By Guilherme Wilbert for the Saker Blog
Since the beginning of Operation Z in Ukraine, unfortunately interpreted as an invasion or an occupation of Ukrainian territory by the Russians, realpolitik has accelerated integration among economic blocs of emerging countries, with several speeches by BRICS regional leaders speaking openly about the weight of emerging economies in global economic development.
The last BRICS meeting on 06/23, with open criticism of western sanctions by China and Russia, showed well what the emerging economies are discussing at the moment: how to escape dollarized debt? Or better yet: how to implement an alternative system to the one established at Bretton Woods?
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who overnight became “persona non grata” in Europe, is already talking openly about a possible basket of BRICS own currencies as an alternative to strengthen the national economies, with the most advanced countries, for example Russia itself or China, working openly with an economy of real production based on resource ballast for their national currencies, in the Russian case the Gaso-Ruble becomes a character, in the Chinese case, the PetroYuan emerges as an alternative to strengthen the Chinese currency.
Caution is walking hand in hand with haste for the emerging countries
While emerging countries are trying to gain international prominence through economic blocs that can prove to be alternative to the current international financial system, the members of these blocs, especially China, despite acting as a kind of leadership in this global turn towards de-dollarization, do not show imperialistic intentions as seen in the U.S. within their geopolitical blocks. For example, NATO, where it is clearly an aggressive military alliance led by the US to impose its policies and state interests. On the other side, this is not seen within the BRICS or Mercosur for example with a military alliance led by China or with groupings supported by the Chinese establishment for color revolutions in non-aligned countries.
Therefore the caution: BRICS cannot emerge as an alternative to do the same things in the same ways committing the same Western mistakes, in fact the opposite, if negotiating with Westerners you would be willing one day to have to deal with Uncle Sam carrying out a lawfare in its territory to overthrow a legitimate government, with China the concern is much more diplomatic regarding Taiwan for example, with criticism much more focused on humanitarian aspects by some analysts.
Brazilian diplomacy has shown concern with the political intentions of the BRICS, wanting the strategic partnership to continue in a win-win system and not to mix geopolitical meanings in order to face the old system, but this is due to the fact that Brazil is still strongly influenced by Washington, despite its recent independent foreign policy.
We are witnessing a paradigm shift in all senses with this Russian police operation in Ukraine, which revealed the face of the irresponsible weak western leaders that have hurt the global economy by causing 1. sanctions to have the reverse effect to the desired one (of breaking the Russian economy) and 2. sanctions to have the opposite effect to the desired one (of breaking the Russian economy). Many countries that carry out military offensives on their neighbors (like Saudi Arabia in Yemen) even though supported by international law and ratifying humanitarian conventions on the battlefield saw that Westerners, unfortunately, can still simply loot the wealth of some countries they consider non-aligned like Russia, Iran, Venezuela… And given this the emerging countries logically seek an alternative, with the difference being that for Westerners to do what was accomplished in Libya when Gaddafi attempted the same, they will now have to deal with a bear sitting on just over 5,000 nuclear warheads. The conversation is now essentially different.
Guilherme Wilbert is a Bachelor’s Law with interests in geopolitics and international law.
References: https://investogist.com/president-putin-says-that-brics-are-developing-global-reserve-currency/
https://noticias.uol.com.br/colunas/jamil-chade/2022/06/23/brasil-ve-com-preocupacao-ambicao-da-china-para-expandir-brics.html
Very well stated Guilherme.
It is also fully worth while to read this article from Global Times, and the end paragraph seems to have it all in a nugget.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202206/1268977.shtml
“unfortunately interpreted ”
Neither unexpected nor unfortunate, since the opponents tend to perceive projections of themselves.
Just like calling Ukrainians Nazis since opponents tend to perceive projections of themselves? Very good point.
Brazilian diplomacy, even when it was professional, it’s kinda coward.
On one side, the diplomatic establishment of the Itamaraty thinks Bolsonaro’s policy of bowing towards Washington to be foolish and very ideological, and they were right about it. Brazil isn’t a core part of the West should pursue it’s national interests to the fullest extent, and if this means an economic partnership with the “Chinese Communists”, then so be it.
On the other hand, the career diplomats in Brazil don’t support an anti-American policy, they support a neutralist policy. Like the guest said, they don’t want to upset the first world too much. And while I believe that to some degree this is due to a real and tangible likability for the “western rule based order”, they also do this out of fear of retaliation.
The left-wing foreign policy in Brazil, on the other hand, it’s much bolder and one could even say more realistic towards the Brazilian place in the world in the sense that they understand that we will never be a part of the West and need to strengthen ourselves against them. They want to cement Brazil as the core of the Pátria Grande, whatever form it may take, and they know, to some extent, that this type of approach will necessarily make Brazil an enemy of the United States. While China is across the Pacific and Russia in the center of Eurasia, very far away from the US in practice (at least as far as the Russian heartland goes), Brazil is in a traditional area of interest of the Americans, an area to which they could retreat to exploit if there’s some kind of geopolitical defeat that expels American interests from Eurasia.
To summary, Brazil can’t run away, it needs to be bolder while the US is still busy trying to hold the whole world down under it’s wing to take on China and Russia. A serious long term independent diplomacy from the South American nation should be directed to Latin American integration, even as far as creating a Latin American version of NATO (to defend the region from it’s first world inspiration). Maybe even building up nuclear weapons (Brazil has the tech) and creating a shared umbrella. The next year, 2023, will be the best moment to start the shift towards this, as Colombia, the biggest American supporter in LATAM for ages, will be governed by a leftist, and Bolsonaro will also be out of job.
I agree that Brazil/Latin America is/are US backyard, or “a traditional area of interest of the Americans”. The US has, however, taken already all they could from us. Our underdevelopment is a proof of this. So, it is unlikely that it would make any difference if Latin America is an area to which they could retreat to exploit if there’s some kind of geopolitical defeat that expels American interests from Eurasia because this has already happened.
In Brazil, since the 2016 Parliamentary coup d’état, resources have been privatised and social policies destroyed to levels seen only after wars. It is very similar to what happened to Russia after the dismantling of the USSR. Now, it is time to change, to recuperate what has been lost — and Russia has demonstrated that it is possible. And yes, courage and competence will be necessary. Brazilian people will have to raise and start the process. There is no other way.
In fact, I would suggest that Brazilians start looking also at Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, Argentina and other countries that are struggling in the oppressive US backyard. These are examples for Brazil, yes, and it is a shame that we have such a coward, ignorant elite in power in Brazil who are not doing anything to save the country. I believe, however, that with the fall of the US as an empire, there will be many opportunities for change.
Bolsonaro will be gone! I cant wait! There must be a line of revolutionaires in line for the presidency! like now! Immediately!
Now indeed is the time to get moving given the overall incompetence of the empire. I mean we could not have asked for more incompetence than Biden at the top, run by the Khazarian elite. They do not appear to be aware of their options and the results and consequences of all the choices they
For their own survival and well-being long term they must chose the interest of the people, otherwise all they can build is the most excellent dysfunctional diminsed in all ways global cluture they can.
The Khazarian capitalists must depopulate, and de-evolve those ordinary people they allow to live in order to continue to control, to be able to be rich with all the wealth and authority to run society in perpetuity. In such a proess Humanity cannot, could not develop, continue to evolve poisitively, so the Khazars too would be de-evolving, would not be able to help it in such conprehensivley negative social conditions.
They would be guaranteeing human extinction, including themselves, robbing ourselves of any chance of going on indefinitely in nature. That is what the success of Soros, Schwab, Rothschild, Gates and company means for the human species…absolute, certain human extinction
FYI…..
I majored at Purdue in Chemistry & Biology, minored in History, Economics, Physics, Calculus & Differential Equations, graduated Cum Laude… on time… in 4 years… with my BSChm…
After the war, I studied for, and received my PhD from IU with concentrations in Hydrology, Geology, Limnology, and Operations Research. My thesis was “Nutrient Utilization in Lake Monroe” or why that lake had winter plankton blooms but not in summer.
For that research, I read Russian scientific journals myself…. paper copies…. in the library…
I met White Russian emigres at various Orthodox churches I attended including in Hawaii during the war, and in other locations world wide afterward… Lots of institutionalized angst… Defeated people….
My family fought the facists in the Pacific, the western front, and the Eastern front.
We aren’t suffering defeatist angst…
BUT….
Like Martynov… I can add, subtract, multiply, and divide, solve differential equations, second order derivatives, and apply my scientific knowledge to new situations.
Unlike you, I’m not a religious specialist…. BUT… I walk with GOD…
Have a great day!
INDY
“I met White Russian emigres at various Orthodox churches I attended including in Hawaii during the war, and in other locations world wide afterward… Lots of institutionalized angst… Defeated people….”
As for “angst” and “defeated people”, the ones I know are Russians who have emigrated and still wondering if they made the right decision, in light of how modern Russia has developed. I know Russian Jews who left following Gorbachev/Yeltsin debacles, who first went to Israel and then left for Canada, since they were not considered “Jewish enough”. The larger Russian ex-pat community here in Canada does not yet have the ethno-cultural solidarity and political influence of say, the Ukrainians or Poles.
To project defeatist angst onto the entire Russian population is not worthy of your extensive educational background. But then Psychology was not listed.
Perhaps your angst is from recognizing that your family fought fascism and now it is back, just with a friendlier face.
I read your words of defense, but was left wondering who it is that you are defending against? It’s like your note came out of the blue against an unknown opponent. Did I miss something here?
By the way, I don’t have your credentials, but I too claim to “walk with God.” I’m very happy that God accepts me as I am and that there’s still a place in His kingdom for me. On the other hand, if I did have your educational background, it wouldn’t impress Him. He’s interested in people of faith, not people who have mastered the sciences.
“if I did have your educational background, it wouldn’t impress Him. He’s interested in people of faith, not people who have mastered the sciences.”
Tolstoy in his biographical “Confession” came to the same conclusion. As an aristocratic White Russian, Tolstoy was depressed with “existential angst” and tormented by thoughts of suicide. Seeking an answer he consulted practitioners of the “hard sciences” in the Academy. He found that “the exact sciences” could indeed give him precise and truthful answers: but only about atoms and planets, not the question which tormented him. Tolstoy confesses that at last he was rescued by a dream. He dreamed he was hanging over a black abyss but his supports were breaking away one by one — when suddenly a voice called to him: Why do you keep looking down at the abyss when you can look up at the sky?
Sir!
Solving, I concur, GR differential equations is definitely for the weak-kneed!
Yet, how are you on Entropy?
Biocosmology: Biology from a cosmological perspective
https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.09379
Prof. Lee Smolin, Quantum Gravity expert, lays out the Second Law in Biocosmology.
“The Universe contains everything that exists, including life. And all that exists, including life, obeys universal physical laws. Do those laws then give adequate foundations for a complete explanation of biological phenomena? ”
This is major, big deal! This a break or evaluation of the abiotic paradigm of the Empire’s narrative!
And noöetic phenomena beckon – i.e. Economics.
This is a little smokey and loose for me.
When you talk abiotic I am thinking of our oil and all the used car tricks Rockefeller did to convince the sheeple about the “limited oil coming from old fossil dinosaur cadavres deep down”.
The emptied oil reserves are slowly being filled again….by nature. Confirming the Russian theory about abiotic oil.
Cosmic? I will leave this to other Russian or Chinese professionals.
It is the first time I have seen cosmology, modern quantum gravity, and a careful approach to living systems. Alongside a brilliant categorization of entropy, a key issue. Usually cosmology is abiotic.
As for abiotic oil, it should be no surprise – the ALMA (millimeter) Chile Telescope finds vast amounts of carbon molecules around every stellar nebula. Abiotic oil can be distinguished by Carbon isotope abundances, but today biotic oil mixes in. A little oil industry side profit is from Helium with no biotic process.
We find our selves in a historic time frame since 1492. In the past 500 years of western colonialism, oppression, plundering and conquering of entire planet, particularly of the global south, for the first time they meet a stone wall, where they are totally stopped, they are so surprised and frustrated. It was almost natural for them to do anything, anytime to anyone in the world. If you talk to westerners, deeply inside their hearts and mind, they firmly believe they own the earth and others should ask how to live, behave and obey them. This is some how intrinsic. It all changed, it is merely a delusion now, but it will take them many years to get used to the new realities.
Yanis Varafoukis has long been advocating a “new Bretton Woods…” Just out of curiosity has anyone found his view on the new de-dollarizarion and BRICS currency basket concept? Wonder if he understands whats going on.
Varoufakis basically advocates the Lord Maynard Keynes proposal that was thoroughly rejected by Dexter White at the original Bretton Woods Conference . For a detailed analysis :
https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2018/eirv45n45-20181109/04-13_4545.pdf
Basically Varoufakis advocates a VeryFake Delphic counter Bretton Woods.
Anyone advocating Keynes’ obviously never read his General Theory, printed first in Hitler’s Germany 1938 : Keynes said it would have a better reception and be more applicable in Nazi Germany, than it would be in a democratic country.
It is strange that the article you post mentions AMLO, he would never deal with Bernie nor any other entity without real power. Keynes is a matter of confusion regarding AMLO political economy. He is following 2T and 3 T thinkers, principally Flores Magon , that proposes consumer empowerment, to develop peoples´ production (FM brothers were anarchists that were influenced and had communications with both Propotkin and Lenin). It is common to attach the “keynessian” adjective to AMLO, more so as his finance minister is openly a keynessian economist. Direct money to the poor and dispossessed, job creation, and infrastructure focused in the “olvidados” are his three starting negotiation parameters.
Throwing labels around parades today as ‘thinking’.
See Glazyev “For Thinking People” blog :
https://glazev.ru/articles/163-zajavlenija/102704-sergey-glaz-ev-dlja-dumajushhikh-ljudey
Jingoism may rule the day in the decadent Transatlantic, not the EAEU.
Time to get back our European critical thinking hats!
For an excellent analysis, may I suggest you to GoldMoney’s Alasdair Macleod. He uses Pepe Escobar’s interview with mr Glazyov, also published here on the Saker, as the basis for same.
“Many countries that carry out military offensives on their neighbors (like Saudi Arabia in Yemen) even though supported by international law and ratifying humanitarian conventions on the battlefield …”
This is surprising. Is the US-Saudi war on Yemen indeed supported by international law and humanitarian conventions? How so?
Completely illegal conflict supported by US and Israel. Naming someone a terrorist does not provide legal cover for military action. Especially when those do the naming are terrorist states.
“in the Russian case the Gaso-Ruble becomes a character, in the Chinese case, the PetroYuan emerges as an alternative to strengthen the Chinese currency.”
A very improbable scenario there. China has been fighting against a stronger currency for decades, since it reduces their balance of trade advantage. If the Yuan was to become a significant (say 12% or more) world reserve currency, China would have to import far more than it exports. (Google the Triffin Dilemma)
The Petrodollar refers to the arrangement with Middle East countries where, in exchanging dollars for oil, they in turn invest the surplus dollars in US Equities and Treasuries. It is unlikely that most Middle East countries would want to do that with China, nor would China. With Russia perhaps, since it is looking like they are attempting to balance trade so that neither country has a sustained surplus.
My money is on Russia’s New Rules being a bigger success around the world than Dua Lipa’s monster 2017 hit.
found on ………. https://secretra.com/politics/…
What a surprise, Russia’s New Rules have infuriated the West
Russia has done away with the West. The divorce is almost complete. Over the past few days, all of Russia’s leaders have been saying the same thing: “Now the West will play by our rules,” Zerohedge writes.
What are the words of Sergey Lavrov in an interview with the BBC that “we don’t care what the West thinks.”
And this is taking into account the statements of British Prime Minister Johnson and Foreign Minister Liz Truss that “we must defeat Russia, we must bring Russia to its knees.”
Russia knows that it is holding the West in check. The West needs what Russia has. Now Moscow is determined to set its own rules: who gets what and at what price. The Kremlin knows that European leaders are puppets, sitting with their asses on the fingers of Klaus Schwab.
Now the West realizes that it has no leverage over Russia’s actions.
Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller said in his speech at the St. Petersburg Economic Investment Forum (SPEIF) that “the game of the nominal value of money is over, because this system does not allow controlling the supply of resources. Our products will dictate our terms. We don’t play by rules that we didn’t create.”
Miller’s words should be considered as the principle of Russia, applied in everything from the theater of military operations to politics and economics.
This applies not only to natural gas or oil. From now on, all Russian deals with the West will be made on it’s terms, not on the West’s terms. Miller made it clear that the old colonial conditions were no longer in use.
Obviously, this is the most powerful geopolitical humiliating gesture of Russia in the style of “fak” towards the West since the Second World War.
By limiting gas supplies to Europe, Miller promised to increase gas supplies to China. Russia is interested in the energy stability of its friends, while its enemies may starve until they come to their senses.
In these circumstances, the EU’s arrogance is particularly surprising. Their leaders almost declare war on Russia, and then pretend to be shocked that Russia treats them like this.
There is no doubt that despite the West’s disgruntled posture, Russia will continue to destroy the Ukrainian army and liberate territories that can then become either independent states or part of Russia.
At the moment, most likely, the latter, since Russia actively issues Russian passports in regions that have “left” Ukraine. The opinion of the US and the EU on this issue is no longer of concern to anyone.
Of course, the West will refuse to accept these new rules. But where will it go after Russia changes the borders, forming new alliances, and establishing a different world order?
Putin has already declared the Old World Order dead, pointing out that the West is committing suicide by satisfying the wishes of the Davos assessors and deliberators.
“Russia is entering a new era as a powerful sovereign country. We will definitely take advantage of the huge new opportunities that time opens up for us. And we will become even stronger ””
Putin is right here. Russia is getting stronger every day. The West did everything possible to destroy Russia, but failed.
Putin clearly identified those responsible for the problems of Europe and the United States. These are the oligarchs, whose subservience to them makes them feel like the rulers of the world.
With a special operation in Ukraine, Russia turned upside down the argument of the United States and Europe about the “rightness of the use of force”.
Today, even the most brainless Western citizen understands that the operation in Ukraine has the ultimate goal of changing relations between Russia and the West and breaking the imaginary “vassalage”.
Putin is hated for his understanding of the existence of two types of countries: “sovereign” and “vassal”.
His life’s work is to turn Russia into a “sovereign” state, free of the West.
From Russia’s point of view, the military operation in Ukraine is a declaration of independence from the old “rules-based order” of the post-World War II era.
We have begun to live in a new era, but who can survive in it is a question.
First of all as usual I’d like to thank for the superb job of Amarynth n Herb and the staff, you all keep doing an awesome job here, thank you all very much indeed.
Regarding to the problems inside Brasil and as has been put by some of my compatriots here, we have a very interesting mix of comprador elites totally mazed by liberal crap and that in fact want most people to effectively die, and as any well to do brazilian knows it’s said mostly in plain words when chatting having a good time and having some single-malt scotch. And those wealthy brazilians are in fact who decide in here, as prof. Luiz Checchia from USP and ARC has most properly explained in his book. Then we get to the political ignoramuses freak-show where “labour” always fights somebody else (known in portuguese as “anti-Lula”, easy to understand in English too), but in fact the PT or labour is nothing much but another way of our comprador micro-elites run our “Produktionsweise” using the appropriate Marxist terminology, and keeping everything just the way it already is but slightly better for the immense majority of miserable people living in our country. As Wellington Trotta, another brazilian professor has (bluntly) put it, Bolsonaro and Lula are both essentially neoliberals but Bolsonaro puts a “stinky buck” in the middle of the dining room and Lula will simply take the stinky off sight but it still be around, and the other things will stay absolutely the same. He’s not going to reverse the privatizing process that has being forcibly shove down our throats since the Jose Sarney in the late 80s and that gained momentum after Collor and Itamar and had FHC as it’s apex. “Labour” managed to keep that move and in fact they were never truly nationalists and protectors of genuine popular interests, but some sort of a gelatin that tries to put together many tendencies and therefore does not uses Cuban and Venezuelan and Iranian models but stay as a poor and dirty backyard of the anglo-zionist empire or the Empire of Lies helped by its bloody Lügenpresse. Cheers from warm and sunny Vale do Ipiranga.
Isso mesmo = That´s it!!! Ein wahres Wort!
The BRICKS are building a union, while the wolf (“Empire of Lies”) wants to blow their house down. Ben Norton article provided by Diana Johnstone documents the history of this sheep in wolf’s clothing and how it planned to eat the elephant one bite at a time. Ukraine is the biggest bite so far, and I think that they will choke on it.
https://popularresistance.org/us-govt-body-plots-to-break-up-russia-in-name-of-decolonization/
It seems to me the rest of the world has no choice BUT to launch an alternative payment system. 3 years ago I heard max kaiser say china was rolling out a new digital currency backed by gold. That was shortly before COVID. So it seems to me there is something more nefarious going on here and I would not put it past America to launch a nuclear war to prevent losing dollar hegemony.
Either you have sovereignty, or you are a colony. There is no middle ground. And Brazil has been a colony since the invasion of our territories by the Portuguese.
How to summarize in a commentary the long Brazilian historical tragedy?
To begin with, before being a state or nation Brazil was born as a transnational company operating the sugarcane business, around which more wealth circulated, proportionally, than in the oil and gas chain today.
Brazil’s “independence” was declared by a Portuguese prince. It was the last country in the world to abolish slavery, and former captives were forbidden to buy land. The republic was proclaimed by a monarchist military.
After the coup d’état of 1930, led by a landowner with strong fascist leanings, Brazil began to industrialize. Until 1980 it was the fastest growing country in the world, dominating heavy industry, aeronautics, nuclear and military technology.
Despite the Business-Military Dictatorship sponsored by Washington from 1964 onwards, Brazil followed a development process, but marked by the same characteristic: the economy comes, the people not so much.
Brazil’s heavy industrialization took place in the second half of the 1970s, under a military dictator who broke the military agreement with the USA (a country where he never set foot).
After Lula’s defeat in 1989 (in the first direct election for President after 1964), Brazil plunged into the atrocious neo-liberal night in which it wanders to this day. Not even during the 4 governments of the PT (Lula’s party) has this situation been reversed.
With the coup d’état of 2016, Brazil regresses once and for all to a neo-colonial condition. And the inauguration of Bolsonaro through the fraudulent elections of 2018, installs the Ukrainization of the country with the advance of neo-fascism.
Bolsonaro is the grotesque and repugnant personification of a ruling class whose greatest aspiration is to turn Brazil into a huge Puerto Rico.
Although his governing motto is “Brazil above all. God above all us.”, Captain Bolsonaro is proud to salute with continence the US flag.
Bolsonaro is currently involved with an embezzlement of funds from the Ministry of Education and Culture, in a corruption scheme operated through neo-Pentecostal pastors. God, obviously, is not part of the gang.
Lula, for his part, is far from being the kind of leadership capable of leading Brazil in a process to gain sovereignty.
On the contrary, Lula, since his first moment, back in 1972 as Trade Union Director, has always been a postulant of “peace and love”. To the point of boasting that in his governments “never before in Brazil have the bankers and big businessmen made so much money”.
Summary: there is no Brazil yet, there never was Brazil, either we Brazilians understand this, or we will continue as a colony.
Exactly the conversation is now completely different !
1492 – most ‘westerners’ today proclaim idea what that meant.
Columbus spent 7 years lobbying in Spain, Portugal, for financing – got it only when Spain’s Isabelle overran Granada.
And what did they find? Maize cob petroglyphs there, in the Grain-Store, Granada!
Constantinople (Istanbul) blocked the Silk Roads – so Go-West was strategic.
And, as reality strikes, a new continent was discovered (already known to Norse, Basque, Celts).
Maps provided by Torricelli, mission provided by German Cardinal Nicolas de Cusa, the founder of modern science (Docta Ignoranta).
European oligarchy never recovered.
THIS is deeply inside western hearts….
Hopefully this wraps up the more wishful thinking from some perspectives that the world has already changed with the SMO or a new system is (was) imminent.
If things are merely in the discussion phase, meaning there’s no plan ready to announce let alone implement, then that further reinforces the RF approach of going slow and methodical in the Ukraine specifically and other international supports more broadly (such as Syria and Venezuela).
More sober – less exuberant – analysis seems to point to about three possible core challenges:
1. RF is more isolated than people wish
2. PRC is more integrated with imperial interests than people wish, and/or
3. Even at this late stage, the empire remains more powerful (more popular among Zone B ruling classes) than people wish
While it will be interesting to see how things unfold in the future, the fundamental takeaway from the summit is that the world hasn’t changed. China doesn’t even know what it wants an alternative international financial system to look like (or still doesn’t want to say publicly yet) never mind offering a road map of how to get from point A to point B.
Sobriety is for dummies – Even the Romans said In Vino Veritas!
So cop on!
The West is utterly and irredeemably bankrupt – dangerous precisely because of fear and loathing that $2 Quadrillion debt buys!
A road map must mean not only a Noah’s Ark out of this flood, but a new system – the old one is a gone bunny.
As Bob Newhart said – How Long Can You Tread Water?
well well well… take away the uranium – no nuclear fuel for most of the western world, foremost that mighty centre of your universe. take away that titanium – no airplane and modern armoury for anyone who wants supreme military and civilan hardware. take away that gas and oil – your whole universe has to whimper for that last grasp of source of life. US sanction of Huawei ranks infinitively less potent than a dwindling supply of inert compounds for that advanced state of semi-conductor manufacturers in any domain of the western imperium. You cannot talk power and prestige when someone has a lock hold on your throat, can you? It is over and done with my friend.
In Addition:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/24/brazil-amazon-world-anything-can-happen/
” We’d planned for some time to write about the politics of Indigenous protection in Brazil. How dangerous this has become. Now, there are two more victims in the story, journalist Dom Phillips and his friend, defender of Indigenous rights, Bruno Pereira. Their deaths are tragic confirmation, if such a thing were needed, that President Jair Messias Bolsonaro’s response after they disappeared, “Anything can happen”, was a threat rather than a lament. The murderers of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira weren’t just some illegal fishermen in a remote part of the jungle. Responsibility also lies with an exceptionally criminal system called a “government”.
In a 2019 article, Dom Phillips quoted a Macuxi spokesman, Edinho de Souza, “We are not fighting the farmer, a little garimpeiro. We are fighting the government.” As Indigenous people and environmental defenders know, “The bullets that kill journalists, activists and Indigenous people in Amazonia are bought with money from land grabs, illegal mining and logging”, high priorities of the Bolsonaro government. Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips were murdered in the remote Amazon region of Vale do Javari, Brazil’s second largest Indigenous territory, near the borders with Peru and Colombia, home to more uncontacted tribes (who reject contact) than anywhere else in the world, and also an extremely violent place because of illegal mining, logging, drug, and poaching activities. However tragic these two murders are in themselves, they’re even worse because of what they represent: the danger to anyone who tries to protect the Amazon and its peoples.
In fact, Bolsonaro himself, delaying the search efforts and callously attempting to blame the two men for their fate, actually obeyed the compulsion to confess what Edinho de Souza and his people know all too well: “Really two people just on a boat, in a region like that, completely wild, is an adventure that is not recommended to do … Anything can happen.” If the region is “completely wild”, the Bolsonaro government has done everything possible to make it so. If defending Indigenous rights is an “adventure”, he’s proclaiming his contempt for Indigenous rights. If Phillips was “disliked” in the region, as Bolsonaro claims, the question is who disliked him (no prizes for guessing the answer: the government and its henchmen). Finally, the mainstream press, which prominently reported politicians like Boris Johnson and other eminences as expressing “deep concern” about the two men, mostly gave said concerned eminences more coverage than the valuable work Pereira and Phillips were doing. Their deaths were reported, arrests were reported, but there was little attempt to explain why they were killed and, going up the chain of responsibility, who wanted this. Bolsonaro can feel that his threat is successful. “
Excuse me, but it seems to me those killed are liberals and environmentalists. Hypocrites who couldnt care less about anything other than their own pockets and self-goodness.
Remember that most de-foresting Amazonas is done by European and British big Corporations, and that Dom Philips exactly is a free-lance environmentalist journalist for these interest in Western MSM.
Those Brazilian land owners and Brazilian farmers who burn much less of Amazonas than big Western business are always smeared in MSM, The Times, The Sun, etc, and Bolsonaro has so far defended his own countrymen in this game to much anger in London and Brussel.
Not saying these men were killed for these reasons, just saying that the local anger against these Western types of do-gooders and hypocrites has good reasons.
And no matter it always appears to get worse!
Now is the the time to get rid of Bolsonaro and take the
Country back!
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/24/the-wide-role-brazils-military-has-played-in-the-destruction-of-the-amazon/
“1. RF is more isolated than people wish
2. PRC is more integrated with imperial interests than people wish
3. Even at this late stage, the empire remains more powerful (and more popular even among Zone B ruling classes) than people wish ”
Three key talking-points from the Trolls Handbook: “How to Spread Despondency”.
@citizen8
You mistake Chinese reticence for Chinese weakness /cowardice. Washington ‘s continual hegemony is mutually exclusive to Beijing’s rise. Those in power in Beijing have no illusions on that.
It is actually patience, calculating , proper planning of how to counter Western Hegemony. These type of transitions must be done cautiously not to backfire on Beijing . China has no immediate interest to make Yuan the reserve currency. The aim is not to make Ruble or Rupee or Yuan as a replacement of the mighty USD….the mighty USD being one of the prerequisites for American geopolitical supremacy.The aim is to dethrone the USD as hegemonic reserve currency. Ie international trade can be done with OTHER national currencies on the majority rather than USD being used in the majority of international trade. Do that, rather than yuan replacing the USD , would curtail US hegemony without harming China’s economy with Yuan as a reserve currency.
No one wants to destroy the USA. That will destabilise the world order. The way is to exhaust USA and erode its influence and power gradually. This is helped with the determination by USA elites to keep their number 1 status at all costs. that attitude is a weakness to be exploited. Anyhow Washington is making all the errors by its mostly ideological/quasi religious hatred towards Russia. Its anti civilizational, woke, liberal societal values -now almost held as a pseudo gospel , will corrupt its societies from within. These are all gross mistakes the West adhere to steadfastly. Why should Beijing alarm the USA by quickly adopting de dollarization moves? Washington is making huge strategic mistakes with Russia and their societal value systems- and so let that continue! Let them believe their own lies/hubris.
The ultimate aim is a Washington weakened enough to actually come to the negotiating table and start learning the art of diplomacy again. In other words, slowly dragging USA into a soft landing implosion without triggering a WW3. The Ukraine debacle was a trap set by the West for Russia. Russia purposely fell for the trap(perhaps didn’t had much realistic choices anyhow). It is a crisis but also an opportunity to pry open Washington’s weaknesses. Beijing is doing that in the quiet and with no fanfare. Unlike the West, we Asians do work behind the scenes and don’t like to announce what we shall do next.
Reticence, patience, calculating, planning, caution, exhaust, gradual, slow, quiet, no fanfare, don’t like to announce what we shall do next…
Where do we disagree? The difference between me and an interventionist is that I make no judgment about whether these qualities are the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to approach a challenge (from the Chinese perspective that is – from the RF perspective which is more my interest here, I do affirmatively put myself in the camp that believes that going slowly and cautiously and methodically has been a ‘good’ strategy).
Either way, China in 2022 remains interconnected with the imperial currencies/bankers/etc. This is true until it is not. And the interesting analytical question is what, exactly, happens when it is not (and when, exactly, that will be the case).
The main issues with BRICS is China, which is bullying its smaller neighbors including India. China supplied nuclear technology to Pakistan and helped them make the nuclear bomb to neutralize India so that China could achieve its hegemonic ambitions in Asia and the world.
Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif in his speech after the nuclear test openly thanked China for helping it with the nuclear bomb. China is claiming the land and seas of its neighbors as its own, be it India, Philippines, Japan, Vietnam etc.
It has already plundered the resources of Myanmar and North Korea.
No wonder it’s neighbors are cautious and do not see much difference between the Western Hegemon and China.
Both are untrustworthy yet preach morality to the world.
@TJ
All of them are untrustworthy. Preaching morality is what big powers do to justify whatever actions that justify the interests of their ruling elites – USA, EU, China, Russia , India, Pakistan, Israel, Japan, whatever. None of them are saints .
The issue is whether we prefer the current status quo where USA calls the shots and all the rest of the world are merely different grades of vassals or a multipolar one where no one can call it shots but need to negotiate their interests . I prefer the latter option .
Countries should learn to differentiate between industrial capitalism that makes useful products and financial capitalism whose only objective is to subject people to debt slavery
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks…will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered…. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
– Thomas Jefferson in the debate over the Re-charter of the Bank Bill (1809)
China creates its domestic money supply debt free.
And that is why it is in the US gunsights surrounded by US military bases