It would be nice if our sociopathic elite would dial down the war rhetoric for the holidays, but I’m not holding my breath.

While Americans have been led to believe that our president is a secret Putin-controlled double agent, Trump has taken actions that have brought Russia and the US to the brink of conflict in a number of hot-spots, while intensifying a new Cold War. Think–Syria, or Ukraine, or the Baltic’s, or the Arctic, or, well you get the picture. Maybe this is all part of the devious Putin’s master plan to put Rachel Maddow off the scent?

And it’s not just Trump. Congress has recently approved a bill that would give to Ukraine $300 million in supplementary military assistance to use against Russia. The money and authorization appear in the House of Representatives version of the national defense authorization act (NDAA) that passed last week.

Far more ominously is a proposal to admit Ukraine, as well as Georgia, to the NATO alliance. Like the $300 million in military aid, there appears to be considerable bipartisan support for such a move. NATO already has a major presence on the Black Sea with Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey all members. Adding Ukraine and Georgia would completely isolate Russia and Moscow would undoubtedly see it as an existential threat.

Our corporate media portray this development as perfectly natural while endlessly berating the Russians for their aggression, but imagine it from a different perspective. Imagine that after the end of the first Cold War Russia expanded the Warsaw Pact to the Western-Hemisphere, adding new members to surround the US, while initiating a coup in Mexico. It’s not hard to imagine the hue and cry that would erupt.

Arming the Kremlin’s enemies is both reckless and pointless. Russia will definitely strike back if it is attacked, make no mistake about that, and war could easily escalate with tragic consequences for all of us. That war is perhaps becoming thinkable is in itself deplorable, with Business Insider running a recent piece on surviving a nuclear attack.

We gotten to this point, I believe, the same way as everything else. Our feral elite decided long ago that they were done with productive endeavors and that looting was the order of the day. And now we’ve reached the end game, where they’ve fucked-up everything, they’re prepared to start a global conflagration with the hope that they can retreat to their bunkers.

What’s so baffling and dismaying is that while the Republicans continue to mostly quietly support an aggressive foreign policy, the real war party in Congress is now the Democrats. They have incorporated Russia as the enemy so completely into their sense of identity that it has become the fallback position whenever they feel compelled to say something to distance themselves from Trump and the GOP. For them Russia and Vladimir Putin are together the real enemy that is out to destroy American democracy.

What none of these hotheads seems to have noticed is that Russia has been busy responding to American aggression with their own Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). According to defense analyst Andrei Martyanov, the Russian military has weapon systems, including hypersonic missiles that are generations ahead of the US. And it gets worse: “Such weapons ensure a guaranteed retaliation on the U.S. proper.” Even the existing Russian nuclear deterrents – and to a lesser degree Chinese, as paraded recently — “are capable of overcoming the existing U.S. anti-ballistic systems and destroying the United States.” Martyanov prefers to stress how “most of the American elites, at least for now, still reside in a state of Orwellian cognitive dissonance” even as the real RMA “blew the myth of American conventional invincibility out of the water.”

I’m gratified that in these perilous times our noble press, the vaunted 4th estate, has alerted us to such momentous events.

Oh, wait.

In this holiday season, while our feral elite plot our demise, let’s put aside talk of armageddon and remember the true story of when soldiers in the trenches of the Western Front decided to cease hostilities for Christmas.

“With Christmas approaching, the scattered and infrequent gestures of goodwill across enemy lines increased. About a week before Christmas, German troops near Armentieres slipped a “splendid” chocolate cake across the lines to their British counterparts. Attached to that delectable peace offering was a remarkable invitation:

We propose having a concert tonight as it is our Captain’s birthday, and we cordially invite you to attend – provided you will give us your word of honor as guests that you agree to cease hostilities between 7:30 and 8:30…. When you see us light the candles and footlights at the edge of our trench at 7:30 sharp you can safely put your heads above your trenches, and we shall do the same, and begin the concert.

The concert proceeded on time, with the bewhiskered German troops singing “like Christy Minstrels,” according to one eyewitness account. Each song earned enthusiastic applause from the British troops, prompting a German to invite the Tommies to “come mit us into the chorus.” One British soldier boldly shouted, “We’d rather die than sing German.” This jibe was parried instantly with a good-natured reply from the German ranks: “It would kill us if you did.” The concert ended with an earnest rendition of “Die Wacht am Rhein,” and was closed with a few shots deliberately aimed at the darkening skies – a signal that the brief pre-Christmas respite was ended. Elsewhere along the Front, arrangements were worked out to retrieve fallen soldiers and give them proper treatment or burial.”

This unique story of war resistance needs to be retold over and over again if our modern-era false flag-generated, highly profitable, corporate-induced wars of empire are to be effectively de-railed.

Despite all of the pro-war propaganda, hatred and warfare are not natural. Why else would the corporate media spend the enormous amounts of time and effort into manufacturing consent for the endless wars?

Peace on earth and goodwill to all.