64

Panic of Boris Johnson in Moscow – Agony of Rotting Empire

Andre Vltchek

Johnson and Lavrov at Moscow meeting

It has been all very ugly, aggressive and often distinctly vulgar: the way the British Foreign Secretary has behaved before and during his official visit to Moscow.

Mr. Johnson described Russia as “closed, nasty, militaristic and anti-democratic” concluding that it could not be “business as usual”.

He did not define what the UK has become, and the Russian hosts were too polite to explain. The “business as usual” it was not.

During the last few weeks, the behavior patterns of both the UK and US have began increasingly to resemble those of the badly brought up leadership of the provincial Italian mafia: “You do as we tell you, or we’ll poke out your eyes… or break your leg… or perhaps we’ll kidnap your daughter”.

It appears that there is absolutely no shame left in Washington, in London, and in several other ‘provincial capitals’ of the Empire. Insults are piling on insults and then shot to all corners of the globe. Lies are being spread barefacedly, and bizarre deceptions and fabrications have been manufactured with impressive speed.

It is clear that the Empire is now missing its composure, its nerve; that it is scared of losing its control over the world and its monopoly on deciding what should be universally accepted as the truth.

The more the world realizes that it has been controlled and brutalized by shameless neo-colonialist gangsters, the more the Empire says, indirectly but sometimes even straight into the faces of the international community: “Our interests are what really matter! You will behave and obey, or we will smash you to pieces, starve you to death, invade you and bathe your land in blood”.

It is nothing new, of course: the West has been doing all this for many decades and centuries. Hundreds of millions of Asians, Africans, South Americans, Middle Easterners and Russians lost their lives in the process. All non-white continents were occupied, plundered and enslaved; all, without a single exception. But it was always done “for the good of the victims”, or “in order to protect them” (most likely from themselves).

The Brits were at the forefront of the art of manipulating the brains of their ‘subjects’. Their propaganda used to be refined, effective, some would even say ‘brilliant’. For decades after the end of the Second World War, they used to teach its offspring in North America and Australia, how to lie elegantly and how to convince even those nations that were being barbarically raped, that they were actually being rescued, pampered and made love to, gently and respectfully.

Now the masks have fallen off, and the ugly, gangrenous face of imperialism has been clearly exposed. Britain is simply not in the mood for refinements. It is brutal. It was always brutal. Now it is also, finally, honest.

It is all absolutely frightening, but it is also good, truly significant, that the West is suddenly behaving with such clarity.

*

What is it that Mr. Johnson is accusing Russia of? Of liberating Syria from those Western, Saudi, and Qatari backed terrorist groups? What else could be expected from the Foreign Secretary of the country that had been, for long centuries, the mightiest, ruthless and the most deceptive colonialist empire in the history of the mankind? Mr. Johnson is definitely not going to thank the liberator of the oppressed people, is it?

In his open letter to Boris Johnson, the British writer and journalist Neil Clark wrote:

“In April you canceled your planned visit to Moscow and traveled to the G7 talks instead, where you urged other countries to consider fresh sanctions against Russia (and Syria), saying that Vladimir Putin was “toxifying his image” by backing Assad.

But if Russia hadn’t supported the Syrian government, ISIS/Al-Qaeda affiliates would probably have taken control of the whole country. Is that what you wanted?”

Of course it was! More chaos, the better!

The UK has been playing appalling, truly Machiavellian games all over the Middle East, and it has been doing it for centuries – in Palestine, in what is now Iraq and Kuwait, and in many other areas. To borrow from the colorful lexicon of the Prime Minister Lloyd George, it was reserving rights “to bomb those niggers”, to bomb them and to fry them alive, to rob them of everything, even of the land itself. The UK, together with their close friends and allies such as Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, managed to manufacture the most conservative branch of Islam, just in order to keep the local population in fear and submission to its commercial and colonialist interests.

The country responsible for hundreds of millions of dead, for tens of millions of human beings who have been hunted down like animals and shipped to America as slaves, has been reserving the right to judge the world, to decide what is ‘free’ and what is not, what is ‘democratic’ and what is dictatorial, what is true and what is false or even ‘fake’.

‘Fake news’ – the latest invention of the crumbling, paranoid Western regime!

Now the Empire is hunting down almost all ‘alternative media’ outlets, including the highly successful and informative RT (Russia Today) international television channel. It is important to remember and to understand: only the official Western channels and press agencies are allowed to spread indoctrination all over the world. To broadcast or to print ‘counter-propaganda’ (or call it an intellectual detox) is considered an arch crime, and punished as such. The RT is now portrayed as a hive of ‘agents’, at least in both Washington and London.

*

As the Syrian city of Aleppo was celebrating its first anniversary of liberation, grateful citizens were carrying, in reverent silence, portraits of Russian soldiers who spilled their blood for the liberation of their nation.

The Syrian people know, they clearly understand, who ignited the war, and who came to their rescue.

Boris Johnson can insult Russia as much as he desires, but one thing he cannot deny: there are no men, women and children carrying portraits of British soldiers, be it in Iraq or Afghanistan, in Syria, Libya or Yemen.

In Yemen, the UK talks peace but manufactures bombs that are enriching the already deadly Saudi arsenal of weapons, used to terrorize, and to murder thousands of defenseless Yemeni civilians.

Russian Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov said nothing about the crimes against humanity that are being committed by British troops in several parts of the world. I believe that he should have said something, that he should have said a lot, but Mr. Lavrov is a seasoned diplomat, and he knows perfectly well what is appropriate, what is effective and what is counter-productive.

*

Yes, the Empire is evidently in panic.

It is scared of everything: of public opinion all over the world, of the great Chinese new Silk Road initiative which is gaining great popularity all over the Asian continent, of the Sino-Russian alliance, of the silent rebellion in the ranks of its former allies, particularly in Asia, of the undeniably increasing economic might of its adversaries, of the new ‘alternative media’, and even of its own tail lost somewhere in the darkness.

For many years, one effective way for the Empire to control the world was to spread dark cynicism and nihilism, in order to ‘pacify’, to immobilize its colonies and even its own people living in Europe and North America. Now this strategy is backfiring:

British and North American citizens are not only passive and unwilling to fight for the internationalist and left wing ideals, they are also unimpressed, even disgusted with their own rulers and regime. Yes, most of them are cynical about such countries like Russia, China or Venezuela, but they are also cynical about the corporatism, capitalism, as well as Western domestic and foreign policy. They are not willing to commit to anything. They trust nothing. They believe in very few things.

For the Empire, people like Boris Johnson are extremely useful buffoons: they offer cheap entertainment to the masses, and they deliver it with impeccable upper-class English accents (the BBC-style). They play it dirty, trying to smear, to humiliate their opponents. They try to bring back pride to their imperialist and white supremacist regime, by humiliating the victims, who are now finally standing on their feet and ready to fight for the right to be different.

People like Mr. Johnson turn reality upside down, and it is all done ‘spontaneously’, with a boyish, almost innocent grin. Except that there is actually absolutely nothing innocent in this entire charade. It is all perfectly choreographed, all extremely professional.

*

The Empire is rotting and it is in agony. It panics. It fights for its life.

Peace is dangerous. If the world is at peace, it is indisputable that the Western Empire would lose, in no time. It would be defeated on social, moral, creative and even economic fronts.

That is why the Empire is spreading chaos, fear, war, perpetual conflicts and antagonism everywhere, all over the world: in Syria and Afghanistan, Libya, in all corners of Africa and parts of Southeast Asia, in Iran, Central and South America, even in the tiniest countries of Oceania.

It is challenging, provoking North Korea, it is insulting countries that have already suffered more than enough from Western terror and barbarism; countries like Russia, China and Iran.

It threatens those nations (and even some international organizations like UNESCO) that are supporting Palestine.

It essentially bullies all those who want to live their own lives, their own cultures, and their own economic and social systems. It punishes those countries that are refusing to plunder their own people and resources in order to support the high-life of the Western nations. It overthrows governments, and murders individuals.

*

In Moscow, the British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson made a fool of himself. He did! With his unmistakable spineless jellyfish style, he tried but failed to humiliate the nation, which, for several centuries fought determinedly against Western imperialism and colonialism, and, on numerous occasions has already managed to save the world.

Mr. Johnson applied an old and rather disgusting approach: he came to Russia with spite and superiority complex, ready to preach, to insult, to scold those white-looking but essentially Asian people – to ‘show them their place’.

But this is 2017 now, not 1990. London is not the center of the universe, anymore, just the capital of a confused and rather aggressive and increasingly badly behaved nation.

The British bulldog came to Moscow. Frankly, it did not even look like a bulldog, anymore – it looked totally… weird: stoned and mentally unbalanced. It barked and barked, while the Russian bear was calm, maintaining its composure. It was clear who of the two has the upper hand, and who is provoking and who is refusing to fight. It was also obvious who of the two is really scared.
And, it was so apparent to whom belongs the past and to whom belongs the future!

Originally published by NEO (New Eastern Outlook)

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Jim
Jim
Dec 30, 2017 3:48 PM

Boris and Donald, they both dye their hair! Do we have to really think they have both natural beauty?

vierotchka
vierotchka
Apr 7, 2018 9:26 PM
Reply to  Jim

Boris Johnson is a natural blonde, he doesn’t dye nor bleach his hair. Here he is as a child:comment image

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Dec 29, 2017 9:49 AM

They would all be Gods if they could.
They can’t.
They’re all gonna die.
Justice, that.

Eric Blair
Eric Blair
Dec 29, 2017 1:00 AM

A good piece by Vltchek. His best rants combine righteous fury and a keen insight into the cynical malaise inflicting the citizens of the moribund Anglo-American Empire and its vassal states. He is correct in pointing out that:

For many years, one effective way for the Empire to control the world was to spread dark cynicism and nihilism, in order to ‘pacify’, to immobilize its colonies and even its own people living in Europe and North America. Now this strategy is backfiring: British and North American citizens are not only passive and unwilling to fight for the internationalist and left wing ideals, they are also unimpressed, even disgusted with their own rulers and regime. Yes, most of them are cynical about such countries like Russia, China or Venezuela, but they are also cynical about the corporatism, capitalism, as well as Western domestic and foreign policy. They are not willing to commit to anything. They trust nothing. They believe in very few things.

What he doesn’t mention is that these people are also afraid, scared of their own shadows. In Canada letting your ten year-old child walk to school alone or, god forbid, use public transit unsupervised will get you a visit from the police or child protection services. Earlier this year there was a news story about a man taking his young son and his son’s friend to see a film. The trio raised the suspicion of a passer-by who called the police to report a man on the bus with two young kids. He followed them and passed their location on to the police dispatcher. The cops then barged into the cinema, hauled out the man and the boys…and let them go after questioning them separately and learning there was no reason for the authorities to be there.
Fear and paranoia will increase as life becomes bleaker and harsher. In Afghanistan the US spies on villagers 24/7 via balloons it suspends in the air outside village entrances. All movement day or night is recorded or transmitted to ISAF headquarters. It’s not at all a stretch to imagine such overt surveillance being deployed over “restive” neighbourhoods in Western cities to “protect” the people from “bad guys” (or perhaps “Russian mind-control rays”). And most people, after an intense MSM propaganda campaign to soften them up and lower their resistance, would likely accept this police state intrusion just like they accept the logging and recording of everything they do and say on the internet by their spy agencies.
At some point the dam will break and people will fight back. But will they go after their oppressors or take their anger and fear out on “suspicious” neighbours or immigrants or other people in the same boat as themselves who they deem as being “different” and therefore a threat?

Jen
Jen
Dec 28, 2017 8:54 PM

Why Boris Johnson visited Moscow in the first place, if all he had to offer was his own ridiculous prejudices and beliefs gleaned from tabloid headlines about “Russiagate” and clearly wasn’t inclined to listen to Sergei Lavrov or his hosts, beats me. Was it to keep him as far away from British politics as much as possible so that the British public can’t see what a disaster he might be as PM in case Theresa May is forced to fall on her sword? Is there anyone else among the Tories who might qualify for her job?

Alan
Alan
Dec 28, 2017 7:53 PM

Taking a line from Back to the Future
So tell me future boy who is Foreign Secretary in 2017?
Boris Johnson
The comedian? and I suppose Jerry Lewis is Prime Minister!

kevin morris
kevin morris
Dec 28, 2017 7:04 PM

I too have a high regard for Russia, and lest we forget, it was the former Soviet Union that actually defeated the Nazis. If for that reason alone Boris Johnson should have demonstrated rather more gravitas when he met with Sergey Lavrov las week.
But all this gleeful ‘end of empire’ talk I find very sad because as Pete Townshend said all these years ago, ‘meet the new boss- same as the old boss’. and it is not Russia but China who increasingly calls the shots nowadays. Anyone who studies China, knows that it is a country run by a single party whose paison d’etre is that it remains in power. The country has its own version of ‘manifest destiny’ and always expected subservience from nations texpected o pay tribute. There is no civil society in China and people investigating ills done on the part of the CCP (and there are many) know that they are often subject to arbitrary imprisonment for so doing.
Rather like the SS in Nazi Germany, the PLA has its own economic sections, often using slave labour through the Laoghang system. Many of the unbranded goods sold in the west are manufactured under such conditions.
China has done untold ecological damage in Tibet, the country it has occupied since 1949. Chinese plans to divert rivers rising in Tibet and creating a huge hydroelectric schene has countires south- Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Burma, Vietnam fearful of the consequences for their own water supplies. It is already accepted that ecological damage done by the Chinese in Tibet through deforestation has been responsible for increased flooding in Bangladesh.
The Chinese are reluctant to accept the damage they have done in Tibet and prefer to blame the nomads who followed their away of life for millennia. Tibetans are unable to receive a seondary education in their own language and despite the news clampdown since 2008, news often filters out of yet another Tibetan youth, self immolating. The tragic thing about Tibet is that the West fear China and would rather have cheap consumer goods and so does little other than making token protests.
I’m no fan of the US, but all this gleeful celebrating of the ‘end of empire’, I find rather sickening, for be sure that the new empire is going to be no better, and quite likely, much worse than the empire we effect so to disdain.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 28, 2017 7:33 PM
Reply to  kevin morris

Much worse? Really? You do sound like a graduate of one of those ubiquitous think tanks where the well educated are paid millions to come up with dirt on China and the best they can do are the Uighurs. See Frum. China has hardly been imperialist and so far what there is has been confined to former parts of China. The point of the article is that the West has obsessed on demonising Russia and you want tit for tat vis a vis China. Is that it? “time will tell” but from what I can see China holds some promise. It seems like a lifetime since the same could be said about the US.

kevin morris
kevin morris
Dec 29, 2017 4:08 AM
Reply to  George Cornell

As a long time China watcher who predicted China’s rise as long ago as the mid 1970s, I am all too aware of the naievity of liberals in the west going back as far as the 1960sm even in the face of the war fought between China and India over borders that had been uncotroversial for many centuries.
I have always wondered at that viewpoint that a country that has no civil society, very little by way pf rule of law, which executes more prisoners than anywhere else in the world, could be seen as offering ‘promise’ to the rest of the world. I do assure you that China’s neighbours tend to be less sanguine, particulary India who over fifty years ago found that the Chinese had actually built a highway through remote Indian territory, and who find China spondoring acts terrorism and of murderm not only in India, within the sub continent.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 29, 2017 11:20 AM
Reply to  kevin morris

Where do get your misinformation from, Kevin? CIA sources, Natinal Review? And how many military bases does China have in foreign lands ? Zero? And the US has 185 plus? Take a cold shower.

Big B
Big B
Dec 29, 2017 12:57 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

One: in Djibouti.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 29, 2017 6:34 PM
Reply to  Big B

Ooh! Only 184 to go.

Big B
Big B
Dec 29, 2017 7:37 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

Give them time; resource depletion; they’ve just passed peak oil; are on their way to peak coal and gas; are trying to coerce Saudi Arabia into accepting Yuan; are in Africa to secure material resources; AFRICOM and SOCOM (and soon the EU-NATO) are deployed to stop them; they are colonising the Spratly Isles to expand into the South China sea (for fish as much as anything else); the US 7th Fleet is deployed in “Freedom of Navigation” ops to prevent them; the Djibouti deployment and Myanmar oil and gas pipeline are to counter their Bab el-Mandeb and Malacca maritime chokepoint problems; the Rohingya crisis is in part an attempt to stop them…
You must accept that I am not in the slightest anti-Chinese, or anti-American, or anti-anyone on a personal level …it is the system dynamics that forces conflicts of resource accumulation. You want to say America bad (fair enough) versus China good (fair enough) …but in an infinite system, substitute Virgin Isles versus Faraoh Isles to get what I am saying. INFINITE GROWTH IN A FINITE SYSTEM LEADS TO WAR! OR ECOLOGICAL DISASTER??? It’s a dialectical dynamic; each drives the other to expand until… something has to give???

Moriartys Left Sock
Moriartys Left Sock
Dec 29, 2017 9:53 PM
Reply to  Big B

peak oil/gas etc is of course only an issue if the biogenic theory of hydrocarbons is correct. There’s still interesting anomalies that might indicate the abiotic theory still has potential
Just sayin 🙂
http://www.rense.com/general58/biot.htm

BigB
BigB
Dec 30, 2017 9:04 AM

MLS: I had this conversation with St Aug a while back. Anomalies yes, even some replenishment – but oil as a renewable resource?
It’s not that we don’t have enough oil (we have a surfeit ) – it’s that we don’t have enough HIGH QUALITY oil. The oil we have yet to find will be of decreasing quality (2nd Law.) That means (under the current mode of production – for profit ) the cost of extraction will rise: while the amount of societally available energy (exergy) will decline (EROI or EROEI – 2nd Law statement) The continued extractive hydrocarbon energetic input will become an increased drag on the global economy (assuming the continuance of debt based finance) – leading to unrecoverable or ‘stranded’ assets. Abiotic oil (even if it did exist) would likely fall into this category – economically unrecoverable.
(I don’t want to open up the AGW debate – but I would adhere to the fact that most of the remaining hydrocarbons (80%) should remain in the ground as unburnable carbon. But as we haven’t made the slightest provisions for a transition economy – that is a null point.)

Admin
Admin
Dec 30, 2017 3:47 PM
Reply to  BigB

The abiotic theory which MLS refers to argues that oil is not a product of fossil life forms but is produced by actions within the earth’s crust, and is therefore constantly replenishing or potentially replenishing.
But yes, let’s try not to open up the AGW debate again!

BigB
BigB
Dec 30, 2017 7:50 PM

Admin: I’m well aware of the abiotic oil theory (re: my discussion with St Aug). If it did exist, we would have to drill nearly six miles into the mantle of the earth to retrieve it. If, and IF: that is ever commercially viable – what would be the cost at the wellhead? Upstream of that, producers need a capex return (reinvestment ) plus profit …or in the case of a nationalised producer: they need to add the cost of their social superstructure. But the price they can charge is demand restricted by what debt crippled “secularly stagnant” economies can pay. Charging too much precipitates crises – economies and the price of oil crash …as the numerous oil shocks since the 70s prove. Besides which, most of the Big Oil majors have cannibalised their capex funds in the current slump – there is no money for new tech or deep exploration. So if it does exist, it would probably prove too costly to retrieve – absent some structural readjustment to our priorities …such as the US debt funding oil recovery instead of the permanent war MIC? On a hypothesis???

Jen
Jen
Dec 28, 2017 9:16 PM
Reply to  kevin morris

Are you able to put up links for your statements, especially the one about the hydroelectric scheme and the one about China’s “manifest destiny”?

kevin morris
kevin morris
Dec 29, 2017 4:52 AM
Reply to  Jen

I do understand your difficulty. Like most people, you have little appreciation of the history of the nation and you therefore seek ‘links’ to the views I express. Could I suggest that rather than seeking ‘links’, you do a little old fashioned reading of Chinese history? For if you did, you would find that China has always held a chauvinistic view of its own place in the world. Please don’t get me wrong. I understand fully how appallingly China was treated by the west and particularly the British during the nineteenth century, but speaking frankly, there is much to fear from China’s current rise. The Communists from Mao onward have been avid students of Chinese history and despite their public allegiences to Marxist-Leninism have wholeheartedly followed the ways of the Emperors, who always expected tribute from neighbouring countries.
As for China’s plans for the rivers rising in Tibet, a country it has illegally occupied since 1949, and where it has been accused by the International Commission of Jurists of having committed genocide, the information is all in the public domain. India has been at the forefront of expressions of concern. From the top of my head I suggest you turn to various strategic reviews published in India. There is some doubt as to whether the hydroelectric scheme, said to be the largest in the world, will actually happen, but the Chinese do plan to divert rivers that now flow south from Tibet, north, in order to irrigate areas of northern China that are desertified. You will understand that since almost all of Asia’s water rises on the Tibetan plateau, there is considerable concern as to China’s plans.
It is deplorable how scant in the west information is on China’s activities in south east Asia, but of course, countries actually effected by her activities are considerably less sanguine than we liberals tend to be here in the West. We owe it to ourselves to actually acquaint ourselves with the activities of China in its own backyard, for it is only by doing so that we will come to understand how a ‘pax Sinensis’ is likely to shape up when compared with the failings of pax Americana.

Admin
Admin
Dec 29, 2017 4:54 AM
Reply to  kevin morris

It’s not that your statements are being challenged as such, it’s just that we have a policy here of inviting people to source their facts as much as possible. If, as you say, all the info is in the public domain maybe you could share a couple of useful links here?

Jen
Jen
Dec 29, 2017 10:45 AM
Reply to  kevin morris

Asking for links to (presumably credible and trustworthy) sources from which you obtained material to support your statements about China’s “manifest destiny” and its plans for a hydroelectric scheme using the headwaters of major Asian rivers in Tibet is not an indication in itself of one’s knowledge (or lack thereof) of the country’s history. I only ask for the links to your sources so I can read and judge the information, and ascertain if the sources are reliable.
That Chinese people may have an inflated sense of their importance I do not dispute but to infer that they believe in an American-style “manifest destiny” is something else altogether. Over the past 400 years the Chinese spent more time being ruled by foreigners than by their own. During that period (and even before then) China had very little to do with foreigners unless they were forced by foreigners to deal with them. An avid student of Chinese history might well conclude that the Chinese of today are determined to be masters of their own fate and to be independent of others. Is that too much for the Chinese to ask for?

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 29, 2017 12:46 PM
Reply to  kevin morris

“Old fashioned reading”?
By that do you mean selective reading, uncritical reading, reading of edited material by CIA apologists? Or something else? Kevin, your posts do not suggest objectivity about China which you gratuitously inserted into this thread for reasons only you understand.
You do not give the impression of curiosity or of scholarship if you don’t mind me saying. So give links for us poor unwashed.

Big B
Big B
Dec 29, 2017 12:57 PM
Reply to  kevin morris

Kevin: as a long term follower of China’s morally bankrupt near total disregard for human, indigenous and biodiverse rights to life, I couldn’t agree with your last paragraph more. Especially on the scant regard and western liberal blindness to their economic anti-ecological hegemony. All the information is available: often from Chinese – and not neoliberal think tank or CIA – sources.
China is the world leading ecocidal and hydrological terrorist nation – a fact that they are only on the cusp of recognising and (so far) paying lip service to ameliorating (13th Congress; cutting back on some large scale dam projects; recent temporary factory closures to lessen air and water pollution; January 1st ban on “foreign garbage.”) However, they continue to be obsessed with large scale infrastructure: specifically to your point – large scale faux-green hydroelectric schemes to reduce carbon emissions. In doing so, they have (up to now) cared not for the environmental impact; biodiversity collapse; species extinction (the baiji river dolphin forced into functional extinction; the Irrawaddy river dolphin threatened with the same by Sambor dam in Cambodia); hydrological seismic activity (earthquakes); human displacement and immiseration (300mn displaced; cities, towns, and villages flooded; 8mn forced into poverty; 60% of river water unpotable; disappearing rivers; incidents of water borne disease and cancer from drinking contaminated water; etc); violating indigenous and ethnic rights; collapse of fishing and hydrological rights downsteam; blocking of fertile alluvial silts; seasonal algal blooms and hypoxic dead zones …or even carbon and methane emissions; resource depletion …has anyone looked at China’s cement, sand, steel consumption? Or their projected energy consumption???
Specifically, I believe you are talking about schemes on the Lancang (upper Mekong) and Yarlung Zangbo (Brahmaputra). The worlds largest hydro scheme is the Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze (check out its environmental impact?). You might be thinking of the proposed scheme on the Great Bend of the Yarlung? There are also plans to dam the Nu (Sarween) – the last free flowing river in Tibet. The South-North water diversion is from the Yangtze to the arid Northern Plain (which may or may not drain the Han river?); the water diversion in Tibet is only proposed – for now.
[There is no one stop resource on this. People will have to do their own research. I have given enough search terms. Start with International Rivers.org (don’t be put off that it is Rockefeller funded – the information is accurate, based on survey and cross-referenceable.)]
Will China be able to turn back the clock thirty years and reverse its so far anti-life and environment policies – whilst still maintaining its economic growth vectors …on which the world economy is over-reliant? Can China afford the cost of the environmental cleanup (formerly an externality to growth) given its overburdened debt-funded expansionism? Can the world afford for Chinese economic expansion; exponential compounded growth; resource hoarding and accelerated depletion? Will they be able to return their commons (land, sea, air and water) to a fertile and sustainable condition – or is it too late to avoid a hydrological systemic collapse? Will they export their hitherto non-existent environmental standards along the nodes of OBOR-BRI – as they have in encroaching into Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia? Is a large scale infrastructure approach to economic expansion viable or in any way sustainable? At any ecological cost???
That China has become the hopium of the western liberal mind escapes me.
[Jen: when you say the Chinese of today wanting to ‘independently’ control their own fate …what the CCP “People’s Democratic Dictatorship” wants versus what the people want – the latter maybe just to be able to breathe the air and drink the water? Is that too much to ask for???]

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 29, 2017 2:12 PM
Reply to  Big B

There are people and nations who are natively so aggressive they need to invent opponents and smear them,
Having been to China several times over the last 20 years, their progress has been astounding. The pollution has spectacularly improved and I am confident that improvement dwarfs the lack of improvement in the US. And the plight of the average Chinese, which I am sure you fret about, has also improved dramatically. Left to the pillage mentality of the US and UK where would they be?
“big” Bob eh? From the bigger is better walk of life? Short on outlets for your hatred and aggression?

Big B
Big B
Dec 29, 2017 6:33 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

George: I think you are on the wrong site – such is your manifest deep love of globalist, neoliberal, exploitative, extractivist expansionist capitalism? Whether it is displayed by the ruling class of the US, UK, or China (or anyone else) bothers me not – I draw no distinction. Whether imperial or economic/trade based capitalism makes little difference either – it is the acculturated ethos of the ruling ‘upper one percent’ …unchecked exponential compound growth (capitalism) will destroy our planet. The only thing we get to decide is the timescale.
China is decades behind America, but following the same pattern of race to the bottom ‘development.’ Indeed, they have made ‘improvements’ – but, environmentally and socially, at what cost? You asked for links: then, if I am not mistaken – didn’t bother to follow them? China still has a huge environmental problem – particularly hydrologically speaking as I highlighted. And the growing need for urban water supplies and clean, cheap, renewable power (to which their current strategy confers none of the above) can only exacerbate the situation. In China, and with their trans-border neighbours. But you refuse to address that?
China has indeed raised millions out of agrarian poverty – to create a new petty-bourgeois consumer class. In fact, nearly all the global neoliberal wealth creation in past decades has been in China. This makes the so called raising out of poverty statistics for the rest of the world look pretty grim. Applied globally: it is a false metric. Now it has stalled. For every new millionaire, many tens of hundreds of thousands have been dispossessed – creating the biggest internal migration and urbanisation of a population ever seen. Deng’s reforms created a reserve army of second class, rightless, easily exploitable labour. This too has stalled. Workers wages, so long depressed by the unemployed precariat underclass – from which China’s massive industrialisation and export led market development sprung is faltering. They have a crisis of over-accumulation (of capital) and over-production (‘ghost cities’, etc) which they intend to export (OBOR-BRI) …to re-import to feed internal petty-bourgeois consumption. Regardless of how that is done (trade v imperialism) – that can only develop in two ways: growing polarisation, alienation, exploitation, wealth concentration, mass unemployment, and inequality – or economic over-reach, economic and/or environmental crisis, with the possible consequence of [at least partial] societal collapse. But they probably didn’t teach Marx in your cosy bubble economics neo-classical ‘let the market decide’ school of bourgeois economics? Or the biophysical and ecological consequences of infinite growth for growths sake (cancer paradigm) in a finite bound system???
For the individual Chinese worker and dispossessed farmer: the indigenous fisherman in neighbouring countries – whose livelihood becomes increasingly threatened – and for the preservation for all of the biosphere …I call that no progress at all.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 29, 2017 6:44 PM
Reply to  Big B

No progress at all? Really? You must go to China and soon. It has been near miraculous and it is time to give credit where it is due.
And it is what you hear from Chinese at all levels. Go see. True there are few murders and little violence, and their infrastructure is as healthy now as in the US, faint praise as that is, but they do have more than a billion people.
I am with you about the ubiquitous malevolence of the 1% . But America’s one percent whips the backsides of the others?

Admin
Admin
Dec 29, 2017 6:45 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

Surely the 1% have little interest in national borders?

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 29, 2017 7:28 PM
Reply to  Admin

Hmm..
Not so sure. No interest in where the money comes from, that is sure but faux patriotism is firmly embraced and nations that cement the status and safeguard the rights of the 1% to serially screw their fellow citizens are pheromonal for them to take up residence..
Corruption has replaced disease and malnutrition as the leading plague of the world and the smiling grinning smirking faces of the 1% have become their poster effigies. Tax breaks make the recipients smile even more broadly.

Big B
Big B
Dec 29, 2017 7:09 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

George: I can’t argue in the slightest about the “ubiquitous malevolence of the 1%” …I’m just not sure you can distinguish them by country? They have developed a trans-national life-destroying self-multiplying money sequence – beyond borders or national allegiance. And for all the talk of the gold backed petro Yuan and ‘de-dollarisation’ – China has yet to end its export dependency. Until it does, the Yuan is a dollar vassal – to which it is pegged. To those to whom capital accrues – is there even a ‘China’ or ‘America’? Or is there is only money???
[I never made it to China: the closest I got was Hong Kong – I didn’t like it. About the universal approval of the Chinese you’ve met – ever heard of the “turkeys that vote for Christmas”? Marx had something to say about that too?]

JTMcPhee
JTMcPhee
Dec 29, 2017 2:49 PM
Reply to  Big B

The people who own and rule China aren’t much different from the people that own and rule “the West.” A bunch of self-serving looters. And the billions that provide the real wealth and “personpower” to undergird the world political economy with all its toxins and dysfunctions are likewise all too human. All this effort to demonize “yellow people” as a distraction from the looting that benefit (at a fast declining rate) us mopes and feed the insatiable greeds and hegemomania of the elite that own us is entertaining, in a sick sort of way — I imagine that politically aware people in Rome and now Britain and the US and other dead and dying empires took perverse pleasure in knowing that what was and is taking them down will also, apparently part of an inevitable process, take down the rest of us. Though one might recall that the worst of the Third Reichists managed to escape to comfortable old ages, with the gold from the teeth of murdered non-Aryans, much of the art treasures of Europe and the rest of the world to fund them. Often with the connivance and assistance and cooperation of US and British “elites.” And the 0.01% that are bleeding, drowning and burning the rest of us (with way too much cooperation and involvement on our well-propagandized parts) likewise have prepared for their own flight before the flames and floods seriously threaten them.
So to me, it does not matter whether the broad “informed” claims of people who would distract us ordinary folks who seem to be groping for a modus vivendi that shows a hope of survival for our species and a chance of decent lives of comity, bother to document and support their claims about the Enemy(ies) du Jour. We mopes ought to be pulling on the same end of the rope that also ought to be in the hands of the mopes in China and Afghanistan and Venezuela and Nigeria. Instead, we let the Mockingbird-style operations, that generate that so-easily-exploitable flood of “fear, uncertainty and doubt” that inundates us with ‘content” both traditional and intertubed, keep us in line, keep us blinded to the overseers with their whips and goads and nooses. Said overseers, of course, whipped and goaded by smaller cadres of overseers up the chain of power, ruled by people whose most poignant catch phrase is “Apres nous le deluge.” http://tradicionclasica.blogspot.com/2006/01/expression-aprs-moi-le-dluge-and-its.html
From what I observe and retain of history, that listing (with selective shading and commentary) of “What’s happened,” of course, and from my insights into human nature (limited, like all of ours), I have to offer that thus it has always been, thus it will always be. More’s the pity. And disingenuous efforts to divert all argument into “us versus them, and they are much worse than us” will continue to succeed, because most of us can;t begin to perceive or keep in mind all the different ways the looters and thieves and egotists are screwing us and the planet we perforce must try to survive on.

Jen
Jen
Dec 29, 2017 8:34 PM
Reply to  Big B

Big B, Kevin Morris and others can argue all they like about which nation is the greatest threat to the world’s ecosystems but I prefer to believe that the world’s greatest environmental villain is the US Department of Defense.
I will quote from one source (dated 2010) at this link:
http://projectcensored.org/2-us-department-of-defense-is-the-worst-polluter-on-the-planet/
As it stands, the Department of Defense is the largest polluter in the world, producing more hazardous waste than the five largest US chemical companies combined. Depleted uranium, petroleum, oil, pesticides, defoliant agents such as Agent Orange, and lead, along with vast amounts of radiation from weaponry produced, tested, and used, are just some of the pollutants with which the US military is contaminating the environment. Flounders identifies key examples:
– Depleted uranium: Tens of thousands of pounds of microparticles of radioactive and highly toxic waste contaminate the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Balkans.
– US-made land mines and cluster bombs spread over wide areas of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East continue to spread death and destruction even after wars have ceased.
– Thirty-five years after the Vietnam War, dioxin contamination is three hundred to four hundred times higher than “safe” levels, resulting in severe birth defects and cancers into the third generation of those affected.
– US military policies and wars in Iraq have created severe desertification of 90 percent of the land, changing Iraq from a food exporter into a country that imports 80 percent of its food.
– In the US, military bases top the Superfund list of the most polluted places, as perchlorate and trichloroethylene seep into the drinking water, aquifers, and soil.
– Nuclear weapons testing in the American Southwest and the South Pacific Islands has contaminated millions of acres of land and water with radiation, while uranium tailings defile Navajo reservations.
– Rusting barrels of chemicals and solvents and millions of rounds of ammunition are criminally abandoned by the Pentagon in bases around the world.
The United States is planning an enormous $15 billion military buildup on the Pacific island of Guam. The project would turn the thirty-mile-long island into a major hub for US military operations in the Pacific. It has been described as the largest military buildup in recent history and could bring as many as fifty thousand people to the tiny island. Chamoru civil rights attorney Julian Aguon warns that this military operation will bring irreversible social and environmental consequences to Guam. As an unincorporated territory, or colony, and of the US, the people of Guam have no right to self-determination, and no governmental means to oppose an unpopular and destructive occupation.

Here’s another source but I won’t quote from that as my comment is long enough already:
http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2012/10/02/filthy-war-machine-us-military-industrial-complex-worlds-worst-polluter/
Both sources are over 5 years old but I doubt very little has changed for the better since they were first posted.

Jen
Jen
Dec 29, 2017 8:37 PM
Reply to  Jen

Italics should have stopped before “Here’s another source …” – WordPress is so lousy at recognising end coding.

Admin
Admin
Dec 29, 2017 8:40 PM
Reply to  Jen

fixed

Jen
Jen
Dec 30, 2017 3:25 AM
Reply to  Admin

Thanks for doing that, much appreciated!

Big B
Big B
Dec 29, 2017 9:26 PM
Reply to  Jen

Yes, I totally accept that – especially having made the point myself many a time. I was referencing the more parochial and hydrological impact that China is having …well, mainly in China, for the moment – although it is beginning to transfer across borders (China withheld hydrological data during the recent Doklam Standoff with India – or bunfight in the Himalayas. But imagine if that ever turned to war? China would have quite a strategic advantage?) Anyway, although I didn’t give a specific reference – I hope I gave some detail and a starting point for research into the environmental impact of so many large scale dams (22,000 I believe.) I probably overspoke – I am not against China per se – its the dam [sic!] system of compound growth capitalism that I abhor!

Jen
Jen
Dec 30, 2017 3:36 AM
Reply to  Big B

I believe Turkey has a similar stranglehold over water supplies to Iraq and Syria by damming the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in its territory. Both Iraq and Syria have accused Turkey of causing water shortages in the past through its dam projects.
Count the number of dams Turkey has built in its Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi (Southeastern Anatolia Project):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeastern_Anatolia_Project#Dams
Plenty of potential for Turkey to turn off the tap and then accuse Iraq and Syria of mismanaging their water resources, don’t you think?

BigB
BigB
Dec 30, 2017 8:15 AM
Reply to  Jen

Exactly so: Devil’s emissary John McCain went to Turkey …shortly after, the Euphrates ceased to flow.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/syrias-water-cut-off-by-turkey-following-mccain-erdogan-meeting/225483/
Fortunately for Syraq: whilst still maintaining a somewhat ambiguous role – Turkey seems to have switched sides since then. No doubt, they want to sell back all the machinery they stole from Aleppo? 😉

Paul
Paul
Dec 28, 2017 6:27 PM

It’s a powerful argument. What is described can be seen on a daily basis. Tor example today the BBC leads with the release of the sick from the rebel enclave near Damascus; its a story they’ve been running for some days along the lines “Will evil Assad at least help this kid?” With a few exchanges yesterday the story became more nuanced; One baby was reported to have died before evacuation. Then there was the UN official who reported children were being used as “tickets” – Maybe Assad was actually up to no good? So it goes on. Not one mention that the jihadi militants keeping 400,000 hostage regularly use untargeted mortar bombs to harass citizens in the city and send in suicide bombers. The Guardian is as enthusiastic about the story but neither they or the BBC can find space to report that 68 people were killed yesterday in Saudi airstrikes in the Yemen. That makes 109 in the last 10 days, at least two on busy markets, presumably part of the “starve them” policy. No room either to ask who provides the bombs that rain down on the heads of these impoverished starving tribesmen of the mountains; who provides the planes, trains the pilots and helps in intelligence and targeting and crucially who gives the Saudis the diplomatic support to allow them to blatantly commit war crimes in the face of the World? No answers of course, they are much happier talking about slippery old Dictator Assad and the “horrendous” Russian bombs falling on IS and their ilk. Such observance of a tight one line narrative, across the whole of the MSM must surely suggest utterly corrupted media owners, Editors and journalists?

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 28, 2017 6:51 PM
Reply to  Paul

Yep, utter corruption says it well. Journalists for the MSM are often the counterparts of those who enabled the Weinstein, Toback Polanski, et al. abuses. All it takes for evil to triumph….

archie1954
archie1954
Dec 28, 2017 6:25 PM

A very sad commentary of today’s Western culture. I have always considered Russia to be a Western nation but the US empire and its puppet allies do not believe so, or in the alternative use propaganda to make it seem like Russia isn’t part of Western culture. Forget its Christianity, its national ballet, its national composers, its capitalism, its nascent democracy and all other Western cultural icons. Both Washington and London have a major problem when it comes to accepting another Western nation into their private club. Why? Maybe because this potential new addition will not take second billing!

Michel Leigh
Michel Leigh
Dec 28, 2017 10:24 PM
Reply to  archie1954

Well ARCHIE1954 I suspect, it will be less than the year 2954 when you will have to use a microscope to find the USA on a map of the world, because it is obvious that when the North American nation of the USA is no longer united it current ruling oligarchs will have flown the proverbial nest.

Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
Dec 28, 2017 6:01 PM

There is no question of the West’s hypocrisy with regard to Russia, but to portray Russia as simply a victim of imperialism like other downtrodden peoples of the earth is plainly nonsense. For centuries until 1991 Russia was one of the great European imperial powers and this reached its height in terms of size and tyranny in the Soviet years. To simply ignore this is to devalue anything worthwhile is this superficial and reactive article.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 28, 2017 6:18 PM
Reply to  Andrew Watson

No they are not choir boys, like I imagine you see the West? But they have been a victim of imperialism in the recent past, as in the meddling by the US in the Ukraine etc. The recorded phone call between Victoria Fuck the EU Nuland and the American ambassador said it all, attitude, hypocrisy, lying, cheating, manipulation, immorality, dishonesty etc. The fraud that is American foreign aid can now be seen for what it is. A sneaky attempt to subvert the will and interests of of the locals in many locales, and the support for innumerable dictators has been a cynical scheme aimed at justifying the intrusion of American troops. The superpowers are not all the same.

MichaelK
MichaelK
Dec 28, 2017 4:48 PM

Johnson reflects the almost total degeneracy of what passes for ‘British deplomacy’ these days. It’s become an embarrassing, grotesque, farce. Johnson makes Jeltsin and Berlusconi seem smooth, skilled and elegant master diplomats in comparison! I suppose this is what happens when a once powerful nation lurches towards terminal decline, like the US too, fools, knaves and charismatic charlatans push their way into positions of power and the old order cracks open an begins to fall apart. What once seemed solid and inspired awe begins to crumble and the imposing edifice of the state slips into a dangerous kind of pantomime.

Michel Leigh
Michel Leigh
Dec 28, 2017 10:34 PM
Reply to  MichaelK

You would do well MIKAELK to remember Mr B Johnson own ethnic antecedents and note; How is it possible that a tax-resident USA citizen can hold the British Monarchs warrant, and, contrary to the USA law be allowed to owe allegiance to a State, other than the USA ?

vierotchka
vierotchka
Dec 29, 2017 12:06 AM
Reply to  Michel Leigh

Johnson was born on 19 June 1964 at a hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, to British parents. His birth was registered with both the US authorities and the city’s British Consulate and he was granted both American and British citizenship.

MICHAEL LEIGH
MICHAEL LEIGH
Apr 7, 2018 2:37 PM
Reply to  vierotchka

Well, VIEROTCHKA thank you for the biographic details. But, surely if Alexandra de Pfeffer Johnson still uses his USA passport in particularly to shelter his USA income based literary efforts to avoid UK taxation!
But presumably, ‘ Boris the Coke-Head ‘ could find his being required to re-state all income worldwide to the US Internal Revenue, based upon the ‘ actual percentage of the income ‘ being of US origination at some future date?

vierotchka
vierotchka
Apr 7, 2018 9:19 PM
Reply to  MICHAEL LEIGH

His full name is Alexander (not Alexandra which is a feminine name) Boris de Pfeffel (not de Pfeffer) Johnson. 🙂

John A
John A
Dec 29, 2017 10:22 AM
Reply to  Michel Leigh

As I understand it, BJ gave up his US citizenship a few years ago because he refused to accept double taxation on his earnings. The US tax authorities had sent him a massive bill for capital gains and other tax claims which he was disinclined to pay and therefore shredded his US passport. Strange really, as only the little people famously pay taxes there.

John A
John A
Dec 28, 2017 2:29 PM

In 1949, fresh from the trauma of Nazi occupation in WWII, the Norwegian government passed a declaration that no foreign power would be allowed to build a base in Norway.
Every since the Nazi invasion, Norwegian resistance fighters bravely opposed the occupation. After those traumatic times, in 1949, the Norwegian government passed a declaration that no foreign power would be allowed to build a base in Norway. Now, the US is building a permanent base in Værnes, set to be home to 3,000 permanent US troops and ultimately the chief NATO base in Europe.
Amazing how times and mindsets change about what constitutes occupation and resistance.
Yet no western MSM dare be critical of this. Our European way of life is under threat – not from the east but from across the Atlantic, that if unopposed, will bring an end to healthcare for all, pensions, education, health and safety regulations, proper food and hasten the Americanisation of everything from mindless TV to gmo junkfood, obesity and ignorance. A terrifying prospect.
All the nazi occupied countries had resistance movements. None of the NATO occupied countries have. Goebels is despised for his propaganda skills, but not the western MSM. However, I see no difference between the two.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 28, 2017 4:03 PM
Reply to  John A

When last I looked the US already had bases in 185 countries and they started actually using this fact as a recruitment point in telly ads in NA. Until they realized most people had no idea how far the obsessive occupying disease had spread, many were appalled, and the ads were pulled. That’s right, they didn’t want others to know.
The article makes several good points but after having lived in the UK for 15 years, the image of the average Brit, unable to name their own PM half the time, and sitting stuporously watching nightly WWII reruns and footie replays of 1966, is actually spot on. Little Britain is far too complimentary, they aren’t nearly that sophisticated. Brexit or Brumsrush?

Michel Leigh
Michel Leigh
Dec 28, 2017 10:44 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

I am most surprised GEORGECORNELL that your 15 year stay in the formerly ” Great Britain ” – was so “Mid Western ” ?

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 28, 2017 10:53 PM
Reply to  Michel Leigh

I miss your meaning or intent Michael. Are your quotation marks in order?

MICHAEL LEIGH
MICHAEL LEIGH
Apr 7, 2018 2:47 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

Greetings GEORGE while I do not question the validity of your observation of the UK during your residence.
But the quotation marks were intended to underline how ‘ a typically American ‘ some parts of GB have become ! ! !

George Cornell
George Cornell
Apr 7, 2018 4:37 PM
Reply to  MICHAEL LEIGH

Fair enough Michael

rtj1211
rtj1211
Dec 28, 2017 4:06 PM
Reply to  John A

We cannot have Americans influencing politics or elections, that would be like the Russians!
So every American lobbyist overseas must be deported, every TV journalist prevented from opining about elections and every US diplomat declared free of CIA/NSA election-rigging illnesses….
Much less severe than stamping a Yankee signal on every US forehead overseas, is it not?! We must not be compared to nazis, after all….

vexarb
vexarb
Dec 28, 2017 5:59 PM
Reply to  John A

Not only Norway. There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark and of Sweden. I think it may be the smell of Arctic oil; or a leak from their stocks of “stench agent” for adding to the Arctic gas which they hope to own when they help NATZO to conquer Russia. This time they are confident of succeeding where a Khan of the Tartars, a King of Sweden, an Emperor of France and a Leader of the Master Race failed in the past. Because they are part of NATZO — the largest, the most expensive and the loudest army on Earth. “No one can resist our armed might”, as UK War Minister Robinson in the BLiar regime announced to the world while standing proud on a NATO tank in beaten and broken Serbia (pop. 7 million). True, Russia (pop. 300M) is a lot bigger than Serbia — nearly as big as the EUSA (pop. 700M). But Russia isnt even as rich as little Scandiwegia, and far farmfar far far less advanced. Uncle $cam has assured the whiter than snow Arctic Democracies that “Russia is nothing but a gas station masquerading as a country”. Get ready with that stench agent; it will be a walk in the park.

kweladave
kweladave
Dec 28, 2017 8:31 PM
Reply to  vexarb

@Vexarb
“True, Russia (pop. 300M) …”
2017 estimates, Russian population about 144.5 millions, USA around 325m
Russia’s national income lower than Italy’s but slightly more than Spain’s! California’s economy is greater than Russia’s.

Michel Leigh
Michel Leigh
Dec 28, 2017 11:00 PM
Reply to  vexarb

It looks as if you VEXARB have become blinded by your own wit, because a little verity: it should demonstrate to you that ‘ the richest gas station’ is also the largest and richest nation in the world, with only a mere population total 160 million people.
And that should explain to everybody why the reckless and criminal elements who control North America are prepared, in spite of the enormous nuclear casualties and deaths to steal by hook and crook the Russian Federation as soon as possible!

vierotchka
vierotchka
Dec 29, 2017 12:02 AM
Reply to  vexarb

The current population of the Russian Federation is 143,977,402 as of Thursday, December 28, 2017, based on the latest United Nations estimates.

vexarb
vexarb
Dec 29, 2017 7:58 PM
Reply to  vierotchka

@dave, michel and vera. Thanks for that correction: Russian pop. only half as large as I thought — so it ought to be twice as easy for NATZO.
“All we have to do is kick in the door …” (The Leader, 1940).
“I wish I had led the Russians …” (The Leader, 1945).

vexarb
vexarb
Dec 30, 2017 5:29 AM
Reply to  vexarb

300M was the population of the USSR 1990. I seem to be living in the past.

vierotchka
vierotchka
Dec 30, 2017 1:06 PM
Reply to  vexarb

The 1989 Soviet census (Russian: Всесоюзная перепись населения 1989, “1989 All-Union Census”), conducted between 12-19 January of that year, was the last one that took place in the former USSR. The census found the total population to be 286,730,819 inhabitants.[1] In 1989, the Soviet Union ranked as the third most populous in the world, above the United States (with 248,709,873 inhabitants according to the 1 April 1990 census), although it was well behind China and India.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1989)

vierotchka
vierotchka
Dec 28, 2017 2:18 PM

A while back I created a joke:
What is the difference betweenBoris Johnson and Donald Trump?
Boris Johnson is a natural blonde…