I'm also not going to read anything into the fact that the peace/nuclear disarmament movement is so incredibly defunct and impotent that even the Hapsburg dynasty has better odds at making a successful comeback.

Heh. (But in a scary way.)

It's not even simply about world domination and personal profit.  Those explain the actions of the interested parties, but hardly the popular hysteria this Caucasus crisis has unleashed in America.  How does one explain that?  On what grounds do our people so eagerly embrace the narrative of Russia as the enemy?   What makes it so easy for people to ignore, even gamble away the gains of the last 20 years?

Projection?

Possibly the biggest problem for Superpower Psychology is that evil is always out there somewhere - i.e. somewhere else.

And certainly not in here. Uh uh.

There's also the usual basic profiteering to look forward to as well. (But that almost goes without saying now.)

fixed


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

What am I supposed to do?  What can I do?  Any ideas?  Let me know if you come up with something.

I suppose that the appropriate Russian advice for this is but one word:

Nichevo.

Nothing can be done.

Then again, there is something that can be done.  If it bothers you write a letter to the editor.  Better yet try  one of the Chicagoland alternative papers:

New City

Chicago Reader

Or even try In These Times

All might be responsive to an informed opinion piece on what is currently happening in Georgia.

I am astonished at the blatant lies being distributed by the media.  That the Russians attacked first.  That civilian casualties from the shelling of Tshkinvali were the result of Russian military action. So on and so on.

I try to explain to my mother, but she thinks that this  conflict is a sign of the "end times."  

Gog and Magog.

And the antichrist.

The hysteria reminds me of the lead up to the Iraq War.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

I'm watching my local news and they are telling me that NATO has suspended formal contacts with Russia and have told the Russians to get out of Georgia -- but that there's really nothing NATO can do about it.  The newsreaders were pretty emphatic that there's nothing NATO can do.  heh. Pretty good take on reality for local news.

So basically Putin has made his statement and won his point.  Georgia won't be a part of NATO and neither will the Ukraine.  That's now off the table.  The news media won't report it by saying that Putin won, by next year most people will have forgotten about this, but the current and next governments of the NATO allies understand what happened and will have to deal with that reality.  

you are the media you consume.

NYT: Russia Never Wanted a War

What is needed is a legally binding agreement not to use force. Mr. Saakashvili has repeatedly refused to sign such an agreement, for reasons that have now become abundantly clear.

The West would be wise to help achieve such an agreement now. If, instead, it chooses to blame Russia and re-arm Georgia, as American officials are suggesting, a new crisis will be inevitable. In that case, expect the worst.

In recent days, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush have been promising to isolate Russia. Some American politicians have threatened to expel it from the Group of 8 industrialized nations, to abolish the NATO-Russia Council and to keep Russia out of the World Trade Organization.

These are empty threats. For some time now, Russians have been wondering: If our opinion counts for nothing in those institutions, do we really need them? Just to sit at the nicely set dinner table and listen to lectures?

Indeed, Russia has long been told to simply accept the facts. Here's the independence of Kosovo for you. Here's the abrogation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, and the American decision to place missile defenses in neighboring countries. Here's the unending expansion of NATO. All of these moves have been set against the backdrop of sweet talk about partnership. Why would anyone put up with such a charade?

There is much talk now in the United States about rethinking relations with Russia. One thing that should definitely be rethought: the habit of talking to Russia in a condescending way, without regard for its positions and interests.

Our two countries could develop a serious agenda for genuine, rather than token, cooperation. Many Americans, as well as Russians, understand the need for this. But is the same true of the political leaders?

The 2nd casualty of war.

The first are the lives sacrificed for the gain of others.  Truth?  If we had enough respect for it during peacetime, there would be no war.  People only bother looking for the truth once the bombs have been dropped.  Truth is a casualty of intellectual laziness, not war.  The second casualty is sanity.  War wracks us with grief for the suffering and loss of our fellow man.  War enrages us at the sheer absence of civility and humanity.  War inundates us with more information than we can process, information meant to overpower not inform us, a different kind of weapon.  How can people remain sane and objective?  How can they concentrate and think clearly?

Tell me again why you're not coming to Paris in September?

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Yet, attempting to grasp the logic behind the way Russia has been singled out as the new Public Enemy #1, I note a disturbing pattern of condemnation couched in creepy religo-thinking.

I fear that a substantial portion of the US population are in abject fear of having to go through cold turkey withdrawal from their long accustomed Manichean world-view, with evil so conveniently realized in concrete courtesy of GODLESS COMMUNIST-SOVIETS turned lately into Evil Russians pretending to believe in Jesus.  We had to give the Ruskies the benefit of the doubt after Gorby and Boris, and damn, that was trying!  

GWB did his best to conjure up a respectable alternative in the form of THE AXIS OF EVIL, but we knocked down or talked down all of the members except Iran.  Doing something about Iran looked too likely to make Cheney and GWB look worse than Jimmy Carter to be worth risking, but McCain looked to be in trouble in the election.

So like Merlin whispering into the ear of sleeping Morgana in Excalibur, we were able to egg on Saakashvili into an act of virtual national suicide and at once recreate the old Manichean Evil against which the Fundamentalist Christian Good could be defined and  provide a frame within which McCain could look good.  Saak chewing on his tie showed that he is finally realizing how he has been used.  

Georgia is the red meat for the Christian Right.  There may be risks, but for the Cheney wing a nuclear war might be preferable  to a Democratic victory in November.  It would also have the advantage of incinerating the books and records just when their massive looting of the economy was going to be revealed for what is has been.  Maybe that is what the Rapture looks like.  

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

 In Poland the right tended to actually be rather accomadionist towards RUssia, and some still are - they hate the godless masonic neoliberal judeo-marxist spirit that runs Western Europe, and the heretical (Protestant) neo-liberal judeo-capitalist spirit that runs America. Plus they believe that Poland's big enemy is Germany, that the EU is basically a German empire and want a close alliance with Russia against the German threat. This is part of what makes the anti-Atlanticist camp so weak in Poland. FIrst it's very much a minority, and then it's split three ways between fascists, leftists, and nostalgics for the old regime. The first and the third might be willing to uneasily cooperate, as might the second and third, but that's it.

The United States must decide whether it wants a partner in a flawed Russia or a second Cold War. For if we want another Cold War, we are, by cutting Russia out of the oil of the Caspian and pushing NATO into her face, going about it exactly the right way.

Vladimir Putin is no Stalin. He is a nationalist determined, as ruler of a proud and powerful country, to assert his nation's primacy in its own sphere, just as U.S. presidents from James Monroe to Bush have done on our side of the Atlantic.

A resurgent Russia is no threat to any vital interests of the United States. It is a threat to an American Empire that presumes some God-given right to plant U.S. military power in the backyard or on the front porch of Mother Russia.

Who rules Abkhazia and South Ossetia is none of our business. And after this madcap adventure of Saakashvili, why not let the people of these provinces decide their own future in plebiscites conducted by the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe?

As for Saakashvili, he's probably toast in Tbilisi after this stunt. Let the neocons find him an endowed chair at the American Enterprise Institute.

Read the whole thing.  Here are some gems:

SPIEGEL: The US government claims that it warned Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili against taking military action. But wasn't the whole thing only too convenient for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin?

Schröder: These are speculations in which I prefer not to participate. I assume that no one in the Moscow leadership has an interest in military conflicts. There are enough internal problems in Russia that need to be solved. For instance, corruption and abuse of authority must be addressed. Russia has plenty of deficits, an issue I've addressed many a time. President (Dmitry) Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin are addressing these problems -- together, by the way, in friendship and mutual respect, not in competition with one another, as journalistic fortune-tellers often imply.

SPIEGEL: That may well be, but something else is now at stake: Russia has never overcome the loss of its superpower status, and in recent years it has felt cornered and humiliated by NATO. During the wars in the Balkans, the Iraq invasion by the "Coalition of the Willing" under Washington's leadership, the Kosovo declaration of independence ...

Schröder: ... don't forget the development of an American missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic ...

SPIEGEL: ... the Kremlin has been forced to look on. Isn't it possible that an economically and militarily strengthened Moscow now sees US friend Saakashvili as the best possible opportunity to retaliate against the West? And that Putin wants to assert imperial claims?

Schröder: In my view, there have indeed been serious mistakes made by the West in its policy toward Russia. Can we conclude that this bears some relationship to the recent events in the Caucasus, as Russia's response, so to speak, to the Georgian provocation? I think it's wrong to combine these two notion

SPIEGEL: You don't share the newly erupted fear among many in the West of a "Russian threat?

Schröder: No, not at all. There is a perception of Russia in the West that has very little to do with reality.

(...)

SPIEGEL: The Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, followed up by saying: "Today we're all Georgians."

Schröder: I am not.

(...)

SPIEGEL: Robert Kagan, an idol of the neoconservatives and still the Republicans' leading foreign policy thinker, has defined the day of Russia's invasion of Georgia as the beginning of renewed territorial conflicts between the major powers and "as a turning point no less significant than Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell."

Schröder: I read that, but it too means nothing to me. Kagan, after all, was one of the men who strongly advised intervening in Iraq. The consequences were not pleasant, neither for America nor Europe. Perhaps one should simply not listen to his advice.

(...)

SPIEGEL: This sounds very optimistic. You don't see a remake of the Cold War developing?

Schröder: No. At least it would not be in the Russian leadership's interest. I am completely opposed to demonizing Russia. And I believe that Moscow will soon see the need, once again, for greater integration into the international community.

A friend used to be in the socialist party here in Ireland. He ran as a candidate in an election. 99 votes! This was his theme tune ever afterwards.

Wannabe NATO member on war path by Jerome a Paris Fri Aug 8th, 2008

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2008/8/8/61525/48497

Georgia: oil, neocons, cold war and our credibility by Jerome a Paris Sun Aug 10th, 2008

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2008/8/9/102157/8633

US Transporting Georgian Troops Out of Iraq to Fight Russia by ManfromMiddletown Sun Aug 10th, 2008

http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2008/8/9/164938/8032

The warmongers have lost yet another war by Jerome a Paris Mon Aug 11th, 2008

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2008/8/10/8619/75006

Medvedev calls end to Georgia operations by Jerome a Paris Tue Aug 12th, 2008

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2008/8/12/53428/6983

What does Russia Want? by wiseprince Tue Aug 12th, 2008

http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2008/8/12/8236/82430

The Polish press on the Ossetian conflict (LQD) by MarekNYC Tue Aug 12th, 2008

http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2008/8/12/11425/6716

So. What to do with Russia? by Jerome a Paris Sat Aug 16th, 2008

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2008/8/16/144635/777

99 Luftballons by poemless Tue Aug 19th, 2008

http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2008/8/19/185128/391

Recent Articles & Editorials:

A Path to Peace in the Caucasus By Mikhail Gorbachev  August 12, 2008

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081101372.html

Russia Never Wanted a War By Mikhail Gorbachev  August 19, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/opinion/20gorbachev.html?hp

Blowback From Bear-Baiting by Patrick J. Buchanan August 15, 2008

http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=13305

Who Started Cold War II? by Patrick J. Buchanan August 19, 2008

http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=13323

Georgia's Miscalculation By Anatol Lieven August 9, 2008

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/needtoknow/2008/08/georgias_miscalculation.html

Vladimir V. Putin: Neo Con by Erin Solaro at August 21, 2008

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/civicfeminism/archives/146751.asp?from=blog_last3

Vladimir Putin's mastery checkmates the West by Michael Binyon August 14, 2008

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4525885.ece

Georgia Tries out the Bush War Doctrine, Loses Badly By Gary Brecher August 12, 2008.

http://www.alternet.org/audits/94706/georgia_tries_out_the_bush_war_doctrine,_loses_badly/?page=enti re

Has Georgia Overreached in Ossetia? By Tony Karon Saturday, Aug. 09, 2008

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1831073,00.html

Why South Ossetia, why now? by Peter Lavelle August 9, 2008

http://www.peterlavelle.com/?p=36

Background Articles:

The New American Cold War By Stephen F. Cohen June 21, 2006

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060710/cohen

The Missing Debate By Stephen F. Cohen May 1, 2008

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080519/cohen

Cheney Starts New Cold War Over Oil By Mark Ames Saturday 03 June 2006

http://www.truthout.org/article/mark-ames-cheney-starts-new-cold-war-over-oil

Multimedia:

Worldview: George Freidman, the founder and CEO of Stratfor

http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/content.aspx?audioID=27675

Charlie Rose: Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Representative (Ambassador) of the Russian Federation.

http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2008/08/12/1/an-update-on-the-conflict-between-georgia-and-russia

Inner City Press at the UN: UNSC coverage

http://www.innercitypress.com/


"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.