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, June 25, 2015

Sanctions and the Birth of the New Russia

Click here to access article by F. William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook.

After his recent visit in St. Petersberg where he was invited to speak, Engdahl reports on his observations particularly in relation to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum which was held during his visit. It appears from this report and others that Russia is doing just fine in spite--or maybe because--of the economic sanctions imposed on them by the US Empire and its vassals particularly in Europe. Welcome, once again, to the new multi-polar world which Russia, China, and an assortment of other nations appear to be creating to oppose the strategy of chaos (aka "strategy of tension") that Empire operatives are, and have been, pursuing in many parts of the world to maintain hegemony.
By pursuing a strategy of making peaceful economic and trade deals with her allies in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, above all with China; deals within the BRICS states with India, Brazil, South Africa and China and within the Eurasian Economic Union, Russia is emerging as the avant garde of a New World Ordering, one where respect for national borders and national sovereignty again becomes the cornerstone.
The only problem is, these nations are under the control of their own ruling classes which, although not purely capitalist, are using the growth engine of capitalist enterprises to compete with the Empire's hegemony. One might see this as a drive to create a new multi-polar world order as do Engdahl, Escobar, and others, but this poses a number of troubling questions that Engdahl and other geopolitical analysts seem to ignore. 

While these ruling classes seem to have benign intentions now, what of the future when they, too, become drunk on and addicted to power and wealth? And, doesn't the threat to the existing hegemon's dominance of the world not threaten a global nuclear holocaust? Did there not exist a multi-polar world prior to WWI and WWII? Multi-polar capitalist blocks can never be stable because capitalist ruling elites are always driven by the exigencies of their system to compete over markets, resources, and cheap labor to sustain themselves. And finally, does the accelerated drive by Russia and China to develop their economies and counter the dominance of the Empire not also pose threats to climate stability?