The front page of this epic organization, Media Sanctuary, is Chris Hedges' greatest talk. I have been tracking, and videoing Chris Hedges for 20 years. His talk in Eugene got over 100,000 views but, this is better. Naming names. Concrete. Share widely. https://www.mediasanctuary.org/ I hope this gets past the Algorithm. because it's true. "Chris Hedges returned to The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy NY on October 21, 2022 to speak on the subject of his latest book, titled “The Greatest Evil is War” (Seven Stories Press). This unflinching indictment of the horror and obscenity of war draws from experience and interviews for a book that looks at the hidden costs of war, what it does to individuals, families, communities, and nations." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0jZyHk6Rxs

The Ukraine war is quite directly a result in defects in the structures of worldwide consensus and administration, which originated in 1945. For example, the UN Treaty, one of the pillars, prohibited wars of aggression by one "state" against another... i.e., crossing "borders". Which is great. The treaty committed member states (which included almost all nations) to unite, to counter inter-nation aggression (with two exceptions) Taking a step back it was a bit self-serving, by the victors of WW2 (who ended up on the 5 member "security council") to defend their own existing regimes, within their own borders. But OK, what does the United Nations stand for? It stands for the permanent, unconditional design of "borders" at the point in time. This was a time bomb. Two huge defects: - Failed to define the conditions when a people, a population, a geographic region, have a *RIGHT* to secede from their ruling capital. Under conditions 1, 2, 3, etc. the population of a region should be entitled to self-determination i.e. sovereignty. - Failed to consider in any way, the *RIGHTS* of conquered or vanquished people, for any sort of redress whatsoever-- how to talk about and settle so many obviously unjust grievances of the past, Under conditions 1, 2, 3, etc. e.g. black people and indigenous in the United States, Kurds, Palestinians, Eastern Ukraine, Chechnya, Bahai... A comprehensive framework of addressing past conquests would consider how long ago the crime occurred, in terms of generations since the original victims in some cases are long dead (armenians etc) and their descendents shouldn't enjoy uncondional, inherited rights the cost of which would be born by descendents of the criminals. another concept is the degree to which the descendents have been adversely affected in the present time. For example Gazans have been 100% adversely affected, under empirical measures while Asian americans are less affected. and bla bla bla, just thinking our "international institutions" could do a better job dealing with the actual problems, besides elites of the G20 or Davos meetings, ad-hoc manuevering from year to year without a permanent commitment to any principles.