Guest Analyses
By Larry Romanoff for the Saker Blog In most nations, when a particular criminal conduct reaches epidemic proportion, the government finally acts decisively to eradicate it. Not in America; they solve the problem by legalising it. They did this with influence-peddling (lobbying) and drugs, the same now occurring with domestic propaganda which has been against the law for a very long time to protect citizens from psychological manipulation and control by their own
By Pepe Escobar – posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times I have a new book out, Raging Twenties: Great Power Politics Meets Techno-Feudalism. For those who don’t use Amazon, here is a mini-guide on how to order and buy the book. The journey of a book finding its readers is always an idiosyncratic, mysterious and fascinating process. To set the scene, permit me a short presentation
Paul Schmutz Schaller for The Saker Blog a) Definitions I must start by defining what I understand by „colonial thinking“. This means the conviction in Western countries that their country, their system, their culture, their general mentality is much better than in the other parts of the world. One may add the conviction that the religion („Western“ Christianity) is better than other religions. Or the conviction of white supremacy; but
by Ljubiša Malenica for the Saker Blog As we move into the third decade of the twenty-first century, we can undoubtedly claim, taking into account all the important elements of social life, that women have achieved equal status with men. Moreover, in some cases, women can justifiably be considered more privileged. According to research by Sonia Starr, men usually serve 63% more severe sentences than women who have committed the
by Mansoureh Tajik for the Saker Blog Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim, “In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. On March 12, 2001, a near-comprehensive agreement was reached between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation in Moscow. The agreement was signed by Mohammad Khatami, Iran’s president at the time, and Vladimir Putin as the Russian president.[1] It has been in place for 20 years and is about
By Nat South for the Saker Blog This short analysis outlines a recent small but subtle “sea change” in Russian naval deployments that took place recently. Firstly, the list below outlines an abridged overview of the current elements underpinning Russian naval policies to date: The backbone of the Russian Navy lies in its multipronged capacity to field a range of ships, to support its littoral defence and also deploy primarily
by Francis Lee for the Saker Blog The naval Battle of Copenhagen (1801) occurred during the War of the Second Coalition when a British naval fleet commanded by Admiral Sir Hyde Parker defeated a Danish fleet anchored just off Copenhagen. Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson led the main British attack. During the battle, he was famously reputed to have disobeyed his senior officer, Sir Hyde Parker’s, order to withdraw by holding
New Five-Year Plan aims for ‘high-quality’ economic reform, a tech leap forward and new era of common prosperity By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times It’s Lianghui (“Two Sessions”) time – the annual ritual of the Beijing leadership. The stars of the show are the top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference; and the traditional delivery of a work report by the Prime
By Aram Mirzaei for the Saker blog Another president, another act of aggression. For the past few decades, it’s almost like a mandatory rite of passage for US presidents to bomb Muslim countries. I don’t think many of us are surprised to see that current US President Joe Biden turned out to be no different to his predecessors, when Washington once more bombed Iraqis last week. Continuing the same policy
by Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times In the beginning, they were the Bamiyan Buddhas: the Western Buddha statue, 55 meters high, and the Eastern, 38 meters high, carved for decades since 550 A.D. from porous sandstone cliffs, the intricate details modeled in clay mixed with straw and coated with stucco. Xuanzang, the legendary traveling monk of the early Tang dynasty who journeyed to India in
By Larry Romanoff for the Saker Blog The success of Lippman and Bernays did not go unnoticed in many segments of American society. Universities in particular realised the potential of these new propaganda techniques to form, manipulate and control social perceptions and behavior. Schools and Universities in the US had never been viewed as an educational system but more as tools of a public disciplinary system, a method both of
by Ghassan and Intibah Kadi for the Saker Blog Who remembers the Herman’s Hermits and their 1967 song ‘There’s a Kind of Hush’? The hush the song speaks of is a hush of love, and it was a world of dreams in the sixties in the West, despite the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights protests in the USA and other global conflicts. The peace movements were strong and vibrant, and
By The Ister for the Saker Blog They say that great myths die hard, but as it fades into obscurity will anyone really miss the Saudi state? Because the Kingdom’s cosmopolitan elite longed to be like the West, they imported European sports cars and erected enormous skyrises using slave labor. Riyadh and Jeddah transformed into shopping centers and hubs of oligarchic largesse while the oil-rich sheiks appeased the conservative populace
By Pepe Escobar and first posted at Asia Times Moscow is painfully aware that the US/NATO “strategy” of containment of Russia is already reaching fever pitch. Again. This past Wednesday, at a very important meeting with the Federal Security Service board, President Putin laid it all out in stark terms: We are up against the so-called policy of containing Russia. This is not about competition, which is a natural thing
by Ljubiša Malenica for the Saker Blog The abrupt dissolution of the USSR and the emergence of the United States as the sole superpower in the last decade of the twentieth century influenced both the political ordering of the world and the ideological foundation upon which said ordering relied. Where previously existed two conflicting worldviews, with their own specific characteristics, the end of the Soviet Union signaled the fall of
By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times The late Dr. Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski for some time dispensed wisdom as an oracle of US foreign policy, side by side with the perennial Henry Kissinger – who, in vast swathes of the Global South, is regarded as nothing but a war criminal. Brzezinski never achieved the same notoriety. At best he claimed bragging rights for giving the
By Larry Romanoff for the Saker Blog From their experiences in the formulation, manipulation and control of public perception and opinion with the CPI, both Lippman and Bernays later wrote of their open contempt for a “malleable and hopelessly ill-informed public” in America. (1) Lippmann had already written that the people in a democracy were simply “a bewildered herd” of “ignorant and meddlesome outsiders” (2) who should be maintained only
by Francis Lee for the Saker Blog 1. Jack London and the Iron Heel The Iron Heel is a dystopian novel by the American writer Jack London, first published in 1908. It is considered to be one of the earliest examples of modern dystopian fiction. It was the fourth of London’s earlier output which included, People of the Abyss (which was in fact journalism rather than literature) and the two novels,
By Nat South for the Saker Blog This is part of a series on air missions carried in proximity to Russian borders, (NATO members and Sweden), principally intelligence-gathering missions, supported by air tankers. Flights tracked were mostly either over the waters of the Baltic, Black Seas and more rarely, Barents Seas. The latest briefing follows on an article written back in May 2020, [1] on my blog with several visuals
A more sovereign Germany closer to Russia and China may be the straw that breaks the US hegemon’s back By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times Last week we traced the necessary historical and geopolitical steps to understand Why Russia is driving the West crazy. And then, last Friday, right before the start of the Year of the Metal Ox, came the bombshell, delivered with customary
