The main point is non of those people talking are going to send their kids to the front to risk death or dismemberment. That’s a job for the common folk.
None of the people talking would even send the "poors" of their nations to fight directly since any NATO "boots on the ground" would almost instantly escalate the conflict to essentially WW3 including a likely Iranian direct strike on Israel and storming of Taiwan by China (something which the US might not even be able to recognize as illegal since we don't technically recognize Tawain as politically separate from in mainland).
Your opening sentence certainly would describe rational thinking. Unfortunately, we are not talking about rational people. Those behind the politicians, the billionaires, enterprise, big business, intel agencies looking forward to job security, these are all people used to getting what they want. They know its easier to sell war if they dnt use their own. But it's certainly not do to any kindness or sentimentality. These idiots like Anthony Blinken, and unfortunately he was only one of a type, will tell the elites whatever to keep the grift going and to keep their vision of controling the vast resources of Eurasia alive. This self perpetuating loop is capable of anything.
None of the elected officials in Europe or North America would survive the next vote if they even floated the possibility of sending their own (or any other NATO) troops into Ukraine to fight Russia; even acknowledging that such a move would be necessary for any possibility of achieving the goals they're laying out is something which not even Joe Biden at his most addled (and he was pretty addled in his prime, if you find the footage of him berating reporters in the 1980s) was capable of committing the gaffe of admitting it openly.
In the most extreme cases, there are a small number of individuals in the US who are willing to donate $hundreds, or maybe even $thousands (if they're very affluent) toward pro-Ukrainian causes, but 95-98% of those who "back Ukraine" in the west have already hit their limit by changing the flag on their social media profie photo, or maybe even wearing a ribbon (are they still doing the $2 rubber bracelets?) on the rare occasion they're feeling like going out and risking death by covid. They're no more willing to "grab a rifle and stand a post" than Zalensky or Macron.
Those who know the real history of this dispute know that the proximate cause of the war is the 2014 CIA coup in Ukraine called the Madan revolution. Putin is referring to that and how it must be recognized and dealt with in the negotiatons.
I'll quibble just a little and say that the Maidan coup (I won't call it a "revolution" in that it was an Obama administration supported toppling of an elected president) began the process but it was the push to include Ukraine into NATO that was the final straw that arguably forced Putin's hand.
At the risk of posting something again, a glaring illustration is given by the leaked cable from then- Ambassador to Russia William Burns to then- Secretary of State in 2008 in which Burns states: "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests."
And just as a "cherry on top", the same William Burns served as Director of the CIA in the Biden administration.
Knowing what he knew and what he communicated to Rice, how could Burns go along with the push to include Ukraine into NATO? In 2008 he says Russia would not tolerate Ukraine entry into NATO but fourteen years later he's part of the team making that very move?
That truly blows my mind. I would like that someone should pose that question to Mr. Burns.
It seems that the conflict was entirely avoidable. The situation no doubt would have remained tense but the hostilities seemed to have been precipitated by what I can only call the ham-fisted foreign policy of the Biden administration (i.e., I'll be blunt and just call it the continuation of the Obama foreign policy since it increasingly appears that Biden was never really "president").
Yes the conundrum is actually quite simple; William Burns like the Biden regime are the part of the national security state that is all in on war. Any war that uses the equipment and weapons produced by the Arms Manufactureres. Money and power are the great incentive for these warmongers. The Milirary Industrial Complex that Ike warned of way back when.
This is my favorite show out there because I get to hear perspective with all the contours, textures and tones that these two offer. A Gen Xer, I have been turned off by MSM for at least 10 years and have not watched it. Glad that i can get the filter here. You guys often enough say what I have been thinking. Thanks!
Europe is trying as hard as they can to prevent peace and drag USA into a hot war with Russia. Been seeing reports that every time Trump people meet with Russia for peace talks, ukraine and europe attack russia to derail it.
I think the USA, EU, and certainly the U.K. have never forgiven the USSR for their prominent role in defeating Hitler. Stalin was certainly a beast, but the Soviet people bore the ultimate sacrifice. Interesting that JFK- a wounded war veteran- created a rapprochement with the Soviets and avoided WWIII. For that he had to die (IMHO).
I still do not get what is the interest of the Europeans to act as if Russia's goal is to end Ukraine as an independent nation and depict Putin as an expansionist fool. One could have thought just to kow-tow to the US, but that makes no sense now that the US govt has reversed direction. I do not see any European interest in tense relations with Russia, from which they used to buy natural gas. If anything, the destruction of Nord Stream was a blow to Europe
It’s a good question I have given a lot of thought to over the past few months.
The reason for America ending its involvement in Ukraine is obvious. As an American it’s harder for me to understand why we became involved. My current theory is that Joe Biden along with the security establishment were operating with a wanted poster for Kruschev on their walls that had remained their since the 1960’s and no one had the heart to tell them the world had moved on.
But why would the Europeans be so invested? They're facing a Russia that after 3 years of hard fighting was almost overthrown in a coup and has taken only 20% of a country with an extremely brave, but poorly equipped Army no one consider a serious military threat. Why would they continue speaking about current Russia as if they were facing Stalin in 1945?
The only reasonable answer I have come up with is Bismark. Until the late 1800’s the German principalities like Prussia were strong enough to ward off any single European invasion, but lived in fear they would be too weak to take on a combined France, Russia and potentially England. Bismarks solution was brilliant. Through a series of wars between the 1860’s and 1870’s called The Wars of Unification he convinced the independent principalities to combine in order to defeat their enemies. The result was the unification of Germany.
Europe faces the same problem. Since the end of the Cold War and especially the financial crisis of 2008 it has been very difficult to hold the union together. Perhaps the most unifying factor was NATO with America acting as the hegemon. With that gone, unification around an external threat is really the only way countries like France, Germany and England will continue pulling in the same direction rather than return to the 1,500 years of internal conflict that proceeded that.
If not Russia, it would probably be Turkey. They simply need to maintain an external threat of some type to hold the union together. That is especially true with Tariffs coming to challenge their heavily export based economies that run a real risk of tearing the union apart.
While I'm sure some of the West's stance towards Russia was driven by lots of NatSec blob cubicle dwellers keeping themselves employed, my belief is the causes are economic. I think the goal of the West was as follows; make the former Soviet satellites vassal economic development areas and make Russia a natural resource extraction zone with a pliant, if corrupt, government in place. In other words, keep the states closest to Western Europe as low cost/high skill manufacturing and push all the grunt work conveniently far away in Russia. Putin ruined all that for them and it enrages them.
«the West's stance towards Russia was driven by lots of NatSec blob cubicle dwellers keeping themselves employed, my belief is the causes are economic.»
It used to be this, as written by George Kennan in "At a Century's Ending: Reflections 1982-1995" "Part II: Cold War in Full Bloom" (1997): “Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.”
Currently the enmity towards Russia has a much more direct reason: the real rival for leading the global economic system is China, and Russia (and relatedly Kazakhstan) is the biggest buffer state that China has. If Russia were color-revolutioned the new vassal government would "invite" the DOD and CIA to build a chain of biolabs and bases on the northern and western chinese borders where they could fund, train, arm many brigades of "freedom fighters" inside China. Just as Ukraine was the biggest buffer stated that Russia used to have. "Domino Theory" works even if slowly.
«make Russia a natural resource extraction zone with a pliant, if corrupt, government in place.»
Russia would have managed to achieve that all by themselves, as during the Yeltsin era; oligarchs in many countries love to be protected from "socialism" by the USA government.
Thanks all for the interesting discussion. We share a common view of a war that in my opinion is absurd and could have been easily avoided if all the countries involved (not only the two nominal fighters) were run by actual statesmen, that is leaders whose guiding light was the well-being of their own citizens and those of the world at large. Instead, the level of leadership went steadily declining since the end of WW2. Especially in the US, after the USSC Citizen United decision, politics has just been the executive arm of big money.
In particular, I do not see the behavior of the Biden administration anything surprising, but just the usual combo of pleasing the military industrial complex (let’s recall that a large number of representatives in Congress, I forgot the exact figure, has a defense contractor facility in his territory, employing many of his constituents) and pursuing the usual neo-con foreign politics common to administrations of both colors. The name of Ms. Newland in particular reminds us that US meddling in Ukraine internal affairs in anti-Russia direction goes back at the very least to the coup that overthrew Yanukovich, a filo Russian politician who was the last president elected with the vote of all Ukrainians, before Putin, in reaction to the coup annexed Crimea. This electoral balance also provides an interesting key to understand why the west did nothing more than bark about Crimea. Mix into that all the alleged corruption and million of dollars that since the coup have been enriching many western pockets and one has the reason why the US wanted to fight. Probably an equivalent level of corruption moves some of the European leaders, but what surprises is the generalized pro-war sentiment in all the main countries of the block across political divisions. I doubt that any politician worth his salt cannot see that is not Putin expansionism behind the war. Any country with a strong military would react the same way if one of its neighbors started placing its rivals’ missiles at the border
Thanks all for the interesting discussion. We share a common view of a war that in my opinion is absurd and could have been easily avoided if all the countries involved (not only the two nominal fighters) were run by actual statesmen, that is leaders whose guiding light was the well-being of their own citizens and those of the world at large. Instead, the level of leadership went steadily declining since the end of WW2. Especially in the US, after the USSC Citizen United decision, politics has just been the executive arm of big money.
In particular, I do not see the behavior of the Biden administration anything surprising, but just the usual combo of pleasing the military industrial complex (let’s recall that a large number of representatives in Congress, I forgot the exact figure, has a defense contractor facility in his territory, employing many of his constituents) and pursuing the usual neo-con foreign politics common to administrations of both colors. The name of Ms. Newland in particular reminds us that US meddling in Ukraine internal affairs in anti-Russia direction goes back at the very least to sponsoring the coup that overthrew Yanukovich, a pro-Russian politician who was the last president of Ukraine elected with the vote of all Ukrainians, before Putin, in reaction to the coup, annexed Crimea. This electoral balance also provides an interesting key to understand why the west did nothing more than bark about Crimea. Mix into that all the alleged corruption and million of dollars that since the coup have been enriching many western pockets and one has the reason why the US wanted to fight. Probably an equivalent level of corruption moves some of the European leaders, but what surprises is the generalized pro-war sentiment in all the main countries of the block across political divisions. I doubt that any politician worth his salt cannot see that is not Putin expansionism behind the war. Any country with a strong military would react the same way if one of its neighbors started placing its rivals’ missiles at the border
Great idea, unfortunately it appears we have lost his tracks. The last news I could find about him was in one of the last editions of Pravda (I said last because after Yeltsin sold it, it wasn’t the same authoritative newspaper of reference anymore…) which described him enjoying retirement in an island resort off the cost of Africa. Apparently, he had been reached there by Leonid Brezhnev, and the two had put aside old enmities, between a glass of Chateau Lafite and a shot of vodka. Unfortunately, the lack of news since that 1991 reportage does not inspire much optimism about the health of either of them. Pessimism, however, never brought any progress
The interview with the warmongering turd is just the European version of Blackrock getting a huge money boner. War, especially since Iraq has been a huge way for the rich elites to suck more money from the poor and hollow out the middle class so they can make us own nothing and be happy (or else). The bonds prove it. The European aristocracy needs to remember the guillotine. They're wrapped in hyperreality but reality always wins.
Thanks Walter and Matt for your tirelessly tracking down the actors acts. A couple of years back you both pointed out we don't have any real sense of what's happening with Ukraine - and you subsequently played a big role discovering exactly why we didn't - complete information dominance mission success via USAID and minions.
Walter, “jaw-jawing” and “war-warring” are keepers. I would LOVE to see these phrases, ad infinitum, used further. War-war is physical fighting among parties. Jaw-jaw is talking about stopping fighting among parties. These phrases are SO simple, SO obviously meaningful, a kindergartener understands, and that is a good thing.
I really love all these ATW shows. Sorry I couldn't watch live and make comments in real time.
I love Walter asked the chat room to find the answer to a question. Proves the viewers are recognized and appreciated.
I've come to realize Matt offers a different generational and worldly perspective of historic events that's valuable to listen to. Am I the only boomer woman with a crush on dear Matt?
I'm gonna look up the short story writer of "City of Churches". My attention span these days doesn't accommodate full length novels but since Matt said he's going to obtain the author's collection that's a good enough recommendation for me.
So I have been having so much difficulty trying to meet my needs, my family's needs, and my dogs needs, that I missed the surrender of American Ideals to which ever monsters are thought to be ruling or endangering the world now.
I don't like the idea of surrender. I do like the idea of simple. Here is a simple idea America held in the past: "Give me liberty or give me death". I like that idea. What happened to it? Is it not profitable? Did we trade it for something more valuable?
I am not being just a smug fuck. What happened to fighting for Right & Wrong?
I very much hope you are not intending to cease releasing a transcript of the 'America this Week Live' video on Saturday mornings. No offense, but I (possibly like many other people) much prefer reading a transcript to watching a video. Thanks very much.
Do we normally get a transcript, too? Some fire story-telling by Walter about the boomers thirst to fight their own “just war” with their pocketbooks. I need to read, copy, and share. Don’t make me transcribe all of that myself.
The main point is non of those people talking are going to send their kids to the front to risk death or dismemberment. That’s a job for the common folk.
Cannon fodder. Widgets on a board game. Same as it ever was.
None of the people talking would even send the "poors" of their nations to fight directly since any NATO "boots on the ground" would almost instantly escalate the conflict to essentially WW3 including a likely Iranian direct strike on Israel and storming of Taiwan by China (something which the US might not even be able to recognize as illegal since we don't technically recognize Tawain as politically separate from in mainland).
Your opening sentence certainly would describe rational thinking. Unfortunately, we are not talking about rational people. Those behind the politicians, the billionaires, enterprise, big business, intel agencies looking forward to job security, these are all people used to getting what they want. They know its easier to sell war if they dnt use their own. But it's certainly not do to any kindness or sentimentality. These idiots like Anthony Blinken, and unfortunately he was only one of a type, will tell the elites whatever to keep the grift going and to keep their vision of controling the vast resources of Eurasia alive. This self perpetuating loop is capable of anything.
None of the elected officials in Europe or North America would survive the next vote if they even floated the possibility of sending their own (or any other NATO) troops into Ukraine to fight Russia; even acknowledging that such a move would be necessary for any possibility of achieving the goals they're laying out is something which not even Joe Biden at his most addled (and he was pretty addled in his prime, if you find the footage of him berating reporters in the 1980s) was capable of committing the gaffe of admitting it openly.
In the most extreme cases, there are a small number of individuals in the US who are willing to donate $hundreds, or maybe even $thousands (if they're very affluent) toward pro-Ukrainian causes, but 95-98% of those who "back Ukraine" in the west have already hit their limit by changing the flag on their social media profie photo, or maybe even wearing a ribbon (are they still doing the $2 rubber bracelets?) on the rare occasion they're feeling like going out and risking death by covid. They're no more willing to "grab a rifle and stand a post" than Zalensky or Macron.
Those who know the real history of this dispute know that the proximate cause of the war is the 2014 CIA coup in Ukraine called the Madan revolution. Putin is referring to that and how it must be recognized and dealt with in the negotiatons.
\\][//
I'll quibble just a little and say that the Maidan coup (I won't call it a "revolution" in that it was an Obama administration supported toppling of an elected president) began the process but it was the push to include Ukraine into NATO that was the final straw that arguably forced Putin's hand.
At the risk of posting something again, a glaring illustration is given by the leaked cable from then- Ambassador to Russia William Burns to then- Secretary of State in 2008 in which Burns states: "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Burns_(diplomat)#U.S._Foreign_Service
And just as a "cherry on top", the same William Burns served as Director of the CIA in the Biden administration.
Knowing what he knew and what he communicated to Rice, how could Burns go along with the push to include Ukraine into NATO? In 2008 he says Russia would not tolerate Ukraine entry into NATO but fourteen years later he's part of the team making that very move?
That truly blows my mind. I would like that someone should pose that question to Mr. Burns.
It seems that the conflict was entirely avoidable. The situation no doubt would have remained tense but the hostilities seemed to have been precipitated by what I can only call the ham-fisted foreign policy of the Biden administration (i.e., I'll be blunt and just call it the continuation of the Obama foreign policy since it increasingly appears that Biden was never really "president").
Great comment Outis,
Yes the conundrum is actually quite simple; William Burns like the Biden regime are the part of the national security state that is all in on war. Any war that uses the equipment and weapons produced by the Arms Manufactureres. Money and power are the great incentive for these warmongers. The Milirary Industrial Complex that Ike warned of way back when.
\\][//
Color revolution I think these types of coup are called
Yes the Maidan coup was a type of "Color revolution"
\\][//
This is my favorite show out there because I get to hear perspective with all the contours, textures and tones that these two offer. A Gen Xer, I have been turned off by MSM for at least 10 years and have not watched it. Glad that i can get the filter here. You guys often enough say what I have been thinking. Thanks!
Victoria Nuland, the evil warmonger grandma.
\\][//
I don't believe Nuland had any children, so I don't think she's a grandma. An evil warmonger, yes.
Is nuland on commission?
Europe is trying as hard as they can to prevent peace and drag USA into a hot war with Russia. Been seeing reports that every time Trump people meet with Russia for peace talks, ukraine and europe attack russia to derail it.
I think the USA, EU, and certainly the U.K. have never forgiven the USSR for their prominent role in defeating Hitler. Stalin was certainly a beast, but the Soviet people bore the ultimate sacrifice. Interesting that JFK- a wounded war veteran- created a rapprochement with the Soviets and avoided WWIII. For that he had to die (IMHO).
I still do not get what is the interest of the Europeans to act as if Russia's goal is to end Ukraine as an independent nation and depict Putin as an expansionist fool. One could have thought just to kow-tow to the US, but that makes no sense now that the US govt has reversed direction. I do not see any European interest in tense relations with Russia, from which they used to buy natural gas. If anything, the destruction of Nord Stream was a blow to Europe
It’s a good question I have given a lot of thought to over the past few months.
The reason for America ending its involvement in Ukraine is obvious. As an American it’s harder for me to understand why we became involved. My current theory is that Joe Biden along with the security establishment were operating with a wanted poster for Kruschev on their walls that had remained their since the 1960’s and no one had the heart to tell them the world had moved on.
But why would the Europeans be so invested? They're facing a Russia that after 3 years of hard fighting was almost overthrown in a coup and has taken only 20% of a country with an extremely brave, but poorly equipped Army no one consider a serious military threat. Why would they continue speaking about current Russia as if they were facing Stalin in 1945?
The only reasonable answer I have come up with is Bismark. Until the late 1800’s the German principalities like Prussia were strong enough to ward off any single European invasion, but lived in fear they would be too weak to take on a combined France, Russia and potentially England. Bismarks solution was brilliant. Through a series of wars between the 1860’s and 1870’s called The Wars of Unification he convinced the independent principalities to combine in order to defeat their enemies. The result was the unification of Germany.
Europe faces the same problem. Since the end of the Cold War and especially the financial crisis of 2008 it has been very difficult to hold the union together. Perhaps the most unifying factor was NATO with America acting as the hegemon. With that gone, unification around an external threat is really the only way countries like France, Germany and England will continue pulling in the same direction rather than return to the 1,500 years of internal conflict that proceeded that.
If not Russia, it would probably be Turkey. They simply need to maintain an external threat of some type to hold the union together. That is especially true with Tariffs coming to challenge their heavily export based economies that run a real risk of tearing the union apart.
While I'm sure some of the West's stance towards Russia was driven by lots of NatSec blob cubicle dwellers keeping themselves employed, my belief is the causes are economic. I think the goal of the West was as follows; make the former Soviet satellites vassal economic development areas and make Russia a natural resource extraction zone with a pliant, if corrupt, government in place. In other words, keep the states closest to Western Europe as low cost/high skill manufacturing and push all the grunt work conveniently far away in Russia. Putin ruined all that for them and it enrages them.
«the West's stance towards Russia was driven by lots of NatSec blob cubicle dwellers keeping themselves employed, my belief is the causes are economic.»
It used to be this, as written by George Kennan in "At a Century's Ending: Reflections 1982-1995" "Part II: Cold War in Full Bloom" (1997): “Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.”
Currently the enmity towards Russia has a much more direct reason: the real rival for leading the global economic system is China, and Russia (and relatedly Kazakhstan) is the biggest buffer state that China has. If Russia were color-revolutioned the new vassal government would "invite" the DOD and CIA to build a chain of biolabs and bases on the northern and western chinese borders where they could fund, train, arm many brigades of "freedom fighters" inside China. Just as Ukraine was the biggest buffer stated that Russia used to have. "Domino Theory" works even if slowly.
«make Russia a natural resource extraction zone with a pliant, if corrupt, government in place.»
Russia would have managed to achieve that all by themselves, as during the Yeltsin era; oligarchs in many countries love to be protected from "socialism" by the USA government.
Thanks all for the interesting discussion. We share a common view of a war that in my opinion is absurd and could have been easily avoided if all the countries involved (not only the two nominal fighters) were run by actual statesmen, that is leaders whose guiding light was the well-being of their own citizens and those of the world at large. Instead, the level of leadership went steadily declining since the end of WW2. Especially in the US, after the USSC Citizen United decision, politics has just been the executive arm of big money.
In particular, I do not see the behavior of the Biden administration anything surprising, but just the usual combo of pleasing the military industrial complex (let’s recall that a large number of representatives in Congress, I forgot the exact figure, has a defense contractor facility in his territory, employing many of his constituents) and pursuing the usual neo-con foreign politics common to administrations of both colors. The name of Ms. Newland in particular reminds us that US meddling in Ukraine internal affairs in anti-Russia direction goes back at the very least to the coup that overthrew Yanukovich, a filo Russian politician who was the last president elected with the vote of all Ukrainians, before Putin, in reaction to the coup annexed Crimea. This electoral balance also provides an interesting key to understand why the west did nothing more than bark about Crimea. Mix into that all the alleged corruption and million of dollars that since the coup have been enriching many western pockets and one has the reason why the US wanted to fight. Probably an equivalent level of corruption moves some of the European leaders, but what surprises is the generalized pro-war sentiment in all the main countries of the block across political divisions. I doubt that any politician worth his salt cannot see that is not Putin expansionism behind the war. Any country with a strong military would react the same way if one of its neighbors started placing its rivals’ missiles at the border
Thanks all for the interesting discussion. We share a common view of a war that in my opinion is absurd and could have been easily avoided if all the countries involved (not only the two nominal fighters) were run by actual statesmen, that is leaders whose guiding light was the well-being of their own citizens and those of the world at large. Instead, the level of leadership went steadily declining since the end of WW2. Especially in the US, after the USSC Citizen United decision, politics has just been the executive arm of big money.
In particular, I do not see the behavior of the Biden administration anything surprising, but just the usual combo of pleasing the military industrial complex (let’s recall that a large number of representatives in Congress, I forgot the exact figure, has a defense contractor facility in his territory, employing many of his constituents) and pursuing the usual neo-con foreign politics common to administrations of both colors. The name of Ms. Newland in particular reminds us that US meddling in Ukraine internal affairs in anti-Russia direction goes back at the very least to sponsoring the coup that overthrew Yanukovich, a pro-Russian politician who was the last president of Ukraine elected with the vote of all Ukrainians, before Putin, in reaction to the coup, annexed Crimea. This electoral balance also provides an interesting key to understand why the west did nothing more than bark about Crimea. Mix into that all the alleged corruption and million of dollars that since the coup have been enriching many western pockets and one has the reason why the US wanted to fight. Probably an equivalent level of corruption moves some of the European leaders, but what surprises is the generalized pro-war sentiment in all the main countries of the block across political divisions. I doubt that any politician worth his salt cannot see that is not Putin expansionism behind the war. Any country with a strong military would react the same way if one of its neighbors started placing its rivals’ missiles at the border
Ask Napoleon.
Great idea, unfortunately it appears we have lost his tracks. The last news I could find about him was in one of the last editions of Pravda (I said last because after Yeltsin sold it, it wasn’t the same authoritative newspaper of reference anymore…) which described him enjoying retirement in an island resort off the cost of Africa. Apparently, he had been reached there by Leonid Brezhnev, and the two had put aside old enmities, between a glass of Chateau Lafite and a shot of vodka. Unfortunately, the lack of news since that 1991 reportage does not inspire much optimism about the health of either of them. Pessimism, however, never brought any progress
The interview with the warmongering turd is just the European version of Blackrock getting a huge money boner. War, especially since Iraq has been a huge way for the rich elites to suck more money from the poor and hollow out the middle class so they can make us own nothing and be happy (or else). The bonds prove it. The European aristocracy needs to remember the guillotine. They're wrapped in hyperreality but reality always wins.
The short story this week:
A City of Churches – Donald Barthelme
https://www.racket.news/p/america-this-week-live-march-14-2025?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web×tamp=5010.5
I read it here.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1972/04/22/a-city-of-churches
Thanks Walter and Matt for your tirelessly tracking down the actors acts. A couple of years back you both pointed out we don't have any real sense of what's happening with Ukraine - and you subsequently played a big role discovering exactly why we didn't - complete information dominance mission success via USAID and minions.
Walter, “jaw-jawing” and “war-warring” are keepers. I would LOVE to see these phrases, ad infinitum, used further. War-war is physical fighting among parties. Jaw-jaw is talking about stopping fighting among parties. These phrases are SO simple, SO obviously meaningful, a kindergartener understands, and that is a good thing.
Walter, did you coin these phrases?
Winston Churchill did: “better to jaw, jaw, jaw, than to war war war. “
Coincidentally, I was just reading about Tom Wolfe who published a collection of essays called, "Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Chic_%26_Mau-Mauing_the_Flak_Catchers
The term "Mau-Mauing" was derived from the Kenyan Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950's:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_rebellion
...and the similarity just jumped out.
I really love all these ATW shows. Sorry I couldn't watch live and make comments in real time.
I love Walter asked the chat room to find the answer to a question. Proves the viewers are recognized and appreciated.
I've come to realize Matt offers a different generational and worldly perspective of historic events that's valuable to listen to. Am I the only boomer woman with a crush on dear Matt?
I'm gonna look up the short story writer of "City of Churches". My attention span these days doesn't accommodate full length novels but since Matt said he's going to obtain the author's collection that's a good enough recommendation for me.
Love the short stories discussed at the end of the weekly episodes. Good literature, as shared here, is refreshing and grounding. 😅
The Ukrainians have not voted since Zelenskyy was elected in 2019. The obvious, DEMOCRATIC way to move forward is to listen to them for guidance.
Duh.
No, dude. Let me tell you who has a real grasp on democracy: Putin. Hell yeah brother.
So I have been having so much difficulty trying to meet my needs, my family's needs, and my dogs needs, that I missed the surrender of American Ideals to which ever monsters are thought to be ruling or endangering the world now.
I don't like the idea of surrender. I do like the idea of simple. Here is a simple idea America held in the past: "Give me liberty or give me death". I like that idea. What happened to it? Is it not profitable? Did we trade it for something more valuable?
I am not being just a smug fuck. What happened to fighting for Right & Wrong?
I very much hope you are not intending to cease releasing a transcript of the 'America this Week Live' video on Saturday mornings. No offense, but I (possibly like many other people) much prefer reading a transcript to watching a video. Thanks very much.
Do we normally get a transcript, too? Some fire story-telling by Walter about the boomers thirst to fight their own “just war” with their pocketbooks. I need to read, copy, and share. Don’t make me transcribe all of that myself.