As IF Times

link:  https://reason.com/2024/06/15/house-passes-bill-to-automatically-register-young-men-for-the-draft/

We frequently hear the word ‘war’ used to describe all manner of campaigns these days.  The war on drugs sure, but the war on obesity, on climate change, on hate? Such are examples of issues that are inflated to the level of war, when they really only rate a level of inconvenience at worst and are commercial enterprises at best.

The true effects of a real war include death, destruction and untold misery heaped upon millions of willing and unwilling participants alike.  In our recent times, most people are fortunate not to have been participants in an all-out world war.  The world is never absent of regional skirmishes of some kind, many of which are never highlighted in today’s corporately run media.

Wars have historically been fought over land, resources and influence, principally of the religious kind.  In our modern world the main reasons to fight wars are largely absent. Resources are negotiated by exchange and trade in world markets.  There is very little reason to mount a campaign of nationalism to fight against some imaginary enemy ‘X’.  The never-ending regional wars in the Middle East are perhaps an outlier, since disagreements there have lasted for hundreds of years and the ideologies involved will never come to agreement.  In reality, the Middle East conflict has always been a proxy war for adherents to either side of an historic cultural divide. As in all wars, endless money ensures that war’s continuance.

In the case of Western nations, there is no imminent threat of Russian hegemony despite the hysterical pronouncements by modern Neo-cons fighting the last war from decades ago.  No American or citizen of a Western nation is suffering because of the actions of a purportedly hostile Russia.  The average citizen dealing with high mortgage payments, spiraling food, energy and living costs cannot blame Russia.  Dealing with rampant inner city crime, lawlessness and social decay has nothing to do with external threats from Russia, or China or North Korea.

All of these issues are in fact consequences of actions or inaction by domestic governments.  If you consider the comment I made earlier about war wreaking death, destruction and misery upon a population, it appears that if there’s any war being propagated, it’s by the very governments whom are charged with protecting their constituency.  Very recently, the soon to be lame duck President of France, Emmanuel Macron threatened that France would enter a civil war if his party lost in their legislative elections.  As if things were going swimmingly now under his leadership.

There are clearly no shortages of resources in the modern world, yet nations are forced to pay the highest prices in history for things that are abundantly available everywhere.   Why should food, fuel, shelter and medical care be so expensive given the technology that exists in production and distribution?

Clearly there is mismanagement, corruption or subterfuge in distributing goods and services to the citizens of nations.  It’s concerning to hear all the sabre rattling about sending troops to far off nations to fight battles that have nothing to do with peoples’ everyday lives.  Some may be aware of recent maneuvers to implement automatic registration for conscription for those between the ages of 18 and 25 in the US.  Why is this necessary or even being considered?

There’s an old saw that posits that all wars are bankers’ wars and upon examination, it gets harder and harder to dispute this.  Before the next unqualified charlatan comes to the fore waving the patriotic flag for war, people had better think long and hard about what’s in it for them.  If there’s a war going on, it’s for the minds of ordinary citizens.

link: https://thepostmillennial.com/tucker-carlson-may-face-eu-travel-sanctions-as-a-result-of-putin-interview-report

An amusing phenomenon that the majority of men will be familiar with is the situation wherein they are walking down a street next to their wife/girlfriend.

An attractive female approaches them and the man is obligated to avert his eyes, or at the very least, pretend not to notice the oncoming potential tempest.  Wearing mirrored glasses won’t be of any help.

As most men know, to even hint that they find the oncoming female of any interest is to invite an episode of instant rebuke, or in some cases, a prolonged sulk later on the part of the wife/girlfriend.

What most women don’t understand is that the perceived comeliness of the approaching female has very little to do with any attraction on the part of the male.  It could be a bear on bicycle and the novelty of that alone would pique the man’s interest.  Still, the majority of men will experience the hissy fit that will ensue in the aftermath of the encounter.

Amusingly, a similar situation is occurring now as Tucker Carlson makes his way to Moscow to interview the leader of the Red Menace, Vladimir Putin.  The majority of the traditional western media outlets are having a hissy fit that would make the Rousey/Carmouche UFC fight look like a game of slap slap.

Accustomed to being the guardians of what the masses hear and dictating to them what to think, it’s now considered the highest affront that Tucker dares to intrude on their sacred dominion.  Reactions have ranged from horrified to outright maliciousness with some even proposing that Tucker be sanctioned or even prevented from coming back into the US because of his treasonous actions. If it’s one thing we know the media is good at, it’s hyperbole.

There is likely much fear and angst in the general media ranks; and which is shared by the political cabal that has for decades been successful in providing the accepted narrative of the day; in this case, the characterization of Vladimir Putin.  Why wouldn’t any rational person be willing to assess the facts for themselves via direct information rather than through the filter of approved channels?  The public has for the longest time been treated like children on topics of all kinds.  How do we know it’s so? Because we told you so. Eerily, the courts system seems to be moving that way.

It’s not as if there’s no precedence for interviews with all sorts of world figures. Celebrated ‘journalists’ in the past such as Barbara Walters, Mike Wallace and others have carried sessions with the entire range of political leaders from despots to allies and these interviews were considered journalism and newsworthy.  Was Dan Rather considered treasonous for his Saddam Hussein piece?  Was Barbara Walters’ interview of Fidel Castro a despicable career event?

In the ‘free’ west, we have an impression of Vladimir Putin solely from the narrative given to us by the mass media and likely encouraged by the political overlords.  Oddly, this is precisely the criticism leveled against the Russian news agency, Pravda and the network, Russian Television.  People who live in glass houses and all that.

The last few years have provided definitive proof that official media narratives here are coordinated and laughably not objective.  As that revelation occurs, it also calls into question much of the other narratives spewed over the decades, including the characterization of which states are allies and which states are enemies.  There’s buzz that our ‘ally’ Ukraine has a target out for Tucker because of his pending interview.  With ‘friends’ like that…..

There’s nothing that would have stopped any of the regular media outlets from gaining an interview with Putin.  They chose not to because it would have pushed against their established narrative of Putin, bad.  We’ve been told that he’s a tyrant who runs the country like his kingdom and who imprisons enemies and rigs elections.  So, in the spirit of real journalism, Tucker goes to find out for himself.  That’s pretty radical in this time of packaged narratives.  Like the passing female in the opening paragraph, we don’t know if it’s any good, but there’s no harm in looking.