Samizdat was the “system” of generation and dissemination of unapproved ideas and information in the Soviet Union. As we continue to see, the United Soviets of America are well established in 3 letter censorship organizations to attempt to control what we say, see, know, and think. Samizdat originally relied upon typed or handwritten documents, often copied and redistributed by sequential recipients, to give those with the courage and determination to see reality the opportunity to learn and teach. That incentive has not changed, only its locations and technology.
Human thought seeks expression, and that expression leaks out no matter what the omniscience of constraint. Supreme Court Justice Marshall clarified our unalienable right to speak, adding that it was accompanied by equivalent right to hear. Every “right” carries intrinsic responsibilities. The third leg of Marshall’s triad is the responsibility to listen. Even to that which we find deplorable. Listening to ideas with which we agree due to our individual foundational ethics and morals is easy; Listening, and understanding, even if we continue to disagree, is the hard task.
So we cannot simply ignore the obvious misleading or mistaken or mal intended thoughts of government at any level or of what appears to be a fully supportive corporate and media machine. We must examine and extract what may be true and useful, while recognizing the hidden intents and goals of the presentations. Then we each can make decisions of support, resistance, and actions regarding those presentations. We may then choose to pass this on to others, in the many ways that may still be “below the radar” of adverse attention. Most such sources of information and ideas are available via the internet and social media, with the best I choose to name Samizdat Journalists.
, , , , , and countless others are excellent examples. But the most significant may be everyday people who choose to be involved and inquisitive, and want to speak to others as well as listen to their replies. This is the true democratic community of our Republic.One such is my good friend Patrick B. His background places his analytical abilities well above the average, as does his maintenance of an international circle of friends and experts. Patrick was a weapons officer for years in a USAF fighter-bomber, routinely flying missions over NATO countries with the ability, training, and resolve to immediately engage in warfare against the Warsaw Pact or Soviet Union if called upon. Thereafter he served in banking, later a banking consultant, and became an economist thoroughly versed in the Austrian school of economics, having realized the intrinsic failures of Keynesian philosophy. He taught other bankers for years at the University level. He has made presentations on several occasions to the European Parliament, which unfortunately fell mostly on those who would hear but would not listen. From my long experience and appreciation of his background, I have learned to listen to him with great respect and interest.
As he does so often, he sent me a link to an article dealing with international eco-political events. Lew Rockwell writes a regular newsletter taking a broad international view on the implications of economic and political ideas and actions both of our country and others. One of his latest was a re-post of an copyrighted article by Dmitry Orlov. Orlov is a Russian-American engineer and a writer on subjects related to "potential economic, ecological and political decline and collapse in the United States," something he has called “permanent crisis”. Orlov believes collapse will be the result of huge military budgets, government deficits, an unresponsive political system and declining oil production. The full article can be found on Lew Rockwell’s site, https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/07/dmitry-orlov/the-incredible-shrinking-nato/ . Below is my quotations and assessment of his thesis in reply to Patrick B’s interest:
Very interesting article, written by a Russian-American engineer--hopefully living abroad in some country where U.S. clandestine power can't easily reach him. I am surprised that this type of work has not yet been censored by one of our government's disinformation “3 Initials”.
I do point out some doubts or concerns......
anti-aircraft Stingers, anti-tank Javelins, etc — are rather worse than useless in modern combat. Next, it turned out that the M777 howitzer and the HIMARS rocket complex are rather fragile and aren’t field-maintainable.<where is the reporting, even by "Samizdat" media, on this? I haven't seen any>
the Patriot missile battery. It was deployed near Kiev and the Russians quickly made a joke of it. They attacked it with their super-cheap Geranium 2 “flying moped” drones, causing it to turn on its active radar, thereby unmasking its position, and then fire off its entire load of rockets — a million dollars’ worth! — after which point it just sat there, unmasked and defenseless, and was taken out by a single Russian precision rocket strike.<again, provide sources?>
Patriot proved useless using the First Gulf War, where it failed to protect Israel against ancient Iraqi Scud missiles;<so why are the Israelis continuing to use it?> and it proved useless later on when it failed to protect Saudi oil installations against ancient Yemeni Scud missiles.<how many were deployed, where, and who were the operators? again no reporting on this from any source other than Orlov>
the German-donated Leopard 2 tanks and the US-donated Bradley infantry vehicles, not to mention the silly French wheeled non-tanks, performed absolutely miserably during the recent Ukrainian efforts to approach, never mind penetrate, Russia’s first line of defense <here is what appears to be a real assessment of reality from what we are allowed to see in media>
F-16 engine intake close to ground, suck up debris, can't build new airfields w/o Russians detecting/destroying. these planes are able to carry nuclear bombs and Russia has already announced that it would see this step as a nuclear escalation <Patrick you are the expert on this and this simple assessment does appear on target, and why (in addition to the actual intended mission) we should be sending them all our decommissioning A-10s>{special note: A-10 Warthogs have long been considered the world’s outstanding ground support aircraft, incredibly deadly against armor and outstandingly survivable from enemy fire; Congress has decided to retire the fleet in favor of multi-functional complex jets that cannot provide the same degree of service to ground troops. Why?}
HERE IS THE REAL MEAT OF ORLOV’S ARTICLE/ASSESSMENT:
The reason is simple: NATO is not a defensive organization nor is it an offensive organization NATO is a captive buyers’ club for US-made weapons.
That is also the reason for all of the various wars of choice, from Serbia to Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya and Syria: these were demonstration projects for US weapons,
the U.S. dropped more than 2.5 million tons of bombs on Laos during 580,000 bombing sorties—equal to a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years. …those bombs were about to expire and needed to be used up and reordered to keep the money flowing <the current equivalent is our shipping 155 mm Howitzer cluster shells to Ukraine as we can't use them and they are about to expire/decay>
US-made weapons tend to be overly complex (so that their makers can charge more for the useless extra features) and rather fragile developed slowly built slowly and very high-maintenance. <as you have stated so often Patrick, witness the terrible F-35>
The sight of Western armor ablaze does not make good advertising. Consequently, the US defense contractors must be very eager to stop this steady stream of negative advertising for their products to stop right this second — before their reputations end up completely ruined; hence the unseemly haste with which the entire Ukrainian project is being orphaned. <additionally, whereas we used to have over 50 defense contractors we now have only 5 due to consolidation and what was called in the past "diworsification" regarding corporations that swallowed up a lot of subsidiary businesses. This markedly impairs responsiveness and destroys innovative competition>
<I would add that NATO now realizes that they cannot defend the Baltics, Moldova/Transnistria, etc, from the Russians without going nuclear, and so are telling the Russians about their prior bluster regarding Ukraine and further incursions into Russia's Eastern European sphere of influence, "Never mind...".>
And so my minor contributions to Samizdat continue. If of any value, pass it or the other sources mentioned above to others. Remember, despite the “3 Initials” organizations, there is always snail mail and word of mouth.