Roundup: Putin Ceasefire? I Ain't Reading All That

The Putin ceasefire proposal first, because it’s easy. It didn’t happen. Putin didn’t offer a ceasefire the other day, in the runup to the hoax peace conference in Switzerland. What he offered was negotiations—that’s not a new position for him—on the basis of Russia’s long stated minimal position.

Recognition that the four regions that held referendums and voted to join Russia are part of Russia.

De-NATOization, de-militarization, neutrality, de-Nazification.

Those are simply the starting points for negotiation. They’re entirely reasonable, in light of events since the end of the Cold War. I assume that Putin advanced them once again mostly for consumption in the non-NATO world. I do also tend to agree with Larry Johnson’s view that Putin once again enunciating this position at this particular juncture may be a signal that the war is about to entire a new and more intense phase.

We shall see.

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Here’s a good intro to “I ain’t reading all that,” also because it’s brief:

So, there’s no need to read another and another and another wacked out JPost article or wacked Zionist screed in the WSJ. Res ipsa loquitur, as we lawyers like to say when we want to baffle ‘em with BS—the thing speaks for itself. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck … You know the rest, and the same goes for terrorism:

Here’s the slightly longer explanation:

Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz

"I ain't reading all that, Free Palestine" enrages Israel supporters because Israel apologia depends on mountains of verbiage to spin obvious atrocities as reasonable and appropriate. At some point the kids noticed this was happening and started dismissing all the narratives.

The response enrages Israel apologists because it takes away their only weapon. Without mountains of narrative, all you've got is a nonstop deluge of raw video footage depicting the blatant genocidal criminality of Israel. No narrative overlay is required atop a video of a baby beheaded by Israeli military explosives. It stands on its own. You'd only need narrative to explain why the headless baby doesn't say bad things about Israel.

You don't need narrative to frame such things are unacceptable, you only need narrative to frame them as acceptable. You don't need mountains of words to frame Israel's actions as evil, you only need mountains of words to frame Israel's actions as good.

It actually speaks to a deep wisdom that young people have begun disregarding the narratives and sticking to what's immediately obvious before the narrative spin begins, because mental narratives are how humanity has gotten itself into so much trouble throughout the ages. It's not the immediate here and now that has caused us to commit genocides and mass atrocities throughout history, it's the mental stories that have been put in our minds by the powerful telling us why it's actually good and smart to do something evil and stupid. In the immediate here and now there's nothing telling you it would be good to start raining military explosives onto a giant concentration camp full of children; such things only look reasonable after ingesting and believing copious amounts of narrative.

Manipulators understand that they can use narrative to promote material agendas if they can get people to believe those narratives, and it enrages them when people handwave away the narrative and stick solely with the raw data of material reality. If you've based your life around trading empty narrative fluff for real material resources and gains, having your narratives dismissed can feel like holding a huge pile of currency that suddenly got devalued to zero. Of course the manipulators would be upset about this.

5:37 PM · Jun 14, 2024

To illustrate the point, here’s a great video from 2017—in case you thought the Zionist love affair with genocide and ethnic cleansing and narrative was something that only began after October 7th. It’s a key to the entire Zionist identity:

On the streets of Jerusalem, Abby Martin interviews Jewish Israeli citizens from all walks of life. In several candid interviews, disturbing comments reveal commonly-held views about Palestinians and their future in the region. Israeli-born human rights activist and anti-Zionist, Ronnie Barkan, explains why these attitudes dominate Israeli society.

This is also the point of the Atrocity Porn, so often based on weird sexual fantasies. Atrocity Porn makes the narrative seem somehow reasonable to those who are predisposed, even as it reveals the sick mentality behind it all.