The Washington Post appears to be completely dumbfounded by Putin’s latest approval ratings:
Think Russians are tiring of conflict with the West? Not according to President Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings, which hit all-time highs of 89 percent Wednesday (…) Putin’s ratings jumped from 65 percent in January 2014 to 80 percent two months later, and they’ve stayed in the 80s ever since, according to measurements from the Moscow-based Levada Center, the only independent polling organization in Russia. They’ve kept going up: In Putin’s 15 years in office, they’ve never been higher than June’s 89 percent (…) The 89 percent approval rating is also a testimony to the near-unanimity of views about Russia’s current direction.
The WaPo is correct: the Russian people do fully support Putin, especially if you consider that the 11% which are not happy with him are largely composed of Communists who blame Putin for being too sympathetic to capitalist market economy practices, nationalists who think that the Kremlin is too soft or indecisive about supporting Novorussia against the Ukronazis and maybe 1-3% (max!) who generally support the USA & EU. So in terms of the current confrontation with the AngloZionist Empire the real approval rating of Putin would be in the 97-98% range.
What does this mean?
1) There is no such thing as a “Putin” or even a “Kremlin” policy/stance on the Ukraine. There is a Russian stance on the Ukraine.
2) The sanctions have had the exact opposite effect from the one hoped for: instead of triggering a wave of discontent against Putin, the Russians have rallied around him.
3) The AngloZionist “message” has absolutely zero traction in Russia. The West has no credibility left, no appeal, no moral or political authority. Most Russians view the USA as a dangerous foe trying to subjugate Russia and they view the EU as a voiceless subservient colony of the USA.
4) The Russian will not “blink”. As I have been repeating it on this blog over and over again – Russians do not want war, but they are ready for it. The country is fully mobilized, both psychologically and materially. No amount of threats or sanctions will change this.
5) Putin’s power base is stronger than ever before. Not only are the Russian people fully supporting Putin, but the anti-Putin pro-USA “liberals” and “democrats” (in the Russian meaning of these words) are in complete disarray and on the run (mostly politically, but sometimes literally).
6) It is becoming increasingly clear that while the Russian economy has suffered from the sanctions and, even more so, from the drop in energy prices, it has fared much better than expected (including by the Kremlin) and that the planned “isolation” of Russia is an abject failure.
7) Most indicators seem to point to the same conclusion: the Ukronazi regime is at a breaking point: the purges have begun, the number of defectors is rising, the regime is making truly crazy decision (Saakashvili in Odessa), Goldman Sachs predicts an official default for the 24th of July (unofficially the Ukraine is already in a default situation).
In other words, while Russia is now stronger than at any time during this conflict, the Ukraine is weaker than at any time before. The US has no workable plan left. The Empire has failed to draw Russia into a war with the Ukraine, the Ukrainian have failed to crush the Donbass and political cracks are all over the EU. And while all the saber-rattling along the Russian border have angered the Russian people, it has completely failed to impress, nevermind scare, them. It appears that Putin holds Obama by the balls.
So what is next?
Well, for one thing that now depends on the USA. Russia can hold this position for as long as needed. In contrast, the EU is suffering economically and, even more so, politically. Should the Greek people rise against the AngloZionist plutocracy and reject their ultimatum the resulting political crisis will make the EU even weaker. Moldova and Romania have shown no signs that they are willing to directly confront Russia over Transnistria, and that is also very good news. I suspect that some clear warnings were given to the West about that by Russia (including a reminder of what happened the last time Russian peacekeepers were attacked). The longer the USA sticks to a failed Ukrainian policy, the worse the tensions inside the EU will become.
Minsk-2 is dead and the Ukronazis have clearly given up on the Donbass: they are shelling it daily, they have cut off all the supply lines (including for water and medicines), they have not resumed the payment of pensions (in clear violation of the terms of M2A) and their political rhetoric is even more hostile and bellicose than before.
Still, there is no way the western elites can accept that. They have invested their full political capital and credibility into their completely failed policy and now to admit that would entail an terminal loss of face. So just like the Ukronazi junta in Kiev, I expect the western leaders will be all bark but no bite, least the Russian bear bite back.
The Saker
Obama’s balls? Is that what’s in Putin’s fist?
He’s got balls?
If so, it must be like squeezing a bag of chips; mostly a gaping void, ha!
Well said. Russians know much effort is required to rebuild from war ruins. This is why they support Putin’s line of staying out of trouble, while looking for ways to improve the economy.
The West will eat it’s hoofs, if I may say so.
there is one big mistake in this piece: Obama has no balls!
Neither do the American people and Military for allowing their country to be taken over and destroyed by gangsters. Putin helped push out many gangsters who were destroying and looting Russia.
Thank you, this is an excellent point. It deserves to rise higher in the global consciousness and discourse. I hope the world will begin to examine the root immorality of US development in such a light.
While Putin is often criticized for being too accommodating to the oligarchs, the US power never even tried to eradicate corruption and crime, it simply wanted its share (and as Koch said, his fair share is all of it).
Grieved, the USA has been an oligarchy since 1776, when the Founding Fathers were the richest men in the Thirteen Colonies. Or as John Jay, the first Chief Justice stated, ‘The people who own this country are going to run this country’. Once they were WASP, then a few Catholics graduated through gangsterism (Joe Kennedy etc) and now the oligarchs are vastly disproportionately Jews, which has lent a certain Judaic character to the elite’s rule, as in the euthanising of the fabled ‘middle-class’.
Yupp…. Michell or should I say Michael has them !
While a lot of this is true, I hope you don’t mind a bit of a Devil’s Advocate with some alternative spin on a few of those things.
1-Only a Russian position on the Ukraine
Well, all countries have factions, so that seems a bit exaggerated. Besides, Minsk II basically puts Kiev in a bind that can’t be resolved, so it is designed to tie them up and lead to a quasi-collapse. This is good for Moscow, but what then? What is your actual goal after things get worse in Kiev? Putting the Donbass in the same country as one with leaders of Azov is not likely to work well. Kiev took the rational approach of ignoring Minsk, so all there really is is something resembling a fake ceasefire.
2-The sanctions
The goals are to turn oligarchs against Putin, to put a rift between Russia and Europe, and to lead to economic pain that will eventually undermine Putin. They haven’t worked that well, but one can’t say they are total failures. Russia is going to move lots of business to China or Asia, and it is unclear the degree to which the oligarchs are still, to use Brzezinski’s phrasing, “your elite or ours”.
4-Russians won’t blink
I disagree with your idea that Russia is fully mobilized. I would say it looks like the US after Bush II said Americans should go shopping after 9/11. The economy and financial systems haven’t been mobilized much at all. Besides, the problem is that this war is not about missiles. It is ideological or a Weltanschauungskrieg. The US leads a global neoliberal model of consumerism and progress and self-indulgence. Backwards places are against banksters, gay marriage, and anything goes TV. The youth in the Ukraine wanted the EU Dream and disliked the backwardness and illiberality of Moscow. This view is quite common throughout all of the ex-Soviet States. Russia is trying to fight the West’s neoliberalism with its own. This is inadequate, and that is why there was all the talk of a Russian Spring or the Russian World. An ideological basis was needed. That has been thrown away for the most part as it became inconvenient, but why should anybody be mobilized when there is no clear purpose as to what one is fighting for?
7-The Ukrainian Regime in trouble
Poroshenko doesn’t matter that much. Let us say the country continues to sink for another year or two. Is this good for Russia? Is a quasi-failed state a good thing for Russia? Agreed, it will have trouble fighting the Donbass effectively, but there will be more refugees and more bankrupt businesses. So we get to the issue of time being on whose side. How long can Transnistria handle a blockade? Can Russia live with NATO countries bringing troops into the Western Ukraine?
As for the question of what is next, well, how about more of the same? More of the old Brzezinski tactics of “attack the weak points” and “pressure on the edges”. Color revolution attempts and radical Islam in Central Asia. Strangle Transnistria. Build up more and more equipment and manpower in Eastern Europe. Lawsuits and hassles for all Russian businesses. NGO efforts at destabilization in various Russian regions. NATO for Montenegro and pressure on Serbia. Attempts at causing trouble in Kaliningrad. Start to build a missile base in Kharkov. Try to overthrow Aliyev to put in someone willing to fight Armenia. The list is long.
Just as the West never really stopped its war on Syria, why should it stop against Russia? How many years of pressure did it take to break the USSR? Ten? Fifteen? Why give up when you just got started?
Interesting.
I do not agree with most of the things you said,especially the end (because unlike Soviet Union, the West now has to deal with strategic allience between Russia and China, where China is nr.1, and in the long run the West cannot win this like they did in The Cold War), but on this one you were totally right :
“Backwards places are against banksters, gay marriage, and anything goes TV. The youth in the Ukraine wanted the EU Dream and disliked the backwardness and illiberality of Moscow. ”
I am actually very worried about his whole gay thing. I do not understand Russia. It was Putin’s Russia who promoted homosexuality for a decade. More radically then the West! Remember the Russian lesbian band t.A.T.u. ? Those two girls were the brand, especially in the UK. When they appeared it was a shock for the British. Their videos were so intensive. Russia was very proud of them, so proud that they represented Russia in the Eurosong competition!
And then suddenly, a U-turn! Moscow bans the gay-pride march for the next “100 years”!!?
A serious mistake. More serious then it looks like. Because it goes against the certain and important civilizational progress. It will turn many (too many) of the potential pro-Russian people in Europe against Russia.
What is civilizational about gay marriage and pride?
As Gandhi once said about england to the question of “English civilization” he said it would have been nice if they had one.
Gay pride marches are civilization progress?
Or civilization at a dead end, totally confused.
We got black pride marches and ‘black is beautiful’ in the US. I don’t think you’ll find these in most African countries because they are a reaction to oppression. You don’t see ‘straight pride’ marches because straights are not discriminated against or put down. In a ‘civilized’ gay would not be any big thing and gay couples could pair bond and have the same legal rights as straight couples — so it’s oppression and the reaction against oppression that is at issue.
The idea that oppressing or promoting homosexual activity is based on the false premise that it’s not a fairly constant natural phenomena comprising a few percent of the population, and that social approval or disapproval is going to change that. It won’t — it can lead only freedom to be what one is or to repression. People make way too big a deal out of this issue.
Dear Friend, I am afraid you are completely wrong. The small percentage you are talking about does not want to stay a small percentage… The only way they can gain numbers is not reproduction, they have to recruit… They are recruiting you and your children… They don’t just want you to agree with them or support them, they want to take you as far as you will go… Completely assimilate you and yours into their ways. They are doing all they can to “orient” children as early as fist grade here in America. Do you think that is just for acceptance purposes. They are not recruiting to make someone a better person or society. Quite the opposite. They are recruiting to fulfill their fleeting lusts and, attempt to give their lives meaning. They are not happy people… Perhaps a better word than “oppression” for this sad group would be “suppressed”. And as a parent, or someone in authority, you must protect by suppressing many wants for the betterment of the family or society. That’s why parents teach their children not to steal or hurt others… They have to suppress wrong and hurtful desires for things or pleasure that can hurt them, and others.
The West is coming apart at the seams because we have, as a collective, left the clearest guidance from God the Father and His dear Son, (Love Him first, and love others as ourselves) and decided to follow our temporal lusts. Selfishness always destroys relationships, and the selfishness of the homosexual movement is tearing apart the core fabric of a once great nation… Endeavoring to redefine “the family unit.” It is a fact that the foundation of any society is the family unit: A husband, wife, and their children. Every civilization that has embraced homosexual activity has been destroyed shortly thereafter. America and western Europe will be no different.
The gay people I’ve known are not at all as you describe, and mostly you wouldn’t even know they were gay except for stumbling on it the same way one might learn someone was of German heritage, or had their tonsils out, or once worked as a roofer Most are very much like any other person, and not like the stereotypes.
As a peace loving American I find this website to be very informative and valuable.
jdh: “…The small percentage you are talking about does not want to stay a small percentage… The only way they can gain numbers is not reproduction, they have to recruit… They are recruiting you and your children… They don’t just want you to agree with them or support them, they want to take you as far as you will go… Completely assimilate you and yours into their ways….”
That kind of drivel reminds me of the lies the Nazis spread about the Jews. What’s next, you whining about Blacks coming to take White women?
“…Selfishness always destroys relationships, and the selfishness of the homosexual movement is tearing apart the core fabric of a once great nation…”
Typical religious whackjob, focused on genitalia while American korporations ship MILLIONS of American jobs to China, India, Vietnam, Mexico, etc., leading to the destruction of the American middle class and working class. And not a single word about American war crimes in places like Iraq.
You assume that history revolved around the nuclear family of mom, dad and children, but the nuclear family is actually a fairly recent invention of the west. In the past, “family” consisted of children, mother and father, cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents. The extended family had much more importance then than it does now.
@A serious mistake. More serious then it looks like. Because it goes against the certain and important civilizational progress. It will turn many (too many) of the potential pro-Russian people in Europe against Russia. (Correct is ‘than’)
The mistake is of the West. For sure that “the civilizational progress” is blatantly directed against Russia. While it is not sure at all (perhaps only in the wishful thinking of the whole West) that the potential pro-Russian people will turn against Russia because Russia does not look sufficiently into their assholes, it will turn Russians and others (funny enough, Ukrainians) even more against Europe. The West is the one that is “buggered”.
Sure, China is now an industrial powerhouse. But Russia’s problems are far away, and internal. The USSR, which was much stronger than Russia is today, fell because of the corruption and desires of the elite, the loss of morale in the face of Western consumerism, and mismanagement of the economy. But I think a perhaps better and more important question is a comparison with the late Russian Empire. A corrupt oligarchy that had trouble adapting to the modern world. Liberal reforms, of course, but not enough to make a difference. And an inability to deal with the treason from within. All of the problems in the Ukraine come out of the very serious internal problems in Russia. Even now, one gets the feeling that the Kremlin wants to recreate a Party of Regions for the Donbass and influence the Opposition Bloc in the rest of the Ukraine to turn into a Party of Regions. The PofR was based on United Russia as a model many say, and, in my opinion, contributed to the problem, not the solution. It was just a business- and oligarch-based party, with nothing for the average person. In Russia, no competing ideology is permitted, so people can vote for them, but the Ukraine actually had an alternative ideology, so it was a losing approach. And, yes, some are going to argue that any ideology can freely do whatever in Russia, but my view is that the alternatives are so full of FSB types that they are not really able to do much. Which is good.
If you are interested, there was a good forum with former Australian PM Rudd and Brzezinski about China in the days of Xi. Rudd speaks Chinese and is worth listening to. Zbig is the same old Zbig.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp5jVqVTabc
“Moscow bans the gay-pride march for the next ‘100 years’!!?”
Yeah, how could Russia stand in the way of our “Brave New World”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AVayky0DUg
The homosexual movement destroys people and societies. God gave us only a few boundaries to live by: The Ten Commandments. In those great commands, or boundaries, He gave us all good to be enjoyed… with Him. Homosexual conduct is a sin against the 7th commandment. All sexual activities outside of marriage comes under the sin of adultery. (By the way, Jesus said: If a man looks upon a woman to lust after her he has committed adultery already in his heart. He is clearly saying to look at a male or female in the wrong way is breaking the 7th commandment.) God made man and woman very distinctly, as opposite genders and, He made them “one flesh” seeking godly seed (children). When any of us deviate from any of God’s commands we hurt and make trouble for Him, ourselves, and our society. Thank God we have all been given access to an advocate with the Father, who is Jesus the Christ. We all sin and fall short of God’s holiness. However, from the very beginning, God gave us humans a way to be reconciled to Him when we fall (and we all fall), it always started with confession of sins. God always, beginning with Adam and Eve, forgave confessed sins. (Gen. 3:10-13,15,21) When we confess (any sin) He has promised to forgive us and, cleanse us… (I John 1:9) Personally, I am not better than anyone who has walked on the face of the earth; but, to quote a young black preacher I once heard in Pershing Park near the White House about 32 years ago: “Though I sin, I shall not deny, I have a Savior!” I hope this will help someone…
I’m neither Christian, believe ‘The Book’, or am ‘religious’ at all, so all you say means little to nothing for me. I see human sexuality much as that of animals and other biological processes of evolution.
To me, the problem we have with sex is one of failure to understand and control passions — any passions, including the lust for a new big screen TV, junk food, and the other trappings of consumerism, Pornography is about the same as any other sort of consumerism or materialism (gluttony) which assaults and deadens the mind and spirit, and disrupts the holistic and balanced being of a human. I don’t need the tales and mythology of a tribe of 2 or 3 thousand year old wandering sheepherders to figure that much out — just getting to where the breakthoughs in psychological self-analysis and contemplation is such that I can see where these things are coming from, internally as well as externally, and how to handle the urges to dehumanize the self or others.
+1
I do not believe the west won the cold war. The west is, right now, suffering from the same economic collapse, largely caused by our own oligarchs, and by our perpetual unproductive wars, that took down the Soviet Union. I believe Gorbachev simply recognized that neither side could win this, and he quit (I am obviously oversimplifying). The US has not recognized this, has not controlled the oligarchy, and has not stopped unproductive wars. So we did not win; we simply finished first, to collapse on a later day.
Oh, really!!!
“How many years of pressure did it take to break the USSR?…”
About seventy. Firstly the massive interventions in the “Civil” war, involving enormous financial expenditure as well as foreign armies. Then the cordon sanitaire/economic sanctions regimes. Then the Nazi invasion. Then the “Cold War”.
Nor regime in history was more embattled than the Soviet Union. Nor was it the US which ‘defeated the USSR, which fell entirely because of the corruption, largely manifested in stupidity, of the CPSU.
It is again trying to peddle the illusion that the West has an infinite number of initiatives in its hands an it will be able to implement them at will, with no response or countermeasures. This is called wishful thinking.
If you are referring to my comment, then you are mistaken. It is not wishful thinking and it is not meant to say that Russia has no options. Russia has a lot of cards, as does the West. There is no way the West could implement even half of what it would like to try. My point was that The Saker was implying that the West had no clear plans or what have you. I would say just go back to the goals he listed for the West in this crisis. As I recall, he listed them twice. Once near the beginning and once about six months later. So how are those goals coming along, and what could the West do to improve its position, and the same question for Russia. For example, one goal of the West was to damage and destroy Ukrainian business with Russia. There are still plenty of factories that haven’t been destroyed. That kind of thing.
I don’t think Russia is in a helpless position or anything, but I do think pro-Russian websites could use a bit more of a skeptical view now and then.
The west does not have time on its side to continually pressure Russia. The U.S is so close to exploding internally it will be even worse than most people can even imagine.
Once the markets crack big time the U.S will like a receding tsunami.
Why you ask…..
BECAUSE the empire is quickly running out of MONEY….. Yes it is..
….. the smoke is rolling heavenward off the Non-federal federal reserve printing presses.. (nah, the money REALLY comes from the privately owned foreign corporation called “the fed” not the United States treasury.. wake up)….
……. and the fiat toilet paper is awash everywhere… the “US dollar” is at the apex of its 4th of July sky rocket trip… the sparkly end is happening…. so enjoy the show….
.. now it descends into oblivion, forever.
The free ride is OVER… no more “reserve currency status” so that every other nation on the globe has to buy T-bills/T-bonds because that is the only currency that they can use to purchase the necessities such as petrol….
The MONEY is running out the hole in the bottom of the hour glass as we write these words. Without the money who is going to pay the zombies to conduct invasions? Who is going to pay the leases on those 1,000 military bases around the world….???
I disagree with one item. Minsk 2 being dead. It is very much very alive.
When that statement is said, Minsk 2 is dead, it means there is no legal reason why the border of Ukraine controlled by Donbass-Russia is not an act of war against Ukraine. And if the US chose to re-establish the border for Ukraine, it could. And it could use NATO to assist it, as it always go to war with NATO alongside. Minsk 2 prevents the US from helping directly Ukraine’s loss of sovereignty.
No, Minsk 2 is not dead until Putin says it is.
This constant harping by Gleb Bazov and his team of tweeters and bloggers, Mark Sleboda, Stelkov and his harpies have had it wrong from the get go.
Minsk 2 is quite alive. It is a legal trap that chokes Porky and the junta and twists the entire Ukie government into mistake after mistake.
Of course, if you want a pristine ceasefire, you need either a victory by the militia over the entire Ukie structure (ain’t going to happen), a Russian invasion (ain’t going to happen), or the Donbass surrender (ain’t going to happen).
So, yes, the ceasefire is very weak. But the lines hold. And that is all anyone reasonably can expect. The militia is only as strong as the Kremlin allows. There simply has never been enough manpower in Donbass to match the Ukies. The ratio at best is 1:2, militiaman to Ukie. This is decisive. You can defend, but launching offensives is virtually impossible (without air cover, which the Russians will not give them as yet).
Most of the shelling is largely mortar fire, some tanks, some rockets. It kills and destroys, but again, it is not decisive. It is apparently manageable. That’s the Minsk 2 factor.
With the thousands of Georgians and special ops contractors available to enhance the Ukie effort, another breakout of war will be harder than ever on the militia manpower.
Crowing about Minsk 2 being dead sets up the militia for more large losses. The Ukies have learned to fight better, and have some better leadership (from outsiders in some cases).
We love the militia, but they are a thin line of heroes. If Givi or Motorola or Zakharchenko were to be lost, the morale would be severely crippled. And each of them have had very close calls,each wounded, sometimes several woundings.
Minsk 2 is what validates Donbass’s independence from Kiev. Without it, they are merely separatists.
I disagree in depth with the notion that Minsk 2 was stillborn, is dying or is dead.
It is the choke bone in the throat of the US policy. It is a noose around the junta and Rada. It is the shield for the Donbass. It is the Kremlin’s checkmate over the EU and NATO. It keeps Ukraine crippled as a sovereign state, which is what Russia wants to do for the foreseeable future. It blocks the NATO use of Ukraine for basing missiles. It blocks Ukraine from entering the EU.
The topic comes up everyday by every minister in Europe, every general, every politician. Minsk 2 is always the subject. Enforce it, they all claim. Yet, there is nothing in Minsk 2 that Russia is required to do. It addresses only Kiev. It refers to Donbass. It says nothing to Russia.
The beauty of the trap of Minsk 2 is it is totally indigestible to Ukraine. They cannot go forward with it and stay the fascist regime they want to be. It takes the Donbass from them. It re-establishes the Russian language. It confederates the nation, which will lead to other fissures in other sectors of the nation. It requires them to pay pensions to Donbass. It is a feast at their table, and they get the bill.
And the Ukraine signed it! They agreed to it because Debaltcevo was a calamity. They needed a ceasefire or the military would have collapsed on the junta.
It is enforced by the UN!
It is carrying the weight of Merkel and Hollande, Germany and France. They signed it.
Genius stuff by Putin. Brilliant.
Not dead at all. A living plan for the gathering back to Eurasia (and Russia) of Ukraine.
Agree, very well put that Minsk 2 is legalistic cauldron West and Ukraine is caught into. Thanks for the effort to put it so succinctly.
Regards, Spiral
Excellent analysis /comment.
Thank you.
O I do love your comments Larchmonter445.
And this peace by By Mike Whitney
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42275.htm
is completely in that spirit…
There are comments that should be pinned up on the kitchen message board for all to see daily and remember well. Thanks for this, Larchmonter445. I’m grateful for the energy you have spent over the months defending and explaining Minsk 2 to the rest of us.
I thought nothing could be added to your comment until Spiral used the only metaphor you missed ;)
A cauldron indeed, and the entire West and Ukraine are caught in it. Well done, the Russia legal team!
Some of the things you attribute to Minsk others would attribute to the Donbass having an army. That is what prevents various bad things (from Moscow’s point of view) from happening. The Russia-EU agreement to resolve the crisis with Yanukovich was brilliant from Moscow’s point of view, but many things in this world come down to muscle.
I seems that Minsk2 was never expected or meant to be adhered to, but the purpose was the have the consequences of non-adherance. A ‘poison pawn’, so to speak. A piece of fish with a bone which can’t be swallowed and can’t be spit out.
One might say that Minsk2 is dead but it’s ghost rules from the grave?
Very good post, Larchmonter.
Best analysis of the meaning of Minsk 2 I have read. Bravo!
When Minsk 2 first came out, it was surprising how nearly everybody (on all sides) called it “selling out” and “throwing under the bus”.
To me it looked brilliant. It read like a Peace Treaty – with all the obligations, apart from ceasefire, being on the LOSER, ie Ukraine. Signing it was tantamount to capitulation. Which is why they are so dragging their feet implementing it.
Brilliant move by Putin getting the UN to back it as the ONLY roadmap for resolving the situation.
Even the ceasefire will gradually improve, as a lot of the shooting is from Right Sector troops not fully under Kiev control, and slowly they are removing these, because they are a threat to themselves.
It will end up NAF facing only the official army, many of whom don’t want to be there, so things will degenerate into peace for lack of enthusiasm. A lot of the blockade will also loosen up once the ideological anti-Donbass Right Sector is out of enforcing it, leaving only the real army…. which can’t take bribes/charge fees (to substitute for lack of wages) unless they do let traffic through.
Fantastic exposition Larch!
I’ve a feeling Gazprom is factored in too.
Would love to know what you and the Saker think the Polish neo-cons will do..and whether Germany will make some move they don’t expect.
Laws, treaties and legal agreements are only effective when the parties involved respect and honour the law and their agreements.
The USSA (and therefore its puppets in Europe and Kiev) only believes in international law when it serves its purposes to do so, as even the most cursory review of its actions around the world will demonstrate.
So I am unconvinced that Minsk2 is the master stroke that Larchmonter believes that it is, because I do not believe that the words or promises of the West have any value whatsoever.
“There is no such thing as a “Putin” or even a “Kremlin” policy/stance on the Ukraine. There is a Russian stance on the Ukraine”.
“We are an exception among people. We belong to those who are not an integral part of humanity but exist only to teach the world some type of great lesson”.
Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadayev 1784-1856
Minsk-2 is dead and the Ukronazis have clearly given up on the Donbass: they are shelling it daily, they have cut off all the supply lines (including for water and medicines), they have not resumed the payment of pensions (in clear violation of the terms of M2A) and their political rhetoric is even more hostile and bellicose than before.
—————-
They have clearly given up on the Donbass… and therefore they are shelling it daily and are even more hostile and bellicose than before.
This sums up self-contradictory nonsensical delusions very well. The more they give up on the Donbass, the more they shell it. Brilliant.
I agree with the comment above that Minsk-II is not dead until Putin says so.
As for the comment just above: Kiev knows that not only Donbas but all of the Novorossia (the one that spans from Russia to Romania) is gone, that’s why they are destroying as much as they can. But Putin will not say so, until total Kiev’s collapse and Nato out if it.
They have clearly given up on negotiating any sort of Autonomy for Donbass as required by the Minsk Agreement. What is left is to be as destructive as possible in Donbass in the the unrelenting effort to force Russia to actually invade Ukraine.
As to paying the pensions in Eastern Ukraine, they have a hard time paying the pensions in Western Ukraine.
Looking at what’s happening with Greece, already an EU Member, the Ukrainian people might wake up to realize, from their economic starting point, it could be even worse for them having to pay back everything they will OWE to the West with interest. And even more importantly, realize the West is using them as pawns and fodder in the power game with Russia.
The US and their vassal States should co-operate with Russia, and jointly work out a deal to help the Ukrainian people. Putin has already proposed this, but the West declined to negotiate on the positive idea. Putin’s bottom line is reasonable. A Neutral Ukraine, not part of the NATO Military Alliance that would allow the US to station American troops on the Border of Russia. Never going to happen! Not with Putin or any Successor to him, until the Nations beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and the Nations had stopped learning War.
“Being as destructive as possible” is definitely not part of the Minsk agreement. It is most definitely one of the things the Minsk agreement says must NOT be done. Ceasefire. Remember? This is the first and most basic requirement of the agreement. How can one insist that the Minsk agreement is alive and well when it is deliberately and systematically violated to show they don’t give a hoot about it? What kind of logic is this? Where is the limit? Total destruction? Overwhelming destruction? What? They just keep shelling away, and the happy end is always around the corner with an impending “collapse” of the regime. Don’t get me wrong, I hope the regime collapses, I hope their own army marches on them and hangs them all on Maidan square like the mob did to Mussolini and his pals. Hang them upside down.
It is just that I can distinguish between my hopes and wishes, and what my brain tells me is going on. I see no reason to hope with what’s going on. Are the Donbass people going to go trough another winter of hell?
Add the coming series of debt defaults by nation after nation, and the imperialist IMF Bankers are holding on to an untenable economic (and by translation, political) system.
The imperialists cannot even silence the growing MASSIVE anti-zionist uprising in Europe – led by Dieudonné and his friends.
Of vital importance, the richest and most powerful nation on this planet is suffering serious moral and physical decline. The entire western half of the United States, including California is entering a huge Drought, with catastrophic consequences. California, (which is the largest and richest state in the United States), has had a so-called Liberal and Progressive Governor, (Governor Moonbeam-Jerry Brown), who has utterly failed to lead in dealing with the huge ecological cataclisym that has been predicted by many for at least half a century.
The Oligarchs cannot deal with problems of ecology, debts, or politics, even when they are warned long in advance, and even when they talk the Progressive talk. They cannot be relied upon to fix anything, not Detroit, Camden, New Orleans, the Gulf, not anything. Their only impetus is toward the violence of War.
Greece, The Ukraine, Spain, and Puerto Rico, are in soon to default mode. Most of the governments on this planet owe more than they can ever repay. You cannot draw blood from stone. Monday’s Stock Market suffered the largest decline of the year, precisely because of the debt problems.
American Government founder, Revolutionary Thomas Jefferson, (yes he owned slaves, and who hasn’t), had some suggestions on how to handle debt. He tied the essence of government to the needs of future generations of human beings, and that is a Revolutionary practice. George Washington considered Jefferson to have been the leader of the American Revolution.
I enclose, not for the first time, a brief quote from Jefferson that gives the essence of his approach to debt. Yes, our Anarchist Collective is highly supportive of the Jeffersonian approach, as quoted below.
Thomas Jefferson favored the continual renewal of the American Revolution by each new generation creating a new constitution (and, thereby, a new constitutional government). This process would empower the new generations and serve to revive the quality of government in a process of Permanent Revolution. Jefferson wrote:
“Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right. It may be said that the succeeding generation exercising in fact the power of repeal, this leaves them as free as if the constitution or law had been expressly limited to 19 years only.”
Jefferson further explained his approach to the next generation in his letter to James Madison:
“I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, ‘that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living’:”
“Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it’s course, fully, and in their own right. The 2d. Generation receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. The 3d of the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. Could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not the living generation.”
Those who wish to read more, may start with Richard Matthews, “The Radical Politics of thomas Jefferson,” which is a nice starter for a perusal of the ideals of the early American Republic.
Let’s give the next generations a fighting chance.
If any have a better idea on how to resolve the current crisis of human existance, let us know.
For the Democratic Republics!
IMAGINE
Peter, I have the Mathews book right by my laptop here, and finished it a couple of weeks ago. And like i emailed, let’s chat about it one of these days.
Short, and worth reading. However, filtering it through a completely different filter than your own, I draw what I consider are the most salient points in it (or rather, that I conclude from it) for those here, at home or abroad, including Outlaw Historian, Mulga among the vocal here, and more than a few others among the silent visitors here, who despise “US” in the aggregate, both living and dead, for our unfortunate association with OBomber, his NAZI bitch Assistant Secretary of State, our rabidly genocidal neocons, etc, etc :
1. Jefferson, like most of us, extrapolates a great deal from his own experience, assuming it to be good or even almost perfect, and recommends it universally to the rest of humanity. His own experience is agrarian (hates work shops, industry) for the honesty and clean air and character building superiority it engenders. That is, if you can prosper enough from it, based on captive black slave labor, to afford the leisure time to write profusely about freedom (while they toil for you) and incite others to bloody rebellion in far away France, etc, extolling the shedding of the “blood of tyrants” as a required, frequent purgative, enabling “freedom”. But not for those in his plantation fields.
I rather prefer Tolstoy, who stayed away from government after discovering the difficulties involved in even encouraging the (“freed” but still resident on his estate) serfs, or rather estate hired hands, under his immediate care and influence to develop their minds, change their ways, prosper and move on to better things, so that his own conscience could be made more clean, and his soul more pure. Almost none of them would have any part of his emancipating ideas!! More honest than Jefferson.
2. Before we worship the founders as a pantheon of gods or saints or condemn them all as imperialist racist frauds and devils, I think, we ought to analyze certain facts and principles for universal benefit:
A) Many of the founders were wrong about many things. B) A lot of the problem is epistemological baggage brought with them from England: Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus (Madison, in your book, especially comes to mind. C) The one who was probably the most right never became president, and is most responsible for the greatest tangible results that haters of Empire everywhere can most benefit from: Alexander Hamilton. Yet Mathews can’t mention his name anywhere in the book without affixing the word “Empire” in a tripartite role along with “Power” and “wealth”. WTF???
D) The mere fact that Hamilton obviously had more to do with opening up more lands to cultivation (Erie Canal) by free farmers than any other American, but also by the fostering of manufactures and industry, making them so productive that 97% of the population (20th century) were no longer FORCED to work the land to feed themselves (that labor being accomplished by those 3% still on the family farm in the 50’s, 60’s etc) is the best example for societies mostly occupied with tilling the earth on other parts of the globe. Then, if we want to do our agrarian Jefferson thing, with our own muscles, we can always have a private little plot. In fact, I got so inspired by the Jefferson that I painted Chard and a number of other little crops in a couple of the side beds on my 6000 sq ft residential lot. But thank God for Hamilton and automatic sprinklers freeing me up to visit the Bay Area while my seeds sprout! E) Oh, and by the way, Hamilton’s assassination by Wall Street swindler Aaron Burr (see Aaron Burr, American Emperor) should provide a clue as to who was really who, and who needs to obscure history.
Otherwise, Query: How are small groups of anarchists who have no more hope of uniting and ever becoming anymore effective than the “small states” that Brzezinski says are ideal, for their weakness and controllability by Empire, ever going to resist Empire, or get more than a little ditch on their own farm built, much less an Erie Canal??
Are the Chinese getting results with the Three Gorges by following Madison and Jefferson, or Hamilton and FDR, whose TVA was the largest water project ever developed, until Three Gorges??
These things are universally important, as are the questions of what aspects of Democratic Republic ideas built the USA and what aspects of evil were used to corrupt it and turn it into a destructive, enslaving force in service of Empire.
I maintain that G Edward Griffin (The Creature From Jekyll Island…ie the Federal Reserve) and a host of misguided conservatives are flat wrong on Hamilton, and that lumping him in with banksters and imperialists (his concept was a NATIONAL bank issuing credit for industrial and agricultural development, not a private central bank issuing credit for debt slavery) is tragically stupid.
This site is primarily about Russia, but getting to the bottom of some things about the USA (rather than throwing out the baby with the bath water) is important to not screw up and allow the Empire to come back, assassinate a few key people, and take over like a persistent parasite, once more, infecting a new vital host and power base, be that base their old one (Europe, especially Venice and Britain) their new host (USA) or China! Or even Russia.
Ideas and intellectual rigor are important. Emotional inspiration and adulation of some of our very flawed founders, less so.
Nice comment about Hamilton, the most misunderstood and unfairly maligned of the Founders. He created the first central bank, and, astonishingly, ran it with absolutely scrupulous honesty, which is why it was so successful. The second and third central banks were frauds taken over by the international banksters, but Hamilton’s bank was a model of moral and ethical business practices that gave the nation a solid foundation so it could succeed in its own right. So sad that Hamilton gets the blame for later malfeasances. And it does look like he was assassinated. He fired to deliberately miss Burr because he was a gentleman. Aaron Burr proved himself to be the scoundrel that he was.
Of course the Russians are supporting Putin. They know they are already at war. The bombs are not metallic but economic and political, and they are pushing the Russians together just as quickly as any “bunker buster” would. What is the standard response to any external attack? Pull together, support the president, present a unified face to the enemy, etc.
The plotters in Washington listened to the wrong people in Moscow – they thought everybody thought the same as the 1% agitators who met regularly with our ambassadors. The plotters are only now finding out that their efforts to subvert the Russian government have been one big boondoggle. The “WTF?” stories in the Washington Post are a clue to their confusion.
I remember when this started the hubris in the West,”Putin will fall”,Russia will collapse”,”the people will rise against the Kremlin”,etc,etc. I posted countless times on the MSM’s news stories that they have no idea about Russia.That the Russian people would never kneel over this attack.That if anything, it would rally them to the Kremlin.And I received countless insults back for those posts (as well as being banned on some MSM comment pages).Just how stupid can those in the West be to not know how Russians would react.If a common poster that studied Russia as a “hobby” could know that.All the experts whose job is actually to study, and understand Russia, didn’t grasp that.It really is amazing to me.
Hubris indeed!
The funny thing about the drooling Western media flunkeys is that they’re completely unable to understand how simply their silly delusions come about. If you recall, there was a colour revolution attempt in Iran during the Presidential Election there back in 2009; whose aim was to oust Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It was an absolute failure. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won by a landslide giving the lie to the flunkeys’ arrogant drivel about him facing a resounding defeat.
Corollary question: Where or, rather, how did they get the “brilliant” idea that Ahmadinejad’s days were numbered? Easy: The Iranian people living outside the fashionable Westernized settlements in the larger cities with English as “second language” were never asked. Sadly, they outnumbered the Gucci crowd by several orders of magnitude.
Western media flunkeys really make fools of themselves.
Yeah. Not that Ahmadinejad was a particularly great president–he’s no Hassan Nasrallah, that’s for sure. But he was just good enough to be inconvenient to the Americans.
I set out to write a quick, entertaining reply to nussiminen, but instead i wound up writing a highly rambling rant…my apologies and thanks for reading :
I sometimes have strange dejá-vu, that i’ve seen you’re writing elsewhere.. any chance you write comedy on your days off? ;)
Anyway, back to kind of on-topic (Pontificating to the maximum and showing off my superior verbal acrobatics and thus my right to be your next central bank creator, Economic Emperor and Monetary Midas, who owns all your Attention, Deficit and Disorders) D:
Here we go with my two politically incorrect euro-cents (hurry while theyre still worth anything hehe)
Live and let live (I shall decree)!
Gays! Heteros! Autoerotic aphyxiators! Pump-up sheep lovers!
American Anarchists, Russian Royalists, NGO Nihilists! All same, all welcome, all equally ignored. Love each other, for those hedging you against each other certainly will not.
A great man once said that people usually get the government they deserve. True yet false. Politicians (broiler chickens) are the earls of today, they will do and say anything to stay close to the udder in order to suckle the Great Teat of Power, and no matter what happens, the Revolving Door of No-Its-Not-Corruption remains open to these wastes of human sperm.
On this and several other unique and in the short-term irreplaceable (no sarcasm) blog “and all the creatures that live within it” (Huxley), we like to ridicule nazis, verbally abuse ‘murica and praise the lord while we pass the ammunition/scepter to Novorossya & China & Russia & Greece & whoever else is dumb enough to have been born in any other place that has some “thing” “someone” wants, or wants to stop someone else from having. I salute the general spirit if not the modus nor implication of flag-sucking/bashing nor alternative, competitive empire building. What was and what us must sometimes be taken down a notch or ten, somebody sometimes needs a spank and an admonition; thats crystal clear. But what is not is what is the polar opposite of… whatever the hell we are fighting (CBs?Rainbows?Tyranny?Communism?Nazism?Zionism? <- I resent this btw as im a grandson of a lucky girl from austria that happened to literally board the last boat out, and though there are evil rich jewish men, so are there evil buddhist monks too! Goodness is relative, and it is incredibly…almost schockingly so – naïve ). How in the name of Harald Bluetooth's…well Blue Tooth are we supposed to "tell heaven from hell, blue skies from pain… a smile from a veil…" do YOU honestly think you can tell?
Hell no, for better or worse there will always be some smug donkeyorifice like myself who love to talk and talk and seem to have a fail-safe and revolutionary plan/vision of how the world should work, and usually the trick is to make "Mr Jones" feel unsure of "what's going on" but certain that because he knows how to simultaneously walk and breath, he is f*cking exceptional and a unique fragile and helpless snowflake, a real mommas (societys) perfect little horror. He sees himself and his "peers" (who although might be inferior and disgusting other people, have plodded through the red tape and examina of Babylon Shitstem, and are thus valuable creatures) as the absolute pinnacle of society, to whose whims and (barely) repressed humiliation fantasies, everyone, especially those dirty bastards and mongrels that dare ask the question "why is it so" have to bow and growel. To paraphrase the late dr. Thompson, Mr Jones does not have a clue whats really going on, white or any color privilege or no, and most certainly only wishes for the "Hordes of the Underwashed" to just please go die someplace else, and quietly if they could please. Most are not evil, just ignorant and indoctrinated/assimilated into theborg collective. Bend over, join the voluntary gulag and you shall receive your morcel. And there was much rejoicing, yea, and their blood kept the Gears of Golden-parachutes well oiled.
Now someof you are say: but hey! You [blank]face forget that we are gonna change all that with our l33t pwnage haxxor skillz n tanks n mechanized rabbits n whatever superduper murderously effective waste of resources we build next. To you I say, (un)screw that tank, because whatever the fed up and trod on majority does, history is not easily fooled, and because we are clearly incapable as a species to "learn the lessons from history" we will just perpetuate the vicious cycle, no matter how noble of spirit and talented our leaders. The trodden on will just become the ones with the foot up someone elses backside. Genghis Khan, french/american/russian revolutions, Nazism, Zionism, Chinas current awakening…the list just goes on. Sad but equally true is that for humanitys sake, is that nazism/fascism/communism/globalism…all the "ism"s must be eradicated.
All same, all equal. Great, so that is the solution then? I guess in a perfect model of the world, but like any economist will tell you, a model works great on paper..and only there. So were back to square one…utterly lost and effed.
We can argue all day what one side holds as an arbitrary advantage over another, and how the altruism of another populace (Russia; which is both logical as some pointed out in their comments, as well as admirable and smart), the fact is, ladies and gentleman and bots, there is no pie (in the sky or elsewhere) to divide up, it is all the product of our imagination and subject to each and everyones preoccupation with the destination, with death and legacy, whereas we should concentrate on the journey, because if we fail this time as well, there will be nothing for no-one left, instead of barely enough for everyone.
I want to leave you with the thought: if you were the enlightened dictator of the World, the whole World and nothing left out of the word World, how would you create harmony amongst the masses that cry for your guidance? How would you arbitrate? How would you know when you were doing something wrong, and how would you stop yourself? How could best help your people?
Now with your own best solution in mind, go and help your people, whoever they are.
Peace
Take heart Uncle Bob1. You are not the only “amateur” that saw through the fog of deceptions from the very beginning. They listened to the Truth and not to their own lies echoed back to them.
IMHO the US will continue the Ukrainian debacle against Russia (to the last Ukrainian, if necessary) as the purpose of the enterprise was really two fold. To isolate and weaken Russia AND the EU. For these reasons the sanctions of the EU will be held as policy by Washington and to the continuing economic decline of Europe and inconvenience for Russia. Will it be worth it from Washington’s point of view? Very hard to say. Their awareness level is questionable.
FWIW,
Galearis
Agreed. I am not sure that weakening Russia was the secondary target, the primary being to end the EU project. But it was sold to the EU as being against Russia. In my personal opinion, the target was always the EU and the Euro – to prevent the Euro becoming a reserve currency. But now that China is bringing it’s own currency forward to work as a reserve currency…I suspect there are some hard lessons in store for the US.
An excellent piece — hats off!
Let me add here that the only remaining true believers (excluding the cynics) in the righteousness of the cause of Pindostan and the You’re_a_peon Union seem to be the braindead, utterly pathetic Western Lefts and Greens. They’ll never get tired of parroting their beloved MSM, no matter what. For some reason — most likely sheer laziness — I’m still subscribing to a Leftist rag here in Sweden, but now I’m going to take action. The Swedish government is selling out to NATO, paving the way for dumping any remnants of neutrality. Predictably, this is being justified in view of ultra-super-duper Russian aggression and contempt of international law. Dutifully repeated by my little Leftist rag even if, as you might have guessed, its main issues with Putin and the Russian people are Gay Rights and Pussy Riot. Unlike the latter and unlike the dregs in Banderastan, George Soros don’t even have to pay for these flunkeys.
This time, I agree with you, N. Virtually every sentence. Both Sweden and USA have been oligarchy social test tubes for many decades. Here on the Left Coast (Silicon Valley at the moment, visiting a sibling) you had better keep quiet if you are neutral or on the “wrong” side of any MSM line, or be at risk of ostracism, lawsuits, or who knows what else. Sunday, in order to get to a bit of actual politically relevant and positive culture (Beethoven’s Fidelio opera–based on Lafayette’s rescue from prison by his heroic wife) we had to contend with the traffic from the dispersing Gay Pride Parade. and sidewalk clogging crowds from the parade outnumbering the opera goers 50 to 1.
How many of these people have any opinion at all about Nazis in Ukraine, Russia, Greeks being strangled by fraudulent bankster created debt? Very very few! But the MSM has conditioned them as shock troops to be herded at will in any direction required, on any issue. How? By cultural warfare and drugs and MSM and miseducation for decades, yes, but more fundamentally by succeeding in having them focus their IDENTITY between their legs, as opposed to between their ears!!!!! Once that operation has been pulled, and masses of people are as confused as Bruce Jenner (or whatever his or her name is now) their chances of defecting are far less than those of the Ukie army soldiers escaping to Novorossiya. What separates them from animals (no not emotions…animals have “feelings” too……their REASON) has been stolen from them, and they are vulnerable to almost any Kool Aid the Empire asks them to imbibe. And that’s the Big Plan: to have them suicide themselves, one way or the other, until the world’s population is reduced to one billion or less. And now the Empire has fully captured the Pope, too! Who was not doing too well on Ukraine either, but now is going completely to hell in a hurry. Schellenhuber. Commander of the British Empire, whose Elizabeth the II and Price Phillip demand a world of one billion or less human beings. And that does not merely mean obliterating Chinese and Indians by the hundreds of millions. Many millions of Americans and Swedes who now “think” with their genitals are being encouraged to throw themselves under the bus, as well as supporting genocide generally, around the globe, against everyone else.
Saker, brilliant. N: I weep for the continuing degradation of Sweden on a daily basis. I hope Gotland Midsommar still has hints of politically incorrect pursuits of happiness. M/S, thank you for a completely accurate rendition of cultural life in the USA right now. A lot of us are in what the Saker called “Internal Exile” over here.
There’s a lot of pseudo-left out there, that’s for sure. People who spend a lot of time on identity politics and none on class and imperialism. They’re the people for whom Phil Ochs wrote the song “Love me, I’m a Liberal”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Me,_I%27m_a_Liberal
But you’re not going to see the actual anticapitalist left demonizing Putin a whole lot (They’ll note in parentheses that he’s too damn capitalist, but still applaud him for resisting the empire). Counterpunch, Znet, Venezuelanalysis (IMO a good litmus test for a “leftist” is if they support Venezuela or not), various others–there are still real leftists with no “give” in them even in the USA.
Loved Phil Ochs. Some years ago locals held a Phil Ochs festival. The invited musicians chickened out & did not play his “Love Me I’m a Liberal” song.
That song, just one (perhaps the finest), of his many fine pieces, remains the cutting edge, and prophetic.
Nice news, Saker.
But as I was saying from the beginning, Ukraine must NOT be neutral at the end! (As Kissinger proposed).
Only joining of Ukraine into Eurasian union with Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Armenia will be a victory for Russia. The second option is a division of Ukraine, where all from Odessa to Kharkov must be in a new state, Novorossia.
There is no third option for Russia. NATO expanded too far to the east. It must be stopped once and for all.
I agree.
Greek’s referendum will decide how fast the banker’s domino will start to collapse and the rest will follow
In previous wars the people were behind their leaders and although they didn’t want war they would do what they had to in order to fend off the attackers. This time is very different because a large segment of the world’s population are fully aware that the West’s leaders are warmongering, lying, psychopaths and that Russia is NOT the agressor whatsoever.
European populations have been attacked by the EU, the ECB, the IMF, and just about every other financial institution. With the exception of Greece, the government of each country is the people’s worst enemy. What makes these fools believe their people will stand behind them when the SHTF?
At a wild guess, I think that what is most likely to happen is that a large percentage will back the Russians and make a concerted effort to turn their military against the real aggressors. US leaders know this which is why we are seeing internal military training exercises like Jade Helm etc. taking place. Here in Oz many of us are wise to what’s going on and we too are being oppressed by our goverment.
To all the presstitutes and western aggression supporters, just remember what the surviving peoples in Europe did to ALL collaborators when WWII ended. Do you really believe you are on the winning side?
Jetpack Joey, you are right about the more aware Australians. We can see how desperate our PM is to “get his knighthood” and observe his pandering to all things American. it has become a total embarrassment. Having said that, the average Aust still seems to be following the Presstitutes line with “well Greece brought it upon themselves”. It is my hope that PCR goes back to the beginning, once the vote is taken, and points out the step by step process of the US involvement as well as that of the Bankers. I think it would be very timely. A nice way to say “I told you so”. It would be SO nice to get some truth in the reporting establishment these days, but when they are all bought, it’s a bit hard to get that. It was good that the Washington Post was so surprised it actually published what it did.
…“well Greece brought it upon themselves”
That’s an interesting concept that. Our town mayor hit me with that one earlier this week only, he added “I’ve been on vacation in Greece several times. They are so corrupt that in restaurants they write how much you owe them on a napkin and ask to be paid in cash. You will never get a bill.”
My first reaction to this bollocks is “What, you mean nobody accepts credit cards, and don’t most tourists use credit cards when abroad in order to lessen the risk of being pickpocketed or mugged?”
Next, I would ask “So, do the majority of the population run businesses, or might it be possible that as with all other countries, the majority are either salaried or unemployed? And if the same holds true for Greece, how do you avoid paying taxes?”
IMHO, the most significant thing coming out of the Cyprus experience, now to be bestowed on the Greeks, is the ‘bail-in’ or ‘depositor hair-cut’. As far as I can remember, we have always been led to believe that banks were the SAFE PLACE to put your money. They were also the #1 choice for savings accounts. Today, banking institutions and corrupt governments have decided to show us that this is no longer true and to prevent us from avoiding their bail-ins, ZIRP, QE, etc., they are now pushing to make cash illegal in order to force us to keep our earnings in their grasp. When you turn a rational world on its head like that, sooner or later you will have to pay the piper.
Unfortunately, given their track record to date, I fear they will go for the Samson option rather than face the music. Just like Hitler did when he ordered “Let Paris burn!”
Of course, the unemployed pay no taxes but I’m willing to bet that many of them would love to be in a position where they could!
Russian soil is soaked with Russian blood from WW2. Russia knows war, not like the arrogant US. Putin is the ONLY world statesman today unlike the western sycophants crawling up to US.
Putin’s day in the office…(Grizzly Bear Battles 4 Wolves )
Wolves? Those are jackals and hyenas in company of chihuahuas .
When Medvedev talked openly about aliens and Men in Black, he was not joking. He was serious as a heart attack. Russia has the Vatican by the balls, too. About disclosure about little green men. Who will come out of the closet first, Russia or the Church? Who will blink first? Now, that is a very interesting behind-the-scenes struggle. Pope Francis is a total maverick, so he just might do it. He just might. He won’t want Russia to show him up by disclosing first. See all these powerful and tantalizing bargaining chips Russia has at her disposal? Maybe this is why Benedict “retired.” That guy can’t disclose a secret. Just can’t do it. If anybody can keep a secret, it is Pope Benedict. He wouldn’t disclose the existence of ETs if you waterboarded him.
Dear The Saker,
It means Putin and Russia (the peopel/country) are interchangeable. Putin is Russia and Russia is Putin. The AZ’s need to wake up and smell the coffee – the 90’s are gone forever and never to return.
Rgds,
Veritas
The US govt is so corrupt. Every day the US govt, court system, police, banks and others rob and cheat the American people. They are destroying America. Putin cares for the Russian people and is trying to improve things for Russians. Putin does not go around and drone or blow up people around the world mainly to benefit the military contractors. Putin and the Russian people are the only force for good for Christians and other people.
Beware the invite to fencing championship..__!
The siege of Donbass lasts 1260 days.
It looks like everything must fall apart before Washington will change its behavior. The press is as deluded as ever. Instead of fixing the U.S. economy, Obama has been pursuing these stupid,counterproductive aggressions. When the U.S. economy finally collapses, Americans will be asking “What were we doing all this time?”
And how Dmitry Orlov slam dunk it .
Epic.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42280.htm
Hey your site has consistently high quality material. I’d put you on the level of The Intercept and infowars.com . Definitely should be more widely promoted and popularized.
infowars isn’t even in the same universe as the saker..
Tour de force! The Saker should be nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Ahahahaha. This is a priceless classic: ” It appears that Putin holds Obama by the balls.” next to the picture.
The AngloZionist Empire runs on fumes of pure hutzpah (i.e. taking kindness for weakness) . Russia could call the bluff and force the hand any time had it not been repulsed by stooping down to their level.
Indeed why bother with the de-facto living corpse. Let the filth die on its own. Russia needs not dirty her hands.
Hi, this is OT and its a little long, but its a really great piece of writing that should be circulated…
Pope Francis: Care for Our Common Home
By Catherine Austin Fitts
A Papal Encyclical is a letter concerning Catholic doctrine which is circulated by the Pope. This week, Pope Francis published a new Encyclical: Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis – Care for Our Common Home.
The 180+ page document sounds the alarm regarding the global degradation of living things: people, animals and our environment.
If this document had been authored by a professor of theology, there would be much room for common ground. However, it has been written by the leader of an institution which has been the single most powerful in the Western world for the last 500 years – a period during which the central banking-warfare model has been busy harvesting our common home.
There is a profound disassociation from the nuts-and-bolts of what the Catholic Church (and its networks and investment syndicates) have been doing and the sources of their wealth. This Encyclical is, if you will, a concept piece independent of the financial and political realities of the Vatican, the Catholic Church and its allies.
Assuming that Pope Francis first and foremost addressed the Encyclical to bishops, patriarchs, primates, archbishops as well as to the general population, I would like to propose several steps which the Pope, the Vatican and the leadership of the Catholic Church (collectively, the “Church”) might take to integrate some of the best ideas in this document into the power lines controlled and influenced by the Church.
1.Disclosure
The world is struggling with propaganda, disinformation, and significant suppression of the truth. The new Pope’s efforts to provide digital access to works in the Vatican Library on a selective basis are a good start. In the meantime, there is a great deal of knowledge which the Church, its libraries and networks can share:
* The Church can accelerate access to both the Vatican Library and Archives.
* The Church can publish all its information regarding global “black budgets.” This would include any information related to invisible weaponry and technology driving the real governance systems operating on Planet Earth.
* In the context of understanding what is happening to our environment, the Church can publish all its information on global geo-engineering and weather control programs as part of an open discussion to ensure that the global population and scientific community has accurate data on what is happening to our climate.
* The Church can provide open access to its financial information and persuade its affiliates, endowments and churches to do the same, including detailed disclosure on a place-based basis.
* The Church can encourage global governments to publish their budgets and credit information on a place-based basis. Place-based financial disclosure will permit the alignment of financial ecosystems with environmental ecosystems – a critical step to ensuring a healthy environment. This will create incentive systems which reward the health and well-being of all living things.
* The Church can disclose all information on its direct and indirect involvement in any illegal activities, including vote rigging, narcotics trafficking, and money laundering.
* The Church can use its shareholdings and ownership positions in media companies to insist on integrity in public information.
* The Church can use its shareholdings in pharmaceutical and food companies to insist on integrity and independence of scientific research.
* The Church can provide a safe haven for scientists, journalists and other professionals who are targeted for upholding high standards of integrity in science and information.
2. Individual Freedom
Slavery contributes significantly to the degradation of people throughout our planet.
* The Church can withdraw from supporting governments, corporations or any other organizations that support any form of slavery.
* The Church can destroy the “control files” of prominent businessmen and politicians created through the use of its networks.
* The Church can complete restoration efforts related to its pedophilia activities and publish complete figures on how much the Church has spent on all restoration efforts.
* The Church can use its shareholdings and ownership positions in government and corporate securities to insist on a withdrawal of corporate and government support for mind control, torture and slavery and the compromise of individual privacy and sovereignty.
3. Organized Crime & Lawlessness
The primary source of environmental damage does not result from market economics – quite the opposite. It results from the lethal combination of organized crime operating powerful and invisible weaponry coupled with invasive digital systems and sophisticated financial tools on scale. In short, those with the ability to kill, to destroy and to steal with impunity combine such force with fiat currencies, unsustainable debt, resource extraction, financial fraud, war and genocide in order to centralize wealth and power in a manner which shrinks total wealth.
Lawlessness on a global scale must be dealt with before it destroys our planet.
* The Church can divest its holdings in governments and corporations which engage in these practices. It should encourage its affiliates and members to do the same.
* The Church can also disassociate from foundations and not-for-profits that engage in these practices or that launder profits for those who do.
* The Church can make clear that the ten commandments apply not just to what we do, but to whom and what we finance.
* The Church can stop any and all participation by itself and its networks in narcotics trafficking and disgorge the profits of the same to the people harmed.
4. Debt & Fiat Currency
No less than The Economist has rightly pointed out that we are chocking on debt, in part because we provide enormous tax subsidies which encourage debt (see The Great Distortion). Debt throws people out of alignment with one another and with the environment around them. Ditto fiat currency which is used in a manner to debase global populations and economies.
We must shift to an equity-based financial system which facilitates the free flow of equity unencumbered by the intervention and control of organized crime. An equity-based system – which includes the financing of small businesses, small farms and local economies with equity – will permit us to evolve a financial system in which we can generate wealth from healing our environment and reducing consumption.
* The Church can encourage these changes by shifting the significant funds it manages as well as those managed by its networks.
* The Church can encourage governments to reduce laws and regulations that prevent the local circulation of equity or that prevent the creation and success of local currency systems.
5. Sovereignty is Sacred
A global culture is one which respects the sovereignty of every individual. We respect human rights. We respect property rights. We respect privacy. We respect the right of each human being to make up their own mind.
* The Church can withdraw its investments from all governments and corporations (including media) which compromise people’s privacy or which manipulate them via mind control techniques, entrainment technology, subliminal programming or electronics.
* The Church can actively encourage its priests and networks to bring transparency to mind control techniques or any efforts to mislead people globally.
* The Church can offer sanctuary to scientists, government personnel or journalists who bring transparency to these efforts.
6. Capitalism: Let’s Try It
Before we dismiss capitalism, we should try it.
Organized crime is not capitalism. It is the application of force to control and to get one’s way. Market economics can solve many of the problems before us – but we have to unleash markets to work rather than prevent them from operating and then blaming the subsequent “mess” on them.
* The Church can call for all monies stolen by illegal means in the last two decades to be returned, including trillions which have disappeared from the US government or which have been accrued as a result of financial frauds prior to the bailouts.
* The Church can refrain from blaming our current situation on the people who have been harmed by these thefts or from insisting that the subsequent economic damage is a result of the victims’ poor values or “consumerism.”
* The Church can withdraw its investment from financial institutions, governments and corporations that:
– Engage in market rigging and intervention.
– Provide unlawful or unethical support to cartels and monopolies.
– Engage in the purposeful suppression of technologies which would ease the harm we are doing to the environment.
The Church and its affiliates and members manage trillions in real estate and financial assets. As one of the most significant capitalist organizations/investment networks on our planet, it can institute policies to ensure that it does not invest in companies or governments which behave in the manner described in the latest Encyclical and that its real estate is not used to support such activities.
During Vatican II, the Church forced the sale of significant real estate holdings which were serving communities. The proceeds from these sales were reinvested in corporate securities. The Church can ensure that the Orders for whom these funds are managed have access to full transparency about these investments and are permitted to institute policies which ensure that these investments are managed in accordance with the goals of this Encyclical.
7. War
Published global military expenditures were $1.7 trillion in 2013. Add secret black budget expenditures and the total was likely much more. These funds – combined with savings from destructive behavior such as gambling, narcotics and alcohol – could be shifted into investment in healing our environment, our education systems, our health care systems and revitalizing global infrastructure.
* The Church can bring transparency to all worldwide resources which are related to killing. It can invite its members to pray that these resources be shifted to investments which increase productivity rather than enable a small group of people to own and control the planet.
8. Invite Feedback
Both the Church and our planet are dynamic living systems. Moving to a healthy global culture and aligning our financial ecosystems with our environmental ecosystems is a journey.
* The Church can encourage its entire network to adopt these goals in their lives so that achieving them is a partnership of the many for the benefit of all.
* The Church can publish an annual report on its efforts to take responsibility and to achieve these goals internally in its own operations, asset managements and investments and to invite feedback from all of its constituents to help it do so.
9. Wise as a Serpent
There is often a risk that any important policy will be misunderstood or misused by those who are centralizing control and power. The G-7 nations have experienced a financial coup d’etat. A great deal of money and assets have been shifted out of sovereign governments into private hands – either illegally or under the guise of trillions in bailouts and quantitative easing – while liabilities have been shifted back into governments.
Now that these transfers are complete, it would be convenient to blame the victims and to abrogate their pensions and other savings plans and promises. It would be unfortunate if this Encyclical were used to justify the value of doing so in the name of “reducing consumerism” or to politically outmaneuver the victims by accusing them of being “selfish.”
Economies function on trust and such trust must come from honoring our agreements. As Pope Francis understands, it is easy to blame the victim and to take from the powerless.
Utah Phillips once said, “The Planet is not dying, it is being killed. And the people doing the killing have names and addresses.”
We commend the Pope for calling out for a cessation of the debasement of all living things. Let us hope that his latest Encyclical starts ringing doorbells – beginning with the opportunity to do so in the Church and in the Church’s asset and investment portfolios.
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Ann, I’m somewhere between blue (entirely secular in outlook and disposition) and the bible quoters that leave him cold. I’m interested in the whole gamut of ideas and even beliefs that have led us to the present conjuncture, from the multiple fragments of Christianity, to Islam (almost as fragmented, evidently) to the Jewish contributions (and complications).
But I want to make a point of cautioning about Francis and this idea that the Empire isn’t “green” enough, and that we will be better than them if we are “greener” than they are, so let’s take the high road and swallow what the British Crown and their agent Scheelnhuber are peddling. Big Mistake the pope is making, allowing that Trojan Horse into the walls of Vatican City.
Now this puts blue in a funny position, because he’s intrigued by the arguments of the NATO created Club of Rome, Forrester and Meadows and all that culturally pessimistic “limits” thinking that has been the hallmark of oligarchy since before Hesoid. But I am very confident blue will agree that all men, including Francis are all too fallible (yet, at the same time, capable of astonishing creativity). Just look at Francis and very many European catholics on Ukraine. OK. Francis is fallible. And his Encyclical is stepping right into the middle of one huge Empire created cow pie. Which calls for a world of 1 billion humans or less. I call for a world of 500 million Russians that is cleaner than today’s world (absolutely possible) and no oligarchs, except in a few zoos to educate the young on how the human race almost exterminated itself, not with development, but with the retardation of development and the commitment of a tiny few to sit on the whole thing and hold it back and drag it down. Vernadsky had the right idea. We are not an aberration of nature or “god”, cognition is the direction of the universe itself, and the noosphere should be expanded, despite the neurosis of oligarchs and their satanic commitment to preventing that from occurring.
Fitts has been conned by a skilled con-MAN…
Do NOT trust Francis~!!!!!
you guys didn’t read it…come on…just read it guys..you’ll see how much my dear friend CAT has been conned…
It is the pseudo religous sect called protestantism that has created the parasitic banking usury system in the world spread from centrecof that usury today which has been London.
So instead of sidetracking the issue put the blame where evil lies and do not blame Catholic chuch which atleasy has noble ideas rather than protestatism which worships stolen wealth and oppression of the less fortunates.
So what is next?
Well, for one thing that now depends on the USA. Russia can hold this position for as long as needed. In contrast, the EU is suffering economically and, even more so, politically. Should the Greek people rise against the AngloZionist plutocracy and reject their ultimatum the resulting political crisis will make the EU even weaker.
To weaken or “f..k the EU” has been US oligarchs plan from the beginning and looks like they are going to succeed.
That will create huge global economic storm and Russia needs to ride it out without too much damage, which she can.
Know the feeling.
But the current campaign is being largely waged by outlaw groups still embedded in the UAF, and NATO mercenaries operating as ‘advisers.’
The former would operate as criminal gangs for personal enrichment anyway, Minsk or no Minsk. The latter are foreigners and motivated similarly, but with the additional factor of geopolitical intrigue. Neither faction are likely to be popular with the regular UAF.
Minsk is acting as ‘weeding out’ mechanism, as it gives the regular UAF the legal basis for at least questioning an attack order. There will be more of this, as the discontent/resentment increases. Porks has neither personal charisma nor popular support to unify the UAF on behalf of the junta. Yats is a populist liability.
But Zak does. Givi is ‘cool.’ And Motorola is a regular ‘dude.’
Defections will increase.
Me?
Hoping for a spectator mutiny soon…:)
It means whipping up nationalism is a proven winner. The US of course is above such cheap trick to advance its interests …instead it incites ethnic, historical and nationalistic hatred among nations.
What it really means is the fact, that the Russian People are not so brainwashed like most of the Western People, who refuse to inform themselves properly outside the Western Mainstream Media. It is for some time known, that the USA and its allies are supporting terrorists to achieve their geopolitical goals. This is not only true for the Ukraine – here the West supports nazis and fascists – but also for the Middle East and (North) Africa. Please read the following article:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/20943-u-s-intel-obama-coalition-supported-islamic-state-in-syria
It is obvious, the Western Politicians lie and lie and lie. Sad to say, but like Christoph Hörstel has told us: “You cannot trust the West.”
Here’s a paragraph taken out of the article I posted…perhaps its a bit long for most readers…there seems to be a misunderstanding about what this document says…
* The Church can withdraw from supporting governments, corporations or any other organizations that support any form of slavery.
* The Church can destroy the “control files” of prominent businessmen and politicians created through the use of its networks.
* The Church can complete restoration efforts related to its pedophilia activities and publish complete figures on how much the Church has spent on all restoration efforts.
* The Church can use its shareholdings and ownership positions in government and corporate securities to insist on a withdrawal of corporate and government support for mind control, torture and slavery and the compromise of individual privacy and sovereignty.
Dear Saker,
Did you see the article by Alfred McCoy published in voltairenet.org: The Geopolitics of American Global Decline? There are many references to Russia!
As the Atlanticist psychotics will NEVER accept any country, anywhere, not obeying orders from Mordor-on-the-Potomac, this crisis can only end with the subjugation and dismemberment of Russia and China, or the defeat of the Western elites. That probably means thermo-nuclear war, where we all will die. The one thin hope is social collapse in the West thanks to economic collapse, which is plainly already occurring. Unfortunately the US elites and the counterparts in the UK, Israel and the EU have an infinite capacity for inflicting suffering on their own populations, and for mass murder and genocide when required, as we have seen throughout history.
Russia has two problems. First is Putin, or, rather, his irreplaceability. The Chinese wouldn’t miss a beat if the Israelis slipped some Po 210 in Xi’s cocoa, but Russia needs to prepare a cadre of Putins to follow Putin, if the USA succeeds in killing him, or if fate intervenes. Secondly, the Atlanticist Fifth Columnists must be extirpated, interfering Western NGOs all expelled (along with as many compradores as one can persuade to move to their Utopias)and Russia must produce an anti-Free Market capitalist society, one where equality is valued, where the weak and down-trodden are lifted up, not vilified and sadistically starved and neglected, where collective solidarity is treasured, not greedy, atomised, individuality. As we can see in Greece, and Russians experienced under the cirrhotic Quisling Yeltsin and as the growing under-classes throughout the West well know, Free Market capitalism means riches for the few, and increasing misery for the very many. If Russia produces a society opposite to the neo-liberal horror, that will not just help solidify Russia, but weaken the West and hopefully, lead to the liberation of The West’s captive majority.
Feels like it is time the Bear bites back.
Let’s face it. Capitalism is a failed system, and needs to be put to rest. America can’t do it. Only ones who can are Putin and Xi. Go, Russia!