The Empire Files has the video Ukraine: Questions for the US Anti-War Movement w/ Abby Martin & Brian Becker.

Abby Martin and Brian Becker discuss the Ukraine war and what it means for the anti-war movement.

The most comprehensive discussion about the Ukraine that I have seen so far.

This video is worth staying to the end where they discuss what to do next. I have slightly different words for describing what to do. I agree that this is a long-term battle of ideas. I think the emphasis should be on cooperation in society rather than on competition in society. Putting it this way avoids labels and identity politics. Quoting what one person thinks is a great person might cloudy a great idea that happens to have been said by people who are not thought of as great in the eyes of many other people. The upshot is that the solution in the USA is not a third party that has no foundational great ideas. A successful movement has to start from great ideas. Bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship if the foundational ideas are misguided, will not help this country in the long run.

Jimmy Dore has the video Media Lies About Ukraine/Russia DEBUNKED!

The media description of the Russian attack on Ukraine has almost universally elided and whitewashed the role played by the US and its NATO allies, including supporting a coup overthrowing the democratically elected president in 2014, refusing to support the Minsk Accords or refusing to engage in negotiations in the months leading up to the Russian invasion.

I haven’t been paying much attention to Jimmy Dore lately, but I think this is one episode that is worth sharing.

Has anybody stopped to think of what might happen if the USA pushes its economic war too far?

The USA dollar is an international reserve currency. We have certain capability of waging economic war because of that status of the dollar.

At the moment, China is willing to hold excess USA Treasury securities as a way to hold trillions of dollars of reserves. China is stuck on what it wants to do with the USA dollar in the world because China holds so much wealth in the form of USA Treasury securities.

If we get too pushy, and start sanctioning China even though or because of our massive trade deficit with China, China could decide that it has had enough of accepting USA dollars for our purchases of manufactured goods from them. What if China started to demand gold as payment? They could start slowly transitioning to gold while they were still “invested” in trillions of dollars. However, their squeeze on the USA could gradually tighten as China divested from its dollar holdings in an orderly fashion.

What would happen to the USA empire in this situation? What response options would we have? Is it wise for us to push the situation to its limits to see what would happen? Is there a lesson to be learned from pushing on Russia in the Ukraine until they had to make good on their threats?

Lee Camp’s Redacted Tonight has the episode VIP | The Truth About Ukraine with Ben Norton.

Lee Camp is joined by the journalist and host of Multipolarista Ben Norton to break down what is going on between Ukraine and Russia. They look to the real causes of Russian actions in Ukraine beyond the Western war propaganda. The story goes back to the 90’s and the dissolution of the Soviet Union when the NATO powers guaranteed the Russian leadership that they wouldn’t expand toward Russian borders. They broke that promise. Then the story moves to a US-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014 and the fallout after separatist movements tried to secede. Norton provides this history and more important context in this moment of insecurity.

Check out multipolarista.com

Michael Hudson has posted a transcript of hi interview Inflation and Illegal Repo Loans.

Economist Michael Hudson explains inflation crisis and Fed’s secretive $4.5 trillion bank bailout.

I don’t know how I could have missed this article that is now over a month old. I wish someone would just publish a straightforward description of what a Repo loan is. I think I have figuerd it out from context, but I have never seen a formal definition.

RT has the article UK outlines efforts to cut Russia from SWIFT.

The UK government is working to cut Russia from the SWIFT international banking system, after the US said it would not be taking that step.

I take this article as an excuse to ponder over some realities.

Modern Monetary Theorists say that the USA will never run out of money to buy anything that is for sale in USA dollars. Mentally, I always complete that statement with the question what about things the USA needs that are not for sale in USA dollars? What could that possibly be? Since China is already holding trillions of dollars in USA treasury securities, what if China started demanding payment in gold?

If the USA cuts Russia off from the SWIFT system, China could either decide to also opt out, or at least cut down what they are willing to sell us that depends on the SWIFT system. How long can we keep up the sanctions against Russia and China?

I wonder if the people in the USA government ever think two moves ahead when they plan actions as big as sanctioning Russia. How many steps ahead do you think Vladimir Putin is thinking?

Richard Medhurst has the podcast NATO Too Weak to Face Russia: Scott Ritter on Russian Offensive.

Richard Medhurst: #RichardMedhurst is an independent journalist and commentator. Regular live streams and interviews with popular guests from the Left such as Glenn Greenwald, Mike Figueredo (Humanist Report) and Max Blumenthal (Grayzone). Fluent in English, Arabic, French, German, and having grown up across several continents, Medhurst’s show aims to provide a critical analysis of electoral politics and international affairs from an anti-imperialist viewpoint.

Be prepared for a shocking dose of reality.

Rumble has this podcast Glenn Greenwald: The War in Ukraine.

Glenn gets on the screen at about 4 minutes and 45 seconds into this video.

Glenn Greenwald has given a great review of how we got to where we are with Russia and The Ukraine. Unfortunately the country is in no mood to stop and think.

Briahna Joy Gray has the podcast WAR IN UKRAINE. What – If Anything – Should the US Do? BJG Interviews Bernie’s Foreign Policy Wonk.

This week, Briahna Joy Gray spoke to Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy advisor, Matt Duss, about the escalating conflict in Ukraine.

Toward the end of this interview Matt Duss admits that his family background is from Ukrainian speaking Ukraines. It would have been very helpful if he had said that earlier. He thinks that our focus on Nazi elements in Ukraine is over done. As someone from a Jewish family, I disagree. Perhaps our family backgrounds have something to do with this disparity. In fact the situation of Jews in the Ukraine, never entered the discussion.

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy “is a Ukrainian politician, actor, and comedian who is the sixth and current president of Ukraine, serving since May 2019”.

Zelenskyy grew up in Kryvyi Rih, a Russian-speaking region in south-east Ukraine.
.
.
.
Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy was born to Jewish parents.

I wonder what Zelenskyy feels about the Nazi elements of Ukrainian politics. I wonder if the Russian “invasion” actually makes him feel more secure about speaking out against the Nazi influence in the Ukraine.

Jon Stewart had the podcast Modern Monetary Theory, Explained! | The Problem With Jon Stewart Podcast | Apple TV+.

Almost great interviews. There are two huge mistakes in this, however. In the beginning they were all confused by not differentiating private sector debt from public sector debt. Cancelling the debt is meant for cancelling private sector debt. It is not intended to cover cancelling public sector debt. The conversation with the Kansas City Fed President bollixed up that entire conversation.

The second mistake was misunderstanding Keynesian economics by Stephanie Kelton, who should know better. The great contribution that Keynes made in economics is in explaining exactly why monetary policy does not work to get us out of a depression. He explained that government spending for fiscal policy was needed to get out of a depression. This Keynesian explanation is not in conflict with MMT at all.