Is Russia a Cruel & Damaged Nation
— Or is Western Propaganda Best In The World?
Frankly, America’s GOPwingers, backed by neocons, have always demonstrated the worst kind of ugly politics. But they’ve consistently won elections ever since John F. Kennedy was shot. Mixed into the long years of Nixon-Ford and Reagan & the Bushes was Democrat Bill Clinton. But he became a president who, except in rhetoric, copycat his presidency as though a Republican. So essentially did Obama, and now Biden.
The days of strong pro-union, assertively environmental and vehemently anti-war Democrats gradually faded under the Clinton wing of the party. Indeed, the Clinton Democrats melded with Bush Republicans in order to worship and legislate on behalf of America’s oligarchy (see 2014 Princeton Study on Oligarchy).
Not only did America see lots of war under the Obama Administration, but Obama had a prime time opportunity to change the balance of domestic America. It was under his watch that America’s Occupy Movement was formed. Hundreds of thousands of Americans camped out and marched throughout America’s cities in order to highlight, protest and demand a change to income inequality. Obama, as a Democrat, should have embraced this movement. Instead, he shut it down!
Under the influence of highly-paid political consultants, Donald Trump was brought on. Trump, who like Ronald Reagan as a celebrity, became very capable of muddying the political waters. While both Reagan and Trump’s celebrity distractions metastasized in varying ways, the money smoothly always went to fat cats at the top. Interestingly, the Obama and Trump administrations saw 90% of all new wealth go to America’s very wealthy.
The average American household became riddled with over $150,000 in debt as the once fabled American Dream today fades into collapse. America’s poor folk, who already had slipped through the cracks, have been living in what amounts to an underground economy, working multiple deadbeat jobs with no benefits, hoping for a drug deal gone good, winning a scratch ticket or success with the local meat raffle.
Check this out:
I believe it was journalist Aaron Maté who coined the phrase: Narrative Politics vs. Facts-Based Politics. Let’s examine.
Sadly and paradoxically, today’s Democrats that would rather view Putin and Trump bare-chested on the same horse …
… than concentrate on building viable unions or worker coops, significantly improving the environment, adding social workers into policing or ending disastrous worldwide wars.
With the narrative politics of Russiagate, Democrats have become so blinded they’re completely unaware that Russia has adopted policies that would make Franklin D. Roosevelt and JFK very proud. Some would even argue Putin is a better Democrat than is Biden, Schumer or Pelosi. I am among them!
For the record, FDR gave us The American Dream. JFK and his brother Robert F. Kennedy wanted to expand this dream into America’s communities of color. But both prominent Democrats were assassinated along with famous black community leaders like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, et. al. It was like the progressive roots of America got pulled all at once!
Here are some of the Russian policies over which Putin presides:
Vladimir Putin’s World Influence
Russia, under Putin, has gained the respect of many nations. His leadership aimed to create the formation of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South America), an economic and trade group partnership. BRICS presently represents 43% of the world’s population.
As a comparative, NATO represents only 15%.
Seriously wanting to join BRICS are Iran, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt. Also expressing interest is Mexico and South Korea. Including these populations means BRICS, if fully formed, would represent about 46% of the world population.
Then there is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) which consists of eight Member Nations (China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan); four Observer Nations (Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia); and nine Dialogue Partner Nations (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey). These are highly-populated nations.
Russia is even talking about forming its own version of The G-8. How will this compare to the US-led G-8? Well, the US unipolar hegemon bloc of nations consists mostly of nine Caucasian nations, plus one Asian nation (Japan): Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. There is no diversity!
What will Russia’s G-8 look like? Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said the new G-8 would involve: China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Iran and Turkey. Clearly, the Russian variation is racially diverse and better reflective of the whole globe. It’s not just a few elite nations with a history of economies that rape over the smaller undeveloped countries, leaving the smaller nation indebted to the hegemon.
The Global South — Africa, South America and Latin America — will certainly view the Russian and Chinese economic and industrial initiatives favorably. These nations will become happy to trade in an environment without a bully military locking them into unfair and perpetual IMF loans. They’d be happy to receive diplomats more interested in fair trade than economic advantage.
Look for a lot more leadership from South America when progressive candidate Luiz Lula defeats conservative candidate Jair Bolsnaro and becomes the new president of Brazil. It appears Lula will win in the first round of voting. His election will make for a very strong group of nations seeking progressive solutions for the future. I’m anxious to see how Mexico’s López Obrador and Lula team up for the near future.
Effects of Western Sanctions?
With China a willing and ready partner, what with China’s continually expanding Belt Road Initiative (BRI), the last thing Russia need worry about is market share for importing or exporting its products. Keep in mind Russia is abundant in oil, gold, uranium, wheat and fertilizer products. Russia also never gave up its industrial base. Couple all the above with Russia being the 9th-least indebted nation on earth and this means Russia is in a lot better position than Western media portrays.
The sanctions from the Ukrainian war, in fact, are having a boomerang effect especially for Europe which is collapsing more and more each passing day. Europe is heading into a dreadful winter with a very uncertain supply of energy, likely not enough to meet its residential, commercial and industrial needs. The US will be of no help. The US will suffer serious inflation and likely see an increasing loss of market share in general, especially in the face of China’s enormous economic, military and diplomatic achievement.
Meanwhile, let’s take a peak at economies Then, Now and a bit of Tomorrow:
In my humble opinion, I don’t believe the above YouTube map chart graphic adequately reflects Russia’s potential. Why? Because the rapidly melting Arctic will open not only a whole new platform of world resources for Russia, it will also open a whole new northern seaway route likely to become very profitable. Russia, with 12 different time zones, controls 53% of the Arctic coastline. This will fit nicely with China’s BRI and certainly help Russia’s bottom line.
Also, as the world importantly transitions into greener energies (see China’s advancements) it will be the US and the Russian oil supply that will likely do well. Russia, in the future, will see lots of profits from its oil industry. And since the money doesn’t only go into the greedy pockets of elite oligarchs like what will happen in America, the Russian government and its people will benefit from increased oil sales.
Perhaps this is why the below condition concerning the Nord Streem pipelines has erupted in the midst of this writing:
Additionally, Russia also held the foresight to build a large fleet of polar icebreakers which now consists of 37 icebreaker ships, several more are planned and some already are under construction. As part of Russia’s fleet are six nuclear-powered icebreakers. Next in line is Canada with 21 ships, 19 of which are Coast Guard-owned. Sweden and Finland each have seven icebreakers. Pitifully, the US has only two.
Conclusion
Russia — without US, UK, EU and NATO interference — would probably be doing very well as a nation. Its partnership with China is rapidly changing the world with positive influence. Many intellectuals argue the US makes a grave mistake by not joining Russia and China as they embark on new policies seemingly aimed at making the world a better place.
America seems lost. Very lost. Why? Because center-right and right-wing politics have ruled for oligarchy and have completely locked progressives out from the decision-making process. America’s government, including its media, has become subservient to oligarchy. Anyone who truly examines the last hundred years of progress in America clearly can discern the positive influence progressives have contributed. But this influence has notably been absent the last few decades.
Progressive voices have been locked out of America’s politics. This is evidenced by what happened with the two political campaigns of Bernie Sanders. Democrats, not Russians, rigged the 2016 Democratic Primary. The progressive candidate who never trailed in the polls against the Republican candidate got shut out due to the wrongful superdelegate system and other serious irregularities propagated by Clinton machine politics (see Wikileaks disclosures).
The Democrats? There has been no progressive Democratic president since JFK was shot! Will the party recover? Or must a viable third political party be formed?
The last time capitalism overpowered the Democrats the party was able to bounce back and recover by electing JFK. But his life and his political vision got cut short. So what happened during the FDR purge? FDR’s progressive vice president, Henry Wallace, should have become the president after FDR died during his 4th term. But Wallace was removed from the Democratic ticket due to harsh back room politics, similar to today’s Clinton-styled politics. Wallace was replaced by Harry Truman (favored by the capitalists). Had the progressive Wallace become the president and not Truman? Atomic bombs never would have fallen on the people of Japan!
I fear a similar fate if progressives do not get back on track in America. Already, given an inability to find reason in Ukraine, without progressives in power, America is on the verge of nuclear war and the rhetoric towards this has become overbearing. Certainly, the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines is not helpful.
The problem is nobody in America is thinking clearly or realizing that Putin has been rational and his demands from Ukraine were, in fact, reasonable. A careful and prudent consideration would have avoided the war we’re seeing today.
But America wanted the proxy war and got it (see Rand Corp report: Overextending and Unbalancing Russia — Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options). Even in the face of all of this, Putin did not place a Shock and Awe condition on Ukraine, as Bush and Cheney did on Iraq. Putin didn’t even shut down Ukraine’s national transportation hubs, electricity transmission lines or Internet service.
Before Russia’s military action in defense of the two Donbass sovereign republics, Putin always called for Ukraine to remain whole by implementing The Minsk Accords. Putin also, after Russia having three times been internationally invaded through Ukraine, wanted neutrality and the offensive-minded NATO to stay out of Ukraine. Instead, NATO took Europe’s poorest nation and converted it into Europe’s 2nd-largest military, while constantly taunting Russia.
It seems the final straw for war came when Ukraine’s president spent a week boosting how Ukraine had the materials, technology and know-how to reconstitute its nuclear program from back when it was part of the Soviet Union. Very shortly after this, Russia began its US traditionally-styled ‘military incursion.’
Finally, go ahead if you wish. Take a page from US-UK highly paid public relations specialists who wrongfully and absurdly parrot Putin in league with Trump and MAGA GOPwingers who have absolutely nothing in common with Putin’s history of political accomplishment (see above). On balance, I suspect Putin hates Trump and his sycophants both for their ignorance and lack of progressive understandings.
If anyone would better like to understand Russia, I strongly recommend they read the writing of the late-Stephen F. Cohen, a longtime journalist, former editor of The Nation and husband of its publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel. Ask yourself: Is Putin progressive, or not?
Best of luck to all seeking a stronger and more coherent understanding to what’s actually going on!
