Biden's Mess in Ukraine; Trudeau's Canadian Prison Camp; and Olaf Scholz's Energy Addiction

May 09, 2022

In his editor’s column this week Michael Walsh examines the ongoing war in Ukraine, where Putin’s desperation — aggravated by American provocation and the Biden Administration’s bumbling diplomacy — is creating a perilous situation for Europe and the world.

In the Ukraine Proxy War, What Price Victory?

"Victory has a thousand fathers," said John F. Kennedy, "but defeat is an orphan." By that measure, America is running a military establishment that more closely resembles an overpopulated Dickensian sweat shop than a modern war machine. Indeed, it's been so long since the United States has won a war -- back when the War Department still existed, in fact -- that hardly any living American knows what "victory" means any more. But what difference does it make? This man's army is now the province of pregnant females, transsexuals, and born-male admirals in skirts. No wonder it can't fight.

But whose army can? As it happens, today is "Victory Day" in the former Soviet Union, marking the defeat of the Wehrmacht by the Red Army under Stalin and Marshal Zhukov in 1945. The occasion will be marked in Russia by strutting military parades, of the good old-fashioned Soviet kind, but minus the, you know, victory. With Russia tied down in its slog against Plucky Little Ukraine, the hollow nature of what was once the world's most formidable land army has now been laid bare for all to see.

Accordingly, Vladimir Putin is now at a crossroads: to go all in, including the use of tactical or other nuclear weapons, or to withdraw in defeat? Since his grasp on power wouldn't survive the second option, betting the collective farms and the tractor factories of his youth in the U.S.S.R. is the only path open to him, absent some kind of deus ex machina who magically appears and somehow restores the status quo ante. And even then, we're right back where we started.

As I remarked on Facebook the other day (the fascists at Twitter having closed that platform to me for the past two years for no reason they can adequately explain), I'd sleep more easily at night if I thought that a single member of the Biden administration or the "Defense" Department establishment had read War and Peace, a poem by Pushkin, or taken in a performance of Tchaikovsky's opera, Eugene Onegin.

The least we could expect from our crack team of diplomats and REMFs is that they know what or where the Third Rome is, or the story of the conversion of the Kievan Rus, or how deep the roots of the Orthodox Church run in the Muslim-desecrated occupation of the Church of Holy Wisdom and the ruins of Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire. But no, that would be asking too much of the credentialed empty suits who prowl the corridors of "Defense" or State and see the world through the partisan lenses of the JFK School of Government-- which basically comes down to, what have you done for me lately?

Not to mention, had read Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, heard a live performance of Shostakovich's Fifth or Seventh ("Leningrad") symphonies, or seen either Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel or Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at least once in their miserable, Harvard-educated lives. Then, perhaps, they might catch a glimpse, or hear an echo, of the Russian soul, as in this memorably manic scene from the Shostakovich opera's third act, when a shabby peasant in search of booze stumbles upon Zinovy's body hidden in the wine-cellar and the orchestra explodes in an orgy of pent-up, violent hysteria:

But no, that would be too much to ask. Far better to commit the characteristic American sin of regarding all the rest of the world's peoples, cultures, and nations as the rough equivalent, albeit inferior, of our own, and expecting that their savage denizens will react in the same way to the same carrot-and-stick stimuli as our own peasants do. After all, as we learned in Vietnam, inside every benighted foreigner is an American screaming to get out. Why, just look at the southern border!

On the other hand, it would provide a clue to the members of Biden war party why Putin launched his attack on the Ukraine and what he hopes to gain from it. It is wise to remember that this is a man who saw his country shot out from underneath him between 1989 and 1991, and his world turned upside down. Imagine an American politician who witnessed Texas and the southwest being handed back to Mexico and the disputed Oregon Country returned to British Canada in the wake of a catastrophic military defeat or governmental collapse.

Slowly, Putin has been trying to piece together the old Mother Russia, at least as he understands it, which means off-loading the 'stans, neutralizing the Georgians and the Armenians, but reuniting Slavic lands such as Ukraine and Belarus (already firmly in his camp), and eyeing the Baltics as well. His alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church at least gives him a religious fig leaf in his quest to resurrect the Third Rome and motivate his demographically dying country with dreams of past and possibly future glory.

The bigger, more important question, however, is this: why are the Clinton-Obama-Biden Democrats trying to make the conflict in the Ukraine into a proxy war against Russia? Why, knowing of Putin's increasing desperation to finish the job, have they given him no diplomatic way out? Why instead have they pushed an obsolete NATO right up to his borders, when if there's one thing that makes Russians crazy it's territorial encroachment from the west? Just ask Napoleon how that worked out for him.

Tom Finnerty contributed a blog post on Senator Joe Manchin — the last sane Democrat — bragging about taking down the Biden Administration’s Build Back Better bill before it had a chance to further imperil our already unsteady economy. He also wrote about Germany’s desperate desire to circumvent the West’s sanctions on Russia, because their foolhardy attempt to power the country solely on so-called ‘renewable energy’ led to their getting addicted to Russian oil and gas.

Never Trust a Junkie

It seems like every day Germany inadvertently contributes to the case against environmentalism. As we've had occasion to discuss before at The Pipeline, over the last few decades Germany, driven by environmental concerns, has been shutting down their (essentially zero carbon) nuclear power plans with an eye towards a total transition to green energy as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, technology being what it is, running a first world nation of 80 million people on wind and solar energy is currently impossible. So to make up the difference in energy supply and demand, Germany has taken to 1) burning massive amounts of (carbon intensive) coal and 2) importing massive amounts of oil and natural gas from Russia.

Of course, Russia then invaded Ukraine, making itself a pariah state. The E.U. hit it with a host of economic sanctions, as did the United States. The object of these was to tank the Russian economy -- which is heavily reliant on oil and gas revenues -- forcing President Putin to back down. And Germany, led by new chancellor Olaf Scholz, has been directing the charge. They've issued full-throated condemnations of Russia's actions and pledged to double their military spending in response. They've even announced a new policy towards Russia known as Zeitenwende, or "Sea Change," suggesting that they're going to end their reliance on Russian energy as soon as possible.

But actions speak louder than words, and CNN reports that Germany is desperately searching for ways to circumvent anti-Russian sanctions. They are particularly desperate the find a way to meet Russia's demand that existing oil and gas contracts be paid for in rubles rather than euros, a strategy that they've employed -- rather successfully -- to counter western sanctions and keep their economy afloat while the war continues.

Rich Trzupek wrote about the Biden Administration’s recently announced Disinformation Department.

'Disinformation' Tyranny Brooks No Debate

To give credit where credit is due, the recent announcement from the White House establishing the “Disinformation Governance Board” as part of the Department of Homeland Security did not actually utilize the terms “Goodthink” or “Ministry of Propaganda.” References to Goebbels appear to have been minimized as well.

It is clear that no one can possibly define what is purported to be potentially harmful “disinformation” unless one has the God-like ability to determine what qualifies as unquestionably truthful information and that this information is being used to reach unquestionably accurate conclusions.

That distinction is vital. Any collection of true propositions can be used to defend a flawed conclusion. It is true, for example, that a ball placed on a sloped surface will roll toward the bottom of the slope. It is true that the floor of most everyone’s home is not a sloped surface. It is true that a ball placed on the floor of most everyone’s home will remain in place. One can put those three truths together and conclude that planet earth is flat, not a sphere….

If the folks in power ban any discussion of a flat earth, more than one person is going to wonder why. If this idea is as ludicrous and unscientific as is claimed, why can not any person be allowed to examine the idea and bear witness to its ludicrousness? When a censor insists that something must be covered, it only increases one’s curiosity to discover what's under the cover.

It seems certain that former President Barack Obama has much more to do with this attack on free speech than the current occupant of the White House. President Biden appears as unlikely to create a board whose name includes a five-syllable word as he is to successfully pronounce it.

As part of a speech at Stanford University on April 21, Obama applauded social media platforms for their attempts at censorship. But, he concluded that those platforms do not and can not handle the important work of suppressing opinion by themselves. He claimed that while “…content moderation can limit the distribution of clearly dangerous content, it doesn't go far enough.” Six days later, the Biden administration rolled out the new Ministry of Propaganda. Coincidence? I think not.

Three words stand out in the former president’s statement: “clearly dangerous content.” There is certainly content on the interwebs that is “clearly dangerous” to general acceptance of outdated and fanciful ideas promulgated by the former Organizer in Chief and his party. There are certainly people who are “clearly dangerous” to the continued success of people who want to divide Americans based on appearance and identity and people who want to turn gender into an amorphous idea rather than a biological fact.

I suppose I myself must be “clearly dangerous” because I don’t believe that climate change is wholly man-made, that we can and should attempt to manipulate the climate, and that the economic and human cost of most of the schemes proposed to limit future use of fossil fuels is far too high a price to pay. One can and should accept the facts that carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas, that mankind is responsible for increasing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrialized era and that mean global temperatures, which have fluctuated throughout the industrial era, seem to have risen slightly in recent years. None of those facts, which I agree with and with which I am professionally qualified to evaluate, leads me to the conclusion that climate change is entirely man-made and necessarily catastrophic.

Does my interpretation of those commonly accepted facts make me dangerous in Barack Obama’s eyes? Do similar interpretations by scientists like Roy Spencer and Judith Curry make them dangerous to Forty-Four? I suspect he thinks so.

David Solway wrote about the lamentable state of his homeland.

Canada: the World’s Most Comfortable Gulag

In an editorial for the Epoch Times, Patricia Adams and Lawrence Solomon describe Canada as the world’s largest prison and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “the world’s foremost jailer.” In a country of 38 million, they write, reprising a Justice Centre bulletin, 6 million unvaccinated citizens are forbidden to travel by train, ship or plane and are effectively prevented from leaving the country, which is to say that a cohort of over 15 percent are prisoners in their own land.

The 2022 Federal Budget approves funding for three more years of continuing vaccine mandates for travel: “All travelers now departing from Canadian airports, on VIA Rail and Rocky Mountaineer trains, or on cruise ships (or non-essential passenger vessels on voyages of 24 hours or more) must be fully vaccinated, with very limited exceptions.” The unvaccinated, as they say, can take a hike. But the Trudeau government will not stop with the de facto incarceration of its dissident citizens. The docket of authoritarian acts grows longer by the day.

The government has recently passed Bill C-4, amending the Criminal Code in order to target what is pejoratively and misguidedly called “conversion therapy,” that is, the right of parents to act on behalf of their children’s wellbeing by counselling against gender modification and chemical transgender treatments. The government has contended that conversion therapy reflects “myths and stereotypes about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and Two-Spirit (LGBTQ2) communities” and that practices that “reinforce heteronormative and cis-normative ideas… [are] harmful.”…

Protecting one’s children’s biological sexual identity is now a criminal offense, leading to children being removed from the home and becoming wards of the state, an act of totalitarian state terror. Naturally, couples without children are spared the trauma; many appear to be indifferent or are even unaware of such an atrocity.

The federal government is pondering legislation, such as Bills C-11 and C-18, also known as the Online Streaming Act, analogous to the U.S. government’s just created Disinformation Governance Board, which will increase regulation of the Internet to combat what the government conveniently calls “disinformation.” People will no longer be free to express their personal convictions online without fear of cancellation or even worse.

The next step is the newly formed Canada Financial Crimes Agency (CFCA), clearly intended to block popular crowdfunding sources such as those upon which the Truckers Freedom Convoy relied. Legitimate protests will be starved of financial support. Individuals who donate to such movements will also be exposed to financial penalties.

Furthermore, not content with having bought off the Canadian print media with lavish multi-million-dollar “gifts,” Justin Trudeau has established a so-called Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization (QCJO) which renders certain unfavored news outlets like Rebel News ineligible for tax credits and other programs. According to the assessment of the Canadian Revenue Agency, (CRA) “Rebel News does not produce original news content, on the basis that the content was found to be largely opinion-based and focused on the promotion of one particular perspective.” For such federal agencies, truthful reporting by independent sources unbeholden to government subsidies, a rarity in this country, can only be partisan opinion to be suppressed or rendered difficult to locate.

The Trudeau government is now considering implementing a digital ID program, paired with a digital currency, in which all our financial, health, social media and other accreditation records, such as social insurance number, drivers license, vaccine status, etc., will be stored in one area, an apparatus promoted by Great Reset protocols and resembling China’s “Social Credit” and Central Bank Digital Currency systems where citizens’ every action can be tightly monitored and controlled….

Canada is in the global forefront of these malignant initiatives. Justin Trudeau, as some believe, may be a nasty piece of work but he is not, in himself, to be condemned solely. He is the people’s doppelgänger, a projection of the vaxxed majority who believe in the validity of his despotic measures and proclamations, who care nothing for the Constitution, are content to have their rights and liberties gradually erased, have no objection to becoming digitized, and have learned to hate as virulently as does the prime minister. “Populace duped, politicians deranged,” summarizes Peter Smith in The Pipeline.

Put another way, Trudeau is a “social construct,” invented by the electorate. The moment the public sees through the façade of counterfeit charm and smarmy concern for “the Canadian people,” Trudeau would vanish in a puff of Woke. Regrettably, none of this is likely to happen. We have nothing like the American 2022 midterms to mitigate the advent of despotism. We are stuck with Trudeau and the Liberal/NDP coalition deal until 2025 and perhaps longer, by which time Canada will have ceased to exist as a liberal democracy. As Milan Kundera presciently wrote of the totalitarian dream in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, once it “starts to turn into reality, however, here and there people begin to crop up who stand in its way, and so the rulers of paradise must build a little gulag on the side of Eden. In the course of time this gulag grows ever bigger and more perfect.”

And finally, our very own acclimatised beauty Jenny Kennedy lives it up post-Covid so as to put the ‘S’ in E.S.G.

Diary of an Acclimatised Beauty: Living

Thanks for reading, and keep a look out for upcoming pieces by Jack Dunphy, Tom Finnerty, and Clarice Feldman. All this and more this week at The Pipeline!

Michael Walsh at The Pipeline

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