Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead or Alive

: music, June 25 2023 ▶

Not easy to write about childhood heroes, oh boy, where to start. How about the goosebumps on every play, or the avalanche of memories, or all the stupid things said and done, while "Wanted Dead or Alive" was basically the theme-song on the background. If I have to name one track, to describe the glorious 80s, that would be it. Bon Jovi hit a ton of popularity with the "Blaze of Glory", but I find WDoA much more fitting - both for the western style movies and the band itself. It was a love at first listen for me, and I will keep it close to my heart until the very last day.

Starting a bit melancholic, the song describes the life of the band members and a parallel to the wild west gunslingers. So is the tone - a slow acoustic guitar, a memory for all the "country roads" and cowboys out there. Jon finds close similarities between both worlds - quick fame, girls, drinks, money, a little bit of envy and hate.
I guess they felt very lonely on the road. But that was the day-to-day of a glam-rocker. Back then they earned respect by live-performances and concerts, involving non-stop travel. Never settle, never home - the price you pay. It was worth it. You achieve unique creativity under heavy circumstances. The second verse gazes into the endlessness, as the cowboy realizes his fate is to keep on "riding", forever. The "steel horse" allegory seamlessly connects the two worlds - the wild west past and the machine present. Although the hardship, you never give up, accepting your fate and pressing on. You know it is not "might" but "for sure" not making it back, but that's alright - heroes don't make it old.
With "Wanted Dead or Alive" Bon Jovi hit the zenith of their hard-rock/glam-metal career and start slowly to (I would not say "descent") shift to a more country-rock, commercial sound. The song is written in 1986 as part of the "Slippery When Wet" - a massively successful masterpiece. There are 2 videos - the original one with a footage of the 86-87's band tour, and another one from 2001, which sounds so frail and slimy, I would rather erase it from my memory. I would give a special credit to Richie Sambora, not only for being a co-writer and amazing guitarist, but for the excellent back-vocals (and hat), without which "Wanted Dead or Alive" will just not be the same.

War Changes, Sometimes

: history, February 15 2023 ▶

Well, we all know where this is heading. Mainstream bobbleheads should stop reading now - you are not gonna like it.
"War never changes" - just an year ago I could not agree more with this immortal quote from Bethesda's brilliant game. Then the insane happened and proved me wrong. A war, not meant to conquer land, but to destroy the unipolar world and change the balance of power. Maybe Mr.Putin is correct after all - this is a "special military operation". The more I think about it - the more it makes sense.
To make things straight from the beginning:
- I do believe that this war is wrong and the dispute could have been solved via diplomacy.
- it is a conflict between US and Russia - Ukraine just happens to be the (expendable) stage.
- Russia and Ukraine are corrupt, lawless dictatorships/oligarchies and no normal person would prefer to live there instead of Central/Western Europe/Japan etc.
- the mainstream media, on both sides, performs a brain-washing propaganda campaign like never before.
- being against the war, questioning the pro-Ukrainian narrative or media does not make you pro-Putin.

With this out of the way - let's start.
A very brief history of the events so far:
late October 2021 - President Putin recognizes Nord Stream 2 will never happen, as being intentionally stalled by the German government. Although the roots of this conflict are way back in the post-Soviet era, this was the last straw, before Russia finally decided to invade. About 8 years earlier, another similar project, "South stream", followed the same twisted fate - just months before being operational it had to be re-routed through Turkey.
11th February 2022 - President Joe Biden issues warning to any Americans who remain in Ukraine to leave. Despite being a clear signal for an upcoming escalation, I still did not believe that the Russians will actually cross the border. Could this have been a lucky US-intelligence guess? I doubt it. Russia had numerous similar military exercises in the past. Yes, some signs are stronger than other, but no analyst will overreact with "war coming 100%" and, even so, no general will take this seriously enough to deploy forces (a carrier-ending mistake). Russia unambiguously warned US. Meaning the Ukrainian leadership plus all NATO countries, possessing some military power, knew at least 2 weeks in advance. Remember how the whole world played "surprised" on 24th Feb? I do. They lied to us even before the actual events have even began.
24th February 2022 - Putin announced a "special military operation" to "demilitarise and denazify" Ukraine. Another lie - this time from the other side, using the historical hatred for German National Socialists to mobilize the support from the local population.
26th February 2022 - in just 2 days Russian forces are in the Kiev's suburbs. At this point all opinions were divided into either "the war will end soon" (foolish me) or "this is the beginning of a very long struggle".
1 March 2022 - some major Russian banks are expelled from the SWIFT system - so far the only measure that actually hurt the Russian economy.
27 March 2022 - the offensive halts. Ukrainian forces start pushing back in some areas. My predictions were all wrong and at this point I dismissed all official statements and really started thinking heavily on the root cause and the purpose of the war. Obviously this was NOT the standard land/resource-grabbing conflict. Something way-bigger was happening here.
3 April 2022 - Russian forces withdraw from the entire north front, basically abandoning their primary goal to capture the capital and remove the government. The so-called "Butcha massacre", where supposedly dozens of civilians are massacred, receives an extensive media coverage. Later dismissed from numerous sources, but already played its role in the propaganda campaign.
13 April 2022 - the Russian cruiser "Moskva" is sunk after taking 2 missile hits. Nobody doubts that Ukrainian forces are (if not directly commanded from) receiving weaponry and ample intelligence data from US, including "advisors" on site.
21 September 2022 - Russia announces partial mobilization. 2 months before that, Wagner Group starts recruiting prison inmates.
26 September 2022 - a clandestine bombing puts Nord Stream 1 out of the game and heavily damages Nord Stream 2 pipelines. Russians were blamed immediately. Just days after the incident everybody "forgets" about it.
08 December 2022 - ex-German Chancellor Merkel openly admits peace with Russia was never an option: "The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give time to Ukraine."

Since August 2022 there is a stalemate. The minor victories here and there are getting overblown by the media on the respective side. Billions of aid are still pouring into the endless money pit. President Zelensky is making regular tours in Europe and US to collect the monthly arms-supply and to ask for the next. The requests are getting bigger and bigger by the day. The tone of his speeches is bold and often impudent. First it was ammunition, then came the anti-tank missiles and reconnaissance drones, then long-range artillery and rockets, then tanks, now planes. For the latter UA officials received a straight and decisive "no-no". UK, US and some others agreed to send tanks, but only the time will tell if these are not just empty promises. As I write this, The Netherlands and Denmark just announced they will not supply Leopards to Ukraine. Germany was pushing back for months (considering the deficit in its own military), then some internal coalition-deal happened, and the Chancellor Scholz complied. I hope he made a good bargain. Big Media repeated a thousand times how Russia is low on shells, rockets, tanks, etc. - at the same time the war is not advancing in any direction. On the contrary - today Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of NATO, announced UA is using more war supplies than the Alliance can produce. The economy of war shows it is "somehow not viable" shooting a 50K-drone with a 2Million-worth rocket.

We witnessed some mind-blowing acts of insolence, hypocrisy and plain stupidity. Poland, with their centuries-old hatred for everything Russian, are willing to lose an arm and a leg, but to make a small dent in their big rival. Stoltenberg said it was Russian's fault after all, when a misconfigured Ukrainian missile killed 2 polish farmers. Ursula von der Leyen, one of the biggest failures of the German political scene and currently (somehow!) President of the EU Commission, stuns with her US-servitude and devotion to implement the most insane globalist's agenda with a zero-thought for the people of the Union. Another German "political star" - the foreign minister Annalena Baerbock - broke the "stupid-o-meter" twice, smashing live with "we will send weapons to Ukraine, no matter what the voters think" and "we (EU) are in an all-out war with Russia". Russian blunders are also numerous and the magnitude matches the opposition, but ... lies, deception, corruption and low-level-stupidity are expected from a dictatorship, aren't they?Many people interpreted these words as "America develops bio-weapons in Ukraine" (and most probably they will be correct), which is not what Nuland said. And sticking to the same statment and logic, Nuland confirmed Ukraine possesses bio-weapons labs. Let me think for a second, what might be the chances of being attacked by a paranoid dictator for having WMDs in his backyard? Should be close to zero, right?

The casualties are as follows (source Norwegian Chief of Defense for the lack of better), killed and wounded:
- Civilians: 30K+
- Ukrainian forces: 100K+
- Russian forces: 188K+
Strange how these numbers stopped being updated since December 2022. More or less at this time the media suddenly lost interest of the war - the brain-washing decreased a bit - from "by-the-hour-feed" to random articles and casual news reports. Till this moment only some "pro-Russian fringe-journalists" and former military expressed the idea, that for Russia this war is as existential as for Ukraine and it is naive to think, that the second (I would say 3rd) most powerful country in the world will be victorious. Currently there are US officials to admit such development is possible and how negotiations are the reasonable way to go.

The duration of this war would have been way shorter, if most of the world's dominating powers had no profit out if it. As clear as daylight is the big loser - the European Union.

Power 1: USA
The biggest fear on Capitol Hill was that Russian's cheap natural resources may combine with Europe's industrial and technical power. The post-Soviet decades saw the emergence of a major economical player. Bigger EU countries subdued the smaller ones and forced them to cooperate. The influx of well-qualified, cheap and motivated (hungry) workers from the former Eastern Europe, mixed with the capital and entrepreneurship of the westerners (a capital US donated to maintain the fancy facade during the 60-80s) proved to be very successful. Russia wanted to join-in and put on the table everything the vast Motherland had to offer. Europe accepted and hugged Russia with the loathing of the smelly relative you need to split the inheritance. Nobody turned down the oligarchs, as they were buying-out London and the other major cities. Goal N1 accomplished - to irreversibly sever the economic ties between Europe and Russia. Both will suffer, giving some time and temporary advantage to the rotting capitalist machine. Goal N2 accomplished - feed the only thing that keeps America afloat - the Military-Industrial Complex. USA needs to be in a constant war to survive. The war does not need to be won. Just long. Goal N3 ongoing - literally the "wet dream" of an entire generation of American politicians - crippling Russia without the official loss of American lives. Meanwhile the Congress is rushing to approve the annual raise of the debt ceiling. Maybe not spending 50billion on a war could have avoided this somehow, but who am I to judge. The real figure is probably 3-4 times higher, though. Alas, the end justifies the means! Goal N4 in planning - guess whose companies will cash-in billions "to rebuild" Ukraine. Bonus: dispose from old (unusable, expired) equipment for free, test existing armaments in live action.

Power 2: Russia
The Crimea annexation had strategic military purposes, also ~70% of the population there are Russians. "Unjustified" according to international diplomats, "needed" for Russia. When Putin saw his neighbor being prepared for the same scenario as Libya and Egypt (Euromaidan - 21 November 2013) he knew there will be no peace. The invasion was showing muscle to US/EU. Showing a pseudo-liberal, CIA fueled, "flower revolution" cannot fly in his domain. The sanctions that followed, had some actual impact. Unrest started, not among the ordinary people - President's support was all time high - but in the oligarch's circles of power. Putin knew his days were numbered unless he cuts their economical lifeline. THAT is THE MAIN reason behind his actions on 24th February 2022. About 30 wealthy "businessmen" committed "suicide" since, sometimes taking their entire families with them (browse wiki for a comprehensive list). He is not crazy or stupid, not greedy for land or resources - Russia has both. He needed a change inside his own country, so radical, only a lasting war can do. It was not the poor leadership or the heroic Ukranian defense who stopped the advance towards Kiev on 24-27th February. It was the plan to have a long conflict. Do you seriously believe, if Russians wanted to stomp a smaller country, they cannot do it in month? Yes, everything will be in ruins, a million will die (just like in Iraq 1990-91) and it will be over. Again - not the goal here, therefore the statement "special military operation". Putin understands the Russian soul. People are used to live in hardship, under miserable conditions, but will not accept to be humiliated as a nation. It will take time, years, decades maybe until Russia learns to get along without the western pittance, develops own tech, relies on native banks and escapes from the petro-dollar, then it would worth it. He predicted the sanctions - they hurt the country, but also, on a larger scale, the oligarchs. Europe sacrificed its economy to pretend not buying stuff from the invader - at the same time India is re-selling Russian oil products like never before. Turkey's "3rd parties" are suddenly able to deliver gas on a massive scale. Ships are being offloaded in neutral waters, then other ships appear in the European harbors with tons of oil. The same sanctions, US is pushing down to EU for implementation, are being avoided with legislative gymnastics - in reality US kept its important ties with Russia (diesel, fertilizers, etc.). In some way, indirectly (or maybe not), USA and Russia seem to play this strange "waltz" together.

Power 3: China
Tianxia ("all under Heaven") appreciates anything, which costs money to their primary adversary. At the same time receives cheaper raw materials. Add the free lesson on "how to invade your neighbor without starting a nuclear war" coming just at the right time. What's not to like?

Power 4: Corporations
Having gathered enough speed during the COVID times, the next major crysis was an absolute godsend for the big companies (a lucky coincidence, right?). They just continued hiking the prices, blatantly lying to the end-customers. The money windfall went straight into the pockets of the big bosses. This time they did not even bother to fool the employees on why not even a fraction of the profit was shared - that's how deep we are in the corpo-feudalism! The War in Ukraine was to blame for everything. Suddenly, every single resource on Earth was dependent on this country, every trade-route, every industry. The multi-national cartels made so much money, some of them even dropped the masks. British Petroleum (BP) said "Fuck it!" and killed their eco-projects to go for the big cash. No wonder - crude oil is at pre-COVID prices and somehow the gas station is still selling you fuel for x2 what you used to pay in 2019. Putin's fault of course.

Power 5: EU
Europe is the silent victim in this war and deserves its fate on 100%. US is draining the continent by imposing the globalist-climate-liberal agenda. Its loyal puppets (on key positions) are following any command, regardless how preposterous it might be. It is a public secret that the two, economically most powerful countries, dictate all decisions. The others shut up and execute (or else...!). In the meantime, every single day, dozens of companies go bankrupt or leave for greener pastures (China/America), thousands of illegal aliens drain the social systems and raise the crime rate to unseen heights, insane eco-standards kill any meaningful business, nonelected and unaccountable bureaucrats drown the countries in a swamp of institutional rules. Does this sound like "asking" to you?
When all weapons are "donated", who will pay and to whom the resupply?
Who is fighting right now in the Ukrainian forces?
What happened with the investigation of the terrorist attack on Nord Stream pipelines?
How many oligarchs have to die so President Putin decides to end it?
And many, more interesting questions await their answers ...

Motörhead - Brotherhood of Man

: music, February 05 2023 ▶

For exactly 40 years (1975-2015) the mighty band was ruling over the rock stage. Crew members insist their style is hard-rock, closer to punk, but you make your own judgment. If this is not as glorious and epic as heavy metal can be, I do not know what it is.
"Brotherhood of man" is the 7th and longest song from their last album - "The Wörld Is Yours" (2010). Sadly, 5 years later, the frontman, His Majesty Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister passed away, just one month after their drummer, Phil Taylor, died, which ultimately lead to the end of the band.
"Brotherhood of man" follows an even guitar pace, twisting the pitch in several moment, after the diabolical demigod addresses the humanity, pointing to the worldwide devastation.

The slow rhythm reminds of a war march. Lemmy narrates more than sings, using particularly low, growling voice (even for his standards). Destructive, unstoppable, merciless troops advance through the black smoke and burned fields. Bombs fall from the skies, fires hit the horizon. There is no escape, death is here.

The demigod considers himself a human - part of the problem, responsible equally alongside his brothers. Mankind destroys itself, as blind people follow "lying prophets" and "maniacs" to their doom. The grim scenery implies native guilt, forcefully turns heads and eyes to the eternal strife within and destruction behind it.