Looking at the way most of the media is handling the Ukraine conflict, my absurd-o-meter has exploded once again. While it's being repaired, I wanted to talk about something important. This is long because I really wanted to point out some important interconnections, and provide a lot of material to do your own research.
The bottom line is, regular people never want to go to war. They have to first become convinced that they are under attack by someone. One or the both sides need to get suckered into believing something that is not exactly true before there can be a large armed conflict.
Governments on the other hand have plenty of reasons to go to war, but typically the real reasons would not be enough for the people to fight. Would you fight to save a petrodollar monopoly or a fiat currency or the power of elite class? Probably not. But there are ways to incite conflict by starting bushfires and twisting the truth with some useful semantics. If you study the history of the world even superficially, you can see these patterns repeating over and over.
Controlling people this way is amazingly easy when there exists overwhelming mass ignorance about the real issues. Everyone should be well aware of many very recent cases of this, but still people keep believing some absurd cartoon version of reality. It's so ironic how the same people who never bother researching beyond the news articles, nevertheless assume that any opposing views are simply resulting from propaganda; "something that can only be believed by those who blindly believe their news". Then they turn around and say "I feel so confused about everything that's happening". So strange.
Even most journalists have the attitude that anything outside of standard narrative is not worth researching. There are tons of articles where a simple Google search about the pertinent issues would lead you to somewhat different perspective. I don't believe all the journalists are just lying, I think most of them are just ignorant. But they have a real responsibility in sharing the facts with the public without important omissions, and that's not happening. They should understad, bad journalism kills people.
When MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, my first thought was "wow, someone really wants to stir up a bigger fight". And sure enough, just about everyone around me already knew that basically Putin was responsible, before even the first bit of investigation had started. Everyone should realize immediately that there is a great incentive on both sides to shoot a passenger plane down, especially since the mass ignorance will cause everybody to automatically pin the blame on the opposite party without questions. The point of using a passenger plane is that it makes the whole world feel "it could have easily been me", and so brings the conflict to your doorstep. That's the stock solution for stirring up maximum amount of emotion globally, and it has happened many times before. If it was shot down intentionally, it was because someone wanted that response. And if more people understood this, there would be no reason to do these things.
Okay, let's look at Ukraine a bit more. You've heard these accusations about neo-nazis inside the Ukrainian government with the US support, which US government is publicly denying. Or maybe you haven't heard anything, then this article contains nice set of links to follow;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-hughes/the-neo-nazi-question-in_b_4938747.html
Obviously every country has got radical elements. When things are "not great" in a country, the amount of radical elements increases, because more and more people believe some cartoon reality where all their problems are caused by X. In the case of the Ukrainian far-right nationalists, it's the Russian ethnic group. Which is a lot of people because Ukraine became independent from Russia relatively recently.
The Ukrainian right-wing radicals are these guys;
Of course there are pro-russian radicals as well (as well as plenty of perfectly sane pro-russian people), but I'm really trying to point out how dangerously far away the mainstream western media has drifted from reality.
Let's look at this little closer. Pay attention to the Svoboda head Oleh Tiahnybok
Who is clearly not a fan of negotiations;
http://en.tiahnybok.info/news/comments/00011512/
Which somewhat explains why the Russian ethnic group is not even allowed to enter the negotiation table. There are elements who simply want them out of the country.
As far as I know, Svoboda really didn't have that much political power until recently. Why did that change now? Consider the pictures in here;
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-u-s-has-installed-a-neo-nazi-government-in-ukraine/5371554
Oleh Tiahnybok meeting with US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and John McCain. This should start to ring some bells... A stock solution for starting up bushfires is you support the radical elements who are the enemy of your enemy. And if there are not enough radical elements, you throw in some sanctions and watch the radicalism rise. And just bank on your own people staying ignorant so the whole thing doesn't turn into another PR disaster.
Just like how the so-called Al-Qaeda started by US creating Afghan fighters from the radical elements of Afghanistan when they were fighting Russia. Just like how Saddam Hussein was supported when it was useful for the western world. Just like how Libyan radical elements, who want sharia law into the country, suddenly received US support to topple over Gaddafi. Some material you can follow later:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/amnesty-questions-claim-that-gaddafi-ordered-rape-as-weapon-of-war-2302037.html
http://journal-neo.org/2014/06/22/the-truth-of-libya-finally-goes-mainstream/
And it's being done in Ukraine again with the blessing of the mass ignorance. So are the Ukrainian radicals delivering the violence that is expected from them? What do you think;
WARNING GRAPHIC!
Jump to around 5:00 to see democracy being supported by shooting people who are trying to vote. Anyone okay with this?
and
and so on. Seriously, we still have a mostly free internet (and let's try to keep it that way). This stuff is not hard to find.
And the Odessa fire? This is one of the more objective western accounts. But still they "have no idea why the people couldn't escape", and they even question if it was actually the pro-Russian leader who commanded the people into the building. And if you bother to find some videos freely available on the internet;
Just watch the first 3 minutes and you should figure it out.
And do the US diplomats know about all this? Of course they do, they are banking on it. Did you hear about that leaked phonecall between Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt (US ambassador to Ukraine);
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QxZ8t3V_bk
Transcript:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
"I'm just thinking in terms of sort of the process moving ahead we want to keep the moderate democrats together. The problem is going to be Tyahnybok [Oleh Tyahnybok, Svoboda leader] and his guys and I'm sure that's part of what [President Viktor] Yanukovych is calculating on all this."
I.e. they know the far right thugs could easily become a problem. Except that, they mean a PR problem. And sure enough the phonecall itself did turn into a PR problem, but it was quickly spun into "this was a new low for Russia". Presumably in that they would spy phonecalls like that. I think they are trying to melt my mind with sheer irony, and it's working.
This issue is being referred to here as well, where it becomes clearer why the radicals are being supported by the US;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TpZa4OMFVk
The reason they are being supported is that stirring up conflict will activate the other party too, and provide context for exactly what they want to do next. They don't mind letting radicals gain more power, because they think they can just turn around and crush them anytime they want with another spin. Conflicts are profitable, so who cares. And as people are becoming less ignorant about all this, watch it getting spun into "why isn't Putin doing anything to stop the violence?"
Whatever your interpretation of this is, the underlying problem is that most of this is not being reported except by amateurs on the internet doing the job the professional journalists should be doing. The mass ignorance allows the stupidity to spread. And that is why it doesn't make sense to most people in the west when Russia is arguing that it is trying to protect Russian ethnic people in Ukraine, and complaining that the Ukrainian government is not protecting its own people. This also explains why there really are a lot of people who are voting for joining Russia. Meanwhile our side is screaming how such voting is illegal, literally months after performing a coup in Kiev. What a joke, but no one seems to be hearing the punchline over their ignorance.
Obviously there are other reasons why there is such a strong radical nationalist element in Ukraine now, most likely having to do with similar problem of Russian ethnic thugs running around rampant, and certainly it is possible bushfire tactics were also employed by Russia.
So let's take one more step back to some of the real reasons behind the tension, because those reasons are also almost entirely omitted, for some rather obvious reasons if you understand game theory at all.
NATO wants to place its missiles into Ukraine, which is basically the same thing as Soviet Union placing its missiles into Cuba but in reverse. NATO argues Russia is just paranoid in thinking the system could be used for offense. Russia argues NATO is good at stirring up wars. They are demanding an equal partnership to the system, and legally binding guarantees that the system won't be used against it, neither of which it is getting. Shouldn't we be asking why that is? Personally I think the whole missile plan is just absurd and can only work to undermine diplomatic relations.
But then why is US and EU so aggresssively involved in this conflict? I'm afraid the biggest reason is trade politics, and the risky state of the western monetary system. Remember, the protests that led to the coup of the Ukrainian pro-russian government last February involved Ukraine signing a trade agreement with Russia instead of EU. That's a hint.
Understand that a lot of the global trade politics determine the power that different instances have in the global power game. For example, consider the fact that, if the world stops using the petrodollar in their oil trade, then US dollar would most likely return to close to its intrinsic value very fast (which is zero). If you can't use dollars to buy oil, what value would other governments place to the currency?
If you google for "Federal Reserve Gold", you get back pictures of massive mountains of gold. Here's to the mass ignorance. The simple fact of the matter is that Federal Reserve does not own any gold. US dollar has not been redeemable in gold for a long time. If there was no petrodollar monopoly across the globe, the other nations would not and could not place any value to it. If they would not place any value to it, the dollar would hyperinflate, and the entire FED debt system would cease to be able to create money for global trade. In other words it would just collapse like a house of cards. The US government is extremely well aware of this, and so you should be. Except that, the more aware you are of the fragility of a currency, the more fragile it gets, so you see the game theory bit here...
At the same time, the petrodollar monopoly is obviously problematic to many countries. So why are they not moving away from petrodollar if it's so detrimental to them you ask? Many are trying, but every time they have done so, there has been a most unfortunately timed war or regime change, which has just so happened to switch the country back to petrodollar.
The simple fact is that US dollar cannot hold value without the petrodollar monopoly, so just keep a keen eye on this fact when observing the wars US is fighting. Starts to make sense why the US has been so entangled with all the politics and regime changes in the middle east, eh? The more you research, the more obvious this becomes.
Iraq;
http://ftmdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/ft_iraq-returns-to-international-oil-market.pdf
"The tender, for which bids are due by June 10, switches the transaction back to dollars - the international currency of oil sales - despite the greenback's recent fall in value. Saddam Hussein in 2000 insisted Iraq's oil be sold for euros, a political move, but one that improved Iraq's recent earnings thanks to the rise in the value of the euro against the dollar."
Switch back to dollar even though it would yield less profit. The real reason should be quite obvious by now. Some commentary;
http://ftmdaily.com/preparing-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-system-part-3/
Also in Libya Gaddafi was driving the African trade to switch to gold dinars, which would have been devastating to US and EU who are not really dealing with gold.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/markets/item/4630-gadhafi-s-gold-money-plan-would-have-devastated-dollar
http://rt.com/news/economy-oil-gold-libya/
Regardless of what you believe of the real motives for the wars in these areas, few facts are undeniable;
1. These moves to switch to resource based currency would have dealt a devastating, and possibly a lethal blow to the western monetary system, and similarly to those instances who currently get all their power from controlling the money system.
2. Considering 1, it would be naive to simply assume these issues are unrelated and co-incidental.
3. Either way, it is absolutely criminal to keep the public ignorant about things that are this important.
4. Keeping the public ignorant makes it easier to start unrelated bushfires and justify aggression with them.
So what does this have to do with Russia? Well, Russia, China and Iran are planning to move away from Petrodollar. You would think this is somewhat important, and they should say something about it on the news maybe? But somehow you haven't heard too much about it have you? Imagine that.
Are you being vigilant, or do you think only crazy people question the news? How about not operating with truthiness anymore. How about also listening to those people who are presenting views that challenge ours? How about not getting suckered into believing the cartoon reality where the Ukrainian conflict is caused by Putin suddenly attacking Ukraine "because he is a madman". Rule of thumb, if you are being told some people are doing something "because they are mad/evildoers/dictators", you should look behind the curtains, just in case. Use the internet, and start stitching up a picture from broader set of facts. Don't just read an article about what someone has said, read the transcripts of what actually has been said. Those are often two very different things.
Attempting to get into the head of those you see as your enemy, is not to agree with their views. It is to understand their motives and so to understand the conflict. Only by understanding the conflict, you can understand how to fix it. Mass stupidity has never solved anything. How about stopping the childish sanctions game that has never worked anyway, and start figuring out how to improve the situation of the people who actually live in Ukraine?
Just remember, a government, and the nation it is governing, are two different things. There are real conflicts of interest between them. A government protects itself by finding ways to control its people, which fuels anti-government feelings, and becomes a vicious cycle. We have social media, and until some patriot act or spying mechanism prevents you from using it, just make sure you share the facts that the media is failing to report, and so do your share in making us little bit less ignorant. Share these links, or share this post, and just promote the idea that we really should learn from history, and that it really is okay to question what we are being told.