On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 2:04 PM, Steve Kinney <admin@pilobilus.net> wrote:

On 09/23/2016 08:04 PM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

> So the US government appears set on complete destruction of
> Ukraine. Doesn't even make strategic sense at this point. I guess
> unless you're an essentially evil Western oligarch who wants to
> carve it up for purchase on the cheap, the people, the Russians,
> and the world be damned.

In the context of the Cold War, now arriving at the boiling point due
to the Bush/Obama Administration's belligerent posture toward Russia,
the U.S. annexation of Ukraine via a (literally) Nazi proxy force
makes strategic sense: It was a destabilizing military and economic
provocation against the Russian Federation, and has been followed by a
massive conventional force buildup on Europe's eastern borders, adding
pressure to the weight of U.S. controlled strategic nuclear assets
that were /already/ present on that border. These deployments must be
countered, which ties up Russian military assets and reduces that
country's force projection capabilities in North Africa and the Middle
East.

Russia's continuing support of the ethnic Russian enclave on Ukraine's
eastern border also makes strategic sense: It prevents full
consolidation of power by the U.S. installed government, prevents
routine deployment of East-facing U.S. controlled forces on the
Ukraine/Russian border, and provides a potential haven for Ukrainian
insurgents working against the government in Kiev.

Crimea's value to Russia is self explanatory, and I do not recall
hearing anything about the populace turning out to protest the orderly
handover of power to Russia in preference to a U.S. sponsored gang of
(literal) Nazis. Rather the opposite, and I saw no evidence that the
U.S. even /tried/ to retain Crimea.

I don't disagree with this, but I will say that I think there are other equally valid interpretations that don't involve words like "annex", which I think applies far more to Russia with Crimea than it does to the US w.r.t. the rest of Ukraine. On the other hand, the main innovation of the US flavor of imperialism is the more subtle/opaque means by which it achieves its ends, thus ensuring that one can easily interpret it as not imperialism. Not that the Russians are above subterfuge; they're just not in a position to as easily use it in this situation.

The "USA Number One!" mentality of comfortable Middle Class Amerikans
makes sense of a kind: Their continued material prosperity relative to
the former Working Class /does/ depend on global terrorism, enforced
poverty, mass murder, cities reduced to rubble and refugee columns,
etc. as the U.S. war of global economic conquest continues. They
deserve to see the same things happen to their own children and
families, and if they continue to get their own way they WILL see that
- - unless they happen to be closer to ground zero "on the day."
Unfortunately, this cheerful little scenario involves dragging those
/not/ responsible for all that human misery and heaped, dead burnt
bodies down into the same hell.

This is by no means unique or even more prevalent in the United States than elsewhere. The way for any government to retain its power is by convincing a large enough segment of the population that it's better off than it would be under some other situation they think they can achieve. Cognitive assonance does the rest. I certainly suffer from it as much as anyone. I like to think I'm more enlightened than the average person in my position, but TBH I have no idea what I'll do when the shit hits the fan. What I do know is that my family comes before any kind of ideology. Which in a sense is just selfishness, but I do feel like I was far more able to do things on behalf of ideology that were not in my immediate self-interest before I had kids.

The real conflict here is not West vs. East or even USA vs. The Rest
Of The World. It is the human race, vs. its own parasitic ruling
class and their faithful servants. The parasites have already lost;
if they do not surrender their power voluntarily (impossible),
environmental limits enforced by the laws of physics will destroy that
power (inevitable). Now the only game in town is about reducing the
final body count, which no rational scenario places at less than a
couple of billion, and preserving essential long term survival
resources for the survivors. And that's where radical populist
politics enters the scene. Communication is vitally important in
political warfare, and providing the best possible tools to Our Side
is the mission that makes "cypherpunk" bullshit worth doing.

I don't share your pessimism as to bodycount, but that could be wishful thinking.