Minus Western propaganda what's the real story on the Ukraine?

[Random Rooster]

The conclusion to the war will be interesting and also potentially frightening. This is yet another in a succession of US failures and it's a biggie if Russia "wins". The US is rapidly losing credibility as a selfless world leader. Despite the blanket propaganda, people are starting to rely more on the evidence of their own eyes, seeing it as the ruthless hegemon it has always been. It's horrifying to think that some ruse will be resorted to so that NATO can be deployed.

Most probably a truce will lead to an agreement hyped as a victory and as usual, the sheeple will believe it because, in reality, the masses in the West have no interest apart from shopping. Certainly they have no geo- political interest that goes beyond goodies and baddies.

What's happening in the US's great political divide is the legacy of that nutty Tea Party movement. Ratbag amateurs being elected. We saw something similar here when the sheeple elected a bunch of Hansonistas in Qld a few years back.

How could the China "experts" in Western media reach the conclusion that China will collapse when it still had a GDP growth rate of more than 5 percent last year and the first eight months of this year while the major developed countries grew between zero and 3 percent?

The Western media also publish stories about “China collapse” even after the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund confirmed China remains the most powerful engine for the world growth.

And some Western politicians point their fingers at China, claiming it will soon collapse when international poll results for years have shown the Chinese government enjoys one of the highest citizens’ approval ratings: a satisfactory rate of more than 90 percent among its citizens.

Both Russia and Ukraine has already lost....tens of thousands of deaths-if not hundreds of thousands, for what gain? What good has come out of any of this? Remember the original aim " to de-nazify" Ukraine and stop the possible expansion of NATO. Both those objectives have seemed to disappear and now they fight for....what exactly are they fighting for?

How did that Temptations song go " War what is it good for, absoluting nuthin".....so true. It needs to stop

[Paddo Colt 61]

I would say that he Ukes, for the most part, think that they are fighting for "patriotic" reasons - they've been "invaded unprovoked" as the Western Media and their propaganda would have it and that would fit nicely into their age old prejudices. The more fascist elements would want a "pure" Ukraine free of ethnic Russians and sundry minorities. Units like the Azov Battalion, drawn from all over the world, would be there just to fight for a Nazi cause and, it needs to be said that a government which venerates anti semitic war criminals like Stepan Bandera is Nazi.

Russians, on the other hand, at least those who direct the war, would be focused on the existential threat that NATO armies on their borders represents. Chaos, devastation and carnage on a titanic scale has already visited them in living memory. This war has a cause and it's not Russian aggression.

This morning I see a report of a "Russian missile attack" which killed 50+ people but before accepting that as truth, we should remember that the market place "attack" about a month ago has been shown to have come from the Uke side. People tend to believe the first thing that they hear - Thucydides observed it during the Peloponnesian Wars.

Attached is a discussion of "what now" by Geoffrey Sachs, an advisor to the UN:

https://johnmenadue.com/beyond-the-n...ce-in-ukraine/

[Random Rooster]

I would say that he Ukes, for the most part, think that they are fighting for "patriotic" reasons - they've been "invaded unprovoked" as the Western Media and their propaganda would have it and that would fit nicely into their age old prejudices. The more fascist elements would want a "pure" Ukraine free of ethnic Russians and sundry minorities. Units like the Azov Battalion, drawn from all over the world, would be there just to fight for a Nazi cause and, it needs to be said that a government which venerates anti semitic war criminals like Stepan Bandera is Nazi.

Russians, on the other hand, at least those who direct the war, would be focused on the existential threat that NATO armies on their borders represents. Chaos, devastation and carnage on a titanic scale has already visited them in living memory. This war has a cause and it's not Russian aggression.

This morning I see a report of a "Russian missile attack" which killed 50+ people but before accepting that as truth, we should remember that the market place "attack" about a month ago has been shown to have come from the Uke side. People tend to believe the first thing that they hear - Thucydides observed it during the Peloponnesian Wars.

Attached is a discussion of "what now" by Geoffrey Sachs, an advisor to the UN:

https://johnmenadue.com/beyond-the-n...ce-in-ukraine/

Well if thats true then its a big fat fail because the invasion just accelerated Finlands bid to join NATO and Sweden are next, Finlands border with Russia is a whopping 1350kms.
Personally i believe Putin invaded Ukraine because he thought NATO was actually weak-. He didn't set out to defend Russia against a nonexistent threat, but to expand Russia's power, eliminate Ukraine's statehood, and destroy NATO,

This invasion has a cause worthy of sacrificing 100,000 plus deaths? I really don't think so

[Random Rooster]

This morning I see a report of a "Russian missile attack" which killed 50+ people but before accepting that as truth, we should remember that the market place "attack" about a month ago has been shown to have come from the Uke side. People tend to believe the first thing that they hear - Thucydides observed it during the Peloponnesian Wars.

Thought provoking documentary on Paramount + called "Superpower" made by Sean Penn. He goes into areas that have been levelled that had no military targets at all- brings home the reality of the invasion.-irrespective of the reason it's happening and who is to blame. Sean Penn goes to ground zero to report- its addressing reality

[King Salvo]

Comrade Paddo is clueless when it comes to Russia, or China for that matter, and only regurgitates ad nauseum what he reads on Menadue's Marlarkey and now full moon over Alabama, which are 100% pro-Russia/China and anti-West sites.

There was never any discussion on NATO expansion and Gorbachev said so in an interview and in his book

All those countries that were part of the Soviet Block/Warsaw Pact voted overwhelmingly for independence and thus became independent sovereign states able to decide their own futures free from Moscow's control, including what organisation they wished to apply to join.

During the 1990 summit, Zoellick says President Gorbachev accepted the idea of German unification within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, based on the principle that every country should freely choose its own alliances.

https://hls.harvard.edu/today/there-...-enlarge-nato/

Putin is just using so-called NATO expansion as a smokescreen to justify the invasion of Ukraine, as why would they not have done something similar when all those former Soviet Block and Warsaw Pact countries applied to join NATO?

Putin has often said that the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union, so one can see where his head is, and he certainly doesn't like countries they have been controlling electing pro-Western governments.

Russia invaded Chechnya twice as they were seeking independence, and the second time it installed a pro-Russian government, and then Georgia, which had a pro-West government at the time, annexed North and South Ossetia. Abkhazia and Abjasia, turning them into so-called independent republics, which are in reality Russian republics controlled by Moscow.

Russia then turned on Ukraine, which had elected a pro-Western government replacing the pro-Russian government and militarily backed so-called breakaway republic militias in both the Donbass and Crimea, which ultimately led to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Putin's opinion is that Ukraine is part of Russia, its history is Russian, and there has never been a Ukrainian history.

Interesting that Comrade Paddo posts the following statement which he must have read somewhere and that he actually believes it to be factual " The more fascist elements would want a "pure" Ukraine free of ethnic Russians and sundry minorities. Units like the Azov Battalion, drawn from all over the world, would be there just to fight for a Nazi cause and, it needs to be said that a government which venerates anti semitic war criminals like Stepan Bandera is Nazi."

For starters the Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish and a lot of Ukrainians speak both Ukrainian and Russian including having Russian born relatives and Russian family backgrounds - In Soviet times folk were placed in Countries where their skills were required.

Comrade Paddo say's the Ukraine Government are pro Nazi and are fighting for the Nazi Cause which of course isn't the case either - mmm there are more Neo Nazi's in Russia and Comrade Paddo obviously has no clue about the background of the Wagner Group.

Let me fill him in

The co-founder of the Wagner Group was Dmitry Utkin, who was a Neo-Nazi and admirer of Nazi Germany.

Utkin's call sign was Wagner, hence how they got their name: from Richard Wagner, the German composer who was well known for his anti-Semitic views and hence a favourite composer of the Nazi German Government.

Utkin was killed in that mysterious plane crash along with the other Wagner Group co-founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and senior Wagner Group commanders.

[Paddo Colt 61]

Where to start?

Randy:
* We'll see what happens with Finland in the inevitable peace negotiations.

* Sean Penn - the actor?? Gotta be kidding if you're holding him up as credible. Just another propaganda exercise financed by the State Dept. like others on Netflix and Youtube. Zelensky is credited with writing the thing fgs and I'm told that it features a conga line of Uke and American right wingers and leaves out all of the history of US involvement in East European "Colour" revolutions. A true Sheeple propaganda exercise and you take it on face value?

* You're right, war is a tragic waste and most of the horror is borne by civilians but who provoked this one? As I say the US will fight it to the last plucky Uke. Are you suggesting that the US is not complicit? It has a list of "unprovoked invasions" post WW2.

Kingsley:

* Not gonna waste too much time on this. No use talking to a brick wall.

* Chechnya and Georgia military interventions were both US attempts at destabilization by encouraging jihad at the time Russia was beginning to reassert itself. Well documented.

* "Soviet times" - bullshit. Russians have been there in Ukraine for hundreds of years.

* I'm talking about Ukrainian Nazism which has a well documented history in the western Ukraine where the first holocaust began in 1941. Whether there are Nazis in Russia, Germany or Australia is not relevant. Ukraine has a rich Nazi ethnic cleansing past.

Shish.....can't get over that Sean Penn thing.

[Random Rooster]

Where to start?

Randy:
* We'll see what happens with Finland in the inevitable peace negotiations.

* Sean Penn - the actor?? Gotta be kidding if you're holding him up as credible. Just another propaganda exercise financed by the State Dept. like others on Netflix and Youtube. Zelensky is credited with writing the thing fgs and I'm told that it features a conga line of Uke and American right wingers and leaves out all of the history of US involvement in East European "Colour" revolutions. A true Sheeple propaganda exercise and you take it on face value?

* You're right, war is a tragic waste and most of the horror is borne by civilians but who provoked this one? As I say the US will fight it to the last plucky Uke. Are you suggesting that the US is not complicit? It has a list of "unprovoked invasions" post WW2.



Shish.....can't get over that Sean Penn thing.

Geez Paddo you aren't open to anything besides Menadue. How can you critically review anything when it's just one source you draw upon?

Anyhow for those who may be interested.... Penn started this doc in 2021- some months before the invasion. Originally it was going to be about Zelensky, his background and his rise to President- he interviews various people including those who are sceptical/critical about Zelensky. When it became obvious the Russians were ready to invade many thought Zelensky would just let them take what they want- just like Crimea in 2014. Penn and his colleagues are in Ukraine the day of the invasion but eventually decides to go to Poland for safety. He then returns and interviews soldiers on the frontline-as well as communicating with reporters and politicians back in the US. The most striking part was the human factor-devastated towns in rubble and civilian deaths. Its worthy of a watch

To answer your question - to say that the US provoked the invasion is drawing a very very long bow. Russia was not threatened by any of its neighbours, NATO allies or not. No country will ever attack a country with the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons; it will never happen. As I already stated, the war may finish tomorrow, and Putin has accomplished nothing. You can look at his objectives for invading in 2 ways-they were either a fictitious smokescreen....or if genuine it's been a failure.

[Paddo Colt 61]

I cite Menadue because it's contributors are credible, often well known and well credentialed. Most are serious scholars, journalists and public intellectuals. The most obvious thing to note is that they are mostly progressive though the Right sometimes gets a go. It is also in no way a radical site so it can't be smeared as conspiratorial or post truth or propaganda. I've explained this several times. There are are sites of course which are more open to smear so, with the exception of Moon of Alabama, I don't cite those.

* "...Penn started this doc in 2021- some months before the invasion" - the "invasion" happened the day after but there was a long period of brinkmanship before that.

* "When it became obvious the Russians were ready to invade many thought Zelensky would just let them take what they want- just like Crimea in 2014" - And he was going to join negotiations. The US vetoed it as they had vetoed the Minsk Agreement on which negotiations were to be based.

* "....interviews soldiers on the frontline-as well as communicating with reporters and politicians back in the US" - Yep, all of them right wing including a Democrat who opined that the war would be a lesson to China.....Warmongers all.

* "You can look at his objectives for invading in 2 ways-they were either a fictitious smokescreen....or if genuine it's been a failure" - a failure? It's all over bar the shouting.

"A long bow"? I have posted many articles from P&I which document US mendacity in Ukraine. Anyone who prefers Sean Penn's puerile interpretation has surely partaken of the Cool Aid. Wilful blindness is what such people display. I mean just look to the US's reaction to Russian missiles in Cuba in the 60s, yet it reserves the right to ring Russia and China it what can only be seen as offensive bases. Like others here, Randy, your long conditioned belief is that the US is some sort of impartial World policeman who sometimes makes mistakes in it's well intentioned role. Give us a break ....that's just refusing to confront reality as is that silly pious lecture you've penned above.

https://johnmenadue.com/beyond-the-n...ce-in-ukraine/

[Random Rooster]

"A long bow"? I have posted many articles from P&I which document US mendacity in Ukraine. Anyone who prefers Sean Penn's puerile interpretation has surely partaken of the Cool Aid. Wilful blindness is what such people display. I mean just look to the US's reaction to Russian missiles in Cuba in the 60s, yet it reserves the right to ring Russia and China it what can only be seen as offensive bases. Like others here, Randy, your long conditioned belief is that the US is some sort of impartial World policeman who sometimes makes mistakes in it's well intentioned role. Give us a break ....that's just refusing to confront reality as is that silly pious lecture you've penned above.

https://johnmenadue.com/beyond-the-n...ce-in-ukraine/

Bloody hell can you believe that Paddo, of all people, said i penned a "pious lecture".........but it gave me a good laugh nonetheless.!

You haven't watched the documentary but because its Sean Penn you immediately dismiss it. It doesn't address the reasons for the war-but it does address ( and show) what it's like to be in the middle of it. Its very confronting- deaths of civilians, women , children, and elderly isn't easy to watch, nor is total cities reduced to rubble and millions of refugees and displaced people.....but if you dont believe with your own own eyes then you're, as you put it, "refusing to confront reality".

However i'm sure you find it easier to read the thoughts of a Pearls & Irritations author. I didn't dismiss the article you linked by Jeffrey Sachs and even checked out quite a few or his other articles. He certainly has a common themes and it got me thinking how truly independent is he?? Is all what it seems? Maybe not..... https://theintercept.com/2021/12/29/...uae-happiness/

[Paddo Colt 61]

What a pity that Sean wasn't there to document the horror of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Hanoi, Belgrade, Fallujah and dozens of others - give us a break fgs. War is catastrophe, the question is who bears the responsibility for this one? Given its track record of regime change world wide only a gullible sheeple would would think the US was a bystander.

Naturally Penn doesn't canvass the causes of the war. The propaganda intent is to insinuate that the suffering is solely down to Russian "aggression". You have dismissed the revelations that several rocket incidents have Ukrainian origins? Hollywood has been right wing since McCarthy.

Jeffrey Sachs is a UN associated prominent opponent of US involvement in the war, neo-con geo-political activity and the demonisation of Putin. Naturally he has a common theme. It is reasoned one though, complete with evidence. There you go again with the pro US stuff, inferring that he's a flunky. Kinsley Mark 11.

[Random Rooster]

What a pity that Sean wasn't there to document the horror of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Hanoi, Belgrade, Fallujah and dozens of others - give us a break fgs. War is catastrophe, the question is who bears the responsibility for this one? Given its track record of regime change world wide only a gullible sheeple would would think the US was a bystander.

Naturally Penn doesn't canvass the causes of the war. The propaganda intent is to insinuate that the suffering is solely down to Russian "aggression". You have dismissed the revelations that several rocket incidents have Ukrainian origins? Hollywood has been right wing since McCarthy.

Jeffrey Sachs is a UN associated prominent opponent of US involvement in the war, neo-con geo-political activity and the demonisation of Putin. Naturally he has a common theme. It is reasoned one though, complete with evidence. There you go again with the pro US stuff, inferring that he's a flunky. Kinsley Mark 11.

Ahhhh thanks for the " pious lecture ".....i love how they all include a history lesson!!

Hey, if you're happy to be a "One Source Wonder" then so be it. It is true that after you reach the age of 60, you become less open to new experiences......so it figures. Beautiful day out there today, lots of clouds for you to be angry at! Enjoy!!

[King Salvo]

Jeffrey Sachs is a discredited economist whose shock therapy economics failed in Russia and created the Russia as it is today, i.e., created Russian oligarchs as a result of rapid privatisation and paved the way for the rise of Putin.

During the rapid privatisation, hundreds of millions of privatisation vouchers were issued to Russian citizens that could be sold or traded and used to buy shares in state enterprises that were being privatised.

The folk that would later become these oligarchs scoured Russia to purchase these privatisation vouchers, and with Russia suffering from hyperinflation, many were eager to sell them at a fraction of their value.

In amassing all these privatisation vouchers, they were able to use them to purchase shares or buy outright grossly undervalued state enterprises that were being privatised and, of course, become mega rich.

Oligarchs have a big say in who the President is in Russia, and with Yeltsin's health in decline, they needed someone they could trust to protect their interests as Prime Minister who would step into the President's role if need be. They selected an unknown former KGB Colonel named Vladamir Putin, and the rest is history, as they say.

Putin became Mega Rich himself by jailing and taking the assests from Oligarchs that fell out of favour, or taking the assests from Oligarchs that conveniently died in mysterious circumstances.

https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/22/...rchs-and-putin

The so-called "economic reforms" were also supposed to deliver democracy to Russia, which, of course, never occurred. - Putin, unless taken out, will be Russian President until at least 2036—32 years as President by then—that just doesn't happen in democratic countries; it only occurs in Marxist, totalitarian, and authoritarian states.

Ah yes, we have been over this before as well, but no doubt Comrade Paddo will post a link to Menadue's Malarkey Swirls and Deviations article, which will blame the big bad west, written, of course, by some obscure former diplomat or public servant that lived in and has business interests in Russia and/or China and is on the Moscow and/or Beijing payroll but will tell us all how it's an independent article.

[King Salvo]

Bloody hell can you believe that Paddo, of all people, said i penned a "pious lecture".........but it gave me a good laugh nonetheless.!

You haven't watched the documentary but because its Sean Penn you immediately dismiss it. It doesn't address the reasons for the war-but it does address ( and show) what it's like to be in the middle of it. Its very confronting- deaths of civilians, women , children, and elderly isn't easy to watch, nor is total cities reduced to rubble and millions of refugees and displaced people.....but if you dont believe with your own own eyes then you're, as you put it, "refusing to confront reality".

However i'm sure you find it easier to read the thoughts of a Pearls & Irritations author. I didn't dismiss the article you linked by Jeffrey Sachs and even checked out quite a few or his other articles. He certainly has a common themes and it got me thinking how truly independent is he?? Is all what it seems? Maybe not..... https://theintercept.com/2021/12/29/...uae-happiness/

Dr Shock Sachs is shonky to say the least as I have said previously on here and again today

Comrade Paddo has been totally brainwashed by the propaganda on Menadue's Malarkey, so anything not from that site he will never believe.

[Paddo Colt 61]

* It's a bit more than a "history lesson" Randy, it's called EVIDENCE. Like old Kingo, you've adopted the freely assert, ignore the evidence and respond abusively approach, ad hominem preferably. What you might have done was concede that "Superpower" was/is propaganda.

* A "one source wonder"? The website that I mostly refer to features a wide variety of sources. Most comment on it comes from within contributors' fields of expertise unlike your contributions drawn from Netflix. Further, its appeal has grown astoundingly over a short time. The Intelligentsia have grown weary of, and impatient with, our MSM owned as it is by a controlling right wing elite.

* Kingo: Far from being "discredited" Jeffrey Sachs is a highly respected economist who has gained worldwide respect as a consultant to the UN for many years. His field of expertise is the eradication of poverty and his advice to the Solidarity government in Poland on inflation control led to him being awarded that nation's highest civilian honour. He also oversaw success in beating inflation in Slovenia and in South American nations. To dismiss him as you do is infantile to say the least but then whatever it takes is your modus so no surprises.

* Euronews is a shoddy privately owned rolling coverage outfit criticised by both sides of the Ukraine conflict for carelessness with facts. Recently Ukraine took exception to a report that it was training children to defuse mines. So much for it as a source.

[King Salvo]

It looks to me like Dr. Shock is on the payroll of some sordid governments and is more of a mercenary type, selling his questionable "skills" to the highest bidder.

It still doesn't hide the fact that Sachs shock economic therapy created the type of country Russia is today, enabling a totalitarian and authoritarian regime to maintain an iron grip on power, just like during Soviet Union times.

The turnaround in the Polish Economy was more to do with Leszek Balcerowicz - The Balcerowicz plan.

It goes to show what a failed system and ideology Communism/Marxism was and the problems those Eastern European countries had and still have in moving from a state-run and controlled system to the tried and tested capitalist system.

Even China caught the capitalist bug, although the next step of democracy and democratic elections will take some time.

And some still have the Gaul to still champion the Marxist system and ideology.