The post Shakira nails Putin appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>What rhymes with Putin?
I don’t know Ukrainian, but I’m sure Ukrainians have their zingers.
In English, Zero clued in works.
Rasputin stand-in does the job.
This frivolous Putin query comes as we approach the anniversary of a madman’s attempt to rewrite world history. On February 24th, 2022, Putin let loose the power of the Russian military – with a destructive force not seen in Europe since World War 2 – on a peaceable neighbor, Ukraine. There was nothing frivolous about Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.
What rhymes with madman?
Con man.
Convinced I can.
Bad man.
Putin thought he was invincible.
What rhymes with invincible?
Despicable.
Unpredictable.
Unthinkable.
This time last year, Putin was on top of the world, about to rewrite Russian history; he imagined himself emulating Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, also known as Catherine the Great, once Empress of Russia, his long dead and gone heroine.
What rhymes with Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst?
I have no idea.
I do know what rhymes with Putin’s attempt to rewrite history.
Dark night.
Quenched light.
Instead of imposing his will on the populace of Ukraine, approximately 44 million souls, or about the populations of Florida and New York State combined, or even Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Georgia combined, Putin became the first easily identifiable despot of our new century, shockingly pushed back to where he came from by the pure force of Ukrainian willpower.
What rhymes with despot?
Guess what?
Crackpot.
On February 24th, 2022, Putin lent his name to a mega invasion of a nonbelligerent neighbor on an international level never imagined. The consequences were disastrous.
In November, 2022, mere months ago and just months after Putin’s initial decision to ‘take’ Ukraine, the BBC reported that the most senior US general, Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated that 100,000 Russian and 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or injured in the war in Ukraine so far. Gen Milley added that at least 40,000 civilians had died by November of last year.
Thanks to our zero clued in, Rasputin stand-in, demented man in Moscow, epicenter of Putin’s mythical former USSR, innocent lives are being lost on a daily basis in Ukraine in numbers that are nothing short of abominable.
What rhymes with abominable?
Dishonorable.
Unconscionable.
And what rhymes with demented?
Disoriented.
Unbefriended.
Dented – big time where it counts, in Putin’s internal psyche.
Lest we get suckered into a Putin-defined cesspit and bogged down in the mindset of an autocrat, I was inspired by one of the catchiest songs of 2023 so far, the brilliant Colombian Shakira’s take-down of her ex, to imagine how Putin might deserve his own rhyming put-down.
In a hugely publicized 2022 breakup, the former Barcelona football player Gerard Piqué left Shakira, his wife of 12 years and the mother of his 2 children, for a new paramour, a much younger woman called Clara Chía.
Shakira is resilient if anything. She is no push-over. On Jan 11th, she released a masterpiece, a blockbuster hit with the enigmatic title of SHAKIRA || BZRP Music Sessions #53.
Even though sung in Spanish, the title shot to the top of Apple’s iTunes charts in the U.S. on release. Many, so many of us it would seem, can resonate with revenge. The song’s video, with English subtitles, went viral. The song is not only catchy, bitching and biting, but cathartic. It broke YouTube records, registering more than 64 million views within 24 hours. Lord, does Ukraine need revenge!
Think about it for a minute. Millions upon millions of us can resonate with what is happening to Shakira. Millions more of us around the world identify with what is happening to Ukraine. Billions of us have reasons to get angry with Putin over Ukraine daily. The man seems unaccountable.
What rhymes with unaccountable?
Incomprehensible.
Unfathomable.
Shakira is a genius at rhyming. In her Spanish lyrics for SHAKIRA || BZRP Music Sessions #53, she found a way to connect her philandering ex, Piqué, to mortification, (te mortifique), chewing up (mastique), and a host of other rhymes and homonyms that might be enough reason for any year-abroad undergraduate or graduate student to want to learn Spanish. Shakira doesn’t let go. The video has already had 288,109,016 views on YouTube as of this writing. It’s averaging more than 5 million new views daily.
Imagine if Shakira took on Putin?
Imagine how she, stand-in for Ukraine, could destroy this pseudo Westerner, this false Russian prophet, this wannabe Catharine the Great, this Putin, with just a few rhymes and words.
Shakira can do that. She has that power. She is, after all, the reigning queen of World Cup Soccer anthems. Her Waka Waka video from the 2010 World Cup has had more than 3,472,939,423 (3 billion!) views.
Shakira knows how to garner world attention. Sorry Piqué. Maybe she’s right. Maybe you did choose a Twingo over a Ferrari, just as Putin fell into his own Twingo hell with his decision to try to absorb Urkaine into a mythical Russia.
Here’s how Shakira might put Putin – our present-day world pariah – in his place. And here, too, is how that very same Putin might feel, shamed, hearing himself belittled in a song where billions more than the billions that have watched Shakira’s Waka Waka see him as a wuss.
Just imagine Shakira’s singing these rhymes as she does on SHAKIRA || BZRP Music Sessions #53, but addressed to Putin, and here we go:
Putin?
Zero clued in
Rasputin stand-in
Madman?
Con man.
Convinced I can.
Bad man.
Invincible?
Despicable.
Unpredictable.
Unthinkable.
Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst?
History rewrite?
Dark night.
Quenched light.
Despot?
Guess what.
Crackpot.
Abominable.
Dishonorable.
Unconscionable.
Demented.
Disoriented.
Unbefriended.
Dented
Unaccountable?
Incomprehensible.
Unfathomable.
Despicable.
Unpredictable.
Unthinkable.
Abominable.
Dishonorable.
Unconscionable.
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]]>The post Is Putin Russia, and Russia Putin? appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>As Americans, we are not one in any way, shape or form.
We are diverse, inclusive, at times exclusionary, conflicted, self-righteous and, more often than not these days, divisive. In our fast-evaporating sense of who we are, or once were, we have left our beacon of hope for the world at large adrift in a sea of uncertainty.
It was once easy to tout the United States as the symbol of desirable values, a sort of Rhodes port of entry for democracy. Oh, how we have stumbled as a nation, and precipitously, in recent years.
We continue to be warm, insensitive, confused, confusing, at times at one with ourselves, at times just a human bunch of some 331.9 (as of a 2021 count) million souls trying to make sense of what we have been given, the United States of America, and our place in the world beyond.
We are, and have always been, far from being one, and way far from being perfect. Yet our Constitution and our daily lives once allowed us to be just that, imperfect, with guaranteed freedoms … at least until the next crazed teenager or over-armed adult decided to pick us off with an automatic shotgun one by one in some unsuspecting mall, school or Home Depot.
As Americans, we are easy to hate, difficult to love, and as often as not misunderstood. Where some of us attempt to break down barriers, those of us across the street, or across our national divide, have been happy to build borders, walls and barriers. At times, it would seem that we are completely unknowable, political pundits aside.
There are still many of us alive today who remember the torn country that we were during the Vietnam War. We remember how it felt to be American then. It was confused and confusing all at once, day after day. The rest of the world did not like us at all, to put it kindly.
So, give a thought for Russians now.
Just for a minute, put yourself in the skin of a Russian today.
Russia is right now the Big Bad Wolf in headlines worldwide, and justifiably so. Russians, after all, elected Putin president once again by a vast majority as recently as 2018. Yet, remember that the Vietnam War, our Vietnam War, was prolonged under 5 Presidents until it eventually folded in April 1975.
This is hardly good news for the people of Ukraine. For a World Power to recognize its mistakes can take decades.
Are Russians as conflicted as we were during the Vietnam War? I imagine they are. Are their opinions of their country fraught? They must be. Can Russians protest within Russia? Not at all. Thousands upon thousands have been removed from the streets and silenced in a way that is unthinkable here in the United States.
I was, in more ways than one, reminded of our United States – yes, those same conflicted United States above – on a recent arrival in Madrid.
The EU is still a much newer concept in co-living than our American Union. Within the European Union, things are even now falling into place. The EU as we know it today had its beginnings with the Maastricht Treaty of 1993. The European Union is a work in progress. The United Kingdom was a reluctante partner for awhile, until they decided in 2019 to Brexit. However, their example is far from being the norm. Other countries are lining up to join the Union.
According to Wikipedia:
There are seven recognised candidates for membership of the European Union: Turkey (applied in 1987), North Macedonia (2004), Montenegro (2008), Albania (2009), Serbia (2009), Ukraine (2022), and Moldova (2022). Additionally, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Kosovo (whose independence is not recognised by five EU member states) are considered potential candidates for membership by the EU.[1][2] Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Georgia have formally submitted applications for membership, while Kosovo has a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU, which generally precedes the lodging of a membership application.
Ukraine sees things differently than the UK. Ukraine doesn’t have the UK’s options of history and geography. Putin didn’t decide to invade the United Kingdom, after all.
Putin choose a defenseless neighbor, still not a member of a nascent European Union, to try to exert his late-blooming and misbegotten manhood by invading a benign neighbor to prove somehow his macho worldview. As is now evident to anybody paying attention worldwide, Putin misjudged, and exiled his eternal reputation to the gutter.
Back to landing in Madrid. At Barajas, there were Russians dragging and pushing way-overweight bags along their way, any which way, far from Russia. That was understandable. Until it wasn’t.
For Russians with money, Madrid is just one of many escapes from the horror of the motherland to a neighbor that still extends a welcoming embrace.
The sight of Russians at Atocha, Madrid’s train station, toting Louis Vuitton bags filled with recent purchases, was unsettling. Louis Vuitton in times of war? Drinking beer, happy with their day of shopping, joking around, the Russians at Atocha disquieted me.
The disquiet continued.
On the Metro in Rome, I sat next to a bunch of loud Russians wisecracking among themselves, laughing and seemingly happy on their way to view the ruins of the Coliseum. They were oblivious to any discomfort they might have been communicating to their fellow passengers concerned about their country’s invasion of a helpless neighbor, Ukraine.
These Russians didn’t seem to care about the nuances of co-existence. Nuances be damned was what I, unfortunately, understood.
These joyous Russians were, for me, somehow complicit in Putin’s imperious view of the world.
We can do what we want, they seemed to be saying as they joshed around, just as their elected leader, Putin did, toasting a glass of champagne high in celebration of his invasion of Ukraine not even a month later.
I was disturbed by the attitude of the Russians that I saw in Italy and Spain.
Could it be that Russians, at large, really support Putin? I found myself wondering.
Could it be that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine might represent the true mindset of the majority in Russia?
I know, I know, that Russians are as diverse as we are. See above.
I know that many have been swept off the streets, disappeared forever.
Yet, could it be that Putin really represents Russia? I found myself thinking in Rome.
Could it be that Russians in general could care less about Ukraine?
Just maybe, I found myself thinking.
Is Putin the true champion of a Russia anathema to our Western view of civilization? That’s what I really wondered.
Could that be true?
Just maybe, I found myself thinking again.
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]]>The post Venezuela: Ukraine comes home to roost appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>Ukraine, for many Americans is way out there – somewhere in the nowhere land of Uzbekistan or North Korea. Ukraine is very far away from our daily lives.
And yet, it may be worth our while paying a little attention to what’s going on in Ukraine right now. It might just have consequences for all of us down the line.
A friend went home to spend Christmas with family in Venezuela – a much closer geography. He tells me that the dollarization of the Venezuelan economy is to all extents and purposes done. Motorcycle delivery guys can now make change for a $20 US bill with 20 US $1 bills. The bolivar is history. The surprise was that, in addition to paying for goods and services in dollars, in Venezuela my friend could now also pay with Russian rubles.
It’s a small, but pertinent, detail.
Venezuela, along with the rest of Caribbean, Central and South America, were once unequivocally considered to be under the umbrella of US purview. Let’s not forget the Cuban Missile Crisis as an earlier attempt to disrupt that way of the world. And yet, quietly, and somewhat menacingly to a distracted US, Russia has in recent years again begun to spread its tentacles into the economic heart of one of our neighbors immediately to our south.
How many rubles go about their daily lives in Venezuela? Nobody knows.
Food is once again abundant in Caracas, at least and perhaps not only, in its better neighborhoods. There are whispers of hope in the air. The dollar is now king. If you have dollars, you can not only just get by, but also even live well. The caveat, of course, is that you have dollars. Those millions of Venezuelans who had, out of necessity, to flee Venezuela in recent years are not in that column. After you force the poor, the needy and the undesirable out, you can aspire to a thriving society, apparently. Regrettably, we’ve seen attempts at that scenario before in our history. When you muscle any segment of your population out, you are veering far away from accepted norms of decency.
Almost suddenly, after years of waste, destruction and damage to the lives of its citizens and the infrastructure of the country, Venezuela is now signaling an economic shift. By the end of December 2021, the country had doubled its petroleum output from just a year before – not back to when Venezuela was a major force in petroleum production worldwide, but a long way toward a surprising and flag-waving celebratory candle cake for the Maduro regime.
Money is once again flowing, if not into Venezuela – at least not from the known Western world, then definitively round and about within its borders. What kind of money, again we don’t entirely know. So many Venezuelans have been sanctioned by the United States that now those very same Venezuelan citizens may just have decided to keep their enormous wealth home and plow it back into their country’s economy. Sanctions are flawed, and in this case, perhaps, counter-productive to US interests. Money needs a sanctuary. And just maybe, Venezuela is now a sanctuary for its own and odd money in general.
And in this repositioning of Venezuela, the ground has shifted.
Russia and China are now firmly ensconced, along with Iran, as Venezuela’s allies, protectors and supporters.
Why is that important?
Because this is happening in the Americas, just a little less than 2,000 miles south of Key West. This is not some distant Ukraine, Belarus or Uzbekistan.
For better or worse, for decades after WW2, it was taken as a given that the Americas were within the United States general sphere of interest and influence. We had sometimes benign and at times harmful relationships with nations within that domain.
Russia, on the other hand, had all of Eastern Europe, and not coincidentally, Ukraine and the Stan countries at its southern borders, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan et al to do with whatever it wished.
East was East, and West was West.
Except that many of the countries under Russian overview weren’t happy with that division. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, those nations grabbed at the chance of change. Ukraine wanted autonomy from its overseer, Russia. Ukraine wanted to shift its essential values westward. As did Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Estonia and many of the former Russian affiliates.
And Europe opened its bosom.
Europe said, Come on in!
Ukraine was a big fan of the EU, and Ukraine said, Let’s do it.
And all was good, for a while.
Then came Putin, a Russian ultranationalist, a man obsessed with Russian power and superiority, a man with an exaggerated ego rarely seen in history – Thump not withstanding, a man focused on a Soviet-style view of the world as a greater Russia reinvigorated, a man who feels Ukraine’s aspirations as somehow a threat to his nationalistic manhood.
Cuba means nothing to Putin. He has done nothing to alleviate Cuba’s pain. Venezuela, on the other hand, sitting atop the world’s largest oil reserves -greater even than Saudi Arabia’s, means a lot.
And if Ukraine can be European, maybe Venezuela can be Russian, if you will.
Welcome to Putin’s worldview.
In Venezuela, Putin gets to mess with America like never before.
Almost overnight in the Ukraine crisis now upon us, all bets are off.
On Jan 14th, the BBC reported that …
Russia is not excluding a presence in Cuba or Venezuela; quite the opposite, in fact. Russia is positioning itself for a major confrontation that may just include the Americas.
Putin’s focus is far beyond Ukraine.
So we might just think about projecting ourselves a little bit (or a lot) into our near future.
Russia invades Ukraine.
The US imposes unprecedented sanctions on Russia’s banks and ways of doing business with the rest of the world.
Russia reacts. Russia sends military equipment and/or troops to Venezuela and Cuba.
Then what?
The US sends troops to Colombia?
A young Colombian friend of mine was already thinking about that possibility in a conversation with his friends at lunchtime here in Bogotá today.
Those with upcoming military service are worried, he told me.
And so, Ukraine has come home to roost.
Ukraine is not so far away at all, as it turns out. In fact, perhaps Ukraine is already here.
So now what?
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]]>The post Countering Washington’s false narratives on Ukraine appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The lies spewing forth from the mainstream media about the US backed coup in Ukraine remind me of the run up to the Iraq War. Russia is demonized in the press as an aggressor and Vladimir Putin is characterized as a mad empire builder, but the aggressor and agent provocateur in the crisis in Ukraine is the United States.
What happened in Ukraine?
Neocons in the State Department, with President Obama’s blessing, took advantage of growing unrest in Western Ukraine over unemployment and economic conditions and enlisted members of the right-wing Svoboda party, along with various extremists, ultra-nationalists and neo-Nazis, to overthrow the democratically elected (although corrupt) president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych’s fate was sealed when he refused to sign a “trade agreement” with the EU, and, instead, turned to Russia for trade deals and economic aid. Former congressman Dennis Kucinich, one of the few people who read the 6,000 page document, said it was “a military agreement masked as a trade agreement that enabled NATO to go to the Russian border.”
The photo accompanying this article is of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland with Oleh Tyahnybok on the left, Vitaly Kitschko in the back and Arseny Yatsenyuk on the right. According to Reuters, it was taken in Kiev on February 6, 2014. Victoria Nuland is married to neocon Robert Kagan, co-founder of the Project for a New American Century. Tyahnybok is the leader of the ultra-right wing Svoboda Party, Kitschko had aspirations to run for President but was not “chosen” by Nuland so he withdrew and is backing another candidate. Yatsenyuk is the US puppet installed by Nuland et. al. You may recognize him from his nonstop US TV appearances since he was appointed Prime Minister. On Meet the Press, Sunday April 20, Yatsenyuk said, “President Putin has a dream to restore the Soviet Union. And every day, he goes further and further. And god knows where is the final destination.”
An armed militia backed by the US, forcefully ejected Yanukovych on February 22, 2014. In order to bring Ukraine under its control and under the thumb of NATO and the IMF, the US installed Yatsenyuk as Prime Minister and rewarded an assortment of neo-Nazi stooges who aided the overthrow with four government ministries, including Chief of Security.
Typical of neocon arrogance, the US was taken by surprise that the Russian and Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine were hostile to its plan to grab Ukraine. It turns out, the Russian speaking Eastern Ukrainians do not want a US-backed, neo-Nazi, ultra-nationalist, fascist government in Kiev nor do they want the “economic hardship” imposed by the IMF austerity plan already agreed to by Yatsenyuk. They also object to the billionaire oligarchs dispatched to the East by the Yatsenyuk regime to be regional managers. None of this, of course, is being reported in US mainstream media. What we get is the cartoon version—that the Eastern Ukrainians are Russian-backed “terrorists,” and the new regime in Kiev is freedom loving and democratic. The protestors in Eastern Ukraine started being called “terrorists” by the US installed Kiev government and the media after CIA director John Brennan’s recent visit to Kiev.
Crimea slipped out of US grasp
Another glitch in the US-backed putsch: after taking over the Ukraine and installing a puppet government, the US had intended to eject Russia from its Black Sea naval base in Crimea either by not renewing its lease or forcing it out. The US wanted to squeeze Russia economically and militarily by taking control of Crimea and the Black Sea. Putin responded with an end run around US aggressive intentions. He added additional troops to the 16,000 troops Russia already based in Crimea under a status of forces agreement with Ukraine, and, along with Crimean political leaders, scheduled a referendum in which the people of Crimea voted to return Crimea to Russia. Instead of admitting that its plan for grabbing Ukraine has not gone well, the US is pushing the crisis to more dangerous levels.
So, turn off the TV and put down the New York Times. The following are excerpts from a few alternative views on what is going on in Ukraine. The first is from Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under Reagan and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.
“Privatization Is a Ramp for Corruption and Insouciance is a Ramp for War”
Washington overthrew the elected Ukraine government in order to orchestrate a crisis that would distract Russia from Washington’s adventures in Syria and Iran and in order to demonize Russia as an invader rebuilding an empire that is a danger to Europe. Washington will use this demonization in order to break-up growing economic relationships between Russia and Europe. The purpose of sanctions is not to punish Russia, but to break up economic relationships.
Washington’s strategy is audacious and brings risk of war. If the West had an independent media, Washington’s plan would fail. But instead of a media, the West has a Ministry of Propaganda. The New York Times has even found a replacement for Judith Miller. As you may have forgot or never known, Judith Miller was the New York Times reporter who filled the Times with Bush regime neoconservative lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
[…snip]
The new Judith Miller is David M. Herszenhorn, with accomplices Andrew Roth, Noah Sneider, and Andrew Higgins.
According to Herszenhorn, the widespread protests in eastern Ukraine are entirely the fault of the protesters who are putting on a show for propaganda purposes. The protests are not a response to words and deeds of the Washington-installed stooge government in Kiev. Herszenhorn dismisses reports of extreme nationalist neo-Nazi Russophobia as “sinister claims” and regards the Washington-imposed unelected government in Kiev as legal. However, Herszenhorn regards governments formed as a result of referendums [Crimea] to be illegal unless approved by Washington.
[snip]
Western populations are removed from reality. They live in a world of propaganda and disinformation. The actual situation is far worse than the “Big Brother” reality described by George Orwell in his book, 1984.
The ideology known as neo-conservatism, which has controlled US governments since Clinton’s second term, has the world set on a path to war and destruction. Instead of raising questions about this path, the Western media hurries the world down the path
[… snip]
How much longer will dumbshit Americans fall for the flag-waving deception?
The second excerpt is from Robert Parry, an independent investigative reporter who worked for the Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s where he broke many of the Iran Contra stories. The following report was published on April 22, 2014.
“Prepping for a Ukrainian Massacre”
Between the anti-Russian propaganda pouring forth from the Obama administration and the deeply biased coverage from the U.S. news media, the American people are being prepared to accept and perhaps even cheer a massacre of eastern Ukrainians who have risen up against the coup regime in Kiev.
The protesters who have seized government buildings in ten towns in eastern Ukraine are being casually dubbed “terrorists” by both the Kiev regime and some American journalists. Meanwhile, it’s become conventional wisdom in Official Washington to assume that the protesters are led by Russian special forces because of some dubious photographs of armed men, accepted as “proof” with few questions asked by the mainstream U.S. news media.
While the U.S. news media is treating these blurry photos as the slam-dunk evidence of direct Russian control of the eastern Ukrainian protests—despite denials by the Russian government and the protesters—the BBC was among the few news agencies that provided a more objective assessment, noting that the photos are open to a variety of interpretations.
However, in Official Washington, the stage is now set for what could be a massacre of Ukrainian civilians who have risen up against the putschists who seized control of Kiev in a Feb. 22 coup that overthrew elected President Viktor Yanukovych. The violent putsch was spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias, some of which have now been incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard and dispatched to the front lines in eastern Ukraine.
If the slaughter of the eastern Ukrainian protesters does come, you can expect Official Washington to be supportive. Whereas the Kiev protesters who seized government buildings in February were deemed “pro-democracy” activists even as they overthrew a democratically elected leader, the eastern Ukrainian protesters, who still consider Yanukovych their legitimate president, are dismissed as “terrorists.” And, we all know what happens to “terrorists.”
Where to find alternate news on the crisis in Ukraine
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