Dimitri Lascaris writes at CounterPunch that any realistic peace initiative in the Russia-Ukraine war is going to have to include territorial concessions on the part of Ukraine to Russia.
Nowadays, few things are as hazardous to one’s reputational health as suggesting that Ukraine should make territorial concessions to Russia. The vehemence with which mainstream commentators reject such suggestions is awesome to behold.
So, the Liberal Party propagandist hardly blogs anymore and I hardly read what he has to say. But today I saw the title of his latest post at The Galloping Beaver's blog-roll and it was about the detestable Pierre Poilievre and his "Nazi Nightmare." My loathing for Poilievre is such that I was prepared to read a Liberal hack going to town on him. (That being said, I was prepared to be disappointed and even disgusted by what I was about to read.)
So, the Biden administration's insane war on Russia has produced an energy crisis and increased inflation in Europe. People in the UK are freezing to death I've heard. And most of Europe's ruling political parties, from the centre-right to the centre-left are cravenly submitting to cooperating in their continent's downfall. (They'd been orchestrating the immiseration of the European populations in a big way since the 2008 financial crisis already.)
The only politicians voicing objections to this US-led insanity and hypocrisy have been on the far-left and the far-right. And the only politicians voicing objections who have any power are far-rightists like Hungary's Viktor Orban. Russia's Vladimir Putin is a right-wing authoritarian himself and he has been subsidizing far-right parties and individuals in Europe for years, including outright fascists. Putin's stated goal of "de-nazification" of Ukraine isn't complete bullshit however. Ukrainian fascists ("Banderites") are anti-Russian fascists. Their organization has historical links to Nazi Germany. For that reason Putin is opposed to them.
Of course, we mustn't then forget that it is the US government that is supporting and enabling the Ukrainian fascists. In the same way that they support violent Islamic extremists in Syria and Libya (and Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere) despite having claimed that "Islamism" is the great threat of our time. The USA needs psychopathic morons to work their will because what they want tends to bring ruin to the lands in question. So it's Jihaadist nutbars in the Middle East and nazi stooges in Ukraine.
But back to Europe. The people of Europe have been protesting this shit. It isn't reported here because our news media is now 100% propaganda and censorship and hypocrisy and obfuscation and it is so blatant and brazen. But the Europeans are angry. And if it turns out that the only groups willing and able to tear power away from the neo-liberal US lapdogs and the soulless, insane neo-liberal bureaucrats in Brussells are the far-right, then this whole selfish US policy of maintaining hegemony, de-industrializing Europe, and subsidizing both the military-industrial complex and the fracking industry could well back-fire and lead to a pro-Putin, pro-Russian, far-right Europe.
So all of the outrage about the expensive white elephan F-35 fighter jets that the Liberals engaged in when it was the harpercons lying and hiding turns out to have been just for show. (Not surprised. Just pointing it out.)
Also, recently, I saw the pea-brained parasite Pierre Poilievre yammering about the Liberals having hired the scumbags from McKinsey to do nothing for tons of public dollars. Poilievre conveniently forgets how his harpercon crew were unprecedented in hiring outside consultants (generally friends of the party) for government work.
It's the same phoney outrage all the time. It's the nature of capitalist pseudo-democracy. The oligarchy always gets its demands. The two parties play-act outrage when they're in opposition and wounded innocence when they're in power.
And when the NDP becomes the contender at the provincial level (British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) they become almost indistinguishable from other provinces' Liberal parties (with a few differences here and there).
Nothing will change so long as our society is ruled by a philosophy that puts profits over people and democracy.
I don't know much about the guy who finally won the vote to be the Speaker in the now Republican controlled House of Representatives. Lemme look up his name again. (I think it's "McKnight.")
...
I was wrong. It's Kevin McCarthy. As I understand it, despite his enthusiastic support for Trump's contention that he only lost his re-election for President bid due to Democratic corruption of the electoral process [a claim that is obviously untrue and extremely hypocritical], McCarthy is [I think] seen by a small group of extreme-right-wing populists as a representative of the "soft-on-the-'globalists'" establishment.
Anyhow, the Republicans have a very small majority in the House. Just as the Democrats did in 2020. As Nancy Pelosi, in 2020, needed the vote of every Democratic Congressperson, McCarthy needed every single vote he could get in order to be elected. For that reason, a small group of renegades had the ability to block his election either to utterly confound him or in order to extract policy concessions.
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| Apparently there was a series called "The Librarian." |
In October 2021 I started a post: "Latest Reads." About a month later I decided to make it my one-stop shopping post for all the future books that I'd read. The post's title was amended to "Latest Reads: [NOW THWAP'S GIANT BOOK DEPOSITORY!!!!] I continued it into 2022. But that eventually became too unwieldy to edit. By Autumn 2022 I decided to start another post for the year's book readings in 2023 and here it is.
If you search for the name "Jeffrey St. Clair" at this blog you'll probably find a few posts where I criticize him for his puerile sneering at anyone who doesn't think exactly the way he does. "CounterPunch" is an institution and it has long been a source of vital analyses for myself and tens of thousands of other left-wingers. But it is also a deeply flawed site with a deeply flawed editor and many deeply flawed, if not absolutely useless, contributers.
As of late, writer Patrick Cockburn (a British-born journalist) has been grinding my gears with his constant ignorant, deluded refrain that Vladimir Putin's goal with the invasion of the Ukraine is to recreate the Russian Empire. In spewing such garbage he has a great deal of company. My faith in the collective intelligence of humanity took another serious blow when I saw so many otherwise intelligent people babbling about how Putin was a "thug" and a "madman" but he could simultaneously be provoked, his stated concerns for Russia's security ignored with impunity. This despite the fact that Russia has one of the two largest nuclear arsenals in the world. Enough weapons to obliterate human civilization. Supposedly we can provoke the "madman" with the nuclear weapons and rely on his self-control to not do anything rash.
