Michael Hudson: A roadmap to escape the west’s stranglehold

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By Pepe Escobar

October 06 2022

Photo Credit: The Cradle, with our gratitude.


It is impossible to track the geoeconomic turbulence inherent to the “birth pangs” of the multipolar world without the insights of Professor Michael Hudson at the University of Missouri, and author of the already seminal The Destiny of Civilization.

In his latest essay, Professor Hudson digs deeper into Germany’s suicidal economic/financial policies; their effect on the already falling euro – and hints at some possibilities for fast integrating Eurasia and the Global South as a whole to try to break the Hegemon’s stranglehold.

That led to a series of email exchanges, especially about the future role of the yuan, where Hudson remarked:

“The Chinese whom I’ve talked to for years and years did not expect the dollar to weaken. They’re not crying about its rise, but they are concerned about flight capital from China as I think after the Party Congress [starting on October 16] there will be a crackdown on the Shanghai free-market advocacy. Pressure for the coming changes has been long building up. The spirit of reform to rein in ‘free markets’ was spreading among students over a decade ago, and they have been rising in the Party hierarchy.”

On the key issue of Russia accepting payment for energy in rubles, Hudson touched upon a point rarely examined outside of Russia: “They don’t really want to be paid just in rubles. That’s the one thing Russia doesn’t need, because it can just print them. It only needs rubles to balance its international payments to stabilize the exchange rate – not to push it up.”

Which brings us to settlements in yuan: “Taking payment in yuan is like taking payment in gold – an international asset that every country desires as a non-fiat currency that has a value if one sells it (unlike the dollar now, which may simply be confiscated, or ultimately left abandoned). What Russia really needs are critical industrial inputs like computer chips. It could ask China to import these with the yuan Russia provides.”

Keynes is back

Following our email exchanges, Professor Hudson gracefully agreed to answer in detail a few questions about the extremely complex geoeconomic processes in play across Eurasia. Here we go.

The Cradle: The BRICS are studying the adoption of a common currency – including all of them and, we expect, the expanded BRICS+ as well. How could that be practically implemented? Hard to see the Brazilian Central Bank harmonizing with the Russians and the People’s Bank of China. Would that involve only investment – via the BRICS development bank? Would that be based on commodities + gold? How does the yuan fit in? Is the BRICS approach based on the current Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) discussions with the Chinese, led by Sergey Glazyev? Did the Samarkand summit advance, practically, the interconnection of BRICS and the SCO?

Hudson: “Any idea of a common currency has to start with a currency-swap arrangement among existing member countries. Most trade will be in their own currencies. But to settle the inevitable imbalances (balance-of-payments surpluses and deficits), an artificial currency will be created by a new Central Bank.

This may look superficially like the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), largely to fund the US deficit on military accounts and the rising debt service owed by Global South debtors to US lenders. But the arrangement will be much more like the ‘bancor’ proposed by John Maynard Keynes in 1944. Deficit countries could draw a specified quota of bancors, whose valuation would be set by a common selection of prices and exchange rates. The bancors (and their own currency) would be used to pay countries in surplus.

But unlike the IMF’s SDR system, the aim of this new alternative Central Bank will not be simply to subsidize economic polarization and indebtedness. Keynes proposed a principle that if a country (he was thinking of the United States at the time) ran chronic surpluses, that would be a sign of its protectionism or refusal to support a mutually resilient economy, and its claims would begin to be extinguished, along with the bancor debts of countries whose economies prevented their ability to balance their international payments and support their currency.

Today’s proposed arrangements would indeed support lending among the member banks, but not for the purpose of supporting capital flight (the main use of IMF loans, when “left-wing” governments seem likely to be elected), and the IMF and its associated alternative to the World Bank would not impose austerity plans and anti-labor policies on debtors. The economic doctrine would promote self-sufficiency in food and basic essentials, and would promote tangible agricultural and industrial capital formation, not financialization.

It is likely that gold also would be an element of international monetary reserves by these countries, simply because gold is a commodity that hundreds of years of world practice already have agreed on as acceptable and politically neutral. But gold would be a means of settling payments balances, not defining domestic currency. These balances would of course extend to trade and investment with western countries that are not part of this bank. Gold would be an acceptable means of settling western debt balances to the new Eurasian-centered bank. That would prove a vehicle for payments that western countries could not simply repudiate – as long as the gold was kept in the hands of the new bank members, no longer in New York or London as has been the dangerous practice since 1945.

In a meeting to create such a bank, China would be in a similar dominant position to that which the United States enjoyed in 1944 at Bretton Woods. But its operating philosophy would be quite different. The aim would be to develop the economies of bank members, with long-term planning or trade patterns that seem most appropriate for their economies to avoid the kind of dependency relationships and privatization takeovers that have characterized IMF and World Bank policy.

These development objectives would involve land reform, industrial and financial restructuring, and tax reform, as well as domestic banking and credit reforms. Discussions at the SCO meetings seem to have prepared the ground for establishing a general harmony of interests in creating reforms along these lines.”

Eurasia or bust

The Cradle: In the medium term, is it feasible to expect German industrialists, contemplating the coming wasteland, and their own demise, to revolt en masse against the NATO-imposed trade/financial sanctions against Russia, and force Berlin to open Nord Stream 2? Gazprom guarantees the pipeline is recoverable. Don’t need to join the SCO to make that happen…

Hudson: “It is unlikely that German industrialists will act to prevent their country’s de-industrialization, given the US/NATO stranglehold on Eurozone politics and the past 75 years of political meddling by US officials. German company heads are more likely to try and survive with as much personal and corporate wealth intact as they can in the wake of Germany being turned into a Baltic-state-type economic wreckage.

There already has been talk of shifting production – and management – to the United States, which will block Germany from obtaining energy, metals and other essential materials from any supplier not controlled by US interests and their allies.

The great question is whether German companies would emigrate to the new Eurasian economies whose industrial growth and prosperity seem likely to far overshadow that of the United States.

Of course, the Nord Stream pipelines are recoverable. That is precisely why US political pressure from Secretary of State Blinken has been so insistent that Germany, Italy and other European countries double down on isolating their economies from trade and investment with Russia, Iran, China and other countries whose growth the US is trying to disrupt.”

How to escape “There Is No Alternative”

The Cradle: Are we reaching the point when the key players of the Global South – over 100 nations – finally get their act together and decide to go for broke and stop the US from keeping the artificial neoliberal global economy in a state of perpetual coma? This means the only possible option, as you have outlined, is to set up a parallel global currency bypassing the US dollar – while the usual suspects float the notion of a Bretton Woods III at best. Is the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) financial casino omnipotent enough to smash any possible competition? Do you envisage any other practical mechanisms apart from what is being discussed by BRICS/ EAEU/ SCO? 

Hudson: “A year or two ago it seemed that the task of designing a full-fledged alternative world currency, monetary, credit and trading system was so complex that the details hardly could be thought through. But US sanctions have proved to be the needed catalyst to make such discussions pragmatically urgent.

The confiscation of Venezuela’s gold reserves in London and its US investments, the confiscation of $300 billion of Russia’s foreign-exchange reserves held in the United States and Europe, and its threat to do the same to China and other countries resisting US foreign policy has made de-dollarization urgent. I have explained the logic in many points, from my Valdai Club article (with Radhika Desai) to my recent book on The Destiny of Civilization, the lecture series that I prepared for Hong Kong and the Global University for Sustainability.

Holding securities denominated in dollars, and even holding gold or investments in the United States and Europe, is no longer a safe option. It is clear that the world is breaking into two quite different types of economies, and that US diplomats and their European satellites are willing to tear up the existing economic order in hopes that creating a disruptive crisis will enable themselves to come out on top.

It also is clear that subjugation to the IMF and its austerity plans are economic suicide, and that following World Bank and its neoliberal doctrine of international dependency is self-destructive. The result has been to create an unpayable overhead of debts denominated in US dollars. These debts cannot be paid without borrowing credit from the IMF and accepting terms of economic surrender to US privatizers and speculators.

The only alternative to imposing economic austerity on themselves is to withdraw from the dollar trap in which US-sponsored “free market” economics (markets free from government protection, and free from government ability to recover the environmental damage from US oil companies, mining companies and the associated industrial and food dependency) is to make a clean break.

The break will be difficult, and US diplomacy will do everything it can to disrupt the creation of a more resilient economic order. But US policy has created a global state of dependency in which literally "There is no alternative but to break away.”

Germanexit?

The Cradle: What is your analysis on Gazprom confirming Line B of the Nord Stream 2 was not touched by Pipeline Terror? This means Nord Stream 2 is practically ready to go – with a capacity to pump 27.5 billion cubic meters of gas a year, which happens to be half of the total capacity of – damaged – Nord Stream. So Germany is not doomed. This opens a whole new chapter; a solution will depend on a serious political decision by the German government.   

Hudson: “Here’s the kicker: Russia certainly won’t bear the cost again, only to have the pipeline blown up. It will be up to Germany. I bet the current regime says “No.” That should make for an interesting rise of the alternative parties.

The ultimate problem is that the only way Germany can restore trade with Russia is to withdraw from NATO, realizing that it is the major victim of NATO’s war. This could only succeed by spreading to Italy, and also to Greece (for not protecting it against Turkey, ever since Cyprus). That looks like a long fight.

Maybe it’s easier just for German industry to pack up and move to Russia to help modernize its industrial production, especially BASF for chemistry, Siemens for engineering, etc.. If German companies relocate to the US to get gas, this will be perceived as a US raid on German industry, capturing its lead for the US. Even so, this won’t succeed, given America’s post-industrialized economy.

So German industry can only move eastward if it creates its own political party as a nationalistic anti-NATO party. The EU constitution would require Germany to withdraw from the EU, which puts NATO interests first at the federal level. The next scenario is to discuss Germany’s entry into the SCO. Let’s take bets as to how long that will take.”

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
 

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Union Hopes High as Chileans Rewrite Anti-Labor Constitution

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Yoel Bitran
Labor Notes • July 27, 2021

Protesters in San Antonio, Chile joined countless Chileans in an "estallido social", or social explosion, in late 2019. Their actions, including a general strike by major unions, overthrew the old constitutional order. Photo: Vivian Morales C., CC BY-2.0.


Many Americans have become accustomed to hearing that every presidential election is “the most important in a generation.” But for Chileans like myself, these words were undeniably true when describing our election on May 15 and 16.

When we went to the polls that weekend, we did so not just to choose who would be our next mayors, governors, and councilpersons, but also to choose who would write the next constitution—from scratch.

Following a November 2020 referendum in which 80 percent of voters supported a new constitution, 155 constitutional delegates were elected in May to design the legal and political framework for the country’s future. Independent candidates, mostly of the left and center-left, received almost one-third of the seats. Seventeen seats were reserved for indigenous groups for the first time, and gender parity at the constitutional convention was guaranteed following the passage of a March 2020 law. All told, pro-reform candidates won 60 percent of seats.

Meanwhile, candidates backed by President Sebastian Piñera’s center-right Chile Vamos (Let’s Go Chile) coalition fell short of winning one-third of seats, the number they needed to wield veto power over any major changes.

Why are Chileans so excited to change their constitution? The current one, as any Chilean labor activist will tell you, has some serious issues when it comes to social and economic rights, to put it mildly. It was written by ruthlessly anti-labor neoliberal intellectuals from the Pinochet dictatorship and enshrined the idea that public services and fundamental social rights are subservient to the market and private interests. A new constitution could therefore open the doors for a radical transformation of Chilean society.

The "mojigato" (sanctimonious hypocrite) Jaime Guzman went to mass every day. His piety did not keep him from enabling the regime of butcher Pinochet.

SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER
Jaime Guzman, the architect of the current Chilean constitution, was given the authority to write a new constitution in 1979 by none other than General Augusto Pinochet, the brutal fascist dictator who murdered and tortured thousands of union leaders and leftists during his 17 years in power. The Pinochet dictatorship—put in place and supported by the United States—instituted a vicious pro-free market agenda which turned the country into a social experiment. The dreams of market fundamentalists such as Milton Friedman, who had imagined a society with a minimal role for the state, could finally be implemented without popular resistance.

Among other things, this meant creating an economy in which every social service and governmental program could be subcontracted, privatized, and severely deregulated. Everything—education, social security, health care, natural resources (even drinking water)—was to become a business to be sold to the highest bidder, or sometimes just the bidder who was related to the generals. Poverty rates exploded and inequality soared—while some people made enormous amounts of money.

In 1989, a combination of mass protests and rising international condemnation forced the dictatorship to call for elections. But the Chilean oligarchy—which consists of the traditional land-owning aristocracy and newer generations of capitalist families—knew that though the dictator would fall, their constitution would stay intact. This meant, as Guzman predicted, that any significant changes would be rendered impossible. Thirty years later, Chile continued to have an extremely high level of economic inequality, with the highest income gap in the OECD countries.

A DECADE OF MOBILIZATION

The recent uprisings for change in Chile—the background for the constitutional convention—are the culmination of more than ten years of growing social movements and mass mobilizations.

The police are now using methods learned from Israeli trainers in "riot control": shooting protesters in the eyes.

In 2006, hundreds of thousands of high school students shut down their schools, demanding a radical overhaul of the economically segregated K-12 education system. In 2011, that same generation, now older, shut down all major universities in the country for a whole year, mobilizing close to a million people in the streets around similar demands.

They added a few new ones as well, such as free higher education for all. The government responded each time by repressing the protests, and then agreeing to incremental and insufficient improvements that fell far short of the students’ demands. At the same time, the Chilean feminist movement began consolidating around demands for the right to abortion (outlawed under the constitution) and against gender-based violence.

Workers’ rights were also at the root of the historic protest movements. The obscenely low pensions most Chilean workers receive came to the fore as an issue in 2016 with the formation of the No Más AFP (Asociación de Fondos de Pensiones, or Association of Pension Funds) movement, spearheaded by labor leaders and social movement activists. Large protests—led in part by unions—demanded decent pensions and an end to the privatized social security system.

Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, dozens of peaceful protests around these and other issues were organized and purportedly progressive governments were elected. But nothing seemed to work in getting the ruling elites to let go of the economic and traditionalist Christian models they had imposed by force in the ‘70s and ‘80s. The constitution continued to serve as an unbendable bulwark against all the efforts and wishes of the majority of the population.

THE TIPPING POINT: 2019’S ‘SOCIAL EXPLOSION’

In October 2019, when subway fees were suddenly increased, high school students refused to pay and began jumping the turnstiles en masse. Protest momentum had been building for decades. When the spark hit, there was a social explosion, an “estallido social,” as the protest movement has come to be known in Chile.

Thousands of people of all ages across the country joined in, refusing to go to work, blocking major streets, and even burning buildings, buses, and subway stations. By October 25, in what has since been named “Chile’s largest protest,” there were more than 1.2 million people in the streets of the capital city of Santiago alone.


In this context of generalized resistance, the Chilean political class began to panic. And then, all the major labor unions announced a general strike on November 12. The two-day general strike, which included the powerful mineworkers’ union federation, the public teachers’ union, and the port workers, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Just three days later, on November 15, representatives from most major political parties agreed to call for a referendum on a constitutional convention, opening the door to finally putting an end to Pinochet’s constitution.

But following the historic success of the November 2020 vote for constitutional change, a big question remained: who would be chosen to write this new constitution? The political parties and ruling elites still had an opportunity to prevent any major changes to the political and economic system by getting conservative delegates elected to the convention. And they would do whatever it took to make sure of that.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END: THE MAY ELECTION

Ruling elites spent millions of dollars supporting neoliberal candidates. All they needed to get was one-third of the convention delegates, which would be enough to veto any decisions and thus prevent any significant departures from the current system. Most analysts and experts predicted this would be the case.

But when the results started to come out on May 16, there was a shockwave felt across the country, as the old regime crumbled to the ground. The right wing won only 24 percent, far less than the 33 percent they needed for a veto. Combined, the traditional establishment parties overall only got 40 percent. The remaining 60 percent was won by a combination of representatives of indigenous tribes, left parties, and left-wing independents.

“The important thing is that those who voted expect that this great process will take us out of the misery in which the governing political parties have kept us since the dictatorship,” said Claudio Sagardias, the president of the Confederation of Commerce Workers, which represents retail and grocery store workers.

THE STAKES FOR WORKERS

When it comes to the implications for workers, let us start by stating the obvious. The privatized and economically segregated pension, education, and health systems are over—it is unlikely that there will be a two-thirds majority willing to vote to maintain the way in which these social programs function today—the delegates have a clear mandate and the numbers to implement sweeping changes on these issues.

Less clear is what will happen with unions and workers’ rights. The current constitution and legal system are extremely hostile to the formation of powerful majority unions. Perhaps the most glaring example is the enshrinement of “freedom of unionization” as the conceptual framework in which organizing rights are understood. This means that unionizing is an individual choice instead of a collective right, which in turn guarantees that every worker can join—and leave—a union whenever they want.

Similar to the impact of right-to-work laws in the United States, “freedom of unionization” has made it very easy for employers to incentivize and pressure workers to leave unions and very difficult for labor organizations to sustain or build their membership and their power.

Secondly, labor unions are circumscribed by the constitution to a particular employer. Under Chilean law, an employer can make each of its workplaces a separate legal entity. This means unions can be limited to one workplace and not allowed to represent or bargain on behalf of other workplaces, even those managed by the same corporation. 


There are many more examples of how the legal framework designed by the dictatorship goes to great lengths to prevent unions from wielding power. As a result, many, if not most, labor unions in Chile are fragmented, weak, and short-lived. When a progressive government recently attempted to pass labor legislation that would have significantly strengthened unions, it was ruled unconstitutional.

HOPE FOR LABOR

Just as the current constitution drastically stifles the potential power of Chilean workers, a new constitution could open the door for a radical transformation of the labor movement and increased bargaining power for Chile’s working class:

  • It could declare the right to strike a fundamental right of all workers.
  • It could establish employment as a basic right, and grant just-cause protections to all private sector workers.
  • It could determine unions to be the sole representative entities at a workplace (as opposed to the current model, which allows employers to create competing pro-company “unions”, undermining the bargaining power of actual independent unions).
  • It could enshrine the right to unionize as essential and inalienable.
  • Finally, it could institute sectoral bargaining for all industries, radically increasing the bargaining power of workers. This would allow them to negotiate together with all the employees in their industry in much larger numbers and therefore with much greater leverage.

Any of these things by themselves would fundamentally improve the organizing opportunities for workers in Chile. All of them together could transform Chile into a beacon of worker and union rights for the entire region. What is undeniable is that this fight is just beginning, and Chilean workers and unions will need to do everything in their power to make sure this opportunity becomes a reality.

Yoel Bitran is an organizer with Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum based in Santiago, Chile.


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Over 1 Million People March in Chile’s Largest Protest

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TeleSUR dispatch


NEOLIBERALISM at bayonet point is failing in Chile, as it is bound to fail everywhere.

The popular movement against Piñera’s neoliberal government and its repressive policies, is unprecedented in Chile’s modern history

[dropcap]P[/dropcap]rotests that started over a hike in public transport fares boiled into massive marches. The government responded with heavy repression. At least 18 people have been killed, hundreds have been injured, and over 7,000 arrested.

Over one million people are marching in the streets of the Chilean capital, responding to the convocation of students and labor unions who organized on social media "The Largest March in Chile" on Friday afternoon, with rallies paralyzing major cities.

RELATED:
Chile Unrest: Rights Groups Warn of Dictatorship-Like Practices

The march started between 5-6 p.m., local time, from the Plaza Italia, demanding among others the government to send back the Armed Forces to their military base, and to convoke a Constituent Assembly in order to outline a new Constitution.


Police repression has been brutal, and the army is now out on the streets, too, as the president has proclaimed "Chile is at war."  The neoliberal order has pampered the armed forces and police—the political suppression apparatus—as a way to keep their loyalty. The military enjoy many advantages and financial benefits ordinary Chileans can only dream of.  So far, the bribe has paid off.  


They are holding banners like "Chile woke up" and "We are not at war," as Chile's military has taken over security in Santiago, a city of 6 million now under a state of emergency with night-time curfews.

"These protests were necessary," said fruit vendor Sergio Perez to Reuters. "But they've made everything difficult, especially getting around."

Many shops and schools in downtown Santiago remained closed.

Many bus drivers in Santiago also staged a walk-off on Friday after one of their number was shot.

"I used to take one bus to get to work, now I have to take four. This must stop," said Julio Herrera, 71, as he waited in a long line at a street corner for what few buses remained.


One MILLION march in Chile! Furious activists snub military night-time curfew and occupy streets - after 18 were killed and hundreds wounded in on-going protest against government

ABOVE: The protests have captured a lot of media attention, as the capitalist press could not simply bury the social implosion of a whole nation, especially one long touted as a great example of capitalist success.

Piñera, a billionaire businessman, told the nation on Thursday he had heard "loud and clear" the demands of Chileans.

He has sent lawmakers legislation to overturn a recent hike in electricity rates, and called for reforms to guarantee a minimum wage of US$480 a month and introduce state medical insurance - only in the case of "catastrophes."

Seated with a group of elderly Chileans over lunch on Friday, Piñera put finishing touches on a bill to hike minimum pensions by 20 percent. "We must approve these projects with the urgency that Chileans demand," Piñera said.

So far, the biggest rallies, according to the interior ministry's estimate, took place on Wednesday, with 424,050 people rallying nationwide.

An online poll conducted by local company Activa Research of 2,090 people between Oct. 22-23 found 83 percent of respondents said they supported the goals of the demonstrators.

The principal causes of the protests were low salaries, utility prices, pensions and economic inequality, the poll said.

U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, former social-democrat President of Chile, said she would send a mission to her homeland to investigate allegations of rights violations by security forces.

The Chilean government said it would welcome a U.N. delegation, along with representatives of global NGO Human Rights Watch.


SPECIAL
The video below, in Spanish, is easily one of the best we have found in terms of explaining the reality of the "neoliberal Pinochet order", maintained to this day by conservative regimes that succeeded Pinochet, and center-rightists like Michelle Bachelet's "coalition of the (pseudo) left". If anyone knows how to add an English subtitle track, please consider doing that as a contribution to this struggle.

Lo que esconde “el modelo chileno” (y por qué estallaron las protestas ahora)
What the "Chilean model" hides (and why the protests finally exploded).
By Ina Afinogenova (based in Moscow)


From oasis to war in one week?

Durante treinta años, el modelo chileno se ha citado como ejemplar para Latinoamérica, pero lo que se ocultaba detrás, acaba de estallarle en las manos a la clase dirigente del país sudamericano.
 
Mientras tanto, la prensa burguesa que defiende al neoliberalismo, acusa a Ina y Moscú de "injerencia" supuestamente siniestra en la opinión publica que la gente pueda tener hacia los regimenes de derecha apadrinados por Washington. Esta queja la hace el diario español ABC, que acusa a Rusia de "agita la inestabilidad en Iberoamérica" !

¿Por qué Lenín Moreno entregó a Julian Assange?


El gobierno ecuatoriano ha ofrecido diversas y en ocasiones contradictorias explicaciones sobre por qué entregó a Julian Assange a las autoridades británicas, pero ¿hubo otros motivos?

BONUS

Remember this, just a couple years ago, when Morgan Freeman, one of Hollywood's richest actors, and apparently a political idiot or a hardcore neoliberal, endorsed this propaganda campaign fueled by the Democrats' Russiagate hoax?  The whole exercise was actually the brainchild of Hollywood brat Rob Reiner, who earned his spurs by actually playing a liberal (of the old, antiwar kind) in the legendary sitcom ALL IN THE FAMILY. Ina lets him have it, as he deserves.

This counter-campaign was designed to reach Sanish-speaking cybernauts.


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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TeleSUR is an independent socialist news service created by Pres. Hugo Chavez and supported by Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and other progressive anti-imperialist Latin American nations opposing Washington's hegemonic chokehold. 

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Ukraine Preparing Massive Forces To Attack Donbass During FIFA Football World Cup In Russia

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Published on Jun 17, 2018


Ukraine Preparing Massive Forces To Attack Donbass During FIFA Football World Cup In Russia

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What will happen if the West's zombie state of Ukraine attacks the Donbass with NATO backing? This could easily create a huge flashpoint designed to embroil Russia in a military operation.

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Don’t fall for the post-modernist/relativist trap.
The struggle against the system requires lucidity, not narcissistic flim-flam.

 




Lies Are Washington’s Chosen Path To Dominance

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

April 6: These otherwise pointless new sanctions seem to confirm my supposition that the real purpose of the US sanctions is to convince members of the Russian ruling class to get rid of Putin and to put into office someone agreeable to Washington’s overlordship. https://www.rt.com/news/423393-russia-sancions-new-us/


Will Putin Fall for Washington’s Lies?

I have been waiting to see how long the British Prime Minister, the British Foreign Secretary, and the British Defense Secretary could continue to lie through their teeth before it caught up with them.

The liars got away with their lies longer than would have been possible if there was any longer any respect for truth in Western governments and media.

The British Foreign Secretary announced publicly that he was personally told by someone at the Porton Down laboratory that it was “absolutely categorical” that the nerve gas allegedly used in an attack on Skripal and his daughter came from Russia. The chief executive of the Porton Down laboratory has now stated that the scientists at the laboratory cannot confirm that the nerve agent is Russian.

Unlike NIST, which the US government forced to lie about how the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed, the British government was unable to force the Porton Down scientists to lie, or to lie enough. Consequently, the British government deleted its postings on social media as this one:

“Analysis by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down made clear that this was a military-grade Novichok nerve agent produced in Russia. Porton Down is OPCW-acredited and designated laboratory.” https://www.rt.com/uk/423162-russia-poison-government-twitter/

There is little doubt that the attack on the Skripals was an orchestration by the black op departments of the US and UK intelligence agencies. Just as George W. Bush was given a script to read about 9/11, the British government was handed a script to read about “the Skripal poisoning.”

This is the Russian government’s own stated conclusion: https://www.rt.com/uk/422911-uk-staged-skripal-poisoning-theory/

The Russian Ambassador to the UK said, “We have very serious suspicion that this provocation was done by British intelligence.” Actually, the UK, a militarily insignificant country, would not have dared to make this level of provocation to Russia, which is capable of wiping the British off of the face of the earth in a few minutes at zero cost to Russia. The British were acting as agents of their masters in Washington. Surely, the Russian government knows this. In “the Western alliance,” the only country permitted to have an independent policy is the US.

The question before us is: what is the point of this blatant transparent provocation of Russia? What is the American deep state trying to achieve? Surely not to get the world destroyed in nuclear war, or so one would hope.

Nevertheless, war is a possibility. Pat Buchanan, a man of intense Washington experience, has asked, rather than asserted, if Trump is assembling a war cabinet with his choice of chief warmonger John Bolton as National Security Adviser, his choice of warmonger Pompeo as Secretary of State, his choice of the woman who ran the secret CIA torture prisons as CIA Director. If this is not a war cabinet, what is? It makes Hitler’s war cabinet look mild.

The demonization of Russia that has been ongoing since the Russian government blocked Obama’s planned invasion of Syria in behalf of Israel and Obama’s bombing of Iran in behalf of Israel has the appearance of preparing Western peoples for war with Russia. Before Washington destroyed Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen through its Saudi proxy, and attempted to destroy Syria through its “democratic rebels” proxy, Washington demonized the leaders and the countries that were subsequently destroyed. Why should Russia not think that Russia is being set up for destruction in the same way?

This scenario, should it be the one unfolding, is too scary. Unlike Hitler, whose secret weapons were not ready in time, Russia’s are. The West is so outclassed that nothing whatsoever will remain of the West if Russia’s weapons are unleashed on an arrogant, stupid, West drowning in Washington’s hubris.

Another possible answer to the question is that Washington is playing to the Atlanticist Integrationists in the Russian government and business and financial elite. The message is that you will never be accepted into the West until you get rid of Putin and accept Washington’s overlordship. Some of the Russian elite find this to be a tempting proposition. In my opinion it includes members of the Russian Academy of Sciences who value their relationships—free trips and paid speeches—in Western capitals. Washington buys everyone, Russian academics not excluded. Washington is making clear that paid trips for Russian academics abroad are at stake, Western financial holdings of Russian businesses and oligarchs are at risk of seizure along with Russian real property abroad, and important members of the Russian government and elite risk being sanctioned from traveling to the West.

In other words, Washington is telling members of the Russian elite, get rid of Putin, or we will get rid of you.

Just as Russian athletes were framed on false doping charges and prohibited from participating in the Olympics, now it seems Washington intends to cancel or boycott the World Cup in Russia. http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/04/01/557087/Russia-UK-nerve-agent-World-Cup-ZakharovaWashington intends to use Russian athletes against Putin, who is blamed for the expulsion of Russian athletes from the Olympics and for Russia’s possible loss of the World Cup.

What should Putin make of Trump’s invitation to come to Washington to discuss the arms race?

My advice to Putin is not to accept. It is too risky for Putin to put himself in Washington’s hands where he could be arrested on any number of false charges for which he is already set up in the Western media. He stole an American election — a felony. He invaded Ukraine and stole Crimea — war crimes. He poisoned Skripal and his daughter — attempted murder. He invaded Syria and defeated the “democratic forces” striving to bring democracy to Syria — more war crimes. He covered up Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Considering the complete and total lawlessness of the government in Washington, why would any sane person as demonized as Putin go there? Washington doesn’t even respect US law. Torture is a US crime as well as a crime under international law; yet President Trump has appointed a US and international criminal to be the Director of the CIA!!

Putin should tell Trump that whenever, if ever, Trump achieves control of the Deep State and can act independently as a president of the United States, then, and only then, he is welcome to Moscow to discuss the conditions on which the two countries can cooperate and mutually benefit. God forbid that Putin, who holds all the weapons cards, agree to any arms control with a government that has broken every agreement and thrown the pieces into the face of the Russian government.

If Putin succumbs to the Western harlot, Russia will be destroyed.

Washington is a hostile and determined enemy of Russia. The inability of Russia to accept this conclusion is a direct threat to the existence of Russia.

In the Russian military/security sphere there is realization that Russia now holds the balance of power and does not need to accept any “favors” from Washington. The director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryskin, said today that the West is an Orwellian version of itself in attempting to hold onto unilateral power when in fact, Western “influence, which used to be unchallenged, is now diminishing.” Washington’s unjustified arrogance, Naryskin said, “resembles the overconfident Biblical strongman Goliath, who was slain by the young David.” https://www.rt.com/news/423171-moscow-challenges-west-dominance/

Washington, Naryskin said, tries “to present the US-centered system of international relations, which is based on coercion and even blackmail, as an appearance of voluntary submission.” In this way, “the US is trying to masquerade the brutal American dictate as ‘Euroatlantic” or “international solidarity.”

Washington attempts to cover up its crimes, Narysin said, with “big talk about human rights and democracy,” but instead uses “military interventions into sovereign nations” which “were plunged into bloody chaos that had no place for such a fundamental right as a right to live. Over the past two decades hundreds of thousands [millions by my count] of innocent people fell victim to NATO aggression in Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa.”

If President Putin makes the mistake of trusting Washington yet another time, he will destroy Russia and the world with it.


PCR with feline children.

About the Author
  Paul Craig Roberts is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. Roberts’ How the Economy Was Lost is now available from CounterPunch in electronic format. His latest book is The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.

 

 

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