By Batiushka for the Saker Blog
‘I’m not interested in whether a racketeer like Lime was killed by his friends or by an accident. The only important thing is that he’s dead’.
The Old Vienna
Vienna, City of Destiny, is at the heart of Central Europe, Mitteleuropa, between Western and Eastern Europe. It was the city which my father, who had fought since 1941, got out of in 1945. Had he not got out, I would not be writing these words now.
In history the city is where the Congress of Vienna took place in 1814–1815. This was an international diplomatic conference called to reconstitute the European political order after the downfall of Napoleon, the product of the French Revolution. Dominated by Russia, Prussia, Britain, Austria and France, it was a turning point – the first genuine attempt to forge an international order, to frame a ‘Concert of Europe’, and to bring long-term peace to a troubled Continent. Whatever the shortcomings and criticisms of that Congress, it did create relative peace in Europe for a century. Since then we have only had war.
However, cultured Vienna was also the city where both Hitler and Stalin lived at the same time in early 1913. They could have met. Perhaps they did, without knowing it. And in 1914, when Vienna became the city which made the spark which lit the powderkeg of Western rivalries, from whose consequences the world has not yet recovered and is still fighting in the Ukraine today.
The Third Man
Vienna was also the city in the 1949 film, The Third Man, reckoned by many to be among the ten greatest films ever made. It portrays a post-war, black-market, out-of-joint Vienna where the mood is cold, dark and hungry. It tells the story of an American racketeer, Harry Lime, who was ‘about the worst racketeer that ever made a dirty living in this city’, responsible for the deaths and insanity of hundreds, including many children, through his cynical and amoral greed: ‘Nobody thinks in terms of human-beings…The dead are happier dead. They don’t miss much here, poor devils’, says the murderer about his victims.
Lime is ‘the third man’, who grins cynically from out of the shadows. Trying to escape from the sewers, where, symbolically, he has sought refuge, Lime ends up being killed by his onetime friend, Holly Martins, a regular, good-hearted, but, as is so often the case, very naïve, American. And here we are now, 73 years on, not in Vienna, but on the world stage, once more facing cold, dark and hunger, racketeered by the third man global elite, headquartered in the sewers of the USA, who grin cynically from out of the shadows.
Like Lime, the global elite also want Europeans (and indeed the whole world) to sell their souls to them, in exchange for heat, light and food. Otherwise, Europe will suffer cold, dark and hunger. But Europe is already suffering from cold, dark and hunger and some Europeans at least understand that it does not need to sell its soul for heat, light and food. There is an alternative to the racketeering American gangster, Harry Lime. It can keep its soul if it wants.
Cold, Dark and Hunger
Thanks to the third man who imposed ‘anti-Russian’ sanctions on Europe, the prices of oil and gas in Europe have rocketed, often more than doubling. There will be cold for many in Europe from this autumn onwards. However, the third man is also post-modern man, who believes in nothing, except the cold of cynicism. Europe is starting to feel the cold, not just physically, but also in its soul, and that is the beginning of an emptiness which ruins human lives and ends them prematurely.
Thanks to the third man who imposed ‘anti-Russian’ sanctions on Europe, the lights will be going off in Europe. There will be darkness for many in Europe from this autumn onwards. However, the third man is also the man of darkness of the spirit, who does not know so many basic things, for example that injustice and greed are wrong, that mothers are not economic units, but the most important people in the world, and that what goes round comes round.
Thanks to the third man who imposed ‘anti-Russian’ sanctions on Europe and had the wheat blockaded in Black Sea ports by American-backed Ukrainian separatists. There will be hunger for many in Europe from this autumn onwards. However, the third man is also the man of hunger, who does not know that human-beings cannot live by bread alone, that there is even such a thing as spiritual nourishment, which is why much of the Western world is nothing but a spiritual Sahara.
The New Europe
Once the third man-racketeer Harry Lime has been killed, perhaps necessarily by a new Holly Martins, this whole American Nazi/NATO/EU nightmare of the present ‘Ukraine’ will end. The New Ukraine will be a small country of some fifteen million people and Europe will at last understand its century-old delusions.
Then Europe will need a Second Congress of Vienna. There the rules of peace could be laid down. Such a Congress would be dominated by the three cultural groups of Europe, each of which is dominated by Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant cultural reflexes, regardless of the lack of practising faith and minorities with other reflexes. Together they represent the 750 million Europeans, in three almost equal groups, most represented by 36 countries: Russia-Romania-Ukraine-Greece-Belarus-Bulgaria-Serbia-Georgia-Moldova-North Macedonia-Cyprus-Montenegro; France-Italy-Spain-Poland-Portugal-Hungary-Austria-Slovakia-Ireland-Croatia-Lithuania-Slovenia-Malta; Germany-Britain-Netherlands-Sweden-Switzerland-Denmark-Finland-Norway-Latvia-Estonia-Iceland. (Those countries with indeterminate identities, like Belgium, the Czech Lands, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Armenia, Albania etc we do not include here, they would have to choose which group they identify with most). A Second Congress would be a turning point – the last genuine attempt to forge an international order and bring long-term peace to a troubled Europe – and indeed to a troubled world.
Once Harry Lime is dead, we shall tell Holly Martins to return to the USA. Now with some experience of the real world, he may be able to start sorting out some of the massive problems and iniquities there. And we might well repeat these words from The Third Man to that naïve and blundering American:
‘Stop behaving like a fool…Go home, Martins, like a sensible chap, you don’t know what you’re mixing in. Get the next plane’.
When the US Gov aka Rothchilds deep state and cronies has been humbled, and Communist China can be kept from taking the US hegemonic place then peace and justice can prevail, im hoping Putin can achieve this.
A “Congress would be dominated by the three cultural groups of Europe, each of which is dominated by Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant cultural reflections.
“With a Catholic Church in spiritual demolition, dominated by the “modernism” described by Pius X ” with entirely new and treacherous arts, they strive to annihilate the vital energies of the Church, and even to totally destroy, if possible, the kingdom of Jesus Christ”, corroded by the homosexuality of its clergy, globalism and neo-paganism (pachamama) and new family models (German synod) I don’t see very clearly what the Orthodox Church can currently talk about with the Catholic.
Protestants are a galaxy of religious denominations, women priestesses, gay weddings and blessings along with groups very committed to Christ, who represents who in that galaxy?
I cannot speak about the Orthodox Church because I do not know its situation, but something is clear to me: Pope John Paul II prophesied that those who would return to evangelize Europe would not come from Latin America or Africa, they would come from Russia.
The great cultural and spiritual areas of Europe are very corrupt, perhaps the Orthodox is the one that saves us.
Only Jesus Christ can save. I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the church of the Bible. It’s the one that the saved people of the world are added to. The book of Acts in the Bible describes its beginning and terms of admission which are simply: obey the gospel as it was revealed by the Holy Spirit in the pages of the New Testament.
It is what we Catholics have done since San Pedro, what you least expect is that you have so many Judas within your family.
With an average ca. 4o per cent regular Sunday mass attendance, and with quite a few churchgoers still insisting on hearing Tridentine rite, i.e. Latin mass, Poland ist the only, not solely nominal, christian nation in Europe. At the same time, the Palm Sunday mass attendance in St. Petersburg and Moscow is about 2 to 3 per cent. Such a low attendance, even in a cesspit like Warsw, is still unimaginable. So, better check your souces about the alleged worldwide end of traditional Roman Catholicism.
In 2o12 Patriarch Kirill visited Poland warmly greated by the Polish Episcopate. They even issued a joint declaration about common goals. Why has this declaration remained largely, but not entirely, without consequences? Well, there are very powerful forces on the world stage, with a representation not only in each consequtive Warsaw governmet, but also in Kremlin, who oppose such, much needed, moves of both sister Churches. The sad fate of St. Isaac Cathedral in St. Petersburg is the best exemple of those forces’ vast influence also in Russia.
« Sad fate of St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg. »
Explain to me what is meant by that statement! My second home is in St. Petersburg and I know quite well the historical and ecclesiastical situation of Saint Isaac’s Cathedral.
If i am not mistaken, the St. Isaac’s Cathedral has not been returned to the Russian Orthodox Church, still remains in state possession and the church services are allowed in side chapel on feast days only.
Count Tolstoy, the deputy to the State Duma, publicly commented that the grandchildren of the very same people who turned this cathedral to museum of atheism now fiercely oppose its return to the Orthodox Church. Of course, he was instantly branded as “antisemite”. Perhaps because of a certain class solidarity I strongly tend to believe him.
So little, so bitter, no faith.
Batiushka wrote “three _cultural_ groups”, not “three church corporations”.
And continued “cultural reflexes, regardless of the lack of practising faith”.
The Who – Substitute 2:52
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eswQl-hcvU0
Thanks. Great article.
What is being promoted in Empire is anti-religion, with science not understood to be a sub set of them.
The era of the American origin “globo-homo” rainbow oligarchy is stumbling to its death. The EU sheeple ,finally forced awake from their bread & circuses trance state, as the bread is rationed & the circuses close due to bankruptcy. A new era dawns – let us hope it is saner & less destructive .
Turkey meanwhile, sees the way the wind is blowing and is drawing closer to Russia/ Eurasia as a result of which we have this good news
Russia may be heavily engaged in Ukraine but that doesn’t prevent it from keeping a protective eye on Syria.
“Hurriyet: Turkey, after negotiations with Russia, suspends preparations for an operation in Syria near Raqqa
“Russia did not approve of the Turkish operation there and sent reinforcements to the region”, the Turkish newspaper writes.”
https://t.me/s/EurasianChoice/14753
Turkey is a country of glass, it will break with a sharp blow.
He will go to war against Russia when he thinks he is going to succumb, the result will be the end of Turkey and a huge border shift between several states (Greece, Armenia and Kurdistan).
Very good piece except that I would substitute the word “regional” in place of “international” in the fragment “genuine attempt to forge an international order”. In my view “international” would rather refer to all the world countries.
The 1815 conference, was in a sense global due to the revenues from the asset stripping of their respective colonies around the world.
Yes it was “regional” or “continental” in a “royalty” led world just about to be industrialised and connected by the railroads.
Yes it was “international” in the context of the year 1815.
“However, the third man is also the man of darkness of the spirit, who does not know so many basic things, for example that injustice and greed are wrong, that mothers are not economic units, but the most important people in the world, and that what goes round comes round.”
So there is certainly an app to deal with these pesky basics, innumerable ones. So that we can forget what is uncomfortable and escape to our fantasies.
Let us face reality together and those who will cling to their ill gotten gains can finance a recovery that rolls back some of the more nefarious fruits of the technical revolution that so effectively clouds our judgement.
The Supreme Court of the DPR sentenced foreign mercenaries British Aiden Aslin and Sean Pinner and Moroccan Saadoun Brahim sentenced to death. – Info from Ruskoe Vesna
Interesting what Boris the clown is going to do about that?
Pinner is already on the UK’s wanted terrorist list for Iraq and Syrian crimes.
Well done!!…I really hope the DPR go through with the execution of these two brits and any other mercenary scumbags they capture…blood thirsty psychos pretending to be supporting the Ukrainians as if the savage attacks of the neo-Nazi infested VSU thugs on the ethnic Russian people of the Donbass and the wanton destruction of their homes, towns and cities was a worthy cause.
Being Irish I’d gladly pull the trigger on them myself and watch Bozo Johnson cry crocodile tears into his beer for them.
Victory to the heroic armed forces of the Russian Federation, the DPR and LPR
But not until All the Russian prisoners in Ukraine are freed. We don’t want revenge executions.
Mise Eire has become Vichy Eire – as the French say – collaborateurs.
Declan Hayes : NATO’s War on Truth
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/05/17/nato-war-on-truth/
How dare a Ukraine ambassador to Dublin call for ending Irish Constitutional neutrality – that should be grounds for expulsion. But then see Martin calling for a ‘discussion’ on neutrality – she got a green light from FF, never mind FG Blueshirts.
Ophuls’ : The Sorrow and the Pity
https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/The_Sorrow_and_the_Pity.jpg
Note the eye, tear and swastika.
Something no-one wanted to talk about, published in 1969, movie banned in France until 1981.
Keep it simple. I neglect the stupid. The governments of the West need to go. Presumably they will go from internal rebellion by desperate citizens or from invasion by determined foes or both.
These are the two primary situations that remove determined, tyrannical governments that are causing internal and external havoc. The situation has to become ugly enough and deadly enough to move people to act.
Russia and China have a mortal enemy in the US and the EU as they currently exist. So do the domestic populations of these entities. Facing up to the fact that we are not in a war between Russia and Ukraine, proxy or otherwise, but a world war with, currently, only one small military theatre. However, we do have through sanctions a global economic war which will certainly injure and kill domestic populations across the globe.
It will get worse. Accept the need for sensible organization of all opposition and stop attempting to wax poetic. I never heard of Harry Lime and Holly Martins and couldn’t care less. This is a war against the Western Cabal by all who will take it up. Once the war is won we will all know what we must do.
I doubt it will involve a second Congress of Vienna but who knows? For now: Keep it simple.
Best case scenario in Europe:
1. NATO is dissolved with the European states declaring neutrality. And participating as free states in a multipolar world.
2.The EU is dissolved as it is constructed now. And returned to what it was first meant to be, simply a free trade zone.
Bad case scenario in Europe:
Everything in the above 1 & 2,just being done by war and after NATO’s defeat in battle. Which will leave some parts of Europe looking like Ukraine today.
Worse case scenario in Europe:
Everything is destroyed in a nuclear war. And there is no need to worry about doing the 1 & 2 above.
Uncle Bob, you said it. Europe can accomplish the objective in #2 simply by letting Russia accede to the European Union. Maybe it is getting too late for this, and the American government does not want it to happen, but it is in the best interest of European countries generally. One wonders why European politicians have not let Russia accede already. Dr. Roberts suggests that they are paid not to. Maybe they are. How much does a European politician have to be paid to amble willingly into nuclear confrontation? Let us pray that Europeans have the good sense to perceive what is in their best interest. Letting Turkey and the Arab world accede too would give Europe the peace and oil it needs to prosper. The European Union could then take the initiative in the world. Why European politicians are willing to pass this up for cash is anyone’s guess. Why Finland sees joining NATO as safer than not joining is also anyone’s guess.
Why would Russia want to subject itself to the vile, incompetent, whoring and unelected bureaucrats running the EU clown show? That makes no sense whatsoever.
Finland has a problem :
Why Is It So Hard to Finnish Nazism?
https://canadianpatriot.org/2022/06/02/why-is-it-so-hard-to-finnish-nazism-natos-growing-suicide-pact-threatens-to-light-the-world-on-fire/
Believe it or not but see their Air-force tail-plane insignia until 2020!!!
Strange how the Polls for Happiest Countries always had the Scandinavians filling the top places. All those closet Nazis must mean the citizens of those countries are on psychedelic drugs or just plain stupid. Maybe like most westerners, living in denial and knocking back opiates is better than the painful truth.
Something, no, many things are rotten in Denmark , Sweden, Norway, now Finland. Let’s see where those Happy League Tables are in a few years during the riots and political upheaval.
Lard ass and mouth Boris Johnson, one of the most vociferous warmongering reactionaries before and during SMO is about to fall on his sword. The rest of the Eurotrash politicos will now be worrying who’s next.
The Scandinavian countries are among the highest consumers of anti-depressants on the planet
Tom: “Europe can accomplish the objective in #2 simply by letting Russia accede to the European Union”
A couple of points:
1. The EU is not democratic. It is essentially a bankers’ cartel. Its Central Bank, the ECB, is not voted for by the public, the European Commission in Brussels is not voted for by the public and observe how many times Euro-nations were either forced to vote again OR their vote was completely ignored when ratifying EU treaties.
In addition, the countries who adopted the €, are no longer monetary sovereign, i.e. can issue their own currency – money supply being the lifeblood of an economy.
2. More importantly, we need to understand that the geopolitical shots around the world are still called by The Vatican (going as far back as The Crusades after the Great Schism 1057, which is as much a geopolitical player as the Pentagon) AND the City of London (the 1 sq. mile of bankers’ HO’s); the US being really ‘the muscle’. Since the 1600’s, it’s scared the pants off Anglo-zionist elites of a union between Germany’s capital (money) & technology and Russia’s vast population & natural resources. So historically, the EU would never allow Russia to join the EU.
As evidence of this second point, recall that President Putin asked if Russia could join NATO – thrice: 2001, 2004 & again more recently – denied every time, as we know. The US Military Industrial Complex (these days, aka the Military-Industrial-Counter-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think Tank complex (MICIMATT) always needs an enemy. See: War is a Racket by US 5 Star Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler. In a nutshell, Butler’s point is “all wars are bankers wars” as they loan monies to both sides at interest, hence the need to drag out a conflict for as long as possible. Witness the Vietnam War & the US invasion & occupation of A’stan for twenty years more recently!
But war is also structural in maintaining the Elite’s control of society for certain Western, so-called “liberal democracies”. Recall:
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. … The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.” – George Orwell, 1949, from 1984
And the US’s leading intellectual (although a controlled academic, witness how he responds to questions on 9/11) 93.y.o. Noam Chomsky chimes in:
“Governments will use whatever technology is available to control their primary enemy: their own population”.
You: “The European Union could then take the initiative in the world”. Why on earth would anyone want such a corrupt & non-democratic organization of nation-states to take the initiative? The initiative has already passed from the West to the East in the forms of Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU), China’s Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO) & Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which will inevitably integrate to form the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) founded on the basis of trade for mutual benefit and not the Zero-Sum game (that one-wins-to-the-extent-that-others-lose) of Western colonial exploitation of people and natural resources.
You: “Why Finland sees joining NATO as safer than not joining is also anyone’s guess”. This question has already been explained on this blog. See how Finland’s primary export earner, Nokia, was sabotaged from within by “mismanagement” and then sold off to the US Bill Gates’ Microsoft (who has contracts with the US 3-lettered intel agency).
As an aside, Euro politicians/bureaucrats do not have to be ‘bought’. They may be vulnerable to blackmail. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, economist, French Socialist politician & former Man. Dir. of the IMF; and former socialist French President François Hollande (2012-17) are recent notable examples.
Above all else, my greater point is that the US, facing internal decline & decay (possibly even collapse & disintegration?) will inevitably retreat from Europe, Africa and, hopefully, Latin America.
The world is merely returning to Asia (now Eurasia) being the economic powerhouse of the world (as measured in GDP) as India & China contributed most (~55% of world GDP) for the first 1800 years of these last two millennia – the last 200 years of Western industrialization, colonialism, slavery & exploitation being a ‘blip on the graph’.
No one knows how much debt is owed and far Russia will go.
Bob, I like your clarity of thought!
A Masterpiece
The 19th century was probably a century of relative peace, dominated by rather smaller conflicts but still significant: Crimeea war, franco-prussian war and my favourite, the 1877-1878 russo-turkish war, when Romania(fighting with the russian troops against turks) gained and declared independence.
Speaking about cultural groups, bringing the religion in pole position is a very good idea for setting up the ground even if there are still remarkable differences between orthodox, catholic and protestants. As an example, I would suggest to look at the behavior of the churches during the covid “pandemic”: the least willing to turn a blind eye to the restriction of religious freedom was the Orthodox Church. Decentralization and spiritual orientation have probably kept Orthodox churches closer to Orthodox believers. At least this was the situation in Romania, where the church protested consistently when it was tried (and partially successful but for a very short time) to introduce restrictions on the performance of various religious services, including funerals. This behavior should be taken into account in any type of future and we should not forget that some people “played the game” and marginalized their religion while others did not.
As alternative venues for such conference we may consider City of London if Vienna is not available during that period.
I am a Catholic and I explain their official position: They bowed down to Caesar and not to Christ the Son of the True God.
I am an athiest & I cannot understand why there are any practicing Catholics left in the World. After the exposures of rampant homosexual acts against young boys by Catholic priests around the World & for hundreds of years. We know that the response from Rome was weak & feeble and that “they” had NO intention to stop the rotten bastard priests from carrying on as usual. So why are there any Catholics ?
Could there be a line drawn between Catholic priests/clergy and Catholicism by itself? (I’m not Catholic, so if that makes me unqualified to speak…)
The Author’s piece sounds like a reading of Sir Henry Kissinger’s book from his PhD A World Restored.
Kissinger, a great admirer of Count Metternich’s (each ambassador supplied with courtesans) Congress of Vienna, on page 201 of the 1973 re-print, about the Confessions of Faith by Metternich in 1820 , that the Source of Evil was the Printing Press, gunpowder and especially the Discovery of America .
There is no way the world is ever going back to Metternich’s conservative land-rentier Europe.
And Russia has also no intention of going backwards – note Kinzhal, Sarmat, Yars, Iskander, Peresvet.
And this blog is today’s Printing Press.
Ok, granted your premise. Now please tell us when, how, and at whose hand Harry Lime will be “made dead “
Odd, but wasn’t Harry Lime running an antibiotic black-market?
Today he would be running a Vaccine market, preventing a rollout to Africa, blocking generic manufacture.
If you can get it, read Robert Kennedy’s The Real Anthony Fauci. Africans do not need any more of Fauci’s death-dealing “vaccines.” He has used minority children in the U.S. to test his toxic substances — killing and maiming many of them — and he has used African women and children to do the same. The world does not need Fauci’s vaccines, further enriching him and his buddy Bill Gates, the world needs access to decent food, clean water, education, and genuine health care, something we do not have in the U.S., largely due to Fauci. I would love to see him indicted, charged, and tried while I am still alive; he has murdered untold thousands, possibly millions.
The twin brother of “The Third Man” is Graham Greene’s “The Quiet American” set in Vietnam before the US ‘intervention’ and featuring a similarly naive American, who sets of a bomb in a crowded marketplace to ‘save’ the country. Also worth an article, to bookend this one.
All those writers and relatives go way back , Crimea, Boer, you name it, all once MI6 operatives, and so, you make allowances that we’re dealing with deranged or warped mindsets, It’s a family affair!
Joe and Hunter Lime are descendants of Harry. They have an adopted Son/Brother, Boris Limey.
Blimey, that’s a good one!
There is one thing far worse than Harry Lime who profited off WWII, disease and Nazi’s – that is the Ukrainian Nazis simply burning 50,000 tons of real good Ukrainian wheat and corn :
Grain burned by Ukrainian nationalists – Moscow
https://www.rt.com/russia/556791-grain-burned-russia-ukraine/
These Nazis burned the fruit of hard work from the most productive Ukrainian farmers, their very own citizens hard-earned work. This grain cannot be exported even if the Nazi’s harbor mines are cleared. A massive famine is guaranteed.
That is the definition of Nazi’s – they first attack their very own, exactly as in Germany in 1938 with Aktion T4.
I like that article. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2ZWcwy12lk
GREAT!
Also the essay before…!
Hope You enjoy the days and god bless.
What would we do and be without the russian endurance…
spaziva
Many good points and much to consider, I would add that the 1815 Vienna Conference was only possible because of Alexander l decision to carry the war into Europe! He made the right decision, because without Russia, Napoleon would have recovered his strength and dominated Europe again. The Europeans have never forgiven Russia for liberating them twice in two Centuries! Russian Army in Paris in 1814, and Soviet Army in Berlin in 1945.
3rd time lucky Kosta.
Got a feeling in my bones America will be banished from Europe.
Completely agree with you. The only question is which city will see the Russian Army this time? London?
Yes NATO will cease to exist, as will the EU, and Europe will be transformed. The US will be forced back to it’s continent!
Just like the Founding Fathers wanted…
Great article. Carol Reed’s perfect film is a great metaphor. ‘Stop behaving like a fool…Go home Brandon…you don’t know what you’re mixing with’, I think the drunk American is starting to realise what a mistake he made…and that he won’t get the girl.
This is a brilliant essay.