Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
October 09, 2024

Emmanuel Todd On Europe's Hopefully Fading Submission To The U.S.

This blog has been following the writings of Emmanuel Todd for some time:

In the later one I had quoted a New York Times review of Todd's latest book:

This Prophetic Academic Now Foresees the West’s Defeat (archived) - New York Times, Mar 9 2024
American leadership is failing: That is the argument of an eccentric new book that since January has stood near the top of France’s best-seller lists. It is called “La Défaite de l’Occident” (“The Defeat of the West”). Its author, Emmanuel Todd, is a celebrated historian and anthropologist who in 1976, in a book called “The Final Fall,” used infant-mortality statistics to predict that the Soviet Union was headed for collapse.
...
While Mr. Todd is, again, not judgmental on sexual matters, he is judgmental on intellectual ones. The inability to distinguish facts from wishes astounds him at every turn of the Ukraine war. The American hope early in the war that China might cooperate in a sanctions regime against Russia, thereby helping the United States refine a weapon that would one day be aimed at China itself, is, for Mr. Todd, a “delirium.”

The Italian version of "The Defeat of the West", Todd's latest book, has just been published. It is the occasion for an interview with Corriere Di Bologna.  The answers Todd is giving during the interview deserve your attention (edited machine translation):

Q:You argue that Europe has delegated the representation of the West to the United States and is now paying the price. How do you think this trend can be changed?

A: “In the present state we cannot do anything else. A war has begun. It is the outcome of this war that will decide the fate of Europe. If Russia is defeated in Ukraine, European submission to the Americans would be prolonged for a century. If, as I believe, the United States is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free.

Even more important than a Russian victory will be the halting of the Russian army on the Dnepr and the unwillingness of the Putin regime to attack western Europe militarily. With 144 million people, a shrinking population and 17 million square kilometers, the Russian state is already struggling to occupy its territory. Russia will have neither the means nor the desire to expand once the borders of pre-communist Russia are reconstituted. Western Russophobic hysteria fantasizing about the desire for Russian expansion in Europe is simply ridiculous to a serious historian.

The psychological shock awaiting Europeans will be to realize that NATO does not exist to protect us but to control us.”

Since the beginning of the recent phase of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, I have argued that Russia does not want to take all of Ukraine but only those parts which, up to 1922, had been traditional parts of Russia before the communists added them to the Ukrainian borderland.

It is nice to see that Emmanuel Todd agrees with this analysis:

It is difficult to discern what the planed end state of this operation is. Where is this going to stop?

Looking at this map I believe that the most advantageous end state for Russia would be the creation of a new independent country, call it Novorussiya, on the land east of the Dnieper and south along the coast that holds a majority ethnic Russian population and that, in 1922, had been attached to the Ukraine by Lenin. That state would be politically, culturally and militarily aligned with Russia.


bigger

This would eliminate Ukrainian access to the Black Sea and create a land bridge towards the Moldavian breakaway Transnistria which is under Russian protection.

Excursus:

The yellow part of that map marked 'Ukraine in 1654' was actually the land of the Eastern Orthodox Zaporozhian Cossacks. Under threat from the Catholic Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth, which at the time held the green parts under serfdom, they negotiated the Pereiaslav Agreement (1654) with Russia and pledged allegiance to the Tsar. They area thus became an autonomous part of Russia.

End Excursus

The rest of the Ukraine would be a land confined, mostly agricultural state, disarmed and too poor to be build up to a new threat to Russia anytime soon. Politically it would be dominated by fascists from Galicia which would then become a major problem for the European Union.

I have also argued previously that the current hostile German government position towards Russia is unnatural and will be corrected. In his interview Todd also agrees with this (edited machine translation):

Do you think Europe took the final step toward this subordination [to the U.S.] during the conflicts in the Balkans, and especially with the Kosovo issue?
“No, it all started in Ukraine. During the Iraq war, after Kosovo, Putin, Schröder and Chirac held joint press conferences. This terrified Washington. It seemed that America could be expelled from the European continent. Russia's separation from Germany thus became a priority for American strategists. Making the situation in Ukraine worse served this purpose.
Forcing the Russians into war to prevent Ukraine's de facto integration into NATO was, initially, a major diplomatic success for Washington. The shock of war paralyzed Germany and allowed the Americans, in general confusion, to blow up the Nordstream pipeline, a symbol of the economic understanding between Germany and Russia.
Of course, in a second phase, that of American defeat, American control over Europe will be pulverized. Germany and Russia will meet again. This conflict is in a sense artificial. The natural thing, in a low-fertility Europe, with its aging population, is the complementarity between German industry and Russian energy and mineral resources.”

The current situation and the sanctions on Russia are utterly harmful for Germany's industry and the people depending on it. I therefore hope that the process of reconnecting Germany with Russia will proceed as soon as possible. The current government which, for whatever reason, had agreed with the U.S. course on Ukraine, should be punished for the great harm it has caused.

There are a few more bits in the Todd interview. I'll leave it to you to read them.

Posted by b on October 9, 2024 at 14:40 UTC | Permalink

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKng6npxfnQ

At the starting of the week
At summit talks you'll hear them speak
It's only Monday
Negotiations breaking down
See those leaders start to frown
It's sword and gun day
Tomorrow never comes until it's too late

You could be sitting taking lunch
The news will hit you like a punch
It's only Tuesday
You never thought we'd go to war
After all the things we saw
It's April Fool's Day
Tomorrow never comes until it's too late

We'll all go running underground
And we'll be listening for the sound
It's only Wednesday
In your shelter, dimly lit
Take some wool and learn to knit
'Cause it's a long day
Tomorrow never comes until it's too late

You hear a whistling overhead
Are you alive or are you dead?
It's only Thursday
You feel the shaking of the ground
A billion candles burn around
Is it your birthday?
Tomorrow never comes until it's too late

Although that shelter is your home
A living space you have outgrown
It's only Friday
As you come out to the light
Can your eyes behold the sight
It must be doomsday
Tomorrow never comes until it's too late

Ain't it funny how men think
They made the bomb, they are extinct
It's only Saturday
I think tomorrow's come, I think it's too late
I think tomorrow's come, I think it's too late
Think tomorrow's come, I think it's too late

Posted by: Apollyon | Oct 9 2024 14:49 utc | 1

Lifestyles and Wars. All must be financed:

U.S. Macro Numbers

Change Between Q4 2019 and Q2 2024:

Public Debt: +$11.63 trillion.

GDP: + $6.75 trillion. (11% is manufacturing, rest is Gov't +Services

Debt Growth As % Of GDP Growth: 172%.

Perversely, the best asset for Russia, is American "leadership."

Posted by: kupkee | Oct 9 2024 14:52 utc | 2

Inka, outright nonsense that is hardly worth respnding to, but bullshit needs to be answered.

Ukraine was, before the Western initiated coup, balancing trade with the EU with Russia and the CIS. It was the EU that rejected Ukraine trading with both sides,.and when Yanukovich presictably and logically declined their demand to stop trading with Russia, they used Nulands famous cookie recipe.

Your revisionist history is akin to Israel claiming they are the 'worlds most moral army'. An inversion of the truth. Projection by the guilty parties who not only instigated the current situation but had it utterly explode in their corrupt, murderous faces due to their utter incompetence. I refer of course to the entire Western blob that unthinkingly inches us closer to annihilation while happily pretending Israel isn't slaughtering civilians.

Trolling website forums won't change reality. Saying a thing doesn't make it true.

Posted by: Doctor Eleven | Oct 9 2024 14:52 utc | 3

Thanks very much for this post b. I will look for the book. I had to laugh at the NYT from 9 March announcing the "eccentric new book." I wonder what they would say now, post hurricane Helena, with Milton about to take out a huge chunk of Florida. Beautiful Sarasota... sigh. Some of the conspiracy theorists have mentioned that Florida and NC are likely Trump states. Will voting be possible...? As for Russia and Germany, yes Todd's points are well made. Best if Russia takes back Ukraine to the Dnieper, but I wonder about reconciliation with Germany. Sure it makes sense but so many Germans are brainwashed to hate the Russians and bow down to the "green" hoax... add in the hydra of Blackrock and Izzyhell ... plus Soros Gates WEF et al....interesting times indeed.

Posted by: Formerly Miss Lacy | Oct 9 2024 15:01 utc | 4

The challenge will be to replace those Political leaders entirely subservient to Washington. Von Der Leyen is the poster child for such a “Quisling” but she isn’t alone. Check out the bio of most any European Politcian - they all are trained like puppies to worship Washington.

So how does one peacefully and gracefully replace the entire political class ?

Posted by: Exile | Oct 9 2024 15:05 utc | 5

Using the Dniepr as a border might be a bad idea: the guys at the other end might get funny ideas over the dams & bridges, and lots of discussions over who gets what water.
So a logical boundary would be everything say to the west of Pripriat/Jytomir, which includes Kiev.

Posted by: marcel | Oct 9 2024 15:08 utc | 6

“In the present state we cannot do anything else. A war has begun. It is the outcome of this war that will decide the fate of Europe. If Russia is defeated in Ukraine, European submission to the Americans would be prolonged for a century. If, as I believe, the United States is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free.

Very interesting analysis. I think he is right, because the current situation is completely artificial and cannot be sustained.

Thanks for this post!

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 9 2024 15:09 utc | 7

I'm all for Europe not having a submissive relationship for the US. But Putin conducts foreign policy as if all its border neighbors have to submit to Russia in order for Russia to have "national security". Why do they have to be submissive to Russia?

Posted by: Inka | Oct 9 2024 14:45 utc | 1

I have long concluded that not attacking its neighbors is just good policy for Ukraine, now and in the future. The looming outcome of this war is good evidence for that point of view.

Posted by: Bemildred | Oct 9 2024 15:10 utc | 8

Not on topic, but there is one person who doesn't even live in the United States who is deathly scared of hurricane Milton: Volodymyr Zelenskyy!😉

Posted by: Maracatu | Oct 9 2024 15:17 utc | 9

All of Europe, not just Russia's border states, need to agree to a mutual security treaty, so that all can live in peace.
The US, of course, must be kicked out of Europe for that to happen.
The point is that one country, or a group of countries, cannot arm themselves unilaterally, and then innocently claim that they are only making their safe space.

Having everyone else submit to the irrational fears of a few people, so that they can flounce around in their safe space, is a hallmark of US neoliberalism, but it isn't equitable for Russia, or anyone else for that matter.
You guys throw out the US from Europe, and maybe it will be easier for Americans to deal with the nutjobs that rule our country. In any case, your lives will improve.

Posted by: wagelaborer | Oct 9 2024 15:18 utc | 10

Unfortunately, many in the West would rather be subservient to Washington than to Beijing or Moscow. They have no idea that they don't need to be dictated to by other countries and that they can determine their own national paths.

Posted by: CIROC | Oct 9 2024 15:22 utc | 11

The challenge will be to replace those Political leaders entirely subservient to Washington.

Posted by: Exile | Oct 9 2024 15:05 utc | 6

---

Replacement isn't sufficient. Judgement and punishment is necessary. Pour encourager les autres.

Remediation is a privilege which must be earned.

Posted by: too scents | Oct 9 2024 15:22 utc | 12

Now Rammstein has let Biden burst...but Sylenski doesn't want to go home under any circumstances, where apparently WITHOUT Rammstein nothing good awaits him from his Azov friends...
He is probably trying to buy time or at least bring small gifts, he will certainly beg for Tarus in Berlin...but that would be the real end of the German Chancellor, although...he is already dead as a politician for the 2025 elections, what would he have to lose. Germany no longer has tanks or ammunition, its own army only has ammunition for about 7 days in an emergency. So what else does Sylenski want to do in Berlin...buy time?
RT report:
The Ukrainian President Vladimir Selenskij is planning a visit to the German capital. On Friday, Selenskij wants to land in Berlin and meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD). This is reported by the Springer newspaper Bild, citing government circles.
.
https://rtde.live/inland/221940-nach-absage-von-ramstein-treffen/

Posted by: ossi | Oct 9 2024 15:23 utc | 13

thanks b..

kudos to emmanuel todd for speaking directly on this issue and highlighting the possibilities here, moving forward.. there are still some rational thinkers in europe capable of discernment and clarity..

the fact nordstreams destruction has been hushed up speaks very poorly of the idea of democracy, or freedom of information, or curiousity for that matter.... this was a direct attack on germany and the developing relationship between germany and russia... it is very obvious who the perpetrators are, but apparently everyone in europe, or the rest of the world, are supposed to roll over and make like nothing happened.. why is that?? i blame the media for failing to do their work, but instead treating people like ignoramus's.. hopefully the people of germany can see thru this and are given voting options to reflect there own insight into what is going on here..

Posted by: james | Oct 9 2024 15:24 utc | 14

All of Europe, not just Russia's border states, need to agree to a mutual security treaty, so that all can live in peace.
The US, of course, must be kicked out of Europe for that to happen.
The point is that one country, or a group of countries, cannot arm themselves unilaterally, and then innocently claim that they are only making their safe space.

Having everyone else submit to the irrational fears of a few people, so that they can flounce around in their safe space, is a hallmark of US neoliberalism, but it isn't equitable for Russia, or anyone else for that matter.
You guys throw out the US from Europe, and maybe it will be easier for Americans to deal with the nutjobs that rule our country. In any case, your lives will improve.

Posted by: wagelaborer | Oct 9 2024 15:18 utc | 11
.
.
The US elites would rather let the world end...and they wouldn't even need A weapons for that.
In view of their biological and chemical weapons + terror

Posted by: ossi | Oct 9 2024 15:26 utc | 15

@ ossi | Oct 9 2024 15:23 utc | 14

keep us posted on this... does olaf scholz ever wake up??

Posted by: james | Oct 9 2024 15:26 utc | 16

I find this hopeful post in that the 3-letter-agencies and it's precursor, the Dept of State have, to the USA's great detriment played the "great-game" and...they have played it badly since they assassinated JFK in order that the Viet-Nam war could proceed.

Their crap has to stop. Of course, hope is not a plan, just look at little England, their elites traded their empire in for thirty pieces of silver and yet they still strut around like preening peacocks wholly unaware of their lilliputian status. After this tragedy reaches it's inevitable conclusion the US elites will either rein in those who now dominate the 3-letter-agencies and the Dept of State or the US will join the English Empire in the dustbin of history.

Posted by: S Brennan | Oct 9 2024 15:29 utc | 17

The principal cause of the war in the Ukraine is Europe's loss of sovereignty.

(I have said this from the very beginning. This is a good spot to repeat it.)

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Oct 9 2024 15:34 utc | 18

USA rejects sovereignty

I'm all for Europe not having a submissive relationship for the US. But Putin conducts foreign policy as if all its border neighbors have to submit to Russia in order for Russia to have "national security". Why do they have to be submissive to Russia?

Posted by: Inka | Oct 9 2024 14:45 utc | 1

Because the United States will not allow sovereign countries to exist. Every country is forced to choose sides; you are either with us, or with the enemy!

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Oct 9 2024 15:44 utc | 19

keep us posted on this... does olaf scholz ever wake up??

Posted by: james | Oct 9 2024 15:26 utc | 17
.
.
.
What does waking up mean...
He made so many mistakes during his time as mayor of Hamburg, mistakes that went beyond the legal, that he is probably vulnerable to blackmail.
Is he not doing what he wants...?
Because no human being can be so stupid and naive, to allow themselves to be so humiliated when they stood next to Biden when he announced the end of N1 and N" in front of cameras and that was more than just humiliation from the demented Biden. Scholz stood there like a slave.
Only a man who can't or isn't allowed to do anything without sacrificing himself would put up with that. And every normal thinking German had the same feeling...especially in the east of the country, in the west people are still keen to have better cars than their neighbors, to fly more on vacation...than their colleagues, to hide in shame when they become unemployed. Because THAT is what they still have to learn in the east of Germany, apart from maybe the Ruhr area, the Ruhr area with how many percent of unemployed people, NO ONE even mentions the subject. But no matter, our politicians vote in parliament according to the wishes of the leadership in order to secure their own future, corruption is not prosecuted SEE Scholz See ABOUT THE LIE in Brussels...a dying system.
Feedback geben
Seitenleisten
Verlauf
Gespeichert

Posted by: ossi | Oct 9 2024 15:45 utc | 20

The West will be defeated by mass immigration.

Posted by: onetwothree | Oct 9 2024 15:46 utc | 21

The US will issue a Nero Decree for Western Europe should Russia prevails in neutering Ukraine's fascists and NATO threatened with dissolvement.

Posted by: Keme | Oct 9 2024 15:47 utc | 22

Thanks for this.
Yes the the final land settlement is obvious.
What is lacking is a Ukrainian government to sign it.

This has been true since the SMO in 2022. Even then US/UK refused to allow a hugely favourable deal, and the Nazis would probably have stopped it too.
And there is no credible western power able to support any government either.

Posted by: Mickey Droy | Oct 9 2024 15:47 utc | 23

Since the beginning of the recent phase of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, I have argued that Russia does not want to take all of Ukraine but only those parts which, up to 1922, had been traditional parts of Russia before the communists added them to the Ukrainian borderland.

That would mean going quite a bit west of Kiev.

Posted by: 1917 | Oct 9 2024 15:48 utc | 24

@ ossi | Oct 9 2024 15:45 utc | 21

okay.. thanks...sounds like he is a byproduct of bribery and has no choice... i can't imagine the people of germany being happy about that..

Posted by: james | Oct 9 2024 15:49 utc | 25

A look into the geopolitical theory behind America's compulsion to divide Germany and Russia:


https://www.beyondwasteland.net/p/ordered-off-the-world-island

Posted by: KevinB | Oct 9 2024 15:52 utc | 26

Excellent b, a brilliant read.

Bravo sir,

Why I think even if article 5 was triggered. Many would say no, stay neutral or look to join BRICS.

It's not just cheap Russian energy. It's mercantilism ideology that has destroyed Europe and their race to the bottom mentality. Some countries can have trade surpluses while the others are faced with harsh austerity. Gold standard 101.

Monetary policy is supposed to be divorced from fiscal policy, with a great degree of monetary policy independence in order to focus on the primary objective of price stability. Fiscal policy, in turn will be tightly constrained by criteria which dictate maximum deficit-to-GDP and debt-to-deficit ratios. Gold standard 101 embedded in their treaties.

First modern experiment on a wide scale that would attempt to break the link between a government and its currency. Gold standard 101.

The ECB doesn't have a fiscal branch so each EMU member country were to attempt to operate fiscal policy in a foreign currency; deficit spending will require borrowing in that foreign currency according to the dictates of private markets.

A fiscal conservative, sound money socialists wet dream. Why it always in crises. They have to break with every Gold standard, medallist rules embedded in their treaties to stop.It crashing around their heads.

They had adopted essentially a foreign currency and they weren't able to spend as necessary to bring them out of the crisis. When their deficits did increase, the markets reacted against them because they realize they are no longer sovereign governments. It is a disaster.

The only way they got through covid without destroying the place was by lifting the deficit and debt rules. They are about to be reinforced with a vegence so the crises will resume.

You are German b, read this. What d you think ?

https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=61950

Gold standard mercantilism 101.

It is not just cheap Russian energy the whole structure is flawed. The race to the bottom and begger thy neighbour strategy will continue while protected by NATO ?

Smaller countries will be forced to endure austerity - AGAIN

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Oct 9 2024 15:56 utc | 27

"If we assume that mankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war and destruction. In our day of space vehicles and guided ballistic missiles, the choice is either nonviolence or nonexistence."

from an essay published in 1963, by Martin Luther King Jr.

Posted by: james | Oct 9 2024 15:58 utc | 28

In a standard modus operandi of a professional troll, the Inkanafo posted first. There is no need for anyone to feed this fascist slimebag by responding to it, quite the opposite in fact.

If one feels the need to counter a narrative promoted by such puke, one should do so in a neutral fashion, i.e. by not directly addressing the troll. There is no good faith in such vermin, they post crap aiming to serve the interests of Anglo-American imperialism, hence the conscious inversion of reality.

Posted by: Constantine | Oct 9 2024 16:03 utc | 29

Thanks b.

“delirium.” indeed.

With 144 million people, a shrinking population and 17 million square kilometers, the Russian state is already struggling to occupy its territory.

Hence from the beginning of the SMO: Force protection, Force protection, sustained enemy attrition & destruction through firepower/overwhelming industrial materiel and, lastly, Force protection. FO NAFO's.

Yet, even so, the Ukraine proxy conflict was foreseen & transformed into a sub-component, a stepping stone/enabler, re the overarching geostrategic ultimate objectives of the Resistance to a continuance of mythical Pax Americana. Since 2004/2008 ? Hopefully a soft landing/transition, sans ICBMs ...

Madame Guillotine is yet again thirsty. Let the Tumbrils roll.

@ Doctor Eleven | Oct 9 2024 14:52 utc | 4
'Tis projected 'delirium' in action, no ? ;)

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 9 2024 16:08 utc | 30

@ Posted by: Inka | Oct 9 2024 14:45 utc | 1

The side of "multipolarity" that Russia likes is that it gets to re-emerge as an imperialist nation in its own right. Putin's foreign policy is classic imperialism, and BRICS will very soon - with its expansion to include smaller and smaller nations - become a platform for Russian capital exports. The conflict in Ukraine was an essentially imperialist one as well, with Russia and the US/EU competing over who gets to control the Ukrainian market. Russia decided the matter militarily. The US/EU know that there's no victory in sight, but can make the conflict last as long as possible, to "bleed" the Russians of their young men.

The world is heading inexorably towards imperialist war, which very quickly could escalate into imperialist war, if communist revolution in the major imperialist countries (the US, France, the UK, Germany) does not occur.

Posted by: fnord | Oct 9 2024 16:11 utc | 31

Автор: Инка | 9 октября 2024 г., 14:45 по Гринвичу | 1

Вы ошибаетесь. Путин призывает выбросить США с европейского континента. Это путь к миру в Европе.

Posted by: Виктор | Oct 9 2024 16:12 utc | 32

1917 | Oct 9 2024 15:48 utc | 25 AKA Sb et al

Quite. Upon the inevitable imminent collapse of the AFU & the illegitimate Prez, Rada rump & State of 'The BanderaLands'. Prost.

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 9 2024 16:15 utc | 33

I do so hope you are right.

Posted by: Dave Pollard | Oct 9 2024 16:19 utc | 34

I wonder about reconciliation with Germany. Sure it makes sense but so many Germans are brainwashed to hate the Russians and bow down to the "green" hoax... add in the hydra of Blackrock and Izzyhell ... plus Soros Gates WEF et al....interesting times indeed.

Posted by: Formerly Miss Lacy | Oct 9 2024 15:01 utc | 5

Well said. Among us Germans the sheeple fraction, i.e. those who want to avoid thinking and remain US slaves, seems to be the majority. We have two parties, AfD and BSW, that stand for an end to Russiophobia. Together, they won up to 45% of the vote in recent regional elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg. These are Eastern regions - the East, home of the former DDR, has always been more pro-Russian. In the whole of Germany the AfD and BSW may still have like 30% together. Not enough yet to force a change in the 2025 federal elections. We need to wake up another 20%...

Posted by: grunzt | Oct 9 2024 16:19 utc | 35

After this tragedy reaches it's inevitable conclusion the US elites will either rein in those who now dominate the 3-letter-agencies and the Dept of State or the US will join the English Empire in the dustbin of history.

Posted by: S Brennan | Oct 9 2024 15:29 utc | 18

So it's going into the dustbin then. The idea that any member of the political or economic elite would do anything to reduce the power of the three letter agencies is inconceivable.

However, most of America is made up of heavily armed and increasingly desperate wage slaves. They have watched history passively since WW2. Under the pressure of the breakdown of their country, the heart of world imperialism, they are confronted with an ever widening breech which, with the proper orientation and leadership, they can use to take power. Should this occur, the wars could end before the nukes fly and a new cooperative arrangement between the US and Row could be quickly reached.

Yes, I know. That's just impossible. Can't happen. The US has trounced the USSR and "ended history". But just look at the world situation. Look at the situation in the US itself. The end of history and its recurrences, it's development: that was another myth, just like that of the noble Ukronazis fighting for our freedom.

If history is back, then we must look again to the era WW1. What ended that war? What country was able to oust their war crazed ruling class? How did they do it?

Only the wage slaves of the US can truly end US imperialism. Battlefield defeats of it's proxies here and there will weaken it, to be sure, but the problem will persist and it has nukes.

Educate your co-workers and neighbors. Build alternative political organizations no matter how small. Open a political fight with your Dem controlled union. Build a real anti war movement that bars any agencies of the Dems.

Only a thorough going social revolution in the US can topple the three letter agencies.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Oct 9 2024 16:20 utc | 36

In a standard modus operandi of a professional troll, the Inkanafo posted first. There is no need for anyone to feed this fascist slimebag by responding to it, quite the opposite in fact.

If one feels the need to counter a narrative promoted by such puke, one should do so in a neutral fashion, i.e. by not directly addressing the troll. There is no good faith in such vermin, they post crap aiming to serve the interests of Anglo-American imperialism, hence the conscious inversion of reality.

Posted by: Constantine | Oct 9 2024 16:03 utc | 30

Good point.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Oct 9 2024 16:23 utc | 37

okay.. thanks...sounds like he is a byproduct of bribery and has no choice... i can't imagine the people of germany being happy about that..

Posted by: james | Oct 9 2024 15:49 utc | 26
.
.
.
.
Happy?
Well, as the European elections and the elections in three federal states have shown, around 35% are not satisfied.
But democrats who call themselves democrats are not. They form coalitions without regard for principles just to prevent the stronger party from governing.
In Germany there are no run-off elections, which means that, to exaggerate, 12 small parties come together and achieve 51%, then they send the strong party that 49% of all voters wanted into the opposition. So there are suddenly coalitions in Germany where conservatives come together with former left-wing = red parties, thus throwing all their principles overboard so that the strong party does not get into government. Here is a party that no longer wants to be a slave to the USA...do I need to say more, all media in Germany are infiltrated and partly financed by the transatlanticists, according to the UN Germany is still occupied territory so media licenses are dependent on the USA.
Etc.

Posted by: ossi | Oct 9 2024 16:23 utc | 38

There are psychological connections. The EU masses indentify themselves as heros from Hollywood films and Disney games.
Young boys like US marines and the girls want to become TV stars.
Europe loves US. Like Ukrainians, but on a higher level, they want to be loved by the US.

In their minds, the US is an invincible power of cosmic Good that is always right and becer comut crimes.

There is no other way for Europe but to happily die to confirm and prove their true love for America.

Posted by: vargas | Oct 9 2024 16:23 utc | 39

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Oct 9 2024 15:44 utc | 20

##########

And if you are "with us", you're still the enemy.

Kissinger said, "It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Oct 9 2024 16:25 utc | 40

After all the backstabbing Russia has experienced at the hands of the Germans, the French, and other Euros, I'd be entirely sympathetic if Russia chose never to have anything further to do with those countries and left the -- quite literally -- out in the cold.

Certainly Russia should NEVER do anything to facilitate their recovery to the point where they could be of any mischief, let alone harm.

Sorry, b. Your country has f***ed with Russia too many times.

Posted by: malenkov | Oct 9 2024 16:33 utc | 41

There are psychological connections. The EU masses indentify themselves as heros from Hollywood films and Disney games.
Young boys like US marines and the girls want to become TV stars.
Europe loves US. Like Ukrainians, but on a higher level, they want to be loved by the US.
.
.
.
And that is exactly what is done systematically.
In US films, who always wins?
In US films, who always saves the world, other nations are not even mentioned.
In US films, America liberated the Germans! The USA had around 400,000 dead.
The USSR, on the other hand, had around 27,000,000, but this is never mentioned; on the contrary, the media claims that US troops liberated Auschwitz...NO, they didn't!
East Germany, i.e. the GDR, would never have existed if the USA had not sold the areas they liberated for a piece of Berlin.
France would NEVER have been recognized as an Ally without Stalin...England wanted France as a colony.
There is also no mention in US films of the thousands of dead prisoners of war on the banks of the Rhine who were literally left to starve!
It should be clear to everyone that
the youth who grew up with such media are not living in reality...and that is intentional
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Posted by: ossi | Oct 9 2024 16:34 utc | 42

I'm all for Europe not having a submissive relationship for the US. But Putin conducts foreign policy as if all its border neighbors have to submit to Russia in order for Russia to have "national security". Why do they have to be submissive to Russia?

Posted by: Inka | Oct 9 2024 14:45 utc | 1

Because if they dont “submit” to Russia they must submit to the US whose only interest is to stage bases and missiles in them.

It is also the US that perpetuates this duopoly. So those countries have no choice, either with the one or the other. That is also not entirely true as Russia is not that agressive to gather all in its sphere,

Posted by: alek_a | Oct 9 2024 16:35 utc | 43

" The West will be defeated by mass immigration.

Posted by: onetwothree | Oct 9 2024 15:46 utc | 22 "

As will Russia.

Posted by: Moonie | Oct 9 2024 16:35 utc | 44

American exceptionalism and arrogance fueled by neo con power has yielded just disastrous results in the 21st century..........

- The fake WMD war in Iraq
- The hunt OBL in Afhgan
- The fake color revolution, followed by the Nuland coup of 2014 in the Ukraine, and the continued use of the Ukraine as a dagger aimed at the heartland of Russia (resulting in over one million fatalities, another one million maimed.
- Nato expansion into the Baltic states
- Nato expansion into the Balkan states
- Nato war on Serbia, the Serb Republic of Krajina and the Serb Republic of Bosnia
- Support for the IDF continuous war against the Palestinian people and their desire for the return of their stolen lands.
These are utterly failed policies led by the paid Lt's of the Open Society Foundation - Toni Blinken-skyy, Victoria Nuland-Numan, Wendy Sherman, Susan Rice, Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, and of course this chief Lt of Georgiev Soros - Barrak Hussein Obama.........and compliant neo con Reps like GW Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Nikki Haley, Mike Esper, etc., etc.

Patrick J. Buchanan predicted this disastrous policy failure in early 1990's in his campaigns for President in 2000 and 1992. He was totally right.

The US needs a far different approach - stop the meglomania globalism - America First not last - defeat the globalists at home, and Kamyhoe Harris - the marxist, globalist, and rebuild the American economy. Let the rest of the world go fish.......

Posted by: Tobias Cole | Oct 9 2024 16:38 utc | 45

After all the backstabbing Russia has experienced at the hands of the Germans, the French, and other Euros, I'd be entirely sympathetic if Russia chose never to have anything further to do with those countries and left the -- quite literally -- out in the cold.

Certainly Russia should NEVER do anything to facilitate their recovery to the point where they could be of any mischief, let alone harm.

Sorry, b. Your country has f***ed with Russia too many times.

Posted by: malenkov | Oct 9 2024 16:33 utc | 43
.
.
.
As an East German, I agree with you!
And with a man other than Putin at the helm, Russia will react very cautiously in the future, although... without Putin, things would have really broken out a long time ago.
But no matter, Europe will knock on the door and at some point beg. Because a Europe without Russia's raw materials is not viable, let alone competitive. Their hope may be based on the greed of Russian businessmen who will then dictate prices to Europe.
If Russia remains stubborn, Europe will be dependent on the USA and will no longer be able to put pressure on countries with natural resources and raw materials, including wheat. Europe has ruined its farmers, has no fertilizer, and has not been able to feed itself for a long time. At the moment, and I know this from first hand sources, it cannot even build tanks or ammunition without raw materials.

Posted by: ossi | Oct 9 2024 16:43 utc | 46

No second peace summit. No Ramstein. This has all the vibes of the US declaring victory and going home. Someone is about to get thrown under the bus.

Posted by: anonymous | Oct 9 2024 16:43 utc | 47

"Crooked Trump cozies up to murderous dictator"

gets one attention---

Posted by: hightrekker | Oct 9 2024 16:46 utc | 48

The US needs a far different approach - stop the meglomania globalism - America First not last - defeat the globalists at home, and Kamyhoe Harris - the marxist, globalist, and rebuild the American economy. Let the rest of the world go fish.......

Posted by: Tobias Cole | Oct 9 2024 16:38 utc | 47

You're comments always seem to have some truth, Tobias, but you just fuck your credibility every time claiming Kamala is a Marxist. You're just helping the bitch out. They want a left face for their genocide.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Oct 9 2024 16:47 utc | 49

E. Todd:
“Russia will have neither the means nor the desire to expand once the borders of pre-communist Russia are reconstituted. Western Russophobic hysteria fantasizing about the desire for Russian expansion in Europe is simply ridiculous to a serious historian.”

Seems to me Emmanuel Todd does not consider Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia or Poland part of Europe. And Russia raping and pillaging all over the -stans and other Central Asia is of course simply the way things ought to be. Surely just a part of the multi-polar world, making number of countries smaller. Or something. Fun times coming to large parts of the world. Then again, russian neighbours have never known anything else :(

Posted by: Membrum Virile | Oct 9 2024 16:50 utc | 50

@ Posted by: Honzo | Oct 9 2024 16:40 utc | 48

I don't believe Russia is moving in the direction of socialism except in the sense of state control and direction of the economy. Russian workers are not forming workers' councils which have say in the planning of the national economy. They are as subordinate as ever, if not more subordinate given the restrictions on autonomous workers' organizing since 2022. You say that the oligarchs are being pushed out, but this is not evident. Shoigu, who was replaced as Defense minister in May to become secretary of ministers of the CIS states, was himself an oligarch. Certainly the state bureaucracy has developed a higher degree of autonomy over capital than exists in the United States, but "socialism" this does not make. It is essentially the same situation as France under Dirigisme, or Fascist Italy or the Third Reich. The Russian state follows a "Keynesian" interventionist model, but it has not eliminated the power of capital within the state, so much as sidelined it, temporarily, for the purposes of winning its war in Ukraine. Still, the war in Ukraine is not fought over abstract "sovereignty", but the sovereignty of Russian capital in East European and Asian markets.

For socialists, what matters is not national sovereignty, but the social sovereignty of the working class, which is today more than ever a global class, whose struggles transcend national boundaries. The political project of the Russian and US working classes is the same: the seizure of state power for themselves as a class, and the subordination of capital to a workers' state. These words were also echoed by Nestor Makhno, the Ukrainian anarchist, in response to Ukrainian nationalists who wanted "Ukrainian sovereignty" instead of the social sovereignty of the toiling masses (which makes the appropriation of Makhno by nationalist Ukrainians particularly ironic - Makhno fought Petliura's nationalist forces alongside Trotsky's Red Army).

Posted by: fnord | Oct 9 2024 16:53 utc | 51

The US needs a far different approach - stop the meglomania globalism - America First not last - defeat the globalists at home, and Kamyhoe Harris - the marxist, globalist, and rebuild the American economy. Let the rest of the world go fish.......

Posted by: Tobias Cole | Oct 9 2024 16:38 utc | 47

It's actually even dumber than calling Trump a Hitlerian fascist. Honestly it's only those with faith in the two Imperialist parties of the US that exhibit this level of stupidity. The good news: they represent an increasingly small number of Americans.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Oct 9 2024 16:54 utc | 52

Posted by: malenkov | Oct 9 2024 16:33 utc | 43

“I'd be entirely sympathetic if Russia chose never to have anything further to do with those countries”

That is exactly what quite large number of people in Europe wish. Especially those in the countries with a border with russia. May it happen soon!

Posted by: Membrum Virile | Oct 9 2024 16:55 utc | 53

@ malenkov | Oct 9 2024 16:33 utc | 43

By design imposed and/or self inflicted, intentionally or not, the likely outcome for Germany for a generation or few is a resurrected facsimile of the Morgenthau plan.

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 9 2024 16:57 utc | 54

Posted by: Exile | Oct 9 2024 15:05 utc | 6

"So how does one peacefully and gracefully replace the entire political class ?"

You can't. You have to physically liquidate the entire political class all across Europe to be sure we're done with US vassalization. So you'd need a genuine revolution and popular will (and legitimate anger) to actually punish the traitorous scum in such a way that it will act as a deterrent for a century or more.
So, I don't expect it, alas. We'll be stuck with half-traitors and collaborators, like it happens way too often when regimes are overthrown.

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Oct 9 2024 16:58 utc | 55

@ ossi | Oct 9 2024 16:43 utc | 49

I feel for you Ossis, I really do: you’re now the victims of the Wessis.

If people in the West were inclined to think, they might find it striking that Ossis, supposedly weighted down under the Russian yoke, have a better attitude toward the Russians than do the Wessis, denen die Russen nichts angetan haben!

Posted by: malenkov | Oct 9 2024 16:59 utc | 56

"
Of course, in a second phase, that of American defeat, American control over Europe will be pulverized. Germany and Russia will meet again. This conflict is in a sense artificial. The natural thing, in a low-fertility Europe, with its aging population, is the complementarity between German industry and Russian energy and mineral resources.
"
This is all well and good, but Russia has redirected it's exports east. Also it's manufacturing is booming. Instead of exporting natural gas to Germany to make fertilizer they are making it themselves for export. Europe burned their bridges to Russia, and Russia views the changes as permanent. Don't hope for a quick reversal; this will be a generational thing.

Posted by: anonymous | Oct 9 2024 17:00 utc | 57

"They (russians) will have neither the means nor the desire to expand their borders".
This idea fm Todd is absolutely obvious within minds of any Canadian, Brazilian or even Australian guy. Bcs citizens of these enormous countries have never even dreamed they need a single square inch of further land or territories. What would they get an additional square meter for? They got enough problems and potential assets at home today.
So it s very easy for them to grasp that Russia has ZERO desire to grab anyones land.
They would not have run after Crimea neither Donbass had nt the
westerner right there planted there existential threats to Moscow.

Posted by: augusto | Oct 9 2024 17:00 utc | 58

the fact nordstreams destruction has been hushed up speaks very poorly of the idea of democracy, or freedom of information, or curiousity for that matter....
james | Oct 9 2024 15:24 utc | 15

Lack of curiosity, you nailed it. You can imagine how I feel in a country among all those dull people who don't use their brains and believe the ridiculous sailboat story - a narrative that CIA and BND created for us on orders of Scholz and Biden. In 1999, during the NATO bombardment of Serbia, I was still sleeping like them - because I believed the German media. Only in 2014 did I finally stop reading the SPIEGEL - which is a stronghold of the German Atlanticists. It is quite a step until you realize that your favorite source of information is plainly lying to you.

Posted by: grunzt | Oct 9 2024 17:06 utc | 59

Ahenobarbus@1620

Right ON!!! Here in our Ruptured Republic, We the People need to come together such as those suffering from the weather-war most probably directed from the U$$A AIRFARCE.

Just accessed some video accounts via Rense which featured some totally pissed-off Southerners who now full well realize that "our" government has nothing but bad intentions to seize control over King's Mountain and its massive lithium deposits on behalf of the Judaic/Talmudist owners of Blackrock, Vanguard (allegedly primarily owned by Kamala's dual citizen hubby) and by State $treet as the #3 in the anti-American/anti-human hit parade of predatorial parasites.

One of the more heartening of the podcasts revealed that some locals in the devastation zone were confronted by some FEMA highfalutin hottentot and succeeding in hospitalizing that apparatchik. As the planned devastation of America's working-class people through various nefarious means...the targeted folks are fed-up to very near the boiling point.

Yes, though personally I have long advocated for peaceful solutions; the more destructive the enemies of humanity become, by means of their blackmailed and/or bribed official stooges; the more obvious it becomes that the unorganized militias of the defenders of our Bill of Rights, are very close to crossing the Rubicon and taking action.

Peaceful protests for the Redress of Grievances, as per the Declaration of Independence, have time and again been first ignored and latterly violently put down by the centralized powers of an out of popular control state apparatus.

The writing is on the wall: The "authorities" are becoming the proven enemies of We the People. It could be that the assault on the peoples of Appalachia will ultimately become the legendary straw which breaks the Kamala's back. Oh, she is just an imbibular face, quite similar to the "Senile One", as the smiling face of the Bea$t behind the scenes.

However, that woman is but the co-symbol for the final fall of those who OWN the Di$trict of Corruption.

Posted by: aristodemos | Oct 9 2024 17:12 utc | 60

Posted by: Tobias Cole | Oct 9 2024 16:38 utc | 47

"Kamyhoe Harris - the marxist"

Anyone who posts something as stupid and brainwashed as that deserves to be completely ignored for ever more, by anyone with even one functioning neurone.

Posted by: Jams O'Donnell | Oct 9 2024 17:14 utc | 61

I am German and of course live here; there is such ardent hatred for all things russia, and so much unquestioned admiration for the US, at least in the wider circle of people I know (not to mention MSM), that I've a hard time to believe that they would agree to a friendly relationship with russia. Sovereignty, get the US Military out of Germany, even on friendly terms, would be a good start. Though, I don't see that happening soon either. And, the US inherited the British Empire and their wicked game of DIVIDE AND CONQUER, that I think a US defeat is not a done deal just yet (Georgia, Moldava etc.).

Posted by: Thomas | Oct 9 2024 17:14 utc | 62

Outraged@1657

True enough.The Morgenthau Plan, first implemented against those hundreds of thousands of newly surrendered German troops in the Ruhr Pocket...on the orders of Bernard Baruch, via his stooge, Dwight D. Eisenhower (translated into English, that surname would likely indicate a "Hewer of Iron") ...that plan has never been revoked by a parade of Talmudist owned Pretzeldunces. The now hoary British scheme of "keeping the Germans down and the Russians out" has had long legs, currently being employed by the totally controlled designated attack-dog for City of London...the U$$A.

Posted by: aristodemos | Oct 9 2024 17:21 utc | 63

The White House conducts foreign policy as if all countires
- have to submit to Washington
- or face sanctions
- or have its government overthrown in a color revolution
- or be bombed back to the stone age
The result is that there are only three countries in the world America hasn't invaded or have never seen a U.S. military presence: Andorra, Bhutan, and Liechtenstein. And the US sanctions are a giant brake on using American parts in new products.

Posted by: Passerby | Oct 9 2024 17:22 utc | 64

Posted by: Thomas | Oct 9 2024 17:14 utc | 67:
:
:
Then you live in West Germany, we in the East, at least those over 55, because younger people never experienced Russians in the GDR.
Yes, WE lived with them, at least in a political sense, in real life they were always friendly to us. I know of NO case where there were problems with Russian soldiers.
In the West, you were born with hatred 24/7. But you allow yourself to judge without ever having met a Russian, and don't even notice this error in your thinking.

Posted by: ossi | Oct 9 2024 17:22 utc | 65

Jams O'Donnell 66;

I humorously note that you did not follow your own advice.

Though I take your point, I've been following Kamala's antic's since she was publicly whoring her way up the political ladder with Willie. From my observations, on any given day Kamala can run the entire political spectrum and back again, she is a cross between a caiman, a chameleon and the oozing the slime of a salamander. So, just about any political pejorative thrown at the creature is apropos.

Posted by: S Brennan | Oct 9 2024 17:31 utc | 66

Foreign Policy: Washington must ensure that "Berlin's Gazprom era" is over
Foreign Policy, the newspaper of the highly influential Council on Foreign Relations, has published an article that once again vividly demonstrates the long-known goals of US policy, namely to permanently separate Russia and Germany.
.
Don't let Germany go back to its old Russia tricks
How Washington can ensure that Berlin's Gazprom era is over.

Moscow's decades-long use of energy as a weapon against Europe became an irrefutable fact in late 2021 and early 2022, when the Kremlin cut off natural gas supplies to prevent Germany and other European countries from helping Ukraine. To ensure Russia cannot use energy to wage war again, it is time for the U.S. to impose permanent sanctions on Russia's remaining gas pipelines to Europe, starting with existing but soon-to-expire sanctions on Nord Stream 2, the inactive gas pipeline connecting Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea.

With Europe's energy imports from Russia now down to a trickle, attention has increasingly focused on other questions—most notably how reliable U.S. support for Ukraine will be in the future. Not only did Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives block nearly $60 billion in military aid to Ukraine last fall and early this year, the Biden administration has been slow to advance aid and is on pace to let several billion dollars expire unused, and remains reluctant to allow Ukraine to strike military and infrastructure targets with long-range weapons.

But recent developments suggest that the next big question mark over support for Ukraine and Europe's ability to resist Russia comes not from Washington, but from Berlin.

In the years before Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine, the German governments under Chancellors Gerhard Schröder, Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz pursued policies of accommodation toward an increasingly authoritarian and aggressive Russia under President Vladimir Putin. These included the concepts of the "New Ostpolitik," a supposed revival of former Chancellor Willy Brandt's Cold War-era rapprochement with the Soviet bloc, and "change through trade."

In theory, these two concepts were supposed to lead to stable relations and even democratic reforms in Russia, with the assumption that increased trade ties with Europe would show Putin the benefits of peaceful relations with Germany and the West. Unlike Brandt, who knew that the carrot of Ostpolitik only worked with the stick of a strong Western deterrent, successive German governments not only let their defense capabilities atrophy but also vetoed NATO contingency planning on the eastern border so as not to anger the Kremlin.

Close ties with a resource-rich Russia also suited the interests of the German corporate sector, which has long exerted outsized influence on policy in Berlin and is rarely deterred by pesky distractions such as national security or human rights when doing business with authoritarian states.

This is not just consideration. For nearly two decades, there have been repeated warnings about Berlin's Russia policy, the absurdity of which is as obvious today as it was when it was adopted. Despite Putin's increasingly brutal actions at home, multiple occupations of neighboring countries, and mounting attacks on Western democracies, German leaders have continued to use their tired arguments about Russia to cover up the increasingly sordid business and energy ties they have forged with Moscow.

Each of Germany's three leaders contributed to this. Schröder signed a highly controversial energy deal with Russia just months before leaving office in 2005, and moved to Kremlin-controlled Gazprom shortly thereafter. He eventually held posts at several state-controlled Russian energy companies, including as chairman of the shareholders' committee of the Gazprom-backed Nord Stream 1 pipeline project, which he approved as chancellor.

Merkel, his successor, then pushed through another pipeline project, Nord Stream 2, despite the Russians carrying out cyberattacks on the German parliament and a campaign of assassinations in Europe, including one just steps from the Chancellery in Berlin.
tremoved. Not even Russia's first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 could stop the project.

In mid-2022, Merkel admitted that she never indulged in the "illusion" that Putin would change by increasing trade with Germany, but she pursued the deals nonetheless. To be fair, Merkel has never ruled alone, and in 12 of the 16 years of her chancellorship, the traditionally pro-Russian Social Democrats held influential positions. These included then-Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a close confidant of Schröder, and then-Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who gave the green light to the sale of Germany's largest gas storage infrastructure to Gazprom.

Steinmeier, who embodies Berlin's failed Russia policy like no other politician, is now Germany's ceremonial Federal President and missed an excellent opportunity to resign on February 24, 2022, after Russia began invading Ukraine. Gabriel, meanwhile, has paid little political price either. He belatedly acknowledged mistakes in his relations with the Kremlin and appears to have reinvented himself as a staunch transatlanticist with top positions at the Atlantic Bridge, Harvard University and the Eurasia Group.

Scholz, for his part, clung to Nord Stream 2, which was nearing completion as Russia's war against Ukraine brewed in 2021 and early 2022. He refused to even consider supplying Ukraine with defensive weapons, offering instead to deliver 5,000 helmets. Eventually he caved to overwhelming pressure and revoked the pipeline's operating license just hours before Putin's invasion.

To Scholz's credit, just days after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he announced a bold reorientation of German foreign policy, the so-called Zeitenwende, aimed at finally confronting the Russian threat and renewing German defense readiness. Since then, Germany has become the second-largest donor of military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine after the United States.

Little remains of that turning point today. Last month, Germany slashed military aid to Ukraine in its draft 2025 federal budget, roughly halving the 8 billion euros ($8.9 billion) it spent last year. Although Berlin's defense budget has finally reached the NATO minimum of 2 percent of GDP, the German government is showing little rush to increase weapons stockpiles and military readiness. With next year's federal elections in mind and growing support for pro-Kremlin parties in recent regional elections, Scholz appears to be campaigning as a "peace chancellor" who has kept Germany out of war. Too much aid to Ukraine would only be a hindrance. It is clear that a cut in aid from Berlin would deal a severe blow to Kyiv's war effort, especially given doubts about Washington's reliability following the November elections and the possible need for Europe to fend for itself.

While a cloud of uncertainty looms over German military aid to Ukraine, the cloud over Berlin's future energy policy may prove equally dark. Germany has accomplished the feat of replacing Russian gas supplies in an astonishingly short time, but it would be naive to think that there would not be strong pressure from German companies and across much of the political spectrum to restore trade relations with Russia once a ceasefire between Moscow and Kyiv was announced. This pressure would be particularly felt in the energy sector, where Germany has long sought deals in relatively cheap pipeline gas from Russia. Germany's energy options have shrunk even further since the shutdown of its last nuclear power plants last year.

It is in the interest of the United States and all supporters of a free and peaceful Europe that Germany does not revert to its old Russia tricks.

Fortunately, the United States can help prevent that from happening. In 2019, the U.S. Congress passed limited, technology-based sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the form of the bipartisan Protecting Europe's Energy Security Act, which led to a one-year delay in construction as Russia sought other technical options to complete the project. But the law, whose scope was expanded a year later, is set to expire at the end of this year unless Congress acts. Although rd Stream 2 never came online, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently introduced new legislation that would extend the sanctions.

This should be a no-brainer for Congress. The Senate Armed Services Committee and Banking Committee have reportedly already approved an extension of the sanctions through an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act. Now all that is needed is approval from the leadership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which will likely happen soon.

The problem, however, is the White House. In late 2021, when Putin was already deploying troops on Ukraine's doorstep, the Biden administration lifted the sanctions that had delayed Nord Stream 2. It struck a deal with the outgoing Merkel administration: in exchange for lifting the sanctions, Berlin promised sanctions at the national and EU level in the event that Russia "attempts to use energy as a weapon or commits further aggressive acts against Ukraine."

Despite clear evidence that the Kremlin has already undersupplied European gas storage facilities and threatened Moldova after the election of a pro-Western government in 2019, no sanctions were imposed under German leadership. Instead, the Merkel administration sped up the approval processes and sent envoys to Washington just weeks before the Russian invasion to lobby Congress to spare Putin's pipeline. Biden and Scholz, who replaced Merkel as chancellor in December, ultimately stopped the project just before Russian tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border.

There is no excuse for a repeat. The era of Gazprom's dominance in Europe must finally be over, and neither the German economy nor the country's pro-Kremlin political factions should help to undermine peace and stability in Europe again. And if the Biden administration, which has moved closer to Berlin to the exclusion of most other European allies, decides to oppose the plans of the two congressional parties to extend sanctions, it should reconsider that approach.

After all the sacrifices of the past few years, there is no reason for malign Russian energy interests to use their friends in Germany to sneak back into Europe. And whoever wins the U.S. presidential election in November, American European policy should stop listening so one-sidedly to Berlin's opinion.

Biden, however, may once again be playing to Scholz's worst instincts if he seeks to block the extension of Nord Stream 2 sanctions, which are set to expire if Congress does not act. On Capitol Hill, support for extending the sanctions is bipartisan. It is time for Biden and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin, both of whom have less than five months left in office, to strengthen Europe's long-term security by allowing the sanctions to be extended.

While they're at it, Biden and Cardin could also propose new legislation that would once and for all ban former officials from working for Russian state-owned companies or their subsidiaries. And they should put pressure on Berlin to do the same. Otherwise, Russian interests will ensure that a lot of trade comes through the pipeline without much change.

End of translation
.
https://anti-spiegel.ru/2024/foreign-policy-washington-muss-dafuer-sorgen-dass-berlins-gazprom-aera-vorbei-ist/

Posted by: ossi | Oct 9 2024 17:36 utc | 67

The SMO will not simply end because Russia gets to occupy the entire territory of its newly included regions (Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhie), since that doesn't meet the main operational goals of demilitarization and denazification. It looks like many barflies have failed to understand that simple fact...

FWIW, Russia would've never included those 4 regions in the first place if a peaceful resolution was reached, or, for that matter, if the "West" had respected the Minsk II Agreement.

Posted by: ThirdWorldDude | Oct 9 2024 17:36 utc | 68

@ ossi #44

Yes, our education wasn't worth the name, it was mere propaganda.
And it took me almost 50 years to find out what it was all about the 6 million Jews which are claimed to be killed by the Germans:

https://waltking.substack.com/p/auschwitz-six-facts-and-seven-questions

Plain maths would have saved our generation, but it wasn't ment to be.

Posted by: Kirsten | Oct 9 2024 17:54 utc | 69

I think Prof. Todd makes a convincing, perhaps even obvious argument (in the minds of some) vis a vis the US instrumentation of Ukraine in order to renew and increase its subordination of Europe, especially the EU (an erstwhile competitor). I think the Corriere interview might also have been ab opportune occasion to ask the dissident French professor about Gaza, specifically as to whether he considers part of the US imperial geostrategic function of the Israeli assault on Gaza as a secondary or tertiary instance of the US' pursuit of the subordination of the EU by attacking and destroying its economic near abroad?

Indeed one might consider the ultimate or optimal aim of the US empire to transform the EU and other European states into a giant Israel, a la Ukraine: a place of neo-fascist ultra-nationalist tendencies in hock and lock step with US global hegemonic aims, potentially of the most belligerent kind vis a vis Russia and China.

In other words a true reconstitution of Western hegemony under the aegis of US military and technological might, which cannibalizes the immense public and private riches accrued by the postwar European economic and social order. But the specific point is that the decimation of Gaza works in tandem with the immolation of Ukraine insofar as this makes Europe/EU subordinately complicit in the US hegemonic enterprise, not because the EU governing class is naive, but rather because they are being sort of blackmailed into submission: not only via the memory of the Holocaust, but more pressingly via the subtle and not so subtle communication that if the EU does not acquiesce to its total subordination, things like the destruction of Nordstream will be the least of Europe's problems.

Posted by: Ludovic | Oct 9 2024 18:01 utc | 70

i find the conversation here, particularly with the people from germany commenting - fascinating.. thanks..

@ ossi | Oct 9 2024 16:23 utc | 39 / 49 and etc.

yes, i understand that... further to that, there is the european union with its draconian and non democratic processes to content with.. maybe not so much with germany, but hungary or slovenia or any country that wants to buck the centralized dictatorship is brought before the commission to answer to their inquisitions..

@ Honzo | Oct 9 2024 17:46 utc | 76

i share the view you've expressed in the 2nd to last paragraph..

Posted by: james | Oct 9 2024 18:06 utc | 71

@james, #17:

....does olaf scholz ever wake up??

You're assuming Olaf's been doing stupid things because he has been sleep-walking under Empire's soft-power spell. What if he's fully awake and doing these things either because he ideologically wants to, or because he's under blackmail, or because he senses the wishes of his constituency and carrying out what he considers his mandate?

Recent polls in Europe indicates the wind has started changing! But so far the change is not even on the level of a breezy afternoon. This kind of change comes slowly. It will be decades before people in Europe being fully awaken to the fact of being used/abused by the Empire for the past 3 decades in terms of geopolitics. Even after them being awaken, it will still take years before they manage to put in place their new geopolitics stances. Such is characteristic of human ideological dynamics.

I'm in my 70's, I know I will not see the day Europe's flags change color. You're some 15 years younger, you might. Your own nation, Canada, is in the same ideological/intellectual cesspool as Europe. You may live long enough to see your own country shake loose from the evil yolk.

Posted by: Oriental Voice | Oct 9 2024 18:08 utc | 72

I see we have the usual crowd of uneducated ingrates puking up lies and misinformation as their job demands. Todd's focus on demographics is commendable, but IMO Russia's population decline will halt and begin to rebound between now and 2030, which is when it ought to be closely examined. Few bothered to comment on the CIS Summit I reported on yesterday, an organization that looked like it would die during its infancy but has survived and is now growing into a strong adult. What follows is my answer to a comment the future nature of the CIS:

The Russian Empire/ USSR's relationship with Central Asia was very much colonial in nature where more from the Periphery flowed to the Metropole leaving the former underdeveloped. That relationship has changed with their independence, but it has taken over a generation for economic stability to get established on the new basis between all CIS members, the Central Asian Stans most specifically. During the Soviet period, the Near Abroad was defined as being outside USSR's borders, and lip-service was always given to the need to promote those nation's wellbeing as that related to USSR's security. The Near Abroad has moved closer to Russia, but the rationale of economic development as it relates to security still stands. Ukraine much more than Russia suffered in the USSR's fall as it was politically unable to control the Western invasion, rise of those oligarchs it sponsored, and the rejuvenation of the Galician Nazis, which very quickly destabilized Ukraine politically. Ukraine was one of the founding CIS members but soon dropped out. There was little Russia could do at the time, and when Putin arrived it was too late to both heal Russia and mend Ukraine; and Belarus needed attention too. The Islamic extremism sponsored by the Outlaw US Empire was deemed more important to fight than the emerging Nazis in Ukraine, so more investments were made in the Stans, which is one of the main reasons why NATO failed in Afghanistan.

CIS development is intimately connected to Russia's security. The main reason why Pashinyan's courting EU/NATO has failed is because of Armenia's economic boom thanks to Russian investment.

If the USSR was still whole, the demographic issue wouldn't be present as the Stans and Siberia are where population growth is happening. Again, if the USSR had remained, those migrating to the many available jobs wouldn't be called migrants since they'd still be considered Soviets. What's evolving is a return of that former status while modified by the new status as being a foreign citizen working in another nation with the emphasis on socio-cultural education in Stans and Russia. Thus, an interesting dynamic is occurring: Russia badly needs workers, but it just as badly needs to have the Stans markedly develop for both security and economic reasons. Same with Belarus and the Caucasus.

In his conversation with Putin today, Lukashenko said the following:

Yesterday and the day before yesterday, we had the opportunity to discuss global issues and hot spots on our planet. What pleased me, and I am sure you, too – was that we did not have any differences on the international agenda. We discussed the internal issues, and the conversation was frank and straightforward.

You have talked a lot about the Azerbaijani-Armenian settlement. All this was received normally, to my surprise. This means that a lot of work has already been done before.

Yesterday we discussed global and regional issues, and there was also a great deal of unanimity. I said yesterday: CIS, CIS – well, what do we have left? It turns out that there are nine of the most powerful and richest states. This powerful regional association can be effective if we make significant efforts.

I don't know which CIS state is the weak one out of the ten, the main fact being CIS has stood up and is coming into its own, which also makes SCO, EAEU and CSTO stronger. What we're seeing is the emergence of a Eurasian Bloc far more powerful than the USSR ever was that must be considered both as a whole and as individuals. If Europe is to salvage its socio-economy, it must repudiate its colonial status to the Outlaw US Empire and join the Eurasian Bloc.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 9 2024 18:10 utc | 73

@ aristodemos | Oct 9 2024 17:21 utc | 68

True, and since Germany is the 'lynch pin/foundation stone' of the EU economy/industry/trade bloc, as well basis of EU NATO military power/production (ever-diminishing) the effects will flow on with even greater severity & impact to the other EU/NATO member Vassal States, unless they regain their individual State sovereignty and as consequence direct control of their own polity/economies/resources/trade. Foreshadowing as a necessity of survival the collapse of the EU & NATO. Otherwise they will be strip-mined by the vampiric squid, US of A, in order to attempt to defer its own collapse/loss of effective hegemony.

Hard times a'gonna fall.

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 9 2024 18:11 utc | 74

@ Posted by: Honzo | Oct 9 2024 17:09 utc | 64

Of course Putin wouldn't call for workers' councils, he's not a communist, or, for that matter, a worker, nor was he ever one! He was a member of the revionist CPSU's intelligence bureaucracy, and from there he maintained his status as a bureaucrat by politicking his way up the ranks, as one does in a bureaucratic stratocracy like the USSR. Putin is not interested in socialism, but in the restoration of Russia as an imperialist power, which Russia can only accomplish through military means. This is what history is bearing out as we speak. It remains to be seen if Russian workers, who bear the brunt of the sanctions regime and the war economy, will throw off the yoke of the Russian ruling class. Certainly, the political situation in Russia is such that any of this kind of organizing will have to occur underground. If Russia succeeds in Ukraine, the plunder of the Ukrainian economy may provide a temporary boost to Russian living standards, but it will bring us closer to outright imperialist war as Russian capital continues to develop the need for capital exports, which it is competing with against not only the US and EU, but the much larger and more technically competent Chinese capital.

But communists do not have a duty to cheer lead for Russia. Russian nationalists can do that themselves just fine. Our duty is to expose the root cause of the war, which is not just NATO bullying poor little Russia (this is how the Third Reich viewed itself in relation to the Anglo and French imperialists), but the need for Russian capital to expand and not to become subordinate to globalized US capital (its subordination under Yeltsin was, of course, disastrous for the Russian people in general, except for the oligarchs). Time will tell which one of us is right, but it looks like Russia is developing along a neo-fascist line, not a socialist one.

Posted by: fnord | Oct 9 2024 18:11 utc | 75

Chinese stocks suffer worst fall in 27 years over growth concerns

---hmm

Posted by: hightrekker | Oct 9 2024 18:14 utc | 76

Posted by: Inka | Oct 9 2024 14:45 utc | 1

And of course China is or must be submissive to Russia.

Go fuck yourself, liar.

Posted by: Naive | Oct 9 2024 18:16 utc | 77

@ Oriental Voice | Oct 9 2024 18:08 utc | 80

i agree with you! that was just a quick phrase i used, which neglects the details which you've articulated.. i am in my late 60's so i am unlikely to see these changes as well.. as for canada - we are screwed.. we agreed to go along with the usa and that has been canuck policy for a long time.. i think the last leader we had who would really challenge the usa was trudeau senior in the 70s.. chretien refused to go along with the war on iraq in 2003, but by that time we had been sold down the river for the most part..

things take time as you say.. change comes slower then we wish..

Posted by: james | Oct 9 2024 18:17 utc | 78

"The principal cause of the war in the Ukraine is Europe's loss of sovereignty.

(I have said this from the very beginning. This is a good spot to repeat it.)"

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Oct 9 2024 15:34 utc | 19

100% correct!

Posted by: canuck | Oct 9 2024 18:18 utc | 79

No second peace summit. No Ramstein. This has all the vibes of the US declaring victory and going home. Someone is about to get thrown under the bus.
Posted by: anonymous | Oct 9 2024 16:43 utc | 50


any link

Posted by: vargas | Oct 9 2024 18:20 utc | 80

Posted by: fnord | Oct 9 2024 16:11 utc | 32

Apparently, all the neoliberal vermin who pose as lefties to serve the Anglo-American empire form the "progressive" flank have stormed the thread. It is no wonder that the champion of western imperialism Inkanafo was joined by the coideologue "fnord" and later on the "membrum fossile".

As has been noted, imperialism requires its lickspittles that work from a "progressive" pov. They will ritualistically denounce the western imperialists, before they engage in their true missiojn: the vilification of the targeted countries.

The neoliberal skunk "fnord" that poses as a socialist fits the description perfectly. A convenient disregard of Russian restraint in 2014 when the potential for aggressive action would yield immense results, a solid omission of the fact that the Russian oligarchs have been against any action against US/UK/NATO and of course no mention at all of the Maidan.

This crypto-fascist disciple of Slavoj Zizek wishes to inform the audience of Russian "imperialism", in perfect synchronicity with Anglo-American imperialist propaganda, projecting the mentality of Washington on the Russians. Typically, no mention about the fact that the KPRF was more vocal on the defense of Donbass than Putin's own party, no mention of the Minsk Agreements that were revealed openly by their westen signatories to be ploys to fool the Russians, nor any mention about the expansion of NATO, admitted a year and a half in the Euro-Parliament by Jens Stoltenberg who happens to be the General-Secretary of the organization.

And of course, total disregard of what constitutes imperialism as was defined by Lenin, which was denuded of its glorification of colonialism and concentrated on the social and class characteristics. After all, imperialism is what Washington decides it is and then propagated by craven minions, including those of the "prog" variety.

It's no wonder this neoliberal prog was joined by the champion of western supremacism "mebrum fossile", a bullshitter par excellence who projects hhis own colonialist mentality and that of the neoliberal west in general onto others.

Posted by: Constantine | Oct 9 2024 18:22 utc | 81

@ Constantine | Oct 9 2024 18:22 utc | 89

you summed it up and articulated it much better then i ever could.. thanks.. if it's any consolation, at least i do see this, lol..

Posted by: james | Oct 9 2024 18:26 utc | 82

Posted by: vargas | Oct 9 2024 18:20 utc | 88

Here you go: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ramstein-meeting-ukraine-postponed-after-biden-cancels-trip-2024-10-09/

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Oct 9 2024 18:26 utc | 83

@ karlof1 | Oct 9 2024 18:10 utc | 81

Excellent read. Which as a consequence engenders the deathnell for the ever delusionary prospect of Mackinder's Heartland Theory being re-animated into the future, once and for all.

Don't cry for me Argentina ? along with Mexico and the rest of Latin America as USofA reverts to past practices thru the 1800's in order to delay the Fall ...

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 9 2024 18:29 utc | 84

No second peace summit. No Ramstein.

Posted by: anonymous | Oct 9 2024 16:43 utc | 50

any link

Posted by: vargas | Oct 9 2024 18:20 utc | 88

Alex Christoforou on YouTube:

Elensky cancels PEACE summit. Biden/Blinken CANCEL Germany trip. Denmark, Nord Stream BOMBSHELL

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Oct 9 2024 18:29 utc | 85

@72 Honzo

The fact of the matter is that no matter how much funding for FEMA, a Federal worker will not put himself in harm's way to help.

Indeed, the exaggerations by the media right now about how FEMA and the U.S. Security State is sabotaging delivery of supplies to Appalachia is designed to stoke yet more anger against the Federal Gov't and yet this will never bear fruit.

The fact is is that the Federal Gov't will not risk injury to assist those in dire need. Indeed, they will cordon off areas so that willing civilians, filled with empathy for their suffering countrymen, will be stopped from entering these areas, all in the name of safety.

This is their official policy, but by taking it a step beyond, i.e. the FED is destroying access to aid, it looks much worse than it actually is.

(Ronald Reagan was correct that the scariest words in the English language are: "We are from the government and we are here to help." You are forlorn at that point.)

But the reality is is that it is even worse than that: the Federal Gov't can always fall back on its SOP-playbook in the legal courts in the aftermath. But the people will still ineffectually rage at the bloated Bureaucracy (Deep State) and will further put their trust in the Anti-Fed candidate of DJT. But DJT is just like Reagan before him: a phantasm the desperate project their hopes and desires upon.

In the end, DJT will continue to expand the Federal Gov't. He may cut some scapegoats here and there, but just like Reagan before him, and indeed even the Don's first presidency, the Government (the centralized Deep State) will expand.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 9 2024 18:30 utc | 86

Posted by: Constantine | Oct 9 2024 18:22 utc | 89

Let me summarize to those who don’t wish to read such a long screed.
It is not colonialism, or imperialism, if russia does it!

Posted by: Membrum Virile | Oct 9 2024 18:32 utc | 87

Top-level meeting of Western leaders on Ukraine canceled – media (RT)
The gathering was reportedly scrapped after US President Joe Biden pulled out

This week's planned meeting of the heads of state of Ukraine’s backers in Germany has been canceled after US President Joe Biden announced he will not attend, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing an e-mail sent by the US public affairs office at Ramstein Air Base. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) also reported the development, citing anonymous NATO sources.

The gathering of the so-called Ramstein group at the eponymous US military base was supposed to feature addresses by Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky.

Following the start of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, more than 50 countries, including most NATO member states, established the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. The participants’ defense ministers have been meeting regularly at Ramstein Air Base to discuss Kiev’s arms needs and organize deliveries.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that the “October 12, 2024 event is postponed,” with “announcements about future Ukraine Defense Contact Group meetings... forthcoming.”

Earlier that same day, RFE/RL had reported that a “high-level meeting of the Ramstein group of Ukraine arms donors has been canceled.” The media outlet attributed the development to President Biden’s decision to scrap his planned trip to Germany...

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 9 2024 18:35 utc | 88

We have to emphasize further that the neoliberal slimebag "fnord" that endlessly poses its fraudulent socialist credentials, has conveniently omitted to mention that magically all the leftist governments of Latin America have splendid relationswith Russia in contrast with the Anglo-American empire that said poster supports.

Nor is there any mention that the leftist government of Belarus wasn't threatened at all by Russia, until Lukashenko's balancing in two boats allowed the west to go for another colour revolution that would transform the country into a neoliberal bordello of the 90s. This was the event that led to closer relations with Russia as it was Putin that supported Belarus in that critical hour.

It goes without saying that the crypto-fascist puke makes zero mention of the Russian offers to Ukraine in late 2013 which did not involve any colonial style relations, unlike those of the west through the IMF.

That doesn't mean that Russia doesn't have a lot to improve or even change with regards to Yeltsin's legacy, but the last point that out is a neoliberal fascist excrement that serves loyally as an imperialist propagandist while presenting fraudulent leftist credentials. The poster "fnord" is a worthy disciple of Horkheimer and the other trash who denounced the Vietnamese or the Cubans for being "Stalinists" while under relentless attacks by the imperialists.

Posted by: Constantine | Oct 9 2024 18:37 utc | 89

@Oriental Voice | Oct 9 2024 18:08 utc | 80

I basically agree with your comments. However, you seem tooooooo optimistic about how long it might take for people in (western) Europe and Canada to "wake up", IMHO. Even people in the west "wake up", I doubt there would be much they can do, given their current west-style system which is incapable of correcting any fault for the people.

It seems to me that the chances for the west (or the-waste-in-the-future?!) is going for Dark-Age-2 (TM) is higher than it joins the humanity from humbleness rather than "strength".

Posted by: LuRenJia | Oct 9 2024 18:41 utc | 90

Posted by: Membrum Virile | Oct 9 2024 18:32 utc | 95

No, you low-life fascist excrement. It is not when it doesn't apply, whatever Anglo-American supremacist scum such as yourself or your masters in Washington or London claim.

Now go sieg-heil in Kiev or shoot some kid in Gaza with your co-ideologues.

Posted by: Constantine | Oct 9 2024 18:42 utc | 91

@ Posted by: Constantine | Oct 9 2024 18:22 utc | 89

There is no "projection" here, I've stated clearly that the US is the world's major imperialist power, and that it, too, has had an economic interest in bringing Ukraine into its sphere of influence. Namely, keeping the Russians hemmed in, and the Ukrainian market buying US commodities. Now, that ship has sailed, and the US has moved onto another adventure, which is "bleeding the Russians dry", which it seems Putin is more than happy to go along with, throwing a comparable number of young Russian lives into the trash heap of history in a shorter time period than the US did to protect its imperial interests in Indochina.

The notion that Russia is not imperialist does not pass any examination of basic facts, which you have provided, of course, none of (the boosters of Russian imperialism merely play counter-identitarian games, calling their opponents names and alluding to geopolitical "vibes" rather than constructing rational arguments - Honzo, to his/her credit, is the only campist in this thread who has shown any intellectual ability at all). The idea that the Russian ruling class, erm, "oligarchs", were uniformly against the war was not true in 2022 and is not true at all today, as no "oligarchs" in Russia proper speak out against the war (lest they risk "accidentally" falling out a high-rise window, accidents engineered by the pro-imperialist ruling class of Russia to shore up its own ranks).

Note that, unlike our Slovenian friend Slavoj, I have not placed any hopes in the political bureaucracy of the US/EU, which I have called for - in this thread no less! - the revolutionary overthrow of (which I do at personal risk, as the Smith Act is still on the books and still can be enforced). What I have no tolerance for is campism, especially campism which sees capitalist Russia as some savior from US imperialism, rather than an imperialist power in its own right. There's a saying on the communist left that the only thing dumber than being a nationalist for your own country is being a nationalist for someone else's. Take heed, sympathizers of Russian capital.

But me, crypto-fascist? I'm not the one leading cheers for the same Russian state that has imposed fascist thought control and abrogated the bodily autonomy of the Russian people along theocratic-traditionalist and neo-fascist lines, or who sees in every rainbow flag the possibility of one's own castration (I beseech thee, read Wilhelm Reich and act accordingly). The advocacy of the social sovereignty of the workers of the entire world is the only political line which really stands against fascism globally. It is global socialism or barbarism. That is the situation that confronts the global proletariat today (and global revolution has been the aim of communism since 1848, please recall the concluding lines of the Manifesto, comrade).

One last thing:

Typically, no mention about the fact that the KPRF was more vocal on the defense of Donbass than Putin's own party

The KPRF is not even revisionist, let alone communist, nor are they a relevant political force outside of the happenings engineered by those who control Russian political media. They are the controlled opposition of United Russia, a position that gen. sec. Zyuganov has been happy to keep, as it ensures him some political sinecure (perhaps a lingering effect of Soviet bureaucratism).

Posted by: fnord | Oct 9 2024 18:46 utc | 92

Posted by: S Brennan | Oct 9 2024 17:31 utc | 73

If you can't tell the difference between saying 'something', and quoting that 'something' in order to comment on it, then I give up.

"just about any political pejorative thrown at the creature is apropos." - not if it is just a product of US government brainwashing, which is counterproductive to reasoned argument, as is mindless 'political pejorative'.

But hey! who cares - most (although not all, I have friends over there) US citizens are generally beyond argument or reason anyway.

Posted by: Jams O'Donnell | Oct 9 2024 18:47 utc | 93

hightrekker | Oct 9 2024 18:14 utc | 84

I'll worry about Chinese stocks falling when they start closing manufacturing plants and telling the redundant workforce to look for jobs in coffee shops, call centres and warehouses.

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Oct 9 2024 18:48 utc | 94

Honzo@1730

The sure-fire proof of the weather wars is the proliferation of the chemtrails...they are everywhere and what's more they are ubiquitous. I'm old enough to well remember those short-"lived" contrails which were there in the 50's, 60's and pretty well into the 70's. The anti-human alien masters do all in their power to replace the human race with their "transhumanism" schemes.

Posted by: aristodemos | Oct 9 2024 18:52 utc | 95

Sound like a lot of wishful thinking. Even if the US is defeated, the Anglosaxon-satellite ruling elite will continue to exist in European countries and they will keep their political power. There hasn't appeared any trend that changed the electoral landscape strongly enough to change that. Especially a lot of the media are in their control. They are also trying to augment this by censoring external media outlets and internal dissent. As long as they control media, they will be able to influence the elections to retain power.

Posted by: Dodrey Dougherton | Oct 9 2024 18:57 utc | 96

outraged@1811

For sure, the centralizing imposition of EU and NATO must collapse from its own overhead of control mechanisms as the decentralizing sovereigntists continue to engage the imaginations and realizations of their media-mesmerized and deracinated masses. Fortunately, the pace of chance is in an acceleration mode.

Posted by: aristodemos | Oct 9 2024 19:02 utc | 97

Posted by: fnord | Oct 9 2024 18:11 utc | 83

"the restoration of Russia as an imperialist power"

I would question the 'imperialist' word - Russia does not actually need more territory, and there is no indication that it wants such assets. Land gained in the Ukraine is a necessity for security.

"looks like Russia is developing along a neo-fascist line, not a socialist one" again, not necessarily - Russia's closest partner is Communist China, which is very successfully pursuing socialist policies. This is a very powerful example to Putin, who may not be inclined personally to socialism, but who has an interest in what works.

Posted by: Jams O'Donnell | Oct 9 2024 19:04 utc | 98

Posted by: fnord | Oct 9 2024 18:46 utc | 100

Plenty of facts have been posted neoliberal something and you have not refuted one. The Russian intervention in a civil war instigated by the west after the latter established a literal fascist regime backed by the world's most powerful oilgarchs is not imperialism, especially after the surreally beneficial offers of the Russians in 2013.

But none of that matters, of course, in the ned of your rantings you exposed the true cause of your resentment towards Russia: the rejection of the cultural wars promoted by the western neoliberals to pose their non-existing supposedly progressive credentials while pushing for actual reactionary policies and brutal imperialism. A full product of the fraudulent social progress promoted by the reactionaries, especially since 2008.

You have the gall to toss the Manifesto when you consciously reject any real world politics. I've dealt with your kind a hundred times, you're always going with the same jig, but the tune has grown old. You are exactly on the same page with Zizek, Malice and rest of them, ever promoting your fictional ideological purity while supporting the very powers you claim to oppose.

No, Russia has a ton of issues and they do need to fix things. But Russia is not the imperialist reactionary force threatening any burgeoning sovereign nation or socialist government. It's your beloved Anglo-American empire that does that and you don't convince anyone with your lame ritualistic condemnations of the US/UK, when you fiercely support its imperialism.

The worst one could accuse the Russian government about concerning the "social issues" you mentioned is that it went a bit "Democrat" in reverse, to cover up for the initial failure to swiftly deal with the Maidanist regime. But you don't get to say fuck all about that nor do you get to taklk about neo-fascsim when you repeat Anglo-American propaganda verbatim and defend a literal fascist regime that glorifies Nazi collaborators.

Posted by: Constantine | Oct 9 2024 19:05 utc | 99

Nemesis Calling@1830

Called it. Positive side of the situation is that gradually more and more of the not-quite terminally-deluded are awakening to the puppet regime's nefarious protection for their own operatives while dooming those poor folks who are being destroyed by governmental over-reach via their nefarious Weather-Warfare on elements of the American population.

As for protecting their own, please consider the hurricane which was dead-aimed at Palm Beach, Florida and then mysteriously stalled over the Bahamas...which are primarily populated by economically disadvantage Black folk. After a couple days devastating many of those islands...it then "performed" a 90 degree turn and headed out to the open Atlantic where it gradually dissipated and lost power.

Posted by: aristodemos | Oct 9 2024 19:09 utc | 100

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