by Michael Hudson for the Saker blog
Germany has become an economic satellite of America’s New Cold War with Russia, China and the rest of Eurasia. Germany and other NATO countries have been told to impose trade and investment sanctions upon themselves that will outlast today’s proxy war in Ukraine. U.S. President Biden and his State Department spokesmen have explained that Ukraine is just the opening arena in a much broader dynamic that is splitting the world into two opposing sets of economic alliances. This global fracture promises to be a ten- or twenty-year struggle to determine whether the world economy will be a unipolar U.S.-centered dollarized economy, or a multipolar, multi-currency world centered on the Eurasian heartland with mixed public/private economies.
President Biden has characterized this split as being between democracies and autocracies. The terminology is typical Orwellian double-speak. By “democracies” he means the U.S. and allied Western financial oligarchies. Their aim is to shift economic planning out of the hands of elected governments to Wall Street and other financial centers under U.S. control. U.S. diplomats use the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to demand privatization of the world’s infrastructure and dependency on U.S. technology, oil and food exports.
By “autocracy,” Biden means countries resisting this financialization and privatization takeover. In practice, U.S. rhettoric means promoting its own economic growth and living standards, keeping finance and banking as public utilities. What basically is at issue is whether economies will be planned by banking centers to create financial wealth – by privatizing basic infrastructure, public utilities and social services such as health care into monopolies – or by raising living standards and prosperity by keeping banking and money creation, public health, education, transportation and communications in public hands.
The country suffering the most “collateral damage” in this global fracture is Germany. As Europe’s most advanced industrial economy, German steel, chemicals, machinery, automotives and other consumer goods are the most highly dependent on imports of Russian gas, oil and metals from aluminum to titanium and palladium. Yet despite two Nord Stream pipelines built to provide Germany with low-priced energy, Germany has been told to cut itself off from Russian gas and de-industrialize. This means the end of its economic preeminence. The key to GDP growth in Germany, as in other countries, is energy consumption per worker.
These anti-Russian sanctions make today’s New Cold War inherently anti-German. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has said that Germany should replace low-priced Russian pipeline gas with high-priced U.S. LNG gas. To import this gas, Germany will have to spend over $5 billion quickly to build port capacity to handle LNG tankers. The effect will be to make German industry uncompetitive. Bankruptcies will spread, employment will decline, and Germany’s pro-NATO leaders will impose a chronic depression and falling living standards.
Most political theory assumes that nations will act in their own self-interest. Otherwise they are satellite countries, not in control of their own fate. Germany is subordinating its industry and living standards to the dictates of U.S. diplomacy and the self-interest of America’s oil and gas sector. It is doing this voluntarily – not because of military force but out of an ideological belief that the world economy should be run by U.S. Cold War planners.
Sometimes it is easier to understand today’s dynamics by stepping away from one’s own immediate situation to look at historical examples of the kind of political diplomacy that one sees splitting today’s world. The closest parallel that I can find is medieval Europe’s fight by the Roman papacy against German kings – the Holy Roman Emperors – in the 13th century. That conflict split Europe along lines much like those of today. A series of popes excommunicated Frederick II and other German kings and mobilized allies to fight against Germany and its control of southern Italy and Sicily.
Western antagonism against the East was incited by the Crusades (1095-1291), just as today’s Cold War is a crusade against economies threatening U.S. dominance of the world. The medieval war against Germany was over who should control Christian Europe: the papacy, with the popes becoming worldly emperors, or secular rulers of individual kingdoms by claiming the power to morally legitimize and accept them.
Medieval Europe’s analogue to America’s New Cold War against China and Russia was the Great Schism in 1054. Demanding unipolar control over Christendom, Leo IX excommunicated the Orthodox Church centered in Constantinople and the entire Christian population that belonged to it. A single bishopric, Rome, cut itself off from the entire Christian world of the time, including the ancient Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem.
This break-away created a political problem for Roman diplomacy: How to hold all the Western European kingdoms under its control and claim the right for financial subsidy from them. That aim required subordinating secular kings to papal religious authority. In 1074, Gregory VII, Hildebrand, announced 27 Papal Dictates outlining the administrative strategy for Rome to lock in its power over Europe.
These papal demands are strikingly parallel to today’s U.S. diplomacy. In both cases military and worldly interests require a sublimation in the form of an ideological crusading spirit to cement the sense of solidarity that any system of imperial domination requires. The logic is timeless and universal.
The Papal Dictates were radical in two major ways. First of all, they elevated the bishop of Rome above all other bishoprics, creating the modern papacy. Clause 3 ruled that the pope alone had the power of investiture to appoint bishops or to depose or reinstate them. Reinforcing this, Clause 25 gave the right of appointing (or deposing) bishops to the pope, not to local rulers. And Clause 12 gave the pope the right to depose emperors, following Clause 9, obliging “all princes to kiss the feet of the Pope alone” in order to be deemed legitimate rulers.
Likewise today, U.S. diplomats claim the right to name who should be recognized as a nation’s head of state. In 1953 they overthrew Iran’s elected leader and replaced him with the Shah’s military dictatorship. That principle gives U.S. diplomats the right to sponsor “color revolutions” for regime-change, such as their sponsorship of Latin American military dictatorships creating client oligarchies to serve U.S. corporate and financial interests. The 2014 coup in Ukraine is just the latest exercise of this U.S. right to appoint and depose leaders.
More recently, U.S. diplomats have appointed Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s head of state instead of its elected president, and turned over that country’s gold reserves to him. President Biden has insisted that Russia must remove Putin and put a more pro-U.S. leader in his place. This “right” to select heads of state has been a constant in U.S. policy spanning its long history of political meddling in European political affairs since World War II.
The second radical feature of the Papal Dictates was their exclusion of all ideology and policy that diverged from papal authority. Clause 2 stated that only the Pope could be called “Universal.” Any disagreement was, by definition, heretical. Clause 17 stated that no chapter or book could be considered canonical without papal authority.
A similar demand as is being made by today’s U.S.-sponsored ideology of financialized and privatized “free markets,” meaning deregulation of government power to shape economies in interests other than those of U.S.-centered financial and corporate elites.
The demand for universality in today’s New Cold War is cloaked in the language of “democracy.” But the definition of democracy in today’s New Cold War is simply “pro-U.S.,” and specifically neoliberal privatization as the U.S.-sponsored new economic religion. This ethic is deemed to be “science,” as in the quasi-Nobel Memorial Prize in the Economic Sciences. That is the modern euphemism for neoliberal Chicago-School junk economics, IMF austerity programs and tax favoritism for the wealthy.
The Papal Dictates spelt out a strategy for locking in unipolar control over secular realms. They asserted papal precedence over worldly kings, above all over Germany’s Holy Roman Emperors. Clause 26 gave popes authority to excommunicate whomever was “not at peace with the Roman Church.” That principle implied the concluding Claus 27, enabling the pope to “absolve subjects from their fealty to wicked men.” This encouraged the medieval version of “color revolutions” to bring about regime change.
What united countries in this solidarity was an antagonism to societies not subject to centralized papal control – the Moslem Infidels who held Jerusalem, and also the French Cathars and anyone else deemed to be a heretic. Above all there was hostility toward regions strong enough to resist papal demands for financial tribute.
Today’s counterpart to such ideological power to excommunicate heretics resisting demands for obedience and tribute would be the World Trade Organization, World Bank and IMF dictating economic practices and setting “conditionalities” for all member governments to follow, on pain of U.S. sanctions – the modern version of excommunication of countries not accepting U.S. suzerainty. Clause 19 of the Dictates ruled that the pope could be judged by no one – just as today, the United States refuses to subject its actions to rulings by the World Court. Likewise today, U.S. dictates via NATO and other arms (such as the IMF and World Bank) are expected to be followed by U.S. satellites without question. As Margaret Thatcher said of her neoliberal privatization that destroyed Britain’s public sector, There Is No Alternative (TINA).
My point is to emphasize the analogy with today’s U.S. sanctions against all countries not following its own diplomatic demands. Trade sanctions are a form of excommunication. They reverse the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia’s principle that made each country and its rulers independent from foreign meddling. President Biden characterizes U.S. interference as ensuring his new antithesis between “democracy” and “autocracy.” By democracy he means a client oligarchy under U.S. control, creating financial wealth by reducing living standards for labor, as opposed to mixed public/private economies aiming at promoting living standards and social solidarity.
As I have mentioned, by excommunicating the Orthodox Church centered in Constantinople and its Christian population, the Great Schism created the fateful religious dividing line that has split “the West” from the East for the past millennium. That split was so important that Vladimir Putin cited it as part of his September 30, 2022 speech describing today’s break away from the U.S. and NATO centered Western economies.
The 12th and 13th centuries saw Norman conquerors of England, France and other countries, along with German kings, protest repeatedly, be excommunicated repeatedly, yet ultimately succumb to papal demands. It took until the 16th century for Martin Luther, Zwingli and Henry VIII finally to create a Protestant alternative to Rome, making Western Christianity multi-polar.
Why did it take so long? The answer is that the Crusades provided an organizing ideological gravity. That was the medieval analogy to today’s New Cold War between East and West. The Crusades created a spiritual focus of “moral reform” by mobilizing hatred against “the other” – the Moslem East, and increasingly Jews and European Christian dissenters from Roman control. That was the medieval analogy to today’s neoliberal “free market” doctrines of America’s financial oligarchy and its hostility to China, Russia and other nations not following that ideology. In today’s New Cold War, the West’s neoliberal ideology is mobilizing fear and hatred of “the other,” demonizing nations that follow an independent path as “autocratic regimes.” Outright racism is fostered toward entire peoples, as evident in the Russophobia and Cancel Culture currently sweeping the West.
Just as Western Christianity’s multi-polar transition required the 16th century’s Protestant alternative, the Eurasian heartland’s break from the bank-centered NATO West must be consolidated by an alternative ideology regarding how to organize mixed public/private economies and their financial infrastructure.
Medieval churches in the West were drained of their alms and endowments to contribute Peter’s Pence and other subsidy to the papacy for the wars it was fighting against rulers who resisted papal demands. England played the role of major victim that Germany plays today. Enormous English taxes were levied ostensibly to finance the Crusades were diverted to fight Frederick II, Conrad and Manfred in Sicily. That diversion was financed by papal bankers from northern Italy (Lombards and Cahorsins), and became royal debts passed down throughout the economy. England’s barons waged a civil war against Henry II in the 1260s, ending his complicity in sacrificing the economy to papal demands.
What ended the papacy’s power over other countries was the ending of its war against the East. When the Crusaders lost Acre, the capital of Jerusalem in 1291, the papacy lost its control over Christendom. There was no more “evil” to fight, and the “good” had lost its center of gravity and coherence. In 1307, France’s Philip IV (“the Fair”) seized the Church’s great military banking order’s wealth, that of the Templars in the Paris Temple. Other rulers also nationalized the Templars, and monetary systems were taken out of the hands of the Church. Without a common enemy defined and mobilized by Rome, the papacy lost its unipolar ideological power over Western Europe.
The modern equivalent to the rejection of the Templars and papal finance would be for countries to withdraw from America’s New Cold War. They would reject the dollar standard and the U.S. banking and financial system. that is happening as more and more countries see Russia and China not as adversaries but as presenting great opportunities for mutual economic advantage.
The broken promise of mutual gain between Germany and Russia
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 promised an end to the Cold War. The Warsaw Pact was disbanded, Germany was reunified, and American diplomats promised an end to NATO, because a Soviet military threat no longer existed. Russian leaders indulged in the hope that, as President Putin expressed it, a new pan-European economy would be created from Lisbon to Vladivostok. Germany in particular was expected to take the lead in investing in Russia and restructuring its industry along more efficient lines. Russia would pay for this technology transfer by supplying gas and oil, along with nickel, aluminum, titanium and palladium.
There was no anticipation that NATO would be expanded to threaten a New Cold War, much less that it would back Ukraine, recognized as the most corrupt kleptocracy in Europe, into being led by extremist parties identifying themselves by German Nazi insignia.
How do we explain why the seemingly logical potential of mutual gain between Western Europe and the former Soviet economies turned into a sponsorship of oligarchic kleptocracies. The Nord Stream pipeline’s destruction capsulizes the dynamics in a nutshell. For almost a decade a constant U.S. demand has been for Germany to reject its reliance on Russian energy. These demands were opposed by Gerhardt Schroeder, Angela Merkel and German business leaders. They pointed to the obvious economic logic of mutual trade of German manufactures for Russian raw materials.
The U.S. problem was how to stop Germany from approving the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Victoria Nuland, President Biden and other U.S. diplomats demonstrated that the way to do that was to incite a hatred of Russia. The New Cold War was framed as a new Crusade. That was how George W. Bush had described America’s attack on Iraq to seize its oil wells. The U.S.-sponsored 2014 coup created a puppet Ukrainian regime that has spent eight years bombing of the Russian-speaking Eastern provinces. NATO thus incited a Russian military response. The incitement was successful, and the desired Russian response was duly labeled an unprovoked atrocity. Its protection of civilians was depicted in the NATO-sponsored media as being so offensive as to deserve the trade and investment sanctions that have been imposed since February. That is what a Crusade means.
The result is that the world is splitting in two camps: the U.S.-centered NATO, and the emerging Eurasian coalition. One byproduct of this dynamic has been to leave Germany unable to pursue the economic policy of mutually advantageous trade and investment relations with Russia (and perhaps also China). German Chancellor Olaf Sholz is going to China this week to demand that it dismantle is public sector and stops subsidizing its economy, or else Germany and Europe will impose sanctions on trade with China. There is no way that China could meet this ridiculous demand, any more than the United States or any other industrial economy would stop subsidizing their own computer-chip and other key sectors.[1] The German Council on Foreign Relations is a neoliberal “libertarian” arm of NATO demanding German de-industrialization and dependency on the United States for its trade, excluding China, Russia and their allies. This promises to be the final nail in Germany’s economic coffin.
Another byproduct of America’s New Cold War has been to end any international plan to stem global warming. A keystone of U.S. economic diplomacy is for its oil companies and those of its NATO allies to control the world’s oil and gas supply – that is, to reduce dependence on carbon-based fuels. That is what the NATO war in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine was about. It is not as abstract as “Democracies vs. Autocracies.” It is about the U.S. ability to harm other countries by disrupting their access to energy and other basic needs.
Without the New Cold War’s “good vs. evil” narrative, U.S. sanctions will lose their raison d’etre in this U.S. attack on environmental protection, and on mutual trade between Western Europe and Russia and China. That is the context for today’s fight in Ukraine, which is to be merely the first step in the anticipated 20 year fight by the US to prevent the world from becoming multipolar. This process, will lock Germany and Europe into dependence on the U.S. supplies of LNG.
The trick is to try and convince Germany that it is dependent on the United States for its military security. What Germany really needs protection from is the U.S. war against China and Russia that is marginalizing and “Ukrainianizing” Europe.
There have been no calls by Western governments for a negotiated end to this war, because no war has been declared in Ukraine. The United States does not declare war anywhere, because that would require a Congressional declaration under the U.S. Constitution. So U.S. and NATO armies bomb, organize color revolutions, meddle in domestic politics (rendering the 1648 Westphalia agreements obsolete), and impose the sanctions that are tearing Germany and its European neighbors apart.
How can negotiations “end” a war that either has no declaration of war, and is a long-term strategy of total unipolar world domination?
The answer is that no ending can come until an alternative to the present U.S.-centered set of international institutions is replaced. That requires the creation of new institutions reflecting an alternative to the neoliberal bank-centered view that economies should be privatized with central planning by financial centers. Rosa Luxemburg characterized the choice as being between socialism and barbarism. I have sketched out the political dynamics of an alternative in my recent book, The Destiny of Civilization.
This paper was presented on November 1, 2022. on the German e-site
https://braveneweurope.com/michael-hudson-germanys-position-in-americas-new-world-order. A video of my talk will be available on YouTube in about ten days.
- See Guntram Wolff, “Sholz should send an explicit message on his visit to Beijing,” Financial Times, October 31, 2022. Wolff is the director and CE of the German Council on Foreign Relations. ↑
those european leaders’ may have bowed to US demands but when winter sets in an freezing , broke,hungary citizens may yet have their say, we shall soon see!
The Observer thinks that European citizens will rise up and take on their governments when extreme winter cold hit them.
Sadly, we need to understand that all politicians, diplomats and bureaucrats in the EU are ALL tied to the US Financial Hegemon. That Hegemon is directly linked to ALL EU/UK central banks, hedge funds, the whole matrix of US capitalism.
Those people won’t bat an eye when they see their citizens freezing to death in their homes, or on the streets.
That’s how brutal they are as they glory in their huge bank accounts & the many perks they have with The Elite.
“Those people won’t bat an eye when they see their citizens freezing to death in their homes, or on the streets.”
As evidenced by the recent ‘let the unvaxxed die’ mentality during the height of the lockdown hysteria.
The U.S. is destroying its own energy resources and economy by trying to impose its own ideology regarding climate change on the nation and the world. That is the fundamental flaw of ‘American Imperialism’
Read a great source about the US’ vast oil/gas/natural gas hegemon. Under no circumstances is that vast network losing any profit. Instead, they continue to make vast profits from the world system they’ve established.
The Observer is correct. What do you think it means when the CEO of Chevron comes out and publicly says there will never be another gasoline refinery built in the US? Or that most of the refineries that shut during the Covidiocy aren’t re-opening?
It means Biden and friends’ deleterious crusade against “fossil fuels” is actually crippling the future of the United States by removing any semblance of energy stability. Nobody wants to make a decades-long capital investment that can be destroyed by a stroke of a doddering buffoon’s pen. Stone Age, here we come!
Sorry, Gaius: “Biden and friends” are not in command of the US Financial Hegemon. They are there to merely pass legislation that *always* favors Wall Street; Money Markets…………essentially, to ensure the top 10%, 5%, and 1% wealthiest remain Super Wealthy.
Climate stability is far more important than energy stability because without it there will be no civilization. Regardless of Peak Oil and significantly diminished EROEI that plague fossil fuel sources, substitution of lower GHG-emitting energy sources is critical to mitigating climate change deleterious effects that are destroying the habitability of earth’s ecosystems – even Chevron and even Putin have acknowledged that. There is no longer doubt or denial among the vast majority of climate scientists that our current trajectory of climate disruption will lead to extreme loss of habitat and very likely human extinction. We already see the occurrence of mass extinction of other species (biodiversity loss), which is the ‘canary in the coal mine.’ Human hubris may well be our undoing.
I agree and am glad to see that M. Hudson is mentioning global warming in recent articles. The foundation of life on earth and a healthy garden in which to work and prosper is not oil or metallurgy, it is biological abundance. And all participants from fungi to insects to grass to soil bacteria and trees are critical to the health of the whole. We have already baked in much devastation via fossil fuels and our current systems are not sustainable. The humility to face our self-made problems is a global issue, and only a cooperative multi-polar world will make that possible.
Some seem to think that there is some kind of actual intent by The Democrats or theWEF to address climate issues.This is pure deception and posturing with no meaningful attempt to discuss realistically a different plan let alone to put forth such a plan for people everywhere to consider.
Exxon’s profits are so obscene, even Biden wanted a windfall tax, no chance.
Germany has 40,000 US soldiers and military personnel on its territory. They are not there to protect Germany but to keep it under US rule. “Keep Russia out of Europe, America in, and Germany down.”
Excellent! Absolutely excellent and compelling analysis via a superb historical analogy. My highest praise to Michael Hudson for this extremely thoughtful essay.
We’ve read a fair amount of Papal history during the early to late medieval periods. It’s a bit more complicated than what Dr. Hudson states. When he states that when Luther came along Papal power, it put a real squeeze on the Papacy. That’s not true.
After the death of “The Wonder of The World,” Frederick II, things began to slowly ebb for The Papacy as Western Europe’s kings/queens started to push for its own “sovereign rights.”
Another masterpiece by Michael Hudson. Because he is not only a brilliant public finance economist but also a great economic and social historian. A fundamental course in any higher economics program at the best Universities in the world. Brilliant historical analogies therefore that few would remember!
the empire exploded in 2008. Wild dollar printing, totalitarian COVID training, and now the Ukraine war, are the stages of the Empire’s self-dissolution.
Vicente: Yes, there was an implosion of sorts, but what immediately followed was The FED & The EU/UK Central Banks who started pouring out multiple billions, even trillions of $$s to save the Capitalist System. Oh, of course, none of that Money went to US/EU/UK citizens. The sole intent was to give All that money to the multi-millionaires who by no later than 2019, became Multi-Billionaires.
Mr. Hudson puts forth a very enlightening perspective of the world’s “macro-politico-economics.” I find it significant that he mentions the western oligarths plans to “end any international plan to stem global warming.”
We see it in how the original progressive Democratic “Green New Deal” was devolved by Biden and company after the U.S. elections into an infrastructure bill and an inflation reduction bill that amounted to giving monies to building more legacy infrastructures controled by entrenched cronies; the resultant will be further increases to carbon dioxide outputs and hence more global warming. Biden recently mentioned he redelegated the global warming issue to the “backburner.” Meanwhile Xi talks about “low carbon development” for the world; China being the world leader in low carbon technologies. Russia plays a role by supplying natural gas which when replacing coal consuption reduces carbon output to one half. I believe ending plans to stem global warming is not a by-product of current Western oligarth’s world policies, but rather a concurrent primary goal.
One other note on the subject; GDP is generally proportionate to energy consumption per worker. The relationship can easily be changed by new technologies, and changes in consumer perspectives. To indeed change the equation, this I believe Germany and other countries caught in the “squeeze” are already working hard at. The future may surprise us all.
Robert Shule: “One other note on the subject; GDP is generally proportionate to energy consumption per worker. The relationship can easily be changed by new technologies, and changes in consumer perspectives……….”
Just to show you how crazy GDP is in the US. When the monthly reports come out, what IS included are all the profits made on the US Financial Markets by the Multi-billionaires, Big Corporations, Hedge Fund profits; the list is endless.
If you subtracted that factor, the US’ ongoing GDP would be about .002%!!
After the failed neocolonization of Germany under the Treaty of Versailles, which directly induced reactionary sovereignty movements including Nazism, foreign powers tried a new approach.
Marshall Plan Germany was allowed to develop profitably without onerous reparations, but only under the condition that such development would directly benefit Washington’s order. And of course 10,000s of Washington’s occupying soldiers would always be on standby.
Anti-nationalism in Germany is not due to Washington’s or the West’s dislike of Hitler’s genocidal policies, it is due to the threat of German sovereignty. It does not protect Germany or its neighbors, it protects Washington’s interests.
I believe the current dilemma is quite serious for Washington. It punished Germany for exerting sovereignty and following its own interests (Russian gas). In turn, this punishment will fuel reactionary movements. Hitler debuted only a few years after 1919. The key difference, I think, is that Hitler was able to pioneer and control the budding mass media. Meanwhile, Washington totally controls Germany’s 21st century media.
The global conflict is to end the Financial Empire’s LIE (Lying, Imperialism & Enslavement).
An important element in West’s prosperity is conducting international trade ASYMMETRICALLY in its private money ($€£…). Germany purchased Russia’s resources in its currency €, and demanded payment in its private money for German goods. The Financial Empire’s west won’t be able to pursue the monetary imperialism without this payment arrangement. It is unfortunate that Russia didn’t see this asymmetry or maybe hoped to be a part of the Euro empire. This asymmetry will end! Is the EU paying for the U$A gas in euros or dollars?
The global conflict will soon “determine whether the world economy will be a unipolar U.S.-centered dollarized economy, or a multipolar, multi-currency world centered on the Eurasian heartland with mixed public/private economies.” It will be resolved in less than a decade. The Financial Empire will be denied time to resurrect. All its pillars of power will be dismantled!
The Non-$ Bloc will do better by challenging the “democracies and autocracies” framing. A better framing will be “Sovereignty vs Suzerainty,” or “Unipolar vs Multipolar/Multilateralism,” or “Hegemony vs Multilateralism.” Name a democracy that isn’t a suzerainty. Why is the first central bank in democracies private? Democracy is a ruse to hide the suzerainty status, under the Financial Empire. Those promoting the democracy meme need to be viewed as a propagandist.
We’re living through an epoch in the history of humanity! What one word will summarize this epoch?
Armagedon, in the sense that that which was hidden in the dark is brought out in the light. Like a vampire.
Great piece. The EU is fundamentally incapable of acting in an independent manner as they are collectively little more than US stooges/vassals, taking their marching orders from Washington. Nearly 8 decades following the end of WWII, Germany is still occupied by circa 35K US troops. The EU is actively involved in the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and no doubt will support Biden’s upcoming war in the Taiwan Strait against China. This is a terrific piece from Ben Norton on European imperialism. See-
In neocolonial rant, EU says Europe is ‘garden’ superior to rest of world’s barbaric ‘jungle’ Oct 15, 2022; https://multipolarista.com/2022/10/15/eu-europe-garden-jungle/
“taking their marching orders from Washington.”
And from the WEF.
Looks like Davos has captured France, Germany, the UK, and Finland. Maybe Italy.
But relationship of WEF to Washington is unclear.
I have posed this question of the relationship between the WEF globalists and Washington, but still don’t have much of an answer or understanding.
Any thoughts from the Saker commenters are welcome!
The connection I see is one of class, it is the same elite ruling Empire that is hanging around at WEF.
However it is more diverse, and include leaders from vassal states. Giving pretense to a global dimension.
WEF is not fully in the unipolar hegemony camp, it’s in the grayzone. Klaus Schwab views entities like George Soros as excessively idealistic, according to his writing.
Very enlightening. Thanks to the blog and to Mr. Hudson. I’m a bit frightened by the 20 year struggle by the US to keep the world from becoming multipolar.
I can only hope for a quicker outcome. My limited skills do not allow me to argue. But in his recent big speech at the Valdai forum President Putin spoke in not very precise terms about a new financial system: automatic, without abuse, in national currencies. This suggests a system based on artificial intelligence?
Mr. Putin is not going to talk about anything so far in advance. And in my understanding of the ongoing struggle this new financial system will be the tipping point to an irreversible victory for multipolarity.
And will the US be able to finance its budget deficit of at least 50% by printing money for another 20 years?
I hope that 20 years is the time it will take for the US to recover from the current madness of its leader and not the duration of the current confrontation.
I’m in agreement with you. A 20 year crusade will devastate everyone. While everyone is focused on the gas and energy sector and its implications, the immediate problem to me is supply chains. How do you provide goods to your people when your country is not self sufficient and you sanction everyone? What good does being able to provide LNG and agricultural products if you can’t buy anything in exchange? Oh sure, the bankers and investors profit but where do we buy our replacement appliances, underwear, shoes, etc., while the world sorts this out? Cargo shipments are already projecting downwards for 2023.
Maintain what you have.
Repair, mend, stock up on replacement parts.
Learn appliance repair.
I know it is a bit late for those of us who are retired etc. to start to acquire all new skills, but do try to impress on the young and strong that they must be realistic in their expectations. They can build decent lives if they acquire practical skills that society will need.
Offhand I recommend: master electrician, master plumber, master mechanic, master seamstress, farmer, welder, master mariner (able to navigate by traditional means) and sailor, carpenter, etc. etc.
Sage advice. I’m older and can do many things, will attempt anything, except I can’t manufacture replacement parts. Already car replacement parts have jumped $20 to $30 an item, over two years. I have 3 adult children, ages 23 to 33, with disabilities, whom I’m concerned about. There’s really no place in society for them. I hope people are paying attention because there will be a real need for the skilled trades again, that were heavily relied upon in the 50s to early 70s. Those that built our factories, office buildings, roads. I’m amazed at how quickly, buildings, infrastructure, in the Donbass are being rebuilt.
I’m sorry to hear of children with disabilities.
It sounds as though you have a realistic assessment of future needs and can steer them toward occupations that can bring in a bit of money and also provide scope for some focus.
Very wise words, Taffy. Sadly, in the US, these talented folks are forced to pay untold thousands each year to be “licensed,”and “Insured” with NO other options than to gang together as a small group business. End result: American citizens are having to pay exorbitant prices for that labor.
Dr. Hudson has disclosed the real motive behind Scholz going to China. We know he has a lot of insider sources he taps into.
We had read China had signed a deal with Germany allowing it to create a base in Hamburg. We thought that odd at the time, but perhaps China was being lured into that trap by the US Financial Masters.
If that is the case, then Scholz’s visit to China has us worried. Is China “bending the knee” for the US/EU Financial Aristocrats who are “running this show.”
Any thoughts on this strange story??
Thank you.
China’s new Politburo lineup won’t be “bending a knee” to any entity. Global Times interviewed one of the AfD EUP members about the disconnect between Germany’s interests and Scholtz’s policies, which I highly suggest reading. Scholtz arrives the 4th, and his visit should be closely watched.
Great article, but the AfD then falls on the sword – the war began in 2014, not 2022.
The AfD expelled another for stating the truth.
This is very similar to AOC and the US Squad petitioning Biden to negotiate, with the same wrong shibboleths.
Refusing to learn history, condemned to repeat it.
Mr. Hudson mixes a delicate topic: The schisms of East and West that broke the “unipolarity” of the Christian Church, I remind him that Jesus Christ commands us to be united as he says in:
John 17:21-23
21 so that all may be one; as you, O Father, in me, and I in you, may they also be one in us; so that the world believes that you sent me. 22 The glory that you gave me, I have given them, so that they may be one, just as we are one. 23 I in them, and you in me, so that they may be perfect in unity, so that the world may know that you sent me, and that you have loved them as you have loved me.
Mr. Hudson what he says about Christian multipolarity is worse than blasphemy is nonsense; because the division of Christians is a great delight for Satan. I can only understand this attack on the True Church as either malicious or from ignorance without bad faith.
We begin with Luther: Luther, indeed, fought with all his might against the doctrine of the Catholic Church.
To begin with, he laid waste to the Bible, since leaving it to the mercy of free examination, he exchanged the inerrant and unique divine Word for an innumerable and contradictory variety of fallible human words. He took ahead the apostolic succession, the ministerial priesthood, the Bishops and priests, the doctrine of Fathers and Councils. He eliminated the Eucharist, as a sacrifice of redemption. He destroyed the devotion and worship of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, vows and religious life, the beneficent function of ecclesiastical law. He left in one and a half the seven sacraments. He affirmed, starting from the total corruption of man by original sin, that “REASON is the great whore of the devil, a whore eaten by scabies and leprosy” (etc., five more lines). And for the same reason, and with equal passion, he denied the freedom of man (1525, De servo arbitrio), considering that “the safest and most religious thing” would be for the very term “free will” to disappear from language. As a logical consequence, he also denied the necessity of good works for salvation. In short, with his “correct answers,” as one writer today writes, he practically destroyed all of Christianity, destroying Christendom along the way.
«I, Dr. Luther, unworthy evangelist of our Lord Jesus Christ, assure you that neither the Roman Emperor […], nor the Pope, nor the cardinals, nor the bishops, nor the sanctimonious ones, nor the princes, nor the knights they will be able to do nothing against these articles, despite the whole world and all the devils […] It is I who affirm it, I, Dr. Martin Luther, speaking in the name of the Holy Spirit». «I do not admit that my doctrine can be judged by anyone, not even the angels. Who does not listen to my doctrine cannot be saved». Here is the enormous pride of Luther.
Schizoid thought.– The Catholic Church unites reason and faith, understanding theology as “ratio fide illustrata” (Vatican I). Unites the Bible with Tradition and the Apostolic Magisterium (Vatican II, Dei Verbum 10). It unites grace with the free action of the human will. et et.
Luther’s thought, on the other hand, is schizoid: Vel vel. Considering that “reason is the devil’s greatest whore”, he concludes: sola fides. Convinced that the mind and conscience of the Christian are above Fathers, Popes and Councils, he rules: sola Scriptura. Affirming that man is not free, and that good works are not necessary for salvation, he declares: sola gratia. Very soft, on the other hand, Luther was with the powerful German princes, in order to win their favor. When, for example, Philip of Hessen, Grand Landgrave, married to Catherine, by whom he had seven children, demanded approval of a further marriage to a young lady of the Saxon nobility, he obtained permission from Luther and Melanchthon, on condition that the concession was kept secret. In this case of polygamy, consummated in 1540, the precedent of the ancient Jewish Patriarchs was used.
perfect heretic.– «I, Dr. Luther, unworthy evangelist of our Lord Jesus Christ, assure you that neither the Roman Emperor […], nor the pope, nor the cardinals, nor the bishops, nor the sanctimonious, nor the princes , not even the gentlemen will be able to do anything against these articles, in spite of the whole world and all the devils […] It is I who affirm it, I, Dr. Martin Luther, speaking in the name of the Holy Spirit». «I do not admit that my doctrine can be judged by anyone, not even the angels. Who does not listen to my doctrine cannot be saved».
Hard with the poor, weak with the powerful.– On the occasion of the uprising of the peasants, who demanded, first by hook and then by crook, what they considered to be their rights, Luther writes a harsh invective Against the rapacious hordes and murderers of peasants (1525). «The seditionist must be brought down, strangled and killed privately or publicly, because there is nothing more poisonous, harmful and diabolical than a promoter of sedition, in the same way that a rabid dog must be killed, because, if you do not finish with him, he will end him with you and with the whole country.”
Very soft was, instead, Luther with the powerful German princes, in order to win their favor. When, for example, Philip of Hessen, Grand Landgrave, married to Catherine, by whom he had seven children, demanded approval of a further marriage to a young lady of the Saxon nobility, he obtained permission from Luther and Melanchthon, on condition that the concession was kept secret. In this case of polygamy, consummated in 1540, the precedent of the ancient Jewish Patriarchs was used.
Aghast at his own work .– The results of Luther’s preaching were devastating to the morale of the people, and he himself admits it. “Since the tyranny of the pope has ended for us, everyone despises the pure and healthy doctrine. We no longer have the appearance of men, but of true brutes, a bestial species». Of his followers he stated that “they are seven times worse than before. After preaching our doctrine, men gave themselves over to theft, imposture, debauchery, drunkenness and all kinds of vices. We cast out a demon [the papacy] and seven worse ones came.”
To Zwingli he wrote in horror: “One is frightened to see how where once everything was calm and peace prevailed, now there are sects and factions everywhere: an abomination that inspires pity […] I am forced to confess it: my doctrine It has caused many scandals. Yes; I can not deny it; these things often terrify me.” And he foresaw even greater disasters. One day he confided to his friend Melanchthon: “How many different masters will arise in the next century? The confusion will come to a head.”
That’s how it went. And so it has been in accelerated progression, until reaching the current great apostasy of the ancient Catholic nations.
You seem to miss the point, the Catholic church with it’s spawns, have been at war with Orthodoxy for over 1000 years.
All 3 of ye miss the point.
Separation of church and State is the foundation, precisely because the Oligarchy used religious factions to slaughter. Venice is the Oligarchy of both the Crusades and Luther and Henry VIII.
Britain is a Theocracy, the Monarch head of Henry VIII’s faction.
Attempts are made all the time to subordinate nations to religion.
Even the USSR followed the Church’s Ogarkov Plan, the Third and Final Rome.
Prince Philip’s World Council of Churches, and The Alliance of Religion and Conservation, are just two.
Imperial oligarchy has been dabbling in religion from Constantine on…
Religion is the foundation on which the State is build. Remove it, and watch the slow motion collaps of society. Although a Secular state seems like a nice idea, it only seems feasable to implement in a western homogenic western environment where the Religous basis is taken as ‘given’ … and all dissenters have already been exterminated.
We don’t have access to Pepe Escobar on Telegram. He may have some inside info about Scholz’ motives in going to China.
If you have an opportunity, could you see if he’s talking about this?
Thank you.
Perhaps, it you have identified the wrong person. May be it was a phone call (possibly tapped) made by German President Frank-Steinmeier to China’s Xi Jinping.
For more see article written by M. K. Bhadrakumar titled, “A German – China – Russian triangle on Ukraine”.
If this leads to some type of collaboration it means that Uncle Sam will be outwitted. What will the German Greens do but they may be removed form power sooner, perhaps. Cheers.
It never fails.
They always bring up that Mosaddegh was substituted with the Shah in 1953 while the actual removal of the shah in 1979 by the same anglosaxon elite is omitted.
That younger iranians dont know is natural.
But that the whole west is ignorant about it including expert economists is a real problem in my view.
They can look back a millenium but dont know about the recent past.
Helmut Schmidt Giscard d’Estaigne Leonid Breznev and Japan and OPEC had made an important deal to finance economic development of less developed countries.
And the EMS financial instrument seemed to promise to become a new petrocurrency competing with the anglosaxon currency.
I have caught rumours that a few years before D’Estaigne died somebody asked him about this and at first he didnt remember!
But later confirmed it.
I dont know if that rumour is true.
But if it is, even those closely involved were that conditioned by the anglosaxon control of the narrative, of the media, history and everything!
The Larouche associates were very attentive to those developments in 1978 and during the Iranian revolution in 1979 and on.
The British elites were the only European who were totally against the project.
Later the US had managed to threaten Europe out of it in connection with the US-controlled occupation of their own embassy which gave the US the excuse they needed to intervene down there and made it possible to threaten to cut Europe off from oil if they continued.
In the 90s there was a threat of a suite against Larouche or associates for defamation of one Iranian agent who took instructions from the US in the US.
I think this is why the Larouche circle hasnt written much later about it but what was explained around 1980 is irrefutable and this really happened. There is plenty in Hostage to Khomeini by Robert Dreyfuss (1981)
So why the complete silence. Hudson has a personal relation to Larouche since he was forced to witness against him in connection with economic operations which could be used by the authorities to punish Larouche and some associates. They borrowed money and the authorities could arrange for lawyers to act on behalf of heirs of the creditors. It isnt obvious that there was anything illegal but it was possible for the authorities to find ways to get at them. Hudson seems to have done what he could to avoid being the kind of witness that the authorities wanted but I dont know so much about it.
I mention it because that makes it even more surprising if Hudson doesnt know about the above economic plans and the anglosaxon role behind Khomeinis march to power.
But Hudson born in 1939 was perhaps not aware of the articles by Larouche et al in 1978 etc?
In one of Patreon meetings, Dr, Hudson explained some of his rather ugly entanglement with LaRouche, and he also has some negative sensitivities to many of the Libertarian sects. Both of those chapters in his life he’s omitted when discussing his autobiography. IMO, they haven’t colored his economic or historical analysis in any way. He’s very savvy when it comes to compromising himself by naming names by sticking to institutions and policies. The amount of work he’s done in his life is rather amazing and he’s still not finished. He has several more books planned after this next one due out at year-end. As a historian myself, I know it’s impossible to know all–there isn’t enough time to learn it all, plus much is missing or hidden. Further, Hudson’s a Big Picture person whose works impact both geopolitics and geoeconomics. IMO, this current essay was generated by the research he did for his forthcoming book because of his grip on the primary sources involved.
This may be an interesting hypothesis to investigate.
I have read that actually the demonization and downfall of the Shah were engineered in Western intelligence agencies.
Unfortunately, the way the story is told here is incomprehensible.
I also hear this. The CIA plan was to insert a hostile Islamic regime on the Soviets southern border. Problem was the communist resistance against the Shah was big, probably also backed by the Soviet. It became a battle between rebelious factions, and CIA lent a helping hand installing the religious regime. Which was much more resilient than expected, and backfired spectacularly.
The triggering reason over time was the Shah became to patriotic, and not obedient enough for Empire.
There is a very tragic story there, that I am sure no-one wants to dwell on.
The FBI did an enforced Chapter 7, and then railroaded many into prison, a precursor of Assange today.
40 years vilification by the exact same machine that went after Trump for saying “getting along with Russia is a good thing”. I think many do well know what the FBI is capable of.
As for the Shah, the key is Britoil’s fore-runner British Petroleum Company nationalized by Mossadegh. The CIA’s first color revolution followed…
Words of wisdom from Mr. Hudson, as always. Great read! Looking forward to Sgt. Schulz’s reception in China when he pleads his case there…
Anna Porphyrogenita, the daughter of Byzantine Emperor Romanos II and the Empress Theophano, married Prince Vladimir of Kiev in 988. He converted to Christianity at that time and began the conversion of Russia to Orthodox Christianity.
After the Great Schism of 1054, followed almost immediately by the Crusades and then the eventual fall of Constantinople exactly four centuries later, the way was set for the migration of the seat of Orthodoxy to Moscow.
A thousand years ago Christianity split in two. The current conflict in Ukraine mirrors that split. This war has been going on for a long time. It, like the Crusades before it, is entirely a construct of the West.
Europe is committing suicide. Ukraine as a separate entity from Russia is a myth being exposed. The US is a godless entity lacking the civilisation, the shared humanity, represented by the emerging Eurasian block. The Global South sees this. They may still be in financial chains, but chains can be broken.
The way forward is clear. It won’t be easy or pretty, but take it we must. Then we can move on into the next cycle.
It looks like a 1000 year change, hopefully for the benefit of all of humanity.
The 16th century Reformation would have petered out as another, largely pointless, theological disagreement but for the plausible cover it provided to appropriate land and capital locked-up in charitable activities — be these educational / medical / social services — by a wealthy Oligarchy. Once the thefts took place, this Oligarchy set about rewriting history to obfuscate the illicit appropriation.
I am more familiar with what took place in England, whereby 25% of arable land passed into the hands of English magnates. Immediately hereafter, English literacy fell from over half to under 10%. Charitable foundations for the retired, elderly and the sick were abolished and anything of value — the lead roofs, squared stones, brass — were sold.
Those carefully searching for traces of pre-Reformation England will come across a little jewel, the parish church, retirement home and school of Ewelme, just south of Oxford. ** How come? Well in 1436 the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk used the income of 40 farms to endow a church / retirement home / school. In 1513 Henry VII annexed the Suffolk estates. In those pre-Reformation times, Henry VII did not dare suppress the charitable foundation, setting up a local committee to oversee it. When Henry VIII and his son later suppressed religious and retirement institutions, little “secular” Ewelme’s church / retirement home / school survived royal depredation — and to this very day. Today, those 40 farms generate in excess of 1,000,000 sterling. The old folks home and school have been expanded and the school can afford to pay university educations for all alumni with interest in higher education.
** The Duchess of Suffolk was a grandaughter of Geofrfrey Chaucer. And Chaucer celebrated Ewelme’s artisian spring and pond in the following poem:
In worlde is none more cleare of hue,
these waters ever fresh and newe,
that welmeth up in waves bright
the mountance of three fingers height.
“I am more familiar with what took place in England, whereby 25% of arable land passed into the hands of English magnates. Immediately hereafter, English literacy fell from over half to under 10%. Charitable foundations for the retired, elderly and the sick were abolished and anything of value — the lead roofs, squared stones, brass — were sold.”
Thanks. Good to get an idea of the near prospects for us here in Europe as the ship is sinking.
Thank you, Dr. Hudson, for this very interesting essay, from which I learned a great deal. I am grateful for all of your writings, and look forward to seeing the video presentation. Hopefully here at the Saker blog.
Clearly, Germany has been targeted for destruction and more humiliation. It is time for all German citizens to rise up in defense of their country and their children’s future.
One thing I don’t quite follow is your explanation of the role of global warming in the aims of those in the U.S. who wish to control the world’s energy sources.
Are you saying that basically the USA simply wants to arrogate to itself all the energy it needs, and thus has to control the whole world’s energy sources?
Global warming doesn’t really seem to play a clear role in this desire to control the world’s energy.
Actually, there is a lot of evidence that the earth is entering a cooling phase.
Which means, of course, that adequate energy in the global North becomes even more important—for heating—than it would become if the world becomes warmer.
The push for the global warming agenda seems to me to be an economic bubble opportunity. Investors and corporations need new areas of profitability to invest in order to sustain their profitability. Today it’s solar panels and windmills. If they were really concerned about climate change, the transition away from fossil fuels would have occurred 30 years ago. More nuclear power plants would have been built. Cars would have stayed small, studies about EV efficiency would have been performed, and overlap between go green and no fossil fuels would have occurred. This climate change agenda is a manufactured crises second to world dominance, clearly shown by the fight over fossil fuels.
I agree. It also damages the life of the young, 25% + are living with climate anxiety. Terrible.
The climate boondoggle is surely a new profit center.
But that still doesn’t seem to me to fully explain Dr. Hudson’s comment re TPTB and their failure (per Hudson) to continue the fight against it. Dr. Hudson seems to take this issue at face value—accept the narrative, which cancels anyone who has a different interpretation of actual evidence (as opposed to making all the models, models that don’t seem to incorporate all of the available evidence).
I don’t want to go into the weeds of “climate change” and get off-topic on this thread, but since global warming is part of Dr. Hudson’s essay and hypothesis, and seems to be accepted as an unquestioned article of faith by all (similar to “the pandemic” is now an accepted “fact” with the same weight as the existence of gravity), I do want to post here two links that Martin Armstrong posted at his website yesterday:
https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-a-wayward-arctic-current-could-cool-the-climate-in-europe
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aba4320
Here at my home, our lovely harbor and a portion of beach that is habitat for a couple of “recovering” bird species is being desecrated to create infrastructure for offshore wind towers.
It seems to me that the end game is nuclear power as the petro system is rendered inoperable by design and wind/solar unfeasible.
The public will clamor for nuclear, safe or not.
This may have been the goal all along as the questions about nuclear safety and disposal of nuclear waste remain unanswered.
A lot of money in nuclear power stations.
Prof Hudson, great insight as usual. However, the link to the German e-site is not working. Can you please correct? I would like to share this to my German colleagues.
Just use the homepage link:
https://braveneweurope.com/
The story is right there.
Sorry, you are right.
The story does not open up properly from the homepage.
Works fine here. Using the Yandex browser.
America has a conveyor belt of Euro-spies/traitors/filth who’ve infiltrated sovereign governments/Agencies, the list is endless, Stoltenberg, Van der Leyen, Baerbock, Habeck and Johnson to name but 5.
Europe have been given the same deal Japan and post-war onward Germany received, so quit complaining, put a sock in it, and wear an extra jumper.
@ Michael Hudson
Thanks.
Just ordered your book.
I have the utmost contempt for Amazon, but no one can’t beat their “free shipping” deals. And the used volumes @ AbeBooks and Alibris are almost at the same price as the new paperbacks in Amazon, plus shipping and taxes. Can’t beat it. Looking forward to reading it.
———————————–
“…This global fracture promises to be a ten- or twenty-year struggle to determine whether the world economy will be a unipolar U.S.-centered dollarized economy, or a multipolar, multi-currency world centered on the Eurasian heartland with mixed public/private economies.
“…That is the context for today’s fight in Ukraine, which is to be merely the first step in the anticipated 20 year fight by the US to prevent the world from becoming multipolar…”
————————————————-
Your ten to twenty-year war beats my, very conservative, five to ten years estimate. And for me, that was a long war. I find your prognosis, in the context of your narrative, more accurate. When looking at all the factors into this equation, as you presented them, and the stakes at play, there is no possibility for a short war, an argument I just had with another poster on another thread.
The US has finally pushed Europe to the position they wanted, what is left is to consolidate themselves as the suzerain at all levels. And for that, the war in Ukraine comes handy, providing the “ideological gravity” to create “a spiritual focus of ‘moral reform’ by mobilizing hatred against ‘the other,'” in this case, Russia/China, et al. Ukraine is the galvanizing point. Rabid Russophobic Stoltenberg has been repeatedly stating a defeat of Ukraine will be a defeat of NATO.
It is a Collective West Crusade against all of those nations who refuse, as the Rosa of Marxism points out, live in a perpetual barbarian state.
Thanks again for sharing your insights.
Lone Wolf
Rosa Luxembourg?
@ bonbon
Marxism has only one flower, that is Rosa Luxembourg.
Her insights into old bastard Europe, Germany in particular, need to be dusted off and re-read at the light of the current conditions. Same with Gramsci. Imperialism is at its most dangerous stage, as its domination and exploitation of weaker nations is, for the first time in its short history, seriously challenged.
Dr. Hudson analogy of Germany/Europe current predicament with the Crusades, is a call for us to dig into more recent historical events, such as WWI and WWII, in which Germany played a central role. His quoting Rosa Luxembourg at the end of his article, pointing out the future options for humanity, shows Rosa Luxembourg’s legacy is very much valid and current.
It also shows we haven’t moved much from the times in which she fought.
Lone Wolf
Thank you, Wolf! I agree.
Me too. Rosa Luxemburg was one of the greats.
Thank you Professor Hudson for a fascinating parallel to what is happening in Europe based on the early Christian crusades. The fact that Germany is commiting economic suicide to go along with the hegemon and its diktats may be valid, but how do you get the people to go along with what their government is doing?
There was a massive protest in Berlin (I think) to have NS2 turned on. The day or two after NS2 was blown up. No more gas to be turned on. I don’t think people will go quietly into the dark, cold and freezing night.
NS2b can still pump, and Berlin will not use it. TurkStream will now be the new gas hub.
Either way Germany must deal. It will be fun to watch the meetings!
Dear Catherine gal,
…”… but how do you get the people to go along with what their government is doing ?…”
That´s THE question Watson, the only real question … ( ?!?!?!?!?!?)
Catherine, I continue to look out and focus sharply on your always brief, down-to-earth comments and observations. They are unfallibly very simply worded — as they should be, no high level parsing required — yet very deep and consequential as in this case also. I sure wish my dear friend Michael Hudson replies to your comment.
Myself, I have no answer, no idea. Maybe hypnosis ? or Mass Formation Psychosis ? I dunno…
But I will soon try to publish an article here in The Saker attempting to factually prove that EUropeans are not as bright as they claim and sanctimoniously insist they are. I think your comment makes it evident.
Best regards to you Catherine and please do keep up your excellent observations.
Cordially Jorge
Incredible, coherent, comprehensive analysis. Best thing I’ve read in weeks. Thank you sir!
Bravo ! Fantastic analogy. It makes 1000 year of history more understandable in a flash.
Mr Hudson is spot on the German servitude. I’d like to add a mosaic piece, because it has been conveniently scrubbed both from public access and German Presidential and Radio archives.
On Mai 22 2010 Bundespräsident Horst Köhler gave an interview on Deutschlandfunk (it’s available on the swiss lupe blog with the title: “Brisantes Köhler-Interview: Dem Deutschlandfunk war es zu heiss, wir bringen es”)
“My assessment, however, is that, overall, we are on the way to understanding in the breadth of society that a country of our size, with this foreign trade orientation and thus also dependence on foreign trade, must also know that in case of doubt, in an emergency, military intervention is necessary to protect our interests. For example: free trade routes. For example: to prevent entire regional instabilities, which will certainly then also have an impact on our opportunities, negatively, through trade, jobs and incomes. All this is to be discussed and I think we are on a not so bad way.” [deepl machine translation]
Shortly after this interview he resigned and newsmedia created smokescreens to obfuscate his departure.
He understood and correclty pointed out that Germany is a willing cog in the imperial machine, contrary to all those court historians and polite society narratives.
With all the talk of feudal crusades going on here, have a look a the list of Knighthoods Köhler holds :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_K%C3%B6hler
Foreign Orders
Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Star for Services to the Republic of Austria (2003)[66]
Grand Cross with Golden Chain of the Order of Vytautas the Great (19 October 2005)[67]
Knight of the Order of the White Eagle (2005)
Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (15 March 2006)[68]
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion (2007)[69]
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav (15 October 2007)[70]
Grand Collar of the Order of Prince Henry (2 March 2009)[71]
Have we never moved on in Europe? Odd that no British Knighthood is listed there.
“Odd that no British Knighthood is listed there.”
In a way.
But it might also be an indication of the extent to which the Anglo world is simply unaware of the rich traditions of Central Europe with Germany and German culture(s) at its core and think something necessary is “missing” if the Anglo culture is not represented in a long rundown of merit.
(I certainly do not say this in order to provoke a silly negative takedown of German culture, German feudal traditions, Germany’s collective memory of its ancient traditions, including its extraordinary Maerchen, or any other aspect of Germany’s deep cultural roots, which have also surfaced in and influenced the cultures of all the nations and tribes in any proximity to Germany.)
As Dr. Hudson is a financial expert, the omission of Venice’s role is strange. Venice bankrolled the Crusades, usurious interest rate loans bankrupted states. Both Luther and Henry VIII had Venetian ‘advisors’, broke the Church, started 100 years of religious warfare only ended with the Westphalia Treaty in Germany.
Sir Tony Blair declared in 2010 the end of the Westphalia epoch – open season on sovereignty.
That Treaty is in the UN Charter, and explicitly does advocate the good of the other, even your previous sworn enemy. That is the Win-win principle of the BRI.
Dr. Hudson for sure knows all this, and there is so much there the book would be double long!
You’re right. Venice was the chief jackal feasting on the corpse of Byzantium, and it played a major part in bringing down the Eastern Empire. A place built on greed and double-dealing (Venice, that is).
British MSM : Britain’s place in Global Britain is in the dark.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/01/government-tests-energy-blackout-emergency-plans-as-supply-fears-grow
Government tests energy blackout emergency plans as supply fears grow
Exclusive: Whitehall officials have ‘war gamed’ Programme Yarrow, a blueprint for coping with outages for up to a week
Hudson is as always interesting. And educative. He should have quoted himself speaking about autocracy – “Autocracy means a country with a strong enough government to prevent an oligarchy from taking over. And that’s the word’s definition.”
But “German Chancellor Olaf Sholz is going to China this week to demand that it dismantle is public sector and stops subsidizing its economy, or else Germany and Europe will impose sanctions on trade with China” – is it so? I’d more believe that Scholz plans to offer a free autobahn across Russia to Chinese – of course, in exchange for China’s assistance in the second German attempt to conquer the Russian territory..
” is that no ending can come until an alternative to the present U.S.-centered set of international institutions is replaced. That requires the creation of new institutions reflecting ..”
I am afraid that the “democratic” means will not work. The US population lost the spirit and the ability to do that long time ago and even the Second amendment meant precisely for such case will not save it now. The US became a single and the only source of the most serious problems of the entire planet. And the only way the US will change seems to be after a nuclear war and perhaps, the natural laws of the social evolution drive us to that point at the increasing speed. Considering the “mass” now involved, to reverse this momentum would be problematic due to the inertia alone.
I saw Pepe Escobar’s comment on this article. Germany flipping sides seems a bit much to hope for, but maybe they are waking up to being used by the US as a cold winter threatens:
MICHAEL HUDSON MASTERPIECE
+
WHAT GERMANY IS DOING IN CHINA
MUST READ/ EXTREMELY IMPORTANT
Here is yet another Michael Hudson masterpiece, featuring stunning historical depth, and including a parallel between the Crusades and the current “rules-based international order” imposed by the Hegemon.
Michael details how the Papacy in Rome locked up unipolar control over secular realms (rings a bell?) At the time, it was all about Papal precedence over kings, above all the German Holy Roman Emperors: as we know, the Empire was not Holy, not German (perhaps a little Roman), and was not even an Empire.
A clause in the Papal Dictates gave the Pope the authority to excommunicate whomever was “not at peace with the Roman Church.” Michael brilliantly notes how US sanctions are the modern equivalent of excommunication.
I’d have two contentions – about which are the Top Two dates.
The first one, I’d argue, is the Third Ecumenical Council of 435: this is when ONLY ROME was attributed UNIVERSAL AUTHORITY. Alexandria and Antioch were limited to regional authority within the Roman Empire.
The other top date is 1054 – when Rome and Constantinople split for good. That is, Roman Catholic Church x Orthodoxy, which leads us to Russia, and Moscow as The Third Rome – and the centuries-old animosity of “the West” against Russia.
Michael writes that Liver Sausage Chancellor Scholz is going to China this week to “demand that it dismantle its public sector and stops subsidizing its economy, or else Germany and Europe will impose sanctions on trade with China.”
Well, this happens to be pathetic wishful thinking by the German Council on Foreign Relations, in a piece published on the Financial Times (the Japanese-owned platform in the City of London). This “Council”, as correctly described by Michael, is “the neoliberal ‘libertarian’ arm of NATO demanding German de-industrialization and dependency” on the US.
So the FT is printing NATO wet dreams.
Well, the info I’m getting is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, and from solid German business sources.
They tell me Scholz is going to China TO WORK OUT A PEACE DEAL WITH RUSSIA VIA BEIJING.
How explosive is that? Never forget, as I pointed out in one of my columns, that Berlin and Moscow were keeping a secret communication back channel right to the minute the usual suspects, in desperation, blew up the Nord Streams.
And more: the Scholz delegation may be trying to start a process of replacing the US with China as an ally. Never forget that the top BRI trade/connectivity terminal in the EU is Germany (the Ruhr valley).
According to one of my sources,”if this effort is successful, then Germany (EU), China and Russia can ally themselves together and drive the US out of Europe.”
Another source provided the cherry on the cake: “Olaf Scholz is being accompanied on this trip by German industrialists who actually control Germany and are not going to sit back watching themselves being destroyed.”
Fasten your seat belts. Once again, it ain’t over till the fat lady goes Gotterdammerung.
Wouldn’t it be nice if German leadership knew history?
Rathenau’s Rapallo Treaty had exactly the same motive – Rathenau assassinated within a month.
Bismarck’s Berlin-Baghdad Railway to bring industry to the Ottoman – Bismarck ousted, Wilhelm in, and WWI.
Deutsche Bank chief Herrhausen’s 1989 Comecon Reconstruction Plan – assassinated.
In Italy the same – Enrico Mattei and Aldo Moro, industrialists, both assassinated.
There are many more.
Finally we now have Russia naming the culprits – London for 3 attacks.
@ John Kolak
Would you be so kind as to link us up to the article you posted?
Thanks.
Lone Wolf
It’s here. I was afraid of getting in trouble for posting a link:
https://t.me/rocknrollgeopolitics/5440
John Kolak: “So the FT is printing NATO wet dreams.Well, the info I’m getting is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, and from solid German business sources.They tell me Scholz is going to China TO WORK OUT A PEACE DEAL WITH RUSSIA VIA BEIJING.”
Yes, it’s quite likely German industrialist/business people are going with Scholz to meet with the Chinese leadership.
However, the US/EU/UK Financial powers are not one solidified block of people dictating to politicians what they must/must not do.
Instead, history tells us there are *always* factions within any hegemony who are willing to “bend the rules.” That may be the case here, too.
Whether that entourage can succeed with their endeavors towards China, is anybody’s guess.
I also read this on Pepe’s Telegram channel. I think he’s right on most things but doubt that Scholz is going to Beijing to replace Germany’s alliance with the US with China. He’s hoping to save German industry and counting on Chinese reasonableness.
Next to an outstanding article of Michael Hudson, also a tantalizing comment of Pepe Escobar. Thanks both for something to chew on.
I may not be in a position to challenge the info that Pepe Escobar gets. From my humble position from Germany however, I doubt whether Scholz has such plans, simply because he lacks the statemanship, brains and spine to do that. Sorry. I wouldn’t even exclude that ‘Ze Germans’ know more of, and were even involved in the attacks on the NS1 and 2.
However, to differentiate on the point, the attendance of German Industries may indicate more.
It is not very much mentioned in the news, but e.g. BASF, the largest chemical company in the world (and German), has very recently decided to ramp down German activities, and focus on… (drumroll) *China*. Due to unsustainable energy costs. And not ‘going to the USA as only possible choice’, as the funny RAND memo suggested. Ouch. I know quite some German colleagues who have been in China, and wouldn’t mind to work there. I understand that since I have been there too.
Just imagine when for instance also a world class machine manufacturer like Siemens would do that.
Could it be that conditions for such moves are negotiated? And Scholzie is there just for decoration, say like Biden (ok, Biden is somewhat more struggling and rebooting in the space-time continuum)?
Keep in mind that Scholz is corrupt as hell. He’s a vending machine, just throw in enough money and hit some buttons. He’s not a statesman. And his green buddies are just arrogant WEF commercial tunes. Too much honor for possible ‘strategic moves’ for them imho, my best hope is some ‘moving’ negotiating along the sidelines.
Cheers and stay safe, Rob
There is an alternative to the so-called neolib current debacle.
It is the reason the US broke with Britain – the American System of Alexander Hamilton, the Carey’s, described in German-American economist Friedrich List’s
National System of Political Economy.
https://archive.org/details/NationalSystemOfPoliticalEconomyFriedrichList/mode/2up
Not taught in any Uni. of course.
The Friedrich List society presented a Plan to avert Hitler’s disaster, rejected.
FDR used the American System for the New Deal.
Actually China uses the American System in its own, and Germany can recover List’s legacy.
When Trump in 2016 campaigned on the American System, London went berserk.
I’m fully aware how much that title upsets many cultures.
National Political Economics is the EAEU core concept, sovereignty,
In 1800 Hamilton came from a British colony, Carey from another, had seen what the British System actually does to entire countries, well described in List’s book in German and English, and in Glazyev’s book Genocide.
There is a great deal of interest in and study of List in some financial circles and institutes in Moscow.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-03/pakistan-s-ex-pm-imran-khan-injured-in-firing-at-rally-spokesman?srnd=premium
Assassination attempt on Khan in Pakistan.
(…) “Western antagonism against the East was incited by the Crusades (…)” – what about no? What about great number of christians enslaved, killed by muslims before first crusade? Check this out — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_To-cV94Bo.
Great article! I really appreciate the historical context. I don’t see anyone else doing this. It puts it all together.
Timely and very much in sync with the subject at hand.
——————–
By the will of fate, Ukraine has become the card on which Europe puts everything, and the more it loses, the more it bets. More, more, more – more money, more weapons, more military instructors, more mercenaries. But even the most desperate gambler runs out of money at some point, even though his ego forces him to bet everything, right down to the last detail.
——————–
Like a drunken sailor in a poker game while having a blast in Marseille, Europe is betting more and more on Ukraine, the more it loses. Law of diminishing returns don’t apply to them. They have gone for broke in order to weaken Russia, and by the law of unintended consequences, Europe is getting weaker by the minute with Marshall Winter’s inexorable advance.
Puppet Scholz visit to China, barking like a yappi dog about sanctions, sends a message about Germany (and Europe) desperation. They are up against the wall, they know it, but their political space to wiggle is carefully watched by the imperial Cerberus.
———————————————————
https://vz.ru/world/2022/11/3/1185179.html?utm_campaign=vz&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=push
In Europe, they began to guess about the trap set by the United States and Ukraine
There are growing signs that both European voters and EU elites are losing interest in supporting the Kiev regime. The tone of the European press is gradually changing. It seems that Europe has begun to guess who arranged all this and why: “There is growing evidence that the United States is behind what is happening,” the demonstrators say.
Just a few weeks ago, the European media was flooded with upbeat reports. They indicated that Ukrainian troops were about to take Kherson, that the offensive was progressing well, that the Russians were retreating, and that only a little pressure was needed to achieve a decisive victory.
Now the picture is changing before our eyes. Not only was Kherson mentioned rarely and somewhat reluctantly, but the topic of Ukraine itself was relegated to the background in the public field.
So, Italy froze sending a new package of military aid to Ukraine. Germany helped Kiev just enough not to harm its interests, and even caused accusations that its actions resemble a “slow sports car”.
France promised to train the Ukrainian military, but now it is more busy with its own affairs. Suddenly, just imagine, it turned out that in France there are big problems with teachers and especially with the staff of children’s hospitals. Although the government has vowed to be generous with as much as 150 million euros in the latter case, the authors of an open letter to the president signed by 4,000 hospital workers say that the main problem is in the system and that money – especially by health standards, not so much-can not solve it.
It turns out that France is ready to give as much as it wants for military operations, while politicians in this country practically do not care about the health of future generations. And the press has already begun to talk about it – for example, “France Soir” in its article asks how such a corrupt country as Ukraine is provided with multibillion-dollar financial assistance “without any effective control over who gets this money and what it is spent on.”
In the same article, the author rightly notes that ” The West, blinded by its project to destabilize Russia in the name of NATO, is ready to sacrifice entire peoples.” Of course, we are talking about Ukrainians and Russians turned into expendable material, which it is desirable to weaken as much as possible, but sacrificing the French people or, God forbid, the American people is completely undesirable. Because all nations are equal, but some are much more equal.
By the will of fate, Ukraine has become the card on which Europe puts everything, and the more it loses, the more it bets.
More, more, more – more money, more weapons, more military instructors, more mercenaries. But even the most desperate gambler runs out of money at some point, even though his ego forces him to bet everything, right down to the last detail.
According to the Express, for several weeks now, voices have been heard in the West that the conflict has already lasted more than enough and should be resolved through diplomatic methods. French Senate deputy Pierre Laurent made a speech on October 26 about the need to achieve a cessation of hostilities, while his colleague Philippe Ba said that peace talks are necessary to ” avoid an escalation of violence.”
However, there are still enough supporters of continuing the war in the West. Their main argument is that since the summer, the Russian army has not been able to advance on the front lines and, moreover, has lost important settlements.
Former diplomat Pierre Vimon believes that ” it makes no sense for him (Zelensky) to go to negotiations. He has the advantage on the battlefield, to stop the offensive means to miss the moment.” But it’s already November. Meanwhile, winter, cold, and mud are ahead, when the continuation of military operations will be a big question, “Geraniums” are destroying Ukrainian infrastructure, and in Europe itself it is still unknown what will happen to energy carriers and, most importantly, to the economy.
For 2023, Zelensky requires assistance in the amount of 38 billion euros. At whose expense is the banquet supposed to be held? How many more teachers and doctors in the same France will lose their salaries for the sake of the mirage that some dream of in Europe-to make Russia suffer defeat?
According to polls, 92% of Hungarians support a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.
But, for example, in Italy or France, no one will even dare to conduct such a survey-despite all the statements about freedom of speech and the importance of popular opinion. Nevertheless, people go to demonstrations to express their point of view.
In October, a number of demonstrations were held in Italy against the supply of weapons and anti-Russian sanctions, in September and October similar demonstrations were held in the Czech Republic, in October-in France. In all these cases, dissatisfaction with the actions of the authorities and the deterioration of economic conditions was expressed.
Politician Florian Philippot, who led the demonstration in Paris, expressed his point of view: “I see more and more evidence that the United States is behind what is happening. Their goal is to stay afloat, as it is essentially a weakened and heavily indebted country. In order to remain a global hegemon, they need reserves, and there are such reserves in Europe.
The United States has set up a trap aimed at the final separation of Russia and Europe.
We were connected to Russia in terms of energy, economy, and geopolitics. Our advantage is to preserve this connection, and the United States-on the contrary, to destroy it. This is what they used Ukraine for, and it will be very difficult for us to improve relations with Russia now – they are damaged for decades, and in addition we pushed Russia into the arms of China. The result will be our economic, industrial, energy and social collapse. Who will benefit from this? USA only.”
Perhaps the economy – or rather, the scale of its problems-has the best chance of forcing the European authorities to reconsider their chosen course. The real recession in Europe is just beginning, and one can only wonder what will happen when it starts to unfold in earnest. If not tens of thousands, but millions will take to the streets, demanding peace and the lifting of sanctions that Europe itself is trying to corner itself with.
However, there is a feeling that this winter we will see for ourselves. Maybe what will happen in the next few months will exceed even the wildest expectations.
—————————————————————–
Lone Wolf
Bravo, Lone Wolf… excellent observations!
Cheers
Col
“There was no anticipation that NATO would be expanded to threaten a New Cold War, much less that it would back Ukraine, recognized as the most corrupt kleptocracy in Europe, into being led by extremist parties identifying themselves by German Nazi insignia.”
Hudson’s writing is in such deep contrast to MSM claptrap. Logical, coherent, so much more than a slim collection of well emplaced buzzwords that triggers violent reaction in the huddled cults. They are reminiscent of the old stereotypes of black slaves, “Yes, Massa”
This would be a fun contest. Defend your choice of a government, anywhere in the world, that would be a worse regime to back than Ukraine? My choice Arkansas. Perhaps they have redeemed themselves of their glorious past. Hillary lost the state to Trump and what more could be told than that in 2016? Who knew the Clintons better than Arkansas? Haiti?
It’s sad t osee how the rabid Rusophobe government wrongly represented by The Baerbock constantly damages Germany’s future.
What an absolute gem from Michael Hudson once again.
My only additional observation is that perhaps he underestimates the current dramatic progress of the multiple BRIICS+++ initiatives that provide the altenative to the neoliberal private bank-centred system that currently rules the globe… Michael mentioned this in his final chapter.
Of course, on pain of death, he simply cannot outright name the Nazi-inspired BIS and its collaborators as the pilfering ringleaders, but this is the tragic reality. The BIS collective is the Pied Piper that calls the tune for all of its 62 member countries with the exception of course of China…. regardless of whether these CBs are Govt owned or not!
With the permission of the Mods, I will quote some of what I recently replied to bonbon within another thread, as this is on the very same subject… /nato-escalates-again-and-achieves-nothing-again/#comment-1159541
…quoted…
“The U$ and UK will not be dragged anywhere “by the scruff of the neck”… they will forever desperately cling to their habitual imperialist hegemonic habitat.
Methinks the BRIICS+++ has to really get their act together now and push home an already massive collective might, in order to render the old Zone A system irrelevant. I think if we could graph de-dollarisation then this trend would already be unmistakable.
Add to this the fact that all of the main Zone A economies are technically insolvent, and that their FIRE economies are unproductive in terms of generating real goods and societal and infrastructural wealth, and it is game over. A combined repudiation of all predatory debt to the criminal Zone A private banking cabal will add the finishing touches.
The currently coordinated interest hikes of the main Zone A central banks will only hasten the demise of their productive real economies as this strategy won’t address “inflation” and disastrously destructive CPIs.
This is not garden variety inflation anyway, so it cannot be remedied by normal tools. Token rate hikes, well below the real CPI figure, only feeds “inflation” it does not alleviate it. To address this drop in the purchasing power of these currencies would effectively require truly brutal hikes which would kill these economies long before they got anywhere near the double-digit rates of a bygone age… a la the Volcker shock of the eighties, where they went north of 20%. That was an entirely different scenario where all debt, including Govt debt, was only a fraction of where it stands today.
These massively indebted economies would self-destruct well before interest rates got anywhere near double digits. What I see is a token orchestrated hike that will allow the financial kleptocrats to buy up a whole lot more distressed assets before they pivot and revert to even more massive QE and the same old gravy chain that took us to this insolvency in the first place.
Meanwhile, Zone B puts the finishing touches on their parallel system of trade and financial instruments as it gradually disenfranchises the old Zone A kleptocrats.”
… end quote…
My intuition tells me that Zone B progress is much more dramatic than we are led to believe. The destructive rate hikes in an already broken and insolvent West, along with this attempted round of
further pilfering, heralds the unravelling of the entire system.
Just me, but I visualize the whole process and changeover to be much more swift than what most people accept as being possible. This is merely my 2 cents worth as an additional observation of Michael’s masterpiece.
Cheers from Downunder
Col
Absolutely 💯 brilliant, if only they would teach this in English schools! Alas history is rewritten by those who seek to cover up the truths.
Sometimes it is easier to understand today’s dynamics by stepping away from one’s own immediate situation to look at historical examples of the kind of political diplomacy that one sees splitting today’s world.
Yes, indeed and so I give you what Dr. Cantelon wrote on it:
In America, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, a series of emergency measures were formulated, to be followed in the event of a full confrontation, and they were signed into law by the late John F. Kennedy. They stand today exactly as they were signed on February 16 and February 27, 1962. Those emergency documents provide that the president should have complete and final dictatorial control, the authority to undertake immediate and decisive action. His executive orders are to be carried out through the Office of Emergency Planning and they are to be put into effect, in any time of increased international tension or economic or financial crisis.
These orders are all-inclusive:
Executive Order 10995 -to take over all communication media.
Executive Order 10997 -take over all electric power, petroleum, gas, fuels, and minerals.
Executive Order 10998 -take over all food resources and farms.
Executive Order 10999-take over all methods of transportation, highways, and seaports.
Executive Order 11000 -mobilization of civilians and work forces under governmental supervision.
Executive Order I I00l -take over all health, welfare, and educational functions.
Executive Order I1002 -the Postmaster-General, a member of the President’s Cabinet, will operate a
nationwide registration of all persons.
Executive Order 11003 -to take over all airports and aircraft.
Executive Order 11004 -take over housing and finance authorities-to relocate communities-to build new housing with public funds-designate areas to be abandoned as unsafe-establish new locations for populations.
Executive Order 11005 -take over all railroads, inland waterways, and public storage facilities.
Executive Order I 105 I – designate responsibilities of Office of Emergency Planning, give authorization to
put all other executive orders in effect in times of increased international tension or economic or financial
crises.
The word “crisis” seemed to be appearing almost weekly in the headlines of the news media-population
crisis, war crisis, fuel and energy crisis. If man was willing under crisis to commit total and absolute power to an individual leader of the nation or the world, how sudden and complete could be the revolutionary new methods swept in by such a man!
Who could administer such an instant world government?
H. G. Wells expressed the sentiments of millions when he wrote,
It is necessary to discover a head capable of directing it, endowed with an intelligence surpassing the most
elevated human level.
Over and over I found myself quoting those statements of Wells – “endowed with an intelligence surpassing the most elevated human level . . . surpassing the most elevated human level.”
The Leader
Did Wells actually visualize a world leader with supernatural power? If so, from whom would such a ruler receive his power? Were there other men as prominent as Wells who entertained similar thoughts? I soon discovered that there were.
A recent poll in U.S.A. revealed that over 60% of the population believed in supernatural powers outside the
human realm.
In May of 1973, Reader’s Digest featured an article on page 255 relating to the discovery of life in outer space. It suggested that the scientiflc pendulum since 1963 had been swinging toward the side of evidence of life beyond the boundaries of our planet.
I recalled the words of the Astronomer Gibson Reeves who referred to “a rebelling mind somewhere in the
universe having its effect on our planet earth. I wondered when I read the words of Gibson Reeves, if he was referring to Lucifer who long ago, according to the prophets of the Bible, led a rebellion in his desire to be equal with Christ
Again I pondered the words of Isaiah who wrote,
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!-For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven- I will be like the most High. Isa. 14:12
yikes eh?
An important addition and note the words of Spaak:
No world government of the character envisaged by Professor Einstein would function unless it possessed
the power to exercise complete control over the armaments of each constituent state.
As men began to move more rapidly toward world government, fear was expressed by some of the world’s
finest intellectuals. Doctor Charles Merriam, for many years professor of political economy in the University of Chicago, said,
I raise my voice to warn-human liberty may be lost.
But most intellectuals were not only willing to concede that liberty would be lost, they were in favor of disposing of it. Professor Laski of Oxford, England, declared,
Sovereignty must go; that means also the interests which sovereignty protects must be recognized as outmoded in character and dangerous in operation.
As I moved from country to country I was astonished at the amazing political phenomena of the times, the continued trend toward totalitarian controls. A world government of unprecedented size and power would still of necessity demand a world leader. Men had reached the place where they were not only willing to accept such a suggestion, but were willing to cry for strong individual leadership in this hour.
Few men expressed themselves more firmly in this respect than Paul Henri Spaak. A European statesman born in Brussels, Spaak led the Socialist Party of Belgium and was the first president of the Council of Europe. One of the planners of the European Common Market, he also served as president of the United Nations’ General Assembly and as Secretary-General of NATO. In addition, he served as Prime Minister of Belgium and as Minister of Foreign Affairs for his country. Few men had filled such a roster of important offices. Spaak repeatedly expressed his desire to see a strong man arise on the world horizon to lead men
out of the confusion of their present dilemma:
Let that man be a military man or a layman, it matters not.
Spaak’s cry for strong one-man rule was echoed on the lips of many leaders. Roswell Gilpatric, former Deputy Secretary of Defense, said,
Strong, one-man civilian control of America’s giant military establishment is vital to the nation’s well being.
The concentration of authority is inevitable.
Cantelon pages 133-135
Dr. Cantelon if asked about our destiny he would look at the QR Code with great suspicion and ask how close are we to the arrival of the antichrist to Jerusalem?
Got to say the day I learned about Liberation Theology and its connection to all things Great Reset of Schwub the alarm bells went off. The great reset is little more than a type of robinhood moment isn’t it which in the end is robbery and theft.
This paragraph by Martin Armstrong is quite telling:
Câmara, who was apparently the most influential person in Schwab’s life, was an advocate of liberation theology, which is a theory that emphasizing the liberation of the oppressed must be the objective. The foundation is Marxism engaging socio-economic analyses, rather than theology, pushing economic materialism rather than spiritual objectives. It argues for the social concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed peoples whereby its core is “inequality” materially claimed to be driven by race or caste rather than ability. Câmara admittedly is famous for saying: “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/religion/the-catacomb-pact-pope-francis-schwab/
I however, like his last sentence:
The pope talks more about the economy and “inequality” than he does about salvation.
To find these things happening in a religious Christian context is very troubling and alarming. Whatever happened to widows and orphans and our care for them? Being poor has many causes the worst of which is ending up either orphaned or widowed or both?
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27
Looks as if the Church is being polluted by the world yes? But I guess we were warned weren’t we:
At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you ahead of time. Math. 24: 23-24
Got to wonder with a warning like this what would it take to deceive men like St. Paul or St. Peter, the very elect?