I’ll be on the road for awhile, emulating this Jack Kerouac sense of freedom, merely scanning events from time to time, or not at all. There are numerous channels, blogs and websites to serve those anxious to know what is happening, and where we are going with this war in Ukraine. It is true that things are heating up. Mark Wauck compiled a nice overview on his substack, HERE. Zelensky is on tour again, visiting Germany and France to secure more weapons, with one depot after the other being blown to smithereens before this stuff even reaches the front lines. He also gave an interview to the Washington Post, in which he reacted angrily to questions about ‘leaked documents’. He accused people who were revealing sensitive information and state secrets of treason, out to harm Ukraine. The Washington Post erased that part of the interview the next day for reasons unknown.
Technically, only someone who ‘talked’ within his own government can be accused of treason. But increasingly people ‘involved’ in this war at the very top tend to label anything treason if it may do harm to their efforts to defeat Russia. Clearly the ‘Collective West’ is now at war with Russia, and not some friendly neighbor offering support. This never was Zelensky’s war to begin with, even though he thought it was. It never was about Ukraine, or the Ukrainian people. Zelensky’s angry response to the person doing the interview, quoting from leaked US-Intel he is not even familiar with, because it was not shared with him, for obvious reasons, is understandable. It’s not merely because certain information which was secret was exposed, but that it is all too obvious that the US-Agencies which compiled these reports were spying on Zelensky and members of his government. With the uneasy notion that some of it, if true, has members of his government doing their ‘own thing’ behind his back.
Meanwhile, the same newspaper said that Prigozhin, the head of ‘Wagner’, offered to share the positions of Russian forces with the head of the Ukrainian secret service, if Ukraine would withdraw from Bakhmut. There is no way to verify whether this was actually on the table, or not, but this little nugget won’t do the standing of Prigozhin in Russia any good. If the US knew about this, the Russians would have known about it too. It may go a long way to explain the tensions between the military leadership and the titular leader of ‘Wagner’. And may I remind you of my own earlier remarks that any organization engaged in this war for the money, should be regarded as being part of the ‘Financial Capitalist’ side of the battle between ‘Financial Capitalism’ and ‘Industrial Capitalism’. Not the entire ‘Wagner’ organization, but the ‘oligarchs’ calling the shots. Or, in this case, ‘scouted’ to present themselves as the ‘owner’, even though the organization was apparently the ‘brain child’ of Russia’s secret service, as described by Alexander Mercouris. Prigozhin looking for a chance to present a victory in Bakhmut, while his superiors wanted him to ‘grind Ukrainian forces’, is in direct conflict, and revealing, if true. But remember that the ‘Collective West’ wants Putin gone, and no doubt they would welcome a ‘pliable’ Prigozhin who can be bought to take his place. If that is true, the ‘Collective West’ would have welcomed such a deal, which is interesting, given all the pressure there has been on Zelensky and his generals to let go of Bakhmut.
Propaganda and ‘psyops’, creating perceptions, are very much part of modern warfare. ‘Tweaking’ the perception of the people to make them vote this way, or that is ‘Big Business’ in the ‘Collective West’, revealed for everybody to see during the 2016 presidential elections, where both Trump’s team, and that of Hillary relied heavily on the ‘expertise’ of spin-offs from the British Secret Service to give them the presidency. Whichever candidate would win, the British Secret Service had the ‘dirt’ they needed to play ball, and the American people were none the wiser. These techniques do not give a certain party enough control for ‘precision strikes’, but it is enough to push and shove, or pull the plug if a candidate disappoints after being elected, as Trump found out.
The Chinese and the Russians do not operate in this way. They do not ‘Game’, convinced that if they refrain from ‘Gaming’, countries will eventually ‘swing’ in their direction when the people in those countries become sick and tired of being lied to ’24/7’. When they discover that none of what they are being told is real. I wrote a contribution for the Dutch language part of this blog, about the rise of the Crowd, as predicted by a French ‘thinker’, Gustave le Bon at the end of the Nineteenth century, and how Karl Marx writing about the ‘masses’ inspired both Lenin and Mao, and through George Sorel, another French intellectual, Mussolini, and Hitler, with Leon Trotsky, and his ‘permanent revolution’, growing organically into ‘Critical Race Theory’ in our times, between the two. Propaganda, ‘invented’ by Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, admired by Joseph Goebbels, and ‘psyops’ as its enhanced cyborg-twin, insist that people can be manipulated to accept bold faced lies to be the truth. That facts do not matter. A wide range of quotes from people who became the leaders of the ‘masses’ underscore this principle. And ‘Critical Race Theory’ and it’s cousins aiming for ‘deconstructing’ the ‘White Science’-based concept of aiming for objectivity, neutral science, and a balanced approach, one-man-one-vote, and equality-before-the-law, going ‘Woke’, is the culmination of what this approach can achieve. Unipolar madness and senseless destruction.
The UK (not the people, but those in charge from ‘behind a paywall’) is going for broke. The country is broke already, and they cannot create more fairy tales to live in, unless they find a way to lay their hands on the vast riches of Russia, and enslave the Chinese ‘Worker Bees’. They’ve got the American ‘elites’ in tow, and Zelensky and his government to play with. Large parts of Europe are mesmerized as well. Will they succeed? I don’t hope so. I’m honest about that, because I’m rather ‘old-fashioned’, really not enamored by this ‘Big Brother’-thinking, and desperately hoping for a return to the scientific approach and ‘Industrial Capitalist’ development strategy. But I do not have a fitting narrative to inspire the ‘masses’ to follow my lead, because I hate the very idea, and I’m very much a ‘Free Market’ guy, provided it is supported by ‘Sound Money’, and a small, but agile government protecting the honest brokers from corrupt criminals and ‘rent-seeking’ free riders. I don’t mind to contribute to a decent level of collective welfare, and government-run projects too big to handle for any individual investor. Less so in a world without ‘Fiat Currency’. But education in our part of the world has been moving people in the opposite direction for awhile now, and lying and scheming politicians, promising ‘The World’ to people who will vote for them are the norm.
The UK, the ‘Storm Bringer’, destroying peace and trade, and trying to enslave countries around the world to serve their illustrious Empire, or what is left of it, delivered ‘Storm Shadow’ long range missiles, already used to wreck havoc in Luhansk. Apparently they delivered two hundred, with another four hundred awaiting shipment. The British people can be proud of themselves. Foregoing wealth creation in their own country, with mounting poverty, sky-high inflation, and an influx of millions of people from around the world who think that everybody in Britain is the proud owner of a castle, a Rolls Royce and a private jet to take them to ‘Climate Conferences’, hob-knobbing with the powerful people from around the world. Or otherwise being a ‘fan’ will allow them to share in the mystery, although it won’t feed you. My brother, shopping in London, responded to a friendly cashier, who asked how he was doing, by telling her he was doing great, and how about her? ‘Living the dream’, she responded dryly. Or, like George Carlin once said about the ‘American Dream’: ‘You have to be asleep to believe in it!’ For the ‘masses’ to stay in this trance-like state with rapidly declining wealth, and their ‘Masters’ begging for war, ‘psyops’ are required. But don’t expect Putin and Xi to fall for this ‘Grandstanding’. When, and how, will they respond? Let’s wait and see.