First Saker Podcast now available for download and streaming

Hi Saker,

Thanks a lot for this podcast, which I appreciated so much, as much for the content than for the form !

Pax et Vineam.

I’, going thru a bandwidth challenged moment but curious to liste to yr podcast soon!

Now that Saker has taken off big time in various languages, I have one worry: the original Saker and Saker spirit getting diluted.

I saw this article in Italian taken from saker.fr which seems to be – over and above any judgment on its content – slightly removed from the project as I know it.

http://www.comedonchisciotte.org/site/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=14137

I guess what I mean is don’t spread yrself too thin.

I still can’t download the podcast. Google says too many people have been viewing it or something like that.
Never had the problem before w anything else I’ve listened to.
I think the others use some other method of access, but I’m a non-techie, so understand nil.
—Penelope

Is it just me, or is there some kind of weird panning effect going on? I was listening on headphones.

Breaking!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fight for the Internet
Dear Fight for the Future member,

I have a confession to make. Six years ago, before we started FIght for the Future, I worked for President Barack Obama’s campaign, and spent countless hours helping get him elected.
Honestly, now I mostly regret it.

President Obama promised to protect net neutrality, but his administration is about to destroy it instead and trample free speech. Enough is enough. It’s time to make them listen.
This is the context: the President campaigned on a steadfast promise to protect net neutrality, but then — as politicians do — he took millions of dollars in campaign contributions from Cable companies and CEO’s, and appointed a corrupt former Cable lobbyist to run the FCC, the agency that is supposed to protect the Internet for the public good. [1] [2]
Now, Tom Wheeler, Obama’s appointee, is making good on whatever dirty deal he has with Comcast et al. He’s ignoring nearly 4 million public comments demanding real net neutrality and rushing toward a FAKE “hybrid” proposal that explicitly allows for fast lanes, is set up to fail in court, and leaves the door wide open for censorship and abuse.
The election is tomorrow, and the President’s party is worried. Tell them you’re fed up with the lies, and if they don’t step in TODAY to stop the FCC from killing the Internet, they won’t be getting your vote tomorrow.
We at FFTF don’t usually get into electoral politics. We think that change comes from the grassroots, from the bottom up. As a team, we have diverse political views, but we care deeply about things like social justice, gender equality, and civil rights. Stuff that politicians of all parties LOVE to talk about, but rarely act on.
But we also know that the Internet has given all of us an ability to “hack” politics and affect change in a way that we never could before. That’s why we’re willing to pull out all the stops and do whatever it takes to make sure we don’t lose the magical ingredient that makes the Internet into an engine that gives all of us a voice.
We’re done playing nice. This is the battle for the net, and we’re not afraid to draw blood if we have to.
Both of the mainstream political parties have failed the Internet and the public. Tell them you’re mad, and if they don’t fix this they don’t get your vote.
We know this election is important. But if we lose the open Internet, we lose our democracy forever. The next election could be meaningless, with a few Cable companies easily manipulating the outcome, if we don’t send a message to the White House that they simply cannot ignore, and force them to step in and stop the FCC’s blatant corruption that’s threatening the very existence of the free and open web.
We hope you can see how strategic and important this move is. We are on the cusp of victory, but these are the most dangerous moments of the fight. We win or lose based on what we do right now. We’re fighting to win. Are you in?
For the Internet,
Tiffiniy Cheng, with love from Evan, Holmes, Kevin, Jeff, Jessica, and the whole FFTF team
P.S. We are taking the fight directly to the gates of the White House and government buildings nationwide this Thursday, November 6th. Join us for an emergency protest to save net neutrality, or help organize one in your town.< /span>
SOURCES:
[1] The Hill. Comcast, Time Warner execs have been big Obama supporters. http://thehill.com/policy/technology/198350-comcast-time-warner-execs-have-been-bi g-obama-supporters
[2] Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/articles/fcc-net-neutrality-plan-calls-for-more-power-over-broadband-1414712501
Want more awesome more often?
* Like us on Facebook
* Follow us on Twitter
* Keep us fighting, chip in what you can.

For me….gravitas describes your voice, words, and work. Thank you for all you do for the dignity of man, Saker.

Gravitas was one of the Roman virtues, along with pietas, dignitas and virtus. It may be translated variously as weight, seriousness and dignity, also importance, and connotes a certain substance or depth of personality…from Wikipedia.

I am not surprised you recommend Gulag Archipelago. Alexander Solzhenitsyn had gravitas, too! People will read Gulag Archipelago for centuries, as the definitive work of Russian will and intellect in the dark days of the Twentieth Century. Our humanity is deeply rooted by acknowledging our failure and suffering, as well as our achievement and victory.

Best wishes….bob kay

Thank you again, Saker!

Saker,

Well done. Please continue with podcasting. The podcast is a very useful supplement to your blog postings. Best of luck.

I thought this was an excellent first attempt. Most of the links would not work for me, though. Only this one worked: https://www.4shared.com/mp3/VDt4IyR7ba/The_Saker_Podcast_No1.html

On the question of Kosovo. Can you please explain what you mean by Albanians should enjoy while they can? Do you expect re-occupation of Kosovo by the Serbs?

Do you see any parallels between Kosovo “The right to self determination” and Crimea?

Putin has mentioned Kosovo as a precedent of international law more than once when he justified accession of Crimea.

Does the law of self determination apply only to Crimea?

I would appreciate if you commented on this.

Thanks Lorenc

The podcast was very good. The content was excellent and the technical features were good (the sound was just right).

On other matters, I can offer a partial answer to Ingrian’s question about Central Asia and China vis-a-vis Russia.

Central Asia has for the last few hundred years stood as a borderland between the Orthodox Slavic world to its north and the Islamic Turco-Persian world to its south. From the Czars to the Soviets Russia has made great efforts to integrate the Central Asians into its cultural sphere and it has had a lot of success with many of them. The Kazakhs seem to have absorbed a lot of Russian cultural influence and the Kazakh government seems to consider the Russian culture as part of the Kazakh identity. It is more complicated further south in places like Uzbekistan, which, prior to Russian conquest, were important centers of the Turco-Persian Islamic culture with cities like Bukhara and Samarkand. The Uzbek government, much more than the Kazakh government, has tried to promote a form of national identity that differentiates it from Russia. Another factor in Central Asia’s future is the return of China, albeit as an major economic rather than as a cultural or military presence. A certain Sino-Russian rivalry in the region does exist, but both governments seem keen to keep any such rivalry under control so as to not to lose the big strategic picture.

Regarding China, it is important to note three other points:

1. China is potentially a much greater threat to US world dominance than Russia is. It is the rival pole of world economic activity based on its population and its long history of (relative) political unity.

2. China is geographically and economically much more vulnerable to the US than Russia is. The US Navy could still strangle the Chinese economy in a way that is just not possible with Russia and the Chinese Navy is probably not in a position to break any such blockade. Furthermore, internal Chinese consumption will need some time to compensate for shrinking Western markets. Of course, strangling the Chinese economy would also strangle an enormous financial support of the US economy so it is a kind of American Samson option.There is also the problem of whether it is ecologically viable to have 1.5 billion Chinese consuming at the level of Europeans, much less Americans.

3. China also holds greater economic leverage over the US because of its large holdings of US T-bills and its resulting ability to crash the US economy. Of course, such a crash would also inflict heavy losses on the Chinese economy so it is a kind of Chinese Samson option if you will.

Consequently, the US and China exercise a lot more care to limit their direct confrontation because there is less room to escalate before things become apocalyptic. Instead, a lot more of the US-China rivalry is indirect rather than the increasingly frontal US-Russia rivalry. In fact, part of the US’s aggressive posture against Russia is done with China in mind. The weaker Russia is and the more unstable the Eurasian continent is, the more China is dependent on sea lanes for its international trade and energy imports and therefore the more manageable China becomes.

The podcast is a good way to answer questions, which give you a topic(s) and let you answer without having to spend hours typing. You can speak much faster than you can type, and it’s a heck of a lot easier on the wrists.

The downside of a podcast is the listener/reader can’t stop to ponder a point or easily refer back to something said 5 minutes ago like you can with text. But you can cover a lot more ground, and if someone wants to hear a point over, they can always just listen to the podcast again.

I would see the podcasts as a supplement to your regular written commentary, principally just as you used it: to answer questions.

More generally, I think that the gas deal, should it actually come to pass, will mostly benefit Russia. They will recover some money from gas they have already provided and not been paid for, and collect in advance for any further sales. So the EU will be paying Russia for gas, and Russian won’t be blamed for Ukrainians freezing in the dark (even though they are the ones who didn’t pay their bills).

Regarding the elections in Novorossia, I don’t know to what extent various political parties were allowed onto or restricted from the ballot, but the turnout indicates that the overwhelming majority of Novorossians think the current leadership is on the right course, and turned out to support them. If they opposed them, and lacked an alternative choice, they would have “voted with their feet” and stayed home, as they did in the rest of the Ukraine.

Incidentally, if you are running any kind of reasonably current Mac, OS 10.8 or later, you can turn on Dictation in the System Preferences and dictate most of your comments. Saves a lot of typing, and you can also dictate the corrections as required. Or use Dragon on a PC.

For the tin hat conspiracy lot,they ,alphabet set,will have noted your full voice pattern,know you are Russian named ,live in Florida,have a son who has been in trouble with the law,and likely also has that Russian name.Need I go on?I say with all good intent,be bloody careful,they are becoming more criminal every day,and desperate.
XbNB

Saker, you are a natural. I prefer to listen than to read, great content and delivery,so thank you.
Another humble book suggestion: Hope against Hope, Nadezhda Mandelstam, wife of Osip Mandelstam. Tells the life and times of one of Russia’s greatest 20c poets and his death in a camp in the thirties. My copy is also much worn and read.
pb

Well done Saker. Great first attempt. Keep them coming.

Great podcast, you raised a lot of interesting points

Your English is perfect, the only clue of your Russian background is your ability to pronounce Russian names correctly.

Though it’s not a topic you cover often, I’d be interested in hearing your views on socialism in the USSR. We in the west don’t have a clear picture of how it was, even to this day. There is the image put forward by politicians and the mainstream media.

voice modulator set to ‘Bibi’?:)

in seriousness, good to hear this primarily because there are nuances in your voiced expression that lend clarity to portions of your positions and insights that do not come across as strongly with the written word.

for me personally, this meant a deeper insight into the differences you have with Putin’s policies, and where he is located on the general spectrum of left v right, capitalist/communist, ‘social democrat’/neocon.

Putin expects accountability, and an international legal standard which applies to everyone equally. Fairness. True sovereignty. Other than that, he’s alright with capitalism (To paraphrase a point he made repeatedly at Valdai, “We’ve had enough revolution…what we need is evolution.”)

For a more ‘revolutionary’ approach to upending the inequities and inner contradictions of capitalism, perhaps we should be looking to the ‘south’, i.e. Morales in Bolivia, Chavez/Maduro in Venezuela.

Can the capitalist worldview ever be brought in line with fairness for all, a humane and economically equitable world whose natural richness is viewed as more than a variety of resources to exploit?

Perhaps it’s back to Kropotkin, & the native Americans, among others, & to feeling lost & largely hopeless for the human world.

Still, to have a world leader, with the various forms of recognized, practical power behind him, able to at least try to call a spade a spade & plea for some semblance of fairness, is hopeful. A dim light in all this darkness.

Good to hear ya. Set the modulator to ‘Dubya’ next time, & really blow some minds:)

[from Blue]

to:
Anonymous said…

Thanks for trying Blue. When I tried using your link I just got “Your search did not match any documents.”
03 November, 2014 20:09

——–
I don’t know why — I just tried it and it worked — box a little ways down page that says ‘download’, and it worked yesterday too. Check that you entered the link correctly?
http://www.filedropper.com/thesakerpodcastno1

Maybe a temporary glitch?

_Blue

This is what Google does to your podcasts…

Sorry, you can’t view or download this file at this time.

Too many users have viewed or downloaded this file recently. Please try accessing the file again later. If the file you are trying to access is particularly large or is shared with many people, it may take up to 24 hours to be able to view or download the file. If you still can’t access a file after 24 hours, contact your domain administrator.

All three links failed plus my friend said his phone was “invaded” as a result of my download attempt.

Glad to see reactions are so positive but as of yet I cannot partake.

Google is garbage.

Excellent podcast. Please do not change a thing. You got it right, on the first try. Please don’t add any crappy music.

Your voice is clear. Your delivery comes as across as honest and succinct.I think that hearing your voice helps to clarify what you are telling us..even more so than your already clear blogs. I feel very informed. An excellent use of an hour. Too bad the majority of our countrymen are too thick headed to listen.

BTW, Mediafire worked for me.
(thanks for anticipating a hangup with Google)

Sorry to miss contributing $ this month. Things really got tight.
Next month for sure.
Thank you very much for all that you do to cut thru all the hype and bull-crap to make the whole situation much easier to get a grip on.

I am not robot..bleep

Виктор в Аризоне

Excellent podcast Saker! I think the format of answering questions is also a good one. Probably saves you a lot of time compared to replying to comments.

Looking forward to your next podcast!

Kind regards!

David

Podcast was great…learned a lot of new information in relation to both Russia and Ukraine.
I would recommend you continue with Podcast formats.
Answering your reader’s questions works really well.
An additional format could maybe include interviews with those that are directly involved with the current crisis

Your Podcast alone is worth a donation! :)

PS. I was working with the mediafire link.

dear saker,

following your recommendation on the saker podcast, i’ve started reading The Gulag Archipelago. due to my complete ignorance (to my shame!) about the context of this opus, i’m often confused as to when the events Solzhenitsyn writes about are taking place.

my saving grace here is that i’m reading this on my ipad, so that whenever there’s something i don’t know or understand, i select the term and look it up on wikipedia or google it. one such term was Chekist.

Solzhenitsyn uses this term to describe members of the secret police, i believe. i found this out by looking up the term Chekism on wikipedia. it’s this article that triggered the question that i am about to ask you.

In the Soviet Union, the KGB was a state within a state. Now former KGB officers are running the state. They have custody of the country’s 6,000 nuclear weapons, entrusted to the KGB in the 1950s, and they now also manage the strategic oil industry renationalized by Putin. The KGB successor, rechristened FSB, still has the right to electronically monitor the population, control political groups, search homes and businesses, infiltrate the federal government, create its own front enterprises, investigate cases, and run its own prison system. The Soviet Union had one KGB officer for every 428 citizens. Putin’s Russia has one FSB-ist for every 297 citizens.

i remember watching an interview to which you linked with one of Putin’s advisors, essentially recounting this same development, but in a positive light. i forget the name of this advisor, but i think it’s the one that you are planning to send all of our questions to.

saker, do russians truly have to choose between chekism and selling out to the west? is russian society so ossified as to have rendered the alternative of activism impotent? i am thinking here of relying on your own strengths, on that of your community to defend yourself against the arbitrary abuse of the Atlanticists/sell-outs on the one hand and the Eurasianists/Chekists on the other.

you make it seem as if it’s a choice between the two. i instinctively balk when someone proposes such a binary choice: what’s the catch? what am i supposed not to consider? just like having to choose between Republicans and Democrats in the united states, or the left and the right in europe: by doing so, we lose sight of how the power structure is trying to make us forget that there is life outside of these extremes of acceptable discourse.

am i wrong to have these concerns? am i mistaken in identifying the Eurasianists with Chekism? are putin’s politics a true emancipation of the russians?

thanks for clarifying, as always. i am guessing i will have more of these questions as i proceed in my reading of The Gulag Archipelago. i hope you don’t mind.

cheers,

mbotta