El qué, el quién, el cómo

A través del blog Tirando al Medio, de Gerardo Fernández, llegamos a una nota interesante publicada por Clarín. Pero vayamos primero al post de GF: 

“Se veía venir que la candidata Marina Silva terminaría siendo el instrumento de la derecha brasileña para enfrentar, y con verdaderas chances de triunfo, a Dilma Rousseff. Esta nota que escribe Eleonora Gosman en Clarín confirma todas las sospechas. Leemos:

"No pasó un día que las virtudes electorales de Marina empezaron a meterse dentro de un corsé. El programa oficial de la candidata, que ella misma presentó el viernes en la ciudad de San Pablo, ya sufrió las primeras grandes correcciones. El proyecto original incorporaba una visión social muy progresista, con temas como el aborto en instituciones hospitalarias públicas y el casamiento gay.

24 horas después del anuncio, ayer por la tarde, estas conquistas fueron borradas sin más trámite con una explicación bizarra: su inclusión fue “un error de redacción” explicaron los colaboradores “marinistas”.

Sin los contenidos de avanzada como la aprobación de una ley de identidad de género, de criminalización de la homofobia, y el casamiento entre homosexuales, resta solo la parte más conservadora del documento.

Se trata del capítulo económico, donde las orientaciones aceptadas por Marina son aquellas de los años 90, como las que practicaron Carlos Menem en Argentina y Fernando Collor de Mello en Brasil.

Apertura comercial, ajuste fiscal, cambio libre sin intervención estatal y empresas del Estado que probablemente serán desguazadas y parcial o totalmente privatizadas.

La eliminación de conquistas sociales como las de los homosexuales y lesbianas, produjo ayer las primeras reacciones negativas. Este sector, que representa una fuerza electoral considerable y con influencia especialmente en las clases medias, se sintió “frustrado” y “desilusionado”.

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Ya lo había anticipado Emir Sader 48 horas después del fallecimiento de Eduardo campos en esta columna publicada en Página/12. Estamos frente a una muy audaz apuesta de la derecha brasileña y una candidata dispuesta a bajar de  antemano todas sus banderas con tal de ganar las elecciones, aunque el poder estará en otro lado..."

***

Vamos entonces a la nota de Sader en P/12:

Título: La nueva candidata de la derecha brasileña

Texto: La campaña presidencial brasileña estaba aburrida. El gobierno tratando de, con el comienzo del horario electoral en la TV, presentar todos sus incuestionables logros, además de contar con la presencia constante de Lula, para tratar de ganar en primera vuelta.

La oposición ya sentía haber agotado su arsenal de instrumentos para intentar por lo menos ir a la segunda vuelta, con sus dos principales candidatos, sumando votos de candidatos chicos, haciendo manipulaciones de las encuestas, encadenando denuncias cada vez más grotescas en contra del gobierno. Un clima de desánimo se instauraba en la oposición, constatando que sus candidatos no levantaban vuelo para desafiar a Dilma Rousseff.

El accidente que llevó a la muerte a Eduardo Campos, candidato que había salido de la esfera del gobierno para sumarse a la oposición, plantea nuevas alternativas a la campaña. La perspectiva inmediata es que Marina da Silva, su vice, asumiera como candidata. Con más popularidad que Campos y con la posibilidad de movilizar a una parte de los que se declaran indecisos o definidos por votos nulos o en blanco o incluso por la abstención, ella podría cambiar el rumbo de la disputa.

La derecha, desanimada con el desempeño de sus candidatos –Aécio Neves y Eduardo Campos– y con la perspectiva de un triunfo de Dilma Rousseff en primera vuelta, se excitó con la posibilidad de un cambio en el escenario. Inmediatamente los medios –asumido por una dirigente de Folha de Sao Paulo en las elecciones de 2010 como “partido de la oposición”– se pusieron en campaña para que Marina sea la candidata.

Encuestas, declaraciones de familiares de Campos, descalificación de dirigentes del Partido Socialista al que pertenecía Campos fueron puestos en marcha para promover la candidatura de Marina. La derecha quiere que ella sea su tabla de salvación. Ya no importan las objeciones que tenían de ella, sea de criterios políticos, sea de idiosincrasias personales. Como siempre se han orientado en la campaña, se impone el criterio de “todos en contra de Dilma”.

¿Cuáles son los eventuales obstáculos a una candidatura de Marina, si los medios, el “mercado”, etc., están a su favor, para por lo menos tratar de llevar la disputa hacia la segunda vuelta? Es que para el PSB no es fácil entregarle la candidatura y la herencia de Campos a ella sin garantías, dado que ella ya declaró que está de paso en el PSB, sólo porque no había logrado las firmas suficientes para registrar su partido y que enseguida después de las elecciones abandonará ese partido para seguir con la construcción del suyo. El PSB necesitaría garantías de parte de Marina, lo que podría expresarse en la opción por quién sería su candidato a vicepresidente.

Pero para Marina, conforme declaraciones de sus asesores, al contrario, es ella quien quiere pedir garantías al PSB de que tendrá la conducción real de la campaña. Esas diferencias, sumadas a la idiosincracia compleja de Marina, pueden llevar a desentendimientos e incluso a una decisión de ella de no candidatearse o, en medio de la campaña, renunciar.

Hoy por hoy, a la derecha no le importa nada no haber apoyado de entrada a Marina. Ni cómo gobernaría, con qué apoyos, etc. Basta dificultar la vida a Dilma Rousseff, llegar a la segunda vuelta. La derecha está dispuesta a abandonar a Aécio Neves y concentrar fuerzas en Marina con tal de conseguir ese objetivo.

Vendrán ahora encuestas que buscan aprovechar el clima de duelo por la muerte de Campos, para intentar inviabilizar cualquier alternativa que no sea la candidatura de Marina da Silva, buscando redistribuir los naipes del juego. En medio de esa campaña, comienza el día 19 el horario de campaña electoral en la TV, donde el gobierno dispone de mucho más tiempo que la oposición, tienen logros para mostrar y dispone del más grande elector, Lula, para consolidar su base y eventualmente ganar nuevos votantes, que podrían neutralizar los efectos de la nueva campaña de la derecha. En medio de eso, la víctima más grande puede ser Aécio Neves, ya atacado por los medios por sus debilidades, que puede dejar el segundo lugar en las encuestas para dar lugar a la polarización Dilma-Marina.

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Y ahora pasemos al cómo. Leemos en Strategic Culture esta nota de Wayne Madsen:

Título: All factors point to CIA aerially assassinating Brazilian presidential candidate

Texto: The plane crash that killed Brazilian presidential candidate Eduardo Campos, who was running in second place behind incumbent President Dilma Rousseff, has severely harmed Rousseff’s chances for re-election. Campos’s successor on the ticket, former Green Party leader Marina Silva, a George Soros puppet, now stands a very good chance of unseating Rousseff in an expected run-off election. Rousseff’s defeat would signal a victory for the Obama administration’s covert activities to eliminate from the scene progressive presidents throughout Latin America.

A review of post-World War II history reveals that of all the many ways intelligence services have used to eliminate political and economic threats, murder by plane crash rank in second place, just ahead of automobile accidents and poisoning, and only behind the use of firearms and munitions, as the Central Intelligence Agency’s favorite modus operandi for political assassination.

The aerial assassinations of United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira, Portuguese Prime Minister Francisco sá Carneiro, Pakistani President Muhammad Zia Ul-Haq, prospective Indian Prime Minister Sanjay Gandhi, American United Auto Workers’ Union President Walter Reuther, former Texas Senator John Tower, and Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone all bore the markings of the involvement of one or more U.S. intelligence agencies in putting ends to political careers that threatened the underpinnings of Imperial America.

Latin America, in particular, has been plagued by plane crashes that have killed two leaders who were determined to pull away from American political influence, President Jaime Roldos Aguilera of Ecuador and President Omar Torrijos of Panama. Both leaders died in 1981, with Roldos dying just a few months before Torrijos. John Perkins, the author of «Confessions of an Economic Hitman» and a former member of the U.S. intelligence community, fingered the United States in both plane crash assassinations.

This background of U.S. involvement in aerial assassinations makes the August 13 crash of the Cessna 560XLS Citation aircraft in Santos, Brazil, which killed pro-business Brazilian Socialist Party presidential candidate Campos, his aides, and the crew, all that more suspicious, The timing of the crash, during an election campaign that had favored an easy victory for Rousseff, has raised significant questions among Brazilian investigators and the general public. 

Since its introduction in 1996, the Cessna 560XLS Citation model has enjoyed a perfect safety record. The sudden death of Campos upended the Brazilian presidential election campaign in a manner that may benefit the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency's long-range agenda for Latin America.

Disturbing questions are being raised about the ownership of the aircraft bearing the tail number PR-AFA. The plane's murky record of owners and registration, along with the lack of cockpit voice recordings thanks to an apparent malfunction in the plane's cockpit voice recorder, has a number of Brazilians wondering whether the plane was sabotaged by the United States. Rather than having the recording of the conversations of Campos's flight crew, the recorder only had the voice recordings from a previous flight.

The plane was flying en route from Rio de Janeiro-Santos Dumont Airport to Guaruja when it crashed in a residential area of Santos. The plane was operated by AF Andrade Enterprises and Holdings, which is based in Ribeirão Preto in Sao Paulo state, but leased from Cessna Finance Export Corporation, a division of Textron, a major U.S. defense and intelligence contractor. Cessna is a division of Textron. The malfunctioning cockpit voice recorder was manufactured by another U.S. defense and intelligence contractor, L-3 Communications. AF Andrade's business is centered on its ownership of a distillery. A spokesman for AF Andrade said the $9 million aircraft had not been recently inspected but stressed that it had a perfect maintenance record.

However, the spokesman for AF Andrade could not specifically state who owned the aircraft but admitted that it, but likely only the lease, was up for sale and had recently been purchased by a group of «factory owners and importers» from Pernambuco. Campos was a former governor of Pernambuco.

The purchasers turned out to be a consortium that included Bandeirantes Tires, Ltd. The tire company said that negotiations on transferring ownership were ongoing when the plane crashed and that Cessna Finance Export Corporation had not yet approved the final leasing rights. Brazilian observers believe the Cessna that crashed was a «ghost plane», with murky ownership in order to cover up the plane's use for covert operations involving the CIA. Similar planes with spotty ownership and registration records were used by the CIA to rendition kidnapped Muslims for interrogation and imprisonment at American «black sites» around the world.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) sent a team to Brazil to investigate the plane crash. However, if the NTSB’s performance on such crashes as TWA 800 and American Airlines 587 is any indication, the agency only excels at cover-ups of criminal actions.

Campos was replaced on the ticket by Silva, who is a darling of the Soros-financed and directed globalization and «civil society» movement. Silva, who is a pro-Israeli adherent of the Assemblies of God Pentecostal church, is much more pro-business and pro-American than Rousseff of the left-leaning Brazilian Workers' Party. Recently, Rousseff, along with her fellow BRICS leaders from Russia, India, China, and South Africa, created a new development bank that challenges the supremacy of the U.S.-run World Bank. The creation of the bank infuriated Washington and Wall Street.

Silva, who may be enjoying more than a mere sympathy vote, recently gained in polls against Rousseff. The Brazilian president is seen by Washington as an adversary, especially after details were leaked by Edward Snowden of massive National Security Agency surveillance of the Brazilian president. 

If Rousseff were forced into a run-off with Silva as either first or second-place finisher in the first round, Aecio Neves, of the conservative Social Democratic Party has stated he would endorse Silva if he comes in third. The political arithmetic could then spell trouble for Rousseff, who would have likely glided to victory had it not been for Silva's advancement to the head of the Socialist Party ticket.  Silva's vice presidential running mate is Beto Albuquerque, whose «civil society» credentials in consumer and human rights protection indicates a Soros «upbringing».

The current polls for the October 5 first round is Rousseff with 36% of the vote, Silva with 21%, and Neves with 20%. However, with Neves out of the race in the scheduled October 26 second round, some polls show Silva beating Rousseff 47% to 43% while others show Silva defeating Rousseff by a staggering 9%. Of course, opinion polls are no longer independent but corporate and Western intelligence agency contrivances used to sway public opinion and engage in the «predictive programming» of entire populations.

The favorable outcome for Silva as a result of the possible aerial assassination of Campos and his aides has many suspicious about the CIA's role in the plane crash, especially after CIA fingerprints were discovered on presidential aerial assassinations of Torrijos and Roldos in 1981. Just this past February, the presidential helicopter normally used by Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, a strong opponent of Washington's policies and an ally of Rousseff, crashed in the mountains on a flight from Guayaquil to Quito. Correa's personal pilot was killed in the crash. Correa, who was addressing a campaign rally at the time of the crash, stressed that he was not scheduled to be on the flight of the Indian-made Dhruv helicopter. However, the suspicion of CIA sabotage could not be suppressed among the Ecuadorian population. 

Silva is being touted as Brazil's «Third Way» candidate. Third Way is an international movement that has been used by corporate politicians, many of them financed by Soros, to infiltrate and take over historically pro-labor, socialist, and progressive parties. The Third Ways' most notable politicians include Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Germany’s Gerhard Schroeder, Canada's Justin Trudeau, French Prtesident Francois Hollande, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and former Prime Minister Romeo Prodi, Portugal's Jose Socrates, Israel's Ehud Barak, and officials of the Brazilian Socialist, Green, and Social Democratic parties, including Silva, Neves, the late Eduardo Campos, and former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. However, when it becomes advantageous to assassinate one Third Wayer in order to promote another, there is no problem to eliminate someone like Campos in order to make way for a more popular (and controlled) politician like Silva, especially when the interests of Israel and Wall Street are at stake.

The Cessna carrying Portuguese Prime Minister Sá Carneiro, which crashed while the prime minister was flying to a re-election rally in Porto, destroyed the leftist Democratic Alliance’s future prospects because the two Sá Carneiro loyalists who succeeded him lacked his charisma. Eventually, Mario Soares, a Third Way and pro-NATO «socialist-in-name-only», a «SINO», became prime minister and ushered Portugal down the path of «Third Way» subservience to a united Europe and globalization. The ambassador to Portugal at the time of Sá Carneiro’s death was CIA officer Frank Carlucci, whose fingerprints were on the 1961 assassination of former Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. 

Carlucci became deputy director of the CIA, and National Security Adviser and Defense Secretary under President Ronald Reagan. Carlucci is also the chairman emeritus of the CIA-connected Carlyle Group. The suspicious death of Campos in Brazil appears to be a carbon copy of the CIA’s quick dispatch of Sá Carneiro, with Rousseff the ultimate target of the action and Silva and her globalist backers as the beneficiaries. 

Contrastes

Tanques ucranianos capturados por las Fuerzas Armadas de Nueva Rusia. 
La leyenda pintada en el frente dice: “¡A Kiev!”

Fuertemente contrastantes son las notis que vienen de Ucrania, dependiendo, claro está, de quién las emite. Fíjense en el tono de pánico contenido de esta nota de Lucía Abellán para El País de España:   

Título: La UE prepara nuevas sanciones a Rusia tras la incursión en Ucrania

Epígrafe: Barroso alerta de un punto “de no retorno” en la crisis entre Moscú y Kiev

Texto: El convencimiento de tener una guerra a las puertas de la Unión Europea preocupa a los Veintiocho, que este sábado acordaron endurecer las sanciones sobre Rusia como respuesta a la incursión de sus tropas en suelo ucranio si la situación no remite. Los líderes de la UE consideran inaceptable la situación, aunque les cuesta traducir esa indignación en medidas concretas. 

Frente a la última cumbre europea, que culminó con un mandato claro para aplicar sanciones en cuatro campos sensibles, este sábado los jefes de Estado y de Gobierno se limitaron a declarar su intención de adoptar más medidas y pidieron a la Comisión Europea que las prepare en el plazo de una semana.

Las palabras de los dirigentes europeos revelan que la crisis con Rusia ha llegado a un punto álgido: “Estamos ahora en una situación muy grave, dramática. Podríamos ver una situación en la que alcancemos el punto de no retorno. Si la escalada continúa, este punto de no retorno puede llegar”, alertó el presidente de la Comisión Europea, José Manuel Durão Barroso, tras reunirse con el líder ucranio, Petró Poroshenko, que también fue arropado por los Veintiocho.

“¿Vamos a dejar que la situación empeore, hasta que conduzca a la guerra? Porque ese es el riesgo hoy. No hay tiempo que perder”, alertó antes del encuentro el presidente francés, François Hollande. El primer ministro británico, David Cameron, instó a afrontar el hecho de que hay tropas rusas en Ucrania. “Los países europeos no deberían pensarlo mucho antes de darse cuenta de lo inaceptable que es. Lo sabemos por nuestra historia. Así que, si la situación continúa, debería haber consecuencias”, subrayó. La presidenta lituana, Dalia Grybauskaite, consideró que, al atacar el territorio ucranio, los ataques de Moscú suponen “un estado de guerra contra Europa”.

Ese fervor, potenciado por la presencia de Poroshenko en una cumbre que en principio iba a dedicarse exclusivamente a la elección de cargos europeos, no se tradujo en decisiones inmediatas. La Comisión Europea lleva meses trabajando en un escenario creciente de sanciones para adoptar a medida que los Estados miembros lo vayan decidiendo. Tras los primeros castigos económicos, que se adoptaron a finales de julio, los expertos del Ejecutivo comunitario contemplan ampliar el número de bancos que no pueden recibir financiación europea desde agosto, restringir más las importaciones y exportaciones a Rusia o prohibir a los bancos europeos que participen en créditos sindicados a compañías de ese país, según fuentes comunitarias. La canciller alemana, Angela Merkel, confirmó al final de la cumbre que las nuevas propuestas abundarán en las ya adoptadas y que ningún Estado se negó a adoptarlas, a pesar de que algunos las ven con más escepticismo que otros.

Sí hubo, admitió Merkel, “un amplio debate sobre la validez de las sanciones como tales”, es decir, sobre si surten efecto. Algunos mandatarios exigen cautela después de comprobar el impacto económico que han provocado ya las medidas adoptadas el pasado 29 de julio y que incluían una prohibición de que el capital europeo financie a los bancos controlados por el Kremlin y un embargo de armas como principales elementos. Moscú respondió vetando productos frescos europeos, lo que ha soliviantado al sector alimentario. “Antes de aprobar nuevas sanciones habrá que preguntar a la Comisión Europea sobre el impacto que tendrían, política y económicamente”, apuntó pragmáticamente el primer ministro holandés, Mark Rutte.

Poco antes de decidir sobre más sanciones, el presidente ucranio alertó a los Veintiocho sobre la gravedad de la situación en su país. “Creo que estamos muy cerca del punto de no retorno. El punto de no retorno es una guerra a gran escala”, avisó.

Mientras, en el este de Ucrania los combates continuaron durante todo el día, informa Rodrigo Fernández. Las milicias separatistas, apoyadas por carros de combate rusos, tomaron dos localidades de la provincia de Lugansk y el Ejército ucranio tuvo que replegarse hacia posiciones defensivas en la ciudad de Mariúpol (sur de la provincia de Donetsk), según Andréi Lisenko, portavoz de Consejo Nacional de Seguridad y Defensa de Ucrania.

***

Ahora vayamos a algo de noticias en serio. Esto viene del amigo Peregrino, del blog: The Vineyard of the Saker. Leemos:

Título: Self-delusion and panic in the West 

Texto: It is actually quite amusing to observe the reaction of Ukrainian and European leaders these days.  After feeding us fairy tales about how the Ukrainians were "winning" the civil war, they suddenly made a 180 degree turn and are now in the full panic mode.  I might shock many of you, but I sincerely believe that, at least in part, the following is happening.

The western elites have declared that the Ukie junta are the "good guys" and that the Novorussians are rebels, insurgents, separatists, Russian agents, Spetsnaz forces, paratroopers, Russian occupants or even FSB/GRU officers.  In other words, lying bastards.  Having accepted this premise, it makes perfectly good sense to get your information from the "good guys" and not from the "lying bastards".  Well, the "good guys" were actively feeding all sorts of utter nonsense to their western counterparts who, by and large, bought it out of sheer incompetence, ignorance, laziness and arrogant stupidity.  Here is a fantastic and absolutely hilarious example of what this produces.  Check out this BBC map and notice its source: the "Ukrainian National Security & Defence Council".

After having completely denied that an successful Novorussian operation was taking place, the Ukies had to finally admit that the Novorussian Armed Forces (NAF) had reached Novoazovsk.  But remember that the successful operation which got them there in the first place never happened.  So they end up publishing a map with an almost completely surrounded Novorussia and a tiny isolated speck around Novoazovsk.

This begs the question: how did the NAF even get there?  By air?  Unlikely.  By flying carpet or teleporters?  Maybe not.  And then the answer is obvious: through Russia of course!  That is the politically correct interpretation.  Nevermind that in reality the entire border between Novorussia and Russia is firmly in Novorussian hands, nevermind that the entire strech of land north of Novoazovsk is also in Novorussian hands, and nevermind that even Mariupol is already fully surrounded (since this morning), the Ukies and the BBC will show "hallucinogenic maps" like the one shown here.

There is a good US expression: when your head is in the sand, your ass is in the air.  This is exactly what happened now to Ukie and EU elites.  They got suddenly painfully bitten in their exposed butt by the news of a comprehensive collapse of the Junta repression forces (JRF) and they are now in a panic mode, just like a sleepwalker who is suddenly shaken awake.

The Ukies speak of a Russian invasion, so does NATO, so does the EU and US. Then they stop as no IMF money can go to a country at war.  Now we suddenly hear of "point of no return", of even more sanctions against Russia (can you hear the giggles in the Kremlin when that sentence is spoken), Obama courageously promises to defend Poland and the Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite says Russia is "practically in a war against Europe".  These hysterics are a surefire sign that in reality nobody has any idea as to what to do - do in reality, in actions - to prevent a complete collapse of the Nazi experiment in the Ukraine. 

The Secretary of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, menacingly puff up his tiny chest and promises to scare Russia with the creation of a 10'000 men strong rapid reaction force destined to counter any Russia attack.  I am sure the Russian generals are shaking in abject terror when they hear that.  Good thing Obama officially declared that there is no military option to rescue the junta.  Besides, it is unclear who the main threat is to Poroshenko's rule: the NAF or the "Kolomoiskistan" in the south, or the Right Sector crazies everywhere.  NATO clearly has no stomach to get involved here.  Good.

Yet another brilliant chess move in the East

It all began with Ukrainian women demanding that their man be saved from the cauldrons in which 7'000+ of them are surrounded.  These woman have organized protests in front of the Ukie Presidency and General Staff and, of course, they were ignored.  Except for Putin who apparently heard them and who officially requested that the Novorussians provide the Ukies with humanitarian corridors to leave.  The only Novorussian demand was that they leave behind their heavy weapons and ammo, but they were allowed to keep their unit banners (to avoid humiliating them).  The junta first disagreed, but some local Ukie commanders took up the offer and apparently certain units have already left this way.  Now think of the irony: the Ukrainian woman protest and demand that their men be spared and its the Russian President to hears their plea and makes it happen!

This way to combine the morally right and tactically ingenious is one of the key characteristics of Putin's method: he wins, but never by doing the ugly thing, instead he wins by doing the right thing.  Brilliant!

A very fluid and unstable situation on the battlefield

Here I urge caution: yes, the NAF has achieved some very real tactical and, to my great surprise, even operational successes.  This is remarkable and is a legitimate reason for cautious optimism.  But when I see the length of the NAF offensive as far to the west as Osipenko, just north of  Berdiansk, with the size of the Ukie force apparently barricaded in Mariupol, I get nervous.  True, the NAF seems to be aware of the risks and they did slow down to secure their positions north of Mariupol.

But make no mistake, the further west the NAF goes, the harder it will be.  For one thing, there appears to be two distinct forces forming to counter the NAF - those under Poroshenko in Kiev and those under Kolomoiski in Odessa. If  Poroshenko is clearly an evil and completely unprincipled person, in comparison with Kolomoiski he looks almost decent.  Kolomoiski is truly the scum of the earth, a Jewish Nazi of the absolutely worst kind, somebody just intelligent and cunning enough to successfully commit just about any evil deed, but also arrogant enough to eventually fail and try to bring down the entire planet with him.  If the case can be made for an assassination - Kolomoiski is my candidate.  As long as that son of Satan is alive anything could happen.  What makes things even more dangerous is that Odessa is truly the last strategically important city for the AngloZionists and their Nazi allies in Kiev.  If they lose Odessa, then then really lost it all.

Many commentators here have mentioned the increasing risk of a false flag and I completely share these concerns.  One such concern is that Kolomoiski's death squads might decide to blow up the Dniepr Hydroelectric Power Station.  Again, I would not put anything past this creature.  I am confident that somebody will kill Kolomoiski sooner or later, but until this happens we need to be aware that literally anything can still happen.

Mixed news about Strelkov

The good news is that he is alive, in good health and free.  This has been confirmed by the blogger El-Miurid who met with him (see photo).  The bad news according to El-Miurid is that some unnamed individuals/forces in Russia had made the delivery of aid to the NAF contingent on his departure.  I don't like that kind of methods, and I like Strelkov.  I do have to admit that his successor, Zakharchenko, is doing an absolutely superb job.  So while we still don't know the true story of what happened I reserve judgment.  I have to admit here that for a while I did suspect that he had been wounded and that the Novorussians did not want to admit this, but when the entire leadership was changed, I figured out that something much bigger had happened.  Was this a good or bad move?  If we use Christ's method of judging a tree by its fruits, then it was an undeniably good move.  Things *did* get better after the change.  So what was the problem with Strelkov?  I really don't know.  Not competence, for sure.  The guy is a brilliant commander.  Not politics either - his staff included people from all sorts of different political backgrounds from the Far Left to the Far Right (even though these categories make no sense in Russia).  One possibility is that Strelkov really wants to go all the way to Kiev and that the Russians (the Kremlin or the General Staff) oppose this objective.  Let's not speculate and wait for Strelkov to speak for himself when he decides that the moment is right.

So what is the problem with the airports?

Many commentators are wondering why the NAF has not kicked out the JRF out of the Donetsk and Lugansk airports.  The answer is pretty simple:

First, these airports provide a perfect place to barricade yourself: they have big supplies, an advanced infrastructure, lots of underground passages, strong buildings, etc.  You cannot just bomb them into dust (unless you use very powerful munitions) and you have to conquer them the hard way.

Second, the Ukie artillery all around is perfectly placed and ready to strike at any NAF unit trying to breach the Ukie defensive perimeter.  So the Ukie artillery needs to be moved back, out of range, up to 40km or more.

Third, both airports are near residential areas and the NAF don't want to use massive artillery strikes of Fuel-Air Explosives (FAEs).

Fourth, most of the NAF resources are badly needed elsewhere.  This might sound cruel, but all the Ukies do with their artillery in the airports is shoot at residential areas - they are in no way a real threat to the NAF.  There are other, much more dangerous Ukie units which need to be eliminated before the problem of these airports can be addressed.  For example, there is a city just north of Lugansk called Metalist where some really nasty hardcore Nazi units are dug in and who are mercilessly bombing Lugansk every day and night.  They have been completely surrounded and yet they refused to surrender or stop massacring civilians.  For the first time today the latest maps appear to show the city of Metalist in NAF hands.  If so, this is extremely good news for Lugansk.  Not so for the folks who for weeks have been murdering civilians.  There will be no Ukie prisoners from Metalist. You can count on that.

Bottom line is this: everybody in the NAF agrees that these airports are really a major problem, but that only limited resources can be allocated to that problem in the current situation.  I am confident that these airports will be taken in the not too distant future.  But for the time being, we have to wait.


To Kiev?

Frankly, I doubt it.  I don't believe that NAF have the resources for such a strategic assault, and I am not at all sure that the NAF command even has any desire for such a move.  I am quite sure that the Russian primary strategic objective in this war is regime change in Kiev followed by a de-Nazification of the Ukraine, but I don't believe that the Kremlin wants to do that by force.  Rather, it wants to create the situation in which the Ukrainians themselves overthrow the junta and all other forms of Nazi rule in Banderastan.  Fundamentally, and paradoxically, the AngloZionist Empire has succeeded in forcing a civilizational choice on the people of the Ukraine, but not one between the EU (or the "West") and Russia, but one between Nazism and their true, historical, national identity.  The fact that the Ukraine has always been an artificial construct of western imperialists does not mean that the nationalities living in the Ukraine are artificial at all.  The so-called "Ukraine" is an extremely diverse territory in which many different ethnic and cultural groups live and these groups will all pay a terrible price for the AngloZionist attempt to use the Ukraine against Russia, but there will be a "day after" in which the people have to emerge from the rubble and slowly begin to rebuild their land.  But the first and necessary condition for that to happen is to throw out the freaks, the Banderistas, the Nazis, the militant Uniats, the Wahabis, Zionists, Georgian subversives, the CIA "advisors" and Acadadmi "private military company" and all the rest of the international scum which currently occupies the Ukraine.

Finally, Russia also have a strategic mission, a message, she must convey in deeds rather than in words to all the people of the Ukraine: we are not your enemy.  In fact, history shows that we are your only friend and protector.  But if you let yourself be manipulated to try to exterminate us, we will stop you.  For centuries the people of the Ukraine have been propagandized, manipulated, lied to, deceived, zombified and used by western agents: the Papacy, the Masons, the imperialists, the Nazis and now the AngloZionists.  This has to stop one day and the only way to stop it is for Russia to prove by actions that the people of the Ukraine have been lied to.  For a short time, from January to August of 2014, the centuries old "western dream" has become true and a US-controlled russophobic "Banderastan" came into existence.  This is a horrible tragedy, but not so much for Russia as for the Ukrainian people themselves who have paid a terrible price for this abomination and who will pay that price for the foreseeable future.  As with any catastrophe, the Ukrainian people need to do a lot of soul-searching and ask themselves why and how this happened.  Just blaming it all on the hordes of "Asian Moskals" is just not going to be enough. Hard questions will have to be asked.

Russian tanks standing in the streets of Kiev are just not the right setting for that kind of soul-searching.  From 1991 onward the general Russian approach to the Ukraine has been "we don't buy your idiotic historiography, but if you want your independence - take it".  And while most Russians today still don't buy the notion that the Ukrainians are a different nation, they do believe that the Ukrainians should have their own country if they want to.  Just not a Nazi one.  It is very characteristic that while the Ukie blogosphere (and media) is chock-full of rabid anti-Russian racism, the RuNet (Russian Internet) is completely empty of such hate.  Quite to the contrary, the prevailing feeling on the RuNet is a mix of dismay at the horrors in the Ukraine and compassion for the Ukrainian people.  But if the NAF pushes too far, many more people will die, more resentment will be built and the inevitable byproduct of any wars - hate - will become even more widespread than today.  So I personally believe that Russia does need to take it all the way to Kiev, but not with tanks, but with a different civilizational choice, one based on spirituality and freedom and not violence, hate and profit.

So, if the current successes of the NAF are not overturned by events, I believe that there will come a point were the NAF will stop, far short of Kiev.  The Russians cannot and should not de-Nazify the Ukraine for the Ukrainians.  The Ukrainians need to do it themselves.  It is not enough to defeat the AngloZionists physically.  They must be defeated spiritually.

Horas desesperadas

Empezaron los nervios en Ucrania. ¡Los ruskis, los ruskis!

Sí. Horas desesperadas están viviendo los nazis de Kiev, como consecuencia de la serie de derrotas catastróficas que viene sufriendo el ejército ucraniano a manos de las incipientes fuerzas armadas de Nueva Rusia. Como siempre, todo puede suceder. Muchos nervios por todas partes. Habrá que andar con cuidado. Leemos en el blog del Peregrino (http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com.ar/): 

"The Ukrainian civil war has reached a turning point and a lot of separate facts point to this conclusion:

Military situation on the ground

The Ukies are losing, badly.  All the reports from Novorussian sources agree that the Ukie forces are either surrounded or in full retreat.  But Ukies sources also confirm this.  In Kiev, angry demonstrations by nationalists accuse the military high command of minimizing the real casualty figures, of having abandoned the forces fighting in the Donbass.  Even Oleg Liashko has stated that the Ukie forces have been "betrayed".  Demonstrations have taken place in from of the Ukie General Staff which many Right Sector protesters which are demanding the creation of a "generals battalion" which would be formed of only generals who would be sent to fight personally (an excellent idea, which I fully approve of!).  Others are also demanding the resignation of the Ukie Minister of Defense.  Ukrainian woman are regularly stopping military convoys on the roads, often by standing or lying down in front of trucks, to prevent their men from being sent to death.  Entire Ukie battalions are deserting from the front and Special Forces are sent to stop them.  Apparently, the Ukie police is afraid to arrest the soldiers for desertion because of their large numbers.  The city of Mariupol is now surrounded and the local political elites and SBU personnel have fled.  Poroshenko cancelled his trip to Turkey and gathered his Security Council.  Kolomoiski, who controls the southwestern Ukraine, did the same thing with his own Security Council (yes, since he has his own army, is also has his own security council).  Tymoshenko wants the introduction of full martial law.  The male population up to 60 is now conscripted (though not called up as far as I know).  Iatseniuk and Poroshenko have both demanded that NATO intervene and accept the Ukraine as some special ally.  In other words, all the signs are of total complete and utter panic in Kiev.

Political situation

Russia: Putin met with Poroshenko and the EU leaders and delivered them a very simple yet stark message: "don't talk to us, we are not a party to the conflict - talk to the Novorussians".  By the way, the Kremlin now openly speaks of "Novorussian" and "Novorussian forces".  Furthermore, the Russians are also officially sending in a second aid convoy and they have announced that this will not be the only one.  In the UN Security Council the Russian Representative, Vitalii Churkin, has dared the Ukie Rep to explain where the recording of the conversations between the Kiev ATC and MH17 were hidden and why.  With the Fall rapidly arriving, the EU has pushed Kiev to renew gas negotiations which the Russians have declared "deadlocked".  By all accounts, the "Voentorg" (a Russian contraction meaning "Military Trade", which was the name for the Soviet era building were military gear could be purchased) between Russia and Novorussia has further increased and the Novorussian are now getting more men, including specialists, and more equipment.

Contrary to the predictions of the Putin bashing crowd, the replacement of Strelkov by Zakharchenko was not followed by any "sellout" of Novorussia.  Quite to the contrary, as soon as Zakharchenko took power the Novorussians went on a general offensive.  As for Strelkov himself, he is apparently in good health and is supposed to make a public appearance today in Crimea.  So all that talk about Putin backstabbing Novorussia, him having some kind of deal with Obama, about Strelkov having been eliminated by Putin's Spetsnaz and all the rest of the doom and gloom propaganda of the Putin haters has now clearly shown to be absolute rubbish.  Clearly, some Putin bashers are paid by Russian oligarchs, others are just to dull to understand the sophisticated policy of the Kremlin in the Ukraine.  Whatever may be the case, these shrills are now completely discredited by fact and forced to walk away in shame.

Putin's latest move is nothing short of brilliant.  Think of it: the mothers and wives of Ukie servicemen are demanding that their men be returned to them, the regime in Kiev ignores them, and Putin steps in to agree with them and asks the Novorussians to open humanitarian corridors to allow them to safely leave and go back home.  Thus, he shows more concern for the Ukies than the Ukie regime, he encourages the desertion of Ukie soliders, he minimizes the casualties on all sides, and he deals another death-blow to Ukie morale.  Best of all, he achieves all this by a simple statement written in such a way that nobody can possibly condemn him for anything.  As for the Novorussians, Zakharchenko has already agreed, but on the condition that the Ukies leave behind all their heavy weapons and the ammo for it.  Perfect. Needless to say, the Ukie high command has rejected the offer and ordered the surrounded units to break out guns blazing.  Just imagine how that response feels to the relatives of those stuck in the various "cauldrons"!

The EU: the EU is totally stuck.  Apparently, the chaos in Banderastan combined with the Russian sanctions and the gas crisis is gradually having an effect in the dull brains of the Eurobureaucrats who are coming to realize that they have been at least as stupid as the Ukies and that the US has used them for their own imperial goals.  "Fuck the EU" indeed.  Badly.  The best these hapless bureaucrats could do is to go to Minsk and agree to negotiate with Russia the terms under which the Ukraine would ratify the Agreement with the EU.  Exactly that which Russia had been demanding from Day 1 and which the EU had always been contemptuously rejecting with the arrogant "none of your business" reply.  Now Ashton and a few others had to eat humble pie and kindly ask the Russian to come and talk to them.

The US: Poor Uncle Sam is really looking pathetic, foolish and confused.  The very best the USA can do is to accuse Russia of invading the Ukraine and only threaten more sanctions as Obama has already admitted that the US has no military option in the Ukraine.  To measure the degree of disarray amongst the US Neocons I will just quote from an article written recently by Herbert E. Meyer, former Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council during the Reagan Administration, for American Thinker and modestly entitled "How to Solve the Putin Problem".  Here is what this genius came up with:

Since subtlety doesn’t work with Russians, the president and his European counterparts should also make absolutely clear that we have no interest whatever in how these people (the Russian oligarchs) solve their Putin problem. If they can talk good old Vladimir into leaving the Kremlin with full military honors and a 21-gun salute -- that would be fine with us. If Putin is too too stubborn to acknowledge that his career is over, and the only way to get him out of the Kremlin is feet-first, with a bullet hole in the back of his head -- that would also be okay with us. 

Nor would we object to a bit of poetic justice.... For instance, if the next time Putin’s flying back to Moscow from yet another visit with his good friends in Cuba, or Venezuela, or Iran, his airplane gets blasted out of the sky by some murky para-military group that somehow, inexplicably, got its hands on a surface-to-air missile

I don't know if Mr. Meyer thinks that Mrs Nuland delivering cookies on the Maidan was the subtlety the Russian did not appreciate or understand, or if his own article is an expression of US subtlety, but he clearly has "Pat Robertson moment" (the latter wanted the US to kill  Hugo Chavez) which just proves that the AngloZionists don't have a diplomacy as such and that magical thinking is a key coping mechanism when that lack of diplomacy becomes obvious.

Where do we go from here?

It' hard to tell.  I think that Oleg Tsarev is right when he says that as soon as the Ukie regime begins collapsing the West will suddenly ask for negotiations.  Zakharchenko in his crucial press conference has clearly indicated that options such as federalization or decentralization are off the table and that nothing short of full independence will do.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  There are plenty of historical examples which show that separatist movements eventually settled for less, often wisely so.  But in this case, we are dealing with several intertwined problems:

a) Geographical: the Ukraine is an artificial country
b) Political: internally the regime in Kiev is Nazi 
c) Geo-strategic: externally the regime in Kiev is a russophobic US puppet
d) Economic: the Ukraine is economically dead

All these factors clearly point to the same conclusion: the Ukraine needs to be broken-up.  This might happen catastrophically - the East going to Novorussia, the South to Kolomoiski, the Center to Poroshenko and the West breaking off completely.  There are some signs that this is already gradually happening.   Furthermore, this is all made worse by the undeniable fact that  the Ukraine is already a failed state and that a seizable minority of the Ukrainian population if formed of truly rabid nationalists.  So right now things don't look too good for any negotiated solution.  Novorussia probably has the potential to rebuild and to become a more or less livable, stable place: most of its industry is in ruins, but it's "human capital", it's people, are very bright and hard working and its political leaders clearly capable people.  But short of some kind of miracle, the rest of the Ukraine is probably going to slouch to towards the kind of mess the USA is so good at leaving behind in places like Libya or Iraq.  Maybe not, maybe the Europeans will finally grow a spine and tell the US to stay out and then try to solve this ugly mess with Russia.  I am not holding my breath, not as long as the current AngloZionist nomenklatura is in power in the EU.

One thing could possibly change this downward spiral: a regime change in Kiev.  I don't mean one replacing Poroshenko by Liashko or Iarosh, but an anti-Nazi insurrection or coup.  I will be honest with you, with kind of terror the SBU and the oligarchs are capable of meting out to the general public, this is not very likely.  But who knows what might happen on a wave of popular discontent?  If the current freaks could be kicked out by halfway sane people and a process of denazification initiated, then maybe something could still be salvaged?  Again, I am not very hopeful.  But let's stick to current events.

Current situation

I would say that things look better right now than ever before.  This is far, far from over, and many things could go wrong but at least at this moment in time things look pretty good.  Short of a sudden reversal, the cities of Lugansk and Donetsk are probably going to be freed from most of the shelling within 10-14 days.  Currently, the Novorussians control the entire border between Russia and Novorussia, which makes the Voentorg much easier.  Zakharchenko and his men seem to be making an excellent job and rumor has it that Strelkov will be back soon in some special capacity.  The Novorussian leadership and the Kremlin are clearly on the same wavelength and there is no reason to suspect an over Russian military intervention.  I am confident that the Black Sea Fleet will do what is needed to keep the Novorussian coast safe so as long as the Ukies are not able to mount a surprise attack from the North, Mariupol will probably fall very soon.  There are increasing reports of partisan movements in Zaporozhie and that, if true, is something very interesting which might begin to affect other areas and cities such as Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk. I still don't see Novorussian tanks headed for Kiev, but an operational success seems to be in the making right at this moment in time.

I am by character, education and trade a rather cautious person, but today I am cautiously optimistic, at least for Novorussia.

The Saker.


Post Scriptum: this just in from a good friend: DPR

- Volnovakha taken by Novorossiya Armed Forces (NAF); South-Western Cauldron closed off.
- Yalta (near Mariupol) taken, NAF is now 12 km away from Mariupol.
- Mariupol - Zaporozhye (Berdyansk) road closed off by NAF. Virtually all settlements around Mariupol appear to be taken by NAF. Mariupol Cauldron closed off.
- Fighting has crossed the border into Zaporozhye. Saboteur-Reconnaissance Groups (SRG) and guerrillas active inside Zaporozhye’s borders.
- Ukrainian punitive forces surrendering in the many cauldrons, the rate of surrenders is picking up pace.
- NAF is pushing outward toward Yasinovataya, Maryinka, Karlovka, Krasnogorovka (west of Donetsk)

AND, the BIGGEST (albeit not fully confirmed) NEWS: Donetsk Airport taken by NAF today.

LPR

- Lutugino partially controlled by the Militia, very heavy urban combat there, although Rodakovo was lost (plans to retake it shortly).
- Lyashko appears to be still trapped in Severodonetsk, which is besieged by Mozgovoi’s Brigade (I have no further information since a couple of days ago).
- LPR has encircled Shchastye and Metallist and is advancing on the Ukrainian positions there, as well as in the north-eastern direction (Stanitsa Luganskaya, which still remains contested).
- NAF continues to advance on Deblatsevo, taking checkpoints on the outskirts of the city.
- LPR is planning some major advances in the next few days, hopefully to clean up most of the remaining cauldrons. 


PPS: and this from Russia Today: 

Poland has refused overflight rights to the plane of Russia’s defense minister, Sergey Shoigu, who was on his way from Slovakia, RIA Novosti’s correspondent reported. The plane has landed in Bratislava. The minister was returning from the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Slovakian national uprising that took place in the town of Banská Bystrica.  However, Poland banned entrance into its airspace for the Tu-154 plane, according to a RIA Novosti correspondent who was on board, citing one of the crewmembers.  The plane had to take a U-turn and landed in Bratislava an hour later.  Negotiations are being held on the matter at the moment. All the passengers are now on board the plane.

Comment:  rather petty and infantile behavior in my opinion.  This really begs the question of what the Poles think that they will achieve with this other than the dubious honor of "servicing" Uncle Sam once more (those who follow Polish politics will know what I mean)."

Pinceladas

Cada tanto alternamos las crueles noticias de un mundo en descomposición con pequeñas anécdotas, pinceladas de hondo contenido humano, como para mantener la frente en alto ante tanto horror sin sentido. La historia que sigue es una de ellas. La encontramos esta tarde en la página web de El País.

Título: Una niña mata accidentalmente a su instructor de tiro en Arizona con una Uzi

Epígrafes: El accidente se produjo en el campo de tiro de la hamburguesería Bullets and Burgers / Los padres de la menor grababan las clases de su hija con el móvil

Texto: Una niña de nueve años ha matado por accidente a su instructor de tiro, mientras este le explicaba cómo utilizar un arma automática, en Arizona (Estados Unidos). Tras el primer disparo en la zona de tiro y al cambiar al modo de disparo en ráfaga, la menor perdió el control de la Uzi, un popular modelo de subfusil de fabricación israelí, y una de las balas alcanzó la cabeza de Charles Vacca, de 39 años, hiriéndolo de muerte.

Según informó el condado de Mohave en una nota de prensa, los hechos se registraron poco antes de las 10.00 del domingo (hora local), en un campo de tiro al aire libre situado a las afueras de la localidad de White Hills, en Arizona. Tras recibir el impacto, Vacca fue trasladado en helicóptero hasta un centro médico en Las Vegas, Nevada, donde los facultativos pudieron mantenerlo con vida hasta las últimas horas de la tarde, cuando falleció. Era padre, veterano de guerra y originario de Lake Havasu City.

La niña se encontraba con sus padres en el campo de tiro –que también funciona como hamburguesería y es un reclamo turístico a la hora de visitar Las Vegas– en el momento en que sucedió el accidente, en un estado donde es común que los niños aprendan cómo utilizar armas de fuego a edades tan precoces como los nueve años. Los padres grababan un vídeo durante las lecciones de su hija, por lo que la policía pudo ver los detalles de la tragedia, que quedó registrada en uno de sus móviles.

En la grabación se ve cómo Vacca le enseña a la menor a coger el arma con las dos manos y a dirigirla hacia el blanco, ubicado a unos metros. Tras ello, el instructor le indica a la niña que dispare, a lo que ella obedece y él la felicita. Son sus últimas palabras. Es en el segundo tiro cuando algo sale mal; la menor pierde el agarre que tenía con ambas manos y el arma se gira hacia la izquierda, disparándose justo a la cabeza del instructor.

El gerente del campo de tiro Bullets and Burgers, Sam Scarmardo, que recuerda a Vacca como un tipo "concienzudo y muy profesional", ha explicado a la cadena estadounidense NBC que la edad mínima para practicar en la mayoría de los campos de tiro es de ocho años, siempre que se haga bajo la supervisión de los padres.

Olvidar y recordar

Un bello, melancólico ensayo del profesor Edward Curtin para Global Research, aparecido el día de ayer (http://www.globalresearch.ca/lies-propaganda-and-political-brainwashing-remembering-and-forgetting/5397753). Para releer en esos días en que uno se pregunta: ¿cómo puede ser que estos tipos sean tan imbéciles?

Título: Lies, Propaganda and “Political Brainwashing”. Remembering and Forgetting

Texto: What is the explanation for the brainwashing of so many Americans when it involves the nefarious, unspeakable deeds of their government? Why are so many so easily duped time and again? Why is there such a vast ignorance of the truth behind national and international affairs?

I would suggest that the answer lies not just with the specific issues themselves and the lies and propaganda used to befuddle the American people, but with the cultural and social background that frames Americans’ thinking. The latter serves to cut to the root people’s belief in their own power to think freely and clearly about the former. Invade people’s minds over many years with an ongoing series of interconnected memes, occupy their minds with alleged facts that induce a frenzied depression, and then fooling them on specific issues — e.g. Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, etc. – becomes much easier.

I am a sociology professor, and my students always laugh when during a discussion of memory, social and personal, I ask them about their forgetties (the actual word is forgetteries, but the shorter rhyme gets more laughs). They think I’m joking. Maybe you do, too. I’m not.

But when I suggest that if they “possess” the faculty to remember, then they must “possess” the faculty to forget, they are astonished. You can’t forget, they reply, you just don’t remember; you can’t retrieve the memories that are stored in your brain. In other words, there are no forgottens, just temporarily unavailable memories. From there we are onto a discussion of retrieving (I think of dogs), processing (their word for thinking and mine for making American cheese), and all the computer lingo that has been the surround of their lives. Like fish in water, the mechanistic computer memes have been their environment since birth. They are shocked at the suggestion that there might be more outside the cultural water, and that they could go there.

And they have a lot of company.

This may sound flippant, but it’s crucial for understanding why so many Americans can’t comprehend and pay attention to the ways their minds are scrambled and confused about life and death issues, how their country has fallen victim to the military-industrial-intelligence apparatus that operates deep in the shadows, and oftentimes right in the open.

If we examine the social and cultural context of the last twenty-five years, we can see a number of issues that have dominated Americans’ “thinking.” These issues have been promulgated and repeated ad infinitum by the corporate media, professional classes, and schools at all levels. We have been swimming in these issues for years. I suggest the following five are key: the inability to concentrate or pay attention (ADD/ADHD), memory/forgetting (dementia, Alzheimer’s, technological memory devices), people’s lack of time and constant busyness (a recent email I received from a publisher read: “crazy-busy? use our power-point decks”), drugs legal or illegal as problems or solutions (over 4 billion prescriptions written in the U.S.A. yearly), and technology as our savior.

Together with shopping and the weather, these five topics have been the stuff of endless conversations and media chatter over the years.

When people are questioned about major issues of war and peace; political assassinations, such as those of JFK, MLK, or RFK; the alleged war on terror; the downing of Malaysian airlines; the overthrow of elected governments in the Ukraine or Egypt; the events of 9/11; government spying; economic robbery by the elites — the list is long, it’s common for people to echo the government/corporate media, or, if pressed, to say, I don’t know, I can’t remember, no one knows for sure, it’s impossible to know, we’ll never know, etc.. The confused responses are replete with an unacknowledged despair at ever arriving at clear and certain conclusions, not to say being able to do anything about them. On many issues they bounce between the twin absurdities of Democratic and Republican talking points, thinking they are being perceptive.

Why?

If we set aside the substantive issues, and examine the aforementioned cultural memes, the answers are not hard to find. Here most people speak as if they are certain. “Of course there isn’t a forgettery.” “Depression is caused by a chemical imbalance.” “Memories are all stored in the brain.” “I really am so busy all the time.” “Facts are just opinions.” Americans have internalized the ethos presented to them by the elites. At the core of this is the propaganda of scientific materialism and biological determinism that we are not free but are victims of our genes, neurotransmitters, brain/computers and chemicals, technology, etc. Having lost our minds and fixated on our brains, we have been taught to be determined to be determined, not free. And whether consciously or unconsciously, most have obliged. The linkages between memory, attention, distraction, drugs, technology all point to the brain and the obsessive cultural discussion of brain matters.

We have been told interminably that our lives revolve around our brains (our bodies) and that the answers to our problems lie with more brain research, drugs, genetic testing, etc. It is not coincidental that the U. S. government declared the 1990s the decade of brain research, followed up with 2000-2010 as the decade of the behavior project, and our present decade being devoted to mapping the brain and artificial intelligence, organized by the Office of Science and Technology Project and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. How convenient! George H. W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama — what a difference! But this is science and the welfare of the world.

For years we have been fed philosophical presuppositions smuggled in as fact. It’s an old trick, ever young. Tell people over and over and over again that life is in essence a mindless material/biological trap and over time they will believe it. Of course there are unspoken exceptions — those who are the masters of this con-game, the few, the elite, those who make and reinforce the case. And even some of them are too ignorant to comprehend their questionable presuppositions. They hoist themselves by their own petards while cashing in at the bank.

My students can’t forget because they don’t believe in it. But they can’t remember either. They don’t know why. So, like the older generation, they fall into the careless habit of inaccuracy, to turn Oscar Wilde on his head. They have downloaded their memories, uploaded their trifles, and been tranquilized by trivia.

As the great American sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote over fifty years ago, “Nowadays people often feel that their private lives are a series of traps.” That is truer today than then. A sense of entrapment and determinism pervades our culture. And it extends to public issues as well. We are told either to accept official explanations for public events or be dismissed as crazies.

I would suggest that for people to break through to a true understanding of the important public events of our time, they must also come to understand the false memes of their culture, the way they have been mindwashed to believe that at the most rudimentary level they are not free.

Maybe the first best step toward free thought and out of the propaganda trap would to accept that you “possess” a forgettery . Listen to the American philosopher Paul Simon sing, “When I think back to all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.” Use your forgettery and forget the crap. Make haste slowly to question everything. Remember that the corporate media works hand in glove with the ruling elites on two levels of propaganda — cultural and political, and it is necessary to understand how they are intertwined. 

Freedom is indivisible. That’s worth remembering.

Solidaridades

Clarita la nota de Emir Sader reproducida esta mañana en Página/12, a propósito de los pucheritos de la UE porque América Latina le venderá alimentos a la Federación Rusa. ¿Saben qué, chicos? Jódanse!

Título: ¿De qué solidaridad habla la UE?

Texto: Voceros de la Unión Europea (UE) alegan en contra de países latinoamericanos que han aceptado exportar a Rusia, como alternativa a las exportaciones de Europa y de Estados Unidos. Expresión más de cómo Europa se encuentra encerrada en sí misma, sin darse cuenta de lo que pasa en el mundo ni en América Latina y, a lo mejor, ni siquiera de lo pasa en la misma Europa.

Cuando solicita un tipo de solidaridad con los países que pierden mercado en Rusia, no se sabe muy bien por qué Latinoamérica tendría que ser solidaria con la UE. En este caso concreto, la UE y los Estados Unidos han decidido sanciones en contra de Rusia, sin ningún tipo de consulta a América latina. ¿Acaso creen que habría alguna forma de alineamiento automático de los países de “Occidente” con ellos, como si fueran líderes “naturales” de esta parte del mundo?

Han tomado medidas por su propia cuenta y ahora quieren que países latinoamericanos –Brasil, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile– se sumen a decisiones de ellos, dejando de defender sus propios intereses. ¿Suponen que sus enemigos son nuestros enemigos y que ellos son, por definición, nuestros amigos?

Ya hace mucho tiempo que Europa optó por ser el aliado subalterno de Washington. Varios gobiernos latinoamericanos se han decidido por un camino opuesto: en contra del modelo neoliberal todavía vigente en Europa y en contra de la hegemonía imperial norteamericana, en favor de un mundo multipolar. Parece que la UE no se ha dado cuenta de eso.

A lo mejor ni se da cuenta de la importancia de las resoluciones tomadas por los Brics recientemente en la reunión en Brasil, así como de las reuniones de los Brics con el Mercosur y con la Unasur y la Celac. Encerradas y atrapadas por la crisis de Ucrania, no saben que el mundo camina en dirección opuesta a la que ellas representan.

Tan encerrada en sus enormes problemas pareciera ser que la UE no se da cuenta de la tristemente acelerada decadencia de Europa. Después de haber construido el Estado de Bienestar Social, uno de los más generosos y democráticos sistemas que la humanidad ha construido, esa misma Europa se pone ahora, dolorosa y cruelmente, a destruirlo.

Después de haberse posicionado, en algunos momentos, como un liderazgo alternativo al de los Estados Unidos y con alianzas con regiones como América latina, Europa ha decidido adherir al modelo neoliberal –del que la política de austeridad es una expresión directa– y al rol subalterno respecto del país del Norte. Las sanciones a Rusia son producto de esta postura, con la que América latina no tiene por qué solidarizarse

Al contrario, somos solidarios con las víctimas de las políticas de ajuste en Europa. Solidarios con Africa y con Asia, en la resistencia a las políticas imperiales de Estados Unidos, con las que se asocia Europa. No nos pidan solidaridad con esa política de sumarse a Washington en su imperialismo.

Nosotros estamos construyendo otro tipo de sociedad, distinta del neoliberalismo, otro mundo posible, fundado en el desarrollo con inclusión social –como decía el lema de la reunión de los Brics en Brasil– y no en el estancamiento con exclusión como lo hace tristemente Europa.

Mientras tanto, en Nueva Rusia

Alexander V. Zakharchenko, Jefe del Consejo de Ministros de la República Nacional de Donetsk

Nada, por si querían ver cómo es eso de un país peleando por su independencia, un país provisoriamente llamado Nueva Rusia (Novorossiya. También, Estado Federal de Nueva Rusia, formado por las repúblicas nacionales de Donetsk y de Lugansk, región también llamada Donbass), reproducimos parte del post de hoy del amigo Peregrino, del blog The Vineyard of the Saker. Acá va:

Título: Watershed press conference by top Novorussian officials (MUST SEE!)

Texto: Dear friends, There is no overstating the importance of this press conference by by Alexander V. Zakharchenko, Chairman of The Council of Ministers of The Donetsk National Republic.  As as soon as I saw it myself, I asked two of our Teams (Russian and Oceania) to work together on a translation as fast as possible.  They did as stellar job and I can now share this video with you.   (...) To all of you we all - and I personally - owe a huge THANK YOU for your fantastic work, professional skills and heroic dedication to bring the voice of Novorussia to the rest of the world.  In this "information war" the speed at which you made this crucial press conference available is a major victory against the Empire's propaganda machine!

This is the first time that we hear what the new - post Strelkov - commanders have to say.  This is the first time that the Novorussians are going on the offensive.  And this is the first time that we get to hear the views, values and ideas of the people fighting against the Nazi junta.  This is truly a watershed moment.

Many thanks and kind regards, The Saker

Acá va el link al video de la conferencia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yH35raTPVu8

Signos

Bueno, parece haber vuelto algún signo de inteligencia a la política alemana. Del reino mineral pasaron al reino animal, así, de una. Parece que Angela no usa más el tenedor para tomar la sopita. En fin, hay esperanza para Europa, adelante! De paso, se demuestra una vez más que Vladimir Putin, presidente de Rusia, tenía razón en su estrategia: había que aguantar unos días la NATOhisteria y los NATOcuentos de aviones caídos, que la verdad se iba a imponer por sí sola. Lentamente los massmedia alemanes empiezan a contar lo que realmente pasó con el avión malayo.

Leemos en Moon of Alabama (http://www.moonofalabama.org/):

Título: Ukraine: Economy Declines, Merkel Sues For Peace

Texto: Recent statistics show that the already decaying Ukrainian economy is further turning towards depression. New money from IMF loans, if granted, will solely go into military costs. The European Union will not bail out Ukraine and Germany, hurt by Russian counter-sanctions, is suing for peace with Russia. 

Nulandistan's wheels are falling off and no one one will help to repair it.

According to the Ukrainian government statistics (http://ukrstat.gov.ua/operativ/operativ2014/pr/ipp_vd_m/ipp_vd_m_e/ipp_vdm0714_e.htm) production in July 2014 decrease compared to July 2013 (both ex-Crimea). Mining of coal and lignite was only 71% of its former numbers. Manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products was 84% of its 2013 value. Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products 77% and natural gas production and distribution was 78% of its 2013 number. As the government's fight  against the people in Ukraine's industrial heartland continues these numbers will continue to go down.

Ukraine's standard of living did not, unlike in Russia, significantly increase over the last 20 years. Since the beginning of the year inflation increased to 19% and the Ukrainian central bank had to raise interest rates from 6.5% at the beginning of 2014 to 17.5% now (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2014-08/19/c_133568757.htm). This to support the value of the Ukrainian currency as the hryvnya has fallen 40% since early 2014. The banking system is coming apart (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-17/ukraine-facing-backlash-from-fx-borrowers-sunk-by-hryvnia.html):

The ratio of banks’ non-performing loans will reach 30 percent this year as credit costs rise, Moody’s Investors Service predicted in a May report.
...

Ukraine’s lenders are already in a precarious position, according to the IMF, which estimates that the nation’s biggest 22 banks would require fresh capital of as much as 5 percent of gross domestic product if the hryvnia averages 12.5 per dollar this year.

The Ukraine is now requesting a third and fourth tranche of an IMF loan but the $2.2 billion it expects to receive is about as much as it plans to additionally spend for military operations. Under the conditions of the new IMF loans Ukraine's standard of living will decrease further and poverty will rise (http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/08/what-do-the-world-bank-and-imf-have-to-do-with-the-ukraine-conflict/).

Some delusional minds in Kiev may hope that the EU will hand them some money. That is not going to happen (http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2014/08/25/the-european-union-isnt-going-to-bail-out-ukraine/). EU economies ex Germany are in serious trouble and Germany is not eager to help either:

There is precious little enthusiasm among the German public for bailout ofother Eurozone members. The idea that Germany will consent to spending tens of billions of dollars rebuilding Eastern Ukraine is completely and totally divorced from political reality. Can anyone seriously imagine Angela Merkel, whose country recently had its 2014 growth estimate downgraded to a mere 1.5%, going in front of the German public to demand a substantial outlay for Ukrainian infrastructure? It would be political suicide, and Merkel is clearly a clever enough politician to understand this.

The German government had to cut is GDP forecast because of the insecurity the sanction back and forth with Russia introduced into businesses. The issue will clearly hurt her in the polls. That is likely why she is sending peace signals to Russia (http://euobserver.com/foreign/125331):

[Merkel] mentioned Ukrainian “decentralisation”, a deal on gas prices, and Ukraine’s “trade relations” with Russia as elements that could bring about an accord [between Ukraine and Russia]. 
...

"I want to find a way, as many others do, which does not damage Russia. We [Germany] want to have good trade relations with Russia as well. We want reasonable relations with Russia. We are depending on one another and there are so many other conflicts in the world where we should work together, so I hope we can make progress”.

This also from an interview Merkel gave to public German TV yesterday (http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-08-24/news/53166752_1_ukraine-crisis-pro-russian-separatists-eurasian-union):

A solution must be found to the Ukraine crisis that does not hurt Russiaand which the Ukrainian people must choose for themselves, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday. 
...
"There must be dialogue. There can only be a political solution. There won't be a military solution to this conflict," she said. 
...
On Saturday, her vice chancellor Sigmar Gabriel had suggested that establishing a federal Ukraine was the only viable solution to the crisis pitting Kiev against pro-Russian separatists.

Merkel said that if Ukraine opted to rejoin the Eurasian Union with Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, then Europe would not make "a huge conflict" out of it.

Especially the last point is clearly a big step back from the earlier all out "Ukraine is EU" position.

Additionally to the economic side, pressure on Merkel also grows because there is more and more doubt, even in German mainstream media, about the veracity of the Ukrainian propaganda and about the destruction of flight MH17. Why is there is no news about it? Is there a coverup (http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/flug-mh17-was-das-schweigen-der-ermittler-ueber-den-abschuss-bedeutet-a-987100.html)?

The wheels are coming off in Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland's new Ukraine. Her project of capturing Ukraine from Russia while letting the EU pay for it is not going as planned. The likely result of Nuland's coup in Kiev will be a destroyed Ukrainian economy and no winner at all.