ANNE WILLIAMSON AGAIN: ON RUSSIA AND GERMANY
I had such a response to my previous posting of an article by Anne Williamson, that I had to share this one, because it contains three statements that have echoed some of my own intuitions about the emerging long term geopolitical situation vis-a-vis Russia and Germany, and it also contains a final bombshell. Here's the article:
The NATO Syndrome, the EU’s Eastern Partnership Program, and the EAU
Now let's take note of the first interesting analysis from Ms. Williamson, which occurs in this set of statements right at the very beginning of her article:
"In 2009, Poland and Sweden, ever attentive to the US’s geostrategic goals of isolating Russia and gaining control of China thereafter, initiated the Eastern Partnership program, which its sponsors said was intended to tighten ties with former Soviet Republics, such as Moldova, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine. A trade pact is a part of the Partnership’s Association Agreement (AA) deal."(emphasis added)
Note the implication of her remarks, for what she is clearly implying is something we touched on earlier this past week, and that is the long-term American strategy for dealing with China. You'll recall that I blogged about the article by Mr. Mearsheimer that appeared in the CFR journal Foreign Policy. You'll recall that Mearsheimer maintained that the American strategy is counter-intuitive, and that no one - neither Berlin, Brussels, Washington, nor Moscow - stood to gain from the current posture regarding the Ukraine or Russian sanctions. As I also indicated, however, the Russians in general, and Mr. Putin and his advisors in particular, are keenly aware of any attempt by the West to dominate Russia (even those that might be coming in the form of an olive branch in the CFR's journal!). You'll recall that Mr. Mearheimer's ultimate long term concern was that Russia could play a pivotal role in the West's attempt to hedge in the rising power of China, and hence it was essential to mend the badly battered relationships between Russia and the West.
But Ms.Williamson is suggesting something different, though similar: the Ukrainian fiasco is less about isolating Russia, but rather, making that nation subservient to the West's long term geopolitical agenda, which is precisely to hedge in China's growing power and influence. In other words, it is not a difference of agendas that distinguish hers and Mearsheimer's articles, but rather only the method by which to do so: force Russia to compliance, versus having it as a voluntary partner.
The second "bombshell" contained in the article concerns the EU in general, and Germany in particular:
"Fast forward to 21 February 2014, the day of the Yanukovich government’s violent ouster. Earlier that day, Germany, France and Poland had brokered a compromise agreement between the elected Ukrainian government and the protestors’ spokesmen. Having already agreed and executed much of the protestors’ agenda, the pre-2004 Ukrainian constitution was to be restored and Yanukovich, in turn, would stay in the diminished office of the presidency until new elections could be organized.
"Within 12 hours of the agreement’s signing, dozens of corpses of demonstrators and police killed by sniper fire were reported in the Maidan. On Saturday, in an un-constitutional procedure the Ukrainian parliament impeached Yanukovich, who then fled to Russia in fear of his life.
The Russian Foreign Ministry Russian Foreign Ministry observed that the Friday agreement was used “with the tacit consent of its external sponsors” as a “cover to promote the script of a forced change of power in Ukraine.” In other words, the Russians smelled a high-stakes trick.
Trick it may or may not have been, but Ms. Williamson is also reading the same economic and therefore geopolitical realities in Europe that we have expressed previously on this site, Germany's position within the tapestry of the EU and the NATO alliance may not be as secure and pat a matter as western planners wish:
"If so, then what explains Germany’s support of the US lead? Since Russia supplies a third of the gas for Germany’s economy, risking Russia’s alienation seems unwise.
"The cat western media doesn’t let out of the bag is the fact that Germany has a full tank of gas, and there’s plenty more from where that came from.
"Gazprom’s Baltic Sea ‘Nord Stream’ project is complete and is now transporting Russian gas to Germany through a pipeline that transverses the bottom of the Baltic Sea, and the pipe’s capacity is double the amount of gas Germany purchased from Russia in 2012. Since 2005, the chairman of the supervisory board of the management company of Nord Stream is Gerhard Shröder, the former German chancellor.
"Gazprom in conjunction with Italy, France and Germany is building a second pipe, South Stream. The former SPD mayor of Hamburg, Henning Voscherau, plays the same supervisory role at South Stream Transport AG as Shröder does at Nord Stream.
"Interestingly, the Financial Times reported that the City’s skittishness in the wake of John Kerry’s idiotic ultimatum to Putin to renounce in advance the results of the referendum in Crimea put ‘half a dozen live deals to fund some of Russia’s biggest companies” in limbo.” But the FT article highlighted one deal that was not put in limbo: “South Stream announced that it had signed a contract worth about EUR2 billion with Saipem of Italy to build the offshore stretch of the route under the Black Sea from Russia to Bulgaria. Construction is scheduled to start in June.”
"Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller has been quoted as saying that the two projects in combination with the already-existing Belorussian “Beltansgaz” pipe would turn Ukraine’s network of gas pipelines and biggest strategic asset into “scrap.”
"In other words, Germany’s verbal support for the west’s initiatives costs Germany exactly nothing. Any actions beyond the symbolic would cost Germany. Therefore, there will be no EU sanctions of consequence. Even were Germany on side for a US-decreed suicide mission, twenty-eight nations’ governments are not going to agree to economic policies that will take the cost out of their own hides. In other words, no State Department neo-con princess is going to ‘’F**k the EU.”
"With the Nord and South stream projects in hand, Germany, which has prospered mightily from the euro, but whose taxpayers are weary of bankrolling the sinking Mediterranean countries’ loans made by the prosperous north’s banks, has positioned itself remarkably well; in an EU financial pile-up, exiting the EU wouldn’t amount to much more than a fender bender."
In other words, Germany's energy dependence on Russia is hardly effected at all by the Ukrainian matter, since both countries have been busily ensuring the supply by by-passing the Ukraine entirely. And Williamson is seeing the same long-term handwriting on the wall that we have suggested here: Germany's economic interests have little to do with Washington's geopolitical agenda and are indeed somewhat contrary to it. One wonders if Germany would even still be a member of NATO if it were not for the presence of American military bases there.
But there is a final bombshell in the article:
"Now that west has adopted Bolshevik political tools, the Russians ought to keep turning the tables and counter with what the west advocates only with words, i.e. freedom and economic competition."
And in proof of this, she offers a final parting shot:
"After all, who would have thought in 2001 that the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, would liberate the greatest number of people on the planet?
'Say what!?' you ask.
"If any reader knows of another leader of a major power, who instituted a flat tax of 13% or less, and thereby liberated his people from the necessity of burdensome record keeping and government tracking, while eliminating from households’ budgets the grievous costs of accountants, tax lawyers, offshore scams, and sparing everyday life the social costs inherent in a society riven by the divisiveness that comes of progressive taxation, then, dear reader, please do email me that name."
Apparently the Russians - or Mr. Putin at least - were closely watching those 1980s American political debates when certain people were advocating the abolition of the progressive income tax and the establishment of a flat tax.
See you on the flip side...
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Do any of these people read your books here doktor? America is run by paper clip cronies via the NSA/CIA combination takeover in the fifties with Skorzeny’s SS mind control apparatus. This is not high oktane speculation folk’s , this is real stuff the gut doktor has written about. Gehlen had access to the high security codes for the data uplinks to our spy,communications,goggle,sat nav,etc,etc as well as the down link codes. Ge-wiz kids, the krouts got it all and still have it, and all your cry babyin ain’t gonna get it back,not unless your willing to role up your sleeve’s and get your hands dirty,and lets not forget you gotta learn signal corps big secrets about voice to skull communications systems,both micro-wave and millimeterwave with their thought reflecting capabilities. If you ain’t ready for that challenge then stop sellin woof tickets like your ready to rock and roll. Get educated and believe what educators like the gut doktor tell you is true and remember all of it always not just when it seems convenient, he’s a brave man to tell what he has learned about these criminals and don’t forget as he hasn’t, just how dangerous (and powerful) these people can be if they consider you a threat to their plans. If you do nothing else,at least say a prayer for Joey for the galactic risk he has taken allowing his work to be shared with you , truely a man of God if there ever was one. Every thing is staged on T.V…..everything.
take your own advice buddy…and dont forget, those poor people only need a map to your door…tough guy
a little history lesson .
.once upon a time,
god created a world,
it was perfect,
and then it was not
and here we are….
Excellent article and commentary; thank you.
Putin to Merkel:
“Eh, hey Ange, those pesky Americans are making it tough for you guys.
Merkel to Putin:
Listen Vlad, don’t I know it, but they wont get all they want, I still have a few ace’s left, and the game isn’t over until “I” say it is, so just sit tight, how about we crack a bottle of vodka!!
Does anyone remember this article that appeared in The BRICS Post, and how that might affect things in Germany and other Eiropean countries?
http://thebricspost.com/in-seoul-putin-backs-new-trade-corridor/#.U_-VxYbD-Uk
“During his state visit to Seoul, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his South Korean counterpart Park Geun-hye signed a number of agreements including setting up a joint investment platform and joint shipbuilding centre in Russia.
South Korea is the last leg of Putin’s Asia tour that also took him to Vietnam.
Putin in Seoul backed a new Asian-European rail trade route, a transport corridor linking the Asia-Pacific region, Central Asia, and Europe.”
Politically speaking, America is looking like the slow kid with his shoelaces tied together. Whoever is “handling” this side is either doing a terrible job or is purposefully killing the US.
As for Russia, apart from US/NATO issues, they will find China to be their adversary. China has no doubt spied the vast open land and resources, and the relatively few people populating Russia’s eastern half. If the US bogeyman is out of the picture China may feel free to predate on Siberia.
China historically protects its borders from encroachment by constructing barriers and walls. China is patient and waits for its opponents to make strategic mistakes.
The tax system that is historical best is the progressive tax. However, Benjamin Franklin stated that with public banking in place no tax would be necessary, unless inflation were to creep into the economy. Only then would taxes be imposed until the flow of new currency, being issued by the people’s’ bank, resumed “equilibrium, at that time the new tax would be repealed.
Ideally the “country” would issue it’s own currency to enable a fully employed and vibrant economy.
Not the current privatized banksters command & control economy.
tax is the ax in the head, which when struck bruises ones brain so not too think about what ones doing and for whom…which of course father leaves nothing to his son and so the genocide occurs….
the ugly, big nose, glutton scam of the story tellers….it really worked, and worked and worked for the holocaust survivors…and then….it stopped working.
Yes. Only a return to US currency issued debt free will ever get us free from the Banksters.
OffTopic but, I think it was Davy Crockett who once stood up in Congress and spoke against the government ‘gifting’ $10,000 to the widow of a famous General. He argued that if the members of Congress wanted to give the widow some money they should do so out of their own pockets, but not from the public’s money.
the US will always have a debt free current….it is called lead.
any criminal coming ashore will soon find out the realities in the dream world.
If you fight long enough, smart enough;
the oligarch will perhaps give you a choice: silver or lead?.
then into potters field, in a unmarked grave, in a pine box…you go
pine cause its soft wood, unmarked cause you didn’t make one bit of a difference.
which reminds me of a little poem by my grade 5 teacher Mr Witmer.
When I was a little boy I was sly so
mamma took a little stick and made me cry
now i am a big boy and she cant do it
So Pappa takes a bigger stick and goes right to it.
The Oligarchs are just as worried as the rest of us these days. Probably more so… materialism, what use is it with out freedom. Everyone faces the same fate in the end afterall.
The alternate close is not a choice(silver or bullets).
As far as fate?
Well, that’s Shakespearean…
to say the least.
Robert, Robert, Robert….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTIen-zmOfg
borderline personality disorder, those babies are packed with plastic C4 explosives and deer John is caught in the headlines.
You’ve heard of the invisible hand, now ewe wonder who was flying the invisible jets.
Hint, remote control
warning…should of given a spit out coffee alert on keyboard.
This century has begun with the centennial of the Great War 1914 and the millennial of the battle of Clontarf in Ireland 1014 and will end with the sexcentenary of the discovery of America 2092 and the millennial of the first Crusade 2096. One wonders what jacks in the boxes surprises await to be open along the way to this century end. The nine hundred anniversary of the first Crusade came and went without comment unlike the nine hundred anniversary of the Norman Conquest. But then our oligarch’s have no sense of history and never had one at all. If they had they would never do the acts they done these last centuries.
Western elites in general and US elites in particular, built up China through a one way “free” trade policy, effectively handing China our manufacturing base. Quite odd behaviour if they wanted to prevent the rise of China.
Chinas problem is feeding its people…..the Chinese now know how to fish, build fishing rods, run stock markets, print money, enslave people, built up property, build weapons, and make more people….lol, boy oh boy, did the jews ever think they had it made in 63…lol, who walks in whose shadow now?
The beast from the east…enter the Dragon.
Indeed. If we want to name names, China was “opened” by GHW Bush, enduring head of the Bush Crime Syndicate.
Chao ab Ordo?
I have the sense that Ukraine will turn out to be the destabilisation that broke the camel’s back.
Germany is no longer complacent — or complicit — and all indicators agree that its elites are highly alarmed by Washington’s increasingly unmoored insanities. They are working feverishly behind the scenes to prepare themselves for the Great Uncoupling, as are any number of vassal states — sorry, I meant “allies” — and it appears that Washington will be the one blind-sided in the next act of this melodrama, if it continues with this insanity.
They are going after a people that run the money scams….dead weight.
The idea of taxation was abhorrent a hundred years ago.
Wow, I don’t know anything about taxation strategies, but this seems like a very illuminating article, to me, anyway. If I understand correctly, the USG wants to balkanize Russia not so much to neutralize Russia, but as a further step towards keeping a lid on China. Now, all this is more of less “visible” geopolitical wrangling. Where, I would like to know, do black-project weapons come into play? Is there an invisible, second tier geopolitical struggle going on roughly in tandem with the visible one? If the USG can order up an earthquake in Japan when that country starts talking about booting all USG forces, what is going on behind the scenes when there would appear to be much bigger struggles going on?
Taxes are theft of able bodied workers, the idea was too support freeloaders and bums that hid out in fancy offices, with outrageous costumes pretending to be so important to the system that it would collapse without them.
Then came fractional reserve banking, which is basically bank robbery which supports a even larger group of really dumb people who have years and years of hard core bs theories, and distorted sexual fantasies indoctrination that they actually believe with the most sincere convictions that it works. While the bums and freeloaders get too live the most lavish lifestyles imaginable. Any one that questions anything is removed from the gravy train and convicted, publicly humilated for sexual perversions, murder, etc. and is forced to eke out a living and being severely harassed by the systems enforcers (guys with guns, bumbs, tanks etc in really imitating official looking costumes hand picked for violence non empathy toward living beings…robots).
It really is that simple.
and if it looks like it is going to collapse by non involvement of the serfs, they just have a war killing off the most amount of people possible and destroying all of the infrastructure so as to…start taxing the new group of human flowers. which is effectively a system reset button.
It appears, that the new vegetative human flowers are genetically selected for non problem solving abilities and violent tendencies from the worst living environments imaginable, (generally collapsed empires of the parasites descendents who no longer think of themselves as bums and freeloaders but actually great intellects of royal pedigree bloodlines that have been infused with gods own sperm and who are convinced that humanities entire existence now rests upon there shoulders….the burden they carry).
Of course oligarches like Steve Forbes want a flat tax.
In other words flat income taxes are a massive benefit to very wealthy people.
And there was no serious flat tax debate in the USA in the 1980s, still a massive reduction in taxes for the wealthy and massive new tax write offs fro corporate entities.
Oh, I get it this was posted at Lew Rockwell.
Bingo! we have a winner!
Lost is right on the money re: the flat tax.
It serves only the interests of the wealthy: 15% of $20k is dire, but 15% of $20 million is relatively peanuts.
A flat income tax would be a benefit to very high income earners, yes. Income taxes do not even touch wealthy people. Talk to Warren Buffet about why he pays less income tax than does his secretary. A tax on people’s wealth would do some economic harm to them, but they laugh at people who do not understand the current tax code.
You got it right to say the tax code has all sorts of ‘carve-outs’ for campaign donor’s. When CEO’s started taking stock options in lieu of high incomes as payment for their services that tactic neutered the affect of the progressive income tax on them.
The tax code is in shambles. An income tax allows the IRS to institute severe penalties against income earners. The IRS is always “right” until they are proven “wrong”.
So, before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusions and thinks I support a flat tax do your homework and learn the difference between taxes on production, i.e. human labor, versus wealth and income that is shielded by existing laws and all of the ‘carve-outs’ that protect a certain class of people.
I support the no income tax solution on human labor/production.
Besides, in the current political climate there will never be a flat tax, never. Politicians derive too much of their power from the existing tax code, and would never even allow a flat tax to come up for a vote. So, for now any talk about a flat tax is essentially meaningless because it will not happen unless one were to round-up all the current politicians, put them into FEMA camps, or in the alternative drop a n u c l e a r device on a place where the Criminal Class all gather together once each year.
Disregard the remainder of my sentence that follows after, “So, for now any talk about a flat tax is essentially meaningless because it will not happen…”, since it was meant in a sarcastic manner, and not based on any seriousness.