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Clausewitz and Tauroggen

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DEFEAT CAPITALISM AND ITS DEADLY SPAWN, IMPERIALISM
ecological murder • endless wars • ingrained racism & social injustice • worker exploitation • incurable via reforms

Michael Buergermeister 
Letters from Vienna

Letters from Vienna #112


Erich von Manstein and Genocide

Erich von Manstein: “the Jewish-Bolshevist system must be exterminated." As a lifetime Nazi, he escaped true punishment, became a darling of the CIA, and in the postwar got a job with Germany's new army and NATO itself.

“The slaughter that followed the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941,” wrote Christopher Simpson, “is without equal in world history. Next to the Nazis’ operation of the anti-Jewish extermination centers at Treblinka, Sobibor, Birkenau, and elsewhere, the most terrible crimes of the entire war took place in name of anti-communism in the German-occupied territories on the eastern front. Civilian casualties in these areas were so enormous, so continuous, and so extreme that even counting the dead has proved impossible. Scholars have attempted to deduce the numbers of fatalities from captured German records, reports of Einsatzgruppen (mobile execution squads). The evidence indicates that between 3 and 4 million captured Soviet soldiers were intentionally starved to death in German POW camps between 1941 and 1944. At least a million and a half Jews were exterminated inside Nazi-occupied Soviet territory, mainly through mass shootings but also through gassing, deportation to extermination camps, looting and destruction of villages, hangings, and torture. The generally accepted figure for all Soviet war dead is 20 million human beings—about 15 percent of the population of the country at the time—but the destruction was so vast that even this number can be only an educated guess.” [Recent figures put the total to 27 million and possibly higher.—Ed]

“The Nazis deliberately used famine as a political weapon in the East, and it soon became the largest single killer. As the German invasion of the USSR began, General (later Field Marshal) Erich von Manstein ordered that “the Jewish-Bolshevist system must be exterminated. ... In hostile cities, a large part of the population will have to starve.” Nothing, Manstein continued, “may, out of a sense of mistaken humaneness, be distributed to prisoners or to the population—unless they are in the service of the German Wehrmacht.””

“This was a war not only of conquest but of extermination. Entire regions of the USSR were to be cleared of the existing Communist apparatus and of Slavic “subhumans” to make way for settlement by “Aryan pioneers.” Above all, it was believed necessary to conduct an ideological war to wipe out the “Jewish-Bolshevist plague” and those who were its “carriers.””

“The Nazis’ mass killings at Lidice, Czechoslovakia, and Oradour, France — where the Germans rounded up the town’s population in retaliation for the assassination of a German official, murdered the captives, and shipped any survivors to concentration camps, then burned the place to the ground–are well remembered in the West today.”

“But inside the Nazi-occupied USSR there were not just one or two Lidices. There were hundreds. Mass killings of the Lidice type took place at Rasseta (372 dead), Vesniny (about 200 dead, mainly women and children), and Dolina (469 dead, again mainly women and children), to name only three.””[1]

Claus von Stauffenberg: Heroic opponent of Hitler.

Disgust, anger, and outrage at these cold, brutal and genocidal policies played a decisive role in why many Germans, such as Stauffenberg, Treskow and Olbricht, rebelled against Hitler and the Nazis. Another, perhaps even more important consideration, was the fact that the “Führer” and his “Partei” were willing to sacrifice Germany and German lives for what was already clearly, in 1943, a lost cause. Any sane leader or one who had at least a mild interest in the well-being of Germany and the Germans would have sought peace. Yet this was precisely what Hitler didn’t do. Was he mad, bad, or simply dangerous to know?

Some, such as Greg Hallett (who wrote the book: “Hitler was a British Agent”), argue that Hitler worked for the British all along and that his ultimate aim was the destruction of Germany and its people. Given the wealth of evidence that has now accumulated and the extremely important works of scholarship that have been penned, such as “Krämer des Krieges: Die 5. Kolonne d. Monopole” by Kai Moltke, “Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler” by Antony C. Sutton or “Conjuring Hitler: how Britain and America made the Third Reich” by Guido Giacomo Preparata, it’s very hard to doubt Hallett’s theory. Even if Hitler hadn’t been working for the British he might as well have been doing so; the effect of his policies had much the same outcome.

Johann-David-Ludwig-Graf-Yorck-von-Wartenburg-als-Generalfeldmarschall-1821

When confronted with his moral responsibility toward Germany in 1943, the year in which defeat became self-evident, Field Marshal von Manstein replied: “Prussian generals don’t mutiny.” To this nonsense, Stauffenberg countered with one word: “Tauroggen”.

“On December 30 1812,” Dr. Daniel Niemetz informs us, “the commander of the Prussian auxiliary corps of the Grande Armée, Ludwig von Yorck, signed a truce with the Russian troops. The Tauroggen Convention was the start of the wars of liberation against Napoleon’s dominance over Germany and Europe.”

“Yorck undertook to leave his association in the north of East Prussia between the towns of Tilsit and Memel. His 15,000 Prussians were thus withdrawn from Marshal Jacques MacDonald’s X Corps, which from then on no longer had sufficient forces to cover the French northern flank. This opened the way to East Prussia for the Russians.”

“Yorck’s action was a clear act of disobeying his king, who ordered him to cooperate with the French. The general risked being charged with treason and ending up in front of a firing squad. To Friedrich Wilhelm III he, therefore, wrote: “Now or never is the moment to regain [Prussia’s] freedom, independence and greatness. I swear to [Your] Royal Majesty that I will be as calm on the heap of sand [of the execution site] as on the battlefield on which I am grey have become, will await the bullet.”[2]

 

Feelings of Duty and Honour

Carl von Clausewitz: He knew when to change course. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

One of those who played a key role in the coming about of the Tauroggen Convention was Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz, who’d switched to the Russian side in March 1812. The Convention meant that he could avoid facing his brothers in battle and joyfully reunite with them instead.

In 1812 he wrote: “Perhaps these lines may stimulate a feeling of duty and honour in many a breast, perhaps they may send a ray into many a head and scare away the ghostly monster of fear, clearly showing the danger, which really exists and separating it from the one that doesn’t.”

“Prussia has endured a struggle since 1794, which hasn’t lasted nearly long enough, has been fought with far too little effort or strength of will, to justify complete despair. On the contrary, the whole of Europe must expect the states to rise up again against complete annihilation and show themselves worthy of Frederick’s name through a life-and-death struggle.”

“This name of Frederick II, which is on the lips of all Prussians, gives foreigners the right to expect that there is still a respectable attitude to be found among us; a sense of duty, virtue, and honour, which, far from being dulled by the pressures of time, have rather gained a stronger resilience and force, and fill us with noble indignation. In fact, to speak much of honour and fame, when both have long been won and not endangered, is mere vanity; and we could have spared foreigners many phrases with which we have so often become a nuisance. How contemptible and undignified this phraseology will seem, when it is now seen that we slink away from danger, unconcerned about honour or shame!”

“It seems incredible that those who were witnesses to Frederick’s deeds, and others who constantly mention his name, only approve of what he did, and scornfully ridicule everything that is not in his manner; that these do nothing for the regent’s house, nothing for the honour of the state, but want to abandon themselves to contempt, unworthy descendants of that heroic family which, under Frederick, earned the respect and sympathy of the Prussian name in the world.”[3]

Given the acts of war, such as the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline (see Letter #93), and the fact that NATO is the heir of the Waffen-SS and the EU the heir of the Third Reich (see “The Shocking History of the EU” by Dr. Vernon Coleman) it is high time for Germans to come to their senses, shake off the chains of Globalist slavery and to become free once more.


[1] pp.13-15 Blowback, Christopher Simpson

[2] https://www.mdr.de/geschichte/weitere-epochen/voelkerschlacht/
tauroggen-konvention-yorck-russland-preussen-napoleon-100.html

[3] p. 82 Politische Schriften und Briefe, Carl von Clausewitz

ABOUT MICHAEL BUERGERMEISTER / SOURCE
Born in Vienna in 1967 he was brought up in London, studied at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Vienna and Max Reinhardt Seminar and currently resides in Vienna. He's a writer, painter, filmmaker and video artist. He has accumulated an impressive resume fighting for justice (defending Palestinians, for example), and pushing back against the encroaching warmongering Western disinformation. His blog at Substack.com is at Buergermeister .


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“Why Don’t You Ever Criticize RUSSIA’S Warmongering??”

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Caitlin Johnstone
ROGUE JOURNALIST


Listen to a reading of this article:

Going Rogue With Caitlin Johnstone · "Why Don't You Ever Criticize RUSSIA'S Warmongering??"

“Why don’t you ever criticize RUSSIA’S warmongering?” is a question I am often asked with great indignation. People cannot comprehend why I would spend all my time criticizing the warmongering of the power structure I live under without spending any time criticizing the government they’re used to hearing criticisms of.

It’s a question born of delusion and propaganda brainwashing, and it has several good answers. Here are some of my favorites.

“Why don’t you ever criticize RUSSIA’S warmongering?”

First of all, I actually do sometimes criticize Russia’s warmongering, to the limited extent that I believe it’s necessary in a civilization that’s being deliberately saturated in maximum-amplification criticisms of Russia’s warmongering. That criticism generally goes something like this: Putin is responsible for Putin’s decisions, and the US empire is responsible for the US empire’s decisions. Putin is responsible for deciding to invade Ukraine, and the US empire is responsible for provoking that invasion.

Caity doesn't say it here, but, as a rule Russia, who lost 27 million people in just WW2, never warmongers. The intervention in Ukraine was blatantly provoked by the West, in reality a trap that has now backfired for the US Empire and its accomplices.

It’s not actually complicated. If I provoke someone into doing a bad thing, then we each have a degree of moral responsibility for the bad thing that was done. So much modern empire apologia revolves around pretending that provocation is simply not a thing; that this very simple and fundamental concept we all learned about as children was just invented last year by the Russian government. It’s bizarre and undignified and people should feel embarrassed for doing it. You know what provocation is. Stop acting like an idiot.

“Why don’t you ever criticize RUSSIA’S warmongering?”

Why don’t I instead spend all my time criticizing the most powerful and destructive government on earth, whose crimes are always either ignored or supported by the political and media institutions of the English-speaking world?

Focusing one’s criticisms on the world’s most powerful and destructive government is actually the only normal and sane thing to do. It’s not strange and suspicious that I do it, it’s strange and suspicious that more people don’t.

The United States is the most tyrannical government on earth. It is currently circling the planet with hundreds of military bases and waging wars which have killed millions and displaced tens of millions just since the turn of this century. Its sanctions and blockades continuously target civilians with deadly force in nations like Venezuela, Yemen and Syria. It works to destroy any nation which disobeys its dictates by toppling their governments via CIA coups, proxy armies, partial and full-scale invasions, and the most egregious number of election interferences in the entire world.

None of these things are true of Russia. Focusing on the world’s worst offender is normal, especially in a western media environment where that offender receives almost no meaningful criticism from major institutions. None of this means I think Russia’s government is wonderful and perfect, only that the government most sorely in need of criticism in our society is not Russia’s.

“Why don’t you ever criticize RUSSIA’S warmongering?”

Why don’t you show me a major western institution that gives an appropriate level of criticism to the warmongering empire I spend my time criticizing, instead of spending 100 percent of its time criticizing foreign governments?

What? You can’t? Because the entire western political/media class reliably facilitates the information interests of that empire?

Well okay then. That’s the imbalance I’m trying to fix. You don’t help restore balance in a wildly imbalanced information environment by spending half your time criticizing the governments that are always criticized in that environment and half your time criticizing the far worse offender who never gets criticized, you help restore balance by focusing your criticisms on the far worse offender who doesn’t receive anywhere near an appropriate level of criticism. Time you spend on one is time you’re not able to spend on the other.

“Why don’t you ever criticize RUSSIA’S warmongering?”

This is going to blow your mind, but I don’t actually have a Russian audience. I have an English-speaking audience which lives predominantly under the thumb of the western empire. That’s where my voice gets heard, and that’s where my voice can make a difference.

“Why don’t you ever criticize RUSSIA’S warmongering?”

The only reason it even occurs to you to ask that question is because you are surrounded all day by voices who spend all their time criticizing Russia’s warmongering and no time criticizing US warmongering. It’s what you’re accustomed to and what you’ve been conditioned to expect. Someone focusing their criticisms on the world’s most powerful and destructive government only looks weird to you because you’ve been conditioned by propaganda to see criticism of Russia as normal and criticism of the US empire as a freakish aberration, and because the imperial narrative managers have created a neo-McCarthyite atmosphere which frames all critics of US foreign policy as treasonous Kremlin loyalists.

Only in the most propaganda-addled of minds does focusing one’s criticisms on the world’s most powerful and destructive government look strange and suspicious. Only in the most brainwashed of brains does does focusing one’s criticisms on the most powerful empire to ever exist look like a sign of immorality, dysfunction, treason, or support for the Kremlin.

“Why don’t you ever criticize RUSSIA’S warmongering?”

Why don’t you go watch TV? If you’ve got some desperate, aching need to hear one more westerner offer one more criticism of Russia’s warmongering, simply switch on the nearest television to any channel and wait a few minutes.

“Why don’t you ever criticize RUSSIA’S warmongering?”

Nobody has ever once been able to provide me with a logically coherent answer for why I should spend any time whatsoever criticizing a government all western institutions criticize 24/7/365 while those institutions totally ignore US imperial criminality. I often get quasi-leftists much closer to the mainstream worldview than myself arguing that I should criticize both Russia and the US empire, but not a single one of them has ever been able to provide me with a lucid argument for that position which holds up to scrutiny. It’s always just some unexamined assumption they hold as a belief because they haven’t thought terribly hard about it.

Nobody can ever intelligibly explain to me what actual, concrete good is done for the world by one more westerner lending their voice to a message that is already being amplified as much as any message could possibly be amplified in the English-speaking world. They always wind up resorting to saying things like “Well it makes you look bad if you don’t criticize both” — like they transform into my pro bono PR agents who suddenly pretend to care very deeply about protecting my public image. Really they just want me to shut up and stop criticizing the empire.

“Why don’t you ever criticize RUSSIA’S warmongering?”

Because I don’t want to be a goddamn Pentagon propagandist. In a media environment that is being flooded with propaganda messaging designed to manufacture consent for more proxy warfare, militarism and nuclear brinkmanship, we all have to be very careful about what we put our energy behind. Throwing your weight behind “Russia bad!” messaging in such an environment is an irresponsible use of your voice, especially when you could be using your voice to call for de-escalation, diplomacy and detente and help people understand that they are being deceived.

Before they drop bombs, they drop narratives. Before they launch missiles, they launch propaganda campaigns. If you choose to lend your energy to the narrative control operations designed to pave the way to death and destruction, then you’re just as responsible for that death and destruction when it occurs as the person who hits the launch button.

You are responsible for what you put out into the world, and you are responsible for its consequences. Stop functioning as an unpaid empire propagandist just because it’s sometimes awkward not to.


Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my books Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.

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This is a dispatch from our ongoing series by Caitlin Johnstone


ABOUT THE AUTHOR Caitlin Johnstone is a brave journalist, political junkie, relentless feminist, champion of the 99 percent. And a powerful counter-propaganda tactician. 
 

 


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^1000Careerist lackeys serving the elites control the American press.

Ever pushing for war and inequality, covering up the oligarchy's crimes...

They are in reality shameless disinformers.

No wonder the world is in such terrible disarray.


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Reckless Disregard for the Consequences of War

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Kollibri terre Sonnenblume
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January 26, 2023 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume


“Opposing the horrible madness of war is not anti-European, its not anti-Ukrainian, its not pro-Russian. It’s common sense… I oppose all war. I want it stopped. I make no apology for that. And I’m not going to be scapegoated and labelled for it either.”
~Clare Daly, member of European Parliament (video)

We are living in a very dangerous moment. Tensions between the US and Russia are high. Lines of communication between the two countries are more frayed than during the Cold War. Militant rhetoric is steadily ratcheting up on both sides. In such a strained atmosphere, the risk of setting off a deadly nuclear exchange is all too real, even just by accident in a heat-of-the-moment misunderstanding.

If the situation goes nuclear, it won’t matter who started it. It will only matter that it wasn’t stopped before it got there.

We really need all hands on deck to pull humanity back from the brink. Arguably, nothing is more important right now. All other concerns—the environment, social justice, economic inequality—will be moot. Certainly, our insipid partisan bickering will be irrelevant if we’re bleeding out of every orifice, our hair is falling out, our skin is sloughing off, and we’re dying agonizing deaths from severe burns and radiation sickness, while rotting corpses pile up around us.

The stakes could hardly be higher.

We need an active antiwar movement, global in scale and diverse in tactics, to apply significant pressure on every decision-maker with a part in current conflicts. The fundamental goal is clear: the war must stop. All parties with disagreements must declare an immediate ceasefire and get to the negotiating table. There, if we follow the long-established principles of diplomacy, it will be recognized that all parties have legitimate interests, and that compromise is sought from there. This is the only way. Yes, this can be a fraught and challenging process to say the least, but all wars eventually end at such a table. We must get there as soon as possible.

We need an active antiwar movement, global in scale and diverse in tactics, to apply significant pressure on every decision-maker with a part in current conflicts.
Yet the antiwar movement in the US is at its lowest ebb in generations, maybe ever. On the right, principled antiwar libertarians are keeping it real at places like antiwar.com, where they are sticking to their anti-interventionist ethic, which includes not arming belligerents. They’re ardent capitalists, yes, but they draw the line there.

On the left, we have a smattering of different groups including socialists, Black leftists, Greens, proponents of non-violence, and various peace groups led by veterans or sects of Christianity. All good people—some of my favorite people in the world, personally—but not enough. Liberals—by which I mean Democrats and Progressives—are the biggest cheerleaders of the burgeoning strife between nuclear-armed powers, and not one federal officeholder is antiwar. (No, Bernie’s not antiwar.)

So it was disappointing to recently find out that this subset is even smaller than I suspected. I’m referring to the recent release of a statement by the Ukraine Solidarity Network (USN).

The statement has already been well-criticized by Richard Moser (“It Comes Down to Political Practice, It Comes Down to Weapons”), Ajamu Baraka (“The Ukrainian Solidarity Network: The Highest Stage of White Western Social Imperialism”) and Ron Jacobs (“Meditations on the Conflict in Europe”), and I encourage people to read their pieces, as each one contributes something important. For me, it’s not about agreeing with any one person 100% of the time; it’s about taking in different perspectives to try to see the big picture.

For my part, I will call attention to just three specific statements, and then move on to make general remarks about war and our current position.

1) The USN says: “Calling for “peace” in the abstract is meaningless in these circumstances.”

First, when war fever is as hot as it is now, just uttering the word, “peace,” makes you the target of slurs and vitriol. If it’s “meaningless” then why is it so viciously attacked? I totally understand if someone chooses to keep their mouth shut. I actually hold myself back much of the time. But we really need to be shouting it.

Secondly, the calls for peace that I’ve read or heard have not been “in the abstract.” They’ve generally been some version of what I laid out above, taking into account background and the current stances of officials on either side. Rather than “abstract,” they’ve been quite concrete. Code Pink has been especially good in this area. See the just published “What Steps Can the US Take to Foster Peace Talks in Ukraine?” (1/25/22) by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies.

2) The USN says it “supports Ukraine’s war of resistance, its right to determine the means and objectives of its own struggle – and we support its right to obtain the weapons it needs from any available source.”

The right of Ukraine to self-determination includes not just fighting but also negotiating, and that right was infringed upon by the UK in April 2022. The Ukrainian press reported that “British Prime Minister Boris Johnson used his surprise visit to Kyiv last month to pressure President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to cut off peace negotiations with Russia, even after the two sides appeared to have made tenuous progress toward a settlement to end the war.”

How many Ukrainians have died since April? How many Russians? How much money has the US spent on the conflict since then that is sorely needed here? Johnson’s meddling is quite possibly the second worst event of 2022, second only to the Russian invasion itself. If the USN were truly concerned about Ukraine’s self-determination, they would also call this out.

As for the “right to obtain weapons,” nobody needs to encourage anybody to “obtain weapons.” Everybody already knows they can do that. Everybody who wants to obtain weapons is already doing so, or trying. There is no shortage of weapons in the world. The only reason to make the statement is to stress that the signatories support the arming of Ukraine by the United States and its NATO allies. Who else would Ukraine “obtain weapons” from?

Disturbingly, the USN is echoing US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who said he believed “the right equipment” and the “right support” could help Ukraine win. (See the BBC: “Ukraine war: US wants to see a weakened Russia.”) Being on the same page as the US Secretary of Defense is not a good sign.

3) The USN says: “We seek to build connections to progressive organizations and movements in Ukraine” but they avoid mentioning that their own stance—explicit support of military engagement with Russia—is only one among several stances, and that—as in every country—”progressive” politics in Ukraine is a mix of parties, politicians, and interests that are not in consensus about everything, even the invasion. Have they forgotten that Zelenskyy was elected on a platform to end the war on the eastern provinces? Will they be reaching out to the leftist political parties that Zelenskyy banned, the largest of which was calling for negotiations with Russia after the invasion rather than fighting? I will believe USN is sincere if they actively try to build a connection to the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, whose organization’s executive secretary, Yurii Sheliazhenko, “calls for an end to US and NATO weapons to Ukraine. Arming Ukraine undermined past peace agreements and discouraged negotiations to end the current crisis, he says.” (See “Ukrainian Pacifist Movement: An Interview with Yurii Sheliazhenko.”)

Gerald Horne characterized the USN as a “pro-war formation.” They are certainly not antiwar.

Being antiwar is never about pushing to arm either side in a war.

Full stop.

I’ll repeat that with emphasis: Being antiwar is never about pushing to arm either side in a war.

Once you’re pushing to arm either side, you’re pro-war. Once you’re pro-war, you’re supporting many other evils: the arms industry, economic sanctions, conscription, censorship, imprisonment of dissidents, environmental damage, the consolidation of power by the ruling class. And of course death. The deaths of civilians are rightly held up first, but many soldiers are forced into their role by pressure of poverty or culture or a draft and even if they volunteered they are also victims. There are no heroes in war, except those who try to stop war.

As Chris Hedges writes, in “War is the Greatest Evil”:

“The primary lesson in war is that we as distinct individuals do not matter. We become numbers. Fodder. Objects. Life, once precious and sacred, becomes meaningless, sacrificed to the insatiable appetite of Mars. No one in wartime is exempt.”

Chris Hedges is not being theoretical. He spent two decades as a war correspondent and saw with his own eyes the horrors of the battlefield and the bombed city:

“I know what wounds look like. Legs blown off. Heads imploded into a bloody, pulpy mass. Gaping holes in stomachs. Pools of blood. Cries of the dying, sometimes for their mothers. And the smell. The smell of death. The supreme sacrifice made for flies and maggots.”

Once somebody “obtains weapons,” this is what they do with them. All the people urging the continuance of the conflict in Ukraine should picture their spouse with their legs blown off. Their mother’s head imploded into a bloody, pulpy mass. Gaping holes in their best friend’s stomach. Pools of blood under their neighbors. The cries of their own children as they die. These are the brutal things they are urging on other people. War is not game pieces on a Risk board.

Hedges warns us that war has its own inertia, and at some point can become unstoppable:

“Once war begins, no one, even those nominally in charge of waging war, can guess what will happen, how the war will develop, how it can drive armies and nations towards suicidal folly. There are no good wars. None.” [my emphasis]

Have we already passed that point with Russia? Will historians looking back consider that World War Three was already underway right now? Will there be historians to look back?

With so much hanging in such a perilous balance, anyone who does anything that reduces the chance of escalation, no matter how small, is doing something right in that moment, regardless of what else they might believe or do. Conversely, anyone who does anything that increases the chances of escalation, no matter how small, is doing something wrong in that moment, regardless of what else they might believe or do. Everyone makes mistakes. Also, we are social creatures and we get caught up in what everyone around us is doing, or—as is more likely these days—what the media is saying what everyone around us is doing, whether or not they are or not.

Maybe we need a new version of 1983’s made-for-TV movie, “The Day After,” a fictional account of the aftermath of a nuclear war between the US and the USSR. A hundred million people watched it (including me). President Reagan himself was moved by it, and it might well have played a role in his pursuit of nuclear disarmament with Gorbachev.

What “The Day After” did was remind people that when it comes to nuclear war, everybody has skin in the game. It’s one thing to be an armchair warrior taking sides in Syria or Iraq or Somalia (lest we forget, the US is still at war there) because what happens over there pretty much stays over there. You might as well be talking about a football game for all it’s going to affect you.

Not so when the missiles start flying. Not a single human being on earth will escape the consequences of even a limited exchange. A 2020 study estimated that the detonation of just 100 nuclear bombs would throw enough soot into the air to reduce world food supplies for a decade. Besides those killed in direct attacks, millions more would starve to death in the years that followed.

The study did not cover other effects, like how the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from a bomb blown up high in the atmosphere over a country can knock out its electronics and power grid. Think breakdown of the internet, communications, electricity, transportation, food distribution, the hospital system and non-cash transactions. Suddenly you’re cut off from everyone except the people in your immediate vicinity, with whatever you happen to have on hand in terms of necessities like food and water, and no way of getting more except by braving the panicked crowds that would soon form. Both the US and Russia are well aware of the power of EMPs and both developed plans for how to hit the other. Even if the US was struck only with a few well-placed EMPs, and no cities were blown up, the subsequent chaos and suffering would be incredibly miserable. Millions would die this way too. The country would never fully recover.

Then there’s the nightmare scenario of a full-on exchange of thousands of warheads, which would extinguish most life on the planet, not just humans.

Again, the stakes could hardly be higher. Doing anything other than trying to de-escalate our current situation is incredibly irresponsible. Hopefully this is the last you’ll hear about the USN because they end up sinking into obscurity. Or maybe, in the grand scheme of life, they just happen to end up being the one-more-little-thing that was needed to eventually tip the balance into absolute horror. Whatever the case, if the bombs do end up falling, may everyone who signed the “Solidarity with Ukraine!” statement be overwhelmed with sickening regret when they see the flash, feel the shock wave, or watch the mushroom cloud rise in the sky. Will it seem worth it then to have prattled on about the “right to obtain weapons”?

I am saddened and frustrated beyond words by the bellicose, dick-swinging political climate in the United States. So many people have hard-ons for their own hatred. It feels like we have a collective death wish and are slouching towards oblivion. I wish we had a more active antiwar movement. I am haunted by forebodings about the future, and I hope more than anything that my fears end up being unfounded. But I don’t know. Neither does anyone else. Which is why no one is justified in pushing for anything other than peace right now. There’s nothing “abstract” about survival vs. extinction.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kollibri terre Sonnenblume is a writer, photographer, podcaster, tree hugger, animal lover, ecoanimalist, and cultural dissident. Past experiences include urban bike farmer, Indymedia activist, and music critic. Kollibri holds a BA in “Writing Fiction & Non-fiction” from the St. Olaf Paracollege in Northfield, Minnesota.
Follow Kollibri at: Facebook | Instagram | Medium • email: kollibri (AT) macskamoksha.com



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Up to You.

^3000US citizens have no real political representation.

We don't live in a democracy. And our freedom is disappearing fast.

I don't want to be ruled by hypocrites, whores, and war criminals.

What about you? Time to push back against the corporate oligarchy.

And its multitude of minions and lackeys.


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ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS




WILL PUTIN SAVE THE WORLD?

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DEFEAT CAPITALISM AND ITS DEADLY WARMONGERING SPAWN, IMPERIALISM
ecological murder • endless wars • ingrained racism & social injustice • worker exploitation • incurable via reforms

Garland Nixon


28 Jab 2023
As Iran, not to mention Russia or China, have amply demonstrated, the Anglo-American empire is no longer the sole possessor of superior and lethal military technology, says Garland Nixon. This new balancing of military power is now clearly limiting the use of US military muscle in the criminal manner the Washington elites and their accomplices around the world had grown accustomed to. This is a welcome and long-awaited development for humanity, but, reminds us Garland, "the US empire is still a massive economic and military superpower that has fallen into the hands of psychopaths."

Garland Nixon

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Garland Nixon is a widely respected anti-imperialist radio talk show host, podcaster and geopolitical analyst. He currently lives in Washington, DC.


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Up to You.

^3000US citizens have no real political representation.

We don't live in a democracy. And our freedom is disappearing fast.

I don't want to be ruled by hypocrites, whores, and war criminals.

What about you? Time to push back against the corporate oligarchy.

And its multitude of minions and lackeys.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

NOTE: ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Read it in your language • Lealo en su idioma • Lisez-le dans votre langue • Lies es in Deiner Sprache • Прочитайте это на вашем языке • 用你的语言阅读



Through Corruption, Arrogance and Incompetence: The West Has Lost Already

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DEFEAT CAPITALISM AND ITS DEADLY SPAWN, IMPERIALISM
ecological murder • endless wars • ingrained racism & social injustice • worker exploitation • incurable via reforms

Gonzalo Lira


EDITOR'S PREFATORY NOTE

Sounds harsh and even flippant, but the logic of history and economics is irrefutable. The US empire is going down, a victim of its own obvious mistakes, the weight of innumerable errors neglected by the colossal level of hubris and corruption permeating the ruling elites of the West, headquartered in Washington, and the inexorable, myopic often chaotic thinking inherent in capitalism. Ironically, it is not solely the defeats in the military sense that are contributing so much to the downfall from supremacy, although they represent a major component of the problem, but, as Lira points out, the concomitant bloating of the financial sphere, where the accumulating contradictions of capitalism, chiefly the US public and private debt, and the resulting loss of dollar solvency, are causing a refusal by hitherto key "vassal" nations (i.e., Saudi Arabia) to continue trading exclusively in dollars. This, says Lira, and we agree entirely, is hammering the last nails into the Anglo-American empire coffin, regardless of the outcome of the Ukrainian war.—PG



28 Jan 2023

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Gonzalo Lira is a redreshingly outspoken Chilean-American vlogger dedicated to cultural and geopolitical analyses. He currently blogs from (of all places) Kharkiv, in Ukraine, which, need we mention, requires some big cojones. Direct and without pretense, but almost invariably astute, his diagnoses are usually spot on.


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Up to You.

^3000US citizens have no real political representation.

We don't live in a democracy. And our freedom is disappearing fast.

I don't want to be ruled by hypocrites, whores, and war criminals.

What about you? Time to push back against the corporate oligarchy.

And its multitude of minions and lackeys.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

NOTE: ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Read it in your language • Lealo en su idioma • Lisez-le dans votre langue • Lies es in Deiner Sprache • Прочитайте это на вашем языке • 用你的语言阅读