by Pepe Escobar for PressTV, cross posted with the author’s permission
The self-appointed Davos “elites” are afraid. So afraid. At this week’s World Economic Forum meetings, mastermind Klaus Schwab – displaying his trademark Bond villain act – carped over and over again about a categorical imperative: we need “Cooperation in a Fragmented World”.
While his diagnosis of “the most critical fragmentation” the world is now mired in is predictably somber, Herr Schwab maintains that “the spirit of Davos is positive” and in the end we may all live happily in a “green sustainable economy.”
What Davos has been good at this week is showering public opinion with new mantras. There’s “The New System” which, considering the abject failure of the much ballyhooed Great Reset, now looks like a matter of hastily updating the current – rattled – operating system.
Davos needs new hardware, new programming skills, even a new virus. Yet for the moment all that’s available is a “polycrisis”: or, in Davos speak, a “cluster of related global risks with compounding effects.”
In plain English: a perfect storm.
Insufferable bores from that Divide and Rule island in northern Europe have just found out that “geopolitics”, alas, never really entered the tawdry “end of history” tunnel: much to their amazement it’s now centered – again – across the Heartland, as it’s been for most of recorded history.
They complain about “threatening” geopolitics, which is code for Russia-China, with Iran attached.
But the icing on the Alpine cake is arrogance/stupidity actually giving away the game: the City of London and its vassals are livid because the “world Davos made” is fast collapsing.
Davos did not “make” any world apart from its own simulacrum.
Davos never got anything right, because these “elites” were always busy eulogizing the Empire of Chaos and its lethal “adventures” across the Global South.
Davos not only failed to foresee all recent, major economic crises but most of all the current “perfect storm”, linked to the neoliberalism-spawned deindustrialization of the Collective West.
And, of course, Davos is clueless about the real Reset taking place towards multipolarity.
Self-described opinion leaders are busy “re-discovering” that Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain was set in Davos – “against the backdrop of a deadly disease and an impeding world war” – nearly a century ago.
Well, nowadays the “disease” – fully bioweaponized – is not exactly deadly per se. And the “impending World War” is in fact being actively encouraged by a cabal of US Straussian neo-cons and neoliberal-cons: an unelected, unaccountable, bipartisan Deep State not even subject to ideology. Centennary war criminal Henry Kissinger still does not get it.
A Davos panel on de-globalization was rife on non-sequiturs, but at least a dose of reality was provided by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.
As for China’s vice-premier Liu He, with his vast knowledge of finance, science and technology, at least he was very helpful to lay down Beijing’s five top guidelines for the foreseeable future – beyond the customary imperial Sinophobia.
China will focus on expanding domestic demand; keeping industrial and supply chains “smooth”; go for the “healthy development of the private sector”; deepen state enterprise reform; and aim for “attractive foreign investment.”
Russian resistance, American precipice
Emmanuel Todd was not at Davos. But it was the French anthropologist, historian, demographer and geopolitical analyst who ended up ruffling all the appropriate feathers across the collective West these past few days with a fascinating anthropological object: a reality-based interview.
Todd spoke to Le Figaro – the newspaper of choice of the French establishment and haute bourgeoisie. The interview was published last Friday on page 22, sandwiched between proverbial Russophobic screeds and with an extremely brief mention on the bottom of the front page. So people really had to work hard to find it.
Todd joked that he has the – absurd – reputation of a “rebel destroy” in France, while in Japan he’s respected, featured in mainstream media, and his books are published with great success, including the latest (over 100,000 copies sold): “The Third World War Has Already Started”.
Significantly, this Japanese best seller does not exist in French, considering the whole Paris-based publishing industry toes the EU/NATO line on Ukraine.
The fact that Todd gets several things right is a minor miracle in the current, abysmally myopic European intellectual landscape (there are other analysts especially in Italy and Germany, but they carry much less weight than Todd).
So here’s Todd’s concise Greatest Hits.
– A new World War is on: By “switching from a limited territorial war to a global economic clash, between the collective West on one side and Russia linked to China on the other side, this became a World War”.
– The Kremlin, says Todd, made a mistake, calculating that a decomposed Ukraine society would collapse right away. Of course he does not get into detail on how Ukraine had been weaponized to the hilt by the NATO military alliance.
– Todd is spot on when he stresses how Germany and France had become minor partners at NATO and were not aware of what was being plotted in Ukraine militarily: “They did not know that the Americans, British and Poles could allow Ukraine to fight an extended war. NATO’s fundamental axis now is Washington-London-Warsaw-Kiev.”
– Todd’s major give away is a killer: “The resistance of Russia’s economy is leading the imperial American system to the precipice. Nobody had foreseen that the Russian economy would hold facing NATO’s ‘economic power’”.
– Consequently, “monetary and financial American controls over the world may collapse, and with them the possibility for the US of financing for nothing their enormous trade deficit”.
– And that’s why “we are in an endless war, in a clash where the conclusion is the collapse of one or the other.”
– On China, Todd might sound like a more pugnacious version of Liu He at Davos: “That’s the fundamental dilemma of the American economy: it cannot face Chinese competition without importing qualified Chinese work force.”
– As for the Russian economy, “it does accept market rules, but with an important role for the state, and it keeps the flexibility of forming engineers that allow adaptations, industrial and military.”
– And that bring us, once again, to globalization, in a manner that Davos roundtables were incapable of understanding: “We have delocalized so much of our industrial activity that we don’t know whether our war production may be sustained”.
– On a more erudite interpretation of that “clash of civilizations” fallacy, Todd goes for soft power and comes up with a startling conclusion: “On 75 percent of the planet, the organization of parenthood was patrilineal, and that’s why we may identify a strong understanding of the Russian position. For the collective non-West, Russia affirms a reassuring moral conservatism.”
– So what Moscow has been able to pull off is to “reposition itself as the archetype of a big power, not only “anti-colonialist” but also patrilineal and conservative in terms of traditional mores.”
Based on all of the above, Todd smashes the myth sold by EU/NATO “elites” – Davos included – that Russia is “isolated”, stressing how votes in the UN and the overall sentiment across the Global South characterizes the war, “described by mainstream media as a conflict over political values, in fact, on a deeper level, as a conflict of anthropological values.”
Between light and darkness
Could it be that Russia – alongside the real Quad, as I defined them (with China, India and Iran) – are prevailing in the anthropological stakes?
The real Quad has all it takes to blossom into a new cross-cultural focus of hope in a “fragmented world”.
Mix Confucian China (non-dualistic, no transcendental deity, but with the Tao flowing through everything) with Russia (Orthodox Christian, reverencing the divine Sophia); polytheistic India (wheel of rebirth, law of karma); and Shi’ite Iran (Islam preceded by Zoroastrianism, the eternal cosmic battle between Light and Darkness).
This unity in diversity is certainly more appealing, and uplifting, than the Forever War axis.
Will the world learn from it? Or, to quote Hegel – “what we learn from history is that nobody learns from history” – are we hopelessly doomed?
Pepe’s headline: “world’ sleepwalks into World War III” quotes a popular misconception that “the world sleepwalked into World War 1”.
I do not believe that anybody sleepwalked into WW1; it was slowly and deliberately planned by Great Britain from 1892 till 1914. In 1892 Great Britain reached the apex of its Imperial power by the Boer War: taking over the gold, diamonds and other mineral wealth of the Free Afrikaaner Republics. Military and industrial capital needed for this so-called Boer War was sucked out of London and into the South African colonies. Result: German industrial investment (Germany had few colonies) overtook Britain and France; who then plotted to destroy Germany as an industrial competitor. It took a decade or so to forge the alliances (Britain, France, Russia and Serbia) and to brainwash the Anglo-French public with anti-German sentiment. There was also the need to destroy the Turkish Empire and take over Turkey’s oil kingdoms.
Nobody sleepwalked into WW1. Some wide-awake bureacrats chalked up a motto in the British Foreign Office: Mesopotamia = Oil; Serbia = Gateway to Mesopotamia; and by 1914 the Serbian fuse was ready to be lit.
Side note: Russia was divided on this issue: the Tsar wished to honour his alliance with Britain, but the Tsarina was against the War — mainly through the influence of Rasputin. As a result, Rasputin was always a sinister figure in the British literature of my boyhood.
Totally agree with that.
Yes, you are right. But the British Secret Service also did an excellent job of human resources in German-and the AU-empires, by sinking leaders who were unwilling to go to war, and supporting crazy warriors, like Emperor Wilhelm II, or AU General Staff Konrad Hetzendorf , gen. Oscar Potyoreck, and assassinated Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand (who was said to have been against the war).
The bloody anti-dynastic coup in Serbia in 1903 was also part of the plan to encircle Germany and Austria.
Interesting hypothesis and the remnants of that military coup in 1903 turned into the Black Hand led by Tankosic and Dimitrejevic aka APIS responsible for the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand . Of course it’s no secret the British Secret Service betrayed Prince Paul and King Peter 2 of Yugoslavia and installed the Communist Tito .
Minus divine intervention, we are hopelessly doomed. This is not a consequence of WW3, but due to the fact that all parties to the conflict support digital currencies, social credit scores, global medical dictatorship, and the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’. No matter what happens, a AI dominated world with no privacy, extreme wealth disparity, and no individual liberties awaits. Nuclear war wiping out the industrial northern hemisphere might be the best case scenario for what would remain of humanity.
Fortunately, we can pray and have faith that heaven will rescue us before we are all assimilated into the Borg.
No need for “divine intervention” since it’s never happened. The things you fear are only relevant if your government is “corrupt”. Besides, most of what you list have already been in existence since the 1990’s.
Technology in the “right hands” can benefit society. Like a knife, it can be used to prepare a great feast for friends and family or it can be used to kill everyone at the dining table. You can get on your knees and prey or you can actively do something if you live under a “corrupt” leadership….the choice is yours.
“Technology in the “right hands” can benefit society”
Indeed, like what has been said about TV, nuclear power, and the internet. How many people do you see qualifying in the “Right hands” category? Faith that technology will save humanity is just that – blind faith in the redemption of humanity by the newest gadgetry and a superstition.
The fundamental problem is that humans in seeking to be clever have abandoned wisdom. I do agree with you that people need to start making better choices, but better choices requires better understanding and awareness of the non-separation and interconnections of everything on this planet.
@Ron
” You can get on your knees and prey or you can actively do something if you live under a “corrupt” leadership….the choice is yours.”
Easy to say but almost impossible to actively do something. I live in Australia & like almost all Western Nations the Gov is almost totally on side with the war mongering uS. The MSM will NOT print anything remotely in favour of Russia , China , Iran etc. So I say BS to your premise.
The fundamental problem in today’s West is that it has been stolen by a number of very rich oligarchs and money lenders. For decades, since Woodrow Wilson’s era.
This has gone on for several decades now, but they accelerated it about 40 years ago when they decided that they could use “environmentalism” (*) to mask their shift of the West from a producer economy to a consumer economy. This could only be supported by outsourcing ( globalism ) production to countries with a lower standard of living ( ie: lower labor costs ). So long as the Western “citizens” could be kept happy and fed they would not complain too much.
( Reminds me of Ancient Rome… where the Emperors would give stuff and games to the citizens to keep them fat and happy ).
Note that I figure the OPEC nations are included in the “West” so long as they got oil. You see, those folks saw the writing on the wall back in the early 70s…. and they used their oil to invite themselves to the “Western Club”.
The Fall of the Soviets was most useful, as it gave the Western Oligarchs much more breathing room ( more countries to steal from, less costly Cold War military expenditures, more money for military expeditions to keep every one on line: Serbia, Croatia, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, etc.., more money for the CIA ).
The BIG problem with this set up ( there are lots of problems… ) is that the Oligarchs decided to really push “environmentalism” to the “poor countries” as well. And the poor countries realized that they were gonna be kept poor on account of some crazy idea from the rich Western nations. No more “spreading the wealth”… a “rules based order” meant Rich West, Poor Everybody Else….
Actually, it gets worse… it mean, Rich Western Oligarchs, enslaved Western citizens and poor enslaved everybody else.. with an end game of: Incredibly Rich and Wealthy Western Oligarchs and every body else.
The Oligarchs decided that they would use the Progressives to keep the Western people under a totalitarian regime (they used the banks to keep the poor countries in line)… whereas before, the “conservative” regimes at least let people live so long as they didn’t rock the boat too much. The Progressives, you see, actually believe their dogma… so they turned up the heat under the pot too fast.
Remember Obola The Magnificent?
But, lo and behold, something called the Internet came along and suddenly people realized, like the Poles in the 70s, that there are more of us than “them”…
So, we get the likes of Trump… in order to “correct” that, the Oligarchs decided to treble down… virus lock downs, election theft, totalitarian media control (attempt to, at least), kept pushing the Russians… their doubling and trebling down became too obvious. Just about everyone with half a brain saw it, tried to jump off the pot and so…. the gig was up.
And… well you see, Ukraine was simply over the top. In their arrogance and hubris, the Oligarchs stepped over a real Red Line laid out by a powerful Nation State. Russia is not Croatia/Somlia/Iraq/Afghanistan…. they got a real army and they got pissed off. To them it become an existentialist threat and they responded in kind.
So, the money lenders in London, bullies all, suddenly found themselves in an existentialist threat of their own.. their bluff had been called… and they had no choice but to fight. They tried first to impose economic sanctions… but that didn’t work… so then they are trying to fight with real weapons, but THAT is not going to work either because for that they would need to send millions of soldiers and, guess what? the people of the West are not going to fight the Oligarch Wars… we’re onto The Lie. And the Useful Idiots with “I support Ukraine” and “BLM” bumper stickers are cowards anyhow.
As for the rest of the World, including most of the people in the Western Nations saw it for what it is. Sure, we in the USA see the typical useful idiots driving around with Ukrainian Flags on their Priuses… but most people are fed up.. .and inflation is something that woke up even those on Food Stamps…. Suddenly, the Emperor is not giving enough food and games to the poor… Ooops!
Remember Lord of The Rings, when King Theoden wakes up from his stupor and sends Wormtongue packing? Well, that’ what we got here.
I am not sorry about the fate of Klaus and Soros and Hillary and the Banking Barons in London.. they all deserve to get “Mussolinized”.
I am worried though about our property values though. Although, someone like Trump could easily heal the American Economy… the Euros… oh, oh, they are screwed. I feel sorry for them, but they had one heck of ride for 50 years, huh? I mean, what is the average work year in France, Germany? How much vacation do they get? Hmmm…
(*) Remember Global Cooling and the Ozone Hole in the 70s? DDT in the 60s?
@tonyE
Well thought out post -fully agree. Read an intersting article this morning that confirms all is on track for Victory.
“General Armageddon Makes Way” Russia’s decision to replace General Armageddon with the even more formidable General Valery Gerasimov, should be a cause of concern for Clown Prince Zelensky and his over-dressed wife. — An excellent read.
https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/01/18/general-armageddon-makes-way/
They can’t stop the sleepwalking until they realize they no longer get to “dictate” to Russia. Imagine the ingrained arrogance of the EU to think they can order Russia to not collect overflight fee’s for using Russian airspace:
EU official demands free Siberian overflights
A senior transport director insists the royalty should be lifted
https://www.rt.com/business/570023-eu-russia-airspace-royalty/
Well its quite a tonic to get quoted by Pepe. My comment No. 21 on his earlier http://www.unz.com/pescobar/why-bri-is-back-with-a-bang-in-2023/ led to his present concluding remarks – –
“The real Quad has all it takes to blossom into a new cross-cultural focus of hope in a “fragmented world”.
Mix Confucian China (non-dualistic, no transcendental deity, but with the Tao flowing through everything) with Russia (Orthodox Christian, reverencing the divine Sophia); polytheistic India (wheel of rebirth, law of karma); and Shi’ite Iran (Islam preceded by Zoroastrianism, the eternal cosmic battle between Light and Darkness).
This unity in diversity is certainly more appealing, and uplifting, than the Forever War axis.”
Optimism is hard work but we need to try.
Patrick Lawrence wrote a beautiful pice on optimism and pessimism. I link it below. Well worth reading.
https://scheerpost.com/2023/01/14/patrick-lawrence-pessimism-of-the-mind-optimism-of-the-will/
My own musings on this: Despair is an enemy, an internal personalised fifth column. Each of us will inevitably die in our time and in own way. But life on this planet and the universe has a continuity beyond the individual and our earthly exist has been and always will be just a brief spark in this marvellous cosmic continuum.
Congratulations are in order Nick.
That and Wagner protection brigades, Wagner Asia, Wagner Africa, Wagner South America ready to stamp out NATO-CIA fires. Like a CSTO on steroids, wiping out the CIA drug cartels and child traffickers. Cleansing Zone B of Gates-Clinton-Kerry-Crown Foundations & Temples of Evil.
On 75 percent of the planet, the organization of parenthood was patrilineal, and that’s why we may identify a strong understanding of the Russian position. For the collective non-West, Russia affirms a reassuring moral conservatism.”
Reminds me of Robert Mugabe at the UN: “We are not gay.”
The inestimable Pepe Escobar!
[…Todd’s major give away is a killer: “The resistance of Russia’s economy is leading the imperial American system to the precipice. Nobody had foreseen that the Russian economy would hold facing NATO’s ‘economic power’”…]
Yes, Todd should have read and listened to “the inestimable” Prof. Michael Hudson. Hudson predicted the economic outcome long ago. “Nobody had foreseen” just reflects an adherence to what Hudson calls “Junk Economics” But at least Todd got a couple things right.
“Nobody had foreseen”
It’s just the usual egotism, perfectly understandable, that the first time one hears of something profound, one assumes nobody else has ever heard it before either.
Pepe this sentence you wrote at the end of your article “This unity in diversity is certainly more appealing, and uplifting, than the Forever War axis.” in my opinion is the only way of achieving victory against the globohomo empire of lies. You mentioned the four religions or in the case of China, philosophy of each of the four nations and while all different by doctrine and customs, they share essential commonalities at the core of their ethical and moral teachings which unites the four nations towards a common goal. This is true diversity in my opinion, not the false watered down diversity that they teach in the United States. In the United States when politicians claim that diversity is America’s biggest strength what they really mean is that the majority population of the host nation and its religious customs and historical traditions must be targeted, suppressed and rebuked in order to eliminate any form of national pride, unity and morality. Only then can a nation be subjugated which is what is happening in the U.S., western Europe and of course in Ukraine until Russia intervened.
This isn’t a cultural or religious war. The war is over currency and pricing trade, especially energy, in dollars. I learned that from you, Pepe!
“Davos not only failed to foresee all recent, major economic crises but most of all the current “perfect storm”, linked to the neoliberalism-spawned deindustrialization of the Collective West.”
Just goes to show that Klaus is a puppet and not the puppet master, and not even a particularly well informed puppet.
“Todd’s major give away is a killer: “The resistance of Russia’s economy is leading the imperial American system to the precipice. Nobody had foreseen that the Russian economy would hold facing NATO’s ‘economic power’”
Todd is quite optimistic: Even with Russia, China, Iran, and others who may be “leading the way,” we can not say those countries are “leading the Imperial American system to the precipice.” What really needs to be investigated and told about is the current volatility in the US Financial Markets, Big Banks, Hedge Funds. To name but a few. All these multi-billionaires, from Big Tech, to the Big Investors, Big Corporations are doing their best to maintain their $$$. They are purposely raising untold costs in the US with food, energy, housing, insurance, bank credit cards, medical costs and destroying as many jobs as possible, all Thanks to The FED who purposely raised interest rates for that Very Purpose>.
“The real Quad has all it takes to blossom into a new cross-cultural focus of hope in a “fragmented world”.”
Not unless they start birthing their own “World Bank” a cohesive Balance of Payment System, along with their own IMF structure. It’s a very complicated task. Let us be mindful of the obstacles, and tone down the euphoria over how well non-Western nations are doing.
It’s like the Divine Logos in a fit of exasperation says: ‘Alright! Alright! Enough Already! You Slouches Get Back to Work!
What is the meaning of ‘work’? Work here signifies the main effort of human history. It means getting back to the United Nations, or whatever will succeed this quite corrupted institution, so that the nations of this earth can continue to live in liberty while yet maintaining ongoing diplomatic relations ordered to prevent bloody hostilities. The ‘work’ of which we speak is precisely the main alternative to empire and universal hegemony. It is the alternative to the present Forth Reich. This entails a certain order of things. We call it the States System. It began with Westphalia back in 1648 when an alliance of states came together to defeat the Habsburg’s aligned with the Papacy. Later on the Bourbons aspired to an imperial authority. They too were defeated by a similar alliance. Then came Napoleon. And finally the Third Reich. Always the same grasping after empire and always the same formation of a counter alliance forged to preserve the liberties of the plural states. Now yet again we see another alliance forming to contest the pretensions of the Forth Reich led by Russia, China, and Iran with support from India, South Africa, Brazil and an ever increasing chorus of nations seeking freedom from Western domination and exploitation. This is the real telos of history. It is an ongoing effort to uphold and preserve peaceful relations between sovereign states. Thus there can be no ‘end’ of history though we can clearly see the ‘aim’.
Two points can be asserted. There are those who say that Russia is divorcing itself from Europe. Actually Russia is preserving what was previously Europe’s most important accomplishments. Christianity is surely worth mentioning. As well the States system ranks high on the list. And there is much more one could say regarding all this: science, engineering, the classical arts; the list goes on.
Two: As Pepe frequently asserts, the culture of international peacekeeping will henceforth be greatly enriched by the ancient traditions of China, India, Iran and many other countries. Last point: China and Russia have had relations for almost as long as the Westphalian system has existed. There have been conflicts but for the most part these two former empires have maintained the peace. Food for thought.
My thoughts exactly. I expect Russia to remain prudent enough to not throw the baby out with the bathwater or engage in the same ‘cancel culture’ as the US-dominated West.
A lot of people seem to salivate over such a ‘divorce’, as if it doesn’t play into the divide-and-conquer agenda of the Anglo-American-Zionist establishment.
(Case in point, the idea that Russia isn’t European just because the European elites (who in this day and age are in the payroll of some indebatably non-European overlord) say so. What do those unelected windbags know? Why give them credibility?)
In polite discourse I wouldn’t normally call such people ‘crazy’ or ‘nutjobs’ simply because I disagree with them, but if push comes to shove…John Kerry gave a “Saviours of the planet” speech at Davos. Not worth linking.
Has anyone mentioned the carbon footprint of the Nord Stream sabotage, or the NATO proxy war in Ukraine (including the EU switching to coal), or the US-Korean annual military exercises?
The rank hypocrisy and lack of self awareness of these Davos dumbasses is startling.
@ Pepe
Obrigado, Pepe, as always.
Sleepwalking is for zombies
Old bastard Eurostan, zombified by the Russophobic witch brew their ruling elites have used as a brainwashing elixir, is ready to be used again as cannon fodder in yet another war.
Davos’ “positive spirit” for happily living in a “green sustainable economy” became a dress rehearsal for the upcoming “let’s arm Ukraine to the teeth” Ramstein meeting, with all the “enlightened” leaders from Spain to Poland foaming at the mouth, rabid Stoltenberg at the frontline, all calling to feed weapons galore to the sick man of Eurostan, Country 404, kept on life support by a massive injection of billions of dollars in weapons and loans.
No matter how much potential metal junk they throw into Country 404, their future is already marked for defeat, and Eurostan will follow them in their demise. Ukronazistan doesn’t have what it needs for a sustainable war effort, not the economy, nor the needed infrastructure, civilian or military to develop a long term strategy in depth. Not even the training.
To paraphrase Garcia Marquez, Country 404 is a living example of a “chronicle of a death foretold.”
A sizable part of the military infrastructure they built to mass their forces for the campaign of annihilation against Donbass to start last March, pillboxes and reinforced concrete bunkers, was limited to the area surrounding Donetsk, and has been used to protect those shelling cities and towns, killing civilians. Their shelling of civilian infrastructure has had no military effect whatsoever, not even psychological, as people in Donetsk, Gorlovka, etc., have become numbed to their shelling, and basically live a normal life within the circumstances.
Most of their lines of defense consist of trenches, and whoever trained them in trench building was not a Viet Nam veteran. Ukrotroops are thrown into trenches built to “shoot, scoot, and communicate,” the traditional US GI training for a conventional war. Art and drones have exposed their vulnerability, as they are being blown to smithereens by the dozens. Whoever taught them to dig their trenches, was working for Russia.
Anyone who has read the Viet Nam experience would know that trenches were the tip of the iceberg, deep tunneling was the core of the resistance against B-52 strategic bombers, the essence of survival for the Viet Cong. Tunnels graphics were common in many books, “The Tunnels of Cu Chi” comes to memory. Our favorite Philharmonic Orchestra is having a field day with the poor bastards, today kidnapped from a bar in Kiev, dead in a week around Bakmuth.
This time around, Davos was a charade to gather up support for Eurostan’s “existential struggle” against the “Eastern barbarians,” quoting rabid dog Stoltenberg at the WEF,
“The main message there will be more support and more advanced support, heavier weapons, and more modern weapons, because this is a fight for our values.”
“A fight for our values…” meaning, the “garden” values, became Davos’ “main message,” because…they have nothing else to sell.
The “cluster of related global risks with compounding effects,” aka “the perfect storm” exposed their “simulacrum” as shallow and vacuous as the Ukronazi trenches.
Lone Wolf
Addendum
BTW, seventy-eight years ago, during the 1943 – 1944 winter campaign, the Red Army pushed the German nazi scum to the other side of the Dnieper, taking Kiev along the way. The defeated Germans assumed the next Red Army offensive would engage the southern sector of the front, the Russians surprised them with “Operation Bagration” on the Byelorussian front.
Ukronazis are now playing a guessing game about the direction of the coming (because it is coming!) “Russian offensive,” first detaching troops to the border with Byelorussia, then moving them back to the Kharkiv front, because the Russians are coming from Belgorod (maybe?)
The (allegedly) upcoming Russian offensive even permeated “the positive spirit” of Davos, which became a rallying cry for “more support and more advance support, heavier weapons and more modern weapons” (Stoltenberg), and Poland’s Duda speech at the WEF went along the same lines warning that “the Russian Armed Forces have not weakened and are preparing for a powerful and major offensive…In a few months or weeks, the decisive moment will come, and we will understand whether Ukraine will survive.”
Now we know, the Russians are cooooomiiiiiinnnnng! (Finally.)
Where from?
Your guess is as good as mine.
History repeats itself…
Lone Wolf
It seems you have missed catching the bull by it’s horns and was incapable of grasping the tail of what Escobar was about. Essentially, what Escobar has been saying is that the US has lost the plot and even WW III cannot salvage this wreck as it has even lost it’s gender. Wink.
Escobar is good, often just quoting others but this spiritual theory about the Quad, is so so so absurd because the Russians and the Iranians continue to have objectified religious beliefs. The Indians are far worse, their Hinduism is so deeply buried they have forgotten it’s true non-dualistic meaning. As for China, well sorry to say but they have completely abandoned non-dualism too for the gross materialism. So please Pepe, stop dreaming that Putin or Xi or Modi or the Mullahs will bond into saviours of world that doesn’t even exist. It’s beneath you.
@ Sarlos Tamales on January 19, 2023 · at 7:22 am EST/EDT
Escobar is good, often just quoting others but this spiritual theory about the Quad, is so so so absurd because the Russians and the Iranians continue to have objectified religious beliefs. The Indians are far worse, their Hinduism is so deeply buried they have forgotten it’s true non-dualistic meaning. As for China, well sorry to say but they have completely abandoned non-dualism too for the gross materialism. So please Pepe, stop dreaming that Putin or Xi or Modi or the Mullahs will bond into saviours of world that doesn’t even exist. It’s beneath you.
—————————————-
Spot on.
I read it and went through it without giving it a second thought.
Going down the comments I saw one of his commenters at UNZ Review had posted something Pepe metamorphosed into a gobbledygook, a mixed brew of religions and traditions from countries that would probably be at war with each other if they didn’t share a common enemy. China and India are virtually at war, with sporadic flare ups Putin has been putting down to keep the BRICS from falling.
No need to hammer Pepe with it.
He borrows from comments to his articles, sometimes for literary effect that does not in any way, shape, or form, take away from the message he’s trying to convey. As a writer, Pepe is on the cutting edge, a wordsmith, having coined over decades sundry terms and words into the geopolitical vocabulary. He does not need to plagiarize anyone into his writing.
Regardless the rigmarole, there is a true to it,
This unity in diversity is certainly more appealing, and uplifting, than the Forever War axis.
An added virtue is the fact that Pepe reads the comments to his articles, and takes whatever he finds useful for his next one. That’s a recognition to his commenters, and a form of feedback for himself. I have found pieces of my comments reflected on his writing. Nothing wrong with it.
As for the philosophical aspects of the concoction, it all resolves in the realm of the unseen (Islam), nothingness (Taoism), the Void (Hinduism), or the Holy Spirit (Orthodox Christianity).
Take your pick.
Lone Wolf
Well said.
Pepe often borrows from commentators when he finds a turn of phrase or “chord” that weaves into his symphony. Poets do it all the time, ever searching for fitting encapsulation or written reflection of their thought. All trend setters and geniuses over the millennium were noted to collaborate in this way, drawing upon each in an endless hunger to capture the zeitgeist and truth behind events. It’s a gift given to few, why I’ve read him continuously for over 25 years now.
I think he does get carried away at times, but this is in part due to his generosity of spirit. All writers do it at times; we often find the words write themselves! And we’re scratching our heads later. But that’s the risk with the job, no? Every craft exacts a price.
I agree rather than saying those four aspects of the four civilizations are what draw them to each other, or even a blind panicked reaction to the bullish satanic assault of their common foe, can we say it’s a mix of three factors?
(1) Pepe’s natural and beloved ebullience and love of humanity putting on a desired gloss which may not exist.
(2) What Emmanuel Todd recently noted regarding,
In other words, Russia is the new mortar (pun intended) of the birthing World-System, the common-denominator which binds and marshals them collectively to defend their diverse traditional, conservative, and family-based cultures.
(3) most exciting and material, what Michael Hudson identified as the Clash of Systems: Financial Capitalism vs Industrial Socialism. The latter (the four old civilizations) see the key to avoiding western pitfall of financialization of everything, extreme inequality, lack of productive growth, and countless contrived depredation of economy by a ruthless few is to learn from the recent Chinese experience (and 19th Century US/German models) and make credit, banking and money creation a public utility. In short dedollarization and “resovereignization” is the super-bond of this group.
This excellent introductory discussion sets the stage. The two remind of enforcement mechanisms with legislation combating exploitative rent extraction, such as Glass Steagal. In the US, for almost seven decades, this limited speculation and protection of the greater good. There needs to be an end to public welfare for billionaires. The Rest of mankind is coalescing around these principles underlying dedollarization. The ongoing looting and rape of Europe has really focused all other regions. And it always returns to the key drivers of negative History with every Hegemon: a small cabal of rapacious elites and their money changers.
Regards
@ AHH on January 19, 2023 · at 3:28 pm EST/EDT
I agree rather than saying those four aspects of the four civilizations are what draw them to each other, or even a blind panicked reaction to the bullish satanic assault of their common foe, can we say it’s a mix of three factors?
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I fully agree on the three factors.
There maybe more, but those are key.
Appreciate your comments. Always.
Salaam,
Lone Wolf
There are no Roman Catholic representatives in A New Quad ?! Nor Protestant ?!
Is anyone following the goings-on at Davos? Are there transcripts?
Pepe, do you really think we will see a World War 3 soon? If food is expensive right now, it might even get more expensive if World War 3 happens. I hope not