Debt Rattle March 20 2022
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Salvador Dali Remorse – Sphinx Embedded in the Sand 1931 • Was Bombing Of Mariupol Theater Staged By Ukrainian Azov Extremists? (GZ) • US Reckl
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle March 20 2022]Dr Joseph Hickey’s submission is a triumph. He deserves a medal. I just can’t believe how thorough, well reasoned and bullet-proof it is.
I’m gunna put it on a jump drive and take it to the printers this week and keep it on the book shelf for my grandkids.Exceptional rebuttal of the highest merit and clearest demonstration yet for me that we have walked in to Totalitarianisms living room.
Following Armstrong here, Europe is collapsing of economic mismanagement, they are stealing the pension funds to pay for an army. That’s how we get peace! Of COURSE they steal the pension funds. 100% of the time in history. And for some reason, the old people, who have nothing left to lose, let them get away with it.
“Germany to Begin Confiscating Guns” –Armstrong
This is breathtaking considering they are doing this after watching Ukraine. …Showing they don’t’ care about the people, or even about winning, only about killing the people and keeping their own fortunes. …Didn’t Vlad just have a statement on this to his own countrymen?
Now why would any peace-loving citizen need to defend himself?
“Will programmable central bank digital currencies be successful?
ANSWER: Reliable sources are saying that they intend to (1) cancel all paper currency, (2) confiscate all cryptocurrency, (3) impose rationing, (4) wage World War III. Will CB digital currency be successful? Yes and No.”So we’ve heard. They’ll try three different attempts before something sticks. It won’t be from government as nobody trusts them. Outlook on corporations not good either.
“They will do everything in their power to attack black markets. They will fail in this endeavor for everything relies upon the power grid. If an adversary takes out less than 10 strategic power stations, the grid will fail and so will all money transactions.”
Well, yeah, but that’s true under our present system. They’ll look at you slack-jawed to either pay or to make change and no surprise since the IRS would come down on you like a hammer if you dared sell anything and survive that sales day. Conclusion: Oligarchs, Governments and PMCs are trying to kill everyone. Including themselves. Because they are a death cult. The Death Cult is born in the pathology to control everything and unseat God. Leave it alone. Stop helping.
Rationing brings up something else. Clearly they have no intention of letting the market exist, i.e. “Capitalism”, ever again. And especially the bankruptcy part, except for you. But if you don’t permit markets, that is, price signals, you must therefore have the opposite: shortages. So that’s where we are now, shortages. Things are not on the shelf. The price is $1, not $10 but you can’t buy any, and we’ll never have any again. So enjoy starving with those $1 steaks! (that we don’t stock)
Weird contradiction here: ain’t nobody going to ration, they are going to blackmarket the crap out of that puppy. At the some time, they are going to be FURIOUS that anyone else is cheating and blackmarketing and will turn them in for even the SUSPICION of getting one over on…someone…and even just falsely saying so for some reason, ‘cause, lies. So the worst of both worlds, as we saw in Covid. I don’t follow any rules for me – I’m clean and good! – but that small business down the street, I’ll DIE if he doesn’t go bankrupt and lose his life savings, by god. I want the full force fo the world government and the Army too on that strip-mall gym. This is the only good and right response of good and right people to support whatever is good and right today.
That’s what happens with a whole society of people with no charity and no morals. So here we are.
Anyway: rationing. Price controls. A given, since then they can “give” to their Very Important Friends, and take from the rest of us. Yes, again, like Covid. Everyone loved it, so I don’t see why not.
““Exclusive-Ukraine has started using Clearview AI’s facial recognition during war.”
Yes, and so did Russia. They simply use Ukraine’s records to prove who everyone is and murder them according to their record and social media posts. Thanks, boys! And so glad you’re trying to bring it here and worldwide so every other human is equally at risk for tracking and death. By anyone who has the records. Which thanks to hackers + government, is everyone. Remember the National Health losing every medical record of every child in Britain, with all their addresses and phone numbers a few years ago? I can probably buy that data for a nickel.
This is a very good article this week: https://tomluongo.me/2022/03/18/putin-destined-to-hang-or-drown/
There’s a lot in it, but one thing is that Putin is gaining popularity and Biden isn’t. That was the gambit right? A war to make Americans rally ‘round? (’round the midterms?) If there’s no pop, then it’s not “ominous” so to speak, but it demonstrates the ground underneath them has altered. The old rules aren’t applying. This is mild, but relevant.
While we’re doing odds and ends, they pointed out that the reason they have to lie, lie, lie about being bogged down – aside from “Putin Bad” – is to set the premise for NATO’s false flag chemical attack. The one they said they’d use back in 2/22, and about a dozen times a day now with NPR and all the caring, helpful people at the head. So it’s not that they’re wrong, hopeful, misleading in order to keep those donations coming(donations bc they’re so totally broke AND their money-laundering is stopped), although those things are true. So long as they support this story they’re on target to do a fake chemical attack. Hopefully just with some cameras and garden hoses and CNN reporters sniffing the Sarin weapons for evidence.
But that also they’re broke, thus the unprecedented ask of donations, and they’re broke in their own blackmail, the payoffs that control the whole DERP system.
Somewhat alarmingly, and I know Putin knows this, is “Lindsey Graham’s job is to build up the propaganda war to justify NATO’s entrance into Ukraine in the next few weeks.” Gosh I hope not, but that’s not what 100,000 men means. However, they won’t arrive in time.
But Luango agrees that there is no surrender. It’s WWIII or nothing. Putin either dies with all of Russia, or the West fails and treats for peace, that is surrenders. I know that seems impossible, but that’s what wars are. Somebody fails and leaves.
“I think a global memetic collapse is in process as I type this. We can’t see it here in the West because we aren’t allowed to. But in parliaments and politburos around the that part that Davos just sees as ‘the help,’ it’s happening. The headlines are coming in almost too fast for anyone to keep up with.
This is what happens when fearful men become cornered. Davos is cornered. The drowning man will do everything to keep from drowning, including drowning his rescuer.” –Luongo
“Clip of Biden Boasting He Proposed NATO’s 78-Day Airstrikes On Belgrade Goes Viral in China”
Speaking of “War Criminals.” Is the statute of limitations still open on this one? I’ll nominate him. Better than the Nobel Prize.
Joe Biden united the world? You mean against America and the West?
“That headline is still online today, even though the letter clearly says they don’t know if it’s Russian disinformation. That headline was tweeted out by legions of Democrats, including current White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, as proof that it was all a con. That tweet also is still up despite being proven false.”
And until the people stop buying this crap that clearly says right in the body of their paper “THIS IS FALSE”, the agencies can get away with it. Of course it doesn’t help that voting does nothing. First, because we see widespread fraud; second, Princeton demonstrated that democracy vote had no effect on policy; third, because if you get someone different in there they refuse to enact any orders from the people and Executive orders given by the last guy are sacrosanct and can’t be un-executive ordered by the new guy. ‘Cause we don’t wanna and we say so.
But if the media, the propaganda, were as discredited as they should be, the character of the system would be substantially different: it would be a lot more openly violent and oppressive, as we’ve just seen.
I don’t think they’re going after Hunter until something terrible happens in Ukraine, like they escalate a WWIII or they collapse and lose. Then the people will be out for random blood and accept it. That’s why the timing.
I wouldn’t pick those items for Fascism but the simple historical ones I’ve posted already:
A Fasces is a bundle of sticks, used as a caning rod, but representing that we are stronger together. So Fascism seeks complete social adhesion and unity. And often on principle, preferring social means such as opinion and peer pressure. This has a single unified vision for the country that enfolds private enterprise and government into one body, focused in one direct, and either by, or after, pressuring the people to join. All three as one, including media, church, sports, and everyone else. This is one reason it’s so powerful and why it appears first in the mass-media age.
Because of the dependence on propaganda and persuasion, it tends to have a charismatic leader to point to, but this is no kingship, it is a group of idealists, progressives, looking to make a utopia for their unified people. Because of peer pressure, the oppression is logical, merely for minorities, dissidents, troublemakers, people who aren’t “Us.” Self-selecting often. And the dissidents are stopping the Great Vision, stopping ME, harming my SAFETY, so quite sensibly they must be dealt with as all nations deal with traitors. If you adhere however, you are richly rewarded for cooperation, helping out your people and country which is a people’s collective.
Now a feature of the past fascisms were that they Nationalists, and because of belief in nation and people, essentially racists. Not necessarily to kill everyone, but if you are the “best people,” the pinnacle of Progress, or at least self-promoting your people’s interests, then naturally other people’s interests must take a back seat as is well-demonstrated in history, and is a survival of the fittest. As propaganda, they create or refer to their own mythology that tends to be “New Age”, or let’s say non-Christian, but have/had no trouble joining with Christians as they are compliant, and have charity, work, and self-sacrifice that merges well with the same collectivist principles.
What kills them is the same thing that forms them: Infinite us-versus-them, lack of creativity and dissent, central control, unrelenting self-interest that leads to war, and the realization from surrounding peoples that it’s impossible to live in peace with them. But it is a powerful form of organization that we illustrate all the elements of today. Certainly racism, but even “Nationalism” which expresses for us in our “Western Exceptionalism.” We are the “Developed” nations, the moral pinnacle, and all we do is right. All human progress is culminated in us, and we are the only way it is good, logical, and right to be. We are the UniParty™ headed into the UniFuture™. Anyone who doesn’t think, believe, or sacrifice themselves, their people, their country, and all their resources freely, joyfully to the West™ is a selfish, backward troll, a Race and Belief to which the laws of UniDiversity™ doesn’t apply. There are many colors but only one possible mind and only one thing to believe: “Whatever it is we believe today”.
https://images.wavetshirt.com/2022/03/elon-musk-i-support-the-current-thing-t-shirt-hoodied.jpgThe “collectivism” is why Fascism is Socialism, and why it’s “National Socialism” as opposed to the International Socialism attempted by the original Soviet Union: “Workers of the WORLD, unite.”
However, with the long-admitted merger of corporation and state and the Social Media and voluntary, unprompted peer pressure, this is why WE are a Fascist state, and why we are still resisting them. “We” being America which has the crossed signals of being the head of Western fascism but also the home of most resistance to that head and their principles.
Obviously I therefore disagree with Dimitrov, but also disagree with Eco. Fascists are “anti-communist” only in the sense that they are “not-us”, a rival, which can never be tolerated. In Ego, no one that isn’t “Us” can be tolerated. And because it is by definition a centralized system, being run generally by the propaganda wing. Therefore you can’t have two heads, and you can’t have centralization if you actually believe in something as ridiculous as actually distributing power to the people. People exist to serve the state, not the other way around, so such idealists must be eliminated. Communists and anyone promoting Enlightenment and the “Rights of Man” are both sworn deadly enemies to centralization and the power of the State over Man.
Imperialism is also emphatically NOT the opposite of nationalism. That’s why we call it the “Roman” Empire. If you join, wherever you are worldwide you become “Us”, (e.g. ‘Roman’) and part of the nation, and Our people deserve all the things and must historically take them, as history dictates men do. However you can be 10 generations Saxon descended from Wagner and Woden and not be “German” if you’re not “For Us.” You’re not a “True” German but a traitor. Simple. Which is exactly how we in the West behave. If you misgender someone today or oppress women except in sports where you’re required to.
“Data Scientist Files Internal Appeal of Bank of Canada Vaccination Policy (OCLA)”
Don’t be silly. There is no “You”, there is only “Us” and what we tell you to do. If you don’t obey the “Us” you are a traitor to be killed. The End. Why are we still discussing this? Submit. Or Die. It’s a free choice. Not coercive at all under the Nuremberg Code.
“whether you’ll be granted a loan, what scholastic curriculum you will follow and even who you will marry.”
Yes, and all the decisions made by robots on those things are hilariously bad and constantly backfire to complete and utter ruin. The only interesting part is how long people can keep from noticing because they are insulated from consequences and have unlimited energy to burn. Humans are bad at these things it is true, however, computers are far, FAR worse. At nearly everything. I’d say that’s a certain positive, but when they fail they’ll take the rest of us with them.
So leave the system. Collapse early and beat the rush.
800,000 Lives Could Have Been Saved with Ivermectin and HCQ – Dr. Pierre Kory
Interview with Greg Hunter, quite a statement. Puts it into the ‘overt mass murder’ not an accident catagory.
800,000 Lives Could Have Been Saved with Ivermectin and HCQ – Dr. Pierre Kory
Missing Trump is like missing the Covid Pandemic. Both revealed the hypocrisy of our world but both were destructive of our common share state of peace, which we all are united in. They were inclusive to showing us truths, but were hardly constructive in bringing any kind of peace. In fact they, both Trump and CoVID only created more conflict.
@Carlos Conflict is a feature not a bug.
disinformation/Who does not lie
God is on our side
Our side is right
Democracy, and freedom is in a world of peace and stability, and is on our side
Accidental damages is acceptable if its done by our side
The enemy is always wrong,
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Wiki may have some info
Why bomb Mariupol?
• Was Bombing Of Mariupol Theater Staged By Ukrainian Azov Extremists? (GZ)
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Where are the Russian oil consumers?
There’s a reason US oil(field) service companies operate in Russia, and their withdrawal may hurtRussia.Europe.• Halliburton, Schlumberger Draw Back From Russia Amid US Energy Sanctions (R.)
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Omicron needs peace and life to existJulian Assange pleads guilty of truthful journalism, sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
Those who think that justice from current civilized institutions anywhere is even remotely possible please take note.
Any (and all) mechanized decision making processes will eventually return only materialistic answers, which if followed will result in a logic loop that gets more and more materialistically devoid of judgement, exponentially, until the process stops itself from working at all.
Reality, truth
Why?
When is the right time to tell the truth to children about reality, lies?
God, Tooth fairy, Santa, Easter bunny?
Let them read TAE?Since history is written by the victors the next round of histories is shaping up to be historically interesting.
@zerosum question : “When is the right time to tell the truth to children about reality, lies?
God, Tooth fairy, Santa, Easter bunny?
Let them read TAE?”Might be a good idea to let them experiment with drugs and alcohol first.
Do take Dr D’s recommendation and read the Tom Luongo piece. Between Dr D’s thoughts and the piece itself – a clear case is made for who, what, when, where, and why.
Add the Chris Hedges post into the mix….
Am sharing these links with family and friends outside my inner circle. They need to see.
What happens next is not in his hands, it’s in ours.
The link to Chris Hedges:
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/15/chris-hedges-waltzing-to-armageddon/
Every so often partner and I re-watch various Star Trek series. Last night we re-started TOS, viewing The Cage — the original pilot that didn’t have Captain Kirk — the only character kept was Spock — who wasn’t yet behaving like an emotionless Vulcan. I realized that this storyline appears to be the inspiration of the Orville’s Calivon Zoo episode. And I realized that the themes of this episode are relevant today.
Storyline: The Enterprise checks out the landing site of a doomed Earth scientific ship, crashed 18 years prior. The highly intelligent, long-lived natives capture the Enterprise Captain (Pike) so that he can mate with the sole female survivor of the crash and create for them a subservient caste of human servitors. The natives are able to deceive the humans with life-like illusions (foreshadowing of future holodeck technology.)
Some relevant quotes:
When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating. You even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit, living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought record.The Keeper: Wrong thinking is punishable; right thinking will be as quickly rewarded. You will find it an effective combination.
Dr. Boyce: The inhabitants of this planet can read our minds. They can create illusions out of a person’s own thoughts, memories and experiences, even out of a person’s own desires – illusions just as real and solid as this table top and just as impossible to ignore.
Captain Christopher Pike: But we’re not here, neither of us. We’re in a menagerie, a cage.
Captain Christopher Pike (to Vina, a human): You can tell my jailers I won’t go along with it. I’m not an animal performing for its supper….(directed towards The Keeper) I’ll break out of this zoo somehow and get to you. Is your blood red like ours? I’m gonna find out.
Number One: It’s wrong to create a whole race of humans to live as slaves.
The Keeper: We had not believed this possible. The customs and history of your race show a unique hatred of captivity. Even when it’s pleasant and benevolent, you prefer death. This makes you too violent and dangerous a species for our needs.
The link to Chris Hedges:
read the comments to find that many think the samePolitical suicide
Russia is giving safe passage to Ukrainians
If NATO does not feed or cannot feed the Ukrainians refugees, it will be committing genocideZerosum: When is the right time to tell the truth to children about reality, lies?
When my children ask questions, I always give them straight answers, in words and ideas that are suitable to their experience and understanding.
With two exceptions.
When they asked me about Santa Claus I always turned it around and asked them: what do you think? One day, for each of them, the answer came back as some thing like: “I don’t think it is real.” I agreed, and revealed that all of the presents “from Santa” had come from me. That way, they understood that I would never lie to them, however, I let them believe in the common childhood fantasies until they were ready to discard them.
The second is when they ask questions about the family court case, etc. There are elements that I must not share because the Court could give me grief if I did and their father found out. Or, there is one element that they are ignorant of and the truth of it cannot benefit them now, can only harm them. When they ask I explain that I cannot tell them now, but am happy sharing it with them once they are 18.In the current situation I have already sat my teens down and explained to them that war between Russia and Ukraine will likely cause food prices to rise precipitously, possibly cause food shortages, and how that affects our household specifically. I have invited them to share with me if there are any specific foods that they would want to have on hand. I have spoken to them about fascism and totalitarianism and about these elements that currently exist in our society. They need to know so that they can plan accordingly. It is not my job to deceive and “keep them safe” — it is my job to prepare them, provide scaffolding, and insulate them somewhat from the buffeting of the world as they develop so that they are able to stand on their own when they reach maturity. As teens, much of the scaffolding and insulation has already been dismantled, but they are able to retreat to the safety of home and mother when the world is overwhelming and they need to regain their bearings.
@phoenixvoice
As a a grand parent, my influence and responsibilities are limited
As a parent, You are different and special.
Unfortunately, our society is not following your good mothering advise
Our leaders are mentally challenged children with outsized egos and cannot make decisions for the good of their voters.
We would not have to say anything if they read TAE.
Obviously, we would not have created the situations for war but we would not even be looking for peace or “off ramp”Ya know Klaus Schwab and the rest of those Davos jerks almost got it exactly right. When they own nothing, I will be happy.
In fact, that might be a good place to start that Great Reset they keep talking about.
But, What’s good for the goose is good for the gander is a proverb about equal treatment—specifically against double standards and hypocrisy. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander was historically used to say that, what’s good enough for a man is good enough for a woman.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander …
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Ya know Klaus Schwab and the rest of those Davos jerks almost got it exactly right. When they own nothing, I will be happy.In fact, that might be a good place to start that Great Reset they keep talking about.
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hehehehe
Those with the money are convinced that there will not be a backfire/reversal of who will get on noah’s arkFrom Chris Hedges piece:
“Peace has been sacrificed for U.S. global hegemony.”
Yes, … but we must accredit this, too, to U.S. helpers, enablers, groupies: Poland, Hungary, the Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania. For just a worst example look up Poland – look up Poland-Russia/Soviet Union Wars! Without those regions – their populations intense dislike of anything Russia, … just perhaps, U.S. would never attempted to even try? Dunno, … but I did spent ~17years of my life in Central Europe, and witnessed the attitude of those enablers, first hand! I mean, population at large, …
… fwiw,
F.S.
There is more than one way to lose money in housing real estate and find yourself homeless
1. neighbourhood full of idle/unemployed refugees/has become a slum
2. neighbourhood abandoned/need infrastructures/ has no job opportunities
3. bombingAnother “Give War a Chance” singalong, including the GOP and the Conservative Media.
On the Dem side of the Uniparty coin,
“Pelosi announced that despite opposition to the surge, she would not push for blocking congressional funding for additional troops. Although then-Senator Hillary Clinton opposed the surge, she later allegedly said in private that her opposition to the surge had been for domestic political reasons.”
[Wikipedia Iraq_War_troop_surge_of_2007]
Image didn’t post. Here’s a link to it:
Huh? Another Ukrainian Führerina? The only one I am aware of is Christina Freeland, Canadian non-financial Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.
Anyway, … meet Führerina Olena Semenyaka:
Meet Ukraine’s Azov Figurehead Olena Semenyaka, Europe’s Female Führer
… who knew?
F.S.
Missing Trump is like missing the Covid Pandemic. Both revealed the hypocrisy of our world but both were destructive of our common share state of peace, which we all are united in.
Who is that “we” you talking Willis? Would that be the “we” that fawns at the feet of the (D) Party of Chaos + (R) Party of Plunder?
Also, what is this “common share state of peace”? Would that be the tribal illusions created on behalf of the Pathocracy to distract from the “real reality” of the actions of the Washington D.eath C.ult?
Equating “Trump” with the “Covid Pandemic” is intellectually dishonest, especially given that the #DERP-STATE which he steadfastly opposed were by all indications the “real reality” culprits in that particular attack (COVID) on humanity…
They were inclusive to showing us truths, but were hardly constructive in bringing any kind of peace. In fact they, both Trump and CoVID only created more conflict.
Here we see the crux on your intellectual dishonesty ~ A direct straw man fallacy correlating Trump > COVID…
It is a blatant lie to state that Trump “only created more conflict”, where he started -0- new wars & in fact opened communications with geopolitical boogeymen that “the owners” had been setting up as fall guys for decades previous ~ the only conflict Trump created was trigger idiotic morons poisoned by toxic child EGO into a Trump Derangement Syndrome CULT.
The TRUTH is that the #DERP-STATE is & has been the sole progenitor that “only created more conflict”, like the coups d’cancel they launched against TRUMP with lies & DAMN LIES unceasing even prior to the 2016 election…
You know, the same people that brought us mandatory injection of the death jab, are now plunging the planet into WWIII.
I suggest you read Dr. D’s writings today concerning the fascist “Us” vs. everyone that wants to be free from war, coercion, tribal CULTS…
Read it slowly, perhaps you’ll get past the brain-washed TDS that has crippled your mind & spirit.
While Trump suffered from malodorous hubris, I’ll take a well-meaning narcissists ANY DAY over genocidal psychopaths…
Try to imagine a world where Trump wasn’t hobbled by a totally insane pathocracy from 2016-2020, from top-to-bottom, the 2020 election not stolen by the very entities now trying to start WWIII & murder the innocent, if you can.
He had 4 years to unravel DECADES of duplicitous EVIL, while having the full force of the monsters arraigned against him…
@Dr.D: Right-on, Brother. Are you mind-melding with VP Gary, too. Tom luongo is right. I had skipped his article because I misconstrued the title. Thanks for the rec.
@Phoenixvoice: We were the same kind of parents as you; still are, though our kids are clustered around the age of 30 now.@D.Benton Smith: Yeah, they probably already DID try drugs and alcohol first.
Time for the truth is now, but serving the truth is a service to the recipient,
as Phoenixvoice points out.https://www.rt.com/russia/552285-donbass-russia-ukraine-history/
Historic roots of the Donbass problem explainedCurrent events have brought a renewed focus on the Donbass, a historical region on the border of Ukraine and Russia. By the standards of history, this area has emerged quite recently, and has always stood a little apart. It’s important to understand its evolution when viewing this crisis, which began in 2014.
Today, Donbass is an industrial and mining region, but for a long time it was largely uninhabited. The steppe zone that ran along the southern borders of medieval ‘Rus’ (not yet divided into Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus) was called the ‘Wild Fields.’ It was home to nomadic peoples and farmers only moved south with great difficulty. After the Mongol invasion in the 13th century, the Wild Fields was a dangerous place to find yourself.
Around four hundred years, a few peasants from Russia and Ukraine began to gradually settle in the future Donbass.
A great leap forward came in the 19th century when the coal deposits discovered there became necessary for industry. It was then that many of the cities without which it is impossible to imagine today’s Donbass were founded. In 1869, the British industrialist John Hughes built a factory around which the village of Yuzovka grew – it had a few more names, including Stalino, before a local man renamed it Donetsk, in 1961.
In 1868, Kramatorsk appeared and, in 1878, Debaltseve. The cities grew rapidly. Coal deposits and increasing factories formed the unique ‘face’ of the region. This even applies to the landscape: wherever you go in modern Donbass, giant landfills catch your eye. Donbass was formed as an industrial region and its cities and factories often flow into one another, even today. The region was inhabited by several streams of colonists from Russia and Ukraine and its population was very diverse, but its peoples mixed easily due to the proximity of their languages and cultures.
It was meteoric development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when it became a huge mine and forge for the Russian Empire, that made it the Donbass we know today.
A great deal changed in 1917. Two revolutions and a civil war divided the history of the whole of Russia into ‘before’ and ‘after.’
After the February Revolution, when the monarchy fell, a Provisional Committee ruled the region. Meanwhile, the Central Rada in Kiev declared Ukraine autonomous, before making a declaration of independence after the October Revolution. The Rada made broad territorial claims, which included the territory of Donbass. However, not entirely so. Yuzovka was a border city, according to the Rada’s stipulations. The nuance was that the Rada did not exercise any authority over most of these territories, and it soon was quarreling with the Provisional Government in Petrograd.
The whole argument could have been quashed in parliamentary debates but, on November 7, 1917, the socialist revolution took place. After that, events took off at a gallop. In Kiev, the Communist uprising was suppressed, and Russian officers, who considered the Rada a lesser evil than the Reds, actively participated.
Meanwhile, in the east of the self-proclaimed Ukraine, a very unusual coalition was being formed. Its center was Kharkov, a large industrial city that was not part of the Donetsk Basin region but closely tied to it. The Donbass’ distinct identity had already emerged by that time. Although the area was administratively divided into three entities, they had a common economy and interests. While the Rada was in session, local councils in the east of Ukraine announced the unification of the Donbass and Krivbass coal basins. It also included cities belonging to the region of the Don Cossack Army, such as Mariupol and Krivoy Rog, which was administratively part of the Kherson province, as well as Kharkov. This structure, which was informally called ‘Donkrivbass’ or simply ‘Donbass,’ did not claim independence and deemed the idea of separating from Russia absurd, considering itself, instead autonomous within it. Moreover, Ukraine’s independence projects were of no interest to it creators.
Nikolai von Ditmar, chairman of the Council of Congresses of Miners of the South of Russia, noted:
“Industrially, geographically, and practically speaking, this whole area is completely different from that of Kiev. This whole district has its own completely independent fundamental importance for Russia and lives a separate life. The administrative subordination of the Kharkov district to Kiev is not called for by anything at all, but on the contrary, does not correspond with reality. Such artificial subordination will only complicate and impede the life of the district, especially since this subordination is dictated by questions of expediency and state requirements, and exclusively by the national claims of the leaders of the Ukrainian movement.”
In February of 1918, Fyodor Sergeyev, a Bolshevik known by the party pseudonym Artyom, proclaimed the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic (DKR) to be an autonomous region within the RSFSR, or Soviet Russia.
Was the DKR legitimate? No more and no less than any other self-proclaimed entity formed on the ruins of the Russian Empire, where states proclaimed their independence and then collapsed in a week. Another example was “Green Ukraine,” an attempt to found an independent Ukrainian state, near the Pacific Ocean. That project centered around the city of Khabarovsk, which today is a 8,924km drive from Kiev.
The DKR project was not the idea of the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. It appeared precisely on the basis of a regional identity that had already been formed. The leader Vladimir Lenin knew of the upcoming creation of the DKR and did not object. The borders Artyom claimed for the republic were more modest than those drawn by the Rada, but still very wide. The DKR’s problem was the same as the Rada’s – actual control over the territory was very tenuous or nonexistent. The DKR had its own government, which included representatives of three left-wing parties – the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and Social Revolutionaries. Some of its legislation’s nuances appear very unusual and mild by the standards of the time and place. For example, the death penalty was officially banned there. In general, Artyom and his team had a reputation among the Bolsheviks as soft-hearted liberals who hindered repression and released the ‘bourgeois’ from prison.
In short, by the standards of civil war-torn Russia, the DKR was a real stronghold of humanity. In reality, everything was not going as smoothly as the creators of the republic would have liked. For example, arbitrary reprisals were prohibited but the local authorities secretly practiced them. However, the general trend was more lenient than in other places.
The main problem was that Artyom and his comrades could not hold on to power. The German army, which was continuing its offensive during the First World War, was rolling in from the west, and Berlin’s forces destroyed the DKR by May of 1918.
Donbass and all of Russia collapsed into the abyss. At first, the Germans plundered the region. Then it became the scene of battles between the Reds and Whites – the main sides in the civil war.
Under the Wolfsangel: The uncomfortable truth about radical ideologies in Ukraine
Read more Under the Wolfsangel: The uncomfortable truth about radical ideologies in Ukraine
However, Donbass’ ‘distinctiveness’ had not disappeared. The debate over how to deal with the area continued until 1923. The region’s place in the new order was not at all obvious. Its cities were mostly Russian in both language and self-identification. However, the occupying German forces installed a collaborationist Ukrainian government. Both Germans and Ukrainians shot political opponents and those suspected of sympathizing with the Reds. At the same time, the Ukrainian government began to implement a policy of ‘Ukrainization’ – an attempt to impose its own language and identity on the local population. One of its first orders read:“In all state institutions of the Kharkov region, all business should be conducted only in the Ukrainian language.” Another requirement was “for all institutions to replace all writing on signs, posters, and announcements with the Ukrainian language within three days… The statements from leaders claiming that it is impossible to replace the writing in three days are not considered convincing because there are already some establishments that have fulfilled this order… If signs, posters, announcements, etc have not been replaced with those containing the state language within the stipulated period, then the designated heads of districts, transportation departments, and post offices will be severely punished according to the laws of the Ukrainian People’s Republic.”
These attempts were unsuccessful for a banal reason: there were not enough experts in Ukrainian to introduce the language in schools and offices. The situation reached the level of comedy when the head of the Ukrainization commission greeted subordinates in Ukrainian, after which everyone switched to Russian.
After the defeat of Germany in the First World War, Donbass was easily cleared of Ukrainian formations, and the real struggle began – between the Reds and the Whites. However, the issue of Donbass’ status remained in question.
Neither the Reds nor the Whites recognized any independent Ukrainian states. The Bolsheviks, however, welcomed the creation of Ukraine, but only a strictly Red one. Whatever the desires of the Rada, it could not secure its claims by force of arms, and authority on the ruins of Russia could only be imposed at gunpoint.
Artyom insisted that the region should be part of Soviet Russia, basing his argument on economic ties and the language of the population. However, this idea was torpedoed by none other than Lenin, who instantly scoffed at the idea of recreating the DKR, declaring it “playing with independence.” The logic on which the Soviet leaders based Donbass’ inclusion in Ukraine is interesting:
“Separating the Kharkov and Yekaterinoslav (today Dnepropetrovsk) provinces from Ukraine will create a petty-bourgeois peasant republic and lead to perpetual fear that the peasant majority will gain the advantage at some other Congress of Soviets, because the only purely proletarian districts are the mining areas of the Donetsk basin and Zaporozhye.”
The Bolsheviks, who were supported mainly by workers, literally hammered the region into Ukraine precisely because the industrial region was very different from the rest of the republic. Artyom died in a railway accident in 1921 and, of course, couldn’t have prevented this. Donbass was incorporated into Soviet Ukraine without any special status, and a campaign of ‘indigenization’ was launched in the region. Soviet ideology called for the culture, language, and traditions of the people who were considered indigenous to this republic to be literally implanted in the national republics. The USSR, especially in the early days, maintained a kind of governmental ‘affirmative action’ policy. One of the leaders of the nascent Soviet Union, Nikolai Bukharin, formulated the task as follows:
“One cannot even approach this from the point of view of equality of nations, and Lenin has repeatedly proved this. On the contrary, we must say that we, as a former great-power nation, must… put ourselves in an unequal position by making even greater concessions to national tendencies… Only with such a policy, when we artificially put ourselves in a lower position compared to others, only at this price can we buy ourselves the real trust of formerly oppressed nations.”
The Ukrainization of Donbass was carried out systematically, and with the rigidity typical of the USSR. All mention of times when the region was autonomous were banned, there was an attempt to introduce the Ukrainian language everywhere, and, in 1930, a number of university teachers were arrested for refusing to switch to the Ukrainian language and adopt ‘Ukrainian culture.’ The Ukrainization of the press, education, and culture continued until the second half of the the decade, when Joseph Stalin took national policy in different direction.
However, Donbass’ distinctiveness, although somewhat faded, had not completely disappeared. The region’s way of life still significantly differed from that in the rest of Ukraine. The industrial, Russian-speaking and largely ethnically Russian region retained its distinct character both during the era of incredible upheavals in the first half of the 20th century and the stagnant times of the late USSR. And it has, likewise, been preserved since the Soviet Union collapsed, in 1991.
By Evgeniy Norin, a Russian historian focused on Russia’s wars and international politics
Here we go, yet another backgrounder to the current Cirque du Ukraine. This time, by a Jordanian-American professor, Joseph Massad – Columbia University, interviewed by a Lebanese-American interviewer, seated in Lebanon. It’s about an hour long. Start is not the greatest, but it gets better, and overall it’s pretty good. Content itself is great, … and there are couple of informational gems delivered by the good professor. Slant is definitely Middle Eastern.
Lend your ear to this, … it’s quite broad ranging, link:
… enjoy,
F.S.
Dr D Said …
Speaking of “War Criminals.” Is the statute of limitations still open on this one? I’ll nominate him.
When the dust settles after WW3, the first thing that needs to die is any statute of limitations: corruption comes in many guises but a free pass one is one of the worst.
Hunter Biden popping back into the headlines is puzzling. Why now?
Is somebody trying to pull the rug out from under old joe?
VP kamala has gone to great lengths to protect old joe by being even more incompetent!
As bad as old joe is, kamala scares the hell out of everyone!
So whoever wants to get rid of old joe, is going to have get rid of kamala first!
So that theory of getting rid of old joe, doesn’t hold up very well.
Kamala is too good of an insurance policy. One that nobody wants to collect on!So why Hunter Binden now?
As good a time as any to get the laptop out and behind?
Russian propaganda buried in the middle of an anti-Russian op?
Guess nobody will notice.I’m
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