High on their own farts about Ukraine – the West’s political class sparks a global calamity

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Carl Hagan

Spin doctors can become a victim of their own craft – lies can spiral out of control, trashing the distinction between rhetoric and reality. This is the dangerous condition of the western political /media class – merrily losing its mind over Russia and Ukraine. The current propaganda self hypnotism about Ukraine is unprecedented and has three linked strands.

The first concerns the Russians whose entire existence, culture and motivations have been reduced for western consumption to the status of a war crime. Russian athletes can no longer compete, Russian culture can no longer be celebrated or performed. Russians are cast as an alien species of evil orcs. Russian goods are banned. English speaking Russian media portals silenced. The evil Russians (and they alone) are murderers, rapists, war criminals, bullies, bandits, hostage takers, thugs and liars.

To acknowledge our shared humanity and the right of Russian culture to exist has become a thought crime. Assertions of Russian perfidy have become a sort of pop-up religion in the west – a daily praxis of malice.

The second strand concerns the Ukrainians – the ‘plucky’ underdogs that we are now obliged to support and believe unconditionally.

The abrupt deification of all things Ukrainian is war porn. There are hundreds of western journalists putting this war under a microscope for western consumption, airbrushing its (Ukrainian) victims for maximum emotional impact.

We have pretty Ukrainian girls posing amongst ruined buildings, adorable children at play check points in tin hats and distraught homeowners shoved in front of cameras to point sadly at damaged buildings.

Asking why this tearful chronicling wasn’t and isn’t done for the benefit of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Yemen is not permitted. Asking questions about the role of neo-Nazi battalions embedded within the Ukrainian army is out of bounds. The role of western intelligence agencies and CIA operatives in Ukraine is off limits. 

Ukrainian use of cluster munitions since 2014, the savage shelling of Donetsk and Ukrainian violations of the Geneva convention. Enquires into such things are not at ALL welcome. The prescribed narrative is to be the beginning and the end of the moral questions we are allowed to ask.

Every pronouncement by Ukrainian officials is faithfully relayed by western media portals. Every childish bit of war posturing from Zelenskyy uncritically splashed like a Soviet era Pravda. Zelenskyy has become a scowling big brother on every televisor in the land.

The third strand of western self bamboozlement concerns the war itself and its disastrous fictions about sanctions. Whatever the west wants to believe about its proxy war with Russia is to be the truth. 

But to win actual wars, you need more than Churchillian posturing, battlefield disinformation and opinion pieces in the corporate media. You need soldiers, tanks, ammunition, tactics, training and logistics. I am not sure what is more absurd – the daily pronouncements of ‘victory’ from Zelenskyy as he shoots wartime dope without a needle, or the equally deranged assessments from his ‘western partners’.

The Ukrainian army is losing a fight they never had any hope of winning alone – that is the reality.

Western economic sanctions against Russia are ineffective and counter productive – a disastrous act of self harm. Russian fossil fuel sales are only boosted by scarcity and they aren’t likely to weep about being blocked from servicing debts to the west – by the west! Meanwhile Europe is facing an energy crisis and a calamitous recession – this is the reality.

But the west’s political and media class are so high on their own farts – so invested in their own lies that they are unable to grasp these truths. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. The war is going splendidly in Ukraine. Western sanctions are crippling Russia. 

.Let me take just a few examples of this lunacy:

Ukrainian grain exports have been inevitably disrupted. Russia is blamed for a ‘war crime’, but Odessa is blocked by Ukrainian mines that Russia cannot remove even if it wanted to – and why would Russia ease western concerns about grain exports while under western sanctions?

Western journalists blather about Europe weaning itself off its ‘addiction’ to Russian fossil fuels – but energy extraction and supply infrastructure of the kind that supplies Europe with Russian energy will take decades to come online.

Russia’s invasion is deemed a failure – but they have taken and held territory more than the size of England and advance steadily. Ukrainian industry and infrastructure is subject to air strikes, missile attack and sabotage while Russia quietly opens bridges and railway tracks from Crimea and builds on its many tactical advantages.

We await the ‘game changing’ weapons deliveries to Ukraine but western arms deliveries to Ukraine are slowing – not accelerating. The west cannot begin to match Russia’s military manufacturing capacity. The military consequence of the US and the UK outsourcing its manufacturing base is that conventional wars of attrition become unwinnable (even if someone else is doing the fighting for you).

‘Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth – sooner or later that debt is paid’

We can lie to ourselves all we want about the West’s proxy war in Ukraine but the costs are stacking up. Economic and structural ruin for Ukraine and a nation tragically losing a generation of brave young soldiers to the meat grinders in the east. Economic ruin for Europe and the risk of much worse to come. 

Millions are at risk of starvation. The global financial system is in danger of another collapse  and there remains a growing risk of nuclear war. The posturing of NATO has pushed China into the arms of Russia – great work guys!

Its time to end this proxy war insanity in Ukraine. Peace via a negotiated settlement is what is desperately needed in Ukraine, both for Ukraine and for the world. 

Let us hope that the Russians are in any mood to talk, they have no reason to trust the US / NATO / EU and every reason to think they have the situation well in hand.

However much the west wants to dwell inside its own propaganda bubbles – its time to face some harsh truths…and start talking with the Russians. 

Since 2013 I have worked on this Ad-Free site: trying to give a voice to those without the power or agency to speak out for themselves and speaking simple truths that well paid journalists in the corporate media dare not utter.

I am a home schooling parent on a low income – paying for the domain, web hosting and security entirely out of my own pocket.  

If you find this website useful and could spare us a few shillings to help keep our lights on, it would be very much appreciated.

Thank you in solidarity with all our readers. John Lynch, Editor.     

Click here to follow Sodium Haze on Facebook