By Pepe Escobar, posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times
So the Davos Agenda has come and gone.
That was the virtual Great Reset preview, hosted by Kissinger acolyte cum World Economic Forum (WEF) oracle Herr Klaus Schwab.
Still, corporate/political so-called “leaders” will continue to wax lyrical about the Fourth Industrial Revolution – or its mild spin-offs such as Build Back Better, the favorite slogan of the new White House tenants.
The WEF co-sponsors – from the UN and the IMF to BlackRock, Blackstone and the Carlyle Group – will continue to expand their synchronicity with Lynn Forester de Rothschild and her corporate-heavy Council for Inclusive Capitalism with the Vatican – pop Pope Francis at the helm.
And yes, they accept Visa.
Predictably, the two really crucial events at Davos received minimal or non-existent coverage across the wobbly West: the speeches by President Xi and President Putin.
We have already highlighted Xi’s essentials. Aside from arguing a powerful case for multilateralism as the only possible road map to deal with global challenges, Xi stressed nothing substantial may be achieved if the inequality gap between North and South is not reduced.
The best in-depth analysis of Putin’s extraordinary speech , hands down, was provided by Rostislav Ishchenko, whom I had the pleasure to meet in Moscow in 2018.
Ishchenko stresses how, “in terms of scale and impact on historical processes, this is steeper than the Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk combined.” The speech, he adds, was totally unexpected, as much as Putin’s stunning intervention at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, “the crushing defeat” imposed on Georgia in 2008, and the return of Crimea in 2014.
Ishchenko also reveals something that will never be acknowledged in the West: “80 people from among the most influential on the planet did not laugh in Putin’s face, as it was in 2007 in Munich, and without noise immediately after his open speech signed up for a closed conference with him.”
Putin’s very important reference to the ominous 1930s – “the inability and unwillingness to find substantive solutions to problems like this in the 20th century led to World War 2 catastrophe” – was juxtaposed with a common sense warning: the necessity of preventing the takeover of global policy by Big Tech , which “are de facto competing with states”.
Xi and Putin’s speeches were de facto complementary – emphasizing sustainable, win-win economic development for all actors, especially across the Global South, coupled with the necessity of a new socio-political contract in international relations.
This drive should be based on two pillars: sovereignty – that is, the good old Westphalian model (and not Great Reset, hyper-concentrated, one world “governance”) and sustainable development propelled by techno-scientific progress (and not techno-feudalism).
So what Putin-Xi proposed, in fact, was a concerted effort to expand the basic foundations of the Russia-China strategic partnership to the whole Global South: the crucial choice ahead is between win-win and the Exceptionalist zero-sum game.
Regime-change that commie!
The Xi-Putin road map is already being examined in excruciating detail by Michael Hudson, for instance in this essay based on the first chapter of his upcoming book Cold War 2.0: The Geopolitical Economics of Finance Capitalism vs. Industrial Capitalism. Many of these themes have been elaborated in a recent conversation/interview between Michael and myself.
The whole Global South is figuring out how the contrast could not be starker between the American model – neoliberalism redux, in the form of turbo-financialization – and East Asia’s productive investment in industrial capitalism.
Alastair Crooke has outlined the dubious “appeal” of the American model, including “asset markets…severed from any connection to economic returns”; markets that “are not free, but Treasury managed”; and “enterprise capitalism…morphed into monopolistic oligarchism”.
The glaring counterpoint to Xi-Putin at Davos has been a so-called “strategy paper” released by NATO think tank The Atlantic Council, pompously titled The Longer Telegram, as if this was as relevant as George Kennan’s 1946 Long Telegram that designed the containment of the USSR.
Well, the least one can say to the anonymous “former senior government official with deep expertise” on China is, “Mr. Anonymous, You’re No George Kennan”. At best, we’re dealing with a sub-Mike Pompeo with a massive hangover.
Amidst a tsunami of platitudes, we learn that China is a “revisionist power” that “presents a serious problem for the whole of the democratic world”; and that the Chinese leadership better get its act together and operate “within the US-led liberal international order rather than building a rival order”.
The usual toxic mix of arrogance and condescension totally gives away the game, which boils down to “deterring and preventing China from crossing US red lines”, and applying good, old Kissingerian Divide and Rule between Russia and China.
Oh, and don’t forget regime change: if the “strategy” works, “Xi will in time be replaced by the more traditional form of Communist Party leadership.”
If this is what passes for intellectual firepower in Atlanticist circles, Beijing and Moscow don’t even need enemies.
The Asian center of gravity
Martin Jacques, now a visiting professor at Tsinghua University and a senior fellow at the China Institute of Fudan University, is one of the very few Westerners who actually has real “expertise” on China.
He’s now focusing on the main battlefield in the evolving US-China clash: Europe. Jacques notes that, “the trend toward a growing distance between Europe and the US will be slow, tortuous, conflict-riddled, and painful.” We are now “in new territory. American decline means that it has increasingly less to offer Europe.”
As an example, let’s jump cut to a distinct feature of the BRI/New Silk Roads and one of its key hubs, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC): the Digital Silk Road .
In partnership with Huawei, fiber optic cable is being laid out all across Pakistan – as I saw for myself when I traveled the Karakoram Highway, the northern part of CPEC. This fiber optic cable all the way from the Karakoram to Balochistan will link with the Pakistan-East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) submarine cable in the Arabian Sea.
The end result will be high-end connectivity between a host of BRI-participating nations and Europe – as the Mediterranean section is already being laid, running from Egypt to France. Before the end of 2021, the whole 15,000 km-long fiber optic cable will be online.
This shows that BRI is not as much about building roads, dams and high-speed rail networks but especially the Digital Silk Road, intimately connected with state of the art Chinese cyber-tech.
It’s no wonder Jacques fully understands how “the gravitational pull of China, and Asia more generally, is drawing Europe eastward. Nothing illustrates this phenomenon better than the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.”
In ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, an extraordinary book published way back in 1998, the late, great Andre Gunder Frank exhaustively smashed Eurocentrism, demonstrating how the rise of the West was a mere historical blip, and a consequence of the decline of the East around 1800.
Now, only two centuries later, the planet’s center of gravity is back in Asia, as it’s been for most of recorded history. The fate of those blind to the evidence and unable to adapt is to telegram themselves to utter irrelevance.
“in terms of scale and impact on historical processes, this is steeper than the Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk combined.”
Them’s big words, Pardner; to claim that Putin will be judged even more important than Stalin in the war against fascism. Also to claim that Putin the Great will be classed with Catherine the Great and Frederick the Great: Philosopher as well as Leader.
Dr. Maroudas,
We have no historical perspective on Putin, so it is easy to underestimate his stature.
However, judged against all the other players of the last 20 years and now, he is solitary and light years ahead.
And if you go back to Stalin’s time, 70 years or so, no leader has faced greater troubles and only he has shaped the Russian Federation from near-disintegration to SuperPower. Nearly all developed nations of the West are in decline. Russia is in ascendance.
Putin, too, has positioned Russia as strategic partner with China is such a way, though minor in economic comparison, that Russia is an imperative and absolutely necessary for China. The opposite does not hold. Russia can exist and rise without China’s partnership. The opposite leaves China a secondary power versus the USA, regardless of China’s economic status. It would be contained without Russia and without what Russia can deliver that China must have, from energy, food, military technologies, naval and air power and global relationships along the BRI.
Thus, China’s power rests on Putin, too.
These are how we measure his historical importance.
China must have Putin and his strategic moves. The reverse is not necessary.
“China must have Putin and his strategic moves. The reverse is not necessary.”
I think that in the present context it is highly dangerous to posit such a view.
Today the determinant factor in world affairs is the divide between :
— Western big capital that controls some 60% of the world’s assets
— China’s state controlled capital
And the world is in a state of indecision awaiting to see who is going to win that battle royale.
In that great game both Russia and China badly need each other :
— Russia needs China to survive economically. Without China it simply can’t sustain the pressure of the West. Its people would revolt and play in the hands of a Western controlled color revolution.
— China needs Russia as a military guardian against Western military aggression.
If the West threatens the vital interests of one of them the other is ready to intervene.
This readiness of both to intervene in the conflict of one of them with the West constitutes the present-day deterrence that nuclear weapons played during the cold war. This is why writing something like “China must have Putin and his strategic moves. The reverse is not necessary” is dangerous. Putin and Xi trust each other. They don’t need a translator to talk to each other and are constantly in contact. But the people around them are not necessarily as clear-minded as those two. So the game of the West is to try to saw discord within the ranks of both Putin and Xi’s teams. This is where your assertion is divisive.
The Saker’s views on the state of military preparedness of Russia gives us to understand that Western military leaders will resist an all out military conflict. In such a context China’s economic might and its technological drive take center stage.
The US societal cohesiveness has shrunk over the years to its present state of societal atomization. Look at how Covid-19 is being managed. Everyone thinks she/he knows better that anyone else. Without respect of the individuals for the people in the know governance is simply not possible. This state of societal atomization is rendering the US powerless to confront its internal problems, of de-industrialization, of social inequality, of loneliness and mental health, and more generally of the absence of societal cohesion that is necessary to confront the hard realities of its internal problems and of its external competition.
In such a context the most probable outcome is that the US, followed by the whole West, collapses economically. That day the Geo-political reality shall naturally readjust…
Yours is a much more balanced view than Larchmonter445. His type of hubris was the root cause of the demise of the late great USSR. As would surely be the demise of the USA (or any country) if they fail to humble themselves in time.
Another point to note: Both the USA and Russia seems to take inordinate macho pride in their military. It is as though that is the foundation of their pride as a people and as a nation.
They forgot that it was the ruinous cost of the USSR’s military that facilitated its eventual collapse. There are signs, both economic and resulting from this, political, that history may repeat in the Russian Federation, helped along by the pandemic; and also in the USA because of its addiction to global primacy (read exceptionalism) now sustained by an ever more costly military and an ever-weakening dollar.
The signs of decay just prior to the collapse of the late great USSR is now seen in the USA.
And one more symptom of impending collapse: the inordinate hubris, the increasingly untenable pretensions to global power that preceded the collapse of the late great USSR, is now seen in the behaviour of a (literary) very sick USA.
Larchmonter445 should do a better service to the Russians by helping to turn them towards humility, rather than reinforcing an alarming ( to my observation) cultural propensity towards hubris.
For “pride comes destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall” – Proverbs 16:18 (Bible).
So keep away from hubris like the plague.
@ Simon Chow
“They forgot that it was the ruinous cost of the USSR’s military that facilitated its eventual collapse”
Just like Rick in Casablanca, who had been misinformed about the waters in Casablanca, you seem to have been misinformed also about the realities of the Cold War. You seem to ignore than from the early 1940s, when German defeat was already in sight, U.S. civilian & military elites had set their greedy eyes on the riches of the USSR and started planning from the obliteration of Mother Russia as a nation, and so for that of the other Soviet Republics. and that from then on to a few years ago the Russia military had to play what was at times a dramatic, desperate game of catch up. (The A-bomb, the H-bomb and strategic bombing come to mind) To boot:
Pentagon Plans to Destroy Dozens of Soviet Cities and the So-called Cold War
Less than six weeks after the atomic attacks over Japan, on 15 September 1945 the Pentagon finalized a list: Through which it expounded strategies to annihilate 66 Soviet cities with 204 atomic bombs, to be executed through synchronized aerial assaults. This ratio averages at slightly more than three bombs discharged upon each city.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/pentagon-plans-destroy-dozens-soviet-cities-so-called-cold-war/5677930
Anyone who has bothered to research about the Cold War and the History of the USSR and then Russian during the last 80 years knows that practically everything the Kremlin has done since then up to this moment has only been to keep a defensive posture face to the constant attacks Russia/USSR had been the victim of and to do whatever it takes to prevent the US empire from achieving its genocidal goals. From Stalin occupying six nations (four of which had invaded the USSR in 1941) to establish a land shield against the Western barbarians to Khrushchev sending missiles to Cuba to Putin lending a helping hand to Assad in Syria, everything the Kremlin has done had one and simple purpose: to avoid for Russia the fate many smaller and weaker countries has suffered since WW2, Iraq, Syria, the whole of Central America, etc, etc. So much for Soviet or Russian military hubris…!
So you think Gorbachev betrayed the USSR? Sure I appreciate the USSR’s role in the defeat of fascism. But how come the USSR failed to win the post-war peace?
But I don’t want to revisit the Cold War. Maybe I am a victim of US propaganda against the USSR.
What I am concerned about is now. No offence meant.
Simon, had FDR survived or if Henry Wallace succeeded him rather than being thrown off the 1944 Dem ticket by the WW II version of today’s Dem Blue Dogs/Neocons, Stalin would have been in a much better position to take advantage of the comity established during the WW II Allied conferences.
He and Roosevelt got along famously, much to the chagrin of Churchill. Added to Winnie’s discomfiture and consternation was FDR telling him in no uncertain terms that the days of colonialism were over, i.e. the British Empire by extension. Churchill spent much of his time at the conferences trying to get the main thrust of the Allies’ efforts to retake the Continent by going through the Balkans, another overt effort to keep the USSR contained in the east.
With FDR dead, Wallace gone, and nasty little Harry Truman as US President, all that potential goodwill was off the table. What remains stunning in light of all of this was neither Truman nor the US General Staff not going along with Churchill’s insane plan “Operation Unthinkable,” the Brit plan to continue pushing east to Moscow and beyond even as the ashes of Europe were still smoldering.
History hinges on so many ‘little’ things.
Russia was ready to liberate all of Europe, so the Balkans were off the table. Deals were made to create spheres of influence. When the West refused to deal on Italy, Greece and Austria Russia refused the deal in the East. For UK the war was about saving the Empire and having Germany and Russia destroy each other so that they could pick up the spoils. The pyromaniac then came at the end of the war they caused pretending to be the saviour.
good analizes about FDR and Wallace.
If the US went along with Churchill, I have little doubt that they will be defeated, unless they use the atom bomb which the USSR don’t have in1945. Bar the bomb, there is no way the US and the Brits could win against Zhukov and his tanks in 1945.
But like you, I also wonder why they did not push on to Moscow? Is it because their star macho “push” general – Patton, was killed in a motorcycle ‘accident’?
Gorbachev was the first Soviet leader who was fortunate enough not to have lived through the horrors of WW2, the Nazi invasion and the Great Patriotic War, so his personal perspective was a little different (and I may say far more optimistic, even far more naive) than that of his predecessors. He actually thought that the USSR could live in peace with the U.S. empire, idea which of course has been proved completely wrong. That is not possible, there is no way to live in peace with the U.S. empire if not by completely submitting to it and becoming one more of its vassals. It was impossible then, it is impossible now and it will be impossible as long as the empire exists. Gorbachev was wrong in his unbridled optimism, born above all from the good vibes he got when meeting Reagan and both became friends or something resembling it. Reagan was instrumental in calming his fears of an U.S. impending military aggression so he saw no problem in dismantling the land shield that Stalin had built in Eastern Europe (the Warsaw Pact) and “bringing all Russian boys home” and using he money saved in reforming the Soviet system and fixing the economy. He didn’t want to dismantle the USSR, he wanted to save it. But he was wrong in practically everything he endeavored and that is maybe the reason why he is practically a non-person for the Russian people nowadays, let alone that of the other former 15 Republics. He was promised that NATO wouldn’t move an inch to the East and there they are now, in Ukraine, only a few hundred miles from Moscow and the Kremlin. He was promised a fair deal, peace and stability and all what Russia has gotten from 1991 to this day is barefaced aggression, military provocations. unrelenting propaganda wars, economic and financial sabotage, etc, etc, The only thing the US NATO gang hasn’t tried against Russia yet is nuclear war or outright military invasion, only because that would be suicidal. But Gorbachev is no traitor even if I have no doubt that any former Soviet leader would see things like that and would have most likely sent him in front of a firing squad. And the same goes for Putin, for having let go Ukraine.
No offense also, but your question of how the USSR wasn’t able to win the post war peace shows that you have indeed been influenced by Western propaganda. This “peace dividend” of which both the US-NATO and the USSR/Russia were supposed to benefit after the end of the Cold War was never a real possibility. Simply put, it was a pipe dream, because the U.S. had no intention of leaving things unfinished, Gorbachev was sold the Brooklyn Bridge bur no one in Washington or Wall Street seriously thought that he would ever had the change of laying his hands on it. On the other hand they came out the winners, as all what they wanted they got it with time: someone to open the gates of Russia wide open so they could come in and plunder her riches. In any case, the demise of the USSR was caused mainly by the fact that the system didn’t work. Communist bureaucracies in Eastern Europe weren’t able to improve the standard of living of their population. In fact no Communist regime has been ever able to do so, with the only exception of those that have used Capitalism to their advantage as China. And that is no surprising. Karl Marx wrote as much, and very clearly, almost two centuries ago. No human society can advance to the modern era, to a prosperous present, without industrialization, and Capitalism is the only economic system able to allow, and promote, the accumulation of wealth necessary for such an endeavor. Traditional, hardliner Communist leaders like Mao, Stalin, Castro, etc, never accepted that and their countries paid a heavy price for it. The root cause of the demise of the USSR, contrary to what happened in China, is that Gorbachev and Co.were unable to let Capitalism enter the USSR while being ready to use it to their advantage and while having complete control of the situation as the Chinese have done.
Thank you for the info. What you have written was not available to me during my growing up years. It is good to see and feel the passion in an alternative evidence-based viewpoint.
But I was increasingly perturbed by what happened to the Amerindians and the indiscriminate bombings by the USA whereas, as far as I know, apart from a few adventures in a then still colonised Africa and in Afghanistan, the USSR did not bomb any third country, nor carried out massacres in a third country. I think history would be kinder to the USSR than to the USA.
But as for the accumulation of wealth, which is actually the accumulation of power, there is always the existential question as to what to do with increasing wealth. Sodom in the Bible descended into extreme perversion and was judged. The USA also descended into perversion, oppressed the weak and squandered its wealth for endless wars in a mindless quest for “primacy” to affirm its exceptionalism.
Maybe that’s why China is using its wealth to finally uplift the third world nations. And if she accumulates even more wealth, to use it to uplift the rest of the world and beyond that to explore and settle other planets and further beyond, until the end of time.
As for Russia now, it has to strike a careful balance between honing its military deterrence and spending on the economic well-being of its people. After all, the way to resolve the problem with Navalny and his supporters is the successful development of Russia’s economy, the equitable spread of the wealth so generated and the successful management of corruption.
As for China, it is now on a hot streak. But it must avoid the pitfalls of Sodom (Ezekiel 16:49). It must not allow the country to be beholden to a new (high-tech) oligarchy with a tendency towards corruption. That’s why the recent slap-down of one of its high-tech titans is a positive sign.
gatobart, but I am not sure that China used capitalism to progress. According to Deng, China used Socialism with Chinese characteristics i.e Chinese civilisational principles. There is a difference between just using capitalism as per the West. See what happened to Jack Ma of Alibaba when he spoke too ‘loud’?
The creation of wealth withing both systems, Capitalism and Socialism, was the most relevant subject of discussion among political circles from ww2 to the 1990s, until the demise of the USSR, one that even divided the global Marxists and the global Left. The debate which at its core had the question if Socialist (wrongly called Communist) regimens or governments could be able to create wealth in amount enough to improve the standard of living of their population to an extent good enough to make the system attractive for the wide masses still living under Capitalism (as we now, distribution was not a problem for them). We know now they did not win this battle. Why? The root reason may be found in Marx’s Theory:
Karl Marx was the first to postulate that the basis for everything else in human society, the element which serves as the foundation for every other single field, is the economy; what people produce and which way they produce it. That is what determines all the rest, politics culture, religion, education, social rituals, relations and standing, etc. He called the Economy, the productive forces and relations in general, the Infrastructure of society. Upon it Man built the superstructure, which is made of all the rest. Now, since the beginning of civilization, a relatively small segment of society appropriated the little wealth that has been created, i.e. the surplus that was left after people had satisfied their basic needs of food, shelter and clothing, and they did it using all kinds of tricks, most likely brute force in the beginning and then using more sophisticated tools, like religion in Ancient Egypt, and that gave origin to kingdoms and empires and of course to social classes. The History of Man, he concluded, is nothing but the struggle between those two classes, the ones who appropriated and own now the accumulated wealth of society and those who slave to have a living, the losers in the distribution of the wealth created. As productive forces developed and new inventions appeared, these relations were altered and power had to be passed on or shared with the newcomers, the new rich (we are seeing that Right Now in the appearance of a new sub class among the elites, which has appropriately being called High Tech, which of course has its origins in the Cyber Revolution of the last 3 decades), If the ruling class didn’t want to yield any of that power, then we had revolutions like the French one, where the royalty/aristocracy had to share power with the nascent bourgeoisie, the new rich of the era. Now, going to the point, Marx wrote his works at dawn of the industrial revolution, when Capitalism was well on its way to the top after having been trying for two or three centuries. He was prescient and visionary enough to understand that, as I said, Capitalism, with all its faults and its ruthless and brutal ways, was the only economic system capable of bringing societies to modernity and prosperity. Note that I say Economic system. Now, why is this so important to mention…? Because it explains a Lot of what happened in the USSR, Russia, China and most other so called Communist countries during the past Century.
While Marx admired the capacity of Capitalism to create wealth he also abhorred its brutality, its abuse of the people, the raw injustice of the system, so after extrapolating to the future he built a theoretical model for the system (how would it look decades into the future) and so he came out with his idea of a revolt of the workers, as a necessity, which could bring a new and fairer system, one that would take the wealth created by Capitalism and distribute it among the people. In this last idea lies the root of the main debate raging in the Left for most of the XX Century. See, as Marx saw Socialism as the logical successor of Capitalism, as the system meant to Replace It, not as its main competitor, he never envisioned the world of the future as the one we had after WW2, one where Socialist and Capitalist countries would be fighting it out. He even made clear that Socialism should appear in the most advanced countries (Germany, England, France, etc) and only after Capitalism had run its course there. And Lenin agreed with it, so much so he felt that the task he got at hand was more of a burden than a blessing for him and even wrote that he would have preferred by far a Socialist Revolution in advanced Germany rather than one in backward Russia. Marx’d have been horrified watching the attempts by self-declared Communist regimes in countries like the USSR, China, engaging on their own “way to Socialism” following his recipes and he would have told them that without having had Capitalism first they had no economic basis for Socialism so their experiment would surely fail. As they did in the end. What divided the Left then is that they had, apparently, the indisputable proof that Marx had been wrong: in the he Soviet Union, a country where industrialization was taking place at an accelerated pace so they, the Left, concluded that good ol’ Marx hadn’t seen that one coming. But in the end Marx was the one to get the last laugh, from his grave, when the Soviet Union collapsed, after having all the people involved, starting with the presidents of the 15 Republics, Yeltsin the first (except Gorbachev of course, who was the one left without a world superpower under his command) concluded that the system simply didn’t work, that there was no way to fix it. Meanwhile the Chinese were having their own debate, as it was happening in all the other “Communist” countries, including Cuba and Vietnam, because in all those countries there were ideological tendencies inside their leadership that were for opening the system to Capitalism to some extent. (Fidel Castro had to finally accept some nascent Capitalism in Cuba when Gorbachev, who hated him, cut off the $3B in aid the country was receiving each year from Moscow). And we may ask, why the resistance of the traditional hardliners, Stalin, Mao, Castro, to let Capitalism in, even if only a little bit…? Because of what I wrote before. As Marx had said that the economic system brings all the rest to society, Capitalism also must bring by force what they used to call “bourgeois democracies” as those in the West, and that is the last thing they wanted, because it would mean not only them losing power but also society going back to under Capitalist yoke. But by the late 70s Mao was already gone in China so they could rally behind the “reformers” under Ten Tsiao Ping, who had always been the ideological nemesis of Mao inside the CCP, the same guy who said that it doesn’t matter the color of a cat as long as he chases mice. So China let the door open wide for Capitalist forces to get in and do their thing, her leadership feeling strong enough not to ever losing the political control of society and never allowing the Capitalist class, local of foreign, to run amok and pull the rug under their feet. Something that for some reason the Russian leadership wasn’t capable of achieving or maybe they didn’t even try.
And to conclude, this explains your point. The Chinese PCC may allow all kind of Capitalists coming to their country, or developing inside it, but they’ll always set strict limits for their action. You may become as rich as Bill Gates in China but as long as you are under their jurisdiction they’ll never let you forget that they are the ones in power, especially when it comes to trying to gain any political cloud. China is not by any means Capitalist, but a country under a self-declared Communist rule that is using Capitalism to bring their society to the XXI Century.
So the purge of the bourgeoisie in Russia, China, Cambodia and Vietnam, when the Communists won power, was a mistake? It would seem so if, in Marxist theory, the bourgeoisie were needed to produce wealth in the first stage of revolution before socialism and communism.
There is another question: Did Karl Marx really sad that religion is the Opiate of the masses? Did Marx advocate atheism to achieve the utopian state of Communism?
Also what’s to prevent corruption from overwhelming even the utopian communist society? As an example, President Xi managed to arrest corruption and reduce it to manageable levels. But what about post President Xi?
What is to prevent China from descending into corruption as China seems to be doing before President Xi took over?
Gorbi was born in 1931 – so he did live through the horror of the war (11 in 1941).
As for the demise of the USSR and the system not working – not sure you’ve ever been to a socialist country. Given that they had to pick up after the war, rebuild everything, and do it all not only without the any help from the west – but actively sabotaged – it is not correct to say things did work. They worked quite well, given the circumstances (this is not a simple matter – you had to be there).
“Capitalism is the only economic system able to allow, and promote, the accumulation of wealth” – oh my, how misguided. The main thing cap. promotes is runaway consumption – which is what will kill this planet in the end. This should be obvious to all by now.
They failed because the country and its people were devastated first WWI, the Civil War followed and then WWII.
sir, what you may not appreciate is the dominance western civilization has enjoyed as evidenced since the 16th century is concluding within this decade. this dominance now swiftly dying is not only economic but cultural, philosophical, military and technological. the wests demise is clearly seen in the poor quality of its leaders and high level support staff for those leaders as well as the evil and absurd drivel that passes for contemporary thinking and serious discourse throughout the msm in the west
in 2040 or less the ONLY thing that will remain dominant or at least wide spread worldwide will be the use of english as a world language much as latin was even centuries AFTER the roman empire expired.
putin is incomprehensible to the west mostly because the west has not produced anyone on his level for decades so long in fact that you need to be quite old today to even have lived in a time when the west did have quality leading it.
future scholars will determine putins real contribution and that history will be written by the victors who will not be products of the west.
The Pepe nugget: “This drive should be based on two pillars: sovereignty – that is, the good old Westphalian model (and not Great Reset, hyper-concentrated, one world “governance”) and sustainable development propelled by techno-scientific progress (and not techno-feudalism).
“So what Putin-Xi proposed, in fact, was a concerted effort to expand the basic foundations of the Russia-China strategic partnership to the whole Global South: the crucial choice ahead is between win-win and the Exceptionalist zero-sum game.”
His remarks about the Atlantic Council’s paper, classically written by Anonymous (a team effort no doubt) with the evocative title, ‘The Longer Telegram’, brings to mind a penis extension for the limp dicks of the Council and their paymasters, NATO (the military that can’t).
As Pepe, points out, there ain’t no George Kennans in the US, State Dept. or Think Tanks. Just anons. Deservedly named and armed with no knowledge, insights or relevance.
Xi and Putin are driving the caravan. The American curs are barking.
Your comment reminded me of a (online) Conversation I had with a fellow representing the American Solidarity Party (Basically a small Christian dem party) about the party’s views on war and peace. He was entirely dismissive of the ideal of national sovereignty, and basically argued that if his party ran things they would be “good” interventionists. Just by itself it was nothing, but basically every one of my fellow Americans I have ever had the (mis) fortune to discuss world events with held some variation of the ideal that the US just didnt have the “right” people interfering,that others countries really didnt have a right to complain about our benevolence, facts, let alone international law be damned. I came to the conclusion back in 2007 as a young socialist that any serious change for the better would come from the east, and I have to say that the wisdom and foresight that comes from the leaders of the Eurasian Triangle really blows my mind, especially when compared to the mind numbing cluelessness here in the states(I heard a co worker after the inaug. literally say something about how Trump was bad “because I heard he made decisions he wasn’t supposed to”, not that Trump was anything special of course) tldr sorry, but alot of times I wonder if there is any common sense here stateside
Conflicting national interests that emerged from the ashes of World War Two lead to forty years of ideological conflict called the Cold War. Historians argue that it was not Regan’s aversion for nuclear weapons that ended the Cold War as the Reagan Victory School advocates. They also maintain that Reagan’s warmongering spawned an aggressive peace movement that the West could not ignore. More importantly, they credit Western pop culture and consumerism as important influences in ended the Cold War
Reagan, while speaking for disarmament, defended Star Wars development. This contradicts the Reagan Victory School view of his aversion for nuclear weapons. Reagan’s policy advisors wanted ‘peace through strength’ a policy by which they hoped to bankrupt the Soviet Union, which is still on the table in Biden’s world. This, however, was not what caused the collapse of the iron curtain. Some historians claim that the realization by Reagan and Gorbachev that nuclear war was not an option, must be credited with ending the Cold War. American and the Soviet accommodation, provided an atmosphere for cooperation more so than the confrontation and rhetoric of the ‘Evil Empire’.
Historians, like Deudney and Ikenberry, reject the Reagan Victory School conclusions as self-serving while Gaddis’s reasoning that Reagan’s Star Wars scared the Soviets into self-destruction. They arrive at these deductions by ignoring that the Soviet consumer economy was a ‘basket case’ chugging along on the 1930s technology. Reagan Victory School is not totally arrogant in claiming victory in the Cold War. However, the arrogance has not provided the world with a peace dividend. The main reason for this is the, full force American, return to the days of the Rome inquisition where opponents were tortured, and the only acceptable universe today revolved around Washington.
As the Chinese say ” we had a couple of bad centuries, but now we’re back”.
I still can’t believe the morons in the EU, who have run out of US-sourced Pfizer vaccines, refuse to import Sinovac and Sputnik V (which are without mRNA) . They’re now closing their borders and prefer going to lockdown until Easter!
Is it really necessary to extend OBOR into W. Europe? Does the East need these irrational Western Europeans?
@Serbian Girl,
When you have them by the purse strings, their hearts and minds will soon follow.
Behold the pivot to the US $$ jugular
Even CNN had positive things to say about Sputnik V:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/02/health/russia-sputnik-v-phase-3-intl/index.html
You know something’s going to change when the MSM stops poo-pooing the Russian vaccine.
Make of the following what you will:
https://www.rt.com/russia/514265-germany-possibility-sputnikv-vaccine/
Russia and China have shown incredible leadership (and material aid) during this pandemic… in stark contrast to the dysfunctional reaction of West.
This has definitely been observed in Serbia.
“Initially the EU pledged US $85 million to buy Covid shots, but deliveries were facing delays. Instead of waiting for the EU’s help, Belgrade secured vaccine from China, Russia and the U.S. directly.”
Serbia was able to directly assist Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo bypassing EU. EU member Hungary is now moving to replicate this succesful approach and will become the first EU member to approve shots made by Russia and China.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-01/china-is-helping-ally-serbia-get-ahead-of-the-eu-on-vaccines
No disrespect to Russia or the US, but don’t bother sending me any of their hardly tested, hardly needed vaccines. Covid-19 whatever it really is, only kills those already dying of something else and a dodgy shot out of a syringe won’t stop that.
I personally do not feel the need to get vaccinated. I was surprised by how many people wanted the vaccine though…
If it will end the lockdown that’s a good thing.
The Chinese vaccine is simply a deactivated virus like any old classical vaccine. The Russian Sputnik V is an adenovirus delivery system which has existed since over 25 years. Astrazeneca is the same. The Pfizer and Moderna are mRNA. .. first time in humans…these are the ones I would avoid..if you want to/have to/ get vaccinated.
“Now, only two centuries later, the planet’s center of gravity is back in Asia, as it’s been for most of recorded history. The fate of those blind to the evidence and unable to adapt is to telegram themselves to utter irrelevance.”
The problem with thinking that the rise of the West was a mere historical blip is that what’s known as the Anglo-Zionist Empire stemmed from Euro-chosenness, which like Zionism is incurably racist and exploitative. Not only will the Empire not go quietly into that dark night where all empires have gone before, but they’re more than willing to take the rest of humanity with them. That’s why the Anglo-Zionist Empire has nuclear weapons in the first place, and why they’re the only ones who’ve actually used them. That’s why Uncle Shmuel, as the Saker likes to call him, has always been a dual-citizen.
Describing this “Sampson Option” the Israeli poet Itamar Yaoz-Kest wrote, “And yet, there is a right reserved only to us Jews (if indeed any human on Earth has this right): to be destroyed and to take the weary and sated world with us into non-existence, along with its wondrous libraries and heart-stirring tunes – just so, after we descend to the grave, while the ground emits radioactive rays to all four winds…”
This’s also why American Christian Zionists are essentially a death cult that looks forward to a transformative apocalyptic conflict that will usher in a “new age” which will be the end of the USA as we know it and the beginning of some kind of world theocracy. Russia and China have nothing even remotely like this in recorded history. They really don’t know what they’re dealing with here.
It’s doubtful they don’t know what and who they are dealing with, at least Putin. That’s what Russia had to contend for centuries. Putin told them what will happen in case of nuclear war.
”Only when we become convinced that there is an incoming attack on the territory of Russia, and that happens within seconds, only after that we would launch a retaliatory strike, It would naturally mean a global catastrophe, but I want to emphasize that we can’t be those who initiate it because we don’t foresee a preventive strike. The aggressor should know that retaliation is inevitable, and he will be destroyed.
We would be victims of an aggression and would get to heaven as martyrs, while those who initiated the aggression would just die and not even have time to repent”.
The only suggested correction I’d make to Putin’s statement (as translated above) is from “he” to “she” — understanding the deep Anglo-Zionist situation shows that it is the female of the species that is the dangerous vector (Elizabeth I & Drake piracy; Victoria & her Scot gardener gigolo and Empire; and now (almost) that criminal witch H. Clinton and her pedo-Epstein friend husband, Willy ‘I got no Glass–Steagall for you,’ BJ Clinton). The current new-hat display stand walking around palace halls in London when C-19 is not in town is the exception although who knows what dodgy door-knob antics they get up to at night. Now there is the crazy-karen meme in the USA … and there is probably some real rational reason to fear that arising into consciousness from the deep darkness.
“It’s doubtful they don’t know what and who they are dealing with, at least Putin. That’s what Russia had to contend for centuries. Putin told them what will happen in case of nuclear war.”
Fact is, no other nation on the planet really understands the messianic “chosenness” of the USA, except of course for Israel. Manifest Destiny equals Zionism equals racism and the propensity for apocalyptic end-times craziness. WWIII will be the result of miscalculations and underestimating the suicidal death-wish of the Anglo-Zionist Empire. They will not go quietly into that dark night…
Tommy, you are right, the “Sampson Option” is a Death Cult. Fortunately, the Death Wish is only Nature’s twin to the Life Force. My limited knowledge indicates that Death Cults find their membership melting away when the chips are down, :
1. Samson, like Supermen, is a mythical hero not a guide to real life. And he only killed a handful of Palestinians while pulling down a ceiling onto his own head.
2. In Roman times few Judeans resisted unto death at Masada, the rest submitted to exile — indeed Jews have found their greatest power and prosperity as a Diaspora.
3. In our times Siegfried the Superman likewise was a mythical hero who only managed to kill a few of his enemies. Hitler died cursing “the no-good cowardly German people” who preferred Unconditional Surrender rather than face a gotter-dammerung holocaust of the entire German nation. The German nation, like the Judean nation before them, chose Life at the moment of crisis and found Prosperity in the long run. I think the Israeli nation, given the alternative, would reject the Samson option.
4. Nor do I think many Backwoods Christian zealots will look forward with rapture to a Nuclear Rapture.
Of course there is always the chance of a failed National Leader with a suicidal finger on the red button. Israel probably wields enough nuclear missiles to wipe out every capital city in EurAsia – but I doubt whether hypothetical Prime Minister Shimshon could launch all of them before tiny Israel was incinerated by counter strike. Hypothetical Nuclear Uncle Sam(son) would cause much more damage — but not end Human Life on Earth. Above all, if there were a vote (whether formal and conscious, or spontaneous and unconscious) no great body of humans would vote for their own collective annihilation.
“The meanest slave alive is better off than the king of the dead” — Homer
WWIII will not be the result of careful deliberation or “a vote (whether formal and conscious, or spontaneous and unconscious) no great body of humans would vote for their own collective annihilation.” You have to remember, 9/11 was not done by a bunch of Arabs armed with box cutters. The real perps of 9/11 got away with it and are still in place, ready for a redo. 9/11 was the pretext for all the wars of this century. Another false-flag attack on the USA, this time blamed on Iran, will force the Americans to retaliate. It will go nuclear within hours as the US and Israel have at their disposal, tactical dial-a-yield bunker-buster bombs like the B61-12. The line between tactical and strategic will be blurred leading to an almost automatic response by Russia and China. Then, may Heaven help us all.
“Of course, such a heated global conflict is impossible in principle, I hope. This is what I am pinning my hopes on, because this would be the end of humanity. However, as I have said, the situation could take an unexpected and uncontrollable turn – unless we do something to prevent this.”
I think this was the key passage from Putin’s speech…
Now, what is to be done to save humanity from Apocalypse?
Are there 50 righteous people left to save humanity? 45, 40, 30, 20,….10?
Putin, after having a brimful of interactions with Xi, whilst noticing that Biden has changed his name to Xiden, has taken notice of the fact that only China does win – win. This, while America and Russia await for the emergence of the new superpower.
I suppose there will be a change in the course of interactions between the three.
Chinese are a gentle people until barbarians come in to wake them up to reality. The Mongols, The Japanese the Russians, the French, the British and the US barbarians came in with their values to redefine them in their own image.
Napoleon said: ”La Chine est un géant endormi. Laissez-la dormir, car à son réveil, elle fera bouger le monde” (“China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will move the world.” Or, « Laissez donc la Chine dormir, car lorsque la Chine s’éveillera le monde entier tremblera ».
America has known for quite some time that it’s days as an empire are numbered, which is why Nixon struck a Faustian bargain with China.
Trump tried to overturn this bargain but stumbled down in the process. Now with Biden the bargain is back with full force.
Russia should apply the principle of ‘caveat emptor’ while undertaking any deal with China.
Given the shrinking population of Russia it won’t take long for China to encroach upon Siberia.
Just saying…
Just saying… No, parroting the talking points of American propaganda which believes that it will drive a wedge between Russia and China.
Having lived many years in China, I fully agree. I’m often envious of their kindness and honesty. I think this emerges from Confucianism?
“I suppose there will be a change in the course of interactions between the three”
Nah, Russian and China know unless they stand together they will fall apart
Think about it!
What would you think if you were the leader of a large &/or populous nation (that had been attacked by the ‘collective West’ – 4 times in the last 200 years – 5 if we include the Cold War) and seeing the invasion & occupations / regime changes on
– Somalia
– Sudan
– Afghanistan
– Iraq
– Lebanon
– Syria
– Libya
– Yemen
– Venezuela and
– (ongoing) Palestine,
in these last 20 or so years?
(and thats not incl. all the color revolutions in central & E. Europe after the collapse of central industrialism in the USSR in 1991 and the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ across North Africa)
Putin & Xi both know that unless they work together to further the aims of Eurasian integration (EAEU & BRI) that they remain ‘fattened calves’ just waiting to be led to the US/NATO slaughter!
Besides within the 4 – 5 years, we will no longer be referring to the ‘United States’, as we will witness in our lifetimes, its dissolution – breaking up into 4 or 5 separate geopolitical units – each still working in synergy w/ the others.
Regards
Of course and I agree with you, but you missed many others that had the American Marine boot on their neck, I just cannot understand the Navalny followers ho want the American dream which in reality is a nightmare. Just imagine the mentality of a people who refuse to listen to Sanders on medicare, who tells them just cross the 49th parallel north of you and see for yourself what medicare is all about, but they just keep marching like lemmings over the cliff. I have had two knee replacement surgeries zero cost to me. It gave me a new life, 15 years and a new human being without pain.. The Navalny crowd see how to marry the bachelor and the view, and they think this has some value other than deflection from reality.
was juxtaposed with a common sense warning: the necessity of preventing the takeover of global policy by Big Tech , which “are de facto competing with states”.
Yes, they are bigger and far more powerful than small (to medium) sized nations.
Nations have a political structure, usually with checks and balances. Nations have a bureaucracy and norms of dealing with other nations.
Big Tech just has spotty youths in charge with no accountability and even less wisdom (yes, I did mean less than zero) ….. it is indeed a return to feudalism (not that the spotty youths would understand that)
The Internet should be a ‘public good’ owned by every person on the planet and Big Tech should pay handsomely to use it ….. thus re-distributing the wealth generated by the Internet
Instead Big Tech takes advantage of the scale of the Internet to generate obscene amounts of wealth and then they hide in nations to minimize tax. The simple way would be to charge access to the Internet …. possibly based on the number of people in a nation. So if Google did not want to pay to be in China, then it would not have to pay tax on the 1.4 billion people of China…… and yes, I know that it is more complicated than that, but you get my drift.
I cannot see the ‘west’ bringing the spotty youths to heel. It will take the likes of Putin and Xi to do that. Strong leaders with wisdom.
in all honesty, Mr. Putin is the glue thats holding the Russian Federation together.
He was instrumental in cutting a peaceful deal for the Chechens to see the conspiracy they were in the middle of, thanks to the CIA, Mi6, Saudis, Mossad, possibly even the Australians we are beginning to hear.
Same motley crew that have tried incessantly to spark discord and war between the Chinese people between racial and ethnic-religious lines. Just think of the Uighurs- Muslims vs Hun Chinese. But the Chinese saw through this very quickly squashed it. Salafism/Wahabbism would not take hold in Chinas north-west.
Unfortunately, the Russian FSB did not catch on to the international conspiracy against Russias sovereignty until it was too late and the Wahabbi/Salafi curse had already secretly embedded intself in the Caucasus, resulting in terrible acts of terrorism, like the infamous Moscow Theatre takeover, schools taken hostage and two bloody conflicts. It took the leveling of the entire city of Grozny and the elimination of the Saudi clerics and most of the fanatical Arab fighters to end it all.
If one looks, the exact Modus Operandi was used in The Russian Federation, China and Syria. Exact ! Even China saw fanatics hacking their way on trains with machetes, knives, whatever. Cars were used to smash through crowds of people walking around cities, parks even big attacks in Tiananmen Square itself. Luckily many car bombs failed to go off.
The Chinese learned from the experience of the Russians and acted quickly, lest their is an all-out conflict sparked. So this is where the so-called ‘ Re-education camps ‘ term came about. For the many thousands of Chinese Muslims whos minds became corrupted by fanaticism of really not even true Islamic ideology or doctrine, but of warped fringe teachings of devious, backwards teachings of one fanatic from the 1800’s by the name of Mohammad Abd Al-Wahab, whom many say was an Arab Jew looking for big trouble, and started an insane amount of trouble in the Islamic world, and for the Islamic world.
Anyway, the tortured minds of the radicalized Chinese Muslim youth, mostly, were taught the ways of true Islam, very peacefully. Just like Russian Muslim Chechens, whom today are a shinning example of what true Muslims are. Truly an exemplar effort and success by Mr. Putin and Mr. Ramzan Kadyrov, the President of The Chechen Republic within the Russian Federation. Great friend of Mr. Putin, and moderate Muslim and Arab leaders. And yes, that includes Mr. Nasrallah and Mr. Khamenie. Mr.Putin gave Mr. Khamenie a 7th century Quran from the Murad Dynasty some years ago.
The Chinese and Russians , along with Muslim leaders like Mr. Sisi of Egypt, who i would say is the real leader of todays Arabs, just by Egypts population of about 100 million and not the tiny Gulf Arab fiefdoms.
And Muslim leaders like Mr. Arif Alvi, President of Pakistan, and her awesome Prime Minister Mr. Imran Khan.
Together, working together, they put up a serious front for the salvation of humanity. Theres more, South Africa, Venezuela, Cuba are bulwarks. Many nations in Africa are already, or seek to join. If they havent, its because they have been threatened with coups, sanctions, war, ISIS, etc.
And so, now, in the news nefarious, insidious campaign to literally destroy and weaken China, internally, and its standing globally has been hatched and being pushed hard. We hear alot of crocodile tears shed about the Uighurs and stuff like ‘ concentration camps ‘ , and ‘ genocide ‘ , by none other than the supposed son of a Holocaust , Sec of State of the U.S., the very nervous, and somewhat not comfortable in his shoes, Mr. Antony Blinken.If the west were so concerned about genocide, they need look no further than Kashmir, where the Fascist government there has some 8 million souls living under a brutal military occupation, or the occupied Palestinian territories where 1.8 million unfortunates are squeezed together in 140 square miles, just waiting for the next round of airstrikes perpetrated on them in the form of white phosphorous raining down on them. White phosphorous is an internationally banned munition. Banned even in direct convention combat between two big belligerents, let alone one of the most powerfully armed forces in the world and guys shooting off pipes with sugar as the fuel.’
Oh vey, those damn Palestinians are going to kill us all with those very sophisticated ballistic missiles !’
How can a people who claim to have gone threw what they claim to have 75 years ago in the Warsaw Ghetto and other places turn around and perpetrate the same, or worse ? Anyways. No reporter is brave enough to ask Mr. Blinken that question. And India. You are one mistake from being thrashed by China and Pakistan, and it will be conventional. The U.S., is too tired to help you, and Australia, oh, Australia, ya right. Now its a comedy of errors.
The alliances Team Biden hope to build are bordering the silly, at best. And yes, the magnetic pull towards Asia is all too powerful, and it is a force that has alraedy started initiating. Theres simply no stopping it. Join now, or later, with mud on your face, like Australia, New Zealand , Canada, et al.
I could see ten years ago that if the Islamic world joined forces with China it was checkmate for evil on this wonderful planet and what humanity has to go through, with all the un-necessary human suffering and death and destruction. I see that all coming to an end now. Like many, many years ago, it was the Muslims and the Chinese travelers who brought the world the Silk roads and knowledge and a higher standard of living.
The exact Modus Operandi was described in few words by Putin: ‘We will chase terrorists everywhere. If in an airport, then in the airport. So if we find them in the toilet, excuse me, we’ll rub them out in the outhouse. And that’s it, case closed.’ I can see no reason why people are afraid that he won’t apply it again against new Mujaddids (who must come every 100 years).
The gene of altruism, every great human leader in history had the goa. V. Putin, tis in sync with earth’s glory and all life energies. House of Rothchild (House of Dracula eons ago) long in the tooth vile. Time has now reached the cosmic reality enema, west cannot vampire east. USA people best get very ready, Bosnia comes to my mind. You’re awesome Saker, thank you.
Perhaps I’ll throw in my two bits, reiterating points made above by other commenters (Larchmonter, tedrichard,) Putin is not adequately appreciated as simply a Russian leader. He is obviously this but there’s more and this more adds up to quite a lot. He is the principle flag carrier of an international order that came together when the UN alliance was formed to fight the Axis back in the 40s, a development fostered by the leaders of the Roosevelt administration. America itself quickly abandoned it’s own principles soon after the war and instead followed in the footsteps of the Third Reich and has assiduously urged the nations of Europe to follow suit.
It is therefore understandable how and why the Western leadership and their camp followers have lost all semblance of polity, prudence and dignity in their encounter with President Putin. They cannot face him without peering into the mirror of their own unprincipled collaboration with the lawless evil they pretentiously declaim against. But precisely in expending all their credibility in defaming the Russian president they have relinquished any claims to be taken seriously by those who do try to stand by their principles. The matter can be left to posterity. But I think it’s doubtful that posterity will discover much of anything new in terms of the essential questions such as how we ought to live. The principles that the UN were founded upon were long established within the Westphalian states system. Each state should be the sovereign master of its own affairs and exercise political authority to develop as they saw fit, and free from the interference of other states. This affirmation, subject obviously to a respect for others to proceed similarly, has gained very widespread acceptance in the world of nations and states. I don’t think that’s just going to go away tomorrow or the day after.
The original order of the states system was a balance of power arrangement that encouraged self interested behavior to the end of creating a dynamic balancing act that would, hopefully, prevent the total wars that were previously fought in the name of religion or some other commitment where the ideology of good vs evil led participants to acts of total mobilisation while loosing all respect for their adversaries. The system was meant to prevent what we call ‘total wars’. It worked sometimes and then sometimes not. In more recent times the original balance of power system has been supplemented with international organisations that function to facilitate nonstop diplomacy and to enable concerted action when needed. As well, the functionings of the UN have created most of what would now be reckoned as ‘international law’.
This law making institution has a definite form. It is basically a confederation and not a union. The UN is not a government of governments. That’s what imperialists want. The rest of us want an organisation that respects our freedom and seeks to preserve it. That’s what Putin and Xi are offering the rest of Asia, Africa, and the Latin American countries that were formerly (and still) governed from the imperial metropole. One can understand why they’re so upset. When they say that their ‘rule’s based international order’ is under threat they’re right. It is. THEIR order is under threat precisely because there’s nothing ‘rules based’ about it. The real order based on rules, on the real principles that once formed the confident hopes of the UN, once upon a time, is now revived and is a thing of this world. It will bury the works of the Atlanticists. And posterity will thank those who stood up for their liberties when all hopes were nearly lost.
No doubt the Chinese or Russian Vaccine would be the best choice. However the need for a Rushed out Vaccine wherever it comes from has to be fraught with danger. Vaccines normally take 7 -10 years before being rolled out. What’s happening World wide is without precident – especially when you research (difficult with blocking of alternative views) & find that this so called Pandemic is really a Planned-demic with fatality rates of not much more than a bad flue season. I have a lot of information on this but there is one link that is a must watch. Below.
I have also found a great search Engine with Privacy – Swisscows the alternative, data secure search engine. Very quick & precise + totally private. https://swisscows.com/
Every single person now getting these jabs is effectively an unwitting test subject in the largest medical experiment ever carried out, having been asked to give their consent to receive a product injected into their bodies without being properly informed as to the status of the product.
Professor Sucharit Bhakdi is a Thai-German specialist in microbiology, having studied at the universities of Bonn, Giesen, Mainz, and Copenhagen.He also studied at the Max Planck Institute Of Immunobiology
and Epigenetics in Freiburg, and is a professor emeritus of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and from 1991 to 2012 was head of the Institute Of Medical Microbiology And Hygiene.
Professor Bhakdi wrote an open letter to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, in which he outlined the facts being ignored by the establishment and Branch Covidians.
Within 24 hours, YouTube had banned our conversation because it “violated” YouTube’s pro-WHO narrative.
Professor Sucharit Bhakdi interviewed by Willem Engel – YouTube ( If taken down search for using Swisscows.com) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOFHlVmACJo
Thanks for all your excellent work Pepe.
I particularly enjoyed your long talk with Michael Hudson at the Henry George school.
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/01/07/the-consequences-of-moving-from-industrial-to-financial-capitalism/
If this was on Saker site I missed it.
George could be a most helpful thinker for the Russia and China partnership. Both Tolstoy and Sun Yat Sen were big fans.
And Marx came around to George’s thinking in Kapital 3, but as Hudson pointed out few Chinese Marxists have read it!
Like-mindedness? Not a coincidence…
I mean between the author and I!
But the swish of Pepe’s pen is unbeatable.
The sooner the USA changes its mind and join BRI, at least with a rail line to Alaska and a bridge/tunel across the Bering Strait, the sooner it may recover from heading towards a banana republic.
Amazing how what we’re seeing circumnavigate the entire globe these days, and here ( in The Colonies ) I thought we were the only ones being led around with a hook in our mouth like fish-catch.
I recall my 1986 excursion throughout Western Europe, which opened my eyes to the fact that other national regions around the world do not all revolve around Almighty America except for the size of North America’s global overpowering marketplace, which most other smaller nations all bow-down to for the sake of ‘money’ through ‘trade’ where those nations implement America’s “Public-Private Partnershipping” ( PPP ) interalia ‘Government-Corporate Partnershipping’ ‘socio-economic philosophies’ that were carried-forth by then- U.S. State Department Secretary Hillary Clinton who under President Obama recalled ‘ALL U.S. Ambassadors’ away-from their foreign nation posts’ back into a Washington, D.C. enclave to re-educate them all as-to how to ‘herd foreign nations’ in-to ‘drinking like herded cattle from America’s marketplace money trough’ in-exchange for ‘changing their laws to become more aligned with America’s newly implemented laws’. Bribery, that the little people ( folks like you, me and all non-elitists ) would be slowly forced to follow like ‘sheep’, and if anyone steps out-of line, they’re sent to government slaughterhouses where they become ground-up like sausage. PPP round-up reindoctrination began with Hillar Clinton leading all that during the latter days of January 2011.
I wrote about that aforementioned craziness long ago after living in Eastern Europe from 2002 – 2006 when I gained a better perspective of what was occurring there where the European Union ( America’s Socio-Economic Proxy Foot Soldiers ) came in-to former Communist nations and began conducting Town Hall meetings gathering local politicians and citizens together in order to implement ‘new laws’ such as ‘cash register machines’ placed in-to ‘all stores’ ( even ‘kiosks’ and emote country ‘general stores’ ) where ‘receipts’ became ‘mandatorily presented to all consumer-buyers’ whom under these ‘new laws’ were ‘forced to accept receipts’ or Police would arrest consumers whom would not ‘accept cash register receipts’!
It wasn’t until all these Eastern European E.U. ‘Town Hall’ meetings tried implementing ” Neighborhood Watch” programs subsequent to citizens already having climbed-out from being under Soviet Union Communist rule, that people found the European Union ‘Neighborhood Watch’ program being implemented throughout communities as being ‘absolutely ludicrous’ simply because ‘everyone already knew more about their neighbors’ plus there were ‘no burglary, rape or theft crimes’ anywhere in their cities; including cities as large as Belgrade, Serbia and Kiev, Ukraine.
It was in 2005 that I was able to personally witness first-hand America slithering into Eastern Europe as the European Union ‘coerced those former communist nations’ in to ‘converting the E.U. way’ or ‘not receiving government funds’ to ‘improve lifestyles’, and so the E.U. funding was spent ‘paving new roads’, remodeling business store-fronts, and then those tiny nation governments were indoctrinated on ‘raising taxes’ to keep that E.U. ball rolling there.
Bribery, extortion and power over local government politicians from the E.U. America way changed everything including people, and consequently opening doors to criminality that then trickled into cities because people faced ruin if they did not pay what government told them to pay.
In August 2006, when I left Eastern Europe, Belgrade had experienced 1 shooting in the city over a drug deal gone awry however, for nearly 10-years prior to ‘that incident’ there was little to ‘no crime’ so, most Police never wore guns.
Police in Eastern Europe were never ‘feared’ by anyone in towns where they were friends with ordinary community residents because everyone knew everyone back then.
For ‘me’, it was like having travelled back in time to a better place, which I hated to leave.
The only reason I left was because I refused to spy in Bosnia for the C.I.A. and was sent back to America for ‘reindoctrination’, and when I did ‘not reindoctrinate’ upon arrival in Los Angeles, I was labelled by the C.I.A. Deputy Chief as, a “Non Team Player,” and became a castaway where I was left out in the cold to be rendered as an aging disabled former U.S. honorable military service war-time who now in civilian life became handicapped and after searching for work for 4-years unable to land any jobs anywhere throughout America, I ended-up destitute on the streets, became ‘vehicular homeless’ over the past 16-years, and now at 69-years old am left suffering after having relinquished my U.S. citizenship in 1986 leaving me with no resources to live a normal life.
Although I have narrowly escaped five ( 5 ) attacks on my life, I still maintain the traditional American values and patriotism.
Alas, Pepe, your excellent review of Davos was 1 day early!
Today, the European Council released a brief statement signed by Merkel, Macron, et al. (https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021/02/03/rebuilding-consensus-for-an-international-rules-based-order-through-multilateral-cooperation/)
It’s a clear rejection of the ridiculous “Longer Telegram”. If last year’s progress on the EU-China investment deal left room for doubt of Europe’s commitment to global multilateralism & Eurasian integration, this statement is the clearest affirmation of it. Unilateralism is dead, long live multilateralism!
Next challenge: finance capitalism (the global USD).
”Amidst a tsunami of platitudes, we learn that China is a ’revisionist power’ that ’presents a serious problem for the whole of the democratic world’; and that the Chinese leadership better get its act together and operate ’within the US-led liberal international order rather than building a rival order’.”
People producing tsunamis of platitudes should be treated with something which — very likely — has appreciable effect. Pindos and Euro-trash would benefit immensely by a second Chinese vaccine in the form of cheap, very potent/addictive opium. Relax and be happy without temper tantrums!
Really? We can understand why the PLA is upset? PLA expelled U.S. Navy on freedom of navigation peace keeping mission from South China Sea near Paracel “Islands”.
Encyclopedia Britannica:
Paracel Islands, Wade-Giles romanization Hsi-sha Ch’ün-tao, Pinyin Xisha Qundao, Vietnamese Quan Dao Hoang Sa, group of about 130 small coral islands and reefs in the South China Sea. They lie about 250 miles (400 km) east of central Vietnam and about 220 miles (350 km) southeast of Hainan Island, China. Apart from a few isolated, outlying islands (Triton in the south, Lincoln in the east), they are divided into the Amphitrite group in the northeast and the Crescent group in the west. The low, barren islands, none of which exceeds 1 square mile (2.5 square km), lack fresh water. Turtles live on the islands, and seabirds have left nests and guano deposits, but there are no permanent human residents.
China, Taiwan, and Vietnam all claim the archipelago. In 1932 French Indochina announced the annexation of the Paracels and established a weather station there. Japan occupied some of the islands during World War II (1939–45) but later withdrew and, in 1951, renounced its claims there. By 1947 Chinese troops occupied Woody Island, the main island of the Amphitrite group. On Prattle Island, the largest of the Crescent group, the original weather station continued to be operated by French Indochina and its successor, Vietnam. With the political separation of the two Chinas and Vietnams, the number of claimants doubled: while the People’s Republic of China and South Vietnam actually occupied the islands, Taiwan and North Vietnam declared themselves the heirs of legitimate Chinese and Vietnamese claims. The discovery of oil deposits under the South China Sea led to a crisis early in 1974 when, in reaction to Vietnamese contracts with foreign oil companies, China attacked the islands from sea and air, captured the weather station crew, and assumed control of the entire archipelago. In the 1980s the Paracels, still occupied by China, remained a subject of contention.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Paracel-Islands
Isn’t that what the WEF wants? An end to borders and nations and global government? What about the multipolar world? Did they lie?
Hans plays with Lotte,
Lotte plays with Jane
Jane plays with Willi,
Willi is happy again
Suki plays with Leo,
Sacha plays with Britt
Adolf builts a bonfire,
Enrico plays with it
It’s a knockout
If looks could kill, they probably will
In games without frontiers-war without tears
Games without frontiers-war without tears
Jeux sans frontieres
Jeux sans frontieres
Jeux sans frontieres
Andre has a red flag,
Chiang Ching’s is blue
They all have hills to fly them on except for Lin Tai Yu
Dressing up in costumes, playing silly games
Hiding out in tree-tops shouting out rude names
It’s a knockout
If looks could kill they probably will In games without frontiers-wars without tears
If looks could kill they probably will In games without frontiers-war without tears
Games without frontiers-war without tears Jeux sans frontieres Jeux sans frontieres Jeux sans frontieres.- Peter Gabriel
So sick of this BS!
Andrea Iravani
@ Simon Chow
“So the purge of the bourgeoisie in Russia, China, Cambodia and Vietnam, when the Communists won power, was a mistake? It would seem so if, in Marxist theory, the bourgeoisie were needed to produce wealth in the first stage of revolution before socialism and communism”
That is a very interesting point and one that i am sure had had experts and Marxists arguing for ages. What I would say about it, uh, maybe yes, maybe not. Let’s remember that the bourgeoisie existing at the time when Socialists take over, and revolutions take place, is one used to be in power for many generations so from the point of view of a Socialist revolutionary government they are probably “un-redeemable”, they couldn’t be made fit into the new system, as they would keep plotting to try to topple the new government. So they have to go. But that is something up for deeper discussion. In any case the experience in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela has been that the local bourgeoisie started trying to sabotage the new Socialist regime as soon as this last had been installed.
At the time of Marx opium wasn’t only the Meth or the cocaine of the day but also the Tylenol and the Valium, i.e. it was widely used also as sedative and as a tranquilizer. Even house maids and moms used it, in small doses, to keep their babies and toddlers quiet so in some regard we may say it was the TV and the pacifier of the times, among other things. I guess with those words Marx wasn’t attacking religious beliefs as such but the fact that the elites were using those beliefs to keep the populace quiet, docile and compliant. And he wasn’t far off the mark anyway: during the Spanish Conquest of the Americas the same Conquistadores who didn’t hesitate to exterminate American natives by the millions never forgot to bring their own “padrecitos” to “evangelize” into slavery the few survivors left. Anyway, Religion had no place in Marx’s essays and theory, that is why this last is called Historical Materialism, even if we know it by the shorthand, Marxism.
About Utopian Communism, you are right, but in that case you shouldn’t be asking those questions because no one has the answer for them. Even if I was a Catholic, could you trust my description of Heavens…? That is why we call it, appropriate enough, an Utopia. No one has ever been able to explain what exactly is, this Communist Society everybody talks some much about and is even less capable of giving us a description. And that is why that is an Utopia, a fantasy, a Neverland. All we got in this material world are Socialist projects and systems. That is why no one, no one in this world, can assure you that there won’t be any corruption in a post-XI China, it is all about human nature, something that doesn’t seem to change, ever.
Pepe: We gonna be hackers or slaves. The future is dystopian. Aaaahhh ….
Pepe (two weeks later): Putin said, it didn’t happen. Well then, everyone, move along.
…
I’m glad I am reading all these analysis.