PEPE ESCOBAR—Cool, calm, and collected, without a hint of aggression, Putin’s speech painted Russia as an ancient, independent, and quite distinct civilization – sometimes following a path in concert with other civilizations, sometimes in divergence. Ukraine, part of Russian civilization, now happens to be occupied by western civilization, which Putin said “became hostile to us,” like in a few instances in the past. So the acute phase of what is essentially a war by proxy of the west against Russia takes place over the body of Russian civilization.
RUSSIAN MIGHT
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ALEKS—A part of the propaganda warfare in Ukraine was to demoralize the Russian public, to trigger it to overthrow President Putin. To achieve that, many ambush kills were filmed by drones and broadcast immediately. The idea was to make the Russian public demand an end to the war and by refusing it, Putin would lose the confidence of the population and would be eventually overthrown. The broadcasting was very successful. But not the approach, that Russians would lose morale, and demand an end to the war. That failed badly.
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Dmitri Shostakovich – “Leningradskaia”: The End of the Siege and the Triumph of the Spirit
41 minutes readNORA HOPPE—Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony was written in 1941, primarily during the Siege of Leningrad by the Nazi forces. When it had its premiere in the war-torn city on 9th August 1942 – performed by the emaciated, surviving musicians of the Leningrad Radio Orchestra that was supplemented with military performers, before a starving but euphoric audience – it was hailed as a universal beacon of resistance to barbarism. The conductor, Karl Eliasberg, concluded that “in that moment, we triumphed over the soulless Nazi war machine”.
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It is not Russia that is “wasting men and equipment”, it is the Ukraine, because no matter what the Ukraine does, it is unable to change the outcome of the current conflict. At this point it will surrender unconditionally or be utterly defeated. Adding weapons to the mix will simply cause more Ukrainian deaths and destruction, and a greater financial burden on those counties provisioning them. The US has expensive but vulnerable bases and interests all around the world. The cost of defending all of them from any possible attack is astronomical, while an attacker need to find only one weakness at one point at one time to inflict a major defeat on the USA.
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AMONG THE TOPICS DISCUSSED:
• The West’s elites complete disconnection from reality and criminal indifference to the lot of ordinary people
• The effects of having the West/US controlled by a corrupt “Bubble” of self-perpetuating privileged and ultra-wealthy insiders.
• How rotten leadership is inevitable under an advanced capitalist regime (imperialism)
• Realities of the Ukraine war, the Russian options