Windows to Russia
Russia is Very Quiet this Sunday and Monday is a day of National Mourning…
Flags will fly at half mast, TV will not show light entertainment programs, and Orthodox services throughout the country will commemorate the several hundred victims of the floods in the Krasnodar region…
The last national day of mourning happened almost exactly a year ago, when the riverboat Bulgaria sank in the river Volga, drowning more than a hundred passengers…
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…
When force seems to be the only solution to ending the unrest in Syria, according to the West the only concern for all parties is who will take control of the country.
Who cares about the Syrian people?
No voices can be heard from the outside world expressing concern for them. The gunpowder smoke shields their faces, the explosions muffle their cries.
Data from the UN indicates the overall number of refugees in Syria now is about 100,000. The real number may be much higher.
The crisis in Syria has opened a Pandora’s Box and triggered a series of chaos and changes, most of them unexpected by the starters of the crisis. Similar changes also occurred in Iraq and Libya.
Some media and agencies are conducting cost-benefit analyses of these changes. They found that the quality of life for the average person has not improved, and the so-called freedoms are hard to evaluate.
Most of the costs for “freedom” have been selectively ignored by the Western media, and thus does not exist to the outside world to some extent. The bloody massacres in Syria over the past five months have been used as excuses by some to take new actions.
All nations have the freedom to choose the their own model, according to their practical conditions, to make their people happy. This process is an inalienable part of an independent country’s sovereignty. Any interference with this process from the outside world without an invitation from the nation should be regarded as an invasion.
Translated by Paul Wen from the Peoples Daily…
Windows to Russia
“Their [Western] position is most likely to exacerbate the situation, lead to further violence and ultimately a very big war,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
If America wants war then I guess it will happen and I guess the world will find out who is on what side…
Don’t be stupid and ignore the line drawn in the sand…
Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.. by John F. Kennedy
We have not reached that point yet in the world have we?
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…
Being rich has its points and once I was very wealthy! Or at least wealthy according to the times and era. It is hard for me to understand how in a few short years that the world went from a millionaire being rich, to a millionaire being upper middle class. Having millions in dollars is nothing anymore in America or the world and that my friend should tell you something…
If I had to do everything all over again, I would do somethings very different and one of those things is to send my money out of America, when I had lots of money. If I had done that simple thing, 15 years ago. I would be very very wealthy now and I mean wealthy in real money, not monopoly money…
I was very stupid and instead of doing something as ignorant as buying a Cadillac STS, paid for cash on the barrel head. I would drive an old Chevy and send the rest of the money to China or Russia…
But you know the old saying, “Hindsight is better than foresight!”
I really thought that putting all my money into real estate, material items and government bonds was they way you supported the country you live in, the country that you were born in. Little did I know that putting your money into America will guarantee that the government gets their, more than fair share, down the road…
I will just say that until you try to move money from America and try to protect yourself, you will not really understand what the government will do, as you try to save your very hard earned dollars. The money is not yours and never will be yours. So unless you have very good contacts and know the right people. Be ready to loose most of that hard earned money if you try to remove what you thought was your personal possessions and finances. The process is getting harder by the month and actually it is easier now just to start over, outside of America than trying to keep what you have worked for…
So what brought on this expression of finances and America?
I received an e-mail from a good friend in China and he said check these links out and he said that, “I will tell you know that this is true and the Western media is mortified that this will get out into the mainstream public.” I realized that he meant by Main Stream Media that the Western governments would have a heart attack if this got out…
China is recasting gold bars that they have into metric bars and not allowing the imperial measurement type bars to be kept. In fact the brunt of the bars are going to be 1 kilo bars and that is exactly what you will find in Russia. Gold bars in 1 kilo weight…
The fact is that China and Russia are buying gold as fast as they can and in Russia’s case they are mining it as fast as they can. All this gold is being recast into 1 kilo bars and that is that…
I will not go into what the repercussion of this massive undertaking means to the Western Finances will be, but it is a huge bitch slap in the face of the Western Empire and both Russia and China are doing it…
Plus a dozen other countries that are trying to get ready for the storm of a life time as the Western Empire crashes to the ground. The Western debt has only two ends at this point, more debt and collapse… (Pay it off! You are kidding – Right?)
Added tidbit of information from my friend in China!
He told me that gold is used freely as a currency in China and he, like many many others have now obtained many kilos of gold to stash away for a rainy day. The Chinese government promotes the buying of gold and silver and using gold or silver as a currency. In fact he said clearly to me that he is paid in gold as a reimbursement for his services at his job…
There is what is called Gresham’s Law, “When a government compulsorily overvalues one type of money and undervalues another, the undervalued money will leave the country or disappear from circulation into hoards, while the overvalued money will flood into circulation.” or simply “Bad money drives out good if their exchange rate is set by law.”
Seems that China is dealing with the world with monopoly money from America and then with her own people she deals with real money. Smart and insurance against collapsing dollar on the home front…
Think China knows something about what we ignore?
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…
We live in a brand new complex and the building is still going on. It is in its final few months though and something has become clear, that puts a new light on things in Russia…
I receive so many e-mails about how Russia is a terrible place and no one has rights and how the government, , mafia and the whole system is designed against the people. To live in Russia is like living in a place that no one has rights or freedoms…
So this photo that I took of a Babushka hanging out of her window talking to another lady is a story all its own, that will make all those that think Russia is not the peoples country…
Close up! Digital zoom sucks…
The story is that the babushka refuses to move. She will not simply move and since the complex had to be built, it was built and she was left alone in the building. Right now there are workers living in the building also, but soon they will be gone and she will have her little world all to herself…
What is important is that she did not want to leave her home and after trying all the nice ways to get her to move. No one tried any hardcore ways, to get her to move. This is the Russia that I live with everyday. A Russia that puts her people first and if this babushka does not want to move then so be it! Move the road and move the building and that is exactly what they did…
I understand that the day she passes on from the world, then things will be different and then the building will come down. For the children of this babushka will make lots of money from the transaction, but for now the saying that her home is her castle is very true…
That building in the photo was one of twenty buildings called flats in Russia. These are the flats that Russia is trying to get rid of. The two story flats that were built a long time ago and are a waste of space. Removing twenty of these buildings allowed Russia to build housing for thousands of people in the same space…
But I hope she has a long time on earth yet to go, it makes me smile when I see something that Americans do not have the same rights too. I had a house burned down around me literally, to get me to move. They cut my power, they cut my water and they bulldozed and burned everything up too my walls of the house. They even rammed a bulldozer, (by accident of course) into my walls of the house. This was once upon a time and that is that, in America…
So as you celebrate the 4th of July and celebrate how free and so much liberty that you have…
I will watch a babushka in a country (Russia) that you declare has no freedoms and no rights for her people! I disagree and will tell you that you are wrong…
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…
Revolutionary strategists must ask themselves: How can we best structure our own movement? And: What kind of political framework should we aim for, once we relegate the Banking-Militarist Complex to the dustbin of history? The answer to both questions is the same: genuine (or direct) democracy.
Democracy, for the Greeks who coined the word, meant “power of the people” or “rule of the people.” Perhaps the best-known example of a genuine democracy in a highly-advanced, highly-literate, polity, is Athens and its sister democracies of Ancient Greece. There, all significant political, legal, and judicial decisions were made directly by the people. Democratic Athens went to war if, and only if, the majority so voted; a man was exiled, or condemned to death, if, and only if, his fellow citizens so decreed.
The USA, Britain, France—even better-governed Norway and Iceland—might or might not have free elections, but they are not democracies. As a result, in the USA, even when elections are not rigged, once in power, the winners routinely defy voters’ sentiments. Thus, for instance, most Americans did not wish go to war in 1917, were opposed to the colonization and pulverization of Iraq, and have never been in favor of their country’s ongoing program of biospheric carnage. But in a “democracy,” American style, the majority’s preferences are routinely ignored.
Eduardo Galleano whimsically captures the essence of contemporary “democracies”:
The other day, I heard about a cook who organized a meeting of birds—chickens, geese, turkeys, peasants, and ducks. And I heard what the cook told them. The cook asked them with what sauce they would like to be cooked. One of the birds, I think it was a humble chicken, said: “We don’t want to be cooked in whichever way.” And the cook explained that “this topic was not on the agenda.” It seems to me interesting, that meeting, for it is a metaphor for the world. The world is organized in such a way that we have the right to choose the sauce in which we shall be eaten. [my translation]
Conceptual Barriers Against Genuine Democracy
Our task is not simply proving the superiority of genuine democracy to all other known political systems, but also letting go of ingrained prejudices.
Barrier 1: Cradle-to-Grave Propaganda System. Genuine democracy—along with compassion and rationality—pose the greatest threat to the enemies of the open society. No wonder then that since infancy we have been inculcated against it. We have been lied to incessantly about the virtues of the Roman republic on the one hand, and about the horrors of Greek “mob rule” on the other hand.
Barrier 2: Opposition of Intellectuals. Throughout the ages, genuine democracy has been laughed at by self-serving, brilliant, oligarchs. A historian of Ancient Greece, writing in 1900, remarks that “few sights are stranger” than the spectacle of some Athenian intellectuals and first-rate thinkers “turning their eyes from their own free country to regard with admiration the constitution of Sparta,” where a free thinker “would not have been suffered so much as to open his mouth.”
The self-serving falsification of the historical record continues to this very day. Karl Popper:
The history of the Peloponnesian war and the fall of Athens is still often told, under the influence of Thucydides’ authority, in such a way that the defeat of Athens appears as the ultimate proof of the dangerous weaknesses of the democratic system. But this view is merely a tendentious distortion, and the well-known facts tell a very different story. The main responsibility for the lost war rests with the treacherous oligarchs who continuously conspired with Sparta…. The fall of Athens, and the destruction of the walls, are often presented as the final results of the great war which had started in 431 B.C. But in this presentation lies the main distortion, for the democrats fought on. At first only seventy strong, they prepared under the leadership of Thrasybulus and Anytus the liberation of Athens, where Critias was meanwhile killing scores of citizens; for during the eight months of his reign of terror the death-role contained nearly a greater number of Athenians than the Peloponnesians had killed during the last ten years of war.
But after eight months (in 403 B.C.) Critias and the Spartan garrison were attacked and defeated by the democrats who established themselves in the Piraeus, and both of Plato’s uncles lost their lives in the battle. Their oligarchic followers continued for a time the reign of terror in the city of Athens itself, but their forces were in a state of confusion and dissolution. Having proved themselves incapable of ruling, they were ultimately abandoned by their Spartan protectors, who concluded a treaty with the democrats. The peace re-established the democracy in Athens. Thus the democratic form of government had proved its superior strength under the most severe trials, and even its enemies began to think it invincible.
Moreover, the writings of the enemies of democracy have been deliberately preserved, while the writings of the friends of democracies, from Democritus to Thomas Paine to Subcomandante Marcos to Gerald Celente, have been incinerated or ignored by the powers that be. We are thus left with the impression that most creative thinkers have been opposed to genuine democracy.
Barrier 3: The Ruling Faction of America’s Revolutionaries was thoroughly Anti-Democratic. For Americans, there is still one more conceptual barrier to acceptance of genuine democracy. Some founding fathers were genuine democrats, but the winning faction falsely (and self-servingly) equated democracy with mob rule.
Americans are taught to admire the revolutionary founders of their republic. Americans are not, however, often reminded how averse some of these founders were to the Bill of Rights, how they proceeded to betray their countrymen by establishing the Rothschild-controlled First Bank of the United States, how they brutally suppressed popular uprisings, and how close they came, during the Adams presidency, to establishing a dictatorship. These betrayals have been glossed over by the official record, so Americans find it hard to believe that such courageous, principled, and brilliant men chose a second-best political system for their contemporaries and descendants.
Athenian Democracy
Some of the advantages of genuine democracy are immediately apparent. Unlike contemporary western republics, in Athens promises to the people could not be as readily broken, for the people were always in charge. Influential Athenians (especially the oligarchic variety) were just as bribable as their contemporary western counterparts, but in a system where real power, at any given moment, resided with the citizenry, the damage was more limited. The information system in Athens was never taken over by the oligarchs. Athenians breathed cleaner air, drank chemical-free water, and ploughed healthier soils for their sustenance; their schools were private (not state-run), and they exercised daily; they were thus in better mental and physical shape than contemporary Americans. Hence, in Athens, human beings came close to their truer intellectual, artistic, and civic potential. In a genuine democracy like Athens, dissident organizations could not be readily co-opted, elections and trials could not be as readily rigged, and politically-motivated assassinations were rare. Overall, the Athenian system served the public interest far better than American oligarchy.
The ancient Greeks recognized the link between genuine democracy and greatness. The historian Herodotus, himself not an Athenian, clearly perceived the causal connection between freedom and excellence
Thus did the Athenians increase in strength. And it is plain enough, not from this instance only, but from many everywhere, that freedom is an excellent thing; since even the Athenians, who, while they continued under the rule of tyrants, were not a whit more valiant than any of their neighbors, no sooner shook off the yoke than they became decidedly the first of all. These things show that, while undergoing oppression, they let themselves be beaten, since then they worked for a master; but so soon as they got their freedom, each man was eager to do the best he could for himself. So fared it now with the Athenians.
Pericles, an influential Athenian before and during the Peloponnesian War, put it this way:
Our political system does not compete with institutions which are elsewhere in force. We do not copy our neighbors, but try to be an example. Our administration favors the many instead of the few: this is why it is called a democracy. The laws afford equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, but we do not ignore the claims of excellence. When a citizen distinguishes himself, then he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as a reward of merit; and poverty is no bar…. The freedom we enjoy extends also to ordinary life; we are not suspicious of one another, and do not feel called upon to nag our neighbor if he chooses to go his own way…. But this freedom does not make us lawless. We are taught to respect the magistrates and the laws, and never to forget that we must protect the injured. And we are also taught to observe those unwritten laws whose sanction lies only in the universal feeling of what is right…
Our city is thrown open to the world; we never expel a foreigner…. We are free to live exactly as we please, and yet are always ready to face any danger…. We love beauty without becoming extravagant, and we cultivate the intellect without lessening our resolution…. To admit one’s poverty is no disgrace with us; but we consider it disgraceful not to make an effort to avoid it. An Athenian citizen does not neglect public affairs when attending to his private business…. We consider a man who takes no interest in the state not as harmless, but as useless; and although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it. We do not look upon discussion as a stumbling block in the way of political action, but as an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all…. We believe that happiness is the fruit of freedom and freedom of valor, and we do not shrink from the danger of war…. To sum up, I claim that Athens is the School of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian grows up to a happy versatility and to a readiness for varied emergencies—to self-reliance.
Unlike the United States, which has always fostered oligarchic governments in its empire, the Athenians fostered genuine democracies in theirs.
Athenian lawmakers understood human weaknesses, and they knew from bitter experience how bribery could undermine justice. Obviously, it is easier to bribe, and deform a passion for justice in, a judge than a jury, and hence, all trials were by a jury of one’s peers alone. The people, not paid experts, were deemed most qualified to decide judicial cases. There was no presiding judge telling people that their task was to serve an abstract law (as opposed to simple justice). Nor was there a jury-free appeal system, which often, in America, nullifies the people’s verdict.
But Athenian juries were definitely corruptible too; to circumvent that problem, juries in important cases were randomly selected from the entire citizen body and numbered 500 or more (roughly 2.5% or more of the total number of citizens). Often the caseload was too heavy, and so the number of jurors for each particular trial was reduced to fifty. Now, a rich man might try to bribe all fifty, so the legal system placed a safeguard against that eventuality: The decision as to which 50 jurors of the 500 would be assigned to any given case was made by lottery, just before the trial began.
The Athenians knew that power-seekers could not be trusted, so they filled many important public offices by lot. Moreover, most office holders maintained their positions for extremely short durations. Athens thereby bypassed, to a certain extent, a key problem in all other extant political systems: The ascendancy of the psychopaths.
The Athenians did not give their rich people tax cuts, thereby leading to an ever-growing mal-distribution of wealth. Athenians respected private property and wealth, but expected their leisure class to make greater contributions to the public, by sponsoring musical festivals or dramas (another Greek word), for example. When the majority decided to go to war, the rich had to risk their lives too. Moreover, in times of war, each rich man was expected to contribute one battleship to the navy of the city—that is where our word liturgy (public service; literally, a public building) came from.
The contemporary decline of republics like the USA or Italy can be explained in part by their system of banking and money creation. In these republics, the bankers in charge of money creation try to fabricate the impression that the private, for-profit, central banks are under public control. Witness for example the names they choose for their key institutions—Bank for International Settlements, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Federal Reserve, Bank of England, First Bank of the United States. In reality, these institutions are controlled by a few banking families. The politicians, media, the bought economic profession, pretend that these privately-controlled institutions serve the public interest, but the reality is the exact opposite: The only goal of these institutions is to further enrich and empower their owners, and they can only accomplish these goals by impoverishing and enslaving the vast majority. These institutions do not serve a nation—they parasitize it. They are worse than the black plague, because they never go away. Instead, they steadily, mercilessly, and incessantly devour their host. They are, by far, public enemy number one. This, along with the fraudulent fractional reserve system, permits the concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of the banking octopus and its military, academic, drug, death squads, industry, health, farming, and mining tentacles. It also permits destructive and deliberate manipulations of the money supply, and the devastating boom-and-bust economic cycles which further enrich and empower a few banking families and enslave the public at large. I shall have more to say about this banking plague elsewhere, but for the moment let me just say this: If I were forced to choose between the current rule of bankers, on one hand, or the rule of the Mafia, on the other, I’d choose the Mafia, any day, any time.
The Athenians, by contrast, did not have that parasitic fifth-column in their midst. They had access to plenty of silver in their own national territory, and the state (not private interests) issued the national silver or copper currency. The state did not accumulate debt as a matter of course, did not suffer the depredations of fractional reserve money creation, nor planned booms and busts. The Athenians thus avoided the horrors of a bankers-dominated economic and political system.
Another salient feature of Athenian democracy involved ostracism (their word). Athenian democrats well knew that their worst enemies were the oligarchs within their own walls. In rare cases, these traitors were brought to trial and executed. But the Athenians did try to live up to their ideal of moderation. Individuals who were deemed a threat to the democracy were selected by an anonymous vote of the assembly and ordered to leave the city for ten years. They retained their citizenship and possessions but were required to remain in exile. By law, only one person could be ostracized in any given year. As a matter of historical record, though, ostracism was rarely applied.
The remarkable political maturity, compassion, and tolerance of a free people can perhaps be best captured through two specific historical examples.
The first involves post-war reconciliation. A contemporary legal scholar holds that the first well-documented example of a “self-conscious transitional justice policy is provided by the classical Athenians’ response to atrocities committed during the reign of the Thirty Tyrants … The Athenians carefully balanced retribution and forgiveness … remembering and forgetting.”
Another historian comments on the same historical occurrence:
In 404 BCE the Peloponnesian War finally came to an end, when the Athenians, starved into submission, were forced to accept Sparta’s terms of surrender. Shortly afterwards a group of thirty conspirators, with Spartan backing (“the Thirty”), overthrew the democracy and established a narrow oligarchy. Although the oligarchs were in power for only thirteen months, they killed more than 5 percent of the citizenry and terrorized the rest by confiscating the property of some and banishing many others. Despite this brutality, members of the democratic resistance movement that regained control of Athens came to terms with the oligarchs and agreed to an amnesty that protected collaborators from prosecution for all but the most severe crimes.
Does this exceptional act of amnesty (their word) and forgiveness sound like mob rule?
Another touching example of Athenian greatness, of compassion in the midst of a struggle for national and personal survival, is related by Thucydides:
Immediately after the invasion of the Peloponnesians all Lesbos [a Greek island], except Methymna, revolted from the Athenians…. However, the Athenians, distressed by the plague, and by the war that had recently broken out and was now raging, thought it a serious matter to add Lesbos with its fleet and untouched resources to the list of their enemies; and at first would not believe the charge, giving too much weight to their wish that it might not be true. But when an embassy which they sent had failed to persuade the Mitylenians to give up the union and preparations complained of, they became alarmed, and resolved to strike the first blow.” After a prolonged siege, the Athenians prevailed, and, at first, the assembly sent a trireme with the order to execute all the men of the rebellious island, and to enslave the women and children. The following day the assembly reconvened, and narrowly voted to overturn the first vote, and spare the lives of most Lesbians: “Another galley was at once sent off in haste, for fear that the first might reach Lesbos in the interval, and the city be found destroyed; the first ship having about a day and a night’s start. Wine and barley-cakes were provided for the vessel by the Mitylenian ambassadors, and great promises made if they arrived in time; which caused the men to use such diligence upon the voyage that they took their meals of barley-cakes kneaded with oil and wine as they rowed, and only slept by turns while the others were at the oar. Luckily they met with no contrary wind, and the first ship making no haste upon so horrid an errand, while the second pressed on in the manner described, the first arrived so little before them, that Paches had only just had time to read the decree, and to prepare to execute the sentence, when the second put into port and prevented the massacre. The danger of Mitylene had indeed been great.
Ask yourself: Have the Roman or American republics just once behaved thus? And if not, isn’t it high time that we reclaim as our own a political system capable of such wartime wisdom and compassion?
Other Key Features of Athenian Democracy were:
Athens was certainly no utopia. Slavery was widespread and neither women nor foreigners enjoyed the full franchise. The Athenian Empire often exploited and lorded over its member states, at times brutally and even cynically suppressing defections. Influential Athenians were eminently bribable and often betrayed their city. Athenians seemed unable to conceive of a genuine union, on equal terms, with sister democracies, and were thus, in the end, enslaved by the Macedonian dictatorship. But Athens, I believe, still provides the best starting point for a free, rational, and compassionate society. We can copy its basic framework of genuine democracy, while avoiding its major weaknesses.
Two Modern Examples of Genuine Democracy in Action
In some contemporary republics, on rare occasions, the people are allowed to decide an issue directly (through a referendum), without massive rigging. In such rare democratic outbursts, the people often vote wisely. Here are two examples.
The Italian Demos vs. Nuclear Power
We have been warned about the menace of atomic energy right from the beginning of the nuclear age. Many years later, in 1977, for instance, Ralph Nader and John Abbot wrote:
What technology has had the potential for both inadvertent and willful mass destruction … for wiping out cities and contaminating states after an accident, a natural calamity, or sabotage? What technology has been so unnecessary, so avoidable by simple thrift or by deployment of renewable energy supplies?
When the decision is left to the psychopaths, they of course choose short-term gains and empowerment, even though a nuclear power plant may consume more energy than it produces! After them, they might think, is the deluge. But when the people are allowed to decide, they often make the right decision, the bankers’ propaganda avalanche notwithstanding:
Italy is a nuclear free zone since the Italian nuclear power referendum of November 1987. Following center-right parties’ victory in the 2008 election, Italy’s industry minister announced that the government scheduled the construction to start the first new Italian nuclear-powered plant by 2013. The announced project was paused in March 2011, after the Japanese earthquake, and scrapped after a referendum on 12–13 June 2011.
The Icelandic Demos vs. the International Bankers
The global economic crisis is now in its fourth year, and, the propaganda system notwithstanding, the situation is getting steadily worse. Real unemployment is nearing levels of the great depression while the middle class is steadily losing ground. Given the growing misery of the American people, one would think that the USA would stop its extremely costly wars of aggression, yet the United States is spending now even more on killing innocents abroad. One would think that the USA would dismantle its extremely costly police state apparatus, but the bankers and their puppets are actually spending more money on subjugating and humiliating the American people. One would think that, in such hard times, greater income equality would be attempted, but in fact the gap between the rich and poor has grown by leaps and bounds from 2008 to 2012. One would think that the DC mafia would permit the bankruptcy of the international banks that caused the crisis to begin with, and which, moreover, according to this mafia’s self-professed capitalist (let alone Christian) ideology, are too big to exist. But just the opposite is taking place: to prevent the deserved bankruptcy of these banks, our politicians (that is, the big bankers themselves or their pawns) have robbed the American people of trillions. Consequently, the economic hard times will continue unabated, or grow far worse, for years and years.
As of June 2012, there has been only one exception to this sad tale of gargantuan theft—Iceland. There, thanks to an inordinately courageous and decent president, the people were allowed to decide their fate, twice, despite the strenuous opposition of the international bankers. “These were private banks,” said Iceland’s president, “and we didn’t pump money into them in order to keep them going; the state did not shoulder the responsibility of the failed private banks.” The people voted and, consequently, Iceland is now in far better economic shape than countries such as Greece, Spain, or the USA. In Iceland, too, some bankers actually ended up paying for their crimes, and the country has, in the wake of the crisis, moved in a more democratic direction. The people of Iceland
took a different path than the United States after their financial crisis and nationalized the banks, threw some the people responsible for the crash in jail, and bailed out the homeowners instead of worrying about only bailing out the banks. And now they’re coming back and their economy is growing again.
Even the mainstream press, on the rare occasions when it covers the Icelandic story, underscores the fabulous potential of genuine democracy:
Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger. Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population … The island’s steps to resurrect itself since 2008, when its banks defaulted on $85 billion, are proving effective. Iceland’s economy will this year outgrow the euro area and the developed world on average … The island’s households were helped by an agreement between the government and the banks, which are still partly controlled by the state, to forgive debt exceeding 110 percent of home values. On top of that, a Supreme Court ruling in June 2010 found loans indexed to foreign currencies were illegal, meaning households no longer need to cover krona losses…. Iceland’s $13 billion economy, which shrank 6.7 percent in 2009, grew 2.9 percent last year and will expand 2.4 percent this year and next … The euro area will grow 0.2 percent this year and the OECD area will expand 1.6 percent, according to November estimates…. Iceland’s approach to dealing with the meltdown has put the needs of its population ahead of the markets at every turn. Once it became clear back in October 2008 that the island’s banks were beyond saving, the government stepped in, ring-fenced the domestic accounts, and left international creditors in the lurch. The central bank imposed capital controls to halt the ensuing sell-off of the krona and new state-controlled banks were created from the remnants of the lenders that failed. Iceland’s special prosecutor has said it may indict as many as 90 people, while more than 200, including the former chief executives at the three biggest banks, face criminal charges…. That compares with the U.S., where no top bank executives have faced criminal prosecution for their roles in the subprime mortgage meltdown.
Closing Remarks
It is no accident that, when given a choice, the Italian people rejected nuclear power, despite massive false advertising by the moneylenders. It is no accident that, as of June 2012, the only country with any chance of escaping serfdom, Iceland, was able to do so through a referendum, despite massive false advertising by the moneylenders. What worked so well for the Ancient Athenians is obviously working just as well for any country choosing to give genuine democracy a chance.
Dr. Moti Nissani newest work in progress is available here: A Revolutionary’s Toolkit. Dr. Moti Nissani is a professor emeritus, Department of Biology, Wayne State University. His newest work in progress is available here: A Revolutionary’s Toolkit. Read other articles by Moti, or visit Moti’s website.
Windows to Russia…
I watch the media play game of twisting the words of the Geneva agreements on the settlement of the situation in Syria. As always the West is dancing one tune and one tune only, as Russia and China stick to their guns and are adamant about what should be done in Syria. Russia is a no games approach and America, is the same approach that she has done as long as I can remember…
This has come up because I read books to Sveta in English. Lately I have taken to reading the very old Nancy Drew Series to her and she loves them. They are designed for teen girls in America and are very very propaganda to sway teen minds. Sveta and I can see through that kind of stuff and we enjoy the stories about Nancy Drew and her detective escapades. The older books are based on communism and the newer books are based on terrorism…
I wonder if you even realized that for over 80 years, a variety of writers using the pen name Carolyn Keene have been writing one of the biggest propaganda series in history. 80+ years of Nancy Drew saving America from the evil world. I bet you did not know, Nancy Drew was that old? (Tidbit info time – Nancy Drew first appeared in 1930!)
But this latest book that I am reading to Sveta, called “Deadly Doubles” it is Nancy Drew #7 (Nancy Drew Files #7) is about dictators. This book is part of a series that was done in the eighties. It is a little more modern wording and uses the latest words of government propaganda, more familiar to today’s audience, than the original Nancy Drew’s…
It uses terrorists, instead of communist and of course the term dictator is prevalent through out the book as that is what the book is about! An evil, terrible, disgusting and terrorist dictator from a South American country and what is really interesting is that the book explains to the reader that America is the cause of these revolutions happening in South America and such. Explained in such a way that makes it perfectly normal and acceptable that we interfere in a country with a Dictator…
So true to form, America is interfering in a country that has a dictator as she always does and our populace has been conditioned from birth with propaganda material to make our young people consider our interference as a normal part of everyday life and that all good honest countries like America have a patriotic right to destroy dictators everywhere in the world… 🙂
I am lucky that Sveta just likes the story and she is not into politics, for she might think that America intentionally writes books for young girls to read that includes material to sway and shape young girls minds. That is a good thing, huh!
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…
The majority pro-Kremlin party United Russia intends to submit to the State Duma a bill whereby non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that pursue political activity and receive financing from abroad are assigned the status of a foreign agent.
A co-sponsor of the bill MP Alexander Sidyakin commented that the draft law does not ban NGOs or limit their rights. It is intended to make publicly available information about the function of such NGOs as a foreign agent.
An NGO would be regarded as a political organization, with the exception of parties, if it finances and holds political rallies in order to impact state authorities’ decisions aimed at changing their policy and also shapes public opinion for the above-mentioned purpose. Political NGOs would be obliged to issue reports about their activities on a semiannual basis.
NGOs would be required to specify in materials distributed via mass media and the Internet that information is published by an organization acting as a foreign agent.
An authorized federal body is expected to assess information about foreign agents within the framework of the law against money laundering and financing of terrorism.
There is a network of NGOs financed from abroad in Russia, with the purposes of their paymasters looking suspicious, Siidyakin said.
After people see how many agents of influence operate in Russia they will be more active in shaping civil society, he added.
Representatives of NGOs that could be affected by the draft law said that the Kremlin does not need organizations that do not support the president and the government.
Assistant director of Golos Association told Kommersant business daily that some officials believe that NGOs pose a threat of staging a coup allegedly financed from abroad.
Windows to Russia!
The building blocks of the historic visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Pakistan in September have begun arriving in Islamabad. It is a poignant moment in the region’s history and politics. This will be the first time a Russian president visits Pakistan since its birth in 1947.
The Russians are fabricating some hardy bricks for the mansion they hope to build in the region which forms a beachhead on the Indian Ocean – a mansion large enough for their friends in Pakistan and in the neighboring countries of India, Iran and Afghanistan to consort with them.
But then, the very sight of the Russian bricks infuriates the United States. The point is, this Russia House will stand bang on the way of the New Silk Road that the US has been planning, which also needs to run through Pakistan. If the access is blocked, it becomes problematic for the US to keep together the body and soul of the tens of thousands of its troops who were hoping to settle down in the Hindu Kush and Central Asia as pioneers in the “Wild West” of China’s Xinjiang and on the “soft underbelly” of Russia.
In sum, the battle is joined for influencing Pakistan’s future. The stakeholders are many and a keen struggle lies ahead, since at the core of it lies a host of other issues of profound consequence to world politics – energy security of the two big power-houses of Asia (China and India), the future of the New Middle East, and of course, the US strategy to contain Russia and China.
Moscow deputed a talented and vastly experienced diplomat to visit Pakistan in May to make an estimation of the lay of the land. He was a surveyor of great experience whose reputation is the stuff of legends in the Hindu Kush mountains – Ambassador Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s point person for Afghanistan. By the choice of Kabulov, Moscow also gently stated its broad intentions as regards its architectural design, namely, that it is a mansion with Afghan characteristics.
Following up on Kabulov’s visit, Russian experts began arriving in Pakistan. The proposals they brought are of momentous significance to the long-term security and stability of the region. Moscow has zeroed in on energy cooperation as the fulcrum of its nascent cooperation with Islamabad.
A six-year old idea reappears …
This is a shrewd decision by Moscow since energy security is a key issue in Pakistan’s political economy today, no less important than terrorism. Much of Pakistan gets only a few hours’ electricity in a day and the people’s rancor is visible. Moscow has assessed that energy security is integral to Pakistan’s capacity to maintain “strategic autonomy” as a South Asian power of standing and, therefore, by assisting that country in this sphere, Russian geopolitical interests in a vast swathe of the Greater Middle East stretching from the Persian Gulf to China’s Autonomous Region of Xinjiang would also be served.
Besides, in immediate terms, mutual understanding with Pakistan is becoming an imperative need for Russia in the post-2014 scenario in Afghanistan, where the Western powers would have withdrawn the bulk of their troops but are nonetheless establishing an open-ended, sizeable military presence of tens of thousands of combat troops.
Russia and Pakistan are joined in their opposition to the long-term occupation of Afghanistan by the West; Russia hopes to influence Pakistani policies with regard to Afghanistan’s future and, in turn, cooperation with Pakistan enhances the overall Russian resilience to play an effective role in the stabilization of Afghanistan and in providing security to Central Asia; and, equally, a strong relationship with Pakistan – in the field of energy security, in particular – can provide yet another underpinning for Russia’s strategic ties with other key regional powers, especially China, India, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Last but not the least, Pakistan is a valuable interlocutor for Russia with regard to the activities and movements of the militants operating in North Caucasus.
Having said that, Russia weighs its options carefully and is averse to embarking on Soviet-era adventures that might be a drain on its resources. The priority of the Russian leadership lies in regenerating and innovating the economy and building the national strength, and in the case of Pakistan, Moscow estimates there could be an interesting partnership of much economic value to Russia and of mutual benefit.
All in all, Moscow’s strategy is to develop new sinews of cooperation with Pakistan that are sustainable, durable, and which dovetail with Russia’s vibrant strategic partnerships with China, India and Iran.
Put differently, the Russian approach becomes a necessary regional-policy “adjustment” or even a pre-requisite to the impending admission of Pakistan and India into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as full members. Putin is an action-oriented statesman and the unhappy part is that six long years have passed since he first proposed at the SCO summit in Shanghai in June 2006 the setting up of an energy club within the regional grouping comprising the energy producing countries of Russia, Iran and the Central Asian countries and the three big energy consuming countries of China, India and Pakistan.
It was at the very same Shanghai summit of the SCO that Putin came out openly for the first time to say that Russia’s energy leviathan Gazprom was willing to take part in the construction of the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. Putin said in his address, “Gazprom is ready to take part and provide technological and, if necessary, financial assistance, and we are willing to provide an unlimited amount of it, especially for a project that is certain to take off.”
Putin’s idea is that the oil and gas exporters within the SCO have been competing for promising markets (such as China or India), and to coordinate the moves SCO needs an energy club, which will act as a coordination center uniting both energy producers and the three key consumers.
One major Central Asian player who has stayed out of the SCO so far has been Turkmenistan, and it is a bit awkward to speak of an energy club in the region that doesn’t include such a large-scale gas producer. Russia also has some gas disputes with Turkmenistan – with which, however China has a warm relationship built around energy cooperation.
A little-noticed development of great significance was that Chinese President Hu Jintao invited the Turkmen president to visit Beijing at the time of the SCO summit last month – and the latter accepted. Suffice to say, China is keen to harmonize its regional policies with Russia and would even lend a hand to Moscow’s efforts to coordinate the impulses of energy security amongst and within the SCO member countries and observer countries.
A stunning thing is that the proposals brought by the Russian experts in the past week to Islamabad essentially pick up the threads of Putin’s 2006 proposal. According to the details available so far, Moscow has made the following proposals to Islamabad: Russia can offer financial and technical assistance for Pakistan’s multi-billion dollar gas and power import projects that are in the pipeline. Specifically, Russia is interested in participating in the two big gas pipeline projects on the anvil, namely, the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) and the IP [Iran-Pakistan].
Russia prefers that the cooperation is negotiated at the governmental level through direct negotiations rather than through bidding. Russia is also keen on participation in the Central Asia and South Asia (CASA) project, which was originally floated in 2006, to bring to Pakistan via transmission lines across eastern Afghanistan 1,000-1,300 megawatts of surplus energy during the summer months from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. (The project has the backing of the World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank.) Russia will be willing to cooperate in the exploration of oil, gas and minerals in Pakistan.
Unsurprisingly, Islamabad has eagerly responded to the Russian proposals. The following understanding seems to have been reached at the talks, which concluded in Islamabad on Wednesday:
Pakistan welcomes the Russian proposals; Specifically, Pakistan is agreeable to negotiate the contracts with the state-owned Russian energy companies on a government-to-government basis and will be willing to amend its public procurement rules accordingly; Steps will be taken to conclude a memorandum of understanding to move ahead with the identified projects during Putin’s visit; As regards the IP, Pakistan has already floated the tenders for awarding contracts for the pipeline procurement and construction work for the US$1.5 billion project. Russia’s Gazprom may also participate. Pakistan proposes to give weight to bids that have a financial package attached. (China and Iran have also shown interest in the project.)
Meanwhile, Pakistan will hand over to Russia by mid-July a draft agreement for financial and technical assistance from the latter for the IP project. Russia has agreed to finance the rehabilitation of the Guddu and Muzaffargarh power plants.
… which infuriates the overlord
These developments constitute a daunting challenge to the US’ regional strategies in Asia and the Middle East. The ramifications are quite far-reaching. First and foremost, Pakistan’s “defection” from the Western camp all but amounts to a crippling blow to the US’ New Silk Road Initiative aimed at rolling back the Russian and Chinese influence in Central Asia. Along with that, the US’ dreams of getting access to the vast mineral resources of Central Asia and Afghanistan would also suffer setback.
On a practical plane, Pakistan’s geography has been the lynchpin of the US regional strategies in Afghanistan and Central Asia, and without Pakistan’s cooperation no viable (non-Russian, non-Iranian) communication link with those regions is sustainable, which in turn, jeopardizes the plans for the establishment of a permanent US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military presence in the region in the “Eurasian heartland”.
Indeed, energy security is the Achilles heel of Pakistan’s political economy, and it debilitates Pakistan’s capacity to develop a strategic autonomy that safeguards its vital interests and core concerns and, conversely, the current level of acute energy deficiency makes Pakistan very vulnerable to US pressures. Therefore, the helping hand from Russia, even if it is self-seeking, would have serious geopolitical implications for the US regional strategies insofar as it results in augmenting Pakistan’s independence and resilience and creating space for it to navigate its way through a particularly difficult and dangerous corridor of time when it is beset with existential problems.
Again, a coming together of the energy producing and energy consuming countries of Asia is the ultimate nightmare scenario for the US, which fears exclusion from the ensuing matrix of regional cooperation involving countries that happen to be spearheading the fastest-growing region in the world economy. The entire US strategy in the post-Soviet era had aimed at forestalling such a catastrophic eventuality that might put paid to the US efforts to get embedded in the “Eurasian heartland”, which includes or overlooks some of the major regional powers in the coming decades – Russia, China, Kazakhstan, India, Pakistan and Iran. (Turkey’s admission as a “dialogue partner” of the SCO – at China’s behest – at the Beijing summit last month further unnerves the US.)
To be sure, a host of other issues also arise. The Russian moves in Pakistan effectively outflank the US’ policies to isolate Iran. If hostilities erupt between the US and Iran, Washington faces almost near-total isolation in the region between the Persian Gulf and Malacca Strait. On the other hand, the IP project (which seems a priority for Russia and China alike) would have a devastating impact on the US’ Iran policy, as it would manifoldly enhance Iran’s strategic prowess. The US will factor in that it is a matter of time before China gets connected to the IP gas pipeline. These communication links effectively help China also to reduce its dependence on the Malacca Strait.
Worst of all, Washington is unsure of India’s approach to the emergent geopolitical shift that Russia is triggering. India and Russia have traditionally enjoyed mutual trust and confidence. India and Iran also enjoy fundamentally strong ties, which have even withstood the US pressure. India is independently working on the normalization of its ties with China, and the two countries have made appreciable headway in this direction. (Curiously, the Indian and Chinese state-sector energy companies recently concluded a memorandum of understanding agreeing not to outbid each other in third countries and to cooperate across-the-board including in the two countries’ domestic sector.)
Most important, energy security is becoming a gnawing worry for the Indian leadership as the economy expands rapidly and the need for assured access to reasonably priced energy sources is becoming an all-consuming passion in the country’s external policies. (India’s External Affairs Minister S M Krishna is heading for Tajikistan, which is the energy source of the CASA project, on Tuesday.)
The US’ diplomatic and politico-military options to counter the Russian moves in Pakistan would lie principally in the direction of influencing the policies of Pakistan and India. The US is pursuing a mixed approach toward Pakistan, alternating soft signals with a flexing of muscle that is vaguely assuming threatening overtones already. At one point recently, it all but seemed that the US would render an apology of sorts for the massacre of Pakistani troops in a US military strike last November on the Afghan-Pakistan border following which the reopening of the Pakistani transit routes for the NATO convoys could be expected within the month of June.
However, following the Russian-Pakistani confabulations, the US line has hardened. Another attack has taken place on Monday on Pakistani troops (18 of whom were brutally beheaded) by militant groups of obscure background operating from “safe havens” inside Afghanistan. It doesn’t need much ingenuity to work out that the US forces in Afghanistan prefer to look away from what these militants are doing right beneath their nose. (Curiously, these militant “safe havens” also happen to be in the region through which the CASA transmission lines from Tajikistan will have to pass.)
At any rate, on Wednesday, the US’ commander in Afghanistan, John Allen, came down to the Pakistani army headquarters in Rawalpindi to propose to the Pakistani army chief Parvez Kayani that the two sides could undertake “joint operations” against the militants operating along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
This is indeed going to be a cat-and-mouse game. The signs are ominous. The relentless drone attacks through the recent months have destabilized Pakistan’s tribal areas adjacent to the border with Afghanistan. The drones are causing a lot of civilian casualties, so much so that the United Nations officials begin to wonder if these wanton killings would constitute “war crimes”.
The drone attacks infuriate the people who live in the tribal areas and in turn are fueling anti-government sentiments, while Islamabad looks helpless in stopping the US from violating the country’s territorial integrity. Quite obviously, Pakistan is hunkering down, and the US won’t allow that to continue. The indications are that the US will step up pressure on Pakistan and escalate the tensions in a calibrated way.
A paradigm shift:
The heart of the matter is that Pakistan’s “strategic defiance” has taken the US by surprise. The US always counted on the perceived comprador mentality of the Pakistani elites and has been somewhat thrown off balance in discovering that those very same elites (the military leadership, in particular) are no longer what they were supposed to be.
Of course, this is a flawed perspective and at the root of it lies Washington’s unwillingness to countenance an honest appraisal as to why this paradigm shift has occurred at all. The US doesn’t have to look far to realize the complexities. The latest survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, released on Wednesday, shows that 74% of Pakistanis “hate” the US and hold President Barack Obama in exceptionally low esteem. Interestingly, the most popular Pakistani politician today is Imran Khan (70%), whose main plank is that Pakistan should pull out of the war in Afghanistan and demand that the US troops should pack up their gear and leave the region for good with their war machinery.
The US faces a more complicated challenge with regard to India. Washington has audaciously complimented New Delhi recently by naming India as the “lynchpin” in its Asia-Pacific strategies. But to the discomfiture of the US, India’s response has so far been one of deafening silence, while demonstratively distancing itself from any perceived “ganging-up” against China. On the other hand, a crucial mass is steadily accruing in the Sino-Indian normalization. Equally, India has been carefully sequestering its dialogue process with Pakistan from the chill and vagaries of the US-Pakistan standoff. Even with regard to Iran, India has drawn a bottom line and made it clear that it won’t be pushed around – and the current signs are that Washington has finally got the point.
Having said that, the US will endeavor to butt into the India-Pakistan dialogue and try to turn its focus away from a broad-based approach in a constructive spirit to the highly emotive issues of Pakistan’s support of terrorism and the fidayeen attacks on Mumbai in November 2008, which deeply scarred the Indian psyche and still arouse Indian suspicions regarding Pakistani intentions.
With regard to energy security, the US has encouraged Saudi Arabia to offer a big hand to India, with the hope of encouraging it to reduce its dependence on Iranian oil and in overall terms to wean India away from the IP gas pipeline project. Ideally, Washington would seek a cozy three-way embrace between the US, India and Saudi Arabia, which would keep the Indians away from the alluring thoughts of an SCO energy club.
But the US is unsure, as the Indians also have their preferences and a passion for keeping their thoughts to themselves while making independent choices about how to go about realizing their national objectives in a complicated regional scenario.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
Windows to Russia!
I have an article in the past about how Moscow was going to grow in size. Well it has happened and this looks like just the beginning of her growth phase…
Reclaiming and developing new territories will take dozens of years. Fresh projects listed include building two highways, extending the Moscow metro and constructing over 1,000 houses, as well as new headquarters for the Russian Parliament among other brand-new state buildings…
Looks like according to the news one day, all of the region called Moscow Area will be simply Moscow. Now that is going to be a huge city as far as land mass is concerned…
Windows to Russia
PS:
Moscow acquired on Sunday 150,000 hectares of neighboring territories from its southwest borders, following the city’s expansion plan brokered by then-President Dmitry Medvedev in 2011.
According to the plan of the Russian capital’s new structure, Moscow’s land area doubled on July 1 after being enlarged by 150,000 hectares. The so-called “Big Moscow” includes the territory of the two cities in Moscow region, Shcherbinka and Troitsk as well as 19 smaller residential areas.
Kyle keeton