I’d buy one just to urinate upon it in front of the store.

Posted by: Karl | Jan 9 2023 17:18 utc | 4

“I sent one hundred billion dollars to Ukraine and all I got was this stupid tee-shirt.”

Posted by: gottlieb | Jan 9 2023 17:22 utc | 6

The only place I’ve seen an “I stand with Ukraine” placard lately is at a nearby barber shop. And that’s because the barbers are all Russian speakers. So they’re either Ukrainians or Russians who felt a need to protect themselves from a backlash

Posted by: Callmelennie | Jan 9 2023 17:33 utc | 8

My neighborhood has been thick with blue and yellow for most of the past year. Definitely started declining a while back. Put up the Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas decor, never replace the 404 gear. The wackos who believe everything MSM are talking about Jan 6 or COVID XBB3.7.2. Ukrainian expats being quiet.

Posted by: oldhippie | Jan 9 2023 17:38 utc | 10

I checked on eBay to find out how “I stand with Ukraine” items were selling. I see a few January sales even to today, but since October 11, there were only 265 sold items: buttons, stickers, t-shirts, etc., mostly the cheapest items.
I looked to see if there were any “I stand with Russia” items and there are none.

Posted by: Belle | Jan 9 2023 17:50 utc | 12

I’d buy one just to urinate upon it in front of the store.
Posted by: Karl | Jan 9 2023 17:18 utc | 4
###
Never debase yourself to make a point.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Jan 9 2023 17:58 utc | 14

So goeth the new current thing.

Posted by: Boo | Jan 9 2023 18:03 utc | 16

Ukraine is so 2022. Recession is the current thing in 2023.

Posted by: Monos | Jan 9 2023 18:13 utc | 18

This is because the only language the obtuse Western bourgeoise understands is a drop in their housing prices and stock portfolios. They stand with Ukraine but are cheerleading the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian young men and the utter destruction of the country.

Posted by: Turk 152 | Jan 9 2023 18:15 utc | 20

The only place I’ve seen an “I stand with Ukraine” placard lately is at a nearby barber shop. And that’s because the barbers are all Russian speakers. So they’re either Ukrainians or Russians who felt a need to protect themselves from a backlash
Posted by: Callmelennie | Jan 9 2023 17:33 utc | 8

I know it may seem hard to believe inside this particular bar, but before this war a great many Russian speaking Ukrainians had no desire to (re)join the Russian Federation. Recall that the original DPR and LPR referenda were for independence, not to join the RF.
Like most of the world, these people prefer local decentralized governments, as opposed to being small cogs in these geopolitical behemoths that trample human rights and advance the interests of a small minority.

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Jan 9 2023 18:25 utc | 22

I’m tempted to get this Saint Zelensky prayer candle just so I can burn him https://www.illuminidol.com/products/volodymyr-zelenskyy

Posted by: Brendan | Jan 9 2023 18:27 utc | 24

@20 Since you mentioned stocks I took a peep at NOC (Northrop Grumman) and it seems to be slipping today. Could be the end of their bull run.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NOC/community?p=NOC

Posted by: dh | Jan 9 2023 18:33 utc | 26

There is less and less room in hell.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jan 9 2023 18:36 utc | 28

It is 50% off because the text is misleading.
“I fall with Ukraine” is more according to reality.

Posted by: Norwegian | Jan 9 2023 18:43 utc | 30

Just saw a Ukie flag on a building in Cincinnati. Cincinnati Air Conditioning Co. It’s there on Google Street View
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.2677391,-84.5601119,3a,75.7y,76.48h,83.63t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1shPPoalPjHYbnsVwcxR3Kjw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Oddly enough, the slogan on the side of the building says “Our employees built this company. Not the US Government”
Oh, the irony

Posted by: JoeDontSurf | Jan 9 2023 18:48 utc | 32

For my war updates I have pretty much stopped watching Dima, as the speculation etc. ratio to actual factual reporting ratio is now way too high. I have moved to Weeb Union, which gives multiple short (i.e. a few minutes) updates each day completely focused on the facts on the ground. Is anyone else using this channel and what has been the experience?
It does seem that the northern flank is giving way and the Ukrainians have been unable to stabilize their lines. The Russians have advanced further in the centre of Soledar, and are fighting in Krasna Hora, Paraskovivka, Skovoridka (at the road entering Bakhmut from the north) – cutting off Bakhmut from Soledar and threatening a flanking manoeuvre from the north.

Posted by: Roger | Jan 9 2023 18:48 utc | 34

or COVID XBB3.7.2.
Posted by: oldhippie | Jan 9 2023 17:38 utc | 10
Do keep up. The latest variant is BS 24/7.

Posted by: Gt Stroller | Jan 9 2023 18:57 utc | 36

Where is this store located? In Disneyland? How appropriate.

Posted by: Jose Garcia | Jan 9 2023 18:59 utc | 38

Pretty funny and a little creepy that those t-shirts are being sold at what looks to be an official Disney store. Wonder what country that is from.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 9 2023 19:00 utc | 40

I think your new House Speaker wears two Ukrainian flag pins and probably one of these T shirts under his button up. The novelty has worn off for T-shirts…it is chilly..watch out for new yellow and blue horizontal striped COVID ear loop masks coming soon to the virtue signaling cowards

Posted by: Joe | Jan 9 2023 19:16 utc | 42

That Disney store selling the half-priced T-shirts isn’t exactly humming with customers pushing trolleys full of merchandise and dragging bored children behind them.

Posted by: Jen | Jan 9 2023 19:20 utc | 44

@ 41
The US govt. looks erratic and unstable domestically and internationally. US installed puppet regimes are failing and attempts to install others are also failing. The trick going forward is going to be keeping an even keel.

Posted by: chunga | Jan 9 2023 19:24 utc | 46

Barflies I’m sure have seen this video of Merkel standing next to Zelensky three years ago trembling and shaking like a leaf. I just came across it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nca3Z3-9K4c

Posted by: chunga | Jan 9 2023 19:34 utc | 48

50% OFF??
So does that mean they are only $55 billion each??

Posted by: Oldcutlas | Jan 9 2023 19:42 utc | 50

New meme: I can’t stand Ukraine.

Posted by: ebear | Jan 9 2023 19:46 utc | 52

I realize I’m on an island with my theory but as the situation deteriorates I still believe Merkel is going to reveal Germany was blackmailed by the Americans.

Posted by: chunga | Jan 9 2023 19:48 utc | 54

@ 54
All we can do is speculate but it’s weird nobody goes over to help her.

Posted by: chunga | Jan 9 2023 19:50 utc | 56

In every store I see those swag products I’m asking why they don’t sell them for Russia 😉

Posted by: Zet | Jan 9 2023 19:54 utc | 58

In every store I see those swag products I’m asking why they don’t sell them for Russia 😉
Posted by: Zet | Jan 9 2023 19:54 utc | 59

We bought some St George’s ribbon online. It does not get taken outside the house in Toronto 😉

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Jan 9 2023 19:56 utc | 60

JANUARY 9, 2023
The First US Onslaught to “Weaken” Post-Cold War Russia.
BY JOHN V. WALSH
[Title] Even Before NATO Expansion, the West Sought to Strangle Russia Economically.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/01/09/the-first-us-onslaught-to-weaken-post-cold-war-russia/
[John Walsh] The Neocons at Work, Carrying Out “The Wolfowitz Doctrine,” the Latest Expression of the Post-WWII U.S. Drive for Total Global Domination.
It is quite clear that the goal of the United States was not to help Russia but to bring it down, and Sachs correctly links that to the US quest for global hegemony first set forth in the months before Pearl Harbor and reiterated by the neocons who are now its champions. Among them Sachs mentions Paul Wolfowitz whose “doctrine” sums up the goals of the post-Soviet era with the words:
[A repentant Jeffery Sacks] “Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”
“We must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.”
[ John Walsh] What better way to achieve this goal than to reduce the economy of Russia to a basket case? Sachs draws a direct line from the Great Russian Depression of the 1990’s and early 2000’s to the expansion of NATO, the U.S. backed coup of a duly elected President in Ukraine in 2014 and on to the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine, also designed to “weaken” Russia. The hand of the US was at work every step of the way.
[Ed] Counterpunch, to a large degree, has taken the side, and defends the narrative, of the Biden White House, the State department, the CIA, and the war hawks in Congress. A disgraceful turn of events for a once progressive Magazine and later internet magazine. Nevertheless, and to its credit, CP does allow some critics of the pro-Biden and pro-war to contribute to CP from time to time.

Posted by: Ed | Jan 9 2023 19:59 utc | 62

Apparently, in spite of all the 3LA directed / MSM produced propaganda most Americans know better…than to poke a bear in it’s lair.
Will our rulers, the denizens of DC ever evolve enough brainpower to exhibit sentience on par with that of pre-Cambrian fauna? We are ruled by stupid, arrogant organisms wholly incapable of self-examination and self-correction.

Posted by: S Brennan | Jan 9 2023 20:04 utc | 64

Will our rulers, the denizens of DC ever evolve enough brainpower to exhibit sentience on par with that of pre-Cambrian fauna? We are ruled by stupid, arrogant organisms wholly incapable of self-examination and self-correction.
Posted by: S Brennan | Jan 9 2023 20:04 utc | 65
Their inclinations and intentions are not aligned with the higher spiritual development of human beings. Their agenda is power control and domination. They aren’t stupid but they are incompetent, which is, to my perspective, a benefit. May they soundly reap what they sow.

Posted by: osi | Jan 9 2023 20:11 utc | 66

I’d like to have one to wear ironically.

Posted by: Skiffer | Jan 9 2023 20:17 utc | 68

In Alastair Crooke’s latest article “U.S. Strategic Aim: Break and Dismember Russia; Or Maintain U.S. Dollar Hegemony? Or a Muddled ‘Both’?” he brings up the following:
“Essentially, Team Biden may have indulged in jaundiced thinking….. May it be that Team Biden’s calculus then, has had to shift with the dawning understanding of the(se) unforeseen outcomes….. This was a fear Biden actually exposed in his White House meeting during the Zelensky visit before Christmas. Would NATO survive such candour? Would the EU remain intact?….”
“More to the point, would western markets survive such candour? What happens if Russia, over the winter months, brings Ukraine to the verge of system collapse? Will Biden and his strongly anti-Russian administration simply throw up their hands and concede victory to Russia? Based on their maximalist rhetoric and commitment to Ukrainian victory, that appears unlikely.”
I agree very often with Alastair Crooke’s analyses and view points, but not regarding the Unlikeliness that Biden and his Administration will throw their hands and concede victory to Russia.
Because the ingrained attitude and behavior of the USA in Foreign and in Domestic politics is: To try, to push, to bully, to black mail, to deceit and to throw money, people and equipment with maximalist rhetoric. But if it doesn’t work out the USA, ALWAYS withdraws its position without blinking an eye. Look at Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Biden and the USA will therefore certainly concede victory to Russia, because the plans don’t work out as assumed. The often asserted geopolitical scale element is only a propaganda factor and not essential for the USA.
For the USA is only essential where it can win and miscalculations are not to the point, really not at all. “Stop whining, move on” is typical the USA, in Business as well as in Politics: It is one of its strengths.
Since a couple of years the USA is developing the above in the Semiconductor Industry. Trying to bring China in submission with it. If this in the end will not work out, then the USA will adapt again and move on. The likely outcome in my opinion, since the USA is a wholesaler in miscalculations.

Posted by: Ton Jacobs | Jan 9 2023 20:22 utc | 70

Still wondering, why nobody in Germany ask themselves who detroyed the pipelines. Now that T-shirts are the political medium of choice, maybe we could use them to apply some pressure and get people to demand an answer and wake up.

Posted by: grunzt | Jan 9 2023 20:28 utc | 72

“Britain may soon announce a delivery of ten Challenger II tanks to Kiev,”
Wow! Russia must be trembling, Putin is doomed. A whole ten tanks! Ukraine started the war with over 2,000…then got sent hundreds more from Poland and the other Eastern Europe countries. Almost all gone now.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jan 9 2023 20:36 utc | 74

It’s a ploy to make themselves look nonbiased and open-minded / intellectual. Hence the infrequent allowing of dissent.
Posted by: osi | Jan 9 2023 20:14 utc | 68
Yes, you are right, Still, it is a lot better than most MSM allows. Since the start of the SMO, I have been collecting some of the better columns published by CP concerning the US proxy war. Unless you have been a reader of CP in the last 20 years or so, you can’t appreciate the disappointment I, and I am sure many others, feel about the magazine now.
In 2014, the CP was a reliable source of information and analysis about the Maidan Coup and all the events before and after, at least until the start of the SMO in February 2022. The CP did not need a ploy, all it needed was to stick to the facts and publish the truth, just as B does here at the MoA.
Try to imagine how disappointed you would feel if B just decided one day to support a narrative that was pro-US imperialist and pro-NATO expansionist?

Posted by: Ed | Jan 9 2023 20:42 utc | 76

“Was not the argument here that west had no more weapons to give?”
It is not whether there are any more toys in the arsenal. It is whether there are tried and true toys left over to be sent to the Killing Grounds.
And there are 2 other classes of toys:
1. Toys inventoried in volumes that would embarrass the West by failing their purpose and kill more Ukes than are already being killed.
2. Cutting edge weapons that have not been adequately field tested or could easily end up in Russia’s possession.

Posted by: kupkee | Jan 9 2023 20:53 utc | 78

Good, more of this, please. But why only now…
https://t.me/JokerDPR/310

My spies from the SBU reported that today very effective missile strikes were carried out on the points of temporary deployment of Ukrainian soldiers in Kherson:
the Dnieper police department, which is on the street. Zalaegerseg 29, where there were more than 100 soldiers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the SBU;
Suvorov police department, which is on the street. Mayakovsky 10, where there were also about 100 soldiers of the units of the Special Forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Special Forces of the SBU;
The Police Department of the Ship District, on 30 Filatova Street, where Ukrainian Nazis from various groups sat packed.
In each of these places a large number of dead and wounded. By a happy coincidence, all the above scoundrels were engaged in cleaning up the Russian population in Kherson and the region. Now asphalt needs to be cleaned from their remnants. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…

Posted by: shadowbanned | Jan 9 2023 20:57 utc | 80

@49
I suppose we shouldn’t be taken aback with the idea that heads of state are cranked up on drugs during public ceremonies. There’s a weird feeling in the air like Yurchak’s “Hypernormalization” has set in.
HyperNormalization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation
“The word hypernormalization was coined by Alexei Yurchak, a professor of anthropology who was born in Leningrad and later went to teach in the United States. He introduced the word in his book Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (2006), which describes paradoxes of Soviet life during the 1970s and 1980s.[3][4] He says that everyone in the Soviet Union knew the system was failing, but no one could imagine an alternative to the status quo, and politicians and citizens alike were resigned to maintaining the pretense of a functioning society.[5] Over time, this delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy and the fakeness was accepted by everyone as real, an effect that Yurchak termed hypernormalisation.[6]”

Posted by: chunga | Jan 9 2023 20:59 utc | 82

Bill Smith @ 80 / Greg Galloway @ 76
Like I said, a meeting of hard asses, someone is delivering an ultimatum. Nuland usually arrives uncalled and unwanted so I figured the USA was the one sending the ultimatum but Greg Galloway could be correct. Lord knows what it is, certainly not for us plebs to know ultimatums. To be a fly on the wall.

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Jan 9 2023 21:06 utc | 84

Posted by: chunga | Jan 9 2023 20:59 utc | 83
Adam Curtis did a decent documentary (in his usual off-beat style) called “Hypernormalization.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thLgkQBFTPw
It’s an entertaining and in some ways enlightening watch; not usual for BBC content.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 9 2023 21:09 utc | 86

@ 84 regarding blown up pipelines
I have just enough faith left in humanity to think Europeans will come to understand who blew up those pipelines. Just barely.
I’m not sure though. People believe a lie for so long they can never admit they were wrong. We had an NFL football player, just a kid, collapse in front of millions of people. Half the players and half the viewers, at least, instantly had something pop in their heads.
What they were thinking is taboo. Censored. The other half won’t even think it.

Posted by: chunga | Jan 9 2023 21:13 utc | 88

I dont think that Medvedev to be under Larvov in protocol …
I believe he was sent out to Volker/Nuland to deliver an ultimatum of sorts … or at least indicate minimal conditions to be met for starting negociations …
Posted by: Greg Galloway | Jan 9 2023 20:40 utc | 76
Bullseye!
There’s no circumstance which would tempt Putin to use his (and the world’s) best diplomat to deliver a threat or negative message. Never in a hundred, never in a thousand, never in a million years.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 9 2023 21:28 utc | 90

The UK purchased a total of 386 Challengers between 1998 and 2002.
No further purchases were made. Apparently there are only 227 left in service.
This indicates that the total stock that could be spared without running down UK’s own armoured regiments would be around 160, but it is unclear how many are in working order.
We have to take from the 160 those that have been sold on to other countries in the meantime – Poland apparently bought 10.
Press reports indicate that only another 10 will be sent to Ukraine.
Posted by: Paul Cockshott | Jan 9 2023 19:58 utc | 62
It is my belief that it is a completely new kind of warfare now and that’s what is holding up the Allied effort. That and the problems they’ve discovered within the Russian military machine.
It is now all about spying. Drones, satellites. And computerised lighting swift calculations giving instant directions to guns of a target.
So: just as the Allies tanks haven’t helped them happily roll all over the Donetsk entrenchments nor will any amount of tanks really help Kiev. Just as a ship at sea today is little more than a floating target as I believe some illustrious military man said so a tank ‘floating’ on the land is little more than a target.
The drone with that modern computerised targeting and satellite driven GPS behind it is now king of the battlefield. So the next step would seem to me to be ‘drone battles’ where flocks of drones approach each other and battle it out. Doubtless aided by electronic counter measures from the ground.
I am hoping that in Russia they are furiously building drones, furiously designed ECM’s and furiously running a fine tooth comb and corrective education through a bureaucracy and a military. If all this doesn’t kill Russia then it’s going to strengthen Russia immeasurably. But it won’t be easy. There’s no certainties that I can see.
To me Kiev’s weakest point is its allies: who would want the USA and UK and EU for allies? Could you have a more fundamentally rotten and duplicitous crew? The finest thing about them is the USA’s open boast that they’re only in it for themselves. How’s that for hubris? And what contempt does it display for the rest of the pirate crew. That’s putting it to them fair and square. From round the back.
And Russia’s weakest point is its allies: China, India, etc who’re all ‘coming onboard’ and the international economic strength is growing and it is all looking good but none of them are sending solid support to Russia or even pledging it, are they and certainly none of them are pledging troops. A mortally weakened Russia could find they’d round on it like jackals and help tear it apart.
It needs to reach a sort of ‘critical mass’ where they will come onboard without reservation; where they recognise that Russia’s strength, safety and success is their strength, safety and success and get wholehearted and somewhat trustworthy about it.
Right now Russia stands alone as I see it. And its only hope in the end is the people of the world.

Posted by: abrogard | Jan 9 2023 21:31 utc | 92

He says that everyone in the Soviet Union knew the system was failing, but no one could imagine an alternative to the status quo, and politicians and citizens alike were resigned to maintaining the pretense of a functioning society.[5] Over time, this delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy and the fakeness was accepted by everyone as real, an effect that Yurchak termed hypernormalisation.[6]”
Posted by: chunga | Jan 9 2023 20:59 utc | 83
What a brilliant idea. I’ve downloaded the book on the strength of it. Perhaps the phenomenon has some connection with the covid farce: accepting total nonsense and demonstrable stupidity as logic and reasonable response?

Posted by: abrogard | Jan 9 2023 21:39 utc | 94

Posted by: abrogard | Jan 9 2023 21:31 utc | 93
A quote from Machiavelli seems appropriate.
There is no task more difficult than to change a system for one finds fierce opponents in those that have all to loase and just lukewarm supporters in those that may gain.

Posted by: alek_a | Jan 9 2023 21:46 utc | 96

Smoke and mirrors infinitum. Long before the “lockdowns” of early 2020 we’ve been in thrall to lies and deception. Be sure to get your latest boosters, enthralled ones!

Posted by: majoab | Jan 9 2023 21:47 utc | 98

Translated:

Russian Army advances on Artemivsk, Soledar and Avdeevka, attacks near Kupiansk and Marinka – the main thing from the report of the General Staff of the AFU
▪️The Russian Armed Forces are using tanks, mortars, howitzers and MLRS in the areas of 16 settlements, including Dvurechnaya, Kupyansk, Kislovka, Kotlyarovka and Krakhmalnoye in Kharkiv region and Stelmakhovka, Makiivka, Ploshanka and Dibrova in LNR.
▪️In the Artemivsk direction, AFU positions in areas of more than 15 settlements, including Spornoye, Berestovoye, Belogorovka, Soledar, and Artemivsk of the DNR, were hit by fire.
▪️On the Avdiivka direction, our troops shelled the enemy in the areas of Avdiivka, Veseloye, Nevelskoye, Krasnogorovka, Georgievka, Marinka and Novomikhailovka of the DNR.
▪️In the Novopavlovsk direction, the AFU came under fire from the RF Armed Forces in the areas of Vremovka, Velyka Novoselka and Ugledar DNR.
▪️On the Zaporizhzhya direction, the Russian Army is hitting the AFU in the areas of 13 n.p. Among them are Zelenoye Polye and Novopol DNR and Huliaipole, Volshebnoye, Shcherbaki and Stepnoye.
▪️In the Kherson direction, the Russian Armed Forces carried out strikes against targets in the areas of Chernobayevka, Antonovka, Kherson and Zolotaya Balka.
▪️In the Seversk and Slobozhansk directions, the Russian Armed Forces shelled AFU positions and facilities in the areas of Buchki, Chernihiv region; Starikovo, Shalygino, Volfino, Basovka and Petrushovka, Sumy region; and Strelechya, Zelyonoye, Ambarnoye and Gatishche, Kharkiv region.

Posted by: Outraged | Jan 9 2023 22:02 utc | 100