And the war itself.
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Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
– – WH Auden
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
As if I had just woken from all water into dream.
— Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 1973
FSA/8d22000/8d224008d22491a.tif
The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother may yet line up with brother:
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can’t be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise,
You can’t hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people
march:
“Where to? what next?”
— Carl Sandberg
Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.
I cannot remember things I once read
A few friends, but they are in cities.
Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup
Looking down for miles
Through high still air.
BY GARY SNYDER
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Van der Leun: The Normblog Bio of Your Host
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
– – W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
As if I had just woken from all water into dream.
— Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 1973
Comments on this entry are closed.
Joseph Goebbels Award for contemporary propaganda goes to…
This is simply reporting, in my opinion, no matter which side one supports.
I’d say the JG Award goes to the Western media Casey.
On the one hand I’m shocked that you have chosen the path of ignorance, but I’m not surprised.
After the countless discussions over two years about mass formation psychosis, plus the mountains of evidence of lies from the corporate media, all of a sudden half the population of so-called “conservatives” have turned into full blown textbook cases of Gell-Mann Amnesia. It’s like Pavlov’s dog. The corporate media says “civilians killed” and the saliva reflex kicks in: Russia did it!
Do you really believe CNN over this? Sad.
Casey, I’m rather surprised at your assessment of this guy’s reporting. I know he’s just a crowdfunded guy, sorta like Yon, but unlike Yon, this guy isn’t pitching you anything, well, except for he would like you to subscribe to his channel and maybe donate a few bucks. A Bing search yields these results for Patrick Lancaster, which seem to indicate he’s been covering the ongoing conflict in Donbass for a number of years.
I, personally, find his reports (I’ve only watched the two Gerard has posted) fairly solid. He doesn’t seem to take sides, and the fact that he evidently speaks 3 languages (Ukrainian/Russian/English) is also a mark in his favor, in my opinion. Like Mr. ONeil, I think the JG award goes to Western MSM.
Do you know something I am missing in regards to Patrick Lancaster?
Surprised? Why? Casey has made it clear since this war began that he favored Ukraine and that he despised Putin and Russia. Nothing has been able to shake him from that stance. He simply rejects anything that might even slightly contradict his view. Thus his calling the video nothing but Goebbels-like propaganda. He disavows it, and that is that. Casey’s view is the mainstream view; that is, it is shared among the media and world elites. He bolsters this with his wide knowledge about warfare and all the tactics, logistics and strategy associated with it. This makes some very odd bedfellows as Casey expresses the exact opinions on the war that Pelosi, Romney, Biden and Schumer express.
I am the polar opposite. And, like Casey, nothing can shake me from my stance. My view is the minority view, even when it can be stated without censorship. Very briefly: Ukraine has been for almost 20 years an outpost of Globohomo. It is also the source of wide-spread US corruption and bio-weapons, as any look at Pelosi, Biden and Romney could attest. “President” Zelenskyy is a massively corrupt, sexually degenerate and coke-addled puppet of Cabal. Putin is putting the US—the “Empire of Lies”—to the test.
I support Russia. Casey does not. In a month or so all this will be over. We will see which side wins.
I appreciate your trying to assess our differences. In 2 sides of an opinion, it isn’t rocket science to support the defenders. Bullshit I support Biden’s side. He’s certainly corrupt to the bone, and Ukrainian corruption is rampant. Doesn’t mean they cannot turn around as a populace. Ukraine happens to be one of the most conservative nations anywhere, culturally. The American liberal has no idea he’s supporting the most conservative nation.
You support the same side as ANTIFA. But I won’t tar you with it because I think you’re trying to figure out what’s best. Russia is not the best outfit. They abandon their troops in the field, and covet the other nations in their periphery.
I will say it again. I don’t look at news items (CNN? said some wit), I look at big picture Russian war fighting versus their field manuals. When Crimea was taken, I could see it was textbook SpecOps/Spetnaz operations. If many enjoy this Brit reporter (I think he’s biased), why not compare the reporting of Simon Ostrovsky? He reported on black ops, Russian fifth column agitators who rioted in front of city halls all through the Donbass, hauled the mayor and chief of police into the streets and beat them. These are the Russians.
Russia will proclaim a win but compare it to what they want, not what they declare. They act like they wanted to scuttle the Moscva, and they had no intention of taking Kiev. I call bullshit.
I actually disfavor Russia more than I favor Ukraine. If this was Russia versus Romania, I’d be rooting for the Romanians. Whose side would you be on in Russia versus Poland? Holland? Sweden? Finland?
I will write some thoughts on the contemporary mess we’re in. 5th GEN conflict, and how we are living in a post-political (which also means post-warfare) time. Not that politicians and war don’t exist, but the objectives are new and unique in critical ways.
Components of Russian side reporting. Never any actual fighting shown, but alluded to. Camera shows Russian combat front, or Russian imbed. Overwrought, over-acting Ukrainian oldsters bitching about something, and finally…drumroll, please…civil affairs event: Babushka crossing the street escorted by Russian soldier. Soldiers and reporter evacuate medical emergency victim. Pan to group of soldiers from Georgia, flashing thumbs up!
We tend to find reporting items that rub against our selected winner (ethically at least) to be the ones that we reflexively term propaganda. In this war it is clear that both sides have been throwing items at us off of a fecal calliope of propaganda spew. This not so much I think but at least you get the sense he is at least within a whiff of gunsmoke. High marks for reporting near to bullets. As war photographer Frank Capa said, ‘If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”
Here’s the same reporter from seven years back in the same area:
I saw the one with a Russian motorized infantry unit dismounted and fighting in a city, and I thought to myself now they’re finally fighting their infantry the proper way! But, no enemy in the scene, then fukn Ivan escorting babushka thought the live fire square like a GD boy scout, then the cam pans to the Georgian troops thumbs up! Boilerplate and the elements are here in this posted vid. Yes, Ukraine has ‘ganda, too. It involves drones killing tanks in grainy vids, and soldiers walking around showing destroyed Russian equipment and vehicles. The production quality of the Russian ones are very slick, but weak on plot. Juvenile, in fact.
Sorry; not sorry.
Winners! Their will be no winners.
Maybe so. Maybe no. But somebody has to lose. Somebody always loses.
From war, everybody loses.
This whole ukraine-russia thing, as presented, is mostly theater with little truth, as is the norm these days. I don’t pay much attention to it. Seems everything the us gov’t and/or media gets involved with becomes quickly muddied, soiled, heavily made-over so that it’s not possible to find any truth in any of it. I’ve got better things to do. Look! There’s a squirrel!
One thing that seems to be happening is that Ukrainians are trying to create situations where civilians get killed, so they can feed the narrative that Russians are committing war crimes, so that the arms from NATO keep flowing in. People talked about how Ukrainians told citizens to assemble at a school that was then destroyed, either by Ukrainians themseves or due to malicious disinfo
Another thing not widely known .. Russians are a significant minority in Mariupol, perhaps 30%. And these Russians say that Ukrainians, and especially Azov Bn types target them. Ive seen some 10 of this guy’s videos and all the witnesses in all the videos make this charge.
The extent of destruction is mind blowing, every one of hundreds of buildings that appear in these videos are seriously damaged.
People who think Putin is some kind of fool should stop to consider that the troops doing the house-to-house in Mariupol are predominantly Chechens. This is a guy who resolved the bungled bloody disaster of the Chechen War, gave them some autonomy and respect and here they are fighting for him *and* having fun — a Chechen without a battle is not a Man in Full.
Related, I’d imagine there’s enough institutional memory of Grozny in the Russian military leadership to ensure they don’t make too many urban ware stuff ups. From my limited understanding, the great lesson of Grozny was that you don’t attempt to go into cities in armored force because get picked off with man portable anti-tank weapons. Instead, you do probing reconnaissance and then rain down artillery and air strikes on any strong points you find. Plus now everyone uses drones. Lots of Telegram footage of the Chechens using COTS DJI drone footage to target the Azovs and do basic bitch stuff like walk indirect heavy machine gun fire over intervening buildings onto them.
I agree that Mariupol is wrecked like a WWII city from history.
What I’ll never understand is how those ‘waskily Ukrainians talked the Russians into invading them.
Ask also who is sitting up in the tree saying, “Go to it husband. Go to it bear.”
Gerard, who’s shooting at who?. If one can shot pics, of that squads movement Imagine what one man, or woman with a specialized rifle and optics, measuring equipment, could accomplish. From the cameras nest.
Glad you asked.
https://www.takimag.com/article/the-reality-gap/
“One of the lessons of the Great War was that the political class in a liberal society could not afford to allow the military elite to control war policy. Once the war began, policy making was largely handed over to the generals. It was their job to prosecute the war, and the politicians organized the domestic support for it. The monstrous results of this arrangement made clear that war cannot be left to the generals.
A century later, we are seeing a replay of this terrible error. The political class in the West has handed foreign policy and war making over to a professional class that operates independently from the political class. Regardless of the party in power, the foreign policy of the West remains the same, because the people designing and executing policy never change, regardless of election results.
This reflects the political reality of the Global American Empire. A semipermanent cabal of insiders, along with the military-industrial complex, run foreign policy. Thirty years ago, neoconservatives gained control of the foreign policy establishment of the United States, and they have dictated policy to the politicians. The one exception was Donald Trump, which is why he was regime-changed out of office.
Of course, this means they control war policy as well. The military of the Global American Empire has been transformed to meet the needs of the foreign policy elite that uses it as its primary weapon of diplomacy. The intelligence services have also been integrated into this system. The result is an American foreign policy that consists mostly of regime change and aerial bombardment.
It is this narrow group that has been running Ukraine policy since the Obama administration, and they are the people responsible for the current war. They were prepping Ukraine for entry into NATO, relying on a mix of NATO officers, private military contractors, and spooky characters from the shadows. All of this was in furtherance of the war on the current Russian leadership….”
This reads like a devilish mix of truth, intrigue and no small amount of bullshit. There is no “Global American Empire”. Oligarchs, yes. Globalist Dr Evil (s), yes. Empire? ‘da fuck ids that? Empire is what ended in the wreck of World War I.
“…war on the current Russian leadership?” Jeebeez fukn Cripes. That’s rather a neatly tucked in conclusion, isn’t it? Obama was anti-NATO in my estimate. Trump treated NATO like an errant child, and disciplined it.
We may be in a bewildering new geo-political environment, but it still includes some of the old environment.
GVD, I agree the war is cheered on by some hidden powers. Biden, supposedly pro-Ukraine, as much as gave the green light to Russia to invade. Are we all in agreement with Biden for his glad hand towards Russia?
Vodka man bad is so bizarre as they repeat the Bolshevik revolution in the gaslight uber alles unity hiveborg collective former USA and Ukrainian Nazis are OK is just the cherry on top of Clown World.
Honking clown horns, rainbow wigs, colorful beach balls, K-Tel Freedom Rock compilations for all.
I like this. Unironically.
Me too as I lay down every night on my Surrealistic Pillow and contemplate this pitiful ball of mud around a second-class star out in the sticks of an unremarkable galaxy.
While I’m not paying attention, I recognize, what’s being seen is standard Russian Doctrine. The one point I’m not clear on is, why are the Russians staying on the roads, very unusual.
Dirk: Because Rasputitsa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasputitsa
Even if we can’t see vast seas of mud in the pictures and videos, it’s possible that in many places the ground is not yet OK for very heavy vehicles (many of which are not tracked).
Nutella,
What video I’ve seen, the ground appeared to be frozen. Don’t know when what I viewed was filmed.
Road marching is a fools errand, it gets your people killed.
I tend to defer to the people on the ground knowing what’s best for them at any given moment.
The Russians are neither strategic geniuses or bumbling oafs. If they’re on the roads, it’s because reasons.
You look at some videos and you see ‘frozen ground’… OK… Now go drive an APC or an S400 launcher over it and get back to me. I don’t know. Can’t claim to be any kind of armchair military expert.
But Occam and a stick of Burma Shave suggests that they’re not yomping all over the steppes in heavy vehicles for some sensible reason.
Yes roads get you killed when you have the USAF pot shotting fleeing Iraqi columns. So where are all the miles upon miles of burned out Russian Convoys? Come to think of it where is the Uke Airforce? (hint, hint) Again… maybe Ivan knows something we don’t and isn’t IQ65 and zonked out of his brain on Sackler Pills. I dunno.
Point taken.
Sigh. We’re seeing Russia not following their doctrine. You really ought to read what I’m writing; I read their field manual translations in the 70s-80s.
You are right to consider the roads. They are too lazy to run off road. See those tank treads? I wonder what they’re for? WWII tank warfare was all over The Ukraine because it is fabulous tank country. Some bad ground exists on either side of the roads near the eastern border, but most of Eastern Ukraine is textbook tank country, especially in winter, and I notice their winter is colder than mine here in Eastern WA.
Morning Casey, I to own a collection of Russian military books. Some reasonably modern doctrine. What I’m seeing is lots of wheeled vehicles, vs tracked. I was in the Army Guard, was a Combat Engineer, a Scout, Air Cav. My time was 113 tracked vehicles mostly.
I did have the opportunity to ride a few tanks on road marchs. We were shoulder to shoulder in the 113s, engineer boxes lashed to the top. Hot, Dusty, the tankers we were supporting literally had a driver and a commander. Two men crews. So they asked if we would like to ride in the tank.
I did. In the gunners hatch. That was 84ish to 94ish. I got out. I was also deputy sheriff, working lots of long term under cover gigs. I usually MUTA’d due to long hair and beards. I had to provide letters from work. Hinting at my unusual work.
Anyway that was 40th div. Our mission was always counter Russian anything. My point our jobs were always study the Russian. Doctrine. We always got off the hard ball, moved forward spread out. But then that was along time ago.
Times change, and I seem to believe Nutella’s observation. My last thought is Russians don’t worry about loosing troops.
And lastly, what do you people thinks to civilians who pick up arms and fight. Out of uniform, in most wars were shot as spy’s, or guerrillas.
The minute el president armed his citizens, he guaranteed their being shot as spies. Lastly, the Russians prefer to take no prisoners, they don’t want to feed them and babysit them, no a bullet in the head solves most of Russians prisoner problems.
One of the bright spots here, we can disagree, dang close to civilly.
James,
What would we be disagreeing on.
Doctrine. Same thing as some churchgoers.
From my view point on this Ukrainian mess, If the current American dot gov is favoring one side, then I would be thinking the OTHER side was less to blame. I am no Putin fan, but the so called leader of Ukraine is a total sack of sh*t. A phoney, a liar, a criminal, Hollywood grade actor, sexual pervert and, etc. I see no difference between Z*l*nsky and Brandon B*d*n. Scum of the earth.
Just my opinions of course.
You don’t have to love Putin to despise the Troika of Biden.gov. You don’t have to be rooting for Russian expansionism to want the edges of the EU cess pool to be pushed back into their own mire. Like I said above, it helps to see what is up in the tree calling out, “Go to it Husband! Go to it Bear!” Indeed, those two jokeophoric roles might actually stand well for the three geopolitical forces at play in this repulsive and meatgrinding war within “the Damned Human Race.”
From my view point on this Ukrainian mess, If the current American dot gov is favoring one side, then I would be thinking the OTHER side was less to blame. I am no Putin fan, but the so called leader of Ukraine is a total sack of sh*t. A phoney, a liar, a criminal, Hollywood grade actor, sexual pervert and, etc. I see no difference between Z*l*nsky and Brandon B*d*n. Scum of the earth.
Just my opinions of course.
Putin’s business is just that, his business. When I see Biden’s business involved in Ukraine, I remember all the corruption and malfeasance in our own recent history. The MSM cannot convince me that we are saintly while the Russians are evil personified.
It’s time to remember we were supplying arms to one side before we entered into WWII. We are supplying arms to one side now, in a nuclear armed world. Are You sure it’s the right side?
My 2 cents…
We try to rationalize everything in light of our western narrative…
There is nothing western about Ukraine or Russia..
This is a land war in Asia… fought with an ancient Asian narrative we cannot even begin to explain or understand with our limited attention spans..
They (Asian land wars) are always confusing, bloody, dramatic and fruitless
The Ukranian people are being used as NPC characters to round out a bigger narrative…
Gerard is correct…. Who is doing the cheerleading from both sides??
Now that’s a fresh thought. Thanks.