13 Comments
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Gerard's avatar

Excellent use of Macbeth, bravo

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Kevin Batcho's avatar

Thanks. That verse about milk to gall was just so perfect for our times

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Eric Walberg's avatar

and the symphonic flow from dark macbeth. (you don't even get to the witches.) and the final coda sunlight. i fell in love with tulsa the first time. i hate to say it but 'thank you trump.'

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Kevin Batcho's avatar

Victoria Nuland and her neocon coven casting spells over Europe? I had a part about the witches but perhaps in error I edited it out as it was all getting too long. I'll try to reincorporate it into another piece. Yes, Trump is a mixed bag but he certainly deserves thanks for getting Tulsi into power. It is so rare for a politician to push against the establishment headwinds like Tulsi has.

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Svein Tore Ulset's avatar

Thanks for a good article. Yes, please reincorporate the part about the witches. Shakespeare must have been one of the first to see the dark clouds over Europe. R. Weaver also used parts of Macbeth in his "Ideas..", it would be great if you could use this to connect the dots of our present.

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Kevin Batcho's avatar

I used it as the ending of the article (The Eurocrat Putsch) I finished this morning. I was inspired by Eric comment. To be honest I could go a lot deeper into it. Macbeth is an amazing work and so full of ideas and imagery that describes our situation today. I fear that I short changed the witches a bit today due to running out of space. It would be worth doing an entire article on the witches and weaving them into current events.

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Old Jarhead's avatar

“In this new reality, Ukraine, Taiwan, and even Greenland are no longer sovereign actors but contested prizes, battlegrounds where the ambitions of great powers collide.”

And thus it has always been when the “great powers” of any age make decisions. As Thucydides said “Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” It seems people never learn that a big enough carrot is also an effective stick.

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Feral Finster's avatar

"As for Boris Johnson, perhaps he should not march at all—perhaps he belongs in a cage, paraded through Moscow like a medieval relic of deception and folly. Not merely a non-idiot, but a true idiot, one who mistook reckless cunning for wisdom and led Ukraine down a path of ruin."

Why would you call Johnson an "idiot"? He will do just fine, and he could not care less about the Ukrainians slaughtered, the treasure squandered.

Similar,y the war has brought Zelenskii nothing but benefits. Forgetting all that sweet western cash for him and his cronies to skim, before 2022, he was the corrupt and authoritarian ruler of a nazi-infested shithole. Now, he's Winston Churchill, Pericles, George Washington, the Dalai Lama Solomon The Wise, and a fashion icon, all rolled into one.

It's not like his kids will be packed off to the front. He won't have to pay Ukrainian debts from his personal offshore stashes.

You think a farmer cares about the lives and happiness of the chickens he breeds to sell for McNuggets?

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ab's avatar

Fantastic piece as always. Thank you.

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Kevin Batcho's avatar

Thank you!!

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Peter Wraith's avatar

Absolutely superb........thank you!

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Kevin Batcho's avatar

Thanks you!!

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Eric Walberg's avatar

maidan was a 'bay of pigs' that 'succeeded'. USAID wasn't set up till after bay of pigs. jfk wanted soft power. but northwoods COINTELPRO. after they bumped off jfk. it looks like trump has ended 'soft power'. now gunboat diplomacy. but it's leaky an rusty.

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