True. That's why I said I don't read too much into it. Still, one way to confirm a causal relationship from otherwise superficial similarity, is to see if there's a plausible timeline for the symbol to have evolved.
For instance, the original symbols of Christianity were the fish and the "chi rho" (which looks like a P over an X - and if you squint a bit, like a man's figure with his limbs stretched on the aforementioned X-shaped Roman crucifix). However, early Christianity was further molded in the care of the Coptic church, which used the Ankh, known as the "crux ansata", as a mainline symbol. And as the Coptic church was instrumental in the development of Christianity, eventually the symbol further developed into the Crucifix we know today.
The interesting coincidence here - and the reason I say symbols outlive scripture - is that the Ankh wasn't just a random scribble, but one of the most important symbols in Egyptian religion - signifying both divine domain and... eternal life. As in, the eternal life offered by the god Osiris, himself risen from the dead and having the power of judgment over all souls... Sounds familiar, doesn't it? A bit too much to be a coincidence on it's own, I'd wager.
Hard to say if it's true or not, like with many religions assertions. But it does make for a dangerous proposition to Judaeo-Christian societies, since it takes their ultimate leverage - the fear of damnation - and just does away with it. Much like how a Buddhist has no fear of losing their soul or suffering in hell - since in their view, the "soul" is itself an unwanted artifact of previous lives, and suffering is a state of internal being, not external circumstances.
Looking at the miles-long convoy outside Kiev now, as well as the entry of the Chechens on the playing field, I suspect that both are meant to keep the Ukrainians in check, while the real goal is the aforementioned takeover of the eastern part of the country.
The thing about the Chechens is that, unlike a conventional army, they aren't exactly "deployed", as much as they are unleashed - and all hell breaks loose afterward. I suspect they're already getting restless, and even Putin can't fully control them - which is exactly what he's banking on, because it makes for a far greater threat. It's basically a tool to prod Zelensky into quicker negotiations, giving up Donetsk and Lugansk in order to keep Kiev from getting ransacked by the real-life Uruk-Hai.
Now, negotiations are supposedly set to resume tomorrow. (The very fact that they're taking the weekend off is already suspicious but that's neither here nor there.) If what I suspect is true, Zelensky will either wisely back off and let the secession take place... or he'll do something stupid to provoke more bloodshed as a last resort. Either way, I'm not seeing this stalemate continuing after that week. Not with the Chechens in sight anyway.
Agreed. Western media and pop-culture tends to pretend Eastern religions either don't exist, or amount to quirky worship of weird-looking statues by the resident "funny foreigner" sitcom character. Same goes for meditation, yoga and tai-chi being treated as cool and fancy health routines, without any attention to their spiritual underpinnings or the overall lifestyle that goes to them.
I suspect westerners just aren't comfortable with the fact that there are not just other religions, but completely different paradigms of spirituality, compared to Judaeo-Christian monotheism and all its own quirks. Heathen gods are all well and good (well, bad, usually), but the very concept of religion where gods aren't central, of morality that's mandated by one's actions, rather than divine judgement; or of rebirth that's universal rather than offered only to the righteous - that simply does not compute.
It's a pet theory of mine that creeds and religions have fought for millennia, adopting similar sets of symbols each time.
For instance, the Eagle/Falcon & Sun - symbol of the god Ashur, certain parts of Egypt, ancient Rome, the Third Reich etc. - has frequently faced off with...
The Egyptian Crook & Flail, now better seen as the Hammer & Sickle.
Meanwhile, the Six-Pointed Star - symbol of the Babylonian minor god Ninurta, now a Judaism symbol (moreover, Ninurta is also associated with stone tablets, another Jewish symbol), seems to always clash with...
The symbol of the Crescent Moon and Star - associated both with the ancient goddess Inanna/Ishtar and with modern Islam.
And of course, the ancient Ankh is actually far closer to a modern Crucifix than the actual crucifying setup used by the Romans (since those were X-shaped).
I don't really try and read too much into this. My general conclusion is that symbols will always outlive scripture, though I don't think it's mere coincidence that the followers of these symbol sets tend to end up at odds with each other.
My money's on the eastern half of it, cut around the Dnieper river.
Meanwhile, the Russians are currently looking to pass a law that would criminalize "disinformation" about the Russian Army... so, basically, an excuse to ban western social media and news outlets. With the already effective ban on Russian "propaganda" in the EU, both sides have reached the summit of Mount Stupid and are now building towers to go even higher.
Oh, I'm not saying the Ukrainian Nazis are all that real. I'm saying that narrative can be a useful card to play at the right time. The fact that the EU rushed headlong into openly sending weapons, fully aware they're being given to civilians (which breaks more laws of war than I can mention off-hand), is already suspicious. Moreover, rifles and other small arms are one thing, but nobody in their right mind gives RPGs to conscripts and irregulars. It's a recipe for disaster, and both sides would know it.
And yes, overall, the conflict is staged; the question is for how long, and to what end. According to RT, Russia has already turned off the gas tap - if that goes on for more than a couple of months, the EU will learn a whole new meaning to the phrase "winter is coming"... in mid-summer at that. My own country is mostly nuclear, but entirely dependent on Russian isotopes - and I'm not that nostalgic for the 80s and 90s, to miss the power shortage.
"Left european governments seems to be at least as corrupted as Urkainian or Russian government with the same ignorance about their people."
Yeah, that's what I meant - European governments are just as corrupt, yet this doesn't seem to register on the average leftist's radar. It's like they have no taste buds for it or something.
I also agree that the West wouldn't even consider the thought of getting Ukraine in the EU, if not for something truly drastic... like, say, the threat of Russian occupation. Their hand is being forced, by their own favorite tool - playing the hero, especially on social media. And after that, if more and more reports of Ukrainian Nazis come to light, it'll be a real image-breaker, not just for the current crop of leftist politicians, but for their laymen supporters. Imagine a conversation going like this:
"You're racist for not liking illegal migrants!"
"Bitch, you literally donated to Nazis."
". . . "
I believe the correct term is "gender assignment on hold, pending self-declaration"... Or at least that will be the correct term in five years or so.
But yeah, I'm really starting to hope that Ukraine (sans Donetsk, Lugansk & co.) is warmly and speedily welcomed in the EU... and then all hell breaks loose when its shady side comes to light.
I mean, there's "impossibly corrupt government" kind of shady - which the western left has conditioned itself to ignore; and then there's "armed, funded and welcomed literal genocidal Nazis", which might just be too big of a mouthful to swallow.
I think you're dealing with Exhibit A on "how not to create a false-flag troll" here.
Anyway, in order to get a fuller picture of events, I'm interested in the Donetsk and Lugansk situation of the past eight years or so. After all, the official reason for the current operation are the claimed atrocities against ethnic Russians in the areas, leading to them declaring sovereignty. So, what's the deal there? Can you recommend any sources I can check up (in Russian is fine too)?
Now that's interesting.
It's also consistent with the otherwise weird actions of the Russian army near Kiev, namely the abandonment of tons of military vehicles and equipment, all while steering clear of the Eastern cities.
The Russians are destroying infrastructure in the Western half, leaving guns and ammo (as is the EU) to make the place a warlord's paradise for the next decade, so that the Ukrainian army proper will be completely disabled from acting against the now Russia-controlled Eastern half. Donetsk and Lugansk join Crimea as Russian vassal republics, while what's left of Ukraine joins the EU, but is otherwise defanged as a nation state.
I'll ponder this some more, a few details still don't fit that puzzle. In the meantime, nice catch.
Yeah, the "Kyiv" thing sounds like the whole gender pronoun situation - the fastest way to see if a person is at least on the side of sanity (not necessarily for or against Russia or Ukraine), is to see if they've adopted the latest newspeak released by the media.
Anyway many thanks for the list. What do you think about Sputniknews or Pravda.ru? I know the first one is at least prominent enough to get banned by the EU, along with RT and TASS. To me, the fact they've outright ignored Pravda looks nothing short of hilarious.
Meanwhile, I also looked at UNIAN, which is the mainstream Ukraine news source... and, by some mysterious coincidence, they're suspending their English language editorial. You'd think they'd want even greater coverage in the European trade language, now that the whole EU is looking at them. Funny, no?
My theory on the sanctions is that Putin actually wanted for Russia to be taken out of SWIFT, since it already has its own alternative system, as do China and India. They use their own national currencies, while SWIFT is mostly based around the dollar. So there's likely a major upcoming financial crisis concerning one or the other (or both), and detaching from them is a precaution.
As for the other sanctions - I find them laughable at best. Especially the censorship concerning Russian media in the EU - both RT and Sputnik are getting blocked or DDoS-ed as "government propaganda"... but Pravda is completely ignored? How come? (Though maybe it's just not that popular.) Never mind just using VPN or Tor, but it's not like digital literacy has ever been a strong suit for politicians, even younger ones.
All in all, I do think we have a Wag the Dog situation unfolding, either a complete distraction or a particular spin on certain other events. I'm pretty sure Kiev is not a fun place to be in right now, but I doubt it can be properly called a war zone.
In the meantime, I just hope they don't close the Russian stores where I live. Finding good caviar is hard enough, never mind having to make my own salads.
Putin bringing in the Chechens really was an "out of the blue" moment, even for an already weird conflict.
My theory is still that the plan is to give the Ukrainian nationalists just enough rope to hang themselves - by leaving stray tanks, choppers and other equipment, and then goading them into using it within the cities. Probably by letting the Chechens loose to serve as cannon fodder.
To that effect, there's already footage of individual tanks and other armored vehicles just randomly shooting up stuff, plus the occasional missile of mysterious origin - whatever those are, they don't look like air-to-surface to me, so I don't think they're from Russian aircraft. This is simply not how urban warfare works... but it looks very much like the actions of amateurs with brand new toys to mess around with.
Subsequently, once the dust clears (and conveniently after Ukraine is fast-tracked into the EU), we might see a list of atrocities to rival the Somali, with plenty of evidence pointing to the Ukrainian nationalists. Since the EU has so far supported them unconditionally, this is a powerful card to play on the global stage.
Time will tell if any of this comes true, of course. Meanwhile, it's good to have eyes and ears a bit closer to the action. Stay safe, чувак.
"...non-aggressive..."
The Donetsk and Lugansk regions might beg to differ. Combat there has been practically continuous since 2014 if not earlier, led by actual self-described Neo-Nazis (namely the Azov Battalion), more than eager to purge any ethnic Russians (y'know, white people) they can get their hands on.
In that regard, considering how happy the EU was to give them any weapons it could, I'm really starting to think at least part of the operation involves a sting-type setup for the Brussels bastards.
As in, the EU & co. were duped into supporting and arming literal Nazis, and enabling further atrocities with their usual biased attitude toward the events, so when this comes to light, they'll have no leg to stand on for any moral accusation they might have toward Russia, China, or whoever else one might think of. Is that "based" enough?
But, muh whataboutism... /s
Yeah, that's pretty much the case. It's kinda funny that now, in the Indian news, there are articles denouncing the racism of media coverage of the Ukraine situation. Namely, statements to the effect of "I'd expect this in Iraq, but not here", or "I can't believe this is happening in Europe and not the Third World", etc.
This kind of attitude is pretty telling of how the legacy media considers war and disorder to be the default state for countries outside Europe and North America... particularly nations that have endured EU and US aggression for decades. So it's not just that the media outlets have picked up this particular conflict as their current ratings milker, but they have explicitly ignored or downplayed conflicts benefiting their own patron states. Funny how that works.
Funny development of events, really - in 2014, around the annexation of Crimea, there was another threat to expel Russia from SWIFT. So Russia developed its own system. So did China. So did India. And they all use them to trade between each other using their own national currencies, while SWIFT is dependent on the dollar... and the dollar is dependent on SWIFT.
So now, well, gee, it's almost as if Russia wanted to get out of SWIFT, without raising suspicion about the system's long-term stability by leaving on its own. I mean, it would be terrible if a major financial crisis was to happen in a few months, wouldn't it? Like, say, if Swiss banks were found guilty of money-laundering and their assets were frozen for investigation...
All in all, chaps, I think we'll need a lot of popcorn throughout the year. Because this movie's getting epic.
The legacy media pushed both the jab and now the Russophobia. It's not surprising that the people who've permanently replaced their cognitive faculties with whatever the news tell them to think, will nod in agreement to both sentiments.
Exactly. The new spelling - and the media pronouncing it like "Keev" instead of "Key-ev" like before - is the equivalent of declaring your pronouns on social media. It's yet another example of political correctness with no particular logic behind it. Also, we've always been at war with Eastasia, but that's neither here nor there.
Well, Russia wanting a return to its Cold War power and prestige is pretty self-explanatory. An added factor now is that a separation of banking systems would curb the efforts of oligarchs to steal and launder away national funds - hence the currently developing scandal with Swiss bank money laundering.
Respectively, countries like China and India will gain a wealthy (as in cash-in-hand) trading partner in Russia, which will allow them to also detach from the dollar and be independent from the less than stable Western consumer markets.
For the US, the dethronement of the dollar as the global reserve currency will be a hit initially, presenting obstacles in foreign imports and outsourcing labor... which are the perfect conditions for renewing Trump's "buy American, hire American" policies and developing independent internal markets, particularly in the resource and manufacturing industries. The "Rust Belt" might just get a shiny new polish.
As for the EU, the excuse of Russian aggression (along with the US's continued withdrawal from its NATO duties) will be used to boost its own military-industrial complex - as Germany has already set out to do.
So now it's wise to ask - where's the catch? With so much gains, someone has to lose. And they do. Bigly. I've already mentioned the oligarchs, but the major losers will be precisely the kind of unscrupulous banking clans and financial regulators that caused the 2008 recession. Their own power will be severely diminished - which is why the media right now is also reeeing to high heaven. We're talking about a trap decades in the making, that's only becoming visible now, when it's too late to stop its momentum, and when a number of power players - the Clintons, Biden and his handlers, Merkel etc. - have been leveraged out of the way.
Finally, for us simple folk, all that's left to do is enjoy the fireworks, and maybe take up a vocational class as preparation for the impending labor market growth.
Some of it is current, most of it is old. And yeah, it's mostly for show (though I'm sure a few idiots on the ground didn't get the memo, or got into accidents without intending to).
But hey, at least it's moving on from the covidiocy of the past two years. Yesterday the guard at my local (Balkan nation) mall told me the jab passes are no longer mandatory. As he put it, it's "masks off, helmets on" for the time being. And, well, while the "masks" show was something generally unfamiliar to my region, the "helmets" sequel is just the remake of an old classic. All it takes now is for bell-bottom jeans and the Macarena to make a comeback, and it's the 90s all over again.
My take is simple: Both sides - the US / NATO / EU, and Russia / China / India (but we can't mention the latter out loud yet) want a step back toward Cold War conditions, and a general disentanglement of international economic/financial systems. And a "swift" kick in the ass for globalist political and economic players everywhere.
To elaborate, Russia actually wants to get out of SWIFT, since it already has its own equivalent system. So do China and India. They'll resume trade among themselves (and Iran etc.) using their own national currencies, while the dollar effectively becomes defunct as the global reserve currency. The end result - greater financial stability in the East, preventing incidents such as the 2008 financial crisis, and a severe reduction of global banking cartel influence worldwide. Of which the US will actually benefit as well, since these conditions will be used as pretext to eliminate globalist financial actors on American soil as well.
As for the current theatrics - Ukraine is either being reinforced as a buffer state (with tons of military gear being dumped by both sides, Russian vehicles conveniently "running out of fuel" right after arrival, all while Russia continues to deliver gas and utility supplies to the Ukraine infrastructure), or even better - it'll plead its case to rapidly join the EU and get accepted on a pity vote... whereupon Russia will now have a finger in the European pie, with no direct national obligations of its own.
All in all, not a bad game plan. There will be the obligatory barking and pretentious posturing by both sides, plenty of social media drivel as well, maybe some price increases and/or supply shortages for consumer goods, particularly in the EU. But other than that, it's nothing we haven't seen in the late 20th century already.
All or nothing... I'll have to consider that possibility as well.
From the start, I thought the operation was more of an intentional ploy to get Russia sanctioned, so that it would have an excuse to detach its economy from the west (with China and India following suit), without having much strategic value on its own. The tactics are unlike any I've seen, what with the dumping of arms and equipment on the territory, by both sides no less - if the Chechens do their thing in the big cities, half the country could become Somalia 2.0, and used as a buffer with the west.
But the situation now - it's like they're not even waiting for tactical support, but more like they're... stalling. Waiting for some event elsewhere. Same goes for the negotiations, which in all reports have been described in the vaguest terms, and which have proceeded at a pace I might even call leisurely, especially given the stakes at hand.
In short, somethin's fucky. For all the propaganda news about such and such vehicles or buildings being destroyed or people getting captured, both the conflict and the current stalemate seem artificial. And yet the political consequences are rapid and comprehensive, as if even the corporate players had a designated plan for this exact occasion, legal contract contingencies and all.
Time will tell how long this stalemate endures, and what precise event will happen just before it breaks up... though not necessarily with any direct attributable ties. It's a curious coincidence this happens at the exact same time as the Freedom Convoy in the US, which is now at D.C., and which has been mostly ignored by even the non-mainstream media.