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Covid has been unceremoniously knocked off its lofty perch, seamlessly replaced by a new foe for the self-righteous, virtue-signalling masses to ‘fight’: the ever-unpopular Russia. (And by fight, I mean change their Facebook profile pictures from an ‘I’ve had my Covid jab’ badge to an ‘I stand with Ukraine’ one.) Gone are the NHS heroes, time for them to TikTok-dance their way back to their previous status of underpaid dogsbodies. They have been switched out for Ukrainian heroes, soldiers, politicians, and everyday civilians, bravely facing the might of Russia with all the pluck of David when he faced off with Goliath. Bizarrely, and frighteningly, even thugs like former football hooligans from Britain, are being hailed as heroes for their willingness to take up arms in the name of Ukrainian freedom. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-volunteer-fighter-robert-grady-was-hibs-hooligan-j967bdj8l. It appears to escape those praising such people, that the opportunity for a person of this nature to pick up a gun and exert their aggression is a dream come true, and it is now being legitimised, praised even, as a heroic act. The reality is that a man with a history of violence and aggression, previously rightly punished and curbed, is now, in the madness we are living through, being enabled and praised for the same behaviour. And what can we make of Facebook and Instagram’s decisions to revise their policies on hate speech, and allow calls of violence towards Russians, and the death of Putin, to be posted unfettered on their platforms? https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-instagram-temporarily-allow-calls-violence-against-russians-2022-03-10/. We thought the world could not have lost its mind any more than it did during Covid – how wrong we were. I could never have imagined such a contagion of madness, akin to the witch trials of hundreds of years ago, but here we are, living and breathing the same delusions and hysteria-driven psychosis, on a global scale.
Suddenly, all things Russian are treated like a plague; supermarkets have stopped selling Russian Vodka, 'chicken kievs' have been renamed 'chicken kyivs', and a university in Italy even threatened to stop teaching Dostoevsky. All manner of huge corporations have pulled their brands from Russia, in a rush to be seen to be doing the right thing, and standing with Ukraine. If the acts of a government inform people's thinking about the whole of the population, then we really are doomed. I have no desire to be judged by the actions of Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Tony Blair, or any other hideous 'leader' we have lived under during my lifetime. The normal, garden variety Russian people are nothing to do with the war games and bombing, and yet they have been turned into pariahs, in the familiar game of world politics, where individuals are lost to the idiocy of dividing human beings into teams - good side / bad side.
In a turn reminiscent of a Bruce Willis movie, the president of the Ukraine happens to be a somewhat good-looking chap, with previous acting experience (he was in, amongst other things, a sitcom, playing, erm, the President of the Ukraine! https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305952/) who sports his combat-apparel with tremendous style. He also appears to have some speech writers on his staff who have made it their business to study the works of Winston Churchill and General Eisenhower. I’m sure that these new writers’ thesauruses have come in very handy – switch a few words here and there from those old classics, and Bob’s your uncle! And the people are lapping it up. The saddest part of this latest invasion on the collective intellect of humanity is how quickly the public have fallen for it. Even many of those who were, eventually, questioning of the Covid narrative and the integrity of the politicians and the media who pushed it so hard, have fallen prey to this latest incursion on their senses. Their heads have been turned by the seemingly irresistible urge to experience (at a safe distance, of course) a real-life war with Russia, something Hollywood has been programming us to expect for years. Mother Russia, and her villainous leader, enemies of democracy and freedoms! Braveheart for the modern age. Think back to Rocky IV, a classic example of the ‘East v West’ mentality: USA = good / Russia = bad.
I don’t pretend to understand exactly what is happening on the ground in Ukraine. There can be no doubt that there are many civilians suffering in the Ukraine, it has been ever thus, that real people, with no connection whatsoever to the regimes they exist under, suffer the worst in any conflict. But no doubt there are just as many suffering identical horrors in Russia. While politicians wax lyrical in public about freedom and democracy, in the privacy of their offices, they monger war and destruction in the name of personal wealth and power, on a Machiavellian level that most of us could not even imagine in our worst nightmares. It is undoubtable that business transactions have been happening for many years involving Russia, Ukraine, and no doubt even with Putin himself. London has been practically awash with Russian money for years, and this can only have been made possible with the knowledge and agreement of the power players in the West.
But herein lies the problem. How easily the public allows itself to be manipulated ensures quick and ready success for these evil-doers, and by the time most realise how many lies have been told, the waters are so muddied that it is impossible to comprehend the reality of what we have been subjected to, and so most are happy to put it behind them and forget. Remember Tony Blair and the Iraq war? How is the man not in prison for war crimes? Why was his enormous lie unchallenged, despite the devastating consequences, and why is he still now consulted whenever there is a ‘crisis’, popping up on TV and radio interviews to espouse his sickening views?
The same tactics are employed time and again to manipulate and control the public, because those tactics work. The level of control the government were able to exert over the last two years, during a so-called pandemic, is testament to the success of their methods. So pliable and obedient the public are, that they were quite literally convinced that the physical presence of another human being was a mortal threat, and that they must keep apart for months, if not years from family members. That is surely the definition of insanity. So, what is behind these tactics used to pull off such feats? The simple answer is fear. When the Covid saga began, an endless assault was unleashed, using all the might of the media. The death-toll tickers on 24-hour news channels, the headlines in giant copperplate bold on the front of newspapers, the pop-up ads on social media, the posters on billboards and bus shelters, and the insufferable daily briefings from Boris & Co, all combined to destroy the resolve of a large majority. Add to this the nasty modern phenomenon whereby everyone seeks to display, using the power of social media, their ‘goodly’ credentials, to everyone and anyone who will listen. The combination of fear and the opportunity to show off a person’s saintliness has created a perfect storm of smugness, which culminates in the pointing of fingers and denigration of anyone who does not wish to participate in this type of self-righteous and hypocritical behaviour, and shouting loudly that we, the non-participating ones, are the enemy within. The fact that their behaviour fits the definition of fascism seems to escape them. #bekind. #stayhomesavelives. #blm. #isupportwhatevertodaysmovementis.
And now: Ukraine.
Until late February this year, the political situation of the Ukraine was not even on the agenda of most people, and the extent of the average person’s knowledge of it would likely not have gone beyond the fact that it was once a part of the USSR. But a few weeks into what is being sold to us as a war defending the democracy of a sovereign nation, cruelly attacked by the evil behemoth Russia, it is extraordinary to note the number of people who seem to have magically gained a sudden and in-depth knowledge of the intricacies of the place and its politics. The government propaganda machines of the ‘West’, using their tentacles of the media, have pulled the masses in, with images of rocket strikes and bloodied civilians, and like the animals on Orwell’s farm, the people have forgotten the brutal and damaging treatment we have endured for the last two years based on ‘facts’ which have now been proven to be huge lies, and instead believe everything they are seeing and hearing, without bothering to engage in some critical thinking, and question what exactly is going on.
The Times, trusted by most in the UK, ran the headline “Will sanctions stop a Russian shell?”, using a still from a video that had been doing the rounds, allegedly showing Russian planes flying low over Kiev. However, it has since been revealed that this was in fact footage from a rehearsal for the 2020 Victory Day Parade flyover, in Moscow, two years ago.
And the photograph of the suddenly-exalted President of Ukraine, Vlodomyr Zelensky, tweeted and retweeted, showing him bravely ‘Shoulder to Shoulder with his people’? Actually, this is a photograph of him last April, visiting troops.
And a TV news channel in Spain were forced to quietly remove some of their ‘rocket’ news reels, purported to show brave Ukrainian forces downing Russian aircraft, because it was revealed by the makers of a video game to, in fact, be footage from their game! Please do check https://off-guardian.org/ for more. (They have been a pillar of critical reporting for the last few years, so welcome as we can no longer rely on the mainstream.)
Consider the last 5 years in the Ukraine. In Odessa, in 2014, after the controversial change of government following a coup (many believe backed heavily by the US and EU), those Ukrainians who wished to remain affiliated with Russia, as opposed to Europe, held peaceful protests in the city centre, expressing their views. What followed was intimidation beyond anything that could ever be justified, and a building housing the protestors was set ablaze, resulting in over 40 peaceful protestors being burned alive. Put that into some context. In the United Kingdom, there are a large population of people who see themselves as Scottish, and wish for independence from England. This was seen as a perfectly reasonable position, a matter of personal opinion, and one which, of course, people should be allowed to express. It is not a cause for taking up arms and burning people alive. But in Odessa, this is what has happened to those who have dared to speak of their desire for independence, and the freedom to speak their language without punishment. https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/ukrainian-rightists-burn-alive-39-at-odessa-union-building/
Few people seem aware that the Ukrainian government have been attacking their own people in such a way for the last few years. The Donbass region is occupied by many people who speak Russian as their first language, and who would prefer Ukraine to remain affiliated with Russia, not Europe. The Ukraine government outlawed the speaking of Russian, as one of the prongs of their assault on these people, and have been trying to oust them for years. And yet, in light of the last two weeks, there is a leap to hail Ukraine as a bastion of democracy and freedom. I’m afraid that events preceding have proved that it is anything but.
The need to think critically has never been more important, but so many people in the modern age have been programmed so successfully that they are stripped of the ability to do this. The more lurid the headline, the more likely it is that it is based on spurious information, or even outright lies, deliberately hoisted into your conscience to provoke your senses, to make you feel anger and hatred. Don’t let yourself be used this way. This is not a game of football, where you should be choosing one side or the other. This is politics, and it is the politics of wealth and power, not of people and rights. The only protection any government is interested in is that of their own prosperity, us civilians are merely dispensable pawns in their games. If there is any one knowable thing about what is happening right now, it is that some very wealthy people on both sides of the battle have some very high-stake interests in Ukraine, and it has zero to do with ‘defending democracy’. If defending democracy was the goal, they wouldn’t be so picky and choosy about which regimes are allowable, and which are not. (It does seem a remarkable coincidence that all those in recent years which have been deemed unacceptable and worthy of the intervention of the West, are those that don’t buy into the central banking systems - just an observation.)
I am shocked at the way the #bekind type of people have so quickly done an about turn, and are now happy to demand death to the Russians, with so little knowledge of the reality of the situation. Then again, I really shouldn’t be. They were the same people who were happy to tell the world that they thought anyone who ‘refused’ an experimental vaccine should be ostracised and denied medical treatment. Perhaps more fitting for these folk would be #hideousgullablehypocrite.
I conclude with a few of my own lines which I reserve the right to copy and past back to those who will undoubtably send me messages proclaiming me the anti-Christ, for refusing to immediately jump to an ‘I STAND WITH UKRAINE’ outlook: “I stand with humanity. Humanity of all nationalities. I DO NOT STAND with corrupt governments and power-hungry men and women, who seek to stampede over normal people in order to further their own perverted and greedy agendas. And yes, I stand with people in all parts of the world who are suffering because of these evil, manipulative, avaricious beings, who I have some doubts are even human”.
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