The Books of Bokonon

As of this writing, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia is still on-going. This was a war started by Putin that was supposed to end in three days with perhaps a handful of weeks needed to consolidate control over Ukraine. Putin's been clear for a while that Ukraine is not a real nation or that Ukrainians have a unique culture. The Russians started with what was supposed to be a formidable military on paper and vastly outnumbered Ukrainian forces. So the conventional wisdom ahead of the war was that Ukraine did not stand a chance and that Zelinskyy needed to find the nearest exit if he wanted to remain alive. And yet here we are with a war in which the front lines have changed little since the summer of 2022. The warning signs were there in the autumn of 2021. The Russia and Belarus governments had amassed large numbers of troops and equipment along their borders with Ukraine, ostensibly as part of some sort of joint military exercise, and despite what Putin had been saying...

Given the how unreliable the US has proven itself as an ally really starting with Trump's first term, but more recently under the clown car that is Trump 2.0, rumblings of a divorce are surfacing. How would that be done? It won't happen overnight, but there are some ideas that are serious enough for consideration. Recently a Danish pension fund (it provides pensions for educators in the country) decided to sell off any US bonds in its portfolio. While just a drop in the bucket, imagine what would happen if European nations and Europe-based organization began to do so en masse? What if the EU (or at least a coalition of the willing, since Hungary is one likely roadblock to any actual collective EU action) created its own market for bonds denominated in Euros ? What if nations like Germany, which store much of their sovereign gold in the US r epatriated those gold bars back to their own capitals? What about EU reliance on US-based companies for internet platforms and cloud stora...

"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action...Words are used to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests." Gore Vidal, Imperial America, 2004

My take is that the US has no business either starting or getting involved in another Middle-Eastern war. The ones from the "war on terror" era ended badly. This will end badly as well.

  After Helping Cost Kamala the Election, the Abandon Harris Movement Is Now Pleading to Trump for Mercy by u/Humble_Novice in LeopardsAteMyFace This was all so predictable. I have nothing but contempt for organizations like Abandon Harris, who helped set the stage for the current clusterfuck we are living with now. I don't want another war in the Middle East either, but anyone who thought Trump was an isolationist was deluded.

T om Sullivan has a post that looks at what might have been a silent protest by those military personnel tasked with marching in the parade old Donald Trump demanded take place last weekend. One measure of this regime's ability to end democracy once and for all is if Trump has the military on board. He might not after all.