The Empire Doesn’t Hide Its Worst Deeds, It Just Manipulates How People Think About Them

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Caitlin Johnstone
ROGUE JOURNALIST

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The worst actions of your government happen not in secrecy, but right out in the open under the narrative cover of mass media propaganda. The western empire doesn’t hide its worst deeds, it just manipulates the way people think about them.

Tomorrow we could unearth rock-solid proof that the US government knowingly orchestrated 9/11, and that crime in and of itself still wouldn’t be as bad as what the US government is facilitating in Gaza right now, in plain view of the entire world. And even if such a revelation did occur, the imperial media would probably either ignore it or spin it so that its impact is dulled into impotence.

The empire’s worst atrocities happen in the open because the empire’s worst atrocities involve butchering and starving huge numbers of people, which is impossible to do in secret. They can assassinate a government official here and sign a malignant secret agreement there without needing to do it openly, but murder at mass scale isn’t something you can conceal in the information age.

The US-centralized globe-spanning power structure therefore relies heavily on its historically unprecedented ability to psychologically manipulate global populations when carrying out such atrocities. The empire has invested more heavily in soft power than any empire or government in human history, and the science of modern propaganda has been advancing under this investment at least as rapidly as military technology has been.

That’s why you can have the most damning information imaginable about the people who rule over us sitting right out in the open, and you won’t see anywhere remotely close to the public outrage and backlash you ought to see. The US government can literally back a genocide without hiding any part of it, and the political-media class will simply manipulate public psychology into getting lost in a bunch of hogwash about self-defense and human shields and difficulties delivering food and medical supplies and hey Biden is working hard to do the right thing here and it’s all very complicated and everything bad that happens in Gaza can be blamed on Hamas anyway.

It’s a truly astonishing power that would inspire awe if it wasn’t so evil. Power is controlling what happens, but real power is controlling what people think about what happens.

Whistleblowers and investigative journalists provide an invaluable service to humanity for which we should all be grateful, but what this civilization needs more than anything right now is not so much new information about what the powerful are doing, but rather the ability to lucidly perceive the information that’s already been made public. We need people clearly seeing what’s already right in front of them, without the lens of distortion and obfuscation that the powerful have placed over their eyes.

Until we find a way to snap a critical mass of people out of the propaganda-induced coma the empire has placed them in, they’ll be able to get away with any evil they need to commit in order to secure their interests and advance their agendas. We can work on this front by doing everything we can to get people looking at the reality of what our rulers are doing at every opportunity, in as creative and interesting a way as we can come up with. The more eyes open to the truth, the more lucid perceivers there will be to help open the eyes of others.

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This is a dispatch from our ongoing series by Caitlin Johnstone


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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Lebanon-Israel Front Is REALLY Heating Up (Gaza War Military Analysis)

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Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. And that's a fact. 

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Jimmy Dore Dispatches: Interviewing Controversial US General Anthony Tata

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The Jimmy Dore Show

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Jimmy Tells American General “The U.S. Is The World’s Biggest Terrorist!”

Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. And that's a fact. 

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How Many Gazans Have Already Died? Perhaps 200,000.

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Ralph Nader


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Gaza destroyed— (TGP screenshot)


Since the Hamas raid penetrated the multi-tiered Israeli border security on October 7, 2023 (an unexplained collapse of Israel’s defensive capabilities), 2.3 million utterly defenseless Palestinians in the tiny crowded Gaza; enclave have been on the receiving end of over 65,000 bombs and missiles plus non-stop tank shelling and snipers.

The extreme right-wing Netanyahu regime has enforced its declared siege of, in its genocidal words, “no food, no water, no electricity, no fuel, no medicine.”

The relentless bombing has destroyed apartment buildings, marketplaces, refugee camps, hospitals, clinics, ambulances, bakeries, schools, mosques, churches, roads, electricity networks, critical water mains—just about everything.

With virtually no healthcare left, no medications, and infectious diseases spreading especially among infants, children, the infirm, and the elderly, can anybody believe that the fatalities have just gone over 30,000? With 5,000 babies born every month into the rubble, their mothers wounded and without food, healthcare, medicine, and clean water for any of their children, severe skepticism about the Hamas Health Ministry’s official count is warranted.

The relentless bombing has destroyed apartment buildings, marketplaces, refugee camps, hospitals, clinics, ambulances, bakeries, schools, mosques, churches, roads, electricity networks, critical water mains—just about everything.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas, which he helped over the years, have a common interest in lowballing the death and injury toll. But for different reasons. Hamas keeps the figures low to reduce being accused by its own people of not protecting them, and not building shelters. Hamas grossly underestimated the savage war crimes by the vengeful, occupying Israeli military superpower fully and unconditionally backed by the U.S. military superpower.

The Health Ministry is intentionally conservative, citing that its death toll came from reports only of named deceased by hospitals and morgues. But as the weeks turned into months, blasted, disabled hospitals and morgues cannot keep up with the bodies, or cannot count those slain laying on roadsides in allies and beneath building debris. Yet the Health Ministry remains conservative and the “official” rising civilian fatality and injury count continues to be uncritically reported by both friend and foe of this devastating Israeli state terrorism.

It was especially astonishing to see the most progressive groups and writers routinely use the same Hamas Health Ministry figures as did the governments and outside groups backing the one-sided war on Gaza. All this despite predictions of a human catastrophe in the Gaza Strip almost every day since October 7, 2023 by arms of the United Nations, other besieged international relief agencies on the ground, eyewitness accounts by medical personnel, and many Israeli human rights groups and brave local journalists in that strip, the geographic size of Philadelphia. (Unguided Western and Israeli reporters and journalists are not allowed to enter Gaza by the Israeli government.) (See the open letter, titled “Stop the Humanitarian Catastrophe,” to President Joe Biden on December 13, 2023 by 16 Israeli human rights groups that also appeared as a paid notice in The New York Times.)

Then came the December 29, 2023 opinion piece in The Guardian by the chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, Devi Sridhar. She predicted half a million deaths in 2024 if conditions continue unabated.

In recent days, the situation has become more dire. In the March 2, 2024 Washington Post, reporter, Ishaan Tharoor writes:

The bulk of Gaza’s more than 2 million people face the prospect of famine—a state of affairs that constitutes the fastest decline in a population’s nutrition status ever recorded, according to aid workers. Children are starving at the fastest rate the world has ever known. Aid groups have been pointing to Israel restricting the flow of assistance into the territory as a major driver of the crisis. Some prominent Israeli officials openly champion stymying these transfers of aid.

Tharoor quotes Jan Egeland, chief of the Norwegian Refugee Council: “We must be clear: civilians in Gaza are falling sick from hunger and thirst because of Israel’s entry restrictions,” and “Life-saving supplies are being intentionally blocked, and women and children are paying the price.”

Martin Griffiths, the United Nations lead humanitarian officer, said “Life is draining out of Gaza at terrifying speed.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, according to the Post, warned of an “‘unknown number of people’—believed to be in the tens of thousands—lying under the rubble of buildings brought down by Israeli strikes.”

Volker Turk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said, “All people in Gaza are at imminent risk of famine. Almost all are drinking salty and contaminated water. Healthcare across the territory is barely functioning,” and “Just imagine what this means for the wounded, and people suffering infectious-disease outbreaks… many are already believed to be starving.”

UNICEF, the International Rescue Committee, the Palestinian Red Crescent, and Doctors Without Borders are all relating that the same catastrophic conditions are getting worse fast.

Yet, and get this, in this article, the Post still stuck with the “more than 30,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the ongoing war began.”

Just like the entire mass media, many governments, even the independent media and critics of the war would have us accept that between 98% and 99% of Gaza’s entire population has survived—albeit the sick, injured, and more Palestinians about to die. This is lethally improbable!

From accounts of people on the ground, videos and photographs of deadly episode after episode, plus the resultant mortalities from blocking or smashing the crucial necessities of life, a more likely estimate, in my appraisal, is that at least 200,000 Palestinians must have perished by now and the toll is accelerating by the hour.

Imagine Americans, if this powerful U.S.-made weaponry was fired on the besieged, homeless, trapped people of Philadelphia, do you think that only 30,000 of that city’s 1.5 million people would have been killed?

Daily circumstantial evidence of the deliberate Israeli targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructures requires more reliable epidemiological estimates of casualties.

It matters greatly whether the aggregate toll so far, and counting, is three, four, five, six times more than the Health Ministry’s undercount. It matters for elevating the urgency for a permanent cease-fire, and direct and massive humanitarian aid by the U.S. and other countries, bypassing the sadistic cruelty against innocent families of the Israeli siege. It matters for the columnists and editorial writers who have been self-censoring themselves, with some, like the Post’s Charles Lane, fictionally claiming that Israel’s military doesn’t “intentionally target civilians.” It matters for accountability under international law.

Above all, it lets weak Secretary of State Antony Blinken and duplicitous President Biden be less servile when Netanyahu dismisses the low death toll by taunting them: What about Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki?

As a percentage of the total population being killed, Gaza can expose the Israeli ruling racist extremists to a stronger rebuttal for ending U.S. co-belligerent complicity in this never-to-be-forgotten slaughter of mostly children and women. (The terrifying PTSD on civilians, especially children, will continue for years.)

Respecting the more accurate casualty toll of Palestinian children, mothers, and fathers presses harder for permanent cease-fires and the process of recovery and reparations for the survivors of their holocaust.

(Republished from Common Dreams by permission of author or representative)

Anti-corporate crusader and lifelong public advocate Ralph Nader requires no further introduction. 

 

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Youhoo! Tucker! Here is why Putin calls for denazification (which you called “the dumbest thing I ever heard of”).

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Tucker quote (reacting to Putin’s stated goal of denazifying Ukraine): "I thought it was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. I didn’t understand what it meant. Denazification?

EDITOR'S NOTE
Despite the heroic Russian effort, which has eliminated a significant number of fascists, Ukraine is still crawling with native Nazis, but to many American ears the assertion sounds outlandish. Apparently that includes Tucker, who (don't laugh) is among the best still visible US journalists. (The rest on the mainstream TV and legacy media are chiefly disinformers).  The author of this column, Don Hank, covers these topics —and much more— excellently. 
 
I’m merely saying there isn’t a Nazi movement in 2024. It’s a way of calling people evil. Calling them [Ukrainians] Nazis, I thought it was childish."- he said, as quoted by Pravda!

I guess if Tucker heard a Chinese person speaking his native language, he’d say “I didn’t understand a thing he said. It sounded really dumb to me.”

[(Here’s the link to yesterday’s newsletter: https://donhank.substack.com/p/if-hezbollah-missiles-could-expel (sorry, I had forgotten to add it to the email)]

We Americans are taught to think this way. If you don’t understand something foreign, then it’s stupid, right?  We’re the smart ones, the intellectual leaders of the planet.

We didn’t understand socialism, so we sent bombers to Korea and then to Vietnam to kill these people we couldn’t understand, killing millions of them. And we wonder why North Korea doesn’t like us sweet god-fearing Israel-loving Americans.

So who’s dumb? Oh, not the Americans, right, Tucker? If we can’t understand some people we send the Marines to kill them all. Good idea, eh, Tucker? Cause that’s the smart American thing to do!

Tucker’s superficial way of thinking is why many Americans unquestioningly buy into the Neocon message that Russians are evil and want to take over the world. After all, if we can’t understand them, they MUST be up to something evil. [The ruling class and its think tank mercenaries is not that dumb. THEY know that socialism works much better than capitalism, and that socialist countries—given half a cance to compete fairly—would soon bury capitalist powers. —Ed]

I had commented previously on Tucker’s weird response to Putin’s reference to denazification, which he admitted he didn’t understand. I reminded readers that, according to Newsweek (not a known conspiracy theorist tabloid), the Ukrainian regime officially celebrates the birthday of known Hitler collaborator Stepan Bandera on January 1 of every year.

Now, for a person with normal intellect, any country’s officially celebrating the birthday of a Nazi would be a big red flag. It would be a sign that the ruling class there warms up to goose steppers. Further, the fact that the US regime supports these Nazis would reflect on us as well. However, if you saw Tucker’s Putin interview, you noticed that he sat through Putin’s initial history lesson with a furrowed brow, looking uncomfortable. Tucker obviously hates non-PC history and other intellectual pursuits and this first part of the interview really soured him against Putin, who was saying things that, in George Soros’ America, we just aren’t supposed to talk about.

Because America not only ignores and rejects intellectual subjects, it has imposed a tacit ban on them – in fact, in US satrapy Europe, Russian news publications Sputnik and RT are outright banned. Be sure to read the next article pertaining to dumbed-down US academe.

(Today’s air strike update is the last article of this newsletter)

En Ucrania renombran una calle en honor de un colaborador nazi - 05.03.2024, Sputnik Mundo (sputniknews.lat)

Translation from Spanish with my notes in bold and in [brackets]

In Ukraine a street is renamed in honor of a Nazi collaborator

05.03.2024, Sputnik Mundo (sputniknews.lat)

In Ukraine they rename a street in honor of a Nazi collaborator

Pyotr Diachenko,. The Americans happily gave him refuge, and he died in 1965 in New Jersey.

Pavlográdskaya Street in the Ukrainian city of Nikopol was renamed in honor of the Nazi collaborator, fanatical anti-communist, and accomplice of the Holocaust Pyotr Diachenko, awarded by Hitler for his services to Nazi Germany, as reported by the Ukrainian Jewish Committee. From Russia they declare that nowhere in the world is Nazism promoted at the state level like in Kiev.

[This renaming was certainly not well received by the local residents because Nikopol is located in Zaporozhye, a Russian speaking oblast with strong sympathies for Russia]

"The City Council of the Ukrainian city of Nikopol renamed Pavlográdskaya Street in honor of the Nazi war criminal, accomplice of the Holocaust, executor of punitive actions against civilians, officer of the Galizien Division of the SS, commander of the 31st Schutzmannschaft SD battalion, and head of collaborationist units Piotr Diachenko", indicates the director of the organization Eduard Dolinski on his social networks.

He stressed that Diachenko was awarded the Iron Cross for crimes committed in particular against Jews. [And this occurred under the watchless gaze of a Jewish Kiev regime. I can’t begin to tell you how this is possible. Only Zelensky knows]

The SS Galizien Division was a military unit within Nazi Germany's elite corps, the Waffen-SS, led by Heinrich Himmler. Created on April 28, 1943, after the occupation of Ukraine, it was made up of more than 80,000 Nazi collaborators, mostly from the Ukrainian oblast of Galicia. During the Second World War, the ranks of the division carried out police force tasks, combating partisans and intimidating the population, committing numerous atrocities against civilians on the territory of the Soviet Union and Poland.

Young Ukrainian soldiers performing a Nazi salute - Sputnik World, 1920, 02/22/2024

Neo-Nazism in Ukraine

"There are no Nazis in Ukraine": Internet users react to young Ukrainians giving the Nazi salute

Photo link: https://sputniknews.lat/20240222/no-hay-nazis-en-ucrania-internautas-reaccionan-a-jovenes-ucranianos-haciendo-el-saludo-nazi-1148452520.html

 

February 22, 18:02 GMT

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote in February on her Telegram channel that kyiv (or Kiev) could soon begin "canonizing collaborators of the Ukrainian ultranationalist Stepan Bandera." [News flash for Maria Zakharova: The Kiev regime already canonizes Bandera. On Jan 1 of every year, Ukraine officially celebrates this Nazi’s birthday.]

From Russia they have declared on several occasions that neo-Nazi crimes against civilians in Ukraine are ethnic cleansing, punishment actions. By supporting Kiev, Western countries are normalizing Nazism, they added. The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, pointed out that nowhere in the world is Nazism promoted at the state level like in Kiev.

Translation from Spanish with my notes in bold and in [brackets]

https://sputniknews.lat/20240222/no-hay-nazis-en-ucrania-internautas-reaccionan-a-jovenes-ucranianos-haciendo-el-saludo-nazi-1148452520.html

"There are no Nazis in Ukraine": Internet users react to young Ukrainians giving the Nazi salute

18:02 GMT 02/22/2024

Although the Kiev authorities assure that "there is no Nazism" in Ukraine, videos that appear periodically show the opposite [but Tucker Carlson doesn’t read these reports because he thinks they are “dumb” and that is Putin’s fault] Recently, Internet users were outraged by a video in which underage Ukrainian fighters sing a song glorifying Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera and give Nazi salutes.

Video link: https://sputniknews.lat/20240222/no-hay-nazis-en-ucrania-internautas-reaccionan-a-jovenes-ucranianos-haciendo-el-saludo-nazi-1148452520.html

"A group of 17-year-olds are taught Nazi songs in preparation for death," comments one user, while another warns: "The poor kids don't even know what meat grinder is already waiting for them."

"That's why Zelensky has taken control of the state media, probably he has told [the young people] that they are winning," he speculates.

"Does this sound familiar to you?" asks the next one, referring to a photo of Hitler with members of the Hitler Youth during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, "Does anyone really want to experience something like that again?"

"Degeneration in its purest form" and "Indoctrination, 101", the others add.

"How much truth there is in the words 'Whoever forgets their history is condemned to repeat it,'" emphasized one Internet user.

"There are no Nazis in Ukraine, Zelensky said," the other ironically concluded.

Even the recently sacked Gen. Zalushny is proud to show his Neonazi loyalties. Former Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valeri Zaluzhny with Commander of the Ukrainian 67th Mechanized Brigade Andriy Stempitski pose in front of a portrait of Stepan Bandera - Sputnik World, 1920, 02/11/2024

 

Photo link: https://sputniknews.lat/20240211/la-foto-de-zaluzhni-con-elementos-neonazis-amenaza-a-zelenski-1148156547.html

Zaluzhni's photo with neo-Nazi elements "threatens" Zelensky

February 11, 17:52 GMT

Although this video was filmed some time ago, it demonstrates how the practice of educating children in a nationalist way has spread in Ukraine, through camps and children's organizations dedicated to this.

Stepan Bandera was a Ukrainian ultranationalist who served as leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (banned in Russia) in the first half of the 20th century. His anti-Jewish, anti-Russian and anti-Polish ideas brought him closer to Nazi Germany before and during its invasion of the USSR.

The OUN perpetrated countless crimes, the most notable of which is considered the massacre of the Polish civilian population in Volhynia (western Ukraine) in 1943, as well as thousands of Ukrainians for refusing to collaborate with ultranationalists.

Today the Ukrainian authorities place monuments to [Nazi] Bandera, promote songs about him and educate new generations with his ideology.

**

Russophobia in the Ivy League

I had my first personal exposure to Russophobia in the 70s.

I took a few undergrad courses in Russian (not my major) and when I felt I was fluent enough to go to a higher level, I decided to take a Master’s degree in Russian language, with the sole purpose not of enhancing my earning power but simply to build up my fluency and learn as much as I could about an admirable people and their beautiful language and culture.

Along my journey I enrolled in a Russian study tour in Leningrad with the CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange), where I had another strange brush with Russophobia in academe.

I was sitting in a break room at the student dorm with a group including 2 tour guides from Inturist and a young American gentleman, whom I had taken for a student. We were speaking Russian as usual. Somehow the conversation drifted toward academe and it came out that the young man was one of the chaperones and had a doctorate in Russian (whatever that means in America). At this point, since I was vaguely interested in perhaps pursuing a doctorate as well, I said “you have a doctorate in Russian?”

I guess I must have sounded surprised that the guy would have such a high degree in Russian, but that was not my intent at all. He scowled and snapped defensively something like “yes, I do for your information!”

I had not paid any attention to the quality of his Russian but I guess he may have been full of complexes due to a sense of linguistic inadequacy. But was that my fault?

I had once heard that some American profs who teach Russian are not that good. As for those who are native Russians, they are kept from revealing their inadequacy by the American majority on staff. Which would have been an easy task for the Americans because a certain percentage of these native-Russian profs were escapees from the Soviet Union and were already intimidated by the general Russophobia endemic to America.

Later, it eventually dawned on me that this Russophobia to which I was exposed – and didn’t know its name yet – was only part of a bigger phenomenon that I call Westernness, which is in fact an infectious psycho-social disease, ie, primarily a way of thinking and functioning, one of whose symptoms is a general recalcitrant mediocrity and incompetence that in America has spread throughout academe, the professions, politics (in particular), the military, the think tanks, intelligence agencies, the media, Big Religion and the general populace. But it is also a sociopathy, making it invisible to the wide public. This stands in contrast to what I call Easternness, a way of thinking that not only is not a psychosocial disease but is in fact the remedy for the infectious epidemic of Westernness. Easternness is prevalent in Russia, China and countries allied with them. It is responsible for the economic prosperity of China and the military and diplomatic superiority of Russia – which in turn have given rise to enormous (but ineffectual) blowback from the incompetent Western political class.

I believe that once the West begins to understand Easternness, or Eastern thought, it will realize that it is beginning to heal. I suppose that if I could bottle it, I could become a millionaire. I could of course also wind up in jail, sharing a cell with Julian Assange.

IMPORTANT RELATED CONTENT:

America’s Super-Elite Disconnect

Later, I started looking for a university to further my knowledge of Russian. I didn’t realize it yet, but academe was exactly the wrong place to look for knowledge in the West.

Around that time a friend of mine who had a Bachelor’s degree in Russian from Franklin and Marshall in Lancaster, PA, and was fluent in Russian, was accepted to Yale to work on his Master’s in Russian. After he returned on a break from his first semester, he told me that the profs in all his classes taught only in English. He lamented that, as a graduate student of Russian, he was forgetting his Russian.

Now let me back up and reassure you that the undergraduate courses in colleges that offer Russian are taught in Russian and the profs I knew of then were first rate. It was on the graduate level where it all fell apart.

My friend’s story did not surprise me. While I was studying Russian at a summer school in Colby College in Maine, one of my profs, Dr. Yury Grinberg, told me that my Russian was better than that of the head of the Russian Department of Harvard.

At first I refused to believe it, but he pressed me until I realized he was telling the truth. And to be sure, I did spend a lot of my free time reading Russian short stories and I imagined I was not half bad.

My Lancaster friend confirmed what Yury Grinberg had told me, namely, that none of the US big name universities, including Ivy League ones, taught the Master’s level Russian courses in Russian.

Dr. Grinberg also told me that in his Midwestern home, people had looked at him with suspicion when he received packages, mostly books, from the Soviet Union. Even the postman treated him like a leper. I didn’t know the word “Russophobia” then but I could feel its icy grip.

During my search for a suitable Master’s course, just as an experiment, I called Harvard and spoke with the head of the Russian Department. I told him I might be interested in doing my Master’s course work there and acted a little hesitant to make him think I was afraid I would not know enough Russian. He told me not to worry, that all the course work was done with English translations of Russian literature.

So this was how it was then.

I had explored the Master’s level course offerings of various colleges in other languages like German, French and Spanish and learned that these were taught in the languages in question. The students read works of literature in the languages in question, wrote papers in the language, heard lectures in the language, etc. These were real language courses.

Only the Russian course was taught in English.

I was getting apprehensive. Was this a conspiracy?

During my search for a college, a friend of a friend told me that she was taking a Master’s level course in Russian at Bryn Mawr on a scholarship and the head of the Russian department was desperate to find more students, offering scholarships to warm bodies. Apparently there was not much demand for Russian courses. I drove down there for an interview.

Knowing what I had learned about big name colleges teaching Russian Master’s level courses only in English, I approached her with feigned apprehension, asking if there was a chance I would not understand her lectures or the course work.

“Oh, there’s nothing to worry about,” she reassured me smiling. “It’s all in English!”

“What about the reading material?”

“It’s all English translations of Russian literature.” Still smiling.

“Why do you call it a Russian course if we aren’t able to hear and read the language?”

With her Smile wiped off, she stammered out: “Some of the students wouldn’t understand if it were in Russian. I’m very jealous of my degrees.”

“So you’re afraid you might accidentally confer a Master’s degree in Russian on someone who knows Russian,” I thought, but didn’t say it.

Needless to say I gave that course a miss.

At any rate, I placed a few more calls and located a no-name college, Kutztown State, where I came across an eccentric prof by the name of Dr. Richard Fortune, who became my Russian prof for the next 3 years or so. He was a lovely person but a stickler for the Russian language, never once lapsing into English in class.

Dr. Fortune had taken his doctorate at Columbia University — where his “Russian” profs also only taught in English in our Kafkaesque America where mediocrity is not only tolerated but is enforced with rigid rules to prevent students from getting too familiar with the language of a hated enemy of the state. Apparently there was a real fear that Russian students might start thinking like Russians and start joining terrorist gangs or sympathizing with communism.

On one occasion, Dr. Fortune was not available for a course for a semester, and I was obliged to take another prof. This prof was a Russian native. I only went to one class because this man turned out to be a fanatical anti-Soviet with a chip on his shoulder. He spent the whole class hour talking about the evils of the Soviet Union. In English. I dropped the class.

I often think about Franz Kafka and try to imagine his life as a youngster and what it must have been like.

I passed his family home the one time I visited Prague. It was closed to tourists that day but as I contemplated the exterior I imagined Franz sitting at his typewriter in a dingy attic room batting out those strange dreamlike stories of his, and I wondered what his life must have been like.

Surreal I supposed, something like life in Amerika.

**

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/yemens-houthis-say-they-target-two-us-warships-red-sea-2024-03-05/

The Houthis have targeted 2 genocide-supporting US warships in the Red Sea.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/a-suspected-attack-by-yemen-s-houthi-rebels-damages-a-ship-in-the-gulf-of-aden/ar-BB1jovIP?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=4b0fc683a2784a099789ab11a2096471&ei=14

A suspected attack by Yemen's Houthi rebels damages a ship in the Gulf of Aden

Story by JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press

**

If you are pro-Palestine, Biden – as bad as he’s been – is probably the best choice!

Genocide Joe or Baby Slayer Trump. Which do you prefer?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/6/trumps-talk-on-gaza-highlights-stark-choice-for-voters-in-us-election

Trump’s Gaza comments highlight tough choice for peace-supporting US voters

Former president’s rhetoric shows voters seeking to punish Joe Biden for backing Israel face dilemma in upcoming election.

**

Here’s your daily air strike update for Mar 6, 2024 (plus some battlefield reports)

Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]

Refer to this map to locate the oblasts mentioned in the following texts (many of them are western)

https://ok.ru/yesttaka/topic/157847383619761

The Russian Armed Forces have delivered missile strikes and continue to destroy the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

On March 6, 2024, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue a special operation in Ukraine to protect Donbass, as well as the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. On March 6, 2024, the Russian Armed Forces launched massive powerful missile strikes with Kh-101 ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles against military-industrial complex and infrastructure facilities in Ukraine. [The Kh-101 is a subsonic missile. It is long-range and highly precise]

On the morning of March 6, 2024, a strike was carried out with long-range precision weapons. Air raid alert in Sumy, Poltava, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk and Nikolaevoblasts, as well as in parts of the Zaporozhye and Kherson oblasts controlled by Kiev. At 4 a.m. Moscow time, an air raid alert covered almost the entire territory of Ukraine. Explosions were heard in the Kiev oblast, Chuguev, and the Kharkov and Sumy oblasts. The airfield of the Ukrainian Air Force in Starokonstantinov has been disabled. [This airfield gets hit regularly]

Over the past 24 hours, on March 5, 2024, fighter aircraft and air defense of the Russian Aerospace Forces shot down four Su-27 and one MiG-29 in the Zhitomirarea, one Su-27 and one Su-25 in the Radomyshl area, one Su-25 in the Nizhyn area, one MiG-29 of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Nikolaev oblast, one Mi-8 in the Kiev area, six unmanned aerial vehicles, including the Bayraktar TB-2.

Bomber and attack aircraft hit 3 Buk M1 anti-aircraft missile systems and 3 Ukrainian Armed Forces radar stations. The missile forces destroyed an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system.

The bases of the personnel of the Ukrainian armed forces in the Chuguev village area and in Martovo, Kharkov oblast, were hit.

In Ternopil, an explosion occurred on the territory of a railway repair and mechanical plant. NATO equipment damaged on the battlefield is being restored there.

In the Khmelnitsky oblast, Geran drones burned down the airfield, which was used by Su-24s, to launch Western missiles at Crimea. Two weeks ago, after the last strike, the airfield received serious damage. Now there is also little left of it.

As a result of a missile strike on Ukrainian Armed Forces facilities in the Dnepropetrovsk oblast, an equipment assembly shop for armored vehicles and a warehouse with parts were hit.

The Russian Armed Forces hit Odessa and Ilyichevsk with Gerans in the dark. Izmail{Odessa oblast] is burning, while in Odessa there are significant problems with power supply. Last night, Russian troops hit targets in Odessa City and the Odessa oblast.

Swarms of Geran 2 drones are attacking Ukraine, causing panic in enemy territory. Powerful explosions are heard in Odessa and throughout Ukraine. Strikes were recorded in the Kiev oblast, Kharkov, Vinnitsa, Ternopil, Sumy oblasts and Chernihiv oblast. The bases of Ukrainian armed forces personnel in the Chuguev area of the Kharkov oblast were hit.

Over the past 24 hours, Russian troops have hit positions of manpower and equipment of the Ukrainian army in 20 settlements of the Kharkov oblast with high-precision strikes.

On March 6, 2024, the Russian Armed Forces destroyed 1,215 militants of the Ukrainian Armed Forces

In the Kupyansk area [Kharkov oblast], on March 6, 2024, artillerymen of the 1st Guards Tank Army of the Western Group of Forces, using the Akatsiya self-propelled gun, destroyed a tank of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in the Kupyansk area. The Russian Aerospace Forces are striking at pontoon bridges across the Oskol River and hitting concentrations and headquarters in the Kupyansk district. The Russian army advances towards Ternov and Yampolovka. The Russian Armed Forces were able to gain a foothold in Ternov, the Russian group is pushing back the militants from the eastern flank. In the Kupyansk area, motorized rifle units, in cooperation with artillery and aviation, improved the tactical situation and hit several concentrations of militants and equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The group’s artillery units hit 63 targets, including temporary deployment points, platoon strongholds, artillery positions, concentrations of manpower and equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. During the counter-battery fight, the group’s artillery destroyed a mortar crew and an ammunition supply point in the Sverdlovka area.

Over 160 Ukrainian Armed Forces militants, a 152-mm Msta-B gun, a mortar crew and three vehicles were destroyed.

In the Donetsk area, on March 6, 2024, in the Avdeevka sector, the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to lose armored vehicles, trying to hold positions in the area of Berdychi, Orlovka and Tonenkoye. Our troops are advancing to the center of Pervomaisky, Krasnogorovka and Novomikhailovka. In the Donetsk area, there is also progress on several sectors of the front at once. Here the Russian Armed Forces are advancing in three directions at once from Marinka. The Northern Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are putting pressure on Georgievka, where Russian troops managed to advance along the railway track, occupy the warehouse, and also started fighting in the area of Vatutina Street and are moving towards an abandoned car repair plant. On the western flank, in Georgievka, the Russian Armed Forces advanced along Tsentralnaya Street to the intersection with Molodezhnaya Street and thus managed to clear the southern part in Stavki, which cuts Georgievka into two parts. In the Donetsk area, units of the Southern Group of Forces, conducting active combat operations, occupied more advantageous positions along the front line, defeated formations of the 5th, 92nd assault, 22nd, 28th and 54th mechanized, as well as 56th th motorized infantry brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the areas of the settlements of Bogdanovka, Kleshcheevka, Andreevka, Zakotnoye and Pershe Travnya of the Donetsk People's Republic

Over 260 Ukrainian Armed Forces militants, two tanks, two armored personnel carriers, two armored fighting vehicles, 14 vehicles, an Msta-B howitzer and two Gvozdika self-propelled artillery units were destroyed, and three Ukrainian Armed Forces ammunition depots were destroyed

In the Krasnoarmeysky (Avdeevsky area is now called Krasnoarmeysky) area on March 6, 2024, Russian troops the day before destroyed another sixth Abrams tank. The crew of the T-72B3 destroyed the Abrams in the Avdeevsk area with the first shot. Currently, 4 US tanks are rusting on the battlefield (the fourth was destroyed yesterday), as well as 2 more Abrams-based mine clearance vehicles. They will become Russian trophies. Moscow is waiting for a captured Abrams tank. The Ukrainian Armed Forces militants will not be able to pick up their crippled vehicles because the front is shifting to the west. Russian assault forces penetrated the southern part of the settlement Krasnoye and the northern part of the Berdychi village. The Russian Armed Forces are gradually moving west of Avdeevka. Artillery fire destroyed 11 support forces of Ukrainian militants, and Aerospace Forces aviation is working in places where enemy manpower and armored vehicles are concentrated. Units of the “Center” group of troops, as a result of coordinated actions, occupied more-advantageous lines and positions in the Avdeevka area, and also inflicted fire on the forces and equipment of seven brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in the areas of the settlements of Novopokrovskoye, Ocheretino, Novoselovka Pervaya and Toretsk of the Donetsk People’s Republic Republic (DPR).

In addition, Russian military personnel repelled three attacks by assault groups of the Ukrainian army in the areas of the settlements of Leninskoye and Novgorodskoye, as well as nine counterattacks in the areas of the settlements of Berdychi, Tonenkoye, Pervomaiskoye, Orlovka and Vodyanoye of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR).

Up to 460 militants of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were destroyed, two tanks, one of them Abrams made in the USA was destroyed by the crew of the T-72B3 tank from the first shot, a self-propelled firing installation of the Buk anti-aircraft missile system, four infantry fighting vehicles, two armored combat vehicles and five cars"

In the South Donetsk area, on March 6, 2024, the Russian Armed Forces trample militants into the ground of Novomikhailovka in the South Donetsk area, capturing more and more strong points. In the South Donetsk area, in addition to the successes at Pobeda, the Russian Armed Forces advanced from the south of Novomikhailovka. Russian units from the 68th Army Corps managed to completely clear the farm southwest of the Church of the Miracle of the Archangel Michael. Russian attack aircraft from the 20th Motorized Rifle Division continue to move forward. In the South Donetsk area, units of the Vostok group of forces, as a result of active actions, improved the tactical situation and inflicted fire damage on enemy personnel and equipment in the areas of the settlements of Mirnoye and Ugledar of the Donetsk People's Republic.

Up to 210 Ukrainian Armed Forces militants, two tanks, three cars, a launcher for the Strela-10 anti-aircraft missile system, as well as an ammunition depot were destroyed.

In the Kherson area, on March 6, 2024, Russian aviation launched strikes against Ukrainian militants on the left and right banks of the Dnieper. 36 temporary deployment points were struck. During the day, the enemy lost 95 Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters, two armored combat vehicles, eight guns and mortars, three cars and one boat. In addition, 49 Ukrainian drones were shot down and suppressed. Attacks were carried out on four formations of the Ukrainian Armed Forces - the 117th Infantry Brigade, the 38th Marine Brigade, the 121st Terrorist Defense Brigade and the 15th National Guard Brigade. On the Zaporozhye Front, the Russian Army concentrated its main efforts in the Rabotino area. Assault groups of our troops are operating in the area of the village center near the school. In the Kherson area, units of the Dnepr group of troops defeated the manpower and equipment of the 118th mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 126th technical defense brigade and the 23rd brigade of the National Guard in the areas of the settlements of Rabotino, Verbovoye of the Zaporozhye oblast, Tokarevka, Sadovoye of the Kherson oblast and Vysshetarasovka Dnepropetrovsk oblast.

Up to 125 Ukrainian Armed Forces militants and two vehicles were destroyed.

With operational-tactical and army aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile forces and artillery of groupings of troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the Russian Aerospace Forces hit: aviation equipment, aviation ammunition and fuel depots at the Lozovatka airfields in the Dnepropetrovsk oblast and Starokonstantinov in the Khmelnytsky oblast, an ammunition depot operational-tactical group "Donetsk", manpower and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 113 oblasts.

[Russian] Air defense systems shot down, intercepted and destroyed: nine US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket system rockets were shot down, as well as a French-made AASM “Hammer” guided aerial bomb. 135 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed, including in the areas of the settlements Sladkoe, Pavlovka, Signalnoe, Verkhnetoretskoe, Orlinskoe of the Donetsk People's Republic, Golikovo, Chervonopopovka, Novodruzhesk of the Lugansk People's Republic, Mirnoe, Magedovo, Shevchenkovo and Novoe of the Zaporozhye oblast.

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