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

Thursday, November 8, 2018

Pakistan in the middle of Saudi, Iran and rival pipeline plans

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times. 

The master of pipeline politics describes the complex nature of the two oil/gas pipeline systems that are in competition in the Middle East and Eurasia, and that the forces promoting these two systems might experience a tectonic shift affecting the power struggle between the US Empire versus the emerging and powerful Chinese-Russian coalition. Now stir the analysis provided in the previous post into the stew of geopolitical interests described in this article to see what you get. Could the Khashoggi incident along with the sanctions be the catalyst that could produce such a tectonic shift? Although Escobar does not factor in the Khashoggi incident, he sees one possibility:
... an irresistible geopolitical pull – heavily influenced by Washington’s sanctions obsession – would drive Turkey-Iran-Pakistan closer to BRI [China's Belt and Road Initiative] and trading in their own currencies or in yuan.
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