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

Friday, April 24, 2015

Ukraine Partnering with NATO…to the Surprise of No One

Click here to access article by Eric Draitser from New Eastern Outlook.

In this piece Draitser once again demonstrates the best in critical thinking skills by uncovering more evidence to support a "conspiracy theory" that the directors of the US Empire have been planning Ukraine's "partnership" or collusion with the Empire's army, NATO, for a number of years as an ongoing effort to dismember, destabilize, and bring Russia under the control of the Empire. Of course, there is no lack of evidence--there is actually a mountain of such evidence--but it seems that it takes a mountain of evidence to successfully challenge the mountain of lies that the Empire's directors constantly disseminate through their ubiquitous engines of propaganda (here is a current example cited by Jonathan Cook).
Remember back in 2013 and 2014 when those who railed against the US-NATO manufactured conflict in Ukraine – decrying Washington’s and Brussels’ belligerent policies as clear and unmistakable provocations – were called ‘conspiracy theorists’ for daring to suggest that behind the flowery language of ‘democracy’ and ‘liberal European values’ lay an insidious effort to bring Ukraine into NATO’s orbit? Remember how such voices (this author included) were described as ‘paranoid’ and ‘Putin propagandists’ while the United States’ handpicked successors to deposed President Yanukovich in Kiev were described as ‘patriots’ and ‘protectors of sovereignty’? Well, as it turns out, the conspiracy theories were incontrovertible facts, and the so-called ‘patriots’ were (and are) inveterate liars.
This sort of aggressiveness demonstrated by the directors of the current advanced capitalist empire is not because of "evil-doers" (although the system creates and promotes people that are inclined to do anti-social acts), it is the inherent nature of advanced capitalist controlled nations to expand in order to meet capitalism's insatiable need for growth. Such nations take on enormous debts in the process of this expansion (current US estimate is over $18 trillion dollars--much of it owed to China which makes them the ultimate target), which fuels more imperialism, which inevitably leads to major wars. 

That is precisely why observers frequently compare the system to a cancer which in its advanced stages metastasizes in order to take control of the whole body. It is this nature of private ownership of an economy that is the reason we will see precisely the same tendencies in Russia and China, despite both nations having a significant public ownership sector, should their capitalist economies successfully counter the current Empire's quest to bring them under control. On the other hand, with all of these nations possessing nuclear weapons, we are more likely to see a catastrophic nuclear conflagration with dire consequences for human civilization.