Elections in Russia: the turnout was good, the result a crushing victory for Putin’s party. There is exactly zero signs of a “Russian Maidan”. The popularity of Putin is as high as ever and much, much higher than the popularity of any western leader. The Putin-bashers everywhere have clearly failed to even have a marginal impact.
Fall session of the Duma: all the party leaders spoke and all agree that harboring any hopes for sane relations with the West is a waste of time; the consensus is now that Russia must 1) turn to the rest of the planet 2) accept the challenge to deal with a hostile and aggressive West 3) use this opportunity to disengage Russian from the western political, economic and financial system.
Banderastan: the Ukie and EU Parilaments signed an association agreement with great pomp, standing ovations and backslapping. Truly a historical moment indeed: the EU and Ukieland will now go to the bottom together. Great – they truly deserve each other. The amazing, paradoxical and, frankly, funny thing is that neither side can afford this partnership and that both the EU and Ukieland will suffer the negative consequences of this disastrous agreement.
I recently came across a really funny poem in Ukrainian written by the Ukrainian author and poet Oles Buzina which, I think, perfectly expresses the nature of what happened:
За що людськую кров лили?
За те щоб ціни повишали,
І знову плакали хохли.
За те щоб Крим, знов став московським
І щоб донбаським став Донбас.
За те, щоб долю України
Рішав в Європі підарас.
My (free) translation of this into English would be:
Why did they stand on the Maidan?
Why did they shed the people’s blood?
So that the prices would rise higher
So that the Ukies could cry again
So that Crimea would become Moscow’s
So that the Donbass would own itself
So that the Ukraine’s future
Would be decided by the Euro-homos
Novorussia: the special status offered by Poroshenko is not for Novorussia, but purely for NAF controlled territories. Besides, as the Novorussian leaders have correctly pointed out, the Ukie Rada has no authority to pass any rules in Novorussia. Conclusion: the the words of a senior Novorussian leader – this new law is just the basis for further negotiations, nothing more. Apparently, there is already a wave of panic in the usual “this is the end, Novorussia has been sold out, Putin is a traitor” mode (what else is new?). Guys, take a deep breath, wait a few days, and you will see this law for what it is: Ukie wishful thinking floating in a nauseous bubble of hot air.
[note: I have not seen the text of the status offered to Novorussia by Poroshenko. If you see it, please email me the link or post it here]
Military situation: the Ukie counter-offensive has still not started but I still consider it all but inevitable. Amazingly, the NAF has still not succeeded in stopping the JRF at the Donetsk Airport from shelling the city. Considering the human cost of letting these Nazis continue to murder civilians and the political costs of looking unable to finally get this airport under control, I cannot understand why the NAF seems to be unable to solve this problem.
I. Bezler |
Interesting promotion in Novorussia: Igor Bezler, the military commander of the strategically crucial city of Gorlovka (just north of the Donetsk-Debaltsevo line) has been awarded the rank of Major-General and appointed as the Head of the Intelligence Service of Novorussia. He is a rather mysterious and very controversial figure. It will be interesting to see the reactions to this nomination.
Economic situation: the Ruble is falling against the Dollar and the Euro, but the Russian Central Bank makes no effort to prevent that. Clearly, the Russians do not believe that this is more than a temporary phenomenon made worse by speculative selling.
My comments about Fedorov are eliciting some dismay. Sorry friends, I call it as I see it. So I would like to re-post here a comment I made yesterday: Fedorov and I probably agree on most goals and values, we are definitely on the “same side of the barricade”, but I cannot say that I am impressed by his analyses which I find superficial and, no offense intended, simplistic. He does a lot of good stuff, with the Duma for example, and I have nothing against him, but he is does have a tendency to go into a “panic mode” which I don’t like. Now, he is WAAAY better then Dugin, but both have this tendency to go “the house is burning! the house is burning!” when was it needed is slow, painstaking and meticulous daily work towards the goal. You might wonder whose analyses about the Ukraine I like most: Sergei Glazev’s. Nikolai Starikov is often also very good.
Paul Craig Roberts: some commentators have been very critical of him. Personally, I have a great deal of respect for him and I find his analyses very good. I have nothing bad to say about him and I can think of many extremely insightful articles by him.
The campaign to slander and discredit me: I think that it has petered out and failed. I am quite sure that those behind this campaign will try again, but for a while at least they are licking their (self-inflicted) wounds. My only message to my detractors who have in vain tried to slander me will be a quote from the Russian singer Boris Grebenshchikov who once wrote “”нет рук для чудес, кроме тех, что чисты” or “only clean hands can accomplish miracles”: this is why you will never accomplish anything.
Let’s not dwell on it any more, turn the page and move on.
Now, in conclusion, a few very important reminders and general comment about panic and hysterics:
First: what we are really dealing with is a US war on Russia. No, it is not waged with conventional military forces or, even less so, nuclear forces, it is waged by the use of the Ukrainian people. As they now say, the US will fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian. Sadly, this is quite literally true.
Second: really, there is no such thing as the Ukraine, or even Banderastan or Novorussia. These are (correct) political categories, but really, if we are really honest with ourselves, this is what we have: an occupied Ukraine and a liberated Ukraine. That’s it. This is really the core of what is taking place. And just as in WWII, the Ukraine is really only a battlefield for a move to Moscow.
art: Josetxo Ezcurra |
Third: just as Kutuzov could not “sell out” Smolensk or Stalin could not “sell out” Kiev, Putin cannot “sell out” Novorussia. Regardless of your assessment of Putin’s morality, values, ethics or goals, you cannot possibly believe that he is that stupid and that his entire entourage of advisors are that stupid. And even if Putin was that stupid, along with his advisors, he still cannot change the fundamental geostrategic reality that what is under attack is not the Ukraine, but Russia. I would add that Putin, Lavrov and many other top Russian political leaders have said many times that in Yugoslavia it was really Russia which was the target of the attack, just as it is Russia which is the real objective of the war in Syria.
Fourth: an almost constant panic mode bordering on hysteria is just not the right mode to *understand* this war, much less so wage it and win. I will gladly admit that I myself a guilty of this “sin”, but at least I am able to differentiate between my fears and my analyses. I would remind those who in Russia and in the West who are constantly predicting an apocalypse that none of their predictions (NATO attack on Russia, US nuclear attack on Russia, upheavals in Saint Petersburg, a Russian Maidan, the Ukie Nazis running over the Donbass, etc.) have materialized so far. Let me give one simple but extremely telling example: for many months I have been arguing that Russia was covertly helping Novorussia while my critics argued the contrary. My detractors were clamoring that Russia was standing by and doing nothing. Well, who was right? I am not saying that just to gloat or ridicule my opponents, but to make a very different point: I did not have access to any secret info and all I could do is use my knowledge and experience of Russian policies and methods and they told me, quite unequivocally, that Russia must be covertly helping. In contrast, my critics based their “analysis” on a mix of fear and words, statements, made by various officials. Now it is undeniable that they were wrong. Of course, they never admitted to that but they very gradually included the undeniable fact of Russian covert help into their more recent presentations. Fair enough, but I wish they would at least have learned their lesson. But no, they did not. They are still functioning in exactly the same mode, mistaking their fears and prejudices with facts and analyses. Thus my advice to all of you, my friends, is keep listening to these “prophets of imminent doom”, think about their arguments, but just remember that, so far, their record is quite telling: 100% wrong.
Quoting the “Iron Felix”:
There are very few people as evil and odious in history as Felix Derzhinsky, the human demon who created the Soviet secret police, the ChK. But, as the American say, “even a broken clock is right ever 12 hours” and, as Malcolm X liked to say “I am for truth, no matter who tells it”. Well, there is a great quote by Derzhinsky which I recommend we all keep in mind and try to live by: “Чекистом может быть лишь человек с холодной головой, горячим сердцем и чистыми руками” or “a Chekist can only be a person with a cool head, a hot heart and clean hands“. Of course, this was not at all how the real Chekists were, but the notion of a “cool head, hot heart and clean hands” is very good: a cool head to avoid panic, a hot heart to be truly dedicated and clean hands to never believe that it pragmatically is right to do something which is morally wrong.
The Saker
@ BOT TAK
Okay, just one more thing to say about this. The flag chosen for Novorossia comes from the US Confederate flag, I believe. Did you know that the US Civil War was to a large extent about the right to secession? I know those people seem like idiots and perhaps many of them are, but some of them are much smarter than you realize. Those idiots also tend to believe in a small decentralized federal government that abides by the US constitution while the left adores the federal monstrosity that is trampling human rights at home and abroad. I have, rather late in life, come to see the virtue of many conservative positions. We should start listening to them. America needs a meeting of minds to begin to behave like a sane nation – both domestically and abroad.
WOW this is going to stir the MH17 situation.
THE HAGUE, September 17. /ITAR-TASS/. Germany’s fraud investigation company Wifka is ready to pay $30 million for the information on those behind the shootdown of the Malaysian Airlines MH17 flight in eastern Ukraine on July 17, the company said on its website on Wednesday.
The company said it has been tasked with investigating the air crash that killed all 298 passengers and crew. Wifka did not disclose the name of its client who is providing the reward.
Wifka said the reward would be paid to those who know who had shot down the plane, who gave the order to shoot it down, what happened to the people involved in the shootdown and to the weapon used.
“The money is securely deposited in Zurich, Switzerland. It will be paid there or in a different neutral place of the whistleblower’s choice,” Wifka said. The company said its work was absolutely confidential and advised “whistleblowers to take great care, that is to contact them through a lawyer”.
JohninMK
Anonymous said…
Dutch news reports that Ukraine is doing ‘a purge’, Ukranian parliament signed a law including corruption check of all officials and replacing them, to root out all corruption from the Yanukovitsch era.
I don’t see this in any other media, no idea if it’s true
Have not had the opportuity to check online yet but the CBC News Network had a brief snippet about that the loyalty purge mixed in with their pro-Porky praise. It is also noteworthy that even the controlled Opposition is praising the junta’s anti-democratic actions and inactions regarding the ignoring of systemic and ongoing corruption while steadfastly ignoring the surrounded Ukraine Rada pushing for political reforms.
Also noteworthy is that it seems like there is a vast blackout with regards to what is occurring in Kiev right now by the Svoboda and Right Sector allied factions. Some of the videos published today on ytube keep popping up the error message and it kinda seems like tw*tter is blocking out info as well.
If that is not enough (sorry the link is not available via this device) but according to China’s media the City of London will be selling China’s treasury bonds and the article states that this is in anticipation/preparation of the next global currency that will replace the USD. This is the first and only time that anything other than US bonds have been issued…
DumpHarper!
Anonymous 18:38,
Read your history. (Even Wikipedia will do.) The Confederacy had a whole slew of different flags and the one flown now is based on one particular version thereof and — here is the important part so read it carefully — it came into its present popularity as a function of Lost Cause mythology and the reaction against school desegregation.
So yeah, if you happen to come from folks who actually fought under the Second Confederate Navy Jack, then you’ve got a real right to fly it. Everyone else: well, let’s just say you’re fooling no one but yourselves.
Now for a little real history instead of mythology: secession and nullification have both had a long history in this country. The Confederacy was hardly the first attempt (Google the Hartford Convention) or just Wikipedia the whole shebang. The issue was considered decided at Appamatox.
Oh, and if you’ve got any question whatever about why the South seceded, you might read Alexander Stephens’ Cornerstone Speech, bc he stated the reasons quite clearly. Do read the whole thing though; selected quotes don’t do it justice.
General KORSUN,(google translate)the new commander of the NAF, now consolidating the militias as a revolutionary people’s army, in a highly recommended interview said…as a teaser:
“One of the basic rules of any revolution: first, the revolutionaries seized power, and then give way to professionals. Without this revolution is in danger or turn into a coup, or, at best, would not be good for the people. After all, if the revolutionaries will not remember these simple truths, then they themselves will feel a different rule: “The revolution devours its own children.”
General Korsun(google translate)
What is happening in the New Russia, is not only the true will of the people, but also an important geopolitical issue in the recovery of the Russian civilization lost in the ninety-first. Here begins the new Russia. So remember that the people of New Russia not cast alone, no one is allowed to harm the young republic and remain unpunished.”
Thx for the link anonymous and I see General Korsun is following the program outlined and taught by Alexandr Dugin to the Russian Armed Forces of taking the best ideas, practice, and experience from the Whites and from the Reds and congealing a new political thrust beyond the bankrupt Neo-liberalism of the Anglo-Zionist Empire. Got to go….
my astrological two cents:
http://astromundanediary.blogspot.de/2014/09/5.html
End of month looks to be critical
Paul Cockshott said…
Polls this morning show the vote in Scotland to be neck and neck. The Poll of Polls puts no at 51% yes at 49% with a 3% margin of error so who knows
I suspect that the majority of Scottish voters will vote ‘Yes’ to independence, but that the ‘official’ result will be 49% ‘Yes’ to 51% ‘No’.
Are they using voting machines? If so, the outcome is predictable: the ‘No’s will sneak in (perhaps just as the voting is closing).
And if they are using voting machines, which company has supplied them? Would it be Diebold by any chance? Or a British or Scottish front company?
For more on voting machines and rigged elections see here.
Even with all the talk in the MSM of the EU and US or NATO,doing this or that.The key to this entire crisis being ended is Russia.It was started by the US and EU supporting fascists to overthrow Yanukovich.But Russia only can end it.If they can sort out their internal affairs.Decide who is really in charge there.They will either support the anti-fascists.Or they will cave in to the West and NATO has won.I really don’t know which way they will choice.I know they should support the anti-fascists.But if they are going to, is the question.And its not answered yet.
Alien Tech, the New Dark Age will be interminable due to ecological collapse. It will take the climate thousands of years to re-stabilise, during which period humanity may cling on, by the skin of our teeth. The prospects of ever again establishing a high materialist civilization will be slim, we having consumed all the energy dense hydrocarbon resources. Perhaps we’ll exist like the Australian indigenous, materially poor but very rich in imagination and spirituality. We have blown it, Big Time, by allowing the psychopaths amongst us to grasp power.
dusty, baseball hate IQ reducers (from a sadly low base) have infested Australia in recent years, too. In a country like ours, baseball caps, that do not shade the ears or nape of neck, are a recipe for an epidemic of neck and ear skin cancers, but those who choose them are too thick, at a random guess and judging by associated behaviour, to know or care. When worn while driving, they are a very strong warning sign of danger.
dusty, baseball hate IQ reducers (from a sadly low base) have infested Australia in recent years, too. In a country like ours, baseball caps, that do not shade the ears or nape of neck, are a recipe for an epidemic of neck and ear skin cancers, but those who choose them are too thick, at a random guess and judging by associated behaviour, to know or care. When worn while driving, they are a very strong warning sign of danger.
Anonymous said…17 September, 2014 18:38
The flag chosen for Novorossia comes from the US Confederate flag, I believe.”
Look up a Russian character by the name of St. Andrew.
The “Novorussians copied the confederate flag” line probably came from the same overweight Colorado based propagandist who came up with the Colorado Beetle insult for Novorussians. And who also probably invented that story of a teacher demonstrating the use of a strap-on to a school class of 12 year olds. That wasn’t your work, was it?
вот так
Mulga Mumblebrain said…
the New Dark Age will be interminable due to ecological collapse. It will take the climate thousands of years to re-stabilise, during which period humanity may cling on, by the skin of our teeth.
The climate will not re-stabilise, because (ecological collapse or not) we are about to enter a new ice age, beginning about 200 years from now. (Will post link to relevant article soon.) The human species has survived previous ice ages, so it may survive the next one, but, yes, the prospects of ever again establishing a civilization of any sort will be slim, though as MM points out, perhaps humans will regain (what they had tens of thousands of years ago) a culture “materially poor but very rich in imagination and spirituality.” And wouldn’t that be good? Terence McKenna’s “Archaic Revival”, just a few hundred (or thousand) years later than he was hoping for.
Which MEPs voted against EU-Ukraine association?
http://reuniting-europe.blogactiv.eu/2014/09/17/which-meps-voted-against-eu-ukraine-association/
MEPs for and against by country. There were 535 votes in favour, 127 against and 35 abstentions and most of the votes against came from euroskeptic, far-right, or leftist MEPs.
Brian
Here’s the promised link to the article predicting our approaching entry into a new ice age:
Climate Variation & its Cosmic Origins
In the Northern Hemisphere, over the next 200 years, we can expect steady cooling, at about the same rate we experienced steady heating over the past 200 years. In the Southern Hemisphere the ice-core record is too irregular to make short-term predictions. Within a few centuries, however, we will be over the precipice, where the ice-age-ending spike begins its steep descent. Within a couple of thousand years, we will be in the next ice age.
Of course, a lot can happen before then, and no doubt will.
Serendipity, the cyclical nature of the glacial/inter-glacial, cycles based on Milankovitch’s discoveries have been known for a long time. The current Holocene era was probably beginning the slow decline into the next glacial period when anthropogenic influences supervened. Deforestation, agriculture and industrial development causing the release of huge amounts of greenhouse gases represent a climate forcing that has totally overwhelmed all the long and short-term natural variabilities and cycles. That’s why things are tragically different this time.
Dear Saker
I didnt have the time to read all the recent comments ( maybe some other commentator has pointed the subject )
Its a little bit out of the context but very interesting. Yesterday I noticed this :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Jir70OLh8&list=UUdnB82ob_V7EXwwcCtB1vUg
I would appreciate your vue of this development , since I feel that the most important message can be found between the lines
The Greek supporter of the other day
@Mulga Mumblebrain
I very much admire your comments on this blog, almost all of which I agree with. But as regards climate variation I’m afraid you still espouse an erroneous view.
You said
the cyclical nature of the glacial/inter-glacial, cycles based on Milankovitch’s discoveries have been known for a long time. The current Holocene era was probably beginning the slow decline into the next glacial period when anthropogenic influences supervened. Deforestation, agriculture and industrial development causing the release of huge amounts of greenhouse gases represent a climate forcing that has totally overwhelmed all the long and short-term natural variabilities and cycles. That’s why things are tragically different this time
The author of the article to which I linked bases his conclusions on temperature data from ice core samples. Please see the graphs which he gives and his commentary upon them. As regards the Milankovitch Cycles he says:
In order to explain the ice age cycle, some scientists have suggested that the cycle might be caused, at least in part, by Milankovitch Cycles — variations in the Earth’s distance from the Sun, and variations in the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit. This cannot be, however, because orbital variations occur smoothly, and with precise regularity. Such variations would not lead to abrupt temperature spikes, and particularly not spikes that occur with an irregular frequency. Any contribution from orbital variations is evidently lost in the noise of the spiky temperature record.
AS regards the influence of carbon dioxide he says:
CO2 is actually a very unlikely suspect for playing a measurable role in climate, given its trace presence of a few hundred parts per billion. … The whole basis for imagining that CO2 might measurably affect climate, boils down to the fact that a heating spike was occurring, at the same time the Industrial Revolution came along. For the past two centuries there has been a correlation between increasing CO2 levels and temperature levels, and the correlation has been entirely coincidental. … An argument has also been put forward that there is a long-term correlation between temperatures and CO2 levels. However in the long-term record, temperatures always increase first, and CO2 levels increase as a result, a thousand years or so after the temperatures start increasing. Again, a wrongly interpreted correlation leads to imagining that CO2 might have a measurable effect on climate, even when it only exists in trace amounts.
It is unfortunate that the climate modelers have fallen into the trap of these flawed lines of thinking. Their models begin with the assumption that temperature rises linearly with CO2 levels, which has no basis in fact, and of course the models then predict disaster, as CO2 levels continue to increase with no promise of slowing down any time soon.
As we’ve reached the peak of our two-century spike, and temperatures have leveled off, the climate models are diverging dramatically from temperature reality. But ideas, once entrenched, have a way of stubbornly persisting. Even as relief is on the way, from our heating spell, scientists and the population generally remain in a state of alarm, over the imagined possibility of runaway warming.
Continuing @MM:
Also (in a somewhat more polemical mode) please see The Global Warming Scare regarding the false claim of anthropogenic global warming. It is not denied that atmospheric temperature has risen during the last 200 years, but this is part of a natural cycle (as explained in the first article referenced), and is not caused by “deforestation, agriculture and industrial development”.
The global warming scare is a huge scam designed to increase the profits of the corporate capitalists and the parasitic international bankers, to advance their goal of a world government (controlled by them, of course), and to impose even more “legal” restrictions upon the freedom of people to live according to how they themselves think best.
@a) pitbull dog (always introduced as “so nice and so kind”
b) tattoos
c) pick up truck instead of normal car even though you do not need a truck at all
d) American flags (even better if combined with POW and Confederate flags)
e) warnings (on cars or fences) about guns
Wow! These are also the characteristics of the “Real Aussie”
(pick-up truck is called “ute”, flag is Aust, combined with the Eureka flag, IQ identical)
I doubt anyone is still viewing this threat, but wanted to add something. I receive email from groups from all over the political spectrum, as I have learned that you cannot get a whole story any other way within the US right now. This came to me today from the despised Tea Party. This is to explain why the American right is worth listening to. I think they are being portrayed as lunatics – as laughable lunatics precisely so that most people will never receive such messages. For me, now that I have discovered the kind of work they are really doing – as opposed to the kind of work we are TOLD they are doing, the question in my mind is this: why is the left ignoring these problems?
The federal government in the US is busy intentionally destroying rural economies, forcing people from their lands and depriving people of their rights to use their lands for their own benefit. This is a shocking turn of events and is part of a larger agenda, which is unknown to the vast majority. Anyway, here is the message I received today from the allegedly deranged Tea Party:
On proposed rule redefining the Waters of the United States pursuant to the Clean Water Act
“Ditch the rule!”
Statement To President Barack Obama, EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers:
The proposed rule represents an expansion of federal regulatory authority beyond the language and intent adopted by Congress in the Clean Water Act.
The Supreme Court twice rejected attempts by regulators to assert authority over “isolated waters” ruling that waters must have a “a continuous surface connection” or “significant nexus” to navigable waters.
Congress repeatedly voted not to adopt policies similar to those in the proposed rule. If the rule is adopted it usurps congressional authority.
The proposed rule would bring vast amounts of land under federal control adding unnecessary and redundant red tape to areas currently adequately regulated by state and local governments.
EPA’s cost-benefit analysis is deeply flawed, employing decades old cost estimates that were not adjusted for inflation, or current economic and market conditions.
We, the undersigned, declare that the proposed rule will place undue regulatory burdens and limitations on people attempting to responsibly use their land, adds new regulatory dead weight to the economy and would produce no meaningful gains for the environment or the nation and should not be promulgated.
_____________________
The federal government wants to deprive the public of all land rights one day. We need to listen to the right for this reason and for a variety of others.
About the confederate flag. I suppose it is really about symbolism and not about historical accuracy. What does that flag mean to many conservatives? I think it is a sign of defiance against an extreme and increasingly aggressive federal government. That is the point. For that reason, I would suggest we all embrace similar concerns about the state of the union and need to pull together to oppose them. As it is they have us at each other’s throats, completely divided (as they like it), and impotent.