03-08-2022, 08:41 AM
Is Putin the New Coronavirus?
By Ron Paul, MD
Ron Paul Institute
March 8, 2022
President Biden’s “maskless” State of the Union signifies the near-end of the COVID tyranny we have lived under for the past two years. Fortunately for Congress, the President, and the Federal Reserve, the Ukraine-Russia conflict is replacing COVID as a ready-made excuse for their failures and a justification for expanding their power.
Even before politicians began declaring the end of the pandemic, polls showed that rising prices were the people’s top concern – particularly the increase in gas prices. Since Russia is one of the world’s leading energy producers, sanctions imposed on Russia, as well as Germany’s decision (made under pressure from the US) to shut down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, provide a convenient excuse for rising gas prices. This is the case even though the US, citing the “instability” in world energy markets created by the Russian-Ukraine conflict, has yet to officially ban imports of Russian oil.
The Federal Reserve has been planning several interest rate increases this year, even though some fear that rate increases could decrease growth and increase unemployment. The Russian crisis allows the Fed to either postpone rate increases or blame Russia for any unemployment that accompanies the rate increases. Either way, the Fed can use the crisis to deflect attention away from its responsibility for our economic problems. As of now, it appears the Fed will go through with at least a modest rate increase this month, but because of the Ukraine crisis, the increase will be smaller than previously expected.
The Ukraine crisis also provides an excuse for Congress to do what Congress does best: increase federal spending. President Biden has requested Congress provide an additional $10 billion in emergency military aid to Ukraine. Congress will likely quickly approve the President’s request. This will not likely be the last time Congress rushes billions of “emergency” money to Ukraine.
It is also certain that lobbyists for the military-industrial-complex are already “explaining” to a very receptive Capitol Hill audience why the Ukraine crisis justifies increasing the military budget to “counter the threats” from Russia, China, and whoever else can serve as a convenient boogeyman. It is unlikely there will be much resistance in Congress to a further increase, even though the US already spends more than the combined defense budgets of the next nine biggest spending countries.
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Over the past two years, many leading Internet companies did the government’s bidding by “de-platforming” anyone who expressed skepticism of vaccines or promoted alternative treatments — even when they presented evidence to support their claims. These companies are once again helping the government by de-platforming those who question, or are suspected of questioning, the official narrative regarding Ukraine. Yet these companies’ concerns with “fake news” have not led them to stop people from sharing widely debunked stories supporting the US-backed Ukrainian government.
The lockdown and mandates did more harm than the coronavirus itself. They were based on lies promoted by the government and its allies in the “private” sector. Yet too many Americans refuse to even question the US government’s claims regarding the Ukraine crisis or question whether Russia is really responsible for our economic problems as opposed to a spendthrift Congress, successive spendthrift Presidents, and an out-of-control Federal Reserve. The only way to stop authoritarians from using crises like these to grow their power is to make enough people understand a simple truth: authoritarian politicians will always lie to the people to protect and increase their own power.
Vladimir Putin: Russia’s Trump?
By Cherie Zaslawsky
News With Views
March 8, 2022
And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars… –Matthew 24: 6-8
The two leaders, Trump and Putin, could not be more different in myriad ways. But they are alike in one important regard: both are nationalists at a time when the international globalist cabal is busily endeavoring to checkmate nation states to bring about its vaunted One World Dystopia—I mean One World Government.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, our indefatigably subversive Big Media is excoriating Putin much as it did Trump when he was in office. Cries of “He’s a madman!” “He’s dangerous!” “He’ll start WWIII!” directed at Putin today were aimed at Trump not long ago.
According to our Media Shills, first Trump was Hitler. Now Putin is Hitler. Nice try, guys, but pure balderdash. Could it be that our pundits are so quick to cry Hitler because they so closely resemble Goebbels themselves? Just wonderin’.
Putin rose to prominence in Russia with the collapse of the Soviet Union when assorted oligarchs and criminals were greedily plundering Russia. According to strategic economist, commentator, and investment guru Jim Rickards, Putin jailed a few oligarchs and let the rest keep their ill-gotten gains as long as they stayed out of politics and ceased the plunder. If this is accurate, then Putin cleaning up Russia is reminiscent of America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani cleaning up New York City back in the day.
WHY UKRAINE?
War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography. –Ambrose Bierce
In 2014 a Soros-funded regime change operation took place in Ukraine. Orchestrated by Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Victoria Nuland, this Color Revolution replaced Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian president of Ukraine, with globalist/EU puppets—first Arseniy Yatsenyuk, followed by Petro Poroshenko, and replaced in 2019 by EU/US/NWO shill, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Why the regime change? Perhaps in part because the globalists had made Ukraine a prime money-laundering paradise of graft, from Hillary’s infamous Uranium One sellout, to Hunter’s Burisma deals for himself and the Big Guy—you know, the one who thinks Kalumny’s the President.
But the far more important rationale would surely have been to neuter Putin and Russia. Putin is their enemy, as Trump was, for remaining a nationalist as the NWO cabal prepares to plunge all of us into hopeless serfdom à la Soylent Green and The Hunger Games. Can’t have any sovereign nations left—that’s not in their Totalitarian/Fascist/Socialist/Communist/Great Reset playbook.
Hence, the globalists’ takeover of Ukraine, now ratcheted up as they pressure Ukraine to join NATO. Why is this practically a declaration of war against Russia?
Not only does Ukraine possess important access to warm water ports, but some of its territory lies east of Moscow! This means the globalists, including U.S. Deep Staters, who currently more or less “own” Ukraine, have Russia’s capitol surrounded. They can launch nuclear or other weapons directly on Moscow with a mere ten-minute flight time.
Putin absolutely cannot allow this.
REGARDING EVIL
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil –Isaiah 5:20
For once the Dems and Reps agree on something: Putin is evil.
Ahem…let’s define our terms. Better yet, let’s consider a few examples of what most rational people would consider evil. By now we know what evil leaders look like: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro—although Justin Trudeau may argue about that last one, as he resembles the Cuban dictator in more ways than one.
I could go on, but let’s just contrast the above with Putin’s response to being backed into a corner, facing the possibility of having NATO states hostile to Russia on his doorstep. Should he sit on his hands and watch the Davos cabal checkmate Russia?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, controlled opposition “Conservative” pundit Mark Levin spins it this way: “This is Putin. He’s a rogue, evil, genocidal maniac.” “…the enemy here is Russia, the enemy here is Putin.” And this: “Nothing to do with NATO…”. Of course it has everything to do with NATO.
Perhaps Levin, the “Great One” who supports an Article V Convention of the States to undo the Constitution, forgot NATO’s history and mission: NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It was formed in 1949 to provide collective security against the threat posed by the Soviet Union.
MISSION CREEP
In fact, one could argue that with the fall of the Soviet Union, NATO had served its purpose and could be disbanded. The Warsaw Pact, an alliance of the USSR and its satellite states formed to balance power once Germany entered NATO, dissolved in 1991. Instead of following suit, NATO has been slowly but relentlessly expanding both its role and its number of member nations—creeping ominously ever eastward, closer and closer to Russia.
Worse yet, along with the UN and the EU, NATO has become an agency of the One World Government/NWO/Davos/ Reset crowd. And these guys now control Ukraine.
You want proof? Kira Rudik, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament recently spilled the beans, declaring on Fox News that: “We not only fight for Ukraine; we fight for this New World Order.” Thanks, Kira, and now watch your back.
VIRTUE SIGNALING
Frankly, I’m nonplussed by the virtue-signaling in our media and among our politicians, and even those who should know better, who persist in calling Putin “evil”, as Kurt Schlichter recently did in an article for Townhall: You are supposed to confuse “evil” (which Putin is) with “incompetent” or “crazy.”
Since when is it “evil” to protect your country? By the way, was it evil for JFK to oppose Soviet missiles in Cuba, a hundred miles from our border?
And if you still think Putin’s the bad guy here, just remember the same pundits and corrupt media that assured us Trump was unhinged, mentally unfit (how ironic when you consider his, um, replacement), and the worst president ever, even as they assured us that Fauci was trustworthy, and Hillary was going to win in 2016—that media—now tells us Putin wants to take over Eastern Europe and bring back Communism. Very odd that he never made such a move in the 22 years he’s been in power, and odder still that he brought back the Russian Orthodox Church which is by definition, antithetical to Communism. But I digress.
IF IT’S SCRIPTED, IT’S A PSY-OP
Of course, Usurper-in-Chief Biden merely parrots what Valerie Jarret et al. tell him to say. Following the script, Doddering Joe almost gleefully condemned Putin for his “unprovoked and unjustified attack” on Ukraine.
Eager to stay relevant and to promote the globalist agenda while playacting the part of a humanitarian, Hillary had this to say: “The world will hold Russia and Putin accountable for the human suffering and destruction this unjustified and unprovoked war will bring.” [Emphasis mine.] At least the scriptwriters changed the word order.
The irony, which we’re used to by now, is that Obama, Biden, Valerie Nuland, et al. supplied the provocation in 2014 with the overthrow of President Victor Yanukovych and his replacement with “rabidly anti-Russian, and far-right, Arseniy Yatsenyuk,” and have now, under the puppet Zelenskyy, upped the ante to the breaking point, making Putin’s move predictable, necessary and justifiable. And no, I’m not saying Russia should use nukes!
PSY-OP NUMBER THREE
At first glance, it may seem as if the unprecedented sequence of events since 2020 burst upon the scene haphazardly. But as FDR pointed out long ago, “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
And once we take into account the overarching NWO plan looming overhead in our day, suddenly all the separate mind-boggling events line up as sequential moves on a worldwide chessboard. The plan is actually simple: the Davos billionaires’ club and associated globalists, including our own Deep State and America-hating Dems and RINOs—in many cases über-rich malcontents—seek to enslave humanity worldwide in their long dreamed-of totalitarian utopia. That’s utopia for them—as the ruling class that owns the world and everything in it—and dystopia for We the People.
Three major psychological operations, aka psy-ops, have relatively recently unmoored our nation and the world, paving the way for the cabal’s New World Order/One World Government. The Covid Plandemic, the Color Revolution here in America that resulted in the theft of our 2020 election and President Trump’s ouster, and now the provoking of Russia regarding Ukraine, which could potentially result in WWIII.
Note that all three serve the globalists’ grandiose agenda. Putin, like Trump before him, is in the globalists’ way, so they’re endeavoring to remove him from power as well. Actually, Putin is the real target here. Ukraine, as usual, is being used as a pawn in the globalists’ game.
If in fact we’re seeing another psy-op by the Davos Reset elites to kneecap Russia and move the world closer to their dreamed of Great Reset dystopia, then the last thing we should be doing is demonizing Putin.
Our own hard Left Dems and Deep Staters, backed up by the likes of Soros, Gates, hefty international banksters and other members of the Billionaire-Sociopaths’ Club, had a relatively easy time ousting President Trump, who offered what they likely considered only mild pushback.
That means they took down one of the two remaining nationalist leaders of powerful countries, with only one to go. That one would be Vladimir Putin. And there’s an ominous war-cry against him in the media and political realm now. If you’re still in doubt as to which side is which, maybe a quote from George Soros, kingpin of Color Revolutions and installation of globalist puppets will make it clear: “We must stand with Ukraine, as they stand for us.” That’s advice from Soros, who, we can safely say by now, is evil.
CANCELLING RUSSIA
Adding fuel to the fire, many are jumping on the Virtue Signaling Bandwagon, trumpeting their support for Ukraine by boycotting Russia. Among others, we find Google, Microsoft, Apple, Disney, Adidas, Nike, H&M, BMW, Honda, Ford, Exxon Mobil, UPS, and more. Not to be outdone, California lawmakers, quick to get on the wrong side of any issue of importance, seek to force pension funds to divest of Russian assets. And Germany just stole a Russian fellow’s boat—his 600 million dollar yacht, to be precise. That oughta show Putin a thing or two.
Funny, I don’t recall anyone boycotting our actual enemy, China… Just sayin’.
DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER EUROPA?
And here’s something eerie from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz: “We are living through a watershed era. And that means that the world afterwards will no longer be the same as the world before.” Does this sound a bit like the New Normal to you? Me too. And like Biden et al., he condemns Putin for “…an absolutely unjustifiable attack on an independent country, on the peaceful order in Europe and the world.” [Italics mine]
Funny that no one mentions Ukraine was historically part of Russia, or that Zelenskyy, the West’s installed puppet, has made it illegal to speak Russian in Ukraine, or that there’s a militant segment of avowed neo-Nazis in Ukraine who participated in the coup d’état against Yanukovych. Details, details…
Scholz goes on to say: “It is clear that we must invest much more in the security of our country. In order to protect our freedom and our democracy. This is a major national undertaking. The goal is a powerful, cutting-edge, progressive Bundeswehr [German armed forces] that can be relied upon to protect us. … The 2022 federal budget will provide a one-off sum of 100 billion euros for the fund. We will use this money for necessary investments and armament projects.”
Hmmm… A much stronger, militarized, heavily armed Germany prepared to take on Russia. Does that ring any bells? Wasn’t the EU formed in part to protect the other European countries from the big guy smack in their midst, with a track record of aggression in two world wars? But I digress.
QANON AD INFINITUM
Not wanting to be left behind, the QAnon franchise has chimed in, recycling its hopium for the incurably naïve. For example, Dave of the X22 Report—whose recent broadcast was praised by another Q spokesman, Charlie Ward, in this small, incestuous cyber-world—reassures his listeners that Trump advises Putin behind the scenes. Dave may have forgotten that Trump is no longer President, and/or that if he were, even now as a private citizen, to reach out to Putin, quislings in the NSA would quickly discover and leak such radioactive phone calls to the New York Times and Trump might be facing a third impeachment, since the Dems haven’t read the Constitution, don’t understand or obey the rule of law, and never quit.
In Dave’s wily and self-serving imaginings, Trump and Putin also conspire with…wait for it…Zelenskyy! You see, they’re all involved in a massive plot to take down the Deep State, but they can’t let on about this because of…optics. In fact, the title of this episode of the X22 Report is: Planned Long Ago, Deep State Stronghold and Bioweapons Destroyed, Trump Never Telegraphs His Moves. These Q promulgaters sure know how to keep their monetizing going strong.
THE FEBRUARY 27TH DIRECTIVE
Our own Deep State, populated with NWO globalists, America-hating subversives and felonious traitors galore, got very busy on February 27th, sending out a veritable flock of rather alarming tweets calling for “regime change” in Russia.
On Sunday, February 27th, a member of the Brookings Institution tweeted out: Regime change: Russia, which another member immediately publicly seconded.
That’s not all. On the same day, the head of the snake, I mean of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, had this to say: “Just days ago much of the world was focused on the unwanted prospect of regime change in Ukraine. Now the conversation has shifted to include the possibility of desired regime change in Russia. A week can be a long time in politics.”
Notice the manipulative wordplay: Regime change in Ukraine is “unwanted,” while in Russia it’s “desired.” My question in both cases: by whom, Richard?
Nor was this Twitter 2/27th onslaught limited to the US. Swedish diplomat and former Prime Minister of Sweden Carl Bildt also chimed in: “All of us must now face the reality that we will not have peace in Europe until there is regime change in Russia. Then we should seek to welcome a new Russia as a partner for peace.”
And today, March 4th, the feckless RINO Lindsey Graham astonishingly tweeted: “The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.” Graham was repeating a statement he made on Fox News late Thursday in case you missed it. “You would be doing your country – and the world – a great service.” He even said, “Is there a Brutus in Russia?” Let that sink in. Lindsey’s publicly advocating the overthrow, by assassination, of a superpower’s leader and government for defending their own turf and interests.
By the way, does anyone else remember how these guys ridiculed Donald Trump for using Twitter to communicate directly with the nation? Guess they were just jealous…
SOME LAST THOGHTS
In 1997, renowned American diplomat George Kennan warned: Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations; and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.
Tragically, yet again, our leaders ignored this good advice and set out on a treacherous course instead.
A commenter on an Epoch News article had this to say: “From my 20 years traveling eastern/southern Ukraine, living there, in-laws there, kids born there, it’s clear to me the best solution is for Ukraine to be split in half, into a western Ukrainian speaking West Ukraine and a historical Russian speaking east Ukraine. The two countries would be autonomous buffers to Europe on the west and Russia on the east. Then peace could happen. Enough already.”
Here’s my two cents: You want to make sure WWIII doesn’t happen over a country Millennials couldn’t find on a map? Here are two suggestions:
Butt out of Putin’s business regarding the legitimate security needs of Russia
Ally with Putin against the NWO, recognizing that a US/Russia alliance could protect us from our real enemy, China, and throw a monkey-wrench into the Davos Cabal’s plans
What I have to say to those beating the war drums and clamoring for Putin’s scalp, as well as those buying the media’s anti-Russia narrative, is this: Be careful what you wish for.
You might one day find yourself agreeing with an online commenter, one of many anti-globalist bloggers, who posted this on a recent Epoch Times article: “Putin is the last hope for the world.”
Ukraine and Falsehood in the Time of War
By Boyd D. Cathey
My Corner
March 8, 2022
It happened the other night, it was nearly 3 a.m.—a telephone call in the middle of my slumber. I could hear it ringing from downstairs. Thinking it might be something serious at that late hour, perhaps a neighbor in distress, I picked up the receiver next to my bed.
The voice inquired: “Is this Dr. Cathey?”
“Yes,” I answered, still half asleep. “Who is this…what’s going on?”
The male voice at the other end continued: “We know who you are—you are a traitor to the United States, you are a Communist who supports that war criminal Putin. Well, you need to watch your back, ‘cause things can happen to traitors.”
That got my attention; I repeated: “Who is this…why are you calling me?” No answer, and my interrogator immediately hung up.
About my three recently published 2022 essays concerning Russia and Ukraine (on January 7, February 19, and February 25), I had already received a couple of very ugly, profane email messages earlier accusing me of being a “Putin apologist.” Unlike several correspondents and good friends who have expressed rational if very different opinions from the ones I have, those messages were unsigned. I am pleased to discuss the Ukraine crisis with friends, and I understand that if you express strong views, sometimes you’ll get blowback. But the depth of venom, hatred, even personal threats? Even as a strong supporter of my Confederate heritage and my support for keeping our monuments to that heritage up, I’ve never been the recipient of such unrestrained vitriol as now.
It got me to thinking about questions I ask anyone who approaches me about my stance on what is going on in Ukraine: Why the over-the-top passion on this topic? Why Ukraine? Why such an hysterical response when Ukraine and its position in Europe and in the world are not strategically important to us? After all, the United States has been on the invading-end of conflicts for decades…Bosnia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and so on. Yet, somehow our foreign ventures are always virtuous and noble? And what kind of outrage did we express for those hundreds of thousands of Tutsis killed in Uganda or the thousands of Kurdish inhabitants eliminated by our ally Turkey?
Look at the intensity and what can only be called unleashed hatred directed at anything Russian and its leader—look at the expansive, all-encompassing campaign, from North Carolina’s governor Roy Cooper ordering that all state liquor stores dump Russian-made vodka, to the firing of one of the world’s greatest classical music conductors Russian Valery Gergiev from his position as head of the Munich Philharmonic because he wouldn’t publicly condemn Putin (he’s also had contracts with the Metropolitan Opera and a dozen other musical organizations cancelled—which was never done even in the “hottest” moments of the Cold War), to the attempted banning in Italy of the works of the great Russian novelist Fydor Dostoevsky, to the suspension of Russian television broadcasting in the US, to the cancellation of dozens of sporting events which were to feature Russian athletes, to the growing persecution of Russians living in the West, including vandalism of the Russian embassy in France. The list of such actions is endless.
Why the frenzied fury and the passion?
There are, I believe, several reasons for this.
First, there is an imperfect analogy with what happened regarding Germany long after the end of World War II in 1945. I recall when I was growing up that every “war film” I watched featured a nasty and cruel, smartly-dressed uniformed German soldier, monocled, in jackboots, probably with a whip, who was personally responsible for all sorts of mayhem and vicious criminality and murder. We knew those Germans were all evil Nazis, and they were soon to be “taken out” by the super-courageous American grunts, who became in a strange way the “new supermen.” We could do anything…We never lost, and, in fact, in Hollywood our heroic and valiant boys kept winning glorious victories for three decades after Germany was defeated. We knew that Lee Marvin and “the Dirty Dozen” would get it done.
The Germans, you see, were intrinsically evil. And that meme built on the narrative dating from World War I. One of my great uncles would repeat to me when I was young a little ditty from that war, popular among Americans of the period: “Kaiser Bill went up the hill, to take a look at France; Kaiser Bill came down the hill, with bullets in his pants!”
And many of us over the age of forty will remember “the evil empire” that Nikita Khrushchev said “would bury us.” In primary school, I recall those air raid drills when we would crouch under our desks, lest a Commie missile somehow target our school. The Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam and the Tonkin Gulf affair—it was those evil Soviet Russians who were responsible. At that time, arguably, we at least had a convincing case to make about the Communists and their efforts at world domination.
Leftwing columnist Bill Press sums up what we hear constantly from the media: “It’s about a lot more than Ukraine,” he writes. “It’s about world security. It’s about the sanctity of national borders. It’s about the rule of law and the strength of international treaties. It’s about the future of democracy. It’s about the unchecked power of autocrats anywhere to invade and destroy their neighbors.”
Really? Let’s unpack that a little.
For far too many Americans, especially those self-identified conservatives, their view of Russian history just stopped sometime around 1980, frozen in time. It is as if Communism never went away, and all the characteristics of “the evil empire” are once again threatening the very existence of democratic, freedom-loving America (well, Ukraine is in the surrogate position as our client state). Putin has become—has channeled—Adolf Hitler, a kind of combination of Hitler and Stalin, intent on “restoring the Soviet Union” and conquering the world.
There are dozens of examples illustrating this theme, both in the media and in Congress, including such insane, frothing-at-the-mouth examples as Representative Adam Kinzinger embracing Senator Lindsey Graham’s call for assassinating the Russian leader or declaring a “no fly zone” over Ukraine, which would most likely lead to nuclear war.
Yet a careful reading of Putin’s actual comment about “the tragedy of the collapse of the Soviet Union,” offers a far different interpretation, as various scholars have indicated (e.g., Russia Against the Rest: The Post Cold-War Crisis of World Order, by Professor Richard Sakwa, and Vladimir Putin and Russian Statecraft, by Professor Allen Lynch). Putin has forthrightly condemned in the strongest terms both Communism and the hateful Soviet period of Russian history. Was he not correct to lament the break-up of the old union into fifteen economically-fractured, ethnically-divisive republics? Did not that break-up resemble in some ways the arbitrary and disastrous break-up of the old Austro-Hungarian empire which helped propel Europe into a Second World War?
A second reason is the intense “yellow journalism” media coverage of the conflict. Every national network, from CNN and MSNBC to Fox News, is acting like a well-oiled megaphone for Dr. Goebels’ propaganda bureau. It seems our media are attempting to outdo each other in portraying just how cruel and brutal those Russian soldiers are, and how evil that “reincarnation of Hitler in the Kremlin” is. There is practically no attempt at objective coverage, no attempt to balance the completely one-sided accounts. Thus, Jesse Waters, with a grim, deeply pained expression on Fox News Primetime detailing in lurid detail how Russians were attempting to explode Europe’s largest nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia and were raping defenseless Ukrainian women. Indeed, those stories still circulate as the latest Russian “outrage” and “war crime.”
But no one stops to question them. Why would the Russians launch strikes against a nuclear reactor that would, if exploded, potentially maim and kill hundreds of thousands of nearby Russians? Another different version, difficult to discover at Fox or CNN, is that Ukrainian irregulars occupied the administrative building at the site and began directing fire at oncoming Russian troops. No projectiles were aimed by the Russians at the nuclear component, and apparently now it has been safely occupied by them. But it is significant that the Ukrainian government continues to charge the Russians with attempted “nuclear blackmail.”
The independent journalist, Glenn Greenwald, has reported on a number of “fake news” pro-Ukrainian war memes spread across our supposedly “free and balanced” media. I list some of them here:
the inspiring story that the Ukrainian military shot down two Russian Il-76s transport planes (no evidence for this);
a Russian tank purposely and randomly ran over a civilian car (the video suggests an accident and, more importantly, subsequent news accounts acknowledged: “it wasn’t immediately clear if the armored vehicle was Russian or more likely Ukrainian hardware, or when this crash took place”);
a mega-viral thread from a member of the EU Parliament claiming Russian oligarchs and Putin were screaming at each other in a bunker in desperation (pronounced “likely disinfo” by the US-intel-friendly and vehemently anti-Russia site Bellingcat);
a gratifying story that Turkey told Ukraine that it informed Russia it was barred from using Turkish straits to enter the Black Sea (Turkey denied telling this to President Zelensky and said they could not and would not do that, then on Sunday said they had determined these events constitute a “war” such that they may have the power them to ban both Ukraine and Russia, but had not yet decided to so);
a thrilling photo of Zelensky in body armor on the front lines against Russia (it was from months ago), and,
claims that Russia targeted a civilian apartment building with a missile (it appears now that the missile was a misguided Ukrainian air defense weapon).
As in previous wars and conflicts in which the US has been involved I am reminded of what Senator Hiram Johnson (R-CA) said in 1917 about the First World War: “The first casualty when war comes is truth.” Every media pundit and announcer should be made to read the classic study of war propaganda parading as objective news: Arthur Lord Ponsonby’s Falsehood in War-time, Containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations During the Great War (1928). Remember the fake stories of German soldiers severing the hands of Belgian babies, the unprovoked sinking of the Lusitania (which was indeed carrying munitions to the Brits), and the violation of innocent nurses? Does this not remind us of what we are now seeing and hearing constantly on Fox and at other venues?
After six years of drenching Russophobia and dozens of fake news stories which conservatives rightly batted down and that were finally disproven, one would think that the torrent of lurid reports brought to us by those same newscasters, politicians, and Intel agencies would engender some serious doubts. But apparently not.
A third reason is the fevered view of our managerial elites who see Russia as the major obstacle to their efforts to achieve global suzerainty and a new world order. Klaus Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum, defined this movement as “the Great Reset,” the “window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world.” It combines the globalism of the Neoconservatives who have dominated the American foreign policy managerial class for decades under both Democrat and Republican presidents, with the xenophobic anti-Russian stance of those on the farther left who despise Putin for his purported persecution of homosexuals, refusal to countenance same sex marriage, and staunch defense of the traditional nuclear family (with these policies reflected in Russian laws and education).
Some on the far left have gone so far as to, once again, attempt to tie President Trump to Putin, yanking his comments out of context. But to call President Putin a “genius” (as Trump did) is not to endorse his actions with regards to Ukraine. No opportunity is lost to damn and paint as opposed to equal rights, even as racists those Americans, mostly traditional Christians, who have approved of Putin’s defense of the traditional family. The Washington Post asserts that over the past three decades many traditional Christians “have forged a partnership [with Russia] in a global family values movement that not only embraces sexual and gender traditionalism but sees these practices as a solution to demographic changes around the globe.” Obviously, then, such Americans are, to revive an old charge from columnist David Frum, “unpatriotic.” Or, as Senator Mitt Romney told Yahoo News, “almost treasonous.” Dissent from the anti-Russian template will not be tolerated. Is this not, then, “cancel culture” on an international level?
It should also be noted that many of the major voices of Neoconservatism—the Irving and Bill Kristols, the David Frums, the Max Boots, and others of Russian Jewish descent see a nationalist Russia, which openly embraces its Orthodox Christian heritage and traditions, as somehow the reincarnation of the old Tsarist empire which persecuted their ancestors who emigrated from the Pale of Settlement in the last years of the 19th and first years of the 20th centuries. Just as anti-Teutonic sentiment lingered long years after the end of World War II, so an animus against a revitalized nationalist, traditionally Orthodox Russia cannot be excluded as a reason for how prominent journalists and media personalities instinctively react to Putin’s Russia.
Some of the anti-Russian, or more precisely, anti-Putin managerial elites claim that the Russian president is (still) a KGB agent and a “thug.” Yet, a careful study of his life and his long-past membership in that organization (he held a desk job in Dresden in the defunct German Democratic Republic for a few years) give the lie to this portrait. As Professors Lynch and Sakwa detail at length (e.g., The Putin Paradox, by Sakwa, and Vladimir Putin & Russian Statecraft, by Lynch), Putin left the KGB and denounced it (just as he firmly denounced Communism). He was Deputy Mayor of Leningrad under and supporting pro-democrat Anatoly Sobchak, and when the August 1991 KGB counter-coup occurred it was Putin who saved Sobchak, then the leader of anti-Communist elements in Russia, from being arrested by the KGB. Charges of his personal corruption and venality are equally debunked.
But never mind the facts during war time. Our situation is one where attempting to ferret out something close to the truth is extremely difficult. As I have asked my friends—pleaded with them—can we not have just a bit of skepticism and doubt at all the suffocating feculence which is engulfing us?
And once again, my questions: Why? Why is Ukraine so goldarned essential and important that a prominent symphony conductor in Bavaria must lose his job and his contracts because he won’t publicly denounce his native country and its president? Or that we attempt to purge Dostoevsky or ban Russian films? Or that prominent American politicians urge actions which would inevitably entail nuclear war?
Thanks to Putin’s War in Ukraine The Race is On for the Great Reset
By Tom Luongo
Gold Goats 'n Guns
March 8, 2022
Vladimir Putin has become the pivotal figure of the 21st century. Of that there is no doubt. The size and breadth of the ground operation in Ukraine, despite some mistakes, has been impressive.
Before I go any farther I want to make sure that we’re clear. While the situation seems to be moving decidedly in Russia’s favor, I am willing to remain reasonably skeptical of all the reports I’ve seen so far.
The slowdown in the information flow over the past few days has been as impressive as the stated gains of the Russian military in Ukraine over that same timeframe.
Since what I’ve been seeing is repetition and amplification of the same maps and sources, nothing should be taken for granted about the outcomes in Ukraine for Putin and Russia. That said, let’s not get carried away in thinking the Ukrainian army is putting up much of a fight here, because they are not.
Bill Roggio’s article from the Times of London somehow made it through the media blackout on nearly all things moderately Russia-positive and lays things out for the normies in the audience.
Sympathy for the outnumbered and outgunned defenders of Kyiv has led to the exaggeration of Russian setbacks, misunderstanding of Russian strategy, and even baseless claims from amateur psychoanalysts that Putin has lost his mind.
A more sober analysis shows that Russia may have sought a knockout blow, but always had well-laid plans for follow-on assaults if its initial moves proved insufficient.
The world has underestimated Putin before and those mistakes have led, in part, to this tragedy in Ukraine.
What’s obvious to me is that Putin put in motion a plan far more ambitious than was originally expected by the West. Their hysterical overreaction to this decapitation of Ukraine is my barometer on this. Because of this hysteria there are now all manner of questions as to why Putin did this and why, in effect, he allowed the West to respond to this war this way. Thus generating some quite fanciful theories.
These rabbit holes are getting dug nearly as quickly as Russia’s armed forces have taken the northern coast of the Black Sea.
And I feel like all of them have a nugget of truth.
But they all lead to the same fundamental conclusion, in my mind. This has become a race between two radically different versions of The Davos Crowd’s plans for a Great Reset.
And what happens in Ukraine over the next few days/weeks will determine which path to the future we wind up on.
More Questions Than Answers
One of the big questions out there is the following: Why would Putin launch such a massive campaign if he knew the response would be so strong from the West?
Is it because he’s really a secret WEF stooge who is accelerating their plans for them by sacrificing Ukraine on the altar of their Brave New World?
In short, no. This is clearly a theory akin to the whole Q-tard, 4-d chess crowd who lap up CIA/MI6 disinformation to feed their growing solipsistic fugues. It’s just dumb. Davos et.al. are openly honest in their hatred of him. He’s stood athwart their plans for more than two decades now. There are factions who hated him less before troops crossed into Ukraine, now all of them have their marching orders.
Putin must be destroyed and MIlosevic’d.
The better way to frame that question would be to make the argument that Putin was their unwitting dupe here; goaded into a war he didn’t want, to give them the excuse to continue the Great Reset by pivoting off the failure of COVID-19 and onto him.
They could then manipulate market disruptions to their preferred ends.
This is where people like Martin Armstrong have landed this week. And I don’t begrudge anyone that conclusion. It’s at least closer to the truth, in my read. I believe they’ve gotten Davos’ motivation correct, but I do not think they have Putin’s correct.
Because it implies Putin did not game plan this out. That, I think, is also wrong, even Bill Roggio begrudgingly admits this.
In fact, I would think Davos going financial DEFCON 5 would have been #1 on his list of potential reactions from his adversaries because that’s the way they have reacted in the past to major challenges to their plans, c.f. The Election of Trump and Brexit.
It would be dumb of you to think Putin so thick.
Do you really think he wasn’t paying attention over the past six years? That he slept through the clear operation to take out Trump through election fraud and societal upheaval in the US in 2020?
The four years of libs lighting their hair on fire over every word that came out of his mouth?
The sham impeachment process of 2019 over a phone call with Ukraine?
Of course not. Putin and his staff are completely dialed in because the survival of their country demands it. They know better than the people making up these theories who exactly they are dealing with.
And for that reason the scenario that makes the most sense to me here is what I’ve been suggesting in my last few posts (here, here and here).
Who Cauldron is it, Anyway?
Putin is upping the operational tempo on the neolibs of The Davos Crowd in Europe and the White House and their neocon useful idiots in the US/UK foreign policy circles, Congress and intelligence services to create the ultimate geopolitical Russian cauldron for their avarice.
Ukraine represents everyone’s existential threat.
If the neocons lose, they are done as an influence within foreign policy circles in the West forever because they will have failed to penetrate Fortress Russia.
If Davos loses, their grand plans for global domination become diminished to, at best, the European Union and some parts of the Commonwealth.
If Russia loses, the entire Global South, as Pepe Escobar calls it, fails to escape the fiat, debt-based slavery of the Western central banking cartel, because they will control the flow of Russian natural resources in such a way that they will not be stopped. More on this later.
If you are wondering why everything about this war feels weird or off, it’s because the stakes are so high for everyone. These are the stakes for the world. And because of that you had to expect the quality of information surrounding it has literally dropped to the international price of Russian sovereign debt, i.e. zero.
Do not let Putin’s focus on finishing off Ukraine militarily blind you to thinking this is his true end goal. This is, as I said the other day, an opening salvo.
We’ve already seen that there is no appetite within NATO, which means both the US military and EU politicians, to go into a direct fight with Russia. That means there is no appetite for nuclear war. That doesn’t mean nuclear war is a zero-probability event.
It means there is no current appetite for it.
And the reason for that is the belief there is a way to stop Putin in Ukraine still exists within the minds of both the neocons at the State Dept. and Davos. That belief hinges on binding Putin in a land war in Ukraine he can’t win against an insurgency of the type and kind Whitney Webb just exposed the CIA has been building around the globe (including here in the US) for years now.
This has now become official US policy, setting up a Ukrainian Government-in-Exile in Poland while sending money there to support an al-Qaeda like guerilla army to harass the Russians. This makes sense since this is what we did in Syria, using Turkey as the staging ground for their assaults into Idlib and Aleppo.
This is likely the reason why Putin has been so adamant about ‘Denazifying’ Ukraine and speaking in absolute terms about their not receiving protections under the Geneva convention. Many of them are, in fact, foreign-backed actors, at least according to his intelligence.
So, regardless of the ‘fact’ that exterminating these men would be ‘war crimes,’ legally, Putin, with his Ph.D. in International Law, either doesn’t care or feels if he wins the war he will be able to make his case in any post-war tribunal.
You can see the attempts to paint Putin as reckless everywhere. The events at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant were reported to put all the blame on Russia while the silenced Russian information sources, including the Ministry of Defense, told a different story. I’m happy to bracket between the two to suss out the truth.
The longer the official war can be prolonged in Ukraine the more time the Davos-backed insurgency gets to form up while resupplying Ukraine’s west. It’s also why Putin has to up the operational tempo in Ukraine soon or he and his army could be in big trouble.
The Race up Oil Mountain
So the race to the end of the ground war is here. And with that shift, it’s time to back off the battle field and look at the capital markets to see what they are seeing. Because there is no military response coming from NATO other than guerillas.
The capital markets are supposed to be Davos’ turf while Russia is financially weak. But that is only if you look at things in nominal terms, nominal dollars, euros, etc. Russia has weapons it has only just begun to deploy here.
So, Act II has to be the financial war because the guerilla insurgency strategy only works if the governments in NATO’s pivotal countries don’t collapse. This is why Putin will have to make a move financially in the next few weeks.
Two minor moves have already been made. First, is the removal of VAT on purchasing gold for Russian citizens. The second he announced yesterday, avoiding default on foreign-held Russian debt by offering bond payments in rubles to bondholders.
But, these are minor moves. They simply signal to the world that Russia has the intentions to make good on its promises and not punish those who are ‘bystanders’ in this war between governments.
If I know Putin well, he will wait for his next big move so as to cause maximal damage in the financial markets and that means waiting to see how the central banks and capital markets respond to the big changes occurring within them right now.
I alluded to one of these moves the other day, saying
Those that brave the waters {Shell at -$28.50 to Brent} will get their {Russian} oil at a steep discount, those that don’t will pay through the nose, further accelerating the decline of those economies as inflation spirals out of control and the people put the blame, not on Putin, but on the people in charge.
Moreover, Russia has kept the gas flows going to ensure that money keeps flowing into the country to finance further expansion of its gold reserves.
And that’s the key, gold. Russia has oil it pulls out of the ground for >$10 per barrel.
If Biden decides to excise Russian energy from US markets (and talking with Maduro in Venezuela is a clear signal here) then Davos is pushing for this to further isolate Russian energy. The JCPOA was supposed to be signed this week to get Iran’s oil back into the market, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put a monkey wrench in that.
But it’s Iran’s model of resistance to US sanctions that is Russia’s model for the future. Simply put, sell gold for oil. During the pre-JCPOA period Iran did this with buyers depositing the gold in Turkish banks. Iran kept the oil flowing.
Third party oil trades (through Hong Kong maybe?) will also get around any sanctions for Russia and allow them to sell oil while making China a mint in transaction fees.
But the big move for Putin is quite simple (H/T to Luke Gromen for this) which is to offer up its oil at a steep discount to the futures price but only in gold, physical gold. The current ratio of gold to oil is ~17 bbls/oz.
All Putin has to do is begin a global run on physical gold. Oil is the M-zero of global trade. It is the trade on which all of the West’s financialization power is built upon. And that foundation is built on the petrodollar. By directly tying Russia’s marginal barrel produced to the price of gold far below market prices does two things.
First it creates a massive arbitrage opportunity for oil and gold that the market will fill. Second, it follows, it collapses the valuations of all assets priced in paper gold to the price of physical. So, either the price of everything collapses to maintain the fiction of $2000 gold or the price of gold rises to meet the new price.
This forces the West to come clean on just how much gold it actually has, creates a massive short-term run on physical gold and forces a repricing of everyone’s balance sheet.
And, that, my friends is the big weapon Putin is holding in reserve. He can afford to sell his oil at a deeply discounted price. I’m thinking 50 barrels/oz should do it. He forces the world to reprice oil in terms of gold, and then, by extension, rubles rather than the dollar.
This creates positive gold inflow into Russia to create a two-tiered ruble — the long-held dream of Sergei Glazyev — a domestic gold-backed ruble and a global circulating one which floats.
The key to understanding whether things are primed for this is looking not at Europe but at Saudi Arabia.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/03/ron-...ronavirus/
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/03/no_a...ias-trump/
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/03/no_a...me-of-war/
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/03/thom...eat-reset/
By Ron Paul, MD
Ron Paul Institute
March 8, 2022
President Biden’s “maskless” State of the Union signifies the near-end of the COVID tyranny we have lived under for the past two years. Fortunately for Congress, the President, and the Federal Reserve, the Ukraine-Russia conflict is replacing COVID as a ready-made excuse for their failures and a justification for expanding their power.
Even before politicians began declaring the end of the pandemic, polls showed that rising prices were the people’s top concern – particularly the increase in gas prices. Since Russia is one of the world’s leading energy producers, sanctions imposed on Russia, as well as Germany’s decision (made under pressure from the US) to shut down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, provide a convenient excuse for rising gas prices. This is the case even though the US, citing the “instability” in world energy markets created by the Russian-Ukraine conflict, has yet to officially ban imports of Russian oil.
The Federal Reserve has been planning several interest rate increases this year, even though some fear that rate increases could decrease growth and increase unemployment. The Russian crisis allows the Fed to either postpone rate increases or blame Russia for any unemployment that accompanies the rate increases. Either way, the Fed can use the crisis to deflect attention away from its responsibility for our economic problems. As of now, it appears the Fed will go through with at least a modest rate increase this month, but because of the Ukraine crisis, the increase will be smaller than previously expected.
The Ukraine crisis also provides an excuse for Congress to do what Congress does best: increase federal spending. President Biden has requested Congress provide an additional $10 billion in emergency military aid to Ukraine. Congress will likely quickly approve the President’s request. This will not likely be the last time Congress rushes billions of “emergency” money to Ukraine.
It is also certain that lobbyists for the military-industrial-complex are already “explaining” to a very receptive Capitol Hill audience why the Ukraine crisis justifies increasing the military budget to “counter the threats” from Russia, China, and whoever else can serve as a convenient boogeyman. It is unlikely there will be much resistance in Congress to a further increase, even though the US already spends more than the combined defense budgets of the next nine biggest spending countries.
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Over the past two years, many leading Internet companies did the government’s bidding by “de-platforming” anyone who expressed skepticism of vaccines or promoted alternative treatments — even when they presented evidence to support their claims. These companies are once again helping the government by de-platforming those who question, or are suspected of questioning, the official narrative regarding Ukraine. Yet these companies’ concerns with “fake news” have not led them to stop people from sharing widely debunked stories supporting the US-backed Ukrainian government.
The lockdown and mandates did more harm than the coronavirus itself. They were based on lies promoted by the government and its allies in the “private” sector. Yet too many Americans refuse to even question the US government’s claims regarding the Ukraine crisis or question whether Russia is really responsible for our economic problems as opposed to a spendthrift Congress, successive spendthrift Presidents, and an out-of-control Federal Reserve. The only way to stop authoritarians from using crises like these to grow their power is to make enough people understand a simple truth: authoritarian politicians will always lie to the people to protect and increase their own power.
Vladimir Putin: Russia’s Trump?
By Cherie Zaslawsky
News With Views
March 8, 2022
And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars… –Matthew 24: 6-8
The two leaders, Trump and Putin, could not be more different in myriad ways. But they are alike in one important regard: both are nationalists at a time when the international globalist cabal is busily endeavoring to checkmate nation states to bring about its vaunted One World Dystopia—I mean One World Government.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, our indefatigably subversive Big Media is excoriating Putin much as it did Trump when he was in office. Cries of “He’s a madman!” “He’s dangerous!” “He’ll start WWIII!” directed at Putin today were aimed at Trump not long ago.
According to our Media Shills, first Trump was Hitler. Now Putin is Hitler. Nice try, guys, but pure balderdash. Could it be that our pundits are so quick to cry Hitler because they so closely resemble Goebbels themselves? Just wonderin’.
Putin rose to prominence in Russia with the collapse of the Soviet Union when assorted oligarchs and criminals were greedily plundering Russia. According to strategic economist, commentator, and investment guru Jim Rickards, Putin jailed a few oligarchs and let the rest keep their ill-gotten gains as long as they stayed out of politics and ceased the plunder. If this is accurate, then Putin cleaning up Russia is reminiscent of America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani cleaning up New York City back in the day.
WHY UKRAINE?
War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography. –Ambrose Bierce
In 2014 a Soros-funded regime change operation took place in Ukraine. Orchestrated by Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Victoria Nuland, this Color Revolution replaced Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian president of Ukraine, with globalist/EU puppets—first Arseniy Yatsenyuk, followed by Petro Poroshenko, and replaced in 2019 by EU/US/NWO shill, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Why the regime change? Perhaps in part because the globalists had made Ukraine a prime money-laundering paradise of graft, from Hillary’s infamous Uranium One sellout, to Hunter’s Burisma deals for himself and the Big Guy—you know, the one who thinks Kalumny’s the President.
But the far more important rationale would surely have been to neuter Putin and Russia. Putin is their enemy, as Trump was, for remaining a nationalist as the NWO cabal prepares to plunge all of us into hopeless serfdom à la Soylent Green and The Hunger Games. Can’t have any sovereign nations left—that’s not in their Totalitarian/Fascist/Socialist/Communist/Great Reset playbook.
Hence, the globalists’ takeover of Ukraine, now ratcheted up as they pressure Ukraine to join NATO. Why is this practically a declaration of war against Russia?
Not only does Ukraine possess important access to warm water ports, but some of its territory lies east of Moscow! This means the globalists, including U.S. Deep Staters, who currently more or less “own” Ukraine, have Russia’s capitol surrounded. They can launch nuclear or other weapons directly on Moscow with a mere ten-minute flight time.
Putin absolutely cannot allow this.
REGARDING EVIL
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil –Isaiah 5:20
For once the Dems and Reps agree on something: Putin is evil.
Ahem…let’s define our terms. Better yet, let’s consider a few examples of what most rational people would consider evil. By now we know what evil leaders look like: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro—although Justin Trudeau may argue about that last one, as he resembles the Cuban dictator in more ways than one.
I could go on, but let’s just contrast the above with Putin’s response to being backed into a corner, facing the possibility of having NATO states hostile to Russia on his doorstep. Should he sit on his hands and watch the Davos cabal checkmate Russia?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, controlled opposition “Conservative” pundit Mark Levin spins it this way: “This is Putin. He’s a rogue, evil, genocidal maniac.” “…the enemy here is Russia, the enemy here is Putin.” And this: “Nothing to do with NATO…”. Of course it has everything to do with NATO.
Perhaps Levin, the “Great One” who supports an Article V Convention of the States to undo the Constitution, forgot NATO’s history and mission: NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It was formed in 1949 to provide collective security against the threat posed by the Soviet Union.
MISSION CREEP
In fact, one could argue that with the fall of the Soviet Union, NATO had served its purpose and could be disbanded. The Warsaw Pact, an alliance of the USSR and its satellite states formed to balance power once Germany entered NATO, dissolved in 1991. Instead of following suit, NATO has been slowly but relentlessly expanding both its role and its number of member nations—creeping ominously ever eastward, closer and closer to Russia.
Worse yet, along with the UN and the EU, NATO has become an agency of the One World Government/NWO/Davos/ Reset crowd. And these guys now control Ukraine.
You want proof? Kira Rudik, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament recently spilled the beans, declaring on Fox News that: “We not only fight for Ukraine; we fight for this New World Order.” Thanks, Kira, and now watch your back.
VIRTUE SIGNALING
Frankly, I’m nonplussed by the virtue-signaling in our media and among our politicians, and even those who should know better, who persist in calling Putin “evil”, as Kurt Schlichter recently did in an article for Townhall: You are supposed to confuse “evil” (which Putin is) with “incompetent” or “crazy.”
Since when is it “evil” to protect your country? By the way, was it evil for JFK to oppose Soviet missiles in Cuba, a hundred miles from our border?
And if you still think Putin’s the bad guy here, just remember the same pundits and corrupt media that assured us Trump was unhinged, mentally unfit (how ironic when you consider his, um, replacement), and the worst president ever, even as they assured us that Fauci was trustworthy, and Hillary was going to win in 2016—that media—now tells us Putin wants to take over Eastern Europe and bring back Communism. Very odd that he never made such a move in the 22 years he’s been in power, and odder still that he brought back the Russian Orthodox Church which is by definition, antithetical to Communism. But I digress.
IF IT’S SCRIPTED, IT’S A PSY-OP
Of course, Usurper-in-Chief Biden merely parrots what Valerie Jarret et al. tell him to say. Following the script, Doddering Joe almost gleefully condemned Putin for his “unprovoked and unjustified attack” on Ukraine.
Eager to stay relevant and to promote the globalist agenda while playacting the part of a humanitarian, Hillary had this to say: “The world will hold Russia and Putin accountable for the human suffering and destruction this unjustified and unprovoked war will bring.” [Emphasis mine.] At least the scriptwriters changed the word order.
The irony, which we’re used to by now, is that Obama, Biden, Valerie Nuland, et al. supplied the provocation in 2014 with the overthrow of President Victor Yanukovych and his replacement with “rabidly anti-Russian, and far-right, Arseniy Yatsenyuk,” and have now, under the puppet Zelenskyy, upped the ante to the breaking point, making Putin’s move predictable, necessary and justifiable. And no, I’m not saying Russia should use nukes!
PSY-OP NUMBER THREE
At first glance, it may seem as if the unprecedented sequence of events since 2020 burst upon the scene haphazardly. But as FDR pointed out long ago, “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
And once we take into account the overarching NWO plan looming overhead in our day, suddenly all the separate mind-boggling events line up as sequential moves on a worldwide chessboard. The plan is actually simple: the Davos billionaires’ club and associated globalists, including our own Deep State and America-hating Dems and RINOs—in many cases über-rich malcontents—seek to enslave humanity worldwide in their long dreamed-of totalitarian utopia. That’s utopia for them—as the ruling class that owns the world and everything in it—and dystopia for We the People.
Three major psychological operations, aka psy-ops, have relatively recently unmoored our nation and the world, paving the way for the cabal’s New World Order/One World Government. The Covid Plandemic, the Color Revolution here in America that resulted in the theft of our 2020 election and President Trump’s ouster, and now the provoking of Russia regarding Ukraine, which could potentially result in WWIII.
Note that all three serve the globalists’ grandiose agenda. Putin, like Trump before him, is in the globalists’ way, so they’re endeavoring to remove him from power as well. Actually, Putin is the real target here. Ukraine, as usual, is being used as a pawn in the globalists’ game.
If in fact we’re seeing another psy-op by the Davos Reset elites to kneecap Russia and move the world closer to their dreamed of Great Reset dystopia, then the last thing we should be doing is demonizing Putin.
Our own hard Left Dems and Deep Staters, backed up by the likes of Soros, Gates, hefty international banksters and other members of the Billionaire-Sociopaths’ Club, had a relatively easy time ousting President Trump, who offered what they likely considered only mild pushback.
That means they took down one of the two remaining nationalist leaders of powerful countries, with only one to go. That one would be Vladimir Putin. And there’s an ominous war-cry against him in the media and political realm now. If you’re still in doubt as to which side is which, maybe a quote from George Soros, kingpin of Color Revolutions and installation of globalist puppets will make it clear: “We must stand with Ukraine, as they stand for us.” That’s advice from Soros, who, we can safely say by now, is evil.
CANCELLING RUSSIA
Adding fuel to the fire, many are jumping on the Virtue Signaling Bandwagon, trumpeting their support for Ukraine by boycotting Russia. Among others, we find Google, Microsoft, Apple, Disney, Adidas, Nike, H&M, BMW, Honda, Ford, Exxon Mobil, UPS, and more. Not to be outdone, California lawmakers, quick to get on the wrong side of any issue of importance, seek to force pension funds to divest of Russian assets. And Germany just stole a Russian fellow’s boat—his 600 million dollar yacht, to be precise. That oughta show Putin a thing or two.
Funny, I don’t recall anyone boycotting our actual enemy, China… Just sayin’.
DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER EUROPA?
And here’s something eerie from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz: “We are living through a watershed era. And that means that the world afterwards will no longer be the same as the world before.” Does this sound a bit like the New Normal to you? Me too. And like Biden et al., he condemns Putin for “…an absolutely unjustifiable attack on an independent country, on the peaceful order in Europe and the world.” [Italics mine]
Funny that no one mentions Ukraine was historically part of Russia, or that Zelenskyy, the West’s installed puppet, has made it illegal to speak Russian in Ukraine, or that there’s a militant segment of avowed neo-Nazis in Ukraine who participated in the coup d’état against Yanukovych. Details, details…
Scholz goes on to say: “It is clear that we must invest much more in the security of our country. In order to protect our freedom and our democracy. This is a major national undertaking. The goal is a powerful, cutting-edge, progressive Bundeswehr [German armed forces] that can be relied upon to protect us. … The 2022 federal budget will provide a one-off sum of 100 billion euros for the fund. We will use this money for necessary investments and armament projects.”
Hmmm… A much stronger, militarized, heavily armed Germany prepared to take on Russia. Does that ring any bells? Wasn’t the EU formed in part to protect the other European countries from the big guy smack in their midst, with a track record of aggression in two world wars? But I digress.
QANON AD INFINITUM
Not wanting to be left behind, the QAnon franchise has chimed in, recycling its hopium for the incurably naïve. For example, Dave of the X22 Report—whose recent broadcast was praised by another Q spokesman, Charlie Ward, in this small, incestuous cyber-world—reassures his listeners that Trump advises Putin behind the scenes. Dave may have forgotten that Trump is no longer President, and/or that if he were, even now as a private citizen, to reach out to Putin, quislings in the NSA would quickly discover and leak such radioactive phone calls to the New York Times and Trump might be facing a third impeachment, since the Dems haven’t read the Constitution, don’t understand or obey the rule of law, and never quit.
In Dave’s wily and self-serving imaginings, Trump and Putin also conspire with…wait for it…Zelenskyy! You see, they’re all involved in a massive plot to take down the Deep State, but they can’t let on about this because of…optics. In fact, the title of this episode of the X22 Report is: Planned Long Ago, Deep State Stronghold and Bioweapons Destroyed, Trump Never Telegraphs His Moves. These Q promulgaters sure know how to keep their monetizing going strong.
THE FEBRUARY 27TH DIRECTIVE
Our own Deep State, populated with NWO globalists, America-hating subversives and felonious traitors galore, got very busy on February 27th, sending out a veritable flock of rather alarming tweets calling for “regime change” in Russia.
On Sunday, February 27th, a member of the Brookings Institution tweeted out: Regime change: Russia, which another member immediately publicly seconded.
That’s not all. On the same day, the head of the snake, I mean of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, had this to say: “Just days ago much of the world was focused on the unwanted prospect of regime change in Ukraine. Now the conversation has shifted to include the possibility of desired regime change in Russia. A week can be a long time in politics.”
Notice the manipulative wordplay: Regime change in Ukraine is “unwanted,” while in Russia it’s “desired.” My question in both cases: by whom, Richard?
Nor was this Twitter 2/27th onslaught limited to the US. Swedish diplomat and former Prime Minister of Sweden Carl Bildt also chimed in: “All of us must now face the reality that we will not have peace in Europe until there is regime change in Russia. Then we should seek to welcome a new Russia as a partner for peace.”
And today, March 4th, the feckless RINO Lindsey Graham astonishingly tweeted: “The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.” Graham was repeating a statement he made on Fox News late Thursday in case you missed it. “You would be doing your country – and the world – a great service.” He even said, “Is there a Brutus in Russia?” Let that sink in. Lindsey’s publicly advocating the overthrow, by assassination, of a superpower’s leader and government for defending their own turf and interests.
By the way, does anyone else remember how these guys ridiculed Donald Trump for using Twitter to communicate directly with the nation? Guess they were just jealous…
SOME LAST THOGHTS
In 1997, renowned American diplomat George Kennan warned: Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations; and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.
Tragically, yet again, our leaders ignored this good advice and set out on a treacherous course instead.
A commenter on an Epoch News article had this to say: “From my 20 years traveling eastern/southern Ukraine, living there, in-laws there, kids born there, it’s clear to me the best solution is for Ukraine to be split in half, into a western Ukrainian speaking West Ukraine and a historical Russian speaking east Ukraine. The two countries would be autonomous buffers to Europe on the west and Russia on the east. Then peace could happen. Enough already.”
Here’s my two cents: You want to make sure WWIII doesn’t happen over a country Millennials couldn’t find on a map? Here are two suggestions:
Butt out of Putin’s business regarding the legitimate security needs of Russia
Ally with Putin against the NWO, recognizing that a US/Russia alliance could protect us from our real enemy, China, and throw a monkey-wrench into the Davos Cabal’s plans
What I have to say to those beating the war drums and clamoring for Putin’s scalp, as well as those buying the media’s anti-Russia narrative, is this: Be careful what you wish for.
You might one day find yourself agreeing with an online commenter, one of many anti-globalist bloggers, who posted this on a recent Epoch Times article: “Putin is the last hope for the world.”
Ukraine and Falsehood in the Time of War
By Boyd D. Cathey
My Corner
March 8, 2022
It happened the other night, it was nearly 3 a.m.—a telephone call in the middle of my slumber. I could hear it ringing from downstairs. Thinking it might be something serious at that late hour, perhaps a neighbor in distress, I picked up the receiver next to my bed.
The voice inquired: “Is this Dr. Cathey?”
“Yes,” I answered, still half asleep. “Who is this…what’s going on?”
The male voice at the other end continued: “We know who you are—you are a traitor to the United States, you are a Communist who supports that war criminal Putin. Well, you need to watch your back, ‘cause things can happen to traitors.”
That got my attention; I repeated: “Who is this…why are you calling me?” No answer, and my interrogator immediately hung up.
About my three recently published 2022 essays concerning Russia and Ukraine (on January 7, February 19, and February 25), I had already received a couple of very ugly, profane email messages earlier accusing me of being a “Putin apologist.” Unlike several correspondents and good friends who have expressed rational if very different opinions from the ones I have, those messages were unsigned. I am pleased to discuss the Ukraine crisis with friends, and I understand that if you express strong views, sometimes you’ll get blowback. But the depth of venom, hatred, even personal threats? Even as a strong supporter of my Confederate heritage and my support for keeping our monuments to that heritage up, I’ve never been the recipient of such unrestrained vitriol as now.
It got me to thinking about questions I ask anyone who approaches me about my stance on what is going on in Ukraine: Why the over-the-top passion on this topic? Why Ukraine? Why such an hysterical response when Ukraine and its position in Europe and in the world are not strategically important to us? After all, the United States has been on the invading-end of conflicts for decades…Bosnia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and so on. Yet, somehow our foreign ventures are always virtuous and noble? And what kind of outrage did we express for those hundreds of thousands of Tutsis killed in Uganda or the thousands of Kurdish inhabitants eliminated by our ally Turkey?
Look at the intensity and what can only be called unleashed hatred directed at anything Russian and its leader—look at the expansive, all-encompassing campaign, from North Carolina’s governor Roy Cooper ordering that all state liquor stores dump Russian-made vodka, to the firing of one of the world’s greatest classical music conductors Russian Valery Gergiev from his position as head of the Munich Philharmonic because he wouldn’t publicly condemn Putin (he’s also had contracts with the Metropolitan Opera and a dozen other musical organizations cancelled—which was never done even in the “hottest” moments of the Cold War), to the attempted banning in Italy of the works of the great Russian novelist Fydor Dostoevsky, to the suspension of Russian television broadcasting in the US, to the cancellation of dozens of sporting events which were to feature Russian athletes, to the growing persecution of Russians living in the West, including vandalism of the Russian embassy in France. The list of such actions is endless.
Why the frenzied fury and the passion?
There are, I believe, several reasons for this.
First, there is an imperfect analogy with what happened regarding Germany long after the end of World War II in 1945. I recall when I was growing up that every “war film” I watched featured a nasty and cruel, smartly-dressed uniformed German soldier, monocled, in jackboots, probably with a whip, who was personally responsible for all sorts of mayhem and vicious criminality and murder. We knew those Germans were all evil Nazis, and they were soon to be “taken out” by the super-courageous American grunts, who became in a strange way the “new supermen.” We could do anything…We never lost, and, in fact, in Hollywood our heroic and valiant boys kept winning glorious victories for three decades after Germany was defeated. We knew that Lee Marvin and “the Dirty Dozen” would get it done.
The Germans, you see, were intrinsically evil. And that meme built on the narrative dating from World War I. One of my great uncles would repeat to me when I was young a little ditty from that war, popular among Americans of the period: “Kaiser Bill went up the hill, to take a look at France; Kaiser Bill came down the hill, with bullets in his pants!”
And many of us over the age of forty will remember “the evil empire” that Nikita Khrushchev said “would bury us.” In primary school, I recall those air raid drills when we would crouch under our desks, lest a Commie missile somehow target our school. The Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam and the Tonkin Gulf affair—it was those evil Soviet Russians who were responsible. At that time, arguably, we at least had a convincing case to make about the Communists and their efforts at world domination.
Leftwing columnist Bill Press sums up what we hear constantly from the media: “It’s about a lot more than Ukraine,” he writes. “It’s about world security. It’s about the sanctity of national borders. It’s about the rule of law and the strength of international treaties. It’s about the future of democracy. It’s about the unchecked power of autocrats anywhere to invade and destroy their neighbors.”
Really? Let’s unpack that a little.
For far too many Americans, especially those self-identified conservatives, their view of Russian history just stopped sometime around 1980, frozen in time. It is as if Communism never went away, and all the characteristics of “the evil empire” are once again threatening the very existence of democratic, freedom-loving America (well, Ukraine is in the surrogate position as our client state). Putin has become—has channeled—Adolf Hitler, a kind of combination of Hitler and Stalin, intent on “restoring the Soviet Union” and conquering the world.
There are dozens of examples illustrating this theme, both in the media and in Congress, including such insane, frothing-at-the-mouth examples as Representative Adam Kinzinger embracing Senator Lindsey Graham’s call for assassinating the Russian leader or declaring a “no fly zone” over Ukraine, which would most likely lead to nuclear war.
Yet a careful reading of Putin’s actual comment about “the tragedy of the collapse of the Soviet Union,” offers a far different interpretation, as various scholars have indicated (e.g., Russia Against the Rest: The Post Cold-War Crisis of World Order, by Professor Richard Sakwa, and Vladimir Putin and Russian Statecraft, by Professor Allen Lynch). Putin has forthrightly condemned in the strongest terms both Communism and the hateful Soviet period of Russian history. Was he not correct to lament the break-up of the old union into fifteen economically-fractured, ethnically-divisive republics? Did not that break-up resemble in some ways the arbitrary and disastrous break-up of the old Austro-Hungarian empire which helped propel Europe into a Second World War?
A second reason is the intense “yellow journalism” media coverage of the conflict. Every national network, from CNN and MSNBC to Fox News, is acting like a well-oiled megaphone for Dr. Goebels’ propaganda bureau. It seems our media are attempting to outdo each other in portraying just how cruel and brutal those Russian soldiers are, and how evil that “reincarnation of Hitler in the Kremlin” is. There is practically no attempt at objective coverage, no attempt to balance the completely one-sided accounts. Thus, Jesse Waters, with a grim, deeply pained expression on Fox News Primetime detailing in lurid detail how Russians were attempting to explode Europe’s largest nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia and were raping defenseless Ukrainian women. Indeed, those stories still circulate as the latest Russian “outrage” and “war crime.”
But no one stops to question them. Why would the Russians launch strikes against a nuclear reactor that would, if exploded, potentially maim and kill hundreds of thousands of nearby Russians? Another different version, difficult to discover at Fox or CNN, is that Ukrainian irregulars occupied the administrative building at the site and began directing fire at oncoming Russian troops. No projectiles were aimed by the Russians at the nuclear component, and apparently now it has been safely occupied by them. But it is significant that the Ukrainian government continues to charge the Russians with attempted “nuclear blackmail.”
The independent journalist, Glenn Greenwald, has reported on a number of “fake news” pro-Ukrainian war memes spread across our supposedly “free and balanced” media. I list some of them here:
the inspiring story that the Ukrainian military shot down two Russian Il-76s transport planes (no evidence for this);
a Russian tank purposely and randomly ran over a civilian car (the video suggests an accident and, more importantly, subsequent news accounts acknowledged: “it wasn’t immediately clear if the armored vehicle was Russian or more likely Ukrainian hardware, or when this crash took place”);
a mega-viral thread from a member of the EU Parliament claiming Russian oligarchs and Putin were screaming at each other in a bunker in desperation (pronounced “likely disinfo” by the US-intel-friendly and vehemently anti-Russia site Bellingcat);
a gratifying story that Turkey told Ukraine that it informed Russia it was barred from using Turkish straits to enter the Black Sea (Turkey denied telling this to President Zelensky and said they could not and would not do that, then on Sunday said they had determined these events constitute a “war” such that they may have the power them to ban both Ukraine and Russia, but had not yet decided to so);
a thrilling photo of Zelensky in body armor on the front lines against Russia (it was from months ago), and,
claims that Russia targeted a civilian apartment building with a missile (it appears now that the missile was a misguided Ukrainian air defense weapon).
As in previous wars and conflicts in which the US has been involved I am reminded of what Senator Hiram Johnson (R-CA) said in 1917 about the First World War: “The first casualty when war comes is truth.” Every media pundit and announcer should be made to read the classic study of war propaganda parading as objective news: Arthur Lord Ponsonby’s Falsehood in War-time, Containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations During the Great War (1928). Remember the fake stories of German soldiers severing the hands of Belgian babies, the unprovoked sinking of the Lusitania (which was indeed carrying munitions to the Brits), and the violation of innocent nurses? Does this not remind us of what we are now seeing and hearing constantly on Fox and at other venues?
After six years of drenching Russophobia and dozens of fake news stories which conservatives rightly batted down and that were finally disproven, one would think that the torrent of lurid reports brought to us by those same newscasters, politicians, and Intel agencies would engender some serious doubts. But apparently not.
A third reason is the fevered view of our managerial elites who see Russia as the major obstacle to their efforts to achieve global suzerainty and a new world order. Klaus Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum, defined this movement as “the Great Reset,” the “window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world.” It combines the globalism of the Neoconservatives who have dominated the American foreign policy managerial class for decades under both Democrat and Republican presidents, with the xenophobic anti-Russian stance of those on the farther left who despise Putin for his purported persecution of homosexuals, refusal to countenance same sex marriage, and staunch defense of the traditional nuclear family (with these policies reflected in Russian laws and education).
Some on the far left have gone so far as to, once again, attempt to tie President Trump to Putin, yanking his comments out of context. But to call President Putin a “genius” (as Trump did) is not to endorse his actions with regards to Ukraine. No opportunity is lost to damn and paint as opposed to equal rights, even as racists those Americans, mostly traditional Christians, who have approved of Putin’s defense of the traditional family. The Washington Post asserts that over the past three decades many traditional Christians “have forged a partnership [with Russia] in a global family values movement that not only embraces sexual and gender traditionalism but sees these practices as a solution to demographic changes around the globe.” Obviously, then, such Americans are, to revive an old charge from columnist David Frum, “unpatriotic.” Or, as Senator Mitt Romney told Yahoo News, “almost treasonous.” Dissent from the anti-Russian template will not be tolerated. Is this not, then, “cancel culture” on an international level?
It should also be noted that many of the major voices of Neoconservatism—the Irving and Bill Kristols, the David Frums, the Max Boots, and others of Russian Jewish descent see a nationalist Russia, which openly embraces its Orthodox Christian heritage and traditions, as somehow the reincarnation of the old Tsarist empire which persecuted their ancestors who emigrated from the Pale of Settlement in the last years of the 19th and first years of the 20th centuries. Just as anti-Teutonic sentiment lingered long years after the end of World War II, so an animus against a revitalized nationalist, traditionally Orthodox Russia cannot be excluded as a reason for how prominent journalists and media personalities instinctively react to Putin’s Russia.
Some of the anti-Russian, or more precisely, anti-Putin managerial elites claim that the Russian president is (still) a KGB agent and a “thug.” Yet, a careful study of his life and his long-past membership in that organization (he held a desk job in Dresden in the defunct German Democratic Republic for a few years) give the lie to this portrait. As Professors Lynch and Sakwa detail at length (e.g., The Putin Paradox, by Sakwa, and Vladimir Putin & Russian Statecraft, by Lynch), Putin left the KGB and denounced it (just as he firmly denounced Communism). He was Deputy Mayor of Leningrad under and supporting pro-democrat Anatoly Sobchak, and when the August 1991 KGB counter-coup occurred it was Putin who saved Sobchak, then the leader of anti-Communist elements in Russia, from being arrested by the KGB. Charges of his personal corruption and venality are equally debunked.
But never mind the facts during war time. Our situation is one where attempting to ferret out something close to the truth is extremely difficult. As I have asked my friends—pleaded with them—can we not have just a bit of skepticism and doubt at all the suffocating feculence which is engulfing us?
And once again, my questions: Why? Why is Ukraine so goldarned essential and important that a prominent symphony conductor in Bavaria must lose his job and his contracts because he won’t publicly denounce his native country and its president? Or that we attempt to purge Dostoevsky or ban Russian films? Or that prominent American politicians urge actions which would inevitably entail nuclear war?
Thanks to Putin’s War in Ukraine The Race is On for the Great Reset
By Tom Luongo
Gold Goats 'n Guns
March 8, 2022
Vladimir Putin has become the pivotal figure of the 21st century. Of that there is no doubt. The size and breadth of the ground operation in Ukraine, despite some mistakes, has been impressive.
Before I go any farther I want to make sure that we’re clear. While the situation seems to be moving decidedly in Russia’s favor, I am willing to remain reasonably skeptical of all the reports I’ve seen so far.
The slowdown in the information flow over the past few days has been as impressive as the stated gains of the Russian military in Ukraine over that same timeframe.
Since what I’ve been seeing is repetition and amplification of the same maps and sources, nothing should be taken for granted about the outcomes in Ukraine for Putin and Russia. That said, let’s not get carried away in thinking the Ukrainian army is putting up much of a fight here, because they are not.
Bill Roggio’s article from the Times of London somehow made it through the media blackout on nearly all things moderately Russia-positive and lays things out for the normies in the audience.
Sympathy for the outnumbered and outgunned defenders of Kyiv has led to the exaggeration of Russian setbacks, misunderstanding of Russian strategy, and even baseless claims from amateur psychoanalysts that Putin has lost his mind.
A more sober analysis shows that Russia may have sought a knockout blow, but always had well-laid plans for follow-on assaults if its initial moves proved insufficient.
The world has underestimated Putin before and those mistakes have led, in part, to this tragedy in Ukraine.
What’s obvious to me is that Putin put in motion a plan far more ambitious than was originally expected by the West. Their hysterical overreaction to this decapitation of Ukraine is my barometer on this. Because of this hysteria there are now all manner of questions as to why Putin did this and why, in effect, he allowed the West to respond to this war this way. Thus generating some quite fanciful theories.
These rabbit holes are getting dug nearly as quickly as Russia’s armed forces have taken the northern coast of the Black Sea.
And I feel like all of them have a nugget of truth.
But they all lead to the same fundamental conclusion, in my mind. This has become a race between two radically different versions of The Davos Crowd’s plans for a Great Reset.
And what happens in Ukraine over the next few days/weeks will determine which path to the future we wind up on.
More Questions Than Answers
One of the big questions out there is the following: Why would Putin launch such a massive campaign if he knew the response would be so strong from the West?
Is it because he’s really a secret WEF stooge who is accelerating their plans for them by sacrificing Ukraine on the altar of their Brave New World?
In short, no. This is clearly a theory akin to the whole Q-tard, 4-d chess crowd who lap up CIA/MI6 disinformation to feed their growing solipsistic fugues. It’s just dumb. Davos et.al. are openly honest in their hatred of him. He’s stood athwart their plans for more than two decades now. There are factions who hated him less before troops crossed into Ukraine, now all of them have their marching orders.
Putin must be destroyed and MIlosevic’d.
The better way to frame that question would be to make the argument that Putin was their unwitting dupe here; goaded into a war he didn’t want, to give them the excuse to continue the Great Reset by pivoting off the failure of COVID-19 and onto him.
They could then manipulate market disruptions to their preferred ends.
This is where people like Martin Armstrong have landed this week. And I don’t begrudge anyone that conclusion. It’s at least closer to the truth, in my read. I believe they’ve gotten Davos’ motivation correct, but I do not think they have Putin’s correct.
Because it implies Putin did not game plan this out. That, I think, is also wrong, even Bill Roggio begrudgingly admits this.
In fact, I would think Davos going financial DEFCON 5 would have been #1 on his list of potential reactions from his adversaries because that’s the way they have reacted in the past to major challenges to their plans, c.f. The Election of Trump and Brexit.
It would be dumb of you to think Putin so thick.
Do you really think he wasn’t paying attention over the past six years? That he slept through the clear operation to take out Trump through election fraud and societal upheaval in the US in 2020?
The four years of libs lighting their hair on fire over every word that came out of his mouth?
The sham impeachment process of 2019 over a phone call with Ukraine?
Of course not. Putin and his staff are completely dialed in because the survival of their country demands it. They know better than the people making up these theories who exactly they are dealing with.
And for that reason the scenario that makes the most sense to me here is what I’ve been suggesting in my last few posts (here, here and here).
Who Cauldron is it, Anyway?
Putin is upping the operational tempo on the neolibs of The Davos Crowd in Europe and the White House and their neocon useful idiots in the US/UK foreign policy circles, Congress and intelligence services to create the ultimate geopolitical Russian cauldron for their avarice.
Ukraine represents everyone’s existential threat.
If the neocons lose, they are done as an influence within foreign policy circles in the West forever because they will have failed to penetrate Fortress Russia.
If Davos loses, their grand plans for global domination become diminished to, at best, the European Union and some parts of the Commonwealth.
If Russia loses, the entire Global South, as Pepe Escobar calls it, fails to escape the fiat, debt-based slavery of the Western central banking cartel, because they will control the flow of Russian natural resources in such a way that they will not be stopped. More on this later.
If you are wondering why everything about this war feels weird or off, it’s because the stakes are so high for everyone. These are the stakes for the world. And because of that you had to expect the quality of information surrounding it has literally dropped to the international price of Russian sovereign debt, i.e. zero.
Do not let Putin’s focus on finishing off Ukraine militarily blind you to thinking this is his true end goal. This is, as I said the other day, an opening salvo.
We’ve already seen that there is no appetite within NATO, which means both the US military and EU politicians, to go into a direct fight with Russia. That means there is no appetite for nuclear war. That doesn’t mean nuclear war is a zero-probability event.
It means there is no current appetite for it.
And the reason for that is the belief there is a way to stop Putin in Ukraine still exists within the minds of both the neocons at the State Dept. and Davos. That belief hinges on binding Putin in a land war in Ukraine he can’t win against an insurgency of the type and kind Whitney Webb just exposed the CIA has been building around the globe (including here in the US) for years now.
This has now become official US policy, setting up a Ukrainian Government-in-Exile in Poland while sending money there to support an al-Qaeda like guerilla army to harass the Russians. This makes sense since this is what we did in Syria, using Turkey as the staging ground for their assaults into Idlib and Aleppo.
This is likely the reason why Putin has been so adamant about ‘Denazifying’ Ukraine and speaking in absolute terms about their not receiving protections under the Geneva convention. Many of them are, in fact, foreign-backed actors, at least according to his intelligence.
So, regardless of the ‘fact’ that exterminating these men would be ‘war crimes,’ legally, Putin, with his Ph.D. in International Law, either doesn’t care or feels if he wins the war he will be able to make his case in any post-war tribunal.
You can see the attempts to paint Putin as reckless everywhere. The events at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant were reported to put all the blame on Russia while the silenced Russian information sources, including the Ministry of Defense, told a different story. I’m happy to bracket between the two to suss out the truth.
The longer the official war can be prolonged in Ukraine the more time the Davos-backed insurgency gets to form up while resupplying Ukraine’s west. It’s also why Putin has to up the operational tempo in Ukraine soon or he and his army could be in big trouble.
The Race up Oil Mountain
So the race to the end of the ground war is here. And with that shift, it’s time to back off the battle field and look at the capital markets to see what they are seeing. Because there is no military response coming from NATO other than guerillas.
The capital markets are supposed to be Davos’ turf while Russia is financially weak. But that is only if you look at things in nominal terms, nominal dollars, euros, etc. Russia has weapons it has only just begun to deploy here.
So, Act II has to be the financial war because the guerilla insurgency strategy only works if the governments in NATO’s pivotal countries don’t collapse. This is why Putin will have to make a move financially in the next few weeks.
Two minor moves have already been made. First, is the removal of VAT on purchasing gold for Russian citizens. The second he announced yesterday, avoiding default on foreign-held Russian debt by offering bond payments in rubles to bondholders.
But, these are minor moves. They simply signal to the world that Russia has the intentions to make good on its promises and not punish those who are ‘bystanders’ in this war between governments.
If I know Putin well, he will wait for his next big move so as to cause maximal damage in the financial markets and that means waiting to see how the central banks and capital markets respond to the big changes occurring within them right now.
I alluded to one of these moves the other day, saying
Those that brave the waters {Shell at -$28.50 to Brent} will get their {Russian} oil at a steep discount, those that don’t will pay through the nose, further accelerating the decline of those economies as inflation spirals out of control and the people put the blame, not on Putin, but on the people in charge.
Moreover, Russia has kept the gas flows going to ensure that money keeps flowing into the country to finance further expansion of its gold reserves.
And that’s the key, gold. Russia has oil it pulls out of the ground for >$10 per barrel.
If Biden decides to excise Russian energy from US markets (and talking with Maduro in Venezuela is a clear signal here) then Davos is pushing for this to further isolate Russian energy. The JCPOA was supposed to be signed this week to get Iran’s oil back into the market, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put a monkey wrench in that.
But it’s Iran’s model of resistance to US sanctions that is Russia’s model for the future. Simply put, sell gold for oil. During the pre-JCPOA period Iran did this with buyers depositing the gold in Turkish banks. Iran kept the oil flowing.
Third party oil trades (through Hong Kong maybe?) will also get around any sanctions for Russia and allow them to sell oil while making China a mint in transaction fees.
But the big move for Putin is quite simple (H/T to Luke Gromen for this) which is to offer up its oil at a steep discount to the futures price but only in gold, physical gold. The current ratio of gold to oil is ~17 bbls/oz.
All Putin has to do is begin a global run on physical gold. Oil is the M-zero of global trade. It is the trade on which all of the West’s financialization power is built upon. And that foundation is built on the petrodollar. By directly tying Russia’s marginal barrel produced to the price of gold far below market prices does two things.
First it creates a massive arbitrage opportunity for oil and gold that the market will fill. Second, it follows, it collapses the valuations of all assets priced in paper gold to the price of physical. So, either the price of everything collapses to maintain the fiction of $2000 gold or the price of gold rises to meet the new price.
This forces the West to come clean on just how much gold it actually has, creates a massive short-term run on physical gold and forces a repricing of everyone’s balance sheet.
And, that, my friends is the big weapon Putin is holding in reserve. He can afford to sell his oil at a deeply discounted price. I’m thinking 50 barrels/oz should do it. He forces the world to reprice oil in terms of gold, and then, by extension, rubles rather than the dollar.
This creates positive gold inflow into Russia to create a two-tiered ruble — the long-held dream of Sergei Glazyev — a domestic gold-backed ruble and a global circulating one which floats.
The key to understanding whether things are primed for this is looking not at Europe but at Saudi Arabia.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/03/ron-...ronavirus/
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/03/no_a...ias-trump/
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/03/no_a...me-of-war/
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/03/thom...eat-reset/