The door is open and I can't find the key

 Back in 1944, Bretton Woods tried to come up with how the winners would run their economies after the war. The US unconditionally guaranteed that, for anyone not a US citizen or permanent resident, they would exchange a US dollar for approximately 0.88 gm of 24K gold. Bretton Woods declared the US$ to be the World Key Currency.

I have seen the dollar called the World Reserve Currency, and this seems to be the current term, but, strictly speaking, any currency that international banks must keep in reserve is a reserve currency, and these are the US$, the £, the €, the ¥, and the CHF.

The key currency is the default currency for international transactions. Sellers are afraid the buyer might devalue their currency, buyers are afraid the sellers will upvalue their currency. Gold was recognised as guaranteed, but after WWII, there wasn't enough physical gold in the world to support the expanding global trade, but the US$ was a big enough currency with a value permanently fixed at approximately 0.88 gm gold, so it was declared the Key Currency and made international trade much easier than it had been.

Then, in 1971, was the biggest default in world trade ever: The US said they would no longer give any gold for a US$!

The world economy could have collapsed, but it didn't. The US$ remained the key currency, for reasons no one completely understands (except there was no alternative). The Europeans tried to come up with a key currency not controlled by a single country and created the €, but it only caught on for international payments inside the Euro Zone and so never became a key currency: the US$ reigned.

Iraq and Libya said they'd start accepting currencies other than the US$, so the US destroyed both: taught them a lesson they'll not soon forget.

But, while the US had great success forcing regime change in Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, and destroyed the economies of Syria, Iran, and Venezuela, and Americans felt no pain in the US, not the slightest inconvenience. But.

After the collapse of the USSR, the US became Global Hegemon. Graham Allison wrote in 2012 that global hegemons almost always fight tooth and nail to retain their hegemony when they see a rising power that might eventually be able to challenge them, and that rising power was the PRC. So the US planned for regime change in the PRC, and breaking the PRC up into a bunch of small, weak nations that could never challenge the US. Predominantly Muslim western PRC would become East Turkestan. Tibet, Hong Kong, and Taiwan would be independent nations.

But then Russia got uppity, and the US decided to get rid of Russia. After all, when General Douglas MacArthur said the US could easily win the war in Korea by nuking the PLA, President Truman, who had ordered the USAF to use the entire US nuclear arsenal on Japan in 1945 instead said, 'The USSR have MAD. You're fired.'

So the US decided that Russia must be dismantled, the Republics that constitute Russia must become independent nations who cannot agree about anything. The US said that the Ukraine was a candidate who would be admitted soon, then denied that they'd ever said that.

When the US put nukes in Turkey in 1962, the USSR put nukes in Cuba and everyone expected WWIII, but JFK called Moscow and said, "I have to run for re-election and you don't, so if you say you gave the US everything we wanted and got nothing in return, we'll give you everything you want." Khrushchev figured, 'What harm can it do?' and then he had to write the two letters.

Those nukes the US removed from Turkey are now in Türkiye, and the US put nukes in some of the former Warsaw Pact countries. Russia were not happy, and made demands in December 2021, demands the US and NATO said Russia had no right to make, and they would not be honoured.

In 2014, the US neocolonialised the Ukraine. They gave money and weapons to a small group of Ukrainians who consider themselves ethnic Germanic, whose grandparents fought with Germany in WWII, and who agree that Hitler had the right idea about Jews, Roma, and Slavs. The US told them that killing Jews is wrong, and not allowed, but killing Slavs was a great, patriotic achievement during WWII and the Ukraine must be cleansed of everything Slavic. This makes the Ukraine a neocolony: the government must do whatever the US say or they will be removed ASAP.

The Ukrainian government seemed to be planning an attack on the Donbass to eradicate every trace of Slavic language and religion in early 2022, so Russia moved to protect all the ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine on 24 February. The US was ready and sanctioned Russia: Russia cannot use the US$, and so is completely cut off from all international trade, thereby destroying the Russian economy which consisted of selling oil and gas to the West for US$ and using those US$ to buy everything Russia need from the West. Oops.

Russia said all oil and gas must be bought with Rubles. Then Russia said the PRC can use RMB and India can use rupees. Russia and China and India are now trading with Iran, who are no longer completely cut out of international trade, and they ain't using the US$.

Using the US$ against Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Venezuela, and Iran caused those countries great pain but did nothing to the world economy. No one in the rest of the world felt any pain, only the countries sanctioned.

Using the US$ against Russia does not seem to be working out all that well. The US has high inflation. The US neocolony of Europe has even higher inflation and not enough oil or gas, so the ordinary people have trouble getting around and staying warm and buying food. But the governments are doing well, paid by the US so they don't lack anything. For the European leaders, bought and paid for the by US, they have petrol and fancy foods and heat in winter and A/C in summer. No problems as long as they do whatever the US tell them to do. Good employees all, they are earning their salaries.

But more and more of the world are abandoning the US$, it is now a semi-Key currency. The control over the world that the US had since the collapse of the USSR, and the US$ as the world's Key currency, both seems to be slowly eroding.

So what will the US do?

Will the US figure that no world at all is better than a world without the US as Global Hegemon?

The PRC and Russia are hoping that, if the US do figure that, it will be after the US$ has ceased to be the Key currency, and the US won't have enough money to pay to launch a nuclear attack.

Not much news in the Ukraine

 The New York Times  has been reporting since February that Russia are losing badly in the Ukraine, that the Ukraine, with advanced US weapons, easily defeated the entire Russian invasion force with their "outmoded and inept" weapons, so almost all the invaders are dead, and the survivors only hold a few undefended villages until the Ukrainian military arrive and evict them, finding the civilians brutally murdered and the villages destroyed. At the same time,  the sanctions totally destroyed the Russian economy, based entirely on selling oil and gas to the West and using the money to buy everything Russia need from the West. So regime change has predicted to be about a fortnight away since April, when a new government like that of Gorbachev who would let the US break Russia up into a bunch of small states, e.g., Chechnya and Dagestan would be independent states, run by Muslim monarchs and hating all their Christian neighbours, the independent states would be at war with each other and not able to challenge the US in any way, shape, form or fashion.

Then the Ukraine recaptured the huge Oblasts of Kharkov and Kherson. How, when the Russians only held a few villages? So the New York Times reported that the US had given the Ukraine very precise artillery but of limited range, while the Russian artillery, not precise at all but longer range, had enabled the Russians to take the two Oblasts, but then the US gave the Ukraine longer range artillery, and with the new artillery, much longer range and much more precise than Russian artillery, the Ukraine quickly recaptured more than 55% of all the territory illegally seized by Russia and, in about a fortnight, would have recaptured the rest, followed by regime change.

That was more than a month ago that the Ukrainians recaptured the eastern part of Kherson, and not much has happened since.

Those sanctions that devastated the Russian economy managed to destroy the European economy that can no longer afford to run any factories, since the cost of energy, now six times as expensive, would more than double total costs forcing Europe to sell at double the price, which is not competitive, so most factories must close and Europe must deindustrialise. Very green, going back to living as they did in the 15th century. Or maybe they might make it as far as the 19th century when everything ran on coal. So that's good progress, the US do not need any competition from Europe.

The sanctions also made life somewhat harder for Americans: the US factories have energy only 50% more expensive, not 500%, and little competition with Europe closed, so the factories remain open, and people have jobs, but inflation has significantly reduced real wages. So the sanctions have done more damage to the US than to Russia, but a lot less damage than to Europe.

Still, the plan was always to destroy Russia (and then the PRC) without a nuclear holocaust. Russia would be provoked into a war in the Ukraine and the PRC into a war in Taiwan where, in both cases, those advanced US weapons would enable the Ukraine to destroy the Russian military and Taiwan to destroy the PLA, and sanctions would destroy the Russian and PRC economies forcing regime change. And if one reads the New York Times, the plan is going very, very well and will succeed in just another fortnight, and anyone can put up with a few minor inconveniences for a fortnight to save Democracy.

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One must blame Churchill, whose autohagiography demonised Chamberlain, saying the UK could have easily defeated Germany in 1938 in Czechoslovakia with very little loss of UK lives, but Chamberlain's Appeasement resulted in WWII, the defeat of the BEF at Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain that destroyed a lot of British infrastructure and killed many, and then the years of war where far too many British soldiers died unnecessarily because of Appeasement.

So now Putin is said to be trying to recreate the USSR, then the Warsaw Pact, then annex Western Europe, then the US and Canada, so he must be stopped in the Ukraine, or this Appeasement will be much worse than Chamberlain's horrible mistake at Munich in 1938.

Waugh wrote that, when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, war became inevitable, but war in 1938 would have been the wrong war for the wrong reasons with the wrong allies. So Chamberlain did the right thing, buying time for France and the UK to get ready. Didn't go all that well in France in 1940, but at least the UK had the Miracle at Dunkirk that saved almost all of the BEF and the radar shield that ensured every German bombing raid had unacceptable losses for the Luftwaffe, neither of which would have been possible in 1938 when Germany would probably have been able to win the war against Czechoslovakia and the UK, force the surrender of the UK, and then the US would have had nowhere to station their troops and could not have participated in the European War (but they would still have nuked Japan).

As Waugh wrote, this is the wrong war for the wrong reasons with the wrong enemy. Putin feels obligated to protect ethnic Russians under attack in former Soviet states. With former Soviet states that give ethnic Russians human rights, Putin does not wish  to do anything.

But, of course, the real reason for this war is that, after the collapse of the USSR, the US became Global Hegemon, and, as Graham Allison wrote in 2012, Hegemons, ever since Sparta in ancient Greece, usually fight tooth and nail to keep their hegemony. Allison predicted war with the PRC, but then Russia got uppity, so both Russia and the PRC must be destroyed. And it looks like the US will stop at nothing to destroy Russia and the PRC. Only, except in all the Western media, this destruction of Russia does not seem to be going all that well, doing far more to destroy Europe and weaken the US than it is damaging Russia.

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So things have been pretty quiet for the last six weeks or so, but Winter is Coming, the season when the Russian military usually do their best. So we'll see what happens after Orthodox Christmas, 7 January.

The Decline of Search Engines

 The Internet allowed anyone on the Internet to see public files on any other computer on the Internet. If, of course, one knew they were there and their address. So, early on, they came up with a search engine called Archie. But early Internet computers were mid-range with hundreds of users and with an Admin who decided what programs to install, so I never saw Archie. There were maybe 100 computers on the Internet back then, so one hoped for e-mails giving the address of a research paper one might find useful. Then there was the Usenet where people could post links to their research papers and I used Usenet heavily. There were sections devoted to very esoteric research, and sections devoted to humour and just about everything else. It was useful when I first found it, but then it got overwhelmed with, among other things, the very first spam, a couple of lawyers looking for clients who flooded the Usenet with their adverts.

Then came the World Wide Web, with browsers and servers and it seemed like everyone and his dog had a website, but finding the ones with information one needed seemed impossible. So someone developed Lycos. Lycos didn't want you to miss anything. So if you searched for 'date' it would find data and rate and dare and etc. and etc., just in case you misspelled your search term. My boss had a son who had to do a paper on 'date rape'. So I typed in 'date rape' and got lots of important dates, 4th of July websites, 25 December, 1 January, etc., etc. plus the dates grown in Saudi Arabia plus, plus, plus. Too many papers about date (or close to date) so it never got to date rape. So I tried rape date, and got papers about rape (but not date rape) and papers about rap and rep and reap and and and but nothing about date rape. So useless.

Then came Yahoo. Yahoo asked people to put their information on Yahoo and then did searches based on conjunction. If I asked for 'date and rape' I got only papers about date rape. GREAT! (but too late for my boss's son's high school paper). As long as Yahoo was a student project.

Then they graduated and venture capital took over. Everything on Yahoo was ranked by how much money the person paid. I was asked to find coin dealers in New Orleans. I got coin dealers in Chicago that paid to be listed, and restaurants in New Orleans that paid, but no coin dealers in New Orleans, since none had paid enough to be listed.

Then came Google. Pages ranked by how many other pages pointed at them. Scammers created lots of fake sites whose only purpose was to point to a site so it would get a higher rank. But Google tried to program the search engine not to use such faux sites in making its ranking. One could find just what one wanted, if it was anywhere on the Internet. But that was while they were still students, and Google was a student project. Actually, that's not quite fair, Google used that same model for several years. But after they became a commercial project, they blocked lots of sites. I found a site about the US war to colonise the Philippines. Then it went from detailed history to just one page: "this site is now blocked by Google, so we can't make any money and we're taking the site down". They said they asked, "Why?" and got no reply. So Google could kill a site they did not like. But still, if they didn't hate the site you were looking for, Google would probably find it for you.

But I looked for a good walker for an elderly man who has some disease his doctor said starts Al something or other, but I can't remember what the doctor said or why I went to see him. Anyway, a couple of years ago, I found lots of walkers, many of which looked much better than the one I'd just bought, but  I really didn't need another walker.

My walker is getting old, and I'm looking for a new one. I looked. Not much turned up. Then a florist told me: Google has gone the same as Yahoo right after they went public: sites are ranked by how much they pay Google. Pay enough, your site gets ranked first, in bold, 'This is the page you need!' even if it has nothing to do with what you're looking for. Build a page, leave it floating, it won't turn up on Google even if it's a perfect match for what you're searching for. So I found very few walkers, and all overpriced and not nearly as good as the ones I could find before. Google is now almost worthless if you need to find the best page to answer your query.

If one is looking for the best walker, Google will always point to the walker that paid the best to Alphabet, and they gave their money to Alphabet, they did not waste it building the best walker because paying Alphabet is a better way to have great sales.

Russia's Problem

 The US found some nations engaged in horrible, criminal activities, especially wanting to squander the profits from their natural resources on their own people when everyone must know that, with the demise of the USSR, all the world's resources belong to the US (with a little for US allies France and the UK).

When Iran claimed Iranian oil in 1951, the US sent the CIA to remove the government that stole the oil and put in the Shah who promised all the oil would belong to the US. When the Shah stole the oil, the US put in an obscure cleric who only cared about stoning women who didn't wear proper Islamic dress. But then the Ayatollah failed to hand over the oil, so the US would have destroyed Iran except there was no strait path to that destruction, so the Ayatollahs continue to refuse to hand the oil over to the US, and the US forbade the world from buying any Iranian oil. Of course, other evil nations have defied the US and bought Iranian oil, so their destruction is in the planning stage: buying Iranian oil is only one of many PRC violations of the Rules-Based Order, i.e., the US make all the rules and give all the orders.

Of course, Iraq tried to claim Iraqi oil, and Libya tried to claim Libyan oil, so the US destroyed both countries, carpet bombing the cities, killing as many of the men, women, and children terrorists as possible, destroying all their illegal infrastructure: water processing plants, electric plants, schools, hospital, & etc., all built with stolen US oil money.

This was easy and went very well, since they had no defences that could stand up to the US of A: no air defences, no real army.

But Russia do not hate the Ukraine the way the US hate any country that steal their natural resources that all belong to the US, and then squander the money on their own citizens. Russians have friends and relatives in the Ukraine.

Putin wants to demilitarise and denazify the Ukraine while minimising civilian casualties and damage to Ukrainian infrastructure, and this is much more difficult than US 'shock and awe' campaigns.

Obviously, Putin has no idea what he's doing, and is committing a heinous crime: the Ukraine and all their resources belong the US, and no one else.

So how to demilitarise and denazify without killing civilians or doing much damage to infrastructure? And why would anyone want to do that?

Putin does not seem to have a good answer to that problem.

Shortly after the invasion, the Russians took over much of the Donbass, Kharkov, and Kherson and held them for five months, until the Ukraine, given more advanced US weapons, forced the Russians out of Kharkov and out of about a third of Kherson, the first major Russian losses.

Does this mean the US have finally given the Ukrainians weapons with which they can drive the Russians out of the entire Ukraine? Or are Russia just trying to minimise Russian casualties and pulling back to more defensible positions which the Ukraine will attack with limited success and massive losses?

The US 2022 Elections, Sunday 13 November

 Yesterday, the Democrats and Republicans had 49 seats in the US Senate, or 2 short of the total, since 2 races had not been decided.

Today, The Democrats have 50, so a majority, when the polls the day before the election said the Republicans would probably take the Senate. But now the Senate has a Democrat majority, and may have a Democrat majority of 51 after the Georgia runoff.

All the anti-war Republicans who had to run lost (there are a few Senators who did not have to run in the 2022 elections, every election elects just 1/3 of all the Senators, so some of the very few Republicans who are anti-war did not have to run; lots of those running were anti-war, but they just about all lost).

Yesterday, the Democrats started with 201 members of the House of Representative, but that rose to 204, while the Republicans stayed at 211. Today, the Democrats still have 204, and the Republicans gained one to 212, just 6 away from having a majority of the House. The polls said the Republicans would have a comfortable majority, but now it is not clear if they will get a majority. Yesterday started with 19 races still undecided, and 3 of the four decided went to Democrats and one to a Republican. If this continues, the Democrats will have the House and Senate, just as they do now. Fifteen seats in the House still undecided. The Democrats need 14 more to win the House, and the Republicans need just 6 more. Will the Democrats get 14 out of 15? Quite possibly. And every last Democrat wants war with Russia and the PRC that will destroy both countries and split them into a bunch of unarmed, independent nations that cannot challenge US hegemony.

The US 2022 Election

 The US had an election for the legislative branch, not quite a Parliament, but the closest US equivalent, on Tuesday, 8 November (it has to be on the first Tuesday AFTER 1 November). We still have no idea who won.

Before, the Democrats had a majority in the House and the Senate. After 5 days, we have no idea. Neither party have a majority in either the House or the Senate, since we have no idea which party won.

A month before the election, the polls said it was 60% certain the Republicans would win in the House, and 60% certain the Democrats would win in the Senate. A week before the election, the polls said the Republicans would have a comfortable majority in the House, and the Senate was 50-50.

To win in the House requires having at least 218 members, and neither party have that many yet.

To win in the Senate, the Democrats need 50 Senators, the Republicans need 51, and both now have 49.

The Republicans are slightly ahead in the House, with 211, and the Democrats have 201, sorry 202, sorry now it's 204: the Democrats are gaining, and no one knows which will end up with the majority.

The Senate is almost certain to go to the Democrats, who might go from their current majority of 50 to a majority of 51.

The anti-war candidates did not do well. Most Americans listen to their leaders that Putin wants to rebuild the Warsaw Pact, then expand it to Western Europe, the UK, the US, and Canada, so he must be stopped. Not stopping Putin in the Ukraine would be as bad as Chamberlain appeasing Hitler at Munich.

Only the story about Chamberlain and appeasement came when the UK wanted a scapegoat and Churchill gave them Chamberlain.

In 1938, the year of Munich, Britain and France wanted war with Germany in 1939. Neither were ready for war in 1938. France wanted to complete the Maginot Line, and France would not join Britain in a war against Germany without that Maginot Line. So Chamberlain pretended that he only wanted 'Peace in our time' and so gave Germany the Sudetenland when he was really buying time.

Britain wanted to complete a radar system, which was Top Secret, so Churchill's demonisation of Chamberlain said the UK won the Battle of Britain with carrots, not radar, which was completely false. The radar meant that the RAF knew when and where the Luftwaffe were coming and were waiting for them, so Luftwaffe losses were unacceptably high, the Luftwaffe lost too many bombers, and the UK won the Battle of Britain. But Churchill said the RAF could see the Germans coming and shoot them down because they ate a lot of carrots, nothing else.

Since Churchill warned about appeasement, the US went to war in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, the Yemen, Syria, and probably a bunch I forgot and a bunch that never made the media, since war is always better than appeasement.

But now the US want to take on Russia and the PRC, which are not at all like any war the US has ever fought before.

So the US threatened to put nukes and ABMs in the Ukraine, and said there was nothing Russia could do about it, so Russia did something, and the US say Russia must be totally destroyed, broken up into several small, independent, unarmed states. A state for Dagestan, a state for Chechnea, an independent state for all the Russian Republics. Then those states will be no more of a problem for the US than Grenada.

But Russia are NOT Grenada, so this war is unlikely to go like the War against Grenada.

But every US Democrat and the senior Republicans all say we cannot appease Putin, we must totally destroy Russia before they can conquer the world. Only a few Republicans say they want to stop the war and go back to cheap petrol and low inflation. All the rest say, 'No appeasement!!!'

As for the election, 'It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes.' And those who count the votes are making sure enough of the anti-war Republicans lose that a comfortable majority will continue to support the endless US wars.

Scott Ritter says Russia are winning. What next?

All of NATO are against Russia, determined to win, and all the Western media must reiterate the official Western narrative: Putin's invasion of the Ukraine was the biggest mistake any Russian ever made, the Ukraine, with advanced US weapons, destroyed the "outmoded and inept" Russian weapons, shot down every Russian aeroplane, destroyed all the Russian tanks, killed just about all the Russian troops that invaded. And the sanctions completely destroyed the Russian economy, which was entirely based on selling oil and gas to the West and using the money to buy everything Russia needed from the West.

However,  Scott Ritter et al. report accurately about the war in the Ukraine, and the Western narrative is not altogether accurate. Mr Ritter, who has accurate information about the Ukraine and refuses to abide by US/EU law that one must always reiterate the official Western narrative, says that Russia are winning in the Ukraine. And anyone who can count knows that the Russia economy has survived the Western sanctions, selling to the East and South, making more money than before the sanctions, having the world's strongest currency.

The war in the Ukraine has, as its objective, the complete destruction of Russia. Russia must lose badly until Putin is overthrown and the new regime agree to all NATO conditions: Russia must be broken up into several small, unarmed states, all Russian energy resources must go to US oil and gas barons as reparations. A beneficial side effect is the complete economic destruction of Germany: Germany's prosperity was entirely based on cheap Russian energy, and with energy from the US oil and gas barons at four or more times the price, Germany is no longer competitive, no one can afford to pay four times what they were paying to buy German output, so the German economy is already collapsing, and things will only get worse. German industries can only survive if they can relocate to the US where they will be able to buy affordable energy. Maybe.

The raisons d'etre for NATO were 1) to keep the US in, and almost all of Europe are now a US neocolony, so the US are in as neoImperialist; 2) to keep the USSR (now Russia) out, and the neocolony of Europe are now prohibited by law from any economic interaction with Russia, the only allowed interaction is to support the US military conquest of Russia, so Russia are out; and 3) to keep Germany down, and the German economy is imploding without access to the cheap Russian energy that gave Germany their competitive advantage.

So it is win, win, win for NATO!

Except that Russia are winning in the Ukraine. The US as World Hegemon is under severe threat.

So will the US decide that having no World at all is better than losing their World Hegemony? Do the US leadership figure their bunkers will be safe from Russian retaliation? The US president says Armageddon is upon us, and he should know.

A Tale of Two Narratives

 Patrick Cockburn was once an excellent foreign correspondent, covering what the US call the "Middle East", which the UK used to call the "Near East" before, but now use the American term. 

The Greeks always said the East started at the Hellespont, but the US figure Western Europe is still East, not as far east as the Hellespont, but still East. So Europe are the Near East for the US, and the area just east of the Hellespont is the Middle East for the US. And the US is rich enough and powerful enough that most now call the area just east of the Hellespont the "Middle East".

Mr Cockburn wrote that, with Russia in severe decline, the idiot Putin got the idea of invading the Ukraine, for some inexplicable reason (if the Ukraine want to kill all the ethnic Russians in the Ukraine, they have every right to do so, that's national sovereignty). Of course, Russia lost badly, easily defeated by the Ukrainians, and complete collapse and regime change should happen in a few more weeks, at most. Mr Cockburn wrote that Russia had just 55 aeroplanes, and the Ukrainians destroyed all of them.

Mr Cockburn now reads the Western media which reiterates the Western narrative, but reporters actually in Eastern Ukraine report that Russia are mostly winning, with few losses, while the Ukraine lost huge numbers of draftees in their offensive that recaptured some areas formerly held by the Russians, while the Russian forces managed to escape with very few losses.

Of course, it still looks bad. The ethnic Russians left behind are now being murdered. Why Russia invaded the Kharkov oblast when they should have known they could not hold it against a Ukrainian attack, leaving the ethnic Russians now in much worse state than before, is not clear.

Russia admit that about 6,000 of the Russian army soldiers that invaded the Ukraine have been killed. Of course, the ethnic Russian army in the Ukraine joined with the Russian national army to fight the anti-Russian Ukrainians, and together they were slowly advancing. Until they weren't. And the ethnic Russian Ukrainian army lost far more soldiers than the Russian army, but no one counts them. So no reliable numbers for Russian/ethnic Russian Ukrainian losses.

Meanwhile, the goal of the US is the complete destruction of Russia, a continuation of what happened to the USSR thanks to Gorbachev and Yeltsin: breaking Russia up into several, perhaps many, small, unarmed countries that must do whatever the US demand or be totally destroyed similar to Iraq and Libya. The US want a similar fate for the PRC. Then the US will continue to be World Hegemon with no competitors. And the Western media all say this is going very well, following the US plan perfectly, destroying Russia and soon the PRC as well.

But independent media are not so sure, they figure the US will lose to Russia in the Ukraine, where Russia have all the logistic advantage.

And the US will lose to the PRC, which have all the advantage in numbers, technology, and leadership.

But my question remains: will the US decide that having no world at all is better than giving up World Hegemony? It's certainly looking like it. Jens Stoltenberg says that NATO must not lose in the Ukraine, no matter what it takes to prevent a loss.

Russian or Western narrative?

From the day Russia began the "Special Military Operation", the Western Narrative was that the Ukrainians, with advanced US weapons, had completely destroyed just about all of the Russian forces. The Russians were using Soviet era tanks and aeroplanes that were "outmoded and inept" according to the Western press, and easily destroyed by those advanced US weapons. In a few weeks, Russia had lost more than 80,000 dead and the rest badly wounded and/or captured, so just a handful of Russians sneaking where the Ukrainian military could not find them and shelling undefended cities and villages, doing a lot of damage to the civilian infrastructure but not doing any damage to the Ukrainian military.

The reporters in the Russian controlled areas produced many videos showing that the Russians were winning, slowly advancing and doing massive damage to the Ukrainian military. No actual Russian losses. The US had built a series of impregnable, mostly underground fortresses. No conventional bombs, no artillery shells, nothing could penetrate the layers of cement and steel, so the Russians had to starve out the Ukrainian military, and those fortresses were stocked with months of food and water, so all was going slowly, but the Russians were advancing. For six months.

Then, two weeks ago, Russia lost the entire oblast of Kharkov. Russia say they are now mobilising, and held referenda where four oblasts voted to rejoin Russia. The Western narrative was that armed Russians forced a few unarmed civilians to vote to join Russia, but the overwhelming majority of the Ukraine hate everything Russia. The Ukrainians see great prosperity and freedom in the EU and NATO and abject poverty and oppression in Russia. The abject poverty when Russia are selling huge amounts of energy to Europe sounded a bit unlikely, but the West insisted their reporters, who could see clearly from their desks in New York and London and Paris and Berlin, checked and verified the veracity of the Western narrative.

And then the Russians lost Liman, after holding it for 6 months.

So the Western narrative, that the Ukrainians have worn down the Russian military pretty much completely is starting to sound as if it might have some truth to it. Not, as they've been claiming for 6 months, that the Russian military were completely destroyed the first week, since that was obviously false, but the Russian claims of losing only 6,000 men is starting to look equally false. An oblast and a piece of another oblast, held for six months that the Ukrainian military could not make any progress, suddenly, the Ukrainian military are easily able to evict the Russians from part of the Ukraine, something they could not do for six months, but are now finding rather easy. If this continues, the Ukraine will eventually evict the Russian military from the entire Ukraine.

Two wins in two weeks might be less than they seem, but six months of nothing but losses by the Ukrainian military followed by two rather big wins indicate that something might have changed.

The West finally giving the Ukraine much more advanced weapons? The Russian forces slowly but steadily worn down until they no longer have the wherewithal to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensives they once easily stopped?

And what's happening to the Russian 'recall of reserves'? The Western narrative is that every man in Russia is hiding, trying to emigrate, knowing if they are sent to the Ukraine it is certain death. Could there be some truth in the Western narrative? A lot of obvious lies in the Western narrative, but could those lies contain a kernel of essential truth? The recall is going slowly, and the Ukraine are able to take more and more territory that was Russian-controlled for six months.

The reporters in the Donbass report that the ethnic Russians, being killed by the Ukrainians for 8 years, are desperate to be part of Russia, to have the protection of the Russian military from the Ukrainians who want to kill them, and they have video and a lot of evidence that this is correct, but we see no evidence that Russia still have the wherewithal to protect them. It is looking like the Russian force, easily able to stop Ukrainian counteroffensives for six months, was slowly being whittled down until they are no longer able to stop those counteroffensives, and Putin was hoping the referenda and promise of major Russian retaliation for any attacks would cause the Ukraine to pause.

Instead, the US, fearful of uprisings in Europe, destroyed the Russian pipelines. So now, even if ordinary Europeans could overthrow their governments (unlikely, since those governments are supported by the US military), they still won't have any gas to heat their homes, so no point. The German government will not allow Russia to repair the pipelines, since they are US puppets. So there will never again be any pipelines, no Russian gas in Europe, and the German economy destroyed. Europeans will have to use Norwegian, Qatari, and American gas, all much, much more expensive than Russian gas, so many won't be able to heat their homes, energy intensive industries must close or relocate to the US.

So US in, Russia out, and Germany down: NATO still successfully accomplishing everything they were intended to accomplish.

The Western Narrative

 The Western narrative, present in all the Western media, has been, since March, 2022, that the Ukraine, with advanced US weapons, completely destroyed the Russian invasion force. All Putin's outmoded and inept Soviet tanks and aeroplanes were no match for the advanced US weapons the Ukrainians had and with which they killed almost all the soldiers and destroyed almost all the tanks and aeroplanes. A few Russians managed to avoid the Ukrainian army and continue to shell undefended villages, killing civilians, but the Ukrainian military are too well protected for the Russians to dare attack.

After the Ukrainians killed off the initial invasion force, Putin is drafting 13-year-old boys and 70-year-old men, since that's all he has left.

Now, of course, the same people who forced a referendum on Serbia and took Kosovo announced that any Russian referendum is a heinous violation of international law and, of course, the "Rules-based-order", where only the US can make any rules or give any orders, and all American rules are supported by all the US neocolonials in Europe and the UK, meaning those rules have the universal support of everyone who is allowed to have an opinion.

The current Western narrative is that the Russians have trapped some civilians (no Ukrainian army around, since they can't be everywhere) and forced them to vote to be part of Russia, something no one in Ukraine wants.

Like all the Western narrative, Russia have videos showing soldiers in their 20s with lots of working tanks and aeroplanes that are obviously (if one knows tanks) far more advanced than Soviet tanks, but, of course, a) the West make it as difficult as possible for anyone to see those videos, and b) the Weast say that anyone who does see them is just seeing a Photoshopped video that makes those 13-year-old boys and 70-year-old men look like they're in their 20s and riding in modern tanks and aeroplanes.

The Russians also have videos of lots of people very happy to be voting to be part of Russia. Again, the Western narrative is that they are forced to pretend to be happy at gunpoint.

It seems clear that a huge majority will vote to be part of Russia. Russia brought about 1,000 foreign observers who say the election is honest, but, of course, the Western narrative is that it's just a few dozen actors in different costumes. Looks in the Russian videos to be about 1,000 from all over, but the Western narrative says don't be fooled by the Russian Photoshop.

And, on Wednesday, it gets interesting: the Western narrative is that everyone in the Ukraine wants the Russians out, that no one voted to be part of Russia except at gunpoint, but on Wednesday, Russia will say the Donbass, Kherson, and Zaporozhye are now part of Russia and will be defended as part of Russia.

And NATO say they will help the Ukraine with intelligence, advisors, and weapons to return all the territory that the West consider part of the Ukraine and reduce Russia to several small, unarmed states.

So is NATO about to lose a lot of their military satellites that have been providing targeting information for the HIMARS the West gave the Ukraine? Will Russia finally cut all the rail lines that bring Western weaponry into the Ukraine? Will Russia target the foreign advisors?

And what will NATO do then?????

Thucydides Next?

With the collapse of the USSR, the US had no competitor, no nation strong enough to challenge the US. Russia and the PRC always supported all US resolutions in the UN Security Council since they knew the US could make them trouble they could not handle. So they both voted to let the US destroy Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. The US was Global Hegemon.

But in 2012, Graham Allison wrote a paper called the Thucydides Trap, that every hegemon will fight tooth and nail to prevent any nation rising to where it could challenge the hegemon.

So the US was starting to notice that the PRC was rising rapidly, and Allison wrote that it was more likely that the US would take steps to stop the rise of the PRC while the PRC was still too weak to stop the US.

Then the US noticed that Russia was also rising and needed to be brought down, and so pushed Russia with a threat of putting so much of NATO in the Ukraine that Russia no longer had MAD. If Russia let NATO install nukes and ABM and several divisions of NATO troops, Russia would have no choice but to do as NATO demanded, to split into several small, unarmed nations that could never challenge the US.

The Western media reported that Russia's invasion of the Ukraine was a total disaster for Russia. The Ukraine, armed with advanced Western weapons, easily destroyed the Russian invasion force, killed almost all the soldiers, and destroyed just about all the tanks and aeroplanes. Plus the sanctions have completely destroyed the Russian economy. The media promised that the Russian regime that ordered the illegal and unprovoked invasion of the Ukraine will collapse very soon, Russia will owe massive reparations, so all Russian energy will go to US oligarchs, and Europe will once again have plenty of energy, so the ordinary Europeans must put up with cold showers for just a few weeks to save Democracy.

Only Russia kept slowly adding territory until last week, when the Russians withdrew all their soldiers from the entire Kharkov oblast, leaving behind a LOT of equipment, and also many ethnic Russians who are now being tortured and killed after Russia promised to defend them and to never abandon them. Russia was unable to stand up to the Ukraine armed with advanced Western weapons. The Western media are delighted and say that the loss of the Kharkov oblast is just the start, the Ukraine will very shortly have evicted all the Russian military from the Ukraine, including the Crimea, and this will force the Russian regime to fall and the new regime will be completely compliant with all NATO demands.

Is there anything Russia can do except surrender? Quite some discussion, with many pro-Russians saying 'No!'. The Kharkov Oblast was critical, without it, Russia cannot defend the territory they managed to acquire over the past 6 months, that Russia lost more territory in three days than they gained in the last 4 months, so the Russian invasion is finished.

Of course, some say that Kharkov Oblast was very hard to defend, and by withdrawing before the Ukraine army arrived, all those Russian troops were saved for another day. We don't know which now, but we might find out very soon.

***

Meanwhile, the original Thucydides conjecture, that the US must take down the PRC, is back on the table. The US want to dismantle the PRC the same way they are trying to dismantle Russia: get the PRC to attack Taiwan, then give Taiwan massive Western armaments and intelligence that will let Taiwan destroy the PLA without costing a single Western life, and sanctions will destroy the PRC economy. The US want this to happen before 2025, since they see the PRC rising, and figure it's a guaranteed victory for the US and Taiwan before 2025, and rather a danger than Taiwan might lose after 2030.

So first, the US sent Pelosi, which infuriated the PRC, but all the PRC did was send a few warships to sail around Taiwan. Not enough.

So now the US has ordered Taiwan not to sell a single chip to the PRC, and the PRC desperately needs many of the chips that only Taiwan can produce, so the US are sure that either the PRC will watch their economy collapse for lack of Taiwan chips, or they will attack Taiwan, and either of these will accomplish the US goal of destroying the PRC the same way the Western media assure us that Russia have already been totally destroyed.

So far, the PRC still haven't done anything. But as more and more factories cannot complete their products without those chips, what will the PRC do? What can the PRC do?

I guess we'll find out fairly soon.

Will the US succeed in removing both Russia and the PRC as possible challengers to US hegemony, or will something go wrong with the carefully contrived plan of the US?

Again, we'll find out.

Appeasement

 Churchill said, "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it." His history was brilliant. A lot of truth, but some lies of omission and some lies of commission, but the history made Churchill look very, very good. The worst lie of commission was Appeasement.

Some things, we know Churchill got right. When he wrote that, when Hitler said he would abrogate the Treaty of Versailles, the UK could have demanded regime change and Germany would have had no choice but to tell Hitler he was out and then pick some other Chancellor and then World War II would have been avoided with no lives lost, this is obviously correct. Churchill said he fought for this and lost, but I can't find any evidence he really did fight for regime change in Germany in 1933. But he was certainly right in his history that that would have been the best thing for the world.

Of course, as Orwell wrote, Airstrip One would ally with Eurasia against Eastasia, then ally with Eastasia against Eurasia, then back again. And Winston Smith had to rewrite all the history books so, when Airstrip One was allied with Eurasia, Airstrip One had always been allied with Eurasia.

So, when Napoleon was Emperor of France, Airstrip One was allied with Russia against France, or Eastasia against Eurasia. After Napoleon, Airstrip One allied with France and the Ottomans, i.e., Eurasia, against Russia, i.e., Eastasia.

In WWI, Airstrip One was allied with the Russian Empire against Germany and the Ottomans. Then, after WWI, Airstrip I allied with Germany against the USSR. The UK leaders were terrified of the USSR, saw it marching into Western Europe and taking over most of Europe and maybe the UK. So letting Germany rearm in 1933 as a bulwark against the USSR seemed like a good idea at the time. And the rabid anti-Communist, Adolph Hitler, seems like a good ally. Churchill might have vehemently disagreed, as he said he did in his histories, but I can't find any newspaper articles about Churchill speeches against letting Germany rearm.

By 1938, the UK and France knew war with Germany was necessary, but neither was ready. France would not support the UK against Germany until the Maginot Line was complete, i.e., 1939. And Chamberlain did not want war before the radar shield was ready to prevent a German bombing campaign that could destroy the UK: the RAF would have no idea when or where the Luftwaffe was attacking, so only a few would be able to fight, and could do very limited damage. Had the UK gone to war in Czechoslovakia without the support of France, there would have been no Miracle at Dunkirk. German bombing would have been devastating with very few Luftwaffe losses each bombing run.

So Chamberlain said he'd agreed to give Hitler part of Czechoslovakia (Czechoslovakia was divided up among Germany, Poland, and Hungary) and had gotten Hitler's assurances of peace.

Churchill's history said that was appeasement: in 1938, Germany was still very weak, and the BEF could easily have defeated the Wehrmacht. This is false, of course. Chamberlain did the right thing, but, after Dunkirk, the UK needed a scapegoat, and Churchill chose Chamberlain (who had died, so he could not defend himself).

In fact, the UK and France intended to go to war in 1939, when the Maginot Line and the British radar system were both ready. So they asked Poland to say Germany could no longer access East Prussia, Germany signed a treaty with the USSR, and they agreed to split Poland, with Germany getting the Polish land between Germany and East Prussia.

And as soon as Germany and the USSR attacked Poland, the UK and France declared war on Germany, expecting that the Wehrmacht would be unable to stand up to the Maginot Line and the BEF and the French military.

Things didn't go all that well. Belgium had an impregnable fortress all along the German border, but, while it was impregnable from the German side, it had no defences on the Belgian side, and paratroopers overran the fortress from the Belgian side and opened the gates.

The BEF and French Army lost, but at least almost all of the BEF made it back to the UK thanks to the Miracle of Dunkirk. And the bombings by the Luftwaffe had massive losses, since the entire RAF knew when and where the Luftwaffe were coming and managed to shoot down large number of the bombers until Germany ran out of bombers and the Battle of Britain worked out OK for the UK. Lots got bombed, but not nearly as much as before the radar was ready. Churchill, of course, since the radar was Top Secret, said the success of the RAF was because the RAF ate lots of carrots.

But Churchill's myth that Appeasement was the reason for WWII, that it could have been avoided if the UK stood up to Germany in 1938, has led to the War in Vietnam (not going to war would have been appeasement), and just about every other US war after WWII.

And now the US and the European neocolonial governments all say Putin wants to recreate the USSR and the Warsaw pact, and if we do not stop him in the Ukraine, that's appeasement, and we'll again be facing the Warsaw Pact and then they'll overrun Western Europe, then the UK, and then the US.

So every ordinary European (not the ruling elite, of course) must be willing to put up with cold showers, since not putting up with them would be appeasement.

2025???

 When Speaker Pelosi said she was going to Taiwan, the PRC made many threats. I did not think they could make so many threats and then do nothing. Most Chinese feel that making threats and doing nothing means losing face. After she left, the PLA began doing exercises all around Taiwan. Still, exercises are rather normal, closer to Taiwan than before, but not that new. The PRC dropped out of several arrangements with the US, but the US don't care.

After Pelosi said she was going and several rather prominent PRC individuals made threats, several very accurate analysts said the PRC wouldn't do anything. The PRC is rising, but most (including the PRC leadership) figure the US is much stronger now and would win any war. The US also notes that the PRC is rising. Top US analysts say that, if a war occurs now, the PRC is absolutely certain to lose. But after 2025, the PRC is very likely but not absolutely certain to lose. After 2030, the PRC is only likely to lose, not very likely. So the US have decided that 1) the PRC must be held responsible for a totally unprovoked war; and 2) this 'totally unprovoked war' must be forced to start before 2026.

Read the New York Times. Russia had an economy like Saudi Arabia: they sell oil and gas and use the money to buy everything they need from Europe and the US. The US threatened to admit the Ukraine into NATO and put nukes and ABMs into the Ukraine that would eliminate Russian MAD so Russia would have no choice but to surrender and let the US break Russia up into several unarmed states, and all that Russian oil and gas would return to its rightful owners: the US oil barons. Russia said this was a Red Line.

Obviously, Russia should have surrendered. But instead, Russia attacked the Ukraine, just as the US wanted. Advanced US weapons destroyed every Russian Air Force plane and every Russian Army tank, and, since Russia buy all their planes and tanks from Europe and the US, they cannot replace any of them. Also, those US weapons killed off the entire invasion force, so Russia are now using 13-year old boys and 70 year old men, all of whom know they can't win, and are very dispirited, while the Ukrainians are highly motivated and winning. Yes, to preserve Democracy, ordinary Americans have to eat less and drive less, and ordinary Europeans must also eat and drive less and take cold showers, but these are very minor sacrifices to make for Democracy, and only for a few more weeks before the complete collapse of Russia. And not making those sacrifices would mean that the evil Putin could recreate the USSR, then the Warsaw Pact, then add all of Western Europe to the Warsaw Pact, then invade and conquer the US, so winning the Ukraine War is absolutely essential, according to the US/UK/EU leadership and all the Western media.

Independent media say every word is false: the Russians are very slowly winning in the Ukraine, those 'advanced US weapons' could not take out more than a very few Russian aeroplanes and tanks (especially since fewer than 1/3 of those weapons ever reach the Ukrainian military), while Russian weapons destroyed most of the Ukrainian aeroplanes and tanks. After Russia were taken in by the Minsk Accords, the US had 8 years to build impregnable, underground fortresses throughout the Ukraine (especially in the Donbass). Conventional artillery, rockets, bombs dropped from planes cannot penetrate the massive cement and steel ceilings with trap doors for shelling the Russian military whenever there are no bombers. The Russians bomb and isolate until all the food and water run out, so it can take more than a month to take each fortress, and during that month, the Russian military make no progress. But food and water eventually run out, and then the Russians take the fortress and move forward a few kilometres to the next fortress.

But stick with the New York Times narrative, which is reiterated in all the Western media: the proxy War in Ukraine is going very, very well for the West, and Russia will soon be under NATO control

So now, to preserve US hegemony, the next step is the PRC that must be forced to invade Taiwan, where those advanced US weapons and sanctions will quickly destroy the PLA and the PRC just as they have destroyed Russia, provided the US can provoke the PRC to invade Taiwan before 2026.

I am convinced the proxy war of the PRC and Taiwan will go very, very well in the New York Times and all the rest of the Western media if not quite so well in real life.

And if the US fleet sail in as they did 25 years ago to make sure the PRC didn't try anything when Speaker Gingrich visited Taiwan, the PLA Navy are not quite the same as they were back then, and that US fleet might all be submarines before this is over.

And then what? The US leadership might figure that having no world at all is better than seeing the PRC replace the US as World Hegemon.

Two Fronts are Better than One???

 The US were determined to stop the rise of the PRC. The US remembered 1951, when General MacArthur told President Truman that the only way the US could defeat the PLA was to use nukes. President Truman said, 'The USSR has MAD. You're fired!'

The US are again determined to stop the rise of the PRC. It's been called the Thucydides Trap for the last 8 or so years. Every hegemon, historically beginning with Sparta in ancient Greece, does all it can to prevent a rising rival from overtaking it and becoming the new hegemon (probably happened many times before, but did not make the history books since history books hadn't been around all that long when Sparta was hegemon).

And today the US hegemon are worried about the rise of the PRC, but, based on what happened in 1951, figured it would be best to first break up Russia into several smaller, unarmed states that always had to do whatever the US said, so the US prepared to make the Ukraine part of NATO and put in nukes and ABMs to eliminate Russian MAD, after which Russia would have to do whatever the US ordered, and would have to split into those small, unarmed countries. Then, with no Russia, the PRC would be next. The US and NATO both wrote to Russia that this was going to happen and there was nothing Russia could do about it.

This is working out very well in the Western establishment media. The Ukrainians with their advanced US weapons are easily defeating the Russians with their "outmoded and inept weapons" as the New York Times, CNN, et al. iterate daily. The Russians are proving an easier challenge than Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Libya.

Sadly, reporters actually in the Donbass report that the Russians are winning. The 2014 coup in the Ukraine replaced a rabidly pro-Russian government that let everyone speak whatever language they liked and attend whatever church they liked with a strictly neutral government that banned everything Russian throughout the Ukraine and started killing people who spoke Russian or tried to attend a Russian Orthodox Church. Russia forced the Ukraine to sign the Minsk agreement promising to leave the Russians alone, and the Ukraine and US used the next 8 years building impregnable fortresses: so much steel and concrete that no bomb, no artillery can penetrate, but with doors that open and allow artillery strikes when the Russians aren't bombing or shelling. So Russian progress against these fortresses has been very slow but steady. One by one, the fortress defenders run out of food and water and have to either surrender or try to retreat while the Russian Air Force and artillery and mobile armour try to kill as many as possible.

But it is illegal to write anything in the West except that the Ukrainians with US weapons are destroying the Russians, they have destroyed every Russian tank and aircraft, the Russians cannot and do not face the Ukrainian military, they only shell undefended cities and villages killing only civilians. So things are going very, very well, and the small sacrifices the US, Canada, and European citizens must make to preserve democracy--i.e., not enough food, electricity, heat, or petrol--won't be necessary for much longer, and anyone can put up with cold showers for a few weeks if it means saving Democracy.

But now, Speaker Pelosi wants to visit Taiwan, and the PRC say such a visit will necessitate a military response, so the entire Senate, Democrat and Republican, say she must go to show the PRC they cannot challenge the US and get away with it. The US military and White House have all begged her not to go, but it's not at all clear is she will listen. The Democrats are sure this will look very good for the upcoming election when Speaker Pelosi proves that the PRC are no match for a US Democrat Speaker.

So it looks like the US want a 2 Front proxy war where the Ukraine, with US weapons, will destroy Russia, and Taiwan, with US weapons, will destroy the PRC.

No one knows what would happen in a strictly conventional war with Russia against all of NATO. But everyone should know what will happen in a strictly conventional war with the PRC against all of NATO plus Japan and South Korea. Basically, in a week or so, NATO will no longer have any Air Force, Navy, or Army. And all with strictly conventional weapons.

So will NATO then nuke Russia and the PRC and end the entire world? After all, if there is no world, the US cannot be forced to see the PRC take over as world hegemon.

Tucker Carlson

 The New York Times had 3 or 4 articles about why everything Tucker Carlson says is misinformation and no decent person would ever watch his show. So I tried to watch. At first, he was on YouTube, but then YouTube banned him. Fox is behind a paywall, so I was hesitant, but eventually that New York Times admonition made me curious. So I paid.

Mr Carlson says the US proxy war against Russia is stupid. The US are now suffering much more than Russia from the US sanctions, and the EU are suffering much more than the US. There is no need for expensive petrol and electricity and heat, except to somehow damage Russia, who are selling all the energy Europe are boycotting to India and the PRC. One cannot disagree with Mr Carlson about this.

But then he says that, while the US war against Russia is stupid, it's because the US should be at war with the PRC. After all, the PRC created CoViD-19 to destroy the US and the EU.

Mr Carlson omits that the US sent the Wuhan lab a virus that (the US said) was harmless, and could not infect humans. Could the PRC study how to make it infectious to humans? They did and succeeded. And that virus might have killed one million Americans (but the number killed is not accepted by everyone: there is a rumour that the US tested everyone who died, and if they tested positive for CoViD-19, it was the cause of death, even if death was obviously from some other cause). In any case, the problem was that the US said the virus was harmless, so the PRC scientists did not confine it to a safe lab for dangerous viruses, but used a lab that was for non-dangerous viruses. Any sane person blames the US for CoViD-19.

It is not at all clear if Russia can withstand all of NATO. It is clear if the PRC can withstand all of NATO's conventional forces. The PRC army, the PRC navy, and the PRC air force are all far superior to all of NATO. But the PRC nuclear arsenal is tiny compared to NATO, so they need Russia to preclude NATO trying for a nuclear solution.

If the US decision makers had an IQ with 2 digits, they would do everything they could to separate Russia and the PRC. Instead, the US are doing everything they can to force the PRC and Russia into an alliance. Heck, the US are trying to force India, who have hated the PRC for the last 70 years, to get into bed with the PRC. Not to mention Brazil. And the BRICS are likely to soon become the BRICSIA. And then what?

NATO will hate it, but NATO will be up against a much stronger power.

Question: given that the hegemony the US enjoyed after the complete collapse of the USSR, what will they do as the PRC moves to replace the US as world hegemon? Destroy the entire world so there will not be any world for which the PRC can be hegemon???

International Trade and Rational War

 Back at the turn of the 20th century, the UK Merchant Marine brought the rich Brits luxury items, food, collectables, etc., from all over the world. The European nations were trading with each other, and, to a lesser extent, with the US. The European Empires did most of their trading inside the Empire. Goodies from the colonies went to the European Imperial Powers, and the colonials got manufactured goods at exorbitant prices (but colonials were prohibited from manufacturing, so they had to buy European manufactured goods).

But because of what was far more international trade than any European could recall, in 1910 Norman Angell wrote The Great Illusion, that proved that a rational war was no longer possible.

The notion of a rational war was an 18th century concept pioneered by Bernoulli. War had to paid for in gold, no printed money accepted back then unless backed by gold. So Bernoulli said one must carefully calculate the probability of winning and the total financial gains from reparations and territory and other benefits ceded, and the probability of loss and the total cost, then calculate the Expected Value of the War. If the Expected Value was positive, the war was rational. If the Expected Value was negative, the war was irrational.

But by 1910, trade was so large (though minuscule by 2019 standards) that the Expected Value of every war was a huge negative number, counting the cost of trade disruption. So no rational war was possible, and no leader could possibly be stupid enough to wage an irrational war.

Of course, Angell greatly miscalculated just how stupid world leaders could be in 1914 (not to mention 2022, when international trade made that in 1914 seem insignificant, and the US European puppets agreed to start a war with Russia with costs that are crippling their economies, but they must follow the US rules to their utter ruin).

Neo-colonialism

 The Europeans practised colonialism. A European was the resident Head of State, and the European Head of State was the ultimate Head of State. So a British Queen or King was the official Head of State of India as well as about 25% of the world.

The Americans always practised neocolonialism. Starting with the Monroe Doctrine, all of Latin America belonged to the US. The US picked a tiny minority--the Criollos--to be the rulers, gave them lots of money and weapons, and they let the US take all the natural resources from their country, paying starvation wages to the peons who did all the actual work.

Then, after WWII, the US applied the same to everything outside the Warsaw Pact. Vietnam did not work out all that well, but, starting with Reagan, the US transformed the brutal dictatorships and state sponsors of terror--Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Libya--into peaceful and prosperous Democracies! Maybe the Grenadians, Panamanians, Yugoslavs, Afghans, and Libyans do not agree, but they are not allowed to participate in the discussion.

Now the world has 2 powers that challenge the US of A: Russia and the PRC, and both must be utterly destroyed.

Sadly, in the Ukraine, Russia has massive logistical advantages, allowing Russia to defeat the US-backed Ukrainians. Terrible.

And the PRC are now militarily superior to the US (at a tiny fraction the cost).

In 1941, the US wanted to destroy Japan, so they ordered a complete blockade (an act of war) and Japan responded by sinking the entire US Pacific fleet.

After which, Americans who'd been starving and would not go to work (because no one would offer them a job) were drafted into the US military and US defence plants, and in 6 months, the US had a new fleet, that engaged in a battle with Japan that sank both the Japanese fleet and the US fleet. But after 6 months, the US had a new fleet and Japan did not, and the US was able to bomb Japan and eventually nuke Japan.

Sadly, Russia and the PRC ain't Japan. The PRC, if the US and PRC fleets go into battle and sink each other, can and will build a new fleet faster than the US can. And Russia have far more nukes than the US. Russia are a 'No First Use' nation (unlike the US), but that should (unless our leaders are stark raving mad, which I fear they might be) prevent Russia from being first to use a nuke, but the Russkies figure the US might use one, and they are ready to respond.

Ukraine 27 May 2022

 Early this morning, the news was the usual, The Ukraine, with NATO weapons, are easily defeating the Russians, a story we've seen pretty much non-stop since 24 Feb 2022. The first story today was Russia forced to re-mobilise Soviet-era T-62 tanks due to losses .

But  not long after that header, the Ukraine complained that they lost Liman (or Lyman). Horror of horrors, their first loss (Mariupol doesn't count, that was completely destroyed in the Western press, so Russia didn't really win anything).

So the next header was Live Updates: Russian Attacks Intensify, Along With Accusations of Genocide

If the Russians are winning, then it must be genocide, as far as the Western media are concerned.

And then Zelensky asked for long range missiles, and Biden and Johnson promised to send him some.

We don't know for certain what 'long range' means. Zelensky almost certainly means Moscow, but Biden and Johnson might be a teeny bit smarter than that. 

But I wouldn't bet on it. 

They might figure Russia will just carpet bomb Kiev, or maybe all of the Ukraine. What, if anything, is going through their minds escapes me.

But Russia are very unlikely to blame Kiev if a missile hits Moscow. And I have no idea how they'll respond.

So far, the Western sanctions are destroying Europe (good, the US do not want any Western European rivals who could challenge the US economically), those sanctions are causing some pain in the US (but only for the rabble, and they've been told they must sacrifice to save Democracy, and they're not complaining much), and doing little or nothing to hurt Russia. So how to destroy Russia? Missiles hitting Moscow?

Somehow, I think Moscow knows ways to make the West suffer far more than Russia, no matter what they try.

Unless the West goes for total destruction of the entire planet. That's one way to make sure a non-existent Russia and a non-existent PRC cannot challenge a non-existent West.

1984

 I first read 1984 in the '60s. It took me more than 50 years to understand it. Airstrip 1 keeps changing its allegiance. It is allied with Eurasia against Eastasia for years. All the media (and the media morgues) say Airstrip 1 has always been allied with Eurasia against Eastasia. Then Airstrip 1 is allied with Eastasia against Eurasia, and Winston Smith must edit all books and news media so they all report that Airstrip 1 has always been allied with Eastasia against Eurasia. And then back, and it all has to be changed again back to the way it was before.

I figured Eastasia was the PRC and Eurasia was the USSR, and had no idea Airstrip 1 (i.e., the UK) had ever been allied with either one against the other. Silly me. The PRC did not exist when Orwell was writing 1984. Now I know that Eurasia is Europe and the Ottomans, and Eastasia is Russia/USSR.

I also know that, in 1800, Airstrip 1 (i.e., the UK) was allied with Russia against Napoleonic France. Then in the Crimean War, Airstrip 1 was allied with France and the Ottomans against Russia. Then in WWI, Airstrip 1 was allied with Russia against Germany and the Ottomans. After WWI, Airstrip 1 was terrified of the USSR, tried war, lost, then, in 1933, when Hitler said he would abrogate the Treaty of Versailles, the UK figured Hitler would be a good buffer against the USSR and let him take over as Chancellor and abrogate Versailles, and tried to work with him against the USSR.

By 1938, Airstrip 1 realised that war with Germany would be essential, but Airstrip 1 was not ready. As Waugh put it, In 1938, when Germany demanded the Sudetenland, "war was inevitable, but in 1938, the war would have been for the wrong reasons, with the wrong allies, in pitiful weakness". France wanted Maginot completed before declaring war. Chamberlain wanted the radar completed before war.

Then, in 1939, Eurasia and Eastasia formed an alliance to split Poland, and Airstrip 1 and France declared war on Germany and lost, but Airstrip 1 fishermen managed to save most of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk. Airstrip 1 demanded a scapegoat, and Churchill gave them Chamberlain and Appeasement. If only Airstrip 1 had gone to war in 1938, it would have been very easy to defeat Germany with no allies. Completely wrong, but eaten up by those who needed a scapegoat.

Had Britain declared war in 1938, there would have been no miracle at Dunkirk, the whole BEF would have been killed or captured. No radar shield, so the Luftwaffe bombing raids would have arrived unexpected with few defenders and few airships lost, so the Battle of Britain would have gone Germany's way. And Airstrip 1 would have had no choice but to surrender. And with no base from which to bomb Germany, the US could not have done much after Germany declared war on the US in 1941. Europe would still be under the swastika had Chamberlain not waited until 1939.

And now the US has a brand new Ministry of Truth. They have not yet renamed the Defence Department the Ministry of Peace, but they still call themselves that, even if it's not their official title.

Some though 1984 was a warning. Turned out, the US is using it for a guidebook. And figure it's the Right Way to Go!

State of the Western News 3

 Before, I glanced at all the different news, but did not go in depth, so I'm not sure if this is new, or if I just missed it before.

Basically, the Russian news says they are liberating the pro-Russian Ukraine. The Western news says the entire Ukraine hates everything Russian, and, as the Russians invaded, all the Ukraine joined the Ukrainian military and repulsed the Russians, just about all of the first attack force has been eradicated, but the Russians have sent a few more soldiers in to be slaughtered as well.

Only, before being slaughtered, those evil Russian soldiers murdered civilians and raped all the women and girls.

So now the West are promising war crimes trials of the surviving Russian soldiers and the Russian leadership, something like Nuremberg. Russia, it seems, at least on the Western news--all of it: CNN, France 24, BBC, DW, Euronews, etc., etc.--is now in the same state as Nazi Germany in 1945. The Russians, they inform us, are lying and trying to deny their defeat and their crimes, but the world can see.

What some find amazing is how the Western media can be in such agreement on such a proposition, but they are.

State of the News 2

 I used to glance at CNN, France 24, BBC, Euronews, etc., etc., and all had the same news: Russia attacks Ukraine, wants to reestablish USSR, Ukraine defenders winning. The Russian version was fairly well blocked.

I note that the Iran version, presstv.com, was blocked for one day. Then the Iranians opened presstv.ir which the US cannot block. The Taliban website alemarahenglish.com was blocked for about a year, but they figured out how to get around US blocks: alemarahenglish.af 

But Russia is still having trouble getting past the US blocks and massive DDoS. The Russians need to ask the Persians and Afghans for help!

The Western media now repeat Ukraine military talking points: Russians do not take prisoners: any Ukrainian who surrenders will be tortured and killed. The Russians are raping all the Ukrainian women and girls. The Russian atrocities demand justice, and the US will ensure that justice is delivered!

Seeing the Russian version is difficult but not quite impossible. A Chechen soldier who saw the A3OB killing a mother and child, so he and the other Chechens attacked and killed the A3OB Battalion murderers: odysee.com/@EoTInternational:1

So what's TRVE?

Russia reports from the front lines. CNN also reports from the front lines in Warsaw. Or Manhattan, from which one gets an excellent view of the Ukraine. A few insist the CNN version is fake. Not the dead bodies, but the timings: CNN says they have proof the dead bodies were there when the Russian military was there, and not before. Others say those dead bodies appeared after the Russian military left.

The unipolar world is truly unipolar. A team from the OPCW went to Syria and said they saw no evidence of anyone using chemical weapons. Their report was edited by the Director to say they had irrefutable proof the Syrian government had used chemical weapons to kill many innocent civilians, and since he was the Director, his version was the official version. Some members of the team complained, and were told they had to be team players or they'd be fired.

The US version is the only version allowed. Back in the day, when I was a lad, one night Walter Cronkite said he had proof the US government had been lying about Vietnam. 

The US government learned. Only those who repeat the official US government version can be allowed as news anchors. So never again has any US news said the US government lied. And now the US dominates NATO, the EU who are not in NATO, plus most Europe countries not yet in the EU. Also Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Nothing but the US version of the news. Even the English Chinese news reiterates the US version of the news (but not the Chinese Chinese news).

So, again, what's TRVE? Could it be the Western version? Or the Russian version? Or are both lying?

State of the News

Turn on CNN, BBC, France 24, DW, Euronews, etc., etc., and get the exact same news: Putin is trying to rebuild the USSR. He started by lopping off a piece of Georgia. If I may borrow from Walt Kelley, he was trying to annex President Carter's peanut ranch, and might have gotten part of it. And now Putin is trying to add the Ukraine. The world must stand up to Putin. If the world let Putin destroy the democracy flourishing in the Ukraine, he will not stop at the Ukraine, but will try to impose Soviet rule on the entire world.

Before 24 February, Russia had a national broadcast channel, a much smaller version of the BBC that had English/Spanish/French-speaking staff who tried to give the Russian take on the news in English, Spanish, and French. The English-speaking staff were based in the US, UK, and Russia. After 24 February, every effort was made by the West to shut down all the Russian channels, banning them and blocking them.

As a native English speaker, I watched the English version of the Russian national channel to get the Russian take on the news and compare that with the Western take, but after 24 Feb, the US and UK banned the Russian channel from operating in their country, so the English version lost most of its staff, and now produces very little new material: a single, 30 minute news summary, repeated all day long, and about five 30 minute discussion program a week, also repeated many times. Plus some old documentaries, many about the history of the Ukraine, all several years old.

Meanwhile, the Western version that everything on the Russian national channel is a lie is broadcast 24/7 on all the Western channels, along with the warning that Russia must be stopped, must be evicted from the Ukraine, must have all trade cut off to kill the Russian economy and thereby kill the Russian military and keep peace in the world. Or else face a brutal, world-wide dictatorship, a much larger, possibly worldwide version of the old USSR.

The West has won the narrative, at least in the West. Given that the Russian channel is blocked, most believe the Western channels about what is really happening. But is this perception that the West is more reliable than Russia based on reality or Western propaganda?

Which version is correct? The Russian? The Western? Neither?

All the Western channels reiterate the exact same story. Is this because there is only one TRVTH, and, since all are telling the TRVTH, all are telling the same story? Or is it because the establishment media channels are owned by a very small number of owners, all of whom agree to propagate the same lie, crafted by the US, translated into every major language, and then printed or broadcast on all the establishment news networks?

And then the social media are all dominated by Alphabet, Meta, Apple, and Twitter, so do the owners stamp out every site that carries a version that deviates from their preferred version if it has more than a few thousand followers? Is that why few have ever seen alternative versions of what is really happening?

So the Western version has definitely won the narrative, but is it correct?

And how can we find out?

Lost Key?

 People keep referring to the US$ as the World Reserve Currency. This is not the correct terminology (I got this from Adam Smith in his book, Paper Money, 1982). The Reserve Currencies are all those currencies kept in reserve by international banks. These are the US$, UK£, €, Swiss CHF, and Japanese ¥.

Before, the two major currencies were the UK£ and the French ₣, but after WWI, both were weakened, and after WWII, both quickly descended to a fraction of their old value, while the US$, guaranteed to be worth 0.88 gm of 24K gold (approx: the real value was 1/35 Troy oz, but even those who know a normal ounce have no idea what a Troy ounce is, but 1/35 Troy oz is approximately 0.88 gm).

So the US$ became the world's Key Currency, all other currencies had their value defined in US$. So, in the absence of any alternatives, the US$ became the currency of just about all International Trade, since the value of the US$ was set in 24K gold, while other currencies values varied, so a seller did not want to be paid in the buyer's currency which might be devalued, nor did a buyer want a contract to pay in the seller's currency which might be up-valued. So international transactions were (mostly) denominated in US$, making the US$ the Key Currency.

***

For years, the US has attacked and forced regime change in horrible dictatorships with massive armies that threatened the entire world: Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and similar. Now, the US is taking on the weak, impuissant Russia and the PRC, which should be much easier than any of their predecessors, since both are weak, primitive nations without major militaries. At least according to US intelligence (an oxymoron).

So now the US is starting with severe sanctions. Note that, when Saddam said he wanted to be paid in Euros, not US$, the US military saw that he was hanged. And when Gaddafi said he wanted to be paid in Euros, the US had him killed (the US had been trying since President Reagan, but Obama finally got him, confirming the validity of Obama's Nobel Prize as America's Best President EVER).

Russia is no Libya nor Iraq nor Panama, but is now (according to US intelligence) so weak that regime change should be a bowl of borscht.

After all, what does Russia have? One of the top 3 exporters of oil and gas (didn't help Saddam nor Gaddafi); top exporter of corn; leading exporter of metals and fertilizer; & etc., but the world can do without Russian oil or gas or corn. Prices have doubled, and will treble or quadruple (if we're lucky), but we still have to sanction Russia, so we're just going to have to live without heat in winter nor A/C in summer and not enough food.

 ***

But another thing: Saudi now accepts payment in c, and Russia accepts payments in ₹, something we haven't seen since Bretton Woods, 1944. And if other currencies become common for International Trade, those currencies will  rise in value. And then the world will not have a Key Currency!

Do the Taliban ban all girls from school?

 One of the things I find strange is that the Iranian channel, PressTV, was shut down by the US. For one day. Then they had it back up. The Taliban had a website, but the US shut it down, and it stayed down for almost a year, but they got it back up. But Russia, supposedly a major tech power, has been shut down for months and is still inaccessible. The Russians suffered from a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack that blocked everyone. They suggested Tor, but their DDOS protection software blocks Tor. They suggested a different system, but it is also blocked. So the Russians have been far less successful than the Taliban in keeping their news channel open and available (heck, they live right next to the Taliban, they should pop in and ask for advice).

Anyway, the Taliban website is back up. What is interesting is that the Western press, on 23 March 2022, said that schools were supposed to be open to girls on 23 March but all the girls were sent home. However, if one checks the Taliban website, it says that one school opened to girls on 25 March.

So the Western press reports (with videos, even though Westerners are not allowed to film inside Afghanistan) that all girls were told to go home on 23 March, girls are not allowed to attend school in Afghanistan. But Afghanistan reports that girls were able to go to school on 25 March. Another story says that both boys and girls will be able to take the university entrance exams.

It must be annoying to the Western press that all can see for themselves the Taliban denials of Western news stories about Afghanistan.

Now if only the Russians would go ask the Taliban how they did it so we can once again see the Russian version of the news.

The Importance ot the Ukraine

 In 1812, a Frenchman decided to conquer Russia. He started with 500,000 men, lost time, men, and matériel crossing the Ukraine, and returned to France in 1813 with just 10,000 men. After which, the British made short work of him.

In 1914, the Germans planned to be in Paris before the French could mobilise, but they figured they had better secure their eastern front, and so attacked the Ukraine, and the attack on Paris failed, as did their war effort.

In 1941, a German fellow with a red beard tried to conquer Russia the USSR, again losing men and time and matériel in the Ukraine, failed, and could not stop the Americans coming from the west (the Americans were only coming because it looked like the USSR would be taking Paris if they did not).

So, starting in 2014, NATO figured they'd start from the eastern Ukraine. Maybe. In 2021, Russia said NATO in the Ukraine would be a red line, and NATO said that would be the decision of NATO, and Russia would have no say in the matter. So in 2022, Russia moved to de-NATO the Ukraine. NATO, joined by the rest of the EU plus always neutral Switzerland plus Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan declared sanctions on Russia, declared that all Russian assets were confiscated, all Russian US$ and € were confiscated, the entire Russian economy would collapse, and with it the Russian war effort to de-NATO the Ukraine. So Russia demanded payment in rubles and the PRC demanded payment in ¥. Previously, Saddam said Iraq would demand payment in € and the US destroyed Iraq and hanged Saddam. Then Gaddafi demanded payment in € so the US/UK/France destroyed Libya and had Gaddafi killed in an unspeakable fashion. 

Sadly, Russia do not seem to be Iraq or Libya. It looks like Europe can pay in rubles or freeze in the dark. And Saudi seem happy to let the PRC pay in ¥ (or RenMinBi to use the new and improved replacement for PRC¥).

People say the US$ is the world's Reserve currency, which, according to Adam Smith (not the 18th century Adam Smith, the 20th century Wall Street gossip columnist), is not right. The world has several reserve currencies, i.e., the currencies major International Banks must keep in reserve. These are currently the US$, the  €, the UK£, the Japanese ¥, and the Swiss CHF. In Breton Woods, the US$ was declared the world's Key Currency. In 1900, the Great Powers were the UK and France, with Germany trying to become a Great Power, and the US a power in the Western Hemisphere, a Hemisphere most overlooked. So the Great Currencies were the UK£ and the French ₣. By 1944, the UK£ and the French ₣ were collapsing, and the US$ was worth about 0.88 gm of 24K gold (the exact amount was in Troy ounces, a measure with which few are familiar, but it was about 0.88 gm of pure gold). So the US$ became the Key currency, the only currency good for just about all International trade, because it was liquid and the same as gold, so perfect as the Key currency. Until 1971, when President Nixon said the US$ was only worth the paper it was printed on. There was some inflation, as much as 20% a year, but the US$ remained the Key Currency for lack of any alternative: not enough gold, and no other currency that could bear the weight of supporting all international commerce. Having the Key currency gave the US huge economic strength.

The Europeans tried to replace the US$ with the €, which did become a sub-key currency, but only in the Euro zone. There was no currency that could challenge the US$. The banks refused to elevate the RenMinBi to the status of a reserve currency, so it was not really a threat. Until the Russian sanctions, and now it is.

The US, joined by all its allies, tried to destroy Russia. So far, not much luck. But they do seem to have taken careful aim and managed one well-placed shot: 

 in their own foot.

Is Russia not paying attention?

 Russia complain that the Western, i.e. US/European, coverage of the problems in the Ukraine skip the Eastern part of the Ukraine, specifically the Donbass.

The problem in the Ukraine is definitely Russia's fault. In 1750, the Ukraine ended at the Dnieper River. West of the Dnieper River was an area of Poland called Galicia. The Czar seized Galicia, and the Galicians hated everything Russian. When the Wehrmacht arrived in WWI, Galicia wanted to transfer from Russia to Germany, and the Wehrmacht obliged them for a few months after Germany defeated Russia. But then Germany lost, and Galicia became part of Poland. Until WWII, when Stalin annexed Galicia back onto the Ukraine. When the USSR collapsed, Galicia and East Ukraine all voted together, and the majority voted to leave Russia. Russia signed an agreement to respect the entire territoriality of the Ukraine. Of course, the East Ukraine and Galicia could agree about little or nothing, so the freely elected presidents were all weak, with divided support from East Ukraine and Galicia that wanted very different things. Until 2014, when Obama sent the CIA in. The Official US/Western version is that the CIA brought democracy to the formerly autocratic Ukraine, Putin felt threatened, and decided to rebuild the USSR, starting with the Ukraine.

The Russians say the Galicians killed about 14,000 Eastern Ukrainians in the Donbass from 2014 until 2022, while the Western media said nothing. The Russians were not paying attention. Lately, the European/US media have said a lot about what has been happening in the Donbass.

The Russian version, proclaimed from 2014 until Russian media was cut off in March, 2022, was that the Galicians murdered 14,000 Donbass Ukrainians for speaking Russian and going to the Russian Orthodox Church. The Russians claim, just because it is a historical fact, that the people in the East Ukraine prefer the Russian language and the Russian Orthodox religion, but after the 2014 Revolution (led by the CIA), the Galicians took over and made the Russian language and the Russian Orthodox Religion capital offences, and sent the Ukrainian military (consisting of primarily Galicians) to execute the heinous capital felons speaking Russian.

The official Western version is that, after the Ukraine became a democracy in 2014, Putin decided to recreate the USSR, and he started by trying to annex the Donbass and make it part of Russia. Of course, everyone in the Donbass was a loyal Ukrainian who hated, detested, and despised everything Russian. None spoke Russian, none had the slightest interest in attending the Russian Orthodox Church, being Lutheran and Roman Christians who all hated the Orthodox 'religion'.

So, to annex the rabidly Ukrainian Donbass, Putin sent the Russian military into the Donbass in 2014, and over the next 8 years, they murdered 14,000 Donbass Ukrainians.

So there is agreement that someone murdered 14,000 Donbass Ukrainians between 2014 and 2022. The Western media all agree it was the Russian military. Russia say it was the Galicians.

The Western reporters, if they are even in the Ukraine, are in Lviv, a long way from the Donbass. They say they have reliable sources. Many say they know Russians who admit it was the Russian army that murdered 14,000 people in the Donbass.

The Russian reporters are actually in the Donbass, and the people say how grateful they are that the Russian military finally arrived in February 2022 to help protect them from the Galicians.

Obviously, the Western reporters and the Western media and Alphabet and Meta and Apple all know the official US government version is the only correct version, and they have made it pretty much impossible for anyone to see the Russian version.

So we have just now learned about the 14,000 dead Donbass Ukrainians, after years of saying that all claims of 14,000 dead Donbass Ukrainians were a Russian lie, but now those 14,000 really are dead, and it was the Russians who killed every last one of them. And one won't find anything else in the Western media or social media. Obviously, Alphabet, Meta, and Apple control just about all the Western social media that everyone sees, and about four conglomerates control all the traditional media, and all agree that only the US version, verbatim, is the TRVTH, the whole TRVTH, and nothing but the TRVTH.

What is happening in the Ukraine???

 Once upon a time, if one watched the different news channels, the basic facts more-or-less agreed, it was the reporters' opinions about those facts that differed. The BBC, ordered by the British government  to report a great victory at Dunkirk lest the British public demand surrender, reported a defeat followed by a miracle: most of the BEF were evacuated when capture or massacre seemed certain. I fear the German version also reported that the Wehrmacht defeated the British, but did not wax quite as euphoric about the evacuation, but that version has been lost to the history readily available to riff-raff such as myself, though perhaps a few historians have access to a few, preserved copies.

Today, the Russian press report that the Russian invasion of the Ukraine is going according to plan. The Russian care not to target civilians mean that progress is necessarily very slow but steady, and the current regime, which is led by the CIA, includes many Nazis, wants to join NATO and host NATO nukes and ABMs, and is murdering all the ethnic Russians in the Ukraine, will eventually (not sure when) be replaced by a neutral government that will guarantee the rights of all the citizens of the Ukraine and will be strictly neutral, and never a member of NATO.

The rest of the press report that the evil and stupid Putin attacked the Ukraine expecting a victory in a week or less, but the Russian army, undermined by massive corruption, are not a match for the Ukrainian patriots and have lost many, many soldiers, tanks, and aeroplanes and are almost utterly destroyed, but still Putin presses on. The Russian economy has been completely destroyed by sanctions, they can no longer produce anything. Russians are going hungry, and without electricity or heat. It is not clear how much longer the evil and stupid Putin will press on with this senseless, illegal invasion of a free country where every law abiding citizen has full rights, unlike the autocracy that is Russia where no one except Putin has any rights.

Before, the Western press would have said, 'Zelensky/Biden good, Putin evil,' while the Russian press would have said, 'Putin good, Zelensky/Biden evil,' but would have more-or-less agreed on who was winning. Not any more. A hospital bombed? Both agree a hospital was bombed, but...

The Western press assure us the maternity and paediatric hospital was full of expectant and recently delivered mothers, and also newborn and ill children, and the Russian bombing completely destroyed it and injured 17 of those inside. 

The Russian press are equally insistent that some Azov Nazis insisted all the women and children leave the hospital, then set it up as a centre for the Azov Battalion to fight the Russian liberators, so Russia, knowing this, bombed the hospital building (no longer a working hospital), but the Azov Battalion had few, if any casualties.

The Western press assures us that the Russian lie that the Azov Battalion are neo-Nazis, they are strictly peaceful, pro-democracy Ukrainians fighting to preserve the freedom and democracy of the Ukraine.

The Russian press has long-distance photographs and videos of the Azov Battalion wearing swastikas and Wolfsangels, both Nazi symbols, so the Russian press do not claim that these are neo-Nazis, there's nothing neo about them.

Did the Russian press doctor the photographs to insert the swastikas and Wolfsangels? Or maybe the Azov are foreign, Hindu volunteers who want to help the native Ukrainians defend their country against Russian invasion, and are just wearing some symbols of their religion? Given the contradictory videos and interviews, no way to tell.