Category: Financial absurdity

The Death of Boris Nemtsov: A Quick Analysis

The recent murder of Boris Nemtsov, a Russian  opposition politician  and ex-physicist, on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge very  near to  the Kremlin in Moscow, raises many questions.

Predictably,  Western  politicians  and  mainstream  media are pointing  the finger at  Vladmir Putin, the President of Russia, as the man  who  signed off on Nemtsov’s execution. In  remarkably similar  ways to  the their response to  the  downing of MH 17 over Ukraine last  year,  they have leapt at  the opportunity to  once more demonise Putin. Proof of course, is immaterial in  this game.

Let us be under no  illusions, Putin  as an  ex-KGB officer is perfectly capable of signing Nemtsov’s death  warrant and may have done so, but , as I will  attempt  to  demonstrate, that   is the more unlikely  scenario in this instance.  Western media point to   other deaths of Russian  opposition politicians and oligarchs where  some of the evidence points to Russian  state apparatus involvement as proof that  this time, once again, another key  opposition to  Putin  has been  removed.  This despite the fact  that  Putin’s approval  rating in Russia  remains  at  around 86% while Nemtsov’s appears to  have been  less than  5% at  the time of his death.

Nemtsov’s political  colleagues argue that  he was killed to  pre-empt his imminent disclosure of  proof of Russian  military  direct  involvement in Ukraine.  Why his death  would prevent that  disclosure happening is unknown, or even  why  Nemtsov would have access to information that  was not  immediately available  to  Western politicians via  high-resolution  spy satellite imagery,  is a mystery.

His death  certainly resulted in  a Moscow march  of  many  thousands  of supporters and also  presumably included some  who  want an end to violence murder and political  intimidation in  the city . The Guardian  newspaper disparagingly reported that Moscow  Police estimated 7,000 on the march,  whereas in  fact  the police estimates from  RT.com  talk  of   around 50,000.

Boris Nemtsov was undoubtedly an  interesting  person.  With  a Phd in physics and a significant number of academic papers under his belt for quantum physics, he turned , instead to  politics, and quickly became a rising star  in Boris Yeltsin’s alcoholic haze of a government after the fall  of Soviet Russia becoming Deputy Prime Minister  for four months under Yeltsin in  1998 . Credited as being a “reformist”,  he later co-founded  the the “Union of Right Forces ”  party  in 1999 , and then opposed its inevitable merge to  survive as part of the ‘Right Cause’ party in 2008.  In 2012,  Nemtsov was appointed co-chair of the Republican Party of Russia – People’s Freedom Party (RPR-PARNAS) which  is a  member of the  Alliance of Liberals and Democrats  for Europe Party . 

Nemtsov and many of the parties he has been  affiliated to have been  accused, with  some truth, of being funded supported and guided by  European  and American  political interests such  as the  (European) Endowment for Democracy – an agency  with  distinctly  U.S. business  and right wing agendas, but portraying itself as a supporter of  local democracy.   Such  philosophies  are clearly on  a collision course with rising  nationalist  fervour in  many parts of Eastern Europe.   Implicated in  many of the “colour revolutions” in  places like Ukraine and Georgia, and in support of the “moderate” rebels in Syria, the agency  plays a lead non government role in  supporting  U.S.  government  power and control agendas. Very  much because of this American  bias and Russian  nationalism,  rather than  their neo-liberal agenda,  the political  parties Nemtsov was active in, played  to  an increasingly  smaller Russian audience over the years.

Russian  opposition activists see Nemtsov’s death  as an  opportunity; “We need to seriously think what to do from now on,” Leonid Volkov, an opposition leader and organizer of the March 1 memorial, said by phone. “We were at a low point but now some things have crystallized that allow us to make plans. I think it’s the start of a new wave of protests. It’s a real shame it took such an event for that to happen.”

The  answer to  the question  therefore, of “cui  bono” ( who  benefits) by  this death  remains complex.  It is still  certainly possible that  Nemtsov’s death  was ordered or orchestrated by  President Putin or  members of his coterie, but given  Putin’s professed wish  to  re-establish  positive relations with  the West  after the annexation of Crimea and supposed military  involvement in Eastern Ukraine, this seems unlikely.  Russia Today (rt.com)  stated that  “At the moment, investigators are looking into five possible motives behind Nemtsov’s assassination.   ” According to Vladimir Markin, spokesman for the Investigative Committee, the murder could have been a provocation to destabilize the political situation in Russia. It could also be linked to threats Nemtsov received over his stance on the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris or the current war in Ukraine. The politician’s business activities and a possible assault related to his personal life are also being looked into.”  Notably,  and understandably for their personal  safety perhaps! the Moscow Police  excluded a  state political  motivation for the  murder.  Could Putin have removed Nemtsov because he  might be seen to be a  leading contender for Presidency if the economic situation deteriorated even  further in  Russia?- a possible but rather obscure motivation in  my view.

Nemtsov certainly had links to  what has been  termed as  the Russian Mafia and oligarchs -to-be ,  in his role in selling off state assets at  bargain  prices to criminals after the fall  of the Soviet Union- did he still  have enemies from  those days?-that  also  seems unlikely; although his recent links to  Russian  business interests are deemed to  be extensive, but  unknown to this blogger.

The role of the  young girl who  accompanied him  onto  the bridge where he was shot and who escaped entirely unharmed after 4 shots were fired into  Nemtsov’s back, warrants investigation. Indeed one may wonder why  Western mainstream media is so  indignant that  she is being held for questioning  (as is standard Police practice internationally),  and not allowed to return  home to the Ukraine. Nemtsov’s was  very  much  opposed to  Russia’s annexation of Crimea and  the Russian  connection to  the Eastern Ukraine rebellion. Such  a political  view is extremely unpopular and deemed to  be unpatriotic in  Russia today; was he murdered by Novorussians perhaps because he was considered a traitor?

Or alternatively, was he murdered by  his  Western intelligence handlers because he was now  worth more to  them dead than  alive? Certainly the track  record of Western “intelligence”,  would indicate they  have absolutely no  qualms about torturing, murdering or destroying the lives of anyone who  gets in their way to  create that ‘better world’  ruled by  their funders.  Clearly the immediate  benefit of his death is to  further undermine  Putin’s credibility in  the eyes of those who  read and believe  Western mainstream media. The impact  on a Russian audience is likely to be negligible given  Putin’s high standing with  the Russian public.

The Russian  opposition is ever hopeful  however: “We need to seriously think what to do from now on,” Leonid Volkov, an opposition leader and organizer of the March 1 memorial, said by phone. “We were at a low point but now some things have crystallized that allow us to make plans. I think it’s the start of a new wave of protests. It’s a real shame it took such an event for that to happen.” 

So, we are left with an implausible reason for Putin  and/or Russian intelligence to  kill Nemtsov, i.e. “proof” of Russian military involvement in Eastern Ukraine;  a possible  business deal gone wrong,   a murder to meet  the needs of  anti-Russian sentiment in  the West, an  opportunity for Russian opposition parties to  garner local  support, or possibly, but unlikely  given the murder ‘s locality on  a very public bridge,  a murder  to  avenge  a romantic relationship  gone sour. The death  certainly has the look of a targeted killing rather than  an act of revenge, and the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge is an ideal  public location to  stage opposition solidarity demonstrations after the death with  a Kremlin backdrop. And four single bullets to the back? hmmmm

 

Links

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/27/russian-opposition-politician-boris-nemtsov-shot-dead-moscow-reports

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/garry-kasparov-speaks-out-on-assassination-of-boris-nemtsov-2015-2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_Cause_%28political_party%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_Right_Forces

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.nz/2015/02/breaking-news-false-flag-in-moscow.html

The Fall of Empire

A new piece of analysis   of the likelihood of severe drought in the United States in the later half of the 21st  century has made some dire predictions.. Entitled  Unprecedented 21st century drought risk in the American Southwest and Central Plains, the article posits that the American Southwest ( The broad definition of the South-West includes nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah) and the Central  Plains of the U.S. (includes Nebraska, Kansas, southern South Dakota and Minnesota, western Iowa and Missouri, and northern Oklahoma), will  as a result of global  warming and natural  climate changes, endure increasingly longer periods of severe drought.-  the worst  in  a thousand years.

The research  argues that  rainfall  measurement and soil  moisture levels  over the past 100 years do  not accurately  indicate the drought potential in the United States.

Drought Predictions 2050-2099

The “mega-droughts” of the 12th  and 13th  centuries in North America will pale into  insignificance compared to  the impending droughts beginning to occur somewhere between 2030    and 2050. This drought will  be compounded by  the then  very   severe impacts of global  warming, and the  massive loss of  groundwater and river depletion caused by  unsustainable agricultural  practices, fracking, and the large influx of  human populations  to  the west  over the preceding 100 years.

Benjamin  Cook,  a lead researcher for the study  from  the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies , notes that the models also revealed that the “drying in the Southwest would result from a combination of less rain and greater soil evaporation due to higher temperatures. They were not as conclusive about less rain in the central Great Plains but all showed more evaporation there. “Even where rain may not change much, greater evaporation will dry out the soils,” Cook says.”

If this research  is in  fact correct, then perhaps, you might argue , this is  payback  time for the 200  years of  devastation to  the planet  and horrific suffering inflicted on  so  many human beings by  that experiment in  global  destruction – the United States.

But we must not  forget  that  “innocent” human beings will  undoubtedly die , and countless millions of unique species may  well  disappear from  the face of the planet as a  result of this calamity. Or perhaps, as many of the Plains tribes ave predicted, this is their opportunity to  re-claim  their destiny.

The rich of the West  and mid-West  will have no problem  relocating to  their  houses in the eastern states or  overseas. It is the poor of the US who  will  once again  suffer as they  did in  the dust-bowl era.  Will  this extreme dislocation  lead then to  a resurgence in  workers’ rights, of equality for all, and  true non-oligarchic democracy? Or will it instead lead to  a desperate grab for other, more fortunate,  countries’ resources by  what is still  likely to be the largest  military  machine in the world?  It is however  indisputable that, over time, this environmental catastrophe will dramatically accelerate the United States’ transition to  relatively minor international player .

Will  those who  assume the mantle of ‘international leadership” be less voracious and barbarous in  their responses to international issues?-we will have to hope so.

 

Links

Unprecedented 21st century drought risk in the American Southwest and Central Plains

New Paper: Unprecedented 21st-century drought risk in the American Southwest and Central Plains

US faces worst droughts in 1,000 years, predict scientists

 

 

The Absentee Landlord

A research  paper published  by Oxfam,  published to  coincide with the  World Economic Forum at Davos in late January  2015, shows that the richest 1 percent have seen their share of global wealth increase from 44 percent in 2009 to 48 percent in 2014, and at this rate will be more than 50 percent by  2016. Members of this global elite had an average wealth of $2.7 million per adult in 2014.

In my view, the issue is less  that the disparity between  the rich  “elite”‘ is widening, and more to  do with how that  rich “elite” use their power and influence.   Provided people have enough to  eat, good sanitation, clean water,  safe housing and  peaceful  living environments, the issue of disparate  incomes becomes less an  issue of need , and more of perception and unfairness. Why  should I be poor when you are rich, and you clearly have no  more r right to  those riches than I do, and certainly don’t use those riches  in  a way that benefits  anyone other than yourself and your immediate clique?

The concern  about the   majority of  the   wealth  and power and control   resting with  a minority of the word’s population is  therefore not  so  much  an issue of how the world’s “wealth”  is shared, but the quality of the decisions that  are now being made about our future world as a result of  the disenfranchisement of decision-making  from  those who  are connected to their local environment. That  wealthy elite make their decisions on the  property they own based  almost  exclusively on how much  profit can be accrued through its exploitation.

The history of absentee landlords in  Scotland and Ireland in the late 18th  and 19th  centuries is unequivocally clear on this, and a lesson for today ,  where more than  50%  of the world will soon be owned owned by absentee owners.. The welfare of  Scottish  and Irish rentees on the land was of absolutely no concern to the landlord in most instances. Neither was the environmental  destruction of the land  of any  concern, unless it impacted on profit or pleasure.

Those who  remain connected to  the land, particularly inter-generationally, have a much greater driver to  ensure it remains sustainable for the long-term. Bad short-term decisions can undoubtedly still be made that destroy natural habitats and species, by  those connected to the land, but  an algorithm  of exploitation based purely on  short-term monetary  gain, does not make sense to those who  will inherit that land in  the future.

As just one of so many examples, in New Zealand, the rise of  dairy absentee millionaires and  conglomerates who  buy up  large tracts of pasture land (which  was once dense bush  with a myriad of species  within it)  and then proceed to  destroy the land through  unsustainable exploitation of the water resources available  to them and the long-term contamination of the water table with  dairy foecal  and nitrate pollutants. Once the profits have gone from  the “business” and the land destroyed, those absentee landlords will  take their money  and move on to another more  profitable  exploitation option.

The rapid erosion of local  ownership   to land and property therefore is not simply and issue of equity or even poverty; but more importantly, just one more ingredient in that lethal recipe for environmental  global  disaster.

 

Links

Wealth: Having it all  and wanting more

Richest 1% will own more than all the rest by 2016

Banks, Inequality and Citizens: Roberto Salvo

 

Accelerating over the Cliff in our Latest Roadster, and never mind the road-kill!

The Intergovernmental  Report on Climate Change  earlier this year noted if action is not taken  “soon’  the resultant 2C increase in  global  temperatures will have ‘severe’,  and ‘irreversible”  impacts on  human  habitation  and economic activity.

Governments, in their desperation to  feed the “god of growth” are increasingly making more and bigger   foolish decisions that  undermine our sustainability as a species on this planet. Take for instance, the ever-increasing taxpayer dollars pouring into   oil and gas explorations,  or the actions of corporate-resourced governments such  as  the UK or New Zealand, with  their  intent to  emasculate  regulations that  protect  the environment against  corporate interests .  Or the potential  horrendous environmental  impacts of international  agreements such  as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). The “god of growth” must  be fed, regardless of the  consequences to our planet and the species who  inhabit it.

While climate change gets all  the press these days in  the media; it should be noted that  climate change is just one of a multitude of impacts of homo sapiens’ drive for “progress’  and ‘growth’ over the past 200 years. For those  species (including humans) at  the sharp end of climate change- those in  tropical  countries or drier hotter climates,  the impacts are likely to  be truly horrendous over the next  100 years -and for the next  few thousand  or perhaps million years beyond that. However what  underpins this destruction of our planet is our incurable arrogance that  we are somehow “superior”  beings who  are overlords of the other species on  this planet.

It is absolutely undeniable that  unless we can  co-habitate with the other remaining species  that  we have not killed off as yet-we too  are doomed as a species. We are entirely reliant on other species  for our short , medium and long-term survival. No  amount of  concrete or tar or metal  or money can  hide this fact. The journey to bio-extinction in the pursuit of  profit in New Zealand is just one of  countless stories of man’s folly.

What is required is a fundamental  shift  by  all  humans on  this planet to  understand that  every other species shares an equal  right to  life on our little blue ball. Killing off a species or a few million individual  sentient beings  to make way  for a shopping mall, is just  nonsensical.

While we may  pretend, we have not behaved in any way as caretakers of this planet;  we have not behaved rationally and with fore-thought, we have not allowed the blinkers to  fall  from our eyes to  let ourselves see the folly of our shallow understanding that  because we are homo sapiens, then anything that  does not exist or think  like a homosapien is inferior, and not worthy of life, unless it is for our use:  for us to  kill  and eat, or for human tourists to  gawp at while they  destroy  the surrounding environment. A supposed scientific principal which  argues that   other species are inferior to one particular  species whose “superiority” is based on  the core attributes of that one species and no  other, is a rather dubious piece of scientific endeavour!  This superficial belief,  called anthropocentrism, must  be eliminated from human  consciousness, if we are all  to  continue to  thrive or even survive  on this planet.

To put it bluntly,  those rationales exhibit  primitive thinking and  zero  compassion for other species; let alone  a rather dubious understanding of the laws of cause and effect.

As Prof. Will Steffen of the Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Centre  notes; “Some people say we can adapt due to technology, but that’s a belief system, it’s not based on fact. There is no convincing evidence that a large mammal, with a core body temperature of 37C, will be able to evolve that quickly. Insects can, but humans can’t and that’s a problem.”

In all  the reports about climate change or even  loss of bio-diversity  it is very rare to  see an analysis of the impacts of homo sapiens’  folly on other species.  In almost every case  you will  instead see a superlatively superficial   analysis of the impacts of climate change  in dollars and cents, or  the cost of a species  lost we can  no longer exploit. Those analyses are proof in  themselves that  we have lost our way  as a species in  a  spectacularly ignorant way.

Oliver Millman’s graph below in The Guardian illustrates well  how close we are to  global cataclysm.

Planetary Boundaries- Guardian article
Guardian graphic from article entitled ‘Rate of environmental degradation puts life on Earth at risk, say scientists’

It is time for us to  change-and soon….

 

 

Links:

The Superior Human -Youtube  1hour 13minutes

Peter Singer: Ethics and Animals 

G20 Countries Spending $88 Billion a Year to Subsidize Climate Disaster

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/11/11/g20-countries-spending-88-billion-year-subsidize-climate-disaster

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/09/30/planet-brink-human-activity-killing-planets-life-supporting-systems

Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability: Intergovernmental Panel  on Climate Change (IPCC)

http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/

Shifts in the Climate Change Debate: Hope and Suspicion: Richard Falk

Risky  Business

Biodiversity, Climate Change Solutions Inextricably Linked

IPCC Report: The Scientists Have Done Their Bit, Now It Is Up To Us

Global Warming: Why is IPCC Report So Certain About the Influence of Humans?

IPCC Summary Underscores Urgency of Emissions Reductions, Science Group Says

IPCC Report: Urgent Action Needed to Avoid Catastrophic Climate Change, says Friends of the Earth

‘Severe… Pervasive… Irreversible”: IPCC’s Devastating Climate Change Conclusions
The New IPCC Report, Main Conclusions and the Story Left Untold

IPCC Report Makes Case for Clean Energy Economy

Human Influence on Climate Clear, IPCC Report Says

The Time to Act is Now: IPCC Issues ‘Final Word’ on Climate Change

Climate of Fear

Rate of environmental degradation puts life on Earth at risk, say scientists -Guardian

The Coming (Ukrainian) Winter of Discontent

As the long hot  Ukrainian summer turns to autumn and winter, the euphoria by  Western Ukrainians of having thrown  off any servitude to  Russia will begin to recede…

The new Kiev government  signed  the IMF agreement so it could access a $17.1 billion bail-out package spread over 2 years. That money will be used to repay  international bank  debt, and will not reach  the Ukrainian population. And, as with all  IMF agreements  there are conditions… These include:

  • Achieving a self-sustained energy sector- ie cutting the subsidy  to  Ukrainian consumers and thus increasing prices significantly
  • Balancing budgets as soon as possible ( Kiev has to determine how to  do  that-likely by  increasing taxes and decreasing expenditure (note that  the  Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament)  has already   approved a temporary 1.5% increase in  taxes to  cover the costs of the war in the East).
  • Reduce corruption,  and “improve the business climate”, to  achieve high and sustainable growth. (note that  “improving the business climate” generally means  reducing subsidies to  consumers, tax incentives to businesses, opening up  Ukrainian businesses to foreign  ownership  etc etc..
  • Pension reform (ie pension cuts and raising  the age of entitlement) have been on  the agenda for a number of years now with  previous IMF agreements, but no  previous Kiev government has been   ‘brave’ enough to   battle the ferocious  activism by   unions and pensioners against  the  draft pension reductions.

This current government led by prime minister and  neocon  Arseniy Yatsenyuk has actively pushed  for a 50%  reduction in  pension from  $160  to  $80 per month for all  pension types along with  a 50% hike in  gas prices .

In just one example of the concessions to  banking solvency Ukrainian  citizens are having to make as of July 1st 2014,  the average cost of heating a standard fifty-square-meter apartment  has risen from about 200 hryvnia to 280 hryvnia (from $18 to $25) per month. It’s a significant hit, considering that the average monthly wage in Ukraine is only about 3,150 hryvnia ($275), more than half of which typically goes toward food, Sergei Kiselyov, an economist from the school of political analysis at the Kiev-Mogilyanskaya Academy, said.

While Yatsenyuk’s policies will  undoubtedly  reduce the influence of  the old Ukrainian oligarchs, the new “transparent ” systems will enable  US and European  companies  the opportunity to  purchase   failing Ukrainian businesses at  rock-bottom prices and in  a new “business-friendly” environment  where  worker exploitation can become the norm.

Yatsenuk (both as a Jew and because of his pro-U.S./pro EU and internationalist  business  policies)  is  anathema to  the Right Sektor and Svoboda parties. Both  right wing groups  are patiently waiting their moment. The  journey to  the Reichstag of their long dead German hero reminds them that patience  and a sense of impeccable timing  are crucial to their ultimately taking the reigns of power in Kiev and smashing any remaining Russian influence in Ukraine.

Ukrainians, Eastern  and Western, are well-educated  but particularly in  the West, have a high rate of poverty, and a long history  of well-deserved grievances against  Soviet Russia. President Putin  as an  ex Soviet KGB man, becomes an  easy  target  for that  anger.  As I noted in  the previous blog on MH17, Vera Graziade, a young British/Russian/Ukrainian says it all :  When you have one big bad figure, and everything is Putin’s fault, the world is simple and you don’t need to think anymore.

While the war in the East provides a very useful  patriotic focus for Western Ukrainians as they fight the evil “Russian terrorists”; that   jingoistic fervour will be hard to maintain unless  the “terrorists” are able  and willing to hit back  at Kiev on  Western Ukraine soil. It will become more and more evident to  Western Ukrainians that they have been conned by  all  the talk of ‘terrorism’ and Russian infiltrators.

While there are increasing numbers of   media reports of desertions from  the Ukraine Army ,and resistance to  further mobilisations, the extent and impact  of these is hard to judge at  this point.

The  callousness of the nazi-like references to  Russian speaking Ukrainians as sub-human and genetically inferior beings  (even President Poroshenko, who  formerly  enjoyed  very  good business relations with the Russians over the border,   has sunk  to   racial  inferiority references about   the people in the East) casts a long shadow over  any potential  for reconciliation between  East  and West  Ukraine.  The neo nazi  influences of the Svoboda Party and Right Sektor seem to have permeated  throughout the ruling cliques in Kiev.  In their view, the Colorado  Beetles (referencing the  black   and orange emblem of  St George so  revered by Russian speaking  Eastern Ukrainians),  must be stamped out underfoot by  the ‘pure race’ of Western Ukrainians .

The irony is that of course, most Ukrainians are of Slavic origin like most Russians, and  share more commonalities of culture than  they do  differences.  However their differences and grievances have been exploited by  outside influences; first  by  the Nazis, and later via  significant  Western intelligence operations in the West  during and after the cold war in order to  undermine Russian influence,  and latterly by  the  purely amoral  connivance of  neocon stormtroopers  like Victoria Nuland (US-Assistant Secretary of State) .

In the past decade we have also  seen the advent of the European Union seemingly help-bent on incorporating  any Russian “satellite” into the Union regardless of the cost to  central  EU states. Whether Ukraine will  be able to access the huge investment and underwriting from  the EU that  Poland has seen, remains to be seen; but in the current economic climate in the EU, that appears unlikely.

Certainly  EU investment and incorporation of European values and  a corruption-free state , is what many in Maidan Square demonstrated for: -along with the opportunity to migrate to  EU states for higher  wages!

It now appears increasingly unlikely in  the short to medium  term that  Ukraine could become an EU member,  particularly with  the anti- democratic  tendencies  entrenched in  Kiev via the Right Sektor and Svoboda Party, as demonstrated by  the   elimination of the Ukrainian Communist  Party.  Those anti-democratic tendencies will become more and more embedded and the  paramilitary influence of the Right Sektor more powerful,  the longer the war in the East continues.

In addition  the war is undoubtedly bleeding Ukraine dry economically. (hence the “temporary”  1.5% war  tax recently imposed by Kiev)

Eastern Ukrainian industrial  infrastructure , (although much of it  outdated Soviet style industry) has provided much income to  the state via predominantly  steel  exports to Russia . Business Insider notes that  exports to Russia accounted for nearly a quarter of Ukrainian external trade and contributed around 8 per cent of GDP before the war. Thirteen per cent of Ukraine’s iron and steel exports used to go to the neighbouring country. That income  resource  is now closed until  such  time as Kiev decides to  negotiate, rather than  impose its will  on Eastern Ukrainians.  While defeat  for the separatists is almost inevitable (given the balance of military  weight)  without real Russian support, victory  for Kiev needs to  come soon.  Kiev may have been banking that the destruction of the industrial   and commercial  infrastructure  in the East could  provide an opportunity for European/U.S.   re-investment, but this is unlikely in  the present international  economic climate.

While the separatists certainly are not  supported by  everyone in Eastern Ukraine  and there will be many in  the East  who  will  welcome victory  by Kiev, the level of anger and resentment towards Kiev for the death  and destruction, and the genuine  fear of  the phobic anti-Russian neo-nazis installed in  positions of state influence in Kiev, will   create a burning resentment  that will  likely erupt again  and again in violence , unless there are more intelligent politicians in power than those who hold sway in Kiev today.

The vicious anti-Russian  propaganda  of the Right Sektor and others in  Western Ukraine against   Russian-speaking Ukrainians is likely to have poisoned  potential  detente between the two   populations for a long time to  come.

As this bombastic jingoisim  begins to lose its appeal  to the majority of Western  Ukrainians,   the resentments and fears of  the previous decades of corruption,  violence and poverty  will  begin to re-surface, as  gas price hikes and pension cuts begin  to bite and  winter approaches. Undoubtedly this is the opportunity that the  Svoboda Party and the Right Sektor will have been waiting for…

Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko  knows this all  too  well- they  will be desperate to  “finish  the job” in Eastern Ukraine in the next  month; although paradoxically it would also be useful politically for those currently in  power in Kiev  to   not include Eastern Ukrainian voters in  the next  Rada parliamentary  elections scheduled for late September/October, as they  would skew the vote towards more  federalist  and less  neocon   perspectives .

One other issue to consider is the urgency of Kiev being able to fast-track   shale extraction in  the Dnieper-Donets basin  in Eastern Ukraine.  Curiously (!)   the first  assault by  the Kiev military  was at  Slayvansk,  the likely centre for shale oil  extraction in  the basin. War creates many possibilities for those who  are victorious….including of course  U. S.  Vice -President Jo Biden’s son , R Hunter Biden.

or see economist Michael Hudson’s take on this…


Maidan re-visited….

Postsript

Read this excellent piece of analysis of the Ukrainian  neo-nazi  movements in  Ukraine by Jonathan Marshall at Consortium News  here

Links

https://twitter.com/tristanmasat

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/28/ukraine-crisis-economy-east-idUSL6N0Q021220140728

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/06/516850.html

http://www.bruegel.org/publications/publication-detail/publication/843-ukraine-can-meaningful-reform-come-out-of-conflict/

America Started This Ukraine Crisis
http://www.williampfaff.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=690

Nazi Roots of Ukraine’s Conflict

Is Our Number Already Up?

George Monbiot wrote  a recent  commentary  for the Guardian entitled “Its Simple. If We Cant Change our Economic System, our Number’s Up”.

In that  article Monbiot once again  traces human civilization’s inability to  look  at the reality of our circumstances;  our headlong  race to  “having our number called” because of the  inherent insanity of the  concept of “growth”  and “progress”  in  a  finite world system. It seems  extraordinary  for a  so-called “intelligent species” that  we globally refuse to  acknowledge the inevitable trajectory  of the “growth” strategy  almost every  human  being on the planet has subscribed to.

And not only are we fouling our own  back  doorstep  with  poisons,  the detritus  from our  consumption of  “things” and  the laying waste of the natural  world upon  which  we depend,  we are also  fouling the  world’s upper atmosphere with our “space junk”! We seem determined as humans to  destroy ourselves and all  the living beings we share this planet  with. In less than  a blink of an  evolutionary  eye, homo sapiens have largely destroyed the living fabric of this world.

The logic of this insanity should be absolutely  clear to  every  single human  being on  this planet, and yet  the argument that  ‘growth  and progress’ are anathema to our medium  to long term  survival,  is seen as heresy.   Look  around: the world we share with millions of other species on this planet, is rapidly turning into  a totally homo sapien centric world; where every  living and dead thing exists simply for our use and gratification.  We are rapidly closing down  this planet  as a living entity: – sealing over the soil  with   roads and buildings,  poisoning  the land with   chemicals,  burning pieces of it to spread into  the atmosphere at  colossal  rates, modifying the landscape to  meet  human  needs without regard to  the other species inhabiting  it, digging holes in  the ground so  we can  spread more detritus  over the surface of the planet, killing off innumerable  species to  feed our insatiable appetite-  the list  goes on  and on  and on….

What  are we growing into?-where are we “progressing” to? are we happier?, more contented?, more in tune with the world?,  kinder to our offspring and  other beings?. No;  we are more discontented, more avaricious, more grasping of things we do not have but which  mean  nothing,  and more determined to  destroy both other humans and the environment,  to   satisfy  our short-term greed.

How can  the supposedly so  well-connected  collectivity of humans on this planet have acquiesced to such  an insane model of living? Are humans so  blind that  they  can only see what is immediately before them and the immediate well-being and gratification  of their own species?    Humankind’s current 50 year strategy leads over a cliff.

What  does it take for there to be change?-and will  it be too  late?

We live in a  perpetual cycle of mutual self-justification of our crazy system which  creates a seemingly sane “bubble” of human world activity within  an insane and  dead-end construct. The self-perpetuating myths of  progress measured by  Gross Domestic Product (GDP)  are the  very  measures of change in  countries’ economic activity that  are driving  the world’s living things to  extinction.

Stead and Stead (p1) Joseph Campbell (1988) points out that these myths reflect the underlying  paradigms that guide the thoughts and actions of the people of a particular culture. Espousing society’s myths is a primary function of all of its institutions, be they political, religious, educational or economic. Campbell (1988) says that you can tell the dominant myth of a given society by examining the heights of its buildings. The multi-storey seats of economic activity that define the skylines of our cities today demonstrate that humankind’s most dominant current myth is economic wealth.”

In the  “Common Knowledge”  framework,  a paradigm shift of societal  knowledge can  occur with  the input of just  one new point of reference.
Our lives as social  beings are based on  shared certainties  of how the world works. Because those illusions are no  more real  than  any other “certainty”,  they  can  easily come crashing down, and a new set of “certainties ” or “truths” constructed. Game theory has also often been  used in  the area of economic assumption and speculation.

Every society clings to a myth by which it lives. Ours is the myth of economic growth. For the last five decades the pursuit of growth has been the single most important policy goal across the world. The global economy is almost five times the size it was half a century ago. If it continues to grow at the same rate, the economy will be 80 times that size by the year 2100.  This extraordinary ramping up of global economic activity has no historical precedent. It’s totally at odds with our scientific knowledge of the finite resource base and the fragile ecology we depend on for survival. And it has already been accompanied by the degradation of an estimated 60% of the world’s ecosystems.(from ‘Thinking the Unthinkable’, Tim Jackson)

And yet – despite the hype from corporates and governments, it will be relatively easy for most of us  to  change to  become part of a steady  state  economy. Within  a few decades we will have forgotten  the importance of having the latest  gadget, the  next holiday to  God-knows-where, or the latest fad or food. Small-scale organic farming provides a readily usable model to replace agri-business’ toxic produce, whilst producing   wonderful  benefits to  the world and our  fellow species. We will take our essential equipment for repair, instead of “recycling” to the landfill pit, we will accept as normal that everything we own does not have to be new and shiny, and rely more on local food resources and communities. Yes, the investment banks, multi-national corporations  and billionaires will disappear, but we will all then have the time to re-assess what it means to be human and happy and connected to our living world.

 

Links

http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/88380/energy-economics-crash-course-chapter-19?utm_campaign=weekly_newsletter_150&utm_source=newsletter_2014-10-24&utm_medium=email_newsletter&utm_content=node_link_88380

Insecticides put World Food Supply at  Risk
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/24/insecticides-world-food-supplies-risk

http://www.steadandstead.com/articles/humankind_change.pdf
Can Humankind Change the Economic Myth?

Joseph  Campbell  and “The Power of Myth”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Myth

http://www.alternet.org/world/how-wealthy-elites-are-hijacking-democracy-all-over-world?akid=11866.1706.3h-bHN&rd=1&src=newsletter998135&t=21

http://www.mauldineconomics.com/outsidethebox/when-does-the-story-break

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/myth-of-perpetual-growth-is-killing-america-2012-06-12

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Myth-of-Economic-Growth

http://citizenactionmonitor.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/is-humanity-inherently-unsustainable-pt-9-myth-of-perpetual-economic-growth-in-a-finite-world/

https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/84/thinking-unthinkable.html

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-myth-of-immaterial-growth-and-infinite-happiness/2013/10/15

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/23/properity-without-growth-tim-jackson

The Steady State Economy
http://steadystate.org/act/sign-the-position/ 

The Opportunities of the People’s Republic of Donetsk

The People’s Republic of Donestk was formed in  7th  April  2014;  breaking away from  the  state of Ukraine after a very informal  referendum of its local population. The referendum  was largely caused by  the decisions of the  Kiev interim Government, after it deposed the former elected ( but like almost every other President of Ukraine since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 – extremely corrupt) president of Ukraine,  Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych  fled from  power as a result of the  Maidan protests and threats to his life,  led by  right wing extremists.

The interim  Ukrainian government’s decision to  effectively marginalise Russian speaking Ukrainians through  banning the Russian language and subsequently calling   anti-Maidan groups in  the East, “terrorists”,  led to  the formation of  pro-Russian paramilitary groups in  the East, in  the oblasts of Donestk  and  Luhansk. Their stated aim  was to preserve their Ukrainian/Russian identity against  the threats by neo-nazi  extremists  to  “purify” Ukraine, in  the new interim Kiev government;  largely from  within the Slovoda Party and Right Sektor paramilitary groups based in  the West  of Ukraine.

It is currently unclear what level of support the “self-proclaimed” (are not all  state entities initially “self-proclaimed”?) Donestk People’s Republic has with  the local  population, with some very problematic opinion polls run out of Kiev and  funded from  the U.S. which  state pro-Russian support at less than 40%. Facts on  the ground would seem to  suggest otherwise, especially since the  killing  of 39  people in the Trades Hall  centre in Odessa on May 2  2014, apparently  by   right wing football  hooligans from  the West.

It is also  problematic whether those currently running the administration of  the Donestk  PR have the best of the local  population at  heart, or are simply opportunists , ex-soldiers and thugs. In  addition there is always the tendency  with any revolution, especially when under pressure from the outside, to  respond in  more and more draconian and violent  ways towards its own population.  Are the  Donetsk  PR officials any less  rascist,  anti-Jew  and voracious than those in  Kiev?-time will  tell.

Notwithstanding those concerns,   the creation of this ‘people’s republic’ does present a unique opportunity for  a better state  not seen  for perhaps almost a  hundred years on  this planet. The opportunity to begin  afresh, untainted by  cronyism, the powers of the corporates, the drive for “progress” at  the expense of the planet. An opportunity for a  state entity  driven by  altrusim,  responsibility   for the vulnerable and a respect  for the environment. Impossible you say?- certainly improbable  when we look at our current rapacious “growth” (read;  money-for-the-rich and baubles for the poor) driven  state entities.

What we need then, is the development of state structures that  foster:

  • Community initiative and responsiveness-  local  town  “councils” where every  citizen has a voice and a right to be heard and responded to.
  • Central  and local  policies that  recognise that  “growth  for growth’s sake’  is nonsensical  and destroys both  our own living environment and the other  living things around us- ‘growth’  is the short term path  to death
  • Central  and local  initiatives that  encourage inter-connectivity between  people- eg local  community places within  walking distance for food and product  distribution, green  spaces,
  • Town planning which  “forces” people to  mingle together to  get  their work  done: eg  small  interconnected urban areas, green  spaces and  gardens
  • Local and central  state welfare systems that  all  citizens buy into  according to  their capacity to  pay  through  taxes, and all  are recompensed equitably in times of trouble
  • Principles and policies that  create respect  for the other living beings interacting with the human population.
  • Training for all age groups in  the art of mindfulness
  • An understanding that violence to others destroys oneself
  • an inalienable obstruction to  business interests influencing  state and local  political  decisions (i.e absolutely no  capacity for corporates to  finance  politicians)

It can (and must) be done. For the sake of all  of us on  this little blue ball.

______________________________________________________________________

Links

Egalitarian Perspectives on Sustainability – Robert Paehlke
http://www.eolss.net/sample-chapters/c13/E1-45-05-06.pdf

Great  Transition Initiative
http://greattransition.org/

The Commons as a Template for Transformation
http://greattransition.org/document/the-commons-as-a-template-for-transformation

Policies for Shareable Cities
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39811237/Policies%20for%20Shareable%20Cities.pdf

On Citizenship  in the 21st Century-  Richard Falk
http://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/on-citizenship-in-the-21st-century/

Global Citizenship: Plausible Fears and Necessary Dreams 
http://greattransition.org/document/global-citizenship-plausible-fears-necessary-dreams

The Whimper…

T.S. Eliot’s famous poem, The Hollow Men, ends with the following lines…

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

A recent study,  led by   applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei of the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center and using   new statistical modelling methods, predicts that this  current civilization will likely collapse in  another twenty to  fifty years. The study   draws analogies with past human  civilizations;  the Assyrian, Roman, Mayan, Minoan,  the various  Chinese empires…. We can assume that  like us;  the populations of those civilizations had every reason to believe their civilization was unique and would last  forever. While civilisational  collapse is quite rare, characterised by  entire ways of life, systems of thought, cultural values and worldviews disappearing,  political  collapse occurs frequently ( eg empires and kingdoms disintegrating).  What  appears likely to  happen in our modern context,  given  the confluence of a number of catastrophic events, is civilisational  collapse.

While this particular study  has been  sharply critiqued by  journalists and  scientists  alike for its simplicity and generalisations ; the  broad conclusion that,  as Paul Simon aptly put it ,”everything put together falls apart” , is  a healthy  reminder of human hubris.

The single most important  story   unfolding in  not-so-slow-motion  on this planet  is the  ongoing  destruction of the natural  world  in  the name of “progress”  and “growth” (ie  consuming ever more “stuff”) by  humans;  ,  which  will  in the near  future,  significantly negatively impact  on this species. Despite our insistence to the contrary, humans are entirely reliant on other species for our survival.  It is a  given that is blindly ignored by  politicians, businesspeople and businesses  and all  those with  a current stake in  the way  our “civilization’  currently works ( ie all of us).

As key  resources become more expensive to  extract,  the world economy (which is apparently now the full extent of this ‘civilization’) begins to contract  and distort .  And as the gap  between rich and poor widens,  the “have-nots” increasingly demand in  more and more violent ways,  their right to  a slice of the pie. As the oceans and  atmospheric temperatures rise,  so  do the pressures on  our artificial nation-states. As we progressively and rapidly eliminate species after species to produce more things,  to make “progress”;  our chances of long term survival  as a species are being rapidly reduced.   Our civilization demands that  we assume that  we have an infinite volume  of resources to  consume for  the infinite future in  a closed planetary  system –  a small  contradiction in  terms!   We are indeed heading for the perfect  storm.

Study  after academic  study shows that the more we  gain from  a civilization’s  prosperity,  the more we are blind to its failings and contradictions and its  inevitable fall. This  tunnel vision says , that ‘if I am  doing well out of this catastrophe then it cant be a catastrophe at all!’

Homo  sapiens  pride themselves on their remarkable intelligence; their capacity to manipulate their environment for their own ends. They appear unable to grasp  that  that  self-definition process of  appropriating everything  good, intelligent and wonderful  to  human attributes,  is simply  the result of their blinded vision.  If by  definition, species that manipulate their environment  are determined to be superior to all other species;  then lo-and-behold!- homo sapiens are superior beings! Because homo sapiens are above all other traits,  social  beings,  all of us have an intensely strong need to  “fit in”,  to belong to the group. Agreeing with other people on ‘our’ group’s   thought processes and paradigms is an essential part of this togetherness. However, agreement does not  it make it truth.

Thus, it does not matter that the capacity to manipulate the environment for the benefit of our species and at  the expense of all other species on  this planet might not be quite such an intelligent thing to do, given that  the environmental devastation and species  destruction is largely for homo sapiens’ short term  pleasures, power  and baubles.

Were we to  say  that  a species that can  sustain itself  easily and efficiently without damaging its environment in  the process, were  more ‘worthy’ beings than other species ;  then homo sapiens would not be registering on  the short-list!

Over the millenia, homo sapiens have  been able to convince themselves  that  people of other cultures, or colour,  or background are inferior to one’s own culture because of this self-defining process.  Using the same intellectual process,  the more different another species is from ourselves, the  less worthy , less  intelligent, more expendable and worthy of our  exploitation and destruction that species becomes.   The more differentiated from our species the “other” is,  the easier it is to  dismiss its inherent traits and qualities and its right to life. However on our ever smaller blue planet,  we no  longer have the luxury to differentiate between  “them’  and ‘us”.

How much easier then is it  to dismiss the equality of other species with ourselves when their characteristics, strengths and skills are so different from homo sapiens, and when it  is so  much to our benefit to be able to kill  and exploit other species without moral qualms.

As Henry  Gee also points out succinctly in his Guardian  article , each  species’ particular traits or “strengths” are  based purely on, firstly, what  biological  mechanisms of sense are available to  them ,and secondly, how they use those senses to  that  species’ best  advantage. Homo sapiens  may not value our sense of smell  because its not a particularly efficient sensing mechanism in  homo sapiens, but you can bet  a dog does!

The capacity for self-delusion in our  species is immense. Witness the largely American  driven  anti- climate -change camp. Of course we cannot be  destroying our planet with C02 through  industrialization, because capitalism and owning the means of production   is the reason  for our being!  – after all, aren’t we, the US consumer, the greatest people on  earth because our nation is   the epitome of capitalism?

As another example of  collective self-deception, Seth Klarman, the manager of the $27billion hedge fund, the Baupost Group, recently  remarked on the similarities of the world’s banking system to the ‘Truman Show’, the late nineties Hollywood film, where the lead character  “lives a seemingly charmed world, snuggled comfortably into an American suburbia of white picket fences and crisply cut lawns. But gradually Truman starts to notice something is not quite right. He is actually trapped inside a film set controlled by hidden directors, and discovers to his horror that he is the unknowing star of the world’s most popular reality TV show.”  In one of the more blatant  nuances of reality shifting homo  sapiens have acquiesced to,  our  financial  system  is in  essence simply one of “smoke and mirrors” -the manipulation of facts and figures designed  to  obscure reason and reality;  a fragile house of cards.

The dreaded "black swan"!
                                  The dreaded “black swan”!

One key point of difference with previous human civilizations  around the world  is that  our current  civilization is a global one; each  of the parts are inextricably connected.  Apart from  a few small tribes in   isolated areas, every one of us has bought in to  this unique  method of environmental  destruction. Thus  when this civilization collapses -(and it is a “when” and not an “if” ), that collapse will be both  more  rapid and more global; there will not be another model of homo sapien civilization around for the  survivors to pin their hopes on. The other significant difference with other previous human civilizations is this current one’s geographical  reach.  Vast  areas of the planet have now  been laid waste in  the name of human progress.

So, while the modelling conducted by  Safa Motesharrei  may be flawed, it does provide an opportunity for  serious debate about the direction this global  civilisation of ours is taking us..

 

 

Links

Did Nasa fund ‘civilisation collapse’ study, or not?

The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC)

About that Popular Guardian Story on the Collapse of Industrial Civilization

Plotting the Downfall  of Society-Peter Turchin Book Review

A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation

Crisis of Civilisation 

So, after the IPCC report, which bit of the world are you prepared to lose? | GeorgeMonbiot

The Ukrainian Situation-an analysis

The current  unstable and dangerous situation in  the Ukraine where  large elements of the Russian  speaking part of the Ukrainian  population in  in Eastern  and Southern Ukraine are apparently pushing  for  Russian  annexation can  be largely  attributed to Ukraine’s  turbulent and violent history.

Kiev,  the capital  city of Ukraine is considered by  many Russians to be the birthplace of Russia, or “Kievan Rus” in  the thirteenth  century. While no  longer a predominantly Russian  speaking  country, its principal connection has been  with its more powerful  northern neighbour over the last 800 years.

Ukraine ,or “the Ukraine” as it is often known, literally means “borderlands”, an indication of its status as a standalone state entity over the last  1000 years.

After the Partitions of Poland (1772–1795) (around the time of the US War of Independence), Ukraine was divided between Russia and Austria, with the largest part of Ukraine being  integrated into the Russian Empire, and  the rest under Austrian (known as the  Austro-Hungarian Empire  since 1849) control.

Gaining its independence briefly  from the Russian Empire in the chaos following the Russian Bolsehvik  Revolution of 1917 , Ukraine was forcibly incorporated under   Soviet   control in 1921 and remained a semi-autonomous republic of the Soviet  Union until  the collapse of the USSR in 1991, when it  once again  became independent.

During the rule of Stalin in the USSR in the 1930s, agrarian collectivisation policies were brutally enforced across  the  entire Soviet Union, but particularly in  what  has been referred to  as the bread-basket of Russia;  the Ukraine. Known as Holodomor, the communist collectivist   policies resulted in at least 7.5 million deaths with mass starvation occurring amongst  the peasantry  of western Ukraine particularly. Ukraine has defined the process as genocide, and the  brutal  process of starvation and loss of lands was instrumental in  the rise  of right-wing groups in  Western Ukraine, (whose populations   tend to be more Eurocentred than  the South-East),  who  supported the principles of both Mussolini’s  fascist party in   Italy and Nazi policies in Germany. The views were largely centred by  1943 in  the actions of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army led by  Stepan Bandera, in ethnic cleansing of Poles and Jews  as well  fighting with the Nazis against  the Russians . Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) was strongly supported by  Western intelligence agencies and particularly the CIA   after the second world  war .

In  addition to  those horrors,  in 1944 approximately 200,000   Crimean Tatars were forcibly  deported to other parts of the USSR because of their presumed alliance with the Nazis, where a large percentage subsequently died of starvation.  Those Tatars who  have since returned   to the Crimea remain  fiercely hostile to  the Russians and some  have been implicated in  anti-Russian warfare in  other countries and also  within Crimea and wider  Ukraine.

 

Jews and Russians were seen to be the cause of the death, destruction and dispossession which occurred in the Holodomor. In retaliation,  Ukrainian fascist and Nazi  groups were formed which both fought alongside the Nazis against  the Russians and also aided in  the Nazi’s Jewish  progroms in Western Ukraine. The Svoboda party and its activist group, the Pravyi Sekor (Right Sector), are the  current manifestations of those nationalist  movements. Members of these two  groups have  also fought alongside Chechnyan  separatists and jihadists  in Russia  in  the past few years. In addition the right -wing Ukrainian  nationalist  private army and political party,  the Ukrainian  National  Assembly – Ukrainian National Self  Defence (UNA-UNSO) ,  a violent and extreme right-wing and anti-Russian organisation, has been  implicated in  the  sniper shootings of both  police and demonstrators in  Maidan Square in Kiev.

In 1954,  Nikita Khrushchev, the  Soviet President of the day,  transferred the Crimea , to the Southeast  of Ukraine and previously part of Russia itself , to the Ukraine republic .

svoboda
The Wolfsangel, Svoboda’s first party logo (1991–2003) and now widely used as a uniform emblem by the Right Sector, is both a truncated swastika and the acronym “HH”- for “Heil Hitler”

The most defining reason  for the recent demonstrations in Maidan Square in Kiev, against the corrupt but democratically elected president Viktor Yanu­kovych, was  Yanu­kovych’s decision to  switch  from  supporting alignment and eventual   Ukrainian integration with the European Union (after IMF “re-alignment” of the economy), to alignment with Russia  and its $15 billion  no-strings loan. It is likely that many of those early demonstrators in Maidan Square  saw their chance to  escape  a Ukraine of poverty, for the wealth  and opportunity of Europe, slipping away. However the muscle on  the ground at Maidan Square and  even since the new government in Kiev was installed, has been  the Svoboda Party  (whose insignia up  until  2003 was the Wolfsangel, both a  symbol for the swastika and  the acronym  for “Heil Hitler”)  and  its hand-maiden, the ‘Right Sector’.

Alexander Muzychko (Sasha Biliy of the “Right Sector” ) “speaking”  to a state prosecutor 27th  Feb

While Svoboda  has  partially dissociated  itself from  its neo-Nazi past; its offspring, the Rights Sector or “Pravyi Sektor” regards “de-Russification” of Ukraine as its core ideology, along with  ensuring the ethnic  purity of the Ukrainian population including the exodus of Jewish populations, and good moral  values.

Global Research notes that ” Canvas, formerly Otpor, received significant money from the US State Department in 2000 to stage the first successful Color Revolution against Slobodan Milosovic in then-Yugoslavia. Since then they have been transformed into a full-time “revolution consultancy” for the US, posing as a Serbian grass-root group backing “democracy.”  While Poland under President Tusk, and Sweden have been pushing for Ukraine’s integration into the EU since the initial  “colour revolution”, with  the strong backing of the US State Department and CIA, they have perhaps inadvertently been also  supporting and subsidizing  the far right Ukrainian agenda, who have no interest in EU integration. Ostensibly EU/US support has been for the “technocrats” (ie those who  support IMF financial “reforms” ) like ex-boxer Klitschko and the newly appointed acting president Oleksander Turchinov. (of Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland’s  “fuck EU” fame”)

However one of the first  steps of the new government was to  rescind the previous government’s  recent legislation to legitimize Russian  as an official  language of the Ukraine. It is likely that  that rescindment,  more than any  other factor,  was  the key reason  for  South-Eastern Ukrainians of Russian descent, many of whom  solely speak  Russian, to  fear for their future in  a ‘Ukraine for Ukrainians’.

The other major  factor is undoubtedly the fear  by  Russia that the new Ukrainian government will  also  rescind the  lease recently extended out to  2042 for Russia’s only warm water naval  base. As the US is well  aware, the Sevastopol base allows the Russians to  re-supply  its ally  President Bashad in Syria against  US, Turkish  and Saudi funded extremists in  the Syrian  civil  war. Loss of the warm water naval  base in in the Crimea would have significant negative strategic  impacts for the Russians, as the  British and French  are also  only too  aware of, after their  battles, in alliance with  the Turks to  re-capture the Crimea  and Sevastopol from the Russians in the Crimean War in 1853.

It should be noted also  that  the  industrial base of Ukraine is predominantly in the South-Eastern parts of the country, where there are significant populations of Ukrainian ethnic Russians, and where it’s  heavy  industry  was a key  part of the Soviet economy. As with many ex-Soviet states, the factories are by  Western standards, unproductive and out of date, and hence would require massive injections of IMF capital  and machinery, along with  massive layoffs of superfluous workers;  a prospect for which   Western industrialists have been rubbing their hands in  glee  since the Ukrainian Orange  Revolution in  2004. (Post-script-see the great  analysis of the neo-con plan  for acquisition of  Ukrainian/Russian  assets  by  Michael  Hudson here )

The complex interactions of internal  Ukrainian  and international  players, create the opportunity for war. The Russian decision to  send in  more troops into  the Crimea  certainly escalates the situation. Additionally, other South-Eastern Ukrainian  cities with varying proportions  of Russian speaking populations, are now also   rising up  against  the new Kiev anti-Russian government and establishing self-protection militias against the  Right  Sector and other far-right Ukrainian groups. How much  support  those Russophiles   will  get in  the cities of Donetsk, Kharkov, Simferapol, Odessa Lugansk and Kerch, is currently unknown. Russia currently insists that  its forces have not left their Crimean bases (25,000 Russian troops  are permitted in  the Crimea as part of the Ukraine /Russia lease  agreement)  and that  all  pro-Russian forces on  the ground in  Ukraine are pro-Russian Ukrainians – a statement disputed by  the EU and the U.S.

Given the tragic history  outlined above, it would appear the only  rational  solution to  the problems exacerbated by  foreign  state  actors, is negotiation.  In the 1990s the 55-state member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (the OSCE) was created  to deal with détente in Europe and emerging post-cold war problems . The OSCE offers a unique and relatively non-partisan   pathway  to  a negotiated settlement of the complex issues facing Ukraine.  The alternative, despite the huff and puff from  NATO and the US,  may  well be  the secession of some part of what  is now Ukraine to form  a Russian  speaking autonomous or semi-autonomous state, unless the  power and hostility of  the far right groups opposed to ethnic Russians in Ukraine can be controlled.

References:

Ukraine after Yanukovych: 50 shades of brown – Autonomous Workers Union

Russia Debates: The Crimea Crisis

Meet the (real) new authorities in the Ukraine, example #1 

Are Ukraine’s Jews Screwed?

Russia, Crimea and the Consequences of  NATO Policy: Ukrainian Hangovers

Trotsky on Ukraine (1939)

Russian Sponsored Territories

Ukraine Through Putin’s Eyes-McClatchy

Between Revolution and Tyranny; a fluid and highly permeable line

 In the cat-bird seat

Propaganda, lies and the New York Times: Everything you really need to know about Ukraine

Revolution, lecturing and life in western Ukraine

Roman Shukhevych: Wikipedia

Meet the Americans Who Put Together the Coup in Kiev

Ukraine agrees to  50% gas price hike amid IMF Talks

Seven  Decades of Nazi Collaboration- America’s Dirty Little Secret

How Vladimir Putin Became Evil

The New World Order-Richard Falk

Tour of Ukraine -Russia Border Finds No  Sign of a Military Buildup- 31st March 2014

We Cannot Still Ignore the Perils of Intervention-Patrick Cockburn

What are Russia’s real motivations in Ukraine? We need to understand them

It’s not Russia that’s pushed Ukraine to the brink of war: Seamus Milne

Six Mistakes the West  Has Made in Ukraine

Pew  (U.S.) Public Opinion  Survey  Undertaken in Ukraine by Region:  April  5-23rd 2014

Conflicts Forum 25th April-2nd May: Alistair Crooke

 

 

 

 

 

“The Government and the police have a duty to protect the public and our national security”- from truth

In the latest  absurdity upon  absurdity in this  fictitious “war  on  terror”, the UK Police have defended their actions in holding and interrogating for 9 hours  Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda on the grounds that Miranda was suspected of terrorism  because  he may  have been relaying truthful  information about  a wide range of Western governments’  illegal   spying on   its citizens.

As the headline above notes; the UK Police’s rationale for the infringement of Miranda’s rights,  was that they  “had a duty to  protect the public and our national  security ” (from  such unwarranted journalism).  With  both  the UK and US police forces being increasingly accused of both corrupt  and violent behaviour, it is little wonder the public  in  those countries feel  a sense of betrayal by  the state.  Who are their police and armed forces in  fact  protecting?

Certainly the deliberately manufactured farce of  muslim  terrorism ( funded with enthusiasm  by  the CIA, and various other “intelligence” western  agencies around the globe- not to mention our “allies”-  the Saudis), is providing an ever more thinly stretched excuse for heavy handed enforcement behaviours,  surveillance and the  erosion of civil  rights.

Who and what  is  it all for?

DublinBaysmallIt would appear that much of this deterioration in  rights and freedoms is simply to  improve the profits of those international  corporates ,  whether media, arms manufacturers ,  energy  companies telecommunications or security companies that  are able to buy the required  influence in  western  “democracies”.

As it becomes increasingly clear  that  we  are nearing the end of the free capitalistic lunch-with  the remainder of  the world’s  natural  resources  being rapidly frittered away for a few quick  bucks  – the corporate billionaires are rushing for the exits, and trampling us “little people” in  the stampede.