Note: The regular Taki post is up. The subject is related to the post here. There was no Sunday Thoughts due to Easter. There is a post about what is happening with the conduct of the war for those interested.
Word has begun to trickle out of Ukrainian and Russian channels on-line that the Zelensky government has ordered the remaining holdouts in the city of Mariupol to fight to the last man. Many have surrendered but there is a remnant that has refused to give into the reality of their position. On Sunday, the Russians gave them one last chance to walk away alive. The word from both sides of the information war is that the Zelensky government instructed them to die with honor.
The Russians have been slow to take the necessary steps to clear this part of the city of the remaining militants. One reason is pointless slaughter is not something any professional military enjoys. The other reason is they were hoping to minimize damage to the steel works. The slow progress of the war has been due to the Russian desire to minimize infrastructure damage. Given that the Russians will have to rebuild these territories after the war, this makes sense.
The other reason is that the remaining group of fighters is composed of elite Azov soldiers, including some high level leaders. It also has a group of foreign mercenaries trained by NATO. The Russians say they have detected seven European languages in the radio traffic. There is a strong possibility there are high ranking NATO advisors in this group. The Ukrainians have made several attempts to extract people from this site, so the Russians would like that prize if possible.
This is one of those glimpses into the heart of the issue. The Ukrainian government does not care at all about the Ukrainian people. These nationalists, like the civilian population, are just low value pieces on the board. The real issue is the long running proxy war against Russia. Zelensky is just a cat’s paw for the neocons in Washington who are running this war. They back him because he does what he is told and he does what he is told because he will retire an extraordinarily rich man.
Of course, the nationalist who rushed to back the Zelensky regime now find themselves supporting a craven lunatic. This is the trouble with living in the world of abstractions and theoretical concepts. You can easily find yourself on the same side as the people who want you dead. That is where many nationalists now find themselves. They are backing Ukraine against Russia, which means they are supporting the Global America Empire, which would like to exterminate them.
This is part of the greater lesson of Ukraine. A sense of identity that is built around old grievances or opposition to some externality usually leads to disaster. The obvious lesson is Irish nationalism during The Troubles. The IRA and Sinn Féin were defined entirely by their opposition to Britain. That has led Irish nationalists to let Ireland be consumed by the EU and globalism. The Irish are now free to important as many Africans as can make it to their island.
You see the difference between positive and negative identity in the reactions of Poland and Hungary. Polish identity is strongly linked to hatred of Russians. Hungarian identity is about the uniqueness of the Hungarian people. The Polish government is going overboard to support Ukraine against Russia, while the Hungarians have chosen to stay out of the fight. The result is Poland is being used as a flophouse and launching pad by NATO, paying the cost for all of it.
The deadliest example is in Ukraine itself. If the people calling themselves nationalists actually cared about the welfare of the Ukrainian people, their history, language and culture, they would not be acting this way. Their zeal for Russian blood is destroying the things they claim to defend. Tens of thousand of Ukrainian men will die and millions of Ukrainian people will be displaced because the so-called nationalist care more about their hatreds than the Ukrainian people.
The example they should have followed was the Finns. At the start of the Second World War the Finns found themselves invaded by the Soviets. The Finns staged a heroic defense of their homeland in the Winter War. Finnish leaders, however, actually cared about the survival of the Finnish people so they struck a deal with the Soviets that cost them land and some dignity. Finnish nationalists put their people before abstract concepts and arrived at the proper decision.
This is the fundamental problem with modern nationalism. It is nothing more than a bundle of hatreds and complaints tarted up with aspirational language that has no practical application. This is why nationalist parties in Europe do poorly. They are great on the high minded concepts and critiques against globalism, but they are short on a practical agenda that promotes a positive sense of identity. Note that Le Pen has been buoyed by her focus on bread and butter issues in France.
It is why nationalists movements have done so poorly in America. The critiques against global trade and open borders go back to the 1970’s when the paleo-conservatives started making them. The fact that Pat Buchanan was right about everything thirty years ago has made no difference. Cheap consumer goods, on-demand degeneracy and powerful pharmaceuticals are not much of a culture, but they beat the lack of a positive alternative vision of life.
Of course, the main reason for this is nationalism has been defined by the enemies of it and that definition has been accepted by the nationalists. The negative identity is defined by what the enemy opposes. Therefore, nationalism has been defined by the people who oppose it, which means it is a cartoon version of the real thing. Until nationalists start with a clean sheet of paper, put their enemies out of their head and sort out what they offer, they will remain the willing victims of their enemies.
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“Cheap consumer goods, on-demand degeneracy and powerful pharmaceuticals are not much of a culture, but they beat the lack of a positive alternative vision of life.”
This is one of the most painfully perceptive observations I’ve seen in years. Now I see why there’s an option to donate gold bullion.
It’s one of the original Operation Gladio organizations.
I know of no reason to assume it’s no longer under CIA tutelage.
Z Man reports that Zelensky will “retire an extraordinarily rich man.” Maybe! That is contingent on a few possibilities I can think of: 1) He avoids death by the Russians or assassination by his fellow Ukrainians; 2) He avoids capture by the Russians, who will put him on trial, after which he will spend the rest of his miserable life in a Russian prison; 3) When things go south for the Zelensky government, as they inevitably will, alarmed American officials will just Epstein him. Zelensky might as well enjoy his brief time as an international sex symbol.
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“The real issue is the long running proxy war against Russia.”
Quite. I don’t believe any western politician really cares what happens to Donbas. The west is using Ukraine as a guinea pig to assess Russia’s military capability – they will be drawing fascinating strategic conclusions every day during this war, for example regarding the ease with which Russia’s tanks can be blown away or their ships can be sunk. The longer the west encourages the Ukrainians to keep the war going to the last man, the more they will learn about Russia’s weaknesses. The Ukrainians, needing only Slavic pride to motivate them, are the perfect guinea pigs (or in this case, lemmings).
Indeed. This goes doubly for the Russians. Should the citizens in a land be called to get involved on the ground, The Russians and the world can see how a gay festival-like, vax-injured, flexible-standards, the obese military unit performs on the battlefield.
Identity soldiers, soldier on. My guess is they would have surrendered and been out of the steel plant 2 weeks ago.
Something for everyone here.
https://www.barnhardt.biz/2022/04/18/nose-back-to-the-memestone/
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Hatred certainly seems to have worked wonders for black people. As soon as they adopted it, victory after victory was won over YT. Now black people are the ruling caste, quite literally above the law, and the hereditary rulers of the US now, Whites relegated to the untouchable class. Our future is not Brazil, but India with ourselves as the Dalits and blacks as the Brahmins.
Ireland and Finland did just fine when they were relatively poor, cold, nasty places to live and women had limited rights and required beta male provision. Show money and freedom and suddenly its Africans galore in both countries. Modern societies seem to need either brutal poverty that requires beta male provision for women just to survive and natural suppression of gay fabulousness, or the sort of brutal Islamic repression seen in Dubai or Qatar or Saudi. Even the CCP has had to deal with angry feminists angry over lack of women represented in pictures about the Long March.
As for Putin he and Russia are toast. No one fears him, and for good reason. His military is a joke. The Russian military has no training, no logistics, no air support, no modern arms. They rolled into Ukraine with WWI Maxim guns with Red Dots glued on top. Seriously. Ukraine/US Spec Ops sunk the Moscova, and that brings to what, four or five ships sunk? their fleet is mostly at the bottom of the ocean or hiding far out to sea. They can’t even take Mariupol in a timely fashion and its right next door. Russian losses have been horrific, they lost about 75% total of their airborne strength, it just does not exist any more, and about 20-40,000 casualties. Russia got its ass kicked thoroughly around Kiev, and had to retreat (mostly in bad order). Russia will not even be able to take the Donbass*, and NATO (read: the US) will bleed them dry. Its why Finland and Sweden are joining NATO, and Democratic Senators are demanding ground troops in Ukraine.
Putin and Russia are weak. Their military is a joke — no training, equipment, leadership, supplies, or air support. The Russian Air Force does not exist it seems. Nato (the US) if it wanted to could likely roll all the way to Moscow in a few weeks absent Russian nukes.
As far as domestic hardship, that’s a plus for the Ruling Class. Hunger and hardship are part of the Great Reset, and sending the White (and increasingly, Latino) non elite class off to die in Ukraine’s meat grinder is the goal. Rationing and crisis is just another melodrama for the ruling class, to excite and titillate the gays and women who make up its bulk. If necessary they can always fake up something to steal or simply abort the election, a clever ruse like the one to install Obama to replace Biden.
*No one, and I mean NO ONE fears Putin anymore. In a way that he was feared even five years ago. Putin has been exposed as a paper bear, he just does not have the men to fight the Russian way, disorganized, poorly led, poorly equipped, with poor logistics but just wave after wave of men. He cannot take Donbass because he fundamentally lacks the men to fight the way Russia has always fought. Demographics have consequences — Russia does not have the men.
is this the real whiskey? seriously, it sounds like someone trying to parody whiskey.
You were doing stellar up until you shifted gears to Russia and started going full retard spewing MSM war propaganda like a proper Zogbot. Hence you seriously jacked up ratio. Stick to the devil you know, armchair general is not your jam…
Thanks for the laugh. I do like well done satire.
“Even the CCP has had to deal with angry feminists angry over lack of women represented in pictures about the Long March.”
I quite doubt the CCP has felt impotent to deal with feminist or any other criticism of any nature. Do you have a link?
Why does the Ukraine need american troops if they are doing so awesome?
here is a post I authored on another message board (i’m the op). I might be slightly mentally off at times but I think I also sort of have a negative identity.
https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=481971.msg8467892#msg8467892
“Viva la Muerte!”
Right you are, Z Man. In the Empire of Lies, everything said by the govt/media is the opposite of truth. Contrary to the MSM narrative, the “bloodthirsty barbarians” aka Russians are trying to minimize casualties and preserve infrastructure. Hence, they haven’t annihilated Azovstal. By contrast, Americans would have just nuked it (remember Trump and his MOAB in Afghanistan?)
The Ukonazis, OTOH, are the real barbarians. They will likely self-immolate, and have likely been spending this time rigging up the 9/11 style explosives. First, because they are a mystical death cult (look up Order of Nine Angles for the details) and believe their “sacrifice” will open a portal to the acausal realm (really). Also, they want to deny the Russians use of the steel plant. And, to hide the NATO officers (I wonder if the latter are in on the final scheme?)
Of course, the MSM will blame the Russians anyway.
those nato officers are dead meat. they are useful to the russians alive, and the uke-nazis dead; so dead they will be. most likely after being tortured, so the outrage is increased. serves them right for sticking their noses where they don’t belong.
The Azovs whacking the embedded NATO guys and staging it to look like the Russians did it would certainly be a very useful false flag to push for a wider war.
If those NATO guys in Azovstal want to make it out they better start going everywhere in twos and threes during the day and sleeping in shifts at night.
The Ukrainian affair is simply a proxy war being waged by the west against Russia. The next chapter of the global intimidation scenario may be coming to a place nobody knows about.
Been keeping an eye on that. Mahan may be off the US Naval Academy reading listing in favor of woke shit, but I’m certain every Chinese naval officer has read it. Same reason we picked the Solomons for the opening offensive battle of the Pacific War. Smack in the middle of everything.
Since everyone is weighing in with links to other media, below is a new interview with Scott Ritter about the Ukraine war. It is cogent, accurate, and impactful; but more importantly, it describes the roots and consequences of US government corruption in this burgeoning conflict that could ultimately lead to an international war. We are, right now here in the US, where the Ukrainian people were last Fall before everything went to shit. In our case, an idiot dementia patient is now walking the same path that puppet Zelensky has walked over the past few months. Circle jerking in anticipation of the November elections is not going save us. It will simply be too late.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fNrnWxXhP0
I’ve seen three Scott Ritter pieces and have been impressed.
I’ve been recommending him as a source, to little avail, alas.
Those who want to know know of him. Those who don’t, won’t.
Related and worth a read:
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/thralldom-and-its-uses/
“We are lately in thrall to the melodrama in Ukraine, largely engineered by figures and forces in our own government and for their own ends, which look suspiciously at odds with the nation’s actual interests (the nation being us, its people). Perhaps this illustrates the widening gulf between the slouching beast government has become and the people trying to operate their lives and destinies under it. No food for you, no fertilizers for future food for you, no spare parts for you, no free speech for you, no social or economic role for you, no health for you, and (watch it, now!) soon no life for you.”
And, to those who might not have seen it (I read about it Sat):
https://www.cfindustries.com/newsroom/2022/union-pacific-shipping-restrictions
Tell me this was not premeditated and directed by a group of someones.
In all things, the simplest solution is usually the case.
Not saying you are wrong, 3G… But another old nickel goes that you shouldn’t ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.
Our managerial elite is comprised of incredibly incompetent, stupid people. Were they not propped up by Globohomo most would be on a mop in the airport or shining shoes on the street corner. We used to have checks and correction procedures that would kick in to neutralize these people before they could cause a problem… but the system now actually protects them and enables them and rewards them. We saw this with chinkypox with that dingbat governor with the crazy eyes and perhaps that horse faced bint in New Zealand. They are not really evil people… they are just dumb and all they can do is put a face up for dirt people to scream at. Could what you pointed out there be the product of the stupidification of North America? Because I sincerely doubt the IQ of the players involved….
Glen: All due respect etc., but I disagree that they are merely stupid and “not really evil people.”
So stupid they were groomed by the WEF?
Either way, the railroad has embargoed the fertilizer plants for no reason at all.
Causing a deliberate food crisis is… stupid?
Yeah. Maybe that was kinda dumb on my part…
“But another old nickel goes that you shouldn’t ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. ”
That meme is simply intellectual laziness.
Railroad classification yards have been as jammed as ports for months, just a less photogenic story than port of LA or Long Beach. And Secretary Chest-Feeder has been about as effective in helping clear them. So the news doesn’t surprise me at all. Perhaps just another example of how “just in time” collapses under any kind of disruption. And will only get worse.
I read the article. Did I miss the part where the “why” is explained?
If I did, my bad. If I didn’t, it’s like a kid who puts a fork in an outlet.
Just because he can.
I saw that, and was honestly shocked.
I have seen nothing that even approaches an attempt at any explanation. Using William of Occam’s barbering device; Genocide it is.
The truth is coming out about the Azov Ukrainian soldiers terrorizing Ukrainians.
In Mariupol an independent journalist is interviewing everyone who is trying to escape, the interviews are amazing most blame Ukraine see the
VIDEO here https://youtu.be/Z1E9n2Q5AWw
The salient point is to formulate identity in a Moving-Towards statement, rather than a Moving-Away-From statement. As an example, an example that perhaps is bit too spicy of an example consider conceptualizations around the word “pagan.”
Some people are Christians because they are all about Jesus Christ. Others formulate their Christianity around being not-pagan, about opposing daemons, fighting Luciferians, Ba’al, Molech, etc. To give a crap about Ba’al, one has to journey to a long-gone far-away place as one group of priests opposes another group of priests.
Conversely there are people who can themselves “Pagan.” They just mean it to mean non-Abrahamic. Correctly, they should simply define their practice in a forward direction of what they believe, and how they express it.
Alex Jones doesn’t articulate a vision or a means, he just opposes Globalists,. which for him has been a valuable strategy. One can partition motivation strategy in “to” and “from.” Some do their taxes because it feels good when they are done, others do them because of fear of punishment. Alex chose the easy segment of those who want to oppose something.
For us, we need to create a vision of what could be, a man to the moon, for those we call our people. We also have to provide an outlet for opposer-type people. For example, in the overarching goal of a motored transportation device, we need lubricants to fight friction.
Hmmmmmm. Do you think the dissidents are getting suckered this way Z? From the ones I see on Blab and Telegram, most of them track with you word for word. Maybe I’m being overly optimistic… but Globohomo has just about killed the last of the American Patriots. Even Terrance Popp on OyTube seems to be getting seriously red pilled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu-yCgVRKBk
He tells us that between 1/2 and 1/3 of American assets in Europe right now are putting in their notices that they will muster out as soon as their current tours are up. Recruitment and advancement in the military has become a bad joke.
Would I be wrong to think Globohomo is about to capsize? I think the real victims are wisening (and hardening) up… and the fake victims will be getting a dose of reality soon.
Glen-
Popp’s commentary is good news. It means physical enforcers will be at a premium for the regime.
The bad news is that they will redouble their hysterical push for global digital ID and CBDCs, managed by an AI-algo that monitors the social credit system.
If they implement those items, the requirements for physical enforcement are greatly curtailed.
Anything is possible at this point Howard. I think you are exactly right. The tin foil hat in me wonders if that was what the covid hysteria was all about – getting intelligent people to take a vax. If they are dumb enough for that… horror scenarios like yours are entirely possible. I personally think that one would result in bloodshed… but whadda I know.
I personally don’t think people will put up with Globohomo much longer.
The vacc was just necessary step on the road to a digital ID. Get that and a CBDC and it’s game over.
in the event of a SuperSpyState, everyone would get a vote as to whether the CBDC, electronic ID, big data and surveillance camera system will continue to work against us. Just go outside and play with your nearest camera, fiber junction box or cellphone tower, and that’s it. Technicians are few and far between, and could be persuaded that it is not in their interest to go fix the mess. Parts are limited, very difficult to manufacture and at the end of a long supply chain.
…… The electronic / electrical system is incredibly complex, artificial and therefore fragile. A small and dedicated group of tinkerers could stop it pronto.
Ironically, one of the biggest threats would be normies who would fight tooth and nail to hold onto their digital phone prisons.
At least Mannerheim was in charge of his own war. Once the Finns had inflicted nearly half a million casualties on the Soviets, he managed to negotiate ceding what the Soviets demanded at the outset and live to fight another day. Funny thing about the Continuation War (classic “enemy of my enemy”) was apparently Hitler wanted Mannerheim to close the back door on Leningrad, but Mannerheim told him he would honor his prior agreement with Stalin to respect the old Soviet border and squatted at the edge of Finnish territory. Hitler flew to Helsinki to straighten him out, but Mannerheim refused—Finnish interests were his dog in the fight. Interesting that Stalin, other than a few territorial concessions and an agreement of neutrality, left the Finns the fuck alone. Unlike the rest of Eastern Europe. The current day Finnish government would do well to consider the benefits of being the unaligned bad ass porcupine in the neighborhood. Still have universal service requirements and can probably mobilize 30% of the population in a pinch. And arm them.
SamlAdams: They’ve let their women and their woke lead the way, and already have problems with sub-Saharan and Afghan rapefugees. Their last couple of winning beauty queens have been been string mop heads in lieu of actual White Finns. And I know I read of some recent (i.e. last 2-5 years) change/relaxation in the personal training and/or rifle requirement in either or both Switzerland and Finland, but I cannot find anything about either. Point being, Finland is not quite on the same track as Sweden but it’s teetering on the edge of a precipice.
I believe the rearms requirement was Switzerland. Had a couple colleagues there back when you still had your battle rifle, pistol (they were both officers) AND a load out of ammunition. One commanded an anti-armor unit in his Canton and had been training to defend the same mountain passes for most of his career. Apparently the bunker systems up there rival anything in Tora Bora. I think the Finns still have universal conscription and reserve service, but have a pretty clever system to rapidly integrate to warfighting units left from the “neutrality” days. Small standing army, but very rapid mobilization. And a lot of weapons stashed. If you’ve ever shot a Tikka or Sako rifle, the Finns are first class armorers. But still subject to the derivative stupidity of the rest of Europe. My son works with an ex-Finnish SF guy, very very solid. Looks like what you’d imagine “Roland the Thompson Gunner” would have. Straight from central casting.
SamlAdams: I can’t recall ever meeting/knowing any
Finnish men. FWIW there were a couple of Finnish women who used to frequent the Marine Bar in Moscow (early ’80s when I was there) and they were always with a black guy. And that was a whole lot less common back then than it is now.
Sisu–if a man knocks you down, and you know if you get up he will knock you down again, but you get up anyway–
“The people running American foreign policy are Antony Blinken, Victoria Nuland, and her husband, Robert Kagan.” For them it is personal and they don’t care how many ukranian lives it costs. They have likely sunk the dollar as the reserve currency. They risk a major war with a nuclear armed power. Thus, they could care less about american lives either. I’m praying that the mid-level management of the services are still sane and can put a brake on some of the insanity. BTW, if you guys aren’t following whitney webb closely. You should.
Compounding this madness is what appears to be a schism in the Administrative State. The powerless puppets, the political front men like Biden and Klain, seem to want to avoid an escalation when they go off script. I don’t think the acceptance of a “limited incursion” and so forth was just dementia, or the Israeli prime minister’s suggestion of an immediate Ukrainian surrender just the usual Tribal suspects angling for a buck. These rational positions were quickly drawn back by those with actual power, who, at a minimum, want to bleed Russia dry and tear Ukraine asunder.
If the Neocon power houses could figure out how to avoid the physical and financial devastation, they would be moving toward the United States’ full-scale entry into the war. This would have happened but/for Russia’s nuclear stockpile. Some of the more wild-eyed have suggested a nuclear war is somehow survivable, but fortunately thus far they have been fended off.
Before the war broke out, we got glimpses of the schism as Biden kept popping up and warning it was about to take place. Of course, the intelligence community was feeding him that line and for once it was not lying or wrong. Something precipitated Putin’s actions, and it is a safe bet that was something the IC orchestrated and that is how they knew war was at hand.
American foreign policy is the policy of a 14 year old playing Dungeons and Dragons: “Kill them all and steal their stuff”.
Tom Luongo
they are all jews
I was recruited to do corporate work in Hungary in ’92, and had a similar offer in what was soon to become the Czech Republic although that one did not interest me (other than as a single young man Czech women are very, very beautiful). I turned down the job after giving it some thought; I did not speak Hungarian and back then it was rare to find anyone with a second language outside of Budapest, and it was very uncommon even there.
Western business interests to a more limited extent invested and recruited citizens also to work in several other Eastern European nations. Poland was not a major source of Western investment, though. That is why so many of its people moved throughout the EU to take work. I never understood why Poland, which had so many expats in the West, did not receive similar attention showered on it. Even basket cases drew more Western investment–Romania, for example.
(meant as a reply below to 3g)
Jack: You’re correct about not many Hungarians speaking English, about Czech women being beautiful, and Poland receiving less investment than Romania. Good question as to why. When spoken slowly, Czech and Slovak have enough similar words to Russian and Bulgarian that I could kinda sorta understand the gist of something said way back when. I found both countries fascinating and very livable – wonder how differently your life might have turned out had you accepted the job in ’92!
” I found both countries fascinating and very livable – wonder how differently your life might have turned out had you accepted the job in ’92!”
If I had an inkling how soon the United States would descend into a hellscape, I probably would have taken the job in Hungary and remained there. I had lived, studied and worked abroad throughout the mid-Eighties and early Nineties, and while the change Stateside was already quite marked in 1992, that snowballed in dizzying fashion starting just a few years later. By the end of the decade the die had been cast.
Hungary is such a beautiful country and has so many beautiful smaller cities in addition to Budapest, which I agree is among the most spectacular capitols anywhere. The people struck me as an odd blend of pessimistic and warm, but you would really need to know the language to get along there. That’s usually the case but particularly true about Hungary, I think.
Things worked out very well on a personal level staying here, but the last reel looks to be in a time of tumult and likely deprivation. Maybe I shouldn’t be commenting on pessimism.
Looking at all the dissident memes, the most positive images are bucksome young ladies in wheat fields, I would sign up for that. It’s almost dream like. Wholesome yet skanky. A nice balance. The new nation must be built around skanks running their fingers across wheat in a stunning agricultural setting.
I put my vote for the manosphere ball-sunners that got a Tucker Carlson documentary.
Bucksome? Heh heh. That could be interpreted any number of different ways, all of them amusing.
I think he meant “buxom” – but hey, with today’s gender politics, bucks and does are simply societally assigned, arbitrary distinctions.
Yes, I’m sure that’s what he meant. I certainly hope he didn’t mean those beautiful lasses would do “some” certain things for “bucks.”
Re: The Taki column, we have yet to see how long reality can be held at bay by the elites. The old saw about how Wall Street can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent comes to mind. Ukraine is now yet another moral panic driven by a combination of media sensationalism and blank ignorance of the topic on the part of the populace. Remember that most of the people flying Ukraine flags in America know so little about the history of the place that they probably think that Bandera involves Dimebag Darrell. Maybe the facts don’t care about their feelings, but their feelings don’t care about the facts, either, and by the time that they (well, enough of them anyway) snap out of it, the elites will have had time to do incalculable damage – the Iraq War and the Covid crisis being good examples of that.
All we can do is hope, I guess, but don’t expect too much. Reality does always win in the end, but it sure keeps us waiting sometimes.
Alas, the Finns, along with Swedes, are being led by their lady leaders into joining NATO. Even though they will become the front lines of any war with Russia.
The Finns are normally quite sensible, but they appear to have gotten the modern disease and installed a girl a girl as their leader, a girl who spends her weekends clubbing and her days texting. The fact that she is being told not to put the issue to the voters suggest they fear the Finns may find their old sense and cut this scheme off at the pass.
In the accurate words of Turkey’s president, “democracy is like riding a train. You get off at your stop.” Everyone gets it except for the slowly dying mainstream right of the western world.
There is a lot of value to the Finns in “strategic ambiguity”. Got them through the Cold War unmolested and intact. Particularly since they have an effective military and Swiss-like service requirement. Plus the space between St. Petersburg and Helsinki is about the worst ground in the world to fight on. Ask the Russians.
“Weak nations do what they must.”
100% respect the Finns for playing their weak hand magnificently during the Cold War.
Hard to believe that now, as GAE is faltering, they’re thinking about throwing that legacy of practical real politique away.
They could play it because they punched way way above weight in the Winter and Continuation Wars.
Or ask the Teutonic Knights. If you can find any…
And the Finns, who incurred heavy losses in assisting the Wehrmacht in encircling Petrograd.
The big advantage the Finns have is that no-one has a clue what they’d do with the country if they were given it.
“…they fear the Finns may find their old sense…”
I have relatives in Finland – and sad to say, they caught Trump Derangement Syndrome. A bad case. One that had them revealing selves as suffering from the liberal mind virus, as in blurting out anti-Trump things – as if ‘everyone’ must agree with them. Up until then I had no idea their minds were infected. We mainly exchanged children news.
The latest, admittedly from the most neurotic of the husbandless 40ish female relatives, was that Finland “had to join NATO” – an email – following the launch of the Feb 25 police action.
No attempt on my end to ‘talk’ about these things to the Suomi relatives. No reminding them how the Americans and British supplied their enemy, Stalin, via Lend Lease, while only a certain Austrian corporal – in the depths of the 2nd World War — sent Finland ANY actual military aid.
How before him, in the Kaiser, also buried in his own little war, hinging his hopes in April 1918 on one last offensive – yet sent von der Goltz Division to Helsinki, supporting the Whites in the Vapaussota – Finland’s civil war.
No Kaiser Wilhelm, perhaps no free Finland. No Hitler, perhaps no free Finland. Not to mention the former Tsarist cavalry officer that always understood realpolitik, gave up Karelia and more to have … a free Finland.
Nope, country now run by teenaged girls. Plenty of wokesters among the young there.
It’s sad to see. First intro to them was a group of guys in college that grew up on the Iron Range. Could drink anyone under a table. But tough as shit. Guy down the hall wore shorts until the temps in Chicago finally hit the low teens. He had a first name but only went by his last which I recall was “Eskola”.
Yep, Saint Petersburg is still where it always has been, just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the hostiles, then Nazis, now NATO. Abandoning their prior studiously-held neutrality seems daft, particularly with the advances in weaponry since WWII; no invasion necessary to have your country gutted. And they have no Russian minority arguably being discriminated against as in the Baltic states to serve as a point of friction.
Good points. Though inevitably, despite all the promises to the contrary, conflicts inevitably reach the “boots on the ground” stage.
Nationalism will eventually work out its kinks in Europe because that’s what human beings fall back on during tough times. It’s also easier in compact countries that don’t stretch across vastly different regions and time zones. A tough set of times is coming to the world as the neoliberal order unravels, which will include howls and shrieks about “our democracy.”
The definition of nationalism is: “a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory.”
Now looking at the U.S. we see:
A large body of people (pass)
United by common descent (fail)
United by a common history (fail)
United by a common culture (fail)
United by a common language (fail)
Inhabiting a particular country or territory (pass).
If the U.S. was a car with a check engine light on pulling into the mechanic’s garage, we would get the phone call saying that the repair is far more expensive than the vehicle and it will eventually fail suddenly while on the highway. It makes me sick that I don’t have a country. We’re all incomplete without belonging, and nationhood is the pinnacle of belonging.
Coming back from the Taki piece, it’s not clear to me the neocons grasp the fact that two decades of the Special Operations Olympics was poor preparation for taking on Russia’s combined arms forces.
They really seem to believe that the US Army has WW2-style Combat Commands, or the sorts of heavy armored brigades Reagan built up in the 80s.
What I find remarkable is the stories about shortages of certain small arms in NATO countries. Trump took a ton of criticism form demanding the rest of NATO start spending money, but he was correct. NATO is a paper tiger as it lacks men and material outside of the US army.
a lot of equipment the eu countries do have, is not usable because they don’t maintain it properly.
One of the Nato responses has been to announce a special Russia containment operation to be spread along all the border and near border countries. Some-one (PCR?) added up all the various units they specified and it totaled 12-15 thousand men.
There were more words in the announcement than men in the force.
US pulled their embassy staff from kiev the moment russians advanced from belarus and wanted zelensky out of the country. That implies putin and bidens staff reaching a deal before the invasion begun (likely an exchange for russian support with the iran deal).
I think it more likely that the GAE’s offer to extract Zelensky, and his public refusal, was part of their propaganda effort to buff him up as a steadfast leader.
The propaganda about Zelensky is unreal. But I think it is meant to flatter the (((media))) class more than Zelensky himself. Early on they were saying he was the “sexiest” world leader.
The media cabal has done wonders with Zelensky, transforming him from a fruity high-heeled dancer clad in leather fetish wear to a raspy-sounding, scraggly-bearded, no-nonsense fatigue wearing combat commander just back from killing Russians with his bare hands on the Donbas frontlines.
I particularly enjoyed his misty-eyed, raw-voiced lecture to America during the Grammys, as if he had lost his voice screaming orders over the din of Russian artillery fire in Mariupol.
Nuts & bolts, and in particular, the difference between enemies-in-the-abstract versus the enemy in plain sight.
Yes, the GAE is using the enemy abstraction (white male privilege) to rally its base against traditional Americanism. And it’s winning this war because it owns all social & news media, and the softheads are vulnerable to mass suggestion. Even stalwarts like Bongino will now light their ass hair on fire in service to hatred of Putin and all things Russian. But that abstraction is a distraction.
A lot of good men (read white guys) are dying needlessly in Ukraine; real blood and guts, not video game stuff. And all of this could have been avoided if the little shit stain had been wiped away months ago along with his Nazi handlers. An once of prevention would have preempted a genocide of cure. One man (or woman) can make a big difference on both sides of this equation. That is a lesson to take to heart.
Yep, I also see it as a “brother war”. Good example of what we speak about with great regularity here. We seem to not have the picture of the real enemy, and that enemy relishes in these brother wars, while we become weaker.
I gather that in the old days a guy had to go to a ‘theatre’ where he’d sit in a darkened stall and continually put quarters in a coin slot to keep watching porn. This is what the DC / NATO cabal has come to – just that it’s war porn wherein property is actually destroyed, and people actually get hurt, or die. More galling is the DC / NATO fiends are using yours and my quarters to keep the peep show going – and then claim we’re bad people for wanting the show to end.
I would, if I could, be more disgusted and cynical, but that will have to suffice for now.
Good post, Zman, with valuable insights into current and general realities. I especially appreciate your thoughts on the two “nationalisms,” as positive and negative species observable (at the moment) through the behaviors of Hungary and Poland. Very shrewd.
I wonder how much of our “heroic” mythology about the past, and the elevation of “fight to the last man” stories, could be better understood as the action of elite grifters manipulating a population to its doom? I like to think there have been meaningful, non-cynical “last stands” in history. Odds are, though, that our own age is not a conducive time for them.
The dirty little secret is Russian war doctrine is far more humane than American war doctrine. While the United States has largely followed the protocol of total-war, which included bombing civilian infrastructure in “Shock and awe” campaigns followed by a requirement of unconditional surrender, the Russians are proving more pragmatic and less willing for extreme measures.
War is a messy business, and there has been collateral damage like every war, but imagine if Iraq had the media propaganda apparatus that the U.S. had in Iraq War II. We’d see dead Iraqi civilians lined up 24/7, and during the occupation we’d see all the villages massacred when local warlords assumed power.
At the end of the day though, it shows the true colors of our ruling classes, who will clutch their pearls over a foreign people a thousand miles away before even acknowledging the existence of the working class populating the majority of the breadbasket of America.
Inside Russia Putin is criticized for being to soft. He was criticized for being too soft on the Chechens, but he was proven out as we see now. Chechen fighters are an important part of the war effort. Putin has taken the same approach with Ukraine, hoping to leave the door to reconciliation open. We never hear this in the West where he is cast as you know who by the usual suspects.
The mask dropped unnoticed when Biden was in Poland. He went off script and said Zelensky should cut a deal with Russia and all of a sudden negotiations were looking good. Then the usual suspect slithered back in and offered Zelensky another apple and negotiations were halted. The usual suspect see Slavs as animals, so they are happy to see them die in droves if it weakens Russia.
Most places the US bombs to smithereens it has no intention of making a part of the US community on a long term basis – its only interest is extractive, which requires some, but not a whole heck of a lot of infrastructure.
Dropping a bomb on a civilian family in Afghanistan to distract from the 18 soldiers blown up during the rout in Afghanistan, lying about it, then exonerating everyone involved for the “mistake” in the after action report tell you everything you need to know about the US State Dept and military.
In GAE, there is no such things as “civilians”. Americans fight dirty, which would be maybe ok, except they JUST CANT WIN.
Z, are you arguing that ALL nationalism is negative identitarianism? If so, then what would you call any independence or identitarian movement? I don’t know any other term better than “nationalism”.
In theory, nationalism should be a very positive force. I think 80 years of assaults on the concept have left most nationalists focused on their enemies to the exclusion of all else. The “vision” is always something like dudes in medieval kit and women a pale maidens. The program, however, is a laundry list of complaints with no practical alternative.
The white nationalists were onto something when they were talking about the ethnostate. “Imagine a world with 50% less crime” is a powerful practical vision. They abandoned that sort of talk in favor of esoteric concepts and grievance culture.
Your point is quite correct..that is why the only kind of nationalism that has a future in America is traditional white Christian nationalism, with tolerance for other traditional (non-Globohomo infiltrated) religions…Nations with a different history might vary, but there needs to be some kind of live traditional religion, even if it’s just ancestor worship..
I dare say 50% less is on the conservative side.
The Left used the nationalism of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party as a cudgel to give it a bad connotation.
The American Empire is in its final days, if not hours. It has to destroy Russia because they have now linked their currency with gold, reestablishing gold as real money and thus creating an alternative to the American Dollar.
The Empire and our lives as we know it will be destroyed once other nations eschew the petrodollar. We produce NOTHING and our power stems from our military power forcing other nations to use a worthless Dollar for trade. They sell us fungible goods made from commodities for a unit of money worth less than zero, which appears to be strong. The strong Dollar and bribes to politicians is why our country has de-industrialized over the last 50 years. When the death of the Dollar arrives, you will know it when the cost of a gallon of gas goes into the stratosphere.
Unfortunately for us, or “leaders” are stupid cloud people who are playing with fire in their attempts to destroy the Russian State. I can fairly say that World War III and the end of the Dollar will occur within seconds of one another.
> The American Empire is in its final days, if not hours. It has to destroy Russia because they have now linked their currency with gold, reestablishing gold as real money and thus creating an alternative to the American Dollar.
When you list all the nations that tried to establish a competing currency or economic model, and then make a list of all the nations America threw a color revolution on or military attack on, the realities of geopolitics become painfully clear.
Which is why there is still some risk of WWIII and a consequent nuclear exchange..the lunatics in DC don’t have an off switch, and can’t accept the real situation…
For them, the “off” switch is the same as the “suicide” switch. This is like the wild ride of Mr. Toad. Hang on.
They appear to be moving beyond a strictly gold-backed currency schema for valuation, including also commodities in the backing of the currency. These are real-world resources, and doing so is a far more grounded approach than the current “because I said so (and We will ruin you if you don’t comply” grounding of the dollar fiat. Thus, an alternative that makes sense, and acts to undermine the blackmail currently wielded by the US.
but why did some countries make the right choice, and others the wrong choice? was it luck, coincidence, culture? just how different is poland from hungary?
IMO nationalism is only possible when there is a homogenous population, and AINO is not that. at least not until is decomposes into smaller regional blocs, and goes through a cycle of ethnic relocation.
To hazard a guess, Poland has a much nastier and longer adversarial relationship with Russia. While Hungary also suffered mightily under Soviet occupation, Poland has centuries of similar confrontations under its belt.
Agreed. We Americans forget the last major foreign military invasion of the the continental United States (I’ll leave out Mexico and the Texas Republic, or the Japanese invasion of the Aleutians in WW2 since neither Texas nor Alaska were states at that time) was in 1812.
Russia at the time was fighting off Napoleon, and they also got Germany invading from 1914 – 18, the whole damned world (including us) milling about in their affairs until the early 1920s, and the Little Austrian Corporal from 1941 – 45.
Poland, well Poland got partitioned between Austria, Germany, and Russia from the 1700s and once they got their freedom after WW1 the history is:
– Russians push into Poland spreading the “Joys of Communism” that luckily ended in 1920 in The Miracle of the Vistula battle
– Germans push into Poland in 1939
– Russians join Germans to split Poland
– Germans take the rest of Poland 1941
– Russians take Poland 1945 – 89.
So yeah, the Poles have a reason to distrust the Russians and the Germans. Imagine if Canada decided that every 50 – 75 years or so it was a swell idea to invade the United States.
A century of being the Lethal Dose-50 test subjects for every European political “-ism” will leave a mark.
Some fun facts from Polish history:
When the country regained its independence as a result of WWII, pretty much the first thing the autocrat Pilsudski did was attack the newly formed Soviet Union, with the goal of conquering all of Ukraine. This was at a time when Ukrainian Galicia already was part of the restored Polish territory.
Munich 1937 not only got Germany the ethnically German Sudetenland out of the Czech state. No, the Poles were not above of also claiming, and getting, a sliver of their Slavonic brothers’ land (presumably ethnically Polish).
Just two tidbits about the eternal Polish victim nation, often imagining itself a little too eagerly and self-consciously in the image of Christ.
The lessons of Katyn Forest and the Holodomor should never be forgotten, but they should also be properly understand. The Poles are making the same mistake the Ukrainians have made: conflating imperial ethnic Russian nationalism (and fear thereof) with the rootless cosmopolitan totalitarian internationalism of the Soviet Union.
They incorrectly see the Soviet Union as a natural extension of the old Russian Empire, and the contemporary Russian Federation as a natural extension of the Soviet Union. The populations within all three polities were largely ethnic Russians, but the leadership (those with POWER) varied. Ethnic Russians ruled the Russian Empire and rule the Russian Federation. The structure of the ruling class of the intervening Soviet Union is worth looking at in more detail.
While there were ethnic Russians in the early Bolshevik movement, it was internationalist. Internationalist Jews comprised 80% of senior and upper middle management by the time the mass murdering began in earnest. (1) No one likes to be ruled by foreigners, especially when they rule badly.
It was inevitable that they would be displaced and so they were over decades. I see the gradual establishment of the natural aristocracy of ethnic Russians as the rulers of the Soviet Union as the dominant trend of middle to late Soviet history. It is not an accident that there is a temporal correlation between the Russification of Soviet leadership and the winding down of murder and repression. When one is tired of riding a tiger that someone else put you on, one takes great care to get off in such a way so as not to get eaten.
Russian imperialism is certainly a threat (although extremely small), but like climate change we should not allow rootless cosmopolitans to amplify and exploit reasonable fears. They do this in part to distract us from genuine and more immediate threats (created by them) like the diversity-tsunami engulfing and drowning the West. Threat assessment should be a ruthlessly rational and unemotional process. Poles and Ukrainians are not unique in making this mistake.
(1) I saw a video of some Russian Jewish conference at which Putin was giving a talk years ago where he mentioned this. The audience was overwhelmingly Jewish (it was their conference) and no one batted an eyelash. I was astonished. The Russians know. The Jews know. The Jews know the Russians know. The Russians know the Jews know the Russians know. Everybody knows, and they have moved passed it.
The Russians now rule in Russia again and they set boundaries for their Jews, and their Chechens, and all the other non-Russians within their federation. There is no sharing of power when it comes to control over civilizational architecture. Enforced boundaries that are well understood by everyone, benefit everyone and provide the structure necessary for peaceful coexistence.
This is an excellent comment replete with good information. Thank you.
karl: At least back in the ’80s and ’90s, Hungary was known to be among the least ‘repressed’ countries of the old Soviet bloc (“Goulash communism”). Yes, many of them left after the 1956 uprising and experienced the West before it was thoroughly pozzed, but thereafter there was no mass exodus of young, educated Hungarians. Not to mention, Hungary had no history of centuries of conflict with Russia – their language had never been repressed, and their people had not been mass shipped to other lands. Note for Hungarian patriots here: I am NOT claiming Hungarians didn’t suffer under any privation while under Soviet control, but their situation was definitely better economically and culturally than in Poland.
Poland has had wars with Russia going back centuries and the entire country had been swallowed up by the Russian empire. The Solidarity movement in the 1980s/1990s was also strongly associated with Polish Catholicism. After Soviet control collapsed there, there was no short-term economic improvement and eventually approximately 2 million primarily younger Poles left for Western Europe – a fully pozzed and ‘left-liberal’ Western Europe, and a fully pozzed Western Catholicism.
These are merely personal thoughts mixed with bits of historical knowledge as to why Poland has not done as well as Hungary since independence from the old Soviet Union. Whether those same factors motivate Poles as strongly today, including just how much influence expatriate Poles have on Polish national opinion, I don’t know enough to say.
3g4me-
Your comments jibe with what the guide on my walking tour of Budapest stated. Among the Warsaw Pact countries, Hungary was widely seen as a relatively free, enjoyable vacation destination during the height of the Cold War.
Wild Geese: While I visited Hungary in the early ’90s, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it certainly appeared to be a prosperous and peaceful European country to me at that time. While Budapest is gorgeous and rivals Vienna imho, the countryside through which we drive was also not dissimilar to certain areas of rural Austria – certainly far more orderly and wealthy than areas of Yugoslavia of the day.
To my great regret we never made it to Poland – but people I knew who had been posted there (primarily in the 1980s) recalled it as being fairly grim.
I was recruited to do corporate work in Hungary in ’92, and had a similar offer in what was soon to become the Czech Republic although that one did not interest me (other than as a single young man Czech women are very, very beautiful). I turned down the job after giving it some thought; I did not speak Hungarian and back then it was rare to find anyone with a second language outside of Budapest, and it was very uncommon even there.
Western business interests to a more limited extent invested and recruited citizens also to work in several other Eastern European nations. Poland was not a major source of Western investment, though. That is why so many of its people moved throughout the EU to take work. I never understood why Poland, which had so many expats in the West, did not receive similar attention showered on it. Even basket cases drew more Western investment–Romania, for example.
thanks for all the good comments explaining the poland/hungary issue 🙂
Poland’s leaders have been suborned by Globohomo, which probably has ample blackmail material on them…Poland itself still has a live religion, Catholicism, but which has also been infiltrated by the evil ones…
Poland seems to have been singled out not to receive Western investment in the immediate collapse of the USSR. Far worse countries drew much more interest for whatever reason.
Maybe the West figured the billion dollars they poured into Solidarity was sufficient at that time?
I’m Polish. If you have any questions, I will try to respond as much as my linguistic abilities allow me.
I have to give a pre-emptive warning that some issues are hard to understand without delving into history and national mentality.
Sharp take. The cynicism is off the charts. The United States’ main objective was to divorce Europe from Russia. Mission accomplished unless autumn really is cold this year. The more I learn about Zelensky the more I agree with you about him. He is not a dupe, which I assumed, but also a cynical grifter.
I’m not certain this is a quibble, but what the average Ukrainian (not the IC stooges/military foreigners/grifters) is doing–defending their homeland–is nationalism. In fact, it is the essence of blood and soil nationalism, which, of course, the globalists who engineered this war despise. That these fighters are manipulated and will be ordered to die on an as-needed basis by corrupt leaders and cynical foreigners does not matter to them, at least yet.
Finally, and not really related, it is hard to remember anything remotely similar in which it was all but impossible to get an accurate read on what is happening. In a way, that is the most frightening aspect from a distance. It seems that despite the massive corruption quite a bit of the foreign assistance from the US/EU was put to its intended use and those war materials will provide much false hope and many more casualties than would have happened otherwise.
This is a fine moment for Ukrainian nationalists and a low point for the Empire.
there are at least two distinct groups of ukrainians, and the ultra-hardcore ones are much more prone to harming “average” ukrainians than the russians are. the smart play would have been for the ukrainian army to have staged a coup, eliminated the ultra-nazis and zelensky, then negotiate with the russians. making the dumb play while wrapped in a flag is still making the dumb move. and reality does not reward dumb…
I wouldn’t be shocked to learn the Azov Battalion as currently constituted is a CIA front not unlike the various warlords funded over the years to “save” their countries. Even now we are getting glimpses that it is preventing a peaceful conclusion to the siege in Mariupol. It and like factions are probably foreign-financed outliers.
A lot of those Azov guys are probably guilty of multiple atrocities and know if they surrender there will be severe repercussions. So naturally they choose to fight to the death.
Financed by Kolomisksy, I see Zelenskyy, Azov and Right Sektor as Cartel.
Cartel is Mexican through and through, yet happily accepts foreign actors, slaughters civilians, and is independent of Mexican nationalism.
Come to think of it, that describes the ruling class of the US, as well.
Edit Kolomoisky
It’s one of the original Operation Gladio organizations.
I know of no reason to assume it’s no longer under CIA tutelage.
There is some suspicion that the Russians thought the same. I mean if me sitting in my chair thousands of miles away, with not even any reliable indirect information on the situation, thought that was the best play, surely the Ukes thought that too? I guess not.
Z’s take then makes the most sense in that light, that the Ukes hated Russia so much that they were willing to throw their lot in with a global empire that has spent the last twenty years trying to kill as many Ukes as possible for no other purpose than to aggravate Russia.
Jack Dobson: Agree on all points. Those who label anyone who disagrees with the media/regime barrage as a “Putin stooge” are deliberately ignoring the sorrow and hopelessness many of us feel for the actual Ukrainian people, who are being scattered and killed by American and Eu globalists, many of them repeatedly echoing. No one could fault the Ukrainians for defending their homeland against the Russians – who, despite every Western provocation and set up – cannot be seen as other than invaders.
That Ukrainian lives are worthless to the major players and being used in cynical geopolitical maneuvering is disgusting and a true ‘war crime,’ but that still doesn’t make Russia the evil party here. The Joe Normals and the dissident nationalists who genuinely care about legitimate nationalism should save their ire for the globalists, instead of constantly shooting at those of us whose thinking is less clouded by feminine emotionalism and the debased Western media.