Dear Moderator

[W. Niederhut]

11 minutes ago, John Cotter said:

Insofar as I can make sense of what you’re trying to say in the first part of your post, William, you seem to be unwittingly endorsing what I said.

As for your question about Irish independence from the British Empire, this is an example of your habit of recycling “arguments” that have already been repeatedly rebutted.

I’ve made it abundantly clear that I’ve always supported Irish independence, and I’ve also explained why the US’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is completely different from the Irish struggle for independence.

Since Britain was the dominant world power while Ireland was fighting against it for independence, Britain’s comparator in the Ukraine situation is the hitherto dominant world power, the USA.

I could elaborate this further, but with your superior insight you should be able to deduce for yourself the full implications of the distinctions I’ve adumbrated.

John

    C'mon, man.  Put on your thinking cap.   

    The reference was to Ukrainian indepence from the Kremlin's totalitarian police state.

     You persist, oddly, in viewing Ukrainian resistance to Kremlin subjugation and mass murder as a proxy war.

[John Cotter]

1 hour ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Jim I read John's post.  Why is it that John, Barnard, and Koch and now Jim who are supposedly arguing for peace always rely on information from people who arrogantly claim they know the real story on the ground and Ukraine is losing terribly and have been saying that since the beginning of the war. But we people who similarly want a peaceful settlement but agree with the resistance  Ukraine is putting up to a bloody invasion of their country are a bit more sincere  and never make such claims to say "we're kicking your ass" like you do!. 

That's the crux of John's link. And how about (Autrelian's?) phony disclaimer at the onset.

I’m not going to say much about the current Ukrainian “offensive,” because I’m not a military specialist, and anyway it may already be mostly over by the time you read this..

I call it phony' because he then arrogantly makes an assertion that the the offensive may be over by the time you read this." Which it is'nt! and then goes on to write an article where he does presume to know everything about military capability and strategy. I've never found Cotter having any technical knowledge about anything, and regarding involved military planning,  that goes for you as well, Jim. Just in general, I think we could all benefit if you start admitting when you don't know what you're talking about. Neither of you have any "inside track" on this any more than we do, or you would have been right a year ago.

When Cotter runs out of facts he starts using well worn phrases over and over again as if it gives him some mystical power and he ends up contributing nothing in content, or he passes it off to make an exit on some author like this guy to make his case, ("This guy says everything I'm thinking!") and thinks adding some cute quip about "warmongers' and "fellow travelers" will bail him out, or he'll go off in on some supposedly broad historic context and quote a poet.  The only lasting thing that will come from Cotter as result of this article is that we'll probably hear the phrase "punditocracy" over and over again from Cotter, so I figure maybe I can nip that in the bud right now.

 

Kirk,

When I do have the time to read your posts, I generally find them amusing. They remind me of a passage in a book of Irish proverbs that I have.

First, though, I need to preface the passage with the following quote:

"Amongst the animals held to have spiritual significance for the Celts was the Hare, (known to some in America as jackrabbits)… In Celtic mythology and folklore the hare has links to the mysterious Otherworld of the supernatural… Celtic peoples looked on the hare as a creature with supernatural powers. This lonely creature was admired for strength, speed and was noted for being active at night and associated with the moon. They were seen as mysterious and magical, so thought of as an animal to be treated with caution. When the Romans invaded the British Isles, Julius Caesar made the observation that the Celtic people did not regard it lawful to eat the hare. In Ireland the animals association with women from the Otherworld who could shapeshift into the form of a hare also made eating them taboo."

https://www.transceltic.com/pan-celtic/importance-of-hare-celtic-belief-and-our-duty-protect-all-wildlife

The passage I alluded to is: “The hare looms large in oral Irish literature. A saying I was much taken by, when I first visited the Dingle peninsula, was ‘chomh scaipthe le mún giorrai ‘– as scattered as a hare’s [urine].” The author explains that the hare, apparently, urinates on the run.

Right brain thinking (what Jungians call lunar consciousness) is a necessary complement to left brain thinking. The problems start when the two of them get mixed up.

By the way, I think you might find it helpful when reading to focus on the concepts and logic behind the referents (words) rather than the referents themselves. By doing that you might better understand what you’re reading.

John.

Edited June 16, 2023 by John Cotter

[James DiEugenio]

Thanks John, that is a long way of explaining why I have Kirk on ignore.

[Kirk Gallaway]

26 minutes ago, John Cotter said:

Kirk,

When I do have the time to read your posts, I generally find them amusing. They remind me of a passage in a book of Irish proverbs that I have.

First, though, I need to preface the passage with the following quote:

"Amongst the animals held to have spiritual significance for the Celts was the Hare, (known to some in America as jackrabbits)… In Celtic mythology and folklore the hare has links to the mysterious Otherworld of the supernatural… Celtic peoples looked on the hare as a creature with supernatural powers. This lonely creature was admired for strength, speed and was noted for being active at night and associated with the moon. They were seen as mysterious and magical, so thought of as an animal to be treated with caution. When the Romans invaded the British Isles, Julius Caesar made the observation that the Celtic people did not regard it lawful to eat the hare. In Ireland the animals association with women from the Otherworld who could shapeshift into the form of a hare also made eating them taboo."

https://www.transceltic.com/pan-celtic/importance-of-hare-celtic-belief-and-our-duty-protect-all-wildlife

The passage I alluded to is: “The hare looms large in oral Irish literature. A saying I was much taken by, when I first visited the Dingle peninsula, was ‘chomh scaipthe le mún giorrai ‘– as scattered as a hare’s [urine].” The author explains that the hare, apparently, urinates on the run.

Right brain thinking (what Jungians call lunar consciousness) is a necessary complement to left brain thinking. The problems start when the two of them get mixed up.

By the way, I think you might find it helpful when reading to focus on the concepts and logic behind the referents (words) rather than the referents themselves. By doing that you might be able to actually understand what you’re reading.

John.

Oh so it's " merrily, merrily, merrily off to nowhere" John?

Oh, To refocus on the post and link you submitted, John. I can't say I was disappointed , but it's really just another

"We're going to whup up yur ass reeeeal good!" (remember John Cleese?) posts you guys have been posting. My charge is you have no qualification. This is what I mean by "no substance". But if this is an earnest prediction, you've been wrong for a year now.

Jim, you have half the world on ignore, (none of us believe you incidentally)  for just asking you direct questions.

[John Cotter]

10 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Oh so it's " merrily, merrily, merrily off to nowhere" John?

Oh, To refocus on the post and link you submitted, John. I can't say I was disappointed , but it's really just another

"We're going to whup up yur ass reeeeal good!" (remember John Cleese?) posts you guys have been posting. My charge is you have no qualification. This is what I mean by "no substance". But if this is an earnest prediction, you've been wrong for a year now.

Jim, you have half the world on ignore, (none of us believe you incidentally)  for just asking you direct questions.

There’s no harm in a bit of craic and divilment, as we say over here, Kirk.

The importance of qualifications has been overblown in recent years, especially during covid. It’s just another authoritarian “we know best” ruse – much favoured of course by our mutual friend William. The dismissal of ordinary people’s capacity to think for themselves is profoundly undemocratic.

The article I posted about the war in Ukraine makes a lot of sense to me. As always, time will tell.

However, it seem that time has already told us a lot, given that we were told by our western overlords when the war began that Russia would be defeated and “regime changed” in a matter of weeks.

These overlords have been wrong about a lot of things, mainly because through censorship, suppression of dissent and open debate, corruption (legal and otherwise), brainwashing of the masses by the compulsory “education” system and nobbling the mainstream media and regulatory agencies, they have destroyed the checks and balances of democracy and given themselves the power to say and do what they like with virtual impunity.

There is little doubt that the assassinations of JFK, MLK and RFK in the 1960s played a huge and decisive part in this destruction of western democracy, and the Ukraine shambles is just one of its many manifestations.

Edited June 16, 2023 by John Cotter

[Sandy Larsen]

52 minutes ago, John Cotter said:

However, it seem that time has already told us a lot, given that we were told by our western overlords when the war began that Russia would be defeated and “regime changed” in a matter of weeks.

 

I don't know where you got that prediction, John. But the MSNBC-hosted pundits and experts I've listened to said from the start that it could take years. In fact, in the very beginning they feared that Kiev would be taken within a couple weeks. It was because of those prediction that I had more hope that sanctions would work.

 

[W. Niederhut]

26 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I don't know where you got that prediction, John. But the MSNBC-hosted pundits and experts I've listened to said from the start that it could take years. In fact, in the very beginning they feared that Kiev would be taken within a couple weeks. It was because of those prediction that I had more hope that sanctions would work.

 

I have long wondered where John Cotter gets his strangely anti-democratic concepts about modern history and politics.

Is Russia Today active in Hibernia? 🙄

And I'm still waiting for John to answer my question about whether he would choose to live in North Korea or be exposed to the horrors of American "full spectrum dominance" (and "American democracy imposed at gunpoint") in South Korea.

Thus far, John has ignored the question, while posting non sequiturs about Irish fables.

As for Ireland, I'm also waiting for John to clarify his reductio ad absurdum about supporting Irish independence from the British empire, (at gunpoint) while disparaging Ukrainians for fighting to maintain their independence and sovereignty from Putin's totalitarian police state.

Apparently, John believes that the Irish are entitled to freedom and self-determination, while Ukrainians aren't.

Edited June 16, 2023 by W. Niederhut

[John Cotter]

3 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I don't know where you got that prediction, John. But the MSNBC-hosted pundits and experts I've listened to said from the start that it could take years. In fact, in the very beginning they feared that Kiev would be taken within a couple weeks. It was because of those prediction that I had more hope that sanctions would work.

 

Sandy,

You apparently missed the Open Democracy article dated 28th February 2022 by Anthony Barnett titled, “Putin was shaped by US greed. His defeat must lead to change”, wherein it is stated: “Defeat for Putin will come much faster than for George W Bush and his vice president Dick Cheney after 2003.”

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/russia-ukraine-putin-defeat-global-change-us-greed/

You also apparently missed the Aljazeera article dated 30th March 2022 by Justin Bronk, senior research fellow in military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute in London titled, “Russia has effectively admitted defeat in Ukraine”.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/30/russia-has-effectively-admitted-defeat-in-ukraine

There were other articles that I read at the time which predicted Russia’s early defeat and regime change due to its purportedly antiquated weaponry and its corruptly inept leadership.

This was all of a piece with the widespread presumption of the moral and technological superiority of the west, which presumption underpinned the crusade-like zeal with which military support for Ukraine was advocated and ostensibly prosecuted.

Edited June 16, 2023 by John Cotter

[John Cotter]

4 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

I have long wondered where John Cotter gets his strangely anti-democratic concepts about modern history and politics.

Is Russia Today active in Hibernia? 🙄

And I'm still waiting for John to answer my question about whether he would choose to live in North Korea or be exposed to the horrors of American "full spectrum dominance" (and "American democracy imposed at gunpoint") in South Korea.

Thus far, John has ignored the question, while posting non sequiturs about Irish fables.

As for Ireland, I'm also waiting for John to clarify his reductio ad absurdum about supporting Irish independence from the British empire, (at gunpoint) while disparaging Ukrainians for fighting to maintain their independence and sovereignty from Putin's totalitarian police state.

Apparently, John believes that the Irish are entitled to freedom and self-determination, while Ukrainians aren't.

By reference to Brandolini’s law, I haven’t got the time to rebut all your recycled nonsense, William.

In relation to one of your nonsensical points, your question about where I would prefer to live is a tu quoque fallacy (if you don’t know what that is, please look it up because I haven’t time to explain it).

Some years ago I watched the 2014 feature film Leviathan about crime and corruption in a town in Putin’s Russia. It painted a very bleak picture of Russian life, but I learned afterwards that the director and co-writer of the film took his inspiration for the film from events in a small US town.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(2014_film)

I don’t know what it’s like to actually live in any of the places you mention, so I can’t answer your question. I could say the same about living in France, Sweden or the USA. I live in Ireland because it happens to be my homeland, not because it’s objectively better than any other country.

I think I’ve said something along these lines to you before but that wouldn’t prevent you from pestering me about it – notwithstanding your own habit of dodging hard questions.

As for the entitlement to freedom and self-determination, what countries – and people – are entitled to and what they get are two different things. That applies to Ireland as well as to Ukraine.

Ireland is a small, corrupt, plutocratic vassal state of the US empire, largely owned by big tech and big pharma and controlled by Five Eyes. That’s the Realpolitik of geographical location. One doesn’t have to be a professor of geopolitics to understand these realities.

Maybe if you stopped boasting about your academic credentials and stopped believing your own nonsense you might actually learn something about the real world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ngsmclqaes

Edited June 16, 2023 by John Cotter

[Paul Rigby]

How the US brought what Bush II termed "freem and moxy" to Korea:

America’s Korean massacres:

Sinchon:

https://youtu.be/wDexrR4m4cU

Taejon:

https://youtu.be/6Cta5M9J3fE

Korean civilians:

https://youtu.be/EwhgJZHKRvQ

https://youtu.be/_mOFr5BqQfU

The brutal terror state established post-WWII by the US: https://youtu.be/1iF6PIpPOl4

[W. Niederhut]

       Well, not surprisingly, John Cotter has continued to dodge my question this week, while posting more Cotter-esque gibberish, including his shocking claim that Ireland is a "vassal state of the US empire"-- obviously, another hapless victim of US "full spectrum dominance," like Japan and Western Europe in the post WWII era.

      So, I take it that our forum's two Putin-adoring pen pals, John Cotter and Paul Rigby, would prefer to avoid living in "brutal US terror states" like South Korea or West Germany -- opting to live, instead, in Putin-aligned proletarian paradises like North Korea and Belarus.

      De gustibus non est disputandum... 🙄

 

South Korea-- A brutal American terror state

       

North Korea-- Beyond the Pale of American Full Spectrum Dominance

 

 

 

 

[Michael Griffith]

On 6/15/2023 at 1:42 AM, James DiEugenio said:

Can you imagine this?  Really hard to understand.

 

“Russia is part of European culture. And I cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe and what we often call the civilised world. So it is hard for me to visualise NATO as an enemy,” said Putin, the country’s acting president in 2000, three weeks before the election, which made him president. 

At the time, Putin’s words were interpreted as extending an olive branch to the West. Since then, Putin has been in power, rising to the occasion and becoming the sole decision-maker of the country. 

The same year, according to the then-NATO chief George Robertson, Putin bluntly asked: “When are you going to invite us to join Nato?” Robertson advised the Russian president that he needs to “apply to join NATO” and not expect an invitation. 

Oh my goodness. I've seen it all. So now you're whitewashing Vladimir Putin and taking his lies at face value. Unbelievable. 

And let's be clear about Russia. The only real difference between 2023 Russia and the old Soviet Union is that Russia allows a degree of free enterprise. The government still has total power. There is no freedom of speech. Other basic rights are likewise solely at the mercy of the government. There are no checks and balances. Open dissent is dangerous. Journalists who dare to deviate from the party line risk jail, assault, and/or death. Untold thousands of Russians are sitting in prison for purely political reasons. 

Are you going to post a video of some Russians having fun on a street and say, "Gee, you see! Russia isn't such a bad place to live! Do those people look like they're oppressed"?  (I ask this because you posted a video of some Vietnamese having fun on a street and then, incredibly, cited the video to deny that Vietnam is one of the most repressive regimes on the planet. You even dismissed the numerous highly critical Human Rights Watch reports on Vietnam.)

Edited June 16, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Cliff Varnell]

8 hours ago, Paul Rigby said:

How the US brought what Bush II termed "freem and moxy" to Korea:

America’s Korean massacres:

Sinchon:

https://youtu.be/wDexrR4m4cU

Taejon:

https://youtu.be/6Cta5M9J3fE

Korean civilians:

https://youtu.be/EwhgJZHKRvQ

https://youtu.be/_mOFr5BqQfU

The brutal terror state established post-WWII by the US: https://youtu.be/1iF6PIpPOl4

Or

My Lai

Mekong Delta

Fallujah

Haditha

Or

Laghman

Grozny

Aleppo

Bucha

 

 

[Paul Rigby]

While on the subject of CIA & MI6 beauts, here's an outstanding examination of the Holodomor fabrication. Famine? Yes. Confined to Ukraine? No. Deliberate? Far from it. 

The crash industrialisation programme undertaken by Stalin had a largely unaddressed trigger - American & British support for a guy called Adolph.

 

[W. Niederhut]

      YouTube scholar, Paul Rigby, continues to whitewash the history of Putin's crimes against the Ukrainian and Russian people, and the far more egregious crimes of Putin's hero, Joseph Stalin, against both.

      Does Paul Rigby know anything about Stalin's mass murder of the Kulaks?  (As Solzhenitsyn described in some detail, a "kulak" was often defined as anyone who managed to acquire a cow or two more than his neighbors in Soviet Russia.)

      Do people know that Putin's grandfather, Spyridon Putin, was Stalin's chef, and that Putin's father, Vladimir, served in one of Stalin's notorious NKVD Destruction Brigades on the Russian Front in WWII?  Those were the scoundrels who sent Soviet Artillery Captain Alexander Solzhenitsyn to the Gulag for 9 years for posting a joke about Stalin in a private letter from the Russian Front.

      Rigby needs to put aside his YouTube propaganda and do some bona fide historical research about Stalin's crimes against humanity, before, during, and after WWII.  Does Rigby know about Stalin's 1939 pact with Hitler (Molotov-Ribbentrop) to partition Poland?

     It's truly a pity to see this kind of Soviet propaganda on the forum, especially in light of longstanding Western denial about Stalin's historic crimes against humanity.  This denial has mainly been a result of our alliance with Stalin in the war against the N-a-z-i empire, and a singular focus in the U.S. and Hollywood on the historic crimes of the N-a-z-i-s.

Stalin killed millions. A Stanford historian answers the question, was it genocide?