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

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Geopoliticians discuss the Russian response to America's 'declaration of war'

Click here to access the introduction to the video from The Vineyard of the Saker.

This blogger from Florida who must be of Russian origin has posted a rather rough translation of a popular Russian TV show which features several political affairs specialists discussing the economic war that has been declared on Russia by the US Empire. If this is at all representative of Russian thinking, we may be witnessing a radical re-direction in Russian societal affairs precipitated by the aggressive actions of the Empire. The feelings presented in the program clearly indicate a disappointment with their embrace of the American Way of Life, and clearly see a need for substantial changes to be made.



If you don't have time to listen to the 42 minute video, scan some of what I considered the most important comments of the various speakers:
8:07 Their [the US] economic system has run out of steam It is mathematically impossible for them to settle their debts. Therefore it is necessary for them to destroy every other economic system so that their miserable system when set against the others resembles manna from heaven.

They must destroy any alternative system. In that sense their action are thought out.


10:38 One speaker following concluded that the US merely wants to seek "economic advantage" by destroying other economies.


10:27 Starting from about 1989, we have been completely re-oriented to the West. We looked at them as at our future paradise. We expected that once we have done all that they demand, we'd dance for them and they would finally hug and kiss us and we would merge in ecstasy.


17:08 This is a war to exterminate, in view of the future, so that Russia does not become yet another power center. What shall we do in this situation?


17:55 If we want the US to reckon with us, we must hit them where it hurts the most: their wallet.


23:40 This, by the way, is also a weak spot of our west-forward orientation in 90s. We alone created that worldview in which people don't want to work, because they day-dream about swimming pools with half-naked chicks under the palms....
[essentially the Russians dissolved companies that could not compete in the world market]


28:02
[Referring to the post-Soviet economy as having gone as far as it could and is now a brake, he says:] That is why we need to change our economic order.


28:52 Firstly, we must invest in the state on our own. Secondly, the technology is set up by science. It is necessary to provide the scientists with appropriate labs and salaries, so that they could work. .... It is necessary for us that the society is fully engaged in decision-making. We need to that the moral
[work ethic] ... resurrected. Not prostitutes popping out on TV, but real eager beavers, engineers, doctors, teachers should be reckoned role models.


31:10
[Referring to the need to work with mostly the BRIC countries to produce the best products:] We must do it in cooperation with others. Russia needs to put forward an attractive idea for the world which should not be an idea of the American dream.


39:15 In a few words, what are the Americans proposing? Our president has said this very well: Americans don't want allies, they want vassals.


39:33 There is no other alternative today. If we build a system, which will offer all of those exact things but only without calamity, we will begin to put a crack in this monolithic western world.


40:27 We have to return to strategic planning....


41:32 For the country to change once and for all for the better, such that it transitions away from the destructive 90s, catches the winds of the roaring 2000s, and exits towards new, ambitious frontiers, while not forgetting to tell the people about this, because without the people, we can build nothing.