will have their innings. Was Orwell prescient or simply observant? I experienced World War II as a child safely in the United States, but I remember Pearl Harbor and Colin Kelly, blackout drills, fuel and food rationing, military convoys passing through the tiny village in which I lived, formations of fighters and bombers headed northeast on their way to Britain, North Africa, Sicily and D-Day (My father's much. younger brother was at all three.) and finally pictures of one of the concentration camps, the heaps of dead bodies. In that limited sense I experienced war. That was my childhood. Does that make me better qualified to expound on war? Not at all. In the West, in Oceania, there is bold talk followed by more bold talk. In Russia and China less talk but planned acquisition of the tools of war. Those missiles that the Russians have demonstrated. The battle hardened army they have in the field, China's anti-ship missiles, and and its growing navy. Talk is countered with observable fact and an unspoken message. Western political leaders, or so they see themselves, posture, look into the cameras and promise a rearmed Europe in three years, five years, a time period beyond their dreams of continuing in office. It is not even smoke and mirrors. The United States thrashes and flails, verbally. Last evening I watched a documentary about the impact on German POWs arriving in 1943 of the reality of the United States. It's wealth and dynamism, its modernity, as compared to Germany. What impressed me here in 2025 is how that dynamism, the industrial might, is entirely a thing of the past. However much our politicians may prance and bray, it is "as sound and fury, signifying nothing."
China does not want war. Russia did not want war. It is the declining west that needs war - but short and quick and decisive. Long wars and their bloodshed is not their type of war. Russia will take their time and wear them down.
Yes, but as Aurelian has indicated, these US and European leaders are basically unhinged from reality. And unhinged people don't act in rational ways. Which can lead, at the very least, to unexpected outcomes.
As usual, Aurelien, you are a bringer of antiseptic sunshine to my in-box in this dreary corner of Germany. Throughout the nightly news unicycle here, as elsewhere, entertained by troupes of all-singing all-dancing elves endlessly harping on Russia-Russia-Russia-Terror-Organization-Hamas-Terror-Organization-Hamas…a kind of learned helplessness starts to descend on the postprandial hypotension-afflicted. Turning the damn flat screen off may not be best diplomatic practice if your mate insists on this nightly Mass. So, if you’re anything like me, your inner defence mechanism might come to resemble that of Byron the Bulb’s Existential Blues. Channelling our plugged-in future, Pynchon describes the Bulb’s absurd position.
"Byron, as he burns on, sees more and more of this pattern. He learns how to make contact with other kinds of electric appliances, in homes, in factories and out in the streets. Each has something to tell him…Someday he will know everything, and still be as impotent as before. His youthful dreams of organizing all the bulbs in the world seem impossible now—the Grid is wide open, all messages can be overheard, and there are more than enough traitors out on the line. Prophets traditionally don't last long—they are either killed outright, or given an accident serious enough to make them stop and think, and most often they do pull back. But on Byron has been visited an even better fate. He is condemned to go on forever, knowing the truth and powerless to change anything. No longer will he seek to get off the wheel. His anger and frustration will grow without limit, and he will find himself, poor perverse bulb, enjoying it."
Meanwhile, with the “West” and its very special client raining holy extermination on a tiny ancient enclave, we might almost be forgiven for a lapse of attention over Ukraine. But not for too long. Of course, if you happen to be on grovelling terms (I’m looking at you, G7) with the penultimate incarnation of Uncle Sam—flaccidly clinging to his lucrative gig until he croaks, or at least until making good on his promised makeover of a rocky islet in the middle of San Francisco Bay (into, one suspects, a super bunker—all at starving taxpayers’ expense) & this: 'Trump Riviera' Gaza plan: Highways named after Gulf leaders and an Elon Musk 'smart zone' —it’s all good.
In lieu of the decaf, nicotine patches and ®Zoloft keeping polite self-medicated society afloat, I still prefer a bottle in front of me to a frontal lobotomy. On the other hand, after three digestif glasses of a decent red, I’ve been known to wax a bit apocalipstick and commence muttering (sometimes energetically) at our friendly news elves. And poor perverse bulb that I am, enjoying it.
My problem is I can't stop at just 3 glasses...
To tell the truth, neither can I.
Good piece, thanks :) My thoughts...
The psychosis is driven by Western mass media & the rich class handful who own & deliver it all, in a dynamic feedback loop of detachment from reality & diminishing empathy. (Actually causing the blocking of empathy toward the 'official enemy' targeted outgroups at the Medial Prefrontal Cortex of the brain. It's what 1930s Germany & Italy did & Israel & Kiev doing now, among others.) The only way out of this without a lot more war, is to break the media-politics monopoly feedback loop, & enable the more normally retained empathy of the masses to find proportionate expression in the public discourse we call 'media'. It's actually a lot easier to do this than you may think - all the necessary technical needs are already present....
There's one policy for a 'new' politics that we should all adopt, setting aside others to achieve it, in order to open the democratic path for all the issues we care about to be resolved.
The rich class control all the Western mass media which (mis-)'informs' our votes. No surprise nothing changes -except to get worse as their propaganda grip tightens.
We don't have to put up with this any longer - we can easily create a different structure for a public mass media sector that faithfully represents majority (non-rich) citizens' interests.
There should only be two options for mass media businesses - either as a private/commercial (shareholder) controlled entity, or as a member controlled Co-operative type entity in a (new) Commons 'public' sector, under direct citizens' 'votes' control.
(Eg., the 'public' sector BBC Depts. could choose one or the other - no more corrupt Gov appointee run fake 'public' media.).
Mass media in Western societies is near all owned & delivered by a small group of wealthy elites, & significantly funded via advertising by a handful of large Corporations. That can have its place in providing public discourse & entertainment non-critical to 'democracy', but it should not be the only model for media with power (& reach).
We can easily create a system where citizens control a similar size sector of the media directly, through non-profit media Commons/Common Ownership structured publishers/providers, which exclude all private capital & revenue income. (Instead, they are controlled by members with equal voting rights, like Worker Co-ops or Community Businesses.)
In this sector, their only permitted income comes from our currency issuer Govs (at zero cost), but not directly. Instead of Gov directing which Commons Media enterprises get grant funding, citizens, equally, disburse the funds via an annual voucher system, whereby they sponsor their preferred Commons media provider(s).
This simple system ensures full democratic participation in a sector of mass media, & thus the political discourse which elevates politics to power, and we need it now, before humanity's path to its own self-destruction becomes irreversible.
Thank you for this, very insightful! Sadly, the collective psychosis seems to have a very compelling power and also seems to spread like a virus. And it is impossible, as far as I know, to talk a psychotic out of their psychosis. When an insecure and fearful character is flooded with overwhelming emotions of hatered, scapegoating and paranoia, the waters of unconscious will break loose. I wonder if lithium in drinking water might help? It seems to diminish suicides in populations, and war is a form of suicide, at least for average people.
Maybe. If a child is crying in fear, does slapping get them to shut up?
Thanks, Aurelien.
While Mr Macron is upgrading hospital capacity for casualties, Mr Merz, on the other side of the border, is desperate to increase the number of reservists in the meagre German army. From next year, all young men and women turning 18 will be asked if they wish to die for and kill for their country (obligatory military service was suspended in Germany in 2011). Young men are obliged to answer. The options are still yes or no. Wars don't just happen; they are being made by our politics in the West with its incredible talent of feeding dissociation.
In the end, nobody will ask.
More likely, no-one will answer.
Apparently, you need to re-read Goering's words on the subject.
Anyway, if european men have sense enough not to fight, the european rulers will simply offer Africans, Asians, Latin Americans, whatever, citizenship in exchange for enlistment. No, europeans won't like it, but they won't be asked, not in this case, either.
I don't think Goering had the last word on any subject, especially as he is dead and gone and unlamented. You seem to think 'European rulers' can always win what they want - that's the same mistake that Goering made.
Goering had a certain practical experience in this matter that you and I lack.
It's beautiful that aurelien finishes by saying we need 'men in white coats'.
Because it beautifully epitomises the whole western mindset up to and including, as we see, it's journalists, reporters, observers, 'intellectuals'.
And what is that mindset?
That help must come like Superman from the skies, by some miracle appearance of a saviour.
Never, ever, ever by the efforts of the people.
The west would sooner imagine that aliens would suddenly arrive and bring peace to the planet than imagine that the people might become informed, interested, take agency, become functional and fix things.
Even though, nominally, of course, the people are who is running the show.
Ah yes, white coats indeed.
I note it is suggested Russia would deal with nato quick time
".....end the war quickly in their favour by striking key enemy facilities...." and it then goes on to prescribe the specific actions that would bring this about.
What I see is that in nearly four years of trying Russia seems to have been unable to do this to Kiev.
On current performance I would not bet on them to succeed against nato as described. Not at all.
Perhaps destroying the leadership in Kiev is not a strategic objective for Russia?
That there is still a bridge left standing in Ukraine is a testament to Russian indecision.
Far too much text for few arguments, which happens far too often, is always a terrible waste of time.
War with Russia and China is more likely to be caused by economic interests and the surrender of sovereignty by states, which always occurs through trade, even among so-called allies. Russia, for example, stopped following the rules when it was announced that Ukraine was opening its market to the EU. America no longer wants to follow the economic rules after China outplayed America's economic system.
Wars are also often relocated to smaller countries because then you can generously forgo nuclear weapons and still whip your population into submission while simultaneously pursuing the economic interests of some.
Agree and I would resume it in a single sentence. Russia also has its own interests.