Bloomin' Idiots

The EU has clearly gone nuts, buying more expensive LNG from the US instead of local cheaper Russian gas. They've cut off their nose to spite their face. The US has been drunk with military power for so long that we don't see how badly we are hurting our country and world trying to maintain US hegemony. It doesn't take a genius to understand the need to stop the US war economy and harvest a peace dividend to improve people's lives and promote sustainability. It is past time to turn the war machine budget toward the people.

h/t SD for the image.

The clown show that is our state department hasn't realized (yet) that the US has lost the economic and military war with Russia. The US is winning the western media propaganda news war, and I suspect that is where Blinky and the other warmongers are being (mis)informed.

George talks with Pepe Escobar in the first 12 minutes of this clip for a nice overview.

George Galloway clearly explains the current spate of European insanity... (1.5 min)

A justified rant by George

The founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, Alastair Crooke, discusses Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the context of a 30-year unipolar order surrounding the outbreak of war, the growing alliance between Russia and China, Russia’s growing ties with emerging economies that refuse to condemn the invasion of Ukraine, such as India and Pakistan, EU sanctions against Russia, and why the extent of the sanctions means that the European Union has sanctioned itself, and much more.

(26 min)

The following conversation was excellent - well worth an hour of your time.

The West, led by the United States, declared economic war against Russia last month in response to the invasion of Ukraine, imposing perhaps the harshest sanctions against any nation in history. President Joe Biden has said that the aim of this economic warfare is to turn the Russian people against its government. Sanctions against Russia’s Central Bank were intended to destroy the value of the ruble. One U.S. dollar was worth 85 rubles on Feb. 24, the day of the invasion and soared to 154 per dollar on March 7. However the Russian currency strengthened to 101 this morning.

Putin and other Russian leaders were personally sanctioned, as were Russia’s largest banks. Most Russian transactions are no longer allowed to be settled through the SWIFT international payment system. The German-Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline was closed down and become bankrupt.

The U.S. blocked imports of Russian oil, which was about 5 percent of U.S. supply. BP and Shell pulled out of Russian partnerships. European and U.S. airspace for Russian commercial liners was closed. Europe, which depends on Russia gas, is still importing it, and is so far rebuffing U.S. pressure to stop buying Russian oil. Other Russian commodities, such as wheat, fertilizer and metals have been cut off.

A raft of voluntary sanctions followed: PayPal, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix and McDonalds have been shut down in Russia. Coca-cola has stopped sales to the country. U.S. news organizations have left, Russian artists in the West have been fired and even Russian cats are banned.
It also gave an opportunity for U.S. cable providers to get RT America shut down. Other Russia media have been de-platformed and Russian government websites hacked. A Yale University professor has drawn up a list to shame U.S. companies that are still operating in Russia.

The West's economic war and lethal aid to Ukraine are in lieu of a direct military confrontation with Russia, with all of the unimaginable consequences that could bring.
But so far the sanctions do not seem to be working as planned.

China has come to Moscow's rescue, buying more oil and other commodities from Russia. Beijing has allowed Russia to use its Union Pay banking system, replaced Russia’s use of SWIFT with China’s Interbank System (CIPS), and China and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), which Russia is a part of, are designing a new monetary and financial system that would bypass the U.S. dollar, threatening it as the world’s reserve currency.

That has led the U.S. to try to tie China to the war in Ukraine so that it can impose new sanctions on Beijing , perhaps similar to those on Russia.

The United States is acting as though the whole world is the West and that this is the China of 30 years ago. In its effort to impose its unilateral rule on the world, while its domestic social problems mount, the U.S. has not only driven Russia and China closer together than ever, but it has now brought in India, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East into a new bloc with an economic power that exceeds the West. All of those regions have refused to sanction Russia and continue to trade with it.
The U.S. has turned the majority of the world’s population against it.
We might be witnessing the end of Western-dominated globalization and the birth of a divided world of two separate economic, financial and commercial systems.

Cutting off trade and finance to Russia has already boomeranged on Western countries, driving up prices, especially at the pump and at the supermarket.
Instead of prompting a popular uprising in Russia as a result of its sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s popularity has actually risen since the invasion.
Adding China as a target of its economic war could drive the populations of the U.S. and Europe against their own governments instead.

Joining us to discuss these issue are two leading economists, Prof. Michael Hudson, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, and Prof. Richard Wolff, Emeritus Prof. of Economics at the MassAmherst and a visiting Prof. at The NewSchool in New York.

The last 15 minutes with M. Hudson was really good.

I've been following Gonzalo Lira who lives in Ukraine. Here he is with Eva Bartlett in a summary of events from his on the ground perspective...

This morning (March 30), I had the great pleasure of speaking with Kharkov-based Chilean commentator Gonzalo Lira. We spoke at length about his observations from Ukraine, where he has lived for years.

Gonzalo offers a unique perspective in that he has seen events unfold around him in Ukraine since the 2014 coup and with the rise of Nazi battalions throughout the country. He offers a pragmatic analysis of Russia's denazification operation in Ukraine.

Gonzalo dissects some of the propaganda coming out of Ukraine

Col. Larry Wilkerson offers a US military view of the situation

Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired United States Army Colonel as well as the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. On the show, Wilkerson breaks down US propaganda regarding the war in Ukraine. Wilkerson discusses how NATO expansion , the bombing of Belgrade in 1999, and arming the Azov Battalion invited this conflict. Wilkerson also shares his thoughts on corruption in Ukraine, the Pentagon's involvement in Ukrainian biolabs, accusations that Russia will launch a "false flag" chemical weapons attack, and the prospects of nuclear war. Wilkerson also takes patron questions on related topics.

War isn't pretty. Real people suffer. If you're able and want to this reporter is working to evacuate older civilians from Mariupol. 20 min
The Missing Of Mariupol Special Report (The Search Is On)

How do we end war? Scott Ritter explains how he stopped hating Russians and learned to see them as fellow humans. (54 min)

Scott Ritter, the former Marine and U.N. weapons inspector who the New York Times called “the loudest and most credible skeptic of the Bush administration’s contention that Saddam Hussein’s government was hiding weapons of mass destruction," sat down with Gerald Celente for a candid interview about the Ukraine War.

SCOTT RITTER: Ukraine War Could Have Been Avoided, but Here's Why Putin Will Achieve His Goals

Some are achieving their goals with the war...like the oil companies.
Thanks to the war in Ukraine, and the attendant rise in gas prices, US fossil fuel companies stand to make between $37-126 billion in additional profits in 2022. That’s according to joint research conducted by Oil Change International, Greenpeace USA, and Global Witness. So is it any wonder that the politicians who serve this powerful industry would pursue policies making war likely?

Jimmy and comedian/playwright Howard Skora discuss the financial incentives that make war so profitable for fossil fuel companies. (11 min)

Americans are naive about the world because truth tellers are imprisoned or disappeared.

Award-winning journalist and bestselling author Chris Hedges has been effectively silenced by YouTube, with six years’ worth of Hedges’ show, ​​”On Contact,” deleted from the platform simply because the program appeared on the Russian-affiliated network RT. As a result, hundreds of episodes featuring interviews with a wide range of guests, the vast majority of which had nothing to do with Russia, have been removed from public view. Jimmy speaks with Chris Hedges about this act of corporate censorship, and the danger posed by placing this level of power in the hands of a few multibillion dollar tech firms.

No wonder Americans are such bloomin' idiots.

...and speaking of blooms let me share a bit our our spring colors with you.
Daffodils were killer this year.

A native buckeye, one of my favorites

Here's Lenten Rose, Kerria, Forsythia, cherry and redbud along the path down to the garden

...and now the dogwoods are coming on.

Well that's a taste of our spring colors here on the homestead.

Let's wrap up with a proactive conversation about where we go from here.

In a wide ranging conversation about resilience, world events, and homesteading Chris touches on the energy requirements to liquefy and ship LNG. This is as foolish as our unprofitable polluting fracking industry.

Join Chris for his first-ever livecast, where he discusses energy, censorship, food shortages, supply chain issues, and building resilience!

So I look forward to your ideas and insights below. It's been a busy news week as the world order is in flux.
The order is rapidly fading
And the first one now will later be last
For the times, they are a-changin'
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dcaSCYnvtY]