Do you remember trying to comprehend the emphatic denial by Iraq’s “Baghdad Bob” (i.e. Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf) in March 2003 that there were no U.S. troops nor tanks in Baghdad? Most of the cable news networks juxtaposed Bob’s claim with live film of tanks rolling through the streets. Looking foolish was the least of his problems. Made me wonder what would lead a man of education and experience to so fiercely embrace a lie. The world witnessed the same phenomenon with Adolf Hitler during his final days in his bunker beneath the rubble strewn streets of Berlin.
Then comes Ukraine and Russia’s “Special Military Operation” and the spirit of Baghdad Bob is being channeled through a host of politicians, pundits and erstwhile experts. The following is an example (I am declining to name the writer to minimize further embarrassment to him) of the Baghdad Bob delusion:
Russia right now is under extreme stress and Russian leaders are tense and unhappy. The operation in Ukraine has not only ground to a halt, but Russia continues to suffer agonizing losses of men and material. It has had to make secret deals with Iran and North Korea to have enough ammunition and supplies to stay in the war. Its home industry is too tardy and underfunded to be able to keep up with demands for urgent production of war goods. It has run out of soldiers, drafting middle age and older men and yanking prisoners from confinement to serve on the two main fronts of the Ukraine conflict. None of this has seemed to work. Every day Russia makes more military blunders and Putin has just fired one of his top commanders, General Alexander Lapin. While Russian opinion polls (which may be fake) claim Putin is still popular, he is facing a grim future if the losses turn into a complete route and the Russians have to evacuate Ukraine. In fact, Russian commanders are now preparing to evacuate the important city of Kherson, claiming that it is of no importance (which is complete nonsense).
The gentleman who wrote the preceding paragraph is well educated, well spoken and a veteran of the U.S. Department of Defense. I have known him for a short time and know that he is not a liar. What stuns me is that he genuinely believes this. Maybe we should call this “Flat Earth Syndrome?” It consists of embracing as fact assertions that are contradicted by actual evidence.
I want to deconstruct some of his claims.
The operation in Ukraine has not only ground to a halt, but Russia continues to suffer agonizing losses of men and material.
The objective reality is that Russia has stepped up its aerial campaign and has destroyed critical power and energy nodes throughout Ukraine. How does that translate into “ground to a halt?” It is true that neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians have been able to move very far or very fast on the ground during the last three weeks. But that is because the fields and dirt roads are mud pits. If you want to move overland in Ukraine you need to be on a paved road and, if you do that, you make yourself a prime target for artillery and air strikes. Despite the rain soaked ground, Russian forces have continued to advance in the Donetsk, albeit slowly.
What about the “agonizing losses of men and material?” Last I checked it is Ukraine, not Russia, that is begging for more cowbell from the United States and NATO. And Ukraine is so short of able bodied soldiers that the mobilization that started in March was extended to November 21. Not my opinion, that is the claim of a Ukrainian official in charge of “recruitment” made just last week (October 24):
The Ukrainian army needs additional troops so all men under 60, who are liable for military service, should expect draft notices, head of the Kiev City Center for Recruitment and Social Support Yury Maximov said.
“There is a need for additional [troops]. We need to increase our potential,” he said in an interview with the TSN news agency. “Clearly, we must have enough defense troops. I believe that the mobilization campaign will continue,” Maximov added. . .
Martial law was imposed in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The next day, the State Border Service announced a prohibition on Ukrainian men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving the country until martial law was over. In August, the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) once again extended martial law and a general mobilization campaign for 90 days, until November 21.
https://tass.com/world/1526665
Russia, by contrast, has had one mobilization and just announced it had been completed. If you want to see how desperate the West is to control this narrative just do a google search with the terms “Ukraine” and “Mobilization.” The vast majority of the results are stories about Russian mobilization. You really have to dig deep to find the facts about Ukraine’s staggering losses.
What about this claim?
Every day Russia makes more military blunders and Putin has just fired one of his top commanders, General Alexander Lapin. While Russian opinion polls (which may be fake) claim Putin is still popular, he is facing a grim future if the losses turn into a complete route and the Russians have to evacuate Ukraine.
I have discussed in an earlier piece that the appointment of General Surovikin represented a shift in Russia’s approach to the Special Military Operation. Surovikin was named Supreme Allied Commander and given control of all Russian forces in Ukraine. Before he assumed that position the commanders in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporhyzhia operated independently.
How is Ukraine supposed to force Russia to retreat without robust, effective combat air, guaranteed supplies of artillery shells and an ample tank force, not to mention healthy soldiers to operate these weapon systems? The answer is simple–they won’t and they can’t. The Ukrainian armed forces are degraded severely today compared to what they could put on the field of battle on February 24th. I challenge anyone to make the case that Ukraine is stronger, more capable today than they were eight months ago.
The foolish analysis I highlighted above is but a symptom of a sickness that has infected the West (and I am not talking about Covid). The descent of the West into the thicket of lies is not confined to indulging fantasies about the military situation Ukraine. The corrupted culture of the West also proselytizes that there are more than two genders, that men can be pregnant, and that windmills and solar panels are sufficient to power modern societies. Hell, we were told the Covid vaccine would keep people from getting Covid. I think the underlying cause for the delusional thinking that dominates Western economics, politics, medicine and popular culture is that the West has adopted a rigid, intolerant ideology that is reminiscent of the intellectual sclerosis rooted in Marxism that led to the death of the Soviet Union. The Russian people learned some hard truths in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet empire. I believe that the people of the United States and Europe are going to experience a similar rude awakening. And it won’t be pretty.
What do you think? Why are so many smart people embracing objectively false narratives?
Agreed on all points. But I know a number of people, who are otherwise intelligent, that buy into all these things. Pointing out facts only drives them into a frenzy. There seems to be an existential crisis in the West that is centered on the ability to control not only the narrative but also the battlefield. In spite of any contrary information that may surface, the majority of the people (not just the governments) of the West insist that everything is great for them and the Ukraine and terrible for any of their enemies (Russia being the main one). It’s going to be a hard fall and it will likely be accompanied by continued denial and rationalization.
I agree all the way except for not putting out this stupid and foolish man,s name. What in the world on what planet is he living on? Put his name out and I will have a time to joy of his idiocy. He can compete with Biden. I thought. I had two men I hated so much, but now it’s three. Biden, Zelensky and now this unnamed moron.
Put the quote or part of it into a google search and see what unfolds.
Indeed. Five second search to ‘Jim’. Let’s not further abuse our host’s privacy wishes though.
Please show me which portion of the screed you googled. I couldn’t find an exact match after the complete text and several partial text searches. I would like to know the sadly misinformed person who is given a platform to peddle lies.
Hate is such an ugly word. Do you know what true hate feels like? I hope you never do. Please, understand, I disagree with their choices in life, Biden, Elenski and the unnamed person.
the same here….
The simple explanation is that they are Panglossian.
As far as they are concerned all is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds.
Russia threatens to expose the falsehood, so it must be demonized.
Ditto China.
Ditto Iran.
Ditto Venezuela.
The West can not be the best of all possible worlds if there are “others” that take a good hard look at what the West has become and said “Thanks, but no thanks. We don’t want to hitch a ride in your clown car.”
It is precisely because they are ‘smart.’
Who is most likely to understand wtf is going on right now? Computer nerds? Baristas? Civil servants? HR drones? Of course not.
Or is it truck drivers, construction workers, factory workers, small business owners, and farmers?
We are often told that MAGA is living in an alternate reality. That’s sort of true, except I would just call it reality. For it is they who confront reality on a daily basis and transform it with their labor.
These other people mostly sit in chairs and / or push buttons all day. Mostly pointless servant labor.
They are institutionalized. After all they have all those fake zeros in their pensions to worry about!
Indeed, who has really lost touch with reality?
Once you start to see things through the lens of class warfare it all makes sense.
“It is precisely because they are ‘smart.’” — yes, rat-cunning smart.
I think the Enron case study puts the matter in perspective.
[Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a 2005 American documentary book and film based on the best-selling 2003 book of the same name by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind,..]
Fear. It’s fear. They don’t want to be kicked out of the cult. Also, there is a good chance that some of these people are fearing actual bodily harm if they speak out of turn. They could be canceled, fired, disowned, disappeared. Anything could happen. My older brother works at, THE AGENCY. With some of the things he told me about, the powers that be will do ANYTHING, to stay in power and keep everyone under control. By any means necessary.
It’s fear of “not being the good guys anymore” and they will go to the death of their sanity to prove they still are.
when was the west the “Good Guys”It has always been a magicians trick.native americans,black people,mexicans,chinese (1800,s),irish immagrants,italians,polish,arabs,labor leaders,communists,socialists,chinese and russians again.ask these people how they feel about it.Larry istrongly disagree with not naming people.you give them a pass on evil,or stupidity.those judges who sign no knock warrants that go horribly wrong must be named or there is no responsibility.they must be called out!
Nor do I doubt for a second that Europe has been threatened. And I don’t mean physically. Just listen to the ridiculous statements of the Swedish PM who could not disclose the author of the sabotage of the gas pipelines to his own people for reasons of national security?!?!? Which the German Chancellor exchanged for public interest. And we all know that it is in the interest of all Germans not to know the saboteur of their own lives! And we also learned something else. That with the proliferation of Russophobia in Europe that began in 2019, after all, it was not Russia that sabotaged its own gas pipelines. Thesis that still occupied the MSM for several weeks! As incredible as it may seem to someone who has just arrived on planet earth.
Just three (3) things.
“This above all: To thine own self be true.”
“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”
Regarding the Nazis, George Patton said it out loud. “The victors always end up becoming the very thing they once fought against.”
And here we are.
I agree. They will never bite the hand that feeds them. I saw these type of people in my former school system. Anyone who thinks the future is rosy, is myopic.
CCP always described in exactly that language
It appears to me that it has got to the point where these clowns fully believe their own propaganda and, as you say, too fearful to even consider believing anything else.
The “Russia is just a gas station masquerading as a country” and “Russian military has always been and still is crap” so called truisms were created decades ago and got built on in the interim by everyone from Ivy League professors to think tanks to politicians and media. The result is shallow, compromised, ignorant people at all levels, in all spheres.
One positive is that the Russians appear to know these clowns well and seem to playing their cards with that knowledge in mind.
“Fear”
The pie shrinking, austerity without improved productivity. No hope for future growth.
Simply, the “west” cannot compete economically with the “east”
Fear
The old tricks do not work, the nagging suspicion that the facade of superiority is false – i.e. awareness that the “west”s competitors / rivals / enemies can effectively penetrate and counter the “west”s trickery.
Knowledge cannot be contained – North Korea demonstrates this, as well as Iran. Knowledge made apparent in weaponry.
The nagging suspicion that the weapons don’t work, and the “west” is incompetent – e.g., Boeing 737Max, subprime, F35, Patriot, mRna.
Knowledge made apparent in confident suppression of “color revolutions” – e.g. Kazakhstan.
“Smartness” the narcissistic consolation prize of the “western” education. I am better than you. The intellect, before succumbing to madness, is very cruel.
Putin once said
– Valdia ? Munich ? Year end news conference ? Year end call in ?
If the “west” continues its current behavior there will come a time when you ask for help and no one will help you.
I find it interesting how so
many conservatives think
Putin is such an evil man and he is failing Russia. The mainstream media is liberal, if not communistic; so why do they lie about Russia and Putin of he is like them? The reality is he is nothing like them and he is succeeding. Liberals hate one group more than anyone.. White Christian men.
Bravvvoo Andrew…all the media in the world are coummunistic or liberal;that is the same!!!!And the most endangered spicies on the world is..White Christian men!Rise up brothers!!
Yes indeed brother 🙂
“Liberal” is not “communistic”. Russia is not communist and neither is Putin. He is an Orthodox Christian, and maybe that is why he is hated souch by the liberal West.
Yes, that’s my point friend !
Simple, they are still liberals – liberal as in so-called liberal democracy. They’re just the bad cop in the good cop / bad cop dynamic of the world’s policeman.
I would look at what these ‘conservatives’ do for a living, it will tell you much.
On the genuine role that “Conservatism” serves in our two-party system, here are a few hard truths emanating from a distinguished man in – wait for it – the late 19th century. Already it was obvious that this “Conservatism” never conserved anything.
“This [Northern conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always when about to enter a protest very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance: The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip.”
Robert Lewis Dabney
Excellent, thought provoking piece.
I think psychologically a great many people lack consistent, reliable personal boundaries. And that absent these, it’s almost impossible for them to have a moral compass (which includes a functional BS detector).
Lacking such, they are like untethered adolescents.. just ambling from temporary buzz to buzz.
Like children of dysfunctional families, they crave stability and defer to the facade of authority. But they’re unable to discern healthy and competent authority from abusive authority, so they constantly vaccilate between reflexive compliance and teenage rebellion.
Good comments. It’s a combination of moral compass with a strong BS meter. You have to born with both, and you have to have enough experience to further develop both. That’s why the 10% estimate is so low.
Related to moral compass, if you do the bidding of who’s paying you, or you want to be the next upcoming big thing, then you become a slave to the “authorities” of that system. Moral compass either doesn’t exist or gets buried. This is how peacetime DoD promotes. When the social environment doesn’t provide repurcussions or negative consequences for immoral or bad behavior, then everything goes to shiite. This is where we are today.
I’m still amazed at how many so-called intelligent people fell for the Covid garbage. And yet nearly all of the ordinary working folk I know – barbers, mechanics, cleaners, gardeners, painters, etc. – knew instinctively that it was all lies.
You would also think that after the Iraq lies were revealed when no WMDs were found, people would at least be more hesitant to believe war rhetoric again. The same people who called out “fake news” regarding Trump, buy the same narratives from the same people on Iraq and now this proxy war. No learning from a past mistake, no critical thinking. I think there is a problem with automatically trusting people in positions of authority, so logic and critical thinking go into suspended animation. I think it comes down to sources and that’s where the guys running the show have so much institutional control over the narratives we get fed. The first casualty of war is the truth. I automatically begin by not trusting those sources automatically from the start but dig into matters to see where that origin may be. Lies have an origin point. There’s other information out there if folks just look more. JMO
It’s extraordinary that the serial foreign policy failures of the last 25 years are still given any air time.
Did you watch the movie “Don’t Look Up”?
If you didn’t – watch it. Not because it is particularly good as a cinematographic piece, but I think it is astoundingly good at describing the current state of the US elite if you look past the attempt to make cheap partisan stabs.
The scientists and the experts are sloppy and corrupt and just want TV time, the politicians are imbeciles driven by money from the private sector and finally the private sector have some ideas but can’t implement them well and have no fallback plans. In order to cover for their failures they tell the populace to not look up, ignore the reality and that everything is fine. And people do, until everything blows up.
So why are so many smart people embracing objectively false narratives? Because they are constantly told to not look up, and looking up is punished while not looking up is praised. What would a smart person do then?
Yeah, you have a good perspective on the film. The obsession with legacy and social media….! some of my favourite actors in this film. Mark Rylance is such a good actor. Look up Wolf Hall. its one of my favourite television series – truly seperb !
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/will-biden-gamble-on-a-ukraine-coalition/
MacGregor takes apart the latest neo con “idea” trotted forth by the neo con wind up shill, patraeus.
Military strategy is about the relationship of means to ends. National political and military leaders are preoccupied with means and think too little about ends. It is not enough to be a good technician, today’s political and military leaders must be serious strategists, acutely sensitive to the limits which America’s strengths and weaknesses impose on strategic choices.
The cost to Americans and Europeans of escalating the conflict should not be underestimated. The president and his generals must appreciate how injurious military failure would be to an American society already weakened by 20 years of self-defeating deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. American military morale is at a low point. Recruiting for the U.S. Armed Forces, especially the ground forces, is harder than at any time since the 1970s. American economic performance is fragile. Europe’s economic outlook is bleaker still.
In his fight with Russia, Bonaparte not only badly misjudged his opponent, but he also grossly misjudged his allies. President Biden and his generals should not make the same mistakes in Ukraine.
“Why are so many smart people embracing objectively false narratives?”
Russophobia … and …
reluctance to admit that what some of us naively call “our civilisation” is actually in decline …
Sorry, I was not replying to you Taras but to Mr Johnson’ question ….
You cannot have a country run on endless war and endless warmongering. Ultimately, the people go insane.
“The gentleman who wrote the preceding paragraph is well educated, well spoken and a veteran of the U.S. Department of Defense.”
Wow, that was a real potpourri of wishful thinking on his part. Probably he’s on Arestovych’s hotline.
I’d guess he used a compactor to get them all into one paragraph.
Many so called smart people are not smart, they only think they are smart, or worse, smarter than everyone else….Critical thinking, according to some researcher, is only within something like 10% of the populace. To outthink all the lies, half truths, pre determined narratives, one must possess critical thinking to weigh out all the various angles to determine if they connect or loose. Another thing re so called smart people, they often get fixated on their opinions or personal bias, unable to even try and reason outside of their comfort zone. Ex: some people refuses to try certain food for fear of the unknown, even though their sense of smell and sight tells them the food would likely be delicious, and yet, they refuse.
Those ‘smart’ people are selected for their obedience to authority, as Chomsky points out here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcpcytUnWU
Which researcher, please?
My answer to the problem at hand: First of all, human intelligence is quite limited. Then there is fear, specially for those close to true power, and also a similar factor, for a closely related bracket of people – the more people are successful in society, the more they tend to identify with it, namely its belief system.
Touché. I have a nephew who’s a cancer researcher and considers the WaPo and NYT the definitive sources for Russia/Ukraine doings.
I asked him once, that when Merck or Pfizer etc. come out with a promising new drug therapy, do you only read the studies coming from them or do you widen your field to independent studies? He replied, “Of course I don’t just look at their studies.”
So I asked him, “Then why do you hang your hat on the WaPo and NYT as definitive sources? It’s the same thing.”
Deer in headlights look.
We are watching the cognitive dissonance that many people faced at the 2016 elections. Their narrative did not match the results thus their conclusions meant the US was either a racist country, and/or subverted by Russia, the start of the Russia Gate narrative.
We are in a similar space now, that Russia, not even in the G7, facing the combined might of the West is still able to win, cognitive dissonance will occur making the people ripe to another false narrative. In which direction will the elite try to push this narrative, I don’t know. Many people are saying they would just memory hole it, like the failure in Afghanistan.
I wonder if that’s even the correct question to bother asking at all? Essentially, people are going to believe what they want to believe, not to sound too basic but I’ve come to that conclusion in my own household. Other factors are the obvious ones many have commented and suggested on like laziness, denial, follow the herd mentality, or brainwashed for lack of a better term.
As absolutely frustrating as it is, like Putin who says he has given up negotiating with the collective West/Washington but then the trickles of continued offers still come through, I personally just have to let it go as there’s nothing, and I mean nothing, I can do to have a horse drink no matter how many times I’ve lead it to water. Part of me has succumbed to the “less is more” philosophy. The one person I see who has the capacity to get Red-pilled is Jordan Peterson. With his followers, to me he’s teetering on the edge of eventually admitting what’s going on. He’s danced around this issue for many months now but just hasn’t made that final realization yet. In the end, why should I care.
Sorry for the blabbering non-answer but I’ve had to compartmentalize some of these world changing events to my own eyes and what I read on my laptop from a secluded and very rural homestead in Canada.
Yes I agree with all you’ve said. It’s interesting to watch Peterson teetering on the edge of Christianity…because that’s what we are witnessing. When man has convinced himself that he is the be all and end all of the cosmos, and he can make this earth a paradise he will continue down that road no matter the evidence to the contrary. Alfred, save your own soul and let God convert the rest. That’s work enough for anyone.
Also note that NATO has sent most of its ammunition to Ukraine, Generals don’t want to send the rest of their war reserves, and new production is very limited. Also, most trains in Ukraine need electricity to move stuff and this not available to them.
The Russians will attack soon and not screw around in Eastern Ukraine. A Corps of around 40,000 troops will push south from Belarus to cut off Kiev from Poland, another Corps will push up north from Kherson to connect in a vast pincer movement.
Game over. Z will flee or be ousted in a coup. An agreement will give Russia Eastern and Southern Ukraine.
Good to see you Carlton. Russia will wind up with the Azov/Black Sea coasts. But it won’t be by the decree of an agreement. They will win it, hold it, that’s that. I suppose what’s left of the rump would agree, but it’s going to be moot, no? Any who, thanks for G2Mil. Boy, were you were right about Ford Class. Bet money they sent a substantially not mission capable carrier up to NATO when they sent Ford up to NATO this past week. God help those kids out there. All of them out there.
Excellent.
Sooner the Uki show is over we can start on the Taiwan show.( Short and sweet, no ads.)
The biggy will be the American Civil War 2 show. It will be a series made for social media with no end in sight. Manic cougars with sausage lips and squirrel nut cheek pouches, screaming non stop. Total MAGA – Trump-Putin hysteric’s. White men hate, is the new black.
Another planet altogether would be nice. Blue chicks might be ok, once you get used to the long tail l suppose. Gotta be better than lies without end.
after thousands of polack soldiers died in ukraine soils wearing mercenary uniform , it would be hard for poles to do any military provocation to belarus
I agree, this is the most likely scenario.
But overall this is interesting.
California ANG was training UAF since early 90s. Various western agencies have been herding Ukie nazis since WWII and NATO black ops/special forces military training their forces since at least 2014.
Nonetheless there does not seem there was any desire for Ukraine to “win” this conflict or for NATO to “win” any greater conventional conflict that grew out of it. Otherwise Ukraine would have had HIMARS and modern artillery from the outset, with ammo plants set up in Poland and Germany. Even now there is only a small inadequate push to replenish ammunition in the west. Ukraine would also have needed A10 and F16 squadrons and USA’s best air defense systems. There was plenty of time to do all of this and more, but no serious attempt was made.
One needs to ask what is the overall purpose of this charade??
First, the US has as much chance of succeeding in a war against Russia on its border as Russia has of succeeding in a war against the US in Mexico. We are no longer in the 70s and those equipments you are talking about have to travel to another continent. With conventional missiles that weren’t available in the 70’s!
But Biden couldn’t be clearer. Bleed Russia and Regime change in Moscow! He just didn’t mention the part of disconnecting the EU and China from Russian commodities because it’s even more obvious. We are talking about avoiding the consolidation of a Euro-Asian economy – without dollars – which is now worth 50 trillion a year. Against 20 trillion of US GDP.
Very good question.
Maybe this whole thing is a Psy-Op by the WEF Gang.
Ukraine is not supposed to “win”; it is supposed to play its part in jabbing the Bear.
Question is: when the Bear eats the Ukes what’s next?
Mass psychosis.
…caused by large mortgages and student loan debt.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Upton Sinclair
Your questions are part of the “over analyzed problem” with “smart, well educated” people. Americans have forgotten “true grit”, calling a spade a spade…there’s no “problem” with this guy you don’t know well, he has the same “facts” as you… so therefore… he indeed is a LIAR. The brainwashed Americans are simply sugar coating flat out liars as if they have a “dissonance “ problem, or some such thing, when the truth is, they “prefer the lie”…and they are not called out for the liars they are. Hum… seems this very “theme” is in the BIble…
Great points
I think one underlying issue is the human tendency to think many people repeating the same talking points or theories lends credibility to whatever is asserted. We see this in modern science with appeals to consensus. Opinion polls are used by media as much to enforce conformity as to measure.
Rather than bolstering the underlying facts, consensus thinking just creates more pressure to conform to apparent authority. Only a small subset of people are disagreeable, in psych terms, enough to stand up to the mob. Even people brave in other contexts will often buckle to perceived social pressure.
Anyone thinking for themself being accused of repeating Russian talking points (where can we even get those any more after all the censorship?) adds more incentive to go along with the mob. Military folks in particular want to be “team players” and don’t want to be seen as supporting the other side.
But facts have a nasty habit of not caring about any of those things
Comfort in crowd-think. Much like the dolts in the climate change cult: their echo chambers provide a safe environ for their psychobabble. Russia will be providing a much needed kick to teats of the 404-supporters.
Our small groups of like-minds were correct with Covid-1984 and now with 404. Not like the trajectory will be affected by us, unfortunately.
I keep seeing the “404” thing. What is it?
FGB3…404 error codes are generated when a user attempts to access a webpage that does not exist, has been moved, or has a dead or broken link. The 404 error code is one of the most frequent errors a web user encounters.
Glad I could help educate you yet again… you are welcome…
we live in the times of Idiocracy. 70+ years of peace and plenty in the west have bred generations that overwhelmingly have not had a more traumatic experience than, say, death of an elderly relative. Naturally they have a completely distorted, unrealistic perspective. An iron ingot must pass through fire, pressure and hard beating to become hard steel. Good times produce weak men…
Here is the interesting thing about our system – like it or not you are a part of it, you cannot extract yourself from it and with that, you are enjoying the fruits of exploiting someone else.
Consider the climate change debate, it is difficult to point fingers when your house is cooled in the summer, heated in the winter, stuff is delivered via Amazon dot com and you are enjoying that carbon-costly cruise vacation.
Morally, the west is bankrupt but it is also “all in” on the bankruptcy and at the end this is a war of control of dwindling resources. The West needs someone else to “power” it while it collectively pursues the 5th wheels, the big trucks, the expensive overlanding hobbies, the travel, the youtube vlogs, the companies that “connect people online” and are valued in the trillions of dollars without actually making anything.
You can say all you want about communism but it was extremely environmentally friendly. Why? ‘Cause having nothing to consume meant no consumption meant no consumerism meant no frivolous spending meant environment was protected. This is why only former eastern european countries managed to preserve their forests, the wolves and the bears, the western europeans have none of that, been consumed/shot/eaten/destroyed a century+ ago in the mad dash to get rich. The west’s lifestyle is a disease, it’s a virus like that agent Smith described in the Matrix. We sold that idea to everyone so now everyone wants 2-3 cars, big homes, travel, living standards, only the planet cannot really support that.
What you are witnessing now is a world of increasing population intersecting with dwindling space intersecting with dwindling resources, increasing natural disasters, fast spreading deadly disease etc. After 6 decades of lavish western lifestyles, there is no politician who will come out on TV and say that to their population. “Hey fellow Americans, this is your president XYZ, just so you know, from today on you will live with the environmental footprint of the average Somalian. I know we don’t make anything anymore, I know none of you grow any food, I know most of you think that chocolate milk comes out brown straight from the cow and I know many of you are used to all your conveniences but from today on it stops ’cause you know, we ate all of our resources 5 years ago”.
“Uhm, Mr. President, can’t we just colonize someone who has these resources”?
Mr. President: “Hey, great idea!”….
As someone said, the more educated, the “into” the system, the more “invested” in it, the more likely you are to lap up the bulls*it.
P.S. Today, for the 30th straight year the UN general assembly unanimously voted to condemn USA for its Cuba embargo. Not a single mention of it on CNN…. We done somethig wrong? NO WAY!!!
Because a quick check of those who do would show their War Monger creds with the MIC. These low-lives have no problem pushing war for money – the consequences for the innocent be damned! It’s nothing but a big money game for them, i.e. it’s smart money for the smart people, no big deal if the world blows apart for these devils!
Why are so many embracing false narratives? Mass psychosis is a theory. The Salem witch trials and Nazi Germany are some examples that are given. The cause is above my pay level-perhaps narcissistic
culture is one reason. Western culture and the USA may be exhibits 1A for mass psychosis study, Also, we seem pretty stupid. I recall my dad who was in south pacific in WW2. He didn’t like the Japanese but he did not mock them; he said they were brave fierce combatants and they had families too. That is a lot more mature than the babble we will hear from a San Francisco area white liberal journalist touting their journalism degree from Northwestern.
At Mouche Larry. And the reason for the Orwellian dystopia regarding the conflict in Ukraine that we find ourselves in the West is very simple and was prepared as far in advance as a nation logistically prepares for a war. With hundreds of communication agencies controlling the entire MSM. Because it’s the only way to manipulate public opinion in favor of war. Without which it is never possible to fight a war for long. I no longer believe for a second that high figures of any western state are not fully aware of the mirror propaganda they propagate and do not know precisely what is happening in Ukraine today.
They no longer have room to maneuver to retreat today. Which is very dangerous and can lead the world far beyond a regional proxy conflict. It is crucial to know what Scholz was actually doing in China. Because I’ve read completely opposite opinions. It seems to me that the Franco-German axis of the EU was very unhappy with the price of US LNG. Which gives me some hope that Europe will finally wake up from collective hypnosis! Because, for better or for worse, when Winter settles in for real in Western Europe, it’s going to have to wake up. I hope with massive demonstrations on the street!
What Larry is asking is something I’ve thought about for some years now, it’s almost (well, it is I guess) inexplicable. Mr Wallace above seems to be right, but I think it’s more that that. Maybe some people care about the truth and others don’t?, some are hypnotized and others not? It’s amazingly frustrating. I’ve hung out at the same bar for many years now, from there I know a retired Wash DC police officer. He’s, as one might expect, fairly conservative but he told me the other night that “if the Republicans crush it this Nov 8th, they will abolish Social Security and Medicare”. I had not heard of this before – why is that?, why does he hear things I don’t hear? Same bar, within a few days of Russia going into Ukraine with force, she’s wearing a wristband with the Ukrainian colors, “all the teachers are wearing them”. She doesn’t know where Canada is, let alone Ukraine. About the same time, I had a conversation with my wife, I said something like, “The Russians look like they may attack Kiev”, she told me, “it’s not Kiev, it’s Keeeev”. I said, “how do you know”, she said it was told to her by the TV guy. For my wife, for 70 years it was Kiev, now it ain’t. Aye Caramba!
My wife and I gifted our niece $100 for her 11th birthday, only to find that her proud parents had made her donate $100 to help the Ukraine.
As Andrei Martyanov has been saying, you can’t help stupid because dumb people have no idea they are dumb.
We have given up trying to educate my sister and brother-in-law on anything – Covid, Syria/OPCW, the Ukraine. They believe 100% every on the TV news. All else is “fake news” to them.
But we certainly have learned. It is the last time we give any money that might go towards the “Azov cause”.
As Jimmy Dore says: “I refuse to call ‘Chicken Kiev’ ‘Chicken Keev.’ “
Hey keep giving to your niece, sounds like she needs it Sounds like she needs all the help she can get. Did your dear sister think 80 billion needed another 100?
“What do you think? Why are so many smart people embracing objectively false narratives?”
Jews control all media. Jews control our culture. Jews control our government. Jews want to kill White People.
If you disagree, you will be cancelled and most people don’t want to be cancelled. Instead, they opt for political correctness.
It’s Pavlovian on conservative sites. I merely asked once what return we get from all the money sent to Israel, and people who had intracted with me in a friendly manner for years blocked me after telling me to “go back to Stormfront”.
Boring nonsense. Blaming everything on the Jews is just so unimaginative. It’s dumb. Plus it doesn’t even correspond with the facts. Read ‘The Creature from Jekyll Island’ Jim if you want to know who controls.
Larry asks” “What do you think? Why are so many smart people embracing objectively false narratives?”.
Orders, Larry. They can’t tell the truth. Right? I’m just a regular guy, perceptive, not all that bright. Being curious, I started digging into all this with Putin’s decrees in December. I found Andrei Martyanov, The Saker, Then Sonar21 appeared, then Alex Mercouris, then the videos started between all of you guys, Larry. Know what? Not one speck of analysis you guys put out has been wrong. Everything State and the Pentagon said about this thing was wrong, but they were lies to keep the dough flowing. They did it in Nam, they did it in Iraq, Afghanistan, they’re doing it here. We’re turning the corner, right? Liars. Because: money. Another thing you got right, Larry in that how rich the DC region got in a flash.
So, we have Martyanov’s brilliant 26 year old diplomats (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_hSNvrmpA4 )and security dopes writing our doctrine and press releases for us, but it’s all lies, Andrei laid the whole thing out the other night. So, if *I* know the truth, little old me, THEY know the truth. The American people should be wise to their lies. They are smart people, at least they got their degrees, I never did, but with a little snooping around starting many years back with Taki’s and Unz, Giraldi, Hudson, Ron Unz, then the military/intel blogs, I discovered and found the truth of this Ukraine, the truth about Russia, Putin, their military, and Ukraine’s and our prospects. And what liars our people at the top are and what they’re doing in our name. One appropriation of 50 billion at a time. We’ll get around that corner.
Shit, Larry, they tell lies where the truth would do because it isn’t the average citizen’s kid going off to fight, the Deep State knows few are paying attention anyway. So why tell such lies? Imagine if we were drafting for Ukraine like we did in Vietnam. Think we had war protests then? Send drafted American children to Ukraine, see how they would pay attention. Until their own blood is in the game, the American citizen is blind to it. Very, very disappointing.
well said Jim.you left out Japan,S. Korea,and Iran post ww2
Great post! No doubt that money is the weapon of control.
And the Jew controls the money for the Jew’s benefit. The offshoring of American jobs, open borders and endless wars does not benefit White People.
The recent vote in the UN condemning the U.S. over the Cuban blockade was voted for by every member except two, the U.S. and Israel.
How much money do we give Israel? We once had nothing but friends in the Middle East. What happened?
All politicians are shit. All politicians are whores.
Ultimately, if you are not proud of your own blood, your own race, you will not survive. America is becoming a third world country, slowly but surely.
Who commits most violent crime?
You might have noticed there is a racial narrative out there and only one: White People are evil.
You might be an ordinary guy, but like most of us on these forums you are an inquisitive explorer, a seeker of why things are happening not just the “what.”
I do not say we a “seekers of the truth” as this would be pretentious nonsense, but we do try.
The people who rise to the top in large bureaucracies are mostly careerists who are insecure and afraid and who require the status that organizations confer to give their lives meaning; to make themselves real. They can be competent, they can get things done, but they never dissent.
That is not to say all people in organisations are like this and that organisations aren’t necessary; as J K Galbraith wrote in, I think, the New Industrial State”:
” If you want to do big things you need large organizations”
But as Paul Tillich said “all institutions are inherently demonic” which is to say organisations cause people to do irrational, evil things which they can only do by subordinating truth to the needs of the organizational demons.
This subordinating of truth to the demons is what Larry’s anonymous acquaintance is doing in his egregious piece of writing. The problem for civilization is that these people occupy powerful positions, they know how to speak authoritatively and plausibly and they suck people in even us explorers and motivate us to do irrational and evil deeds like the Invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Ukraine.
“The corrupted culture of the West also proselytizes that there are more than two genders, that men can be pregnant, and that windmills and solar panels are sufficient to power modern societies.”
Just toss out some silliness mixed with a serious issue and blame it all on “the corrupted culture of the West.” That is not convincing. Intelligent advocates of alternative energy sources do not make such assertions. Can you name one that does? What they do say is that we absolutely must develop those (and many others that are feasible) alternatives to fossil fuels if our civilization is to survive. They have mountains of evidence to back this up. Have you missed the fact that we’re in the midst of the sixth great extinction (extreme biodiversity loss) and do you know about similar extinction events in earth’s past? Are you unaware that 1,000-year climate catastrophes are now occurring frequently? Do you not recognize the untenable pattern of human population growth and consumption?
Conflate, conflate. The geopolitical dissenters against globalism such as yourself mistakenly conflate a range of globalist projects including LGBT and human rights, racial inclusiveness, economic inequality mitigation, the Covid scamdemic, the Petrodollar hegemony, the Ukraine proxy war against Russia, the hybrid cold war against China, overpopulation and migration, impossible economic growth and the Green Agenda – as though there is some monolithic evil plan that integrates all of them and controls all policies of the West.
That is simplistic nonsense. There are different groups of players involved in each of these policies, having established capitalist ventures that simply recognize challenges, seize the initiative and promote their profitable solutions – they have found (or created) opportunities to make money through these, and they use propaganda means at their disposal to gain acceptance. Some of these are outrageous and even heinously criminal, but that does not make all aspects of all these issues invalid or unworthy of support.
Climate change caused by GHG emissions is unquestionably the most significant threat to humanity’s continued existence. A consensus of climate scientists urges the wealthy nations to step up efforts to mitigate the worst effects and develop alternatives to burning fossil fuels, because we are the main cause, and because inaction now will exponentially increase the cost later. Only the wealthy can afford to invest the kind of money needed, so I say let’s let them. China is among those in the forefront, both of polluting the atmosphere and of building cheap energy generation sources, especially solar-electric and battery storage, which increasingly will provide power especially for transportation, enabling conservation of precious oil resources.
Let’s get with the program to preserve habitat for life on earth, not drag our feet and poo-poo those energy substitution endeavors merely because they comport with the WEF or other oligarchic agenda for profiteering!
Wow! In one windy post, voila the QED!
Carbon dioxide fueled climate change is another scam to control the incredulous. Bolstered by “math is racist so don’t bother running the numbers”
Here are a few numbers for you.
CO2 traps radiation in a very limited bandwidth. That is saturated at a lower level than the planet has ever seen. Additional CO2 feeds plants and greens the planet.
Co2 levels were higher during the last ice age for crying out loud.
Carbon is a cycle it ebbs and flows naturally. Human contribution is negligible.
Your green energy is a scam. It is way for the elites to control the rest of us. They get the massive SUVs, 10,000 sqft oceanfront homes and Gulfstream while enjoying a steak. We get the bus, high density apartments and delicious bugs, as long as we all behave that is.
Your green energy revolution is a fantasy and if it could ever happen it would require 2000 years of diesel supply just for the mining.
The amount of materials needed for just the first 20 years of wind and solar installations:
189 years worth of copper production,
400 years of nickel production,
9,921 years of lithium production,
1,733 years of cobalt production,
29,113 years of germanium production,
Note, for example, that known lithium reserves amount to less than 3% of what would be needed to replace fossil fuels with wind, solar and batteries, for the first 20 years.
Known cobalt reserves amount to less than 4% of what would be needed for the first generation, and so on.
Keep in mind, too, that mining projects typically take something like 20 years to come on line. Longer, if the environmentalists get their way.
The people pushing it don’t even believe it! The “Climate Czar” has 12 cars, 6 houses, 2 yachts and a private jet!
That’s your future, now eat your cricket burger and stop complaining or your CBDC account will be frozen.
Alex,
You beat me to it… in responding to that above comment on “climate change”. Ironic that the topic of this thread boils down to mass psychosis!
I do that racist math stuff for a living, and I look at the human caused climate change this way:
Statistical F-test is the old way of measuring variation. Measure variation “with human” and “without human”. Based on what we really do know, the climate variation without human is far greater than the climate variation with human. It’s a big scam. The BS meter goes real high!
Thank you. The whole scam is so laughable as well as transparent. They don’t even try to cover up how stupid it all is. Its the same mass psychosis as Covid.
Half of these loons think lithium batteries are made of unicorn poop. Electricity comes from the wall.
The ignorance is infuriating.
The desired result of the last 4 decades of government education[sic].
I find comments like this fascinating, as climate denial is like saying Russia is on the ropes and Ukraine is crushing it. Let’s take a step back, and think about whether our civilization, and its industries, can have an impact on the whole ecosystem. What do you guys really gain by saying climate change is a scam, without considering there’s some truth to it? I can see the negative effects of climate change accumulate outside my window, and breath it in. I live in the Rockies where forest fires and smoke pollution increase each year.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I believe or you believe, only the physical consequences of earth’s natural systems. If a doctor tells you that you have cancer, you can deny it or try to learn more about it. Yeah, it’s possible the diagnosis is wrong, but it’s worth learning if that is actually the case.
The main concern with climate change is that it will be as catastrophic, over decades, as nuclear war. Why? Our agriculture can only exist within a certain range of humidity and temp variations. As Earth warms, the entire weather system we have been used to the last 10,000 years goes out the window, and causes widespread crop failure, drought and famine. How will our societies cope without food, hundreds of millions of refugees seeking food and water?
According to IPCC, Earth at an average +2 or +3 celsius above historical average will devastate agriculture, and cause failure of multiple ecosystems (Amazon being one, Great Barrier Reef and oceans another), and I’m sure you can follow the logic to a variety of future dystopias.
Please look at the UN IPCC reports and findings, or evaluations of those reports by credible experts: one such article I refer back to often is by IPCC reviewer Peter Carter: https://theanalysis.news/a-dire-warning-about-the-end-of-human-civilization/
The only thing consistent about the climate is that it has been changing for at least 2 billion years.
The IPCC and the rest have yet to make single prediction that wasn’t laughingly false.
They even manipulate the data and models retroactively and STILL cannot get it right!
There is zero actual science behind that nonsense, its all politics, just like the claims that Ukraine is winning, politics never trumps reality. You have it backwards.
As I mentioned even the biggest zealots don’t believe it, it’s all manipulation for control over the plebes.
Here is some science for you.
The globe is not warming, in fact we are courting another mini Ice Age..
No model that ignores the natural geological natural carbon cycle has any validity.
Any model that attributes zero climate effects by the sun can be taken seriously.
Your so-called “Green” technologies cannot function without massive input from petroleum.
Those lithium batteries don’t fall out of the sky, they require thousands of gallons of diesel to make each one, and they are a true and real environmental hazard, as are those retarded wind turbines and idiotic solar panels which never produce the energy used to make them, then they are the gift that keeps on giving- heavy metals and toxic waste in the ground leaching into the water supply.
Real actual science shows that currently the world is at historic low levels of CO2, too low. This effects several cycles and natural processes that support the increase in levels which supports life at all levels.
Man-made co2 is not even measurable, it is insignificant.
Without co2 all life on the planet would end.
I know these days it is fashionable to ignore reality in favor of politics, but if we wish to survive and thrive as a species we need to stop polluting the planet with the toxic witches brews that are needed for your ridiculous nonsensical green energy. It is not green, it is not renewable and it damn sure isn’t clean.
The most ludicrous thing about it is there are people who actually think governments and billionaire oligarchs give a crap or are able to improve if we would only give then just a little more money.
Enjoy your cricket urge. Klause Schwab will be eating prime rib and laughing.
Alex Thrace:
Part of what I’m trying to say is that to whatever degree you or I are correct about climate change, whether it’s a scam and the IPCC is wrong, or there’s a lot of truth to their warnings, the consequences will bear out in our future. It’s similar to the information war over Ukraine: whether Larry is accurate or not, whether mainstream media tells the truth or not, the actual battlefield consequences happen in spite of all the claims. The US cannot propagandize its future success by spinning a narrative alone: success has to be backed up by strategic and technical competence.
Excellent point.
Your whole argument against climate change being an issue is that the proposed solution is unworkable. Ok, I happen to agree. This still does not change the fact that the American/Western lifestyles do not scale. What happens when 1.5 billion Chinese want 2 F-350s, a 5th wheel and two homes? I think this is the problem. The solution is not “green energy” (which is a scam as implemented), it is a drastic reduction in consumption coupled with reduction in child bearing coupled with reduction in discretionary spending/consumerism. Unfortunately, there is no way you can tell this to the average Westerner and western politicians know this – hence the resource war against Russia.
I think what you say there is no way to say it also depends a lot on who you say it to. I believe that anyone who is over 50 years old and has still known a society far from current levels of consumption would not mind turning back. I did not care. For a very simple reason. Because consumption doesn’t make anyone happy and proof of that is that the West is all fucked up. From a certain level it’s an addiction like any drug. I often give this very simple example. I remember my father’s generation spending all winters with a good coat and a good raincoat. Today we each have 10 of each. And some pieces of clothing are even difficult to buy good pieces that last 10 years as they did. If it weren’t for textiles, one of the biggest polluters in the world! Same with the cars.
All this to say that the problem was never the common citizen who only does what he is programmed to do. If banks offer cheap credit, make 10 credits. And on top of that there are still much bigger problems like the world population having doubled in the last 50 years. Even if my continent, Europe, is just old people. It’s not just the money that is poorly distributed. And to think that we were just 1 BI 200 years ago… The problem is always those 1% who own 99% of the world’s wealth, always wanting more! But as there are also those who say that we will never reach 10 BI because from 2060 onwards the world population starts to decrease… The question is, will it be true?
Even the west won’t be able to afford a western lifestyle soon. The only thing that made it possible was the petrodollar scam.
The Chinese will enjoy the lifestyle they can afford. When we figure out how to do things better, our life styles will improve. It is the nature of humanity, we will figure it out absent elite busybodies getting in the way.
Alex Thrace…delusional anti-science. There have been 18 planetary extinction events. One was caused by an asteroid. The Chicxulub Impact which destroyed the dinosaurs. All the others were caused by CO2 levels. The last extinction event was caused by 6ppm CO2, we’re currently at 4ppm. Folks don’t appreciate that +1 degree celcius average is the difference between growing crops…or crop failure. Currently inflation is linked to the western states drought condition, one third of our agricultural produce. Not coming back any time soon.
CO2 levels are extinction events. Proven. Your pseudo-science will not feed you or your family. The last global extinction event of CO2 warming took 20,000 years to create. The industrial revolution, caused by man… took only 200 years. We’re 2/3rds to the next extinction event. Are you worried for your grandchildren yet…?
You are lost in lithium batteries. They are NOT the future…. your pseudo science is so bogus. Carbon cycles do not ebb and flow. We no longer inhabit a primordial planet…that was the formation, billions of years ago. Since the dawn of man…there has not been an extinction event, but now, the oceans are super-saturated with CO2, so much they are acidic carbonic acid, calcium reefs and shellfish / crustaceans are vanishing, global warming has moved fishing and crab stocks north of Alaska and Greenland. De-forestation and soil tilling are destroying the last carbon sinks. Are you really so much in denial that you are really that ignorant…? Get educated.. or eat crickets instead.
Your IPCC “average global temperature ” makes as much sense as the average phone number or average price of a food item in the grocery store. Average up the items in your cart will not tell you the price of an item you don’t have in your cart
I looked at the hacked materials from East Anglia. My 9 year old grandson write more sophisticated code than that.
The Earth still cycles i hate to have to be the one to tell you this, predicted trends over 50 years tell you exactly nothing, but the absurdities of climate science are legendary as are their failures.
I reiterate even the Grand Poohbah of the Climate Cult doesn’t believe it based on his activities.
Your claim that previously extinctions were caused by CO2 is utter nonsense. Besides you just destroyed you own point. CO2 variations are NATURAL, we know warming and CO2 are correlated, CO2 rises AFTER the warming, CO2 is an indicator of LIFE. So no wonder the elites hate it.
There is artic ocean current cycle that is getting ready to deep freeze Europe.
Soon they might be sacrificing their children to the Weather God praying for a little of that Global Warming.
Alex…globally, all the ice is melting. Heat does that. Switzerland has lost 1/3 of it’s ice in 20 years. All global glaciers are melting. Greenland and Antarctica are the worst and accelerating increasing sea level rise. Trapped CO2 in our atmosphere is heating globe, the poles about 10* more than the rest. CO2 levels have doubled in just 200 years, now just 1/3 below the levels of the last extinction event, which took 20,000 years. Greenhouse gases, CO2, methane and Nitrous Oxides have spiked. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/united-nations-state-of-the-climate-report_n_6367b84ee4b08f849aac4083
The Cretaceous Triassic boundary extinction is the only event caused by a meteor, all the rest were an increase of greenhouse gases from volcanism. CO2 emissions are the precursor of all other extinctions caused via global warming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event
Europe is not entering an ice-age, every year now breaks a new heat record. Europe has been on fire every summer the last 5 years. So has Colorado, Washington, Idaho, California etc. The planet has massive droughts. The California / western states drought has lost us 1/3 of our agriculture. The mississippi river is so low, grain barges cannot navigate it. Now do you see where inflation happens from… along with rail strikes and truckers quitting crappy jobs enmasse… Also, there is no Arctic Current cycle. Period. There is the AMOC and the THC Thermohaline Circulation. Both are afflicted with warming and CO2 saturated water down to 2000 feet, so we see more severe hurricanes and tornadic activity across the mid-states. Fish and crab stocks keep moving north seeking colder water. Both Greenland and Antarctica are melting both on their surface and massively, from underneath. And this is accelerating as massive glaciers break off their grounded underpinning leaving nothing to hold back the glacial ice flow. Increased Scientific research with modern technologies demonstrates this. Greenhouse gas emission according to you is plant food which makes plants grow. So why are crops diminishing in size and volume. Bio combustion, fossil fuels and cement-making are the largest releases of CO2. Deforestation exacerbates that effect. So where is all the giant corn…?
Remember that a 1* temperature change seems nothing, but as an annual average, that determines whether you can grow food or not, and Florida won’t support crops in 50 years. Just as African deserts and heat keep moving North, so now UK is able to grow white grapes and award winning champagne.
“Delusional anti-science ”
Where have we heard that before?
No one in the ‘pro-CO2 persuasion’ being the cause of “extinction” events has yet mentioned the on-going weather-manipulation programs, on-going since the 1970s. Those droughts and forest fires in the West are due to this weather manipulation, which is definitely human caused, but it is intention not a by-product of industrial civilization. Those elites in control of the weather (and by implication, climate) are using these manipulations for their own benefit. California has been in a major drought for years, with resulting fires, crop failures, etc. When enough farmers and ranchers give in and sell, guess who will swoop in and buy? Oh, maybe someone like…Bill Gates…yeah like Bill Gates. The weather manipulation through stratospheric aerosol injunctions are happening right above your heads and you don’t see it. “Oh that’s just contrails”. Sorry buster. Contrails quickly vanish; these “chemtrails” persist and then spread out across the sky creating a thin, artificial layer of clouds that hold in heat. That’s a humongous red pill.
FGB3…. read Boyles Law of partial pressure. Chemtrails just espouses complete ignorance. So, when a jet engine burns fuel at around 2000*F and exhausts into air which is around Minus – 60*F, it instantly freezes into ice crystals. The ‘Con’ in contrails is a ‘Con’traction for ‘Con’densation trail. Glad I could help you solve a known mystery that few people think is a mystery at all.
You know why Gates is buying farmland…? Multiple agricultural universities have proven that no-till methods of farming help soil and ground cover crops lock in massive amounts of CO2. Tilling isn’t necessary at all. You just plant through cover with a seed drill… and you didn’t know that either…? Glad I could improve your advancement in actual reality education… Enjoy… ! !
Norecovery…well said Sir… you represent a rare voice of sanity in the wilderness of denial by flat-earthers who reject scientific principle… because they can’t even understand the gravity that anchors them… let alone dark matter.
You must not know that 1,000-year climate changes were occurring over the last 26,000 years, long before “GHG” emissions. Anyway, the kind of energy sources you envision are being tried right now! in Germany. Let’s see how that works out.
FGB3… Climate change has always happened. Apart from a couple serious asteroids, the cause of mass extinction events is almost always volcanism and increase of CO2, as well as methane, sulphur, a few others causing atmospheric warming. You can easily look this up. What is different is that in the current Holocene period, the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere, has doubled in barely 200 years, instead of the usual 20,000 years. Never during paleo time has there been such a rapid rise which is proved in the geologic record. We know that increased CO2 causes global warming, but it is the actual rate of increase is what is so alarming. The Holocene has been renamed the Anthropocene …why, because the rapid rise in CO@ is directly attributable to the industrial revolution, the mass burning of fossil and carbon fuels. Ploughing more fields, producing more crops, the increasing use of fertilizers. Volcanism is significantly reduced since the prior epochs in the world’s formation. The sudden alarming spike is directly due to the activities of man.
Remember that solar, wind and water power are delivered free, with no cost of fuel. Storage of power is crucial and being addressed in many forms. Tidal power generation is powerful, yet limiting. The grail is cheap enough hydrogen powering membrane ion-exchange fuel cells. Like a battery. We’re getting there..but we’ll always need oil, it is in most of the material in your home, transportation, business and construction. Hopefully we won’t have to burn it anymore.
“Why are so many smart people embracing objectively false narratives?”
First off: They aren’t that smart. If they were, they wouldn’t work for government, they’d work on Wall St., Silicon Valley, etc.
Second off: They’re not paid to think for themselves, they’re paid to massage the egos of their bosses. This isn’t surprising in a bureaucratic end-state where conformity and order-following are rewarded, and whistleblowers are jailed. The blob cultivates such toadies, ultimately to it’s own detriment. It doesn’t even have to be explicit. Most mid-wits are bright enough to pick up on the social cues and toe the line to keep getting those gubbmint paychecks.
Combine that with hiring & promotions based on identity instead of competency, and you have a perfect storm of incompetency and group-think that ends in a hilarious blood-spattered shit-stained clusterfuck. If you think I’m exaggerating, just wait until the USD loses it’s reserve currency status and they can’t keep paying all these feckless apparatchiks. Because just like a gamma will fuck up a blowjob, they were handed a literal money-printing machine and managed to redline it until the engine blew all the oil past the compression rings, all that’s left is for the crank to seize and the block to explode.
Then the REAL fun begins. The pogroms. The trials. The sentences.
They forgot that they set the standard with the Nuremburg hearings. If it was good enough for the Nazis..!
And because I forgot to address the already iconic figure of Badad Bob today. Bagdad Bob as Saddam’s well-trained Minister of Information, as Larry says, was only speaking for his people and especially for his armed forces not to demobilize in the face of US military might. That as early as 1991 when the first US F-15s took off, 40 Iraqi SU-22 fihterjets also took off right away but it was to flee to Iran! And apparently they managed to modernize 20 and 10 already operate with drones and guided missiles. Anyone who doesn’t have a dog after 40 years of sanctions, hunts with a cat. Isn’t that what you say?
It is also good to remember that more than just patriotism, we soon learned that Saddam’s military equipment was almost entirely counterfeit in Iraq. Like tanks without any armor. Just to cite an example. But I also believe that in a country divided in half between Sunnis and Shias the national union should not be quite 5 stars! Hence also having always found the great threat that Saddam posed to Israel to be ridiculous. It must have been weapons of mass destruction. Poor bastards that not even babies could hold in their arms in maternity hospitals in Kuwait!
Why believe the false narratives when pieces of reality poke their inconvenient little heads up in the grand arc of the story?
YBecause it is uncomfortable, disconcerting, challenging, even painful to closely examine those diamonds of reality strewn about in our familiar, constructed psuedo-reality…despite their beauty those sharp gems might very well cut you to the bone.
Or as my Zen meditation mentor stated, only the phonies don’t get enlightened.
My theory is that the comfort of most peoples lives changes how you think .
The closest comparison is since I have been working outside since 01 ,the weather is always a concern ,it strikes panic etc .
I knew a woman who was a studio makeup artist ,who had absolutely no concern .
The point I am trying to make is that most Europeans and Americans have had it so good for so long ,the idea it could change is impossible for them to fathom.
Look at people who lived in the depression, my grandfather never forgot it and lived accordingly, same with my german relatives who nearly starved after the war.
It’s hard to get the point across in just a comment section.
The delusion was prophesied 2000 years ago. The Bible says that God would send a delusion such that they would believe a lie (2 Thessalonians 2:11). This corrupt society in the West has thrown God out and along with that all restraint. There is still hope but a fading one that the people will wake up and repent.
Truth (reality) is hard because it doesn’t care what we think.
Lies (narratives) are easy because they ARE what we think.
And nothing we think is really that true.
Well said, Gigi!
I’ll quote you on this.
Larry, as usual, you are spot on with your Ukraine assessment. However, when you vacillate into gender territory, power generation and request input, I’m happy to elucidate. Firstly, there are only 2 genders. No-one can objectively claim otherwise. Men cannot get pregnant, that’s a scientific fact, they lack the appropriate plumbing. No-one is seriously suggesting that is real…apart from a single category of thought progenitors who are apparently unaware of gender scientific biology. However ludicrous that belief might be…and I read it only in certain spaces. On genders, there is only man and woman. But there are men who wholly identify as being a female and prefer exhibiting those female mannerisms. Similarly, there are women who also identify as male, even though they aren’t, they dress and act like men, in their world and their relationships. If they prefer to pretend they are not their sex / gender, they can. They are American Citizens with the same rights as you and I. People forget we have the same rights as Citizens, regardless of who they are, who they love or what color they are. We are ALL immigrants here except for the Indigenous Indians. I have no right to tell them who they should love and as Pope Francis said” Love is Love”. He also said “Who am I, to Judge” This is freedom. America. Freedom to choose. People try to co-opt my flag and My Patriotism. Freedom of choice belongs to all Americans…does it not…? Would you, the reader, have someone telling You whom to love…? Now there are some confused non-binary kids, who just don’t fit in, they might prefer women or men, they haven’t figured themselves out yet…maybe they’re saying that simply for the attention…no matter, it’s their choice, they’ll figure it out, without my direction. DeSantis is convinced there’s some huge overwhelming gender surgery happening all over Florida…but there isn’t, I live in Florida, it’s as obvious as there are ZERO teachers teaching ‘GayDom’ here either. And Critical Race Theory is not taught in any schools, anywhere in America…never has. Only in one post-grad University course, that’s it.
Back to solar panels, windmills and Don Quixote. No-one has ever suggested that as panacea. We use a lot of energy. Sure, we can harness sunlight, wind, water and tides as energy which has zero purchase cost with freight-free delivery, no mining costs, zero pollution. In delivery. All these need storage, massive grid scale. We are attaining that. New technologies everyday. Most promising are large liquid metal batteries and molten copper salts pipeline storage. Hydro-power, Hydrogen fuel cells and nuclear energy are huge. Ongoing work on nuclear fusion is massive. Nuclear energy is adapting to high temp / low pressure Thorium reactors. Fail-safe. 99% efficiency whereas current Uranium nuke power is less than 1% efficient, then we have to store the crap for ever. Thorium is so abundant, it’s a problem in rare-earth minerals mining. We will always need oil, for societal materials, it’s products permeate our everyday, in plastics, clothing, construction…everything…we just won’t have to burn it anymore.
You are indeed correct that “the West has adopted a rigid, intolerant ideology”. Why has America of late, become So Intolerant….? Americans should stand up for each other and celebrate each other…don’t you agree…? We are All Americans..aren’t we… ! ! Equal freedoms for every American, enshrined in Law and the Constitution. Their ‘Belief’ is fine for them, but it does NOT override nor usurp MY belief…for in America we are all Equal…Free to choose…..are we not…! ! Or is that a Lie….?
I am sorry to see the American exceptionalism even here. The whole reaction is about America, as if the rest of the world doesn’t count or doesn’t even exist. I can understand that someone starts with talking about their own culture and that is okay by me, but to be so completely ignored rubs me the wrong way.
America was exceptional, once. That was before the demoralization campaign became sufficiently effective (search Odysee or Bitchute for Yuri Bezmenov and the Khazarian Mafia).
Yea, slaveowners were indeed exceptional.
TIL, no one ever owned slaves in world history except in the USA.
Only in USA are slaveowners praised as exceptional inventors of freedom and equality that are blessed by God himself.
The constant drumming in of exceptionalism and superiority creates the mental state that justifies treating other states and people as backwards and inferior, after all if you are as good as it gets, top of the tree, king of the walk, then the rest are less. Less become other. Other becomes dehumanised. Dehumanised deserves attacks. Attacks become justice.
Jouke… tell me…. what is this supposed American ‘exceptionalism’ except a phrase adopted by Bush/Cheney to justify devastating innocent smaller countries whilst breaking International Law. The rest of the world is sick of it… they can’t ignore it any more.
Sorry, but there’s no “right” to be wrong and an ass about it to boot, not for American citizens and not for those of any other country you happen to name.
Grown ups maybe. They get to choose things but where do you draw the line of choice?
Paedophilia, beastiality, surgery and brainwashing of confused children, destruction of free speech, deliberate lies by public officials? Where is the line that preserves truth and society if everyone can just do what they want.
Ash… there are already laws against Pedophilia and bestiality. Whatever LGBQT folks do is their own business, none of mine nor yours, unless they break societal laws. Everyone can make their choice to be gay, or not. It’s a personal choice which affects no-one else. No one forces you to be gay, so live and let live. In Utah and several Southern States, a 50 year old man can marry a 12 year old girl. Are you OK with that…? Free speech is permitted unless it promotes violence against class, creed, clan or others. There is NO surgery and brainwashing of children, this is a made up crisis by DeSantis and others. Society is adult enough to make their own choice without Govt interference. Deliberate lies by public officials has now become the new normal. Remember when Nixon and Clinton were impeached for a single lie to the American people… there is a recent winner who blew all those records away…10,000 lies is just not enough anymore….
What I object to is catering to the LGBQT community such that the vast majority of citizens have to live and work by their “special needs”. They are an almost infinitesimally small percentage of the population garnering a disproportionately large amount of attention, influence and pandering to.
This is the best essay I’ve ever read on the subject, Larry. Why do so many smart people embrace objectively false narratives? I suppose it depends on where you look.
The MSM does so because they are paid propagandists. Watch Don Lemon at CNN for a case study in how these type reacts to power. When the old regime was in charge he gave them what they wanted. Now there’s a new regime and he’s trying to do the same but lacks the substance to do so with a different palette. He will ultimately fail and be removed.
I will not comment on government because you’ve lived it and its obviously a lot more complicated there, particularly where it intersects with law enforcement and the national security state.
Thinking voters have not embraced it and never will after having been exposed to the Afghanistan withdrawal model. Even the dumbest of us saw it for what it was when the narrative couldn’t even survive a single news cycle.
Emotional voters have not embraced it because they are focused on the stress being caused by economic issues. You cannot manipulate a person with one type of fear if they are already immersed in another type of fear.
It is fascinating to watch this administration put to life all the historical questions I’ve pondered but never really understood the answer to until now.
Larry – great question. My thoughts on this:
If you are sleeping soundly and lost in your own dreams, you may not awaken in time to realise that your house is on fire.
The truth wakes us up to reality, no matter how unpleasant. We can then respond to save ourselves and those we care about. Lies on the other hand lull us ever deeper into slumber.
From the Gospel of Thomas: “All those who seek the truth shall find it. At first you will be dismayed, then astonished, and then you will be free and reign over all”.
Most people cannot get to the dismay part.
Why are so many smart people embracing objectively false narratives?
A tragic question. Everyone I know has been sucked into the narratives. The ones that have a chance to climb out of the fog of delusion are still stuck on TV news, & that is shocking to me.
24/7 clever propaganda campaign, bullying, censorship, it is an extremely skilled disinformation campaign is my answer. It is easy to get ‘black pilled’ with the tragic result. I have resorted to prayer because my smart friends & family have ears of clay.
Thankfully Larry has not been ‘black pilled’ & has used his knowledge & verbal skills to shine a bit of light on the real scoop & others with similar skills at shining the light on the mirage spun by the Criminal Grifting Class.
What people think is determined by who writes their paycheck.
Why smart people even honest ones embrace the narrative on ukraine ?
– maybe they are russophobic at heart and hate everything russian ?
– maybe they are told to follow the narrative OR ELSE ?
– maybe they have this public opinion following narrative and secretly/privately have separate opinion ?
– maybe they are PAID $$$ to write about these articles following the narrative ?
– maybe they are BLACKMAILED to follow the narrative else child pornograpy found on their computer suddenly ?
– maybe they are just ignorant and too trusting / blind toward their own govt propaganda ?
i myself saw how SST Col Lang turned into this brain mush neocon , for YEARS this col lang claimed he is against neocon yet when the russian SMO started he become one and allow propaganda lies to be put on this SST site bearing his name… How can someone that claimed to be a neocon for years suddenly become neocon in a heartbeat ?
I believe it is some kind of super-loyalty. It is internalising some concepts so deep it becomes part of your internal ID.
Are you an individual, that chance to dwell in world hegemon or world first state of peasants and workers? Or are part of tbe hegemon or of the perpetual revolution.
When soldier were dying “for motherland, for Stalin” – What drove them? Perhaps at this point they identified themselves not with mortla body but with potentially immortal statehood, idea.
And then the denial of this idea, factual or not, becomes a suicide.
When propaganda managed to reach that deep, that challenging some concepts becomes attack on a person’s very existence – it is a lost cause. “what need would i have in the world where j do not exist?”
And Ukraine, being testing ground for western psy-ops, show sees this perfectly. Very few can challenge their own existence. Very few can challenge deeply internalized, intertwined with their personal being concepts.
Why are ‘smart’ people in the west so stupid these days?
Because we have forgotten what being smart is.
Many western people assume that completing a degree at an Ivy league university makes them smart in general.
So: ‘I was top in my class at gender studies, now let me give you my opinion on Russian military doctrine’.
Western higher education seems to drain many people of critical thinking skills, these days. We all know the liberal idiot who is a top lawyer from a prestigious university and law firm, but who also seriously believes Putin is mentally ill, or that Donald Trump is a Russian agent.
Others are just con artists who know how to sound intelligent. Take the racist and profoundly stupid Joy Reid and Tiffany Cross at MSNBC.
Into this vacuum step dirty rats. Take Jake Sullivan. If I wanted an amoral, pathological liar and slimeball to help me rise in DC, he’d be a good person to go to. But if I wanted an NSA to steer the American ship of state in safe waters, he’d be the last person to turn to, because in overall terms the guy is an idiot of the highest order.
I doubt that Jake could reverse a car out of a driveway.
It’s possible to be very intelligent in one specific area, but very stupid overall. Andrei Martyanov often laments what’s happened to American education and argues that it produces idiots, who manage to rise. Anyway that’s my 10 cents for what it is worth.
Very dark force gripping the west. Truly like living through a zombie apocalypse. I can see the dark delusions in full form by watching medical bureaucrats telling us from a podium that it is now mandatory, by force of law, to inject an experimental concoction into our veins. Most people do not recognize this as ghoulish evil, because the delivery is so banal and matter of fact. What was once so obviously wrong, is now defensible by simply marshaling the “greater good” tag line. None if it can be easily explained. Mass hypnosis, perhaps?
“Why are so many smart people embracing objectively false narratives?”
I suggest two reasons. The first is that it is personally uncomfortable to admit a mistake, and the bigger the mistake and the longer it’s been held, the bigger the discomfort.
The second is fear. People can lose their friends and their livelihoods by speaking openly against the established narrative. This is a real fear of a real threat, and one not to be lightly dismissed.
We in the collective west are not there yet, but soon our best chance to move forward will be if a man of Putin’s stature emerges from the ruck and leads.
This historical event should shut up people (real ppl not trolls) who think russia is weak..
The US/UK intelligence op to ruin Hongkong by supporting the riots
The same MO of trolls/astroturfers/media claiming china weak because they are not bashing the rioters and only letting the HK police force handle it day by day.. Even when the rioter turned to more violent (burning people alive , ganging up on women) the chinese hold fast and the media kept claiming china is weak. BUT CHINA IS PLAYING THE LONG GAME
and the russian in 2022 also playing THE LONG GAME as they are winning in every front. While trolls/astroturfer kept trumpeting over ukraine fictional victories , russia winning the war in SMO and in the world stage which is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than the SMO itself.
– In energy front , Russia rally even the oldest US ally Saudi arabia into ignoring US ‘orders’
– In European front , the economic disaster on EU and UK will be more evident as it is impossible to hide it any longer.. the massive demonstration in EU will be exposed toppling european nation’s leadership.
– Russia expose to the world that US and EU will use violent right wing / nazi elements for their own purposes. It is a thing that every nation’s leadership knew and this time it is publicly shown without shame by US and EU
– Iran is now on the front page due to it’s incredibly cost effective weapons and the most important is their renewed alliance with russia in modernizing iranian military. Gone the pro west clique in iranian govt who still dream about making peace with EU as it is proven EU is just US’s dog.
– The whole world (those not US vassals) know this is the time to break US bondage and they all follow Russia and China. African nations especially aware of this and there’s been many noise from africa trying to break their colonist bondage like france. France will collapse economically if their link to african vassals are cut.
– Nations know this conflict will result in fast financial decline of the west and the demise of US dollar. They saw how US dollar destroying many US vassals like japan and nations will flock to safety toward russia and china. US dollar will be relegated back to CONUS and US citizens will live normal like other nations , WITHIN THEIR MEANS (which is good for US as a nation in the long run)
Ah yes, the “Open Society” is rooted in “Marxism”. This idea would not amuse old Popper, Karl at all …
The liberals pretending to be conservative have got exactly what they ordered – only they don’t really want to acknowledge that …
And the USSR perished from all sorts of things – certainly not from “Marxism”. According to it it should not have existed at all, but without it there would probably not even more be Russia today.
That is just a tricky thing with the dialectics … especially when people interfere …
“You really have to dig deep to find the facts about Ukraine’s staggering losses.”
I’ll say. You can’t Google it, that’s for sure.
Pepe Escobar in tweet the other day had Ukraine combat dead at 200,000 (80,000 of which he thought were mercenaries. Interesting.), and Col. Macgregor has been very consistent the last two weeks in his various interviews, claiming the number of Ukraine combat dead has reached more than 100,000, with between two hundred and four hundred thousand others having been wounded.
Which makes for quite a big spread on the casualty count. If we go with the higher end figure, of four hundred thousand wounded, that would mean the Armed Forces of Ukraine have suffered 500,000 thousand total casualties so far, and if the AFU started the war with between 400,000 and 600,000 combat effectives, the two figures I have seen most bandied about, then essentially that means the Ukraine Army is no more.
At least as far as it was constituted in the glory days of February and March, when it stymied the Russian onslaught and forced it to retreat with its tail between its legs in the northeast, while holding strong everywhere else.
Excepting down Mariupol way of course, were its finest fighting units, also known as Nazis, got slapped around by a militia and some Chechens and were eliminated permanently from the chessboard.
What does all this mean? Who knows. I think one of most telling moments of this war, happened back in late July, when the Ukraine MoD put out a release stating it had lost 90,000 men killed. Zelensky immediately walked this figure back, all the way to 10,000 if memory serves, and said there had been a mistake, what the MoD meant to say that it was the Russians that had lost 90,000 killed.
Clerical error don’t you know.
My contention is, for whatever its worth, Pepe’s figure is likely the most accurate. 200,000 Ukraine servicemen have been killed, and here is the shocker, I believe less than that have been wounded. That is how pathetic the performance of this army has been.
The Ukriane Army may be the first in modern history to achieve a killed to wounded ratio were the number killed is greater than the number wounded.
Hell, you might have to go back to the Battle of Canae to see a worse performance, as the Romans in that battle lost 65,000 men killed and left no wounded, missing or prisoners behind.
I think it’s pretty obvious that there’s a massive information operation running, they even call it ‘cognitive warfare’
https://www.innovationhub-act.org/sites/default/files/2021-01/20210122_CW%20Final.pdf
there’s research from the University of Adelaide identifying the scale of pro ukrainian bots being used,
https://declassifiedaus.org/2022/11/03/strongmassive-anti-russian-bot-army-exposed-by-australian-researchers-strong/
not only is there an IO running but there’s also an operation taking down any dissent, I’ve seen loads of Twitter accounts suspended,
it’s all very Orwellian, life is easier if you give in and learn to love Big Brother.
take the vax, support the Ukraine, vote Democrat, Drink the Kool-Aid, get extra Soylent Green,
Go Brandon!
America is just one big Jonestown now.
“I believe that the people of the United States and Europe are going to experience a similar rude awakening”
and tbf i can’t wait that this will happen as soon as possible. The whole western Bullshit can only go, because the middle class actually believe it. They have to suffer to finally wake up.
Mass Media, Belive Systems and dumb people.
Robert Malone on Mass Psychosis: https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/mass-formation-psychosis
Talk about Projecting. 🤦♂️
Dead on post from a french military man who states that the french troops in romania are like walking dead. Barely enough food and sleep. Leclerc tanks struggling to make their way in Carpates mountains…
this is quite interesting from patrick lancasters channel. looks like general mud has taken over . it is a nice thing to have total air superiority. Without it NATO would not survive over there.
looks like artillery spotting using drones- how effective- we have come along way since the artillery spotting balloons of ww1
https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2019/07/02/wwi-spotting-for-the-armys-big-guns-i/
Russian Drone, Artillery & Electronic Warfare Destroy Ukraine Positions in Kharkiv
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VJb7Zrxc6Q