And the rock cried out: "NO HIDING PLACE"

Russian billionaires are being sanctioned into penury. The Russian economy, if Vladimir Putin continues in his mad war, will regress to Soviet times, without the Soviet alliances or a Soviet industrial base. Even China is hedging its bets. 

But for me, this is the best news I saw yesterday:

RT America will cease productions and lay off most of its staff, according to a memo from T&R Productions, the production company behind the Russian state-funded network, which CNN obtained.

Misha Solodovnikov, the general manager of T&R Productions, told staff in the memo that it will be "ceasing production" at all of its locations "as a result of unforeseen business interruption events."

"Unfortunately, we anticipate this layoff will be permanent, meaning that this will result in the permanent separation from employment of most T&R employees at all locations," Solodovnikov wrote.

T&R Productions operated offices in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.

The news would mean an effective end to RT America. The network, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's main mouthpieces in the U.S., was dropped earlier this week by DirecTV, dealing a major financial blow to it. The satellite carrier was one of the two major television providers in the U.S. to carry the network.

Roku, a company that sells hardware that allows users to stream content through the internet, also said that it had banished RT America from its platform.

The title to this piece is that of both a spiritual and of an episode of the greatest science fiction TV series ever, Babylon 5. The episode delineates the death of a character who engaged in genocide. The song delineates that when the Lord comes calling, those sinners will have nowhere to hide. And we're seeing this happening in real time.

RT America was nothing but Putinist propaganda aimed at the American audience. It was sponsored by the Russian state, and parroted Russian state positions. To claim that it in any way or form was "independent media" is to twist words out of all normal meaning.

Of course, one of its most fervent employees had a sad:

Of course, I had to reply:

People who had never had consequences imposed on them are now feeling the sting of an outraged world. They thought the world was as corrupt as they were, because all they see is corruption. They couldn't conceive that how they operated was not how normal people operated. And now that they are meeting the ramifications of their choices, they cry. They weep. They ask the rock to hide them. But the rock responds that their is no hiding for them. The earth will spit them out to face justice. They will meet their fates with no succor or consolation.

I keep talking about "inflection points" and "a new world being birthed". Neither of these things are without danger. Neither of these things are without violence. Our own ekitty said yesterday that it seems that Ukraine is the sacrificial lamb for the rebooting of the Western alliance. This reminds me of a line from The Hours. Virginia Woolf is asked why someone has to die in her new writing. She replies: Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. That's the tragedy of humanity, and its strength. Someone has to die so that we realize what a precious gift life is. But once we realize that preciousness, we cling to it as if it were our own child.

I feel it in my 52 year old bones. We can't continue the way we have been for the totality of human civilization. We either change, or we don't continue. Or worse, we continue in a fashion which is inhuman. But the fact that most of the world has come together to cast anathema on Putin and his designs gives me hope. It reaffirms the faith I have in imperfect, often-failing humanity. The Bhagavad Gita is as much our inheritance as is Sobibor. May we, at last, honor the good over the evil.