Deep Dive on Ukraine (Part 2)

Vlog Brothers, March 4, 2014

This is an excellent quick primer on the situation in Ukraine as of 2014, just two weeks before Putin annexed Crimea, an event this video suggests is imminent. 

Let me throw in one bit of deep history that he doesn't get to (and perhaps this is my own personal prejudice--you decide): speaking of "Russia" and "Ukraine" are misnomers; what we mean are "Moscow" and "Kiev". Kiev is an ancient city, been there for as long as anyone can remember, whereas Moscow is not quite a thousand years old. Throughout the 13th and 14th centuries both cities were besotted with the Golden Horde, the eastern European branch of the Mongol Empire. When the Mongols finally receded around 1450, it was Moscow that rose to prominence, first and foremost by luring the Orthodox Church to headquarter there. With this cultural muscle behind it, the Muscovites set out to solidify the long stretch of territory between the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea that had long been home to the Rus people (and then eventually the long stretch to the East known as Siberia). 

Imagine the relationship between Moscow and Kiev, then, as that of the upstart little brother trying to assert its dominance over the big brother that it admires/loathes. (Okay back to the video)  

While decrying the then recent invasion of Crimea by Putin, he points out that Crimea is naturally a part of Ukraine, as its electricity and water comes from the Ukrainian mainland. I'll add a detail he left out: the reason for Putin's invasion was because the Ukrainian gov't (an unelected de facto gov't at that time) cut off the water supply to Crimea, leading to massive crop failure in 2014. I point this out because while he mentioned the "disastrous" results of Putin cutting off oil supplies to Ukraine in 2015, he neglects to mention the Ukrainians doing the same thing (same thing? Even worse thing, no?) to Crimea the year before.

And why did the West uniformly decry Putin's annexation of Crimea? In the video he refers to this as "a big f'n deal", but why? Check out the Wikipedia entry on Crimea....where is the point where Crimea ever belonged to Kiev? Ever? 

In BC times, it was a Greek colony and then a Persian outpost. In Christian times it was territory controlled by the Byzantines, then the Ottomans. It was first annexed by Moscow in 1783. During the Soviet period, Josef Stalin (as he notes in the video), removed the ethnic Tartars and packed in ethnic Russians. In 1954, Crimea was made part of Ukraine in a drunken ramble by Nikita Khrushchev of which even the West "doubts...the legitimacy". And even then it was an autonomous region still realistically controlled by Moscow. And that autonomous status was reaffirmed in 1991 after the dissolution of the USSR.

The Wikipedia entry (a well known bastion of Putin-esque misinformation?) goes back 3000 years and never at any point was Crimea ever part of Kiev. Even in that brief period of time (1954-1991) when it was ostensibly Ukrainian territory, it was autonomous and even then, as the home base of the Russian Navy, it was never out of Moscow's orbit. Crimea has never belonged to Kiev. 

Personally, I never had any problem with the 2014 annexation of Crimea and I think Western outcry is, it best, misplaced--and, at worst, totally ignores that Putin was actually trying to save the lives of those people imperiled by the (unelected) Ukrainian parliament. And how do we correct this "big f'n deal"? By putting Crimea under the sway of the Ukrainian gov't? How does that solve anything? In 3000 years Crimea has never belonged to Kiev nor has the population ever been made up of native Ukrainians. Why are we under the illusion that Crimea belongs to Ukraine? Indeed, wasn't it Kiev trying annex Crimea by starving it 2014?

New York Times, March 11, 2014  ("Ukraine 2014: Ukraine-Russia Ties Explained") 

Check out this next video (from those pro-Putin puppets at the New York Times). 

"Ukraine, like every other non-Russian Republic in the Soviet Union was the creation of of the Russian--or if you prefer, the Soviet--leadership in the 1920s and 1930s. These boundaries are drawn and the attempt was to bring together within certain administrative units individuals that could be identified in terms of language, culture, and so on." When the NYT says it, you believe it, right? It's only "disinformation" when Putin says it. 

"Crimea was, is and will be an integral part of Ukraine." -- Arseniy Yatsenyuk ("Yats" to his Western allies), the interim (unelected) prime minister of Ukraine in 2014. 

Tell me: is this "disinformation"? Show me when Kiev ever ruled over Crimea? If you find something prior to 1000BC, I'd love to see it, because at no time since then was any kind of ruling power in Kiev ever in control of Crimea. 

Given the brief history of Crimea above, doesn't Yatsenyuk's language sound much more ominous and bellicose than Putin? (Reminder this quote from the unelected Ukrainian gov't was shortly before they would go on to cut off water supplies leading to crop failure...sounds kinda Stalin-y, doesn't it?) 

Stephen F. Cohen on The Charlie Rose Show, March 19, 2014

"...(M)any advocate moving NATO troops to the Polish-Russian border....aircraft is already there and NATO is moving troops around. If that happens, Putin almost certainly moves 150,000 troops...into South and eastern Ukraine...that would be the Cuban Missile Crisis..."

In 2014, the danger was already firmly in place. If this video seems repetitive its because everything Cohen is saying in 2014 is all the same stuff Cohen has been saying since at least 2006. He was right in 2006, he was still right in 2014 and even though Cohen has since passed away, he's still right in 2022.

"Demonization of Putin is not a policy but an excuse for not having a policy." -- Henry Kissinger 

Jack Matlock on Democracy Now!, March 20, 2014

Final word: "They're better off without Crimea."

Matlock is not as media savvy as most of the other featured talkers in this post. And he's an old timey Cold War soldier. But he brings an interesting perspective and is properly guarded in his commentary. He was a career ambassador meaning he was trained to say blandly non-committal pleasantries without belying any confrontation (or information). Worth checking out, though, in the context of these other videos and articles. 

Ukraine Crisis Media Centre, June 24, 2014

This is a long press conference of the UK's Ambassador to Ukraine in 2014. It is mostly just self-serving double talk, which is frankly all ambassadors are equipped to do. I'll refrain from any other observations because....well, I don't have any, there's not much else to say. Just thought I'd add it here in case you want to see what British stuffed shirts sounded like in 2014. (Though now might be a good time to recall that the during first impeachment of Trump, the testimony came almost exclusively from ambassadors....who know virtually nothing about how the White House works or even how foreign policy is developed and implemented, meaning the trial to evict the President was led by the absolute lowest people on the totem pole--hell, ambassadors aren't even on totem pole!)

New York Times, June 27, 2014 (pay wall)

(Well, I read this a few days ago but when I went back to take notes, I was paywall-ed out. So, whatever it was the NYT had to say, it seemed important to me earlier in the week but the NYT has decided it doesn't want me to see it again. So, I'll just leave the link in case you want to see the NYT's version of Ukraine's trade pact with the EU in the summer of 2014)

Brookings Institution, June 27, 2014 ("Poroshenko Signs EU-Ukraine Association Agreement")

"It is difficult to escape the conclusion that Moscow's actions since late February have aimed to destabilize the gov't in Kiev and slow its path to the European Union."

Really? By late February 2014 the gov't in Kiev was already very de-stabilized thanks to the bogus negotiations of the EU in the fall of 2013. In fact, Kiev was pretty stable until they began talking to the EU. 

"Russia can use that influence and leverage to promote a ceasefire and a settlement, if it wants to."

So could the Americans. So could the Europeans. But why would the Western powers want that? They wanted a Ukrainian president that would sign the deal to anger Russia and, after years of fraudulent negotiations and a coup d'état, they finally found their man in Poroshenko. (Oh, fun fact: Petro Poroshenko, who won the election of June 2014 to be Ukraine's president (where he served until 2019), was the owner of Ukraine's two largest news channels, Pryiami and 5 Kanal, all through his presidency. Do you suppose the Ukrainian people were well informed by their Media?)

Politicos have been crafting whatever narrative suits them at the moment and in 2014 the narrative was "Putin is the problem, not us" and that played very well to American and European audiences. But the idea that Russians are crazy for thinking of Ukraine as part of their own land that has been "invaded" by Western infidels is not as far fetched as, say, the Brookings Institution would have you believe. 

The Minsk Protocols, September 5, 2014

There were negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE and a handful of separatist factions from Luhansk and Donetsk. The idea was to create a ceasefire in the restive Eastern Ukrainian areas but this collapsed almost immediately. This was followed by Minsk II in February 2015 but this, too, was a non-starter in reality. (Think about it: in all that's gone on in the past 6-8 weeks, has anyone ever bothered to bring up the Minsk Protocols?)

The only notable part of this negotiation is it suggests that Luhansk and Donetsk are potentially independent territories...why would the Kiev gov't or the OSCE even entertain the idea in 2014? 

The Obama White House, November 26, 2014

Here's some utterly harmless video of then Vice President Joe Biden making some bland pleasantries with Poroshenko near the end of 2014. "I want to congratulate all Ukrainians on last month's successful parliamentary elections, overwhelming endorsed by Ukrainians and the entire int'l community as being fair and free."

"Fair and free" is a phrase that recurs again and again in relation to Ukraine. I think Orwell would've suggested this is the beginning of the movement to ensure that the words "fair" and "free" will never be useful to the Ukrainian people ever again. 

Though I must concede that the slow erosion of independent thought through the warping of language is preferable to columns of tanks on city streets, I can't help but see that over time the two things have a lot in common. 

Noam Chomsky on Democracy Now!, March 2, 2015

Noam Chomsky on "Diaper-ology" and John Mearsheimer. Pretty much the same as all the other links in this post (though he veers numerous times into Cold War tales of near nuclear war). 

He raises an excellent point that I haven't noticed anyone else saying: why not encourage Ukraine to take a neutral position? It wouldn't join NATO, nor would it militarily align with Russia. What's wrong with that? Ukraine gets to maintain trade with Russia and with Europe without militarily antagonizing anyone. Seems like a pretty elegant solution at this point. 

Vox, March 25, 2015 ("What Most People Miss About the War in Ukraine") 

This is a short video on where Ukraine stood in the spring of 2015, roughly a year after the fall of Yanukovych. The sociological overview of Ukraine is pretty basic and uncontroversial. But it isn't much of a "deeper" look.

"When (Yanukovych) abandoned (a deal with the EU) and took a bailout from Russia instead that was perceived as turning away from the West...and it was controversial and prompted protests largely in the western part of the country..."

This video is trying to get beyond the conventional wisdom and yet it totally absorbs and regurgitates that official line while pretending to go deeper. Notice how effortlessly it describes Tymoshenko as "Pro-Europe" and Yanukovych as "Pro-Russia". That's not really fair at all to Yanukovych (nor to Tymoshenko, who had her own agenda), who was desperately pro-Europe. But that just highlights the convenience of using Yanukovych as the scapegoat, the punching bag, allowing him to take all the blame when I'd say he was seduced and abandoned by the EU and left to the mercies of Moscow. He took the "bailout" from Moscow, because Ukraine needed a bailout and he wasn't going to get it from the EU or the IMF, despite feigned overtures from the West.

But that story is complicated, nuanced, and not the one American audiences want to hear. This is ultimately an examination of how "news" is just entertainment and "journalists" are just telling the story that the audience wants to buy (everyone on TV is just an entertainer). I blame the audience not the newscasters, they're just doing their job, which is to entertain rather than inform. But even in "deeper looks" like this video, the conventional wisdom is a tar pit that engulfs the Left and the Right, when it comes to Russia. 

The Obama White House, June 5, 2015

Nothing to see here. It is as deep and informative as what you'd expect from a White House press release (which is to say not at all). But it does suggest that Putin is in violation of the Minsk Protocols (of which USA was not a signatory). 

Max Blumenthal on Real News, February 4, 2018

Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate on Americans arming neo-Nazis in Ukraine. 

Obviously, this is a nonsense disinformation story--I mean Ukraine has a Jewish president! How can they possibly have Nazi citizens? Preposterous! (**)

Vice News, February 18, 2018 ("Why Ukraine is Trapped in Endless Conflict") 

"Conflict began in 2013, when the Ukrainian gov't rejected an association with the European Union in order to build stronger ties with Russia."

Five years later the Western narrative is perfectly ensconced. It isn't that the EU negotiated in bad faith with Yanukovych for the purpose of encouraging a pro-Western uprising. It is that Kiev needed to strengthen ties with Moscow--as if those ties weren't already centuries old! 

"The pro-Moscow move led to massive protests in the capital of Kiev....Russia took advantage of the chaos and sent its military in to annex Crimea."

But, again: Yanukovych's turn wasn't a pro-Moscow move but a realization that the EU was jerking him around with an impossible offer that solved none of Ukraine's problems (because the EU was motivated exclusively by antagonizing Russia). The Ukrainian People are pawns in the game of Western buzzards trying to pick clean the Russian carcass. And--really?--it was Russia that took advantage of the ensuing chaos? How did the chaotic decline of Yanukovych benefit Russia in any way? 

Then the video falls into thinking that Minsk and Minsk II were actually of any use. But then reminds that the various militia groups highlighted by the Media (and "disinformation-ed" by Putin) are from all over the country, represent a wide swath of political views and are funded by a variety of sources. If you seen one militia group, you most certainly have not seen them all. 

I'm all for the Ukrainian People living freer, richer and smarter lives, but the overtures from the EU were disingenuous to say the least and led only to Ukraine falling into chaos. But the Western media--even the independent-minded Vice News--falls lock step over time with the conventional wisdom, frankly because they're just lazy. 

Stephen F. Cohen and Aaaron Mate on The Grey Zone, November 13, 2019

Cohen and Mate revisiting the Ukraine crisis during the time of Trump's first impeachment. (Oh, and what were the Bidens doing in Ukraine again?) And for good measure, a reminder of what Noam Chomsky thought about Trump around the time of the release of the Mueller Report. There's no discussion of Ukraine but Ukraine has been playing a large role in American politics ever since. 

"What's bad for Russia is what's good for us."

A good talk, well worth your time if you want to learn more about what led to the current Ukraine crisis. But, yes, basically a recycling of all the same warnings Cohen has been giving for decades. 

(*) And look how deep does this "disinformation" goes: here's the BBC in 2014 (twice) and 2015. And The Guardian in 2017. Then the BBC again in 2018. And Time Magazine in 2019. Just remember: it's only "disinformation" when Putin says it. 

(**) Hat tip to Spondulix99 from whom I cannibalized a good deal of this deep dive.

Deep Dive on Ukraine (Part 1)

AP, April 16, 1997

Mikhail Gorbachev, Former Soviet Leader says, "I believe it's a mistake, it is a bad mistake and I am not persuaded by the assurances I hear that Russia has nothing to worry about...You can not, you may not humiliate a nation, a people and think that it will have no consequences. So my question is, is this a new strategy?"

Well, no, it was the same strategy as always, going back at least to the Crimean War, where the point was to keep the Russians bottled up in the Black Sea. The Brits were always wary of the Russians and after World War II, the Americans picked up that paranoia and ran with it. Why? Having a powerful (-ish) adversary is good for stoking the weapons industry back home and the American economy is, all these decades later, still pretty much built on materiel manufacture (*). If Russia stops being our preferred adversary, where will our high tech export manufacturing go? Well, we have China to shake our big stick at, but China is not the same (re: they're not gonna fall for that "missile gap" nonsense that the Soviets bought hook, line and sinker). China's military interests are not based on USA or Europe (or won't be for much longer) and don't offer the proper counterpoint to our wasteful gov't spending.  

USA needs Russia to be the Russia it has always been: isolated, weird, paranoid and vaguely bent on world domination just like us. If we remove Russia as an enemy, American spycraft would turn inward, American politicians would have no easy targets, and our weapons industry would inevitably diminish. America would be a different country, a different place, a different economy and our political structure would be forced to deal with reality instead of the preferred daydreams the American electorate has been bred to enjoy. And, of course, without a common enemy, Europe may well collapse entirely. 

Hatred of Russia--and the defense industry it inspires--is part of America's DNA at this point. Terrorism is a diplomatic (rather than military) threat and China is a productivity (rather than military) threat. We cling to our animosity with Russia like a blankie. The ensuing militarism is precisely what keeps the globe potentially destabilized and how USA keeps its grip on global infrastructure. We're just not ready to tackle a world of equals after all this time of preparing for a world of savages. It is not that the world is challenging us, it is that the challenge itself is melting away and as the tide rolls out, we'll be wildly overdressed. Though for the moment, Russia still lives in the same daydream we do. 

Stephen F. Cohen on the Charlie Rose Show, June 28, 2006 (**)

Cohen: "...The Cold War didn't end in 1991..."

Not for us, anyway. USA's strategy after the fall of the Berlin Wall became to treat Russia as a "junior partner" rather than seeing Russia as a still powerful giant. Remember: mutually assured destruction didn't end when the Soviet Union collapsed. We still have great respect for their ICBM's, long range bombers and nuclear-tipped submarines, but otherwise the Americans have never even acknowledged that there is a Russian culture or People. 

Cohen: "We've treated Russia like a defeated nation....there was no attempt to cooperate with Russia..."

USA used our antagonism with Russia through the Cold War to justify all kinds of military buildup around the world and grew wealthy and dominant on Russia's inability to keep pace. When the Berlin Wall came down, USA never stopped living off potential Russian aggression, though we'd already had five decades of watching Russia get weaker. We just assumed that Russia was out of the game and we called that a "peace dividend". Rather than seeing Russia as a rehabilitated member of the int'l order, USA and Europe continued to see Russia as the same threat as always because bullying the Russians was so god damn profitable. 

Russia, on the other hand, has seen its territorial reach steadily decrease since May 8, 1945 (VE Day). Then Moscow controlled half of Germany and everything east of that, laid claim to oil fields in Syria and Iran and Stalin had his eye on Manchuria and a seat at the table for the carving up of Japan--all of which was given/promised by FDR and much of which was immediately rescinded by Truman. Make no mistake: Truman's insistence on using atomic bombs in Japan was precisely timed to keep Russia out of the Pacific theater of the war. What FDR promised Stalin, Truman took away. 

I'm not suggesting that Russian deserved those territorial claims, merely that that was the basis of Western antagonism to Russia. And after 9/11 when Putin made great efforts to secure alliance with USA, Bush started to give in but then backtracked and isolated Putin further. Putin tried to come to the table but Western politicians needed an enemy and Putin was it. And the plan to encircle Russia never stopped, rather it intensified as Russia got weaker. 

Cohen: "...(We must assure that) Russia's weapons of mass destruction and vast energy resources are not used against the West...we drove them in the direction (of using their resources as leverage)..." This could have been easily done by allowing Russia to become a modern nation like all the other modern nations and if they were defeated in the boardroom so be it. Using Russian resources as a sign of potential danger is a completely manufactured paranoia when the whole basis of the int'l order (right?) is fair development of natural resources to benefit the worldwide Human population (and let me make this clear: Western capitalism does that so much more efficiently and effectively than Eastern communism, so I am in no way rooting for Russian victory in anything). To bully Russia in this way is to cut off the Human population from our shared Earthly resources for shortsighted local political gains, which is the shameful by-product of the Western obsession with Democracy built on an us-vs-them dichotomy.

Cohen (in 2006, you will recall): "Ukraine in NATO is already announced policy...if we do that then it's over...." We can look to Putin's weird rambling speech back in February 2022 as an out of the blue example of his iron fisted tyrant nature....or we can acknowledge that we knew (long before 2006!) that Ukraine was sacred ground to the Russians. USA's only interest in Ukraine is to antagonize Russia (and if the Ukrainians themselves ever thought otherwise, well, god help them). 

Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007 ("Containing Russia" by Yulia Tymoshenko) (pay wall)

"After the USSR's collapse, the West made the mistake of assuming that Russia's reduced status meant it was unnecessary to accord the Kremlin any special diplomatic consideration--that Russia neither deserved nor should be offered a major role in world affairs. Accordingly, instead of drawing Russia into a network of dialogue and cooperation when it was weak--and thereby helping it form habits that would carry on when Russia regained strength--the West ignored Russia. This indifference caused Russia to regard the West's attempts to reassure eastern European countries about their security and place in the West as unfriendly acts, leading to today's problems. Had Russia been handled better in the 1990s--had its sense of insecurity not been aggravated--the country's tendency toward expansionism might well have been moderated."

Who is Yulia Tymoshenko, you ask? Another one of these fly-by night Putin apologists coming out of the woodwork to justify Russian crimes and blame the White House in some right wing knee jerk fashion? No. She was the prime minister of Ukraine, hardly a Russian asset. And is still active in Ukrainian politics, even after losing to Zelensky and Poroshenko in the last two elections. 

And it is no accident that she opens her op-ed by citing George Kennan's infamous telegram that became the architecture of the Truman Doctrine and the Cold War until....well, it is still the Western strategy. The encirclement of Russia is meant to limit Russian opportunities for trade and diplomacy in the Mediterranean and the Pacific specifically and itself is more or less based on the traditional Russian desire to surround itself with "buffer states" to ward off invaders. (Gotta admit: I never understood the Russian need for buffer state--it's a thousand miles to anywhere once you get inside Russia and six months of the year that thousand miles would be mostly mud, so what is Russia afraid of, exactly?) This has kept Russia isolated, and outside of gold and oil (and occasionally, timber) exports, Russia has never otherwise had any basis for interaction with the rest of the world. (This is, incidentally, also how we treat North Korea--and what has that gotten us?)

In 2007, Tymoshenko was clamoring for Ukraine to join the European Union "to confront instability and insecurity with a lasting structure of peace and prosperity in which all of Europe's nations and neighbors have a stake." The desire to break from Russia and move westward is not unpopular in Ukraine and has been in the air since the 1990s. But, first, she advocates that the EU "(must) negotiate a new EU-Russia treaty to replace the one written at the nadir of Russia's power....Angela Merkel must...forge a lasting and mutually beneficial relationship" with Russia. This is tough to do considering that "Germany will depend on Russia for 80% of its gas imports", which is why Germany during the Merkel years developed an utterly unique relationship with Russia, rather than a Euro-centric one where everyone has an equal stake. 

Tymoshenko here has already undone her belief in the European Union: the countries aren't equal or on the same page and adding Ukraine in 2007 would not have changed that. And without first coming to some understanding with Russia, adding Ukraine to EU would have been catastrophic (well, at least for Ukraine).  And she acknowledges that the Western belief that "peaceful evolution can be insured by democracy and...developing (Russia's) market economy" is not really appropriate, so what exactly does Tymoshenko think the EU was going to do for Ukraine? If there isn't  really equal protection in the Union and the Western view of Russian adventurism is misguided, then what does the West really have to offer Ukraine? And if, as she says, "Russia will change from within or not at all", then how does Ukraine jutting ever westward benefit the Ukrainian People?

Then she spends two pages complaining about Gazprom and we are reminded of the dog Tymoshenko has in this fight: she made her fortune through the oil/gas industry and while she speaks as a knowledgeable industry insider, she is not without her own personal motivations. Then the essay closes with some bland pabulum about "serious offers to participate on an equal basis", though I'm not sure what she's referring to since she's already acknowledged that those offers never came from the West. 

So while Tymoshenko was an early vocal advocate for Ukraine joining the EU, she is clear that the West needs to re-establish its ties to Russia first. And since this re-establishing of ties never came...how was the Ukraine supposed to join the EU? Even in Ukraine the idea of moving westward is not really a credible belief. They may wish for European "equality" but do Europeans even believe that really exists? And though she never really mentions NATO, though that is really more likely the "equality" she's dreaming of, or the IMF, clearly these organizations aren't really available to Ukraine until they work out some kind of realistic relationship with Moscow. 

The desire is there but the conditions are not realistic in 2008. And, frankly, that has nothing to do with Moscow but with the West. 

Radio Free Europe. September 8, 2009 ("Fears Rise Obama's 'Reset' May Run Aground in Former Soviet Bloc") 

"...Russia's biggest trump in Moldova is its support for breakaway region Transdniester, which split after a brutal war in 1992."

I highlight this merely to point out that I think that Moldova is Putin's next objective. Located along the southwestern edge of Ukraine, it is not yet a NATO country and Putin is eager to gobble it up before it can fully break away.

Why does Putin want to keep hold of all the former Soviet republics? Because those states have been getting invited into NATO and/or the EU for the purposes of isolating Russia. As Russia melts, the West has been luring away all of its traditional allies--but not Russia itself! Where is Russia's invitation to the EU? 

Boris Yeltsin once brought up the idea of joining NATO, which he was eager to entertain; no one in the West entertained this idea because the West needs an adversary to justify its military spending and Russia is that adversary. China is too far away and its military development will be of a different nature (***) and the West just doesn't have the same historical relation to it. We love hating Russia like we love hating Brussel sprouts. 

Russia is the enemy and no matter how hard they strive for inclusion, it ain't coming. We need an enemy to justify our own bad habits and that enemy is Russia. The encirclement will continue on into the future simply by inertia. That means that eventually the West must gouge away Ukraine no matter how devastating it is for the people living there. 

Center for Eastern Studies, November 27, 2013 ("Ukraine Withdraws from Signing the Association Agreement in Vilnius: Motives and Implications") 

But even then, Ukraine must come the way the West wants it to. So in 2013, when the offer to join the EU was first on the table for Ukraine, the president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych, had to back away because the deal would have been ruinously expensive in the short term and would've negatively impacted their trading alliance with Russia. "At the same time, Kyiv suggested the creation of a tripartite commission of Ukraine, Russia and the EU, which would work to remove barriers in mutual economic cooperation and trade liberalization." This tripartite suggestion is later referred to as supported by Putin, so it was the EU that refused to countenance the notion of a Ukraine that was still even somewhat connected to Russia--a full 6 years after Tymoshenko was already warning that a new understanding with Russia was a necessary first step. 

Though Yanukovych had jumped through numerous hoops since 2010 ("...the Ukrainian Parliament began to rapidly pass the so-called 'European laws' which Brussels' condition for signing the agreement" and "45% of citizens favored moving closer to the EU"), it is the next sentence that I suspect tells the real story: "However, despite efforts and pressure from EU member states...the problem of Yulia Tymoshenko remain unresolved." From Wikipedia: On 2 October 2013, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution calling for the immediate release of Tymoshenko and, two days later, Pat Cox and Aleksander Kwaśniewski, representatives of the European Parliament mission, handed president Yanukovych a petition to pardon Tymoshenko.^[389][390]

Tymoshenko (author of the Foreign Affairs article cited above) is Yanukovych's political arch-rival and in 2013 was in jail as a convicted criminal. But she's the one the EU and the Americans wanted to deal with, not Yanukovych. So even when the West does reach out to Ukraine, it is picking and choosing who it will favor.

Putin responds by cutting off Ukrainian exports to Russia, reminding them Russia is still at least 1/3 of the Ukrainian economy, a figure not likely to be matched by the EU. Yanukovych realizes he can't move forward with the EU in a manner that cuts off a third of his exports. The EU isn't interested in ponying up the dough necessary to make the transition viable. The Agreement is a non-starter.

Later the article, with an amazing lack of sources says: "...Kyiv hoped the EU itself would decide to block the signing of the document in connection with the failure to resolve the Tymoshenko issue. However among the member states, voices favouring consent to...adopting the Agreement began to predominate...(W)hen it became impossible to blame the EU...for any failure...the Ukrainian gov't began to publicly highlight the negative consequences that would arise from implementing the agreement and to demand financial compensation from Brussels..."  

This is just positioning the facts for a Western audience. The idea that Yanukovych hoped the EU would "block the signing" comes off as little more than a convenient excuse for the author and the rising "voices" in Europe to sign the deal is a signal that they knew they had Yanukovych over a barrel and wanted him to cut his own throat. The fact that Yanukovych needed extra economic inducements to join the EU should have been obvious the whole time meaning the EU was negotiating in bad faith from the first meeting. This article is an attempt to put all the blame on Yanukovych, when it seems like the EU was trying to squeeze political concessions (re: Tymoshenko, Yanukovych's arch enemy), knowing full well that Ukraine could not leave the Russian economic sphere. The Europeans are playing with Ukraine the way a cat plays with a dead mouse and letting Yanukovych take all the blame, when actually Yanukovych was going pretty far out on a limb to make even considering this move to the EU possible. 

The article is sympathetic to the idea that Ukraine's economy at the time could not afford to join the EU, though they still couch this in terms of "the ruling elite", who "fear that the difficult reforms that the Agreement requires would lead to a further decline in support for the gov't and destabilize the economy." So the fact that Ukraine's entry to the EU would tank the economy and prove fatal to the rulers (democratically elected rulers, incidentally) is presented as a short-sighted blunder when compared to "the positive effects of joining the EU (which) would only be felt in the long term." And, of course, there's no guarantee of any positive effects! If Yanukovych had signed this Agreement in November 2013, it would have been guaranteed to tank the economy and destabilize the nation with absolutely no guarantee that EU membership would actually provide any stability. Where is the political leader that would sign on to that? (Presumably Western darling Tymoshenko....?)

Indeed, the Ukrainian economy already needed help: "Negotiations with the IMF have been under way since last year. Kyiv may have been hoping signing the Agreement would positively influence the IMF's decision...but the IMF's demand that the price of gas be increased by 40%...and the need for painful budget cuts....(make it) highly unlikely that Ukraine will reach any agreement with the IMF this year..." So Ukraine needed economic relief from the IMF, but without the Agreement with the EU all they got was the immediate austerity. The Agreement with the EU would not come with any offsetting funds to minimize Russian trade so....Ukraine joining the EU never had a chance. And nor did getting a workable deal from the IMF.

Yanukovych got dragged through a negotiation with the EU that would have damaged his domestic stranding, crushed his economy, and pissed off his largest trade partner with no hope of immediate gain and nothing but crippling debt to the IMF. All because, it would seem, he refused to pardon his main political rival that (for better or worse) had been duly convicted in court. If we don't trust Ukraine's court system to properly prosecute its own citizens, then why does the EU even want to extend to membership? Oh yeah: it pisses off Russia. 

But not signing the deal, which would've been ruinous, pissed off his own population and from there Yanukovych's downfall was already underway. Yankukovych is still the scapegoat for Ukraine not joining the EU, when in fact there was never a glimmer of a fuckin' chance that the conditions would be favorable for Ukraine--which the EU and the IMF (and NATO) knew the whole time. 

As for the Agreement: "The Ukrainian gov't's statements clearly indicate that it has lost interesting in signing the Agreement with the EU, which they see as a threat to economic situation and the country's relation to Russia....in addition, the economy is in crisis which would make it difficult for (Yanukovych) to win fair elections....the decision to opt out of the Agreement has paradoxically weakened Ukraine's negotiating position with Russia...." 

Conclusion: "....Ukraine has entered a period of political instability...." Notice that it's not that Ukraine will enter but "has entered". The whole point of the 2013 negotiation was to destabilize Ukraine and Yanukovych was the sucker that took the bait (and the blame). 

And there we have it: the EU and the IMF knew from the get-go that there was no credible chance of Ukraine getting any worthwhile agreement with them and that even entering into the negotiation was political suicide for Yanukovych, the guy the Europeans wanted to get rid of. This was a coldly calculated assassination from day one. Yanukovych's fatal mistake was thinking that the EU would actually accept Ukraine and help them detach from Russia. The West concocted his downfall by taking advantage of his actual desire to join the EU--all of which made Ukraine even more dependent on Russia. 

Seems like the EU got what it wanted, right? It gave Yanukovych just enough rope and that guy got hung. 

Reuters, December 19, 2013 ("Special Report: Why Ukraine Spurned the EU and Embraced Russia") 

A few weeks later this Reuters report gives another look at what Yanukovych was going through. In September he was eager--screamingly eager!--to move Ukraine away from Russian influence. But by November it's plainly obvious that the Europeans are just leading him on ("...the unwillingness of the EU and IMF to be flexible in their demands....(made) them less attractive partners"). 

The EU was not willing to even come close to covering Ukraine's short term needs. 

And again, it seems to hinge on Tymoshenko. Clearly the Europeans were willing (possibly) to fight for her but not for Yanukovych, who soon fled to Russia.

Meanwhile, here's then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland handing out cookies to Ukrainian police in December 2013. 

Notice that photographers are as prominent in this picture as the cops. Seems like Nuland knows how to orchestrate a photo op. It is the American State Department celebrating a job well done.

Stephen F. Cohen on Democracy Now!, February 20, 2014

Cohen is more or less reiterating what he said to Charlie Rose 6 years earlier. But as the violence on the streets of Ukraine is ramping up, he is clearly more impassioned. 

Also, check out the clips of President Obama's statement on the subject, about which Cohen is absolutely correct: how can we be promoting democracy and uprisings in the street at the same time? The whole nature of democracy is that there's another election around the corner where the citizenry is able to make its desires clear without resorting to street violence. (His thought experiment of an uprising in the US Capitol feels a bit creepy in hindsight, don't it?) Is it because USA cares about Ukrainian stability? Or the true spread of democracy?

Furthermore, Yanukovych was no threat to elections--indeed, he even moved up the elections as per outside demands. All so that it would look like it was an election that got him out of office rather than protests in the street (though technically Yanukovych abdicated and an interim gov't was in place before the next election).

Robert Perry on Real News, March 3, 2014

Journalist Robert Perry reminds us that Yanukovych was an elected leader who made every effort to convene a new election--one he was likely to lose!--when militia groups took over the capitol and forced him into exile. Just a reminder that this was never about "Democracy" since Ukraine's elections were never in danger and it wasn't until Yanukovych called for police to stand down that the (American-backed?) militias rose up.  

(*) And salty snacks and sugary beverages, an observation I'll expand on if I ever get back to Covid-19, which I probably won't.

(**) Wow, remember Charlie Rose? Now seems like a fine time to admit that I always thought Rose was a useless fuckin' idiot but he had good guests--that he would pepper with repetitive dumb questions. The only people Rose was really good at interviewing were journalists, which actually made him a sneaky good deep dive news guy back in the day, but an incredibly overrated cultural interlocuter. 

(***) China will want a massive Navy and all the cyber-capabilities it can muster but will likely eschew for the most part all those Cold War armaments. China doesn't care about ICBMs or long range bombers. China is pursuing outward protection for potential trade, not for potential territorial conquest. 

(****) Hat tip to Spondulix99 from whom I cannibalized a good deal of this deep dive.

Covid-19 in 2022 (In Omicron We Trust)

The first news report I heard about the Omicron variant (the evening of Thanksgiving, if I'm not mistaken), hit like Lawrence Taylor in his prime: this new South African variant has a massive increase in the number of spikes and was as ever present as a Freddie Mercury meme. The end seemed to be neigh: the virus would affect more and more people worldwide as it increased in complexity. It felt like Covid-19 had finally taken the dreaded next step and was now on its way to being the mass extinction event that we'd be so paranoid about for the last year and a half. 

Soon enough, though, the news turned out to be pretty good: Omicron is more transmissible than previous variants of Covid but quite a bit less deadly. A month later and the real good news is that no one even remembers the initial bad news. The South African data, still the fullest and richest available, suggest that not only is this version far less dangerous but even the majority of the hospitalized patients didn't discover their Covid until after they'd been hospitalized, meaning the Covid was not their primary problem. Finally, Omicron is the embodiment of what we should have realized ages ago: Covid is a secondary concern to your general health. 

But in USA, the media is still trying to shill for the death cult, portraying the spread of Omicron as more ominous than ever before--when, in fact, the spread of Omicron is good news! It means that the pandemic is just about done! Covid-19 has (theoretically) finally found its optimal form: an extremely transmissible but vastly less deadly version that is here to stay but really no worse than the common cold or flu (*). But Americans are weird people: as much as we rely on "news", we just as easily shrug it off (cognitive dissonance is a pretty standard feature of American life), so while the Media is still trying to make us believe the spread of Omicron is bad, we are living the hopeful side even while still trying to hold on to the paranoia. 

Does this mean that the Biden administration will change its course? I don't see how it can. The best bet to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 was to remind everyone that Covid was dangerous and Trump fiddled while hundreds of thousands of Americans died. The rhetoric of paranoia is a good one for ambitious politicians and Biden kept it going once he got into office, promising mandates that would socially remove those that felt like the vaccine was unnecessary for them. Moving on from the threat of Covid sounds like a good idea for a POTUS, but then the population will have even more time to see that the rest of his presidency is kinda awful. And as Covid recedes as a clear and obvious danger, then we'll have more time to investigate what the actual danger was (hint: more than the virus, it was the overreaching idiot gov't, awful Trump at first, then even more awful Biden). 

2020 was about the virus but 2021 was about the vaccine and though vastly more Americans have died since then, we're still expected to believe that the vaccine is our only savior and spending massive amounts of public capital is necessary--indeed, patriotic! But really even that was about firmly manipulating the cleavage in public opinion so as to create an us-vs-them mentality to keep the Democrat faithful plugged in to the notion that they were the superior moral creatures for taking the vaccine and for condemning those who did not. In the end, the real lesson to be learned is that social media remembers all and the things people said/wrote that seemed pretty mainstream at the time will be recalled as utterly disgusting and mean-spirited bile in the near future. Liberals think they are immune from this, but that is because they have hitherto had short memories, whereas digital memories just go on and on. 

If Omicron is what we think it is--and it looks more and more every day that it is--than the bullshit has finally been exposed: the virus doesn't kill you, your horrible habits kill you. And for the vast majority of Americans, the vaccine didn't save them, it merely gave them an excuse to be arrogant assholes in the face of potential tragedy. If the powers-that-be were really concerned with "public health" they would be telling you to quit smoking and cut needless carbs out of your diet, they'd be imploring you to get more exercise and sunshine, they'd be pointing out that vitamin D deficiency is a cause--not an effect--of serious Covid reaction (**). I don't recall President Biden giving any speeches on our patriotic duty to take our vitamin D supplements...did I miss that? And all that talk of diet and exercise in the State of the Union address....hmmmm....don't remember any.

We have known for well over a year--well before the 2020 election--that this virus was extremely dangerous to the elderly, the obese, and those with hypertension and other pre-existing respiratory conditions...and not to anyone else. (***) It has been clear for well over a year that the best way to avoid the virus is social distancing (not the vaccine) and the best way to survive the virus was to live a life of good diet and exercise and hygiene (not the vaccine). The emphasis on the vaccine was never about public health and always about political rhetoric. If you believe the reason Lebron James is not on a ventilator right now is because he took a vaccine jab six months ago, then you have simply lost all sense of what health is. Science will study how Lebron James has preserved his body long after the world has forgotten what basketball is. If you think the only thing keeping him alive is gov't mandated medicine...then I don't what to tell you, man, you have given up your brain.

In USA we have turned medical procedure on its head, forcing everyone to get medicine that only a few people need. And not only without a second opinion but without a first one! We have expended massive amounts of public capital to enrich a handful of pharmaceutical companies, stuffing vaccines into the arms of children that are at virtually zero risk of having an adverse reaction to the virus (indeed, much more likely to have an adverse reaction to the vaccine than the virus!), while actual needy people around the world still wait for the vaccine that may be the difference between life and death. We have purged the nurses and cops and school teachers that didn't vote for Joe Biden and if you were trying to convince to me that would make a better world, I'm eager to hear that argument; instead, we've been told this was necessary for public health, which was a bad faith argument at best and now proven to be a downright vicious dirty lie at worst. (How many times do you have to hear the phrase 'breakthrough case' before you realize that they're actually pretty ordinary?)

For what it's worth, I was never against the vaccine. I think vaccines are wonderful and that this vaccine in particular is a really good thing for millions of people around the globe. But instead of giving it to the millions of people around the globe who need it, Americans kept over-stuffing into themselves and their children and pro athletes and all sorts of other people that don't need it--and called those that wouldn't waste medicine alongside them as "selfish". Only Americans can conceive of not wasting life-saving vaccines as "selfish"! Fucking unbelievable--and they're still out there pumping their smarmy superior nonsense even though we've known conclusively at least since last summer that the vaccine doesn't stop the spread of the virus. *smh*

Even to this day, there are still those out there trying to convince others that getting the vaccine means they can't get the virus. Are you nuts? Google the phrase "NBA health and safety protocols" and just know that all of those dudes that tested positive and had to miss games are vaccinated. Kyrie Irving never tested positive until he started out hanging out with vaccinated NBA players! (****) If the vaccine doesn't keep you from getting and spreading the virus, then where is the public health argument for mandates? The unpleasant next step is to go back and compensate all the people unfairly thrown out of their jobs for "public health" reasons when those rationales have been thoroughly shown to be fraudulent. 

And what does "misinformation" mean, again? There was something about public health in there initially but "misinformation" seems to mean anything other than Democratic Party talking points (so the vaccine and student loans). The power of social media platforms to dictate how the citizenry speak to each other is the real revelation of this pandemic period. Adults are too stupid to figure it out, but the kids now know that they cannot trust the phones in their hands--and that may well be the best realization for Humanity. 

As of January 1, 2022, the best way to avoid the virus is to socially distance (just like March 2020). If you are going to be around others, then you should wear a mask. And if you want to survive the effects of the virus, the best course of action is to take care of your health, make the virus overcome your strong body. If these options are unavailable to you or still not good enough, then you would be a candidate for the vaccine. The vaccine is at best the 4th best way to protect yourself from the effects of the virus. Blaming the unvaccinated is rude, mean-spirited and absolutely not based in any fact. And, worst of all, it gives the vaccinated a false sense of security, as if they are bullet proof because of the jab. (*****) The vaccine was never the best way to avoid the virus or to avoid getting sick from the virus. It was merely a symbolic totem of "not my fault" and now that the vaccine is clearly incapable of keeping people from getting the virus or passing it on, then the emperor suddenly looks pretty pasty. How on earth can you mandate the 4th best option, while pretending it was the only way, and then act like you've saved anyone's life?

But how could we have known all this? Dude, they already knew before any of this happened! Check out this clip of Mark Cuban from February 2020.

"Just like there's a flu season and we know to get the vaccine for the flu season, there will be a corona season." This was entirely predictable: this virus wants to be a regular seasonal affliction and eventually we will develop a vaccine for the Omicron that will be modulated on a seasonal basis. The idea that the initial vaccine was 'the one' was always overly optimistic. Obviously Omicron can mutate again (oh, it certainly will), but the danger with Covid was always that it has a second act. Seems like the second act is perpetual but mild cold symptoms. Well....okay....could be worse. The real hysteria was the one we inflicted on each other through Media. 

The Media encourages us to be at each other's throats. And in times of crisis, the Media will just get louder, not more helpful. And the idea that anyone in the Media (or Gov't) has all the answers or science on their side is preposterous. Ideally, we have all learned that now....right?

For now, we will move on to testing. The Biden White House is eager to make tests available (after several months of not making tests available), but what's the point of that now? Way back in the Spring of 2020, I thought testing was the most important thing and I couldn't understand why we weren't doing more of it. Well, it would've led to a lot of false positives (and negatives) and early on may well have been more trouble than it was worth. The real reason we didn't get them was Trump didn't want to know what was actually going on--nor did Biden after him (or Xi Jinping before him). Politicians craft narratives and when the facts are invisible, it leaves more room for the craftsmen. 

But at this point the tests serve no purpose but to keep riling everyone up. Omicron looks to keep all Humans testing positive forever....and what good will that knowledge do? The spread of Omicron looks to touch literally every Human on earth by the end of 2022. And if it remains mild, then this should be a better outcome than continually deadly variants or endless vaccinations--indeed, a pervasive mild version of Covid is the only conclusion to the pandemic and we should all be hoping that Omicron is it. But what are we testing for? 

The Media has shown itself to be antagonistic to human health. The Gov't has shown that money is all it has and when given the chance, it will spend more than it has (******). Science has shown that it is willing but that it takes time--an it needs unfettered access to data and capital. Democrats have shown they're worse than Republicans; Republicans have shown that they're way out of touch and useless in a crisis.

The grim prediction: after the Republicans take back the House and Senate in November, you can bet that January 2023 will see a lot of Congressional committees lining up to treat the Biden White House like war criminals. And they'll be going after social media companies for deciding who gets to speak "Truth" and who doesn't (*******). And we'll get a deep dark dive into the stories of vaccine reactions that the mainstream media has hitherto ignored (though they'll happily dole it out when the time is right). And the CEO's of pharmaceutical companies that are riding high at the moment will get hung out to dry Mussolini-style. (And, frankly, it might not even require a Republican takeover to get Congress back into the lab leak hypothesis, China may look like big ol' tasty scapegoat once we no longer have the unvaccinated to kick around)

Oh, and all those out there who suggested unvaccinated people shouldn't be allowed to go to hospitals...your day is coming. You thought it was safe to openly ridicule the un-cool kids in the lunch room, but your words are spray painted in 1's and 0's for all time. So how are you going to explain yourself when "science" finally gets a grip? And are you going to shift to pointing out that obese people are the real menace? Or smokers? Or sedentary people? Are you ready to suggest none of them deserve emergency room care? (********) You've shown the world you're built to throw needy people under the bus for no good reason, you played yourselves. 

I've never been a big fan of Democracy, truth be told. I find it just leads to elections. And as for the two party system, it has its merits (I am convinced that in the long run it minimizes social strife even if it looks like it does the exact opposite), but both of these parties can go fuck themselves. The Democrats used to respect free speech and due process but they've shown that in a crisis, those are expendable. And the Republicans used to have a sense of fiscal discipline but there's no reason to think that's ever coming back in the post-Covid phase of American history.

I'm pleased that the pandemic is almost gone. There's so much I wish it would take with it when it goes. 

(*) People die of the common cold and the flu, they always have and they still will. But we don't much care about that, do we, because we've lived for so long with those maladies that they seem like old friends. Indeed, the common cold is pretty firmly in Humanity's DNA at this point. Omicron Covid-19 seems destined to be just another layer of winter illness to kvetch about at Xmas dinner. 

(**) "It is our opinion that (vitamin D) supplements would offer a relatively easy option to decrease the pandemic." Check the date: July 2020...a year and a half ago. A year and a half of languishing in the "misinformation" bin. 

(***) January 1, 2022 South China Morning Post: 288,195,686 confirmed Covid-19 cases worldwide; 5,436,581 confirmed deaths worldwide. Roughly 1.8% of those that get Covid-19 die of Covid-19. I must concede that the vaccine has lowered that rate a little bit, but not much. From the very beginning the death rate was never more than about 2%, now it is firmly under 2%. If we'd given the vaccine to the people that needed it instead of just giving it to everybody, we may have been able to bring that number even lower. But we'll never know because we're too busy congratulating ourselves for saving people that were never at risk (like Andrew Wiggins).

(****) Brandon Knight, Isaiah Thomas, Alfonzo McKennie are three players off the top of my head that were brought in as replacement players that only tested positive for Covid after being around vaccinated teammates. And why does the NBA punish unvaccinated players for the same crime vaccinated players are committing all the time? Because American society has settled on the unvaccinated as the available scapegoat. 

(*****) To be fair to the vaccine itself, there was never any reason to believe that the vaccine would literally keep you from getting the virus. Indeed, the vaccine doesn't do its job until you get the virus! The whole point of the vaccine is to keep the virus from doing horrible things to your lungs, not to keep the virus completely out, that's just not a function of this vaccine. It never was, it was never meant to be, regardless of how much "information" you were given. Repeat: the vaccine only works when you encounter the virus. If you never encounter the virus then the vaccine hasn't done anything. So to think that getting vaccinated is how to avoid the virus is just illogical to the extreme--especially if getting the vaccine means you stopped social distancing or wearing the mask. 

(******) You know as long as we're still obsessed with Democracy, there is a problem unique to that particular form of gov't that we should go ahead and address: Democracy has a propensity toward deficit spending, which is not typically found in other forms of gov't. The democratic system pretty well flushes out politicians pretty quick, so spending as much as fast as they can is all they can do to look like they've achieved something. The money goes out and by the time anyone misses it, that politician's career is over. I'm not advocating that we let politicians stick around longer, merely that we should rein in their ability to waste public moneys. 

(*******) Ever heard of Mission to Moscow? During WWII, the FDR White House (supposedly) asked Warner Brothers to make a film that valorizes our erstwhile ally, the USSR. After the war, the House Un-American Activities Committee used this as a way of suggesting Hollywood's sinister commie underbelly. Do you see how this works? The gov't giveth and the gov't taketh away. (Going further back, have you ever wondered how USA got Florida?)

(********) Seriously, you assholes are the fucking worst. You should be ashamed of yourselves for spouting such hateful bullshit just because you thought it was popular. 

Scene from "The Hucksters" (1948)

Wow. An obscure movie you can't even hardly find anymore, but in 1948 the keys to dominating the media narrative were already well known: outspend your competitor and inflame the audience til they want to kill themselves. In short: disgusting is memorable and irritating is the best kind of memorable. Oh sure, here they're talking about soap but political philosophy is a consumer product just the same. Yup, a constant display these days. Notice nary a word is dedicated to Truth or even accuracy. Repetition is all it takes.

My corollary: Anything with Sydney Greenstreet is worth watching (though unfortunately that rule has been lost to posterity). 

Covid-19 in the Autumn of 2021 (part 2)

If you want to avoid the virus, you have to socially distance. That was true in March 2020, still true in September 2021. 

If you want to outlive the virus, you have to live a healthy life. If you are elderly, you are not able to outrun your underlying condition and you need the vaccine.

But for the vast majority of everyone else, the vaccine is no better than the virus. Indeed, the vaccine at best merely allows you to pretend the virus isn't effecting you--that's about all the vaccine can do. 

The new booster policy of starting with the elderly and then (possibly) those with underlying conditions, shows how we should've handled the vaccine rollout from the beginning. I think we are on the cusp of making the realization that the virus is here to stay and that those that need the vaccine should get it and the rest of us either need to keep socially distancing to avoid it or live healthy enough to ward off the necrosis enervated by the Covid-19. 

The current debate about giving the vaccine to children is the height of foolishness. Teaching children to live healthy through diet and exercise and hygiene will be infinitely more valuable to them than giving them a vaccine that merely gives them antibodies they could just as easily form naturally. 

I was never convinced of the necessity of forcing a vaccine on the masses as a means of limiting the lethality of a virus and I am even less convinced now that the vaccine has shown itself to be limited at best. The masses need to live healthier lives to outrun the Covid-19, because a vaccine strikes me as likely to weaken an immune system over time as strengthen it. Whereas living a healthy life will be a much greater guarantee of...well...living a healthy life. 

By "living healthier" I mean specifically: avoid processed sugar, don't drink, don't smoke, get regular cardio exercise, stay hydrated, wash your hands and (probably the hardest of all) you should only hang around others that have similarly health-conscious habits and hobbies. This is how your defeat Covid-19 and if you can't do any of these things, then you should get the vaccine. But if you can do these things....why aren't you doing them?

The co-morbidities are what kill you, not the virus. The virus wants to live in a healthy host for a long time, flaring up periodically so as to increase transmissibility, it doesn't want a body close to death. In the Western Hemisphere--USA especially--we keep unhealthy people alive a lot longer and when a new respiratory pathogen enters the Human world, it is most dangerous to those close to death (even if they're closer than they realize). The reason USA has higher fatalities than most other countries is that we generally do a better job of keeping people alive longer, even if they are not living healthier.

If you were born after the year 2000 anywhere on planet Earth, then you will undoubtedly encounter Covid-19 at some point in your lifetime. Living healthy is the lesson to learn. If you are under the age of 20 and you are afraid of Covid-19, then, brother, Covid-19 is not your problem; you need to take care of your body because this bogeyman will kill you if let it. It's not trying to kill you, so if you live healthy then the vaccine shouldn't be necessary until you get old enough to need it (that's my plan anyway). 

This is not a condemnation of the vaccine. Far from it. For the elderly, the obese, and those with respiratory conditions, this is a life-saving treatment. For most everyone else, it is medicine they don't need. And the idea that the US gov't is forcing it on the masses should give us all great pause. Nothing the US gov't has ever done has come without consequences or miscalculations. A vaccine for a disease that kills a tiny percentage of the people that get it (*) does not warrant such a show of force. 

The plan is to spread a vaccine through the masses so that the virus itself can circulate freely in a manner that is less deadly. This could turn out to be a worthwhile strategy. The idea is to encourage vax-derived antibodies to form in the bulk of the population thus giving them ongoing immunity to future outbreaks of the same virus. That could work, that could be a worthwhile method to get the masses back to work, back to living their lives and minimizing the impact of the virus itself. Note that eradicating the virus is not the strategy, but circulating the virus even more is the strategy of a mass vaccination. 

But, the idea that the vax-derived immunity is better than the virus-derived immunity (or that vaccines don't have their own side effects), is not plainly obvious. I'm willing to accept that it could be an effective strategy but I have yet to see the evidence that it is working. Furthermore, that isn't really the argument that the powers-that-be are currently making. We should hope it works because basically Biden's mandate is designed to let the virus circulate freely among a vaccinated population. 

The idea that the vaccine stops the spread of the virus is simply bogus; indeed, the whole point of the vaccine is that it keeps the virus from doing damage once you get it! It doesn't keep you from getting it or from passing it on to someone else. If that's what you think then you have been misinformation-ed. 

Vaccination is a great backstop, but notice on the August 13 CDC Report, all the recommendations about masking, social distancing, washing your hands, avoiding crowds, etc., come after getting vaccinated. The CDC is clearly reminding you that vaccination in and of itself does not stop the danger of getting or spreading the virus. The vaccine is nice but if you're not doing all the other things, too, well, you're just carrying an umbrella on a sunny day (and probably loudly wondering why everyone else doesn't have their sunny day umbrella at the ready). Again: not a refutation of vaccines, they are great at what they do, but what they don't do is stop the transmissibility of the virus; indeed, the whole point is to spread the virus ever wider but ideally in ever safer conditions.

The current social turmoil is emblematic of the fact that the Partisans are comfortable playing with our lives. Frankly, from the vantage point of the POTUS, all these American lives were pretty much gonna work out this way anyway. He doesn't have to feel any guilt because at his altitude we all look the same to him. And if his medical people are telling him to go wide wide wide with the vaccination, well, it probably sounds like a fine idea to him. He gets to spend money on frivolous drugs (that ought to be going to other more needy people around the world) and tell himself that he saved lives whether he did or not, what's the harm in that? Of course he hasn't really saved lives. 

Viruses don't want to kill. Indeed, they're trying really hard to not kill their hosts. A dead host means the termination of the virus and viruses want to get into more and more hosts. The reason people die from a virus (like, say, Covid-19) is because the first time their body interacts with it, the sheer strangeness of it overwhelms the immune system and those people that are close to death (or closer than they realize) may not be able to overcome the shock of the introduction of a new pathogen. 

What about variants? Viruses vary, that's what they do. Basically a virus has to reinvent itself every time it enters a new host and it wants to enter as many hosts as possible. It wants to infect people in Southern California and sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe and the highlands of Mongolia, but all of those people have different diets, different habits, different modes of social interaction, thus the virus has to morph itself again and again to spread. 

The "increased viral load" doesn't make the virus more lethal but merely more transmissible. Viruses do not want to kill you but they do want to spread. So the "viral load" is about moving between bodies but what it does within each body is gonna be pretty much the same. But what about the higher death totals of the delta variant? I would suggest that is a function of the decrease of social distancing that Americans began to embrace in the Spring and Summer of 2021. The disease isn't any different, it still infects your lungs and puts the same pressure on your system as it did before. But the amount of people available to be infected was much greater because after the introduction of vaccines, more people stopped masking and/or social distancing. Think of it this way: a forest fire causes more damage in a big forest as opposed to a small forest; but it's still the same fire having the same effect. It isn't the fire that is different in this scenario, but the sheer amount of forest to burn. Less social distancing means more potential incubators of the virus. 

We are lucky to live in an age when lab-created vaccines can help us overcome all kinds of pathogens out there in the world. The vaccine is a good thing. But, let us be realistic about what the vaccine can do. The vaccine helps you survive the virus, it does not keep you from getting the virus. It keeps the symptoms of the virus and its overall effect minimized so that the host's natural immunity can provide enough support to survive the impact of the virus. It does not keep you from getting the virus. The vaccine is not prophylactic, it is therapeutic. It does not prevent the virus, it minimizes the dangers of the virus when present. It does not keep you from getting the virus. 

If you read between the lines of what I just wrote, I think you'll see that: the vaccine does not keep you from getting the virus. That is not what the vaccine does. The vaccine keeps you from dying of the virus--and that's great! That is a great thing! The vaccine is a great thing! It will save many lives and that is great! But it will not stop the spread of the virus. 

Only social distancing will keep you from getting the virus and the mask is a great minimizer of viral transmission. The vaccine won't do those things. So if you get the vaccine--and if you're at risk of death then I would highly encourage you to get the vaccine--that does not keep you from needing to socially distance or wear the mask. If you forego the social distancing and/or the mask then you are announcing that you are not afraid of the effects of the virus, ostensibly because you are vaccinated and you assume you will survive your bout with it. Okay, if you're eager to get the virus because you know you can beat it, that's great. I think most people (even American people) will survive the virus without the vaccine just fine. But if you want it, you should go get it. But if you think other people need to get vaccine, I think you should mind ya business. 

Think of Covid-19 as two parts: there is the part that lives in your sinuses (throat) and wants to get out and infect other people and there is the part that gets into your lungs and makes you sick. The vaccine is really great for the second part but doesn't do anything for the first part. Do you understand that? The vaccines lower your symptoms and ease the impact of the virus itself, it does not keep the virus out and since you are now hopefully asymptomatic, you are likely to pass the virus thinking that you are incapable of getting it--but you are not incapable of getting it, indeed, you are making yourself available to it because you are vaccinated and don't fear it. Do you understand that getting vaccinated does not effect your ability to get (or to transmit to others) the virus? Decreasing the spread of the virus is not a function of the vaccine.  

From the July 27 CDC Report: "Added a recommendation for fully vaccinated people to wear a mask in public indoor settings". If being fully vaccinated meant you could not get (or spread) the virus, then why the need for a mask? You need the mask because you are still completely capable of giving and getting the virus even after being vaccinated. And if you possess one of the highest co-morbidities (age, obesity, pre-existing respiratory conditions), you're still better off avoiding the virus even if you are vaccinated. 

And: "Added a recommendation for fully vaccinated people who have come into close contact with someone confirmed or suspected of Covid-19 to be tested 3-5 days after exposure." What would be the point of a test if being fully vaccinated would never yield a positive test, as suggested in the September 7 CDC Report? You should take an antibodies test, not a Covid-19 test. The antibodies would be a signal of the presence of viral infection being routed by the vaccine immunity, which is what the vaccine does: it fights the virus once you have it, it doesn't keep you from getting the virus, it keeps you from dying of it.  

Now the August 16 CDC Report says, "Covid-19 vaccines are effective.  They can keep you from getting and spreading the virus that causes Covid-19" followed by a link that reads "Learn more about the different Covid-19 vaccines", but the link says nothing about spreading the virus. It takes you back to the May 10 Report...that avoids any suggestion of proof that the vaccines stop the spread. 

I believe that they are falling into a rhetorical trap: when they say it stops the spread of the virus, that means within your own body, it does not mean that it stops the spread between the people. Think of this as the difference between HIV and AIDS: AIDS is the full blown disease within your body that kills you, while HIV is the virus that passes between people that leads to AIDS. In this analogy, the CDC here is referring to Covid-19 as AIDS, not as HIV. This is a dangerous piece of rhetoric because I am positive that the vaccine does not stop the spread between people, though it could be said to stop the spread within a single person. Furthermore, I have not seen that claim made in any other CDC Report. (Of course this report also says "Extensive testing and monitoring have shown that these vaccines are safe and effective", which the May 21 OSHA Report would suggest is not the case)

Indeed, spreading the virus amongst a vaccinated (re: not likely to die) population seems to be the goal of the current administration. And that could well turn out to be a correct strategy. So why don't the powers that be just fuckin' say that that's what they're doing? Why has it been turned into an "us v them" scenario? Because Partisans don't care about your health. (Indeed, Partisans are invigorated when the population are at each's other's throats) 

And by now it's pretty clear that this virus is quite deadly to those with co-morbidities but not really to anyone else and so the virus will be amongst us forever. Perhaps vaccinating now will provide future immunity, perhaps making sure that everyone's initial contact with the virus comes after their vaccination will lessen the overall effects of the virus and allow us all to get back to our lives in a timely fashion. And that this added immunity will carry forth into the future. Maybe. When said in that way, it actually strikes me as very sensible. It doesn't strike me 'scientifically proven' but it is a reasonable-sounding hypothesis. So why don't we get reasonable-sounding rhetoric from our Media? 

If you want to not socially distance or wear the mask, then you'll need the vaccine. But if you think that means you cannot spread the virus, you are mistaken. You have been "misinformation-ed". Indeed, quite the opposite: the whole point of the vaccine is that it keeps the virus from killing you, not that it keeps you from getting the virus. 

I'm not suggesting the virus is a fraud--not at all, if you are elderly, obese or are prone to respiratory conditions, then you are seriously at risk and you should probably get the vaccine. But I would suggest that it isn't the virus that kills you, it's the pre-existing conditions that make you vulnerable and that was true before Covid-19 came along. 

I'm not suggesting the vaccine is a fraud--not at all, it seems to do a good job of holding off death and minimizing symptoms. But thinking the vaccine means you can't get or spread the virus itself is simply false, demonstrably false, obviously false, clearly not true and to believe that is to willfully believe in falsehoods. And giving the vaccine to people that aren't at risk is wasteful at best and harmful at worst. 

I'm not suggesting that boosters are a bad thing. For the elderly, for example, I'd say that's just the way it is for them because they have no way of removing their at-risk status. For the obese, the boosters are beneficial, but that lifestyle is not going to lead to a healthy life with/without a vaccine. For those with respiratory conditions, it is probably necessary forever. For those that travel or spend a lot of time around groups of people, the vaccine is something you should consider periodically--but even then it is so that you don't miss work, so that you can overcome your infection and continue to live normally. For all other adults, you can get the vaccine if you want, but you're probably better off just live a healthy life and avoiding the virus as best you can. 

The vaccine is really great at what its great at. But the vaccine does not solve all problems, it is not great at what it is not great at. 

Me: I do not particularly fear this virus for the next few years because I am healthier than ever and socially distanced and I anticipate that I will not get the virus any time soon and that I should survive it if I do. That said, this virus could be what kills me 20 years from now or 5 years from now or 50 years from now. I am currently planning on living long enough to where I become elderly enough to be in the at-risk population, so I'll get to the vaccine eventually. 

Am I better off waiting for as long as possible or getting it as soon as possible? I don't know. I don't believe that there is anyone that does know simply because this virus is only about two years old. In short: neither the virus nor the vaccine have been around long enough for anyone to know their long term effects, so who am I suppose to trust? The gov't? I never have before, why would I start now?

Just remember: OSHA, the people Biden has put in charge of forcing everyone to be vaccinated, has already announced they have no interest in hearing about adverse reactions to the vaccine. 

From May 21 OSHA Report:

Are adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine recordable on the OSHA recordkeeping log?

DOL and OSHA, as well as other federal agencies, are working diligently to encourage COVID-19 vaccinations. OSHA does not wish to have any appearance of discouraging workers from receiving COVID-19 vaccination, and also does not wish to disincentivize employers' vaccination efforts. As a result, OSHA will not enforce 29 CFR 1904's recording requirements to require any employers to record worker side effects from COVID-19 vaccination at least through May 2022. We will reevaluate the agency’s position at that time to determine the best course of action moving forward. 

That's not a just a little bit creepy...?  No?  You've got total faith in this, huh? They don't want to discourage the vaccine...even if the vaccine has negative side effects? At what point would they discourage it? I thought subverting norms was a concern for the American polity, but OSHA "not enforc(ing)....recording requirements" is just how we do things now? We're cool with this? 

And when does the danger of the vaccine outweigh the danger of the virus? Well....we won't find the answer to that question until May 2022 at the earliest. The powers-that-be have straight up announced that they aren't even going to begin to care about side effects for at least another 8 months. 

These are the people (**) in charge of your health, America. And you can't understand why people are skeptical? 

The smug superiority of the Left has become even more unbearable than usual. Their claims have turned out to be wrong and it turns out they've been lying to themselves the whole time. Even when the CDC is reminding you to keep socially distanced and masked even after getting vaccinated and OSHA has openly admitted they don't care what happens to vaccinated people, they still think the gov't will protect us all. 

Once more with my mantra: the gov't was here when you born, it will be here when you die, it does not care about you and couldn't even if it wanted to. Trust the science but be wary of scientists. 

(*) September 17 Statista.com: Total deaths: 4,685,661; Total recoveries: 204,587,058; roughly 2.3% of confirmed cases result in death. 

(**) Summary deportations. Drone strikes killing civilians. Unconstitutional subversion of norms. Angering NATO allies. North Korea's nuclear program (which had been halted since 2018). Drill, baby, drill! Pfizer, J&J, Bristol-Myers, AstraZenica--oh my! "Full confidence" in breaking chain of command. Inflation.  Financial intrusion.  The debt ceiling. Politics before science at the FDA. Misinformation. “(I)n the great debate of the past two decades about freedom versus control of the network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong.” Wait...what was it Trump did that we all hated so much? Oh right, he was annoying on Twitter. 

References:

May 10 CDC Report

May 21 OSHA Report

July 27 CDC Report

August 13 CDC Report

August 16 CDC Report

September 7 CDC Report

I also saw a paper a while back that suggested that getting the virus and then getting the vaccine made for super-immunity, though the paper was agnostic on whether getting then vaccine and then virus had a similar effect. I saw another paper that suggested that at least 1/3 of all cases were asymptomatic,  which would suggest waaaaaaay more cases than we even realize, no?). But I couldn't find either of those papers--none were from the CDC--so I'll just let those concepts marinate.