Ending this tragedy now would be the sensible thing; but the Globalists seem to think the American people will put up with twenty years and seven trillion dollars wasted for the same result, as they did with Afghanistan. The populations of the EU have already had enough, even if their leaders haven't.

The trouble with "western values" is that westerners don't value them. They think they value them, but all that reverence for free expression and holding power to account with the light of truth goes right out the window the second they see someone saying something that sharply differs from what their rulers and their propagandists have told them to think. Then they want that person silenced and shut down.

In truth, the most forceful critics of the western empire actually embody these western values infinitely more than empire apologists do. It is the critics of empire who value free speech and holding the powerful to account. It's the brainwashed bootlickers of the US-centralized empire who are calling for censorship and shouting down anyone who directs fierce oppositional scrutiny toward the most powerful people in the world.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The Trouble With 'Western Values' Is That Westerners Don't Value Them

Everyone who acts like it's a new and unprecedented horror whenever Putin reminds the west that Mutually Assured Destruction still stands is just admitting that they never understood what's at stake in this proxy war and always thought this was some kind of fucking game.

"Oh my God, he's saying he might use nukes!" Yeah that's what happens when you start a war with a fucking nuclear-armed nation, dipshit. That's why you're a fucking moron for yelling at those of us who've been calling for de-escalation and detente. Change how you are. Stop cheerleading this insane game of nuclear chicken and begin calling for de-escalation.

It's so crazy how people pretend the US wouldn't use nukes in response to the exact same type of attacks that Putin is warning against. Like we all know this isn't some weird new threat that Vladimir Putin invented, right? Do we understand that this is the very reason antiwar activists have spent years warning against this exact confrontation and calling for detente instead?

This shouldn't scan as something new for you. If Putin reiterating the longstanding principle of Mutually Assured Destruction makes you freak out like something new is being said, it's because you didn't pay attention in history class. If you were previously unaware that the threat of nuclear annihilation was baked into this proxy war from the very beginning, that just means it's time to reassess your support for this proxy war.

Yes this situation is insanely dangerous. No that's not because of anything Putin has been saying.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Idiots Are Just Discovering That This War Is Dangerous

As the US empire continues to escalate aggressions against both Russia and China, as Moscow warns that "strategic nuclear weapons" may be used to protect the territories it plans on annexing from eastern Ukraine even as Washington prepares to ramp up its proxy war spending in that nation once again, as nuclear-armed powers which refuse to compromise with each other accelerate toward direct confrontation with nobody's foot anywhere near the brake pedal, it's probably a good time to pause and re-evaluate our priorities in life.

Reading by Tim Foley.

As We Closer To WW3, It's A Good Time To Reassess Our Priorities In Life

The best western journalists are overwhelmingly despised while the worst are acclaimed millionaires. Western civilization is built on lies, dependent on lies, powered by lies. Don't seek widespread approval. It's worthless.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The Best Journalists Are Persecuted And Despised

The New York Times, which consistently supports every American war, has published an op-ed by a neoconservative think tanker titled "Biden’s Cautious Foreign Policy Imperils Us".

This would be Joseph Biden, the president of the United States who has been consistently vowing to go to war with the People's Republic of China if it attacks Taiwan, and whose administration has been pouring billions of dollars into a world-threatening proxy war in Ukraine which it knowingly provoked and from which it has no exit strategy. With this administration's acceleration toward global conflict on two different fronts, one could easily argue that Biden actually has the least cautious foreign policy of any president in history.

Reading by Tim Foley.

I'm Sorry, Biden's *WHAT* Foreign Policy??

Someone who believes the US or its proxies sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines can tell you exactly what they'd stand to gain from it and how little it would cost them. Someone who believes it was Russia has to perform weird mental contortions about Moscow sending some kind of message to the world and Putin being insane, or entertain the absurd notion that Russia could only stop Europe from obtaining Russian natural gas by destroying Russian pipelines. This says a lot about whose arguments are stronger.

The west has blamed Russia for bad presidents, for western racism, for western political divisions, for inflation, for pretty much every bad thing western power structures are responsible for, but blaming Russia for attacks on Russian pipelines is probably going to take the cake.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Nobody Who Supports NATO Is A Moderate

At the risk of upsetting the entire internet, the annexation of those four Ukrainian territories seems like a great time to end this war to me. Does anyone honestly believe a significant percentage of the people who live there want a massive counteroffensive on their doorstep? I don't.

The west knowingly provoked this war, the thing experts warned for years would happen did happen, and now Ukraine lost some territory. Rather than risking millions or billions of lives escalating this conflict, it seems sensible to draw a line under it. You can yell "Putin bad!" and "International law!" all you want, but it's just a cold hard fact that after the annexation the US/NATO/Ukraine tandem is going to be presented with the choice of either ending the bloodshed or massively, massively escalating it. Pretty easy choice, in my opinion.

Reading by Tim Foley.

This Would Be A Wise Stopping Point For This War

The moronic narrative that the invasion of Ukraine was "unprovoked" poses a massive obstacle to peace, because if Putin is just attacking and invading countries solely because he's crazy and evil it means detente is impossible and he won't stop until he's decisively crushed. If it's accepted that the US empire has played no role in provoking Putin's actions, that means there's nothing the empire could do to make continued Russian aggression less likely apart from regime change, or at least severely crippling and punishing Russia militarily.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The Narrative That This War Was "Unprovoked" Prevents Peace

Back in 2013 The Atlantic published a solid article titled "The Real Cuban Missile Crisis," subtitled "Everything you think you know about those 13 days is wrong." Its author Benjamin Schwartz details how the crisis was peacefully resolved not because JFK was on the phone yelling "Try and die" at Nikita Khrushchev, but because he secretly cut a deal to remove the Jupiter missiles the US had stationed in Italy and Turkey which provoked the 1962 incident in the first place.

Moscow perceived that the only reason why that type of midrange weapon would be placed in such a way would be if the US was planning a nuclear first strike to disarm Russia, and Schwartz writes that that suspicion was entirely well-founded: the Kennedy administration had indeed strongly contemplated such a strike during the Berlin crisis of 1961. In response to this threat, as well as the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, Khrushchev moved ballistic missiles to Cuba, whose discovery led to the tense standoff which brought us far closer to nuclear annihilation than most of us care to contemplate. A secret deal was struck whose nature wouldn't become public knowledge until decades later, resulting in both sides removing their offending missile placements.

Reading by Tim Foley.

We Survived The Last Nuclear Standoff Through Compromise And De-Escalation

The official narrative promoted by the entire western political/media class is that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February of this year solely because he is evil and hates freedom. He wants to conquer as much of Europe as possible because he cannot stand free democracies, because he is another Adolf Hitler.

The official narrative is that while Russia is in Ukraine solely because its leader is an evil monster like Hitler, the US is in Ukraine solely because its leaders are righteous. The United States is providing arms, military intelligence, and assistance on the ground from special ops forces and CIA officers to Ukraine, as well as implementing an unprecedented regime of economic warfare against Russia, solely because the US loves its good friends the Ukrainians and wants to protect their freedom and democracy.

The Official Narrative On Ukraine

Every year around my birthday I've been tapping out an explanation of where I stand and what I'm trying to accomplish in this humble little slice of the digital universe here. As a crowdfunded writer it seems important to be fully transparent about what I'm doing and where I'm coming from so that people can decide on their own if my strange operation is something they care to support, and since my readership has grown a fair bit over the last year I figure I should repeat the yearly tradition.

Reading by Tim Foley.

What My Little Project Here Is All About

Readings of all Caitlin Johnstone's articles, usually by her co-writer Tim Foley.

This Would Be A Wise Stopping Point For This War

Caitlin Johnstone

Recent comments

Christopher Coleman

Related tracks