In an aside to my post last week, Washington’s Wuhan laboratory lie, I wrote:
Russia’s recovery from the Yeltsin years defied Wall Street plans for her economy. It sent the West’s rulers into a frenzy … of Russophobia. No allegation – witness the Skripal and Navalny cases – was too comic-book silly for Western media consumers unaware of being more product than customers; their most exploitable conceit a belief that media driven by market forces … could possibly be independent speakers of truth to power.
To which I added this in a footnote:
… Putin poisons water in hotel room. Navalny falls sick, and is taken to a Russian state hospital. Nobody kills him there, though a hospital is an easy place to do so. Doctors find no poison, authorities approve his transfer to Berlin, where medics find novichok and accuse Russia. France agrees, the EU imposes sanctions. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
Now hear Irish MEP Clare Daly, addressing the European Parliament, contrast crocodile tears over “racist” Navalny with the vilifying of Assange for “exposing US war crimes”.1
This is what I call “speaking truth to power”. That said, her final remark is true but less than half the picture – see last month’s post on the Buddhas of Wall St.
Yes, America’s military industrial complex must justify a yearly arms spend which in recent years has fluctuated between $700bn and $1tn, more than the next ten nations combined. This is a huge transfer of wealth from America’s many to America’s few but there’s more to it than that, as can be glimpsed in seemingly dry and technical matters of trade.
One of my February Reads, due next Sunday, focuses on the way the EU, Germany especially, is caught on the horns of an increasingly acute dilemma. Will the world’s biggest energy market opt for Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas …
… knowing as it does that not only is this energy both the cheapest and most abundant, but that Russia can turn to other customers across Asia? Knowing too of Russia’s value, historically and in the coming century, not only in her own right but as a land bridge to China?
Or does it continue to appease a Washington increasingly rabid in its fear of Eurasia rising?
* * *
- Speaking of crocodile tears, much has been made of China’s alleged genocide of its Uighur population. How often is this trope trotted out by folk whose knowledge of the issue could be written on the back of a stamp? See this piece in Wisconsin based pacifist outlet, The Progressive.
It looks almost certain that Nord Stream will go ahead to completion. Germany, while not being too confrontational about it, and in the face of some internal opposition and continuous and heavy US pressure, has not backed down. After all that there would be little reason to change now. Trump succeeded in showing the EU that in the US the US comes first. The recent EU trade deal with China also indicates that the EU knows which way the wind is blowing. So another blow against the Empire. Only a few dozen more to go.
And that Syria is about (among other things) “securing the oil”. The tangerine narcissist, for all his transparent lies, brought a candour to the Oval Office that was unnerving for America’s ruling class.
No tears of any kind about Tibet.
?
Well, there are (at least) three possible views of what is going on in Tibet. 1) the US promoted story of near genocide and persecution of the minority Tibetans, 2) the Chinese view of bringing a generation of Tibetans out of medieval poverty and into the modern world, and 3) a sort of ‘middle way’ where modernism is being introduced to Tibet, where as is normal in most countries, an elite has traditionally benefitted from the work of the majority of the people. These elites and unfortunately also the Buddhist church, are being disadvantaged by that, which is unfortunate in the case of Buddhism, but the Chinese government are resolutely atheistic and nothing is going to change that.
If you add the logical inference that the CIA are actively involved in the matter as part of their propaganda campaign against China, things get very complicated very quickly. But if the information is of the same quality as this https://consortiumnews.com/2021/02/22/the-us-genocide-accusation-against-china/ on the supposed suppression of the non-Han population of Xinjiang then there it is doubtful if tears are either justified or meaningful. Even in the case of Buddhism, the intervention of China has meant that Tibetan Buddhism has been spread world-wide, which can hardly be a bad thing.
One of the great outcomes of the NordStream2 construction is the complete demise of EU civility and the polite manner of Lavrov. He now calls the EU for what it is – a mendacious camp of paper tigers and belligerent provocateurs. Lavrov’s recent statements need nothing to the imagination. He is as blunt a trusty Russian hammer.
Here’s a piece written by Zbigniew Rau and Dmytryo Kuleba, respectively the Polish and Ukrainian foreign ministers. “Nord Stream 2 has damaged the West enough. Time to put an end to it” ran a few days ago on the Politico site which (a) promoted the trope of Putin and Trump in cahoots, (b) has been slated for its antisemitism, and (c) ran ads by disgraced Cambridge Analytica – linked to the British establishment (Tory Party, Royal Family and Military) as well as to FB.
Read with peg on nose, the piece gives a glimpse into how not just the USA is rattled but Ukraine and Poland too.