Suddenly, Western “Regime” Changes Keep Failing
Andre Vltchek
It used to be done regularly and it worked: The West identified a country as its enemy, unleashed its professional propaganda against it, then administered a series of sanctions, starving and murdering children, the elderly and other vulnerable groups. If the country did not collapse within months or just couple of years, the bombing would begin.
And the nation, totally shaken, in pain, and in disarray, would collapse like a house of cards, once the first NATO boots hit its ground.
Such scenarios were re-enacted, again and again, from Yugoslavia to Iraq.
But suddenly, something significant has happened. This horrific lawlessness, this chaos stopped; was deterred.
The West keeps using the same tactics, it tries to terrorize independent-minded countries, to frighten people into submission, to overthrow what it defines as ‘regimes’, but its power, its monstrously destructive power has all of a sudden become ineffective.
It hits, and the attacked nation shakes, screams, sheds blood, but keeps standing, keeps proudly erect.
*
What we are experiencing is a great moment in human history. Imperialism has not yet been defeated, but it is losing its global grip on power.
Now we have to clearly understand ‘Why?’, so we can continue our struggle, with even greater determination, with even greater effectiveness.
First of all, by now we know that the West cannot fight. It can spend trillions on ‘defense’, it can build nuclear bombs, ‘smart missiles’ and strategic warplanes. But it is too cowardly, too spoiled to risk the lives of its soldiers.
It either kills remotely, or by using regional mercenaries. Whenever it becomes clear that the presence of its troops would be required, it backs up.
Secondly, it, the West, is totally horrified of the fact that there are now two super-powerful countries – China and Russia – which are unwilling to abandon their allies. Washington and London do all they can to smear Russia and to intimidate China.
Russia is being provoked continuously: by propaganda, by military bases, sanctions and by new and newer bizarre mass media inventions that depict it as the villain in all imaginable circumstances.
China has been provoked practically and insanely, ‘on all fronts’ – from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and the so-called ‘Uyghur Issue’, to trade.
Any strategy that could weaken these two countries, is applied. Yet, Russia and China do not crumble. They do not surrender. And they do not abandon their friends. Instead, they are building great railroads in Africa and Asia, they educate people from almost all poor and desperate countries, and stand by those who are being terrorized by both North America and Europe.
Thirdly, all the countries in the world are now clearly aware of what would happen to them, if they give up and get ‘liberated’ by the Western empire. Iraq, Honduras, Indonesia, Libya and Afghanistan, are the ‘best’ examples.
Submitting themselves to the West, countries can only expect misery, absolute collapse and the ruthless extraction of their resources. The poorest country in Asia – Afghanistan – has totally collapsed under NATO occupation.
The suffering and pain of the Afghan and Iraqi people is very well known to the citizens of Iran and Venezuela. They are not giving up, because no matter how tough their life is under sanctions and the West-administered terror, they are well-aware of the fact that things could get worse, much worse, if their countries were to be occupied and governed by the Washington and London-injected maniacs.
And everyone knows the fate of the people living in Palestine or Gollan Heights, places which have been overrun by the closest ally of the West in the Middle East, Israel.
*
Of course, there are other reasons why the West cannot get any of its adversaries to kneel.
One is – that the toughest ones are left. Russia, Cuba, China, North Korea (DPRK), Iran, Syria and Venezuela are not going to run away from the battlefield. These are the most determined nations on earth. These are the countries that have already lost thousands, millions, even tens of millions of their people, in the fight against Western imperialism and colonialism.
If one is following the latest attacks of the West carefully, the scenario is pathetic, almost grotesque: Washington and often the EU, too, are trying hard; they are hitting, they are spending billions of dollars, using the local mercenaries (or call it ‘local opposition’), and then they quickly withdraw after wretched but anticipated defeat.
So far, Venezuela has survived. Syria survived. Iran survived. China is fighting horrible Western-backed subversions, but it is proudly surviving. Russia is standing tall.
This is a tremendous moment in human history. For the first time, Western imperialism is being not only defeated, but fully unveiled and humiliated. Many are now laughing at it, openly.
But we should not celebrate, yet. We should understand what and why this is happening, and then continue fighting. There are many, many battles ahead us. But we are on the right track.
Let them try. We know how to fight. We know how to prevail. We have already fought fascism, in many of its forms. We know what freedom is. Their ‘freedom’ is not our freedom. Their ‘liberty’ is not our liberty. What they call ‘democracy’ is not how we want our people to rule and to be ruled. Let them go away; we, our people, do not want them!
They cannot overthrow our systems, because they are, precisely our systems! Systems that we want, that our people want; systems we are ready to fight and die for!
First published by New Eastern Outlook
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I think its worth remembering that when they were both communist countries, Russia and China fell out massively. It is also worth remembering that after Vladimir Putin took over in Russia, he sought to build bridges with the west but was rebuffed, which in the longer term will prove to have been disastrous both for Russia and for the west, since now Russia is drawing closer to that gangster state that is run by the Chinese Communist Party.
I know that the left loves China, but one has to be a contortionist of the most extraordinary skill still to believe that China is anything other than a state that has been taken over by psychopaths. The colonial exploitation of Tibet where it is impossible for a Tibetan to receive an education in their mother tongue, thirty million deaths from starvation as direct consequence of the Great Leap Forward, brutalisation, destruction and murder on a mass scale during the Cultural Revolution, the incarceration and murder of up to a million practitioners of Falun Gong, whose only crime it seems was to enjoy performing simple exercises that had been previously extolled as virtuous and character building by the Communist Party. Those million were murdered and their organs plundered so that they could be sold on the open market to profit the Party further.
Add to that the absence of civil society, and in practice no rule of law and now massive computerised surveillance courtesy of western businesses such as Cisco Systems, Google and Microsoft, where the only people not surveilled are the party bosses who profit massively from this dystopia.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that as it is now run, China is massively overleveraged and it is become increasingly obvious too that the people are suffering greatly from the economic downturn and China could soon collapse. As an admirer of both Vladimir Putin and the Russian People, I fear for the effects on them of China’s downfall. That said, we will all pay a heavy price because China’s growth has been financed by US Dollars, not the RMB. I suspect that the collapse of 2008 will seem like a gnat’s bite in comparison.
I know that most off Grauniad readers will not wish to hear this because many see China as the next great bright hope for the world, but the price paid by ordinary Chinese has been much too high. I can only hope that once free of the rule of the CCP, China’s future will be bright but the short term price for all of us is likely to be heavy.
Excellent article Andre as always.. Thank you
Excellent header image too!
Throw the Ladies and Lords, the Barons and Baroness, the Queens and Kings the Czars and Czarinas, the Commisars and Central Committee off our Commons.
Take back the Commons from the real estate theives of the ruling class.
Break up the oligarchies in industry and the unions, in agriculture and retail, in energy and transport.
Restore dignity and the commonwealth to the people, the real owners.
Why everyone on this site thinks the massive power vacuum created by the fall of the Imperial West will be filled by China and Russia filling the world with peaceful rainbows and unicorns.
Judging by how these countries have stifled freedoms and individualism on their perspective citizens, absolutely crushed journalism, like literally putting bullets into the back of their skulls(Anna Politikovskaya), this is the country that actually made a heterosexual flag? Just to be clear the US is not being defended here, just not sure I’m on side with the choice of lesser evils in this situation.
Last time we looked into it there remained no evidence that AP was assassinated by the Russian govt. if you have access to some do you feel like sharing it?
Any other suspects or motive youre aware of?
I suppose the 99 Chechnya bombings weren’t really perpetrated by Putin and 9/11 was really all The Taliban.
Either way, personally I lack the faith in the personal freedom that either of these countries espouse, China is literally creating the most invasive police state ever conceived, even by Phillip K Dick or Orwells standards. This should by all means terrify anyone who cares in the slightest about individualism, over collective control.
This is not about how heinous the US is, which they are, it is about a choice of lesser evils, I still take Western Imperialism over Chinese authoritarianism all day.
Thanks Jack Leon but why limit the debate to the duality of totalitarian analysis whe there are many ways to develop and instill a libertarian means of government. Socialism is not imediately authoritarian. There are many democratic socialist systems in this world that deliver excellent quality of life to millions. We are intelligent beings mostly and we have worked hard over millenia to arrive at this place, so now let us install better governance shall we.
”Judging by how these countries have stifled freedoms and individualism on their perspective citizens.”
Stifled freedom to do what?
To excel in everything they do?
”absolutely crushed journalism, like literally putting bullets into the back of their skulls(Anna Politikovskaya) ”
”On trial for Politovskaya’s murder will be three brothers from Chechnya, their uncle, and a former police officer. Three of the accused have already been acquitted by a jury in 2009, but that decision was ‘overturned by Russia’s supreme court’, and a new jury was chosen for a new trial. Lom-Ali Gaitukayev is accused of organising the hit, while his nephew Rustam Makhmudov allegedly pulled the trigger. (surelooks as if Russia was guilty of this murder, duh? That is why they instigated a new investigation and trial?)
Last December, Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, a former police officer, was given an 11-year sentence for helping in the logistics of the murder, after cooperating with investigators. He tracked Ms Politkovskaya prior to her killing to learn her routine, and acquired the gun used to shoot her. “Pavlyuchenkov knows the name of the go-between at least, and very likely also the name of the mastermind, and he is being allowed not to name these people,” said Novaya Gazeta’s deputy editor Sergei Sokolov at the time.
Many of Ms Politkovskaya’s former colleagues have voiced suspicions that Ramzan Kadyrov, the controversial Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, COULD have been behind the killing. Ms Politkovskaya published a number of hard-hitting articles about rights abuses in Chechnya and she was preparing a story about torture in the region when she was killed.
”The Investigative Committee has suggested that the murder, along with other killings of those critical of the Kremlin or Mr Kadyrov, could have been ordered by BORIS BEREZOVSKY, the fugitive Russian oligarch who died earlier this year in Surrey, as an elaborate ruse to discredit the Kremlin.” (Now that sounds more like the truth to me?)##
I LEAVE IT TO YOU to investigate Berezovsky, that is presuming you know how to investigate and not quote MSM presstitute headlines.
”This is the country that actually made a heterosexual flag?”
Ohh my God, how dare they!!!
More MSM bullshit propaganda from Jack Leon.
No one believes this ”Putin did it” crap anymore Dimwit.
I might add – following yesterdays comment getting the usual treatment for stating brute economic realities – that the globalised economy being a dollarised one is not something you can have an opinion about. It is a fact. That so many can hold a contrafactual opinion above fact can only be due to economic illiteracy. Willfully held cherished opinion elevated despite the fact.
Which could be more excusable if we had not had the ultimate in living proof of economic reality within recent living memory. If the global economic system was not largely dollarised (to 60% of the global Reserve): then a relatively minor mortgage crisis (or “savings glut”) could not possibly have become global and extending for over a decade to date. There is just no way that China and the rest of the world could be pulled in a relatively small perturbation in the value of the dollar. It is proof positive of interlinking – the fact that the global financial crisis was global.
There are no separate systems. It is an extreme failure of economic intelligence to predicate otherwise. If not through economic illiteracy: then through false memory syndrome! FFS: it was only twelve years ago that the system crashed. The interlinking is EVEN MORE integrated now. A loss of confidence or ‘moral contagion’ will flash around the globe in close to real time. To posit differential ‘systems to fight and die for’ in the face of economic and historical realism requires a monumental feat of reality aversion and denial. Andre has lost his grip on economic reality. Don’t naively follow him.
think you are right to remind us that
BigB, I think you are right to remind us that Love of Money is the Root of All Evil, but wrong to criticize someone who rejoices when he sees that some branches of that Money Tree of Evil are withering away. The end of Hitler’s regime change plan for Europe was an occasion for rejoicing; even though it did not mean the end of Capitalist resource wars, at least a relatively united Europe enjoyed 40 years of relative peace and socialist prosperity. The end of NATZO’s regime change plan for socialist Syria and communist Iran may likewise herald a period of relative unity, peace and socialist prosperity for the ME. That is one reason to cheer; two other reasons are the re-emergence of China and Russia into a period of relative security and prosperity. So a big three cheers are justified.
I remember, when socialist Syria began its resistance to AZC terrorism on Syrian soil, some Trots complained that it was not correct to defend Syria on the ground because the real enemy was global Capitalism up there in the sky.
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/08/article/lula-from-jail-tells-world-hes-back-in-the-game/https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/08/article/lula-from-jail-tells-world-hes-back-in-the-game/
Well, yeah: there is a relative geopolitical stability with the reshaping of a multipolar world. But this is undermined by the underlying geoeconomic fragility and instability arising from globalisation and a contracting global economy. So it is as a burning mirage shimmering in a heat haze above the desert of humanities impoverishment.
We all like a story we can rejoice in: a mythic tale of a kingdom of evil and a kingdom of good battling in a primordial duel to the death. In the fantasy story light always overcomes the kingdom of evils dark destruction: so we naturally align with the forces of good …heroifying the mythic contenders and denigrating the primal chaotic forces of evil. But for all the relevance this has: we might as well cast Trump as Voldemort and turn to the Harry Potter novels for economic literacy.
To coin a phrase you favour: meanwhile, back in the real world …The dollar and the yuan are inextricably and intentionally linked in value. They have been since 1994: ‘hard pegged’ to 2005; and ‘soft pegged’ ever since. Do not believe the Chinese denials. The value is set daily: and only a 2% fluctuation is allowed either way. This is economic reality. There are no separate systems that are not underpinned by the value of the yuan: that is in turn determined by the floating value of the dollar. It is a form of criminal negligence to not know this basic fact: and concoct a poorly characterised quasi-mythological fantasy narrative …contrafactually.
In the most basic sense: if the dollar and yuan are relatively priced – there are no separate systems. The value of the yuan follows the value of the dollar. Which has been a weakening trend: culminating in the yuan being at its lowest rate since before the GFC.
Absolutely anyone can check out this fact: but they don’t. When they encounter it: they deny it. That’s because the in stories we tell ourselves – it is the coherence of the narrative construction that matters …not the facts. The whole facts are sacred thing is also contrafactual: the story is sacred. Because we identify with our inner story – facts like the dollar/yuan peg are ignored. Andre is the JK Rowling of economic reality. Only his plotlines and script are not nearly as inventive. In the real world – global capitalism is the dark destructive force …only, there is no alternative. This is Capitalist Realism. If we as a humanity want to create an alternative: we need to face the hard economic reality. Fantasy narratives are just a faery tale distraction from that. Myths that mean that the dark destructivism carries on unresisted …while we spin a good, if ultimately unbelievable, yarn.
BigB, many thanks for your reply, and I always give you a plus for your clarity in exposing a truth which invites rejection because it is both obscure and unpleasant. And I by no means include you among those Soros-funded Trots who “attack from the Left”. But I am a simple minded person, and believe we have a right to rejoice in our little victories, even if we do not slay Mammon himself. And there is the ROI to consider – the cumulative Return on Investment. Perhaps Mammon will not be killed in some final Apocalyptic battle between Powers and Principalities in the Heavens: perhaps Mammon will die the death of a thousand cuts; perhaps the branches of the Evil Money Tree with bleed their sap and wither away, one little victory at a time from the little people in Syria, Lebanon, Iran Russia and China — for whom already we have given 3 cheers.
Andre also mentions some little victories in America: for example, Cuba and Venezuela. To which we might add back Brazil and give a 4th cheer — because Lula’s back in town!
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/08/article/lula-from-jail-tells-world-hes-back-in-the-game/
The leading story tonight on our MSM was the detainment and alleged mistreatment of an Australian citizen the Chinese government claims was spying (or maybe they just don’t like him because he goes around wearing US flags on his polo shirts and is calling for democracy in China). The Australian government came out in support for him and claimed his treatment was against the UN human rights declaration.
I can’t think of his name at the moment. But isn’t there another Australian citizen somewhere in the world being tortured right now with no shits given by the Australian government?
Historic Chinese imperialism is being hidden: the first ruler of the Yuan dynasty – Kublai Khan made various raids in whole South and East Asia but all these are conveniently labeled “Mongol” invasions : 1258 on wards in Vietnam, 1274 & 1281 in Japan, 1277 on wards in to Burma, 1293 on Java apart from nearby Song in 1277. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_dynasty#Military_conquests_and_campaigns
Fake history.
Such a ‘hidden’ history it’s got its own Wiki page!!
Fake brain.
Fake reading: Wiki “Mongol” invasions of Vietnam, Japan etc. were done by Chinese emperor Great Yuan / 大元 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_Vietnam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_Japan
etc.
You do know the word Yuan means Mongolian right? The Great Yuan is the dynasty of the Mongolian people who invaded China.
I mean, really, you’re either trolling or just really stupid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasties_in_Chinese_history#List_of_Chinese_dynasties
Are you denying the Yuan dynasty in Chinese history?
Remind me again who the wikipedia editorial mafia is. You do realise that it is no longer the dedicated sweet innocent of yesteryear? Like many other ‘public domains’ it has been thoroughly privatised or perhaps colonised by the straighteners and terminators of deviance.
The bogeyman strategy only works if there is a clear a simple target to bang on on relentlessly. For a while it was Russia, but now Washington can’t make it’s mind up whether it’s North Korea, Syria, Russia, Venezuela, Iran or China, and so it keeps flip-flopping it’s focus. There’s isn’t even a shared ideology that connects these rogue states, other than their very natural desire for sovereignty. Even the public that buys into the mainstream media’s framing of the narrowtive is intuitively sensing a lack of conviction.
“Narrowtive” ..nice turn of phrase
“.. these rogue states,”
You meant ‘accused of being rogue’ by fascist regimes (i.e. US/UK/KSA/Australia etc.. ), right?
The poorest country in Asia – Afghanistan – has totally collapsed under NATO occupation.
Complete BS! It is the continued Pakistani ISI influence in Afghanistan presently though their Haqqani Taliban network plus ISIS that is terrorizing Afghanistan, including intentional bombings of wedding parties
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadahan_wedding_bombing & https://www.apnews.com
/b5ceb0cfb33d4d73aaaadf5eee19fe9d
The Pakistani army wants Afghanistan as “strategic depth” in case of a conflict with India.
Ah! So the US-led invasion, with it’s endless stream of weak US-approved ‘governments’, has had nothing to do with Afghanistan’s continued instability then. Got it!!!
The US had 8,500 troops in Afghanistan in June 2019, peanuts compared to the Taliban (60,000) or the Pakistani Army (650,000) next door. https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2019_06/20190625_2019-06-RSM-Placemat.pdf
Pakistan is the only overland supply route available for the US military; roads via Iran and Russia are politically out. All their fuel, ammo and food towards Afghanistan is under Pakistani ISI control from 1978 till now, with the interruption of 2009 – 2015 . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_logistics_in_the_Afghan_War#History
But the last 20 years of military and political control count for nothing. Fine.
ISIS is a tool of western countries plus Israel. AP is also a tool of Zionism. And as for Wikipedia:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/18/wikipedia-editing-zionist-groups
Israel did the donkey work evacuating the White Helmets from Syria.
Yes. because the White Helmets worked for them.
Mule rescues donkey.
OMG Haltonbrat !! you linked tothe grauniad. Wash you keyboard out immediately. Passing round grauniad links is like sharing used toilet paper. Please, never in polite company.
Afghanistan has been the victim and playground for Neocon intrigue for years.
A liberal, progressive left wing regime that furthered women’s rights and social provision was destroyed by Uncle Sam in its own interests to weaken Russia.
Bin Laden and his splendid chaps were put on the CIA payroll for the purpose.
The result was a long running bloodbath with 28,000 Russian and 1,4 million Afghan dead.
Followed by years of civil war, US invasion and the imposition of a narco warlord puppet government on the country.
Hasn’t Afghanistan gone from having hardly any opium production prior to the US-led invasion, to currently being the source of something like 99% of the world’s source for heroin?
The Cocaine Import Agency runs the coke trade out of South America.
Might as well run the heroin trade out of Afghanistan as well.
Have you considered that the Pakistan of 1980 may not be the same country with the same players as the Pakistan of 2019? Also, when you get a weak/chaotic government then its quite likely that different factions or forces within a country may pursue widely different goals?
Antonym ain’t Antonym unless he’s running interference for The Powers That Be from his call-centre cubicle in Tel Aviv.
Women(?) I have never set foot in Israel! I do have Israeli colleagues though 😉
Do I claim you to be writing from Gaza?
I blame Nethanyahoo for being obsessed with 1/2 an Iranian Shia nuke while Sunni Pakistan has 160 nukes and counting – courtesy of China, missiles from North Korea.
Does Israel or anybody else think they is immune to Sunni radiation?
You keep posting wikipedia as if it is some bastion of truth.
Thank you Antonym but I see the shenanigans by the USA and its vassal army of craven mates as nothing more than a blockade between Pakistan, India and ultimately China. The One Belt One Road strategy of China is to be smothered at birth according to the USA.
To prove that point note the BS histrionics fomented amongst the Uighurs in Western China and now the escalating belligerence among the Balochis in South East Pakistan.
Why is the USA and vassal army still in Afghanistan? Bin Laden is long gone and so is most of his crappy gang. We all know the role played by the Saudi Arabian embassies in installing the hijackers in USA for the 9.11 attack. We all know the laisez fair complicity of the USA deep state and its minions in enabling the 9.11 slaughter.
So what is the reason for the USA to linger in the graveyard of nations for nearly 20 years.
To f#ck up China development, Iran development, Pakistan development and Afghanistan development, And you can add Syria, Iraq, India and others to that list. The USA is a monopolist oligarchy and it will do anything to obstruct diversification of wealth and trade EXCEPT through its channels and routes.
It has now come to the stage where NATO cannot fight a ground war against Russia, China, or even Iran. Since firstly, there would be huge opposition to such another crackpot piece of military adventurism, in both the US and more so in its vassals. The Korean, Vietnam (Indo-China), and Iraq wars ended the era of massive ground conflicts in which hundreds of thousands of ground troops were involved. More importantly was the draft, which met with massive opposition in the US itself. Secondly there was the enormous cost of such a dubious venture. The cost of these wars led to a run on the dollar as other states were cashing in their surplus dollars for gold, all of which resulted to Nixon taking the dollar off the gold standard in August 1971. Empires, as the US is learning, are expensive little items, and as the British also found out during their long retreat, beginning with India.
NATO, like the EU bureaucracy, is little more than a job creation scheme for the otherwise unemployable. It must be difficult to dream up a scheme in which these otherwise redundant individuals can be employed in doing useful. But NATO like the EU is a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies by their nature strive to exist and expand with no particular goals or objectives to realise. It is just a matter or going through the motions: the means, the routine becomes and end in itself. As Joseph Alois Schumpeter observed: ” …That in Egypt a class of professional soldiers formed during the war against the Hyksos, persisted, even when those were over, along with its warlike instincts and interests … this military grouping created by wars that required it, now created the wars in required.”
Who will plan economies: Financial managers (Trump and Wall St), or democratic governments (Bernie)?
Bonnie Faulkner: If there were pressures to create a New International Economic Order in the 1970s, what was this new order looking to achieve?
Michael Hudson: Other countries wanted to do for their economies what the United States has long done for its own economy: to use their governments’ deficit spending to build up their infrastructure, raise living standards, create housing and promote progressive taxation that would prevent a rentier class, a landlord and financial class from taking over economic management.
In the financial field, they wanted governments to create their own money, to promote their own development, just like the United States does. The role of neoliberalism was the opposite: it was to promote the financial and real estate sector and monopolies to take economic management away from government.
So the real question from the 1980s on was about who would be the basic planning center of society. Would it be the financial sector – the banks and bondholders, whose interest is really the One Percent that own most of the banks’ bonds and stocks?
Or, is it going to be governments trying to subsidize the economy to help the 99 Percent grow and prosper? That was the social democratic view opposed by Thatcherism and Reaganism.
https://soundcloud.com/guns-and-butter-1/the-imf-and-world-bank-partners-in-backwardness-michael-hudson-407
http://www.unz.com/mhudson/de-dollarizing-the-american-financial-empire/
Restricting the freedom of Xinjiang jihadis is a thorn in the backside of the criminals in Washington as they see their ability to brainwash, recruit and train more terrorists from the area is hugely reduced.
One of the cancers that needs to be eliminated is the propaganda device called VOA, voice of america. It needs to be dealt with and eliminated from all Asian countries. Even today, in VietNam, there are brainaltered creatures who listen to VOA and believe that the US is a force for freedom and democracy.
I didn’t know that. I always thought it stand for ‘Venom of America’. Or worse.
I would have thought that the Vietnamese would treat America with courtesy but overall would keep it at arm’s length. The US government trashed the place before leaving — it was said that it left the North with no building higher than a single story. It killed an injured countless people. The Vietnamese seem to be very nice about it but I doubt they’ve forgotten.
And Laos, and Cambodia…..
Something needs to be spelled out. Everytime, the mullahs in Washington use the words ‘National Interest’, they must be stopped and forced to explain in details what they mean by this so-called ‘National Interest’.
It is the duty of journalists and governments around the world to force the Washington regime to explain in full details what they mean by ‘National Interest’, everytime the expression is used!
They should not be allowed to use the excuse ‘National Interest’, to shut debates, any longer!
Palestinians also stand tall against Israeli genocide.
Andre: “Suddenly …”
You wrote of course “Suddenly” as shorthand for 7 years of blood sweat and tears by the Axis of Resistance (Syria, Hezb’Allah, Iran and Russia). Preceded by decades of individual resistance before these Allies came together in a united front.
“A thousand years is but the blink of an eyelid to The =Lord”. — Old Testament
Sorry Mr Vitchek, but amongst your good intentions there’s a whole pile of wishful thinking. The Beast is only having a short rest before regrouping and attacking again.
Really? Hong Kong seems to be descending into chaos and other cities may end up going the same way.
Not all, their kids are used as cannon fodder, war after war. Vietnam, the Gulf….next will be the hot wars with Russia and China. The kids are being conditioned to fight this upcoming war by being de-sensitised to violence and reflexes fine-funed through video games. A whole army being trained in the art of a new war with drones and other tech innovations.
The US neocons and their English poodles are behind Brexit. Their aim is to divide and conquer the EU completely. Each country will still remain as part of Washington controlled NATO which will increasingly fulfill a political role in the “gap” of Brussels. In fact, NATO HQ is already in Brussels.
That’s Europe, now Latin America…they’ve already had a coup in Brazil, Venezuela will be bloody but it will happen. Other countries will fall.
I’ll conclude that your optimism is quite unfounded.
In that case let everyone know what your hopes are for the future of humanity – we are listening. . . . . .
I firmly believe that China (ncluding Hong Kong) close every five eyes embassy in HK. Beijing is where they should be and then permit a skeleton staff trade centre in HK. Enough of these colour revolutions and the BS from NGO fronts who have tossed their credibility.
Shut out the five eyes group asap and everywhere. Let them operate a teading office with minimal staff.
Where does Off Guardian find these “journalists” who are so eager to ignore – or downplay – the longstanding and increasing oppression of Uigurs in Xinjiang?
I understand that it is important to highlight the wrongdoings of the West, but if in doing so, one jumps into bed with even worse regimes, or ignores their behavior, you are not providing readers with anything new, but are actually making things worse.
If media outlets like Off Guardian are eager to distance themselves from the lies and distortions of the MSM, they ought to be more choosy about who they publish.
Are you accusing Off-Guardian of being antisemitic in not criticising every country who could possible be matched with genocidal Israel, as detailed in the IHRA definition of antisemitism?
What are you raving about? My comment had nothing to do with Israel. I realise this forum is a magnet for obsessive Judeophobes, but you really are losing the plot today.
Because the argument you are making is exactly that used by the Israelis to stifle criticism of their crimes against humanity. Your reply proves your position on that and not just your aggressiveness which is typical of the Israeli culture. I have no problems with Jews except for those who support the crimes of Israel which are numerous and intense.
Little bit of reading for you, Glasshopper:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/chinas-uyghur-problem-the-recruitment-of-uyghur-muslims-to-join-al-qaeda/5656293
I’m well aware of Sunni extremism in many countries. Including my own. It does not justify the oppression which existed many years before 9/11 etc.
Interesting how supporters of slaughtering of Muslims in several countries simultaneously, and oppressing [poor] Muslims worldwide, are the first to criticise vocational centres and restricting the jihadis’ movements in Xinjiang.
What do people like you know about Xinjiang? Have you travelled all over the region as i have? Do you have friends who’ve married into the community?
Of course not. And neither does the clown who wrote this article.
Again you debate just like the Israelis whose tactic is to close down debate by saying that the other person has not been to Israel and therefore cannot have a view on the subject. Also why do you feel the need to insult the author. Again the Israelis continually use insults in attempt to shut the other person down.
Anyone who criticises Talmudistan (Norman Finkelstein, Gunther Grass, Cortez, Chomsky) are automatically banned from entry.
Israel.
It’s not a banned word here, use it.
Or are you trying to undermine your point with unnecessary language that can be dismissed as racist.
Thank you editor, I fully agree. Another blogger elsewhere always refers to israel as ‘occupied palestine’ just to drive the point home.
And a big THANK YOU for printi g and Andre Vitchek writing. I enjoy visiting his home page and also finding good interviews. He is one manificent humanitarian. Even the grasshoppers sing his praise.
I’ve been a stalwart supporter of the Palestinian cause since the early 80’s. I don’t need some muppet preaching to me in a discussion on Uigurs.
You are clearly obsessed with shoe-horning in your favorite topic where it doesn’t belong.
Your mention of “obsessive Judeophobes” in relation to people bringing up the subject of Israel’s oppression of Palestinians does not suggest that you are a supporter of justice for Palestinians.
You are still being aggressive. Where did you learn to debate – at Eton?
The trick that you’ve got to watch out for is the idea that a member of a cultural minority cannot by definition be a citizen of their country. This was pushed at us over the rail route to Lhasa — its not a way to enable a people to participate in the life of their country, its a way for “Han Chinese” to colonize someone else’s territory. Its the same with the far west; apparently the Belt and Road Initiative is all about Han Chinese colonization, the suppression of minority cultures and so on.
Mapping this line to other countries you find that its really a ploy to break up countries that are getting too big for their boots. I suspect that there’s quite a lot of people in US government circles who’d like to see China go the way of post-1991 USSR, break it up into bits that ideally will fight among themselves. The history of China suggests this won’t happen — there are plenty of ethnic and cultural minorities in China, there always has been, they’re just part of the fabric of the country.
“Have you travelled all over the region as i have?”
The old ex cathedra manouevre. We are not worthy.
Read his books and you will find out who the real “clowns” are
“What do people like you know about Xinjiang?”
Ah yeah right, if one doesn’t have personal relationship with a Brazilian tree, they shouldn’t be allowed to show their position on Amazon’s Fires.
I have seen this argument used by some spooks trying to shut debates with commenters who didn’t live where significant malicious cockup by the ZioAlliance happened (and still happening).
Cue more crocodile tears for “the poor Uighurs” from the same people who killed half a million Iraqi children under 5 in Iraq.
The discussion is not about Iraq, a subject i’m likely to agree with you on.
I am curious what you have against Uighurs though. Do you dismiss the Rohingya too?
You don’t seem very even handed on the topic of minorities being abused.
I’m just a suspicious of stories about 6 million moslem Uighurs in concentration camps being turned into lamp soap and shades from the same people who are currently waging a hybrid war against China, and who are obviously so, so concerned about the welfare of moslems.
The USA is soooo concerned about theUighurs that it totally forgot to reserve some concern for the Venezuelan people that it is curently starving and denying national wealth to so they can purchase hospitals, expand education services build new infrastructure etc.
The USA has so much concern that even its poodle over the Atlantic at airstrip one has stolen the Venezuelan people’s gold so they cannot improve health services, expand education etc etc. The five eyes look on approvingly and should any vassal blink then the USA will simply push up the price of oil as punishment. That increase will not affect the USA as it continues to stripmine the wealth of its future generations to achieve self sufficiency right now.
PM Bibi Netanyahu Boasts “Israel is the Second Eye of Five Eyes”
Just to reveal another MIGHTY journalist for readers here (and certainly Grasshopper you must take your pills) do take a trip to mintpressnewsDOTcom and read all of Whitney Webb’s extraordinary writing. Not one word of it is anti semitic but it is dreadfully revealing of the ugliness of the USA.
It might help, Glasshopper, if you identify your sources on “the longstanding and increasing oppression of Uigurs in Xinjiang”. I for one am no longer willing to trust MSM on much at all beyond the football results. Least of all when it comes to those countries which, regardless of their motivation and internal politics, stand in the way of Western imperialism.
I add that ‘regardless’ sub clause because, while I welcome the broad thrust of Andre’s rousing piece, I wouldn’t go so far as to endorse the claim that:
“… Russia and China do not crumble. They do not surrender. And they do not abandon their friends. Instead, they are building great railroads in Africa and Asia, they educate people from almost all poor and desperate countries, and stand by those who are being terrorized by both North America and Europe.”
This paints R & C as saintlike altruists when that is neither likely nor necessary. The cause for celebration here – though the world is more dangerous as a result – is that the unipolar grip of Western imperialsm, through its military might and its outrunning institutions (IMF, WB etc) is under serious challenge in the ways Andre suggests on the military plane, and on the fiscal and economic planes through such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as alternatives to IMF blackmail. This is to the good, regardless of the motivations of Beijing and Moscow.
‘It might help, Glasshopper, if you identify your sources on “the longstanding and increasing oppression of Uigurs in Xinjiang”.’
Erm:
Patient “anecdotal” evidence bad, identifiable textbook assertion definitive? Ever thought of becoming a medic?
Good point Robbobbobin.
I’ve had similar re Syria from a person who presumed to speak for its people, against Assad, on the ground that unlike me she’d had a few refugees round for tea. To claim higher ground (moral and/or epistemological) on the basis of acquaintance (real or putative) with a tiny sample of an ethnic or national group is childish and worthless.
Everybody claims higher ground for situations they know of from living there, having lived there, travelling there, having relatives there, having friends there, working there, speaking the language there and reading or listening to reports from there. And for every one of those you’ll find someone from or related to someone from the same general area with a similar view of the conditions but quite the opposite interpretation of them. Nevertheless, this sort of personal or trusted firsthand hearsay insight remains for everyone the very best sort of insight anyone can get and they are right to claim higher ground for their consequent views, regardless of whether others choose to accord it them or not.
Most of us live amongst tiny samples. How else would parliametary parties with MPs regularly conducting surgeries with consituents all over the UK fuck up so spectacularly in their anticipation of the outcome of the Brexit referendum?
Ah but sometimes it’s a case of: Everybody claims higher ground for situations they CLAIM TO know of. It sometimes happens that whenever e.g. China is mentioned, somebody pipes in with “I lived there for five years” or whenever an invasion is mentioned, someone says, “Well I was there when the bullets started flying” etc. Maybe they were. But sometimes people are known to fabricate. (Shock horror!)
The highwater mark for the centuries long Anglo Imperialism is constantly reached across the globe. Indian subcontinent, Tibet, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia… in the east. Afghanistan and across back to the ME now … the desperate bottom of the barrel petty caesars of the declining Empire are now splashing around in the Med’ – Boltons latest missive by twitter:
“All hands on deck in the campaign to stop Iran from funding terror, destabilizing the globe, and breaking international sanctions. The illicit oil heading to Turkey on the Adrian Darya 1 must not be allowed off-loaded in port or at sea.”
!!!!!!!!!!!
How the fuck can anyone take the failing Empire at all seriously when one of its highly placed unelected arseholes starts telling the World about what not to do with ONE fully laden oil tanker, thoisands of miles from his homeland?? Who the fuck do they think they are telling never mind talking to? And we are supposed to salute and say yes sir, will do, whatever you say, massa.
Fuck ’em.
Bolton is a mentally ill subject whose sense for reality is so much compromised,that he lives in a fantasy world like anybody who believes to be Napoleon, or worse. He is constantly projecting his own criminal activities onto others.
Part of his mental illness is that he is incapable to realize that nobody is taking him serious anymore – but people that are mentally worse off then him. He and his fan base belong into closed mental healthcare, where they can wear their Napoleon hats and hide their hands under their jackets.
My diagnosis of the life-condition of John Bolton is that he displays all the classic attributes of the psychopath. He tries to present a charming facade, behind which lies a complete lack of empathy with human life, which to these warmongering delinquents, remains a commodity to be disposed of in the satisfaction of their lusts and cravings for money, power, influence and status, at the base of which lies a perversion of the dignity and worth of all life, human or otherwise, which struggles to survive in the face of extinction on this planet, which is the property of no-one yet the property of all.. He is a high priest of Neo-liberalism and he expounds the “Monroe Doctrine” – which is but one of the heretical doctrines of Imperialism. The criticisms being directed towards Andre Vitchek here (and elsewhere) are unfounded and give the impression that these superior beings who mock him from above, have never read any of his books, let alone given any serious consideration to the issues he raises. I don’t agree with all of his views, but it appears he displays more courage and integrity than those who like to take cheap shots at him, seeking refuge in the knowledge that few will even bother to challenge them. Just remember one thing – you are as bad as the person you condemn. Looking into the mirror of your life-condition, you will see the “clown”, the ‘muppet”, the “idiot”, the “racist” and the ‘virtue signaller”. Call the next patient in please. . . . . .
There are plenty more Boltons where he comes from. Most are a bit more subtle in their approach but they still share the same goals.
In all honesty and in reply to ‘Father Beyond’ i’m convinced these people are simply crazed from watching too many superhero movies.
I’m not sure what has happened to Andre. I used to wait on each new report from the global frontline with anticipation. Now, he is becoming increasingly deranged.
He is increasingly obsessed with an imagined geography of Occident and Orient, East and West, that is completely contrafactual in the face of the globalised trans-national capital markets. The greatest pool of liquidity is ‘offshore’: that is neither East or West – but an integration of both. The imagined geography disaggregating them is just that: unreal and imaginary.
He says his people are ready to fight and die for ‘their’ systems. This means they are ready to fight and die for the dollar. The globalised system is dollar based: despite the largely unfounded internet meme of de-dollarisation. The alternative systems – including the NDB, AIIB, CRA – are all dollarised for loans. If you want some of your money from the CRA – in the face of a liquidity crisis – you can only get 30%. Then you have to go to the IMF for a neoliberal SAP …opening up your economy to the global vultures. Most BRI lending is dollarised. It is all done in allegiance to the IMF/WB/WTO/UN/BIS/WEF and their neoliberal institutionalisation of the post-Bretton Woods ‘Global Governance’ architecture. In this way: the systems Andre is willing to fight and die for are a sub-imperial extension of the global dehumanisation system of cannibalisitic capital accumulation.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/brics-leaders-are-reinforcing-not-replacing-the-global-system-of-power/5650177
Which anyone who actually reads VVP or Xi’s speeches – or their joint declarations – would irrefutably know. “China wants globalisation” has been stated clearly since WEF2017. It was re-iterated at SPIEF 2019. There is no doubt: just willfully lazy journalism. Feeding a politically and economically naive over-active imagination. But believing faery tales is not progressive: just succumbing to the cold comfort of illusion.
So, the largest pool of global capital liquidity is situated ‘offshore’ in a deterritorialised no mans land: neither East or West – but integrating both. There is a reason for this. The offshore space is more or less totally unregulated (self-regulated-same thing). Which means it is largely free of tax burdens or regulatory oversight burdening national capital creation. More or less anything goes.
Here is a headfuck: the dollar is not an American currency. Not solely. The largest dollar market is in London. Those ‘dollars’ (eurodollars) are not ‘printed’ by the Fed: subject to US tax; or SEC oversight. And anyone with sufficient creditworthiness can own them. They are issued as bearer bonds – as in ‘I promise to pay the bearer’ …just like the bad guys use in the Bond movies (sorry!). Because of the complete lack of transparency and intentional secrecy of the offshore Eurobond markets – absolutely no East/West distinction can be drawn or subsatantiated. Except in gullible and naive minds. I add this only because I have been detailing the globalisation of globalisation for a long time – to studious ignorance.
So, believe Andre’s contrafactual ravings if you must. In the real globalised economy: the systems are largely dollarised. Willing to fight and die for a dollarised globalised system of wanton rape and dehumanisation? Me neither. The world is burning in a systemic dollarised debt and derivative Bonfire of the Vanities of greed, hatred, and delusion. That is something to fight against: not to die for. Though, it may yet come to that as the dollarised system is doomed …as are all other capitalist systems of failure.
It’s humanity or the delusions of capitalised debt and derivative exponential negentropic growth …bifurcated into imaginary geographies of a good and bad hemisphere. Which is just humanity versus capitalist insanity. I know which side I’m on.
Another issue is what this means for the home populations of the Western nations. As the Western ruling class finds it harder and harder to intimidate the countries it has been bleeding, it will find its own formerly luxuriant position in danger and will start to demand more and more from its lower classes. And since the threat of a worker’s revolution (posed very concretely by Russia and China in the first half of the 20th century) no longer applies, the welfare state (formed as a concession to keep the proles in line) will become increasingly decimated. Our ruling class no longer even has to pretend to care. In short, the UK and US publics will start to become more and more like the foreign native populations targeted by the West.
Good points George, although as Vladimir Lenin allegedly said “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”…..Or have a look at ‘Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution’ book by Anthony C Sutton, available widely or pdf here; https://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/Sutton_Wall_Street_and_the_bolshevik_revolution-5.pdf
https://steemit.com/life/@steemtruth/controlled-opposition-your-friend-might-be-your-enemy-truth
Also Mao was a “Yaley” – headline: ‘Yale Group Spurs Mao’s Emergence’ http://digital.library.yale.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/yale-ydn/id/135148/rec/14
https://www.corbettreport.com/china-and-the-new-world-order-transcript/
So it seems that the ‘workers revolutions’ were not 100% grassroots up risings, just as today’s “Colour Revolutions” often arise out of the hidden hand of various change agents and NGO’s whose cover is as providing humanitarian support etc.
The Welfare State may have been as you say a concession, but there could conceivably be other reasons too maybe?
I think the Western governments, having had decades of practice and observation, know full well not only to control the opposition and not only to lead it but to create it too. In a way, all this is just an extension of capitalist consumerism. The idea is to find out what everyone wants and then manufacture the image of it, but not the reality.
According to the Adam Curtis documentary, “Century of the Self”, Edward Bernays, father of the modern PR industry, was asked by cigarette manufacturers how to get women to smoke (in those days it was considered a male activity and the cig industry figured it was missing out on a huge potential market demographic). Bernays did a bit of research and found out that what women wanted was to be more independent “like men”. So Bernays staged a publicity stunt whereby a number of young attractive women were to gather and light “torches of freedom” – this info being delivered with maximum publicity throughout the media. So the day comes, the women appear and light cigarettes and smoke them. You hear that and think, “Oh come on now!” But it apparently worked. (Actually I don’t think it was a simple case of fooling the public but of signalling via the press that it was no longer “unseemly” for women to smoke.) the point being that women wanted freedom, were delivered a “substitute” which turned out to be little cancer sticks. That’s the way capitalism works. And that’s also the way the propaganda system works too.
You could call this “the genius of capitalism”. Capitalism says, “Whatever you want, we can give! You want beauty? Here it is! You want ugliness? Have it! You want violence? Here! You want rebellion? Here again! You want the overthrow of the capitalist system? No problem!” Of course it doesn’t intend the actual delivery of any of these. It simply drudges up more commodities.
Thus we can expect the creation of any number of phoney oppositions. Now it may be paranoia but I think that Dave McGowan’s “Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon” about the deliberate manufacture of trendy rebellious pop music has got a lot of credibility. There’s a book called “A Century of Spin” all about the PR industry and how it works through organisations that sound like worker’s groups or concerned citizen groups but they are just corporate hack entities. If these were easy enough to create in the pre-internet days, just think how much easier it is to do now.
Our ruling elite has run out of places to loot.
Unfortunately those pesky Russkies/ Chinks/ Eye-ranians won’t play ball any more.
So they have to cannibalise their own societies, eat their own tail and loot their own countries instead.
For a one-son family no reason is good enough for war.
Since ‘the pill’ people adapt their family size to their financial or other means. This results in one-son families at a significant percentage. Russia is quite an example. Due to their housing restrictions they had (have) small families. When I heard in 1982 how distraught Soviet mothers were who had to bury welded zinc coffins (coming from Afghanistan) I knew the Soviet Union was on borrowed time – and then they threw the whole system out.
“But it is too cowardly, too spoiled to risk the lives of its soldiers.” No, mothers do not like to see their one son used for war, war that serves the big corporations and not the people who are told it is their fight.
Andre’s report here is too simplistic to be useful. He needs to learn nuance. When you’re reporting on imperialists’ designs on places like China, it doesn’t help the reader to care much about the report if it’s unbalanced. People know about China’s social credit system. Therefore, Andre, Say something about that. (You come across as attempting to manipulate readers when you leave out facts that are most of us are aware of.) Acknowledge that it’s bad. American imperialism isn’t the only evil in the world either. As for fascism, Andre seems to have the same aversion to speaking plainly about it as almost everyone else has, in my view. Wherever you have the political and capitalist class working together, running everything and cutting the people out, you have fascism. That’s the definition I’m using because it’s useful ‘and’ correct. Mussolini – who I think we can all agree knows something about fascism – said about his country’s fascism that it should properly be called corporatism. To me, the terms are interchangeable. I prefer corporatocracy. Same thing.
The issue of China’s social credit system – or, indeed, anyone’s – is irrelevant to the point begin made in the essay. You speak as if we – the public – can freely choose between this and that system. We can’t. We’re stuck with our system at present just as the Chinese are with theirs. And the point is that our system, which has been relentlessly intimidating other systems, is now in severe problems because the other systems are fighting back.
I have a feeling that replying to these comments in my email (aol) is a waste of time. I replied to this one that way and I see nothing. Hmm.
I will continue to raise the issue of China’s obscene social credit system when the discussion involves unqualified praise for that country, just as I will continue to raise the issue of the crushing of Palestinian human rights when I am in a discussion about an article giving unqualified praise to nazi Israel.
Others can do as they wish.
“Unqualified praise”? I fail to see it. The article is entirely centred on the West’s efforts to bully and suppress others. And of the resistance of those others.
Here’s what I don’t see. I don’t see Andre pointing out ‘any’ faults of the Chinese system. And that’s what I said.
There’s a lot of things Andre didn’t point out e.g. the weather in China, the national dress, the suicide rate, the top ten favourite pop bands etc.
I’ve tried a zillion times to respond to you. This is another attempt. The reply disappears every time. There’s nothing special about the reply either.
The Chinese social credit system is a peculiarly Chinese way of trying to manage a population that simultaneously has one foot in the 18th century and the other in the 22nd. There are lots of examples of Chinese behaving badly — youTube has some videos of what happens when some Chinese encounter an all you can eat buffet, for example — but its not because the “Chinese” are bad but their uneven collective history. At that point what would you do? Deny progress until the worst elements catch up with the rest of society or apply relatively lightweight coercive measures?
We have similar structures in the West. Americans (and increasingly the British) live or die by the credit rating. Get a crap score and you won’t just be able to get credit, you’ll find it difficult to rent a place to live, to apply for school and 101 other things. The UK also experiments with ‘nudging’, the idea of developing social propaganda to spread desirable habits among the more anti-social elements of the population.
Its very easy for those who live in a middle class bubble (as I now do) to comprehend what live in a socially deprived area is like, the sort of place that “If its not nailed down it immediately gets stolen (and if it is nailed down it get prized up)”. You get used to metal covers in the street being spot welded by the council to stop them being sold for scrap. You also get used to having your place broken into and your stuff stolen all the time. I don’t think I’d get on that well with ‘social credit’ but having lived the alternative I’d be willing to give it a try…
Acknowledged.
In case anyone hasn’t read it yet, I highly recommend this book:
The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War.
James Bradley is surely in the running to become the first foreign member of the Communist Party. 🙂
What Third World theorists tend to leave out is this. Imperialism is also a disaster for the common people of the imperialist nation itself. The Roman Empire devastated the average Italian farmer. They could not compete with cheaper crops and crafts from Gaul or Libya. In the Spanish Empire, the riches of South America made a few grandees on top fortunes, while inflation impoverished the Spanish people for centuries. In Britain at the height of their Empire, in World War I, when they were in desperate need of fighting men, fully 40% of recruits had to be rejected as too malnourished and stunted from factory work to serve. Jack London wrote that he got better food as a prisoner in America then as a worker in England.
And the American Empire is the same. Told they are fighting to defend America’s freedom, US soldiers are really fighting to export the jobs and factories in their communities to the less developed countries they invade and occupy.
The idea that a First World working class “labor aristocracy” benefited from imperialism was applicable only to a few limited situations and is certainly not the case at present. (The 1960s construction workers were segregated; not now.)
RedA,
Sort of, but …. there was NO Italy to speak of during the Roman Empire, just as there was no Greece during their Athenian Empire (Italy only came to be fairly recently in history)
Infact many of the reknown leaders of both these ancient empires, originated from the serbian areas (there is a big untold story in that)
These Empires like almost all were built on slavery – the oldest profession in the world is not prostitution – slave master is older!
But you are right in recognising that the battle is between the slave owners and their slaves – the fear of a slave uprising requiring an iron heal and chains, and frequent culling.
The mince meaters of the trenches was about protecting the aristocrats from their rising able young male populations who were throwing off their ancient yokes and ignoring religious control and demanding more from their lives then servitude to their ‘betters’.
Pretty difficult in the modern age of nukes – where the weapon is as dangerous for the aristos own families as the peasants. Hence more modern chains and controls. Including depopulation.
“In Britain at the height of their Empire, in World War I, when they were in desperate need of fighting men, fully 40% of recruits had to be rejected as too malnourished and stunted from factory work to serve.”
Excellent points. It was not just factory work, though. Rural labour was also depressed to the point of lifelong malnutrition. Furthermore the standards of the recruiters were very low: there were entire regiments of Bantam soldiers- composed of soldiers less than five feet tall.
Recruits for the Napoleonic wars, in a time of terrible destitution among the masses- were much healthier.
I wonder how they would compare to the present day if we had to bring back the draft.
If you subtract the raving gays and drag queens, the trannies on a cocktail of hormone suppressing meds, the junkies, the punks, the morbidly obese, those unable to wear boots, I think they might have to reject a lot more than 40%.
But they could probably form completely new units like Transsexual Team Six, the 3rd Heavy Lesbians, and the President’s Own San Francisco Gays to take the enemy from the rear.
I don’t know what effect they’d have on the enemy, but they’d certainly frighten me.
China has been provoked practically and insanely, ‘on all fronts’ – from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and the so-called ‘Uyghur Issue’, to trade.
Four totally different peoples with various cultures and locations “provoked” the dragon? No, the dragon wants to dominate and lashes its tail. Next in line are Vietnam, Korea, the Philippines, Bhutan. After India, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Malaysia.
Andre’s first foreign membership to the CPC has been accepted in Beijing.
Trolls tend to repeat themselves don’t they? Pointing out facts doesn’t correlate to being a sycophant for the Communist Party.
He’s not a troll, that’s unwarranted, he just has a different opinion to you, and quite often me.
Nah, what’s unwarranted is repeating the absurd accusation that the writer of any OffG writers are puppets of the CCP.
When are we getting edit buttons by the way?
If you are citing a sentence of the essay as a blockquote and still don’t see its real meaning, that could very well be interpreted as willful. The sentence says clearly “China has been provoked..” and that is what is happening. China is provoked and subjected to a trade war that is only possible because Clinton B. exported U.S. manufacturing to China. A trip to any store, especially large retailers will make that obvious.
‘MADE IN CHINA’ did not exist pre-Clinton B.
As in the Israeli view of their country’s history. It’s the freedom fighters who are the terrorists.
Andre’s simple statement, in this case, is simply, observably (John Pilger’s “The Coming War With China” for example) correct.
There have been many foreign members of the Communist Part in China, including, I believe Norman Bethune, something of which many Canadians are proud.
Didn’t work in Vietnam.
There are many aspects to conflicts.
For inflicting so many diseases and chronic health problems on the population, this is a huge success for Big Pharma as generations of vietnamese keep paying enormous treasure to deal with these illnesses and disabilities caused by the chemicals and bombs of the [democratic] criminal invasion.
I am not illustrating a success for Big Pharma, but drawing attention that these crimes must be accounted and completely compensated for, and a system to be put in place, so this can never happen again.
What the economists call The Law Of Diminishing Returns applies.
It takes the expenditure of more and more effort and resources to achieve the same result.
Or in the case of Uncle Sam’s efforts over the past 30 years, to achieve nothing at all.
By any rational assessment, it is clear that this is a dead end, and something else should be tried.
But if you look for historical precedents, you can see this will simply not happen.
Uncle Sam will continue to apply brute force in heavier and heavier doses, until he is defeated and no longer physically capable of doing so.
The Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) was a disaster for France and England.
France was devastated and reduced to famine conditions as armies rampaged across the countryside applying scorched earth tactics.
Most people in England had to endure crippling taxation to pay for it all. Hence the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.
But a small number of people, the nobility and mercenary captains, became fabulously wealthy off all the loot. It was very profitable for the few.
The equivalent of today’s Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, and their lobbyists and bought and paid for politicians.
All pretence of noble objectives and lofty ideals has been thrown to the wind.
Instead we have naked aggression, crude thuggery, threats and intimidation, and increasingly economic warfare directed at friend and foe alike.
This is similar to Napoleon towards the end of his career.
Former allies and satellites ruthlessly exploited to pay for his empire.
Until the inevitable revolts and opposition by Spain, Russia and others brought him down.
Napoleon could have adopted a more realistic strategy involving some retrenchment and remained invincible.
But he didn’t. And Uncle Sam won’t.
Previously, it was difficult to see how Uncle Sam could be knocked off his perch. He seemed too powerful.
But that is deceptive. A very powerful coalition has come to be formed against him. These countries realise from bitter experience that if they don’t want to live with Uncle Sam’s jackboot on their throat, they have to hang together. Or hang separately.
America is a lot weaker than is generally realised, even militarily.
It cannot fight another ground war.
And its enemies cannot and will not retreat any further. There is nowhere for them to go.
Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, DPRK, cannot comply with its demands and remain independent countries. They will fight to maintain there sovereignty because they have no other option, unless they are willing to accept the same fate as Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein.
So one threat, demand, ultimatum and provocation will follow another until war inevitably breaks out.
This can no longer be avoided.
And America could face economic and financial collapse at any time.
This is also inevitable. It is only a question of when this happens.
US National Debt is increasing at $25,000 a second. Recently by $4 billion a day. With a current budget deficit of $1,175 billion and trade deficit of $900 billion.
The much vaunted “strength” of the US economy is illusory. There will be a recession, or much worse, before the next election.
Trump is trying to solve his economic problems by looting the rest of the world.
The Romans, Napoleon and others tried this in the past without success.
The political system is dysfunctional and incapable of any meaningful reform.
Society is polarised and divided as never before, on political, racial, class and cultural grounds.
The collapse could come rapidly at any time.
When it does, people will wonder with hindsight why it took so long.
Good post Mark, but when you way “America is a lot weaker than is generally realised, even militarily”, you are ignoring that they’ve already authorised the “pre-emptive” use of nuclear weapons and I’m sure the neocons are mad enough to use them. They’d be willing to take everyone else down with them, they are utterly evil psychopaths.
There is a ‘reading’ by Edgar Cayce ‘The Sleeping Prophet’ about the fate of the United States. Before it can unleash its own pre-emptive strikes, it will be pre-emptively prevented from doing that. By an alliance of Russia, China, India and unspecified other Nations. While it is ‘just’ a prophecy, he was quite accurate with the majority of his readings. Nostradamus had also a ‘Centurion’ that could be applied to this situation. We will find out. Because the clock is ticking and one thing the U.S. regime does not have is Time.
“an alliance of Russia, China, India”
Russia and China seem to be building a formidable alliance.
India, on the other hand, seems to be ruled by zionist neocons.
I wouldn’t give too much credence to Nostradamus.
In all except one isolated case, all his predictions are complete BS.
You’re quite right. America is like the black sheriff in Blazing Saddles who puts a gun to his head and says – Stand back or the nigger gets it!
This quite a plausible outcome.
Look at the people running that country (and their satellites like the UK.)
Arrogant, venal, corrupt, incredibly ignorant, delusional, and ideologically driven.
War, economic, social, political collapse, can no longer be avoided.
I summarize the western imperial strategy as: First they send in the banks then they send in the tanks.
Eastern CPC also sends in the banks first (another copyright violation 😉 : BRI. Till now they followed up with war ships till Malaysia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative#Malaysia and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spratly_Islands_dispute#Malaysia
Remember the CPC is just getting warmed up, not stumbling at 3/4 race like the US deep state.
“…First comes the soldier with his sword,and then the historian with his sponge. — Lord Acton”
It has been long in the making. The mill stones of the Universe grind slowly, but they grind relentlessly and persistent. Bob Marley once sang that ‘You can fool some people some time…’
The truth is, that the West was able to fool its share of the global population for some time – but it was never able to fool seven billion people all of the time. One can call it what one wants, I call it Evolution. Evolution does not abide by the delusional wet dreams of grandeur by a selected Kast of hyper rich and their political puppets. These forces serve only as the sorely needed contrast to wake up all of the people. The collective empire and its stooges need to run around naked for all to see. They do that by clinging on to war crimes, crimes against humanity and psychological projection.
The West is sitting in a glass house with all windows broken from throwing rocks at others. It only worked as long as its numbed, dazed and confused population did not understand that there is actually a real life to be had. In peace and prosperity – pursuing real happiness and not some fake entertainment based on mindless consumerism.
People are either already awoken, or they are in the process of doing that – by observing those who have left behind greed, competition and the delusion of being exceptional. The time has come for the Western humanity to finally sweep before its own house. It has become quite filthy from decades of negligence.
Humanity has received another chance at survival. Next step is the complete de-militarization of the planet. Lots of jobs cleaning up this mess. Lots of jobs mending the devastation wrought upon our Mother Nature. And yes, there must be justice. Real justice – not one law for the rich and one law for the poor. How does the saying go? Strength lies in numbers. Numbers is what humanity’s got. Lots of them.
The numbers certainly favour humanity, but the ‘Master Elite’ (a completely hidden entity) hold all the power (political systems), money (offshore), the narrative (via MSM ownership & propaganda matrix) and will ultimately gain complete control over the people through the escalating (slow creep) application of their ‘Technocratic’ systems (China’s social credit system is simply an early trial run).
Refer to link for the rise of Technocracy: https://youtu.be/49ItdM4uBpU
Numbers hold the potential to resist and overturn the virulent ‘global’ ambitions of the ‘Master Elite’, but only if UNITED. That is why they have applied prodigious effect, over the past 70 year, to socially and economically destabilising American and European Society. Dumb down education, off-shore de-industrialisation, immigration overload, ineffectual military actions, EU breakdown of sovereignty etc. etc. The results are evidential to their success in creating social division, confusion and despair.
A ‘catalyst’ is required to rally the people to action, but it’s application goes beyond the resources of a single individual and similar to J Assange, any such individual or resistance movement would be strangled at birth – nothing is beyond them.
All true. However, I just talked to my Mom and she told me that a man a dozen years her junior died in their building. In spite of having a pace maker – like my father. It is this belief in technology that has removed one essential truth from the minds of the people:
When you time has come – no money, nor machine will save you.
Same goes for empires, especially wanna-be empires. When their time comes, nothing will suffice to prevent them from dissolution. Everything is temporary. No exception to this fact.
Like You said, I see the real main problem in what has been called ‘the machine’ as well. It is bureaucracy that has the potential to do humanity in. No one really accountable – all just doing their job – passing new legislation, ordinances, rules and regulations that will affect those who put their stamp on it equally. But they can’t see that.
The machine needs to run out of lubrication.
Thank you Notheonly1 for taking the time to respond.
I fully understand your sentiments, having studied the history and cycle of empires, Sir John Glubb’s ‘Fate of Empires’ for example. They have all succumbed to the corruption of their ‘human’ administrations.
The empire now evolving and about to envelop the world will not suffer the fate of previous empires for it will not be controlled and administered by ‘humans’.
Technocracy, as described in Patrick Woods excellent three part interview (link featured), will establish a system of social management and control that will be totally automated and capable of self optimisation as people’s data access/penetration reaches a point of optimum saturation.
I.E. THIS EMPIRE WILL NOT BE OPEN TO HUMAN INFALLIBILITY. THE SYSTEM DEVELOPED WILL SIMPLY RESPOND TO THE DESIRES AND WHIMS OF IT’S ‘MASTER ELITE’ INITIATORS.
I assume that those organizations that push “Freedom and Democracy” are staffed by professionals and like any organization that been around for some time its institutionalized its processes and procedures. Its a bit like a corporation hawking a commodity product, something that’s as exciting as, say, a soap powder. The product eventually becomes well known globally and so difficult to re-brand as ‘new and improved’. Obviously if the targets for their product are at all on the ball they will have studied the marketing methodology used against them and developed and deployed a counter product. The first line of defense is the obvious one that “Freedom and Democracy” tends to result in “Impoverishment and Oppression” for those lucky enough to have had a successful color revolution. The second line is to understand the formulaic provocations and develop appropriate non-reactions to them. The third line is to open channels with the world. (This explains why we’re so concerned with ‘fake news’ these days….it really isn’t helpful if Iranians, for example, come across as ordinary people that are very much like us; they’re supposed to be a bunch of murderous towel heads that gibber incomprehensible slogans that can only be ‘interpreted’ for us by our approved media experts.)
Finally, it really helps to have a first class air defense capability.
Love it Andre. We are on off-g coz we know. We need to show others. It isn’t easy, talking to family and friends, who still get their information from BBC and the Guardian. I had my brother to stay recently and he ignored all I had to say. He’s still using BBC info as source to argue a point with. I love him. It’s so tough. I feel like he sees me as his deluded big brother, influenced by ‘ fake news’. He won’t listen.
In 2009, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University
reported that the annual Pentagon Public Relations Spending
is approximately $5 billion (link)
“Reporters need to examine where the line is between public relations
and propaganda, or if there is a line at all. This year [2009] the cost
of ‘winning hearts and minds’ at home and abroad is expected to be at least
$4.7 billion. It is well known by now that a secret Pentagon program recruited
dozens of former military leaders as “message force multipliers.” The Pentagon,
starting in 2002, fed them talking points, took them on tightly-managed trips
to Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, and carefully monitored their media appearances.
This pundits program, it appears, was only a small part of Pentagon attempts
to get out its message in favorable terms.” Diane Farsetta
http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Ask_this.view&askthisid=400
This spending (employing an estimated 27,000 people for recruitment, advertising
and public relations — almost as many as the total 30,000-person work force in the
U.S. State Department) includes the procurement of mainstream media disinformation.
This detrimentally impacts research, science, education for sustainable development
and the pursuit of global ethics.
It seriously undermines the valuable work of UNESCO, UNEP, PEN International
and other significant organizations as it is being used to produce, world-wide,
press releases and videos for the corporate-controlled media, including
the organization and coordination of lecture tours and information campaigns
in support of the uncontrolled, expanding, military-industrial-contracting complex.
It is discrediting and even silencing scholars, scientists who expose the falsification
of science, and citizens who voice different opinions, such as facing climate realities.
The underlying causes, residual colonial thinking, exceptionalism apocalyptic fundamentalism and
unresolved racism are deeply engrained in the mind set of the policy makers of
the expanding war economy, the continual cult of militarism, violence and war,
as well as entertainment. The corporate-dominated main media and entertainment
industry, aided by military advisors in liaison offices is encouraging humanity’s
most gruesome behaviour with uncontrolled techno-fetishism; resulting in the psychopathic
dispositions and desensitizing of youth and large segments of society to the suffering of the Other.
And you love it, Basher, because in a climate of despair, in a culture of apathy and resignation, we are seeing beams of hope piercing the permanently overcast skies of a stolen land – ruled outright by the very people who are now beginning to experience a rude awakening to the fact that scammers, thieves and perverts never prosper. It was John Pilger who said of Andre’s book (Revolutionary Optimism – Western Nihilism) “In an age of formula media. Andre Vitchek’s work is truly exceptional – – – fiercely independent and bracing in its challenges to the echoes and lies of great power.” In the end, the invective of conviction and the integrity of those of true courage is no match for the cowards and bullies, no matter how powerful they may imagine they are. The Empire is now in the kalpa of disintegration which will be the herald of coming good.
For those who understand German, there is an exceptionally well done publication that occasionally translates English articles into German, but I have never seen one of their articles translated into English. It’s called Rubikon and their journalistic capabilities are stellar. Maybe I can translate some of their articles and ask OffGuardian to publish them?
We’ll be happy to look at anything you send in. But you’ll need author permission of course.
I have friends who get all their news from The Guardian or ABC here in Aussie. One of them is fairly open now to looking at sites like Information Clearing House or Moon Of Alabama, the others won’t have a bar of it, point blank refuse to look…. ‘conspiracy theories’ ‘fake news’ etc.
Today saw a car sticker for ABC that went: Independent Media>>>ABC. Had to do a double take, then thought – even their bloody stickers are fake. More bollocks from Aunty.
For a year, now, its Radio National breakfast programme has repeatedly peddled the “systemic antisemitism in the British Labour Party” lie. No contrary speakers, facts or statistics permitted. This conforms to its “Code of Practice”, the ABC insists.
Agree with you CM. After Trumpf was elected, it was the whole Russiagate garbage, on and on ad nauseaum, now its full scale hyperventilating about the Hong Kong protests (directed and funded by CIA front groups like NED)and yeah, rampant anti semitism in the UK Labour Party.
ABC are stenographers for Empire and Imperialism. They are not impartial or unbiased. Look at ‘reporters’ like the truly odious Philip Williams, or Michael Rowland or even Emma Alberici. These people serve the agenda of the Anglo Zionist Empire.
Ask yourself, where is the coverage of the Gilets Jaunes in France compared to the amount of coverage they’ve given to the Hong Kong protests. Look at how they covered Venezuela. Impartial? Ha ha ha…. I try and boycott them, however occasionally take a peek to see how bad they are. Ugh.
Indeed, GP. A standard ABC tactic when reporting these sorts of issues is lying-by-omission: omitting relevant and readily available facts which might contradict its narrative. Occasionally, one wishes we had a license fee here so one could make a point by refusing to pay it.