Dear friends

As usual, I will present you with a bullet point “state of the blog” report, something I try to do once a year.

The short summary is that the blog is doing great, in spite of a totally crazy 2021 year.

I will be honest and admit that this was a tough year on many levels for the entire Saker community and for me too.  Between the pandemic, the many risks of war,the explosion of the COVID death cult, the quasi-imposition of a full-spectrum “Woke” ideology over the entire Zone A, the internal collapse of the USA and the external collapse of the AngloZionist Empire, we had our hands (and minds) “full”, to say the least. But, at least we made it, and for that I am grateful.

Speaking about the blog itself, here is a summary of 2021 developments:

  • Earlier this year I made the decision to stay out of internal US politics.  I did that for a host of different reasons, but one of the beneficial side-effects of this was to give me much more time to focus on the international scene.  Besides, following the events of this year I have lost interests in US internal politics anyway: what would be the point of arguing about who should be in the pilot’s seat in an aircraft which has now lost its wings and is uncontrollably tumbling to the ground?  While the USA is not quite country 404 yet, it is headed that way and I don’t see the point of scrutinizing this process.
  • The other decision I took was to sever all my ties with the Unz Review.  Again, I did that for a host of different reasons, but just like with internal US politics, not having to think about the frankly toxic environment at the Unz Review has freed a lot of time for me to focus on what is important: the struggle for the next international order.
  • 2021 was a “clean-up” year for the blog in many ways, we got rid of A LOT of trolls, we made some minor changes to how moderation works and we simplified the structure of the blog.  Not big differences, but nice little touch-ups.
  • Readership wise, the blog is stable (and has had a stable readership for several years now).  Much more importantly, the quality of the guest authors has shot up even higher than it was before.  I have to admit that I take immense pride in the quality and true diversity of all the guest authors which, I remind you, are all offering original contributions (with a few special cases like Pepe Escobar), and they are doing so not for money (they are not paid), but because they appreciate the platform the blog is offering them.
  • An increasing number of my articles are now regularly translated and posted on Russian websites, which is always something I appreciate and am grateful for.
  • The other Saker blogs (French, Italian, Serbian, Latin American (Spanish+Portuguese) and Russian) are all doing well.  They remain 100% editorially independent and they are run autonomously without any interference from me.  My thanks and compliments to them all!
  • Financially, the blog is doing okay so far (donations are stable), but I have to admit that I have concerns for 2022 which according to the best sources I have is very likely to be quite bad for the economies of the USA, EU and China.  That is bound to affect the donors to this blog and that might force me to spend more time on my daytime job and less on writing.  Considering the very real inflation which has already hit the USA very hard, and which will only get worse in 2022, I am preparing myself for a very tough year ahead.
  • It is quite obvious that the future of this blog will be greatly influenced by what will happen, or NOT happen, next between the USA and Russia.  Let’s hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, and pray with hope that the worst (a real war involving US and Russian forces) does not happen.  But if it does, this will beg the question of what the purpose of this blog should be under such conditions.  One of the main goals, if not THE main goal, of this blog was to try to do everything possible, however marginal and humble, to prevent a war between Russia and the Empire.  But if that war does end up happening, then the blog would have failed in its most important goal. Then why continue it?
  • I have been working on this blog for almost 15 years now and I wrote the very rough equivalent of 8 PhD theses (in volume, if not in quality), hence the four books (each about 2 PhD thesis in length) of articles and analyses I published.  I will admit that I am exhausted and that I won’t be able to maintain that pace forever.  I have addressed this issue by refocusing the blog on international policy issues, by not dealing with the Unz Review anymore and by choosing a more flexible format for what I write: not only full length 2’500-3’500 words analyses but also shorter, quick reaction, comments and posts.  God willing, I will be able to maintain that level of output (in quantity and quality) during the next year.

I now want to especially thank the moderators who have the hardest job out there and who have done a superb job in very difficult circumstances.  To every one of these moderators I want to express my most heartfelt THANK YOU for all you have done.  It is only thanks to you that we have one of the best comments section on the Internet (something a lot of people, including many guest authors, have mentioned to me).  The credit for that is ENTIRELY yours and I want to thank you in the name of our entire community!

In terms of our IT infrastructure, we are doing very well, thanks to those who help us maintain it, especially Herb, our “IT boss” (and head of moderation, by the way!).  As of today, I have no special concerns about this nor do I feel the need to make any changes.

One thing which we did less of this year is translating Russian language articles into English.  Frankly, this is a very time consuming task and all our translators have their own, quite full, personal lives.  Considering the more or less semi-acceptable quality which machine translations provide, it is infinitely easier for me to quickly machine translate a text, then fix some of its worst mistakes, and post it rather than ask somebody already very busy for an original translation.

The one thing which frustrated me most during 2021 was the quite shockingly poor quality of Russian PR efforts.  This includes translations of crucial texts/speeches made in a pace I can only call “criminally slow”, the general bad taste and vapidity of what RT and Sputnik produce nowadays (it’s even worse than it used to be) and the many articles which are clearly posted by Atlantic Integrationists which simply parrot AngloZionist narratives, post crude anti-Chinese propaganda, bash Islam as if RT was Foxnews and feel the need to show us mostly nude freaks on a daily basis.  By the way, the contrast between that garbage and the quality of at least some (but not all, of course!) of the Russian-language media aimed at the Russian public is quite amazing.  My conclusion is that by the end of 2021 Russia has completely failed to present her own narrative as a credible alternative to the mental prolefeed distributed by the legacy AngloZionist media in Zone A.  The Iranian Press TV (https://www.presstv.ir/),  the Chinese Global Times (https://www.globaltimes.cn/) and CGTN (https://www.cgtn.com/) and Hezbollah’s al-Manar (https://english.almanar.com.lb/) are all much more interesting English language information sources.  The English version of the TASS website (https://tass.com/) is pretty decent.  Finally, I also recommend all of the following blog: (in no special order)

There are, of course, more good blogs and websites out there, but those are the ones I personally check out every day.

Okay, that’s it on my end.  If you have any questions, comment, complaints, criticisms or requests please drop them in the comments section.  I won’t promise to answer them all, but I will at least read them all.

I wish those who celebrate the new year today a joyful and peaceful New Year’s Eve celebration and all the best and, above all, peace for the upcoming year!

Kind regards

Andrei