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“… the MGIMO (or “Moscow State Institute of International Relations“) is a very prestigious and high-end institution …”

Indeed. Incidentally, the Russian Strategic Culture Foundation frequently publishes excellent analyses by Dr. Valentin Katasonov, Professor (and Department Head 2001-2011) of the Department of International Finances of MGIMO, the University of the Foreign Ministry of Russian Federation, http://www.mgimo.ru/users/document1562.phtml .

Check http://www.fondsk.ru/authors/valentin-katasonov-189.html (Russian) and http://www.strategic-culture.org/authors/valentin-katasonov.html (English).

Great news on Mr Korybko joining The Saker team – welcome :).

I look forward to listening to your podcast.

As per your survey you shouldn’t worry about about asking for funding.

Regards,

Veritas

Big brother is creeping ever closer in the west. Today it was reported in RT News that the EU has legislated that it is now going to be compulsory for all new cars to be fitted with SOS black boxes in case of emergencies for “safety and security” reasons :

​Safety v. privacy: EU says new cars must be fitted with SOS black boxes

“All new cars and vans throughout the EU must be fitted with an ‘SOS’ black box within three years, the European Parliament has ruled. The device will automatically contact emergency services in the event of an accident.

The device, called eCall, will dial the EU-wide emergency number 112 if an accident occurs. This will give authorities the exact location and time of the crash, as well as the number of passengers in the vehicle. It will also state the direction of travel and the position of the crash.

According to EU representatives, the device has been shown to cut emergency response times by half in rural areas, and up to 60 percent in towns and cities. For those injured in a car crash, this could mean the difference between life and death”.

Yeah, right. Since when have they ever been concerned with the safety of their citizens. If they were really concerned about their citizens well being they wouldn’t be taking the stance they currently are regarding sanctions against Russia which is damaging their own economies and jeopardising their citizens livelihood never mind foolishly risking a world war. No, this is about keeping track of people and their whereabouts plain and simple.
I wonder how long before they come up with the idea of having micro chips implanted under our skins from birth, for “safety and security” reasons of course.

Thanks for your podcast, I appreciated hearing about the rational for the development to how it is now, and your own personal journey and work in and behind the scenes with all this. It’s an incredible work and invaluable.
I don’t think it’s a case of simplifying the blog much, things develop and metamorphose, and this site has too. What is maybe lost is the easy sense of identification with whatever you are currently writing about. This happened through a less cluttered interface, and it was easier before to feel this more immediate and personal relationship to news articles and to your ideals.
It’s rather difficult to describe, it has also to do with not what is written only, but who writes it, That is hard to understand. Two people can say or write the same words but they may mean or harbor something completely different.
People want to belong, to feel connected to the events and the truth of our time, and that may be lost by so many different contributors, or, it is easier to do so once one has identified with one person’s style.
So, I have no ideas, I only know that the world becomes more complex, the acceleration of evil gains ground, and life continues to become less and less meaningful and personal, and more and more ruthless and cynical.
Welcome to Andrew Korybko.
God protect all the truth seekers, the Saker and community, and don’t let’s forget the Russian proverb: One word of truth outweighs the whole world.

Regarding your podcast, I thought it was fine, and hope you continue to make then in whatever way you see fit.

As regards the material at about 23 or 24 minutes, I suggest you rethink your evaluation of national socialism / Nazism. While there is a range of people in all ideologies, better or worse, there is inherent evil in Nazism not found in Marxism, or even capitalism, racism being just the start of it. And, while even patriotism has problems, nationalism much more so.

The problems with communism is not so much the system as the extremists among the people trying to practice it, who leave out the essential democratic and equality of all people embodied in it. As you said, Marxism is not racist, but Nazism is, and that is strong sign of what underlies the ideologies and psychological positions. Communism done correctly is rather good, while Nazism done correctly is horrific.

Capitalism is also inherently ‘evil’ in that it undermines equality and justice, albeit in an obscured way. (And small businesses, btw, are not capitalist: those tradesmen and similar work for their money rather than get it by exploiting others through owning the means of production and using money to control politics and legislation.)

In any system there will be variations in how successful particular instantiations are: economically, some business people will see more earnings than others. In capitalism these differences are used to undermine competition and opportunity of others to a large extent, and, importantly, as part of the structure of the system itself, leading to ever greater inequality, through positive feedback. Thus the end state of capitalism is not prosperity, but monopoly, fascism and systemic collapse. Regulation fails because it is contrary to the capitalist structures and system. Capitalism is not simply ‘doing business’, and mechanisms of competition, customers having access to information, availability of product choice, and so on, are generally part of doing business (which is perfectly compatible in a communist economic system), but not of capitalism.

Understanding the implications and subtle structures of these economic and political systems is important, but can be difficult, not only from inherent difficulty, but because they are obscured by those who are doing well within a system.

Communism, for example, has inherent problems with how control of the productive resources are allocated, and production, tangible wealth, is distributed, and these are intertwined with the inherent problems of democracy itself (both the ‘tyranny of masses’ and use of ower by special interests (as seen in the restrictions of the guilds in the Middle Ages which stopped non-guild people from owning tools, for instance). Central control has great advantages, and great disadvantages too, including who gets to control the controllers — it’s a mixed bag. There are many political and economic problems which have not been solved, even theoretically, and perhaps never will completely. But let’s not mistake the failures or triumphs of implementations and people, in knowledge or psychological health, and within specific cultures, for the good or bad aspects of the theoretical and social underpinnings of ideology itself.

There similarities with the problems of computer science, for instance: a well programmed bubble sort can be better than a badly done quicksort, or with data which is already organized in an optimum way for one or the other (best or worst case for a particular algorithm). It’s like voting systems: there is not perfect or best system, depending on how many candidates or what want as a result. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arrow , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem ).

There are no perfect systems or ideologies — but some are clearly worse than others.

Pepe article the long way around.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-30/pentagons-long-war-pitches-nato-against-china-russia-iran

This is NATO’s visible game. What’s not so visible is that the target is not only Russia, but also Iran and China.

The battlefield is now clearly drawn between NATO and Russia/China/Iran. So no wonder they are getting closer. Iran is an observer at the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) and is bound to become a member of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) by 2016.

Russia providing S-300 systems to Iran; S-400 systems to China (with new, longer-range guided missiles); and developing the S-500 systems, which are capable of intercepting supersonic targets, for itself, all point to an ultra high-tech counterpunch. And NATO knows it.

This budding military Eurasia integration is a key subplot of the New Great Game that runs parallel to the Chinese-led New Silk Road(s) project.

http://www.tasnimnews.com/english/Home/Single/727172

April 30, 2015 – 16:20
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The upgraded D variant of China’s J-11 fighter jet, a copy of the Russian Sukhoi Su-27, has made its maiden flight, Chinese media reported. The jet reportedly has new radar and an air refueling system.

The J-11D model, which was tested in the air for the first time on Wednesday, incorporates technologies developed for the J-16 fighter jet.

China was the first foreign country to buy Russian Su-27s in the early 1990s. Over a decade it purchased a manufacturing license for the jets and managed to copy the design to produce it from domestic parts, RT reported.

Hi Saker,

Your podcast seems to be cut off, I was quite disappointed to see it’s only 42 minutes, so a bit of a relief to see there must be more of it.:)

Have you ever heard of the Chinese philosophy of the Hundred Schools period called Mohism? Russia’s S-3/400 sales to nations threatened by the likes of USUKNATO puts me in mind of the Mohist teachings, not that I think that promoting peace and assisting nations in defence against aggression is an explicit intention of the Russians. Any thoughts on this point?

Well, Saker, I, really, enjoy everything you do. The old blog seemed to me right, and this new as well. It has the advantage, as you say, that post are arranged by topic / formats, and especially now, that the amount of information has increased exponentially, it is easier to find post that you have not yet been able to attend. In my case, the only problem I have is time, I do not have enough to read, see, hear everything that’s available and comment on it.

I like these thematic podcast, then you can go deeper into a topic and clarify many misunderstandings that people have.
Thank you very much for sharing with us your vision of the world, at political, social and economic level. I think that we agree on many things, particularly in economics. Perhaps in the social and religious level we differ a little, I understood.
It happens that I find difficult to understand well the podcasts, because you talk too fast for my comprehension. So I could not understand well the section on trade unions, which I’m very interested, as it is a level where I most move myself in politics. In the current situation, I consider it imperative that workers are unionized, is the only way to maintain decent conditions of employment, at a time that labor law blatantly favors employers and what is to come with the TTIP.

People believed that the welfare state was assured, that nothing would back, and decided to save the union dues. Now that circumstances have changed dramatically fast, some still want to save it, while they let their comrades bear all the costs and all the vindictive effort in the street, forgetting that rights enjoyed until now, were due to the fellow who took the same effort.
These people, the esquiroles, who always argue that they can not afford the union fee or lose the cost of the day to strike, but who you see traveling all day to spend weekends out there and living in the city center in a great flat, seem to me miserable, and, somewhat, negligible.

Dear Saker,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to conduct this modest personal survey on your site. It was extremely instructive, and even fun. I learned here many new things, and found even more old ones.
I would say you are on the right path if you want to make Russia and Orthodoxy truly known to the world. So keep up the good work.

If you ever want to increase the number of views and comments at an article, I am the person to help you do it. I seem to always have that effect on people. Witness Prof. Robinson’s blog, for example, where almost nobody comments (though it is a very good blog), but when I did – it instantly gave rise to a lively debate. Not to mention other sites (I won’t mention them out of modesty), where articles I visit generally jump to the top. Although I must admit a couple of times I had the opposite effect, and once they retired an RT article after just one thoughtful and informed comment of mine. I can’t imagine why.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I would like to thank you again for allowing me to play in your famous sandbox. I feel honoured to have been in the company of so many illustrious professional people. The internet is a wonderful thing.

So, goodbye, and if you ever miss me, I’m sure you’ll know where to find me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSHz8yjHDVE