by Denis A. Conroy for the Saker blog One imagines… from outside of America at least…that the political system there, robust one year, retro the next, is on its way to drowning in a sea of vitriolic comeuppance. Half the population think Donald Trump is a buffoon while the other half think the Donald is o.k. But what we overlook is the fact that the population of America living within
While Khan plays on a complex geopolitical chessboard, Chinese aid could be a financial lifeline as Islamabad faces off against deadly religious extremism by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with The Asia Times by special agreement with the author) It has been a breathless week, huddled in the shadow of the simmering, bubbling, politico-religious volcano that is Imran Khan’s Pakistan. And this week’s multi-faceted developments may just signal seismic shifts in Pakistan’s
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog Ten years ago my life was all screwed up by the economic crisis I had nothing to do with. In August 2008 AFP (Agence France Presse) said that if I learned French they’d give me a job. I moved in with my parents and studied five hours a day seven days a week for five months. By the time I arrived in France
by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with Consortium News by special agreement with the author) A troubling new era has begun in Brazil with the election on Sunday of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro as president, writes Pepe Escobar. It’s darkness at the break of (tropical) high noon. Jean Baudrillard once defined Brazil as “the chlorophyll of our planet”. And yet a land vastly associated worldwide with the soft power of creative joie
In his 1928 landmark book Propaganda, public relations pioneer and Goebbelsian trailblazer Eddie Bernays offered what amounts to a disingenuous assertion at best: “It is important that any effort to influence or effect the American public that is not in the public interest be killed by the light of pitiless publicity and analysis.” Immediately, the statement begs two questions: What if the American public decides at the ballot box that
by Peter Koenig for The Saker Blog Latin America is re-converting into Washington’s backyard and as a sideline is returning to fascist rule, similar but worse than the sixties seventies and eighties, which stood under the spell of the CIA-led Operation or Plan Condor. Many call the current right-wing trend Operation Condor II which is probably as close to the truth as can be. It is all Washington / CIA
Freedom and Other Illusions Revisited (or, when Life imitates / copies Art – the “total art work”) With a Postscript: Meditations on Representationalism by David A. Powell for The Saker Blog “In disciplinary and industrial society, system-preserving power was repressive. Factory workers were brutally exploited by factory owners. Such violent exploitation of others’ labor entailed acts of protest and resistance. There, it was possible for a revolution to topple the
by Ghassan Kadi for The Saker Blog Ever since Saudi Arabia signed its agreement with American President Roosevelt in February 1945, it never ever considered, or even contemplated to be outside the American sphere of influence and protection. In my previous article https://10.16.86.131/the-price-of-bin-salmans-head/ I elaborated on some of the personal issues that define the nature of the relationship that Saudi royals have with American lawmakers as men, not as politicians,
by GH Eliason for The Saker Blog Leonid Pasechnik, the acting Head of Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR)has been in office for almost one year. With the state of his reforms in LNR, you want to judge him against leaders of countries at peace, not as one that just formed in the middle of a war four years ago. For the last thirty years, Donbass was neglected in Ukraine. The infrastructure
by Peter Koenig for The Saker Blog The European Parliament has asked yesterday (25 October) for an immediate embargo on the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia, hence sanctioning the Kingdom of rogue Saudi Arabia which is joining the United States and Israel as the main purveyor of crime throughout the Middle East and the world. France still said they will apply sanctions only if it is proven that Riyadh
by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with The Asia Times by special agreement with the author) The US move to shelve the Intermediate-range Nuclear-Forces treaty could accelerate the demise of the whole post-WWII Western alliance, and herald a bad remix of the 1930s The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved its Doomsday Clock to only 2 minutes to midnight. It might be tempting to turn this into a mere squabble about
by Norman Ball for The Saker Blog “[W]e, as serious people, cannot examine the concrete problems that are thrown when the Russian Federation is accused of all mortal sins without recourse to the processes (norms) created for similar cases,” –from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s October 18th interview with RT France. Russia labors under a West-imposed Original Sin that can obtain dispensation only with the former’s existential cessation. The root
by Ghassan Kadi for The Saker Blog With the ever-changing and escalating aftermath of the Khashoggi disappearance episode, there remain many fixed marks that are interesting to identify. But before we do, we must stop and briefly look at the official American, Turkish and Saudi stands on this issue. The Americans are best seen to be playing yoyo with their Saudi “friends”. One moment they seem to be totally abandoning
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog It seems unlikely – as it defies 73 years of ongoing aggression, warfare, the near-warfare of constant tap dancing on the border, starvation-creating sanctions, false promises, broken promises, racist caricaturing, hysterical knee-jerk anti-socialism, and more besides – but what if Washington finally allows North Korea to reintegrate into the multinational world? North Korea has been so politically oppressed from without that they are
by Ghassan Kadi for The Saker Blog In this insane historical era in which we currently live, events, their causes and consequences do not necessarily follow this particular logical sequence of reporting and analyzing; and we have to get used to much worse. To this effect, a week ago, it was almost impossible to work out who “killed” Khashoggi and why even though the financial and political and consequences were
by Peter Koenig for The Saker Blog One week before the second round of voting in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, the extreme right-wing candidate from the Social Liberal Party (PSL), against Fernando Haddad from the Worker’s Party (PT), Lula’s Party, for Brazil’s Presidential run-off elections – Bolsonaro leads to polls by double digits, about 58 against 42. And the gap is growing, despite the fact that as recent as end of
Freedom and Other Illusions – Further excursions into what used to be called “high versus low culture” (or, further illusions concerning American art & the Medium / et cetera) With a concluding Postscript by David A. Powell for The Saker Blog Part 3 of 3 parts ” ‘Genius is only seen in those who are successful…’ an anonymous author announced in the [American art publication] Art Amateur (1896). This criterion
The Pentagon may not be advocating total war against both Russia and China – as it has been interpreted in some quarters by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with The Asia Times by special agreement with the author) A crucial Pentagon report on the US defense industrial base and “supply chain resiliency” bluntly accuses China of “military expansion” and “a strategy of economic aggression,” mostly because Beijing is the only source for
World leaders wrestle with a maelstrom of complex, burning issues as they prepare for November 30 summit by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with the Asia Times by special agreement with the author) The G-20 in Buenos Aires on November 30 could set the world on fire – perhaps literally. Let’s start with the US-China trade war. Washington won’t even start discussing trade with China at the G-20 unless Beijing comes up with
by Ghassan and Itbah Kadi for The Saker Blog A mystifying diplomatic escalation ensued following the disappearance of Saudi Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, after visiting the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Why would the United States of America make such a fuss over the disappearance of a non-American citizen? Why would America turn a blind eye to the Saudi killing of thousands of Yemeni civilians and the starving of
