The Days Have Become Hours

Doom. It's almost unavoidable. My rational brain understands the geopolitical, historical, social necessity of it all: when banksterism runs amok in the core, gangsterism will run amok in the periphery. Putinism's tanks will roll on March 21 and then darkness will fall on Eurasia for a generation.

I knew for a long, long time that this day would come. It all goes back to the moment in 2003 when the US oiligarchy invaded Iraq. A gangster faction of the US empire, drunk on illegitimate power, had completely torn up the rules of the post-1945 world-system, the checks and balances which kept the world somewhat stable. Just as euroliberalism's eurozone was an economic disaster waiting to happen, so too was the US oiligarchy's Terror War a disaster waiting to happen.

I didn't know how or when catastrophe would strike. I just knew Bad Things (TM, Pat Pending) were going to happen.

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More commentary tomorrow. And yes, that Brumaire essay is almost done. It's going to be a barnburner. I do hope that, at the very least, I get put on Putinism's "banned from entry" list.

But I want to say something else.

There's a special layer of hell for those self-proclaimed Leftists, progressives and other folks -- let's call them the Leftoids -- who claim to be critical of the Wall Street plutocrats and US empire -- but who fall over themselves to defend the thuggery of smaller imperialisms.

The list includes fans of Qaddafi's rule of terror, who constantly smear ordinary Libyans as wild savages and write long screeds glorifying the Jamahiriya's public services (which were universally appalling).

Then there are the fans of Assad's ghastly fascist state, who constantly smear ordinary Syrians as takfiri brutes and caricature all Arabs as primitive tribes.

And now the fans of Putinism's Anschluss, just the first of a flood of geopolitical disasters which the demise of neoliberalism is unleashing on this unhappy world. These people cannot be bothered to watch footage, read interviews, or listen to stories of Ukraine's peaceful protest movement of ordinary citizens against plutocratic thugs. Nor can they be bothered to read the copious accounts of Putinism (the joint rule of siloviki thugs and thieving plutocrats) trampling on Russia's constitutional right to free speech, free assembly, and free political participation.

Our plutocrat-owned mass media constantly proclaims the US empire to be good, and all other empires to be bad. Leftoids reverse this and proclaim all other empires good, and the US empire bad.
 
Bad does not have a national flag.

Bad is just bad.

And its unthinking defense is what authorizes the still worse to come.