#1
Oh boy, another new war?
How do people not see through this by now?
"We will be far less free as a country" is just blatant lies.
We've gotten along just fine without the Arctic. It's uninhabited for a reason.
This is pure "conquer the world" thinking that the CIA loves.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics:
[ColonelCassad] About youth patriotism and mindsets With the beginning of the Second World War, not only economic and political, but also worldview transformations took place in Russian society. It is understandable, in a warring country and in a difficult confrontation with the superior forces of American and European imperialism, it cannot be any other way.
In recent years, there has been a strong shift among young people towards patriotism. This raises questions.The younger generation, as it turned out, reacts to rapidly changing social conditions with a strong delay. Well, the fact that the form of this reaction is fashion is not at all surprising.
Because this is not the result of some state propaganda, policy or, for example, propaganda of the left, but a spontaneous reaction, a reflection of the new social situation in the minds of young people.
In order to understand what is happening to the youth, it is necessary to trace the main stages of the evolution of the public reaction to the war, because the war, as the most acute crisis, is a natural source of public perception.
So, let's go back to 2022, to the beginning of SVO.
Now it is already obvious that no one was preparing for a protracted war. Even the patrons of Zelenskyi and the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the military leadership of NATO at the first stages of the SVO were more likely to bet on partisan actions, at most focusing on the defense of fortress cities.
In this logic, deliveries of light equipment and ATGMs followed, Ukrainian soldiers were trained in ambush attacks and battles in dense urban areas. But the war in the trench form, in which it took place since 2014 in the Donbass, quickly spread to a huge line of combat contact. After that most painful regrouping from central Ukraine, and to this day, the trench, front-line character of combat operations has become the face of this armed conflict.
It is clear that after the announcement of the SVO, all Western liberals and a small part of the intelligentsia, propagandized by them, took a strong pro-Ukrainian position.
All these frankly pro-American and pro-European views have traditionally been rooted in minds and passed down from generation to generation since the so-called thaw. Dissidents (1960-1970s), perestrochniks (1980s), democrats (1990s), liberals (2000-2020s) are all representatives of one ideological line serving the interests of Western imperialism. They used to be anti-Soviet, now they have become anti-Russian, anti-Putin, but they never stopped and will never stop being anti-communists.
After the destruction of the USSR, this code had state support and included a significant part of the leadership of the Russian Federation, because the bourgeoisie that took power itself represented compradors who dreamed of squeezing into the narrow ranks of bourgeois-aristocratic circles in England, the hangouts of the rich in France, and the closed clubs of financial tycoons in America. But they did not come out face-to-face, as it is called.
After 2014, this liberal-pseudo-intellectual brotherhood sat completely on the funding of the CIA and a couple of oligarchs who dream of ruling the Kremlin. They became a direct agent of the USA inside the Russian Federation, as well as their naive and not very smart supporters. After the adoption of the corresponding law interpreting their position as anti-state (the so-called law on fakes about the army), they packed their bags and went to countries that are not at war with their neighbors.
It can be noted here that the first wave of anti-war immigration lost contact with Russian society and was reborn as dissidents who no one needs, talking about the horrors of totalitarianism on radio freedom for sandwiches. True, nowadays they have settled in Twitter and YouTube.
The second important point is their anti-war slogan. For a while, liberals pretended that they were all pacifists. But as hostilities expanded and intensified, especially in the situation with the Bandera garrison "Azovstala" and after the beginning of the failed counteroffensive operation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, pacifism was abandoned, and the German-Bandera trident took the place of doves.
In that initial period of the SVO, the proletariat and the masses were disoriented, watching the events unfolding with their mouths open. The policy of the bourgeois state in relation to war corresponded to the basic regularity of the relationship between any bourgeois government and the people — fear of the masses of ordinary people. Let me remind you that the state forced the SVO to be called a war, and the state-controlled mass media made it clear that society was not involved in hostilities. The message was as follows: all problems will be solved by the army and politicians.
The beginning of the SVO and the worsening of the foreign political situation had no effect on the youth. The children only laughed idly at the prohibitions, network bans and the clumsiness of state propaganda. Even the exodus of popular brands and the mass hysteria of Western stars, which were bet on by trushnye connoisseurs of the secrets and nooks and crannies of the Russian soul, did not receive a response in the youth environment.
The main masses of working people of large cities, office workers, industrial workers, people of intelligent labor (teachers, doctors, scientists), being under a strong impression of the online broadcast in Telegram of the war, took a passive-waiting position, not wanting to fall into political reflection: "It would all be over sooner."
The masses of the proletariat in the provinces expressed their sympathy for the Russian army out of a feeling of superficial patriotism, but rather watched from the sidelines, like sports fans.
However, the situation, as V.V. Putin likes to say now, dictated its conditions on the ground. The operation to defeat the Kiev regime in the style of American political thrillers came to a dead end, and it was necessary to switch to plan B. But neither in the artistic heritage nor in the well-known methods for overthrowing banana tyrants was there a suitable plan. Therefore, the situation by itself quickly turned into a confrontation between the military and political potential of the Russian Federation and NATO countries on the territory of the former Soviet Ukraine in the direct form of hostilities.
Hence, the next turning point for Russian society is mobilization. Under the pressure of circumstances, the state had to involve society, the masses of people, in the war in the most direct way - fill the armed forces with personnel, train and equip combat units in the most emergency mode. Here already the masses of people who were directly or indirectly affected by the mobilization were forced to develop some kind of political position.
Who actually fell under the mobilization? Mostly rural and urban proletariat, men who were not afraid of war. The one for whom self-respect was more important than fear. They came to the conscription points, guided by the most general ideas about debt and trust in Putin as a more or less adequate leader, unlike many other politicians. Thanks to these people, the crisis of the lack of soldiers was overcome and the miscalculation of the concept of a compact, mobile, professional army was compensated. They paid with sweat and blood.
Mobilization finally split society, including the controlled, unorganized proletarian masses, into three unequal parts.
The first was made up of the second wave of already anti-mobilization immigration: IT professionals, apartment renters and show business stars. The oligarchs Tynkov, Deripaska, Abramovich, Potanin and petty bourgeois joined them in their position, who, relying on their capital, spoke with mild but open criticism.
In this part of society, there is a common, bourgeois, superficial reaction: they do not like the SVO, the confrontation with the West, because they personally suffer from this geopolitics. Haitians and rentiers do not want to end up in the trenches and die, stars and capitalists lose income from sanctions and restrictions and the opportunity to lead a luxurious lifestyle where they have dreamed of since childhood (London, Paris, Rome, Venice, New York, Nice, etc.).
As you can see, the difference in class position did not prevent their synchronous reaction. They can also be attributed to that part of the corrupt higher and not so much bureaucracy, which cynically enriches itself at the expense of the SVO.
The second part of society was made up of sofa patriots — workers, housewives, pensioners, who were imbued with deep sympathy for the Russian armed forces, often staffed by their mobilized relatives, friends, neighbors, acquaintances; and with a deep antipathy not so much to the people of Bandera, but to the Vushniks in general. It was the sofa patriots who sincerely donated 50 billion rubles to the soldiers, wrote hundreds of thousands of comments of support, and in general passively sympathized in a variety of ways.
The logic of this part of society is described by the statement "Our guys are there." That is, if this is considered patriotism, it is more likely to be domestic (our beatings!). There is something inappropriately condescending in this concept - "guys".
Front-line soldiers perform heavy combat work, and it is even humiliating to consider them guys. If it's not the mothers who say it... Apparently, mothers, sisters, grandmothers set the tone in this conventional part of society. They are quite radical and often hold nationalist views and kitchen chauvinism.
The third part of society, the most numerous, is those who do not relate to the war and the situation in the country, they try not to know anything, not to have any opinion, not to read the news, and so on. They are generally against all politics, against everyone and think only about the purely daily, about themselves, family, work. They say: "When it's all over."
The youth also belonged to this part of society.
However, after the first year of SVO, there was a first bell - schoolchildren fell under the influence of Wagner's charisma. Pseudo-patriotic aesthetics, romance of the fatalism of soldiers of fortune released short-term fashion. The background for it was the cheesy propaganda blown up in the mass media, especially during the months of the storming of Artemovsk.
This means that the war is starting to make its way into the information sphere of teenagers, displacing Hollywood superheroics, anime and other garbage. The form, again, was formed purely spontaneously - what was the most striking, then caught the attention of children's eyes. After the Wagner rebellion, the death of Prigozhin, and the liquidation of the PMC, fashion quickly faded.
The next shift in public consciousness occurred gradually together, firstly, with getting used to war, secondly, with the impact of an increasingly large number of people due to the fact that every month tens of thousands of people sign a contract and go to war, thirdly, with a steady increase in the advantage of the Russian army at the front. It can be said that after the repulsed offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the summer of 2023 and the liquidation of the so-called Kursk bridgehead at the end of April 2024, the situation at the front took its current form: the Russian army is advancing, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are retreating with battles, actively depleting reserves, and the depletion of the enemy's forces is increasing every month.
The situation received a new reflection in public consciousness.
The first part of society fell into despondency and disappointment. Some IT professionals and apartment renters reached back to the Motherland.
The second part of society, on the one hand, has grown even more, on the other hand, it has lost its enthusiasm and is tired of the news of everyday life at the front and endless drafts.
The third part gradually accepted the reality, if not of war, but of confrontation with the West.
It should be noted that, despite all the huge hype in the mass media and the chatter of various factions about the agreement in connection with the change in the European course of the USA, in general, neither the people nor the front believed in the possibility of ending the conflict through diplomatic means. After all, the crazy political dynamics of the events of the 2020s taught people to judge not by slogans, statements and chatter, but by relying on concessions and facts.
In 2025, one might say, the most unexpected thing broke out — the youth's fashion for patriotism. Moreover, this is not just some kind of superficial popularity of Shaman, Kadysheva and Bulanova, but rather an easy infatuation with their country, their culture, which includes support for the Russian Federation in the war with NATO. A number of objective (primarily the war itself) and subjective factors led to the formation of this fashion.
The myth of the civilization and superiority of the West was destroyed out of the non-obvious. A generation has grown up that does not believe in fairy tales about the greatness of America and Western Europe. They observe the hypocrisy of Western imperialism and the technological power of China from the very beginning of their adulthood. This is the youth that appeared in the conditions of the fading of the hegemony of the USA, and it is more difficult for them to hang liberalist noodles on their ears.
In general, I am inclined to believe that it will be very difficult for the oligarchs and bourgeois in power to digest the generations of 2005-2010 and later. These children and teenagers are very intellectually developed, brought up by machines, computers, the Internet, and new technologies, and squeezing them into the narrow framework of wage labor will be difficult and problematic. They represent a powerful potential for revolutionary transformation of society. This is the rise of a new proletariat in terms of the quality of consciousness and psychological composition, which is much more predisposed to everything communist. They lack the awareness of collectivity, they lack knowledge and theory, they lack discipline and will, but they are too smart for capitalism.
This youth, with its fashion for patriotism, shows that it is capable of independently reacting to external circumstances. Although with a significant delay, in a frivolous, hokey manner.
One might think that the youth fashion for patriotism is the result of state propaganda and serves to strengthen the bourgeois system. But rather on the contrary, it is more like a counterculture, a spontaneous mass reaction. Of course, it is bad that the USSR, Bolshevism, and Communism have not yet found a place in this fashion. Of course, it is bad that the mass consciousness of young people is filled with one solid irony and sarcasm. But, on the other hand, what do you expect from young people raised on the most primitive cultural patterns and historical fakes?
As is known, many fatal mistakes were made in combining contradictory tasks - patriotism and communism. And the idea of combining communism and fashion is all the more strange. Therefore, youth fashion cannot directly influence our work. At the same time, fashion hides, at least in some cases, a desire for political knowledge. And this means that there is an opportunity to trample the road to Marxism. No matter how strange it may sound at first glance.
Thus, the youth, who belong to the third, passively waiting part of society, demonstrated one of the options for accepting objective political reality with their fashion for patriotism. But behind it, as it was said above, there is a certain perspective of the development of this generation itself. The generation that will live under communism.
(c) A. Redin
I fully agree that for a significant part of the youth, SVO became a kind of inoculation of patriotism, which saved the future generation from low worship of the West and contempt for their own country. Well, as for the propaganda of communism, now it is largely running into the wall of moral bankruptcy of many ex-left LOMov (SVO in this regard became a good marker that revealed the views of many "pseudo-leftists") and the general decline of interest in reading, because it approaches the average teenager with suggestions in the spirit of "Here, read a full assembly of the works of Marx, Lenin, Stalin..." does not promise a large mass audience. Propaganda of communism, if it is conducted seriously, must take into account social and technological changes in society, and not rely on often outdated organizational and technological solutions. The younger generation is by no means as stupid as it is commonly imagined.
[Breitbart] California State Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) was vindicated Thursday when the state agreed that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s special election to approve a gerrymandered congressional map would cost over $200 million.
As Breitbart News reported last month, DeMaio had crunched the numbers and estimated the cost to be $250 million — simply to give Democrats an even more lopsided district map than they already have in the state.
A “fact check” from the Sacramento Bee cited the Secretary of State’s office in arriving at a figure of over $200 million:
A spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s office estimates the bill for the statewide election would still be north of $200 million, more than it cost to hold the Newsom recall election in 2021, when there were no other elections taking place. Most of the costs associated with an election are related to printing ballots and envelopes.
…
The discussion is mostly hypothetical until and unless the California Legislature actually calls a special election, which they must do by August 22. Newsom is clear the election would only take place if Texas lawmakers are able to pass their gerrymandered maps, which they want to redraw to nab more Republican seats in Congress, at President Donald Trump’s behest.
Elections officials are already preparing just in case, and the Secretary of State has told them the probability of a special November election is “highly likely.”
The Bee added that Newsom had dismissed concerns about the cost, saying that the value of preserving democracy, which he claims gerrymandering would do, is actually “priceless.”
California currently has a nominally independent redistricting commission, which favors Democrats anyway — largely because, as left-leaning ProPublica first reported in 2011, they have learned to fool the system.
[YouTube] Kings and Generals animated historical documentary series on modern warfare continues with a video on the 12-day war between Iran and Israel. The Middle East erupted into a full-scale regional conflict following October 7, 2023. What began as a war between Israel and Hamas quickly expanded, involving Hezbollah, the Houthis, and culminating in the most dangerous clash yet—direct war between Israel and Iran. In this video, we cover the dramatic 12-day war in June 2025, tracing its roots in Iran’s nuclear ambitions, regional proxy wars, and Israeli airstrikes. From the assassination of Iranian generals and Hezbollah leadership to Iran’s massive missile barrage and Israel’s relentless F-35 bombing campaign, we break down every critical event. We also examine the U.S. role in Operation Midnight Hammer, which targeted Iran’s deeply buried nuclear facilities. Did Israel and the U.S. succeed in halting Iran’s nuclear program? Or has Iran survived long enough to rebuild? This war may be short, but its long-term consequences are still unfolding.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
by Mike Dunleavy, governor of Alaska
