Everyone with a brain knows that. Anyone who's been paying attention to the facts and the longer history knows that but unfortunately, that multitude of people represents only a fraction of the population of the US.
You've got to dumb down your rhetoric, these days, for fear of spooking the news consuming cattle and steers.
Yes, he knows that. But he also knows that those who need, perhaps desperately, to hear his message are those who would turn a deaf ear if they found any hint of a reason to do so...
What about the Donbass? Sergey Lavrov has said, "It is not us who started the war, which is repeatedly said, we started the operation to end the war which Kiev regime was conducting against it's own people in parts of Donbass"
That was part of it, but the main thing was they won't accept NATO bases in Ukraine. That would be the end of national security for Russia. Ukraine is close to Russia's oil.
Dennis, the debt due to wars and overspending on "defense" is likely higher than $8 trillion when you consider that every year roughly 60% of federal discretionary spending is devoted to the national (in)security state. Think of the F-35, estimated to cost $1.7 trillion over its lifetime, or plans to build new nukes (the Sentinel ICBM, the B-21 Raider, and new Columbia-class subs), estimated to cost $2 trillion over the next 30 years, and all unnecessary since we already have over 5000 nuclear warheads and weapons.
Consider as well the cost of arming Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, etc. And the fact that the State Department is basically a tiny branch of the Pentagon. And how Homeland Security is basically a department of internal war and surveillance.
It wouldn't surprise me if roughly half the U.S. national debt can be traced to wars and militarism, with perhaps the other half due to bailing out banks and similar excesses of "capitalism," i.e. socialism for the rich.
The national debt sure isn't due to helping working-class Americans.
Anyone who believes Biden is making any of the decisions at the top of our executive branch hasn’t been paying any attention to his lack of mental acquity during the past four years. When will those covering these events start saying “whoever is in charge at the White House” instead of “Biden”? This is actually important, and is the cause of “the West’s” brain dead policies. Until we fully acknowledge that this is the root of the problem, we are playing a blame game that is a huge distraction from the real problem we have.
THANK YOU!!! please post this (your) comment on every stack you subscribe to. it is so important for everyone to call a spade a spade while we still can agree on what a spade even is.
The reason Dennis is no longer in Congress is that he doesn't "fit in," because he's too honest and forthright. The Democratic Party maneuvered him out of Congress because they are a pack of lying warmongers who naturally saw his integrity as inconvenient and even threatening to their agenda. Aside from his one remark in this essay where he casts blame on Putin for invading (I mean, really, what choice did Putin have? He had tried his best for years to solve the Ukraine problem diplomatically), this essay is worthy of the Dennis Kucinich who served 16 honorable years in Congress as one of the very few truth-tellers & peace advocates in that dismally corrupt body.
Look up Paul Wellstone. I still think they took him out in his plane. And I'm still wondering about John Kennedy Jr's private plane crash on his way to Martha's Vineyard.
I presently live in MN and have noted the distance between the FAA office which dispatched investigators and the Wellstone crash site, time of crash, arrival time of that first responding federal team who drove to the Wellstone crash site (and booted our local public safety personnel from site) and the speed attainable by typical road vehicles over such distances. There was an odd mismatch, almost as if this federal team had been pre positioned? Or somehow dispatched BEFORE the crash?! Does FAA have precognitive abilities? IDK.
I also well recall that the laws of chance briefly took an inexplicably heavy lean towards (inconveniently peaceful) democrats suffering air travel related deaths during George Bush (the Lesser's) first term in office.
From Dr. Strangelove, directed by Stanley Kubrick:
Russian Ambassador: I've done as you asked. Be careful Mr. President. I think he's drunk.
President Muffley:
Hello? Hello, Dimitri? Listen, I can't hear too well, do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little? Oh, that's much better. Yes. Fine, I can hear you now, Dimitri. Clear and plain and coming through fine. I'm coming through fine too, eh? Good, then. Well then as you say we're both coming through fine. Good. Well it's good that you're fine and I'm fine. I agree with you. It's great to be fine. laughs Now then Dimitri. You know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb. The bomb, Dimitri. The hydrogen bomb. Well now what happened is, one of our base commanders, he had a sort of, well he went a little funny in the head. You know. Just a little... funny. And uh, he went and did a silly thing. Well, I'll tell you what he did, he ordered his planes... to attack your country. Well let me finish, Dimitri. Let me finish, Dimitri. Well, listen, how do you think I feel about it? Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dimitri? Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello? Of course I like to speak to you. Of course I like to say hello. Not now, but any time, Dimitri. I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened. It's a friendly call. Of course it's a friendly call. Listen, if it wasn't friendly, ... you probably wouldn't have even got it. They will not reach their targets for at least another hour.
I love that movie not only because Peter Sellers is a genius but the story is pretty horrifying and accurate in its depiction of the psychopathy of the USA.
That was half a century ago. It would take 15 min top for the missiles response to reach its targets.
Also, according to analysts, the new Russian missiles have the capability of reaching over 200 meters deep bunkers, rendering also launch sites useless. Ho and ships and airplanes carriers “floating coffins “.
The friendly call would be the one saying we should make peace and use the money we take back from the warmongers and death dealers to built a better future for mankind.
Cold War is a thing of the past, hypersonic weapons are turning something which can be reversible into what is bound to have an irreversible outcome.
For centuries mankind has been victim of its own ignorance and belief and now for the first time in centuries it has opened its eyes to the inescapable truth.
It is only when we stop fighting with one another that we can begin to together built a better future for ourselves and for our future generations.
The dangers posed by war are now to grave to be allowed to continue to exist.
Dennis, Putin's and Lavrov's explanations of their need to launch the Special Military Operation are not specious and they do not indicate the desire for territorial conquest that 'invasion' signifies. In short, Russia felt the need to protect Mother Russia from NATO and to protect their Russian brothers and sisters in the Donbas from a genuine invasion by Ukrainian forces, especially since the invasion was led by the Russia-hating ultranationalist (Nazi) forces who have had no compunction against killing Russians during the civil war that began in 2014. In essence, Russia conducted a 'humanitarian intervention' which was truly humanitarian unlike those of NATO in Serbia and Libya.
There's been a nuclear mushroom cloud sized blast of bogus disinformation, fear mongering and toxic speculation since the election. Some of it is legit caution and criticism but mainly, I think, it's a last ditch effort to maintain and even amplify partisan hyperpolarization. So the peasants and pitchfork and torch bearing villagers continue to remain so scared of each other's motives and allegiances they will remain hopelessly divided and unable to storm the fortifications protecting the evil geniuses who have been responsible for the creation of one monstrous regional war after another and that domestic monstrosity that is the post Citizens United pay to play payola lobbyists and legislators collusion factory. The one with all the revolving doors and automated conveyor belts that so easily facilitate money laundering on a truly global scale; with no one ever being held to account or going to jail.
We have to ignore the smoke, all the carnival funhouse deceiving mirrors and stay focused on dismantling that whole international crime syndicate. The one that, since 9_11and the passage of the Patriot Act and all those global anti-terrorism bills in Congress, has cost the United States over 8 trillion dollars. I don't know if anyone knows the real number. The accounting offices in the Pentagon were blown up on 9_11, along with all those Securities and Exchange Commission records in Building 7. It's bankrupting our economy, it's driving our European allies into poverty and it's been responsible for the deaths and forced immigration and displacement of millions. Even predating all of the post September eleventh foreign military disasters. In the 1990's there was the re-engineering of political boundaries in Europe as the Baltic countries were split from the former USSR and Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were broken apart, the former peacefully, the latter requiring multiple bombing runs over the course of many years.
How has all of that bombing and droning and exchanging of missile attacks become normalized and not just tolerated but accepted as a regular, recurring cost of doing international business? To the point that today, December 7th, 2024 actually feels like all of humanity could be just inches away from or precariously teetering right at the cliff edge of nuclear Armageddon.
And no one really knows who the F is driving the bus. It's certainly not geriatric Joe Biden, just as surely as it wouldn't have been Kamala Harris and it most likely won't be Donald J. Trump's sole perogative.
How do we begin to fight back against people (or organized groups of forces?) who have been successfully hiding in the shadows since the day Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as President?
Your excellent account of the dangers of the ever escalating war in Ukraine makes the urgency of defeating the Senate version of HR9495 more critical. Under HR 9495. w/ due process, nonprofits who oppose war and advocate for peace, will be denied tax-exempt status. We must preserve the rights to free speech, assembly and opposition if there are to be viable peace/justice vocies and movements in the USA.
????? have none of you been listening to Putin? In February and March 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it. This took place in the relative power vacuum immediately following the Revolution of Dignity. It marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Putin got little resistance encouraging him to go further into Ukraine Putins goals, fall into three baskets: weakening or disrupting Ukraine’s ties with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), stymieing Ukrainian nationalism, and expanding territorial gains. Putin is a an authoritarian dictator. He imprisons and kills those who oppose him. We are increasingly greeted by stories of a developing partnership between Russia, China, and North Korea. They are developing an imperialist partnership and wish to destroy democracy around the world, These are the men Trump admires, Trumps project 2025 which he is trying to carry out by placing cabinet members who don’t just have any expertise, but are sexual predators, substance abusers, have defrauded organizations or are pardoned felons, Trump wants to turn the US into an oligarchical authoritarian country, The US did not start this war. .this kind of misinformation is dangerous, Verify your facts . Opinions are not alternative facts,
I think BlackRock is trying to create a short term crisis to cash in on a market crash and recovery. Why would BlackRock permit provoking Russia if they were not expecting to profit?
Dennis, I am building a new political party and in the process of putting TDP on the ballot in all 50 states. Pls contact me, as I would love to talk to you about moving forward with this party.
With the "woke" idea losing traction and ground across the globe, naming a new political party as The Diversity Party sounds like a non-starter for success. Especially since your email address contains the word "progressive" which is also on a steep decline to irrelevance.
"Putin is not absolved for his invasion of Ukraine."
Really? The US/Biden basically declared war on Russia and used Ukrainians, 400,000 of them unalived, to wage a decades-old war on Russia/Soviet Union.
What would you have Putin do when psychopathic US decided to. place nuclear missile on the border of Russia???? Look what the US had done to Syria? TO PALESTINE! To inumerable other countries that have been shelled into the stone age so our psychopaths can steal their oil and resources.
Putin did what any reasonable leader of a country that is being invaded by psychopaths would do; he defended his homeland!
I don't buy it--blaming Putin for the invasion of Ukraine. The US started this war. You know that Dennis.
Everyone with a brain knows that. Anyone who's been paying attention to the facts and the longer history knows that but unfortunately, that multitude of people represents only a fraction of the population of the US.
You've got to dumb down your rhetoric, these days, for fear of spooking the news consuming cattle and steers.
One of the very many obvious facts we must never acknowledge because the feels about the subject are somehow more important.
I must have missed something. Where did he blame Putin for the Ukraine situation? Seems to me he pointed to the 2014 Maiten coup as the main cause…
"Putin is not absolved for his invasion of Ukraine." right at the beginning.
I am shocked by this from him.
Yes, he knows that. But he also knows that those who need, perhaps desperately, to hear his message are those who would turn a deaf ear if they found any hint of a reason to do so...
Anyone who watches youtube.com/watch?v=nmgDf6QiCps will know it.
What about the Donbass? Sergey Lavrov has said, "It is not us who started the war, which is repeatedly said, we started the operation to end the war which Kiev regime was conducting against it's own people in parts of Donbass"
That was part of it, but the main thing was they won't accept NATO bases in Ukraine. That would be the end of national security for Russia. Ukraine is close to Russia's oil.
Dennis, the debt due to wars and overspending on "defense" is likely higher than $8 trillion when you consider that every year roughly 60% of federal discretionary spending is devoted to the national (in)security state. Think of the F-35, estimated to cost $1.7 trillion over its lifetime, or plans to build new nukes (the Sentinel ICBM, the B-21 Raider, and new Columbia-class subs), estimated to cost $2 trillion over the next 30 years, and all unnecessary since we already have over 5000 nuclear warheads and weapons.
Consider as well the cost of arming Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, etc. And the fact that the State Department is basically a tiny branch of the Pentagon. And how Homeland Security is basically a department of internal war and surveillance.
It wouldn't surprise me if roughly half the U.S. national debt can be traced to wars and militarism, with perhaps the other half due to bailing out banks and similar excesses of "capitalism," i.e. socialism for the rich.
The national debt sure isn't due to helping working-class Americans.
The national debt has been increasing by a trillion dollars every 100 days since before Biden, as documented by FRED.
That would total $11T for his four years which is dead wrong. It's about $4T less than that.
It is up to the reporting method. FRED is the Federal Reserve's method.
This isn’t mine, but it’s one of the best things I’ve read on Substack. Always willing to plug a fresh(ish) take on a sensitive subject, so thought I’d spread it around. https://open.substack.com/pub/thewholetruthpublications/p/just-say-no-to-performative-policy?r=49mkzc&utm_medium=ios
Thanks. Very interesting.
Finally, the old Dennis speaks truth to power once again. Kudos!
Anyone who believes Biden is making any of the decisions at the top of our executive branch hasn’t been paying any attention to his lack of mental acquity during the past four years. When will those covering these events start saying “whoever is in charge at the White House” instead of “Biden”? This is actually important, and is the cause of “the West’s” brain dead policies. Until we fully acknowledge that this is the root of the problem, we are playing a blame game that is a huge distraction from the real problem we have.
THANK YOU!!! please post this (your) comment on every stack you subscribe to. it is so important for everyone to call a spade a spade while we still can agree on what a spade even is.
The reason Dennis is no longer in Congress is that he doesn't "fit in," because he's too honest and forthright. The Democratic Party maneuvered him out of Congress because they are a pack of lying warmongers who naturally saw his integrity as inconvenient and even threatening to their agenda. Aside from his one remark in this essay where he casts blame on Putin for invading (I mean, really, what choice did Putin have? He had tried his best for years to solve the Ukraine problem diplomatically), this essay is worthy of the Dennis Kucinich who served 16 honorable years in Congress as one of the very few truth-tellers & peace advocates in that dismally corrupt body.
@Richard Mynick
Hey, Dennis apparently didn't like to fly between campaign appearances, what else could they do to remove him without an obvious assassination?
Look up Paul Wellstone. I still think they took him out in his plane. And I'm still wondering about John Kennedy Jr's private plane crash on his way to Martha's Vineyard.
@Pauline P Schneider
I presently live in MN and have noted the distance between the FAA office which dispatched investigators and the Wellstone crash site, time of crash, arrival time of that first responding federal team who drove to the Wellstone crash site (and booted our local public safety personnel from site) and the speed attainable by typical road vehicles over such distances. There was an odd mismatch, almost as if this federal team had been pre positioned? Or somehow dispatched BEFORE the crash?! Does FAA have precognitive abilities? IDK.
I also well recall that the laws of chance briefly took an inexplicably heavy lean towards (inconveniently peaceful) democrats suffering air travel related deaths during George Bush (the Lesser's) first term in office.
Thank you Dennis.
From Dr. Strangelove, directed by Stanley Kubrick:
Russian Ambassador: I've done as you asked. Be careful Mr. President. I think he's drunk.
President Muffley:
Hello? Hello, Dimitri? Listen, I can't hear too well, do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little? Oh, that's much better. Yes. Fine, I can hear you now, Dimitri. Clear and plain and coming through fine. I'm coming through fine too, eh? Good, then. Well then as you say we're both coming through fine. Good. Well it's good that you're fine and I'm fine. I agree with you. It's great to be fine. laughs Now then Dimitri. You know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb. The bomb, Dimitri. The hydrogen bomb. Well now what happened is, one of our base commanders, he had a sort of, well he went a little funny in the head. You know. Just a little... funny. And uh, he went and did a silly thing. Well, I'll tell you what he did, he ordered his planes... to attack your country. Well let me finish, Dimitri. Let me finish, Dimitri. Well, listen, how do you think I feel about it? Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dimitri? Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello? Of course I like to speak to you. Of course I like to say hello. Not now, but any time, Dimitri. I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened. It's a friendly call. Of course it's a friendly call. Listen, if it wasn't friendly, ... you probably wouldn't have even got it. They will not reach their targets for at least another hour.
I love that movie not only because Peter Sellers is a genius but the story is pretty horrifying and accurate in its depiction of the psychopathy of the USA.
How I discovered my sig. other did not know what a merkin was... Smart girl, just not very verbal.
what are you talking about?
@Tommy
"President Merkin Muffley"?!
Have you watched Dr. Strangelove? See the credits...
Oh ok thanks, didn't know his first name. Peter Sellers was great in that and the other roles he played in that film.
Just don't make him answer to the Coca-Cola company!
https://youtu.be/DUAK7t3Lf8s?si=YtDZCBxmqjOB_QMj
That was half a century ago. It would take 15 min top for the missiles response to reach its targets.
Also, according to analysts, the new Russian missiles have the capability of reaching over 200 meters deep bunkers, rendering also launch sites useless. Ho and ships and airplanes carriers “floating coffins “.
So the friendly call would have to be just a quick text with some emojis.
The friendly call would be the one saying we should make peace and use the money we take back from the warmongers and death dealers to built a better future for mankind.
Cold War is a thing of the past, hypersonic weapons are turning something which can be reversible into what is bound to have an irreversible outcome.
For centuries mankind has been victim of its own ignorance and belief and now for the first time in centuries it has opened its eyes to the inescapable truth.
It is only when we stop fighting with one another that we can begin to together built a better future for ourselves and for our future generations.
The dangers posed by war are now to grave to be allowed to continue to exist.
Dennis, Putin's and Lavrov's explanations of their need to launch the Special Military Operation are not specious and they do not indicate the desire for territorial conquest that 'invasion' signifies. In short, Russia felt the need to protect Mother Russia from NATO and to protect their Russian brothers and sisters in the Donbas from a genuine invasion by Ukrainian forces, especially since the invasion was led by the Russia-hating ultranationalist (Nazi) forces who have had no compunction against killing Russians during the civil war that began in 2014. In essence, Russia conducted a 'humanitarian intervention' which was truly humanitarian unlike those of NATO in Serbia and Libya.
There's been a nuclear mushroom cloud sized blast of bogus disinformation, fear mongering and toxic speculation since the election. Some of it is legit caution and criticism but mainly, I think, it's a last ditch effort to maintain and even amplify partisan hyperpolarization. So the peasants and pitchfork and torch bearing villagers continue to remain so scared of each other's motives and allegiances they will remain hopelessly divided and unable to storm the fortifications protecting the evil geniuses who have been responsible for the creation of one monstrous regional war after another and that domestic monstrosity that is the post Citizens United pay to play payola lobbyists and legislators collusion factory. The one with all the revolving doors and automated conveyor belts that so easily facilitate money laundering on a truly global scale; with no one ever being held to account or going to jail.
We have to ignore the smoke, all the carnival funhouse deceiving mirrors and stay focused on dismantling that whole international crime syndicate. The one that, since 9_11and the passage of the Patriot Act and all those global anti-terrorism bills in Congress, has cost the United States over 8 trillion dollars. I don't know if anyone knows the real number. The accounting offices in the Pentagon were blown up on 9_11, along with all those Securities and Exchange Commission records in Building 7. It's bankrupting our economy, it's driving our European allies into poverty and it's been responsible for the deaths and forced immigration and displacement of millions. Even predating all of the post September eleventh foreign military disasters. In the 1990's there was the re-engineering of political boundaries in Europe as the Baltic countries were split from the former USSR and Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were broken apart, the former peacefully, the latter requiring multiple bombing runs over the course of many years.
How has all of that bombing and droning and exchanging of missile attacks become normalized and not just tolerated but accepted as a regular, recurring cost of doing international business? To the point that today, December 7th, 2024 actually feels like all of humanity could be just inches away from or precariously teetering right at the cliff edge of nuclear Armageddon.
And no one really knows who the F is driving the bus. It's certainly not geriatric Joe Biden, just as surely as it wouldn't have been Kamala Harris and it most likely won't be Donald J. Trump's sole perogative.
How do we begin to fight back against people (or organized groups of forces?) who have been successfully hiding in the shadows since the day Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as President?
the MIC is running this shit show. And will until we go extinct soon. :(
Great comment. You “get it”.
Lavrov said it all: youtube.com/watch?v=nmgDf6QiCps
I need to watch that!
Yes you do.
Your excellent account of the dangers of the ever escalating war in Ukraine makes the urgency of defeating the Senate version of HR9495 more critical. Under HR 9495. w/ due process, nonprofits who oppose war and advocate for peace, will be denied tax-exempt status. We must preserve the rights to free speech, assembly and opposition if there are to be viable peace/justice vocies and movements in the USA.
if more in washington thought like you Dennis we wouldn't be in this mess. keep doing the Lord's work
????? have none of you been listening to Putin? In February and March 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it. This took place in the relative power vacuum immediately following the Revolution of Dignity. It marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Putin got little resistance encouraging him to go further into Ukraine Putins goals, fall into three baskets: weakening or disrupting Ukraine’s ties with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), stymieing Ukrainian nationalism, and expanding territorial gains. Putin is a an authoritarian dictator. He imprisons and kills those who oppose him. We are increasingly greeted by stories of a developing partnership between Russia, China, and North Korea. They are developing an imperialist partnership and wish to destroy democracy around the world, These are the men Trump admires, Trumps project 2025 which he is trying to carry out by placing cabinet members who don’t just have any expertise, but are sexual predators, substance abusers, have defrauded organizations or are pardoned felons, Trump wants to turn the US into an oligarchical authoritarian country, The US did not start this war. .this kind of misinformation is dangerous, Verify your facts . Opinions are not alternative facts,
Thank you. Agree 100%
I think BlackRock is trying to create a short term crisis to cash in on a market crash and recovery. Why would BlackRock permit provoking Russia if they were not expecting to profit?
Dennis, I am building a new political party and in the process of putting TDP on the ballot in all 50 states. Pls contact me, as I would love to talk to you about moving forward with this party.
https://thediversityparty.com
With the "woke" idea losing traction and ground across the globe, naming a new political party as The Diversity Party sounds like a non-starter for success. Especially since your email address contains the word "progressive" which is also on a steep decline to irrelevance.
"Diversity" Party. That's what the terrorists in Syria are trying to sell themselves as. How woke.
Come get your drunk butt-naked mama out of my driveway....and bring some clothes and WD-40.
Great way to build a movement buddy.
"Putin is not absolved for his invasion of Ukraine."
Really? The US/Biden basically declared war on Russia and used Ukrainians, 400,000 of them unalived, to wage a decades-old war on Russia/Soviet Union.
What would you have Putin do when psychopathic US decided to. place nuclear missile on the border of Russia???? Look what the US had done to Syria? TO PALESTINE! To inumerable other countries that have been shelled into the stone age so our psychopaths can steal their oil and resources.
Putin did what any reasonable leader of a country that is being invaded by psychopaths would do; he defended his homeland!