This link belongs to my comment at 2: http://tinyurl.com/q5973gc

Posted by: Fran | Apr 25 2015 19:04 utc | 3

I’m sure by now people have heard about the severe earthquake in Nepal. I read it was 7.9 on the Richter scale. Images from Kathmandu show a lot of collapsed buildings and rubble, including Durbar Square. No word from outlying villages.
I was there a long time ago, 1980. At that time Kathmandu wasn’t so built up. Building and construction standards were not very high.
Any MoAers there during the Freak Street heyday? Just curious.

Posted by: Maxcrat | Apr 25 2015 20:54 utc | 5

dh – Thanks! By the time I got to India and Nepal in 1979/80 everything had pretty much gone to hell. We were originally going to follow the main E/W route down through the Khyber Pass but the Iran hostage situation and the Soviet invasion of AF in December 79 forced us to reroute.
Hard for people now to realize how open travel could be back then, and how great some of these places were to visit and absorb for awhile.
Ever go to Aunt Jane’s pie shop?

Posted by: Maxcrat | Apr 25 2015 21:19 utc | 7

Indeed you were. Namaste.

Posted by: Maxcrat | Apr 25 2015 21:32 utc | 9

@4
Thank goodness U.S. advisors are now there to show these yokels how to properly crucify an unarmed prisoner.

Posted by: chuckvw | Apr 25 2015 21:50 utc | 11

dh & Maxcrat
i got to Kabul overland (from India) in early March ’79 a couple of weeks after the US ambassador had been killed in a kidnapping attempt. the atmosphere was fetid and we spent most of the day in the guest house smoking and drinking tea. the Iranian revolution was just getting underway. i went back to India. but the Kyber pass was majestic. Peshawar fascinating. the Golden Temple mesmerizing.
p.s. i was in Goa last December, Anjuna beach…and it’s still a good scene!
except for the trance music

Posted by: john | Apr 25 2015 22:37 utc | 13

It seems as though the Israelis are pushing for a war this summer, being Isis and Nusras official airforce once again!!! News seems to be pretty tight lipped, apart from Israeli Media barking in their articles, they have struck Syrian and Hezbollah targets in Qalamoun once again !!!
This summer is going to be a massive test for the “shiite cres” in the middle east as they are facing their biggest test yet, with saudi dogs destroying yemen, wahabi mercenaries in syria n iraq, and israel being shrewdy as per usual
Americunt Gov as per usual playing the bluff card with Iran
Anyways here is the link
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/israel-strikes-pro-assad-hezbollah-positions-near-syria-lebanon-border-1498331

Posted by: Deebo | Apr 25 2015 22:44 utc | 15

Back online from off-grid RL…
@jfl, 164 & 215 (from Open Thread 18):
Thank you for your analysis, it filled in several blank spots in my information, particularly on the nature of the red leadership from Thaksin on down. And while it makes sense for the current dictatorship to make deals with Russia and China as well as the US, none of that redeems them one iota.
In the aftermath of the suppression of the red shirt encampment in Bangkok I remember seeing an interview with a local red leader in the northern mountains. On his wall he had a large picture of Thaksin, flanked by pictures on either side of Gandhi and Ché. Now that Thaksin is “out of the picture” I wonder to which pole of resistance the red rank and file will gravitate. The oligarchs and dictators better watch out what they are creating…

Posted by: Vintage Red | Apr 25 2015 23:59 utc | 17

@Lone Wolf, 163 (from Open Thread 18), on the “devolutionary politics” of the Kiev junta:
“What amazes me is the fast pace at which they go at this process, very consciously and at all levels of society.”
I think everything is accelerating now, driven by the global crisis of capitalism and the neocons’ pathological obsession to preserve US hegemony even to the point of nuclear war. Lenin once wrote “there are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen”—we may be passing through such a cusp at present.
I am no Cambodia expert, but without apologizing a bit for the Khmer Rouge’s disastrous ultra-“left” policies I do understand that the US military left them with a disaster on their hands: Phnom Penh’s 2-3 million siege-scarred people, hitherto fed by airlift, suddenly starving. Hundreds of thousands would have died even under the best leadership, but the Khmer Rouge instead treated them as enemies rather than liberated compatriots, leaving it to Vietnam to be the true liberator. I suspect the neocons have a similar end in view for the “Cambodianized” Ukraine they intend eventually to relinquish to Russia (in the “role” of Vietnam)…
We may not know for some time the true toll in the Ukraine—perhaps casualties are so high because of indiscriminate bombardment of urban areas, in addition to other reasons—but the US’s bloody history shows this to be strictly in character, from Central America as you wrote to Vietnam (between 1.5-3.5 million dead, north and south), Korea (1-2 million dead in the south, 2-3 million in the north), Indonesia (1 million+ dead from the coup), Iraq (1.5 million from sanctions)… the list goes on. 50,000 in the first year of the Ukrainian Civil War? Decades are beginning to happen…
I am reminded of Tacitus’ account of the Pictish Chieftain Calgacus’ exhortation of his warriors before fighting the invading Roman legions. Change the place names and it is all too familiar:

We who live on the edge of the Earth and who are the last bulwark of freedom have to this day been protected by our remoteness and by the mystery of our name. But now the frontiers of Britain are open and beyond us there is no people, nothing other than the seas, the rock and the still more dangerous Roman, whose usurpation is not to be escaped by self-abasement or moderation. These plunderers of the Earth are now invading the seas because, having devastated everything, they now have no more land. If their enemy is wealthy, they are greedy; if he is poor, they will be after glory—they whom neither east nor west have satiated. Along among peoples they have looked with equal greed upon rich and poor alike. Stealing, murdering and plundering they call government; and where they create a desert they call it peace.

Posted by: Vintage Red | Apr 26 2015 0:07 utc | 19

typo in Calgacus quote @19—should be:
“Alone among peoples…”

Posted by: Vintage Red | Apr 26 2015 0:28 utc | 21

Vintage at 18 —
I’m still finding cool stuff as the desk top flashes by in “Dangerous.” Heard it on the radio, bass riff had me, video was icing on the cake. I kept posting it but folks didn’t appreciate it. Mission Accomplished!
Devo played videos of all sorts of stuff at their concerts, too. Jerry Casale was at Kent State.
I had forgotten the source of the phrase, “kickin’ out the jams.” I never find MC5 as interesting as I’m supposed to. I’ve never heard of UK Subs, but “Warhead” rocked, solid 80’s punk/new wave sound, thanks!
I may be able to take a look at the Saker’s report. I know that the SBU has been detaining folks throughout the areas of the Donbas the junta controls. It seems at least plausible, but I’m not given to crediting the junta with high reliability in their accounts.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 26 2015 1:46 utc | 23

The Der Spiegel article b references in the other thread depicts the “moderate” rebels as secular even as late as 2013, the moderate Syrian-dominated insurgent groups as vastly outnumbering the foreign-dominated ISIL troops, the ISIL strategy in Syria being launched by its Iraqi Baathist mastermind in Summer 2012 (when Al Bagdadi claims that he was sending fighters in as early as summer 2011). One of its major claims is that the SAA had an understanding with ISIL (rooted in Iraqi/Syrian Baathist intelligence cooperation as early as 2003 in stovepiping jihadists to attack American forces in Iraq) not to attack each other, but to focus on “moderate” rebels. (Also, while Bagdadi has had elaborate computer generated business plans for marketing ISIL, the article’s mastermind had hundreds of pages of handwritten plans which have fortuitously been handed over to Der Spiegel reporters by competitive “moderate” rebel groups):

But in the first months of 2014, yet another legacy from Haji Bakr began playing a decisive role: His decade of contacts to Assad’s intelligence services.
In 2003, the Damascus regime was panicked that then-US President George W. Bush, after his victory over Saddam Hussein, would have his troops continue into Syria to topple Assad as well. Thus, in the ensuing years, Syrian intelligence officials organized the transfer of thousands of radicals from Libya, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia to al-Qaida in Iraq. Ninety percent of the suicide attackers entered Iraq via the Syrian route. A strange relationship developed between Syrian generals, international jihadists and former Iraqi officers who had been loyal to Saddam — a joint venture of deadly enemies, who met repeatedly to the west of Damascus.
At the time, the primary aim was to make the lives of the Americans in Iraq hell. Ten years later, Bashar Assad had a different motive to breathe new life into the alliance: He wanted to sell himself to the world as the lesser of several evils. Islamist terror, the more gruesome the better, was too important to leave it up to the terrorists. The regime’s relationship with Islamic State is — just as it was to its predecessor a decade prior — marked by a completely tactical pragmatism. Both sides are trying to use the other in the assumption that it will emerge as the stronger power, able to defeat the discrete collaborator of yesterday. Conversely, IS leaders had no problem receiving assistance from Assad’s air force, despite all of the group’s pledges to annihilate the apostate Shiites. Starting in January 2014, Syrian jets would regularly — and exclusively — bomb rebel positions and headquarters during battles between IS and rebel groups.
In battles between IS and rebels in January 2014, Assad’s jets regularly bombed only rebel positions, while the Islamic State emir ordered his fighters to refrain from shooting at the army. It was an arrangement that left many of the foreign fighters deeply disillusioned; they had imaged jihad differently.
IS threw its entire arsenal at the rebels, sending more suicide bombers into their ranks in just a few weeks than it deployed during the entire previous year against the Syrian army. Thanks in part to additional air strikes, IS was able to reconquer territory that it had briefly lost.
Nothing symbolizes the tactical shifting of alliances more than the fate of the Syrian army’s Division 17. The isolated base near Raqqa had been under rebel siege for more than a year. But then, IS units defeated the rebels there and Assad’s air force was once again able to use the base for supply flights without fear of attack.
But a half year later, after IS conquered Mosul and took control of a gigantic weapons depot there, the jihadists felt powerful enough to attack their erstwhile helpers. IS fighters overran Division 17 and slaughtered the soldiers, whom they had only recently protected.

Posted by: Rusty Pipes | Apr 26 2015 1:52 utc | 25

Lots of trash pseudo-punk getting posted here. Time for some good mainstream pop:
U2: Party Girl

Posted by: Demian | Apr 26 2015 4:44 utc | 27

OK, I finally listened to James Brown’s version of Sex Machine, even though I wrote here that I wasn’t going to do that. Sorry, but this funk thing strikes me as bullshit and kitsch, like polkas or mazurkas. And I am not afraid to say that, since Obama has done a good job of delegitimizing American black culture, as far as I can tell. I voted for Obama the first time around (but not in the primary) and for Jessie Jackson twice in primaries. I think that demonstrates that I don’t care about a political candidate’s “race”. But blacks evidently do. I voted green in 2012, because it had become absolutely clear that Obama is a rabid psychopathic fascist. Yet blacks continued to vote for Obama. Why is that? The only reason I can think of is that they determine their vote on the basis of the race of the candidate. And Obama isn’t even black in the American cultural sense of the word, since his ancestors had absolutely no experience with American slavery. Thus, Afro-Americans vote for Obama solely on the basis of the color of his skin.
To return to Flying Lizard’s cover of Sex Machine, at one point you hear a hick American voice saying, “You can hear the emotion. A machine is a machine.” That is completely incongruous, since the two main vocals sound very English. Also, that quote doesn’t make any sense, because how can a machine feel emotion? And that line is not from James Brown’s original song.
Let’s just face it. Nobody does anti-Americanism better than the English. Another example is from the Floyd’s track for the opening credits of Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point, in which you hear someone with a really obnoxious American accent say, “They’re taking our nags, ace. They’re making real good targets of themselves. Let them have it.”

Posted by: Demian | Apr 26 2015 6:40 utc | 29

Many Australians have a reason to be ashamed of their right-wing PM Abbott,whose refusal to acknowledge the dangers of global warming puts Australia in a solitary position on the world scene
Now he is funding a Danish denialist with funding for a Lomborg centre at Perth Uni.which has earned him the widest criticism of most scientsts including Dr Peter Doherty a Nobel Prize winner.who described him a “enemy number one” of scientic thinking
Abbott is in the grip of the powerful coal mining lobby(Australia is a major supplier of caol to the world market) ..and as a right-wing catholic is finding trouble with the Papal stand on Global warming

Posted by: brian | Apr 26 2015 6:59 utc | 31

Monsters of the Market Reminding you that ‘war’ is symptom and ‘capital’ is cause. Understanding distortions in the capital-flow matrix seems to me to be more important than watching the equivalent of a global bar fight, especially as everyone seems to have drunk the Zero Hedge KoolAid, as financial giants seize national gold bullion and bail-in their clients cash accounts. Do you think anyone would care about Ukraine or Yemen, if Bank of America went to -0.05% on Monday?
And if silence is ‘news’, then the news today is in Afghanistan, where, after the takeover by World Bank’s Ghani and CIA’s Abdullah’s New Janusim, things have gone very, very quiet in the ‘Paris of Central Asia’. With the Karzai Family ostensibly still power-brokering, is WB-CIA finishing the job of killing off all the warlords, village strongmen and mullahs to, as Marc Herold framed it, make over Afghanistan as Empty Resource Space?
Remember, God loves a Fool, but we’ll have to wait to see whether America’s H-1B Hindu Silicon Valley billionaires love Nepal.

Posted by: NoReply | Apr 26 2015 9:58 utc | 33

Da’esh has now a TV channel
http://arabic.rt.com/news/781183-%D9%82%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%A9-%D8%AA%D9%84%D9%81%D8%B2%D9%8A%D9%88%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%82-%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%B4-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%88%D8%B5%D9%84/

Posted by: Mina | Apr 26 2015 12:59 utc | 35

RP@25
The Speigel report has excellent documented information about one ex-Saddam intelligence officer and his contribution to the conquest in Syria. Much of the rest of this story is very clever spin and creative writing to promote the theory that the Baathists are in control of the IS which is still unproven and unlikely.
The SAA/IS connection is possible but again unlikely and the fact the SAA didn’t bomb them during their consolidation phase in Syrian doesn’t prove anything they were bombing groups they were in conflict with at that time and now they are in conflict with the IS and are attacking them.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Apr 26 2015 14:02 utc | 37

Two topics are headlining today’s News in Germany. even in the main media, which finally might wobble Merkels position/seat.
First that all the drone killings by the US are done from Ramstein Germany and that the german Government might have know about it.
The other which has been dominant is that the BND has been spying on german business for the “gulp” NSA and new today that the Chancellery has know this since 2008.
More and more commenters in those news sources are asking for Merkel to step down, though many doubt that she will do so. Will be interesting to following over the comming week.

Posted by: Fran | Apr 26 2015 15:05 utc | 39

@Demian #29
You’re right, it is most odd that blacks continued voting for Obama even as their economic prosperity accelerated decline under his first term, and his policies were nothing but extensions of what he did while in Illinois.
However, I saw a recent study that showed that people vote against much more than vote for. Thus the votes by blacks for Obama are not for him, but against his opponents.
I guess better the devil you know…

Posted by: ǝn⇂ɔ | Apr 26 2015 16:19 utc | 41

Corporate Media FAILS us (again) on TPP coverage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1KJu7_o0WM

Posted by: Tom Murphy | Apr 26 2015 17:01 utc | 43

@dahoit #36:
Well black people have never had power before,(and of course they really don’t)so they will instinctively back that candidate.
Yes, but some blacks have strived for power. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and Jessie Jackson come to mind. Obama does not praise any of these people. Instead, he idolizes Reagan. Thus, to use racist language for a moment, Obama is a traitor to his race. And blacks let him get away with it.
@rufus magister #40:
Just another person of color.
No he is not. He is the nominal head of state of the most powerful country in the world and a traitor to his race. I see you have a tendency to apologetics. The RC church and Stephen Cohen are other instances.
@⇂ɔ #41:
the votes by blacks for Obama are not for him, but against his opponents.
Fair enough, even though the real way to vote against Obama is to vote for a third party.
@Fran #39:
Two topics are headlining today’s News in Germany.
That made me look at Spiegel, and I found this: Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs: Das schwierige Erinnern. It tiptoes around the issue of the Federal Republic supporting a rabidly fascist regime located in the middle of Europe.
I guess better the devil you know…

Posted by: Demian | Apr 26 2015 18:42 utc | 45

D @ 45 — Sure, he’s head of state now, the “Commander in Chief” of “the Free World.” And yet some folks do in fact hate him even now because he’s black (e.g., some significant faction of the “Tea Party” Rethuglicans). But I’m sure young Barry Choom got enough of it first hand to understand just what genuine American racism feels like. And sometimes, even act accordingly.
To point out these rather salient points of biography is not to alibi his tightening of surveillance, defense of the banksters, and ongoing Nuremburg violations (ours and our Israeli clients as well).
The dear old Whore of Babylon has enough failings without you lot of heretics & schismatics piling on. But I’ll leave off my periodic, involuntary defense of the Bishop of Rome until the spirit moves me again. Perhaps after Pentecost….
But funny that you should mention Stephen Cohen. Salon quotes him to the effect that The New York Times “basically rewrites whatever the Kiev authorities say”.
So when Automatic Earth cries out When Did We All Become Murderers? and finds some of the answers in the piece cited above, I’d say Cohen’s work speaks for itself. Especially since you’ll note Russia Insider reposted the Automatic Earth item.
I know the field of Russian and Soviet studies well enough to tell you that you won’t find any better at the top of the profession, and few below. Don’t let the best be the enemy of the good.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 26 2015 20:04 utc | 47

VR — The US punk & new wave scene was more de-politicised, or even totally re-contextualized (see “Rock the Casbah” as the sound track for the defense of Kuwait and the House of Saud).
There are a couple of good accounts of radical Detroit unionists, which I’ve neglected. Like I’ve neglected James’ CLR “Black Jacobins.” Summer reading, maybe.
Warshaw is maybe a little before my time, and definitely a little too straight folk (didactic works require loud guitars and a back beat with me, usually). But I know Christy Moore’s version, If They Come in the Morning, which I see gets Warshaw’s stamp of approval. I believe I have one or two more clips from this session in my browser history.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 26 2015 20:41 utc | 49

Demian: racist, tone-deaf(literally), socially retarded, stuck in the 80s. Should I go on? Please PLEASE stop inflicting your musical ‘knowledge’ upon us.
His head would probably explode if he was told blacks in Detroit and Chicago invented techno(well, perfected it) as well, which was but the culmination of a continuum of earlier soul and funk innovations.
(“What’s techno? Well, it’s like a czardas. Total kitsch and not enough Pink Floyd influence.” – Demian)

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 26 2015 22:30 utc | 51

You guys are seriously a bunch of old timers 🙂
Thanks for posting all the punk. This is a band that some of us young pups are listening to… Offspring of the original punkers Andrew Jackson Jihad – Kokopelli Face Tattoo

Posted by: Almand | Apr 27 2015 0:18 utc | 53

More anti-Russian propaganda from der Spiegel:
Gerichtsurteil: Russland schickt Frauen wegen Tanz ins Gefängnis (Court verdict: Russia sends women to prison for dancing)
These girls danced at a Soviet WW II monument using the style called twerking. Being an old timer, I had never heard of this, but a Google search for “Miley Cyrus” revealed that this is basically pole dancing without the pole.
The video of the girls dancing can be seen here. Personally, as an American liberal, I think that this was all done in good fun, and I don’t find anything objectionable about the girls’ dancing. On the other hand however, the video is well done, which means that somebody obviously paid for all of this. Thus, I think it’s pretty clear that this is just another provocation against Russia by the US State Department, so I believe that two week prison sentences against a few of the girls are justified.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 27 2015 1:27 utc | 55

Almand at 53 — I try to keep up, while they’re not punk or post-punk, “Dangerous” cited at 18 is actually from this millenium (conveniently re-linked here). I like Sail by Awolnation, too. Green Day certainly has the punk ethos covered, but is probably a little to Old School by this point to count, especially as American Idiot was the last CD I bought in a record store some years ago.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 27 2015 1:51 utc | 57

Rufus, Green Day was MTVs decades-late interpretation of punk. I was in high school when they came out and even I know this. What was that other pung-drag boy band? Rancid? Every kid with a brain during that era was into an underground scene. It does tickle my funnybone though to think *adults* were the ones actually listening to that shit, so thanks.
(Old timers is an understatement; “I haven’t seen hash since 1972”. Well I haven’t seen hash since 2002 and that was only bc I ran into some 1% college kids…and I’m well old too, now)
But yeah. Twerking? What’s that? Now I know it Demain, you are trolling!! lol At least you were able to look askance at that ass, and see it as the stunt that it was. This is a good day.
(Pussy Riot were way too dikey in their exit polls I guess)

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 27 2015 3:02 utc | 59

four mths into the regime change in sri lanka ousting pro china prez mr,
this is what the newly minted prez has got to say
*Ranil must be the PM, I am ordered to do so by India and the west
hehehehe

Posted by: denk | Apr 27 2015 3:35 utc | 61

this site may be hacked !!!
hmmm,
*someone out there* dont like their anti chinese shenanigans exposed by this sri lankan site.
hehehehe
http://tinyurl.com/lfkofjs

Posted by: denk | Apr 27 2015 4:26 utc | 63

@Damian

Personally, as an American liberal….

what does it mean? try dancing that in Arlington cemetery.

Posted by: papa | Apr 27 2015 4:50 utc | 65

@papa #65:
try dancing that in Arlington cemetery.
That made me laugh out loud for the first time in weeks. BTW, I can’t dance that, because I’m a(n old) guy and not gay.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 27 2015 5:02 utc | 67

Fuk off and die, demian, you racist redneck white trash piece of shit

Posted by: demian is white trash | Apr 27 2015 8:02 utc | 69

there they go again…
Murder Inc demands *justice* in sri lanka !
they aint satisfied with ousting pro china prez mr,
they want him D-E-A-D.
the united snake wants the whole world to watch,
this is what happens when u defy the zwo,
see milosovek, gadaffi, saddam, najib of malaysia [three airliners and one helicopter crash] , yingluck of thailand, outsted by military coup and slapped with corruption charge……
http://www.sinhalanet.net/consortium-of-patriotic-organizations-written-to-president-about-us-interference-in-sri-lanka

Posted by: denk | Apr 27 2015 8:07 utc | 71

Baghdadi, dead or not, is already on the posters next to BL
http://angryarab.blogspot.de/2015/04/syrian-rebels-liberate-jisr-ash-shugur.html

Posted by: Mina | Apr 27 2015 10:27 utc | 73

in re 70 — I think you overestimate the broadmindedness of the 70’s and the elite. HL Gates got plenty of racism a stone’s throw from Harvard on his own doorstep in the Peoples Republic of Cambridge. In any case I doubt if Barry’s contacts were just the upper crust, especially once he got down to work in the So. Side of Chicago.
His direct knowledge of American racism is perhaps not as deep as Mumia Abu-Jamal’s, but real enough nonetheless.
The salient point of his biography is that most of the right, including its leadership, hates Obama for his race and used this hatred to ginger up the Tea Party. They will continue doing great damage for a long time.
You’re a fool if you think the Democrats political “advantage” outweighs this. Sure Obama won re-election against weak candidates at the top of the ticket. Further down, though, that “advantage” lost him first the House and then the Senate. The dog-whistles energized the right’s base, while Obama’s timidity quieted his.
That “advantage” now has the Gang of 79 dabbling in the Iran talks and Republican state legislatures going after unions and reproductive choice. They control the debate, and have now a cadre of shock troops. I’d read that as advantage Rethuglicans.
BTW, I saw the reel of his appearance before the press club. He showed some uncharacteristic sharpness and had some good lines. Too little too late.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 27 2015 12:00 utc | 75

rufus magister @75: Henry Gates? Gimme a break. Okay, got it. You’ve read the campaign biographies and you’re a believer, AND looks like you watch MSNBC way too much. In economic terms, Obama has benefited greatly from being half-black, there’s really no avoiding that. Yes, of course he encountered racism, but never from important power, always from sidelined and powerless except for their fists assholes. At school, law school, business and political worlds, his blackness aided his career. Them’s the rules.

Posted by: fairleft | Apr 27 2015 13:16 utc | 77

@Vintage Red@19, 20, 21
I think everything is accelerating now, driven by the global crisis of capitalism and the neocons’ pathological obsession to preserve US hegemony even to the point of nuclear war. Lenin once wrote “there are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen”—we may be passing through such a cusp at present.
That’s a very insightful summary of the present juncture. Russia being the only one prepared to dispute that hegemony at any level, has been pinpointed for destruction by the Deep State and their front-line soldiers, the neocons, hence the purported “isolation” which Stephen Cohen points out at the Munk Debate, it really means regime change. Russia’s military readiness in the Arctic signal the scale and depth to which it is willing to go in confronting the hegemon, the Arctic becoming a strategic rearguard and retreat base in case a massive conflict, nuclear or not, hits Russia in the near future. The nature of war has changed so much since WWII (hybrid war is the name of the game nowadays), Siberia cannot longer be considered safe for a strategic retreat; climate change has taken a toll on General Winter, which has traditionally been the best ally for Russia, wiping out armies since before Napoleon down to Hitler’s goons.
Ukraine is, we all know, a tool for the empire hybrid war against Russia; however, the social engineering experiment used by the CIA/MI5/Mossad for this “devolutionary process” is the social/political equivalent of the infamous military “shock & awe.” Marx (Eighteenth Brumaire) stated that, “…Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” Humanity suffered a great tragedy under the Nazi/Fascist regimes pre and during WWII, now we are witnessing a reenactment of that tragedy under the farce of “Ukrainization,” a warped version of “Ukrainian nationalism” using the legacy of Banderas et al to turn his bastard children into a death-squad against its own people, and a powerful anti-Russian wedge on the Eurasian bridge.
Thanks for the link to the repression in Odessa; I was able to get it translated in my iPad. I certainly hope the Ukrainian resistance, if there is any, whether incipient or active, is able to develop clandestine organizational methods. I have the impression Ukrainians in general are still under the utterly naïve belief they are living in a “democracy” of sorts, hence their open ways of confronting the neo-Nazi regime, which makes it easy for the Nazi goons to kill/disappear/arrest and torture the opposition.
C’est la vie, my friend. We are living interesting times.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Apr 27 2015 14:51 utc | 79

@james@68
Way-out-there is a sad byproduct of Fox Mooooos, Crooks Not News, et al, and has been limbaughtomized to discard any other source of info, particularly from the “Axis of Evil,” of which Iran is a card-carrying member, according to his brainwashed…”brain”?

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Apr 27 2015 15:11 utc | 81

@81 lone wolf.. sure looks like that to me as well…

Posted by: james | Apr 27 2015 16:02 utc | 83

LW@81
I know I should be more understanding of those who grew up during or after the Reagan Era and take into account their disadvantaged education and conditioning. Lacking skills such as critical thinking and the ability to read between the lines is a crippling handicap that is difficult to overcome.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Apr 27 2015 16:16 utc | 85

Writers Withdraw From PEN Gala to Protest Award to Charlie Hebdo

‘ PEN’s Executive Director, former Obama State Department official and Amnesty USA Executive Director Suzanne Nossel ‘ has awarded PRN’s ‘annual Freedom of Expression Courage Award to Charlie Hebdo’ …

… and the PEN membership is churning, with decent people leaving the organization and racists joining. Devastation and destruction applies to otganizaions as well as the nations once the Obama administration has its way.
HRW, Amnesty International, PEN .,.. the neo-con US government’s reach creeps deeper and deeper into American society, devastating and destroying whatever it touches.
Totalitarianism in the USA becomes more and more real and apparent every day.
But we the sheeple are growing … concerned and are … considering … preparing … to denounce and replace the criminal US political class … any day now. Right?

Posted by: jfl | Apr 27 2015 16:35 utc | 87

@81 lone wolf.. everyone here sees right thru whacked out west..
good series of articles by mark ames on how the usa supported chechen terrorists when it served their interests to destabilize russia, but don’t think it can ever come back to bite them in the ass.. part 1 , part2 , part”>https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/prisoners-of-the-caspian-part-three/”>part 3 .. apologies if someone posted this before..
“FUCK AMERICA!” – Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, April 19, 2013

Posted by: james | Apr 27 2015 17:17 utc | 89

Billboard in Wisconsin features cop who shot 2 dead in 10 days

‘ Michael Martin Bell, a retired US Air Force pilot and long-time resident of Kenosha, said his son was shot in the head and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop.
‘ Bell said the officer was cleared within 48 hours of killing his son despite lack of a crime lab report and medical report. “The witness statements weren’t even taken,” he said.
‘ “I spent 10 years of my life on this,” he said. “I spent a million dollars of my money on this. I know the system is broken.” ‘

They don’t call them cheese heads for nothing. I guess as long as its someone else’s son whose head the cops have turned into Swiss cheese … no problem?

Posted by: jfl | Apr 27 2015 17:29 utc | 91

@Mina@32, 35, 73, 84
Mina, keep on going with the good links you’re providing us, don’t surrender to the useless “talk of the town.”

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Apr 27 2015 18:31 utc | 93

@94 jfl. thanks and yes to your comments!
here is an article that i thought was good on the topic of russia/ukraine/the west..
Purging the Purged: Solzhenitsyn, Ukraine, and the West by Nina Kouprianova

Posted by: james | Apr 27 2015 21:58 utc | 95

@james@95
Great article. Thanks for the link!
Newsweek even presented a ‘psychological evaluation’ of Solzhenitsyn, concluding that he suffers from the “Gulag of the Russian mind.”
…the “Gulag of the Russian Mind.” LOL…Newsweek speaks for all of those in the vulgar West who expected Solzhenitsyn to replace the Gulag with a Walmart on main street Siberia. How shallow. The merchant West is far from understanding the depth, breadth and complexity of the Russian soul; even old bulldog Churchill with his acute sense of history couldn’t go beyond saying,

“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”

Close, but no cigar. Wonder if the brain dead neocons ever read this quote.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Apr 27 2015 23:16 utc | 97

I’ve quit watching MSM except for on occasions like today in Baltimore- ha ha ha. What a hapless display. I’ve never seen Chris Matthews look more bewildered- he finally began to relax when he asked when the manufacturing jobs were going to be coming back? Hello white America , we’re here for you! The jobs are coming back -in the for profit prisons.
Good luck fielding the police and prison guards when a whole segment of the population has turned against them. Perhaps this will be the beginning of a new accounting of what it means to lose the public trust.

Posted by: Nana2007 | Apr 28 2015 0:30 utc | 99