"Where is Ukraine?" Is American Ignorance Responsible for the loss of Ukrainian lives?
The year that I graduated from Corpus Christi Grammar School in Chicago, my best friend, Jimmy, told me that he was going to attend high school at Hales Franciscan High School. My dad, a unionized carpenter, wanted me to go to Dunbar High School because Dunbar was a “trade school.” He wanted me to enter the building trades, as he had done.
But, since Jimmy was going to Hales, I begged my dad to send me to Hales instead of Dunbar. My dad was an undefeated boxer, a unionized, expert carpenter (outside and inside), and, previous to those things, had been a bartender. He was a tough man, who was raising my brother and I alone. Later in life, I asked my big brother, Marcus, who had gained a street rep for knocking out three guys in a fist fight at 63rd & Cottage Grove, a typical question that little brothers would ask, back in the day: “Do you think you could ever take Cheese?” Daddy Cheese was our dad’s nickname. Instantly, he replied, “Never. Not even if he was blind, in a wheel chair, and with no legs. Cheese is too fast, too smart, and punches too hard.” I was shocked—and proud, of course, of my tough dad.
But dad had a problem. Despite his toughness, he had a soft heart. So, despite the fact that Hales was a college-prep Catholic school, which meant high tuition, dad agreed to send me to Hales. Big mistake. First of all, Hales was expensive. Secondly, a tough entrance exam was required.
The exam was administered at the University of Chicago. I had been an extremely poor student at Corpus Christi Grammar School—for real. I was not academically inclined, until, at age 19, one year after I’d graduated from Hales High, I was inspired by a man named Leroy Hardy (See the chapter of my book entitled, Chaka Ra), and worked hard to get into college, and did get into college, majoring in engineering.
Well, the day of the entrance exam to Hales came. I swear, I must have guessed on 75% of the questions, no exaggeration. A week later, to my shock, I was informed, via mail, that I had passed the entrance test. But I’d more than just literally guessed my way into Hales. Hales had six hierarchical levels. You were placed in a level according to the results of your entrance exams. The levels were: Academic I, Academic II, Scientific I, Scientific II, Commercial (Bookkeeping, Accounting), and Shop.
I had literally guessed my way into Academic II. I entered Hales and suffered for four years. Well, after the first semester ended, my “best friend,” Jimmy, decided that he would go stone insane at Hales without any girls there. Hales was an all boys school. So, after one semester there, guess where Jimmy transferred to: YEP!! Dunbar, the school Cheese had wanted me to attend.
Well, I suffered for four years but finally graduated—barely. Hales, like any school, had an Honor Roll. And certain dudes were always on the Honor Roll. I’ll just make up fake names: James Smith, Roy Barnes, Steven Jones, Maurice Clayton and others were always on the Honor Roll, semester after semester up to graduation. Okay, let’s fast forward.
About a year ago, I decided to get a Facebook account. When Russia’s SMO (Special Military Operation) was launched in February 2022, in Ukraine, I did something I’d been used too since 1968, the year I graduated from Hales, and became socially active in “Black nationalism"—research, research, research. I knew, from jump street, that consulting the mainstream media would be a profound waste of time, as it had become a propaganda arm of our government, unfortunately. So, I used The Internet to dig, dig, dig for competent sources from which I could obtain accurate information of what was really happening in Ukraine, and why.
All of the individuals shown above are experts, along with a number of others, and are people whose reports I watched religiously, and daily. Regarding three of them: 1.) Scott Ritter was a former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer and United Nations weapons inspector; 2.) Col Douglas Macgregor is a retired U.S. Army Colonel and government official with the following military awards:
Defense Superior Service Medal
Bronze Star (with Valor)
Meritorious Service Medal (4)
Army Commendation Medal
Army Achievement Medal
National Defense Service Medal (2)
Southwest Asia Service Medal (2 Bronze Stars)
Kuwait Liberation Medal
Kosovo Campaign Medal
Humanitarian Service Medal
French Meritorious Service Medal (Bronze Star)
Parachutist Badge
Ranger Tab
3.) Gonzalo Lira was reporting on the day-to-day war in Ukraine from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. So, he had first hand, on-the-ground, accurate information regarding the conflict there in Ukraine.
In 2011, I had served as an independent journalist, reporting on NATO’s assault on Libya, under the pseudonym, Dennis South. I wrote 200 articles for Mathaba.net, in nine months. Others, some of whom I worked with, were Lizzie Phelan, Dr. Webster Tarpley, Dr. Franklin Lamb, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Adam King, Lisa Karpova, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, T. West, Stephen Lendman. I had one female contact who had once been associated with the former, and famous, Russian military Academy, Frunze, and a couple of members of the LDF, the Libyan Defense Force, who were shooting information to me.
I’d never been a formal journalist, but my 1960s/1970s experience during that socially and politically hot era had been my “OJT,” and I learned how to gather information, and how to sift out what was true information and what was bullsh*t. It was an era when everything was being questioned, nothing was taken at face value, and underground news organs were plentiful, and (as usual!!) more accurate than what you’d find in the mainstream media, although I must be honest and state that the mainstream media then was light-years better back then, when real journalists performed real journalism.
Well, after I’d started studying the Ukraine conflict, I decided to go to Facebook and share what I’d learned with my old Hales alumni friends. OH….MY….GOD!!!! Those same guys— James Smith, Roy Barnes, Steven Jones, Maurice Clayton—who had been on the Honor Roll, all four years, every single semester, at Hales, caused me to be tempted to suggest to them that they return to Hales and get a refund.
What comments about Ukraine had they submitted at Facebook? COMMENTS???!!! No. Cartoons of Vladimir Putin, Sergie Lavrov, Russian soldiers, depicted with horns coming out of their heads. There was the hammer & sickle emblem of the defunct Soviet Union, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the Russian Republic. Some wore those “we support Ukraine” banners. Was there any intelligent commentary, anywhere, from any of those “smart” Hales Honor Roll geniuses? ZILCH.
I told my wife, “I’m going to comment and tell them what the real deal is!!” But, to do so, I would have had to go back to the days of the BOLSHEVIKS!! And I just would not waste my time. They knew nothing of strategic empathy. They knew nothing of the U.S. “promise” to Russia that it would not attempt to gobble up former Soviet territories into NATO.
They knew nothing about 2014 and Maidan; nothing about the Minsk agreements; nothing about the eight years of shelling that the Ukrainians had been doing to the people of Luhansk and Donetsk, the two oblasts in the Donbass, in Ukraine. They knew nothing of the attempt, by Ukraine, to wipe out the language and culture of the Russian-speaking people of Donbass. They knew zilch about meetings between Ukraine and Russia, in Turkey, in March 2022; nothing about security guarantees; nothing about anything.
And they were buying the mainstream media lies which, had you not known better, would have convinced you that Zelensky would soon be sitting in The Kremlin, ruling Ukraine and Russia. All along the way, as I studied the information from the sources I used, it was just shocking to see how much the mainstream media was spinning, lying by structure, lying by omission, and just straight-up lying. Does anyone remember the claims that Ukraine was “winning” the war? Does anyone remember how many times that claim was being made by the media, week after week after week? Is anyone wondering why Zelensky is not the conqueror, YET, in Ukraine?
During the Vietnam War, U.S. citizens were very knowledgeable about what was going on. And when that war ended, the citizens of the United States were credited with being a large part of the reason that the war was forced to closure. The citizens were knowledgeable, and were out in the streets protesting daily.
Had U.S. citizens had a more complete understanding of the history that led to this Ukraine conflict, and our government’s role in the events that led up to the conflict in Ukraine, then perhaps the suffering of the people of Ukraine would have ended within three months of the fighting, through negotiations. Do we Americans have blood on our hands? Is our lack of knowledge of the world, in part due to the lying mainstream media, as well as some social media platforms, a factor in the ongoing suffering in Ukraine? Perhaps we would have taken to the streets, or at least complained to our representatives, had we understood the roots of the conflict and the factors, along the way, that helped cause the conflict.
Have we, by our ignorance, participated in the slaughter of Ukrainian soldiers, and citizens, in part because of our inability to realize that we cannot stand as the single, dominating power on earth anymore whom everyone must bow down to? Three times it appeared that Ukraine was ready to make peace, but all three times that effort was blocked, two of those times by representatives of the United Kingdom.
Listen to Scott Ritter. Listen to Col. Douglas Macgregor. In fact, they are so hard on our country, a country they served in its military at the risk of their lives, and a country that they are one-billion percent loyal to and patriots of, for the ignorance and belligerence of our current leaders, that, were my former Hales Honor Roll buddies exposed to their analyses, they’d shout, “TRAITORS!” rather than listen and learn.
Do we have blood on our hands because we’re hypnotized, most of us, it seems, by the propaganda organs of the mainstream media? At this very moment, Russia has all but destroyed Ukraine’s electrical grid. It’s been said that there might soon be about 5 million refugees fleeing Ukraine and going either into Europe or Russia. I’ll be clear: Russia did not suddenly decide to invade Ukraine as some kind of expansionist land grab. Russia had the same concerns we would have had the situation been reversed, and Mexico was threatening to have Russia place nukes there. Does anyone remember the Cuban missile crisis? As Marcus would say, “There’s three sides to every story: his side, her side, and the truth.”
But don’t take my word for any of this. Listen to what two distinguished experts have to say: Gerald Celente, global financial markets expert and the publisher of Trends Journal, and Judge Napolitano, former New Jersey Superior Court judge from 1987 to 1995. Click the screenshot picture to play the video:
Judge Napolitano says the following about our U.S. government:
”Government fights wars, so that it can grow and it can enrich its benefactors. And it doesn’t care what innocents are slaughtered. Look at what’s going on in Ukraine. It’s being done to help the American military industrial complex. I don’t want to sound like Saul Alinsky, but sometimes even those creeps on the left are right.”
And Gerald Cenete says:
“Every Democrat voted to send $40 billion of our money to be bloodying the killing fields in Ukraine.” You can view the entire video, of course, yourselves.
We didn’t have an Internet, back in the day. Today, The Internet is in the hands of everyone. I ask the reader to please expand the sources from which you obtain information. Our mainstream media is corrupt and has become co-opted. And if we are not careful and diligent and knowledgeable, our mainstream media will cause World War III, and all life on planet earth—plant, insect, animal, and human—will be wiped out in a nuclear war.
Don’t think so? Look what just happened after that Ukrainian missile flew into Poland and killed two farmers. Instantly, Russia was accused of “attacking” Poland. All the hotheads of the West, in part because of the mainstream media, were beating the war drums. Then, it turned out that it was Ukraine that had launched that missile, probably from its air defense system in an attempt to destroy a Russian aircraft or weapon of some sort. Luckily, various intelligence and other services corrected the lie. Please, people, pay close attention. Peace.
The video is shocking!