Offline for a day now. I got something yesterday by doing a search, where one of Saker’s technicians stated that they were under DDOS attack. Since then, attempts to connect simply result in ‘cannot find server’ notice.
Anyone know anything more?
I see that address also isn’t working at the moment
Thanks K. Nothing working yet. I did pick up Andrei’s message about what’s happening; but for the moment, none of the links work.
As he says, it does indicate how influential the Western enemies of truth think the site is, doesn’t it: a clear sign that he’s on the right track…
Patience, Gwilym, patience! 
Hi folks H/T focus on TLN use:
https://lesakerfrancphone.fr and then if your software permits translate to english
here’s the latest : ironically covers a sanctioned site:
The French-speaking Saker
The chaos of the world is not born from the souls of peoples, races or religions, but from the insatiable appetite of the powerful. The humble watch.
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RT press review from July 3 to 9, 2022
Posted on July 9, 2022 by Wayan
By Wayan − July 9, 2022 - Source Le Saker Francophone
NATO/Russia combat
Ukraine directly attacks Russia:
"Ukraine has launched three Tochka-U ballistic missiles loaded with fragmentation ammunition at the Russian city of Belgorod," the Russian Ministry of Defense said on Sunday. He added that the three missiles had been intercepted in flight, but that parts of one of them had hit a house.
The governor of the region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that three people were killed and four injured during the night. He added that 11 residential buildings and at least 39 smaller houses had been damaged.
Gladkov then said that the death toll had risen to four. Three of the victims are Ukrainian nationals and one is a Russian citizen, he added.
The Russian news agency Baza then reported that two other bodies had been recovered under the rubble, bringing the death toll to five. This information has not yet been confirmed by the authorities.
Belgorod is located about 40 kilometers from the border between Russia and Ukraine.
The spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov, said that Ukraine had also sent two Tu-143 Reys drones, “loaded with explosives”, to Kursk, another Russian city near the border. He said that the two drones were destroyed by air defenses before reaching the city.
Konashenkov said that Ukraine had targeted residential areas, which had “no military sites”. »
https://www.rt.com/russia/558279-belgorod-shelling-ballistic-missiles/
NATO attacks Russia much more indirectly:
“The United Kingdom is looking for a “pretext” that would allow the Royal Navy to “infiltrate” the Black Sea and take charge of unblocking grain stocks from Ukrainian ports,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Sunday.
In an interview with the news channel Rossiya 24, Lavrov noted that some countries are trying to use the issue of food security “in the worst possible way” by accusing Moscow of “something it is not involved in” and “laundering” Ukraine.
In this context, the Russian Minister recalled the statements of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Foreign Minister Liz Truss. From Lavrov’s point of view, they "clearly try to create conditions, to find pretexts for the Royal Navy to infiltrate the Black Sea and become almost responsible for all the processes of releasing cereals from these ports that have been mined by Ukrainians and that they must release. »
According to the Russian Foreign Minister, there are “many manifestations of these convulsions” in the actions of Western politicians, especially now, while they are facing various domestic problems in elections that must take place "every two, three or four years. Lavrov said that “the principles of neoliberal democracy” require these politicians to divert the attention of the population. This is why, according to the Minister, it makes sense to follow the debates on the possible benefits of “states with a strong central government” and how they respond to the various crises. »
Moscow suspects UK of seeking to ‘infiltrate’ Black Sea — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union
But the United Kingdom denies:
“Great Britain will not deploy warships in the Black Sea to help deliver Ukrainian grain,” said Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Shipments from Ukraine, a major grain exporter, were interrupted following the Russian offensive against the country.
Speaking to Parliament on Monday, Boris Johnson was asked to confirm whether he was considering violating the Montreux Convention, an international agreement dating from 1936 that allows Turkey to block access to the Black Sea for warships outside the region.
The Prime Minister replied: "No, we are not considering that. There are alternative solutions that do not imply the presence of the United Kingdom or other warships in the Black Sea. » »
UK reveals stance on Black Sea warship deployment — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union
For its part, Russia is playing the uncertainty card to destabilize NATO countries:
“The Russian Nord Stream pipeline to Germany will be closed for ten days for annual maintenance,” confirmed the company in charge of the project on Friday.
The two sections of the pipeline will be stopped for repair work from July 11 to 21. The operator added that the stop had been previously agreed with all partners.
“Nord Stream AG will temporarily close the two lines of its pipeline system for routine maintenance work, including testing of mechanical elements and automation systems, to ensure reliable, safe and efficient operation of the pipeline,” the statement reads.
Germany is concerned about this process, fearing that gas flow will not be restored, the Financial Times reported last week. »
Russia to suspend gas supplies to EU — RT Business News
“A complete suspension of natural gas supplies from Russia is possible,” warned the head of the German Federal Network Agency on Saturday.
In an interview with the Funke press group, Klaus Muller reiterated his call to the population to reduce their consumption, and expressed his fears that the next closure for maintenance of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, a key gas artery, “will turn into long-term political maintenance”.
Mr. Muller said that "if, during maintenance, the flow of gas from Russia is reduced for a longer period of time for political reasons, we must talk more seriously about savings. »
Although maintaining household energy supply is a top priority, the official did not rule out the possibility of power cuts.
"Private households benefit from special protection - as do hospitals and retirement homes, for example. In case of rationing, we must first reduce consumption in the industrial sector, "said Mr. Muller.
"The coronavirus crisis has taught us that we should not make promises if we are not absolutely sure we can keep them. However, we do not envisage a scenario in which no more gases would arrive in Germany, "he added. »
Germany issues warning over Russian gas — RT Business News
"A Russian court on Wednesday ordered a 30-day suspension of the activity of the Caspian Sea Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which transports oil from Kazakhstan to the Black Sea via one of the largest pipelines in the world.
The suspension of transit was made necessary by technical problems identified by Rospotrebnadzor, the Russian consumer protection monitoring body.
The pipeline transports about 1.2 million barrels of crude oil daily from Kazakhstan to Europe and then to the United States. Earlier this year, its operations were interrupted by storm damage to the equipment of the Black Sea terminal. »
Russia halts transit of Kazakh oil to Europe – media — RT Business News
“Japan asked Russia for an explanation for President Putin’s recent decree on the Sakhalin-2 LNG project,” Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Last week, President Putin ordered the reorganization of the Sakhalin-2 LNG project, transferring ownership to a new national company. This decision, taken in response to the actions of the “unfriendly states”, could force Japanese investors Mitsui and Mitsubishi, who hold a 22.5% stake in the project, to withdraw. Moscow had previously accused Japan of taking advantage of its participation in the project while joining the West to impose sanctions on Russia.
"As for the Sakhaline-2 project, it is important to ensure a stable energy supply to our country. I think the presidential decree does not mean that energy supplies from Sakhalin will be stopped immediately, "said Mr. Hayashi, quoted by RIA Novosti.
“However, a detailed analysis of the information is underway to find out how the rights of Japanese companies will be respected under this decree, as well as the impact this will have on Japan’s LNG supply,” he added. »
Japan calls out Russia over move to end LNG — RT Business News
The last Western fad is to impose a maximum price at which Russian oil can be sold:
"Sustain administration officials have “several meetings a week” on the subject of price caps, “trying to get it into reality,” according to an anonymous official who spoke to Bloomberg.
Washington is also studying enforcement tools such as sanctions against shipping companies that would transport oil at higher prices, as well as penalties against banks and financial institutions that facilitate sales. This would be the first use of “secondary” sanctions by the United States and its allies, in addition to the embargoes they imposed directly on Russia, citing the conflict in Ukraine.
Senior American officials have been discussing the price cap on Russian oil exports for weeks, but energy experts are not convinced that such a measure can be implemented.
“Something like this can only work if all major producers and, above all, all major consumers work together and find a way to implement the plan, whatever it is,” Neil Atkinson, an independent oil analyst, told CNBC last week.
“They didn’t think, they didn’t talk to India and China,” Amrita Sen of Energy Aspects told CNBC, referring to the two largest importers of Russian oil at the moment. "Do we really think they will accept this? And do we really think that Russia will accept this and not retaliretaliate? I think it looks like a very, very good theoretical concept, but it will simply not work in practice. »
When the Japanese government mentioned the idea of a price cap earlier this week, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned on social media that this could actually lead Tokyo to pay $300 per barrel instead. »
US goal for Russian oil price cap revealed – Bloomberg — RT Business News
"World oil prices could reach a “stratospheric” level of $380 per barrel if Western sanctions encourage Russia to impose production cuts in retaliation, according to JPMorgan Chase analysts.
“The most obvious and likely risk with a price cap is that Russia could choose not to participate and to respond by reducing its exports,” analysts wrote in a note seen by Bloomberg.
"It is likely that it can respond by reducing its production in order to inflict pain on the West. The narrowness of the world oil market is on the side of Russia. » »
JP Morgan sounds alarm over oil price prospects — RT Business News
Pending total defeat, the sending of arms to Ukraine continues to be better:
“Slovakia can donate its Soviet-designed MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, after the Czech Republic agreed to patrol Slovak airspace from September,” said Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala on Sunday. The MiG agreement has been in preparation for several months.
“We will help Slovakia until it has new planes,” Fiala said in a televised debate with Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger. “I see no problem with it, the government will certainly approve it.”
The Slovak Air Force is said to operate 12 MiG-29s, which were left in its inventory after the collapse of the USSR. Rumors that Slovakia would donate these planes to Kiev began to circulate a few days after the launch of the Russian military operation in Ukraine in February, when the head of European Union foreign policy, Josep Borrell, announced that the Union would source Soviet-made jets in Eastern European countries for the struggling Ukrainian Air Force. »
EU country cleared to donate MiG-29s to Ukraine — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union
“The U.S. Department of Defense is providing additional $820 million in military assistance to Ukraine, including two surface-to-air missile defense systems,” Pentagon spokesman Todd Breasseale announced on Friday.
This brings the total US security assistance provided to Ukraine to about $6.9 billion since the beginning of the Russian offensive at the end of February.
New deliveries will include ammunition for high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), two advanced national surface-to-air missile systems (NASAMS), up to 150,000 155 mm artillery shells and four additional counter-artillery radars.
Breasseale stressed that Washington continues to work with its allies "to provide Ukraine with capabilities that meet its changing needs on the battlefield. »
Pentagon provides Kiev with surface-to-air missile systems — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union
But, to the delight of the arms industries, all these weapons are quickly destroyed:
“Russian forces destroyed two American-made rocket launchers in Donbass,” the Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday.
The United States has provided Kiev with eight high mobility artillery rocket (HIMARS) systems and ammunition since the beginning of the Russian military offensive in Ukraine, according to a Pentagon fact sheet published on Tuesday.
“In the area of the Malotaranovka colony in the Donetsk People’s Republic, high-precision air missiles destroyed two US-made HIMARS multi-launch rocket systems and two ammunition depots for them,” the Russian army said in a statement. »
Russia says it destroyed American HIMARS in Ukraine — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union
Belarus is becoming the Russian spearhead in Europe:
“The idea of bringing nuclear weapons back to Belarus was born from Poland’s desire to deploy atomic weapons from the United States on its territory,” explained Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Saturday.
"This subject with the President of Russia appeared after the Poles turned to the Americans and asked them to bring nuclear weapons to Poland. I then told President Putin: ‘Why do we pretend that nothing is happening?’ "said Mr. Lukashenko in his Independence Day speech in Minsk, the country’s capital.
Lukashenko explained that his discussions with Putin on this issue should not be considered “nuclear blackmail”. He said that the conclusion that Minsk should be able to provide a reciprocal response to potential hostile action “within 24 hours” was the result of a long period of consultations. "To do this, we must prepare. And we will prepare. We don’t threaten anyone, we don’t blackmail anyone, "he said.
On June 25, Lukashenko asked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to help Belarus “adapt” Su-35 aircraft, which, he stressed, "can carry nuclear charges. »
Putin gave the green light to the modernization of “a fairly large group” of aircraft and also promised that “in the coming months”, Russia will send its ally the Iskander-M tactical missile systems, which can use both ballistic and cruise missiles "in the usual and nuclear version. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov then stressed that there was no question of transferring missiles with nuclear weapons to Minsk.
In his Independence Day speech, Mr. Lukashenko recalled that, in the past, Belarus has transferred its nuclear arsenal to Russia and that it therefore has the right to demand “the President of fraternal Russia” that the border of the Belarusian state be properly protected.
“That’s what I did,” he said.
Mr. Lukashenko has always criticized his predecessor’s decision to withdraw nuclear weapons from Belarus, calling it a “worst mistake”.
In early April, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said that if the United States asked his country to store its nuclear weapons, Warsaw "would be open to it. »
“This would significantly increase deterrence against Moscow,” said the Prime Minister, adding that, at the moment, such an issue is not on the agenda. »
Belarus explains nuke talks with Russia — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union
The Russia-United States battle could also slide towards more judicial terrain:
“The United States may owe the world enormous compensation for the damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic,” Vyacheslav Volodin, President of the Russian State Duma, said on Wednesday. He cited remarks made by the chairman of The Lancet Commission on Disease, who suggested that the SARS-CoV-2 virus could come from an American research program.
Speaking in Madrid last month, economist Jeffrey Sachs described the current situation as a “waste” and attributed responsibility for it to the decrease in American leadership, identifying the pandemic as one of the failures of the United States. He said he was convinced that the virus “out of the biotechnology of American laboratories” instead of evolving naturally, citing his experience in the authoritative British medical journal.
Mr. Volodin said that the U.S. government did not want to comment on Mr. Sachs because President Joe Biden is "fear that the world will know the truth about the real culprit of the pandemic. »
He added that the suffering of the millions of people who contracted the virus, including the many people who died, and the economic crisis caused by the pandemic were the responsibility of the United States. “The United States must compensate for the damage caused to all affected nations,” he demanded.
The Russian official added that the United States should “stop and declassify” its “military research on biological weapons”, referring to the chain of biolabs scattered around the world and funded by the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The United States claims that they are used to detect emerging pathogens, but some countries, including Russia and China, believe that they could be used for clandestine military research.
Sachs himself described his remark as “provocative” and lamented that this theory “is not investigated, either in the United States or elsewhere”, despite the evidence that justifies such an investigation. “They don’t want to look too much under the carpet,” he said. »
US should pay compensation if Covid-19 claim confirmed – Russia — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union
Europe
Europe is beginning to be "tired of Ukraine":
"Poland will stop providing financial assistance to Ukrainian refugees present in the country in
from Friday, said the country’s Deputy Minister of the Interior and Refugee Commissioner.
From 1 July, the government will stop providing 40 Polish zlotys (about $9) per day for refugee food and housing, Pawel Szefernaker told the newspaper Rzeczpospolita.
“We are convinced that many people in Poland are able to become independent and adapt,” he added.
This measure aims to encourage more Ukrainians “to be active” and start looking for a job, the official explained.
“Four months of full protection are, in our opinion, enough to adapt to the country,” he insisted. »
Poland ditches benefits for Ukrainian refugees — RT World News
"The number of Czechs supporting the government’s decision to accept Ukrainian refugees fell from 70% in early April to 58% in mid-June, according to data published by the Czech polling institute STEM. The number of refugees staying in the country, which has a common border with Ukraine, increased from 200,000 to 300,000 during the same period.
Of those interviewed in April, 53% said they were ready both to help Ukrainians and to cope with a decline in their own standard of living during a “necessary period”. This figure fell to 40% in mid-June.
“The importance of war in Ukraine in social debate is decreasing, and the urgency of issues related to migration and the long-resolved problems of the Czech Republic (which the war often highlights) is increasing,” STEM writes in its report. »
Attitudes towards Ukrainian refugees have changed – poll — RT World News
The consequences of the sanctions are beginning to seriously affect German industry:
“German energy giant Uniper is seeking to be bailed out by the government because of the financial impact of the decrease in Russian natural gas supplies,” Reuters reported on Thursday.
Talks are underway to provide “stabilization measures” to the electricity company, according to the German Ministry of Economy. “The reason for this is the sharp increase in gas prices and the reduction in supply volumes from Russia,” he explained.
The CEO of Unity, Klaus-Dieter Maubach, said that the negotiations were about possible guarantees, increasing credit facilities, or even taking a state stake. He did not reveal how much money the company was looking for.
“Business development has deteriorated significantly due to the war in Ukraine,” said Mr. Maubach in Bloomberg. The tightening of supply would have prompted the energy company to review its forecasts for the year. »
German energy giant seeks government bailout – Reuters — RT Business News
And all of Europe:
"The EU Statistical Office, Eurostat, said on Friday that inflation in the euro area increased by 8.6% in June on an annual basis, while the cost of living crisis worsens. This rate, higher than 8.1% recorded in May, was higher than expected by economists.
The increase was mainly fuelled by energy and food prices. Preliminary Eurostat data suggest that energy will have the highest annual rate in June (41.9%, compared to 39.1% in May), followed by food, alcohol and tobacco (8.9%, compared to 7.5%), non-energy industrial goods (4.3%, compared to 4.2%) and services (3.4%, compared to 3.5% in May).
Inflation has been steadily increasing in the euro area for more than a year and is currently four times higher than the target set by the European Central Bank (ECB). The regulatory authority, which has promised to tackle soaring prices, is scheduled to meet at the end of July to start raising interest rates. »
Eurozone inflation accelerates — RT Business News
Despite Germany’s reluctance:
“The European Union is working on new sanctions to include Russian gold,” people familiar with the case told Bloomberg on Friday. According to the report, the EU is seeking to limit Moscow’s sources of income.
Preparations for the new sanctions package are underway and some countries will press to add additional measures to the proposals before they are presented to Member States for approval, said one of the people mentioned in the report.
The report comes after the United States banned imports of Russian gold on Tuesday, with the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada joining this ban. »
EU takes aim at Russian gold – Bloomberg — RT Business News
Germany fears the “East Europeanization” of the EU if Ukraine is integrated into it:
“Germany fears that if Ukraine becomes a full member of the EU, Berlin will see its influence within the bloc erode,” the Daily Telegraph reported on Saturday, citing a high-level diplomatic source.
Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, apparently discussed the issue behind closed doors with European leaders in Brussels. According to the daily’s source, he asked for a revision of the EU treaty system before Ukraine’s application for membership was approved.
The EU voting system, which takes into account the number of voting countries and their respective populations, is at the heart of this concern. In addition, according to an analysis by the German Institute for International Affairs and Security, if Kiev joins the EU, it would be the fifth largest member, but also the poorest.
It is also possible that Kiev will join the efforts of Poland or other Central and Eastern European nations to sideline EU Member States such as Germany and France.
“The balance of power within the EU would thus be shifted from Germany and France to Central and Eastern Europe, where these countries, as well as the Nordic countries, would become for the first time a larger bloc in terms of voting power,” Dr Nicolai von Ondarza of the German Institute for International Affairs and Security told the Telegraph.
With this in mind, the German leader would aim to update the EU voting system so as to prevent the emergence of various factions within the bloc to obtain additional funds from their rich Western European neighbors. According to the media, Scholz also wants to remove national vetoes. »
Germany fears losing its power with Ukraine in EU – media — RT World News
The EU is seeking to strengthen its control over the application of sanctions:
“European Union legislators are seeking to establish a new authority to enforce sanctions against Moscow in the context of the conflict in Ukraine,” Mairead McGuinness, European Commissioner for Financial Services, told the Financial Times on Sunday.
According to the official, the bloc is considering a European version of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a financial intelligence agency of the U.S. Treasury Department, which spearheads the application of sanctions.
“Anything that could help Member States implement [sanctions], and where we see European supervision and coordination… would be a plus,” said Mr. McGuinness. "The idea of having an overview of sanctions and their implementation is an idea that I would support. »
It added that as an alternative, Brussels could authorize its Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) to supervise sanctions, by amending the legislation being drafted by the European Parliament and the Member States.
The EU’s sanctions policy has been criticized for its uneven application, with all the measures proposed by the European Commission and approved by EU capitals being implemented by the national authorities in the 27-country bloc.
Mr. McGuinness said that Brussels had made “extraordinary progress” in developing sanctions and coordinating them with international partners, and that there was “strong implementation through 27 different ways of doing business.”
“Some countries have a solid infrastructure for the implementation of sanctions, others do not,” she added. »
EU eyes anti-Russia sanctions authority — RT Business News
cheers
here’s part 2 due to word limit:
Ukraine
Political opposition in Ukraine continues to be destroyed:
"A Ukrainian court banned the Country’s Communist Party (CPU) on Tuesday, marking the end of an eight-year saga, and adding the communists to the blacklist of the 15 allegedly “pro-Russian” political movements that are outlawed in Ukraine.
The eighth administrative court of appeal of the western city of Lviv announced that “the activities of the Communist Party of Ukraine are prohibited”.
The party’s “funds and other assets” will be nationalized. »
This will facilitate the movement of weapons in Europe:
"Ukrainians could get the right to carry pistols to defend themselves as early as next year, according to an advisor to the Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs.
Citing an unspecified poll, Viktor Andrusiv said on Sunday that 70% of Ukrainians support the legislation in question, which was approved at first reading by the country’s Parliament on February 23, the day before the launch of the Russian military offensive.
He said that amendments were being prepared for second reading of the bill.
“The legislation will be adopted during the summer [or] fall,” said Andrusiv, adding that the creation of weapons registers would take some time after that.
He stressed that the whole discussion focuses “only on pistols”, and not on grenade launchers or Kalashnikov assault rifles. »
Ukraine continues to beg and receive a boon for this totally failed country:
“Ukraine is asking foreign donors for hundreds of billions of dollars for reconstruction, with the EU having to provide most of the aid,” Bloomberg reported on Sunday.
A 2,000-page plan for the reconstruction of the Ukrainian economy is to be presented this week at a conference in the Swiss city of Lugano, the economic media said citing anonymous sources.
The EU would offer more than €500 billion ($523 billion), according to the report, and a donor conference could be held as early as November in the Czech Republic, which took over the rotating six-year presidency of the EU this month.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will be present at the Lugano conference, according to Bloomberg. She will present the EU’s offer to raise funds from potential donors such as G7 members, multilateral organizations, Switzerland and Norway, sources told Bloomberg, adding that the EU will probably borrow to cover expenses, in the same way as it raised funds for the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. »
However, it is common knowledge that this aid is diverted:
"The Financial Investigation Service of Ukraine claims to have discovered many cases where humanitarian and even military aid provided by the West has been appropriate and sold for profit within the country.
Speaking on Tuesday on the television news channel Ukraina 24, the head of the investigative body, Vadim Melnik, lamented that “even goods intended for the army are made for money”, adding that his subordinates had “noted these facts”.
The official then revealed that the service had launched a dozen criminal investigations related to the sale of humanitarian or military aid.
According to Mr. Melnik, the actual number of these cases is probably higher, as other Ukrainian law enforcement agencies are also discovering such crimes. »
"Ukraine will have to learn from Poland how to use EU money “so that it gives us even more,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba in an interview published shortly after his country received EU candidate status.
Addressing the Levy Bereg news agency, Mr. Kuleba cited a recent conversation with a counterpart from a “very influential European country”, who said he realized for the first time that the bloc was considering accepting a “huge country”. The last nation of similar size to join the bloc was Poland, noted Kuleba’s counterpart.
Responding to a comment by the interviewer that Poland is still the largest beneficiary of EU subsidies, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister said: “this logic is correct from the point of view of a Ukrainian consumer: Europe, money…”
"Besides, Poland has not been flooded with money, Poland has learned to take European money and use it in such a way that they give you even more. And that is why, in Ukraine, we must learn at the local level, because that is where the money must go. » »
Russia
After oil and gas, here is the turn of food:
"The Russian government has added cereals, sunflower oil and extracted flours to the list of exports that must be paid for in rubles. A resolution giving effect to this decision was adopted on Friday and published on the official legal information portal.
It also provides for a one-year extension of the duties payable in national currency for sunflower oil and sunflower meal exported, until August 31, 2023. »
“Russia has begun selling cereals abroad in national currency and only to “friendly” countries,” the country’s largest commercial and logistics operator of agricultural products said on Wednesday.
The head of the United Grain Company, Dmitry Sergeev, made the announcement at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
Egypt has been the largest customer so far, and several contracts with partners in Turkey have been signed, for a total of 3 billion rubles (more than $47 million), he added.
“Our main objective is to completely stop using international trade intermediaries and to work directly with importing countries,” stressed Mr. Sergeev.
Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat and President Putin said in May that this year’s cereal harvest could be the largest ever achieved, since the country is expected to harvest 130 million tons of cereals, including 87 million tons of wheat. »
Putin unveils Russia’s goal in barely hidden words:
"After repeatedly denouncing Western arms deliveries to Kiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned on July 7 the possibility of a more direct engagement of the West in the conflict in Ukraine.
“Today we learn that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. What can I say? That they are trying,” he said in a meeting with the leaders and group leaders of the State Duma (lower house of the Russian Parliament), while adding that Russia was open to talks.
Before adding: "We have heard many times that the West wants to fight against us until the last Ukrainian. This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but it seems that everything is going in this direction. »
While Russia has been conducting a military operation in Ukraine for more than three months, the Russian leader added that “the world should know that […] we have not yet started anything, nothing serious”.
“We do not refuse peace talks; on the other hand, those who refuse them must know that the more time passes, the more difficult it will be for them to negotiate with us,” said the Head of State.
The remark having shaken newsrooms around the world, the Kremlin specifies, while continuing to play uncertainty:
"President Vladimir Putin’s remark that Russian troops in Ukraine “have not really started anything yet” simply indicates that Moscow’s military force is far superior, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
The president “simply reminded [his audience] that the military potential [of Ukraine and Russia] was immeasurable,” said Mr. Peskov.
“The Russian force is so large that only a small fraction of it is engaged in the special military operation,” the official added.
Western expectations that Ukraine can defeat Russia militarily are “absurd and only add to the suffering of the Ukrainian people,” he added. »
The United States
“American electricity suppliers are facing supply shortages due to increased pressure on the grid due to record temperatures, with the population increasing the use of air conditioning,” Reuters reported on Wednesday.
“Federal agencies responsible for electricity reliability, such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), have warned that networks in the western half of the country could face reliability problems this summer, as consumers are increasing the power of air conditioners to escape heat,” says the report.
Electricity companies fear that they will not be able to find spare parts to repair equipment quickly enough to avoid breakdowns, some of them already reporting heat problems. The Texas Electrical Reliability Council (ERCOT), for example, had to ask its customers to reduce their energy consumption and reduce the use of air conditioners after six power plants stopped during a heat wave in mid-May.
A month later, some 200,000 Ohio households and businesses were deprived of electricity following a storm that damaged transmission lines throughout the state.
The report indicates that system operators are currently experiencing a serious shortage of transformers, which transform high-voltage energy into electricity used in homes. And, according to two industry associations, some of them had to wait a year or more to obtain transformer parts.
“Most Americans are seriously affected by inflation and gasoline prices, believe that the federal government is only worsening the situation and are pessimistic about the direction things are taking, with a huge 88% of them saying that the United States is on the wrong track,” says a new opinion poll.
The level of concern about the direction the United States is taking is highest since 2013, when the Monmouth University polling institute began asking the question, he said when he published the results of the latest survey on Wednesday. Only 10% of respondents approve of the direction their country is taking, compared to 42% in January 2021.
Joe Biden’s performance as president is perceived more and more negatively, with 36% approving the work he has done and 58% disapproving him. Congress is doing even worse, with a huge disapproval rate of 78%.
Economic and financial problems are the most concern to the majority of Americans. »
cheers
second july 9th saker article via francophone site:
The French-speaking Saker
Ukraine: a cataclysm in view of history
Posted on July 9, 2022 by Le Saker Francophone
By Jean-Luc Baslé - June 30, 2022
In Ukraine, is Russia putting a stop to the hegemonic policy of the United States? Will America’s decline - illustrated by its humiliating retreat from Afghanistan - increase and lead to the creation of a multipolar world, peaceful in appearance but unstable in reality?
The hegemonic policy of the United States is based on three hypotheses:
- subjection of Russia,
- China’s conversion to an Anglo-Saxon vision of the world and
- instrumentalization of the dollar to control national economies.
These three assumptions have proven to be false. In his February 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference, Vladimir Putin rejected the enslavement for which Russia was destined. By unveiling in the fall of 2013 the creation of a new Silk Road, Xi Jinping revealed China’s ambitions to the world. As for the dollar whose role at the heart of the international monetary system gives the United States a considerable economic, political and financial advantage, it is a potential weapon - a weapon that must be displayed without ever using it - just like the nuclear weapon whose existence and not the use guarantees peace.
By freezing Russian foreign exchange reserves, after freezing Venezuelan, Iranian, Syrian and Afghan assets, the United States made an irremissible mistake and destroyed this weapon. In response to this illegal act in international law, Russia and China, and most likely India, Brazil and South Africa1, will create a new international monetary system with a new reserve currency, competing with the dollar, one of the foundations on which the American empire is based. It will take time, but the result is not in doubt. By using the dollar to weaken its opponents, Washington has weakened itself. Thus, of the three hypotheses on which the American empire was based, the strongest and most formidable was diminished by America!
This has cataclysmic consequences for the United States. They will no longer be able to finance their double deficit (budgetary and commercial)2 by issuing Treasury bills sold to their foreign creditors3. In the future, they will invest their trade surpluses in the newly created reserve currency. With its eight hundred military bases around the world and the CIA, the dollar was one of the most effective weapons of the American empire. The CIA remains, but the loss of the reserve currency status of the dollar puts an end to the financing of US bases cheaply4. The nominal value of the dollar will depreciate, confirming the real decline in its purchasing power5. Thus, just as the devaluation of the pound sterling of September 1931 prematurely ended the British empire6, the depreciation of the dollar will put an end to the American empire.
Will Washington accept this new world where Russia will be the arbiter of Sino-Indian ambitions or will it have a suicidal leap to preserve or regain its status?
Jean-Luc Baslé is a former vice-president of Citigroup, and a graduate of Columbia University and Princeton University. He is the author of "Will the euro survive? ".
Notes
- In 2021, the gross domestic product (GDP) of these five nations amounted to $29.9 billion, or 39% of G7 GDP
(Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States). In purchasing power parity, their GDP totals 59.4 billion, or 64% of G7 equivalent GDP, with a higher average growth rate (source: IMF).
- In 2021, the budget deficit amounted to $3,132 billion, or 15% of gross domestic product (GDP), and the current account deficit to $822 billion, or 3.6% of GDP (sources: Office of Management of Budget, and Bureau of Economic Analysis). Jacques Rueff described this recourse to foreign investors to finance the American budget deficit as a “weeping-free deficit”. Later, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing denounced “the exorbitant privilege of the dollar”. In December 2021, U.S. public debt amounted to $28,385 billion, or 123% of gross domestic product - an amount higher than in 1945: 114% of GDP (source: Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis).
- Foreign investors finance 27% of the budget deficit. With $1,261 billion in Treasury bills, China (including Hong Kong) is the second largest donor to the United States, behind Japan ($1,306 billion). Its investment has been steadily declining since 2015 - when it reached $1,446 billion. Russia has not held Treasury bills since 2017 (source: US Treasury).
- ‘De-Dollarizing the American Financial Empire’ Michael Hudson, July 3, 2019
- At the Bretton Woods (New Hampshire) conference in July 1944, the value of gold was set at $35 per ounce, or 1.4
dollar for a gram of gold. Today, this same gram of gold costs $73.5, 52 times more than in 1944.
- The British empire collapsed “officially” in 1947 with India’s independence.
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here’s one from 8th july
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On Divine Sanctions
Posted on July 8, 2022 by hervek
By Dmitry Orlov − July 2, 2022 - Source Club Orlov
It’s mid-summer, it’s hot and everyone feels lazy. Yet, we must continue to blog relentlessly and do our best to feed the cuckoo that lives under your hat. And today, I will write about the Divine Sanctions that were designed to enrich Russia, destroy Europe and temporarily distract America from its failing economy and crazy society to bind.
There are some theories about the origin of these sanctions and how they were imposed. The first theory is that they were written in Washington and that, when the Russians discovered them, they loved them and launched the special military operation in former Ukraine to ensure that they were applied immediately, because they were eager to reap the generous benefits.
According to another theory, the sanctions were drafted in the Kremlin, ratified in Washington and approved by Biden during the face-to-face between Putin and Biden in Geneva. Then, Biden and Putin played together a shadow theater around Ukraine, which culminated in the launch of the special operation, once Putin was able to claim that Biden had forced him to do so and Biden was able to say that Putin intended to do it from the beginning and that it was time to impose sanctions, gently pushing his faithful European puppets to shout loudly in the mode ", before ceremonially opening their veins on the Putin altar by ruthlessly destroying their savings and causing serious and irreparable damage to their voters.
And this brings us to the metaphysical question of who really leads the world? If you think it’s the deep state, the Davos mafia or another shadow clan, then you might have to read another blog. Yes, all these groups have infamous plans but, no, their plans do not go as planned and the present, not to mention the future, is nothing like what they had imagined. If the Divine Sanctions were designed to cripple and mutilate European economies while greatly benefiting Russia (as we will show), by briefly distracting the Americans from their sad situation, it follows that it is Russia that rules the world. And who leads Russia? You could say that Putin is leading Russia, but Putin will beg you that he does not agree and will say that Russia is directly led by God and that no other answer makes sense.
There are several ways to see things. If you like the idea of God, you can agree with Putin and think that everything is the work of God and that all Putin has to do is practice the old Taoist method of doing nothing, or action through inaction, called wúwéi (traditional: simplified).
Metaphysically speaking, Putin is then only God’s agent to lead Russia while the West, which he wants to destroy, drives him crazy directly. Another way of seeing things, for those who do not love God, is to say that everything is Putin’s work: that Putin is a superhuman main engine behind most human affairs. One can then wonder if it is an angelic or satanic presence. An intermediate position is to affirm that Putin is a god, but this immediately raises the following question: who else is part of this pantheon? Biden, maybe, or Trump, the talkative jester, or Ursula von der Leyen?
At this point, I wish to suspend the metaphysical discussion, stating for the record that I personally prefer the idea that Russia is an unlikely country that would have ceased to exist chandeliers ago if it had not been created directly by a just and merciful God, and that Putin is nothing more than his faithful servant. But this is only my crazy hypothesis; do not hesitate to formulate yours.
It remains to explain the beneficial and beneficial effects of Divine Sanctions (with regard to Russia) and their effects of fire and sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah that is the contemporary European Union, on which I will now go into detail.
The first and most beneficial sanction was freezing (or was it confiscation?) foreign currency reserves belonging to the central bank of Russia. Since the term “reserves” does not apply to funds that can be blocked on a whim, it has reduced the value of the US dollar and the euro as reserve currencies to zero, and many actors, whether governments or companies, Russian or foreign, have begun looking for other places to place their reserves, thus depriving the current monetary printing campaigns of the Federal Reserve and the ECB of new blood, while fueling inflation with dollars and euros.
As for the effect of the freezing of these assets on Russia, it was expected to collapse the Russian ruble, from about 70 for a dollar to about 200, as Biden ardently wanted. And, indeed, the ruble first fell to 150 for a dollar, but it then rose to 52 and has since shown a clear tendency to strengthen. In just over a month, inflation in the ruble zone fell to zero and the prices of imported products began to fall gradually. Why did this happen?
This asset freeze only prohibited the Russian central bank from holding funds in USD or EUR and depositing them in American or European banks. Too bad for these banks and for the dollar and the euro in general, but these reserves were actually useless at first. They were necessary to prevent speculative attacks on the ruble (which could very easily be thwarted by other means) and to strengthen Russia’s credit rating. The Russian central bank was (and, to some extent, is probably still) infested with people whose brains have been damaged by exposure to Western science of eek!-a-nomic, according to which speculative attacks on national currencies are acceptable (ask George Soros) but currency control is bad. But today, the wings of these people have been cut off and common sense prevails.
Speaking of rating, Western rating agencies have begun to cancel their ratings for Russia… which hinders Russia’s access to foreign capital, do you think? Well, not really, because Russia is and has been for a long time a net exporter of capital and has no need for foreign capital. Add to this the fact that, since the euro and the dollar are no longer reserve currencies (as far as Russia is concerned), foreign investors are no longer welcome in Russia (unless they come with rubles, which they must first win).
Another series of sanctions was imposed on foreign property held by Russian oligarchs: villas, yachts, bank accounts, etc. This was a powerful anti-corruption campaign, which has deprived Russian oligarchs of much of their motivation to steal, since ill-gotten gains must now remain in Russia, which is at this stage rather favorable to financial transparency (remember that Mikhail Mishustin, a tax specialist and big data specialist, is now Prime Minister of Russia). Shunned by the world’s main money laundering centers in the United States, London and Switzerland, many Russian oligarchs have been forced to hastily repatriate their fortunes and look for ways to invest it in the Russian economy, thus giving it a boost. Until these sanctions were imposed, Russia allowed about $100 billion a year to escape to foreign jurisdictions; this flow was quickly reversed and has now stopped.
Another series of sanctions imposed an embargo on Russian exports of metals, wood, coal and many other products. This was very useful to Russia, because these sanctions prevented Russian businessmen from earning now useless euros. These materials can now be better used in Russia itself, by developing Russian industries, investing all the capital that no longer flees the country.
A special gift to Russia was Canada’s refusal to return a Siemens gas turbine to Russia that had been sent to it for maintenance because it was subject to Canadian sanctions. Russia now has a perfectly valid excuse to limit its natural gas exports to Germany via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. This gas can be used better on the national territory, especially for fertilizer production (fertilizers are in high demand today and much easier to transport than natural gas).
The flood of sanctions has pushed a number of European car manufacturers to hastily leave Russia, thereby losing their investments in the Russian automotive industry. This allowed Russia to renationalize its automotive industry, which is now in much better condition than it was at the time of its first privatization, while paying almost nothing for it. In previous years, many foreign car models, such as Mercedes-Benz, were built and sold in Russia, while a large part of the profits were paid abroad; this is no longer the case! Today, Russia is an excellent lead in rebuilding its automotive industry, both for domestic sales and for exports, thanks to generous sanctions.
And then there is the embargo on Airbus and Boeing aircraft. Now, hundreds of planes that were leased to Russia are available to Russia almost free of charge (rentals are now paid in rubles and funds deposited in Russian banks), which saves some $10 billion a year. This action has also accelerated the development of Russian national production of jets for the transport of passengers and goods.
The last plan, mentioned at the last G7 meeting, is to block Russian gold sales. First of all, it would be stupid: sales of Russian gold bars have already been blocked in recent months. Second, it would be useless: there are many other ways to sell gold internationally than to use the mechanisms of the pseudo-markets in London or New York. Thirdly, it would bring closer to the day when London’s “gold fix” and the “paper gold market” will be emptied of all physical gold and exposed for the fraud they are, allowing, for the first time in decades, the display of the real price on the precious metals market. Currently, the US dollar is swelling while the price of gold remains linked to it, which cancels the main function of gold as a hedge against inflation. The blocking of Russian gold, which represents 10% of global annual production, on the Western gold market, helps to bring the day when this tax will finally be lifted closer.
Overall, anti-Russian sanctions are very good and Russia should be grateful for them. But it may be useful to zoom out and point out that, although the immediate reason for these sanctions is the special military operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, Russia has always been subjected to sanctions, simply for refusing to become a Western colony. The Jackson-Vanick amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 survived the USSR, before being replaced by the Magnitsky Act of 2016. The Russians are fully aware that they will remain forever under Western sanctions, whatever they do. The best option, from the point of view of the Russians, is not to avoid or circumvent sanctions, but to learn how to exploit them to their advantage; which they have done.
Then, it would be wise to state some obvious facts about the special operation. First, it is not a war, but an action similar to that carried out by Russia against ISIS in Syria. The Russian contingent deployed in Ukraine is rather small, 150 to 200,000 soldiers, composed of professional soldiers, not conscripts or reservists, and perhaps represents only a third or a quarter of the total professional army. These troops are rotated in Ukraine as part of a kind of training exercise.
The objectives of the operation are rather limited: demilitarization and denazification, that is, to deprive Ukraine of Ukraine of the ability to pose a military threat and physically eliminate all Russianophobic Nazis indoctrinated by the West. Demilitarization continues at a steady pace: Ukraine’s military capabilities are destroyed by precision rockets, mostly before they reach the front, and the day when Ukraine will no longer have any military equipment may be in the next two weeks. Small continuous arms injections from NATO countries push this date back, but more slowly than in real time. Denazification also continues at a steady pace: Nazi battalions are reduced to the state of rotten meat by Russian artillery.
There are many signs of mission drift. While the initial objective was to liberate only the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, it now turns out that Kherson, Zaporozhye and Kharkov are also on the menu, followed by Nikolaev and Odessa. These Russian regions, which found themselves intoxicated on the political map when, after the collapse of the USSR, arbitrary administrative borders within the USSR were mechanically transferred to the political map, are very eager to join Russia. It is not yet known where this process will stop.
Nor do we know how long it will take. Russia is not in a hurry.
First of all, it wants to have enough time to run its entire professional army (plus a few volunteers, who are reluctantly admitted and after receiving significant training in Chechnya) in the Ukrainian theatre of war, in order to give them the opportunity to train to defeat NATO forces with a minimum of losses, even if they are much lower in number. This know-how is considered very important. This method is similar to that used by Russia to pass troops through Syria, so that all Russian air and space forces now have real experience on the battlefield.
Second, Russia wants to benefit fully from the sanctions while watching the West collapse economically and politically due to galloping inflation, energy shortages, food shortages and all kinds of other afflictions that anti-Russian sanctions have produced by boomerang effect. But above all, going faster would cause more victims among the Russian military, and it is the opposite of what we want.
Russia’s traditional ally is winter: every major military campaign against Russia (and this Ukrainian imbroglio is most certainly a consolidated Western attack on Russia, echoing those of Napoleon and Hitler) must end with the mass death of the enemy because of frostbite and exposure to the cold. Therefore, this campaign, sanctions and others, must drag on until winter, when the parts of former Ukraine liberated by the Russians will be warm, well fed and enlightened, while the other parts of former Ukraine controlled by the Nazis and NATO will freeze in the dark, abandoned by their NATO allies who will be busy counting their own deaths, who died in their homes due to lack of heating. Underground natural gas storage in Europe currently reaches just 50% and it is unlikely that this situation will improve, which means that the gas will only last until about December.
Denazification also takes time. It takes place as follows. The Ukrainian side, with the help of its NATO advisors, indoctrifies, trains, arms, equips and sends to the front line a continuous flow of Nazis - Ukrainians and mercenaries - that the Russians transform into minced meat using artillery and rockets. They were rather successful in blowing them up remotely in their training centers in Western Ukraine, with all their equipment. Some have been captured and will be executed in due course by an execution squad in Donbass, which, unlike Russia, does not have a permanent moratorium on the death penalty. But denazification using artillery is more effective than case judgment by Donetsk’s judicial system.
Another example of a secondary mission is the fact that Russia demilitarizes and denazifies not only Ukraine but also NATO and the EU. NATO sends its arms stocks for the Russians to destroy them with rockets and the EU and the United States send mercenaries for the Russians to massacre them on the front. It should no longer take much time for NATO to be devoid of weapons systems and for Ukrainian Nazism to become clearly outdated and no longer be at all the murderous safari of Russians that some Nazis dreamed of.
There is currently a lot of talk about bringing the Kiev regime to the negotiating table, making a compromise on the territory already lost to Russia and stopping the fighting. The EU is tired of the war and boomerang sanctions and is in favor of a rapid negotiated end to hostilities, it is said, while the United States and the United Kingdom encourage the Kiev regime and give it false hopes. It is even a question of France and Germany giving security guarantees to Zelensky, but there is no buyer for a very simple reason: Ukraine’s last legitimate president, before the coup, Yanukovich, had received such security guarantees and had to flee for fear of being killed while the guarantor nations looked elsewhere, and then quickly diplomatically recognized the Nazi regime imposed by the United States that overthrew him.
Given all the above, it is not at all clear why the deceased political entity, now almost completely hollow, known as “Ukraine”, should be granted any extension of life. Most of the former Ukrainian regions can reasonably be expected to join Russia, while some of the western regions, which were part of Austria-Hungary rather than Russia, will be left adrift as a defunct and largely depopulated area, divided into areas of concern between Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania, with perhaps a small Russian enclave.
Thanks to the special operation, the Russian population has already increased by 1% (including only those who have chosen to settle in Russia) and is expected to earn much more, as well as considerable land (two or three times the size of France), including a large part of fertile arable land in a temperate zone. The fact that the Ukrainian army, while constantly retreating, continues to bomb the residential neighborhoods it leaves behind, often reducing them to ruins, will certainly give a boost to the Russian construction industry. (The Ukrainians bomb civilian neighborhoods first because they are Nazis and second because the Russian army responds, while the civilians they bomb suffer and die). Overall, the special operation, combined with sanctions, paves the way for a very healthy growth spurt for the Russian economy.
It may be an exaggeration to hope that the Kiev regime will one day capitulate in an honorable and frank way. It is more likely that this awful regime will collapse and simply dissolve. In the final act, President Zelensky could be apprehended at a border checkpoint, disguised as a transvestite (needle heels, black leather dress, fan and boa are already part of his comic equipment) and presenting false documents. But it may take some time. The West continues to supply the Kiev regime with money that it can steal and weapons that it can resell to terrorist groups, Russia continues to turn its soldiers on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine while heavily hammering the landscape, and the Russian winter has not yet said its last word.
Dmitry Orlov
Credit: Basile X
Support my efforts on https://boosty.to/cluborlov or ClubOrlov on SubscribeStar.
Dmitry Orlov’s book is one of the founding works of this new “discipline” that is now called: “collapsology”, i.e. the study of the collapse of societies or civilizations.
It has just been reissued by Cultures & Racines.
He has also just published his latest book, The Arctic Fox Cometh.
Translated by Hervé, reread by Wayan, for the Francophone Saker
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Woops I gave out the wrong address - a lost “o” - the correct one is:
https://lesakerfrancophone.fr
cheers
Hi folks,
it still seems to be down : here’s the latest via france:
The French-speaking Saker
The chaos of the world is not born from the souls of peoples, races or religions, but from the insatiable appetite of the powerful. The humble watch.
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The dictatorship of Brussels and the return of the Herrenvolk (race of lords)
Posted on July 10, 2022 by Le Saker Francophone
July 2022 - Source Nicolas Bonnal
We sail in troubled, not to say satanic waters. The great liquidation of the ebaubie and stupid mass by the media and ecologists is getting closer and we arrive at enormities that no longer shock anyone.
The Brussels Commission therefore wants to deprive the lower people (99 or 99.9% of the population) of any internal combustion engine vehicle. Even Gérard Carreyrou moaned. Not crazy, the elite knows that although the engine or electric vehicle are lures (see Wiesbaden’s broken buses); therefore only yachts, jets and luxury cars (sold in less than a thousand copies) will have the right to fill up on polluting fuel. The rest can die or go quietly by bicycle by lighting up with a wind turbine. Being a billionaire is not enough for them: the mass must have nothing or no longer be. There they can play the shepherd and shepherdess again in their robotic toile de Jouy.
Small reminder:
It must be said that the suicidal mass does not care about its disappearance, so they would be wrong to bother. The demassification prophesied by techno-fascist guru Alvin Toffler (his sect is hunting for fake news now…) fifty years ago has produced its effects: thanks to social networks and technology the masses are no longer physically mobilizing (three high school girls to challenge Macron? But where are we going? He knows how to mobilize his gendarmes anyway). In any case, even on networks, the number of people who react well on important topics is tiny. Estulin noticed this by counting the billions of connections to watch a video of Lady Gaga or Beyonce. I reassure you, it’s more than Xavier Moreau or Charles Gave. Pulchrum is paucorum hominum, recalls Nietzsche.
But I come back to the Brussels commission, to the " caste", as Eric Verhaeghe says. And as our idiots in power and on TV like to denounce Nazism (founder of ecology and humanitarian interventionism, the fight against tobacco, sexual harassment or speeding, read my texts), I will talk about the race of lords. Teuton Nazism has survived in the form of Schwab or Von der Leyen, it also makes its war of extermination against Russia (it is too well armed, these Russians still cheat) with its neo-Nazis and it is ecological, censor and vitalist like never before. As for his fascination with technoscience, he did not wait for Harari…
The one who talks about the race of lords in the context of European unification that is looming from the end of the 40th War is Friedrich Von Hayek. It has often been recovered by neoliberals but its Route of Bondage remains a model. Hayek that the German Nazi model will be more or less followed afterwards for European construction, a construction that the Anglo-Saxon winners of this war want to implement (Hayek has given dozens of titles since forgotten).
Route of servitude, p. 159:
To imagine that the planned direction of economic life to a vast region inhabited by different peoples could be carried out by democratic processes is to completely ignore the problems that such a plan raises. Planism, at the international level even more than at the national level, is only the application of brute force: a small group imposes on all others a standard of living and a work plan that it considers right.
Hayek visualizes the large economic space and the good old Herrenvolk, a notion that announces the big German-Cosmopolite bureaucratic commission responsible for establishing all this by ruining France, Italy, Spain and other PIGS:
It is true that this kind of Grossraumwirtschaft, of economy of the great outdoors, designed by the Germans can only be achieved by a race of lords, a Herrenvolk, ruthlessly imposing his goals and ideas on all the others. Brutality and lack of scruples about the desires and ideals of small peoples are not simply a
I have already talked about the Western demon of organizations: we have NGOs, we have Soros, we have the UN, we also have Europe. These organizations are subject to extremely wealthy, woke and relentless elites; elites that take up the British Malthusian scheme described by Marx in the incomparable Book VI of Capital: Scotland and the Highlands are emptied of their population (same for Wales or genocidée and hungry Ireland, territories since notoriously underpopulated) and made a hunting reserve for The survivors will go to America and Australia previously depopulated. You don’t change a winning method, especially when you are the master of the story. It is not for nothing that Walter Darré, legendary Nazi minister, in his book on agriculture, is full of praise for this British aristocracy with a narrow front, adoring emptiness and wild game.
The Brussels Commission threw the mask. It is up to the good people to take up the challenge or quietly accept their proletarianization and extermination. Recall that in the West the fate of the masses rose to the twentieth only for fear of Russian communism (cf.Zinoviev). This is why the genocidal elite wants to end Russia to end us.
Happy holidays to the distracted!
**Nicolas Bonnal **on Amazon.fr
Sources
- http://pombo.free.fr/hayek1944.pdf
- https://twitter.com/UPR_Asselineau/status/1535218351290650625
- https://www.amazon.fr/DANS-GUEULE-BETE-LAPOCALYPSE-MONDIAL/dp/B09NR9QGLX/ref=sr_1_4? crid=K6FWNSVHXU9J&keywords=nicolas+bonnal&qid=1654938942&s=books&sprefix=%2Cstripbooks%2C203&sr=1-4
- Élites génocidaires et masse suicidaire : à deux doigts du néant
- Pourquoi peut-on désormais parler de démocratie totalitaire ? – Le Courrier des Stratèges
- https://nicolasbonnal.wordpress.com/2022/05/25/bill-bonner-et-le-grand-effondrement-qui-accompagna-la-chute-de-lempire-romain-lisez-bien-cest-ce-qui-va-nous-arrive-la-theologie-woke-actuel-accompanie-la-rage-destructr
- https://strategika.fr/2020/09/01/contre-leur-rage-de-detruire-pouvons-nous-encore-nous-defendre/
- https://cudeg.com.uy/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/La-tercera-ola.pdf
- https://reseauinternational.net/hitler-et-les-origines-du-neo-totalitarianism
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1 REFLECTION ON “THE DICTATORSHIP OF BRUSSELS AND THE RETURN OF THE HERRENVOLK (RACE OF LORDS)”
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and the next on 10th July 2022 in 3 posts:
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“Leon Trotsky on France” in order to recover Trotsky from the Trotskyists
Posted on July 10, 2022 by Wayan
By Ramin Mazaheri - July 10, 2022 - The Francophone Saker
Available now! This book has just been published in French in the form of a pocket book and e-book, and also in English!
It is essential to turn to Trotsky to analyze the Yellow Vests, not because I am Trotskyist, but because Trotsky is the main socialist architect, descriptor and critic of the political revolution.
In October 1917, Trotsky was elected president of the Petrograd Soviet, Russia’s revolutionary center. He led the organization of the uprising of the October Revolution against the provisional government, which had followed the overthrow of the monarchy during the February Revolution. Trotsky knew what he was talking about and, perhaps more than anyone in his time, he could say precisely what a revolutionary group must do to really take power.
The problem with Trotsky is not Trotskyism. He refused to make his name synonymous with the effective conduct of the progressive revolution, lamenting in an almost astounding way: "For reaction and its agents, “Trotskyism” is the international threat of the socialist revolution. "
Both are not and should not be synonymous. Trotsky would surely reprimand his 21st century adherents for the main reproach that people of the left make to his disciples: For modern Trotskyists, there is no “revolution” or “socialism” unless it is “Trotskyism” and only “Trotskyism”.
The problem with Trotsky is not Trotskyism, it is the Trotskyists
If Trotskyism was once synonymous with revolution but it is no longer - which is certainly the case - then who should we blame more than the followers who take its name? The French presidential elections inevitably present multiple Trotskyist candidates - they cannot even get along with each other, let alone with others on the left.
Trotsky is different from his modern disciples in that he considered that the conditions in the 1930s were ripe for the revolution - even too mature - and he was shocked that others could not see that what he helped achieve in Russia was in fact possible elsewhere, and at that time. From November 2018 to June 2019, the Yellow Vests undoubtedly agreed that the conditions were - at least - ripe for a major break with the current practices of Western liberal democracy, and they were also shocked that French leftists could not see it.
Yellow Vest: "We must bring France to its knees, because that’s all our governments understand. We will block the entire economy for as long as it takes. The fight against capitalism is warming up around the world, so the Yellow Vests are not the only ones calling for huge changes. "
An important reason for their absence from the most revolutionary situation in France since 1968 is that today’s Trotskyists are so discredited that they would not have been welcomed by the Yellow Vests.
Today’s Trotskyists seem to live in a state where it is perpetually September 1917 - they cannot support the few nations that have selfishly “taken the plunge” and taken power in their own country without the Trotskyists, and allegedly at the expense of the world revolution. If the Trotskyists could realize that the monarchy still plays a huge role in the world, they would realize that living in a state where one is perpetually in January 1917 would be much, much more useful for advancing socialism (and not just Trotskyism).
What I will call Trotsky’s definition of a revolutionary country is concise and clear, and any country that meets these requirements obviously deserves the fullest support:
Meanwhile, the hypothetical government (Trotsky refers to a Western liberal democratic government that effectively stood up to fascism) would not give anything to the workers or the petty-bourgeois masses, because it would be unable to attack the foundations of private property; and without the expropriation of banks, large commercial enterprises, key branches of industry and transport, without a monopoly on foreign trade and without a series of other profound measures, there is no possible way to help the peasant, the craftsman, the small merchant. "
This is the most fundamental condition for a socialist-inspired revolution in the name of the people, and yet Trotskyists throughout France and the West perpetually condemn any country that has taken this first critical step towards citizen empowerment. Please note that Iran has not renounced control by the Iranian people over all the “deep measures” listed above. Please also note that today’s French Trotskyist groups generally wrongly put small traders in the same bag as CEOs, instead of putting them in the same bag as the proletariat and farmers, while the Yellow Vests do not make this mistake.
Perhaps the most common word in Trotsky is “expropriation”. Without the expropriation of 1% private property, there is no movement that can make possible any type of socialism - or the smallest social democracy.
This definition is very useful because it illustrates how the establishment of banking power has been part of Europe’s economic history since 1492. In the 1930s, the “banks” of Western oligarchic liberal democracy had become the first target of opponents of Trotsky’s progressive policy, and both socialists and fascists came to power promising to reduce their power.
Non-socialist readers can be alarmed by Trotsky’s phrase “attacking the foundations of private property”, as if they were the only ones to hold a commercial monopoly, a key branch of an industry or a large commercial enterprise. These people simply like to believe themselves budding bourgeois, and therefore do not want a ceiling to limit their almost certain rise, as bourgeois culture instills in them to want it. Giving the masses control of these key mega-economic entities in order to deprive the bourgeois of the ability to subdue the work of others - and not give up control of your home and the objects it contains, or of your small business - this is what socialism is, and it is also what it takes to gain stability, control and peace for the masses.
Today’s Trotskyists are not on the front lines, and they do not support any serious front anywhere
Trotsky today would surely demand a redefinition of what “Trotskyism” is, because for modern Trotskyists, it apparently does not include the demand for control of the main means of production or anything armed. Trotskyism of the 21st century was included in Western liberal democracy because it is now limited to working within it, not against it.
More than any other aspect of his personal thought, these remarks he made in 1935 when talking about France summarize what Trotsky was fundamentally:
“This is why the most immediate of all demands must be the expropriation of capitalists and the nationalization (socialization) of the means of production. But isn’t this demand unfeasible under the reign of the bourgeoisie? Absolutely! That’s why we must take power.” (he emphasizes)
Any discussion cannot ignore this point or the one below, which today’s Trotskyists certainly ignore, since they reject any country that has really led a revolution and nationalizations of socialist inspiration, such as China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, etc.:
"How can we come to power of the soviets (workers’ committees) without an armed insurrection? How can we achieve an insurrection without arming the workers? How can we defend ourselves against fascism without weapons? How to achieve armament, even partial, without propaganda for this slogan? "
Today’s Trotskyist propaganda is totally devoid of it, even if Trotsky’s writings are full of denigration for pacifists who refuse to fight for their rights. Such militarism is, of course, very different from militarism that demands invasion:
“The more successful the anti-militarist agitation, the faster the fascist danger will develop. This is the real and non-fanciful dialectic of the struggle.” (he is the one who emphasizes)
In the 1960s, the Western left adopted anti-militarism as an almost inflexible law. This absurdity that ignores history has resulted in a political absurdity that has finally been reduced to a reformism of the status quo to a snail velocity and with the ephemeral quality of the existence of a flower. Western “Flower Power” did not change the social pyramid, and Trotsky would not have been surprised by the political impotence to turn away from anti-militarist agitation while trying to obtain changes of socialist inspiration.
A fundamental question that must be asked is: why have Trotskyists never spoken out in favor of the right of the Yellow Vests to their own self-defense? Everyone knew that they were attacked every Saturday by the police. If today’s Trotskyists are content to be tiny and ineffective parties in Western liberal democracies, can they not at least promote defensive measures to defend the simple rights of liberalism, such as freedom of assembly? This would certainly be the strict minimum that Trotsky would have promoted with regard to the Yellow Vests.
This is a question that requires much more reflection because it strikes the hypocritical heart of Western liberal democracy. The Yellow Vests show how the West refuses to accept the most basic Liberal Democratic rights of 1789, and also rejects all the egalitarian measures promoted by socialist democracy. It will be discussed in the chapter What the Yellow Vests can be: a group that can protect the rights of liberalism, at least.
A perfect time for the Trotskyists of France to provide defensive aid was during the Yellow Vests’ attempt to establish a permanent camp near the Eiffel Tower in March 2019. Of course, they also needed defensive help every Saturday for months.
Trotskyism’s main propaganda organ - the World Socialist Web Site - has never launched such calls to action, although it is based in the United States and therefore out of reach of French intimidation and repression! The WSWS correctly stressed the need for the Yellow Vests to stay away from the totally discredited political establishment, such as parties and trade unions, (although this point was already non-negotiable for the Yellow Vests) but only to finally insist that they should be led by a Trotskyist vanguard provided by the International Committee of the Fourth International. Rejecting everyone except me is typical modern Trotskyism. The irony is that the Yellow Vests and Trotsky have a lot in common, both categorically reject class collaborationism.
Trotsky would have disavowed his namesakes for not being able to grasp the unique moment represented by the Yellow Vests, which is proven by his own writings.
For example, in 1936, Trotsky seemed to be apoplectical with the French leftists. 1.5 million out of 10 million French people voted communist and - for a guy who made a revolution with much less - this should have been enough to make a revolution in France.
"When one and a half million voters vote for the communists, the majority of them mean: ‘We want you to do in France the same thing as the Russian Bolsheviks did in their country in October 1917’. »
In the West, the Yellow Vests are the first popular political force operating on essentially socialist-inspired ideas since 1936. They are the first political force ready to operate in repressive and highly discussed conditions since 1936. They are the first French progressive political force to benefit from even greater popular support than that enjoyed by the leftists gathered in 1936: polls have shown that the Yellow Vests have an approval rate of 75% and still - even after so much propaganda and repression - a majority approval rate in a country where such popularity is considered unfeasible.
In 1936, Trotsky rejected the results of the vote not only for the radicals (it is a misleading name - they were “reformists” of Western liberal democracy) but also for the more left-wing socialists: he did not care about their score because they were not a working class party in their composition or policy as the communists were. The Yellow Vests are a working class party in composition and politics, but where were the Trotskyists/are? The fault of the Yellow Vests was not to be openly Trotskyist, of course.
Trotsky would diagnose the current problem as that of a bad direction, which was his most common refrain. However, the worst leadership among Western leftists is among Trotskyists, because it is clear that they do not even defend most Trotskyist thinking.
Yellow Vest: "So many of these guys were bought by Macron and are happy to stay in his pocket. Pensioners, the unemployed and public sector workers have been walking for seven months and our so-called intellectuals are spitting on us! We get beaten and gassed, and they criticize us! "
In 2022, I think Trotsky would have supported countries like Iran, because this is where he directed his vast criticism when he spoke of France: supporters of the measures of Western liberal democracy and those who seek appeasement through measures that are not expropriations. From the multiple French Trotskyist parties to the World Socialist Web Site, they spent more time promoting their own tiny parties than the Yellow Vests, which means that they are totally committed to working within the framework of Western liberal democracy. This is really the exact opposite of what Trotsky suggested!
Western Trotskyists are not revolutionary - they are waiting for this laughable “hypothetical government” that Trotsky himself noted would fail even if it were ever put in place, and the failure of the Popular Front of 1936 in France proved him right. The analysis of Marxism-inspired history clearly shows that the Western liberal democratic framework will never create permanent programs that guarantee a permanent redistribution of political power and wealth aimed at strengthening the lower and middle classes - neither in times of war, nor in the event of a pandemic, nor at any other hypothetical moment.
The absurd contradictions and hypocrisies of the modern Trotskyist movement pale enormously when compared to the actual achievements of the movements inspired by Stalinism (that is, by the USSR), which Trotsky notoriously rejected.
cheers
We must not blame Trotsky, heroic and committed!
We should snatch it from today’s declared Trotskyists, because they refuse to put his ideas into practice while claiming themselves from him, and we should redefine Trotskyism to describe more precisely what its necessary contributions were to socialism.
Trotskyism: A socialist line of thought that emphasizes the need for an avant-garde party to encourage the demand for power of the liberal and monarchist elite by force, while always remaining in dialogue with the masses, in order to expropriate their political power and economic wealth for the benefit of the masses.
The above definition retains the notion of an avant-garde party dear to Trotsky, but it can clearly include Cuba, China, Iran, Hezbollah and others - this is how Trotsky can be snatched from the Trotskyists. Trotsky did not want his name to become synonymous with socialist revolution, but he certainly would not want him to be associated with today’s Trotskyists who are absolutely not Trotskyists!
As with Napoleon Bonaparte, the well-being and understanding that socialist analysis has to offer insist on the political rehabilitation of a character whose supporters have misunderstood, distorted and often dishonored him. The revolution must not eat its young people, as the counter-revolutionaries insist. By starting by completely eliminating the oldest enemy of socialist democracy - the autocratic oligarchy embodied by the monarchy, whose ideals have been subsumed by Western liberal democracy - we will first clear the way to end arrogant imperialism and elitism, an essential first step in demanding socialism at home.
But we must snatch Trotsky not only from the adulation he himself opposed, but also from Trotsky himself. Let’s consider the point of view of W.E.B. Du Bois, certainly the greatest African-American political writer of his time and perhaps even of all time:
"He (Stalin) saw very early through Trotsky’s flamboyance and exhibitionism, who deceived the world, and especially America. All the ill-eated and insulting attitude of the Liberals in the United States today began with our naive acceptance of Trotsky’s magnificent false propaganda, which he carried around the world. Against her, Stalin stood like a rock and did not move to the right or left, while continuing to advance towards real socialism instead of the simulacrum offered by Trotsky. "
W.E.B. Du Bois probably did not have many meetings with the French Trotskyists, as I did. Some, even their highest leaders, have often been very polite. Others have been even more rude to me than the English-speaking section of the World Socialist Web Site. In early 2018, the WSWS and I engaged in point-counterpoint articles about their support for demonstrations in Iran, their total lack of support for the socialist-inspired Iranian revolution and their rather average support for a nation subject to constant imperialist attacks. To be brief, the online articles resulted in the writing of a three-part pamphlet entitled, The Fight against Imperialism and for Workers’ Power in Iran: A Response to a supporter of “Iranian Islamic Socialism”. I was - and I am - this supporter. I’m sorry to say that it wasn’t very interesting to read because they did something that no Iranian would ever do and would expect to remain credible for any Iranian: they tried to give the Communist Party Tudeh all the credit of 1979. Excluding the role of the mosque, religious leadership and the combination of a revolutionary interpretation of Shiite Islam with key aspects of socialism is to spread a fabricated and interested story about how the revolution finally swept 2,500 years of Iranian monarchism. In response to this pamphlet, I wrote the book Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism to finally describe to a Western audience the countless socialist-inspired roots, programs and policies of undoubtedly revolutionary Iran. In my counterpart articles with the WSWS, I did everything possible to congratulate them when justified, while their articles were personally antagonistic. They called me an “apologist”, a “larbin” and made other totally “insulting” remarks that only made them look like “unheagreed”, just as Du Bois pointed out. Again, the problem is not Trotskyism, but… I am happy that their pamphlet kindly appreciated that, “Mazaheri’s compliments are generous.”
Trotsky believed that Stalin did not sincerely care about the working class, but only about the “bureaucracy” - this is not true. The Trotskyist blame for Stalinism for abandoning Western workers/leftism totally ignores its decades of left-wing agitation and that of the USSR, as detailed in the previous chapter. The blame goes to the forces of autocracy and the oligarchy of Western liberal democracy, not to communist and socialist comrades.
In his dismay that others were not so ardently revolutionary, Trotsky rejected the relatively minor intra-socialist compromises - compared to the demands of monarchism and the oligarchy - that made it possible to continue to “advance towards real socialism”, even if it was in only one country at a time. Trotsky’s war against the USSR - against “Stalinism” - is often considered a betrayal of the socialist movement, and today’s Trotskyists make the same mistake against China, Iran, Venezuela and - if they made further progress - also the Yellow Vests.
cheers
part 3:
What socialism cannot lose from Trotsky is the idea that the threat of an armed revolution in the face of the repeated denial of human rights is the only certain way to a real revolution in the properties of the aristocratic elite. What he can lose is “flamboyance”, “exhibitionism”, acting as if one was “badly raised” and being “insulting”. Trotskyism has seduced the individualistic West largely because both rely too much on the individual singularity of an avant-garde party. There is an anti-democracy inherent in Trotsky’s most constant complaint - the wrong direction of the left movement - as if, if only Trotsky were still in charge, all of Europe would be socialist today.
I presented here a balanced vision of Leon Trotsky because a history of left-wing movements is not possible without Trotsky, but a left-wing story where Marx, Engels and Trotsky are the only heroes of the left is an ineffective and distorting absurdity.
A story where Napoleon Bonaparte is not left-wing, where the revolutions of 1848 are not the counter-revolutions of 1848, where the rise of fascism is both the fault of socialism and is nothing more than distorted Marxism, where the Yellow Vests are not the reborn French left, etc. are ineffective and distorting absurdities.
The parallel between today’s France and the 1930s is of vital importance, and thus, recalling Trotsky’s assessments of France provides us with the richness of parallels that need to be made to show how the problems of Western liberal democracy today have been unchanged for 90 years, just as Marx’s rereading reminds us that the problems have been unchanged for 175 years.
Trotsky’s inability to consider Western liberal democracy as capable of subsuming the ideals of fascism
Trotsky is so right - especially his refusal to concede anything to Western liberal democracy - but let’s focus on the few points on which he was wrong.
Trotsky’s writings undoubtedly reveal that he really thought that Western liberal democracy/parliamentarism/free market were really dead. For Trotsky, the only remaining fight was that against fascism. This is a mistake that many left-wing people have made since 1850 - mistakenly assuming that Western liberal democracy does not have enormous resources to survive.
Apparently, Trotsky thought that fascism was really a “third way” - it was neither autocratic Western liberal democracy nor socialist democracy - but in the 1930s, no non-Western would agree that chauvinism, racism, authoritarianism and the myriads of small dictatorships of their ruling class are phenomena that were only highlighted in the West during their fascist era of the 1930s. Of course, they had experienced it in their own colonized countries! For non-Westerners, the oligarchy of monarchism, Western liberal democracy and fascism are distinguished only by their style and not by their function.
Not emphasizing the socio-cultural effects of imperialism in the industrial era led Trotsky to underestimate chauvinism, racism, social and economic regiment, the oppression of dissent and the “dictatorship of the ruling class” (that is, the five characteristics of the commonly accepted definition of fascism) in Western liberal democracy, and to mistakenly assume that they
Another problem may have been that the socialists of the 1930s were horrified by the fact that fascists used Marxist tools to accurately criticize Western liberal democracy - this unnecessary concern was addressed in the previous chapter. Today, we see that socialists should have put fascism and Western liberal democracy in the same boat, and some have done so: Stalin correctly said that fascism and social democracy (i.e. the reformists of Western liberal democracy) are twins, and we are now right to say that fascism, social democracy and Western liberal democracy are triplets.
This is not an easy exaggeration - these three schools of political thought clearly united after the Second World War against socialist democracy. The quarrel between fascism and Western liberal democracy was even shorter than the quarrel between the houses of Bourbon and Orleans!
Western liberal democracy survives because it has monopolized so many resources, and also because of its ability to unite to adapt its right-wing solutions - its brutal version of the class struggle - and in contrast to the left’s inability to unite. They are much more effective in the class struggle, largely because they have far fewer people to organize/weld. The only real quarrel between liberals and Western fascists is to choose a cosmopolitan globalist elite, dominated by new capital, or a sovereign national elite, dominated by old capital, and to determine the degree of xenophobia to be used.
The proof that Trotsky did not understand the similarities between Western liberal democracy and fascism is summarized in his complaint on Stalinist/Comintern communism in 1936. I think every reader will be shocked either by his naivety or by his impossible demands on the USSR: "If the Soviet unions had set an opportune example by boycotting Italy (for having invaded Ethiopia), the movement would, like a meadow fire, inevitably embraced all of Europe and the whole world, and would have immediately become threatening to the imperialists of all countries »
The whole world was going to ignite for Ethiopia, really?
Again, we cannot blame Trotsky: he is really personally upset by the invasion of Ethiopia. But Trotsky is a progressive, humanitarian and politically active person - almost no one else really cared about Ethiopia. Today, neither Palestine, nor the chemical weapons used against the Iranians in the 1980s, nor the famine in Yemen, nor any other blatant Western imperialist violence ignites everyone. As evidenced by the incredibly hypocritical double standards towards the 2022 refugees from Ukraine, the West is only concerned with whites, and again, only when they are useful or with the appropriate class.
From 1789 to 2022, non-Europeans saw the same racism, the same deadly abuses of power and privileges, the same haughty contempt and disinterest, and the same closed opportunities in Western liberal democracy and fascism. Trotsky continues to complain, as usual, that this is proof of the failure of the revolutionary leadership - but the leaders are not the problem, but the people: the good people of the West have been governed by Western liberal democracy for too long, and therefore by its false, elitist, overcompetitive and bigot precepts.
Trotsky also did not foresee the monarchical expansion of Western executive power in the 21st century (justified at the beginning of the 21st century, as in 1830, by a need to dominate Muslims), which makes him even closer to authoritarian fascism.
It was perhaps myopia - being too deeply rooted in Western culture and too little exposed to the non-Western views of the colonized. A Third World resident did not feel a real change in policy before, during or after the Western fascist era - violence is less brutal in its cultural presentation, but violence remains brutal. A Syrian heard about the victory over fascism in Europe on May 8, 1945, but he certainly felt more deeply the shells that Charles de Gaulle dropped on him on May 29, in order to prevent any independence movement (human rights). The French perpetrated the massacres of Setif and Guelma in Algeria on the day of the V-E (Victory in Europe - May 8, 1945), with the help of the American army. How is this morally superior to Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia?
"Isn’t it too late? No, everything shows that it’s not too late. There is no powerful fascist party in France. Indeed, there will not be an organization in France as important as the Hitler party even before the conquest of power: it is against the traditions and customs of the country." It was not a Western liberal democrat who spoke of the higher values of the West - it was Trotsky in 1935, and he would soon be wrong about 60% of the country, that is, Vichy France.
Trotsky was particularly wrong in the first part - how can a country occupying Algeria (which makes it “France”) not have a powerful fascist force? He is also wrong in the second part: there is no fascist party in France, the United Kingdom and the United States because their Western liberal democracies were already quite fascist. The idea that their traditions of elitism and oligarchy are anti-fascist is absurd for those they are currently colonizing.
This quote is not that of a racist Trotsky, because of course he was not, but simply that of a Trotsky succumbing to European ethnocentrism and forgetting that France’s traditions and customs also included the defeat of progressive politics, again and again. Trotsky was completely denied by the extent of Vichy France, and almost a century later, our objective is to explain why: He did not realize that France’s impressive but relatively minor experiences in social revolution were radically overtaken by the fascism inherent in the “traditions and customs” of the monarchy and, after 1848, Western liberal democracy.
As the upcoming chapters will show, the rights and redistributions won by the Western masses in the post-war period (1945-1975) were constantly attacked in the third restoration of liberalism (1975 to the present) and therefore serve as an exceptional era in the anti-worker history of Western liberal democracy.
The idea that there was no revolution or fascism is a trick of Western Liberal Democracy, which openly allied itself with supporters of fascism against socialism from the end of the hostilities of the Second World War in order to fight Socialist Democracy around the world. It was absurd - the United States of the time Jim Crow took the lead in the “free world” while being a state of apartheid - but imperialist Western liberal democracy controls the means, so it has the tools to use and pay for massive propaganda to support this idea.
How can Trotsky’s great leaders lead a movement without a leader?
What is certain is that Trotsky would be somewhat helpless in the face of the Yellow Vests without a leader, because he did not live in an era without a leader.
The Yellow Vests insist that they could not have germinated successfully if they had acclaimed a leader, precisely because all French leaders (including Trotskyists) are so discredited. However, this did not necessarily prevent the Trotskyist parties in France or the Trotskyist supporters of several other important left-wing parties from trying to humbly, patiently and methodically establish links with the Yellow Vests. The problem lies entirely in the dominant attitude of today’s Trotskyists.
Trotsky would probably have said this: The Yellow Vests are a “pre-revolutionary movement” that will be routed, due to the lack of organized leadership. I do not agree, and it is possible that the presence of the 2019-2020 general strike would have changed Trotsky’s mind.
They were certainly routed every Saturday, and they were an ideal revolutionary movement, but they have not yet progressed towards the effective realization of the revolution, nor have they fully understood that only a revolution far from Western liberal democracy can enable them to realize their fundamental demands. As we will see in the following chapters, their main problem was not to understand their political reality, the very different laws and constraints created by the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon.
The Yellow Vests are therefore at least a harbinger of the coming revolution, I think we agree, at least on that.
What the Yellow Vests do is create political illumination at every rural roundabout, every urban march and every Facebook page, and Western Trotskyists must either get on board or declare that they are not in favor of socialist democracy but Western liberal democracy. If they continue to work more with the Liberal Democrats than with the Yellow Vests, then they are not Trotskyists, who wrote, and it is he who emphasizes: “There can be no greater crime than the coalition with the bourgeoisie in a period of socialist revolution”, and this is what they have done so far during the Yellow Vest period.
Because they live in an era without a leader, the Yellow Vests are the ones that introduce clarity into the political consciousness of the struggling masses - I believe Trotsky would have called them the avant-garde party of France today, and not the French communist or Trotskyist parties.
If the Yellow Vests lack one thing, it is that, as Trotsky wrote, "Without a complete reversal of property relations - without the concentration of the dieback system, the fundamental branches of industry and foreign trade in the hands of the state - there is no salvation for the petty bourgeoisie of the city and the countryside. There is no salvation because, once again, the time of 1945-75 appears as a short anomaly compared to the periods of 1848-1944 and 1976-2022 - the short era of Social Democracy in Europe was easily reversed, in addition to being always inadequate.
The USSR, China and Iran have reversed property relations, but this overthrow is not actually part of the demands of the Yellow Vests, which were first made public in December 2018. Of course, many Yellow Vests knew that nationalization is the only possible way, even if it is only instinctively.
Yellow Vest: "The way Macron managed these privatizations reveals exactly what we have denounced from the beginning. How can Macron sell our national heritage without even consulting the opinion of the people? This is exactly why we demand regular citizen referendums. Why are we now selling something like Paris airport, when it will certainly be worth much more in the years to come, and especially if we invest money in it? Despite what the government says, we are losing money with this sale, and with other privatizations. »
In their bones and actions, the heroic Yellow Vests are revolutionary - it is the fault of the other Western leftists not to have joined them, and to have feared to join them by starting and especially after the incredible police brutality and intimidation of May 1, 2019.
The Yellow Vests suffer from a defect similar to Trotsky’s: without a disciplined bureaucracy, there is no way to institute the practical demands of the revolutionary masses. However, it is still early for the Yellow Vests. Trotskyism refused to support such a bureaucracy in the USSR, and that is why people like Du Bois admired Stalin, the USSR and “real socialism instead of the imposture offered by Trotsky” - “imposture” being the revolution without bureaucracy to install or preserve it.
Trotsky and his scourge of bureaucratism is similar to the Yellow Vests’ insistence on being a movement without a leader that also makes the establishment of a formal bureaucracy a croquemitaine. The flaw of these two movements is that they think that everyone is as advanced and politically engaged as they are, when they are not - they are avant-gardes.
Make no mistake, the Yellow Vest movement was ultimately not stopped by bad leadership or disdain for the disciplined bureaucracy, but by a total war against it. If this war had been waged by a president Marine Le Pen, it would have been described as “fascist”, but because it was led by Emmanuel Macron, it was laundered. This absurdity can be easily recognized by seeing that Western liberal democracy has allied itself with fascists for nearly a century, has subsumed the key principles of fascism in contemporary liberal democracy - which means that it is fascist.
Trotsky really thought that “imperialist democracy” and “parliamentary democracy” were totally discredited and crushed for good in 1939 - this was not the case.
In the end, it is more accurate to say that Trotsky may have the correct intuition, but did not describe correctly, that Western liberal democracy and fascism were interchangeable and had to be discredited and driven out for good - why don’t you see that?
<—>
List of chapters of the new content
The Yellow Vests: Western repression of the best values of the West - March 27, 2022
Introduction: A history of the Yellow Vests must rewrite the recent and ancient history of France - April 3, 2022
The United Kingdom’s endless reaction: 1789 and the end of feudalism create modern conservatism - April 10, 2022
The Glorious Revolution of 1688: England declares “the death of all other revolutions” - April 24, 2022
Modern political history makes no sense if Napoleon had not been a left-wing revolutionary - April 24, 2022
The stillborn child of the “Counter-revolutions of 1848”: Western liberal democracy May 8, 2022
Louis-Napoleon: The revolutionary differences between Bonapartism and Western liberal democracy - June 12, 2022
The Paris Commune: the true birth of neoliberalism and EU neo-imperialism - June 26, 2022
Where the West is stuck: The fascism of the 1930s and the “fascistism” of the 2020s - June 19, 2022
On “Leon Trotsky on France” in order to recover Trotsky from the Trotskyists.
The childhood of the Yellow Vests: See the French elites, only, influenced by neoliberalism.
No one here is really responsible: How the European empire forced the Yellow Vests
Radicalization by the lost decade of current Europe: the Great Recession changes France
For the Yellow Vests, he is the radical: Macron and “Neither right nor left, but the bourgeois bloc”.
Yellow vests: At worst, the largest French movement in a century
Who are they really? Ask a journalist who has seen a million faces of Yellow Vests.
Winning yellow vest: End the Western defamation of all popular movements as far-right xenophobes.
Victory of the yellow vests: the end of Western anarcho-syndicalistism and trade unions as hereditary kings of leftism
Victory of the yellow vests: the end of Western parliamentarism as the most progressive government
Victory of the Yellow Vests: Recalling the link between fascist violence and Western democracy
What the Yellow Vests can be: a group that can protect the rights of liberalism, at least
The 2022 vote: The necessary approach for the “before” and “after” of the closure of polling stations.
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a journalist in a daily newspaper in the United States and has reported in Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as 'I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China which is also available in simplified and traditional in Chinese.
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cheers
I seem to have missed this long thread
Anyway here’s something more from that EU foreign policy bod Josep Borrel, who was mentioned in your Jul 9 post, @CJ1.
It’s very revealing of the mindset.
In neocolonial rant, EU says Europe is ‘garden’ superior to rest of world’s barbaric ‘jungle’
It’s a real rant. Europe civilizing the barbaric world.
That will be why we left, then
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No, ‘we’ left so that the fag-end of the English empire - that world-renowned armed-robbery and mass-murder enterprise - can continue what’s left of its global looting scams through the City of Rackets - sorry, London.
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The White Man’s Burden didn’t they use to call it, in the days when this kind of supremacist wank was tolerated?
People all over China, in Mali, in Zimbabwe and in many other places in that barbarous South led lives of peace and plenty way before much of Europe did. Breathtaking arrogance.
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