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A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

WORLD IS BURNING – WHILE WESTERN LEFT IS QUARRELING

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. BREAKING THE EMPIRE'S MEDIA MONOPOLY IS UP TO YOU.

It really is a shame, and it is tiring, but it is actually nothing new: there is now total disarray amongst those countless ‘progressive’ and ‘semi-left’ Western intellectuals, publications, movements and political parties.

Karl Kautsky, long a respected Marxist scholar affiliated with Engels, was one of the early social democrats (with comrade Eduard Bernstein), preaching "evolutionary socialism", and denouncing the Leninist approach to social revolution. Reformist social democracy, a tool of capitalism, and anti-communist "leftists" have a long history.

Cowardice, bloated egos, lack of discipline and intellectual pettiness are often to blame, but that is not all.

It is now absolutely clear that the Western left lost patently and shamelessly. It has almost no power, it has no courage to fight or to take risks, and it counts on no real political following in Europe, North America, Australia or New Zealand. ‘The masses’, those proverbial ‘oppressed masses’, have lately been electing and voting in various semi-fascist populists, unapologetic right-wing demagogues, and mainstream pro-business brutes.

Entire Marxist ‘theoretical certainties’ have been collapsing in front of our eyes. Or at least they have been in the West.

To a great extent, what is now happening is absolutely natural. The European left betrayed as early as in the 1980’s, by becoming too soft, too undisciplined, too cautious and too self-centered. It put pragmatism above the ideals. It rapidly adopted the lexicon of the liberal ideological establishment, complete with Western perceptions of human rights, democratic principles and political correctness. It ceased to be revolutionary; it essentially stopped all revolutionary activities, and it abandoned the core element of any true left-wing identity – internationalism.

Without at least some basic internationalist principles, the left is now essentially reduced to some sort of local trade union level: “Let us fight for better labor conditions and health care at home, and to hell with all that neo-colonialist plunder of the world which is expected to pay for almost all of our benefits. As long as we eat well and have long vacations, why should we rebel, why should we fight?”

The Western left has also failed to honestly address global history and especially the role which both Europe and North America have been playing in it. Many so-called ‘progressive’ Western thinkers have essentially adopted the imperialist rhetoric and revanchist interpretation of various key historic events, hence becoming ‘anti-Communist’ themselves.

After that, almost everything was lost, went down the drain.

Revolutionary flags were burned, at least metaphorically. Good old slogans were ditched. Then, instead of marches and violent demonstrations and clashes with the authorities representing the regime, increasingly comfortable couches in front of the latest high-definition television sets got quickly filled with millions of flabby over-indulgent bodies.

The recent "pink pussies" women's march is the logical culmination of a soft, misguided, "narrow issue" analysis of today's grave social crisis. These masses of bourgeois women, controlled by the liberal media, can march until their hats go blue, risking little and accomplishing less. Their approach, a form of celebratory narcissism, represents no threat to the establishment. In fact, bourgeois feminists, for all the smug whining, are very much part of the establishment.

[dropcap]N[/dropcap]ow really ugly fights over the shrinking pie are raging. Theoretical Trotskyists and theoretical Maoists are at each other’s throats. There are, of course, Leninists, and others, many others.

Things went much further, still: these days, in the West, most ‘progressives’ go ‘by the issues’, refusing to commit to anything greater, full-heartedly. This position is increasingly in vogue, and it essentially shouts: ‘I have my own philosophy. I don’t need any ideology at all.’

No revolution has ever been won like this. But in the West, there is no desire for true revolution. Belonging to left is mainly just a pose, with a social media account and a selfie. It is not serious, and it is not intended to be.

There are, of course, Anarcho-syndicalists with their air of superiority and lofty theories that would be outrightly rejected and laughed at by the great majority of the truly oppressed people in places like Asia or Africa.

Lately, I don’t even know, anymore, who is who, in that small and petty world. I am not monitoring it, I hardly participate in theoretical discussions.

I write, using basically just two publications as my platform, from which my writing goes to the world, in various languages.

But that ‘small and petty world’ is obviously monitoring me. And what it sees, it does not like.

After launching with one of the mightiest [online left] publications in the West (I don’t really want to name the publication, but my readers, most likely know which one I’m talking about) some 300 essays in the last 7 or 8 years, I was literally dumped by it at the very end of 2017. I will never find out the real reason, but most likely it was due to my ‘too left wing’ convictions, and too anti-Western, too open rhetoric. And yes, there was actually some hint: The editors did not like it that I write for ‘Russian state-sponsored media’, which in turn has some links to allegedly radical left-wing sites in the U.S.

In the eyes of the anti-Communist, ‘we-go-by-the-issues’ Western media, any ‘state sponsored’ or ‘state controlled’ media is bad, extremely bad!

Even if it belongs to those countries that are heroically fighting against Western imperialism, trying to save our Planet. Or perhaps it is considered especially bad if it belongs to such countries. It obviously applies to the Chinese, Russian, Venezuelan, Cuban, or Iranian media outlets. In summary – it applies to all media worldwide that are fighting to prevent the Western monstrous imperialist endgame from taking place; to the media that is fighting with force and zeal, and with (lately) tremendous success.

Instead of obediently waiting for the Western right or Western left, to define the world, now the Chinese, Russians, Latin Americans and the Middle Easterners are suddenly daring to re-define events that are taking place on this Planet. They are interviewing Westerners themselves, while holding a mirror to those monsters that became both the European and North American societies.

And instead of letting only Westerners speak, there are suddenly African, Asian, Russian, Arab and Latin American people appearing in front of the cameras.

Instead of that ‘noble’ “look what we are doing to the world”, the true victims but also true revolutionaries are leading passionate debates.

Instead of some PhD professor in London debating whether China is truly Communist or not, it is now Chinese people speaking up, clarifying what their own country is and is not.

And the Western left does not like it. It is clear that it does not like such developments at all.

The Western left ‘does not like any state-sponsored media’. It does not like it when others are speaking. Well, it may be even deeper than that: it appears that it does not really like anyone who is really fighting and who is winning: it does not like the left that is actually holding power!

Because the Western left is much more part of the West than of the left.

Because deep down, it is comfortable, even obsessed with its exceptionalism.

Because despite those horrid centuries of colonialist and imperialist plunder of the world by Europe and North America, it does not truly believe that the crimes were committed because of Western culture and way of thinking.

Because, deep down, it really does not think that the non-Western nations and their media and thinkers are capable of defining and describing the world accurately, or even describing their own countries accurately. Non-Westerners simply cannot and should not be trusted. Only Western intellectuals have some sort of inherited right to make fully qualified decisions on such important topics as: whether China is Communist or not, whether Russia under President Putin is a progressive country or not, whether Iran is socialist or just a brutal religious state, whether Assad’s government is ‘legitimate’, whether the North Korean leadership is ‘insane’ or whether President Maduro of Venezuela ‘just went too far’.

Greece's Tsipras: Pathetic, but oh so typical of liberalism's many faces. This one pretending to real socialism.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s the world is finally preparing to defend itself against the inevitable Western aggressions, as the people of Asia, Russia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East are discovering their own voices silenced for centuries by colonialist barbarity, as it is while the governments of these countries are making such discussion platforms possible, the Western left is howling at the moon, beating its chest in self-righteous narcissist gestures, and essentially insulting those who are fighting, standing tall, building much better world and yes - governing!

In several countries of South America, the left has recently been defeated precisely because it was too influenced ‘ideologically’ (or more precisely, ‘anti-ideologically’) by those weak, obsolete and overcautious Western pseudo-revolutionaries. Latin Americans should not, and hopefully will not, make similar mistakes in the future.

No revolutionary country can aim at perfection, yet. Revolution is not a bed of roses, said Fidel. Defending one’s country against brutal foreign invasions is not always a pretty business: it is thoroughly messy and bloody stuff.

The weak and soft-skinned Western left can demand from non-Western revolutionary governments both ‘purity’ and a ‘silk-gloved-approach’, simply because it has no idea (or it doesn’t care) what it is like to govern in countries consisting of millions of men, women and children who have been forced to live in absolute shit, after being robbed of everything by European and North American slave drivers. One simple mistake which those governments make, one sign of weakness, and their countries will go up in smoke, end up in ruins, in oblivion: like Iraq, like Afghanistan, like Yeltsin’s Russia, or like China during the “century of humiliation”.

The ‘over-sensitivity’ of the Western left is actually only a façade, it is not real.

Just as an example, the editors of the above-mentioned magazine, which has so unceremoniously stopped publishing my work, never showed any interest in my well-being or safety. I think if I would have dropped dead in one of the war zones I have covered, they’d hardly notice. Articles and essays signed by me would simply stop coming. Everyone is, after all, replaceable. To offer any support would be below their dignity. But to ask, regularly, for the reader’s financial support, never has been.

The ‘State-sponsored’ media in the revolutionary countries does treat their people differently. At least some of it does.

And quarreling goes on. I lost interest in the details. It is all time consuming and irrelevant.

In the meantime, I feel more and more comfortable writing for those new and proud media outlets, worldwide, edited far away from the West. I like it when my comrades are getting strong, when they are winning. I want them to govern and to govern well. And I want their countries to survive.

Things are that simple!

It is a great honor to show my films on TeleSur and Al-Mayadeen, to write for the New Eastern Outlook, China Daily, Countercurrents, and Russia Today. I enjoy appearing live, regularly, on PressTV.

I feel that each word that I write and utter through those media outlets are intended for my friends, for my comrades, for our struggle and for a much better world.

And let me repeat: I want my friends and comrades to win, to succeed, and yes, to govern!

The Western left can keep quarreling, chewing itself: ‘Who said what? Who is real left and who is not? Who is pure Marxist and who is simply some social democrat?”

Not all Western left media outlets are as described above. There are still some wonderful writers and editors in the West, too. But the overall situation in Europe and North America is deteriorating.

The governing and struggling revolutionary and internationalist left in the independent countries does not usually have time for lofty debates. We have Moscow, Beijing, Caracas, Havana, La Paz, Damascus and many other wonderful cities behind our backs – to defend. We will deal with the theory later, much later, after we win, after there is real peace, accompanied by justice, after all of us on this planet can proudly be what we really are – ourselves and defined by ourselves!

[This essay was originally published by New Eastern Outlook]

About the Author

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are his tribute to “The Great October Socialist Revolution” a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter. [/su_box]

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Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report

The US Has Just Delivered a Massive Blow to Russia’s 5th Column Power Elite

“Frankly, if I was paid to think long and hard about how to come up with the dumbest and most self-defeating foreign policy decision for the USA I could never do better than what the Trump Administration and Congress have just done.”

So, finally, the suspense is over. Kind of. The US Treasury has finally released the list of Russian entities and individuals which could (conditional!) be sanctioned by the US Treasury in compliance with the H.R.3364 – Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. These two short excerpts from the report show why I say “could”:

Now let’s translate all this in plain English: the US took a copy of the Kremlin telephone book, then a copy of Forbes and created a new list combining both. Then the US proclaimed that these entities and individuals are not under any sanctions yet, but are candidates for such sanctions. Does that make *any* sense to you *at all*?!

Well, if it does, stop reading and enjoy your unique gifts. If it does not, then don’t feel bad as this makes no sense whatsoever for anybody in Russia either. Oh how I wish modern technologies would make it possible for me to post here all the recent interviews, articles, talk-shows and public statements made in Russia for the past 24 hours! To say that the Russians are baffled is, really, an understatement.

Two things are noteworthy: first, this list completely ignores one of the most important realities of Russian politics: that the real, dangerous, opposition to Putin is not from the people (who support him at anywhere between 60% to 80%+) or from the Russian media (which, while often critical, does not represent a real threat to him) or even the Duma (whose opposition parties are critical of the Kremlin, but who are very careful about criticizing Putin himself lest they lose support from the people) . For years now I have been explaining that the real opposition to Putin is a) inside the ruling elites, including the Presidential Administration and the Government and b) big money: banks, oligarchs, etc.

I call this (informal) opposition the “Atlantic Integrationists” because what these pro-western globalists want is for the AngloZionist Empire to accept Russia as an equal partner and to have Russia fully integrate [with] the US-controlled international financial and security structures: WTO, NATO, EU, G7/8, etc. Very roughly speaking you could call them the “Medvedev people” (but you could also say that the Ministers in charge of the Russian economy all fall into this category, as do almost all the heads of Russian banks).

[dropcap]I [/dropcap]call the (informal) group supporting Putin the “Eurasian Sovereignists“. These are the folks who see the future of Russia in the South, East and even North, who want to pull Russia out of the AngloZionist international financial and security structures and who want a truly sovereign Russia to contribute to a new truly multi-polar world in collaboration with countries like China or the other BRICS countries. Very roughly you could call these people the “Putin people” (but you could also say that figures such as Ivanov, Rogozin, Shoigu and a few others are key personalities). This is important because the this list of (potentially sanctioned) people makes absolutely no distinctions between these two groups. Check out this article on RT entitled “Major Russian bank will no longer service defense industry over US sanctions fears“. It quotes the Alfa Bank CEO Mikhail Fridman whose net worth is estimated at $16.2 billion by Forbes, as saying in the magazine that Alfa-Bank was cutting ties with the Russia’s defense industry, adding, “What can we do?”. Now look at the list, Appendix II, entry #23. Do you see who is there? Yup, the very same Mikhail Fridman!

Now let me add this: in the current political climate in Russia, to have bank accounts in the West is considered shameful and unpatriotic and that is something which even most dishonest and hypocritical Eurasian Sovereignists can hardly afford for political reasons (that does not mean that some don’t try, they do, but at a great political risk). In contrast, among Atlantic Integrationists, whose power and influence does not depend on public opinion, having assets abroad is much less dangerous and, therefore, much more common.

Now that the the US Treasury has released this “list of marked individuals” (and their families, relatives or associated corporate entities) for potential, unspecified, future sanction, who do you think will freak out most, the Eurasian Sovereignists or the Atlantic Integrationists? Then look a step further and forget about the US for a second: Russia is trying hard to work with the Europeans in many joint projects. What do you think the creation of such a list will have on joint ventures between EU and Russian businessmen? I predict two things:

It will place a great deal of pressure on EU corporations not to do business with the Russians and, therefore, it will further place the EU and the US on a collision course.
It will hurt the Atlantic Integrationists where it hurts them the most: in their financial interests.

Frankly, if I was paid to think long and hard about how to come up with the dumbest and most self-defeating foreign policy decision for the USA I could never do better than what the Trump Administration and Congress have just done. This is, by the way, something which all Russian analysts agree with. What they don’t agree with are the reasons for that seemingly completely and terminally stupid move. Here are the various schools of thought in Russia on that account:

Group One: “the slap in the face of Russia”:

They believe that the sole intention was to insult and humiliate Russia by basically declaring that all the top Russian people are gangsters. According to them, there ain’t much the US can do to Russia other than to continue a petty war of insults and harassment (like the expulsion of Russian diplomats and the seizure of Russian consular buildings in the USA).

Group Two: “it’s all internal US politics”:

That groups says that this has nothing to do with Russia at all. According to them, the US economy is doing well under Trump, the Democrats have nothing to use against him so all they do is continue to hammer the “Russian threat” fairytale to which Trump responds with deliberately ineffective and totally symbolic actions which make it look like he is anti-Russian when in reality he is quietly sabotaging the Democrats’ attempts at truly worsening relations with Russia and preventing the Democrats from playing the “Russian threat” card against Trump.

Group Three: “Трамп Наш” (Тrump is ours):

No, nobody in Russian seriously believes that Trump is a Russian agent or is somehow “owned” by Russia, but they say that as a joke, always laughing. But what they do mean is that deep down Trump is a friend of Russia and is actually helping Russia and Putin. How? By taking all sorts of measures which only hurt the USA while very powerfully helping Russia (for example, by forcing Russian oligarchs to bring their foreign assets back to Russia). Some even go as far as saying that this list is most damaging to the people opposed to Putin and that it gives him a pretext to fire them all after the Presidential elections in Russia. Far from considering Trump a bumbling idiot, this group sees him as a consummate politician who is actually creating the circumstances to really hurt his (real) enemies and help his (real) friends.

Group Four: “Наших бьют!” (Our people are under attack!):

This is the group which doesn’t care at all why the US is doing this or that, no matter how clumsy. All they care about is that this is yet another attack on “our people” (meaning Russian individuals or corporate entities) and that means that Russians should “circle the wagons” and come to the rescue of those thus attacked. This group most vociferously demands retaliatory steps from the Kremlin. They are a vocal minority.

Group Five: “Филькина Грамота” (Botched document produced by clueless idiots [very approximate translation!])

This is the group which basically says that it is all much simpler and that no complex explanations are needed: the Trump Administration and Congress is composed of clueless idiots who have no idea what the hell they are doing and who just like to produce some policy decisions just to look like they still matter in world where they really don’t. Putin himself seems to be in this last group as he officially called this latest US document “complete stupidity“. Frankly, in my experience the decision making process in the USA is almost never the result of efforts of a single actor. In fact, US political decisions are the “sum vector” of the effect of many different vectors acting together to produce a sum vector which sometimes looks nonsensical but which is still the logical result from the joint effect of all the vectors which determined it. In other words, all the explanations above could be right, albeit to various degrees. This being said, I strongly favor the last one as, like Putin, I have come to the conclusion that the Empire is run by stupid, ignorant ideologues who live in a world totally detached from reality.

What is absolutely certain is that this latest move by the USA is, again, a dream come true for Putin and his supporters, especially right before the elections.

First and foremost, this is clearly an attack on “our guy” and even on “all of us” and this triggers a very strong reaction of support from the people. Furthermore, it separates all Russians into basically two camps: first, Putin supporters and, second, those who are so totally sold out to the USA (like Ksenia Sobchak) that they would even hand back Crimea just in order to be friends with the West. The first group must roughly include, oh, let’s say 95%-98% of the population, the 2nd one about 2%-5%.

Second, it is now clear that every Russian oligarch (along with his family members and colleagues) has a big bullseye painted on his back and that he now should hurry to place his assets in the only location were the Empire cannot seize them: inside Russia.

Third, a lot of those oligarchs and civil servant who more or less actively opposed Putin and his policies now need to come back to him and, with hat in hand and with a groveling tone, need to make amends and beg for his pardon and mercy. They placed their bets on the AngloZionists and they lost. Now they need to come back to papa and beg for clemency (they will probably get it too). This right before the elections is very helpful indeed even if nobody doubts the outcome of these elections to begin with.

To sum it all up: the latest move is a true blessing for Putin and Russia in both economic and political terms and the only ones really hurt by all this are the Atlantic Sovereignists (who are really going through some very bad times anyway).

The paradox: US sanctions – a blessing in disguise?

[dropcap]L[/dropcap]et’s think about what the USA has been doing over the past couple of years. Officially, the USA has been trying to “isolate” Russia. But isolate from exactly what? From Peru? Or maybe from cultural exchanges with Morocco? Hardly. When the USA says that it wants to isolate Russia it means cut Russia off the western markets (trade), the western financial system (credit) and the western political elites (fora).

These sanctions were supposed to hurt Russia precisely because Russia was, at least in part, dependent on trade with the EU, credits from western financial institution and her participation in G8 (now G7) type of events.

Putin predicted that it would take 2 years for Russia to recover from these sanctions (and the concomitant drop in energy prices) and he was right: Russia not only created new trade ties, but also finally began investing in her internal market, she found credits elsewhere (China) and in terms of fora, it really turned out that the G7 without Russia was more or less like the Council of Europe or, for that matter, the UN Security Council: useless. Instead, world leaders began booking flight and visiting Moscow.

Now the latest US sanctions are putting an immense amount of pressure on Russian oligarchs to bring their money back home. It sure looks to me that US sanctions made it possible for Putin to do something he might never have been able to do without them: to seriously begin reforming Russia (which badly needed such reforms). Remember, Eurasian Sovereignists are just that – sovereignists; whereas Atlantic Integrationists are just that – integrationists. By “cutting off Russia from the West” – whose agenda did the USA really hurt, the integrationists or the sovereignists? Could it be that Putin owes his immense popularity, and Russia her success, at least in part to US sanctions?

The fundamental theory of deterrence hold that “deterrence is in the eye of the beholder”. In other words, I cannot assume that what would deter me would also deter you. In order to deter you I need to understand what your goals and values are. I submit that when the US elites decided to sanction Russia (putatively to deter her from further resisting the Empire) they made a fundamentally wrong assumption: that Russia was ruled by Atlantic Integrationist types who would be horrified and deterred.

Instead, these sanctions ended being a blessing for the Eurasian Sovereignists who used these sanctions to paralyze the Atlantic Sovereignists, to push through much needed reforms and basically eliminate the pro-Western opposition. In so many ways Russia is still a mess and a struggling country, but thanks to US sanctions none of that will have any impact at all on the next Presidential elections in Russia and the Eurasian Sovereignists are more powerful than ever before. Thank you, Uncle Shmuel!

Possible Russian reactions:

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hatever the reasons for all this nonsense, this does beg some kind of reaction from Russia and I think that judging by all the similar situations in the recent past, the Russian reaction is fairly easy to predict.

First, there will be no grandiose gesture or loud hyperbolic statements out of the Kremlin. Putin jokingly deplored that his own name was not on the list, Peskov said that this was a hostile act, a few Russian Duma members canceled planned trip to the USA and Russian commentators expressed various degrees of dismay and disgust. But, all in all, this is very, very little.

As usual, this will be completely misunderstood in the West where the culture is roughly “if your enemy slaps you in your face, you have to immediately slap him back lest you look weak“. In most of Asia (and the Middle-East, by the way), the norm is totally different: “if your enemy slaps you in the face you step back and plan how to bring him down in the long run because what matters is not the short-lived posturing, which can be even dangerous and counter-productive, but playing the long run and winning“.

You could say that in the West the attention span and long-term planning is counted in days or weeks, while in Asia and the Middle-East it is counted in years and decades. So while there might not be anything particularly photogenic or quote-worthy coming out of the Kremlin, a few Russians did drop hints of what the Russian policy will be: “good luck to the Americans trying to get anything major done on the planet without our support“.

And just to make that point clear to those who can connect the dots, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, speaking on the Russian TV channel Rossiya One, declared that the Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergei Naryshkin, recently traveled to the USA and met with some high level US personalities (including, according to US sources, CIA Director Mike Pompeo).

As Newsweek wrote, Naryshkin would be “the Russian spy chief behind 2016 election hacking campaign” which various nutcases even called an act of war. He is on the very top of all these sanctions list, but there he is, traveling inside the USA and meeting with top US officials.

Why did Antonov leak this? Simply to show that for all the huffing and puffing and hyperbolic grandstanding from the USA, the reality is that the USA and Russia are still very much working together because they really cannot afford not doing so (as I write these words I got a link to a WaPo article now saying that Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and even Colonel-General Korobov, the head of the Main Directorate of the General Stuff (GU GSh), the military intelligence service (ex-GRU) also took part in this trip to the USA.)

So that is the real Russian message to the USA: you need us a heck of a lot more than we need you because you need to work with us or else you won’t get anything done, we are still willing to work with you, but if you go crazy then your global interests will suffer much more than ours; for all your hot air, you have been working with us all along and if you go overboard with the nonsense we will first reveal the extent of our collaboration and, if that is not enough to cool you down, we will terminate it.

There is no doubt in my mind that for most inhabitants of the AngloZionist Empire the notion of the almighty USA needing the struggling (and economically comparatively small) Russia more than Russia needs the USA is laughable. These folks would say something like that: “what is the Russian share of the gross world product, how many aircraft carriers does Russia have and what is the Russian weight in international financial institutions? And how is your vodka-soaked Ruble doing anyway, buddy?!”

The Russians wouldn’t reply much of anything, most would just smile in contempt and think something along the lines of “when is the last time you got anything successfully done, you dumb pompous ass“. That’s fundamentally fine since this message is really not destined to ideological drones but to those in power in the USA who are aware of the real scorecard of Uncle Sam and who realize that right now it is the Empire, not Russia, which is almost completely paralyzed, and isolated (oh irony!) on all levels.

Conclusion one: the Empire’s main export is hot air

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]any of my friends and readers send me various articles with all sorts of quotes by US officials and I have a really hard time explaining to them that they should stop listening to this endless bombastic verbiage. Not only because the vast majority of officials making these statements are both stupid and ignorant, but because the main export of the AngloZionist Empire nowadays is hot air.

We saw that recently with the grand statements about Kurdistan or, for that matter, the plans “A”, “B”, “C” and “D” about Syria: all delivered with the same final gravitas. This is counter-intuitive, I will admit that.

After all, when the President of a nuclear superpower, a three star general or any other senior official takes the floor to make an official statement, we automatically tend to assume that what they say matters, especially if they are surrounded by flags and many excited reporters. But it really doesn’t. Especially not when the “other guy” (the Russians and the Chinese) come from a culture which frowns upon loudmouthed histrionics: “make my day, punk” is just not an (Eur-)Asian way of delivering threats.

I don’t mean to suggest that we should ignore the Empire, most definitely not, but we should look at what the Empire actually does and more or less ignore its constantly running narcissistic commentary. When the Empire promises to do something right, it usually lies. When it promises to do something wrong, these are usually empty threats. So what’s the point of paying so much attention to these promises?

Conclusion two: learning optimism and caution from history

If we look at world history we can always see the same phenomenon taking place: when things go well, the elites are united, but as soon as things go south, the elites turn on each other. The reason for this is quite simple: elites are never as united as they pretend to be.

In reality Empires, and any big country, really, are run by a coalition of elites who all benefit from the established order. They can hate each other, sometimes even kill each other (SA vs SS, Trotskyists vs Stalinists, etc.), but they will work together just like crime families do in the mob. But when a real, profound, crisis becomes undeniably apparent, these ruling elites typically turn on each other and when that happens, nobody is really in charge until, eventually, the entire system comes tumbling down or a new main ruler/group emerges.

Right now the AngloZionist elites are locked into a huge struggle which is likely to last for the foreseeable future. However, we need to be aware that such a situation can also be used by a previously less visible party to make a move and seize power. That is exactly how Putin came to power, pushed by the Russian security services even while Yeltsin was still the nominal head of state.

This also fully applies to the Ukraine which is also run by a group of people whose main current contribution to the world scene is hot air. But that could change very, very fast. This is why while I recommend more or less ignoring the hot air coming out of the top US (or Ukie) officials, I would keep an attentive eye on the level right below them, especially the US (or Ukie) military.

Finally, we should never confuse the inability to get anything done with the inability to make things worse: the latter does not flow from the former. Nazi Germany was basically defeated in Stalingrad (Feb 1943) but that did not prevent it from murdering millions more people for another two and a half years before two Soviet soldiers placed the Soviet flag on top of the Reichstag. We are still far away from such a “Reichstag flag” moment, but we sure are witnessing the AngloZionist “Stalingrad” taking place before our eyes.

Source: The Unz Review

THIS IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK The Saker (2015-11-17). THE ESSENTIAL SAKER: from the trenches of the emerging multipolar world (Kindle Locations 11542-11557). Nimble Books LLC. Kindle Edition.

ABOUT THE SAKER

THE SAKER is the nom de guerre of a former Russian-born military and geopolitical analyst, working at one point for the West. He has described his former career as that of "the proverbial 'armchair strategist', with all the flaws which derive from that situation. Explaining his transformation, he states: "Before the war in Bosnia I had heard the phrase "truth is the first casualty of war" but I had never imagined that this could be quite so literally true. Frankly, this war changed my entire life and resulted in a process of soul-searching which ended up pretty much changing my politics 180 degrees. This is a long and very painful story which I do not want to discuss here, but I just want to say that this difference between what I was reading in the press and in the UNPROFOR reports ended up making a huge difference in my entire life. Again, NOT A SINGLE ASPECT OF THE OFFICIAL NARRATIVE WAS TRUE, not one. You would get much closer to the truth if you basically did a 'negative' of the official narrative.” Like The Greanville Post, with which it is now allied in his war against official disinformation, the Saker's site, VINEYARD OF THE SAKER, is the hub of an international network of sites devoted to fighting the "billion-dollar deception machinery" supporting the empire's wars against Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and any other independent nation opposing or standing in the way of Washington's drive for global hegemony. The Saker is published in more than half a dozen languages. A Saker is a very large falcon, native to Europe and Asia.

Capitalize on the Olympic Truce, Formalize a Freeze for Freeze with North Korea

by KEVIN MARTIN

Poor Rex Tillerson. Secretary of State must have sounded like an awesome job to the former Chairman and CEO of Exxon/Mobil, it certainly would to most people. The massive pay cut must have given him at least some pause, as he made more than $25 million in 2016.

Now he finds himself working for a “very stable genius,” or an (expletive) moron depending on Trump’s or his own description of our president, with no discernible direction coming from the White House as to how to handle the very serious crisis with North Korea.

Recently Tillerson has sounded very much adrift or at least inconsistent in his public statements on the Korea situation, at times somewhat optimistic, and at other times pretty downbeat. He does come across as serious, appearing to be someone who would like to succeed at his job (assuming he keeps it, though he has survived rumors of his imminent ouster for several months now).

At the recent Vancouver meeting of foreign ministers from countries that (mostly) participated in the UN Command in the devastating 1950-53 war on the Korean peninsula, Tillerson threw cold water on what might be the most promising starting point for negotiations with North Korea, a “freeze for a freeze.” Under this approach, North Korea would pause its nuclear and ballistic missile testing in exchange for the U.S. and South Korea postponing their twice annual military exercises, which involve more than 200,000 troops rehearsing for war with the North, including simulated nuclear bombing runs and “decapitation strikes.” It’s no wonder the North loathes these exercises, hence their potential value as a bargaining chip.

Tillerson stated, “Let me be clear: We will not allow North Korea to drive a wedge through our resolve or our solidarity. We reject a ‘freeze-for-freeze’ approach in which legitimate defensive military exercises are placed on the same level of equivalency as the DPRK (North Korea)’s unlawful actions.”

The equivalency of nuclear and ballistic missile tests and massive war games is an interesting question, legally, morally, geo-strategically, and where one stands might well depend on where one sits. It’s certainly possible to imagine Pyongyang, faced with the massive military, political and economic might of the U.S.-South Korea (and Japan) alliance thinking it needs nuclear weapons to ensure its survival, observing how the U.S. invaded Iraq and Libya and overthrew Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi after they gave up their nuclear weapons programs. In his New Year’s address, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un announced the North had achieved its goals for its nuclear program and intended to spend more resources on developing its economy.

Still, the U.S., South Korea and Japan cannot guess at his intentions. They must be prepared for North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, and are justifiably alarmed at the thought of a nuclear strike on Seoul, Tokyo or Los Angeles, which could kill millions and wreck the global economy. They could also reasonably argue the massive war drills are meant to make Pyongyang think twice about any military aggression.

The question of equivalency is perhaps unanswerable, and ultimately moot, if it provides a place to start negotiations. And, while Tillerson might not admit it, there is a de facto freeze for freeze in place right now. North Korea has not tested nuclear weapons or missiles recently (there could be any number of reasons for that), and the U.S. agreed to South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s request to postpone the war exercises until after the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, so practically speaking, through March.

One could go even further; not only is there in reality a freeze for a freeze in place, but also an Olympic Truce, a tradition that dates to the ancient Greek games and is officially recognized by the United Nations and International Olympic Committee. The U.N. vote on the current Olympic Truce was supported by both Koreas. The recent thaw in North-South tensions and initial talks resulting in agreements for North Korea’s participation in the PyeongChang Games beginning February 9 are certainly steps, perhaps small, back from the brink of war—a marked departure from the awful threats Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump have volleyed at each other.

Effective negotiators build on any points of agreement the parties to a dispute have at the outset. So why not ditch the “non-equivalency” argument and state the U.S.-South Korea war drills are on indefinite hiatus as long as North Korea continues to observe a moratorium on nuclear and missile testing? That would be solid footing on which to begin real diplomacy. South Korea isn’t afraid to talk to the North, why is the U.S.? If Tillerson can’t do his job, the least he can do is support the North-South talks, and let Koreans make peace.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kevin Martin is Executive Director of Peace Action, the country’s largest grassroots peace and disarmament organization with more than 200,000 supporters nationwide.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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ANOTHER WARMONGER REWARDED FOR BEING WRONG ON IRAQ WAR

REALITY UPSIDE DOWN

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

MAX BOOT JOINS WAPO OPINION STAFF, WHERE OPINION WAS 91 PERCENT IN FAVOR OF IRAQ INVASION

By Adam Johnson, FAIR

Unapologetic Neocon Max Boot: How many blow-everything-up pundits does one paper need?

How many war-boosters does the Washington Post need? Tuesday, the capital’s most influential paper announced that Max Boot, yet another white, [Jewish], pro-war, pro-Israel, blow-everything-up pundit, would be joining their opinion section. It goes to show, again, that the most certain way to move up in the media pundit universe is to consistently echo US national security orthodoxy—without pause or regret.

Aside from Nation editor-in-chief Katrina vanden Heuvel, Post columnists’ opinions on matters of war and peace range from supporting covert CIA operations and “targeted airstrikes” to outright regime change—with Boot falling on the far right end of this already very right-wing spectrum. One analysis from reporter Kelsey D. Atherton found that in 2012 Max Boot supported starting a new war or escalating an existing one once every 3.5 days. He has long championed the Iraq War (expressly defending it as recently as 2013), the Libya War, the overthrow of Assad, arming dozens of groups throughout the globe and launching an offensive war against Iran. Leftists are often criticized for calling the US an “empire”; Boot, in “The Case for American Empire” (Weekly Standard, 10/20/01), overtly advocated for one. (See illustration at the bottom.)

Boot adds nothing to an already hawkish Post opinion section except a more extreme version of it. As a measure of the Post’s ideological diversity on matters of war, FAIR looked at columnists’ support or opposition to the Iraq War. (You can view the list here.) Of the 23 current staff columnists who had a clear opinion on the Iraq War either before or in the aftermath of the invasion, 21 supported it. Only two, vanden Heuvel and libertarian Radley Balko, opposed the war. And Balko—then at Fox News—dropped his opposition the second the war was launched, under the then-popular cliche that “once the bombs start falling, the debate ought to end.”

Of 46 current staff columnists, three—Michael Gerson, Mitch Daniels, Ed Rogers—actually worked for the George W. Bush administration, or (in the case of Rogers) with a private consulting group working on war planning with the Bush administration, when the invasion took place. This means the Post currently has on staff 50 percent more people who helped carry out one of the biggest war crimes of the 21st century than columnists who opposed it.

Twenty-one out of 23 warmongers on staff aligns nicely with the Post’s broader support for US imperialism. Commenting on his paper’s support for the Iraq War in April 2003 (4/20/03), editorial page editor Fred Hiatt made clear this stance was nothing new: “On defense issues during the Cold War [the Post editorial board] tended to be fairly hawkish.” Indeed, the Post has not opposed a single military action by the United States since Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada in 1983 (Washington Post, 10/27/83).

It’s a cliche to say US pundits “failed” on the Iraq War, but Boot’s rise to the top shows that they succeeded exactly as they were supposed to in the defense and amplification of United States national security propaganda. Much like the war on drugs is not a “failure” when one considers its true goal was to put millions of black and brown people in prison, those who pushed for invading Iraq were successful in their primary objective: selling the war to the US public. Boot—like 21 of his new colleagues—is simply being rewarded for a job well done.

Below, a typical poisonous post by Max Boot. The servile Western media also offers him numerous other platforms to amplify his warmongering against Russia and any other rival powers.

Messages [for what it's worth] can be sent to the Washington Post at letters@washpost.com, or via Twitter @PostOpinions. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Comment here or on our Facebook Group page.
And remember that all captions and choice of images is by the editors, not the authors.

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Parting shot—a word from the editors

The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

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