CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—The assumption that because a disaster has not happened in the past it will not happen in the future is a type of fallacious reasoning known as normalcy bias. The assumption that because a disaster has not happened in the past it will not happen in the future, even though you keep doing things to make it increasingly likely, is just being a fucking idiot. It’s like Wile E Coyote jumping up and down on the land mine until it explodes because it didn’t explode when the Roadrunner ran over it.
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Thierry Meyssan: The world order already changed in 2022
22 minutes readTHIERRY MEYSSAN—It is wrong to imagine that the strongest always want to impose their will on others. This Western attitude is rarely shared by other humans. Cooperation has proven to be far more effective than exploitation and the revolutions it provokes. This is the message that the Chinese have tried to propagate by talking about “win-win” relationships. It was not about fair trade relations, but about the way the Chinese emperors governed: when an emperor issued a decree, he had to ensure that it was followed by the governors of each province, including those who were not affected by the decision. He showed them that he had not forgotten them by giving them each a present.
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M K BHADRAKUMAR—The whole point is that the western commentariat largely forgets that Russia’s core agenda is not about territorial conquest — much as Ukraine is vital to Russian interests — but about NATO expansion. And that has not changed.
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CYNTHIA CHUNG—By 1914, Europe would be dragged into WWI. In March 1918, after two months of negotiations with the Central Powers (the German, Austria-Hungary, Bulgarian, and Ottoman Empire), the new Bolshevik government of Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ceding claims on Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as the condition for peace (Note: the Bolshevik Revolution began in March 1917). WWI would officially end on November 11th, 1918.
As a result of the treaty, eleven nations became “independent” in eastern Europe and western Asia, Ukraine was among these nations. In reality, what this meant was that they were to become vassal states to Germany with political and economic dependencies. However, when Germany lost the war, the treaty was annulled.
With Germany out of the picture and the dissolution of both the Austria-Hungary and Russian Empire; Poland and Ukraine found themselves in a position to establish their independence.
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As a young man, Roy Bourgeois enlisted to fight in the Vietnam War. After being injured, he became a volunteer at a local orphanage and was inspired to become a priest upon his return to the US. Bourgeois became a priest in Bolivia during the dictatorship of General Hugo Banzer. He decided he could not be an apolitical priest. He spoke out against Banzer’s political repression, leading to his arrest and expulsion from Bolivia. Back in the US, Bourgeois organized protests outside Fort Benning, Georgia, where the US was training Salvadorian soldiers to fight the leftist insurgency (“death squads”, also used in many other nations of Latin America, Africa and Asia).