KIM PETERSEN—China declared victory against poverty in 2021. And it is not just China lauding its victory. UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres commended China on its fight against poverty. The World Bank noted that China has lifted 770 million out of poverty over the last 40 years. Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said, “Poverty alleviation and the eradication of extreme poverty, 10 years ahead of its target date, are tremendous achievements of China.” Citing China’s eradication of absolute poverty, even the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, was moved to praise China’s amazing economic development.
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JOHN RACHEL—As adults, it’s a different story. ‘Ignorance is bliss’ and ‘What you don’t know won’t hurt you’ work for a while . . . until the axe falls. Or the bill comes due. Or the door is kicked down in the middle of the night. Being stupidly innocent as an adult can bring heartache and tragedy, in fact, typically does. While embracing wholesome open-mindedness and holistic trust, so as to not preclude learning and discovery, we are also well-advised to maintain a wary eye for the sham, the con, the manipulation, the lie, the entire range of possible mischief humans are capable of.
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FIORELLA ISABEL—The Convo Couch host confirms that much of what Americans have been taught to think about Russia is categorically wrong, a disgusting lie to maintain a chronic state of tension and hostility toward Russia, her culture and her role in global affairs. This Big Lie, chiefly propagated by the Anglo-American ruling elites, has now put the world on the brink of a nuclear war.
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Garland Nixon lucidly explains why though neither Russia nor China have proclaimed it openly and formally, there is a strong organic de facto alliance between the two leading Eurasian powers. A formal declaration of strategic unity would give the neocons a gift, says Garland, and that is to be delayed or prevented as long as possible. Meanwhile, the dynamics of the world continue to respond to the new realities on the ground: the economic and military growth of Russia and China, and lately also Iran; the drifting of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and India toward the Beijing/Moscow axis, and the hollowing out of the Western bloc’s military hardware as a result of the Ukraine adventure, which has shown the shallowness of the West in terms of industrial military production. In a few years, neither NATO nor the EU may exist at all, which would be a good thing for humanity.
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CYNTHIA CHUNG—By 1914, Europe would be dragged into WWI. In March 1918, after two months of negotiations with the Central Powers (the German, Austria-Hungary, Bulgarian, and Ottoman Empire), the new Bolshevik government of Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ceding claims on Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as the condition for peace (Note: the Bolshevik Revolution began in March 1917). WWI would officially end on November 11th, 1918.
As a result of the treaty, eleven nations became “independent” in eastern Europe and western Asia, Ukraine was among these nations. In reality, what this meant was that they were to become vassal states to Germany with political and economic dependencies. However, when Germany lost the war, the treaty was annulled.
With Germany out of the picture and the dissolution of both the Austria-Hungary and Russian Empire; Poland and Ukraine found themselves in a position to establish their independence.
