The Production of Evil

[По-русски]

[Sometimes a peеk behind the Iron Curtain erected by western media can be most instructive. However, this can be rather difficult to do for those who can only read in English or other western European languages. And so, to show you what people are thinking out in the big world where most people live, here is a translation of an opinion piece that appeared recently in the Russian press. If any of this is a surprise to you, you need to do more research. Enjoy!]

The word “ISIS” was laid out in the same font as the word “Hollywood.”

ISIS fighters executed the director of the architectural complex at Palmira, The 82-year-old Khalid Al Asaad was beheaded, and his body was hung on an antique column in the main town square.

ISIS has created a name for itself not just because of their exceptional cruelty. Lots of people can be cruel. But usually countries, organizations and people hide their cruelty. They hide it even if they aren't ashamed of it, but ISIS is demonstratively cruel, for the sake of the show.

Corn Madness Revisited

[En français]

Five years ago I received an unusual email from an unusual character: Yevgeny. I translated and published his letter under the title Corn Madness, and it got some 17,000 reads—a big number for me at the time—and plenty of comments. Yevgeny wrote of his experience with living in the US, and his impressions of it.

Subsequently, we met, and I got to know him. He is educated as a philosopher, a non-drinker, non-smoker, athletic, a self-taught polyglot, an accomplished musician and sound technician, but he was also, by virtue of his economic situation, working as a day-laborer at the time.

Since that time, Yevgeny has returned to Russia. I recently wrote to him and asked him to write an update, which he was kind enough to provide. Below is the original article, followed by his update.

Peculiarities of Russian National Character

Zimnik

[Peculiaridades do caráter nacional russo]
[Zvláštnosti ruského národného charakteru]
[Особенности Русского Национального Характера]
[Aspects particuliers du caractère Russe]
[Svéráz ruské národní povahy]
[Particolarità dell’animo nazionale russo]
[Peculiaridades del Carácter Nacional Ruso]

← Ancient Slavic god Zimnik: a squat old man, long hair the color of snow, wears a white coat, always barefoot. Carries an iron staff, one swing with which instantly freezes everything solid. Can summon snowstorms, ice storms and blizzards. Goes around taking whatever he likes, especially children who misbehave.

Recent events, such as the overthrow of the government in Ukraine, the secession of Crimea and its decision to join the Russian Federation, the subsequent military campaign against civilians in Eastern Ukraine, western sanctions against Russia, and, most recently, the attack on the ruble, have caused a certain phase transition to occur within Russian society, which, I believe, is very poorly, if at all, understood in the west. This lack of understanding puts Europe at a significant disadvantage in being able to negotiate an end to this crisis.

Leveling the Playing Field of Death

[En français]

In April 2015, the Washington DC-based Physicians for Social Responsibility released a landmark study concluding that the death toll from 10 years of the “War on Terror” since the 9/11 attacks is at least 1.3 million, and could be as high as two million. However, Nafeez Ahmed begs to differ, writing that western wars have killed four million or more Muslims since 1990.

It seems that the Empire is exterminating Muslims at a higher rate than those of other confessions. Why might that be? There seem to be two competing philosophies at work within the throbbing brain of the Empire: the environmentally hostile, infinite growth-oriented, natalistic view of economists, and the eco-friendly, Malthusian, population-control view of ecologists.

Emergency Eyewash

About a year and a half ago this blog underwent a shift of focus: instead of discussing all things collapse-related, as I have been doing since 2008, I started devoting my attention to the types of collapse we are currently observing:

• Collapse of American hegemony and the old world order
• Collapse of Western “values” and of the Western “civilizational” narrative
• Collapse of the fictional, extend-and-pretend, financial stability of the Eurozone and the US dollar zone
• Collapse in Western media's ability to report on world events

Many people have clearly found this new, sharper focus much more interesting than the discussion of collapses in general: blog traffic has tripled, and now fluctuates between 250,000 and 300,000 reads a month.

This change of focus has helped me define a new mission for myself and for this blog: it is to do what I can to breach the information blockade imposed on the English-speaking world by the corporate-controlled Western media.

Along the way, I have produced a body of work some 70,000 words long, which I have just published as a paperback, titled Emergency Eyewash—the second title from Club Orlov Press, with three more in the works.

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