The Nation magazine editorial director and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel is an authority on international affairs (she is also the widow of the late Stephen F. Cohen, who'd been a frequent C2C guest on the subject of Russia). In the first half, she discussed the skyrocketing tensions between the US and Russia, the escalating crisis at Ukraine's border, and the urgent need for creative diplomacy to prevent war with Russia. In her recent column for the Washington Post, she called for US leaders to stop the "stumble toward war" and consider yielding to Russia on blocking Ukraine from joining NATO, while forging an agreement to keep the country an independent state. She noted that NATO doesn't accept countries with contested borders, so it's unlikely they'd be welcomed into the organization anyway. A military intervention or invasion in Ukraine would be catastrophic, she added.
Diplomacy requires patience and backchannels, but that doesn't play well for the American media, which is more drawn to stories about war and military conflict, vanden Heuvel continued. "We've just exited from Afghanistan," which was one of the longest wars in US history and estimated to cost America $5.6 trillion over 20 years, she pointed out. Putin may have already accomplished his goals, she suggested, with leaders of state coming to meet with him and reevaluating the idea of security. In terms of "strategic empathy," she thinks he has a valid point about not wanting adversaries' nuclear missiles stationed next door to Russia, just as America wouldn't want them in Mexico or Cuba.
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Radio and TV host Crystal Pomeroy has been teaching metaphysics for more than 20 years and contributes to various newspapers and magazines. In the latter half, she revealed how to re-connect with inner power and rise above the world of limitation using the angelic realm, including light beings, and goddesses. Angels could be considered luminous beings that are on a higher wavelength than we are, she explained, adding that "we're actually surrounded by all kinds of [invisible] beings," though some of them are on a lower vibration. Pomeroy believes it's the lower vibrational beings that hold us in the world of limitation, as they promote negative energy, crises, and remaining stuck.
Angels have roots that go beyond the Bible to the ancient goddess tradition and the sacred feminine, she indicated, and by combining elements from pre-religious teachings with invocations, one can arrive at a kind of "angelic intelligence." We have direct access to the angelic fields of energy, she shared. Pomeroy offered an example of how this works: We can call on Archangel Michael, visualizing him as blue light or energy. Then, contemplate how your own body is not solid but made of light, so that it easily fuses with Michael's field. Ask him to merge with you, so you feel yourself glowing in his field of light, and say "I am one with Archangel Michael" several times. "This is going to make psychic parasites, and other negative vibrations have a much harder time getting into us," she offered.
News segment guests: Lauren Weinstein, Steve Kates