Does anyone know if Ziad has set up another SyPer website? It was a great site for operations updates despite heavily trolled comment section.

Posted by: Chevrus | Dec 19 2019 17:44 utc | 3

I have been asked by a number of people whether I believe James Mesurier killed himself, or was killed by others.
I think he took his own life. Look at the photograph that accompanied his obituary in the MSM – you’ll never see a sadder face. People who knew him say that he was a good officer but by no means the sharpest knife in the box. So his attraction to his bosses was probably that he was good at following orders. Had he still been in the Army (maybe he still was) he was still a relatively junior officer, yet it seems that almost £50 million pounds went through his hands for distribution to his White Helmets. He can’t have been doing this off his own bat. He must have been fronting for some pretty unsavoury types and I do wish that we could be told who they are. (I believe that Trump has approved further funds for the White Helmets.)
NATO now includes countries who look back nostalgically to the exploits of SS Viking and SS Galicia, amongst other fascist organisations. There are people now appear to be doing their best to provoke a war in Europe.
Does anyone have any knowledge of NATO’s chain of command? Who is pulling the strings?

Posted by: Montreal | Dec 19 2019 18:46 utc | 5

Déjà vu in Trotskyist Land:
French unions meet prime minister to sell out mass strike to defend pensions

As a mass rail, transport, education and energy strike enters its third week, workers are calling to end talks with Philippe, who has stated that he will ram his cuts through parliament in February despite mass opposition. Union leaders’ meetings at Matignon, smiling and joking with Philippe for the TV cameras, highlights the class gulf separating them from millions of workers and youth now taking to the streets. While workers fight to defend pensions, the unions are trying to find ways to justify a sell-out and lull workers to sleep on growing dangers of state repression.

Can you see what’s abnormal in this article?
Exactly: it’s literally the same narrative the WSWS has been using for every article about every strike of the 21st Century. They just changed the name of the unions, the name of the country and the sector the working class pertain to.
No matter how great a strike or even a general strike is, the narrative is the same: the working classes are clamoring for revolution but one or two random union bureaucrats screw everything. Union bosses are, therefore, all that is separating us from the world (permanent) revolution.
What they don’t take into account is that the French working classes are waging a defensive general strike (i.e. a general strike with the aim of preserving something that already exists, not to conquer new things), and that, either way, they are not revoulutionary, they don’t want socialism in any form or shape in France (if that was the case, Macron wouldn’t have been elected against Le Pen in the second round in the first place).
This means the precondition of the general strikes presupposes the absence of the possibility of a revolution. The Trotskyists’ thesis is wrong by design.
Corrupt unions do exist and are quite common throughout the Western world ever since the social-democrats sold themselves out during the Cold War in order to defeat the revolutionary socialists (a.k.a. “communists”). But History is the ultimate juri: on the average, the rise and proliferation of unions resulted in a major gain for the working classes around the globe.
That means albeit corrupt unions do exist, most of them are not – even though they are not revolutionary. The union is not the Western analogous of the Russian soviet; the Trotskyists must stop with this fascination, bordering fetichism, with the soviets.
–//–
For people asking here some days ago about Putin’s dislike of Lenin, here’s your answer:
Russia inherited myriad of ethnic ‘sore points’ after USSR collapsed, says Putin
As I’ve commented here at the occasion, Putin focused on the Lenin vs Stalin debate about what the status of the ethnicities should be in the new Union. He said Stalin was right and Lenin was wrong, because “[Vladimir Lenin was acting] not as a state leader, but as a revolutionary.”
But Putin is factually wrong.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, the ethnicity problem in Russia was born with the Russian Empire’s own model of colonization — what we call nowadays as “internal colonization”, i.e. the incorporation of the colonies directly into the territory of the metropolis. See Mironov’s article about that:
The Price of Expansion: The Nationality Problem in Russia of the Eighteenth-Early Twentieth Centuries
Putin should, therefore, blame the Russian Empire, and not the USSR, for its own ethnic problems. But he won’t, since he has a romanticized view of the tsars and has Peter the Great as his personal hero.

Posted by: vk | Dec 19 2019 19:17 utc | 7

vk @7–
It would be better for you to provide the words Putin spoke in answer to the question.
Here’s the repartee and the question taken from the transcript linked @6:
“Andrei Kolesnikov: Good afternoon. Andrei Kolesnikov, Kommersant newspaper.
“Mr President, I have two questions on the recent meeting of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights. You spoke out about Vladimir Ulyanov as never before. You even brought up his nicknames, such as ‘Old Man’ and ‘Lenin.’
“Vladimir Putin: A pseudonym.
“Andrei Kolesnikov: You said nicknames.
“Vladimir Putin: As a matter of fact, it is all one and the same.
“Andrei Kolesnikov: Party nicknames.
“You accused him of breaking down a 1,000-year-old state. When you were saying this, you facial expression was close to rage, it seemed to me. Will anything come out of your comment? What would be a logical follow-up to these words? Removing Lenin’s body from the Mausoleum, at long last?”
Putin’s answer:
“Regarding Lenin and his role in our history, and what I think about it, I believe that he was a revolutionary rather than a statesman.
“When I talked about the 1,000-year history of our state, it was strictly centralised and unitary, as we all know. But what did Vladimir Lenin propose? He went even further than a federation and proposed a system that can be described as a confederation. It was his decision to tie ethnic groups to specific territories, so that they obtained the right to secede from the Soviet Union.
“What happened was that a strictly centralised state was turned into a de facto confederation with the right of secession and with ethnic groups attached to specific territories. But these territories were divided in such a way that they did not always correspond and still do not correspond to where various ethnic groups traditionally lived. This is how cracks emerged that still linger in the relations between the former Soviet republics, and even within the Russian Federation. There are two thousand cracks of this kind, and letting them out of sight for even a second can have grave consequences. This is the first point I wanted to make.
“By the way, Stalin was against such organisation. He even wrote an article on autonomy, but, eventually, adopted Lenin’s formula. The upshot? Just now, our colleague from Ukraine and I spoke about our relations. Back when the Soviet Union was created, original Russian territories that never had anything to do with Ukraine (the entire Black Sea region and Russia’s western lands) were transferred to Ukraine under a strange pretext of “increasing the percentage of the proletariat in Ukraine,” because Ukraine was a rural territory populated by petty-bourgeois-minded peasants, who were subjected to dispossession across the country. This was a somewhat odd decision. Nevertheless, it took place. We are now dealing with Vladimir Lenin’s legacy of state building.
“What did they do? They tied the country’s future to their own party, and this tenet went from one Constitution to another. It was the main political force. As soon as the party started to crumble, the country followed. That is what I meant. I stick to this point of view to this day.
“As you are aware, I worked in intelligence for a long time. It was an integral part of a much politicised organisation, the KGB, and I had my own ideas about our leaders and so on. But I know better today, and I understand that there are geopolitical considerations in addition to ideology. They were completely ignored during the creation of the Soviet Union. All this was much politicised at the time. To reiterate, the party began to fall apart, and that was the end of it – the country followed. This had to be prevented. This was a mistake. An absolute, cardinal and fundamental mistake in state building.
“Now, with regard to the body. This is beside the point. I believe this subject should not be touched at all, at least as long as there are people, lots of them, who associate their lives and destinies, and certain achievements of the past, the Soviet years, with it. One way or another, the Soviet Union is certainly connected with Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the world proletariat. So, why delve deep into that? We just need to move forward and grow. That is all.”
Yes, you misrepresented what Putin answered, amongst other things. Perhaps I should add what Putin had to say about the Kadyrovs which follows his answer about Lenin. But better would be to include his answer to the following:
“Kira Latukhina: Kira Latukhina, Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
“I would like to return to the issue of our Victory in the Great Patriotic War. Next year we will celebrate the anniversary – the 75th anniversary, the Year of Memory and Glory. But at the same time, in September this year, the European Parliament adopted a resolution stating that Nazism and fascism are equated with the Soviet regime, having timed it with the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II. They are calling it totalitarianism and suggesting introducing a new international holiday to celebrate the day of heroes of the fight against totalitarianism on May 25. What do you think about it? What is your opinion?”
Putin’s answer:
“Vladimir Putin: There is nothing good about totalitarianism, it is worthy of condemnation, without any doubt.
“I know about the European Parliament’s decision. I consider it absolutely unacceptable and wrong, because you can condemn Stalinism and totalitarianism as a whole, and in some ways these will be well-deserved reproaches. Our people were the biggest victims of totalitarianism. We condemned it and the personality cult and so on.
“But to equate the Soviet Union or to put the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany on one level is incredible cynicism. This means that people do not know history; they cannot read or write. Let them read the documents of that time, let them see how the so-called Munich Agreement was signed in 1938, when the heads of the leading countries – France, Great Britain – signed an agreement with Hitler on the partition of Czechoslovakia.
“How did Poland behave in this situation, which, as one diplomat wrote at the time, ‘did everything possible to participate in the partition of Czechoslovakia?’ How did the Soviet Union behave then, proposing to all participants in international life to create a united anti-Nazi front?
“And how, by not creating it, they were really trying to push Hitler to aggression to the East, not realising then that Nazi Germany was interested not in Polish-German relations, but in expanding their living space to the East, that is, war against the Soviet Union.
“You see, I mean to write an article about this event. I will definitely have it published because I asked my colleagues to select archive materials for me. When I read some of them, everything becomes clear: everything in the process of appeasing Hitler is sorted out by year, month, and almost by day.
“Stalin did not stain himself with direct contact with Hitler whereas the French and British leaders met with him and signed some documents. Yes the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the secret protocols to it were signed.
“Is it good or bad? I draw your attention to this – it is crucial – that the Soviet Union was the last country in Europe to sign a non-aggression pact with Germany. All the others had signed it earlier. And what was the Soviet Union supposed to do? Face it alone?
“Yes, they say there were secret protocols, the division of Poland. Poland itself joined in dividing Czechoslovakia. It entered two regions – Tesin and another one. And that’s it. Poland took them over. They in fact gave an ultimatum and set up an entire group for the aggression. But it was not needed because Czechoslovakia surrendered under pressure and gave those territories away. But the Poles did the same.
“By the way, yes, Soviet troops entered Poland under the protocols. I draw your attention to the following circumstance: the troops did enter but only after the Polish government lost control over their armed forces and over the developments in Poland while the government itself was somewhere near the Polish-Romanian border. There was no one to talk to about it. Do you see this?
“Moreover, we talk about the heroic defenders of the Brest Fortress. Nazi troops captured Brest-Litovsk and then just abandoned it, and the Red Army moved in. Do you understand this or not? This is what I want to ask all those who adopt such resolutions in the European Parliament.
“That means the Red Army did not invade those territories in Poland. German troops entered them and then left, and after that the Soviet troops entered. Does this mean anything? So I will definitely let you know about that. By the way, we are holding a CIS format meeting tomorrow, and I want to show my CIS colleagues some of our archival documents. Anyone interested is welcome to come and listen.”
Gee, I’d like to be there or at least read what gets said. I also await Putin’s essay.

Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 19 2019 19:44 utc | 9

The “interim” government in Bolivia is doing pretty much what would have been expected of same in Venezuela – drastically changing the political environment with no democratically agreed mandate. Noteworthy that the grossly flawed OAS election analysis is referred to uncritically in most all corporate media updates from the country, and outlets such as Guardian and CBC close off comments for this topic.

Posted by: jayc | Dec 19 2019 19:51 utc | 11

There hasn’t been a president in my lifetime that couldn’t have been impeached for initiating a war without a declaration of Congress, so Trump ought to consider himself that he got the same out they all have before him. If it were up to me, he’d be impeached, convicted, and handed over to the World Court for prosecution on war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Posted by: Vonu | Dec 19 2019 20:00 utc | 13

Khamenei uses the statistics published by the Outlaw US Empire to condemn it in a short vid, “41 Million people in the US suffer from hunger and lack of food security”–US Dept. of Agriculture. That number of people constituted a crisis for FDR when he delivered his One-Third of a Nation speech for his 2nd Inaugural. About four years later, FDR expanded on that issue in his Four Freedoms speech: 1.Freedom of speech; 2.Freedom of worship; 3.Freedom from want; 4.Freedom from fear.
Faced with a similar situation, Trump advances plans to cut more people from the food stamp program thus increasing immiseration, threatens freedom of speech by attacking Assange and other truth tellers, and threatens those of the Islamic faith with his radical Islamophobia. One might say Trump’s out of step with traditional American values; but were Obama, Bush, or Clinton any better?
Some will get mad at Khamenei for his propaganda; I won’t. I’d say it doesn’t go far enough.

Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 19 2019 20:24 utc | 15

@ Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 19 2019 19:44 utc | 9
Yep, I’ve read everything. And Putin is still factually wrong (I’m talking about the first interview).
His mistake is, ironically, ideological: he considers everything that was made during the Russian Empire as purely “geopolitical” (i.e. pragmatic) while everything made during the USSR as purely “ideological”. But this is by itself an ideological view of History.
Yes, Lenin was a revolutionary. That doesn’t mean everything he did was for revolutionary reasons. The single-party system, for example, was born out of pure desperation and necessity: the original idea post-October was to, in fact, have a pluripartidary system. The problem? The other parties refused to participate in any kind of government that had the Bolsheviks in, deserted, formed the White Army and declared a Civil War (1918-1922). Unless you want to blame the Bolsheviks for not wanting to die, I don’t see any ideological motivations behind the single-party system.
And the ethnic question was indeed unsustainable at the late imperial period. As my quoted Mironov (who is a Soviet and Russian historian) article clearly states, at it end, the Russian Empire didn’t even have a Russian majority: only 47% of the population was ethnic Russian. The 1905 Revolution involved ethnic conflicts. As a communist, Lenin would be the last one to defend ethnic sectarianism and balkanization; the objective problem is that that a united humanity was not possible at his time and he knew that. Better to give those ethnicities their own republics than to risk another civil war.
The irony was that the Bolsheviks were the only Russian party defending local nationalisms during the last elections pre-Revolution. They earned very few votes on the ethnic minorities’ regions. When they did the Revolution and won the Civil War, those same minorities saw the rise of the Bolsheviks as a triumph of the Russians and a victory of centralism (and also a victory of the factory worker over the peasant), that is, the opposite of what Putin claimed.
We must not commit the anachronism and project modern leftist wokeism to the Bolsheviks. Wokeism was born in the USA, and they are descendants of the Non-Communist Left (NCL), which is a branch of American social-democracy born in the post-war period, and not of American communism (which continued to be systematically infiltrated and anihilated by the FBI). Social-democracy and communism separated during the end of the 19th Century, that is, more than half a century before social-democracy was the same or very similar to communism.
And I don’t understand why he’s so bitter about giving a little bit of land to Ukraine in order to raise the proportion of the proletarian population in the newly-founded republic: those kind of goalpost moves are not a communist (“revolutionary”) invention, is very common in empires (like the one he loves so much) and is of very pragamtic nature – the Bolsheviks were the party of the urban proletariat, nothing more natural for them to try to gain more power by raising proletarian power.

Posted by: vk | Dec 19 2019 20:43 utc | 17

Below is a ZH posting with a take away quote below. I posited months ago that Korea will reunite and this seems to be another step along that path
Last Minute South Korea-US Troop Cost-Sharing Talks Fail, Deal To Expire
The take away quote
”
Prior to the massive nearly $5BN price hike, South Korea already agreed to pay $920 million annually to maintain the roughly 29,000 US troops in the country.
”
Going from the current $800 million to $5 billion for being a colony of late empire is a bit steep, eh?

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 19 2019 21:31 utc | 19

All,
In light of b’s post on Blumenthal and the discussion that ensued, I have been reading MofA’s earlier coverage of the propaganda build-up against Assad in 2011 and 2012–for instance, this important post on video staging here:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/03/avaaz-sponsoring-fake-reporting-from-syria.html
However I noticed something very disconcerting rereading this report. Every one of the videos cited by b and linked to in the body of his post is no longer available; either they and/or the account associated with them has been completely scrubbed by YouTube. This is obviously very bad. If the documentary evidence supporting b’s analysis is simply erased, then his claims can the more easily be dismissed as “conspiracy theory” rather than arguments based on documented facts.
How many other such videos have been or are in the process of being erased in this manner? Are any steps being taken by anybody to archive and host these videos on an independent platform/s? Does anybody know?
Whoever controls the present controls the past, and whoever controls the past controls the future.

Posted by: WJ | Dec 19 2019 21:42 utc | 21

@ 21 wg… that is disconcerting… however, whoever controls the medium – youtube – controls the message, or the removal of the message as exampled here… nsa – google – til death do they part…

Posted by: james | Dec 19 2019 22:01 utc | 23

@ Posted by: WJ | Dec 19 2019 21:42 utc | 21 with the reporting about YouTube deleting videos that support b’s postings
I am not surprised. YouTube recently changed its policy on retention of videos and I expect it covers their ass for responding to “Winston Smith” types of requests from late empire trying to rewrite history.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 19 2019 22:10 utc | 25

back at https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/12/how-the-deep-state-sunk-the-democratic-party/comments/page/1/#comments
Australian lady | Dec 19 2019 3:26 utc | 71 wrote
“… The best summation of the man [Trump] is, curiosly enough, provided by Syria’s president Assad. There is an honesty about him even when he’s uttering a bald-faced lie!..”
Does anyone have a reference for that summation?

Posted by: tucenz | Dec 19 2019 22:35 utc | 27

Michael Droy @ 24:
Off-Guardian.org has carried articles on the current Western narrative demonising China for supposedly incarcerating Uyghur people in a network of concentration camps. The site however has been the target of DDoS attacks in recent months. The most recent article is dated 17 December 2019, so the topic is revisited every so often. The Grayzone Project (Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, Rania Khalek, Aaron Mate – and probably soon to be new reporter there Tareq Haddad, formerly of Newsweek) also carries articles on the issue.

Posted by: Jen | Dec 19 2019 22:39 utc | 29

How the US grifters scour the world in their contemporary version of piracy.
This is a succinct analysis of how the graft is set up between State Department and executed by Senators doing their ‘global diplomacy’. From a conservative blogsite The Last Refuge. Has some great links to interesting Ukraine interviews. Not to be missed. It actually dumps hard on both R and D scumbags.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 19 2019 22:54 utc | 31

@27 tucenz… google-youtube-nsa hasn’t been able to scrub sana news yet…
here is a quote that is similar to the one you ask from assad in an oct 31st interview..
“As for Trump, you might ask me a question and I give you an answer that might sound strange. I say that he is the best American President, not because his policies are good, but because he is the most transparent president. All American presidents perpetrate all kinds of political atrocities and all crimes and yet still win the Nobel Prize and project themselves as defenders of human rights and noble and unique American values, or Western values in general. The reality is that they are a group of criminals who represent the interests of American lobbies, i.e. the large oil and arms companies, and others. Trump talks transparently, saying that what we want is oil. This is the reality of American policy, at least since WWII. We want to get rid of such and such a person or we want to offer a service in return for money. This is the reality of American policy. What more do we need than a transparent opponent? That is why the difference is in form only, while the reality is the same.”
https://www.sana.sy/en/?p=177331

Posted by: james | Dec 19 2019 23:13 utc | 33

vk@17, you are not seeing Putin’s point, which he also makes about the Soviet leadership in general. He is expanding the concept of multiparty as against the uniparty solution that brought the Soviet Union down. And he traces that back to Lenin.
Thank you, karlof1, for linking to news of the press meeting. Saker had a twitter link up, so I was able to view the video (long). I didn’t get right to the end, but I believe the entirety is there.
There was a significant back and forth with a young reporter from Chechnya concerning that region’s Islamic traditions being more safely followed within the Russian Federation – and also a segment later in the meeting where Putin describes that Russia had requested the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing be extradited to Russia before that incident took place, and got no response.
He attributes the demise of the Soviet Union to the fact that it was uni-idealogical with no dynamism in its structure – no dialogue between those who were of different cultures and the overarching communist ‘faith’. And basically the reason he doesn’t fault earlier historical times is precisely that there was, even under the tsar, ethnic freedom. He’s very proud of that in Russia today.

Posted by: juliania | Dec 19 2019 23:22 utc | 35

Yes, karlof1@28, the situation in Australia is dire. In reading the innings report from a cricket test between New Zealand and Australia in Perth, which is on the west coast, I saw that the temperature midfield got up to 47 degrees C – I cannot imagine playing any sport in those conditions.

Posted by: juliania | Dec 19 2019 23:33 utc | 37

@Chevrus
Canthama wrote this morning that Syper was taken down by an attack that originated from Lebanon and they are working to restore it. Go to Canthama’s twitter page, lots of info there on the ongoing offensive.

Posted by: durlin | Dec 20 2019 0:05 utc | 39

As I expected Tulsi Gabbard is being called a fascist and more for voting Present on the House Impeachment articles.
I am not going to provide links. To me it just shows, like the Max thread how brainwashed the American public is by their Plato’s Cave Displays that show them a very narrow and skewed view of our world.
Anybody give a shit about how much public REPO funds went to the private banking system today? It does look like the US Fed promised $500 billion to cover the end of the year private bank positioning won’t be all used up….the latest term REPO was the first undersubscribed one since September……

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 20 2019 0:17 utc | 41

thanks james and Jen. I had located that quote – curiously it came up at RealClearPolitics, but when I reloaded the page it was gone! (as you noted james). However, it is not the same in meaning as what Australian lady wrote. Perhaps she paraphrased inaccurately.

Posted by: tucenz | Dec 20 2019 0:27 utc | 43

Below is a short posting from Reuters that shows the the US can huff and puff but not blow the energy agreements of other countries away.
”
BERLIN/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia, Ukraine and the European Commission, after hours-long talks on Thursday, have agreed in principle on a new gas deal starting after Jan 1, 2020, European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic told a briefing after the talks in Berlin.
“After these very intensive talks I am very glad to say that we reached an agreement in principle on all key elements which I believe is very positive news for Europe, for Russia and Ukraine,” Sefcovic said.
”

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 20 2019 0:49 utc | 45

karlof1 @ 6; Thanks for presser/Putin link.

Posted by: ben | Dec 20 2019 0:53 utc | 47

good post today from larry c johnson at sst – Provoking a War with Russia?

Posted by: james | Dec 20 2019 1:02 utc | 49

I meant to add, b’s analysis yesterday was the best I’ve seen of how we got to this point. Many such as Dan Bongino or Lee Smith have done good work but still believe with certainty that Russia interfered in the elections. I wonder how much of their work is motivated by their strong support of Trump.

Posted by: Kabobyak | Dec 20 2019 1:34 utc | 51

Latest Jimmy Dore with some advice for B. Sanders.
https://jimmydorecomedy.com/

Posted by: ben | Dec 20 2019 2:06 utc | 53

As a former subject of the Queen who as a teenager enjoyed waving my homemade little blue flag as she toured Auckland Domain ranks of schoolchildren back in the day, I am happy to post this link to her speech in Parliament:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/queens-speech-december-2019
To me it looks mighty splendid.

Posted by: juliania | Dec 20 2019 2:16 utc | 55

“Journalist Tareq Haddad explains his decision to resign from Newsweek over its refusal to cover the OPCW’s unfolding Syria scandal.”
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/19/newsweek-reporter-quits-after-editors-block-coverage-of-opcw-syria-scandal/

Posted by: ben | Dec 20 2019 2:23 utc | 57

One last item I’ll copy/paste from Putin’s presser is his answer to questions from China’s CCTV bearing in mind what has occurred since the UNGA Debate speeches in September.
Questions:
“The first question is about Chinese-Russian relations. This year marks 70 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between our countries. We can say that our bilateral ties have entered a new era. And my question is this: which results of our partnership do you see as the most significant, and what future cooperation potential do you see between our countries?
“The other question is about international affairs. The global situation today is full of uncertainty and instability. Obviously, some countries pursue a policy to maintain a unipolar world and protectionism, undermining the foundations of international law and free trade, while China and Russia are both supporters of a multipolar world. So what steps do you think China and Russia could take to support the original principles of a multipolar system and free trade, and how could they effectively respond to external challenges?”
Putin’s answers:
“The most important thing that we have achieved in recent years, between Russia and the People’s Republic of China… The most important thing is not even the figures I will cite in a moment, or the industries in which we cooperate – the most important achievement is the unprecedented level of trust that has developed between our countries. [My Emphasis]
“This is what forms the basis for our accomplishments in the economy (our bilateral trade has topped 100 billion, and we will certainly attain even 200 billion, we will reach that mark), and for our successful high-tech projects – in space exploration, the aircraft industry, and transport in general, and in many other areas.
“Russian-Chinese cooperation is undoubtedly a major factor of international stability, including the strengthening of international law and the creation of a multipolar world.
“As a matter of fact, it has already been created; a unipolar world no longer exists. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was an illusion that this system was possible and that it would last for a long time, but it was only an illusion. I always said so. The most recent events have indicated just that. When you say ‘some countries,’ you, first of all, mean the United States. The world’s multipolarity is a derivative of economic relations.
“After World War II, the US share in world GDP was 50 percent. And now China’s share is higher than the US’s share, I may be mistaken, but China is ahead of the United States in its share of global GDP. And also in many other indicators. In terms of purchasing power parity, the Chinese economy has become larger than the American one.
“This inevitably leads to changes in many other areas. And apart from that, the world simply cannot have a unipolar structure, with a single centre that governs the entire international community.
“The role of our interaction with China is very important here. We will continue to strengthen our multilateral strategic ties. I am sure that this will benefit the people of China and the Russian Federation alike.”
Trust, one of the most difficult, fragile yet most important aspect of all relations. It is something the Outlaw US Empire neither has nor seems to value whatsoever as we see no attempts at trying to build trust with any nation. Everything is framed in Zero-sum terms. Do please take a moment to compare that very well observed mindset with that expressed in the US Declaration of Independence’s opening paragraph:
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” [My Emphasis]
The smallminded men and women holding power in the Outlaw US Empire are mental midgets in comparison. They are holding their compatriots hostage in their allegiance to the corruption in which they wallow and cause many deaths globally on a daily basis because they essentially trust nothing, for to have trust in anything you must first care about that thing. There’s no Love, no Trust, no Kindness, not even Kindred Spirit–they are like an alien organism, a cancer, requiring removal just like the financial parasites that are their only allies. Such a vast, sad waste.

Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 20 2019 3:32 utc | 59

Hi again. I do read mostly all this stuff. I am not an expert on 90% of it so I keep my mouth shut. I miss Pavevway. I wish James would mention me in his comments sometimes.
I have a really huge knowledge about certain technical stuff. Also I know a hell of a lot about the =/ Ranked Choice Voting =/ conspiracy. Which I certainly will bring up soon.
This is going to be BIGTIME!

Posted by: blues | Dec 20 2019 4:09 utc | 61

Digital Currencies versus Crypto Currencies
I keep coming across misleading articles about Crypto Currencies from CoinTelegraph which is a pusher of the Crypto Currency meme. Just now there is a story on ZH coming from CoinTelegraph where they quote a freemalaysiatoday.com article stating that: “Local reports confirm that Rouhani proposed the creation of a cryptocurrency as part of the effort.” referring to the current the KL Summit 2019 in Malaysia. The quoted article does say “Iran proposed an alternative currency for use in trade while Turkey proposed that focus be given to Islamic financing and technology within Muslim countries…..” but there is no specific quote provided that substantiates Rouhani stating either Digital Currency or Crypto Currency.
CoinTelegraph had another recent article in which they misrepresented the pilot Digital Currency project that China is running as a Crypto Currency project.
Let me provide some definitional clarity for MoA barflies
Digital Currencies are any currency which has its existence supported by computer technology but there could be a paper/coin version of the same currency.
Crypto Currency (as currently defined) is a subset of digital currencies that is only digital and currently comes in different flavors (distributed or centralized and permissionless or permissioned.
The Bitcoin or Ethereum flavors are distributed/permissionless and supported by the blockchain model technology. A problem with these approaches is that they don’t currently, or doubtfully ever will be able to, scale for broader use. Another problem is that they are privately “owned” and more like ponzi schemes.
See the link below for clarification
The Trust Trade-Off: Permissioned vs Permissionless Blockchains
I believe that many countries are looking at developing Digital currencies but they will not be decentralized (privately owned) and they likely will be permissioned, but also utilizing some aspects of the current blockchain model.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 20 2019 5:09 utc | 63

The smallminded men and women holding power in the Outlaw US Empire are mental midgets in comparison. They are holding their compatriots hostage in their allegiance to the corruption in which they wallow and cause many deaths globally on a daily basis because they essentially trust nothing, for to have trust in anything you must first care about that thing. There’s no Love, no Trust, no Kindness, not even Kindred Spirit–they are like an alien organism, a cancer, requiring removal just like the financial parasites that are their only allies. Such a vast, sad waste.
karlof1 | Dec 20 2019 3:32 utc | 58
Well! There you go again! Spot on!
Yours is a view from the inside; imagine how it looks from the outside..
The only thing keeping the U.S. intact is a still strong military and a great willingness to use it…
The view from here shows a steady erosion of trust in the US’s word on anything; across the globe.
“…like an alien organism, a cancer, requiring removal just like the financial parasites that are their only allies. Such a vast, sad waste.”
Yes, but, my fear is, an all-out war leading to its destruction, is the only thing that will suffice.
And then; how long until another despot comes along to start the whole process again?
We, as a species, seem incapable of learning or changing our agressive nature…

Posted by: V | Dec 20 2019 5:44 utc | 65

Please enjoy the following 3 minute video, “Winter in Western Armenia,” our indigenous homeland occupied by Turkey.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3lzxGoKVf28&t=9s

Posted by: Telo | Dec 20 2019 6:33 utc | 67

ooops Eastern Turkey that is. Long day and tequila slammer bleaches the grey matter.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 20 2019 7:31 utc | 69

@65 Telos,
Is it “Western Armenian” or “Northern Kurdistan”? Ah! there’s the rub. In any case, it was part of the Ottoman Empire for 600 years, and inherited from it after WWI by the Republic of Turkey. It isn’t “occupied” by Turkey any more than the Americas are “occupied” by descendaants of the Europeans. It is the eastern part of the Turkish Republic, and Armenia and Armenians have no legal or moral claim on it.

Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Dec 20 2019 8:18 utc | 71

To me it looks mighty splendid.
Posted by: juliania | Dec 20 2019 2:16 utc | 54
Though I didn’t watch it, as I find the Brexiters triumphalism too sickening, all the natives were commenting how down in the mouth she looked. No doubt she’s aware of Johnson’s childhood ambition to be “World-King”. Well, he’s not there yet, though there’s every sign that he’s continuing to pursue the ambition. Her position is in danger.

Posted by: Laguerre | Dec 20 2019 9:32 utc | 73

***Important*** Please Read.
Max Igan released a news report 5 hours ago concerning the fires & ‘drought’ in Australia.
Max was informed that the active components in *geo-enginnering chemtrails* are the same as those in….
SPARKLERS:
“A sparkler is a type of hand-held firework that burns slowly while emitting colored flames, sparks, and other effects…
Sparklers are generally formed around a thin non-combustible metallic wire, about 8-12 inches long, that has been dipped in a thick batter of slow-burning pyrotechnic composition and allowed to dry. The combustible coating contains these components, one or more of each category:[4]…
The devices burn at a high temperature (as hot as 1000°C to 1600°C, or 1800°F to 3000°F), depending on the fuel and oxidizer used, more than sufficient to cause severe skin burns or ignite clothing.[11] Safety experts recommend that adults ensure children who handle sparklers are properly warned, supervised and wearing non-flammable clothing. As with all fireworks, sparklers are also capable of accidentally initiating wildfires. This is especially true in drier areas; in Australia, for instance, sparkler-related bushfire accidents have led to their banning at public outdoor events during summer like Australia Day celebrations.[citation needed]…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkler
I’d like to point out that the wikipedia page was “was last edited on 19 December 2019, at 09:36 (UTC)”.
It’s obvious *someone* understood that Max would be using the page-link in his video.
Yes.
Some of us are actually being ‘observed in real time’ by the TPTB.
Max also mentions the components of chemtrails + a screenshot from the following site:
https://ewhachemtrail.weebly.com/components–effects.html
If you are in a hurry, you can go to 6:13 and listen to the next 6 minutes to get the essentials about the sparkler-chemtrail-fire-agenda 2021 connection.
https://youtu.be/t8XmlMpJSJ8?t=372
Max points out the bolshevik method of Starvation & Thirst will force people around the World into the cities and there be genocided.
Easy and neat plan the TPTB have for us cattle(goyim): i.e. herded into a pen and slaughtered.
Yes. Australia as a template for the rest of the World.
And.
I can’t help but notice that, New Zealand is the preferred *bug out place* for the super-rich & so-called elites.
Yep.
A *Maunder Minimum*-Australia with lower temperatures, a perpetual cloudy and rainy landscape, sparsely populated would be an excellent serf colony composed of the remaining and, starving(!) world population.
Yes.
There will be no shortage of ‘climate refugees’ screaming to get in to OZ.
And, the new ‘New Zealanders’/elites will stear it all from there moat surrounded fortress.
Perfectly Planned.
Isn’t it?
X-

Posted by: Veritas X- | Dec 20 2019 10:07 utc | 75

Speaking of Bernie, he’s gone full Maddow on Russia many times in the past. Disappointing to see him peddling that crap to progressives, and as Caitlin Johnstone writes, it’s a big deal; pushing that narrative threatens our existence. If it were him against Trump next fall maybe I cast my vote for him, then leave the polling place feeling like I’d stepped in dog crap.

Posted by: Kabobyak | Dec 20 2019 10:19 utc | 77

blues @60
Enjoyed that video. Thanks!

Posted by: Kabobyak | Dec 20 2019 10:50 utc | 79

that would be April Fool’s day 2020…

Posted by: john | Dec 20 2019 11:41 utc | 81

@ John 78
I wish I knew how to talk my parents into liquidating at least some of the money they have bound up in doomed “investments” and use it to buy farmland and tools. It’s true the crooks have been able to reinflate the bubble since 2008 years longer than I expected, the end can’t be far off now.

Posted by: Russ | Dec 20 2019 11:54 utc | 83

First test flight of Nasa’s Starliner reportedly suffers “off-normal insertion”.
Story ongoing.

Posted by: BG | Dec 20 2019 13:08 utc | 85

Juliania #54
It is splendid.
Is this the queen’s message also to Charles and William?
Like, this is my mandate to you as my successors?
Is this her message to BoJo that she will use her own power to curb his excesses?
Is this her message to the *whole* UK, to attempt to outline a strategy whereby Scotland and Ireland will be better off in some kind of ongoing union with England and Wales?
As an American I cannot assess how the queen uses this speech, and her position, to shape political events in the UK.

Posted by: Really?? | Dec 20 2019 13:36 utc | 87

Posted by: Really?? | Dec 20 2019 13:45 utc | 86
“She doesn’t specify that others are not welcome, but she certainly seems to imply it. And, quite rightly, IMO.”
I’d say those who forcibly set mass migrations in motion when they launch wars of aggression or economic wars which drive subsistence communities off their land, in both cases destroying societies, forfeit any right to whine about migrants showing up on their doorstep. They may be able forcibly to keep them out, but certainly not rightly.
Britain of course is up to its armpits in the blood of both kinds of wars, same as the US.
Here as in everything else the only solution which would be right for everyone (except the 1% and its bootlicks) would be the destruction of all imperialism and globalism and for all societies to live within their means secure within their own landbases. (Instead of squatting on the land as vagrants and vandals. Ironically most of today’s Southern migrants are far closer to having lived integrally on the land than the rootless privileged upper classes of the West which whine the most about these migrations which they themselves forcibly set in motion. Almost all such Westerners have never been anything but pure parasites squatting on the surface of the Earth and destroying everything they can.)

Posted by: Russ | Dec 20 2019 13:59 utc | 89

Should have said “…in light of the media description of what…” (Too many ‘whats’, sorry!)

Posted by: juliania | Dec 20 2019 14:04 utc | 91

WJ @70
After I posted my comment I was thinking the same thing. This is how Jimmy Dore tells us that Bernie is a dud.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Dec 20 2019 15:00 utc | 93

@ Posted by: juliania | Dec 20 2019 14:30 utc | 90
The Romanovs were executed by the individual initiative of a Bolshevik militant on their way to their trials – although the situation was so chaotic at the time that it is possible the orders didn’t arive from Moscow. The order definitely didn’t come from Lenin, who later stated that he preferred the Romanovs to be executed after a fair trial (their crimes against humanity were already so grave and so evident that the verdict was clear), a la Louis XVI in the French Revolution.
The provisory government of February’s first action was to invite Nicholas II to be the new head of State of the new republic. He refused. By the time of the October Revolution, the Romanovs were already politically non-entities. The Bolsheviks were already turning their attention to the soon-to-be White Army.
The myth of Romanov sanctity and legitimacy was possibly fabricated because the White Army never really had a true leadership. It was a kaleidoscope of American, British, French, Russian and Czech troops with many chieftains and a decentralized command structure. The Whites, therefore, needed a legitimizing “founding myth”, akin to the Roanoke Colony myth the Confederates hastily came up with during the American Civil War. The legend of Anastasia born.

Posted by: vk | Dec 20 2019 15:23 utc | 95

It occurs to me that b’s prediction that the HoR will only censure Trump may be proved correct, but in a strange way.
If Pelosi never sends the actual piece of paper to the Senate then at least one constitutional expert argues there is no impeachment. Another suggests that given that the HoR has just recessed that the “impeachment” dies. In either case, there is no impeachment, just an expression that Orange Man Bad!

Posted by: Patrick Armstrong | Dec 20 2019 15:30 utc | 97

About capitalism’s “necropolitics”:
Food Stamp Cuts – Western Capitalism & “Useless Eaters”

Posted by: vk | Dec 20 2019 15:51 utc | 99