Michael Brenner, Scheerpost:

The United States is being defeated in Ukraine. One could say that it is facing defeat – or, more starkly, that it is staring defeat in the face. Neither formulation is appropriate, though. The U.S. doesn’t look reality squarely in the eye. We prefer to look at the world through the distorted lenses of our fantasies. We plunge forward on whatever path we’ve chosen while averting our eyes from the topography that we are trying to traverse.  Our sole guiding light is the glow of a distant mirage. That is our lodestone.

It is not that America is a stranger to defeat. We are very well acquainted with it: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria – in strategic terms if not always military terms. To this broad category, we might add Venezuela, Cuba, and Niger. That rich experience in frustrated ambition has failed to liberate us from the deeply rooted habit of eliding defeat. Indeed, we have acquired a large inventory of methods for doing so.

Ω Ω Ω

What were Washington’s objectives in sabotaging the Minsk peace plan and cold-shouldering subsequent Russian proposals, in provoking Russia by crossing clearly demarcated red lines, in pressing for Ukraine’s membership in NATO; in installing missile batteries in Poland and Rumania; in transforming the Ukrainian army into a potent military force deployed on the line-of-contact in the Donbas ready to invade or goad Moscow into preemptive action? The aim was to either pin a humiliating defeat on the Russian army or, at least, to inflict such heavy costs as to cut the ground from under the Putin government. The crucial, complementary dimension of the strategy was the imposition of economic sanctions so onerous as to implode a vulnerable Russian economy. Together, they would generate acute distress leading to the deposing of Putin – whether by a cabal of opponents (disgruntled oligarchs as the spearhead) or by mass protest. It was predicated on the fatally ill-informed supposition that he was an absolute dictator running a one-man show, The U.S. foresaw his replacement by a more pliable government ready to become a willing but marginal presence on the European stage and a non-player elsewhere. In the crude words of one Moscow official, “a tenant-farmer on Uncle Sam’s global plantation.”

The taming and domestication of Russia was conceived as a vital step in the impending great confrontation with China – designated the systemic rival to American hegemony. Theoretically, that objective could be achieved either by enticing Russia away from China (divide and subordinate) or totally neutralizing Russia as a world power by bringing down its stiff-backed leadership. The former approach never went beyond a few desultory, feeble gestures. All the chips were placed on the latter.

Ancillary benefits for the United States from a war over Ukraine that would bring Russia low were a) to consolidate the Atlantic alliance under Washington’s control, expand NATO and open an unbridgeable abyss between Russia and the rest of Europe that would endure for the foreseeable future; b) to that end, the termination of the latter’s heavy reliance on energy resources from Russia; and c) thereby, substituting higher-priced LNG and petroleum from the United States that would seal the European partners’ status as dependent economic vassals. If the last were a drag on their industry, so be it.

Seymour Hersh:

The American intelligence official I spoke with spent the early years of his career working against Soviet aggression and spying has respect for Putin’s intellect but contempt for his decision to go to war with Ukraine and to initiate the death and destruction that war brings. But, as he told me, “The war is over. Russia has won. There is no Ukrainian offensive anymore, but the White House and the American media have to keep the lie going.

“The truth is if the Ukrainian army is ordered to continue the offensive, the army would mutiny. The soldiers aren’t willing to die any more, but this doesn’t fit the B.S. that is being authored by the Biden White House.”

:

Scholz kündigte an, die geplante Reform des Staatsangehörigkeitsrechts solle noch in diesem Jahr Bundestag und Bundesrat passieren. Demnach sollen gut integrierte Einwanderer und ihre Kinder künftig schneller einen deutschen Pass bekommen. Auch Doppelpässe sollen ermöglicht werden.

It is only a real protest if you chant in English, on camera.

:

Zum „Klimastreik“ in Berlin kommen nach Polizeiangaben nur noch etwa 12.500 Menschen. Und das, obwohl auch die Letzte Generation zur Teilnahme aufgerufen hatte.

Die Zeit:

Die Ampel hat die beiden Klüfte – zwischen dem, was politisch getan wird, und dem, was klimatisch geschieht, sowie zwischen dem, was mindestens getan werden müsste, und all dem, was nicht geschieht – weiter vergrößert. Sie treiben damit diese Gesellschaft immer tiefer in die Irrationalität, auch in die Spaltung, solche zwischen den Menschen und solche in ihnen.

…

Die eigentliche Demonstration dieser Tage ist also nicht die von Fridays for Future oder der Letzten Generation. Es ist die stille und düstere Demonstration seitens der Regierung, ein Schweigemarsch für das illusionäre Weiter-so, angeführt vom einsilbigsten Bundeskanzler in der Geschichte der Republik.

Über die Streiks in Polen meldet der östliche Sprecher, was die Regierungszeitung »Tribuna Ludu« und die »Prawda« darüber schreiben. Von »antisozialistischen Elementen« ist die Rede, die Chaos und Anarchie säen und vom westlichen Ausland unterstützt werden. Der westliche Sprecher zitiert zum gleichen Thema ausschließlich die Verlautbarungen der polnischen Gewerkschaft Solidarität. Erwähnt wird noch, daß sich die Kampagne der Regierungsorgane gegen »antisozialistische Elemente« verstärke. Die Programmacher beider Staaten ähneln sich darin aufs Lächerlichste: aus dem eigenen Lager lassen sie nur die Meinung der Herrschenden, aus dem feindlichen Lager nur die der Unterdrückten zu Wort kommen.

—Peter Schneider, »Der Mauerspringer«, (Darmstadt: Hermann Luchterhand GmbH & Co KG, 1982), 115.

Shall I go off and away to bright Andromeda?
Shall I sail my wooden ships to the sea?
Or stay in a cage of those in Amerika??
Or shall I be on the knee?
Wave goodbye to Amerika
Say hello to the garden

So I see – I see the way you feel
And I know that your life is real
Pioneer searcher refugee
I follow you and you follow me
Let’s go together
Let’s go together
Let’s go together right now

—Paul Kantner, Let’s Go Together

It amuses me to recall listening to this song forty-some years ago, imagining being part of a group of technically proficient political dissidents in some future dystopia. We’ve certainly got the dystopia. Where are my revolutionaries? Where is my starship?