[Peace-discuss] Pretty good stance for a try anti-imperialist left

Sat Apr 9 01:36:58 UTC 2022

I wasn't addressing you specifically. I'd like to know if there's a single
person here who is jabbering about Russia-Ukraine who has a plan to do
anything about it.

On Fri, Apr 8, 2022 at 7:51 PM karen aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I’m sorry Robert, I wasn’t speaking to you, and deliberately deleted you
> from the conversation.
>
> Please don’t address me again.
>
>
>
> On Apr 8, 2022, at 5:45 PM, Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 8, 2022 at 6:01 PM karen aram via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
>>   Mark, out of the three is the best source for internal Russian
>> obstacles/problems but does it matter? Understanding our government and
>> it’s internal conditions and contradictions seem to me to be most
>> important, as we should be considering how to change our behavior.
>>
>> Sorry, about the Mark Sleboda link not working. Try this one:
>> https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-trp-001&ei=UTF-8&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=trp&p=the+grayzone+project+with+mark+sleboda&type=Y143_F163_201897_102620#id=2&vid=16c587674d7cf42400567ead360a7e19&action=click
>>
>> On Apr 8, 2022, at 3:56 PM, Morton K. Brussel <mkb0029 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> A rather (over) sanguine view from Pepe Escobar. Whether Russia can
>> overcome its internal obstacles/problems and fulfill the scenario described
>> is debatable. Expertise of the internal conditions in Russia is needed!
>>
>> Mar Slebota’s piece was not available at the link given. Curious.
>>
>> On Apr 8, 2022, at 11:23 AM, karen aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Scott Ridder
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdM5Pkyl0_8
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdM5Pkyl0_8__;!!DZ3fjg!v-X0NH-ci7-SPP-X04Sg5f_m3d9H0BFZwUIMJldYydZkYfjklCM44eZihsxjxqc-3g$>
>>
>> Mark Sleboda
>> https://thegrayzone.com/.../04/war-ukraine-unipolar-world/
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https*3A*2F*2Fthegrayzone.com*2F...*2F04*2Fwar-ukraine-unipolar-world*2F*3Ffbclid*3DIwAR081Tftf0-jNFkFvTDn7r_T-XbFOt5tnEDSpCtD-TOWTHAqDd1PaGpZGXU&h=AT3AEW__kRzPEsVGPwvWXlkz0tRJHghPI3VPGqhVecS2CnW1ROBzAdMI_vkaMcJ41dDBVXvZBvOzQPefLhrUdvcDgUu2jYjvsjENcyCYHVBX-DhuwsR188fy1F6Rl8r73esJs0E&__tn__=-UK-R&c*5B0*5D=AT1H40ifLxHQ8JyoABXzHaw7U10TKnTpmpDae_M_Yos7VGk1FrioKdQ4oGNqS45Q1IUUwu-aHFpFesVXi6F3hIlBChnehK9TJs8wuUH_ykrK3XOZUV0wt4ham9eNkbROGLK-jFqJQOLm4uiNJIVXBVhUF2Q__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSU!!DZ3fjg!v-X0NH-ci7-SPP-X04Sg5f_m3d9H0BFZwUIMJldYydZkYfjklCM44eZihswIplyp4A$>
>>
>> and Pepe Escobar
>> *offer similar assessments of what has taken place and what’s to come.*
>> *Pepe not a military analyst, as are Scott and Mark, is a geopolitical
>> journalist and has been predicting for seven years now, what’s to come.*
>>
>> From Pepe:
>>
>> UKRAINE AFTER THE WAR
>> Mariupol was battered by Ukraine’s right-wing Azov battalion well before
>> Moscow launched its military ops. In Russian hands, this strategic
>> steelworks port can transform into a hub of Eurasian connectivity.
>> Mariupol, the strategic Sea of Azov port, remains in the eye of the storm
>> in Ukraine.
>> The NATO narrative is that Azovstal – one of Europe’s biggest iron and
>> steel works – was nearly destroyed by the Russian Army and its allied
>> Donetsk forces who “lay siege” to Mariupol.
>> The true story is that the neo-Nazi Azov batallion took scores of
>> Mariupol civilians as human shields since the start of the Russian military
>> operation in Ukraine, and retreated to Azovstal as a last stand. After an
>> ultimatum delivered last week, they are now being completely exterminated
>> by the Russian and Donetsk forces and Chechen Spetsnaz.
>> Azovstal, part of the Metinvest group controlled by Ukraine’s wealthiest
>> oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov, is indeed one of the biggest metallurgic plants
>> in Europe, self-described as a “high-performance integrated metallurgical
>> enterprise that produces coke and sinter, steel as well as high-quality
>> rolled products, bars and shapes.”
>> Amidst a flurry of testimonials detailing the horrors inflicted by the
>> Azov neo-Nazis on Mariupol’s civilian population, a way more auspicious,
>> invisible story bodes well for the immediate future.
>> Russia is the world’s fifth largest steel producer, apart from holding
>> huge iron and coal deposits. Mariupol – a steel Mecca – used to source coal
>> from Donbass, but under de facto neo-Nazi rule since the 2014 Maidan
>> events, was turned into an importer. Iron, for instance, started to be
>> supplied from Krivbas in Ukraine, over 200 kilometers away.
>> After Donetsk solidifies itself as an independent republic or, via
>> referendum, chooses to become part of the Russian Federation, this
>> situation is bound to change.
>> Azovstal is invested in a broad product line of very useful stuff:
>> structural steel, rail for railroads, hardened steel for chains, mining
>> equipment, rolled steel used in factory apparatus, trucks and railroad
>> cars. Parts of the factory complex are quite modern while some, decades
>> old, are badly in need of upgrading, which Russian industry can certainly
>> provide.
>> Strategically, this is a huge complex, right at the Sea of Azov – which
>> is now, for all practical purposes, incorporated into the Donetsk People’s
>> Republic, and close to the Black Sea. That implies a short trip to the
>> Eastern Mediterranean, including many potential customers in West Asia. And
>> crossing Suez and reaching the Indian Ocean, customers all across South and
>> Southeast Asia.
>> So the Donetsk People’s Republic, possibly part of the future
>> Novorossiya, and even part of Russia, will be in control of a lot of
>> steel-making capacity for southern Europe, West Asia and beyond.
>> One of the inevitable consequences is that it will be able to supply a
>> real freight railroad construction boom in Russia, China and the Central
>> Asian ‘stans.’ Railroad construction happens to be the privileged
>> connectivity mode for Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
>> And, crucially, of the increasingly turbo-charged International North South
>> Transportation Corridor (INSTC).
>> So, mid-term, Mariupol should expect to become one of the key hubs of a
>> boom in north-south routes – INSTC across Russia and linking with the
>> ‘stans’ – as well as major BRI upgrades east-west as well as sub-BRI
>> corridors.
>> Interlocked Eurasia
>> The INSTC’s main players are Russia, Iran and India – which are now,
>> pos-NATO sanctions, in advanced interconnection mode, complete with
>> devising mechanisms to bypass the US dollar in their trade. Azerbaijan is
>> another important INSTC player, yet more volatile because it privileges
>> Turkey’s connectivity designs in the Caucasus.
>> The INSTC network will be progressively interconnecting also with
>> Pakistan – and that means the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a
>> key BRI hub, which is slowly but surely expanding to Afghanistan. Foreign
>> Minister Wang Yi’s impromptu visit to Kabul late last week was to advance
>> the incorporation of Afghanistan to the New Silk Roads.
>> All that is happening as Moscow – extremely close to New Delhi – is
>> simultaneously expanding trade relations with Islamabad. All three,
>> crucially, are Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members.
>> So the grand North-South design spells out fluent connectivity from the
>> Russian mainland to the Caucasus (Azerbaijan), to West Asia (Iran) all the
>> way to South Asia (India and Pakistan). None of these key players have
>> demonized or sanctioned Russia despite ongoing US pressures to do so.
>> Strategically, that represents the Russian multipolar concept of Greater
>> Eurasian Partnership in action in terms of trade and connectivity – in
>> parallel and complimentary with BRI because India, eager to install a
>> rupee-ruble mechanism to buy energy, in this case is an absolutely crucial
>> Russia partner, matching China’s reported $400 billion strategic deal with
>> Iran. In practice, the Greater Eurasia Partnership will facilitate smoother
>> connectivity between Russia, Iran, Pakistan and India.
>> The NATO universe, meanwhile, is congenitally incapable of even
>> recognizing the complexity of the alignment, not to mention analyze its
>> implications. What we have is the interlocking of BRI, INTSC and the
>> Greater Eurasia Partnership on the ground – all notions that are regarded
>> as anathema in the Washington Beltway.
>> All that of course is being designed amidst a game-changing geoeconomic
>> moment, as Russia, starting this Thursday, will only accept payment for its
>> gas in rubles from “unfriendly” nations.
>> Parallel to the Geater Eurasia Partnership, BRI, since it was launched in
>> 2013, is also progressively weaving a complex, integrated Eurasian network
>> of partnerships – financial/economic, connectivity, physical infrastructure
>> building, economic/trade corridors. BRI’s role as a co-shaper of
>> institutions of global governance, including normative foundations, has
>> also been crucial, much to the despair of the NATO alliance.
>> Time to de-westernize
>> Yet only now the Global South, especially, will start to observe the full
>> spectrum of the China-Russia play across the Eurasian sphere. Moscow and
>> Beijing are deeply involved in a joint drive to de-westernize globalist
>> governance, if not shatter it altogether.
>> Russia from now on will be even more meticulous in its
>> institution-building, coalescing the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the SCO
>> and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) – a Eurasian
>> military alliance of select post-Soviet states – in a geopolitical context
>> of irreversible institutional and normative divide between Russia and the
>> West.
>> At the same time, the Greater Eurasia Partnership will be solidifying
>> Russia as the ultimate Eurasian bridge, creating a common space across
>> Eurasia which could even ignore vassalized Europe.
>> Meanwhile in real life, BRI, as much as the INSTC, will be increasingly
>> plugged into the Black Sea (hello, Mariupol). And BRI itself may be even
>> prone to re-evaluation in its emphasis of linking western China to western
>> Europe’s shrinking industrial base.
>> There will be no point in privileging the northern BRI corridors –
>> China-Mongolia-Russia via the Trans-Siberian, and the Eurasian land bridge
>> via Kazakhstan – when you have Europe descending into medieval dementia.
>> BRI’s renewed focus will be on gaining access to irreplaceable
>> commodities – and that means Russia – as well as securing essential
>> supplies for Chinese production. Commodity-rich nations such as Kazakhstan,
>> and many players in Africa, shall become the top future markets for China.
>> In a pre-Covid loop across Central Asia, one constantly heard that China
>> builds plants and high-speed railways while Europe at best writes white
>> papers. It can always get worse. The EU as occupied American territory is
>> now descending, fast, from center of global power to the status of
>> inconsequential peripheral player, a mere struggling market in the far
>> periphery” of China’s “community of shared destiny.”
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 8, 2022 at 6:54 AM karen aram via Peace-discuss <
>> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>>
>>> To be clear in my statement below, I’m not suggesting we do nothing, I’m
>>> suggesting just focusing on anti-war is a lost cause.
>>>
>>> It’s time we recognize the many issues in relation to imperialism,
>>> poverty, racism etc., require structural system change. We can’t rely upon
>>> our elected officials to represent us.
>>>
>>> The end of the petrodollar is here, the violence and chaos that we saw
>>> in Portland, O. will be seen across the nation when people take to the
>>> streets because they are starving.
>>>
>>> On Apr 7, 2022, at 6:12 PM, karen aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Mort
>>>
>>> An excellent article, one with which I couldn’t agree more. Only one
>>> statement is questionable,
>>>
>>> *"the politicians in the US are very, very concerned about what we may
>>> think – our words do have an effect, albeit limited one. That is the reason
>>> the US has no draft.” *
>>>
>>> I don’t believe our politicians are concerned about what we may think,
>>> that was the case in the sixties and seventies, but no longer. The invasion
>>> of Iraq, went ahead in spite of over 100,000 people in the streets
>>> protesting at the time. We’ve had how many wars and interventions since?
>>>
>>> I’ve come to the conclusion that unless a Republican is in the WH, we
>>> won’t see a viable anti-war movement in the US.
>>>
>>> Sorry, I know I’m not offering hope, but maybe I’m wrong.
>>>
>>> On Apr 7, 2022, at 4:56 PM, Morton K. Brussel <mkb0029 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> This article gives one some hope. Meanwhile, so-called anti-war groups
>>> including CodePink, DemocracyNow(?)(disgusting treatment), fail to see the
>>> forest through the trees (or don’t want to). .
>>>
>>>
>>> https://original.antiwar.com/john-v-walsh/2022/04/06/an-antidote-to-the-split-in-the-us-peace-movement-anti-interventionism/
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://original.antiwar.com/john-v-walsh/2022/04/06/an-antidote-to-the-split-in-the-us-peace-movement-anti-interventionism/__;!!DZ3fjg!v-X0NH-ci7-SPP-X04Sg5f_m3d9H0BFZwUIMJldYydZkYfjklCM44eZihsyzht5WQw$>
>>>
>>> Most of the  commentary for Walsh’s piece is also useful (on Antiwar.com
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://antiwar.com/__;!!DZ3fjg!v-X0NH-ci7-SPP-X04Sg5f_m3d9H0BFZwUIMJldYydZkYfjklCM44eZihsyTzo0wMg$>
>>> .)
>>>
>>> —mkb
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Peace-discuss mailing list
>>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss__;!!DZ3fjg!v-X0NH-ci7-SPP-X04Sg5f_m3d9H0BFZwUIMJldYydZkYfjklCM44eZihsx4w_BV7w$>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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