From: Sunthar Visuvalingam <suntharv@yahoo.com>
Date: 2 March 2011 14:23
Subject: [ontologicalethics] "Russia and the uprisings in the Middle East" - where will the primary global revolution come from?
To: Abhinavagupta@yahoogroups.com, WTC-911@yahoogroups.com, MeccaBenares <MeccaBenares@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: Akandabaratam <Akandabaratam@yahoogroups.com>, Ontological Ethics <ontologicalethics@yahoogroups.com>
The ongoing wave of popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa has provoked alarm within the Kremlin, which fears the destabilizing impact of these events on Russia's national interests in the region, the world economy and mass consciousness throughout the former Soviet sphere.
Over the past several weeks, Moscow has opposed the overthrow of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, cautioned against the use of military force against Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, and sought to deny that a mass opposition movement could take hold in Russia. The Kremlin's response is driven by its awareness that it sits astride a society riven with social and class tensions. […]
Russia, which holds $4 billion worth of weapons contracts with Libya, initially opposed sanctions against the Gaddafi regime, only reversing course on Tuesday. Along with the potential loss of stakes in Libyan oil companies and $1.8 billion worth of aircraft contracts, Moscow could see the end of highly lucrative arms sales with the ascension of a new government, particularly one under the thumb of Washington and Brussels.
There is genuine sympathy for the besieged Gaddafi and his methods of repression within sections of the Russian ruling elite. This found expression in recent comments made to Nezavisimaia Gazeta by Boris Iakimenko, a top representative of the Kremlin's youth group, Nashi. "The leader of Libya, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, has shown the world how to deal with provocateurs who attempt coups, destabilization and civil war. He has begun to destroy them," he said. […]
"[A] destabilized Arab world makes Russia as jittery as the EU. Europe should not think that we are going to benefit much from soaring oil prices sparked by mounting unrest. After all, energy prices should remain within certain limits, and were they to break past a given boundary, this would hurt Russia's economy as well. Such a windfall of money is incredibly pleasing, of course, and though we are seeing 'pennies from heaven', Putin understands only too well how badly this might end up."
Intersecting with these economic concerns are the Russian ruling elite's fears that the popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa will resonate with the working masses of Russia and the former Soviet Union, who face conditions of life—joblessness, poverty, lack of opportunities for youth, rising prices, oppressive and impervious governments—that are fundamentally similar to those of the Arab masses.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal last week, Sergei Markov, a legislator from the ruling United Russia Party observed, "We in Russia have seen revolutions, and they often start out like the February [that brought down the Tsarist regime] one and end like the one in October [that brought the Bolsheviks to power]." […]
The political and economic system in Russia is characterized by high levels of corruption and nepotism. A February 22 article in Nezavisimaia Gazeta, for example, points out that the proposed lists of candidates for the upcoming 2011 Duma elections are dominated by the "children, wives, friends and sponsors" of current officeholders. In a piece published two days later, theMoscow News notes that since September 2008, 500,000 people have applied at local offices of United Russia, the ruling party, set up to address citizens' grievances over the unresponsive, ineffectual, and indifferent treatment from myriad government programs.
According to a February poll by the Public Opinion Foundation (POF), 49 percent of the Russian population is "dissatisfied and ready to participate in protests." This represents a 17 percent increase over December. The POF also reports that the number of people who saw their savings shrink and their future financial prospects worsen increased. According to VTsIOM, a leading research agency, 80 percent of Russians regard inflation as high, with increasing utility costs identified as the number one factor driving the situation.
Over the course of the past two years, workers' protests have broken out in industrial towns hit by factory closures and miners have engaged into pitched battles with security forces in demonstrations over deadly accidents at coal facilities. Widespread dissatisfaction remains after preventable forest fires left residents of Russia's capital city choking on smog for weeks last summer, and winter storms crippled Moscow's dilapidated infrastructure.
The Kremlin has sought to derail the development of mass opposition through the promotion of nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment directed against ethnic minorities, in particular Muslim migrants from Central Asia and the North Caucasus. At the end of last year, right-wing forces, encouraged by this atmosphere, stirred up ethnic riots in Moscow and St. Petersburg. While put down by the government (only after the deaths of numerous non-Slavic looking people), Prime Minister Putin openly solidarized himself with far-right political forces by visiting the grave of an ethnic Russian allegedly killed by men from the Caucasus.
The fact that the revolution in Egypt and the protests in other countries have not been led by Islamic fundamentalists, runs counter to the Russian government's continuous effort to divide the populations of the region along ethnic lines by promoting anti-Islamic sentiment in Russia. It explodes one of the ideological props that has been used to suppress class tensions since the fall of the Soviet Union. […]
Sergei Abeltsev, parliamentary representative from the far-right Liberal Democratic Party, told fellow legislators last week, "Obviously, this infection will spread to Central Asia in the spring and will reach Russia in the summer." Albetsev said the government would resort to military force, if necessary.
Andrea Peters, "Russia and the uprisings in the Middle East" (WSWS, 02 March 2011)
Note that not only Russia, but also China, and other (-wise) 'populist' regimes like Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba have been caught on the wrong foot…how come 'Revolutionary' Iran is the only exception (despite the apparent contradiction of its internal repression)?
Respond only to WTC-911.
Sunthar
[Rest of this thread at Sunthar's post (22 Feb 2011) at
"The Great Game across the Middle East - will global revolution come from Russia or the USA?"]
From: Sunthar Visuvalingam
Sent: Saturday, February 26, 2011 12:14 PM
To: WTC-911@yahoogroups.com; Abhinavagupta; MeccaBenares
Cc: 'Akandabaratam'; Ontological Ethics; Dia-Gnosis
Subject: Fall of the (French) Republic - commissar Nicolas Sarkozy and European vassalage
>
"CIA: Frank G. Wisner arrived in Cairo" (Voltairenet, 02 Feb 2011)
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Like the European revolutions of 1848 and the uprising against Stalinism in 1989, the Arab revolt has rejected fear. An insurrection of suppressed ideas, hope and solidarity has begun. In the United States, where 45 per cent of young African-Americans have no jobs and the top hedge fund managers are paid, on average, a billion dollars a year, mass protests against cuts in services and jobs have spread to heartland states like Wisconsin. In Britain, the fastest-growing modern protest movement, UK Uncut, is about to take direct action against tax avoiders and rapacious banks. Something has changed that cannot be unchanged. The enemy has a name now.
John Pilger, "Behind the Arab Revolt is a Word We Dare Not Speak" (Antiwar, 25 Feb 2011)
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Even now, without understanding what it is we face, watching staggering numbers of people, many young and dissatisfied, take to the streets in Morocco, Mauritania, Djibouti, Oman, Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Yemen, and Libya, not to mention Bahrain, Tunisia, and Egypt, would be inspirational. Watching them face security forces using batons, tear gas, rubber bullets, and in all too many cases, real bullets (in Libya, even helicopters and planes) and somehow grow stronger is little short of unbelievable. Seeing Arabs demanding something we were convinced was the birthright and property of the West, of the United States in particular, has to send a shiver down anyone's spine. […]
Imagine this: for the first time in history, a movement of Arabs is inspiring Americans in Wisconsin and possibly elsewhere. Right now, in other words, there is something new under the sun and we didn't invent it. It's not ours. We're not—catch your breath here—even the good guys. They were the ones calling for freedom and democracy in the streets of Middle Eastern cities, while the U.S. performed another of those indelicate imbalances in favor of the thugs we've long supported in the Middle East.
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As the sun peeks over the horizon of the Arab world, dusk is descending on America. In the penumbra, Washington plays out the cards it once dealt itself, some from the bottom of the deck, even as other players are leaving the table. Meanwhile, somewhere out there in the land, you can just hear the faint howls. It's feeding time and the scent of blood is in the air. Beware!
Tom Engelhardt, "All-American Decline in a New World: Washington's echo chamber" (26 Feb 2011, Antiwar, Asia Times Online)
>
What do the Right and Left bring to the antiwar movement? At this time, the Left brings greater numbers because the Cold War has led the Right away from its traditional "isolationist," i.e., anti-interventionist, stance, to which it is only beginning to return. But the Right brings something equally powerful to the antiwar movement, and that is its vocabulary. The paleocons and libertarians put their opposition to war in words that are widely understood and accepted in conventional mainstream discourse. When the paleos declare America should be first, that cry resonates far and wide to a populace facing economic hardships. And when libertarians declare that government is a threat to liberty, with military being a large part of the government, that is something Americans have been taught to understand and respect since their grade-school years. The antiwar movement benefits enormously from this conventional and traditional American vocabulary. It is not readily assailed.
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John V. Walsh, "The Book Has Been Written on the Right/Left Antiwar Alliance" (Antiwar, 23 Feb 2011)
Arnaud,
>
[…] What we are witnessing today is instead the tentacular growth of a shadowy criminal (operating above the law) network of financiers, militarists, intelligence agencies, etc. that has taken control of the state and co-opts any corporation that becomes too successful (BP, Monsanto?): this is the significance of the Bush, Wisner, etc., dynasties. Given the nature of the current world-system, the ruling elites of 'independent' (and even otherwise 'hostile') nations (like Russia, China, and even Iran), have little choice but to participate and, why not, greatly benefit (Gadhafi, Rafsanjani?) as pointed out by John Perkins already in Part 1.
(Alex Jones) "Fall of the Republic" is focused on U.S. (domestic) politics (as it impacts the globe) not because Americans, even the most vociferous dissidents, are inevitably 'self-centered' but because this is the only nation that has been self-consciously founded on the notion of (inalienable political) 'liberties' (however limited the underlying conception of 'human' nature…). This is precisely why the US-centered global elites are attacking and attempting to dilute the national ethos through NAFTA, encouraging (illegal) immigration, coopting the ('left' and the) green movement, etc., and systematically moving towards a 'world government'. If the ongoing 2011 Arab Revolt clamors for 'democracy' (however it may be understood) and resorts to the 'anarchic' culture of the Internet (created by the Department of Defense…) to topple tyrannical regimes, it is the vision of the Founding Fathers that has brought such 'liberation' within the realm of their imaginable. And when 'ordinary' Americans realize fully what they have lost and scent the blood….beware!
Regards,
Sunthar
[Rest of this thread at Sunthar's post (24 Feb 2011) at
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