We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Week Nine of the Russian Intervention in Syria: The Empire Strikes Back

Click here to access article by "The Saker" from The Unz Review.

The Russian born author and independent blogger who resides in Florida reviews recent events that have led up to the present crisis in Syria and nearby Iraq, and the implications that these events have for an extremely dangerous world conflict between nuclear powers. I share his concern.

His argument reminds me of the so-called "appeasement" policies by Western capitalist countries toward the aggressive actions of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Such policies were aimed at the Soviet Union which had defeated capitalist forces during their revolution of 1917. Such policies encouraged the Nazis to engage in one aggression after another because they had little fear that other capitalist nations would interfere. But the times have changed a bit. Now with NATO having lured many ruling capitalist classes of the nations in Eastern Europe to their fold, it seems that any one member can act with impunity, as Turkey has recently demonstrated, with full Empire approval. So, if somehow the events in Syria and Iraq don't lead to a catastrophic war, another threat to world peace is still likely. Let me review a little history to see some earlier parallels with the present.

After the Soviet forces defeated the backbone of the Nazi armies at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/1943, the Western allies began to seriously attack Nazi armies with the result that the Allies together with Russia won the war. However the capitalist countries never forgave the Soviets for their "treachery" of rejecting capitalism. This immediately led to the Cold War and many proxy wars up until the collapse of the antiquated version of socialism in the Soviet Union in 1990. However, since then Russia has recovered from the widespread corruption and theft of its industries by oligarchs, and has pursued an independent course among nations. This was still intolerable to Empire directors. 

Simultaneous with this history, the other Allies, the capitalist countries, morphed into the US Empire which pursued the same course of global domination as did their Nazi predecessors, only using much more sophisticated strategies of Gladio programs and many other forms of subversive actions. It has been clear for quite some time that there can be no independent countries in the scheme of these new empire builders. Hence Russia, China, and all other countries--as well as workers in their own countries--must bow down to the authority of the capitalist elites in this New World Order of the 21st century. Or else!