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Can Russia and China Survive this Unharmonious World?

Andre Vltchek

Does it pay ‘to be good’? Is it still possible to play by the rules in this mad world, governed by brigands?

What if the rules are defined and ratified by all countries of the world, but a small group of the strongest (militarily) nations totally ignores them, while using its professional propagandists to reinterpret them in the most bizarre ways?

Describing the world, I often feel that I am back in my primary school.

When I was a child, I had the misfortune of growing up in a racist Czechoslovakia. Being born in the Soviet Union, and having an half Russian and half Asian mother, I was brutally beaten up between classes, from the age of seven. I was systematically attacked by a gang of boys, and humiliated and hit for having ‘Asian ears’, for having an ‘Asian mother’, for being Russian.

During winters, my shoes were taken out into the bitter cold and pissed into. The urine turned into ice. The only consolation was that ‘at least’ I was Russian and Chinese. If I was a Gypsy (Roma) boy, I would most likely not have made it, at least without losing an eye, or without having my hands broken.

I tried to be polite. I did my best to ‘play by the rules’. I fought back, first only half-heartedly.

Until one day, when a kid who lived next door, fired his air gun and barely missed my eye. Just like that, simply because I was Russian… and Asian, just because he had nothing better to do, at that particular moment. And because he felt so proud to be Czech and European. Also, because I refused to eat their shit, to accept their ‘superiority’, and humiliate myself in front of them. Both mother and I were miserable in Czechoslovakia, both of us dreamt about our Leningrad. But she made a personal mistake and we were stuck in a hostile, provincial and bombastic society which wanted to “go back to Europe”, and once again be part of the bloc of countries, which has been ruling and oppressing the world, for centuries.

The air gun and almost losing my eye turned out to be the last straw. I teamed up with my friend, Karel, whose only ‘guilt’ was that at 10, he weighed almost 100 kilograms. It was not his fault, it was a genetic issue, but the kids also ridiculed him, eventually turning him into a punching bag. He was a gentle, good-natured kid who loved music and science-fiction novels. We were friends. We used to plan our space travels towards the distant galaxies, together. But at that point, we said ‘enough’! We hit back, terribly. After two or three years of suffering, we began fighting the gang, with the same force and brutality that they had applied towards us and in fact towards all those around us who were ‘different’, or at least weak and defenseless.

And we won. Not by reason, but by courage and strength. I wish we did not have to fight, but we had no choice. We soon discovered, how strong we were. And once we began, the only way to survive was to win the battle. And we did win. The kids, who used to torment us, were actually cowards. Once we won and secured some respect, we also began sheltering and protecting the ‘others’, mainly weak boys and girls from our school, who were also suffering attacks from the gang of those ‘normal’, white, and mainstream Czechs.

*

There are self-proclaimed rulers of the world: Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. And there are two other groups: the nations which are fully cooperating with the West (such as Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, South Korea, Colombia or Uganda), and those that are decisively refusing to accept Western dictates, such as Russia, China, DPRK, Syria, Eritrea, Iran, South Africa, Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia.

The first group does almost nothing to change the world. It goes with the flow. It accepts the rule of the bullies. It collaborates, and while it is at it, tries to at least gain some privileges, most of the time unsuccessfully.

The second group is well aware of the dismal state of the world. It maneuvers, resists, and sometimes fights for its survival, or for the survival of others. It tries to stick to its principles, or to what used to be called ‘universal values’.

But can it really survive without confrontation?

The West does not tolerate any dissent. Its culture has been, for centuries, exceedingly aggressive, bellicose, and extremist: “You are with us, that is ‘under us’, or you are against us. If against us, you will be crushed and shackled, robbed, raped, beaten and in the end, forced to do what we order, anyway.”

Russia is perhaps the only nation which has survived, unconquered and for centuries, but at the unimaginable price of tens of millions of its people. It has been invaded, again and again, by the Scandinavians, French, Brits, Germans, and even Czechs. The attacks occurred regularly, justified by bizarre rhetoric: ‘Russia was strong’, or ‘it was weak’. It was attacked ‘because of its Great October Socialist Revolution’, or simply because it was Communist. Any grotesque ‘justification’ was just fine, as far as the West was concerned. Russia had to be invaded, plundered and terribly injured just because it was resisting, because it stood on its feet, and free.

Even the great China could not withstand Western assaults. It was broken, divided, humiliated; its capital city ransacked by the French and Brits.

Nothing and no one could survive the Western assaults: in the end, not even the proud and determined Afghanistan.

*

A Chinese scholar Li Gang wrote in his The Way We Think: Chinese View of Life Philosophy:

“Harmony” is an important category of thought in traditional Chinese culture. Although the concept initially comes from philosophy, it stands for a stable and integrated social life. It directly influences Chinese people’s way of thinking and dealing with the world… In the ancient classic works of China, “harmony” can, in essence, be understood as being harmonious. Ancient people stressed the harmony of the universe and the natural environment, the harmony between humans and nature, and what is more, the harmony between people… Traditional Chinese people take the principle as a way of life and they try their best to have friendly and harmonious relations. In order to reach “harmony”, people treat each other with sincerity, tolerance and love, and do not interfere in other people’s business. As the saying goes, “Well water does not intrude into river water”

Could anything be further from the philosophy of Western culture, which is based on the constant need to interfere, conquer and control?

Can countries like China, or Iran, or Russia, really survive in a world that is being controlled by aggressive European and North American dogmas?

Or more precisely: could they survive peacefully, without being dragged into bloodstained confrontations?

*

The onset of the 21st Century is clearly indicating that ‘peaceful resistance’ to brutal Western attacks is counter-productive.

Begging for peace, at forums such as the United Nations, has been leading absolutely nowhere. One country after another has collapsed, and had no chance to be treated justly and to be protected by international law: Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya.

The West and its allies like Saudi Arabia or Israel are always above the law. Or more precisely, they are the law. They twist and modify the law however it suits them; their political or business interests.

Harmony? No, they are absolutely not interested in things like harmony. And even if a huge country like China is, then it is seen as weak, and immediately taken advantage of.

Can the world survive if a group of countries plays totally against all the rules, while most of the planet tries to stick, meticulously, to international laws and regulations?

It can, but it would create a totally twisted, totally perverse world, as ours actually already is. It would be a world of impunity on one end, and of fear, slavery and servility at the other.

And it is not going to be a ‘peaceful world’, anyway, because the oppressor will always want more and more; it will not be satisfied until it is in total, absolute control of the planet.

Accepting tyranny is not an option.

So then, what is? Are we too scared to pronounce it?

If a country is attacked, it should defend itself, and fight.

As Russia did on so many occasions. As Syria is doing, at great sacrifice, but proudly. As Venezuela will and should do, if assaulted.

China and Russia are two great cultures, which were to some extent influenced by the West. When I say ‘influenced’, I mean forcefully ‘penetrated’, broken into, brutally violated. During that violent interaction, some positive elements of Western culture assimilated in the brains of its victims: music, food, even city planning. But the overall impact was extremely negative, and both China and Russia suffered, and have been suffering, greatly.

For decades, the West has been unleashing its propaganda and destructive forces, to ‘contain’ and devastate both countries at their core. The Soviet Union was tricked into Afghanistan and into a financially unsustainable arms race, and literally broken into pieces. For several dark years, Russia was facing confusion, intellectual, moral and social chaos, as well as humiliation. China got penetrated with extreme ‘market forces’, its academic institutions were infiltrated by armies of anti-Communist ‘intellectual’ warriors from Europe and North America.

The results were devastating. Both countries – China and Russia – were practically under attack, and forced to fight for their survival.

Both countries managed to identify the treat. They fought back, regrouped, and endured. Their cultures and their identities survived.

China is now a confident and powerful nation, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping. Present-day Russia under the presidency of Vladimir Putin is one of the mightiest nations on earth, not only militarily, but also morally, intellectually and scientifically.

This is precisely what the West cannot ‘forgive’. With each new brilliant electric vehicle China produces, with each village embracing the so-called “Ecological Civilization”, the West panics, smears China, portrays it as an evil state. The more internationalist Russia becomes, the more it protects nations ruined by the West – be it Syria or Venezuela – more relentless are West’s attacks against its President, and its people.

Both China and Russia are using diplomacy for as long as it is constructive, but this time, when confronted with force, they indicate their willingness to use strength to defend themselves.

They are well aware of the fact that this is the only way to survive.

For China, harmony is essential. Russia also has developed its own concept of global harmony based on internationalist principles. There is hardly any doubt that under the leadership of China and Russia, our world would be able to tackle the most profound problems that it has been facing.

But harmony can only be implemented when there is global concept of goodwill, or at least a decisive dedication to save the world.

If a group of powerful nations is only obsessed with profits, control and plunder, and if it behaves like a thug for several long centuries, one has to act, and to defend the world; if there is no alternative, by force!

Only after victory, can true harmony be aimed at.

At the beginning of this essay, I told a story from my childhood, which I find symbolic.

One can compromise, one can be diplomatic, but never if one’s dignity and freedom was at risk. One can never negotiate indefinitely with those who are starving and enslaving billions of human beings, all over the world.

Venezuela, Syria, Afghanistan and so many countries are now bleeding. Soon, Iran could be confronted. And Nicaragua. And DPRK. And perhaps China and Russia themselves could face yet another Western invasion.

A ‘harmonious world’ may have to be built later; definitely one day, but a little bit later.

First, we have to make sure that our humanity survives and that Western fascism cannot consume further millions of innocent human lives.

Like me and my big childhood friend Karel at an elementary school in former Czechoslovakia; Russia and China may have to once again stand up and confront ‘unharmonious barbarity’; they may have to fight, in order to prevent an even greater disaster.

They do not want to; they will do everything possible to prevent war. But the war is already raging. Western colonialism is back. The brutal gang of North American and European countries is blocking the road, clenching fists, shooting at everyone who dares to look up, and to meet their gaze: “Would you dare?” their eyes are saying.

“Yes, we would!” is the only correct answer.

First published by NEO – New Eastern Outlook

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Peter Underwood
Peter Underwood
Mar 18, 2019 10:26 AM

An excellent article and I can’t disagree with the writer’s sentiment and I feel sorry that he had to experience bullying at school; this is however, only too common everywhere and is symptomatic of human nature, even later in life, in the workplace too.

Well, we can’t change the embedded pugilistic nature within our pysche but we can try to control it by understanding our inner emotions and feelings. As a humanistic counsellor I have worked on many cases involving a wide range of issues concerning this subject. It is possible to find sanctury within a hostile environment. The ‘good man’ advised to “turn the other cheek” and there is much to be welcomed in this approach. “Revenge is mine, saith the Lord”

Violence begets more violence and is never an answer in a conflict situation. Life managment skills can be learned,, often with professional help. It is admirable that the rulers of the targetted states are displaying restraint and the writer has touched on some key points, nevertheless this does not excuse the nature of the regimes quoted which are all totalitarian and restrict the personal liberty that we enjoy in the West, (which is being diminished gradually it is true)

No mention is made of the ‘social credit system’ in play in China, the secret police in Russia and the oppression of disedents in DRNK or Iran. I for one would not wish to live under these restrictive covenants. But there is no doubt that conflict is extant and only effective diplomacy can prevail IMHO.

I have written a book about all this and the resultant global financial and economic crisis we are facing today. A free pdf of my manuscript Part 1 is available on request to: [email protected]

If you wish to preview the Part 2 (preparing pyschologically for the crisis to come soon) ask for this short Introduction too.

PeterK
PeterK
Mar 18, 2019 7:28 AM

You should take Andre Vltchek story about his childhood with a big grain of salt because he is known to make up stories to go with his narrative…

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 18, 2019 10:14 AM
Reply to  PeterK

scur·ril·ous
adjective
making or spreading scandalous claims about someone with the intention of damaging their reputation.

binra
binra
Mar 17, 2019 6:02 PM

Calling on grievance as justification for vengeance is worshipping hate and becoming its agency of expression into your world.
Waking to integrity of being is not the same as hating and fighting evils seen in others and so it can act in defence as a forceful expression of a freedom claimed, instead of waging war as if to get it back.
The article is the age old ‘what would you do if’ scenario that is rolled out to pacifists or non compliant cannon fodder. The sketching out of violation is always a clear cut case that is framed as to allow no other answer than fight of be violated.
There is always a lot more involved.
I don’t think the right to self defence is in question though – but rather, HOW best to deal with baiting, provocations, coercions and deceits. My sense of Putin’s response is that his ‘goodness’ is also a realpolitik.
When dealing with an armed and insane superpower, the core issues are to not be baited into the same mind of madness, to protect and preserve and promote sanity wherever it can be achieved, and to extend an ongoing integrity of self-interest that is willing to negotiate mutual outcomes. Thus there is a willingness to cooperate in areas where cooperation is possible, even while understanding that others may to use any and every opportunity to weaponise any weakness shown.
The idea of a multipolar world is one that can find some sense of flowing equilibrium or balance. The monopoly idea is destructive to life and renders the mind of its intent, insane or operating from corrupted thought.
Hating bullies is easy. Using the experience to grow in self awareness and integrity – and therefore in capacity to move through fear, is more involved.

Thomas Prentice
Thomas Prentice
Mar 17, 2019 4:44 PM

I had a similar experience in elementary school when the neighborhood bully wouldn’t leave me and my sister alone. One day my fist suddenly shot out and connected with his jaw. He started crying. Ran home to mommy. Mommy came to confront our Mom. Our Mom told mommy just exactly how the cow ate the cabbage. Turns out the kid was also in trouble at school. Before the end of the term they moved out of the school and neighborhood.

Sad to say but on rare occasions force must be employed. If force is employed all the time, what one is facing is our unadulterated wicked fascism. Like what is going on right now in the US economic blockade — an act of war — against Venezuela, Russia and Iran.

My takeaway was that bullies must be stood up to. Since they are cowards, just getting right into their face/s scares the crap out of them. Give them an honourable way out. But if the bullying and terrorism continues, a sudden, strong fist to a glass jaw speaks louder than words. Then the coward/problem may well go away.

Since then, I have not had to resort to force other than shooting the bird at drivers here and there lol. But I have always stood up to bullies and 99% of the time they back down.

I am just astonished at how bullying happens such as you described in your Czech school. What a species. But good for you at standing up.

Jim
Jim
Mar 17, 2019 11:56 AM

Books are doors to our knowledge. Thousands of books have been written about China, but billions are yet to come. Should we be able to read them? You can easily understand that China’s Culture is so overwhelming and fascinating, that one live will never be long enough, to encompass and grasp everything of it it. Creativity is actually exploding in China. More than ever, the West is not aware of this. Pithily also as China’s mainstream news, too many Chinese books have not found their way to the West. As result, the richness of China is mainly ignored by the West. Outstanding periods for mankind, as that of the period of the Han dynasty are, then, not studied and missed. Nevertheless this period is one of the most important of the history of the world culture.

Lets take now a look at the media supports for arts in the world. The use of paper, as support, was created and made in China by Han Lun, during the period of the Han Dynasty. Because of this, China, as inventor of paper, did use paper already more than thousands year for its arts, and as inventor this is more than normal. China used paper a millennium before oil painting could be applied on canvases. Paper has endless qualities for art. It is light, you can roll it, have easily very big pieces of paper and its transport offer not too much problems. On the contrary this is not the case for canvasses.

Oil as medium for painting was used only in the West a millennium later. The Renaissance sources credit the “invention” of oil painting around the 14th century. Today we know, thanks to the new technologies that we have, that oil to paint was already used millennia before the 14th century, by artist along the silk road. Maybe not with the same ingredients as the actual oil tubes. Giorgio Vasari describes in his book “Vite” that Jan van Eyck is the inventor of the oil paint. This was also applied on wood around the Quattrocento period (1400). In Belgium we attribute to him the invention of the oil painting. Because of this, you notice, that the use of canvas is recent and is not so extended in art as one could imagine, five centuries only, compared to the millennia old world cultures that we have.

Paper or canvas? Not one of the supports has all the advantages. Each support will bring its own style. I will not enumerate them. This needs more extensive explanations. We have not, in my humble view, to think, that canvas is better than paper. Each medium can express what the other cannot. There are also other supports as where the artist can exercise his art as porcelain, also an invention of China, etc… Michael Angelo, considered in the West, as the most important artist, used walls and not canvasses to apply his work. His most important painting work was made on the walls of the “Sistine Chapel”. He used also paper for his studies. Almost anything can be used as support for the brushes. Painting on wood in china has also be as important. Let’s take a look at the Summer palace where hundred different exquisite scenes are painted on wood by anonymous masters.

It would be completely wrong to consider that China’s artistic level is not up to its scale. The art critics have not yet remarked that Chinese artist, almost two thousand years ago, discovered the right way to draw the eyes. This when important artists in the West did not grasp it yet a thousand years later. The style “La ligne claire”, was also not a novelty for China as it was in the West. It was already applied hundred years ago by Chinese artists on porcelain.

Has Chinese Arts evolved? We may not at all, have the prejudice, that it is not so. Also as the use of the words, for instance, “Renaissance” and “Neo Renaissance”, they bring to our minds and thinking that we can philosophically and aesthetically return to the past to study, reapply and use the old styles renewed centuries later later.

Roger Morgan
Roger Morgan
Mar 17, 2019 8:48 AM

This is a valuable article, because its viewpoint is completely absent from the MSM. The hostile comments about it are inappropriate.

That’s not to say that it’s perfect:

China and Russia … were to some extent influenced by the West. When I say ‘influenced’, I mean forcefully ‘penetrated’, broken into, brutally violated. During that violent interaction, some positive elements of Western culture assimilated in the brains of its victims: music, food, even city planning.

The most important contributions of Western culture were the scientific method and the industrial revolution.

Present-day Russia under the presidency of Vladimir Putin is one of the mightiest nations on earth

The “oligarchs” are the new plutocracy, having stolen almost all the country’s wealth. What’s left of the economy has a GDP about the size of Italy’s.

I wish China, Russia and Iran well. I hope that within my lifetime, China and/or Russia will be able to act as an effective counterweight to the all-dominating power of the USA. But getting to that state requires realistic assessment of what is true today.

mark
mark
Mar 17, 2019 11:18 PM
Reply to  Roger Morgan

This repeats all the usual erroneous assumptions about Russia based on supposed GDP dollar comparisons.
20 trillion v. 1.6 trillion. So Russia doesn’t count, has a tiny economy etc.
Firstly, that money buys 3x as much in Russia.
So that 1.6 becomes, what, 4.8? Suddenly, you’re looking at an economy around the size of Germany. Suddenly looks a bit more impressive.
Then you’re basing everything on those little pieces of green toilet paper called dollars.
The Neocohens mounted a speculative attack on the rouble, driving it down from 30 to 80 to the dollar.
It has since risen again to around 50.
So overnight, the size of the Russian economy was reduced by over half, if you play this game.
But the same amount of oil, steel, wheat, cars, tractors were being produced.

Then that mighty US 20 trillion doesn’t bear much scrutiny.
40% of it is “finance.” Everybody’s favourite parasites on Wall Street shuffling around pieces of paper and pretending they’re worth trillions. Unproductive leeching and rent seeking. Subtract 8 trillion?
18% is “healthcare.” Price gouging by drug and insurance monopolies charging $750 for a pill that costs a few cents to produce, and $5,000 per ambulance journey. Subtract $3.6 trillion?

So what is that, $8.4 trillion v. $4.8 trillion? Just another perspective.

Bismarck said, “Russia is never as strong as it seems. But it is never as weak as it seems, either.”
Listen to the words of the most successful politician in history.

Antonym
Antonym
Mar 17, 2019 2:40 AM

For China, harmony is essential We live in the era of lifetime president Xi Jinping now , not in the cardboard world of philosopher Li Gang.
Ask the Uyghurs in the internment camps in Xinjiang or the Tibetians now a minority in their own land. Or the Indians in Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as “South Tibet”. Or Vietnam, the Philippines or Indonesia around the South China sea. Or Sri Lanka or Pakistan with their huge debts to China. Or all foreign companies producing in China who have to allow the Chinese Communist party essential control plus handover their technology.

For world balance bully US-industrial-financial-oil cabal might need a big China plus skinny Russia on the opposite side. I am not under any illusion that China can be as big a bully as the US is now.

Wilmers31
Wilmers31
Mar 17, 2019 5:34 AM
Reply to  Antonym

Xi is not lifetime President. He can be if he is endorsed every time the term is up. But legally speaking, the term limits were abolished, not the approval process.

But is it any wonder that they want to keep an experienced man when you see the Western war preparations called security? We ought to be collaborating with them, because the Uyghur issue is the same issue as the Berlin Christmas Market massacre, Manchester stadium, Chechnya etc. We are sitting in the same boat but keep drilling into its bottom.

Russia and China ought to speak and act in synch. Then the thieving West might not so easily take over everything. I will not get our land in Berlin back which we lost during the Kohl-Regime, but if the West does not prevail in the end that would be good for the world.

Stonky
Stonky
Mar 17, 2019 5:39 AM
Reply to  Antonym

Ask the Uyghurs in the internment camps in Xinjiang or the Tibetans now a minority in their own land…

Native Tibetans aren’t even close to being “a minority in their own land”, you idiotic ill-informed moron. They might arguably be a minority in Lhasa, but Lhasa, like London, represents about 15% of the population of Tibet. There are next to no non-native Tibetans outside of Lhasa.

Or Vietnam, the Philippines or Indonesia around the South China sea…

China’s claim to the South China Sea predates the existence of Vietnam, the Philippines of Indonesia as countries. Even so, China is prepared to negotiate with all of these countries. What they’re not prepared to do is have the matter settled in accordance with the diktats of the usual mob of murdering Western thugs and bullies.

Antonym
Antonym
Mar 17, 2019 6:06 AM
Reply to  Stonky

Population: 6 million Tibetans and 7.5 million Chinese https://unpo.org/members/7879

is it any wonder that they want to keep an experienced man Who are “they”? Can’t be the full Chinese population. They = Communist Party of China? Or just Xi and his wife?

Stonky
Stonky
Mar 17, 2019 7:01 AM
Reply to  Antonym

Population: 6 million Tibetans and 7.5 million Chinese https://unpo.org/members/7879

If the lying bullshitters (presumably CIA-financed) who produced this inane rubbish you’ve linked to knew anything at all about Tibet, they would know that in fact there are not “6 million Tibetans” in Tibet. There are a total of 6 million ethnic Tibetans in the whole of China. Only half of them – 3 million ethnic Tibetans – live in Tibet. The rest are spread around other provinces like Qinghai and Sichuan.

That UNPO is not even aware of this simple fact leaves me a little, how should I say it, “sceptical” about their “reliability”. Because according to UNPO, immigrants not only outnumber ethnic Tibetans in Tibet. They outnumber them by a factor of more than two to one.

You would think this bizarre claim might raise a common sense question or two in the head of even someone as gullible as you. Like, for example, Errr… where do these 7.5 million people live? That is the equivalent of fifteenLhasa-sized cities in Tibet. Fifteen invisible undocumented cities that no one has ever seen or visited or photographed.

Surely that’s a bit much even for you to swallow?

Stalin
Stalin
Mar 17, 2019 10:55 AM
Reply to  Stonky

You’re talking to a hasbara agent ignore his shilling he and his people will receive theirs soon as more and more people name those who cannot be named and who’ve been trying to hide there deeds behind propaganda and smears

mark
mark
Mar 17, 2019 10:50 PM
Reply to  Stonky

This is just a piece of hasbara distraction for whenever anyone raises the hundreds of Palestinian kids being gunned down every other day by IDF kiddie killers with dum dum bullets and British sniper rifles.

“Oy vey, goy! You aren’t allowed to say that!! That’s anti semitic!!! You haven’t kvetched about Tibetans first, that’s not been cleared by Watson and the Board of Deputies!!!”

mark
mark
Mar 17, 2019 10:57 PM
Reply to  Stonky

The US accepted China’s claim to the South China Sea for years without any problems. Then Chiang Kai Shek got his butt kicked out of China by Mao and the Chinese claim suddenly became “illegitimate.” If Netanyahu suddenly claimed the South China Sea it would immediately become part of the “historic land of Israel.”

Stonky
Stonky
Mar 18, 2019 6:24 AM
Reply to  mark

Chiang Kai-shek was also very insistent through the late 1940s and early 1950s that Tibet was an indivisible part of China. As were the US, until it became clear that the KMT were not going to return to the mainland and kick Mao’s ass. Then it became very important to the US that Tibet was not, in fact part of China, and had to be “liberated”.

Chiang Kai-shek remained somewhat intransigent on the subject until it was explained to him that if he wanted the flow of dollars and weapons to continue, then he needed to understand that Tibet was not part of China. At that point he came to a realisation that Tibet was, in fact, not part of China.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 17, 2019 10:50 AM
Reply to  Antonym

Have you been reading the odious David Frum? You seem to be parroting the nonsense output from his long residence at one of the neocon stink tanks, charged with trying to smear China. The Indian border skirmish was only that. No land stolen, no people enslaved, no gold reserves relocated to China, no mass murder. Tibet was formerly part of China and the Uighur situation is not exactly parallel to the Native American near genocide, in fact not remotely similar.

So how many countries has China invaded (one contiguous former part of China aside) and thieved? None, you say? You just keep worrying about those sandbars in the South China Sea and cheer when American warships pass by in their “exercises”.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 19, 2019 8:05 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

PS I had thought the desperately unattractive nature of Frum, ( the man who coined the term ‘axis of evil’ but whose personal ethos is encapsulated by the moniker “ass-kiss of evil” ) was hidden under a bushel but along comes current affairs and voila – https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/david-frums-immigrant-journey

John
John
Mar 17, 2019 10:51 AM
Reply to  Antonym

Back doing hasbara again antonym?! What uighurs in camps? What about tibet? Is that not the semi autonomous region that the Dalai Lama wants his followers to burn themselves to death so he can rule over them again and abuse boys. How’s the weather in tel Aviv rodent?

Martin Usher
Martin Usher
Mar 17, 2019 1:52 AM

A quick way to understand western (US) attitudes to societies like the Chinese is to look at how they were treated when they were brought over to work on projects like railroads in the western US. They worked hard, put up with relatively poor working conditions and some settled in places like San Francisco and prospered. As soon as they became noticeable, though, laws would be passed to suppress them. Eventually in the latter part of the 19th century federal law was enacted to prevent Chinese from immigrating to the US. This followed various pogroms against the Chinese; the act itself stayed in force until 1943, this finally allowed Chinese immigrants (and their descendants) to become US citizens.

So we’ve always had this rather odd attitude to the Yellow Peril in the US. We love ’em while they’re low wage coolies or the occasional OTT stereotype (“Charlie Chan”) but as soon as they start looking us in the eye as equals we’re back planning our new, global, version of the Chinese Exclusion Act. It really is rather lame.

vexarb
vexarb
Mar 17, 2019 5:58 AM
Reply to  Martin Usher

@Martin Usher: “Eventually in the latter part of the 19th century federal law was enacted to prevent Chinese from immigrating to the US.”

Interesting; no Federal Law was enacted to prevent Jews from immigrating to the U$A”. So the Tiger Moms had a double disadvantage; yet they succeeded, pushing their kids into Ivy League schools and onto the concert platform. But what about Business, which is the other field where “expat vigour” shows itself? I have not heard of Sino-Americans at the top of the business world. Nor in the U$ government, for that matter.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 17, 2019 11:16 AM
Reply to  vexarb

The pinnacle of institutional racism is the NSA, where all applicants are subjected to privacy invasion like all other Americans, but in spades, so that left wing tendencies like kale-eating could be rooted out.. This is why 40,000 employees were complacent and complicit in allowing the Fourth Amendment to be trampled, with hints of human empathy leading to automatic exclusion. Among the many sins committed in the name of “homeland security”, institutional racism is to be included, in this largely opaque shadowy organization.

Stonky
Stonky
Mar 17, 2019 8:05 AM
Reply to  Martin Usher

They worked hard, put up with relatively poor working conditions…

That’s putting it very mildly. Most of them were bonded serfs, tied to their employers by debt. You might argue that they were worse off than slaves, because slaves were at least assets with a value to their masters to be conserved. Coolies could simply be worked to death and replaced with new ones. The California Constitution adopted in 1870 abolished Asian cooliedom on the basis that it was “a form of slavery”.

It’s rather ironic in the context of this discussion that until the 1950s, the vast majority of ethnic Tibetans in Tibet were bonded serfs as well.

mark
mark
Mar 17, 2019 11:24 PM
Reply to  Martin Usher

They didn’t have “relatively poor working conditions.”
They were treated like animals.
They were actually classed as “cargo” in transport ships, locked in the holds and not allowed out.
They died like flies working on the railroads.

Stonky
Stonky
Mar 18, 2019 2:57 AM
Reply to  mark

To be fair, the ones who were sent to the USA (and survived the trip) were the “lucky” ones. Of the first 4000 who were sent to Peru, it’s estimated that none were left alive by the time their period of bondage came to an end.

binra
binra
Mar 18, 2019 9:50 AM
Reply to  mark

There was also fear and hate associated with loss of work to migrants fuelling mass murder by European settlers. I don’t know the scale – but I have read about it happening.

Baron
Baron
Mar 16, 2019 11:55 PM

Listen up, Vitchek, you have to be more specific about the brutal childhood of yours in ‘racist Czechoslovakia’, or shut up. When exactly, where, in what school did that beating happen? The Czechs may be many things, thuggish they are not. Your Wiki entry lists many countries you’ve lived in, Czechoslovakia isn’t amongst them. Why not?

When did the Czechs invade Russia exactly? If you’re referring to their presence in post-tsarist Russia hitting the Bolsheviks (mostly in Siberia), that wasn’t an invasion, the forces were formed in Russia, their aim was to leave, return home.

George Ebers
George Ebers
Mar 17, 2019 1:16 AM
Reply to  Baron

What a honey-tongued way of phrasing some simple questions. You PR types are so easy to spot.

Baron
Baron
Mar 17, 2019 5:54 AM
Reply to  George Ebers

Come again, George?

See Baron’s reply to Martin, please, but then it may be wasted on you, your labelling says it all, just what the communist thugs of the East would have done, smear the questioner, ignore answering the questions (or rather attack by defending someone who’s been asked to furnish the reply).

The Czechs are about as racist as the English are intolerant. Prejudiced against their close East based Slovaks, perhaps, just as the English are against the Irish, the Russians against the Armenians (Radio Yerevan?), everyone against the Roma …

The man Vitchek made the bullying up, or was deadly unlucky, but that’s rather unlikely. Neither should prevent him from saying when, where exactly. What does he have to fear today? Accusing a whole tribe of racism should not be glanced over, it’s a serious charge, to base the accusation of the tribe on a specific case is even more wrong. How come at least seven of you seem to have endorsed it. Arghhh

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 17, 2019 11:01 AM
Reply to  Baron

Baron, as you are aware this is an anonymous website. The intemperate tone in your questions to Vitchek might suggest to some you are not here for the answers but for the opportunity of exercising your demons. Do you think that has anything to do with his lack of reply or the negative responses you elicit?

Baron
Baron
Mar 17, 2019 3:05 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

To accuse any nation of racism, big or small, even today when the term’s rather devalued, is by far more abhorrent than an intemperate language, George. Germany under Adolf got close, yet even here one has to be careful, not all Germans shared the the Nazi’s ideology, some perished because of this.

This isn’t about exercising demons, either, it’s about the truth, or rather getting as close to the truth as one can. Vitchek’s blatant charge of racism of the Czechs had to be challenged because it’s as far from the truth as it gets.

Martin Usher
Martin Usher
Mar 17, 2019 1:38 AM
Reply to  Baron

>When did the Czechs invade Russia exactly?

Tricky, that question. Its not generally known but when Russia was invaded in 1941 it wasn’t specifically by the Germans. Sure, the Germans planned and led the invasion but it included a coalition of other nations, Eastern European ones like Hungary and Romania and even a division or two of Italians and Spanish. The Czechs are tricky because bits of it were absorbed into the Reich proper, bits became a protectorate and so on. So some elements of Czechoslovakia may have been involved in the invasion (anyway, it was all “United Europe Under The Protection of the Reich”). Post war there had to be (pragmatic) decisions about who got to occupy which parts and how governments were to be formed. Eastern Europe ended up in the Soviet sector; the Soviets were always a bit paranoid about latent fascism in Eastern Europe hence their desire for a soviet style government in their sector. Whether that was a smart move or not is debatable (but as we know from hindsight they had every reason to be a bit paranoid about fascists!).

BTW — European history did not start in May, 1945.

Baron
Baron
Mar 17, 2019 5:36 AM
Reply to  Martin Usher

“Some elements of Czechoslovakia may have been involved …” , what a perverse phrasing to try to justify a lie, Martin, the Czechs were the only democratic tribe in pre-war Continental Europe, that helped to ‘kill’ them in Munich, that and the size of the tribe, just over 15mn together with the more eastern based Slovaks who have never felt to be of the same stock. There were no units of Czechs helping the Nazis to invade the USSR in 1941, full stop.

The ‘pragmatic’ decision who (of the big powers) controls whom (of the smaller European fish) was taken in Yalta, Winston endorsed it, whether he had other options is immaterial, the Iron Curtain was designed, the first stitches put in in 1944.

When did Baron say European history began in Europe? He comes from that neck of the woods, unlike your Vitchek spent time inside as a political when the communist thugs ruled the East, doesn’t need any help from someone whose knowledge’s tinted with deep delusions of the tyranny.

vexarb
vexarb
Mar 17, 2019 8:35 AM
Reply to  Baron

@Baron: “The Czechs may be many things, thuggish they are not.”

“The”. Admin warned posters to be careful about the “The”.

Crass BBC “controversialist” asksJane Goodall: Do you like [The] Chimps more than you love [The] Humans?
Jane replies: I like _some_ chimps better than I like _some_ humans, and I like _some other_ humans better than I like _some other_ chimps.

Baron
Baron
Mar 17, 2019 9:29 AM
Reply to  vexarb

Thanks, vexarb, point taken.

Here’s an olive branch to relax things, a conversation between a police officer and his Control back at the station.

Officer: “The woman has gunned down her husband, he stepped on the floor she’s just mopped”. Control: ‘Have you arrested her?” Officer: “Not yet, the floor’s still wet”.

Btw, an error in the posting, the sentence “when did Baron say European history began in Europe” should end “…began in May 1945”, apologies.

vexarb
vexarb
Mar 18, 2019 7:53 AM
Reply to  Baron

Mutual, Baron. In College we used Czech scientific glassware, and some of us were early admirers of the Skoda. Dvorak is a composer I really like (so did Brahms). Capek universalised the word Robot. And Einstein spent some fruitful years at the University of Prague, with 2 good jokes about the University standing next to the grounds of the Lunatic Asylum.

Einstein looked out of his window and said to a visitor: “And that is where they keep all the other Lunatics: the ones who are _not_ tearing their hair trying to understand Quantum Theory”.

The Kaiser came to visit the University. Academic Staff and Students began cheering: “God Save your Majesty!”. Soon the cheering spread outside, and a voice suddenly cried out in alarm: “God _really_ Save your Majesty, because Lunatics are now singing God Save your Majesty”.

But, Alas! I simply can’t take Kafka. Sorry.

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Mar 16, 2019 11:33 PM

Thank you Andre. Your school yard bully analogy fits perfectly here. Will Russia and China survive an unharmonious World? Will we survive….? I’m a NZ citizen who moved to Australia in 2004 after living in Christchurch for almost 7 years. I’m still appalled and horrified by what happened in Christchurch two days ago. My gut instinct when I first heard the news was it was a false flag attack as Maggie alluded to. To me its incomprehensible that something like that could happen in New Zealand. And yes, us Kiwi’s can wear rose tinted glasses regards how our country is, but I’m also very aware of NZ being part of the Five Eyes intelligence network, and having the Waihopai spy base. The Empire wants full control of the planet, that is obvious to pretty much all of us. Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, etc stand in the way of the Anglo Zionist Empire gaining full control of the planet. That is also obvious. The major question is what happens next, or in the near future? How perilous will our journey become? The complete futility of doing deals with psychopaths like Pompeo, Bolton, Abrams, is self evident. How much closer to the abyss can we get?

Baron
Baron
Mar 17, 2019 3:32 PM
Reply to  Gezzah Potts

The analogy’s false, Gezzah, it would have been OK were it not for the existence of nukes in today’s confrontation between the two opposing camps, there was no equivalence of this evil tool of destruction in the case of his being bullied, neither he and his friend nor the bullies possessed a tool that, if deployed, would have destroyed both.

Nukes are what has negated the ability of one or the other camp to be victorious in an all out conflict, enjoy and benefit from the victory, it’s delusional to think that either the US led grouping, or Russia cum China could use the nuclear arsenal on each other, be certain the fallout doesn’t hit them as well (google for Chernobyl’s fallout).

More to the point, what use would Russia polluted with radiation be to anyone, or vice versa, would anyone want to live in England soaked in radioactive isotopes that could kill slowly, painfully?

(That’s the last you here from Baron, you may not realise it, but you’re the mirror image of the people you kick, well, most of the time).

Badger Down
Badger Down
Mar 17, 2019 9:57 PM
Reply to  Baron

(That’s the last you hear from Baron. It’s changing it’s name to Sascha, or Cohen, or something.)

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Mar 18, 2019 1:53 PM
Reply to  Baron

Baron: I take your points, but I was merely thinking very simply that the United States has been behaving like a school yard bully viz Iraq, Syria, Venezuela, Iran, Yemen, and its continuous provocations of Russia and China. And regards your comments on nuclear weapons, how sane are people like Bolton, Pompeo, Pence, etc? We are talking nutjobs here Baron. And why are you leaving anyway? We don’t have to agree with everyone here, this is an open forum to express Your viewpoint. You can come and go as you please, as I do. If we all agreed, then we’d be sheep! Thats all I had to say.

Robyn
Robyn
Mar 16, 2019 10:58 PM

André is a hero. If he had a front page article in the MSM every week, or even every month, the world would not be in hurtling towards disaster.

Thomas
Thomas
Mar 16, 2019 10:24 PM

Does this mean you support the Iranian government? Not exactly a socialist government? Do you support anyone that oppose USA?!

Robyn
Robyn
Mar 16, 2019 10:52 PM
Reply to  Thomas

Thomas, I recommend you read outside the MSM and check when Iran last invaded another country. You might also check how many times, by whom, and in what way, other countries have threatened Iran. And check out the Iran-Iraq war and whose side your country was on and what they were doing about making sure ‘their side’ won. You might also check out the diplomatic overtures made by Iran’s leaders to the US over the last decades. And you might find it useful to check out the history of Anglo-Iranian Oil (now BP) in Iran, and Mossadegh and the Shah, and current sanctions. And a glimpse at the inspiring Persian/Iranian culture might also be enlightening for you. But if, after a few hours of reading you still hate Iran, ask yourself whether it’s worth going to war over, or whether it wouldn’t just be better to leave Iran to its own citizens and mind your own business.

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Mar 16, 2019 11:55 PM
Reply to  Robyn

Robyn: Hammer, Nail, Head. Spot on. Avoid the poisonous rot in the MSM at all costs! Lies upon more lies.

Thomas
Thomas
Mar 17, 2019 2:52 AM
Reply to  Robyn

Hey! I have been to Iran and I know many Iranians, I also know about Iranian history. I think every country should decide for themselves what they want to do. And I dont’t want every country to be under USA/the West. But Iran is not a good model for the society I want to live in. I think religion, including Islam, is stupid, and should be a private stupidity. I find it weird a socialist would support a religious state. Is that where we are at, do we have nothing better to hope for now than USA not controlling every country?

mark
mark
Mar 17, 2019 11:55 PM
Reply to  Thomas

Maybe you’d do better to focus your attention on the shortcomings of a society where 3 billionaires own more than 160 million Americans.
Where 51% of the population owns less than $400.
Where a third live in poverty and 50 million have no healthcare.
With a prison population of 2.3 million mainly young black men, working for a few cents an hour down on the new plantation.
With a war machine that costs more than the rest of the planet combined.
That rampages across the planet like Nazi Germany on steroids, butchering, starving and immiserating hundreds of millions.
That seeks to impose economic strangulation on 40% of humanity.

Yep, some model for a society to live in.

Thomas
Thomas
Mar 17, 2019 2:55 AM
Reply to  Robyn

Plus, what do you think I would do here if I only read msm? I love Iranian cinema.
I think we have to start having dreams again. I reject both the fake democracy in the West and capitalist islamic states…

vexarb
vexarb
Mar 17, 2019 8:58 AM
Reply to  Thomas

Thomas, this thread under Andre’ is not about Iranian Religious Socialism vs EU$A Fake Democracy. It is about standing up to bullies. Ws it a Good Deed of Andre’ and his big friend to stand up against a gang of bullies; even more, to protect other children against the same bullies?

Is the U$A leading a gang of bullies against little countries? Is Iran standing up to that gang? Those are the questions.

Badger Down
Badger Down
Mar 17, 2019 10:03 PM
Reply to  vexarb

“Is the U$A leading a gang of bullies against little countries?”
No, the little guy behind him is the leader.

vexarb
vexarb
Mar 18, 2019 8:14 AM
Reply to  Badger Down

Badger Down, good one! Bull’s eye. In the whip-up against Iraq, Israeli PM Nathan Yahoo came to the U$A and swore on the Bible that Mossad knew for certain Iraq possessed WMD. (No Israeli had actually seen a new WMD in Iraq after UN Inspector Scott Ritter destroyed all the old ones, and Mossad could not say where these new WMD were, but NetanYahoo was prepared to swear before U$ Congress and Senate: Iraq had WMD, Godstrewth.

Re Syria, ditto. Two standing ovations in U$ Joint Houses for NetanYahoo false testimony.

Re Iran, ditto. Even more standing ovations in U$ Legislature for NetanYahoo false testimony. POTU$A Son-in-Law joins NetanYahoo regime as Dual-Citizen U$-Israeli Strategic Adviser.

mark
mark
Mar 17, 2019 11:31 PM
Reply to  Thomas

Why not? They’ve stood up to the two most evil, brutal, terrorist regimes on the planet for 40 years. That must be worth something. Iranians voted for an Islamic Republic in a referendum by an overwhelming margin. Maybe they’ll change their minds one day, without the help of $600 million a year in CIA money. Till then , if it works for them, that’s fine.

bevin
bevin
Mar 16, 2019 10:23 PM

It seems to me that Andre, like many imperialist ideologists, talks of western culture, by which he means I think the culture of the imperialists, as if it could be separated from its political economy.
The truth is that this cannot be done. The ideology of Empire is the culture of international capitalism. It is not the English or the French or the north American settlers who discover evil deeds to perform it is that capitalism is a system which is evil. And which, in a dialectical way, both nourishes and feeds off liberal ideology. It is not Christianity that is at fault, for example, but the Christianity of a culture dominated by usurers and exploiters. The source of evil is the system of capitalist exploitation in which power extorts tribute from the worker, who is blackmailed into paying protection by fear of becoming victimised.
Andre talks of the nations which refuse to follow the diktats of the imperialists. But what he misses is that half of them have already accepted the basic diktat which is capitalism itself. Accept that, as Russia has done and, as Frank Lee suggests in an earlier posting, the game is close to being lost, because the only way to beat the imperialists is to take advantage of the fatal weakness in their system- the reality that it depends on the exploitation of the people and has an inherent compulsion to increase the intensity of its exploitation.
Look around you: since the surrender of the Soviet Union and the adoption of raw capitalism in Russia not only have living standards and individual reserves ( in terms of the resources available to those needing them-housing, clothing, medical care, education, transportation, libraries, domestic heat, water, clean air etc etc) fallen dangerously, in some cases critically, so have those in the “western’ countries where the Peace Dividend issued after the Cold War has taken the form of broken unions, insecurity, poverty, lower living standards, a comprehensive transformation of public services into monopolies extorting rent, austerity and an enormous increase in the malign power of the state-as enemy.
This leaves the imperialist countries in a state of deepening political insecurity, their governments are toppling like ninepins, their institutions are detested, popular revolt is everywhere in the air.
What is missing is the link between popular revolt and anti-imperialism: China and Russia are, in the end, and from the point of view of the average, unprivileged person making a living by labour, just as bad. Living standards in Russia too are sacrificed in order that oligarchs can get richer, massive amounts of socially produced capital, economic savings, are exported every day beyond the reach of those whose labour, and inherited resources, is being creamed off.
And here’s the clincher: if a country like Venezuela decides to ally itself with, for example Russia or China, to fend off the attacks of the imperialists it is going to be asked, by its allies, not to deepen the revolution which would preserve it, not to take the property of the rich, (the equivalent of the emigres in revolutionary France) and distribute it to the poor in the form of socialised property, not to urge the workers to take over the estates and the industries and manage them under workers control. This will be because Russian oligarchs and Chinese businessmen will insist on maintaining capitalism because it is their system.
The empire would fall tomorrow if the working class were united, but it will survive for a long time if capitalism is globalised.

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Mar 16, 2019 11:53 PM
Reply to  bevin

You’ve nailed it Bevin.
The enemy comes in all colours, creeds, races, religions and sexual orientations.
The ONE thing they have in common is their worship of Mammon.
And they all wear suits. The uniform of the ‘Look at me, I’ve made it!’

Michael McNulty
Michael McNulty
Mar 16, 2019 9:19 PM

The only thing more galling than a hard-core warmonger is a hard-core warmonger who was a hard-core draft dodger. They sure didn’t want any part of that war. As for Bush Jnr and Vietnam, he not only dodged the draft he dodged the dodge. Then had the nerve to call himself the war president.

America used to be the arsenal of democracy. Now it’s just the arse.

JohnG
JohnG
Mar 16, 2019 9:50 PM

The USA was never a democracy, let alone an arsenal for it.

Tom
Tom
Mar 16, 2019 8:31 PM

I mostly enjoyed reading that and agree with the points made. However, as someone from New Zealand, I was aghast that you would lump us in the first group while putting Saudi Arabia in the second. Surely it should be the other way around?

Loverat
Loverat
Mar 16, 2019 8:51 PM
Reply to  Tom

Yes, Saudi Arabia (and Israel) is probably akin to the actual murderer – the one who gets covered in the blood of its victims.

But the first group are those in suits directing the murder, mayhem, war crimes and terrorism and others complicit to a lesser degree. Could the fact New Zealand might be one of those wearing a suit be the reason you are so aghast?

It’s a bit like saying Al Capone is less responsible because he only planned and ordered the murders.

JohnG
JohnG
Mar 16, 2019 9:55 PM
Reply to  Tom

Most NZers hold a romantic and false view of NZ’s role in the world due to effective propaganda. It is a 5 eyes power. It is fighting Afghans. It has been involved in military blockades.
It’s about as peace loving as it is Green.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 17, 2019 1:01 AM
Reply to  JohnG

Did the Kiwi man in the street approve of invading Afghanistan and sending Kiwi troops there? Seems very odd.

Frances
Frances
Mar 17, 2019 5:43 AM
Reply to  George Cornell

Canada, Australia and NZ as part of the Five Eyes surveillance take instructions from Uncle Sam not from the man in the street.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 17, 2019 11:26 AM
Reply to  Frances

I was curious, because there is so much dissonance. I am well aware of Five Eyes. What did the US threaten to make usually sensible countries adopt the prone position?

JudyJ
JudyJ
Mar 17, 2019 12:17 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

George

“What did the US threaten…?” Or alternatively, what did the US promise?

But, yes, I agree that they must have some distasteful hold over such countries.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 17, 2019 12:25 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

It may be the old carrot and stick motivational paradigm, Judy, but for the US, increasingly, the only carrot is merely the withholding of the stick.

Michael Leigh
Michael Leigh
Mar 17, 2019 8:23 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

The answer George Cornell to your postulative question is self-evident in your own failure to insert the necessary quotation marks between the ” usually sensible countries to adopt the prone position ? “

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 17, 2019 10:10 PM
Reply to  Michael Leigh

So they threatened them with correcting their punctuation? Very perceptive of you.

Robyn
Robyn
Mar 16, 2019 10:54 PM
Reply to  Tom

Check out Five Eyes. That’s why (in part) NZ is ‘lumped in’.

intergenerationaltrauma
intergenerationaltrauma
Mar 16, 2019 8:29 PM

The author touches on the very real and powerful differences in world view and in how “human nature” is viewed between the West and between the East & most of the world’s Indigenous peoples. When the great Chinese admiral Zeng explored Asia, India, the Persian Gulf and Africa some 50 years before Columbus, with an armada of hundreds of ships and thousands of troops, he did not pillage, enslave or destroy those he encountered. He set trade and diplomatic connections instead, even though none of these regions could have resisted his military might. Contrast this with the behavior of Christopher Columbus from Europe when he encountered the Native peoples of the Americas. Though he described them as gentle, friendly and generous, his response was one of domination and he enslaved them and brutalized them (cutting off a hand if they did not bring in a sufficient amount of gold). He famously wrote that “with 50 men” he could “enslave them all” and “make them do” whatever we want. Why one might ask the dramatic difference in behavior and world view?

The WEIRD research linked below provides some answers to just how different the world views and views on “human nature” are between the West with it’s 12% of the human population, and the East and Indigenous people of the world who comprise the rest of humanity. When it comes to societies that stress the individual over the common good, and score higher on narcissism compared to others, these societies are predominately and significantly “Western.” In fact on such measures Europe and the West in general is the outlier of all of the rest of humanity, and as might be expected the United States is the “outlier among the outliers” – the most self aggrandizing, individualistic and narcissistic society on the planet. The WEIRD research goes a long way toward helping to explain the gulf between the West and the rest of the planet in terms of our basic assessment of our relationship to the planet and to each other. It’s very much worth reading and contemplating.

https://psmag.com/social-justice/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135

https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/WeirdPeople.pdf

vexarb
vexarb
Mar 17, 2019 12:29 PM

IGT, very interestiing fresh slant on Anthropology. Reminds me of Herodotus’s ground breaking book ,”Researches”, which simply investigated and recorded different cultures, accepting their differences without preconception or prejudice. I thought one of the interesting points from your Link was that young scientist’s interest in religion as part of human behaviour and weltanschau:

“Norenzayan’s recent work on religious belief is perhaps the best example of the intellectual landscape that is now open for study. When Norenzayan became a student of psychology in 1994, four years after his family had moved from Lebanon to America, he was excited to study the effect of religion on human psychology. “I remember opening textbook after textbook and turning to the index and looking for the word ‘religion,’ ” he told me, “Again and again the very word wouldn’t be listed. This was shocking. How could psychology be the science of human behavior and have nothing to say about religion? “

Some Random Passer-by
Some Random Passer-by
Mar 16, 2019 7:57 PM

Kudos to you Andre, and your friend, Karel (do you keep in touch?). Kudos for standing up to bullies, and kudos for defending those who are weak but kind hearted.

Thank you for restoring a little faith in humanity for me.

As for your question, I think they will survive. As long as they are kind hearted with their strength and righteous fury.

Tmike@hotmail.com
Mar 16, 2019 7:13 PM

Thank you for the excellent missive. Is is so unfortunate that the west has always been this way. The author forgot to add when the united states army and marines invaded Russia to defend the monarchs in the 1917 revolution.

The US is a drunken giant flailing around and attempting to hit anyone nearby. China, Russia, and those pesky “non aligned” nations have to realize that the US is already at war with them and prepare to fight and fight back. I for one hope the american empire collapses and hurts those who benefit the most and those would be the neo-cohens and their quislings. The collapse of the empire is spelled out very nicely in “Twlight’s Last Gleaming” by John Michael Greer and it is an excellent read. Like the book, I hope that the US or the leaders of the triplets of tyranny (US, Istn’t real, and Saudia barbaria) don’t take the human race down with themselves.

I plan on leaving this country and moving to places where western influences are not so toxic. Being in the US is killing my soul.
Great website as well.

Michael Leigh
Michael Leigh
Mar 17, 2019 9:10 PM

The ” unexceptional US Empire in it’s global criminality “. May now be on the cusp of it’s own greed via the economic meltdown as a the result of the incredibly, and near impossibilities of either Lockhead or the USA, to avoid the international financial obligations arising from the multitude of international financial compensations and similarly larger financial amounts of internetional personal claims, all of which directly arise from the current, and the forthcoming financial outflows ( not-with-standing the demise of the manufacturer and it’s contracted suppliers) from the unsafe, un-wise Max 737 manufactured product continuation !

No doubt that the USA will be using every imaginable legal dodge and quasi-legal practise to avoid its liability, but this is likely in a future where it’s currency would be incredilbly devalued, and in a future of it’s international bankruptcy, let alone the violent internal up-risings and extreme civil un-rest !

And, just perhaps TMIKE is ahead of the trend ?

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 17, 2019 10:57 PM
Reply to  Michael Leigh

Isn’t that ‘Lockheed’? Internetional? Isn’t notwithstanding one word? Etc. 🙂

MICHAEL LEIGH
MICHAEL LEIGH
Mar 17, 2019 9:57 PM

My apology for suggesting that Lockhead were the Mfg of the MAX737 airframe, and that comment of mine should have read as been manufactured by Boeing.

vexarb
vexarb
Mar 18, 2019 8:34 AM

TMike, do not run away; stand your ground and take your country back from AZC ghouls who are drinking its blood and turning it into an evil zombie.

Nowhere in this Universe, not till World’s End, will anyone find a refuge from Good vs Evil.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against Principles and Powers in the Heavens”. — St.Paul, Corinthians

vexarb
vexarb
Mar 16, 2019 7:02 PM

The great Russian evolutionist Kropotkin said, Co-operation is the main strategy through which life survives in a hostile world. Russia will survive because human beings instinctively recognize this:

Former Ukrainian Defence Minister Igor Tenyukh says Ukrainian Troops Refused to Shoot Russians in Crimea in 2014

Igor Tenyukh, former acting Minister of Defence of Ukraine in the government of U$ puppet “our man Yats” (Arseniy Yatsenyuk) said during an interview on Channel 4 that he personally gave the order to “shoot to kill” Crimeans in 2014, but his military personnel did not execute it.

He also added that from the 12,000 serving Ukrainian naval forces, 10,000 came over to the side of Russia.

https://www.stalkerzone.org/former-ukrainian-defence-minister-igor-tenyukh-ukrainian-troops-refused-to-shoot-russians-in-crimea-in-2014/

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 16, 2019 8:14 PM
Reply to  vexarb

Have US troops ever refused to shoot anyone, or is it always them shooting people they were not asked to shoot? Like Vietnamese peasants, Afghan wedding guests, their own soldiers, or the soldiers of their allies? Monsters by any other name..

Loverat
Loverat
Mar 16, 2019 7:01 PM

An excellent read.

I have always thought that the school-yard bully analogy is ideal in describing the world order.

I was bullied at school (nowhere close to that in the article) and first appeased or ran away. Then one day I stood up and punched one of them in the jaw and after that I was respected. I’m sure countless other people will tell you, the only way in that setting is to stand up for yourself.

But the problem Russia and China has, as Andre indicates, is they are dealing with extremely unstable lunatics. These lunatics have nuclear weapons and I sense if there was a military incident, say over Idlib in Syria, which involves Russia and US they would reach for these and ask questions later. And with the media encouraging a conflict with Russia it won’t take much for conflict to become nuclear. So not sure if flexing military muscle will help.

I actually think this is a game of cat and mouse – or chess which Russia is very good at. Looking around the world it seems the US does not know who to turn its unwelcome attention next. Venezuala, Syria, Iran, North Korea – perhaps Russia and China knows that the US can’t be everywhere at once and figures if the bully is distracted by so many candidates for regime change it gives them a bit of time to work out what to do.

But in the long run, I think changing this state of affairs has to come from the public in the West. Without that or something changing drastically, global conflict is inevitable.

Maggie
Maggie
Mar 16, 2019 10:10 PM
Reply to  Loverat

Loverat – ”Looking around the world it seems the US does not know who to turn its unwelcome attention next. Venezuala, Syria, Iran, North Korea – perhaps Russia and China knows that the US can’t be everywhere at once and figures if the bully is distracted by so many candidates for regime change it gives them a bit of time to work out what to do.”
I have to differ, the US Hydra knows exactly where it’s attention is going next. They have been working on the plan from the inception of Israhell.
They have bands of bespoke armies of terrorists, recruited, trained and primed with drugs to be let loose at a time of their master’s choosing, who are paid a pittance.. but are fed and clothed, and get to drive about in new vehicles with state of the art weaponry. They are famous for fifteen minutes, riding the crest of a wave, but of course they are uneducated, religiously indoctrinated and impressionable, and their lives are worthless and expendable..
They are only there to soften up the target.
The US wants the economy crippled and the people worn down in readiness for the cavalry and economic hitmen to arrive to make way for the Cabal to install it’s own puppet, and clear the way for the vampires to suck the life blood from the weakened nation.
What they haven’t allowed for is the fact that no other nation on earth is as morally and emotionally crippled as the American Nation… By their very nature the bully is always the weakest and most damaged who surrounds himself with heavies… It is the same old story of ”The Mafia”.
”That’s a nice little country you have there. How much will you pay us to keep you safe?”
”What, you don’t need us? Well, let’s see about that.”

Take a look at what as happened in New Zealand.. you don’t think this was a coincidence??

Pompei fired the ‘warning shots’ over NZ last week about trading with China.
But opposition National Party foreign affairs spokesman Todd McClay wrote in a New Zealand Herald column on Sunday.
“Our relationship with China is worth over NZ$27 billion in two-way trade. The prospect of a deteriorating relationship with China is a major risk. It hampers certainty in the economy and creates uncertainty for our exporters and tourism operators.”
Any cooling of the friendship could have significant ramifications for the tiny South Pacific nation, which is in the process of negotiating an upgrade of its free-trade agreement with China. The world’s most populous country and second-largest economy has become New Zealand’s biggest trading partner, taking a quarter of all exports, while surging Chinese visitors have helped make tourism the country’s biggest foreign-exchange earner. And New Zealand still hasn’t ruled out Huawei playing a role in its major internet network upgrade if unnamed risks raised by security agencies can be mitigated, with the prime minister saying the country won’t be swayed by Britain’s decision in the matter….

Last week, United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned central European nations that deploying equipment from Huawei “makes it more difficult for America to be PRESENT” in those countries.
“We have seen this all around the world; it also makes it more difficult for America to be PRESENT,” Pompeo said, after announcing plans for a defence cooperation agreement with Hungary to purchase mid-range air defence capabilities…… (against who?)
“If that equipment (Huawei) is collocated where we have important American systems (installations), it makes it more difficult for us to PARTNER alongside them.”

Then, despite being reliant on NZ$27 billion in two-way trade with China… New Zealand decided that the Huawei 5G technology did pose a threat to NZ security after all??
But this assurance came too late and they had to be taught a lesson.

>>>In New Zealand’s worst ever terror attack and one of the worst mass-shootings ever: 
White Australian right-wing ‘terrorist’ Brenton Tarrant is one of FOUR people arrested over a pair of mosque massacres. Of the 49 fatalities, 41 were killed at the Al Noor Mosque and seven by a second shooter at the Linwood Avenue mosque. which is within 10km of the first attack. 
Christchurch Police Commissioner Mike Bush said, “The shooters ”live-streamed” the shooting at Al Noor Mosque in a 17-minute video which contained a written manifesto declaring intentions, saying “It is a terrorist attack”,  then showed the self-confessed white supremacist dressed in army fatigues firing mercilessly at people scrambling to flee, then calmly reloading when he ran out of bullets. Bush then added, “Four suspects including three men and a woman have been taken into custody.”
There was another shooting outside Christchurch Hospital and multiple bombs were attached to two cars belonging to the suspects near the mosque.  – The explosives were quickly disarmed.
The gunman’s rampage began when he got into his car wearing military-style body armour and a helmet saying ‘let’s get this party started’.
He then drove to the mosque ”listening to folk music and military tunes” before parking in an alley around the corner.
How in God’s name does anyone know this unless they wrote the script?????
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6811785/Shooter-opens-fire-New-Zealand-injures-four-people-witnesses-say-heard-20-shots.html

THE UPBRINGING OF A SHOOTER:
Tarrant attended a local high school in Grafton and then worked as a personal trainer at the local Big River Squash and Fitness Centre from 2010.
A woman who knew Tarrant through the gym said he had always followed a strict dietary and exercise regime.
”He was very dedicated to his own training and to training others,” she said. ”He threw himself into his own personal training and then qualified as a trainer and trained others. He was very good. When I say he was dedicated, he was dedicated more than most people would be. He was in the gym for long periods of time, lifting heaving weights. He pretty much transformed his body.”
The woman said she had not spoken about or heard him talk about his political or religious beliefs.
”’From the conversations we had about life he didn’t strike me as someone who had any interest in that, or extremist views,”’ she said. ”But I know he’s been travelling since he left Grafton. He has been travelling ‘overseas, anywhere and everywhere. I would say it’s something in the nature of his travels, something he’s been around.”

So would I – Like the CIA, MI6 and co.

As Andre says in his Most Excellent article, we all have to stand up to the bullies. Begin by telling the USA and Israhell to F off. Boycott everything about them.
NOW – today.

mark
mark
Mar 16, 2019 6:38 PM

The best solution is for every country, down to the smallest like Iran and DPRK, to produce its own nuclear weapons. Then, and only then, will they be left in peace. Like all bullies, the Ziocons sh*t their pants and run screaming like rabbits when faced by real men who fight back. If the utterly vile genocidal Zionist Regime can have them, then so should everybody else. The Zionists, the Exceptional and Indispensable People, and their satellites like the UK, will carry on slaughtering, starving and terrorising hundreds of millions, as they have from time immemorial, until they have to pay a price for their barbarism.

vexarb
vexarb
Mar 16, 2019 7:09 PM
Reply to  mark

Honest Nuclear Disarmament is better than spreading Universal MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction).

mark
mark
Mar 17, 2019 1:34 AM
Reply to  vexarb

No. Every country (especially small and weak ones) need to get hold of the biggest, shiniest, pointiest, nuclear weapon they can lay their hands on. Then they should hold a big parade wheeling it around the entire country, preceded by a brass band and drum majorettes, keeping it pointed at America or Israel or the UK, whoever is the greatest threat to peace at the time.

Everything else is a pipedream, just a device for preserving the terror of the vilest people on the planet. If Iraq and Libya had cobbled together a nuclear weapon, millions of people would still be alive.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 17, 2019 12:11 PM
Reply to  vexarb

Well yes it is but… Having campaigned for ND 60 years ago, what I see is that a superpower , has used ND to enfeeble it’s real, imagined or potential foes. Fortunately it has not succeeded because it seems a nuclear threat is the only thing that keeps the foaming mad dogs of the American military from breaking their restraints. It is a sad commentary on the US, that the ideals and aims that attracted the best and the brightest in the 60s have been used as bait, so the Lemnitzers, Rumsfelds and Perle clones can run rampant, under the guise of foreign aid, the Peace Corps, and the like..

Mark is right about Iraq and its reruns.

mark
mark
Mar 18, 2019 12:03 AM
Reply to  George Cornell

Uncle Sam and his Zionist Masters will never learn some manners or clean up their act till they get a good hard kick in the b*lls. Preferably a nuclear one. They need to experience what they have inflicted on so many for so long.

vexarb
vexarb
Mar 18, 2019 8:43 AM
Reply to  mark

Mark, this is MADness. The Persians do not want Nuclear MADness, they want Honest Nuclear Disarmament.

CND, got it?

[To all my Off-G friends: Over and Out. / signed, Vexarb]

mark
mark
Mar 18, 2019 3:12 PM
Reply to  vexarb

Iran does not have nuclear weapons.
It is likely to be attacked soon.
It will not be attacked if it has one nuclear weapon.
They should do what they have to to protect their people.
If the vile Zionist Regime can have them, everybody can.