Puppet MastersS


Attention

Best of the Web: How the West was Defeated

US & NATO Flags
© AFP 2023
Emmanuel Todd, historian, demographer, anthropologist, sociologist and political analyst, is part of a dying breed: one of the very few remaining exponents of old school French intelligentzia - a heir to those like Braudel, Sartre, Deleuze and Foucault who dazzled successive young Cold War generations from the West down to the East.

The first nugget concerning his latest book, La Défaite de L'Occident ("The Defeat of the West") is the minor miracle of actually being published last week in France, right within the NATO sphere: a hand grenade of a book, by an independent thinker, based on facts and verified data, blowing up the whole Russophobia edifice erected around the "aggression" by "Tsar" Putin.
At least some sectors of strictly oligarch-controlled corporate media in France simply could not ignore Todd this time around for several reasons. Most of all because he was the first Western intellectual, already in 1976, to have predicted the fall of the USSR in his book La Chute Finale, with his research based on Soviet infant mortality rates.
Another key reason was his 2002 book Apres L'Empire, a sort of preview of the Empire's Decline and Fall published a few months before Shock & Awe in Iraq.

Now Todd, in what he has defined as his last book ("I closed the circle") allows himself to go for broke and meticulously depict the defeat not only of the US but of the West as a whole - with his research focusing in and around the war in Ukraine.

Considering the toxic NATOstan environment where Russophobia and cancel culture reign supreme, and every deviation is punishable, Todd has been very careful not to frame the current process as a Russian victory in Ukraine (although that's implied in everything he describes, ranging from several indicators of social peace to the overall stability of the "Putin system", which is "a product of the history of Russia, and not the work of one man").

Rather, he focuses on the key reasons that have led to the West's downfall. Among them: the end of the nation-state; de-industrialization (which explains NATO's deficit in producing weapons for Ukraine); the "degree zero" of the West's religious matrix, Protestantism; the sharp increase of mortality rates in the US (much higher than in Russia), along with suicides and homicides; and the supremacy of an imperial nihilism expressed by the obsession with Forever Wars.

Light Sabers

House Jan. 6 Committee deleted more than 100 encrypted files days before GOP took majority, but Republicans have recovered the files

jan 6 capitol
© Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagesTrump supporters near the west front of the Capitol and the inauguration stands on Jan. 6, 2021.
Loudermilk is demanding then-Jan. 6 Chairman Thompson provide passwords for encrypted files

The former House Select Committee on Jan. 6 deleted more than 100 encrypted files from its probe just days before Republicans took over the majority in the House of Representatives, Fox News Digital has learned.

The House Administration Committee's Oversight Subcommittee is leading an investigation into Jan. 6, 2021, led by Chairman Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga. The panel is investigating the security failures on that day, as well as the "actions" of the former select committee investigating the Capitol riot.

Loudermilk, last week, told Fox News Digital his investigation has entered a "new phase" with renewed support from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who has committed additional resources to the panel's investigation.

Comment: Demorats trying to cover their tracks. For once, their incompetence is a good thing.

The House Committee was trying to leverage Jan 6 to accomplish a whole range of goals, from censorship, to surveillance, to a wholesale restructuring of the U.S. voting process.


Recycle

US forming 'colonial administration' in Ukraine - Russian spy chief

Biden Zelensky
Washington has told President Zelensky to put Western-educated officials in key roles, Sergey Naryshkin claims

Washington has begun creating "a colonial administration" in Ukraine consisting of local politicians who have sworn allegiance to the US, the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said.

The US government has demanded that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky "remove" dozens of high-ranking officials, whom Washington no longer trusts, from their posts under various pretexts, Sergey Naryshkin claimed on Monday.

Washington wants those jobs to be filled by "Ukrainians trained in the West, who have sworn allegiance to American interests," he said in comments cited by the SVR press service.

"As part of the policy of total vassalization of Ukraine, the US has started forming what is essentially a colonial administration in that country," the spy chief stated.

According to Naryshkin, the required changes in the Ukrainian government were relayed to Zelensky during his visit to Washington in December.

Comment: A strong US influence is not really news as it has been doing so the last 10 since, since the Maidan coup. At that time, it was also the US who were deciding who should run Ukraine for them with Victoria F**k the EU Nuland having a free hand.

See also:


Broom

Best of the Web: How America is destroying itself and the old world order

iran america
© AP Photo / Ebrahim NorooziSatirized painting of the Statue of Liberty painted on the wall of the former U.S. Embassy, in Tehran, Iran
Even as NATO's proxy war on Russia is flailing, the US has mired itself in numerous crises around the world.
A potentially catastrophic Middle East war to defend the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, while preparing for a delusional conflict against industrial powerhouse China, and borrowing $3 trillion every year.

All to prop up an American economy plagued by record homelessness, highest suicide rate since the Great Depression, massive asset bubbles, and a brewing civil war.

The confluence of late-stage capitalism and late-stage imperialism is pushing the US - and its vassals in Europe - into an abyss of self-destructive behavior.

Eye 1

Best of the Web: 'Is the TRUTH only what those with the most money say it is?' Neil Oliver lambasts psychos-in-power

Neil Oliver
Neil Oliver
Neil Oliver expresses his concerns for the levels of power held by the wealthy at Davos and the impact this might have on 'the value of human life.'


Sheriff

Italy's FM reveals country ceased arms shipments to Israel starting October 7 over 'war crime' concerns

Antonio Tajani
© Domenico Stinellis/APItalian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani arrives at a press conference on G7 at the Foreign Ministry in Rome, January 17, 2024. In rebuttal of opposition lawmaker's concerns Italian arms being used for 'war crimes,' Antonio Tajani states weapons exports were halted at war's outset.
Italian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani told local media Saturday that his country had halted all arms shipments to Israel since Hamas's brutal October 7 onslaught.

The minister's comments, made in an interview with Italian newspapers Nazione, Giorno, and Resto del Carlino, were a response to a demand by opposition leader Elly Schlein that the Italian government stop weapons exports to the Middle East. Tajani accused her of being "misinformed."

"Since October 7, we have decided not to send any more arms to Israel, so there is no need to discuss this point," said Tajani, according to a report from Italian news agency ANSA.

Comment: Notably Italy, and Spain, despite pressure from the US, refused to send support to the US-UK for their naval campaign against Yemen: Iran warns it could cut off Mediterranean Sea as France, Spain and Italy pull out of Red Sea Op - Israeli vessel hit off India's coast


2 + 2 = 4

Ron DeSantis drops out of US presidential campaign and endorses Trump

desantis
© AFP 2023 / GIORGIO VIERAFlorida Gov. Ron DeSantis
DeSantis's withdrawal, after months of weakening support, leaves only low-polling Nikki Haley standing between Trump and the nomination as the Republican Party's candidate for the US presidential election in November.

In a video message, DeSantis said that following his second place finish last week in the Iowa caucuses he could not "ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don't have a clear path to victory. Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign."

Comment: See what Trump had to say:
This comes after he cancelled multiple media appearances on Sunday but denied he was about quit the race.


Bad Guys

Yemen parliament says US, UK, Israel 'top terrorist' entities

Yemeni parliament
© Mehr NewsYemeni parliament
US officials said they see no end date to their bombing of Yemen in response to Ansarallah's efforts to defend Gaza.

Yemen's Parliament issued a statement emphasizing that the US, the UK, and Israel should be placed at the "top of the global terrorism list" in response to Washington listing Ansarallah on its own designated terror list last week.

Al-Maseerah TV reported on 21 January that "Members of the Parliament, in their discussions, pointed out the irony of the US designating its adversaries as terrorists while being the head of evil and terrorism worldwide. They emphasized placing the Israeli occupation entity and the US and British regimes at the top of the global terrorism list, asserting that they will reap the fruits of their evils and the crimes of Genocide committed against the Palestinian people."

Comment: See also:


Attention

Swastikas seen on US-made Ukrainian military hardware

US Army M2A3 Bradley tank
© Capt. Tobias Cukale via Global Look Press / Keystone Press AgencyA US Army M2A3 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle in Finland.
A video featuring a Ukrainian crew repairing a US-supplied Bradley infantry fighting vehicle near the frontline with Russia has revealed the apparent fondness for Nazi symbols among Kiev's forces.

The footage, which was shared online by journalist Alla Khotshnyavska, showed a Ukrainian crew repairing the IFV's tracks at an unspecified location in Donbass. Covered in mud, the Bradley sports a pair of swastikas scratched into the dirt on the side of the vehicle.

Radical Ukrainian nationalists played a key role in toppling the government in Kiev in 2014, and later attained significant influence in the country's military. Their ideology stems from the forces that collaborated with the invading Nazis against the Soviet Union during World War II.

The presence of far-right activists, including neo-Nazis, in the Ukrainian armed forces was widely acknowledged in the West until hostilities with Russia erupted in February 2022.

Quenelle

Slovak premier reiterates intent to veto 'corrupt' Ukraine's NATO membership bid

Robert Fico
© AP ArchiveRobert Fico said he would visit Kiev and meet with his Ukrainian counterpart Denys Shmyhal. "I will tell him that I am against the membership of Ukraine in NATO and that I will veto," he said.
Robert Fico also accuses Ukraine of being one of 'most corrupt countries' in world, under total 'influence and control of the US'.

Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has reiterated his opposition to Ukraine's bid for NATO membership ahead of his visit to Kiev next week, saying he will veto the move and describing Ukraine as one of the "most corrupt countries" in the world, with total "influence and control of the US".


Comment: Regarding corruption; it's quite an accusation, but he has a point: Organ trafficking, paedophile networks - The hell of children abducted by Ukraine's 'White Angels'


Fico told public broadcaster RVTS on Saturday that "Ukraine is under the total influence and control of the United States."

Comment: It seems that the veto may not be necessary, since there's reason to believe there's no intention to admit Ukraine into NATO in the first place; and probably because NATO members agree, it would lead to WWIII, and they're evidently not confident they'd win: Here's why the new British-Ukrainian defense agreement is great news for Russia

See also: EU wants Hungary stripped of voting rights for blocking Ukraine accession, Slovakia backs calls for review of Kiev-junta aid