Another Mass Event: Putin vs The World

[inavalan]

@strangerthings

You're hard to follow.

[inavalan]

inavalan's post of the US warmaking stats are unfortunately too little known amongst US/Americans.

When I "talk like that," some think I must "hate America."

Sorry to such folks, but those stats are the truth and the corporate/mainstream media lies by omission in this way.

...

To love your country and its people, while disagreeing with some of them and disapproving of the policies of those elected or nominated is normal, acceptable and healthy in a democratic society.

If you can't freely express your opinion, if you're pressed to conform to others' opinions, that is totalitarianism, and that isn't a society you'd like to live in.

You may agree today with those in power and those who curtail opposition, but be sure that that will happen soon to you too.

The so called Western democracies, have experienced lately blatant examples of non-democratic actions from their governments, with the backing of the media (legacy and social) and of large segments of population. A few unexpected examples: Canada, Australia, Austria, France used force against peaceful dissent, shut down all dissent with the official narratives.

From a Sethian perspective we know that this inevitably causes pain and suffering.

[Mark M]

inavalan wrote:

"To love your country and its people, while disagreeing with some of them and disapproving of the policies of those elected or nominated is normal, acceptable and healthy in a democratic society...."

I say, if one is going to love one's country, make sure it loves you back.

[Deb]

Sorry to such folks, but those stats are the truth and the corporate/mainstream media lies by omission in this way.

Just curious how that works. With Seth's probable realities, in whose reality are they the truth?

For example, there's those quotes from UR1 (bolding is mine, for emphasis, underlining is Seth's):

"Your parents literally did not share the same reality at all. This is not as unusual as you may think. They met and related in a place between each of their realities. It was not that they disagreed with each other's interpretation of events. The events were different."

—UR1 Section 1: Session 680 February 6, 1974

"According to Seth, then, in one probability I failed to survive the operation I underwent for appendicitis in this reality when I was 11 years old. My second probable death took place sometime during the years of my military service (1943–46) in World War II. It's interesting to note that Seth says I was a pilot, and hence an officer, in that probability. In the reality I know, I served in the ATC — the Air Transport Command — as an aircraft instrument specialist and mechanic, with the rank of staff sergeant."
—UR1 Section 1: Session 681 February 11, 1974

[My point here is that the facts of Rob's deaths in three realities (add to it 2008) are all different.]

And because I'm a nerd who is curious about everything (especially what's reported in the media), pretty or not, I tried to track down the sources of those stats that are the truth and came up with what's below. Correct me if I'm wrong, please, as to the sources. I don't trust MSM one bit, but I have even less confidence in those below. No country, no person, is perfect as far as I can tell. That's why we're all still here in F1, right?

1st graphic, Wars 1945-2001, seems to have originated from the Chinese embassy in Russia: https://see.news/china-united-states-initiated-81-of-worlds-armed-conflicts/  "Among the 248 armed conflicts that occurred in 153 regions across the world from 1945 to 2001, 201 were initiated by the #US, accounting for 81% of the total number," the embassy wrote in a tweet.

2nd graphic, US Interventions Since WWII:  Source Redfish & The Zen Marxist Revolutionary Lumpen Radio (WTH?) on Twitter and Facebook.  https://m.facebook.com/redfishstream/posts/1270453303398498?locale2=ms_MY [Per Wiki: Redfish, a Berlin-based media collective, launched with a promise to deliver "radical, in-depth grassroots features,"]

3rd graphic, US Bombing List: [Source: minds.com/akana "Sorry the channel does not exist"]  Seems to have again originated from the Chinese Embassy in Russia, "Never forget real threat to world."  https://www.firstpost.com/world/never-forget-real-threat-to-world-amid-ukraine-crisis-chinese-embassy-in-russia-slams-us-10413011.html

So are these 100% fact, or a bit of propaganda? I have no idea. I have no doubt there is some truth as a basis, but trusting the sources having no agenda... not so much.

[Mark M]

Overthrowing other people's governments: The Master List
By William Blum

Instances of the United States overthrowing, or attempting to overthrow, a foreign government since the Second World War. (* indicates successful ouster of a government)

China 1949 to early 1960s
Albania 1949-53
East Germany 1950s
Iran 1953 *
Guatemala 1954 *
Costa Rica mid-1950s
Syria 1956-7
Egypt 1957
Indonesia 1957-8
British Guiana 1953-64 *
Iraq 1963 *
North Vietnam 1945-73
Cambodia 1955-70 *
Laos 1958 *, 1959 *, 1960 *
Ecuador 1960-63 *
Congo 1960 *
France 1965
Brazil 1962-64 *
Dominican Republic 1963 *
Cuba 1959 to present
Bolivia 1964 *
Indonesia 1965 *
Ghana 1966 *
Chile 1964-73 *
Greece 1967 *
Costa Rica 1970-71
Bolivia 1971 *
Australia 1973-75 *
Angola 1975, 1980s
Zaire 1975
Portugal 1974-76 *
Jamaica 1976-80 *
Seychelles 1979-81
Chad 1981-82 *
Grenada 1983 *
South Yemen 1982-84
Suriname 1982-84
Fiji 1987 *
Libya 1980s
Nicaragua 1981-90 *
Panama 1989 *
Bulgaria 1990 *
Albania 1991 *
Iraq 1991
Afghanistan 1980s *
Somalia 1993
Yugoslavia 1999-2000 *
Ecuador 2000 *
Afghanistan 2001 *
Venezuela 2002 *
Iraq 2003 *
Haiti 2004 *
Somalia 2007 to present
Honduras 2009 *
Libya 2011 *
Syria 2012
Ukraine 2014 *
Q: Why will there never be a coup d'état in Washington?

A: Because there's no American embassy there.

https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list

Map of US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II:

https://williamblum.org/intervention-map

[Mark M]

In 1969, Blum wrote and published an exposé of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in which were revealed the names and addresses of more than 200 CIA employees. He worked as freelance journalist in the United States, Europe and South America. In 1972–1973, Blum worked as a journalist in Chile where he reported on the Allende government's "socialist experiment". In the mid-1970s, he worked in London with ex-CIA officer Philip Agee and his associates "on their project of exposing CIA personnel and their misdeeds".[5] He supported himself with his writing and speaking engagements on college campuses.[2] One of Blum's stories on Iraq was listed by Project Censored as one of "The Top Ten Censored Stories of 1998"[6]

In his books and online columns, Blum devoted substantial attention to CIA interventions and assassination plots. Noam Chomsky has called Blum's book Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, "far and away the best book on the topic."[7] Blum supported Ralph Nader's presidential campaigns.[8] He circulated a monthly newsletter by email called "The Anti-Empire Report".[9][10] Blum described his life's mission as: "If not ending, at least slowing down the American Empire. At least injuring the beast. It's causing so much suffering around the world."[2]

In an interview with C-SPAN in 2006, Blum stated: "Speaking about U.S. foreign policy, which is my specialty, the authors I would most recommend would be Michael Parenti and Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman and Howard Zinn and Alexander Cockburn."[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blum

[inavalan]

...

So are these 100% fact, or a bit of propaganda? I have no idea. I have no doubt there is some truth as a basis, but trusting the sources having no agenda... not so much.

Not sure I understand your point about that data ...

Are you saying that that information isn't accurate? I guess that's what's important. Looking back at the history I know, much of it during my lifetime, the data is 100% accurate.

Have you tried to disprove any item from those lists?

[inavalan]

Just curious how that works. With Seth's probable realities, in whose reality are they the truth?

For example, there's those quotes from UR1 (bolding is mine, for emphasis, underlining is Seth's):

"Your parents literally did not share the same reality at all. This is not as unusual as you may think. They met and related in a place between each of their realities. It was not that they disagreed with each other's interpretation of events. The events were different."

—UR1 Section 1: Session 680 February 6, 1974

"According to Seth, then, in one probability I failed to survive the operation I underwent for appendicitis in this reality when I was 11 years old. My second probable death took place sometime during the years of my military service (1943–46) in World War II. It's interesting to note that Seth says I was a pilot, and hence an officer, in that probability. In the reality I know, I served in the ATC — the Air Transport Command — as an aircraft instrument specialist and mechanic, with the rank of staff sergeant."
—UR1 Section 1: Session 681 February 11, 1974

[My point here is that the facts of Rob's deaths in three realities (add to it 2008) are all different.]
...

All realities are true. It is just that some participants experience some realities, other participants other realities, past, present, future. There is no single objective reality that follows a unique timeline.

From the point of view of a personality there is only one small timeline in the hyperspace of the physical reality (time, 3d-space, possibilities), the one that personality traced through the choices it made over its lifetime.
     EDIT: By the way, usually even that personality doesn't accurately recall its past, as it continuously makes choices in all time, space, probability directions of the physical hyperspace; its past changes.

When you incarnate you can choose to incarnate anywhere, anytime, in any possible reality, as it fits your interest and preference.

For example, your previous incarnation may have been in our past, future, or present. Same about your next incarnation. Your next incarnation could be Lumania, or year 3000, or 2020. It could be in the year 2020 in a world in which Germans won the ww2, or a 2020 in which the people are so evolved that they communicate telepathically, or in a 2020 as we experienced, ... There are 2020 probable realities where the Earth is depopulated for various causes.

When Seth talks about three different examples of Rob's deaths, he talks about timelines he could've fallowed if his ego had made other choices. There is only one timeline traced by this incarnation of Rob's. This doesn't mean that this incarnation of mine experiences the same timeline of Rob's that he experienced. I think this is of major importance to understand!

[Bora137]

Your parents literally did not share the same reality at all. This is not as unusual as you may think. They met and related in a place between each of their realities. It was not that they disagreed with each other's interpretation of events. The events were different."

This is helping me make sense of most of my relationships 🤔

[LarryH]

For propaganda to be most effective, one starts with an element of truth or widely held belief and then exaggerates it. Examples are in this thread. In the US INTERVENTIONS SINCE WWII chart (inavalan, March 26), listing "Bomb attacks, sabotage, attempted regime change" in the same list, I must question much of it. At what point did the U.S. attack or commit sabotage in Tibet? According to the list, it was the timespan of 1955 thru the 70's. If it was only "attempted regime change", was that through support of Tibet via diplomacy? If so, what is it doing lumped in with bomb attacks?

Why is Iraq listed five times? There were two wars and a long occupation with the second one. Kuwait is also listed during the first war, even though the "regime change" there was to restore the original from the Iraqi takeover.

In the "Overthrowing other people's governments, the master list" (Mark M, March 29), I am not aware that the desire for East Germany to be freed from Soviet control included any violent actions on the part of the U.S. I am also unaware that the U.S. attempted to overthrow the government of France in 1965 or that of Australia from 1973-75. I wonder if many of these examples are simply diplomatic in nature, without bombing or sabotage. Certainly, many of the listed cases are correct, but likely with exaggerations and innuendo. I am not familiar with many of the items on these charts, but just from the examples given, it raises questions about the accuracy of other items. I do not support any use of violence, and these charts at least remind us that the U.S. has not always played nice in international relations, but we must view this type of information as partially propaganda and take it with a grain of salt. 

[inavalan]

For propaganda to be most effective, one starts with an element of truth or widely held belief and then exaggerates it. Examples are in this thread. In the US INTERVENTIONS SINCE WWII chart (inavalan, March 26), listing "Bomb attacks, sabotage, attempted regime change" in the same list, I must question much of it. At what point did the U.S. attack or commit sabotage in Tibet? According to the list, it was the timespan of 1955 thru the 70's. If it was only "attempted regime change", was that through support of Tibet via diplomacy? If so, what is it doing lumped in with bomb attacks? ...

You missed the point. It isn't surprising.

Deb published a list about Russia's past military actions, and a quick search yielded similar lists about US'. I posted a couple of them just to show that propaganda, as well as covert and military operations against other countries happen on all sides, and nobody is entitled to cast stones. Mark posted more supporting information.

A common sense look at the history doesn't support your outrage, which is probably caused by uncritically watching the main stream media.

Do you see the big picture of Ukraine's situation much different from Yugoslavia's (the comparison is favorable to the Yugoslavia)? I really don't care to know.

I replied to your post just because you critically mentioned my screen name and post, misunderstanding its significance.

[LarryH]

A common sense look at the history doesn't support your outrage, which is probably caused by uncritically watching the main stream media.

What "outrage" is that? Did I come across as outraged? I thought I was making reasoned observations. And what about my post makes you think that I "uncritically watch the mainstream media"? There is propaganda on all sides. I notice that you did not challenge the specific questionable examples that I gave, but just resorted to insults. My post was not a defense of the U.S., it was a critique of possible examples of propaganda within this thread.

[Mark M]

Berlin Wall -- the other side of the story -- did you know?:

First of all, before the wall went up in 1961 thousands of East Germans had been commuting to the West for jobs each day and then returning to the East in the evening; many others went back and forth for shopping or other reasons. So they were clearly not being held in the East against their will. Why then was the wall built? There were two major reasons:

1) The West was bedeviling the East with a vigorous campaign of recruiting East German professionals and skilled workers, who had been educated at the expense of the Communist government. This eventually led to a serious labor and production crisis in the East. As one indication of this, the New York Times reported in 1963: "West Berlin suffered economically from the wall by the loss of about 60,000 skilled workmen who had commuted daily from their homes in East Berlin to their places of work in West Berlin."

It should be noted that in 1999, USA Today reported: "When the Berlin Wall crumbled [1989], East Germans imagined a life of freedom where consumer goods were abundant and hardships would fade. Ten years later, a remarkable 51% say they were happier with communism."  Earlier polls would likely have shown even more than 51% expressing such a sentiment, for in the ten years many of those who remembered life in East Germany with some fondness had passed away; although even 10 years later, in 2009, the Washington Post could report: "Westerners [in Berlin] say they are fed up with the tendency of their eastern counterparts to wax nostalgic about communist times."

It was in the post-unification period that a new Russian and eastern Europe proverb was born: "Everything the Communists said about Communism was a lie, but everything they said about capitalism turned out to be the truth."

It should be further noted that the division of Germany into two states in 1949 – setting the stage for 40 years of Cold War hostility – was an American decision, not a Soviet one.

2) During the 1950s, American cold warriors in West Germany instituted a crude campaign of sabotage and subversion against East Germany designed to throw that country's economic and administrative machinery out of gear. The CIA and other US intelligence and military services recruited, equipped, trained and financed German activist groups and individuals, of West and East, to carry out actions which ran the spectrum from juvenile delinquency to terrorism; anything to make life difficult for the East German people and weaken their support of the government; anything to make the commies look bad.

It was a remarkable undertaking. The United States and its agents used explosives, arson, short circuiting, and other methods to damage power stations, shipyards, canals, docks, public buildings, gas stations, public transportation, bridges, etc.; they derailed freight trains, seriously injuring workers; burned 12 cars of a freight train and destroyed air pressure hoses of others; used acids to damage vital factory machinery; put sand in the turbine of a factory, bringing it to a standstill; set fire to a tile-producing factory; promoted work slow-downs in factories; killed 7,000 cows of a co-operative dairy through poisoning; added soap to powdered milk destined for East German schools; were in possession, when arrested, of a large quantity of the poison cantharidin with which it was planned to produce poisoned cigarettes to kill leading East Germans; set off stink bombs to disrupt political meetings; attempted to disrupt the World Youth Festival in East Berlin by sending out forged invitations, false promises of free bed and board, false notices of cancellations, etc.; carried out attacks on participants with explosives, firebombs, and tire-puncturing equipment; forged and distributed large quantities of food ration cards to cause confusion, shortages and resentment; sent out forged tax notices and other government directives and documents to foster disorganization and inefficiency within industry and unions ... all this and much more.

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, of Washington, DC, conservative cold warriors, in one of their Cold War International History Project Working Papers (#58, p.9) states: "The open border in Berlin exposed the GDR [East Germany] to massive espionage and subversion and, as the two documents in the appendices show, its closure gave the Communist state greater security."

Throughout the 1950s, the East Germans and the Soviet Union repeatedly lodged complaints with the
Soviets' erstwhile allies in the West and with the United Nations about specific sabotage and espionage activities and called for the closure of the offices in West Germany they claimed were responsible, and for which they provided names and addresses. Their complaints fell on deaf ears. Inevitably, the East Germans began to tighten up entry into the country from the West, leading eventually to the infamous wall. However, even after the wall was built there was regular, albeit limited, legal emigration from east to west. In 1984, for example, East Germany allowed 40,000 people to leave. In 1985, East German newspapers claimed that more than 20,000 former citizens who had settled in the West wanted to return home after becoming disillusioned with the capitalist system. The West German government said that 14,300 East Germans had gone back over the previous 10 years.

Let's also not forget that while East Germany completely denazified, in West Germany for more than a decade after the war, the highest government positions in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches contained numerous former and "former" Nazis.

Finally, it must be remembered, that Eastern Europe became communist because Hitler, with the approval of the West, used it as a highway to reach the Soviet Union to wipe out Bolshevism forever, and that the Russians in World War I and II, lost about 40 million people because the West had used this highway to invade Russia. It should not be surprising that after World War II the Soviet Union was determined to close down the highway.

From

https://williamblum.org/aer/read/133

[Mark M]

The CIA is essentially the US agency of state crime.

'Before the act was passed. Secretary of State George Marshall warned President Truman that it granted the new intelligence agency in particular powers that were "almost unlimited," a criticism of the CIA that Truman would echo much too late—soon after the assassination of John Kennedy.'

From JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass (2008)

Truman wrote a piece that appeared in newspapers saying he intended the agency to be intelligence gathering not performing covert operations.

Seems he had deaf ears to Marshall.

[Mark M]

This photo went around the world and the commie countries made hay with it.

A "Freedom Bus" in flames, six miles southwest of Anniston, Ala., May 14, 1961. (Birmingham Public Library)

https://media.npr.org/programs/fa/features/2006/01/freedom/bus_200-1bfce086da14ea18f3c7e3e705cd864598d16de6-s300-c85.webp

https://www.npr.org/2006/01/12/5149667/get-on-the-bus-the-freedom-riders-of-1961

[Mark M]

The Ukraine invasion outrage gets a lot of attention in part because the victims are white. We all know by now what their flag looks like.

A writer (David Swanson?) pointed out in contrast that few US/Americans know what the Yemeni flag looks like.

The US supports the Saudi's brutal war on Yemen, selling the Saudi's the weapons.

Also, I wonder how much US outrage was over China's annexation of Tibet in 1950.

In perhaps the CIA's only good deed, they helped get the Dalai Lama out of there in 1959.

"...China annexed Tibet in 1950. Although the estimates vary considerably, it is believed that up to one million Tibetan natives have been killed by the Chinese to suppress their demand for freedom. As the Tibetans are highly religious by nature, the Chinese have methodically targeted their places of worship and learning with a vengeance. Over 6,000 monasteries have been destroyed or ransacked. Damage done to Tibet's relics, heritage and architecture has been truly horrendous; and beyond redemption...."

https://tibet.net/tibet-a-narrative-of-cultural-holocaust/

[Mark M]

This does not excuse Putin:

These Pentagon sources confirm what Putin and the Russian Ministry of Defense have been saying all along: that instead of being "stalled," Russia is executing a methodical war plan to encircle cities, opening humanitarian corridors for civilians, leaving civilian infrastructure like water, electricity, telephony and internet intact, and trying to avoid as many civilian casualties as possible.

Until these Pentagon leaks it was difficult to confirm that Russia was entirely telling the truth and that corporate media were publishing fables cooked up by Ukraine's publicity machine.

From

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/23/pentagon-drops-truth-bombs-to-stave-off-war-with-russia/

[inavalan]

Touching on propaganda, ridiculously accusing of promoting conspiracy theories, or not having compassion, or other unwarranted accusations, to shut down and discredit voices that disagree with the official narrative.


"Between 1947 and 1989, the United Stated tried to change other nations' governments 72 times. It includes 66 covert operations and 6 overt ones. Most US "secret wars" were against other democratic states."

"... peculiar elasticity then sudden rigidity of morality ... we're allowed to do this now"

"Globally there were 117 "partisan electoral interventions" between 1946 and 2000. The majority of these - almost 70 per cent - were cases of US interference. 21 such interventions took place between 1990 and 2000, of which 18 were by the US. 60 different independent countries have been the targets of such interventions. Two thirds of interventins were done in secret, with voters having no idea that foreign powers were actively trying to influence the results."

"All the self-righteous posturing by the western political / media class about the need to pour weapons into Ukraine is not really about saving Ukrainian lives (only negotiating a ceasefire can do that), but about seizing this golden opportunity to hurt Russia's geostrategic interests as much as possible.

Ukraine on its own is powerless to stop Russia from taking Kyiv no matter how many weapons are sent, but those weapons can be used to fight a 'long, bloody insurgency', which costs many more lives, keeps Moscow militarily preoccupied and hemorrhaging money, and ultimately hurts Putin's popularity at home.

This by itself would do a great deal to advance US interests, but on top of that you've got the even greater benefit of manufacturing international consent for unprecedented acts of economic warfare against the entire nation of Russia, as well as killing Nord Stream 2 and rallying immense support for NATO and the imperial machine / intelligence machine.

We can expect these agendas to be used in an attempt to impoverish, undermine, agitate, and ultimately collapse and balkanize Russia. This would leave China standing alone without its nuclear superpower guard bear and much more vulnerable to imperial operations geared toward thwarting the emergence of a true multipolar world, a goal US imperialists have had in writing for three decades.

No meaningful diplomatic effort is being made by Washington to end the violence. Ukrainian lives are being spent like pennies to facilitate the agenda of US planetary domination by whipping up international support for the strangulation of Russia, while pouring vast fortunes into the military-industrial complex rather than taking even the tiniest step toward de-escalation and diplomacy."

From Russell Brand's youtube show, Mar 30 2022:
     


These being said, most people get tripped into focusing on irrelevant details and interpretations of the events they witness or participate in, instead of intuitively interpreting them, to learn and evolve. We are supposed here to be Sethians, aren't we? That should help us to interpret better, but the old habits die hard, if at all.

[inavalan]

By the way, Deb posted that statistic a few days ago, then I posted the results of my search, and a discussion ensued that reached an apex today. Also today, Russel Brandt made a show about a similar statistic with the one I posted, and it happened that today I found it and watched it, without actually searching for it.

In New Age terms, this would be a synchronicity, but in Seth's terms, for each one of us the same event yields specific deeper interpretations.

Earlier today during my walk, as usually I got in a light trance. Right before arriving back home, I asked my inner guidance for a proof, by the end of today if possible, of my creating reality.

After I wrote the previous post in this thread, while reading something else, the thought about the above synchronicity crossed my mind. I immediately got in a light trance and asked for the interpretation of it. To my surprise, I learned that this wasn't a synchronicity, but the proof I asked for that I create my reality as I focus on.

To synchronize the steps of this discussion here, with Brandt's making his episode, with the author of the article Brandt discussed, with my finding Brandt's video, seems quite complicated, but from the point of view of choosing and creating your life-line through the space of probabilities both toward the temporal future and the temporal past, it is much less complicated. Everything that could've happened already exists, or can be created, and your subconscious just creates the life-line to match your beliefs, expectations, focus.

[LarryH]

Joe Biden is not the only one talking about a new world order:
Russia says it's building a new "democratic world order" with China

[Mark M]

I would hardly be surprised if this isn't ongoing:

Operation Mockingbird is an alleged large-scale program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that began in the early years of the Cold War and attempted to manipulate news media for propaganda purposes. According to author Deborah Davis, Operation Mockingbird recruited leading American journalists into a propaganda network and influenced the operations of front groups. CIA support of front groups was exposed when an April 1967 Ramparts article reported that the National Student Association received funding from the CIA.[1] In 1975, Church Committee Congressional investigations revealed Agency connections with journalists and civic groups.

From

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

[Mark M]

'[The author] also names Bob Woodward of The Washington Post as an intelligence agent who conspired with John Dean to remove President Richard Nixon from office for opposing the oil depletion allowance.'

'He describes Watergate "not as a ham-handed act of political espionage but as a carefully orchestrated farce designed to take down President Richard Nixon."'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_of_Secrets

The idea was to bring Nixon (hardly an angel) down thru a deliberately botched break-in at the Watergate Hotel.

Nixon himself said that break-in felt like a trap, that he wouldn't have sought intelligence on the Dems there.

It's a fascinating book.

[inavalan]

The slogan says: Make the "1984" fiction again!

• In 1984, the world is divided into three states: Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia. Oceania is constantly at war with one of these states while at peace with the other. For the majority of the book, Oceania is at war with Eastasia and is allied with Eurasia. Winston, however, clearly remembers a time when Eurasia was the enemy, but the party have rewritten the official history and nobody is prepared to contradict this (Part 1, Chapter 3). So the party continues to vilify Eastasia by encouraging public hatred of the country and by executing its war criminals.
  
  Suddenly, in the middle of Hate Week, an event designed to encourage hatred of Eastasia, Oceania switches its enemy. This happens without any warning and, all of a sudden, Oceania is at war with Eurasia and the war with Eastasia never existed. This happens in Part 2, Chapter 9, and brings the realisation to Winston that the entire history of the last five years will need to be rewritten.
  
  But, as Julia notes in Part 1, Chapter 5, the enemy is not really significant: "It's always one bloody war after another, and one knows the news is all lies anyway." In other words, it's not the enemy who matters but rather the fact that Oceania is constantly at war. Whether the war is even happening is another non-issue: again, it is the fact that the party maintains a constant state of war that is truly significant. As Goldstein comments in his book in Part 2, Chapter 9, by keeping the people in this constant state, the party is able to perpetuate an unequal distribution of wealth. It is this unequal distribution which keeps the citizens of Oceania controlled and conquered.

EDIT: I guess there's no need to spell it out ...
     Oceania ... nato
     Eastasia ... China
     Eurasia  ... Russia
It's uncanny! Orwell was a visionary.

[Mark M]

Turns Out Corporate Media Can Oppose War— When an Official Enemy Is the Aggressor

by Jeff Cohen

Having worked inside US corporate media during the beginning of the "War on Terror" and the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq, the differences in today's war coverage are dizzying to me.

While covering Russia's horrific aggression in Ukraine, there is a real focus—as there always should be—on civilian victims of war. Today, the focus on that essential aspect of the Russian invasion is prominent and continuous—from civilian deaths to the trauma felt by civilians as missiles strike nearby.

Unfortunately, there was virtually no focus on civilian death and agony when it was the US military launching the invasions. After the US invaded Iraq in 2003 on false pretenses—made possible by US mainstream media complicity that I witnessed firsthand—civilian deaths were largely ignored and undercounted through the years (FAIR.org, 6/7/13).

Shortly after the US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, leaked directives from CNN's management to its correspondents and anchors showed that the network was intent on playing down and rationalizing the killing and maiming of Afghan civilians by the US military (FAIR.org, 11/1/01). One memo instructed CNN anchors that if they ever referenced Afghan civilian victims, they needed to quickly announce to their audience: "These US military actions are in response to a terrorist attack that killed close to 5,000 innocent people in the US." Such language was mandatory, said the memo: "Even though it may start sounding rote, it is important that we make this point each time."

A few weeks after 9/11, what CNN viewer had forgotten it?

Noting the cursory US television coverage of Afghan civilian casualties, a New York Times reporter (11/1/01) wrote:

"In the United States, television images of Afghan bombing victims are fleeting, cushioned between anchors or American officials explaining that such sights are only one side of the story. In the rest of the world, however, images of wounded Afghan children curled in hospital beds or women rocking in despair over a baby's corpse, beamed via satellite by the Qatar-based network Al Jazeera, or CNN International, are more frequent and lingering."

The near-blackout on coverage of the civilian toll continued for decades. Last year, NBC anchor Lester Holt (4/30/21) did a summing-up report on Afghanistan as "America's longest war" by offering one and only one casualty figure: "2,300 American deaths." There was no mention of the more than 70,000 Afghan civilian deaths since 2001, and no mention of a UN study that found in the first half of 2019, due mostly to aerial bombing, the US and its allies killed more civilians than the Taliban and its allies.

As the war on terror expanded to other countries, US corporate media remained largely uninterested in civilian victims of US warfare and drone strikes (FAIR.org, 4/22/20; The Conversation, 10/22/15).

International law

Invasions and military force by one country against another are clearly illegal under international law, unless conducted in true self defense (or authorized by the UN Security Council). In coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, US mainstream media have correctly, repeatedly and without equivocation invoked international law and declared the invasion illegal. As they did when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014.

By contrast, when the US illegally invaded or attacked country after country in recent decades, international law has almost never been invoked by US corporate media.

In 1989, when the US invaded Panama in perhaps the bloodiest drug bust in history, mainstream US media made a determined effort to ignore international law and its violation—as well as the slaughter of civilians (FAIR.org, 1–2/90).

So as we rally to support Ukrainian civilians against great-power aggression from Russia, let's do so with the understanding that that all civilian victims of wars and violent coups are worthy, whether Iraqi or Honduran or Ukrainian—and that all criminals who violate international law should be held accountable, whether they're based in Moscow or Washington, DC.

Jeff Cohen is the founder of FAIR and the co-founder of RootsAction.org, an online action group. A version of this article was published by Common Dreams (2/28/22).

EXTRA! The Newsletter of FAIR—The Media Watch Group April 2022 Vol. 35, No. 3

[Mark M]

...And while the U.S. is attempting to claim that the world is on its side in wanting to isolate Russia, the opposite is actually true. Thus, if one looks at the countries that either voted against, abstained from or simply did not vote at all on the UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia's actions—(against) Russia, North Korea, Eritrea, Belarus and Syria; (abstaining) China, India, Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Angola, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo, Cuba, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar, Mali, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda and Vietnam; (not voting) Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Morocco, Togo, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Venezuela—one sees that countries representing the majority of the world's population and a huge portion of its land mass are not with the U.S. on this....

Meanwhile, a number of important world leaders have been very clear that they firmly put the blame upon the U.S. and NATO for what has happened in Ukraine.

For example, former Bolivian President Evo Morales—victim of a U.S.-backed coup in 2019—denounced the "crimes against humanity" committed by Ukraine since 2014, and said that "the U.S. always provokes wars to sell its weapons, interventions, military bases, to take over natural resources (...) It is not only looking for Ukraine's resources, but also to encircle Russia militarily."

Morales called for an "international mobilization to stop the interventionist expansionism of NATO and the U.S.," which he referred to as "the main enemy of humanity, threaten[ing] life, peace, and the economy through its expansionist, interventionist and warmongering policy."...

Morales's statement comes as top-secret documents have been revealed proposing NATO expansion into Latin America, both through the British Mount Pleasant base in the Falkland Islands (islands which the UK forcibly took from Argentina in 1982) and through Colombia, which has been an "extra-continental partner since 2017 and . . . was already used to train Bolivian Air Force officers."

And, of course, the U.S. and Colombia held joint naval exercises off the coast of Colombia—exercises which included a U.S. nuclear submarine—within days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to Colombian Defense Minister Diego Milano at the time, "[t]his exercise is carried out within the scope of NATO, in the case of Colombia as a global partner country, it seeks to adapt the best international standards in the development of maritime operations."...

For years, the world has watched as the U.S. and NATO expanded up to Russia's borders, and even beyond to places like Colombia; bombed and invaded one nation after another (e.g., Serbia, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen) at will and with complete impunity; and flaunted international law as if it were a mere trifle. In addition to causing huge suffering, this has caused great resentment and frustration amongst the world community which seemed powerless to stop the Western onslaught.

...

The Russian operation in Ukraine, which many see as an operation against NATO itself, marks the end of all this in a profound way. While the U.S. condemns this operation, citing international law, anyone paying attention knows that the international law it relies upon has been violently destroyed by the U.S. itself which, inter alia, has made a point to show the world that it could act militarily against other countries (e.g., Serbia, Iraq) without even seeking UN Security Council authorization as it is required to do; ignored the decisions of the International Court of Justice and withdrew from most of its jurisdiction; and even sanctioned International Criminal Court officials for announcing their intention to investigate U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan.

Dr. Francis Boyle joins Tamil Peoples' Council Team | IllinoisFrancis Boyle [Source: blogs.illinois.edu]
International law experts, such as Professor Francis A. Boyle, have commented that Russia was acting within the self-defense provision of Article 51 of the UN Charter through its Ukraine operations given the real and imminent threat that Ukraine forces represented to Russia and to the ethnic Russians living in Ukraine (many of whom are Russian citizens). (Boyle also argues, by the way, that the U.S.'s biolabs in Ukraine are definitely bio-weapons facilities, and he should know given that he helped draft the biological weapons ban Convention.) In any case, whether one agrees with Boyle or not, what is true is that Russia certainly has a better case under international law for its actions in Ukraine than the U.S. has had for invading countries halfway around the world which presented absolutely no threat to the United States.

And even more to the point of the present discussion, Russia's operations in Ukraine, understood as a strike against NATO aggression and encirclement, signals the end of the U.S. and NATO's ability to act unilaterally around the world at will and without any repercussions. Russia had drawn a line in the sand, and once crossed by the West, it acted militarily to defend its interests.

This is something that no country has dared to do since the end of the Cold War, and this marks the end of the "New World Order"—a doctrine pursuant to which the U.S. assumed to itself the role of master of the world—which President George H.W. Bush announced as the East Bloc was collapsing and which has been in place till now. Not surprisingly, most of the world never liked the terms of the "New World Order" to begin with, were in fact victimized under that regime and certainly are not going to do anything now to stop it from crumbling.

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/03/24/russias-invasion-of-ukraine-signifies-the-end-of-an-era-of-unipolar-american-power/

[inavalan]

There are non-Sethian ways of thinking about this, and Sethian ways.

As I wrote earlier: https://speakingofseth.com/index.php?msg=22049

• To me, the lesson is that this "event" experienced by Ukrainians is about hate, no matter how justified may seem, bringing more hate, eventually degenerating into fear, and into fear of survival (there are Seth quotes tying those together).
  
  The guidance is: don't do it! Watch your emotions: don't hate!
  
  It is easy to respond emotionally and yield to hate and anger toward those that media points at as being the bad guys, and to be fearful of what might happen to the world, to you and to your family (inflation, collapse of the economy and social systems, war, nuclear war, death). Don't submit to those who push you on that path! They don't know what they're doing. You, as a Sethian, (should) know better.
  
  It is likely that if this hateful rhetoric, with its appeal to hateful emotions, doesn't tone down, the Western world especially (including their populations) are headed toward a lot of suffering, situations that will cause them more hate and anger, that will end up in fear for life.

On one hand, what's happening, to each one of us, is only the result of our individual choice; nothing is forced on each one of us by others' will. So, we shouldn't blame others.

On the other hand, being quite ignorant, we inherently make mistakes. So, we shouldn't blame ourselves, excepting when we're stubborn and persist, believing we're smarter than we are.

[Deb]

There are non-Sethian ways of thinking about this, and Sethian ways.
As I wrote earlier: https://speakingofseth.com/index.php?msg=22049

Thanks @inavalan for bringing this topic around to my original intention: Discussing the Russia/Ukraine war as a mass event, and how the Seth materials explain it. The same way we discussed covid as a mass event. I've tried to reiterate my intention, but to no avail.

Since it's been going so far off the rails I've decided to lock this topic—I don't see a point in continuing. In the 8 year history of this forum, this is a first.

Thanks for ending this topic on a good note inavalan.