News & views (not related the wars in Ukraine and Palestine) …
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January 18, 2024
Open (Neither Ukraine Nor Palestine) Thread 2024-019
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Covert Action magazine on the Essequibo dispute and Brazil:
“…Essequibo now tops Lula’s agenda. The ground of this neighboring territory, where the U.S. Southern Command recently conducted joint military flight operations with Guyana’s armed forces on December 7, contains immense amounts of oil and mineral wealth. In 2015, ExxonMobil struck black gold in Essequibo, a find which one executive described as a “fairy tale” discovery. At the time, it was estimated that 11 billion barrels of oil lay off the Essequibo coast, so much that, theoretically, Guyana could potentially produce more crude per citizen than any other country on Earth, radically improving the living standards of its citizenry.
“Then, on December 3, Guyanese officials announced that there was a “significant” new oil discovery off the shores of Essequibo and that they had green-lighted licensing bids to eight companies, foreign and national, to drill for crude. This new oil find increased the country’s oil-producing potential from 11 billion to as high as 25 billion oil-equivalent barrels….
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/01/05/essequibo-means-no-escape-for-brazil-in-the-event-of-conflict-and-more/?mc_cid=8c1934bc19&mc_eid=f5d74d7021
Posted by: bevin | Jan 18 2024 16:30 utc | 1
Lavrov’s annual review of Russian foreign policy for the previous year presents a few new twists. I’m just now reading the transcript and have yet to post and comment on it, but there are some indicators at the outset that set the tone for 2024:
Our plans for internal development are clearly outlined. The Government of the Russian Federation is actively working. Recently, President Vladimir Putin held several meetings with members of the Government in various areas to ensure the sustainable movement of our economy in the current conditions due to the aggressive illegal policy of the United States and its satellites. The task is clear – to get rid of any need to depend on production, sales, financial, banking and logistics chains, which are in one way or another controlled or are under the great influence of our Western colleagues. This course is clearly defined in the decisions that have been taken and will be taken.
On the foreign policy front, the main directions for the foreseeable future were also determined. In March 2023, President Vladimir Putin approved the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation in its new, radically revised version, based on the realities of the modern world. The West has proved its complete inability to negotiate and unreliable as partners in any undertakings. The majority of the world does not want to put up with such a selfish approach and wants to develop in full accordance with its national interests, with the interests of each country and with full respect for the principles of the UN Charter, starting with respect for the sovereign equality of the state. Since the adoption of the Charter in 1945, not a single foreign policy action of the West in the international arena has taken into account or respected the principle (as stated in the Charter) of the equality of all states, large and small, regardless of their values, religions and traditions in general.
On the foreign policy front, we have clearly defined guidelines for developing relations with those who are ready to do this on an equal, mutually beneficial and mutually respectful basis through a frank dialogue and negotiations aimed at finding a balance of interests, rather than decisions that correspond exclusively to someone’s unilateral selfish plans, as is manifested in the overwhelming majority of cases in discussions in which the West, led by the United States, participates.
The past year has shown a rejection of the manners traditional for the Western hegemon, which rely entirely on its own selfish interests and do not take into account the opinion of everyone else. Yes, to rule the whole world for 500 years, without having any serious competitors for almost the entire period (with the possible exception of the Soviet period), probably contributes to getting used to the role of hegemon. But life is moving forward, new centers of economic growth, financial power, and political influence are emerging and have already strengthened, significantly outstripping the United States and other Western countries in their development. [My Emphasis]
This is a far more aggressive stance versus the Outlaw US Empire and its NATO vassals than I’ve read before. That the entire West are Outlaws, “not a single foreign policy action of the West in the international arena has taken into account or respected the principle (as stated in the Charter),” is a new tact, which is 100% correct. Lavrov’s opening broadside aimed at the West is significant and will be a major feature of 2024’s diplomatic interactions. Russia can make this case from a position of strength whereas the West is busy eating itself thanks to sanctions blowback and its rabid Russophobia.
Again, the above are merely Lavrov’s opening remarks, with more sure to come.
Karlof1, these comments hardly sound like the pronouncements of a winning power. If Lavarov’s comments are taken at face value—“ to rule the whole world for 500 years”, reflects the delusional thinking of Russia leadership. The much more powerful Soviet state was impotent and unable to stop Western Hegemony. The smaller weaker Russian Federation only hope is to become a vassal of China (or the Mongols). Russia historic role 500 years ago
Posted by: zargo | Jan 18 2024 16:50 utc | 3
@karlof1: indeed, am expecting a lot from RF’s Chairing the BRICS this year. Last year the BRICS train left the station and, importantly, all the Atlanticists, standing still on the platform, watched it take off for greener pastures without them on board.
Perhaps one aspect of the new multipolar world order is that Great Resets are happening on different layers and levels. On the one hand we have geopolitical reconfiguration of trade flows (BRI), diplomatic relations, military alliances and such; whilst on another hand there is a whole global movement to develop new ways of payment, monitoring and surveillance using AI and such.
It’s not only gonna be an interesting century, seemingly, but 2024 is shaping up to be a doozy of a year! I think by 2026 the way the world looks will make 2020 feel like an era almost as far away as WWII seems to us now.
“to rule the whole world for 500 years”
Posted by: zargo | Jan 18 2024 16:50 utc | 3
He refers to European empires of the Hapsburg persuasion—after the seven (7) crusades. You need a map? Or are comfortable surveying the stadium from third base?
Posted by: sln2002 | Jan 18 2024 16:57 utc | 5
Here follows a one-paragraph description of the January 6th phenomenon with a more complete narrative now clearly emerging. This is mainly only known by those following alternative, and right-leaning, press, but that includes perhaps half the US (news-following) population at this point with more every month, especially as some alternative sites garner more online traffic than the so-called mainstream, which is increasingly marginal these days.
As the truth starts to sink in, it could cause an enormous political wave, one seen only once or so every century, in reaction to the outrageous levels of deceit that have been the norm for far too long in the political and its lapdog media class, all of which of course work for a shadowy power network whose members and organization remains largely unknown though widely sensed.
WILL DOJ PROSECUTION OF JAN 6 PROTESTORS GET TURNED AROUND?
The tide is finally turning against the weaponized Department of Justice’s exaggerated and unjust prosecution of Jan 6th protestors, the vast majority of whom did not engage in violent actions, but merely walked through the Capitol after the doors were held open to them by Capitol Police. Additionally, an estimated 200 agent-provocateurs made up of federal agents and Antifa activists dressed up like Trump supporters led the way in tearing down barriers and inflicting damage on the capital and provoking other Trump supporters to participate in (some of) the violence. Most protestors remained peaceful, however, until the police unnecessarily fired rubber bullets at close range, and launched tear gas and flash-bang grenades into the mass of protestors. Even Deep State former AG under Trump, Bill Barr, sought to redeem himself after betraying Trump by saying that the current Justice Department went too far by prosecuting individuals who merely “walked into open doors and hung around.” Speaking to Fox News, he admitted “I don’t think it was an insurrection.” New documentaries are emerging highlighting the plight of people unjustly prosecuted, or goaded into pleading guilty under the onerous threat of 20 years in prison otherwise for “obstruction.” One person even committed suicide over this threat, even though the prosecutor later admitted he was never going to actually use that obstruction charge against him. This bizarre charge, extracted from an administrative law having nothing to do with Congress, is now before the Supreme Court and is likely to be overturned.
https://worldaffairsbrief.com/
The “west’ aka the Empire didn’t rule for 500 years. Until about 200 years ago it was a powerful trading/plundering force but its rule only really extended into America. And even there its power was contested until late in the C19th.
Until the end of the C18th both China and India had higher per capita incomes as well as a much larger share of world wealth and production.
The Soviet state was far from being impotent- it stopped western hegemony between 1941-45 and continued to shape the world, through the Soviet inspired Chinese revolution and similar revolutions in Vietnam, Korea and elsewhere. And then there was the sudden and widespread uprising in the colonies- a real challenge to western hegemony which is still in progress.
Russia isn’t becoming a vassal of China, but an ally. Neither power has any interest in attempting to duplivcate the imperialist adventure. The conditions simply aren’t there for such an enterprise.
As to the fall of the Soviet Union-outside pressure played a part in it, but it never again reached the intensity that it had before 1945 when it was sloughed off, but the rot was from the inside, where the self perpetuating oligarchy running the CPSU did the only thing it could do once it had decided to protect itself from the masses by dismantling all the democratic structures and possibilities of soviet rule. It placed itself under the protection of the other self perpetuating oligarchy running the Empire.
Just like Capitalism, imperialism has a tendency to develop into a monopoly.
Posted by: bevin | Jan 18 2024 17:07 utc | 7
6th November 2012—
this lavrov in foreign ministry is an useless man who should be kicked out by Putin and Sergei Ivanov -former defense minister in 2006- be made foreign minister or prime minister by kicking out traitor medvedev too.
Posted by: Sam | Jan 18 2024 17:12 utc | 8
The Amerikastani installed Pakistani regime is trying to pose, once again, as Warshington’s indispensable ally in South Asia by instigating a confrontation with Iran. Given Pakistan’s not exactly stellar economic situation, this is probably its only chance.
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Jan 18 2024 17:13 utc | 9
Whatever is in future but it is certain that Russia will compromise and betray her allies immediately the anglos offer her some minor concession like lifting some sanctions. Lavrov, pesko and Putin are that desperate for a slight approval from their arch enemy england and its 5 evil anglo eyes. Look at impotant reaction of Putin to gaza hospital bombing.
Posted by: Sam | Jan 18 2024 17:13 utc | 10
/4/2014
What it is that lavrov is smoking ? Must be very potent hallucinogen. He still talks of negotiation with Ukraine junta after Odessa atrocities by the Zionist and fascists goons? Thereby giving legitimacy to the kieve junta despite all crimes?
The east ukraininas shouldn’t wait for russian help because Rus leadership is sold out and feel satisfied as junior member of west with a few crumbs under the table- (though even then Russia will get nothing –remember 90s ?) .
Posted by: Sam | Jan 18 2024 17:15 utc | 11
Russia is supposed to have eased up on Andreevka assault and wait for winter in December, according to British spy agency. Not surprise. Putin has no guts and is Expert in making winnable war into a frozen conflict. Putin has no guts that is why 3rdrate country like england openly wages war on Russia with no consequence on England. Shameful Russia. It relies on initiative of enemies with no initiative of its own. Putin must not be allowed another term. Sergei lavrov and pesko are British spies. Russia is under grave danger.
Posted by: Sam | Jan 18 2024 17:16 utc | 12
I am transferring comments I made on the ‘mainstream’ thread earlier:
It strikes me that my posts about Plato and ‘The Republic’ have not been entirely off topic — one only has to realize that in his day the Sophists were the ‘mainstream media’ and they had taken the art of public speaking (which early philosophers had been using before Socrates came along) and were making plenty of money shaping it to their own purposes. In Plato’s day that was serious, and Socrates died because he opposed it. If we are rewriting history, we have to go back that far!
[That was my first comment this morning. Next one coming right up.]
Posted by: juliania | Jan 18 2024 17:17 utc | 13
Quote “Whitehall roars with laughter. What a joke, like really, Russia has zero ability to counter US UK and the NATO minions other”.
All because Russia has only declared that it is not going to take on NATO or at least even a 3rd rate country like england which Russia can convert into glass parking place with only ten topols. Russian leadership is too coward and corrupt for that. The General public of Russia want it but traitors like foreign. Minister lavrov’s and Presidential spokesman pesky do not.
Posted by: Sam | Jan 18 2024 17:17 utc | 14
relocating earlier post more appropiately
e
check out rt article Habeck v afd
In light of this perceived threat, Germany’s security services should be more actively “gathering evidence [and] closely watching structures, individual persons, meetings and statements.”
Habeck says afd is wanting a fascist state just like Russia is….afd is banned in Saxony as an extremist group…is attacking tne republic.
wow sounds like potential for civil strife is growing but at what rate??
Farmers strike…train strike etc
Sputnik article has article that Germany supplying arms to Ukraine outside EU common defense “peace ” funding arrangements.. is heading to Germany going awol? Any chance of a post re these matters?
Posted by: Jo | Jan 18 2024 17:18 utc | 15
regarding those strikes in germany. Thats nothing new. Theres always a strike, and it resolves after we peasants get 2% more money and so on.
Posted by: Justpassinby | Jan 18 2024 17:22 utc | 16
No guts. Russia chickening out.
Lavrov and Putin putting pressure on Assad in order to please Americans.president Putin says that in Syria mission accomplished!
http://tass.com/defense/895323
22/8/2016
No mission is NOT complete. Russia like in february 2016, is fleeing again just because americans objected to russian using Hamadan air field while russia had no guts to tell americans not to use Syrian air space uninvited. That is the difference-russia has no mental guts.
Quote “Russia has to be pro-active: Anyone conniving against Russia needs to fucking die. That is all. Cancer, a .22cal contact wound to the temple, a ‘heart attack’ dose of whatever doesn’t show up in an autopsy, whatever.
Once that starts happening, then you will see a lot less airbags pontificating about ‘LGBT’ rights in Russia.,”
Posted by: Sam | Jan 18 2024 17:39 utc | 17
Useless foreign minister
Useless Russian secret services.
Also, the RF security services didn’t react before the coup. This is the worst aspect of it all, they either knew but didnt have time to make a plan or were somehow played by Wagner. Interesting how the Americans pointed out that they of course knew in advance and briefed congress.”
Russian secret services were also unaware about English and American plots of Feb 2014 in Ukraine while Mr Putin was self congratulating himself on Sochi Olympics despite knowing that British media had run crusade against Sochi on ground of LGBT agenda as an excuse . Putin released from jail even the Jewish oligarch Michail Khorodosky just before Olympics in order to please Anglos who had been running propaganda against Sochi winter Olympics. Putin had shown utter lack of judgement at every crisis moment .He is dangerous to Russia and not fit to govern -he should have kicked out the traitor sergie Lavrov an Anglophile and also demetry pesko his spokesman and a British agent .
Posted by: Sam | Jan 18 2024 17:41 utc | 18
@Scorpion 4
Quote “Last year the BRICS train left the station and, importantly, all the Atlanticists, standing still on the platform, watched it take off for greener pastures without them on board.”
India in Brics is a Trojan horse for anglos.
India is acting as parasite on friends. India is Trojan horse for americans inside Brics. Kick India out from Brics.
India has shamefully used Russia to make profit out of friend’s difficult situation arising from illegal sanctions.. Incidentally where are the sanctions on England for plotting Iraq war in 2003 and in supporting gaza atrocities?
.
Posted by: Sam | Jan 18 2024 17:47 utc | 19
Scorpion | Jan 18 2024 17:05 utc | 6
It is a nonsense of the worst kind to call the demonstration on January 6th an insurrection. Those who do, and they include the WSWS which ought to know more about insurrections, are just assisting the ruling class in its campaign to categorise any criticism of the state as terrorism or terrorist inspired.
It’s a campaign which is rapidly eroding not only the civil liberties of the people but their brains as well.
The entire situation is summed up by the juxtaposition of, on the one hand a seventeen year old boy in London arrested under an anti-terrorism law because he was in possession of a Palestinian flag while on the other hand the UK is ferrying bombs and shells into Israel to be used to terrorise and kill an entirely civilian population.
The hegemony that needs to be fought is that of the culture, corrupt and deceitful, controlled by prostitute-courtiers who sanitise every crime and apologise for historical enormities of the kind we see in Gaza.
Since the US established its cultural hegemony after the last world war the dominant intellectual class, from its philosophers and historians, down to the lowliest popstar and most insignificant media performer, have performed a pantomime to distract the world from a series of horrors without parallel in history, the massacres of tens of millions of men, women and children to sustain the unchallenged rule of the imperialists.
Naturally a large part of the content of the intelligentsia’s snow job has been projection of its own cavalier attitude towards genocide by attributing it, on the flimsiest of evidence, to its critics.
Nothing in human history remotely compares with the scale and intensity of the genocides performed under the rubric of anti-communism since 1945. Humanity must wake up and recognise that, far from being over this rolling crusade against entire nations, like the Maya, never ceases in its intensity.
That is the real lesson of Palestine where this genocide dates back, in its active phase, to 1936. In theoretical terms it is a compulsion located at the very heart of the capitalist system in which the hunting and consumption of men by men is the object.
Posted by: bevin | Jan 18 2024 17:47 utc | 20
is not China or Russia who have been sabotaging Brics but late comer India whose intention from start is to be a Trojan horse working for her mental masters england and USA combo. Stupidly India fell for🎉anglo plot – instead of making alliance of Russia, China, iran, India and Germany to kill anglosaxon pirate empire for ever, India did the opposite. India foolishly resurrected anglo enpire number 2 and clueless Indians think that they are very clever!!
Posted by: Sam | Jan 18 2024 17:49 utc | 21
You are on the right track, yapping at Russia. That’s all you have left. Go on – the dog is barking, the caravan is coming…
Posted by: Виктор | Jan 18 2024 17:51 utc | 22
Foolish Russia will still not arm Yemen to destroy British and American assets the way anglos are doing with Ukraine. Russia is really a stupid country. If russia had armed yemen and iran by 2010 AD then russia would not have seen attack on Russia.
Iran and Russia
Written in 2006.
Russia Does NOT REALIZE THAT IF EVER IRAN IS ATTACKED AND DEFEATED BY USA THEN RUSSIA WILL LOSE ALL STATUS AND PRESTIGE OF EVEN THIRD RATE Power INT HE WORLD AND THEN NO COUNTRY WILL BE Willing TO BE ON SIDE OF Russia Because EVERYONE WANTS TO BE WITH A STRONG Country WHO CAN ORDER AND MANAGE THE AGENDA AS AMERICA IS TRYING TO DO AND THEN RUSSIA WILL BE =DESTROYED AS IS THE VERY INSTEDSION OF USA?
RUSSIA MUST NOT LET USA Score ANY MORE POINT ANYWHERE LET ALONE IN IRAN OTHERWISE RUSSIA IS FINISHED EVEN AS A COUNTRY .
=========================================================================
iran and russia.
If russia foolishly stop busher plant work or does not support iran a=verses the west then russia will be doomed as well because then resurgent west ,which has ben plotting against russia too,will have encircled and weakened russia.and russia will have no friend to look to when it is under pressure from the west.
therefore russia must support all the countries who have stood against angloamerican evil -only by this method russia and other countries can maintain their independence.
Written in 2006.
Posted by: San | Jan 18 2024 18:00 utc | 23
England and USA have the 4.75% population of the world but responsible for 90 – 95 % violence on the Earth,
One of these countries has been at war for 90% of its existence and has started 81% of all wars since 1945…….https://twitter.com/thatdayin1992/s…
‘Nuff said!
More on that Watson Institute research study on all the millions of people that America and its allies have murdered in the past generation since the launching of the phony War on Terrorism.
It’s really kind of amazing–in a manner that Joseph Goebbels would envy….
The more people that America and its allies slaughter around the world, the more that these same nations self-righteously point their finger at geopolitical opponents like Russia, China, or Iran as an “existential threat.”
Even more perverse, these countries led by the USA have the arrogance to posture as crusaders for democracy, freedom, and human rights no less.
This is this criminal record of a sociopathic society that is without conscience and without morality–even as it never fails to boast about its exceptional moral virtue.
US post-9/11 wars caused 4.5 million deaths, displaced 38-60 million people, study shows
US post-9/11 wars caused 4.5 million deaths, displaced… — disq.us
Posted by: Sam | Jan 18 2024 18:02 utc | 24
Unless england is broken, there will never be peace in the world.
Craig Murray sheds some insight on the peculiar spectacle of, a rapidly shrinking, Britain pouring weaponry into Ukraine, screeching insults at China and generally insisting that, appearances notwithstanding, it leads the world in vicious and silly policies.
“…the UK is hated. Lots of countries would like to see it broken up….
“….the UK’s reaction to this isolation was a series of increasingly wild moves to try to gain relevance.
“The UK was out in front in declaring China a threat and an enemy, which FCO professionals view as neither justified nor of obvious benefit. The UK is indulging in peculiar, and almost entirely unprovoked, military threat towards China with its declared US/UK/Australian alliance and extraordinary reorientation of UK defence strategy to the Pacific.
“As if the UK has any ability whatsoever to constrain China’s growing world pre-eminence.
“On Ukraine, too, the UK sought to be noticed, by trying to be the most “out there” country in promoting the war, wanting to be the always the first to push the next weapons escalation, with depleted uranium shells, with long range missiles, with battle tanks.
“It all amounted to a policy of shouting “Me, me, me” loudest, with zero substance behind it….”
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/05/missing-the-soprano/
Posted by: Sam | Jan 18 2024 18:05 utc | 25
What’s with the British wanting to split up all of these countries into tiny states? Is it size-envy? What’s the deal?? They (and the U.S.) want to split up Russia, Syria, Iraq into separate nations too while not agreeing to independence of Scotland. (why does Russia not start insurgency in England as Britain does everywhere and is proud of that) One wonders if this British mentality actually controls U.S. foreign policy. Tom Luongo seems to think so.
The idea that the UK is just the British Isles is highly misleading, Canada, Australia & new Zealand are only nominally independent countries, they are in reality controlled by the UK High Representative – & ultimately they have “local/autonomous powers” but the real authority is in London. These countries remain de facto a part of Britain, only not officially/formally. And it is a lot more than being a member of the British Commonwealth, signatories of the Atlantic Charter with regulates the Five Eyes arrangement, & calls itself the “Angloshpere”, gives London massive powers that go largely unseen – Britain likes to hide behind a mask.
The case of Germany and Japan is really interesting. I think the Germans and the Japanese are innately industrious and very smart people. Not sure why. But they are really good at making things of high quality, especially Germany. And you can’t stop them from being like this. Maybe it’s this sense of loyalty (or fear) to the U.S. that has prevented these countries from becoming more dominant economically, and maybe this is why the U.S. had to blow up Nord Stream. First, we had the British Invasion with music.
What’s with the British wanting to split up all of these countries into tiny states? Is it size-envy? What’s the deal??”
Colonialism – rolling back the emergence of independent nominally sovereign states & returning them to complete control. That is what globalism is all about – the western powers have never accepted the independence of any country outside of the western hemisphere. Only now they want to do colonialism under the guise of economic integration, by bringing the world into a series of trading blocs, like the EU & ASEAN, & giving those trading blocs over time governmental powers, thereby reversing the independence of all countries in the world.
As you say the UK achieved its “success” by playing other countries off against each other. The US inherited that method from the UK. The problem now is that the US has got used to getting everything it wants at no cost – they just print dollars and use those to “buy” whatever they want at no cost to themselves. Everyone else knows they are being ripped off and so they are looking for an opportunity to end the rip off, but that would be a huge shock to the US economy and it’s not entirely apparent that it would survive such a shock at the moment.
Posted by: San | Jan 18 2024 18:06 utc | 26
First WW plot
As America teetered on the brink of entering World War II, Charles A. Lindbergh gave a fateful speech that did more damage to the America First movement for peace than all the propagandistic efforts of the pro-war groups he named in Des Moines that day. In his oration, the great aviator and American hero sought to define who and what had brought us to the point of no return:
“The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration.
“Behind these groups, but of lesser importance, are a number of capitalists, Anglophiles, and intellectuals who believe that the future of mankind depends upon the domination of the British empire. Add to these the Communistic groups who were opposed to intervention until a few weeks ago, and I believe I have named the major war agitators in this country
Posted by: sam | Jan 18 2024 18:08 utc | 27
I just finished editing a very long, remarkable, transcript that none of the Russophobes here will want people to read, “Good Governance->Resilient Nation: Putin at the All-Russian Municipal Forum: Small Motherland-Strong Russia”. I’ve transcribed many transcripts with these two combining to provide more information on the nature of Russianness than anything I’ve encountered. It shows in many ways why Putin made his statement about Russians not wanting to live in a world without Russia. It also shows Russia’s national resurrection of the soviet–the Veche–the core of traditional Russian democracy. And yes, it’s a long, very worthy and satisfying, read.
Posted by: zargo | Jan 18 2024 16:50 utc | 3
You might want to reread what Karlof1 stated…more carefully.
Posted by: heavymetal101 | Jan 18 2024 18:32 utc | 29
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 18 2024 16:40 utc | 2
from Russian FM Lavrov:
“Yes, to rule the whole world for 500 years, without having any serious competitors for almost the entire period (with the possible exception of the Soviet period), probably contributes to getting used to the role of hegemon.”
Lavrov, Putin, the whole lot of the current Russian administration have no problem giving credit where credit is due. In this case it is acknowledging the role of the previous Soviet administration. Of course the critical matter is the Great Patriotic War, but this magnanimity is also here applied to the counter-weight role of the Soviets wrt the leading imperialist countries at the time.
It’s noteworthy because the Russian administration is a conservative one. Yes, they’re not the same as the leading conservatives over here, but that’s the point.
This magnanimity, when the shoe is on the other foot, is missing. And, here, I’m not simply making reference to the well-observed phenomenon of Western political authorities acknowledging the role of the pressure that mass movements can bring to bear on governments over unpopular policies. Governments always lie about that stuff and take credit for policies they were forced to enact (or withdraw).
No, here I’m noting the role that political rivals have played, in your own country. The new breed of neo-cons and related conservatives have jettisoned all those characteristics and have no sense of history other than a kind of cock-eyed myopia.
It’s really an astounding hubris that’s as unfathomable as making sense of a sociopath by a normal person with a conscience. For the Russian Federation and other countries of the Global Majority to extricate themselves from this cannibalistic Moloch is really quite a difficult and complicated task.
We have a glimpse of that difficult task in the words of the very competent Russian FM. It sometimes comes across as a Doctor managing a very disturbed and unhinged mental patient.
Posted by: N Hanrahan | Jan 18 2024 18:46 utc | 30
Plato’s dialogue ‘The Republic’ is difficult to understand (but rewarding when you do) because in his day it was just as dangerous for him to say anything directly about the sophists, as it had been for Socrates. Plato crafted an entire opus in dialectic form (hat tip to Bernard Suzanne on this point), which could safest be understood in this indirect manner, since in his day, dialectic itself had been corrupted, as mainstream media has today.
Often his use of sophistic argument, (especially in the dialogue ‘The Republic’) has been confused as being his own message to students and to the world at large. But if you don’t take it as laying down truth as he saw it, but as imitating what the sophists, (the teachers of the day,) themselves were doing, it is possible to read the texts as Plato’s students at his academy were no doubt required to do: critically, assessing for themselves the validity of the arguments rather than being persuaded by them. Forewarned is forearmed. That’s the full message of the cave – a message for his time as well as for ours.
Plato’s pupil Aristotle adressed the obfuscation by deliberately confusing the issue and abstracting a logical, rational thesis and claiming this was his teacher’s ideology. Aristotle taught Alexander the ‘Great’! He knew what he was doing; he did it brilliantly. So did Leo Strauss. (Not so brilliantly!) They are both Sophists.
Plato was teaching people to think!. He did that brilliantly too. Those Greeks!! Just as today — (Bravo for your Oxi, Greeks!) Plato’s message (which was Socrates’ also) was ‘Know thyself’. He wasn’t giving any more of an ‘ism’ than that.
Thank you b. It was your ‘mainstream media’ post that clarified this for me.
Posted by: juliania | Jan 18 2024 18:48 utc | 31
Posted by: Scorpion | Jan 18 2024 17:05 utc | 6
Well done, Scorpion; thank you!
Posted by: juliania | Jan 18 2024 19:01 utc | 32
Posted by: zargo | Jan 18 2024 16:50 utc | 3
Try reading for comprehension.
Posted by: Mary | Jan 18 2024 19:10 utc | 33
N Hanrahan | Jan 18 2024 18:46 utc | 30–
Thanks for your reply. I highly suggest Pepe Escobar’s initial review of Emanuel Todd’s newest and professed final book, “Pepe Escobar: How the West Was Defeated”. Based on Pepe’s reading it appears that Todd gets many thing correct and puts his finger onto the sources of Western demise, which as others have noted is an ongoing event that began about 140 years ago.
Dear Sam
the question unaddressed in all your SPAM
is do you like green eggs and ham?
Posted by: Fred | Jan 18 2024 19:18 utc | 35
I mentioned Angelo G in the last open threat in relation to Taiwan. I knew he had been in China a long time, but did not know he was in Taiwan before that.
Angelo Giuliano
@angeloinchina
I used to live in Taiwan 30 years ago and most locals would tell me they were Chinese and proud about their roots and history.
Then came US puppet president Chen shui Bian in the early 2000s changed the history books and brainwashed generations of kids who now perceive themselves westerners despite the mirror telling them another reality
………..
Gene Sharp I believe is termed the father of the colour revolution. Beijing in 89 was I believe the first colour revolution. There is an interview or speech by Sharp who speaks of organizing and running it. He was in Beijing at the time. The riots occurred in the suburbs, not Tiananmen square and students were not involved in the violence.
Tiananmen square – Holodomor – both made in America fiction.
But it does seem from all the various accounts that Taiwan began to change at around the color revolutions were invented. Perhaps slowly before that and very quickly afterwards.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 18 2024 19:25 utc | 36
Posted by: bevin | Jan 18 2024 17:47 utc | 20
Nothing in human history remotely compares with the scale and intensity of the genocides performed under the rubric of anti-communism since 1945. Humanity must wake up and recognise that, far from being over this rolling crusade against entire nations, like the Maya, never ceases in its intensity.
That is the real lesson of Palestine where this genocide dates back, in its active phase, to 1936. In theoretical terms it is a compulsion located at the very heart of the capitalist system in which the hunting and consumption of men by men is the object.
Even though I rarely agree with all you say, I always greatly enjoy your well endowed prose!
Reading your last, the thought arose that the atrocity you rightly deplore is less about ‘capitalists’ versus ‘communists’ than dog eat dog, or predators eating prey. In the Emerald Forest film there is an evil tribe who paint themselves black and spend their days dancing to deep-toned, drumbeat thuds, chanting like animals rutting in mud. All they do is hunt other humans to terrorize, kill, rape and devour. Why? Because that is what they do.
Civilization contains such brutish aspects of human nature so that the intelligence and drive of such predators among us productively benefit, instead of harm, society. (Something impossible without a class system, old chap!) Civilizations must guard against both aggression from without and the far more insidious rot and decay from within. Successful Civilization is humanity’s pinnacle Art. Isms are just different ideological flags flown by lower level tribalists to which weaker civilizations fall prey.
Eurasia now strives to emerge as a bona fide New Civilization instead of the Industrial revolution’s mid-level materialist mess which thrust the Anglo-Judaics up beyond their civilizational pay grade for a short while until others learned to build their own mechanical marvels – not least of which the lowly toilet!
Capitalism is not really the issue, bevin, IMO, it’s weak civilizations allowing predators to take over, a fault from which no system is entirely immune – though again, the best civilizations try.
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 18 2024 18:11 utc | 28
Thank you karlof1 for this effort!!!
I have read as far as the end of the speech from Novgorod – and I have bookmarked your ‘small Motherland’ entry for later enjoyment. At first I thought, yes, Kiev was a small motherland but this is just as was Putin’s intent from the start of his leadership when he gave hours and hours toward answering questions from all over Russia, farms and industries and so many different voices with particular needs and stories. The internet was more open then and we could follow it firsthand.
This has that quality, much more amazing to see how it is becoming organized. Thank you for being our window onto this world. Out into my ‘miniature motherland’ now!
Posted by: juliania | Jan 18 2024 20:02 utc | 38
by karlof1 | Jan 18 2024 16:40 utc | 2
Thanks for this summary on MFA status updates.
Basically they are saying ‘the West is a pure crap and we are not going to deal with them, ever, because they are idiots. We will crush them wherever we can.’ All that but in a polite way.
Is that to be derived from this update? Because if it is so than RF really will go for a push on all the fronts. Real soon probably. From Syria to Ukraine and probably elsewhere.
The first in line to get a bloody nose is the UK, probably
Posted by: whirlX | Jan 18 2024 20:03 utc | 39
N Hanrahan | Jan 18 2024 18:46 utc | 30
Communism is part of Russia’s history and is not simply blindly discarded. It is and remembered in order to both not repeat mistakes from the past but to also see what was good, what worked.
Most of Russia’s current leadership were born and grew up under communism, there parent may or may not have been committed communists, their grandparents likely took part in the revolution.
But what I like most is the insistence on an unbiased history of that period. Here in the west the past is forgotten because the past is fictionalized according to the narrative of the day.
Here in the west, even the information highway is fast closing to the point it is now very difficult to research past events with all search engines geared to bring up “most liked”, the politically correct term for search engine censorship.
Back in 2013 duckduckgo was good, bring up search results according to search term, but then it changed hands and was intermediately censored.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 18 2024 20:04 utc | 40
Scott Ritter is doing admirable yeoman journalism, now touring Russia. Today this one in Donbass by Napolitano who is running a pretty darn good channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr_lqNKNhZw
“The Russians have the right to be Russian!’ he says, rightly. Such an obvious thing but yet something the Trotskyoid left is trying to persuade the entire world is some sort of racist, reactionary thought crime.
US economy is booming thx to chessmasters SLOMO smo
Another miscalculation by oligarchs team chessmaster
Soon ukronazis will receive 300bln present from Russias assets abroad. What a nice present
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-25/strongest-us-economic-growth-since-2021-puts-fed-in-tough-spot
Posted by: SlowSoft | Jan 18 2024 20:15 utc | 42
Aside from war, What will our late stage Capitalism devolve into?
Posted by: Chaka Khagan | Jan 18 2024 20:17 utc | 43
I don’t know where this goes but it reads as significant to me…from Reuters
NATO to hold biggest drills since Cold War with 90,000 troops
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 18 2024 20:19 utc | 44
Capitalism is not really the issue, bevin, IMO, it’s weak civilizations allowing predators to take over, a fault from which no system is entirely immune – though again, the best civilizations try.
Posted by: Scorpion | Jan 18 2024 20:01 utc | 37
There are some systems that promote predation very intensely. Capitalism is one of them. It’s possible to conceive of a benign Sage King, but a benign Sage Capitalist is an oxymoron. Getting rid of capitalism is not the solution to all the world’s ills, but it’s a precondition for solving pretty much any of them.
Posted by: Honzo | Jan 18 2024 20:20 utc | 45
It turns out that Saudi Arabia has not joined BRICS, (yet ?).
Reuters reported that SA is still studying the benefits and has yet to make a decision on joining.
A Saudi minister said on Tuesday in Davos that SA has not joined BRICS. Peskov, reportedly, said on Wednesday that integrating SA is ongoing.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240118-saudi-arabia-still-considering-brics-membership-sources-say/
Posted by: JB | Jan 18 2024 20:27 utc | 46
psychohistorian | Jan 18 2024 20:19 utc | 44
The Brits seem to be the main driver, but apparently US is pouring troops and equipment into Sweden. Some Swedish official said something about war and there now seems to be something of a panic amongst at least a segment of Swede population.
There are also Medvedevs warnings to perfidious albion, one of which was about conventional strikes on strategic missile sites or silos. All the British elite are now talking war in the very near future.
The Brit elites need war before their economy crashes so the hardships the peasants will endure can be blamed on the war.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 18 2024 20:28 utc | 47
Because if it is so than RF really will go for a push on all the fronts. Real soon probably. From Syria to Ukraine and probably elsewhere.
The first in line to get a bloody nose is the UK, probably
Posted by: whirlX | Jan 18 2024 20:03 utc | 39
I don’t follow your logic. If we set aside rhetoric and examine the actions of Russia, China, BRICS, DPRK, etc since the fall of the USSR, it’s pretty clear that all of them, and many others, recognized that the eradication of wetern power was essential for their own survival. The trick has always been how to achieve this, and the strategy now is pretty clear- chipping away, keeping the enemy dispersed, turning in circles, starting at shadows, while administering tiny wounds, one after the other. Yemen, Hezbollah, Hamas are at the point of the ME spear because they have little to lose from western air campaigns. Russia pursues a much more violent conflict in the SMO- but still minimizes the scale of violence and the suddenness of developments, because both are part of a ‘boiling frogs’ campaign to bleed out the west slowly without ever creating a triggering event for global nuclear war.
I don’t know if this can be maintained until the final demise of the west, but it’s in everyone’s interest, around the globe, for it to be maintained as long as possible. I don’t see anything in Lavrov’s speech or in the conduct of operations on the ground to make me think anything different is going to happen, unless the US ups the ante, and then the response will be the minimum possible.
Posted by: Honzo | Jan 18 2024 20:30 utc | 48
Posted by: San | Jan 18 2024 18:06 utc | 26
What’s with the British wanting to split up all of these countries into tiny states?
Feudal statecraft. Princes, to keep their lower-ranked nobles in line, keep them quarrelling among themselves. I lived on Cape Breton Island under typical English / Colonial organization in that although it is a distinct region a) it was blended into mainland Nova Scotia and then also b) divided into four counties, each of whom must compete with the other for access to provincial funds, whilst the Province is struggling with its peers in the same way. It is almost impossible with this system, except during emergency times of War or Plague, to get all the various Provinces with all their competing counties, pulling in the same direction.
This way of consolidating power is part of why the West is now so rapidly falling basically as soon as the technology-led industrial revolution boom has petered out. Rapid growth makes for easy governance as all feed from the trough, predator and prey. But when the boom times end, internecine squabbling resumes: or plundering others can generate unity for a while as the fight is brought to others instead.
With the exception of Africa, Latin America and Central Eurasia, most of the easy boom times are over. Those nations not involved in building up others, like China is, are going to have to find a way of leading productive lives without boom times and without tearing each other apart internally. No easy answers.
Aside from war, What will our late stage Capitalism devolve into?
Posted by: Chaka Khagan | Jan 18 2024 20:17 utc | 43
The goal is, I believe, Techno-feudalism. The appearance of capitalism will be maintained, but money will have no relationship to production, it will simply be a means of social control, along with all the others such as control of the educational system, the information space, the ‘political system’ (pure theater), and all means of social interaction.
Loyal retainers will operate the roboticized means of production, and the roboticized means of oppression. They will be rewarded, but never given enough power to turn against the next higher level of loyal retainers, and so on up the ladder.
That’s the dream. The tech, though, isn’t ready. Too many human workers still needed. The system will collapse before it can be achieved.
Posted by: Honzo | Jan 18 2024 20:37 utc | 50
by psychohistorian | Jan 18 2024 20:19 utc | 44
NATO to hold biggest drills since Cold War with 90,000 troops.
Yes, it has been announced last year in September, Steadfast Defender with 40.000 than, now double that and some more. That is it. Scraping the bottom of the jar and a half of it is a logistics.
On the other side, on 16th January 2024 Russia turned on some EW in Kaliningrad leaving most of the Poland and Suwalki Gap deprived of a GPS signal. Here, the link, and compare dates and days.
Posted by: whirlX | Jan 18 2024 20:39 utc | 51
I asked about this video before hoping that someone knew about it. It’s the lead or most prominent video on ‘rense.com’ – about the weird tunnel incident in NYC recently.
I post this very guardedly because I do not approve of hate or antisemitism – but the mock hanging of a child in a synagogue looks repellent to an extreme. Is this real? What is it supposed to represent? Does anyone know? I only ask here because I don’t know who else to ask. Very disturbing.
Posted by: Eighthman | Jan 18 2024 20:50 utc | 52
this lavrov in foreign ministry is an useless man who should be kicked out by Putin and … kicking out traitor medvedev too.
Posted by: Sam | Jan 18 2024 17:12 utc | 8
Interesting. If Kiev is against Lavrov and Medvedev, they must be doing splendid work.
Posted by: Passerby | Jan 18 2024 20:52 utc | 53
An interesting, and probably correct, interpretation of the Iran-Pakistan-Iran strikes:
TEHRAN, January 18 – RIA Novosti. The mutual exchange of Tehran and Islamabad strikes on each other’s territory could be carried out by prior agreement, Iranian expert on Pakistan Mohammad Reza Komeili told RIA Novosti.
The expert’s statement came amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Islamabad: on Thursday morning, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry announced a series of strikes on terrorist hideouts in the Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchistan. The Foreign Ministry noted that the operation was aimed at terrorists of Pakistani origin calling themselves “sarmachars” in ungoverned territories inside Iran. At the same time, the Foreign Ministry pointed out that Pakistan respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the sole purpose of the strikes was to ensure Pakistan’s own security and national interests.
“I have no evidence, and the country’s authorities strongly reject this, but I hope that these strikes (by Iran and Pakistan on each other’s territory – ed.) were carried out by prior agreement,” the expert said.
Komeili clarifies that in the case of such a scenario, the question arises why the countries showed such a violent reaction to the mutual exchange of blows: earlier, Iran’s diplomatic representative in Pakistan was deprived of the opportunity to return to Islamabad, and the Charge d’affaires of Pakistan in Iran was summoned to the Iranian Foreign Ministry. The expert explains that Pakistan, wishing to avoid pressure from the West, could not announce the start of a joint security operation with Iran, therefore it seeks to show the public that the strikes were carried out without the knowledge of the other side.
Komeili emphasizes that good relations have been established between the countries, noting that even during the exchange of strikes, Tehran and Islamabad conducted joint military exercises. He also draws attention to the fact that the statements of both Ministries of Foreign Affairs were made “as if by carbon copy”, only the names of the countries were changed in the text.
I add that in the midst of this “affair”, the foreign ministers of the two countries had a friendly meeting in Davos about strengthening cooperation.
Posted by: JB | Jan 18 2024 20:53 utc | 54
Scorpion@1705
Thanks for sharing that World Affairs brief regarding those incidents 2021. Possibly an element in the Great Awakening will be the mutual tearing down of the lies and bullshit by the never lawfully elected regime of the $enile One and of the mass-media of misinformation and general mindfuckery. The mutuality I reference is that the old divisive paradigms of “left” and “right” are dissipating at nearly warp-speed.
The Caesarian doctrine of “Divide and Conquer”/”Divide and Rule” is being disassembled by truth-seekers and honest observers from both directions. When left and right are allowed to remain divided then we can rest assured that we will no longer have any rights left.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 18 2024 20:55 utc | 55
What’s with the British wanting to split up all of these countries into tiny states?
Posted by: San | Jan 18 2024 18:06 utc | 26
The Anglo-Saxons – the United States, and the United Kingdom – want unity for themselves, and disarray and breaking up for everyone else.
Posted by: Passerby | Jan 18 2024 20:56 utc | 56
“But it does seem from all the various accounts that Taiwan began to change at around the color revolutions were invented. Perhaps slowly before that and very quickly afterwards.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 18 2024 19:25 utc | 36”
Taiwan had their own mini maidan in march-april of 2014.
“In an interview for Business Weekly published on June 25, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that the United States does not want see Taiwan’s independence being threatened or undermined.[90] Pointing to the crisis in Ukraine, she further warned that the loss of economic independence will affect Taiwan’s political independence, and that overreliance on China will leave Taiwan vulnerable.[91][92][93] While thanking Clinton for reminding Taiwan to act “carefully and smartly” when dealing with China, the Mainland Affairs Council said Taiwan’s steady promotion of exchanges with China had not led to over-dependence on China, and that Taiwan had not lost economic and political independence.[94]
In August 2014, leaders of the student movement visited the United States, meeting with the US Congress, Department of State and the American Institute in Taiwan. The delegation of students led by Lin Fei-fan reiterated their rejection of the one China policy, further commenting that if Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, students would protest again. Lin stressed that the movement was not controlled by either the Kuomintang or Democratic Progressive Party. Chen Wei-ting and Huang Kuo-chang both called the movement a “third force” in the politics of Taiwan.[95]
The KMT suffered heavy setbacks in the 2014 local elections and the 2016 general elections.[96]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunflower_Student_Movement
Posted by: Paul from Norway | Jan 18 2024 20:57 utc | 57
Jo @1718
Public opinion in Germany, most particularly amongst the Ossis, reminds me of a pot being heated to the level of a fast simmer. Can the stooges for the Imperial occupation forces keep the lid on that vessel?
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 18 2024 21:00 utc | 58
In response to
”
The Brit elites need war before their economy crashes so the hardships the peasants will endure can be blamed on the war.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 18 2024 20:28 utc | 47
”
G’day Peter!
Maybe those troops could join the genocide in Gaza that their leadership is so supportive of…../s
Turning your sentence into mine gets
The empire elites need war before their whore nation economies crash so the hardships the peasants will endure can be blamed on the war.
I have mentioned King Chuck as being part of the God Of Mammon cult and your Brit call has merit but there are more players and gambits for us yet to see in this civilization war.
The blame about hardships is the core of the propaganda narrative and it is not working anymore because the global elite no longer control the world narrative about what is happening and why….in a neat media package.
I want to see/read more Davos details because the smell of fear by the elites is going global and its a refreshing smell.
Best to all barflies!
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 18 2024 21:18 utc | 59
Honzo@2020
Capitalism is in essence, centralization through highest finance capital, the ultimate aim of which is to establish a minuscule proportion of the human population as the master of all.
Ironically, the opposite of such a system would be a mutuality between small-scale free enterprise entrepreneurs along with a quasi-syndicalist iteration of socialism. For large national political entities socialization of many forms of public utilities would be the most logical application.
Decentralization, along with small d democratic and small r republican values strikes me as the obvious countervailing concept. Industrial-age cities will experience the demise of the dodo. They are culturally and even economically no longer viable. Dispersal of populations, many to small landholding villages, based on the concepts of the English commons and the Russian mirs would be most suitable for families raising children. Cities would be remarkably small. Socrates held that 30,000 is probably the population maximum as determined by general civic involvement in the overall enterprise.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 18 2024 21:21 utc | 60
“Whatever is in future but it is certain that Russia will compromise and betray her allies immediately the anglos offer her some minor concession like lifting some sanctions. Lavrov, pesko and Putin are that desperate for a slight approval from their arch enemy england and its 5 evil anglo eyes. Look at impotant reaction of Putin to gaza hospital bombing.”
Posted by: Sam | Jan 18 2024 17:13 utc | 10
“it is certain that that Russia will betray her allies immediately after..”
Nothing is ‘certain’ except ‘death and taxes-geopolitics is a bridge much too far.
Your being ‘certain’ only clearly illuminates your shallow intellect.
Honzo @2030
Precisely. The gradualist approach, employment of proxy forces along with the frog-boiling strategy appears to me as distilled logic.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 18 2024 21:25 utc | 62
This is a long excerpt from karlof1’s VERY long substack today relaying a meeting with municipal leaders VPP had recently, part review and Q&A and part awards ceremony. I probably won’t make it through the whole thing but I found this section not only typical of what have read so far but fairly complete in itself, so for those who (like me usually) don’t like to go through long (57 pdf page) documents, this excerpt featuring an official (the mayor?) of a city of three million might be of interest.
What I see in this is a country with a leader and leadership in touch with people in local communities and moreover that there has been significant progress in the past twenty years which many of the participants freely praise. Nizhny Novgorod is about 500 km from Russia, pretty much equidistant from Belarus.
Yu.Shalabaev: May I ask your permission, Mr President?
Yuri Shalabaev, head of Nizhny Novgorod.
Vladimir Vladimirovich, I would like to touch upon an issue that probably interests residents of many, almost all, I think, localities, regardless of their size, from small to large-this is the issue of the quality and comfort of the urban environment.
Currently, a program initiated by you is being implemented throughout the country, which allows you to carry out and ensure large-scale landscaping in almost all municipalities. Prior to the implementation of this program, people considered the organization of territories to be the most exciting and problematic issues, and they generally assessed the work of local self-government bodies and the state of affairs in this area quite negatively. Why?
If you look at the state in which even the central squares, squares, and parks were sometimes in the early 2000s, everything becomes clear. What did people see? People saw the lack of grooming, people sometimes saw the lack of sidewalks, I’m sorry, toilets, elementary benches, trash cans, lighting, so the assessment was quite negative. Of course, a lot has changed over the years of the program’s implementation, and the situation is completely different.
Using the example of Nizhny Novgorod, more than 160 public spaces were improved in Nizhny Novgorod alone. These are not only key spaces, such as the Kremlin, Nizhny Novgorod Strelka, Nizhny Novgorod Fair, Switzerland Park, but also small, sometimes courtyard territories, small parks and squares in all districts of the city.
Large cities with a population of millions are also being transformed, we have representatives, and small settlements are also being improved under this program. In humans, these changes find an exceptionally positive response.
The positive assessment of the state of affairs in the field of landscaping has significantly changed. There are different numbers. I will give you one of the figures for Nizhny Novgorod: there 78 percent consider the situation in the field of landscaping to be good. I think they may be different depending on the situation, but according to the latest [data], there is such a figure.
Why do people so support and appreciate the implementation of this program throughout the country? Because people decide for themselves what, where and how to improve. That is, what to improve and what should be there: a playground, a sports field, a quiet recreation area, or some architectural structure or fountain-they decide for themselves. Of course, this is reflected in the large number of people who participate in the selection of landscaping objects, in voting for landscaping objects. Sometimes you are surprised at how diverse and well-thought-out are the proposals of residents for improvement, starting from changing tables in sanitary rooms-I can be mistaken, in my opinion, there was such a practice in Kemerovo-to warm bus stops and warm benches in cities that are located in the north of our country.
In fact, this is the direct participation of people in making managerial decisions in a certain area, that is, in this case, in landscaping and in allocating budget funds for specific events and specific projects. Such practices, of course, have found their further expression in the form of municipal and regional programs of so-called initiative budgeting. The names can be completely different. The main thing is that people participate in all processes, starting from the selection of the object of budget spending or an event to monitoring its implementation.
For example, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, there is a very popular gubernatorial program” It’s up to you!”, where people offer their vision of what should be done first. And then, after the vote, appropriate budget funds are allocated, and the problematic issue is resolved. As another example, I can cite that 80 percent of the road repair program last year in Nizhny Novgorod was done at the request of residents. These are not some formal applications, maybe applications are the wrong word. Our analytical center and its digital platform simply records requests, requests, and wishes of residents even in social networks, through other communication channels, and in” public services ” and inserts them into the program without any unnecessary bureaucratic procedure. Such practices, of course, exist in almost every region, in many municipalities, and are actively supported by residents everywhere. [Participatory Democracy]
Vladimir Vladimirovich, I talked to everyone at the forum, and the most important thing is that the municipal community, people not only support you, but actually thank you for your earlier decision, which allows you to carry out such transformations in all localities of the country. But the implementation of this decision is coming to an end this year, and there really is a lot that can, in fact, and needs to be done. The request from residents is growing, because there are examples of what has already been done, and I want to do this everywhere. It is clear that such projects require huge amounts of budget funds to be found. But if there is such an opportunity, we ask everyone to continue supporting the development of the urban environment in the future.
Vladimir Putin: Yuri Vladimirovich, the results are there, that’s for sure. They are there thanks to you.
Now I’ll explain what’s going on. Not only to you personally, but also to your colleagues here, because we did what I asked you to do, namely, I asked you to include people in this process: 14.2 million people took part in this joint work.
First of all, it means that we, you, first of all, get where we need to go, “in the top ten” according to needs, because when people themselves take part, they indicate what they expect.
Second. After all, we make people partakers of a common process, and this always causes a positive emotion – when people see that the government is doing what they would like to see. And this, of course, is a good effect.
The program has been operating for several years, and it works well, as I said. And of course, yes, you are right, we are talking about billions, we allocated 20 billion each. We need to extend this program. And, moreover, it is necessary to increase it. I asked the Government to increase it by 5 billion, but if you don’t mind, we will send this additional 5 billion to the Far East region, so that there is no depopulation, so that people do not leave, so that everyday issues related to people’s lives are resolved there in an accelerated manner. But in any case, we will extend the program.
Yu.Shalabaev: Thank you.
The ‘Greenmantle’s’ playing their ancient Great Game have been for once headed off at the pass , before they get to play some more of their mischief in that ‘other ukraine of the East, the borderlands of the ancient Persia.
There will be more than a few SF types and Bonds of the HM government and all their 5+ 1 eyed jolly conspirators there. They’ll look like the locals and speak the language and make all the right religious noises…
Perhaps there is a Pakistani faction that is not wholly controlled by the Imperialsts.
Perhaps the death by thousand cuts are mysterious to us outsiders- the hegemons enemies and humanity’s liberators are wise to all their enemies works.
Let it accelerate! I would like to see the Old gone and New implemented by the time I shuffle off.
Posted by: DunGroanin | Jan 18 2024 21:29 utc | 64
Eighthman@2050
On a multigenerational basis, the imposition of the Bris upon an innocent child, barely having bonded with his mother; induces a deep level of subconscious fear within the “lizard brain”…the fight or flight response. Most iterations of the scheme appear to be various forms of neuroses. Whacked-out psyches also occur, there more limited in scope.
As Dr. Leonard Shlain, pointed out in his books, that brain-surgeon and polymath noted that the very basis for induction into Judaic cohesion is the Bris. Were that eighth-day procedure to be held off until the Bar Mitzvah coming of age celebration; then the neonatal victim will have achieved an undisturbed conscious mind as well as the capacity to give informed consent to the doubled rituals.
Judaism, per se, would most probably survive, but likely without inculcating adverse mental states embedded within the culture.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 18 2024 21:35 utc | 65
by Honzo | Jan 18 2024 20:30 utc | 48
Yes, it does sound shallow what I wrote, but on ‘all the fronts’ really means not just tight to a military action. UK might get a bloody nose by economic, strategic interest denial somewhere else, whatever. For RF starting a military option against the West first, is not an option. However, there are lots of other ways where one can act pre-preemptive.
Posted by: whirlX | Jan 18 2024 21:39 utc | 66
Posted by: Scorpion | Jan 18 2024 21:28 utc | 63
Hmmm… it sounds almost as if the original Soviets were coming back… Local communities choosing how best to serve the needs of the people… oooh, those damned commies! Just when you think you’re done with them for good, they start creeping back into everything.
Posted by: Honzo | Jan 18 2024 21:42 utc | 67
Then came US puppet president Chen shui Bian in the early 2000s changed the history books and brainwashed generations of kids who now perceive themselves westerners despite the mirror telling them another reality
………
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 18 2024 19:25 | 36
Propaganda is very important in controlling populations, and it is especially crucial to start with the children.
As the Jesuits said: “Give me a child of seven, and I will show you the man.”
Hitler added: “When an opponent says to me, ‘I will not come over to your side,’ I reply calmly, ‘Your child belongs to us already… What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new community.'”
The US understands this and uses it. Look at what happened in Ukraine, with the new schoolbooks and the summer camps of hate.
How did Europeans go from understanding, just after WW2, that the USSR defeated Hitler, to the majority today believing that the USA did it?
And in the US, the trans and CRT agendas being pushed onto children, from toddlerhood, is confusing and disrupting the younger generation here at home.
Russia and China need to root out the NGOs and other mind-poisoning subversives, wherever they may be embedded.
I know they have started, but it is too important to do slowly.
Posted by: wagelaborer | Jan 18 2024 21:43 utc | 68
Let it accelerate! I would like to see the Old gone and New implemented by the time I shuffle off.
Posted by: DunGroanin | Jan 18 2024 21:29 utc | 64
So would I, but I’m not in a hurry. If the Old goes too precipitously, the New might be up to the ants and roaches. I like to think my children have a chance of helping to shape the New, or at least survive in it.
Posted by: Honzo | Jan 18 2024 21:44 utc | 69
Honzo 48
The bigger and rounder the glass bowl you put the goldfish in, the more enormously threatening it looks.
Every time Nato moves closer to Russia, the huger a threat it appears through their specs.
Posted by: Giyane | Jan 18 2024 21:48 utc | 70
Scorpion @2128
“Power to the people”. “Think globally and act locally”. Those visions of the future are abundantly demonstrated in the excerpt you shared.
Here in a small village in the Northwoods of Minnesota; several of us are exchanging ideas on the development of a community garden; as well as a “Usables” shelter at a nearby dumpster site, where only garbage, trash and consumerist junk would go into the dumpsters, while items and articles which others could use could be accessed from that adjacent simple shelter.
If humankind is to have a future, futurist visions must be conceptualized via radical decentralization…ultimately up to the levels of governance and taxation….or ought we consider that the changes would filter DOWN to those levels of bureaucratic administration?
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 18 2024 21:49 utc | 71
The bigger and rounder the glass bowl you put the goldfish in, the more enormously threatening it looks.
Haha. I read goulash, Which is also true.
Posted by: whirlX | Jan 18 2024 21:50 utc | 72
reply to 65
Are you saying that the hanging of this child in effigy is somehow symbolic of a circumcision? Or is it something else? It looks very disturbing.
Posted by: Eighthman | Jan 18 2024 21:53 utc | 73
Posted by: Honzo | Jan 18 2024 20:20 utc | 45
Capitalism is not really the issue, bevin, IMO, it’s weak civilizations allowing predators to take over, a fault from which no system is entirely immune – though again, the best civilizations try.
Posted by: Scorpion | Jan 18 2024 20:01 utc | 37
There are some systems that promote predation very intensely. Capitalism is one of them. It’s possible to conceive of a benign Sage King, but a benign Sage Capitalist is an oxymoron. Getting rid of capitalism is not the solution to all the world’s ills, but it’s a precondition for solving pretty much any of them.
First, let me belatedly thank and praise you for your posts here. You pack a lot into short posts, something I have yet to master (though I do now limit my length if not always frequency – on slow days like today).
You mention capitalism as being more predatory etc. Meanwhile Peter made above the following pithy remark about communism:
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 18 2024 20:04 utc | 40
Communism is part of Russia’s history and is not simply blindly discarded.
I could say the same about either, but to stick to the former: there is capitalism and capitalism. It’s a theoretical construct used for analysis but not a true thing or system. It describes certain aspects, but involves observing from the outside (one of the ontological and epistemological flaws of materialist analysis IMO).
Some capitalisms are mainly feudal but partly capitalist, some mainly capitalist and partly socialist, some are very British, some redolently French, some gloriously Italian, and some shamelessly piratical, crime gangs masquerading as nation states with kings and queens and Courts and all the rest of it. All can be equally capitalist.
Underlying all that – which was my point – is human nature or various tendencies before and after any ism. Socialist states can be taken over by totalitarian ghouls. No guarantees.
One could argue that capitalism is worse than socialism but how any capitalist polity plays out has more to do with the national character than capitalism per se. In an enlightened, compassionate society, most aspects of capitalism could work quite nicely. Getting to such civilizational states requires more than any ism.
I don’t pretend to understand such matters very well, but my impression is that capitalism’s virtue (if any) is its tendency to adapt quickly to new opportunities thereby preventing overmuch institutional rigidity. But unbridled, it fosters greed proving cruel and destructive. Again though, more depends on the societal container, aka culture, then the ostensible system, such as ‘capitalism’, per se.
fyi
american justice
https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/ex-us-official-arrested-hate-crime-against-halal-vendor-gets-sweetheart?nid=334146&topic=Israel-Palestine%2520war&fid=498281
Ex-US official arrested for hate crime against halal vendor gets ‘sweetheart deal’
“Stuart Seldowitz, the former Obama official who was arrested last year for aggravated harassment and stalking a halal food cart vendor in New York, has walked away with a deal that would drop the charges against him if he takes an anti-bias counselling programme.
The deal was condemned by Muslim rights groups, who said the announcement was a “slap in the face” to the victims.
Last year, Seldowitz, the former deputy director in the US State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs, launched racist and anti-Islamic tirades against Mohamed Hussein, a 24-year-old New York City food truck vendor.
He also threatened to use his political connections to deport Hussein back to Egypt….
“Seldowitz’s vile verbal abuse and harassment targeting an innocent street vendor were caught on video for all to see,” said Afaf Nasher, the director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“The sweetheart deal he received from the Manhattan DA’s office is a shameful affront of our justice system and wholly unfitting of his actions.”
Posted by: michaelj72 | Jan 18 2024 22:11 utc | 75
Posted by: Scorpion | Jan 18 2024 21:28 utc | 63
Hmmm… it sounds almost as if the original Soviets were coming back… Local communities choosing how best to serve the needs of the people…
Well, I’ve overposted here today and must step away (waiting for a damn mechanic!!) but: it seems to me the humanitarian impulses expressed in basic communist view are admirable. However, human groups are complex dynamic quasi living organisms which do not follow scripts or theories. The problem with communism as I see it – admittedly from afar and not deeply – is structural or organizational in that it can easily lead to over-centralized, even totalitarian, leadership structures especially if people are policed into following the creed, obeying the system etc which seems to be the case.
All groups have leaders whether formally appointed or not. Systems which do not overtly acknowledge this get into trouble. The communist system, as I understand it, posits a doctrine as leader and all humans as its servants. Doctrines cannot lead. So leaders will arise however in a system that doesn’t fully acknowledge such a structure. So the impulse may be profoundly good, but the application ends up unsatisfactory or worse.
Putin’s administration seems to embody some of the more noble aspirations of the communist view but is clearly not a classless collective rather a strong state with clear hierarchy albeit all rowing in the same direction: to lead productive, virtuous lives down to the precious, bedrock local community ‘small motherland’ level. Looks pretty good to me – though doubtless no dissenter types contributed to that conference!
“Since the US established its cultural hegemony after the last world war the dominant intellectual class, from its philosophers and historians, down to the lowliest popstar and most insignificant media performer, have performed a pantomime to distract the world from a series of horrors without parallel in history, the massacres of tens of millions of men, women and children to sustain the unchallenged rule of the imperialists.
Naturally a large part of the content of the intelligentsia’s snow job has been projection of its own cavalier attitude towards genocide by attributing it, on the flimsiest of evidence, to its critics.
Nothing in human history remotely compares with the scale and intensity of the genocides performed under the rubric of anti-communism since 1945.
Bevin at 20
Immaculate description; a tad leftist leaning yet 100% accurate as well as superbly written.
Damn! Why do I come here and read morons that cannot refer to our reality correctly but backslide into “ism” words?
There is public and private finance in the world but not capitalism, socialism, communism, Marxism, or any other ism.
What exists under the public/private government architecture are called mixed economies where government provides some things and private enterprise provides the rest….this has been the structure since Roman times with the mix changing in countries as they “evolve”. The example I like to talk about is the US government creation/support of public communication with the initial pony express which evolved into the Post Office that is trying to be privatized today.
Life is short and BS about isms instead of reality is not going to help society understand and update our form of social organization…..but if you want to throw sand in the works keep up the lazy obfuscation of our reality.
/end rant
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 18 2024 22:20 utc | 79
A sober look at the evidence shows that Kissinger’s record is not really so “controversial,” and it is certainly much darker than officially acknowledged. Kissinger’s praised achievements, when they were so in fact2, are irredeemably overshadowed by unjustifiable atrocities, which cost hundreds of thousands of lives across the world. When Kissinger did pursue a peace-leaning course of action, as finally in Vietnam, it was often out of political opportunism or after exhausting the most extreme warmongering options in the process.
Scholars who downplayed Kissinger’s criminal record forget his most blatant disregard for democracy and human cost of “realpolitik” in what today would be described as the “Global South” (although Kissinger was not particularly concerned about undermining democracy in Western-allied countries either). Countries such as Cambodia, Laos, Chile, Argentina or Bangladesh are still reeling from the consequences of Kissinger’s brutal policies, hardly enhancing the U.S. standing in the region.
The persistent understatement of Kissinger-backed atrocities in U.S. legacy media and academia also evidences structural problems in U.S. historiography and memory building, too frequently skewed against a proper acknowledgment of the huge human cost caused by U.S. foreign policy.
Reflecting on Henry Kissinger’s legacy is also a way to understand how the U.S. establishment continues to represent and interpret its own role in the world.
[…in which his history on SE Asia is probed…]
Kissinger is frequently credited with the diplomatic “opening to China” in the early 1970s, which culminated in Nixon’s historic visit of February 1972, the first to Mainland China for a sitting U.S. president.
The China opening, its clear historical significance aside, also required “real moral courage on Kissinger’s part,” notes scholar Anatol Lieven, “given the forces arrayed against these policies in the United States.”
In truth, the same could be said about the negotiated cease-fire with Vietnam, which was also bitterly opposed by part of the U.S. power establishment. This point has merit, but it should be read much less as a warrant of Kissinger’s peace-seeking credentials than as a testament to the hyper-warmongering inclination of the U.S. establishment.8
However, Kissinger’s real role and motives in the China opening are frequently misrepresented.
First, the idea did not originate with Kissinger. That initiative, says Tom Blanton, Director of the National Security Archive, “turns out to be Mao’s idea with Nixon’s receptiveness, initially dissed by Kissinger.”9
The record also shows that the “China opening” was ambivalent and largely conceived to drive a wedge between Russia and China. The background of that diplomatic initiative was the imperative to deal with the catastrophic political consequences of the Vietnam war debacle, which was universally perceived as a “victory” for the communist world.
Even scholars who have expressed favorable views of Kissinger’s record, such as George Beebe or John Allen Gay from the John Quincy Adams Society, candidly concede that Kissinger saw the China opening as “an opportunity to exploit tensions between Moscow and Beijing,” with the ultimate aim to sow “division in the Communist world.”
This is not to deny that the China opening had positive effects and could actually set a good policy precedent for the U.S. today.
Not surprisingly, most Chinese leaders have actually mourned the death of Kissinger, who is perceived, in part wrongly, as the chief architect of the historic initiative. As the U.S. Institute of Peace notes, “for the Chinese, Kissinger is inseparable from what is widely viewed as a golden era in U.S.-China relations,” which admittedly is nowhere in sight in our times.
However, this cannot detract from the fact that Kissinger did not have the paternity of the China opening and that, in his mind, the destabilizing effect on geopolitical adversaries was the main goal.
What is absolutely certain is that the China opening, from Kissinger’s perspective, had nothing to do with promoting “peace” or, less than ever, with seeking more of an accommodating approach with the communist bloc.
Kissinger and the Commies [my language]
The need to “contain communism,” exacerbated by the fall of Saigon in 1975, continued to govern Kissinger’s policies in the most extreme way, with total disregard for human cost, democratic standards, and regardless of the actual threat represented by communist parties around the world.
This rationale was particularly evident in Kissinger’s stance toward Latin America. As the South Vietnam effort against the Vietcong continued to deteriorate and then finally collapsed, Kissinger directed a sharp tightening of U.S. policy in South America, supporting coups d’état and the most brutal dictatorships, engaged in systematic repression and extermination of any perceived “leftist” opposition.
The U.S.-backed overthrow of democratically elected President Salvador Allende in Chile in September 1973 remains the most quoted case, for valid reasons, considering the extent of the Pinochet regime’s human rights violations.10
Largely underreported, however, are Kissinger’s role in the notorious “Operation Condor,” an international endeavor of Latin America’s Southern Cone dictatorships11 to track and kill “political dissidents” around the world, including citizens of allied countries like Italy, and his support to the military junta which took power in Argentina after the coup d’état of March 1976 and brutally ruled the country until 1983, engaging in a massive campaign of “disappearance” of domestic opponents.
The U.S. support to the Argentine junta’s “Dirty War” on internal dissent is still the subject of a complex process of reconstruction and reconciliation between Washington and Buenos Aires, which includes ongoing efforts of “declassification diplomacy.” The human toll was appalling, as Tom Blanton recalls, with about “30,000 Argentines disappeared by the junta with Kissinger’s green light.”
[….followed by a long-ish recap of the Argentine junta, East Timor, East Pakistan…]
On March 17, 2023, in a virtually unique case for a major Western leader, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin for the alleged “war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation,” on grounds that are actually strongly controversial.
It is hard to ignore the fact that Kissinger was never called to answer for any of his immensely more serious crimes, which resulted in mind-blowing civilian casualty rates.
Stephen Miles, President of the activist network Win Without War noted that “Kissinger’s true impact was not just in being a war criminal but in setting a new standard for doing so with impunity.”
“Adding insult to all these injuries, Kissinger cashed in over the past 45 years through sustained influence peddling and self-promotion,” Tom Blanton ponders ominously, “paying no price for repeated bad judgments like opposing the Reagan-Gorbachev arms cuts, and supporting the 2003 Iraq invasion. A dark legacy indeed.”
[…followed by a look at his legacy and ours…]
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 18 2024 22:24 utc | 80
I see that many barflies are still being misled by the narrative spun by some expat teacher who can only claim to have a good grasp of Chinese history and Taiwanese politics when amongst Westerners.
KMT, DPP, and TPP are all separatist parties. DPP is most unabashedly separatist while KMT hides its separatist intent, that’s all.
KMT is only pro-reunification under the two Chiangs – LuRenJia had it right in their comment (#83 in The MoA Week In Review – OT 2024-013). As an aside, I’m in agreement with the rest of LuRenJia’s comment.
Now, allow me to present evidence to shore up my claim that KMT is separatist: 特殊的国与国关系. Yes, the Wikipedia article is in Chinese, so use a translator to read it.
Lee Teng-Hui, who held power between 1988-2000 and was the first elected KMT leader post-liberalization, had shown strong separatist tendencies. When interviewed by Deutsche Welle in 1999, he described the relationship between mainland China and Taiwan as 特殊国与国关系 “special country-to-country relations”. Taiwan is not a country. Therefore, there cannot be country-to-country relations between mainland China and Taiwan. Describing it as such is separatism. The CPC recognized this as separatism and was furious, castigating Lee Teng-Hui as “blatantly distorting cross-Strait relations into state-to-state relations, exposing its political nature of deliberately splitting China’s territory and sovereignty”/“公然把两岸关系歪曲为国与国关系，暴露其一贯蓄意分裂中国领土和主权的政治本质”.
Ma Ying-jeou held power from 2008 to 2016 and did nothing to roll back DPP’s de-China-ization educational policies, nor did Ma visit China while he was in power. The 2014 Sunflower Student Movement was at the tail end of Ma’s reign so the movement has nothing to do with his reluctance to visit mainland China. Ma was also the originator of the “No unification, No independence and No use of force”/”不统、不独、不武” policy viewed by most mainland people as a stealth independence policy since no unification and no independence at the same time are contradictory. The Wikipedia article: 不统、不独、不武. Once again, this is a Chinese article so you’d need to translate.
Finally, some tips for using Wikipedia as a source. Besides being aware that Wikipedia is heavily compromised by intelligence agencies, it’s best to read articles in the local language of the issue of interest (often, these articles don’t even have English versions). Use a machine translator. If English versions are available, avoid reading them as the pro-imperialist bias is strongest there.
Posted by: All Under Heaven | Jan 18 2024 22:26 utc | 81
Posted by: Scorpion | Jan 18 2024 21:59 utc | 74
That reminded me of Jerry Mander’s (his real name) “Capitalism Papers” – the intro to which follows:
question from the audience: Jerry, do you mean my grandfather’s furniture store is killing the world? Is he one of those capitalists? It’s a nice shop. He’s been there forty years, giving work to eight employees, and he pays a nice wage. With benefits. It doesn’t seem bad to me.
jerry: No, stores like that are really not the problem. We need to make distinctions when we talk about capitalism. The word covers too many different things. One distinction is this: Size matters! Small-scale local or family businesses, or community enterprises that make some money, pay salaries, send kids to college, and save a little, are not the problem, and never have been.
But let’s say your granddad had somehow made gigantic profits from his store forty years ago, so he decided to partner with another store owner and invest in big real estate, converting small farms and open lands into shopping malls. And let’s say they started franchising shopping centers around the world, and were borrowing from big banks to do it, and then started buying banks, and buying other companies doing unrelated stuff, like shipping or mining or biotech farming, and then started getting their financing from Goldman Sachs. Then they u went public” and were listed on the New York Stock Exchange as SHOP AMERICA! and they became friends with congressmen, spent 10 percent of their business income lobbying in Washington to overturn zoning, dumping, and other environmental laws that were getting in their way. And they had their eye on export trade subsidies, and maybe some military contracts, and were desperate to keep their stock prices high and to keep their taxes down.
Well, then, you’d have to say your grandfather would be operating in a different world, with different values and drives, than he does now. At the beginning, it was all about furniture for local families and businesses, not the primary needs of nonstop capital expansion, growth, stock values, and distributions. That’s the “capitalism” I worry about. That’s what’s consuming the world. Now it’s all about growth, not furniture, not sufficiency, not community welfare. It’s wealth, constantly seeking more wealth, to better seek still more wealth. That local store and those global businesses really shouldn’t share the same name. They are different creatures.
The author is not a Marxist, and like you, I admit am not well read on the the more detailed and academic aspects of this subject. That said, I agree somewhat with your characterization of the matter as in no small part being dependent on “national character.” American style gangster/crony/investor class capitalism is truly a zero sum poison that is *only* capable of running amok and consuming any vestiges of “popular democracy” (with which it is fully incompatible) and all resources until they are exhausted and the “economy” and by extension, government/political system are essentially a few quasi- or actual monopolistic interests ruling over everyone else.
https://archive.org/details/pdfy-p9AtqAO-OafzzhdC/page/n11/mode/2up
It’s worth a read, IMO, from an “everyman’s” perspective.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 18 2024 22:37 utc | 82
Scorpion | Jan 18 2024 21:59 utc | 74
Ism. Anything that has a touch of socialism, the Americans scream commies, commies.
Early communism was heavy on ideology and dogma. zero private enterprise as that was capitalist.
But that was very much a requirement to carry them through the revolution, the turbulance and hardship of civil war. A very simple formula peasants could unite around.
Most revolutions are the same, especial so when its poverty stricken uneducated peasants against a wealthy educated ruling power.
But every revolution to carry it through needs a strong simple formula, be it an ideology or religion. With the death of Mao, Chinese communism quickly changed and began moving towards what I term socialism. The formula to carry a people through the turbulence of revolution becomes a hindrance, a destructive influence on the peace afterward if continued.
China has taken in a number of things early communist would scream capitalism. It has allowed China to pull millions out of prosperity and see a very stable, well educated, prosperous, multi ethnic nation.
The Soviet Union for whatever reason was not able to achieve that. Part or much of the reason was all western capitalism threat was directed towards the Soviet Union. But whatever the Soviet Union collapsed and the successor, the Russian federation went straight to extreme American capitalism. Putin brought back in aspects of socialism.
Just like a good diet is balanced with a bit of everything, so is a country, the mix of private enterprise plus socialist type policies, the exact balance only dependent upon the culture of the nation. Communism with Chinese characteristics. NK, Cuba, Vietnam. Each with their own characteristics. Same with any country that hasn’t been Americanized. Russia? well thats Putins Russia and this time it will knock Americanized westphalia out of the game for good.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 18 2024 22:37 utc | 83
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 18 2024 21:49 utc | 71
Scorpion @2128
“Power to the people”. “Think globally and act locally”. Those visions of the future are abundantly demonstrated in the excerpt you shared.
Here in a small village in the Northwoods of Minnesota; several of us are exchanging ideas on the development of a community garden; as well as a “Usables” shelter at a nearby dumpster site, where only garbage, trash and consumerist junk would go into the dumpsters, while items and articles which others could use could be accessed from that adjacent simple shelter.
If humankind is to have a future, futurist visions must be conceptualized via radical decentralization…ultimately up to the levels of governance and taxation….or ought we consider that the changes would filter DOWN to those levels of bureaucratic administration?
Crap! I can’t resist, esp. when someone is kind enough to reply to my lovingly crafted drivel!
‘Think globally act locally’ you say. Fine. I offer in reply:
‘As above so below; as below so above.’
Good civilizations/societies are holographic. A meeting with a humble village elder in a remote zone manifests the same depth of cultural dignity and brilliance as that in the King’s Court. (Why Russia may yet one day have a Tzar again?)
I get the feeling from Putin’s words and the photos that he feels himself a Russian and presents himself to his people as such and they see him as such and stand on the same ground with him and he with them even as they look up to him as a true leader. This is a very beautiful thing to see for such a widely respected elder statesman whose influence has spread far beyond his own country. That he has not lost touch with local people – and mayors from much smaller municipalities present themselves in this charming meeting – is a great credit to himself and his entire nation. The fact that there is such connection and natural interchange (at least as far as I can tell from afar) is significant and – at least for me – a sign that all is not lost for the human race.
I have doubts about CBDC and multipolarity and bla bla bla, but what people actually do and say matters, and what these Mayors say to their national leader without coercion, with obvious affection, is profoundly meaningful – as is the Russian romantic tendency to express depth of feeling in civic affairs.
@ Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 18 2024 20:19 utc | 44
“ NATO to hold biggest drills since Cold War with 90,000 troops “
Couple of thoughts occur. As has been admitted by the Ukrops generals and the Natzios – they need to replace 30k a month now! So I give the combined proxy last ditch attack by the natzios – 3 months before they have been minced.
Secondly the Masters who will send them to their doom as the Light Brigade charge into the Russian guns as their last hurrah, will expect to escape and shapeshift into building another generation to believe the myth of Taking Russia.
There is only but one solution for the salvation humanity from these Demi-gods.
Posted by: DunGroanin | Jan 18 2024 22:40 utc | 85
wagelaborer | Jan 18 2024 21:43 utc | 68
In rooting out NGOs, Russia and China are very much on the ball. Rember that there will always be sleeper cell and new insertions so it has to be an ongoing work which is what is occurring now.
As to the brainwashing of the young … the advancement of science and understanding the human mind – the joys of scientific pysops. Group think, sheeple – so easy for a shepherd and his dog to control a large flock.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 18 2024 23:01 utc | 86
” Aside from war, What will our late stage Capitalism devolve into?
Posted by: Chaka Khagan | Jan 18 2024 20:17 utc | 43
Posted by: Honzo | Jan 18 2024 20:37 utc | 50 ”
This is an easy one as the ” elite ” already told us.
” China is a “role model” for many countries, according to World Economic Forum (WEF) boss Klaus Schwab, in a recent interview with Chinese state media. “I think we should be very careful in imposing systems,” Schwab added, “but the Chinese model is certainly a very attractive model for quite a number of countries.”
” World Economic Forum founder and Chair Klaus Schwab recently sat down for an interview with a Chinese state media outlet and proclaimed that China was a “role model” for other nations. ”
” Klaus Schwab, the founder and chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), has heaped praise on China. Schwab described the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a “role model for many countries” The WEF hosts an annual conference in Davos, Switzerland where it trains world leaders on ushering in the organization’s globalist agenda. ”
Posted by: Moonie | Jan 18 2024 23:06 utc | 87
” As America teetered on the brink of entering World War II, Charles A. Lindbergh gave a fateful speech that did more damage to the America First movement for peace than all the propagandistic efforts of the pro-war groups he named in Des Moines that day. In his oration, the great aviator and American hero sought to define who and what had brought us to the point of no return:
Posted by: sam | Jan 18 2024 18:08 utc | 27 ”
I dont get this. How did this particular speech derail the peace movement ? Is it because he named a certain tribal group ?
Posted by: Moonie | Jan 18 2024 23:12 utc | 88
psychohistorian | Jan 18 2024 21:18 utc | 59
That fear runs through all the elite of Westphalia. Anglostan (five-eyes) is the leader and power of current westphalia, and although US is the military and economic power, the brits are the foundation of anglostan so I guess that is why the fear runs highest there.
Desperate measures for desperate times…stupid measures for desperate times…
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 18 2024 23:16 utc | 89
worth the watch
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/149/356/120/playable/d3a829e3e792a820.mp4
Posted by: ld | Jan 18 2024 23:18 utc | 90
I’ve finished editing Lavrov’s 2.75 hourlong presser, and it makes for another very long document; such things just can’t be helped, “Lavrov’s Year in Review Presser”. Perhaps prior to reading either of those two long efforts it would be wise to read Pepe Escobar’s initial review of Emanual Todd’s book, “How the West Was Defeated” as it offers some hitherto undiscussed context both Pepe and I see having great import.
juliania | Jan 18 2024 20:02 utc | 38–
Thanks for your reply. Yes, emotions are certainly on display by all players. The awards ceremony wasn’t clear that all those of stage with Putin were winners with one Grand Prize award. That occurred at a packed auditorium at Moscow’s VDNKh exhibition center. The municipalities, the villages are the Little Motherland that form the basis for the entire state, with the current promotion being uniquely Russian having a soviet background with the small “s”. The participatory democracy described was wonderful. IMO, Russia’s stronger now than ever, even greater than at the height of the USSR for many reasons. Many are getting the relationship wrong: It’s not the Soviet Union that’s being recreated; rather, it’s a Union of soviets with a small s. Russia seems to feed on the hatred directed at it that motivates everyone everywhere, like cans of spinach for Popeye. Little wonder then that at the end of his Presser Lavrov cited Churchill.
whirlX | Jan 18 2024 20:03 utc | 39–
Thanks for your reply. I don’t see Russia doing anything rashly; rather, Russia will continue on the path it’s on as it heads both BRICS+ and CIS this year. Lavrov will be at the UNSC for a special session on Palestine next Tuesday, “There we will set forth our proposals, which are aimed precisely at the renewal of collective principles, and not at attempts to ‘solve’ everything alone.” So, we shall soon see what changes are afoot. I’m rather certain nothing of substance will be discussed between Russia and the Outlaw US Empire until after the November elections. Here’s the Q&A about that:
Question: Do you think there will be a change in Washington’s policy towards Russia after the US presidential election?
Sergey Lavrov: This is not a question for me, but for those who will be elected by the American people with the understanding that the elections will be fair. [My Emphasis]
Lavrov’s humor is subtle but effective.
Posted by: All Under Heaven | Jan 18 2024 22:26 utc | 81
First, thank you for your clear and generous explanations.
[from the wikipedia]: Ma Ying-jeou also mentioned that “One China” is the Republic of China [ROC, right?]. He will not promote the policies of two Chinas, one China, one Taiwan, or Taiwan’s independence. These guarantees have become the cornerstone of a stable status quo.
I realise that for a while I have been confused by the word ‘independence’. To paraphrase how Chinese phrasing often appears to this Westerner, I now (respectfully and playfully) conceive:
‘The Two Independences’
兩個獨立性 Sì gè yī zhōngguó liǎng gè dúlì xìng
Independence 1 = The people and government of Taiwan operate independently of the CCP government in Beijing or their mainland-based republic of ‘China’.
Independence 2: That the people and government of Taiwan become a fully independent nation state of their own.
I now introduce:
‘The Four One China’s’:
四個一中國 Sì gè yī zhōngguó
One China 1: the status quo, all being one China but with separate governments in Taiwan for Taiwan ROC and mainland China for mainland China PRC. They are neither separate nor the same, aka ‘not-two’ (Classic Buddhist Madhyamika! No problem for Chan masters! Inseparability of Yin and Yang – no problem for Daoist Masters!)
One China 2: ROC and PRC merge into PRC.
One China 3: ROC and PRC merge into ROC or
One China 4: a newly constituted Republic not run by either CPC or ROC.
Question 1: is this a reasonable list? Would you add anything?
Question2: using this or a better list, could you kindly explain which one each of the three political parties favor?
For example, I understand that KMT doesn’t favor ‘independence’, presumably ‘Independence 2’; so which one of the 四個一中國 do they favor: ‘One China’ 1, 2, 3 or 4?
If I know my Turks, they will not take kindly to Lavrov’ s imaginative recollection of world history for the past “500” years. Turks are, like the Russians, fond of creative history and you know what, they actually were something of a big deal in that precise period.
# Mother Russia put on a ‘little’ weight here – but this is not hegemony over weaker neighbors. These are after all Russian Lands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_Russia_(1500–1800)
~
& now let’s consider an alternative take (found on the net) that relies on the very reliable follow the money analytical lens. I’ll add my 2c cents here regarding R contra R — old Cabal (Aunti) vs Energy (Master-Blaster) upstart — and also add that analysis below need to include the abrupt change from Nixon Doctrine to what devolved into the current imperial order (energy’s blaster) and its heavy military presence in zones critical to its maintaining a sword over China’s head: “We make or break ME at will”. In other words, the day may come when your children will walk around wearing t-shirts with “My Parents fought for Aunti-Imperialism and all I got was this lousy t-shirt and a chip”. So is it anti-imperialism or aunti-imperialism. My money is on Aunti. Aunti is an old hand, with ‘deep ties’ with established families in all quarters. It never ceases to amaze the places Aunti- has been in the past “500” years. 500 years of “European” rule.
400 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company
Anyway, this is a familiar take but OP added some interesting tidbits I didn’t know, like Zionistan getting in the LNG business. Yes, occupied Iran sits (but that’s basically it) on a big treasure, but we are not permitted to touch it.
Also just a small public note from an Iranian to Aunti-Imperialist China, our great future hope for “setting the course of Humanity”, wondering why did you take advantage of “Empire” fucking Iranians over with sanctions and buy our oil at a “discount”? I mean, that’s not nice. That’s almost “predatory”. But I get it “If we didn’t exploit Iran someone else would have done it!” I’ve heard that before. That’s called Talmudic Ethics.
anyway, below from reddit of all place:
“ If you want to track the future – just follow the money! Right?
When major oil companies started pumping massive quantities of oil from Alaska (and Uk’s North Sea) with expensive platforms they needed to have a high price of oil and a market for this additional product – easiest solution was to shut down Iran (who had not renewed the consortium agreement) … shah deposed; mullahs in … Iran’s 6 million barrels a day off the market.
When the market loosened up … Iran-Iraq war … Iraq’s 3 million barrels off the market. War ended just as North Sea and Alaskan production dwindled (10 years later)!!
Then they broke up the Soviet Union – grabbed oil and gas in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan etc. suddenly Iran and Iraq stay sanctioned and contained again!!
Soviets got their shit together started grabbing huge market share in Europe … so US and partners start a war in Ukraine (Zelensky and cabinet are all Israelis) and so they cut Russia’s pipelines. Miraculously US and partners discover new oil, new technology – horizontal drilling!! Israel – who discovered oil and gas off its coast in huge quantities and Qatar (owned by UK) step in!!!
20 new unused (billion dollar) terminals are available and suddenly open up in America … 300 new lng ship carriers (300 million each) … and US is producing record oil and gas again.
Meanwhile Iran stays sanctioned /contained with a Mullah regime installed by the U.S. because of a trumped up charge of possessing nuclear capability that the west sold it to begin with. No Iran can’t export or compete – still!!
Israel went from zero to 50 bcm lng exports in one year!! And is now looking at grabbing new massive fields off Gaza. Qatar is drilling horizontally into Iran’s portion of Pars fields and exporting record volumes of gas … and hosting a world cup too!! And the Mullahs can’t do a damn thing about it.
No there is no economic imperative- the Mullahs must stay – Iran must remain sanctioned/contained for now. Well the good news: America’s Permian basin will start dwindling in 4 years (read the article)!! Will the Mullahs be toppled, Iran splintered into 5 pieces and US (and partners) grab Awhazistan (formerly part of Iran) oil and gas then? If you want the answer: Just follow the money.”
Posted by: robinthehood | Jan 18 2024 23:50 utc | 93
The Airbus Advantage. Or “If it’s Boeing, I ain’t going.”
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-01-18-airbus-advantage/
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 18 2024 23:53 utc | 94
bevin | Jan 18 2024 16:30 utc | 1
This find makes me think of John Michael Greer’s novel – Twilight’s Last Gleaming (2019), in which he describes in eerily prophetic detail what happens when a huge oil find is discovered off the coast of Africa in 2029 and the US decides that they must have it. Well worth a read (get it here for free https://cdn3.booksdl.org/get.php?md5=59555dbf3939c8f133a3c58982720f51&key=97O9EPFA9M7TPDAN) by one of the best open-minded thinkers of today.
Posted by: NotEinstein | Jan 18 2024 23:54 utc | 95
DunGroanin’ @ 85:
By golly, you’re right, if the Ukies are losing 30,000 troops monthly, then 90,000 NATO troops posturing under Operation Steadfast Defender will be the ideal minimum number needed to replace the lost men over January, February and March, right up to 31 March 2024 when Vladimir Zelensky’s term as Ukie President officially ends, and the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada takes over as acting President in the absence of presidential elections.
Posted by: Refinnejenna | Jan 19 2024 0:08 utc | 96
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 18 2024 18:11 utc | 28
=================
I read quite a lot of your post/substack, and followed a few links to videos.
The latter were all in Russian with no English captions.
It would be great to see these with English captions (not voice-over). I wish the President’s Office would supply versions with captions in important other languages!!
I do enjoy watching/listening to Putin speak (I can follow some Russian), and I am sure it would be rewarding to see some of the municipal “prize awardees” speaking. I did not, however, see a video with these other speakers. I did take a look at the link with photos of Putin’s Christmas meeting with families who have lost someone at the front.
All in all the meeting appears to have been a very “heartfelt” affair, showing the warmth and “relatedness” that Russian provincial officials feel toward Putin. I love the repeated use of the patronymic “Vladimir Vladimirovich” (in the transcript)—can’t imagine anything analogous in English in a presser with, say, Biden or Blinken!!
I hope we get to see videos of Putin’s visit to the Kuril Islands in 2026!
Posted by: Jane | Jan 19 2024 0:12 utc | 97
Another interesting article by Ray Dalio:
2024: A Pivotal Year on the Brink
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2024-pivotal-year-brink-ray-dalio-fwgie
Posted by: Zet | Jan 19 2024 0:26 utc | 98
Posted by: Scorpion | Jan 18 2024 21:59 utc | 74
Thank you for the acknowledgement.
I think that you are conflating ‘capitalism’ which is a well-defined economic system based on the private ownership of capital and the fruits of other people’s labor created with that capital, with economies that simply have capital. Every economy has capital- the physical capital created to enable and multiply the productive power of labor. These are not ‘capitalist’ systems, they are other systems for the ownership and employment of capital and the fruits of the production in which it is used. Social ownership of capital is not capitalism, it is socialism. Slavery may or not be capitalism: human beings may be chattel and simply a kind of capital in a capitalist system, or a feudal one. These areas of overlap do not define the system. Systems are defined by the pattern of relationships regarding the owner ship and control of capital and its products.
We are, if the world doesn’t end, and the capitalist class maintains its grip on sufficient resources to pull it off, headed toward Techno-feudalism, in which capital continues to be the property of a private elite, but there is a kind of perverse ‘production for use’ in which money and what it can buy are simply tools of social control, alongside loyalty, status, rank, and special privileges handed down from above. ‘Capitalism’ requires that profit must be ‘realized’ in a system of exchange. Techno-feudalism redefines ‘profit’ in terms of actions taken or not taken that benefit the elites. If it comes to pass, it will be because robotics and antagonist systems (commonly called AI) are sufficiently well developed and controlled to dispense with the need for large masses of human laborers.
The conditions for Techno-feudalism require a very tight concentration of ‘capitalist’ capital in the hands of the new aristocracy and a level of automation that enables a high standard of material prosperity (not ‘wealth,’ because wealth implies ownership) for all necessary worker and a few extra, plus whatever apparatus of repression is required to keep people from climbing the ladder without permission.
This is the vision of WEF’s ‘you will own nothing and you will be happy.’ It’s not a vision for all those alive on the earth today, it’s a vision for a future in which most human beings are gone. ‘They’ (‘not you’) will own everything, and because they don’t enjoy trouble, they will make life bearable for the lower classes, as long as they behave.
Posted by: Honzo | Jan 19 2024 0:47 utc | 99
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 18 2024 18:11 utc | 28
Thank you again for the long “Good governance” piece, karlof1. This is the Eve of Theophany in the Old Calendar Orthodox tradition – the sun is just setting to mark its beginning, a lovely sunset here in the west. I can only hope that one day this country will return to the family warmth on a national level so evident now in Russia, realistically expressed at the final moment by Putin and by you. There is still much to do, and quoting him: we [they] will do it!
Posted by: juliania | Jan 19 2024 0:57 utc | 100