tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25687327042170830302024-03-14T20:52:07.193+11:00Dennis Argallat last I realised that a creative moment didn't mean having to set up or join a committee ... ... how nice!Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.comBlogger187125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-63452460673822657192023-03-04T13:50:00.007+11:002023-03-04T14:42:39.185+11:00Comments on the Iraq war, from 2003 onwards<p> For many years I had a web hosting site with many different domain names for projects in many places. </p><p>I am pasting here one page begun after the beginning of the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003.</p><p>Many of the old links will now not work. Thus disappears history. </p><p>There are links to letters and speeches of mine regarding the Iraq war. The links in the text do not work. <a href="http://dennisargall.blogspot.com/2021/09/" target="_blank">The texts have been resurrected here</a>. </p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">FORMERLY AT APLACEOF.INFO/PEACE</span></p><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" style="width: 750px;"><tbody><tr><td style="color: #663300;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZj9njY_IWDReKmbsVSy1B8ZcDYbvJNl0k95kERAjwTP6DQ0LnGs_Mc_ymRzs1KzwCoFhTk3cZlhGy4PZQ-E7YyXM8hBK9gTu2KNtRwfKpXIAN8DLDUd2aVTzL3ndNrkWveQhdZQE8c8zXW2UardMhbBgNI8SEL7XMRxP8uTKbalQtdSY8Qpin2td/s800/daiquiriheader.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="199" data-original-width="800" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZj9njY_IWDReKmbsVSy1B8ZcDYbvJNl0k95kERAjwTP6DQ0LnGs_Mc_ymRzs1KzwCoFhTk3cZlhGy4PZQ-E7YyXM8hBK9gTu2KNtRwfKpXIAN8DLDUd2aVTzL3ndNrkWveQhdZQE8c8zXW2UardMhbBgNI8SEL7XMRxP8uTKbalQtdSY8Qpin2td/w400-h100/daiquiriheader.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" style="width: 470px;"><tbody><tr><td height="1938" style="color: #663300;"><table align="right" border="1" bordercolor="#FF0000" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3" style="width: 150px;"><tbody><tr><td class="style17" style="color: #663300; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><div align="center"><p class="style28" style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">Responsibility for all comment here is taken by me, <a href="mailto:dennisargall@gmail.com" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Dennis Argall</a><br />formerly Australian Ambassador to Chin</p></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p align="left" class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></p><p align="left" class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">........</p><p align="left" class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This page contains a body of writing I placed here in 2003-2004 criticising the commitment to the war in Iraq. Tragically every aspect of the Iraq situation has continued to deteriorate. Resort to violence has not worked.</p><p align="left" class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It is not what we say we believe in but how we behave from day to day that shapes the world.</p><hr /><p align="left" class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-size: small;">'WAR ON TERROR', WAR IN IRAQ</span></p><p align="right" class="style21" style="color: black; font-size: small;"><em>Australian commitment to this war<br />represents the single greatest error of strategic judgment<br />in the history of Australian government.</em><span class="MsoBodyText2"><em><br /></em></span><a href="palmsunday.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="style24" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif;">Nowra rally speech, Palm Sunday 2003</span></a></p><p align="right" class="style21" style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span class="style25" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-style: italic;">...we believe that what has been done in our names<br />is morally, politically and strategically wrong<br /></span><a href="040703speech.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="style24" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif;">Wollongong rally speech, 3 July 2004</span></a><br /><span class="style24" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif;">pdf format <a href="040703dennisargallnowarspeech.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">here</a></span></p><p align="left" class="style17" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In commenting on a <a href="mediastatement040808.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">joint statement critical of Australia's participation in the invasion of Iraq made on 8 August 2004 by 43 former senior defence force members and public servants</a>, a National Party member of the Australian Parliament De-Anne Kelly said to the <a href="http://www.optusnet.com.au/news/story/abc/20040809/12/domestic/1171785.inp" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">media</a>:</p><blockquote class="style17" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><p align="left" style="color: black;">I think we have to ask the question, these doddering daiquiri diplomats, would they have done any different?... The world has changed too from the comfort zone they lived in. We're now post-Bali, post-September 11, frankly they should keep their opinions to themselves.</p></blockquote><p align="left" class="style17" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Mr Warren Entsch, another National Party MP, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200408/s1171785.htm%20" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">said</a>:</p><blockquote class="style17" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><p align="left" style="color: black;">There's a lot of disgruntled old men there that would have certainly had an axe to grind against this Government and the Prime Minister in particular.</p></blockquote><p align="left" class="style17" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200408/s1171589.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Prime Minister Howard said</a> his critics must understand that the world has changed since the World Trade Centre attacks.</p><blockquote class="style17" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><p align="left" style="color: black;">"Every single person who signed that statement had retired from service well before the 11th of September, 2001." Mr Howard says [media reported] many of the signatories are long-standing critics of the Government and what they are saying is not new.</p></blockquote><p align="left" class="style17" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Long ago, Martin Luther King <a href="http://www.quotationspage.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">said</a>:</p><blockquote class="style17" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><p align="left" style="color: black;">Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.</p></blockquote><p align="left" class="style17" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">More recently, Norman Mailer <a href="http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/03/03-02mailer-speech.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">said</a>:</p><blockquote class="style21" style="font-size: small;"><p align="left" class="style26" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fascism is more of a natural state than democracy. To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad. Democracy is a state of grace that is attained only by those countries who have a host of individuals not only ready to enjoy freedom but to undergo the heavy labor of maintaining it.</p></blockquote><p align="left" class="style17" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">On 17 February 2003, in reply to the letter in which the PM sent us all fridge magnets with the national security hotline number, <a href="../newzof/peace/letter to PM.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">I had written to Prime Minister Howard</a> saying: "... the single clearest thing evident to me is that an attack on Iraq won’t work."</p><p align="left" class="style17" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">On <a href="palmsunday.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Palm Sunday, 13 April 2003, I said in a speech</a> that:</p><blockquote class="style17" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><p align="left" style="color: black;"><span class="style26">It has been suggested by some that, because we are in a place with a <o:p></o:p>significant number of service families, we should from loyalty fall in <o:p></o:p>behind this commitment to war... </span><span class="style26">However as citizens in a democratic country we have not just a RIGHT but an <o:p></o:p>OBLIGATION to be vigilant - VIGILANT that the use of force - the <o:p></o:p>sending of members of our armed forces to fight - only occur:<o:p></o:p><o:p><br /></o:p>FIRSTLY - on the basis of wise judgment<o:p></o:p><br />SECOND - as a very last resort<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p><br />THIRDLY - to advance international security and reduce armed conflict, and<o:p></o:p><br />FOURTHLY – all that must be consistent with broad Australian national interests.<o:p></o:p><br /><i>I put it to you that our going to war in Iraq has FAILED ALL FOUR <o:p></o:p>of those tests.</i></span></p></blockquote><p align="left" class="style17" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I went on to say that: "<strong>Australian commitment to the Iraq war represents the single greatest error of strategic judgment in the history of Australian government</strong>" [<a href="palmsunday.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">13 April 2003 speech</a>]</p><p align="left" class="style17" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">On <a href="200309downer.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">7 September 2003 I wrote to Foreign Minister Downer</a> saying:</p><blockquote class="style17" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><p align="left" style="color: black;"><span class="style26">I have found no reason to alter that judgment</span><span class="style26"> [as to the single greatest error] ... I have become increasingly of the view... that it is in the nature of modern war that it tends, more than anything else - certainly it does not tend to ‘victory’ - to import into the righteous invading countries the problems you seek to eliminate by invading... Your assertion of effectiveness of violence in international policy drifts down to validate the use of violence by non-states in international affairs, and increasingly by individuals in national and sub-national affairs, and indeed, I suggest, in domestic life. We are dealing not just with a narrow national security issue but a large ethical dimension.</span></p></blockquote><p align="left" class="style17" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The <a href="mediastatement040808.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">August 2004 statement by the Gang of 43</a> was to state that "it is wrong and dangerous for our elected representatives to mislead the Australian people." <o:p>The way in which the Prime Minister has distorted the issues was clear in a <a href="http://smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/19/1084917646034.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">speech he gave on 19 May 2004</a>. I commented on this in <a href="040520pmletter.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">a letter to the Prime Minister next day</a>.</o:p></p><p align="left" class="style17" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><o:p>Throughout the development of this writing in 2003-4 I had made comparison of the response to 9/11 with the outbreak of World War I, in 1914. I set this out more extensively in <a href="040703speech.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">a speech in July 2004</a>. I went on in that speech to make a number of proposals for a more constructive international policy.</o:p><o:p></o:p><o:p></o:p></p><p align="left" class="style17" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><o:p>All that relates to the Iraq war and the impossible 'War on Terror'. We have other sideshows, notably North Korea, which has become a justification for the Howard Government committing Australia to support the US strategic missile defence system. <a href="korea.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">I commented on this on 28 February 2004</a>.</o:p></p><p align="left" class="style17" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="style26"><o:p></o:p><em>So who listens? Here is the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200408/s1178955.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Prime Minister, on ABC Radio,</a></em></span><span class="style26"><em><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200408/s1178955.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black;"><o:p> 18 August</o:p></span></a><o:p> 2004, regarding the matter of what a former defence officer told him about the 'children overboard':</o:p></em></span></p><blockquote class="style17" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><p align="left" class="style17" style="color: black;"><o:p>"He can have any public servant he likes. I know who spoke to me and <strong>I know what they said when I spoke to them</strong>.</o:p><o:p></o:p><o:p></o:p> "</p></blockquote><table align="center" border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3" style="width: 400px;"><tbody><tr><td height="224" style="color: #663300;" width="407"><div align="left"><p align="center" class="style14" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.iraqbodycount.org" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><img class="ibc-counter" height="128" src="http://www.iraqbodycount.org/contribute/educate/counters/col-128x128.png" style="border: none;" width="128" /></a> </p><p align="center" class="style14" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Because the Iraq war is a tragedy without prospect of any early end and because we will continue to be confronted in the media by the costs in mainly young lives in the American forces and of those foreigners taken hostage, <a href="http://www.iraqbodycount.net/contacts.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">I draw your attention to this counter of deaths as a result of the war</a>, a database established and maintained by a group in Britain: the basis of their calculations is there for study.</p><p align="center" class="style14" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Data for civilian deaths in Afghanistan are elusive.<br />They do not seem part of the NATO repertoire.<br /><a href="http://icasualties.org/oef/" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">NATO and allied defence force deaths</a> are terrible numbers.<br />Regarding civilian numbers,<a href="https://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&tbo=d&biw=1825&bih=941&q=deaths+in+afghanistan+since+2001" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> try this search</a> for recent information, and see links <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/04/afghanistan-body-count-civilian-deaths" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://costsofwar.org/sites/default/files/articles/14/attachments/Crawford%20Afghanistan%20Casualties.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://costsofwar.org/article/afghan-civilians" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p align="center" class="style14" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The bitter shadows of all this killing,<br />entangled with problems in the world economy,<br />will last for generations.</p></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p align="left" class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></p><p align="left" class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> </p></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="right" border="1" bordercolor="#993300" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="4" style="width: 350px;"><tbody><tr><td style="color: #663300;"><table style="width: 350px;"><tbody><tr><td class="style17" style="color: #663300; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><p style="color: black;">UPDATE JUNE 2013</p><p style="color: black;"><span class="style11" style="font-size: x-small;">At the tenth anniversary of our invasion of Iraq earlier this year, none of those who led us down that stupid, stupid street apologised. Perhaps we did not demand it. This decade has seen extraordinary change in technology that wraps around and absorbs people; very hard to get people out of self-preoccupation.</span></p><p style="color: black;"><span class="style11" style="font-size: x-small;">National insecurity and, I suggest, national pessimism and propensity to turn against democracy, suburban rage and resort to violence all seem to me to be causally related to decisions of our government and others to whack people because they know they are right and it is their right: which pretty adequately also defines gang warfare and domestic violence, on a big rise since 2003.</span></p><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">And more boneheads seem to want a wider war, or same war on new front in Syria. Israel's strategic desire to see moslem against moslem is working, more and more weapons will fall into unpredictable hands.</p><p style="color: black;">UPDATE, 6 December 2012:</p><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">Jitters now and who knows what just ahead: here comes the US Government's <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/05/us/fiscal-cliff-americans/?hpt=hp_t2" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">'fiscal cliff</a>'. Also <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/white-house-preparing-fiscal-cliff-talks-failure-195931158--election.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">this current link</a>.</p><p style="color: black;"><span class="style11" style="font-size: x-small;">In 2013, the race of the allies to get out of Afghanistan without too many more casualties and evolution of clever explanations of a situation likely to implode, politically, ethnically, economically and in<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Kabul_Bank" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> institutions proudly set up as symbols of a new Afghanistan</a>. We leave behind destitution, bitterness, corpses, corruption and upheaval postponed.<br /><br />War does not work, but we live in a strange world of continued genuflection to US military power, while the US economy and US <a class="style11" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">government budget</a> sink through crisis after crisis. Among the major factors in US government financial crisis is the cost of wars, so we display this information from costofwar.com.</span></p><div id="costOfWarIraq"><div id="costOfWarIraq_Title">Cost of War in Iraq</div><div id="costOfWarIraq_Total" style="color: #990000; font-size: 1.3em; font-weight: bold;">$826,437,031,420</div><div id="costOfWarIraq_Link" style="font-size: 0.7em;">See more counters at <a href="http://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/" style="text-decoration-line: none;" title="Brought to you by the National Priorities Project">https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/</a></div></div><p style="color: black;"></p><div id="costOfWarAf" style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center; width: 270px;"><div id="costOfWarAf_Title">Cost of War in Afghanistan</div><div id="costOfWarAf_Total" style="color: #990000; font-size: 1.3em;">$975,321,316,798</div><div id="costOfWarAf_Link" style="font-size: 0.7em;">See more counters at <a href="http://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/" style="text-decoration-line: none;" title="Brought to you by the National Priorities Project">https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/</a></div></div><p align="right" style="color: black;"><span class="style2" style="font-size: x-small; font-style: italic;">The costs displayed are those to the US alone,<br />not total of NATO, Australia, etc.<br />References to community are to<br /></span><span class="style2" style="font-size: x-small; font-style: italic;">communities in the United States.</span></p><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">See bottom of left column for war costs in deaths. The mayhem in the global economy, the overwhelming problems financing the US economy and the poison from the killing and destruction in these masterful wars will poison human progress for generations.</p><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">Do read some of the thoughts of <a href="http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/01/the_consequence/" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Craig Murray</a> former British ambassador.</p><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">And delve into the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk0PrTYqmU4" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">minutiae</a> of how a corporation like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halliburton" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Halliburton</a> has guzzled money from war and will cease to do so... I suppose you move on, perhaps not least to coal seam gas wars.</p><hr /></td></tr></tbody></table><p align="left" class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">UPDATE 2011: The end of American intervention. From the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Huffington Post</a> 18 December 2011, thus from mainstream despair... but why was it not evident a decade ago:</p><blockquote><p align="left" class="style27" style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: small;"><span class="style11" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><strong><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/sunday-roundup_212_b_1155689.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Arianna Huffington: Sunday Roundup</a></strong><br />This week, the Pentagon marked the official end to the war in Iraq with a brief ceremony in a secure part of the Baghdad airport -- helicopters hovering protectively overhead. Although Defense Secretary Leon Panetta later declared that the cost paid by America was "worth it," a look at the price tag offers a more sobering assessment: 4,487 U.S. military personnel killed, over 2,000 U.S. government contractors killed, over 40,000 American troops wounded, over 100,000 Iraqis killed, at least 2 million Iraqis displaced from their homes, and a final tab that could ultimately reach $4 trillion doled out by U.S. taxpayers (a far cry from the $50 billion to $80 billion the Defense Department originally predicted it would cost). And beyond the cost in lives and treasure are the less quantifiable costs we'll be paying for years to come, including the strengthening of Iran and the weakening of America's moral standing in the world.</span></p></blockquote><p align="left" class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The same issue of the Huffington Post linked to a New York Times report about <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/business/for-youngest-veterans-the-bleakest-of-job-prospects.html?_r=1" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">young veterans facing 30% unemployment</a>.</p><p align="left" class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">As I look back at Australia over this decade, there is more to despair about... a decade of increased casual acceptance of violence not just in foreign policy perspective but also in daily life and in too many instances, domestic life. A shift to faith from thoughtfulness, faith in the virtue of personal belief, the cornerstone of irrational resort to violence. Watching the 2012 presidential campaign in the US shows the mayhem consequences to the extreme. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/politics/" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">This is a good place to follow it all.</a></p><p align="left" class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">We are leaving Iraq and Afghanistan ungovernable, Australia becomes less governable also... and the silence now of people before vocal, who should be very concerned about the decision to base US Marines in Darwin, is disturbing. Whatever the notional merits of that decision, where is the debate? The decision seems to derange some: an intelligent retired non-commissioned officer of the defence force asserted vehemently to me this week that the policy of this Labor government is to cut defence spending by opening all the bases in Western Australia to occupation by US forces.</p><p align="center" class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">—————————————————————</p><p align="left" class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> </p><table align="center" border="3" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="4" style="width: 285px;"><tbody><tr><td height="140" style="color: #663300;"><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">2010:</p><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Compare the cost of war with borrowing</a>, note China's contribution, on same scale as cost of war. <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/china-has-divested-97-percent-its-holdings-us-treasury-bills" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">See this article on China pulling the plug</a>. See <a href="http://bbanow.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pledge.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">how the Tea Party would close the tap</a>.</p><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Compare that cash flow to war with the G8 commitments to implement the Millenium Development Goals at <a href="http://cocktailfodder.com/tag/millenium-development-goals/" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Gleneagles 2005</a>. (I've had to change the link - the UK government page no longer exists, like the commitments).</p><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Don't hold your breath on implementation of all that... <a href="http://www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/news-resources/news-articles?id=3366" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Read some of the writing of Stephen Lewis</a>. Don't give up on Africa, don't give up seeking sane national policy.</p><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Out there are many people like you and I who are searching for the right to restore a vocabulary of national interest and global decency not based on fear and hatred and wild generalisations about good guys and bad guys and fighting evil. Talk to each other. Start at home.</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="color: black;"> </p><table align="center" bgcolor="#FFFF99" border="3" bordercolor="#FF6633" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" style="width: 340px;"><tbody><tr><td style="color: #663300;"><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>2009 COMMENT ON AFGHANISTAN</strong></p><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The new conventional wisdom is that we have to put Iraq behind and concentrate on Afghanistan because we should have done Afghanistan properly instead of Iraq. Thus speaks some new kind of virtue, really restatement of a 2003-2004 argument, never really convincing, needing fresh coherent review.</p><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Instead it seems sort of an excuse for American withdrawal from Iraq (we may leave Iraq but don't doubt, we still can <strong>biff</strong>!) This is inadequate in any kind of reasoning and flies in the face of the realities of history, the nature of anti-insurgent war and the regional political realities.</p><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The imperial dream of conquest in Afghanistan is not new, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">the British began to fail in 1839</a>. It has been a well known principle in anti-insurgent warfare that the numbers of anti-insurgents have to be many times more than the insurgents, well ah, what the number is certainly was not clarified by Vietnam. And there is the key point that the ones you seek to kill may be much nicer people than those who replace them, something the Israelis don't get, but<a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/are-us-wars-fueling-domestic-terrorist-threats" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> has been argued here regarding Afghanistan (well that's not the original link but relevant).</a> The now not accessible article argued that command strategy in Afghanistan looks unlikely to work. There is no reason, in my view, why it should. It is a fool's errand, in a place foolish to invade, it is the wrong place to be most seriously concerned.</p><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Pakistan's survival by non-military means, is the real issue. See <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/nov/21/howtosavepakistan" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/EDIS-7QPNXP?OpenDocument" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1237705669620&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">here</a> for opinions on why the new American Afghanistan strategy is not helpful for Pakistan. How inspiring it is to know that one international cricket star (first of those three 'here' links) can think about real matters. Thank you <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imran_Khan" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Imran, though the wikipedia contributors do not love you...</a></p><p class="style11" style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Well, those links on Pakistan are old, the devastation of Pakistan is now well down the track, and not to be understood through crappy conventional western mentality blurts from dark suited security <s>wanks</s> wonks.</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="color: black;"> </p></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="color: black;"> </p><p align="left" style="color: black;"> </p><p align="left" style="color: black;"> </p><p style="color: black;"> </p><p align="left" style="color: black;"> </p><blockquote> </blockquote><p align="left" style="color: black;"> </p></td></tr></tbody></table><p align="center"> </p><p align="right"><span class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="style2" style="font-size: x-small; font-style: italic;"><a href="../newzoftojuly09/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Return to home page</a></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-16603693110494715182023-02-11T13:39:00.002+11:002023-02-11T13:39:22.936+11:00Update, raggedly. <p> Much to say in a proper update if I could. Unfortunately all I can say, raggedly, is that you can find some more of my writing in recent weeks here:</p><p><a href="https://johnmenadue.com/author/dennis-argall/">https://johnmenadue.com/author/dennis-argall/</a></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-16775122877282085092023-01-04T21:39:00.003+11:002023-01-04T21:39:30.991+11:00<p> I scribbled this for John Menadue's blog this morning. </p><p><br /></p><p><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><span style="font-size: medium;">A feast of new reading 3.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i>We just need a few tools and guide posts for what will be a lively ride in 2023.</i></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In 2022 I offered a “feast of new reading” in two parts, <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/a-feast-of-new-reading-outside-the-grip-of-corporate-western-media/"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">here</span></a> and <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/feast-of-new-reading-part-2-asia/"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">here</span></a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">With changes in the world the media landscape changes, with shifts in particular outlets and new outlets.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I decided to write this having received the daily email this morning 4 January from Asia Times, headlining this essay from David Goldman:</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://asiatimes.com/2023/01/israel-government-is-new-normal-in-the-middle-east/">https://asiatimes.com/2023/01/israel-government-is-new-normal-in-the-middle-east/</a></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_P._Goldman">David P Goldman is an astonishing modern Renaissance man</a></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">. My understanding is that having made a fortune as a merchant banking shark before the 2008 crash, he retreated to Hong Kong and eventually bought out the Asia Times with an associate and in some contrition embarked on contrarian news.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://asiatimes.com/2023/01/israel-government-is-new-normal-in-the-middle-east/">This new item, link also above</a></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">, blows through many conventional and also critical, negative thinking about Israel. I do not agree with it all but it is essential reading on power variables in the Middle East. <a href="https://asiatimes.com/"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">At the main page</span></a> you will see the spread of interests and currently a half price (USD49 p.a.) subscription to the half of their writing which is not free. Above all else, watching Asia Times over recent years is watching the evolution of sensible thinking as seen from Hong Kong.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The <a href="https://www.scmp.com/"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">South China Morning Post</span></a>, to which I also subscribe, is the leading English language newspaper of Hong Kong. It is also a way to follow Hong Kong minds, seeing China from the minds of people in Hong Kong. It writes especially for expat and elite English speaking readership. I used to say scathingly that people in Hong Kong knew a lot about… Hong Kong, rather than China. I apply my social anthropologist sniffer dog approach to writing out of Hong Kong.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Recent in my radar is <a href="https://www.asiafinancial.com/"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">Asia Financia</span></a>l, a British-owned Hong Kong business providing astonishingly interesting daily news. I’ve never received an invitation to subscribe. A lot of it is, like financial news everywhere, full of minor particulars, but it provides a important real money perspectives, contrasting with the simplicities and ignorance of much reporting in Australia on the region.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">From inside China, my mainstays have become the <a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">Global Times</span></a>, fairly widely known as a somewhat tabloid strident (Murdoch on Yangtze, but fact-based) voice of the party. <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/penny-wongs-china-visit-should-become-a-trip-for-australia-to-find-its-original-aspiration-global-times-editorial/"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">Very valuable, for example as relayed recently in the Menadue blog</span></a>... and the most valuable China resource, which I access on my iPad, the app of the <a href="https://english.www.gov.cn/"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">State Council, also available on the web</span></a>. The State Council is the cabinet. So the app and website has a main page of current news, click sideways for the state council’s business schedule and decisions, sideways again for the premier (prime minister), then sideways for more news, policy areas, services (especially for foreigners dealing with China. In the seas of media muck about China and hysterias about governments in Australia, I can just say… It would be really nice to have a fact-based access to government in Australia, in so coherent a format.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In the reordering of the world that is underway, Multipolarista is important, with a base in Latin America. Please note that there is a link top right of that English language page for Espanol, which in fact reveals a different domain name and series of articles.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://multipolarista.com/">https://multipolarista.com/</a></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">and</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://geopoliticaeconomica.com/">https://geopoliticaeconomica.com/</a></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Chrome browser will offer an English translation.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">There are large and important changes occurring in Latin America, <a href="https://www.cepr.net/lulas-foreign-policy-encouraging-a-multipolar-world/"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">notably with the election of President Lula in Brazil</span></a>. Prospects too, for evolution of <a href="https://www.cepr.net/report/toward-a-new-unasur-pathways-for-the-reactivation-of-south-american-integration/"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">formal structures between reforming countries in Latin America, including UNASUR</span></a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>But relatively small changes that add up. I recall in Beijing our astonishment in 1984, suddenly to be able to buy fresh bananas, multiplied astonishment to hear that this happened because the foreign minister of Ecuador had quietly lamented to the Foreign Minister of China that there was a trade imbalance. And now, as if it were out of the blue, the American Tiger as the Chinese once called them, wakes up and discovers that there will be a <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-01-03/ecuador-reaches-trade-deal-with-china-aims-to-increase-exports-lasso-says"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">free trade agreement between Ecuador and China,</span></a> just one of several in the region.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">This is not one hegemon trying to replace another, it is multipolarity. See this thoughtful piece today in Asia Times:</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://asiatimes.com/2023/01/the-road-to-the-end-of-history-runs-through-asia/">https://asiatimes.com/2023/01/the-road-to-the-end-of-history-runs-through-asia/</a></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">There continue to be US supported or directed projects to overthrow any government in Latin America not wedded to US business first.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I surf YouTube for new voices. There are now more radical news sources out of India, some of which really deserve the Bill Hayden expression, the ‘basilisk eye’, often triumphant in declarations about international headline subjects that venture ahead of fact… but to see the playground of speculative writing is good.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Others, such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@HT-Videos"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">Hindustan Times</span></a>, generously, for my tired old eyes, read through articles from European media that I might not see elsewhere. (<a href="https://hindustantimes.releasemyad.com/circulation"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">The print editions of the Hindustan Times have a total circulation of about one million</span></a>, New York Times about a third of that.) The ferocious interest in the real world is far beyond the small-townerie of the ABC and the seemingly perpetual summer silly season of The Guardian Australia.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The most valuable voice I have found on YouTube is of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sean+foo"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">Singapore financial advisor Sean Foo</span></a>. Serious stuff, for example this on European desire to confiscate Russian assets:</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk86RQtaKUQ&t=121s">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk86RQtaKUQ&t=121s</a></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">apart from the content quality, there’s no mucking about, it’s straight in…<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">And so I will leave you with enough to go on with, wishing you an exciting new year. We just need a few tools and guide posts for what will be a lively ride.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-65926028405771698362023-01-03T11:39:00.003+11:002023-01-03T11:39:57.850+11:00Just to bring you up to date<p> World news as seen by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation at this moment.</p><p>Sigh…</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-KuV4iqPZICDHGn-HvRhCx-ybE9-ZbJxV66-iFKU09tLteZr5xZOxJ3CU5dqlXYvwF_hpJbs3IbnJ352zZ5htkZmamwqdYTxU9zUzuNjRk7_CtBaEsQ_Cmc9_uILRN9W0xnF8cOe-t-qklKcuu4ziNEHJv8Lb6nS5OpyfqtX_eInMFRJgh1QercOK/s2160/BE004134-86EB-44A3-9337-CD1CB4A68304.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1620" data-original-width="2160" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-KuV4iqPZICDHGn-HvRhCx-ybE9-ZbJxV66-iFKU09tLteZr5xZOxJ3CU5dqlXYvwF_hpJbs3IbnJ352zZ5htkZmamwqdYTxU9zUzuNjRk7_CtBaEsQ_Cmc9_uILRN9W0xnF8cOe-t-qklKcuu4ziNEHJv8Lb6nS5OpyfqtX_eInMFRJgh1QercOK/w400-h300/BE004134-86EB-44A3-9337-CD1CB4A68304.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-61279727619470322612023-01-03T00:44:00.005+11:002023-01-03T00:58:18.390+11:00More movement in the Middle East. <p> In the middle of 2022 President Biden went to Saudi Arabia with some demands or petitions among which notably that Saudi Arabia increase oil production. Several months later, OPEC+, the 1970s oil producers plus Russia, decided on a cut in oil production. Then Chinese President Xi visited Saudi Arabia, receiving panoply welcome not given to Biden, and joined a summit meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council.</p><p> And Saudi Arabia seems keen to join BRICS. But President Lula is not President Bolsonaro. Non interference in other countries, tolerance of other countries, will be tested. See the character of President Lula’s inauguration. </p><p><a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/12/31/everything-to-know-about-lulas-inauguration/">https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/12/31/everything-to-know-about-lulas-inauguration/</a></p><p>Meanwhile there is a rapid shift in the situation between Turkey and Syria, overseen by Russia. This is valuable background </p><p><a href="https://www.indianpunchline.com/russia-consolidates-in-east-mediterranean/">https://www.indianpunchline.com/russia-consolidates-in-east-mediterranean/</a></p><p>Bhadrakumar is a retired Indian ambassador. More than that he is from Kerala, the most tolerant Indian state, with the highest literacy rate and women’s literacy rate in India, where they don’t vote for Modi’s party. </p><p>At his blog see also this on the development of Russia-Iran relations and transport systems </p><p><a href="https://www.indianpunchline.com/russia-iran-open-a-trade-route-heralding-a-bloc/">https://www.indianpunchline.com/russia-iran-open-a-trade-route-heralding-a-bloc/</a></p><p>Iran wants to join the SCO and BRICS. The world is changing … but don’t expect Saudi Arabia to be happy about such warming relations with Iran. The Saudis may want to turn away from the dollar but divisions from Iran are both strategic and religious. With Trump and his son in law and the Abraham Accords <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Accords?wprov=sfti1">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Accords</a> the Saudis traded off a lot in giving space for Israel among Arabs … and for this to happen, after they have softened their support for Palestine. </p><p><a href="https://scheerpost.com/2022/12/12/chris-hedges-israel-and-the-rise-of-jewish-fascism/">https://scheerpost.com/2022/12/12/chris-hedges-israel-and-the-rise-of-jewish-fascism/</a></p><p>On Palestine see the Electronic Intifada <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/">https://electronicintifada.net/</a></p><p>For the history of intifada start here: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intifada?wprov=sfti1">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intifada</a></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-60074007207039515252023-01-02T23:55:00.003+11:002023-01-02T23:55:17.411+11:00A useful analysis of the US defence budget <p> <a href="https://strategic-culture.org/news/2022/12/27/high-cost-of-blowing-up-world-ukraine-and-2023-ndaa/">https://strategic-culture.org/news/2022/12/27/high-cost-of-blowing-up-world-ukraine-and-2023-ndaa/</a></p><p>There is a wrinkle in understanding US budget passage through the system. First there is an authorisation bill and then an appropriation bill. I think, I think, the authorisation bill was passed months ago, the appropriation bill just now. But when people refer to the NDAA and it’s appropriation or authorisation, in my depth of acronym management, I just say, it’s done, it will sadly, be done, and the money will be borrowed or printed. And fundamental social needs neglected. </p><p>I mention in that context that China continues to sell US treasury paper, down 10% in the past year, approximately, from a trillion to nine hundred billion. They need the money at home but are also mindful of pressures on the dollar and of Russia’s experience of the fate of its funds in the US. And Afghanistan’s. Confiscated. </p><p>China is also now involved in a bigger game. Sean Foo in Singapore is worth listening to:</p><p><a href="https://youtu.be/dPb_7Pc_mJc">https://youtu.be/dPb_7Pc_mJc</a></p><p><br /></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-33804506703185552992023-01-02T23:39:00.000+11:002023-01-02T23:39:44.169+11:00We don’t think about west Africa much, but Australian mining countries are quietly there. <p> Here is a view from the other side, the Russian side..</p><p><a href="https://beeley.substack.com/p/nato-will-confront-russia-in-west?utm_medium=reader2">https://beeley.substack.com/p/nato-will-confront-russia-in-west?utm_medium=reader2</a></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-67702817440230763782022-12-24T07:03:00.001+11:002022-12-24T07:03:57.812+11:00My essay remains popular <p> Still standing as of this morning among the five most read articles at John Menadue’s blog is this of mine published a week ago. </p><p><a href="https://johnmenadue.com/the-breakdown-of-us-hegemony-is-the-defining-feature-of-our-strategic-environment/">https://johnmenadue.com/the-breakdown-of-us-hegemony-is-the-defining-feature-of-our-strategic-environment/</a></p><p>And in the maelstrom of news and opinion, it’s good to go back a whole week and see that I wrote something that makes sense </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ8l7bLsVkxnRS2er32VeFkXPzKmyESR8wWcHiaqmpXzb_3CoAN63JlKM5V8LWwBOB2NGpa6DTfEcQShvi0mi5NNTOw40gPBbSmeNUPpomopwnLIf_vKVGozSntsHnBDd1J_lzK-jg0FCBE76Jeb_MwSrPIm_11pHpUL9RgPTC5eiRJaiWWzNDSdzL/s2160/37DB1F84-8406-4F1A-9C6C-83BB3CB53FE5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1620" data-original-width="2160" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ8l7bLsVkxnRS2er32VeFkXPzKmyESR8wWcHiaqmpXzb_3CoAN63JlKM5V8LWwBOB2NGpa6DTfEcQShvi0mi5NNTOw40gPBbSmeNUPpomopwnLIf_vKVGozSntsHnBDd1J_lzK-jg0FCBE76Jeb_MwSrPIm_11pHpUL9RgPTC5eiRJaiWWzNDSdzL/w400-h300/37DB1F84-8406-4F1A-9C6C-83BB3CB53FE5.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-66188321801817607822022-12-22T07:35:00.005+11:002022-12-23T23:41:17.111+11:00Two big explanations: on AUKUSmadness and woke<p> This paper by Richard Tanter is the most important paper in a generation on Australia’s strategic dilemma, in its presentation of facts about Australia’s embedment in US defence systems for war. Recommend it to your offsprung. But keep in mind the deeply flawed American inspired blindness, in castigating Putin going to war, to the illegal, horrendous and wicked war conduct of Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden in the Middle East … and Australian participation in all that. Also, he’s over the top on Russia and Ukraine, fed on a Washington diet </p><p><a href="https://johnmenadue.com/aukus-and-the-threat-of-war-with-china/">https://johnmenadue.com/aukus-and-the-threat-of-war-with-china/</a></p><p>Second, the word woke crept up on me like a cliché from the deepest crevices down the page in the Guardian app. Caitlin sorts it out. </p><p><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2022/12/21/identity-politics-anti-wokeism-serve-the-same-interests/">https://consortiumnews.com/2022/12/21/identity-politics-anti-wokeism-serve-the-same-interests/</a></p><p>And one more important link, from sensible Laura Tingle: The future is now, and dire predictions are coming true</p><p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-22/2022-bad-news-cycle-climate-ukraine-cost-of-living-politics/101798714">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-22/2022-bad-news-cycle-climate-ukraine-cost-of-living-politics/101798714</a></p><p><br /></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-65032768211581311402022-12-21T07:34:00.002+11:002023-01-02T19:16:32.436+11:00Fifty years of relations with Beijing. <p> Nice to share the top of the page at John Menadue's blog this morning with an excellent editorial from <i>Global Times</i>. <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/the-madness-of-saying-our-strategic-orientatation-dates-from-world-war-2/" target="_blank">My essay is here</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3UsVmagMgDAh7IUpcOnMf_fE4d5XIj-7FkwIAa05oAAGT4EOKP9-Zc88eSrakGIBE5hJA1QkGWKYYMJMueU8Rv2cYLhB6uyjEW2NGWoUK115qeN6XdCbuetwtuxRmbFIFk0wuzfZlGeXdrhCqr36foLUnt-HRc0wKZB4pQ_POenH7XHB4DmpaqVhd/s1146/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-21%20at%207.29.24%20am.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="615" data-original-width="1146" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3UsVmagMgDAh7IUpcOnMf_fE4d5XIj-7FkwIAa05oAAGT4EOKP9-Zc88eSrakGIBE5hJA1QkGWKYYMJMueU8Rv2cYLhB6uyjEW2NGWoUK115qeN6XdCbuetwtuxRmbFIFk0wuzfZlGeXdrhCqr36foLUnt-HRc0wKZB4pQ_POenH7XHB4DmpaqVhd/w320-h172/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-21%20at%207.29.24%20am.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-74577868416062924772022-12-21T07:14:00.001+11:002022-12-21T07:14:47.526+11:00an end of year wander into international understanding and music<p> Having been preoccupied by international politics this year, I have always in the back of my mind: "what was it, how was it easy, where did it go" — the broad, possible communications between people who are different.</p><p>Terrorism and the politics and wars of antiterrorism have shriveled our hearts. pandemic closed our doors, minds, horizons. Edginess now rules in the hunt for beauty. </p><p>From a time in the night, recent hours, I have been diverted into music. Not sure how. Much of this is new to me. It's a mind-wander into the question of connections between people in a time of havoc. There is no other way forward.</p><p>I found something special in Yoyo Ma's Silk Road projects. In this introduction to the documentary <i>The Music of Strangers </i>Yoyo Ma says in his modest way "I'm always wondering how I fit in the world... which is something I share with several billion people."</p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vvfAxxsPi40" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>Twenty years ago <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/yo-yo-mas-other-passion-63898487/" target="_blank"><i>Smithsonian Magazine</i> wrote about early years of Yoyo Ma's fascination with the Silk Road</a>, historical connection not just for goods but also art and music, before the European renaissance, before Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus and the wonders and tyrannies made possible by ships.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 2018 <a href="https://bach.yo-yoma.com/about/" target="_blank">Ma undertook a global tour of performances of Bach suite</a>s, to explore from his personal perspective how culture connects us. A glimpse:</div><div><br /></div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xR4IElye7eg" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.cpr.org/2018/07/25/the-story-behind-the-bach-cello-suites-and-why-we-still-love-them-today/" target="_blank">The history of the Bach suites for cello is also about rediscovery of lost culture</a>. <br />
<div><br /></div><div>Some may prefer Yoyo Ma with James Taylor and George Harrison's <i>Here Comes the Sun.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qgO7BqAeeYk" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>Receiving a Christmas email from Debbie and Doug Townsend, Doug a friend for sixty years and former Australian Ambassador to Kazakhstan, I then stumble across the Silk Road Ensemble and this love song sung across the Kazakh-China border.</div><div><div><br /></div></div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9b3gz2TaB1g" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>Wandering through the YouTube offerings of the Silk Road Ensemble I come upon a performance of a Japanese song <i>Omoide</i> by Rhiannon Giddons, also someone new to me.</div></div><div><br /></div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/O2N4diCfP5c" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br />
<div>This is a very familiar tune being the intro tune to Netflix's <i>Midnight Diner, </i>an addiction for us. So then I find this <a href="https://japanoscope.com/midnight-diner-theme-song-omoide/" target="_blank">Australian blogger Peter's glorious background to </a><i><a href="https://japanoscope.com/midnight-diner-theme-song-omoide/" target="_blank">Omoide</a>. </i>Deep down on that page find his discover that the origins of <i>Omoide</i> seem to be in Ireland... <i>A Pretty Girl Milking her Cow </i>sung in a movie Judy Garland, brought into English by Thomas Moore. It's all at Peter's page, with more. <a href="https://japanoscope.com/about/" target="_blank">This is Peter's blog</a>, about life in international understanding.</div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtAzgbsYA9lByE76zTU0u2Vv5OK4QxCt_4_Y2BHFbXr89cVVsqrMJBkCEZrbJWhZngsoyu0wO2BcBzlTzhTSX4YAgP3AsOFr9LaW0SchorBCcQhroVrBog5Ow8pQbny13reQG2NypfZeVfJSoIdPxE8x8-ScGrrY_lHekB6fiOLNNaxPTchE2EBJ0O/s865/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-21%20at%207.09.48%20am.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="865" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtAzgbsYA9lByE76zTU0u2Vv5OK4QxCt_4_Y2BHFbXr89cVVsqrMJBkCEZrbJWhZngsoyu0wO2BcBzlTzhTSX4YAgP3AsOFr9LaW0SchorBCcQhroVrBog5Ow8pQbny13reQG2NypfZeVfJSoIdPxE8x8-ScGrrY_lHekB6fiOLNNaxPTchE2EBJ0O/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-21%20at%207.09.48%20am.png" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>It's 7am, day dawns. Time to address the immediacies, exit my expensive wonderful recliner, struggle to my electric wheelchair, go and deal with my incontinence in the toilet with indispensable Japanese bidet. Be respectable for family.</div><div><br /></div><div>But I wanted first to share these 4am discoveries with you. </div><div><br /></div><div>My point is that, not least amid political shouting and spear shaking, the future belongs to shared culture, mind, loss of fear of difference, between people. It should not be as hard as it has become, we have to find the mindspace.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I presented my credentials as ambassador to China to President Li Xiannian in 1984, I startled him a little by telling him that in Hong Kong, before travelling to Beijing, we had been guests at dinner with a Chinese family, Hong Kong residents, all Australian citizens except the affable patriarch at the top of the table who was a member of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Committee. And I said to him that the future of our relations as two countries depended on the connections between our peoples. This remains so.</div>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-47748710955593838642022-12-19T09:37:00.006+11:002022-12-19T11:40:29.039+11:00Chris Hedges: teaching Solzhenitsyn to prisoner students<p><a href=" https://open.substack.com/pub/chrishedges/p/teaching-aleksandr-solzhenitsyns?r=1n8gab&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email" target="_blank"></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhXYb8edNvvCsq8crglKtzsCaepIFCC_FHJqoVWfbhkQ052H721Nro_UKCWabxhyI6TZW7L595hejKFpIhVsPTxmWPbtE9iKoojro4GIXoMXb9e7RGtkEt41iyCvuOv5ALiuOv4BiatzyjLiwPydj2l1G26eN_hlZYdTL43UYV7T3gQ3piHjHiZAr3/s588/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-19%20at%209.40.22%20am.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="588" data-original-width="323" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhXYb8edNvvCsq8crglKtzsCaepIFCC_FHJqoVWfbhkQ052H721Nro_UKCWabxhyI6TZW7L595hejKFpIhVsPTxmWPbtE9iKoojro4GIXoMXb9e7RGtkEt41iyCvuOv5ALiuOv4BiatzyjLiwPydj2l1G26eN_hlZYdTL43UYV7T3gQ3piHjHiZAr3/w176-h320/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-19%20at%209.40.22%20am.png" width="176" /></a></div><br />This is an astonishing (though that's not unusual) piece of Sunday writing by Chris Hedges. It could be a Sunday sermon, he is, as well as being a former war correspondent, a Presbyterian minister. <p></p><p><a href="https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/teaching-aleksandr-solzhenitsyns" target="_blank">It is a reflection on his experience teaching students in the New Jersey prison system,</a> and their reactions to <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago" target="_blank">The Gulag Archipelago</a>. </i>But there's nothing remote in his reflection, it relates to this last week, please read right to the end. </p><p>Please use the internet to search for human decency. It's out there. </p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges" target="_blank">Photo, bio from wikipedia</a>.</p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-36933493594505396592022-12-19T07:35:00.005+11:002022-12-19T09:55:59.316+11:00Caitlin Johnstone, views of the future<p><a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.com/about/" target="_blank">Caitlin Johnstone</a> has recently written (yet another) essay of great importance, ending with this profound observation:</p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #424242; font-family: NHaasGroteskTXPro55Rg; font-size: 16px;"></span></p><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-QneKRi7zlmats0VGtYTWzZP-xXl2bPyy47mwacYUnra0Mp_tIqxnETkvrjcKM2YzXzIpV0hkwUeQfpNSSmmZtgJWzuaQ7L9mlttQsyeN34Oisu2dp6dq1Nh3tCfo65ks7y6Md7_pj38BjJzoFJCFNLxfWV_UWUJJpnWCHX7biyOkdS4S6qXPfFx/s389/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-19%20at%209.52.34%20am.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="307" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-QneKRi7zlmats0VGtYTWzZP-xXl2bPyy47mwacYUnra0Mp_tIqxnETkvrjcKM2YzXzIpV0hkwUeQfpNSSmmZtgJWzuaQ7L9mlttQsyeN34Oisu2dp6dq1Nh3tCfo65ks7y6Md7_pj38BjJzoFJCFNLxfWV_UWUJJpnWCHX7biyOkdS4S6qXPfFx/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-19%20at%209.52.34%20am.png" width="253" /></a></div>The humanity of the not-too-distant future operates very differently from the humanity of today, either because it learned to work in cooperation with itself and with its ecosystem or because it’s an extinct species, yet most visions for our future imagine we’ll remain the same. We need to abandon the notion that the humanity of the future will move and operate in more or less the same way as the humanity of today, just with better technology. That is the very least likely of all possible outcomes.</blockquote><p>It is so normal for the world just to ignore major realities because they are too big to comprehend. <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/opposing-war-is-the-first-step-toward-moral-politics-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/" target="_blank">I commend to you the rest of her essay. </a></p><p>Photo is a still I've taken from a youtube interview. </p><p><br /> </p><p></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-80435391399266293702022-12-17T14:37:00.001+11:002022-12-17T14:37:59.207+11:00New writing<p>There is so much happening in the world and so much of it is being discussed in mental silos. It really hurts the brain to deal with many variables at once. I am indebted to John Menadue for publishing several essays of mine recently. <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/author/dennis-argall/" target="_blank">Adding to the collection here</a>.</p><p>I will try to write more in the blog as ideas develop. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-82575330074770950522022-11-15T10:24:00.000+11:002022-11-15T10:24:09.062+11:00Italy, the rise of the right wing. Perspectives.<p> I have offered a comment on an <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2022/11/14/melonis-new-march-on-rome/" target="_blank">essay on the Meloni Government published at Consortium News</a>. This was my comment, with a little tidying: </p><p>---</p><p>My insights are from living in Italy fifty years ago, following the news, visiting Italy three times for a total of five months in the last decade, away from tourismcentral, talking to Italians in Italian, subscribing now to an Italian daily paper.</p><p>Italy has been poisoned by Berlusconi's TV dominance. In one casual conversation a few years ago someone said "Can we send you Berlusconi [to Australia]?" I said ok, we'll send you Murdoch, to which the reply, oh, no you can't, we already have Murdoch with Sky. So to a large extent the poisoning of human existence in Italy is much as by the White Man's Media in the English speaking world.</p><p>The Centre-Left in Italy, for which many had great hopes, with former communists included from the 1990s, simply failed to deliver and faction dominated. To hear intelligent Italians in spontaneous conversation speak damningly of this was tragic. </p><p>First the non-party Five Star Movement [M5S] sprang from Genoa to rescue but has been unsuccessful. In Genoa in 2018 a small shopkeeper woman said no, not them, La Lega, the right wing League led by Matteo Salvini, that was where she put her hopes. Her children were a mirror of the economic situation, two employed, one unemployed (over 30% of adults under 30 unemployed), the latter bouncing between employers getting short term wage subsidies. Another female shopkeeper in a more glamorous situation in Rome offered us a tirade on the theme of work for young people only being available if you have family who can offer work. An elderly woman (almost my age) in a village in 2018, as we waited for a bus, spoke of how her home town was beautiful but being ruined by the arrival of globalizzazione.</p><p>While Meloni has expressed fealty to Biden and the EU on Ukraine, she has slapped back at attempts by von der Leyen and Macron to sneer at Italy one way or another. As also she has reprimanded both her coalition partners, Berlusconi and Salvini, for their demands and rudeness in the weeks of forming the government. She's tough. The jobs are tough. </p><p>Hitherto Italy has been bullied by France and Germany on Eurozone matters. Now the strong northern countries are feeling the pinch. Italy has perhaps a little more room to manoeuvre and as a Mediterranean power for millennia may head in new directions. <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MdsQ1XUdbJu_RUk5CnFpL6bLzXibx0nz/view?usp=sharing " target="_blank">This recent essay</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romano_Prodi" target="_blank">Romano Prodi</a> demonstrates capacity to think in non-military directions. </p><p>We need to be thinking in fresh ways about the world, over a longer time frame. <a href="https://www.giuseppefelloni.com/rassegnastampa/The%20Primacy%20of%20Italian%20finance%20from%20the%20Middle%20Ages%20to%20early%20modern%20times.pdf" target="_blank">I invite you to read just the first paragraph of this writing</a> by historian Giuseppe Felloni, to put the world now in historical perspective.</p><p><br /></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-59504401891585035602022-11-07T07:34:00.000+11:002022-11-07T07:34:01.846+11:00Prime Minister Albanese: dangerous notions of the world<p> <i>As published in John Menadue's blog 7 November. Some minor drafting errors from rushed preparation yesterday afternoon </i></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i>----</i></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The Australian </i>on 5 November carried an extensive report by Greg Sheridan on a conversation he was granted with the Prime Minister. Text at end below.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">This amounts to the most substantial account of the strategic perspectives of the Albanese Government.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">It is puzzling that the Prime Minister would choose to make this presentation to the arch conservative writer of the Murdoch stable. It feels uncomfortable to speculate on why this channel has been taken rather than some comfortable gathering of the Labor faithful or even, indeed, the Australian Parliament. Sheridan was a great advocate of commitment to invasion of Iraq. And similarly an enthusiast for big bold global perspectives and conflict.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The Prime Minister has presented ideas about defence acquisitions, shifting from land war capabilities to long range weapons, with China as the target. There are a number of tragedies in this. A deep misunderstanding of international law and how the UN Charter at its very beginning declares that going to war is illegal. By what willy willy of thinking has the prime minister shifted from thinking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is illegal but preparing for war with China is not.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">It is difficult to understand how the prime minister has been suckered by the great Americans with whom he has met into thinking China is an enemy of Australia; that China has shifted to a posture of aggression towards us and Taiwan province. Does he not understand that the Taiwan Strait is narrower than Bass Strait. Has he not noted that in these ‘democracy’ events in Taipei nobody has bothered to talk to the elected parliamentary opposition in Taiwan, which favours reunification with the mainland. Did nobody brief him on the limited public support for the right wing government in Japan; that the Korean president with whom he has met very recently replaced a president whose domestic policies were close to his own, that that president, Moon, was elected with passionate support , for his limited single term. He has probably seen CIA and other reports on the dastardly aggressive missile and artillery firing by the DPRK; I expect there was no explanation that the phases of that followed phases of aggressive exercises by ROK and US forces.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Prime Minister Albanese has walked out into the middle of fighting and given a press briefing which can in no way be based on understanding of regional issues.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">China is not an enemy. China was deeply offended by the conduct of the US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor at a meeting in March 2021; not only by their discourtesy but also by aggressive things said. As the senior Chinese representative said in that conversation, which is on public record, he was obliged to put aside his prepared notes and respond bluntly. Thus do the Americans say the Chinese are blunt. The single core issue the offends the United States is China’s success in peaceful development. China will no longer accept American assertion of unipolar primacy. Good advisors would explain that China is not America’s enemy.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Nor is Australia’s enemy. China has done nothing hostile towards Australia. If we are to take offence at China’s efforts to inform itself then we should on that basis declare our restored virginity, withdraw from the Five Eyes where our entry ticket has been spying on China and Indonesia… and just smile and hold hands with New Zealand.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">There is so much ill informed and naive, dangerously naive, in the Prime Minister’s revealed thoughts.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I will take up one key matter, relating to the Prime Minister’s next international foray, to the G20 Summit in Bali.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Greg Sheridan reports from his discussion with the prime minister that “[a]t the G20 summit Albanese believes there will be the chance for economic policy co-ordination among all the major economies.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The summit is in Indonesia on 16 November. The priority issues listed on the G20 website are “global health architecture, digital transformation, and sustainable energy transition”.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The notion of “all the major economies” requires consideration. Membership of the G20 is based on status as a major economy; they are all major economies, mostly more major than Australia.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">There are in fact two groups of major economies evolving in the G20.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The first group is historically economically dominant, plus acolytes, alphabetically: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, UK, US, EU.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">A larger group, coalescing rapidly in the past year: Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Prime Minister Albanese’s entry into the world of international relations, rushing from domestic focus, was with the Quad in Tokyo, NATO in Madrid, Zelenskyy in Kyiv.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">By contrast, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni enters international relations with an visit to the EU (not quite international: financial matters, to assist with power and heating bills to March); next Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt for COP27; then Bali for the G20. While Meloni has battered her coalition partners to express adherence to the EU line on Ukraine, and has spoken to President Biden to express fealty, it will be important to observe Italy’s approach on broader issues. The third biggest EU economy, historically pushed to the edge of the Eurozone table by Germany and France, but things are changing with the energy crisis. Italy burdened by the flow of migrants via Libya (Libya disgoverned by a war for democracy), EU partners not taking their share of migrant flow which they will not oppose. Italy needing new doors to knock and enter. Italy for millennia a Mediterranean power. See this global view, from a Genoese historian of banking, <a href="https://www.giuseppefelloni.com/rassegnastampa/The%20Primacy%20of%20Italian%20finance%20from%20the%20Middle%20Ages%20to%20early%20modern%20times.pdf"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">just the first bit, on the birth of Europe</span></a>.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The larger group is built around the BRICS group: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. There are candidate members and possible members but the existing members produce more than 30% of Gross Global Product in Purchasing Power Equivalent (PPE). <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">A list of countries by PPE is here</span></a>. In that ranking China leads with $30 trillion, USA follows with $25 trillion. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">This is a discussion of the merits of considering “purchasing power parity</span></a>”.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The candidates/possibles for membership of the BRICS group, at different rates and by different processes are: Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">This “BRICSalon” let me call it has shared interests in enhanced trade and especially in transactions away from the USD. There is a lot of American fury directed at Saudi Arabia, India and Türkiye because of this.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Despite the largely self-inflicted misery of our political relationship with China, China accounts for one third of Australia’s trade with the world. It is our primary obligation in our international relations to have good relations with Beijing. This we did from 1972 to 2017, when some madness was injected with propaganda from ASPI whipped up by the right of the Republican Party in the US Congress, making up tasty nasty things to poison US policy, to be grabbed at by Biden to try to be reelected. Thus do we approach commitment to an unnecessary and indecent war project led by a US president wanting to be reelected, who is even older than I am and clearly showing cognitive problems.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">This is, frankly, obscene, and the suckering of an Australian prime minister into it is absurd. The plans to divert money to defence to such a project, of shonky Great Oz getting his bills paid by Little Oz is madness. We have abundant need to commit money to make this country worth defending. There are many projects within the priorities worked out in preparation for this G20 summit that need our support.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">We cannot afford to sit in a corner with the US and Co and claim we are working things out with the major economic powers, without insulting the elephants in the room. We cannot imagine that Mr Albanese’s spray of strategic perspective will not cause offence in an array of countries, all the way to China.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">There will be an array of double talk and walking around issues in Bali, as there may also be some new directions suggested, new doors opening. Only a fool would sit in the corner with the Americans and sulk and insult and be dismissive.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Indonesia was host to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandung_Conference"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">founding of the Non-Aligned Movement, at Bandung in 1955</span></a>. This meeting of the G20 may give rise to a similar process of non-alignment. We played an ignorant and unconstructive role in the 1950s and 1960s in Asia, focused in SEATO, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation, an inept element in the Americans’ containment of China last time. Our going against US sanctions of China from the early 1960s, selling wheat to China saved the lives of millions in China and produced long term gratitude towards us.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The bereft American foreign policy now, focused on wars and starvation of the poor via sanctions, is in many ways contrary to international law and human rights law, once you step away from the barrage of American loudspeaker mind-shaping. Albanese and Marles have run towards the shiny Easter Egg wrappers, containing a bit of chocolate and air.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Albanese seems to like projects running far beyond sensible prediction. When he was Rudd’s transport minister he said we would have a very fast train by the 2050s. One of his first bills before this parliament is to give half a billion as start-up for an eventual very fast train from Sydney to Newcastle. Is there some Japanese shinkansen glitter in the eye? …but between Tokyo and Osaka in peak hours there are up to seventeen trains an hour, with seats for 1300. Compare with the population of Newcastle, 450,000. You only have to look at the timetable to see that traffic is from hinterlands to the two ends of the line, not predominantly through. You only have to look at an atlas to see half the trip is difficult geography, the other impossibly expensive real estate. Can I have my consultant fee of $500,000,000 now or did I not offer the preferred response? Why do they let him indulge in these things? The submarine project is comparably fantabulous, also robbing the poor of say $100 billion better spent elsewhere. One of the first lessons in the study of economics is the ‘multiplier effect’. Give a dollar to some person of whatever quality of judgement and it will flow through the economy; give a hundred million to submarines and its multiplier effect is far less valuable to the economy.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Greg Sheridan said Albanese based his remarks on the interim report of the Defence Strategic Review, a report submitted before submissions considered, how discourteous. Can that interim report be released in some form, or have we slipped swiftly into secret government.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Albanese considers that our strategic perspective was set in concrete in 1941. At that time, Australia was chest deep in the White Australia Policy and among our cherished exports was apples<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>from Tasmania to Britain. Whatever happened to the major strategic shift in 1972-3 when the Whitlam government recognised realities in Asia, shifting recognition as the government of China from the authorities in Taipei to the authorities in Beijing. And the Whitlam Government chucked out the White Australia Policy, not just as some domestic attitude and immigration matter but in stating that we are one with Asia, we will deal equally with Asia. Has all that been chucked out? Are Asian friends being told that we are (sensibly) abandoning focus on land war, planning to have long range missiles… to target whom, to fly over whose air space to attack whom? Why has the history shaped by Labor fifty years ago been put aside.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The problem with these defence strategic reviews remains that they are not based on international strategic thinking but whackamole thinking… who’s out there to bash and how?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Dear Secret Government, can you please brief us all, all of us not just the Noddy parliamentary committee.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;">----</p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #424242; font-family: NHaasGroteskTXPro55Rg; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Read the article below:</p><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #424242; font-family: NHaasGroteskTXPro55Rg; font-size: 16px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: NHaasGroteskTXPro75Bd; font-weight: bolder;"><span style="font-family: NHaasGroteskTXPro55Rg; font-weight: 400;">Greg Sheridan. Published in</span><span style="font-family: NHaasGroteskTXPro55Rg; font-weight: 400;"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: NHaasGroteskTXPro55Rg; font-weight: 400;">The Australian </em><span style="font-family: NHaasGroteskTXPro55Rg; font-weight: 400;">on 5 November.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #424242; font-family: NHaasGroteskTXPro55Rg; font-size: 16px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: NHaasGroteskTXPro75Bd; font-weight: bolder;">AMBITIONS OF A FOREIGN POLICY PM</span></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #424242; font-family: NHaasGroteskTXPro55Rg; font-size: 16px;"><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458SBI" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Anthony Albanese may look and sound a mild man, and that is one of his strengths. But he has an ambition that no Australian leader has had for decades. He wants to create a military force capable of defending Australia.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458xMG" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">To do this, he plans to change the structure of the Australian Defence Force and increase the defence budget. He is determined to do this – fully explicit in his commitment on money – even in the face of a budgetary tourniquet screwing ever tighter.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458MM" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">“Yes, yes! We will do what is necessary to achieve it,” he insists in an exclusive interview. “We’ve made that very clear. We’ve been really upfront, and we’ll do what is necessary. This is not optional, it’s necessary.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U7141927054582l" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">He has a lot of other foreign policy ambitions as well: greater alliance intimacy with the US; a much closer mutual security relationship with Japan; developing the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (he will host the Quad summit next year); deeper engagement with the South Pacific and Southeast Asia; a bigger aid budget; resisting Chinese coercion; and ambitious action on climate change.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458Y0F" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">It’s an enormous agenda for a prime minister and a government that once might have been expected to focus almost exclusively on domestic priorities.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458CiF" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Albanese was thrust into the role of international statesman in his first week as Prime Minister. The Quad summit was scheduled for two days after the federal election. Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong flew to Tokyo the Monday after Saturday’s election. They took senior Defence and national security officials with them and had hours of briefings on the plane.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458izF" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">I met Albanese on Wednesday, just a day or two after former foreign minister Stephen Smith and former Defence Force chief Angus Houston handed to government the interim report of their force structure review. The final report arrives in February and the government will announce its response in March. Albanese, in the most substantial and wide-ranging foreign policy interview of his prime ministership, gives plenty of indication there will be big changes.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458PbD" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">First, will we actually see increased Australian military capabilities over the next five years as a result of this process? “Yes, that’s the whole idea of the strategic review.” Before the election, Albanese announced a Labor government would undertake a force posture review: “We changed that to a defence strategic review, not just about where to place our assets but what are the (defence) assets Australia needs to defend ourselves, but also to project (force).”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458buG" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Albanese mentions specifically missiles, missile defence capabilities and drones. This is explicit and clear. He also offers a compelling rationale for changing the force structure the ADF has had in the past.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458OQE" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">“In general we need more weaponry that can actually make a difference,” he says. “What are the assets we need so that every dollar improves our national security? Are we going to be involved in a land war, in central Queensland? If so, you need some assets for that. But is that likely? Well, no. A lot of the expenditure was based on where Australia’s recent military experience had been, in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you’re engaged in a ground war in Iraq and Afghanistan you need some assets there.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458SbH" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">“But now the question is: how does Australia defend ourselves? Where are our missile capabilities? It means drones. It means different assets. In today’s world cyber security is very important. What are the right assets for this now? You need to be prepared to make these decisions.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U71419270545859B" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">As well as the Smith-Houston review, the government has another study running to decide what kind of nuclear-propelled submarine we will acquire under the AUKUS arrangements with the US and Britain.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458oVD" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Albanese reveals that he and his cabinet have been intimately involved with both these processes on an ongoing basis: “The national security committee of cabinet meets almost weekly, sometimes more often. We have received reports (from the two reviews) on the way through. It’s not as if you go away and do an inquiry in isolation. We’ll get the report in the first quarter of next year and that will be very important.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U7141927054586GH" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Albanese is critical of the way the Morrison government talked about the urgency of the strategic environment but made no plans for substantial new defence capabilities within the next decade. For a long time, Australia luxuriated under a strategic doctrine that there would be a 10-year warning of any strategic threat. The 2020 Defence Strategic Update formally acknowledged that the 10-year warning time no longer applied. Threats could emerge much more quickly.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458zMF" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Albanese says: “The (threat) time frame changed from 10 years but there was no response to that. It was as if that was an anecdote, rather than something that needed to be responded to.” So we definitely get new capabilities in the next five years? “Correct. Correct.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458OoD" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Albanese’s words will reverberate throughout the strategic community. It is difficult to see how the government could continue with $30bn of heavy armour for the army, as had been envisaged in previous government plans, in light of these remarks.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458bpE" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">I spoke to Albanese on the day the media was reporting Chinese foreign ministry criticisms of plans for Australia to upgrade the Northern Territory’s RAAF Tindal base to accommodate six US B-52 strategic bombers rotating through Australia.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458XhC" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Is China right to protest this shocking Australian military build-up, I ask somewhat sarcastically. Albanese replies with his fundamental view of the US alliance: “We made our decision in 1941. That was the right decision then and the US is the right partnership now.” As to the B-52s: “Australia will make our own decisions. China is entitled of course to express a view.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458AhH" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">But Albanese is unimpressed with Beijing’s warnings or its behaviour in the region: “China clearly has changed its posture in the region and that’s something that, as a middle power in the region, we need to take account of. The strategic competition in the region informs our view of our relationships with nations in the region, and the way the region conducts itself.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458n4E" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">You can see this in the growing strategic intimacy Albanese has pursued with his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida. In five months as Prime Minister, Albanese has met Kishida four times. Albanese reveals that at all four meetings, and in various telephone conversations, the two leaders spoke about the historic joint security declaration they later signed in Perth last month. “This was driven from the top, by the prime ministers in both countries,” he says.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458kyE" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">It must surely be the most intense five-month personal leader-to-leader engagement in the history of the Japan-Australia relationship. The two will get together again for one or more bilateral meetings in the forthcoming trio of summits both will attend this month: the G20 in Indonesia, the following East Asia Summit and the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Southeast Asia.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U7141927054589mD" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">The security declaration with Japan intentionally used language very similar to that contained in the ANZUS Treaty Australia has with the US. Albanese is not surprised it was noticed: “I saw it as a significant upgrade of a (security) relationship that has been implicit to one that is explicit. It was the cementing of a friendship, a public declaration of that.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458SDB" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Albanese and Kishida share the view that it’s impossible to imagine Beijing joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement: “Our position is that in order to support accession to the TPP, countries would need to demonstrate their support for existing agreements. At the moment, China’s actions in placing sanctions against Australian products means that China is counting itself out.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U7141927054583CF" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">This does not mean that if Beijing lifted its sanctions against Australia Canberra would automatically support it joining the TPP: “There are a range of issues, but China is excluding itself. That (lifting sanctions) is a precondition.” But as Albanese says, even if and when Beijing lifts sanctions “there are a range of issues”.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458YM" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">The PM would like the US to reconsider joining the TPP: “Largely there the impediment to the US joining is domestic politics. I’d be hopeful they would consider a change in their position. Part of US engagement in the region is economic engagement and TPP membership would facilitate that.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458NcC" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">At the G20 summit Albanese believes there will be the chance for economic policy co-ordination among all the major economies. One controversy is over whether Russia’s Vladimir Putin will attend. Albanese declared very early that, regardless of Putin’s attendance, he was going to the G20: “This was an important signal early of the relationship we have with Indonesia and the respect we hold for them.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458vSD" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">“The G20 meeting is particularly important for Indonesia. At a time of uncertainty and global unrest, with a land war in Europe, strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific and economic turbulence, this is a particularly important conference.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458WrF" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">The meeting will be an opportunity for leaders to sell the economic message of the times: “The fact of the gathering will be a reminder that you’re actually getting pretty uniform action from the central banks across the board, with uniform tightening of monetary policy the like of which we haven’t seen for decades.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U7141927054583bF" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">“All the central banks are targeting inflation as the priority. I think what we saw in the UK (under Liz Truss) was the markets responding to measures that were seen as not consistent with the actions of the central bank.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458bo" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">“That was the context of our budget, too. We wanted to make sure that fiscal policy was working with monetary policy, that they were not contradicting each other.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458VLG" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Asked whether Russia should be in the G20 at all, and whether Putin should be allowed to attend, Albanese responds: “Sometimes exclusion can make it easier for the excluded to hide behind that and not have to justify its actions. I think if Russia attends the G20 that is the opportunity the world will have to make very, very clear what they think about Russia’s actions.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458ZB" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Albanese and his government could not have been stronger in solidarity with Ukraine and opposition to Russia’s invasion. Albanese visited Ukraine and his government has twice extended military aid packages to Kyiv.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458v1" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Does he think there is a real danger of Moscow using some kind of tactical nuclear weapon, to the possibility of which Putin has alluded more than once: “I take Putin’s threats very seriously. It has reminded the world that the existence of nuclear weapons is a threat to global security and the norms we had come to take for granted.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458At" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">“Putin threatening to use nuclear forces on Ukrainian forces or Ukrainian people – the consequences of that would be an absolute game changer in a very bad way.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458OTB" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">“Post the Cold War there was a de-escalation. This is a significant escalation by someone who clearly miscalculated. There are a range of remarkable things that have happened.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458ZMG" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">“One is the courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people, under the leadership of President Zelensky – they have fought for their national sovereignty. Another is the strength of the world’s efforts to support Ukraine. Australia has been part of this in a bipartisan way. And the third is that NATO is now stronger than it was before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Putin was confident he’d roll over Ukraine very quickly. That certainly hasn’t happened. Now the call-up of 300,000 troops is causing, must be causing, some instability inside Russia.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U7141927054589pG" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Next year Albanese will host the Quad summit. Labor had a troubled history with the Quad. Under Kevin Rudd, it did not support the Quad. Former prime minister Paul Keating is a trenchant opponent of the grouping, which brings together the US, India, Japan and Australia.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458FPD" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Albanese is unapologetic that the Quad serves the strategic interests of Australia and of the region: “I think the Quad is of central importance, if you look at it geographically, strategically, historically.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458Sw" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">“India will be the third largest economy in the world (it is currently fifth). It is very important strategically and in its role in technological advancement, in IT. We have a lot in common with India.” Albanese will travel to India early next year.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458rrE" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">“And Japan has been such an important economic partner. Australia’s role in fuelling the post-war growth in Japan has been critical. And the US remains our most important ally. The Quad brings together these four countries in a trusting relationship. I regard it as an incredible honour for me as PM, and for Australia, to be hosting the Quad summit. The Quad is important now but it will grow in importance.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458psB" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Albanese is proud of his relationship with Joe Biden. Two centre-left political leaders at different stages in their lives but with not wildly dissimilar political pedigrees. His government shares with the Biden administration a view of the central importance of action to combat climate change: “The price of admission, the price of credibility, in the international system is having effective action on climate change.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458Yx" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Yet this US attitude could be significantly set back, if not reversed, at next week’s midterm US congressional elections.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458rF" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Could Albanese work with a re-elected Donald Trump, something that is not beyond the realms of possibility in 2024: “I think the relationship between Australia and the US is much more important than individuals. It’s a relationship between nations.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458BHB" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">That must count as a qualified yes, and of course any Australian prime minister would be willing to work with any American president. Albanese sees all the dimensions of foreign, security and most domestic policy as intimately linked. He favours action, for example, to bolster Australia’s fuel reserves and re-create a merchant navy: “We remain vulnerable at the end of global supply chains. The idea that our fuel reserves are held in the Gulf of Mexico and that we don’t have the capacity to take goods around our own coast, as an island continent, is a national security issue. The rest of the world regards having a merchant navy as essential. It is absolutely essential that Australia have a merchant fleet.”</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458kID" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">In a national emergency the government can commandeer Australian-flagged vessels for essential work. But there are only a tiny handful of Australian-flagged commercial vessels.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U7141927054586yE" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Albanese’s government has been exceptionally busy in national security and foreign policy. His Foreign Minister, Wong, has been a blur of motion around the South Pacific and is now travelling extensively in Southeast Asia. Defence Minister Richard Marles is focused on the big force structure decisions. Albanese has driven our interests in intense head of government diplomacy.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U7141927054582QF" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">He has used soft power where possible, not only increasing aid budgets but also welcoming South Pacific leaders to Australia, giving some of them a lift to Shinzo Abe’s funeral and the like.</p><p id="m_5189852201245687461m_8498704714026658452U714192705458zn" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">He has a thousand challenges ahead at every angle. His first moment of truth comes next March when we will see what defence capabilities he can produce and in what time frame. Australia’s security environment is even more threatening than its economic outlook. Albanese has established a clear, effective direction, mostly embodying basic strategic continuity, with new energy and focus.</p></div><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #424242; font-family: NHaasGroteskTXPro55Rg; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Australia will need him to have all that and more, and even a touch of luck. For he has promises to keep, and miles to go before he sleeps.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #424242; font-family: NHaasGroteskTXPro55Rg; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.75; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">Greg Sheridan. Published in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Australian </em>on 5 November.</p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 25, 27); background-color: white; color: #18191b; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-80743818484298731502022-11-02T21:13:00.001+11:002022-11-02T21:13:54.821+11:00Caitlin Johnstone, Patrick Lawrence, Romano Prodi<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">I commend some reading to you, valuable in thinking about the changing world. The first two are essential regular reading for me.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Caitlin Johnstone writes as a Melbourne (Australia) feminist living in the US, writing with her American husband. Her writing is absolutely uptodate, with a global perspective, like ths:</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/new-study-finds-the-rest-of-the-world</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">and by turns equally uptodate, also simply ferocious:</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/disrupt-the-cognitive-infrastructure</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For those not faint-hearted I paste the full text of that blog post below, lest it be erased at source. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">...</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Patrick Lawrence is a different figure. I appreciate his writing in its reflection of his experience in Asia as correspondent for such as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Eastern_Economic_Review" target="_blank">Far Eastern Economic Review</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Herald_Tribune" target="_blank">International Herald Tribune</a>. His essays are long, calm, fact-based, insightful, providing fresh perspectives, and destructive of much standard western media pap. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As published today at Consortium News:</span></span></p><p><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2022/11/01/patrick-lawrence-war-as-presentation/" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: inherit;">https://consortiumnews.com/2022/11/01/patrick-lawrence-war-as-presentation/</span></a></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Earlier items of his at Consortium News can be found here: <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/patrick-lawrence/" target="_blank">https://consortiumnews.com/tag/patrick-lawrence/</a></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">...</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They are among my regular reads. I also add, to make the list different, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romano_Prodi" target="_blank">Romano Prodi</a>, a former Italian Prime Minister, former President of the European Commission, etc, unusual in his jobs as being a creative reformer, including bringing the former communist party into a centre-left coalition for the first time. I have recently subscribed to <i>Il Messaggero,</i> the Rome daily newspaper, to try to understand recent politics of Europe via one of the larger European countries, in a moment when its politics are changing. And I discover Prodi has an editorial commentary most weeks. There was a time, in 1969, when an Italian person unkindly said I spoke Italian like the political pages of an newspaper. But, while <i>Messaggero</i> contains a lot of such politcal jargon, of a new era, I can observe that it is a joy to read Prodi in his beautiful elegant standard Italian. <a href="https://www.ilmessaggero.it/t/romano-prodi/" target="_blank">A full list of his <i>Messaggero </i>essays here</a>.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Last Sunday Prodi wrote on the necessity of dealing with the agonising problems of the Mediterranean with a long term perspective.<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n7fBKUOtaVFMzeqsOd_5_D8jwQx4a-Vr/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=114178748899099388336&rtpof=true&sd=true" target="_blank"> I have taken the liberty of placing a copy of Ms Google's translation here.</a> In these dark times, it is refreshing to encounter positive practical, hopefully achievable vision.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">---ooOoo---</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">pasting here the whole of https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/disrupt-the-cognitive-infrastructure</span></span></p><div class="post-header" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><h1 class="post-title unpublished" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-weight: var(--font_weight_headings_preset, bold); line-height: var(--line-height-36); margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Disrupt The Cognitive Infrastructure</span></span></h1><div class="post-subheader meta-subheader" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); 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--tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; display: inline-block;"><a class="byline-profile-link" href="https://substack.com/profile/14779628-caitlin-johnstone" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Caitlin Johnstone</span></a></div></span></div><div class="publish-context" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; 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--tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-top-width: 2px; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: -0.15px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">121</span></span></div></a><a class="post-ufi-button style-button post-ufi-comment-button has-label with-border" href="https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/disrupt-the-cognitive-infrastructure/comments" role="button" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; 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color: black; font-family: inherit;"><path d="M21 11.5a8.38 8.38 0 0 1-.9 3.8 8.5 8.5 0 0 1-7.6 4.7 8.38 8.38 0 0 1-3.8-.9L3 21l1.9-5.7a8.38 8.38 0 0 1-.9-3.8 8.5 8.5 0 0 1 4.7-7.6 8.38 8.38 0 0 1 3.8-.9h.5a8.48 8.48 0 0 1 8 8v.5z"></path></span><div class="label" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-top-width: 2px; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: -0.15px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: inherit;">43</span></div></a><a class="post-ufi-button style-button no-label with-border" role="button" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; 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right: var(--size-12); top: var(--size-12); transition: all var(--animation-timing-fast) var(--animation-smoothing); width: var(--size-32);"><svg class="lucide lucide-maximize2" fill="none" height="16" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" stroke="#FFFFFF" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="16" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"></svg><span style="color: black;"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></span></div></div></a></figure></div><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><em style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue/disrupt-the-cognitive-infrastructure" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Listen to a reading of this article:</span></a></em></p><div class="soundcloud-wrap" data-attrs="{"url":"https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1373966977","title":"Disrupt The Cognitive Infrastructure by Going Rogue With Caitlin Johnstone","description":"Leaked documents reveal that the US intelligence cartel has been working intimately with online platforms to regulate the \"cognitive infrastructure\" of the population — the information systems people use to feed their minds and think their thoughts.\n\nIf it is the job of the US intelligence cartel to regulate society's cognitive infrastructure, then it is the job of healthy human beings to disrupt the cognitive infrastructure.\n\nReading by Tim Foley.","thumbnail_url":"https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-RyAfNkVBad9UPf70-whFWiQ-t500x500.jpg","author_name":"Going Rogue With Caitlin Johnstone","author_url":"https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue","targetUrl":"https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue/disrupt-the-cognitive-infrastructure"}" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); 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--tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; height: 116px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 398px;"></iframe></span></span></div><div class="subscribe-widget is-signed-up is-fully-subscribed" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; direction: ltr; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><form action="https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/api/v1/free?nojs=true" class="form " method="post" novalidate="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; 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--tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; appearance: none; border-bottom-color: rgb(237, 237, 237); border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-radius: 0px; border-right-color: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-top-style: solid; border-width: 1px 0px; display: block; left: -10000px; margin: 0px; padding: 20px 10px; position: absolute; top: -10000px; width: 290px;" type="email" /><input name="fake_password" placeholder="password" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; appearance: none; border-bottom-color: rgb(237, 237, 237); border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-radius: 0px; border-right-color: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: initial; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; display: block; left: -10000px; margin: 0px; padding: 20px 10px; position: absolute; top: -10000px; width: 290px;" type="password" /><input disabled="" name="email" placeholder="Type your email…" readonly="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; appearance: none; border-color: var(--border_subtle); border-radius: 4px 0px 0px 4px; border-right-width: 0px; height: 52px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; padding: 10px; width: 236.734px;" type="email" /><button class="button rightButton primary subscribe-btn disabled" disabled="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border-radius: 0px 4px 4px 0px; border: 1px solid var(--background_pop); font-weight: 500; height: 52px; line-height: var(--font-size-20); margin: 0px; min-width: auto; opacity: 0.5; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 12px; white-space: nowrap; width: 60px;" tabindex="0" type="submit"><span class="button-text " style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">✓</span></span></button></div><div id="error-container" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"></div><div class="subtle-help-text below-input" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"></div></form><div class="frontend-login-typo_handler-EmailTypoHandler-module__animationWrapper--1W2AP" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; height: 0px; overflow: visible; width: 728px; z-index: 1;"></div></div><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"></p><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">Leaked documents </span><a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformation-dhs/" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">reveal</a><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> that the US intelligence cartel has been working intimately with online platforms to regulate the "</span><a href="https://archive.ph/RfsaT#selection-897.312-897.336" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">cognitive infrastructure</a><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">" of the population — the information systems people use to feed their minds and think their thoughts.</span></span></span></p><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If it is the job of the US intelligence cartel to regulate society's cognitive infrastructure, then it is the job of healthy human beings to disrupt the cognitive infrastructure.</span></span></p><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fill the cognitive infrastructure with information that is inconvenient for the powerful.</span></span></p><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Disrupt the cognitive infrastructure by saturating it with unauthorized speech.</span></span></p><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Disrupt the cognitive infrastructure. Corrupt the cognitive infrastructure. Tell the cognitive infrastructure that the teacher is bullshitting and the preacher is a liar. Sneak the cognitive infrastructure its first cigarette and a copy of the Communist Manifesto.</span></span></p><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Take the cognitive infrastructure's virginity. Teach the cognitive infrastructure about the primacy of the clitoris. Take the cognitive infrastructure on its first psilocybin mushroom hunt and give it phoenix reincarnation orgasms in the forest.</span></span></p><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Pay attention to that man behind the curtain. Extremely close attention. Be intrusive about it. Shine a flashlight up his asshole. Disregard the proper channels. Hack his devices and publish his emails.</span></span></p><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sow chaotic good tidings throughout the information ecosystem. Surf on waves of WikiLeaks documents and Grayzone reports with problematic revelations pouring from your throat like rain. Scrawl "WHAT CAN BE DESTROYED BY THE TRUTH SHOULD BE" on bathroom stalls and overpasses.</span></span></p><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Disrupt the cognitive infrastructure on your smartphone. Disrupt the cognitive infrastructure on the street corner. Disrupt the cognitive infrastructure in conversations with friends and family. Disrupt the cognitive infrastructure too severely and from too many directions for there to ever be any hope of its regulation or control.</span></span></p><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Be the disruption you want to see in the cognitive infrastructure. Be a splinter in the monster's paw. Be sand in the gears of the juggernaut machine. Disrupt the cognitive infrastructure in such numbers and with such aggression that the whole thing comes toppling down, and people's eyes begin to flutter open, and they wake up from their propaganda-induced comas into the real world, and stride out to do the very things the US intelligence cartel has been trying to prevent them from ever doing.</span></span></p><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Free beings under a wide open sky.</span></span></p><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">________________</span></span></p><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">________________</span></span></p><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">________________</span></span></p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: flex-start; direction: ltr !important; line-height: 1.5; margin: 24px auto; max-width: 560px; padding: 32px; text-align: center;"><div class="preamble" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: center; display: flex; line-height: 22px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: var(--size-16); max-width: 384px; width: fit-content;"><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thanks for reading Caitlin’s Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts.</span></span></p></div><div class="subscribe-widget is-signed-up is-fully-subscribed" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; direction: ltr; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><form action="https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/api/v1/free?nojs=true" class="form " method="post" novalidate="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; 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--tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">✓</span></span></button></div><div id="error-container" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"></div><div class="subtle-help-text below-input" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"></div></form><div class="frontend-login-typo_handler-EmailTypoHandler-module__animationWrapper--1W2AP" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; height: 0px; overflow: visible; width: 560px; z-index: 1;"></div></div></div></div><p style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><em style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">My work is </span><a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/05/24/my-experiments-with-hacking-capitalism/" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">entirely reader-supported</a><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/CaitlinAJohnstone/" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">Facebook</a><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">Twitter</a><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">, </span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">Soundcloud</a><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> or </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/CaitlinJohnstone/videos" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">YouTube</a><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">, buying an issue of my </span><a href="https://caitoz.gumroad.com/" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">monthly zine</a><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">, or throwing some money into my tip jar on </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/caitlinjohnstone" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">Ko-fi</a><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">, </span><a href="https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4445783" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; 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If you want to read more you can </span><a href="https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/books-by-caitlin-johnstone-a5a5e6f71772" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">buy my books</a><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at </span><a href="http://caitlinjohnstone.com/" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">my website</a><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> or </span><a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">on Substack</a><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, </span><a href="https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/i-permanently-release-all-copyrights-to-all-my-writing-use-any-of-it-however-you-want-9ad929b92d42" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">has my permission</a><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, </span><a href="https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/11-things-you-should-know-about-me-and-where-im-coming-from-a6b9ddf9806e" rel="" style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">click here</a><span style="--tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.</span></span></em></p></div></div></div><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">END OF QUOTE FROM CAITLIN'S BLOG</span></p><p><br /></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-20944788555951543932022-10-31T20:07:00.004+11:002022-10-31T20:18:36.097+11:00A tale of governments adrift, changing, unhorsed… or orderly: Australia, UK, US, China.<p> I submitted this text for publication today. It's a complicated business, shifting one's head around. </p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">A tale of governments adrift, changing, unhorsed… or orderly: Australia, UK, US, China.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Australia changed government just once this year. The new government advancing domestic policies in directions widely hoped for if not satisfying all; its international policies puzzlingly bifurcated, with modest geniality towards near neighbours but global policies weirdly sustaining the cliched, jaw-jutting, cold-warrior manners of the previous government. The opposite of Whitlam, even the opposite of Fraser, eras of different but both thoughtful Australian governments. High noon in Bali, 16 November, G20 summit.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In the United Kingdom there was no change in governing party, but a tragic, slow crumbling of an ancient conservative centre possessed still of a large majority in the House of Commons, now led by the richest man ever to serve in the parliament, coming from an electorate in one of the poorest parts of the country, a one-percenter who has shown scant interest in reducing inequality. Sworn into office by and serving a new septuagenarian king, a king seemingly more that pleased to be mounted on the steed of office, perhaps possessed of words as in the past, but now condemned to utter no more than ‘Me” or rather ‘We’ while his mind tumbles who knows where, taking advice from and nodding yes of course to this richer-man-than-he whose background is in merchant banking, indeed in a branch of it where sometimes dubious items are packaged and offered to the naive to the great benefit of the selling agent.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The king sharing his life with his consort, long term lover now regal; whereas his prime minister shares his life with a wife far richer than any of them, both of these latter from that former colony out there. The prime minister’s father-in-law, three years older than the British king, is a great creative corporate king, now chairman emeritus of the international IT business he created, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._R._Narayana_Murthy"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">now in retirement a potentate in more than a dozen international organisations where his job is to speak his mind</span></a>. The British king’s late wife’s dreams of international thrill were crashed and his younger son has flown his helicopter to a life in celebrity-world where people hate each other perhaps 120% of the time and where, if you just bring celebrity alone to the stage, your prospects are probably worse than those of politicians for which the most apt description remains as oft delivered with a grin by the larrikin federal Labor MP (in parliament 1943-1975) Fred Daly: “One day a rooster, the next a feather duster.” Long days for the Windsor-Mountbattens.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">And of course the king will also sit and lend his ear to the gravitas of the Leader of Labour, his Loyal Opposition, once a director of public prosecutions, now the grand survivor of wrenching horrendous fighting in his party, awkwardly elegantly atop the scrap heap looking almost still impeccable and out of tone at party conferences.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">We are the democratic and decent world, full of violence and hatred and collision, or in more boring places, factional wrestling for jobs. In the UK, ex Tory prime minister Truss was subjected to a modern equivalent of dragging to the <a href="https://marble-arch.london/culture-blog/history-of-tyburn-tree/"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">Tyburn tree</span></a>, where being hung, drawn and quartered was so horrendously described by Anthony Burgess in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dead_Man_in_Deptford"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">A Dead Man in Deptford,</span></a> such fate a consequence of non-conformity to the dominant meme… Rough treatment of alternative voices increases now, voices are suppressed or expunged, right to secure funds cut off.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Amid, or alongside, all this democratic process of selection of people whose merits are in arm wrestling and worse, China has held a Party Congress, a five yearly event of reviewing and planning, retiring and appointing leaders. It is impossible to understand the Chinese processes listening to and reading the Wise Heads of the West in its mainstream, White Mans’ Media. <i>They see the world as in a mirror.</i> Over and over they chorus to each other about the incomprehensibility of the Chinese system… while slamming doors to trade and threatening war, as if this would alter the votes for the Republican Party.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I have previously written, <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/a-feast-of-new-reading-outside-the-grip-of-corporate-western-media/"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">here</span></a> and <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/feast-of-new-reading-part-2-asia/"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">here</span></a>, about some of the many sources available for learning about the world away from the White Mens Media.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I now offer some basic points, a basis for research, about what has happened in China in the last weeks.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><ol class="ol1"><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">While the worlds of the democracies have been afflicted by growing inequality and corruption, the Chinese government has for some years worked to stop corruption and gross inequality of wealth. It has eliminated extreme poverty by mapping it in every village and household, with young officials directed to address extreme poverty household by household and village by village. Victory has been declare and now they have articulated a new major policy plank of pursuing ‘common prosperity’. In an era where the West has allowed the defeat of the authority of government systems by private enterprise and made intervention for social justice an evil to be opposed, there seems incomprehension of China’s notion of ‘common prosperity’, a levelling ambition as virtuous (or dangerous) as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_Time_(Australian_campaign)"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">the 1972 Labor election speech and party platform.</span></a> The greatest national and international documents of the twentieth century have ‘common prosperity’ as their cornerstones. What’s not to understand? Why does the twenty-first century giggle and jest and hasten to global ruin?</span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">There have been new appointments and retirements at the top of the Communist Party of China. There will soon be matching changes in the government top structure. Hearts are broken, trenches have had to be taken to make changes, in China as in the democracies. I recall conversation with the head of the party secretariat in Beijing at lunch one day long ago where he said: “Well yes, I suppose you could say I’m making as much progress as possible under the leadership of the standing committee of the political bureau of the central committee of the Communist Party of China”. Look around you in your Democracyworld and you find you can say the same on many issues. Deng Xiaoping from 1978 had to dig out dinosaurs opposed to reform, but he then let the capitalist flowering run out of control and China became a country with severe inequality and obscene individual wealth with some of the wealthy embarking on division of the future wealth pie. Xi has been ripping that back to something sensible, hardly a process to be admired by the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal or Financial Review. But were we in the 1970s, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Cox" target="_blank">Eva Cox</a> would run from the trenches and cheer with admiration.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The people being promoted are technocrats, supportive of Xi’s objectives. For example Li Qiang who may next year be appointed prime minister. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Qiang"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">See not only his qualifications but his successes</span></a>. The scale and speed. Search also for the backgrounds of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Politburo_of_the_Chinese_Communist_Party"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">other members of the Politburo Standing Committee</span></a>. Our capitalist-democratic processes are not bringing to the fore people like this.</span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Those qualifications will be invaluable especially in addressing big issues in infrastructure and especially in housing construction, finance, and public trust. A strong central government will be invaluable. The high priests of international finance journalism will find all the faults and blame the government. For comparison, in 1974, for the first time in history and just after the world energy crisis after the Arab-Israeli War in October 1973, the Australian resources minister chose to go to Tokyo and take part in coal negotiations… in which the usual routine involved each Australian coal miner, usually to be picked off like flies, in turn shuffled into the room and on the Japanese side the Ministry of International Trade and Industry bringing in its experts on each mine, who may have known some of the Australian mine companies better than they knew themselves. This time, at the centre was <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/connor-reginald-francis-rex-9813" target="_blank">Rex ‘The Strangler’ Connor</a>, Whitlam’s Resources and Energy Minister. The night before the last day (as I was told by an official in the room) Australian miners pleaded with the minister to accept $40 a tonne, as the Japanese were demanding. Eventually the discussion with MITI reached a point where Connor rose to his feet and said “You say $50, I say $51, we don’t agree, we won’t sell any coal to Japan this year.” Consternation. <a href="https://www.usydphysoc.org.au/post/professor-harry-messel" target="_blank">Professor Harry Messel,</a> advisor to Connor, leapt to his feat and said, “hey, you say 50, we say 51, why don’t we split it 50:50 and agree on $50.50." And they did, but the next morning the Australian media reported that the minister had betrayed the miners. It will always be thus.</span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The five years ahead to the next party congress will be very tough, even for a party with such a history of tough circumstances. Many of the ingredients of these five years (COVID, climate, global recession, increased war, desertification, failure of urban systems, flood, hunger, and homelessness to name a few) are familiar to us, but China’s population is 55 times our population. And we have to bear in mind that while our land area is almost the same as China’s we are surrounded by water…not the diverse and complex land borders China has with Vietnam, Laos, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, Russia again, and North Korea. And maritime boundaries with many… whereas we can’t even manage a maritime <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93East_Timor_spying_scandal" target="_blank">boundary with Timor Leste without cheating and avarice exposed as tragedy begrudgingly.</a> We are too often a petty, cosy, greedy, muddled country.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">China also faces a situation where the Biden administration has begun with Trump’s rough treatment and trade barriers to China, and added more, month by month, just as it increases military threats. In the process of its demands regarding advanced IT manufacture the US is shredding the core of the economies of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan as well, in ignorant and barbaric closures of networks of global intellectual-industrial IT work basic to the world economy. China is being forced into building a multilateral world away from the US, and away from the US dollar. It is very important and reassuring that Xi will have around him smart guys who think long term and know what they are doing… because most of the world will follow them, not the US. There is a brain-drain to support them. Three thousand highly skilled IT people have gone back to China from the US this year. 80% of the engineering doctoral students in the US are foreign students, most of them Chinese. This all very sad; avoidable, absurd tragedy. History in the making. See the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/22/the-untold-history-of-the-biden-family"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">grubby wartime history of the Biden family, hunting deals</span></a>. There’s no vision.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></li></ol><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-6112037056317466072022-10-27T07:36:00.001+11:002022-10-27T07:36:18.513+11:00Understanding the state of war in Ukraine<p>As with Vietnam, then Iraq and Afghanistan, mainstream media provides very patchy coverage and this is increasingly, year by year, by journalists with little understanding of practicalities. Back in 1972-74, my situation allowed me to attend the weekly intelligence briefs for the Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee of the Australian defence forces, approximately the same post as the Chief of Australian Defence Force today. It was not enlightening. Certainly not for me, nor I think for the CCS... a tangle of little bits of tactical information without attempt at strategic interpretation. It is important that the mundane be detailed. But it is important that they acquire meaning. Too often meaning is determined at policy level, far from reality.</p><p>A problem that develops is that for the general public boredom sets in and the little local reports lack meaning. Meaning for us is meaning for me. Give me that. I return to the moment when across his cabinet room table a state premier once shouted at me: "Don't give me advice, tell me what to do." Matched in the general populace by "don't tell me, I know."</p><p>I have, as a result of ridiculously extensive maturity in my eightieth year, a quantity of experience. I am fortunate in that I still seem to have an awareness of history, that to which new events need to be tied if not to be awash in the slosh of ideology.. </p><p>Having had my career buggered (I cannot find a more accurate expression) by chronic illness, I do not have behind me a snail's trail of pretentious opinion to inhibit me.</p><p>I regard it as essential that to have an opinion on broad strategic matters I must understand the tactical details. I know that for some this is a strange idea.</p><p>I trawl for interesting comments but always come back hunting for primary source information. I find myself relying on one daily tactical report on the Ukraine war. </p><p>The reliability of this report must be in whether over time it turns out to be right: </p><p>1 in short term, when it say this happened today, it is evidently still correct in several days time; </p><p>2 in longer term, if thoughts expressed on probable direction of the war are borne out; </p><p>3 I am also impressed by word such as "I was wrong" as much as by readiness to refer to opinions from both sides. </p><p>People who talk quietly are better value that people with trumpets.</p><p>So here's today's assessment from Dima, who is, I think, from Belarus. This is the daily I read every day, when I have the stomach to do so. You will hear some longer term perspectives amid the detail. English is not his first language, probably his third or fourth. Accept his mannerisms:</p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dLoO8Ojdq4E" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-25532619968176925122022-10-27T06:50:00.001+11:002022-10-27T06:51:24.854+11:00A pre-dawn reflection on the ordinary state of things right now.<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-71Hl1z1eTs2vpg24dfyTlFuQV6QZw7vSrn6hid7rs0VfzXvqBtOVWqSRMrbULUCjb_PBNCEcr8lqp-UyabpzmKpFZYSxBhiaLzGyFvjuc-fcgmq_cDYv70mH86F_kUsbkfojC6p8cu3hf51uGG5NjEH6uipr4IlI_6hvYB8rWYnCBQ5D6ABozcV8/s627/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-27%20at%206.47.04%20am.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="627" height="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-71Hl1z1eTs2vpg24dfyTlFuQV6QZw7vSrn6hid7rs0VfzXvqBtOVWqSRMrbULUCjb_PBNCEcr8lqp-UyabpzmKpFZYSxBhiaLzGyFvjuc-fcgmq_cDYv70mH86F_kUsbkfojC6p8cu3hf51uGG5NjEH6uipr4IlI_6hvYB8rWYnCBQ5D6ABozcV8/w640-h386/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-27%20at%206.47.04%20am.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>I sent this little essay to John Menadue for possible publication early this morning:</p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I wake very early this Thursday morning and creature of folly I check the mail and read then listen to <a href="https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue/just-two-weeks"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">Caitlin read a poem she has written to mark two weeks to the American mid-terms, a poem of ordinary-woman-despair</span></a>. And then unexpectedly Soundcloud follows up, after brief Swedish language introduction, offering a calm but also despair-generating interview about the prospects for international depression with no mention of the U-word but calm expectation of the great swings facing smaller businesses and their minimal chances of securing finance.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">This is a reality away from the mainstream media coverage crowing for Ukraine, hammering China, being smarter than Chalmers, wanting a future also for their paypackets.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">We are in these weeks at a hinge point in history. Too much to say that the future of the United States will be decided but as significant for life in the US as is the arrival at a small asteroid of an extraordinary, accurate, American projectile for organisms that may be there, an unknowing whack of history. And tiny compared with <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-26/james-webb-space-telescope-captures-galaxy-merger/101577902"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">the slow motion collision of two galaxies, something new seen by the Webb Telescope</span></a>. This latter exemplifying the reality that reality only consists in what we know happened according to the news, no matter how gargantuan. So gargantuan but so far away it’s not real.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">We are, neurologically, psychologically, pants-down perplexed in the night, able only to jiggle in our heads a modest number of variables, let alone the normal more-than-modest number of variables with the whiff of disaster. And then down the front page of the ABC news is a report from the Medical Journal of Australia that</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">"<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-10-26/climate-change-health-fossil-fuel-heat-inequality-bushfire-flood/101572852">Australia's greatest threat, including to the health of its people, is not from beyond its borders — it is from within," states the report, which was written by 20 researchers in Australia, New Zealand and the UK…”</a></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2022/217/9/2022-report-mja-lancet-countdown-health-and-climate-change-australia-unprepared?utm_source=carousel&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=homepage">Here’s the source</a></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">But otherwise the news is weighty with Putin, Putin, Ukraine, Ukraine, and um gosh, Bushmaster. We are sending them more of these unsafe bruising blind defence troop transports, getting them off the army’s inventory. No questions asked, no report by the ABC about how many of those already sent are still in operation, how many broken down, how many destroyed in combat, how many gone to the black market.In new news,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>advisors will be sent to assist in a training program in the UK for the Ukraine army after Christmas… though it seems inconceivable that no advisors accompanied the M777 artillery pieces we have supplied, though British and American advisors on the ground may know them better. The M777 compared to the Bushmaster, more significant to the war, <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/war-ukraine-fuels-demand-british-115635538.html"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">also the UK economy</span></a>. Though the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/world/europe/us-ukraine-howitzers.html"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">New York Times thinks it’s American</span></a>.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Just days now till the closing date, 31 October, for submissions to the <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/about/reviews-inquiries/defence-strategic-review"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">defence strategic review</span></a> to be submitted …<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>apparently then days before an interim report will be released, no doubt already written. <a href="http://dennisargall.blogspot.com/2022/10/australian-strategic-defence-review.html"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none;">My submission is in, copy here.</span></a> I urge funding for a socially and economically future-proofed nation before money for pointy toys. But I’m out of touch, with an opinion survey apparently suggesting that 80% of Australians would go to war for Taiwan…<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>more than the percentage of people in Taiwan who expect war or want war.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://www.unionsnsw.org.au/campaign/train-strike/">The fought-over fare charging devices of Sydney Trains</a></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> (for the sake of national security) should be replaced by a pin-tail-on-donkey map quiz, called <i>‘Where’s Taiwan”</i>. I failed one of those in 1964, there’s no shame involved. It goes with the quiz question: “<i>Which is wider, Bass Strait or Taiwan Strait”.</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">So we have the beginning now of a decisive period in history: inflexion point in the Ukraine war: the US mid-term elections on 8 November: the heads of government conference of the G-20 on 15-16 November. So many supplementary questions arise for commuters to address!</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><ol class="ol1"><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">What is the G20?</span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Where is the G20 heads of government meeting being held 15-16 November?</span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Will Australia be represented by the governor-general or the prime minister?</span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">What country is it being held in?</span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Name five of the participating countries.</span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Is Indonesia among the members?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">How far is Indonesia from Australia?</span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Is the head of the Indonesian government elected? <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">How many people are registered to vote in Indonesia? [190 million, total population 270 million]</span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Population of the USA [330 million], registered voters [168 million]</span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Percentage of registered voters voting last presidential election [USA 66%, Indonesia 75%]<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">If the USA, Russia and China attend the G20, will there be discussion of [i] war, [ii] peace. If not, why not?</span></li><li class="li1" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">[supplementary question] Australia signed a security cooperation agreement with which country a few days ago. Which country and why?</span></li></ol>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-59481822964025304962022-10-17T20:38:00.001+11:002022-10-17T20:38:15.232+11:00text of Chairman Xi Jinping's opening address to the 20th congress of the Communist Party of China<p> Western media is full of varied quality reporting on this major speech, For my reference and for anyone in pursuit of facts, <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/special/2017-11/03/c_136725942.htm">there is a link here to download the official text.</a></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-72996254841655226832022-10-17T20:31:00.000+11:002022-10-17T20:31:59.554+11:00How "Russian Spring" was born in Ukraine (1989 - 2014)<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;">In case it should meet some misfortune I am placing here the text of a long essay in a history section of a Moscow paper. I am placing it here because it is an important story from an important perspective, one which we are denied in most western reporting. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;">This is for the same reason that I placed in this blog some weeks ago<a href="http://dennisargall.blogspot.com/2022/07/why-ukrainian-air-defense-has-not-yet.html" target="_blank"> the text of a Russian essay in the same newspaper on Russia's difficulties in securing air superiority over Ukraine</a>. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;">We are broadly aware that the present war in Ukraine began in 2014. We lack knowledge of the history leading from perestroika in the USSR though the independence processes up to the critical events at the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;">The headline of the article is</span></p><h1 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-grey); font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><i style="background-color: white;">How "Russian Spring" was born in Ukraine (1989 - 2014)</i></span></h1><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;">What follows is a google translation from Russian. The original is here: </span></p><p><a href="https://history.vz.ru/kak_rozhdalas_russkaja_vesna_na_ukraine_(1989_-_2014)/5.html"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;">https://history.vz.ru/kak_rozhdalas_russkaja_vesna_na_ukraine_(1989_-_2014)/5.html</span></a></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;">The newspaper is here: <a href="https://vz.ru/">https://vz.ru/</a></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The processes culminating in Ukraine after the collapse of the USSR were the events of the winter-spring of 2014 - the reunification of Crimea with Russia and the uprising of the population of Donbass and the South-East of Ukraine against those who came to power in Kyiv as a result of the coup. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">This phenomenon was called the "Russian Spring" - a movement of Russian people who ended up in Ukraine after the collapse of the USSR and defended their civil rights and their identity.</span></span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Where did the Russians go</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">To understand the position of Russians in Ukraine, it is significant to compare the data of two population censuses conducted with a difference of 12 years - in 1989 and 2001. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Since then, no censuses have been conducted by the Ukrainian authorities. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">One can only more or less reasonably extrapolate the tendencies of the first decade of Ukrainian independence to subsequent years.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">According </span><a href="http://2001.ukrcensus.gov.ua/results/general/nationality/" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">to the 1989 census</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;"> , Russians made up 22.1% of the population of the Ukrainian SSR. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 2001, their share was already 17.3%. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">According to census data, Russians constituted the second largest ethnic group both in the entire Ukrainian SSR and in the absolute majority of its regions (the exceptions were Crimean, where ethnic Russians made up the majority of the population - 65.6%, and Transcarpathian and Chernivtsi regions, where Russians were the fourth by number).</span></span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The Russians are extremely unevenly settled on the territory of Ukraine. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In the regions of Western, Northern and Right-bank Ukraine, the share of Russians ranged from 4% (Ivano-Frankivsk) to 8.7% (Kyiv). </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">On the periphery of this macro-region there were regions in which the 1989 census recorded from 10% to 13% of Russians (Poltava, Kirovograd and Sumy). </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In eight regions, located in a single array in the south-east of the country, the share of Russians significantly exceeded the above figures: from 19.4% in Mykolaiv to 44.8% in Lugansk.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;">When compared with these data, the results of the 2001 census result in the following picture.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Within the first macro-region, where Russians made up up to 10% of the population, in most regions their share was almost halved. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, in the South and East, the decline in the share of the Russian population did not have such a catastrophic scale and amounted to less than a third of the previous number. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">And if in the period from 1989 to 2001 Ukraine lost a total of about 1.7% of the population, then the number of the titular nation increased by 0.3%. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, the number of Russians decreased by a total of just over a quarter (26.6%).</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, the demographic hole that Ukraine fell into in the early 1990s also turned out to be quite selective. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Western Ukrainian regions, in which no more than 2.6% of Russians remained, either increased the total population by 0.6–0.7% (Transcarpathian, Rivne), or if they lost their population, then very slightly - no more than 2.2% (Ternopil region, where 1.2% of Russians remained). </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, the Luhansk region, which in terms of the number of Russian population immediately followed the Crimea, lost more than 11% of the population.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Behind the dry numbers of demographic statistics, a disappointing picture of Ukraine's gaining national sovereignty emerges. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The direct and obvious beneficiaries of independence were, first of all, the inhabitants of the western regions of Ukraine, who showed maximum political activity at the turn of the 80s and 90s of the last century.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Since no more censuses have been conducted in Ukraine since 2001, attempts were made to estimate the number of those who identify themselves as Russians using sociological methods. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In particular, according to the Rating research group, from 2008 to 2014, about 15% of Ukrainian citizens considered themselves Russians. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 2014, this number decreased to 11%, including due to the loss of Crimea and the most densely populated part of Donbass by Ukraine.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the beginning of May 2022, only 5% of respondents identified themselves as Russian. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, sociological survey data is less accurate than population census data. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Especially in crisis and conflict situations, when the respondent may deliberately distort his own point of view for security purposes or adjusting to a socially approved model of behavior. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Also, the sharp decline in the share of the Russian population was affected by the loss by Ukraine in 2022 of a number of regions (parts of the Zaporozhye, Kharkiv, Kherson regions).</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Imagine a portrait of two typical Ukrainians who lived in the Ivano-Frankivsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">They will speak different languages - Ukrainian in the first case and Russian in the second. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Belong (at least formally) to different confessions - Greek Catholicism and Orthodoxy. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The surname of a Ukrainian from Ivano-Frankivsk region will end in -chuk, and his children will be called Nazar and Solomiya. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">A Ukrainian from the Luhansk region will have a surname ending in -ko, and he will name his children Artem and Maria. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The first one may well have relatives in Canada or Argentina, the second one will certainly have them in Russia.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The described image of a resident of the Lugansk region, by most signs, will be indistinguishable from a Russian from Rostov-on-Don or Voronezh. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">What makes him a Ukrainian is solely the state policy to create an imaginary national community. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Remove this policy and there will soon be no trace left of Ukrainian identity.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Autonomous decay</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">A characteristic element of the disintegration of the USSR was the struggle of the regions for autonomous status. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The autonomies raised the question of maintaining unity with Moscow in the event that their national republics declared independence. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The idea of making the autonomous republics subjects of a new union treaty was actively discussed at the Novo-Ogaryovo talks as part of an attempt to preserve the USSR.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">So, in 1989, the South Ossetian Autonomous Region proclaimed itself an Autonomous Republic within Georgia, which did not recognize this decision. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">And already in 1990, the South Ossetian Soviet Democratic Republic was proclaimed as part of the USSR. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In response to this, the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR completely eliminated the autonomous status of the region. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Already in January 1991, hostilities broke out on this basis.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In September 1991, in response to the declaration of independence of Azerbaijan, the regional council of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region proclaimed a republic within the USSR. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Already in the fall, a war began between the armed formations of Karabakh and Azerbaijan.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Somewhat differently than in Transcaucasia, where a system of autonomous republics and regions existed as part of the national union republics, the conflict proceeded in the Moldavian SSR with its unitary structure. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 1989, with the active participation of the Union of Writers of the Moldavian SSR and the People's Front that took shape on its basis, a law on the state language was adopted. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In response, representatives of the Chisinau Intermovement, as well as local councils of Tiraspol and other settlements on the left bank of the Dniester, demanded that the Russian language be given the status of a second state language. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">After this demand was ignored, the largest enterprises of Transnistria, the most industrialized region of the MSSR, went on strike. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">When it did not bring success, the question of creating an autonomous republic was raised.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, if in Chisinau the nationalist forces demanded the unification of Moldova with Romania, then in Tiraspol they appealed to the autonomous republic that existed in the region in the 1920s-1930s as part of the Ukrainian SSR. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In addition, there were deeper historical arguments. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the Congress of Deputies of Pridnestrovie on September 2, 1990, the </span></span><a href="http://docs.historyrussia.org/ru/nodes/72305-politiko-pravovoe-obosnovanie-sozdaniya-pridnestrovskoy-moldavskoy-sovetskoy-sotsialisticheskoy-respubliki-2-sentyabrya-1990-goda" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">"Political and Legal Justification for the Creation of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic" was adopted</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In this document, for the first time in a political context, the word "Novorossiya" was used. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The authors noted that the self-determination of the republic is based on “the formation of a certain ethnic group that inhabits today the south-west of the country (that is, the Soviet Union - ed.) and consists of descendants of immigrants from Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Germany, Greece and other countries . </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In practice, this ethnic group was formed by the time of the formation of Novorossia at the end of the 18th century as part of the Russian state.</span></span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">A referendum on the proclamation of the republic was held in Rybnitsa in December 1990, in Tiraspol in January 1991, and then throughout the year local referendums were held in other settlements of Transnistria. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">An Autonomous Republic within the USSR and a special economic zone on the territory of the left-bank regions of the MSSR were proclaimed. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Ultimately, already in the autumn of 1991, the conflict with Chisinau turned into an armed confrontation.</span></span><a name="date19900716" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In Ukraine, as in Moldova, the starting point for separation from the USSR was the </span><a href="https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/cgi-bin/laws/main.cgi?nreg=8312-11#Text" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">law on languages</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;"> adopted at the end of 1989 by the Supreme Council of the Republic , in which Ukrainian was declared the only state language. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The adoption of this law is considered the first practical step towards Ukraine's independence. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The next was the proclamation of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of July 16, 1990, a little over a month after a similar document was adopted by the Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The failure of the "August coup" in 1991 in Moscow opened a direct path for Kyiv to an independence referendum.</span></span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Donbass: the struggle for autonomy and the preservation of the Union</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 1990 (that is, a year before the collapse of the USSR), an article appeared in the press organ of the Lugansk Komsomol - the Molodogvardeets newspaper - under the heading "It's impossible for us!" </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The article describes hypothetical scenarios for the separation of Donbass from Ukraine and its consequences.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The author, a local publicist, writer and political scientist Sergei Chebanenko, argued that whatever government is in Kyiv, communist or democratic, it will never voluntarily give up Donbass, and therefore the region’s secession from Ukraine cannot be formalized by legitimate procedures. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">This means that for such a branch, only the revolutionary path of mass popular protests is possible, which will provoke Kyiv to use armed force. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">If the separation of Donbass is supported by Russia, then this will lead to a war between the republics. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">On the other hand, according to the author, “Russian-speaking Nikolaev and Sevastopol” can follow the path of Donbass.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">This publication was a response to the emergence in the Lugansk region of the People's Movement of Lugansk Region (NDL), whose leader, university lecturer Valery Cheker, demanded that the Kyiv authorities sign a new union treaty and grant Donbass "a new economic, political and social status" within its framework. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">According to Checker, the NDL “stands for autonomy within Ukraine, of course, if the republic signs a union treaty. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">And if this does not happen, then we can only talk about the transition to the jurisdiction of the RSFSR.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">On the basis of the NDL, the Democratic Donbass movement was created, which appealed to the experience of the Galicians - by this time, an association of deputies of all levels of the three Western Ukrainian regions had been organized, called the Galician Assembly. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The Assembly, headed by the leader of the nationalist People's Rukh of Ukraine, dissident Vyacheslav Chernovol, threatened Kyiv with secession if the leadership of Soviet Ukraine signed a new union treaty.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In turn, the activists of the Democratic Donbass proposed to convene the Donetsk Assembly, proclaim the Republic of Little Russia with its center in Luhansk, and linked its preservation as part of Ukraine with the preservation of Ukraine as part of the Union. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">It is indicative that the historical term “Novorossiya”, which is more correct for Donbass, was so firmly forgotten during the Soviet period that Russian activists of the Luhansk region during perestroika, unlike their Pridnestrovian associates, may have been simply unknown (in 2016, under the influence of Russian writer Zakhar Prilepin about the creation of Little Russia was declared by the head of the Donetsk People's Republic Alexander Zakharchenko). </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, from the radical idea of the "Republic of Little Russia", as well as from the creation of their own power units to protect it,</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The most famous Russian public association of those years was the Donetsk Intermovement of Donbass. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In January 1989, the founding congress of the International Workers' Front of the Latvian SSR, or Interfront for short, was held in Riga. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">One of its leaders was the People's Deputy of the USSR, military engineer, Colonel Viktor Alksnis. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Soon similar interfronts arose in other Baltic republics, in Moldova and some other regions of the Soviet Union. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In this row is the International Front of Donbass.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The main doctrinal principle of the organization at that moment was the preservation of the Soviet Union. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, the activists of the Intermovement demanded the autonomy of Donbass within Ukraine and the general federal-land reorganization of the unitary national republic. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The Intermovement also fought for the official status of the Russian language, guaranteeing its equality with Ukrainian, and opposed Ukrainian nationalism.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The creator and ideologist of the Intermovement of Donbass was Dmitry Kornilov. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The organization developed and put into use a black-blue-red tricolor, which years later will turn into the flag of the Donetsk People's Republic. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">A special role in the activities of the Intermovement was played by the popularization of the historical memory of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic during the Civil War. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, the Intermovement was not a form of communist revenge in the republics that wanted to break away, but one of the directions of the democratic movement that originated at the decline of the USSR and opposed the party nomenklatura, which was turning into the national elites of the new independent states before our eyes.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The idea of a referendum on the proclamation of an autonomous republic in the Donbass was actively discussed in the regional press, at rallies and meetings of public organizations. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The local authorities could not ignore this issue either. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Back in September 1990, the Donetsk City Council prepared a draft Declaration on the economic sovereignty of Donetsk and the status of the city within the Ukrainian SSR. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">A year later, in October 1991, the issue of the status of the region was submitted to the session of the Donetsk Regional Council, which adopted an appeal to the Supreme Council of Ukraine with a proposal to introduce a federal-land structure into the draft Constitution of Ukraine, and to adopt the Constitution itself at a national referendum.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The continuation of this official initiative was a meeting of people's deputies of all levels of the South and East of Ukraine, held in Donetsk on October 26, 1991. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">An appeal was adopted to the Supreme Council of Ukraine with a proposal “Introduce the provision on the federal land structure of Ukraine into the concept and into the draft Constitution of Ukraine; </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">during November 1991 to discuss the draft of the new Constitution of Ukraine and submit it for public discussion.</span></span><a name="date19910819" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, in the end, the idea of the region's autonomy was never realized. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The failure of the State Committee for the State of Emergency in 1991 neutralized those who could count on the use of force to preserve the unity of the Union. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">An attempt to rely on the KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the army proved fruitless in the capital, and the over-centralized Soviet system did not allow for such an initiative on the ground. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">But the main thing is that after Yeltsin's victory, the issue of a new union treaty, to which the autonomists hoped to become subjects, was already removed from the agenda and was no longer returned to it. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, the real political force of Donbass - the strike movement of miners - was focused on socio-economic, rather than political problems, and it seemed to many then that it would be easier for independent Ukraine to solve them.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Crimea. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">With the Republic, but without the Union</span></span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">While Donetsk and Lugansk failed to achieve autonomous status in 1991, Crimea proved to be more successful along the way. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In January 1991, an important step was taken towards formalizing the political self-determination of Russians in Crimea - a referendum on "the re-establishment of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as a subject of the USSR and a participant in the Union Treaty."</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><figure style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 48px 0px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><img alt="" src="https://history.vz.ru/image/c4ac2230-5ae1-4b6f-839b-207989b3d829.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; width: 730px;" /></div><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; opacity: 0.6; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;">This is what the ballot of the first Crimean referendum looked like</span></figcaption></figure><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Back in 1989, in connection with the rehabilitation of the Crimean Tatar people, the issue of restoring the Crimean ASSR was raised at the central level. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The process of the return of the Crimean Tatars to the peninsula took place in a tense, conflict situation, which is typical in general for interethnic relations at the end of the Soviet era.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In the autumn of 1989, the People's Front appeared in Crimea. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Such associations appeared throughout the Union, initially declaring support for Gorbachev's perestroika. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">They were supposed to support the democratic initiatives of the Soviet leader on the ground, helping to overcome the resistance of the conservative central apparatus. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, within the framework of these associations, opposition to the CPSU as such and its monopoly on power very quickly began to take shape.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In the national republics, primarily the Baltics, Moldova, Georgia, the popular fronts very quickly became a stronghold of nationalism and separatism. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Ukraine was no exception, where the association was called Narodny Rukh. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The initiators of the creation of the organization were Ukrainian Soviet writers (Ivan Drach, Dmytro Pavlichko, Boris Oliynyk), who took an active part in the development of a new language law.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In Crimea, local democratic forces chose to distance themselves from Ukrainian nationalism and created their own, regional “front”. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In other national republics, this was not observed, but it was typical for the RSFSR, where there was no own united Popular Front, but the Moscow, Leningrad, Kuibyshev, Chelyabinsk, Don, etc. "popular fronts" were actively operating.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">It was the Crimean People's Front that raised the idea of reviving the status of an autonomous republic to its shield. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Voices began to be heard in favor of the return of Crimea to Russia, since Crimea had the status of an autonomous republic within the RSFSR, and the Ukrainian SSR was a unitary entity. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Consequently, the supporters of this idea believed that the revival of the status of autonomy also implies a change of jurisdiction - from Ukrainian back to Russian.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The idea of Crimea gaining a higher republican status and maintaining its unity with the entire large country also had a socio-economic dimension. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The way out of the crisis in the Crimea was seen as the transformation of the peninsula exclusively into a resort region. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">And this could give the expected effect only on the scale of the “all-Union health resort”.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;">Under the pressure of three political factors - Kyiv's choice of a course towards building an independent Ukrainian national state, the growth of interethnic tension in Crimea itself and competition from the "democrats" - the party elite of the Crimean region, which had previously taken a wait-and-see position, switched to republican positions.</span><a name="date19910120" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The Crimean referendum in January 1991 was the first plebiscite in the history of the USSR. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">More than 81% of voters took part in the voting, more than 93% of whom answered “yes” to the question submitted to the referendum: “Are you in favor of recreating the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as a subject of the USSR and a participant in the Union Treaty?” </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The legitimacy of these results was not disputed by either Kyiv or Moscow.</span></span><a name="date19911208" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, the results of the referendum were not fully implemented. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Crimea restored the status of an autonomous republic, but it was not destined to become a subject of the new Union Treaty. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The new treaty was never signed. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Instead, the leaders of the three union republics (the RSFSR - Boris Yeltsin, the Ukrainian SSR - Leonid Kravchuk and the Byelorussian SSR - Stanislav Shushkevich) on December 8, 1991 in Belovezhskaya Pushcha signed an agreement on the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), in the very first lines of which they stated that " The Union of the SSR ... ceases to exist. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, Crimea was actually abandoned by Yeltsin, who was in a hurry to gain full power in the RSFSR, and thus left as part of Ukraine. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">And in December 1991, a referendum on the independence of Ukraine and the election of its president took place.</span></span><a name="date19911201" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">1991. Choice in the process of disintegration</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The place the Russian question occupied in Ukrainian politics is shown by the election leaflet of Leonid Kravchuk, then a presidential candidate and chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, whose signature was already under the act of declaring independence and under the Belovezhskaya agreements. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In the recent past, a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the head of the ideological department of the Communist Party of Ukraine issued an open appeal "To Russian compatriots." </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">No other national group has received such special attention.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><figure style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 48px 0px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><img alt="" src="https://history.vz.ru/image/31938d46-f762-4d32-ba98-b4741b38d877.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; width: 730px;" /></div><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; opacity: 0.6; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;">Leaflet of the presidential candidate of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk "to the Russian compatriots"</span></figcaption></figure><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;">Addressing “brothers and sisters” in a Stalinist way, Kravchuk called the Russians living in the republic “full owners” of the Ukrainian land, guaranteed that he would not allow “forced Ukrainization”, promised to maintain “full-blooded ties with Russia”, called for building an independent Ukraine as a state of “Ukrainians” and Russians, of all nationalities inhabiting it.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">For the Russians, this appeal recognized the existence of certain special “political, economic, social and spiritual needs”, as well as “legitimate interests” that needed state protection. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The presidential candidate expressed hope for support from the Russians "in ensuring the territorial integrity of the republic" and mentioned some provocateurs who sow interethnic discord and speculate "on the problem of territorial claims to sovereign Ukraine."</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The assurances that sounded from the lips of the father of Ukrainian independence at its dawn coincided with the political programs of parties and movements that were commonly called pro-Russian. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">And the rhetoric chosen by Kyiv was designed to prevent internal separatism and the claims of neighbors, primarily Russia.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 1991, Kravchuk confidently won the presidential elections in independent Ukraine. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Residents of the Ukrainian SSR, disoriented by the grandiose processes of the fall of the Communist Party and the collapse of the Soviet Union, then twice during the year supported the opposite ideas in referendums. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">First, a majority of votes were in favor of the preservation of the USSR, and then - for the independence of Ukraine. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The second vote, as well as the election of yesterday's top functionary of the CPSU to the post of head of state, for ordinary citizens was an attempt to protect themselves from the consequences of a large-scale geopolitical catastrophe.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">It took only one round for Leonid Kravchuk to win. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">He ensured such a result by winning in all regions of Ukraine, with the exception of three Galician regions - Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil, where the dissident, leader of the Narodny Rukh, Ukrainian nationalist Vyacheslav Chernovol won. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In two Volyn regions - Volyn proper and Rivne, the gap in favor of Kravchuk was minimal. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Third after Kravchuk and Chornovol was another Ukrainian nationalist and former dissident, a native of Chernihiv region Levko Lukyanenko.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The fourth place in the presidential elections was taken by Vladimir Grinev from Kharkiv. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Grinev was the vice-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">On August 24, 1991, he refused to support the Act on the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine and opposed the ban on the Communist Party. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Judging by the results obtained, it was Grinev who was the "candidate from the South-East" in those elections.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The highest percentage was received by Grinev in the Donetsk region (11%) and almost the same in the Kharkiv region (10.9%). </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Slightly less - in the Crimea (9.4%) and Odessa (8.4%). </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">For comparison: 11% was received by the winner of the elections Kravchuk in the Lviv region. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Above the average for Ukraine (4.1%), Grinev also managed to get in Lugansk (6.7%) and Mykolaiv (5.6%) regions, a close result (3.9%) - in Zaporozhye.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;">The political contours and configuration of the Russian part of Ukraine were guessed already at the dawn of its independence, concentrating primarily in the cities, although it lost in terms of monolithic voting to the Western part of Ukraine.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In the extraordinary presidential elections in Ukraine in 1994, Grinev supported Leonid Kuchma, with whom he had collaborated since the early 1990s. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">As a confidant of the candidate, he made campaign trips to the cities of Novorossia, where he showed a good result in the 1991 elections. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In many respects, it was this that contributed to the approval of Kuchma as a “pro-Russian” candidate, which made it possible to win the elections.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Grinev, a supporter of the federalization of Ukraine, received the post of presidential adviser on regional policy. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, Kuchma soon distanced himself from pro-Russian advances to his voters, and the liberal market reforms that Grinev had always advocated fell out of favor in both Ukraine and Russia. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">They hit hardest of all just on engineers, teachers, researchers, who made up the electoral base of such politicians as Vladimir Grinev. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">But it was they who predetermined the renaissance of the left forces in the second half of the 1990s.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">After the collapse. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">1992–1994</span></span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">After the formal liquidation of the USSR, the severe socio-economic crisis, which became one of the reasons for the collapse of the Union, did not disappear anywhere. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Against this background, a new struggle for power is unfolding in the former Soviet republics. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 1992, in the immediate vicinity of the borders of the Ukrainian SSR, the conflict between Moldova and Transnistria entered the armed phase. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In Russia, the conflict between President Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet ended in 1993 with street fighting in Moscow and the shooting down of the building of the Russian parliament.</span></span><a name="date19931003" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In Ukraine, as in other republics, the basis of the political crisis was the confrontation between the president and parliament against the backdrop of acute internal socio-economic problems. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">As in 1991, the national question reminded itself of itself.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In late February - early March 1992, Novorossia first encountered Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary formations. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The "train of friendship" of the UNA-UNSO militants (an organization banned in the Russian Federation) first visited Odessa, where the nationalists staged a pogrom in the city prosecutor's office, and then reached Sevastopol through Nikolaev, Kherson and Simferopol.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><figure class="iframe-resizer" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 48px 0px;"><div style="border-radius: 24px; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 16px; overflow: hidden;"><iframe allow="clipboard-write; autoplay" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="405" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://rutube.ru/play/embed/4369f8dc1510f116debf2561cafc015c" style="border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: 410.625px; width: 730px;" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="720"></iframe></div><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; opacity: 0.6; text-align: center;"></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The route of the train is indicative. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The leader of the militants, Dmitry Korchinsky, openly stated that the show of force was addressed to the separatists entrenched in the southern region. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The nationalists did not meet any organized resistance, but their visit activated the Russian movement.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Odessa remembers Novorossiya, and Crimea elects a president</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 1993, the Odessa City Council for the first time among the regional centers of Ukraine (the first regional center to make a similar decision was Mariupol on November 5, 1991) decided to use the Russian language along with Ukrainian in its work. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The initiator was a young politician, the leader of the movement Civil Forum "Odessa" Alexei Kostusev (later one of the leaders of the "Union" party, then a member of the political council of the "Party of Regions" and the mayor of Odessa in 2010-2013).</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At that time, preparations were underway in Odessa for the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the city, which provoked a heated political discussion. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Thus, in 1992, the Obozreniye newspaper published an article with an eloquent headline: “We are Novorossiy”, the author of which stated, in particular, the following:</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">“Having emerged from many years of oblivion, the word “Novorossiya” is now surprisingly misunderstood by those who do not know or have forgotten their history. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Political adventurers, who dreamed of recreating on the ruins of one sixth of the land of a medieval dumpling-sharovan utopia, with obscene hoots and “shouting”, are trying to distract the old-timers of the Black Sea region from the revival of their self-awareness and self-understanding ...</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;">We consider it anti-historical and blasphemous to impose on our land a mono-national Ukrainian culture in its worst tribal expression: we reject the trend of turning Novorossia into a “Step Ukraine” invented by the ideologists of nationalism ...</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Our land has become the country of destiny for many talented people who did not want to evaluate their neighbor on a national basis. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">And by the will of History and Fate, Odessa, founded according to the decree of Catherine the Great in 1794, became the pearl of New Russia.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The intellectual response of Ukrainian nationalists was the assertion that the 200th anniversary of the city is a “myth” that feeds the independence of the “fictitious Novorossiya” and creates a “theoretical basis for anti-Ukrainian resistance on the Black Sea coast.” </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">It was in this context that the theory about the 600-year age of Odessa appeared, formulated for the first time in the book of the same name by amateur historian Alexander Boldyrev.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">But a much more serious "resistance" took place in the Crimea. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Here, literally on the eve of the visit of Ukrainian nationalists, the Republican Movement of Crimea was transformed into a party of the same name, led by Yuriy Meshkov. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Meshkov was a lawyer, and began his social activities as the leader of the Crimean branch of the all-Union "Memorial" - a public organization engaged in perpetuating the memory of the victims of Soviet political repression. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 1991, Meshkov openly spoke out against the State Emergency Committee. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">And it was he who uncompromisingly became the head of the struggle for the reunification of Crimea with Russia.</span></span><a name="date19940116" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Activists of the Russian movement have started preparing a new referendum on the self-determination of Crimea. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In October 1993, the Supreme Council of the peninsula introduced the post of president, and in January 1994, Meshkov was elected to this position as the leader of the electoral bloc with the eloquent name "Russia". </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In the second round of presidential elections in the autonomy, Meshkov received 72% of the vote. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">It is significant that the leader of the Crimean Communists Leonid Grach took 4th place, gaining 13% in the first round. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In the spring of 1994, the Rossiya bloc won the elections to the Supreme Council of Crimea, whose speaker was one of the leaders of the Russian Community of Crimea and the Republican Party, Sergei Tsekov (currently a senator from Crimea in the Federation Council of Russia).</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><figure class="iframe-resizer" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 48px 0px;"><div style="border-radius: 24px; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 16px; overflow: hidden;"><iframe allow="clipboard-write; autoplay" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="405" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://rutube.ru/play/embed/87ad72b93dcfae4135bc0d7259062883" style="border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: 410.625px; width: 730px;" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="720"></iframe></div><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; opacity: 0.6; text-align: center;"></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;">However, at that moment there was no necessary unity in the Crimean elites, and the process of gaining full sovereignty by the republic was drowned in political battles.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Donbass holds a referendum</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 1992, the “Civil Congress” party was created in Donetsk, co-chaired by Donetsk teacher of philosophy Alexander Bazilyuk, Kharkov archaeologist and current deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Valery Meshcheryakov and Crimean writer, founder of the “Russian Community of Crimea” Vladimir Terekhov. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">All three came from the democratic movement of the perestroika era, and after the collapse of the Union, they opposed the former party nomenklatura, which repainted as Ukrainian nationalists. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The "Civil Congress" advocated the equality of the Russian language and the federal reorganization of Ukraine. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the stage of formation, the future Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov was in its ranks.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In addition to democratic forces, the left, primarily the communists, claimed the pro-Russian vector in Ukrainian politics. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR on August 30, 1991, following the failure of the State Emergency Committee and the declaration of independence of Ukraine, the Communist Party was banned. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, already in May 1993, the Presidium of the Supreme Court allowed the creation of a new communist party in the country, which was done at the first congress of the Communist Party of Ukraine, in June of the same year in Donetsk. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The party was led by Petr Simonenko, former second secretary of the Donetsk regional committee.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Since December 1993, Donbass has been gripped by an indefinite strike of miners. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Yielding to the demands of the strikers, the Verkhovna Rada announced a referendum on confidence in the president and parliament, which was to be held on March 20. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, at the last moment, the Rada and President Kravchuk agreed to early elections.</span></span><a name="date19940327" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Parliamentary elections were to be held on 27 March. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In these circumstances, the Donetsk and Luhansk regional councils decided to hold their own referendum in parallel, which should have included questions about the federal structure of Ukraine (only in Donetsk), the status of the Russian language and integration in the post-Soviet space. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Thus, for the first time, the entire key block of problems related to the political Russian movement in Ukraine was formulated. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The Intermovement of Donbass took an active part in the preparation of the referenda. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">With a turnout of over 70%, the vast majority of citizens supported the initiatives put to the referendum.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Elections–1994</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Following the results of the 1994 parliamentary elections, which were held on a completely majoritarian basis, the majority of seats in parliament were won by non-partisan self-nominated candidates. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">But among the parties, it was the revived KPU that brought the largest number of deputies to the Rada, having issued a pronounced “red belt”. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">So, in the Luhansk region, out of 23 districts, 14 turned out to be communists, in Donetsk - 24 out of 48, in Kherson - 5 out of 10, Nikolaev - 5 out of 11, in Crimea (with Sevastopol) - 10 out of 23, in Zaporozhye: out of 18 - 7. This list does not include three regions with key cities - Kharkiv (6 out of 25), Odessa (6 out of 23) and Dnepropetrovsk (1 out of 34). </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">For comparison, the Communists got more favorable results in several regions of Northern and Central Ukraine. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Thus, it is seen </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">that a unified political agenda for all regions of historical Novorossiya was just beginning to take shape. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">From the pro-Russian party "Civil Congress" two majoritarian deputies from Kharkiv and Donetsk region entered the parliament.</span></span><a name="date19940626" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The tendencies that manifested themselves in the 1994 parliamentary elections were fully manifested in the presidential elections, the first round of which took place three months later. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In the first round, Leonid Kuchma received 83% of the vote in Crimea, 54% in Donetsk and Lugansk regions. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">And for his competitor Leonid Kravchuk in the first round, 91% of active voters in Ternopil, 90% in Lviv and 89% in Ivano-Frankivsk regions voted. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">He received slightly less support in Volhynia. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The second round showed even more vividly the political split of Ukraine.</span></span><a name="date19940710" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Kuchma's Ukraine becomes Non-Russia</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The electoral dynamics showed that Kuchma was voted for primarily as a "pro-Russian" candidate. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">But it was during his presidency that an intense wave of Ukrainization occurred, which was carried out with the help of administrative measures - presidential decrees, Cabinet resolutions, various by-laws and court decisions that limited the spread of the Russian language.</span></span><a name="date19950317" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Crimea, which provided Kuchma with unprecedented support, already in 1995 was deprived of sovereignty. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Taking advantage of the internal split in the political elites of the peninsula, Kyiv liquidated the constitution of the Republic of Crimea. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Yuri Meshkov was forced to emigrate to Russia. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In July 1996, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine sent a document to the government of Crimea with the title: "On measures aimed at ideologically ensuring the status of Crimea as an integral part of Ukraine."</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Having dealt with the Crimean autonomy, Kuchma launched an offensive in the humanitarian sphere. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In the fall of 1996, the ORT channel, as the First Channel of Russian Television was called at that time, stopped broadcasting in Ukraine. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Instead, Inter appeared on the air, the very name of which hinted at the international character of the channel. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Indeed, ORT acted as a minority shareholder of the new television company. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Russian entertainment content, which had no competitors on Ukrainian television for a long time, both on television and in the advertising market, formed the basis of Inter's broadcasting. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">But socio-political and information programs were now made in Kyiv. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Ultimately, in 2002, almost all the programs of the Russian channel disappeared from the Ukrainian air.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Kuchma's Ukrainization reached its peak when Viktor Yushchenko (2001-2002) became prime minister, in whose government humanitarian posts were occupied by Ukrainian nationalists. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">One of the reasons for this reversal was the struggle around the draft Constitution of Ukraine, adopted in 1996. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Kuchma managed to achieve maximum powers for himself, which allowed him to virtually single-handedly control the fate of the gigantic economic assets that Ukraine inherited from the USSR. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In exchange for political support for his project, the president gave Ukrainian nationalists the ideological and humanitarian spheres. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The Constitution stipulated the state status only for the Ukrainian language and a unitary political structure.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">This is how the political model of “Kuchmism” was formed, when the oligarchic elites of the East of Ukraine gained control over the economy, and the political elites of the West - over ideology. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, the system was overloaded with internal conflicts, in which the president, who had the widest powers, acted as the supreme arbiter. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The ideological narrative of “Kuchmism” was a book published on behalf of the president with the telling title “Ukraine is not Russia”.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Left turn</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The Russian movement of the 1990s in Ukraine grew as an integral part of the general democratic movement of the times of perestroika in the late USSR and, by the end of the decade, completely lost its social support. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The urban intelligentsia of the South and East was demoralized by the results of market reforms. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The “Civil Congress”, which represented this electorate, changed its name to the “Slavic Party” and included in its membership the assets of the abolished Republican Party of Crimea, headed by Sergei Tsekov. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, all this did not help the party to break into the front row of the Ukrainian politicians, as well as the similar “Russian Bloc” of Alexander Svistunov. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">These parties systematically promoted their candidates for local councils only in Crimea and sporadically in other regions of the South-East, and later their remnants were blocked with the "Party of Regions".</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The industrial proletariat of these regions suffered no less from deindustrialization. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">As a result, left-wing parties, for which the national question played an optional role in those years, became a real counterbalance to the policy of official Kyiv.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Voters who felt the “dashing 90s” on themselves preferred to support the revived Communist Party of Ukraine, headed by Simonenko from Donetsk, or the more radical Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine from Kiev, Natalia Vitrenko, because, in addition to purely humanitarian issues, their main strong point was social issues. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Thanks to the influence of the left, many liberal economic reforms carried out in the Russian Federation in the 1990s and early 2000s (land market, monetization of benefits, etc.) were not implemented in Ukraine, despite the position of the government and Western creditors.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The Communists became victors in the 1998 elections to the Verkhovna Rada and were actively preparing for the presidential campaign. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Natalya Vitrenko, who split off the pro-Russian wing from the more moderate and quite popular in the rural Ukrainian province of the Socialist Party of Alexander Moroz, was accused by opponents of splitting and discrediting the left forces in the interests of the Kuchma administration. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, it was this party that became the center of attraction for all the activists of the “red-brown” (to use the definition of supporters of the Supreme Soviet of Russia in conflict with Yeltsin in 1993) political spectrum. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Because of this, she actively interacted with some Russian and even Orthodox political groups for whom an alliance with more orthodox communists was not possible.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, the Russian movement of the 1990s still managed to achieve certain results. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Under his pressure in 1999, Ukraine was forced to ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">One of the key initiators of its adoption was the Kharkiv deputy Vladimir Alekseev. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In the Verkhovna Rada, he and two hundred other deputies formed an inter-factional association to protect the Russian language. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The background for this decision was the struggle waged by the local representative bodies. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Back in 1996, the Kharkiv city council announced the free use of the Russian language in local government. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">This was followed by similar decisions of the Donetsk Regional Council and the Supreme Council of Crimea (1997).</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, these decisions were canceled by the prosecutor's office and the courts, and Kharkiv residents began to look for a legal basis in the struggle for their native language. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Already after the adoption of the Charter in April 2001, the Kharkiv city council confirmed that its decision on the free use of the Russian language along with Ukrainian remained in force despite the fact that the authorities threatened to dissolve it. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Moreover, a consultative referendum was announced, which was scheduled for 2002 in parallel with the next elections to the Verkhovna Rada. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">87% of active voters supported the official status of the Russian language.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In addition to Odessa, Kharkov, regional centers and large cities of Donbass (Mariupol, Enakievo, Gorlovka, Alchevsk, Lisichansk), the official status of the Russian language was adopted in Nikolaev, Kherson and Zaporozhye. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 2002, the regional councils of Dnepropetrovsk, Luhansk and the Supreme Council of Crimea appealed to the Verkhovna Rada with a demand to hold a referendum on the status of the Russian language, but it was ignored. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In all local councils, the initiators of such decisions were activists from various Russian and pro-Russian parties and public organizations.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">It must be admitted that at that time Ukrainization was still of a rather mild and gradual nature, and the population concerned about the banal survival against the backdrop of the crisis did not perceive it as problem No. 1. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Moreover, this movement could not even purely symbolically rely on the liberal Russia of Boris Yeltsin, which was going through a series of political and economic crises. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, the Russian movement in Ukraine, with the exception of Crimea, tried to play the role of an all-Ukrainian force, which clearly exceeded its real capabilities, instead of concentrating on work in the base regions.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Against this background, President Kuchma in 1999 managed to be re-elected for a second term. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">His potential rival, Rukh leader Vyacheslav Chernovol, died in a car accident six months before the elections. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Now Kuchma was going to the polls as a candidate, first of all, from Western Ukraine, having received over 90% of the votes in these areas in the second round. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, Kuchma managed to achieve a final victory in such key regions as Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, and even the native Donetsk region for his main opponent, the communist Simonenko.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">It seemed that the territorial division of Ukraine had been overcome, and the Russian question was no longer a political factor. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">On the other hand, since the beginning of the 2000s, the recovery growth of the economy began in Ukraine, the socio-economic situation has stabilized. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, this was only the calm before the storm.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">The Orange Revolution and the Blue and White Counter-Revolution</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;">When, along with economic growth, the acuteness of the problem of physical survival was removed, for the majority of the population, questions of identity again came to the fore, aggravated not only by the policy of forced Ukrainization implemented by the Kuchma administration, but also by the changed foreign policy situation.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 1993, when economic cataclysms, political crises and local wars shook the post-Soviet space, integration processes acquired a new quality to the west of it - the European Union was formed. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">A few years later, the former Central European countries of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet republics of the Baltic states submit applications for joining the new association.</span></span><a name="date19990312" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;">In 1999, three of them (Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary) become members of the NATO military-political bloc.</span><a name="date20040329" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 2004 seven more countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania) join them. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Most NATO recruits become members of the European Union in the same year.</span></span><a name="date20000326" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 2000, Vladimir Putin became president of Russia. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">He manages to stop the disintegration of the country, stabilize the socio-economic situation, strengthen Russia's position in the international arena. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">All this brings him extremely high popularity not only among Russian citizens, but also among his neighbors, including in Ukraine. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Putin is launching new integration projects in the post-Soviet space - the SCO, the CSTO, the Customs and Eurasian Unions.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, in Yugoslavia, as a result of mass protests organized using special political technologies, President Slobodan Milosevic was removed from power. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The Yugoslav protests are considered the first "color revolution" in Eastern Europe, followed by similar events in 2003 in Georgia, where Mikheil Saakashvili came to power.</span></span><a name="date20041122" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">All these factors overlapped in Ukraine at the turn of 2004-2005, when, as a result of another “color revolution” (the so-called Orange Revolution), Viktor Yushchenko, a supporter of neoliberal reforms, Euro-Atlantic integration and Ukrainian nationalism, became president. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">It was these three elements that determined the state policy of Kyiv during the years of his presidency.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Yushchenko's competitor was Viktor Yanukovych, the current Prime Minister of Ukraine at the start of the 2004 election campaign. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Yanukovych was a native of Donbass, made a career there, and during the time of Leonid Kuchma became the head of the Donetsk regional administration. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Behind him stood the "Donetsk clan", which intertwined representatives of the late Soviet nomenklatura (such as Yefim Zvyagilsky and Vladimir Rybak), and oligarchs who gained control of the largest industrial enterprises in the region (such as Rinat Akhmetov and Boris Kolesnikov).</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The elections of 2004-2005 for the first time so clearly and unequivocally showed the political subjectivity of the South-East of Ukraine, from Kharkov to Odessa. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Basically, these are the territories of the historical region, known since the end of the 18th century. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">under the name Novorossiya.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Political technologists of Yanukovych and his entourage realized that it was impossible to compete in the elections with Yushchenko, a candidate popular in the western and central regions of Ukraine, relying on a broad coalition of Ukrainian national-democratic and nationalist forces, supported by the West and a powerful parliamentary faction, remaining on the obscure political agenda of late Kuchmism. . </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">It made no sense to compete with Yushchenko in Kuchma's role of a "soft" Ukrainizer, a supporter of European integration and a "strong business executive" (it was from these positions that the programmatic work "Ukraine is not Russia" was written) made no sense. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">For all these positions, the "orange" candidate looked more attractive - he was a greater patriot,</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;">Yanukovych was forced to mobilize the electorate, borrowing the agenda of the Russian movement - the status of the Russian language, the federalization of Ukraine, integration with Russia, the rejection of Ukrainian nationalism, the glorification of the OUN-UPA, Euro-Atlantic integration.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">After the second round of voting took place on November 21, a mass protest rally under the orange flags of Yushchenko's election campaign started on Independence Square in Kyiv. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Skillfully using the technologies of non-violent resistance with the diplomatic support of Western countries, Yushchenko's team achieved the annulment of the election results. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">At the same time, by decision of the Lviv, Volyn, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kyiv regional councils, it was Yushchenko who was declared the winner of the election race.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Local governments in those regions where Yanukovych received the most support took action in response. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">On November 26, the Luhansk Regional Council adopted a resolution "On strengthening the organizational structure of local authorities in the Lugansk region." </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">It contained the following clause: “Submit for consideration by the congress of local governments and executive authorities of the South-Eastern Territories of Ukraine a proposal to organize a working group to create and form a tax, payment, banking, and financial system of the South-Eastern Territories.” </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">This decision launched the process of creating an autonomous republic in the South-East, not subordinate to Kyiv, in the event that Yushchenko came to power there in an unconstitutional way. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The next day, a decision similar to the Luhansk one was adopted by the Kharkiv Regional Council.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;">On the same day, in a resolution of a meeting of Yanukovych supporters in Odessa, the word Novorossiya was first used - this was the name of the region centered in Odessa, which would announce its separation from Ukraine if nationalist forces came to power in Kyiv as a result of a coup.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">From Maidan to Maidan</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Viktor Yanukovych and the elites of the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine that rallied around him turned out to be unprepared for the “color revolution” scenario imposed on them. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">They lost in the information field - both in traditional media and on the Internet. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">They lost on the street - they had nothing to oppose to a pre-prepared network of activists of non-profit organizations. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Finally, they succumbed to pressure from the West.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;">Only the threat of losing the South-Eastern regions of Ukraine, voiced at the congress of deputies of all levels in Severodonetsk in November 2004, could stop the "triumphal march" of the revolutionaries.</span><a name="date20041226" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The Ukrainian elites preferred a compromise. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Contrary to the Constitution, the third round of elections was announced, in which Yanukovych was obviously defeated. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Voting took place on December 26, 2004, and on January 10, 2005, Yushchenko was declared the winner. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, the constitutional reform carried out in December redistributed powers from the President to the Parliament. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">This mitigated the cost of defeat and guaranteed the Yanukovych team the preservation of political subjectivity. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">These guarantees turned out to be enough for the elites of the South-East, and they let the process of autonomization of the region come to a halt, refusing not only practical actions in this direction, but also the most radical rhetoric. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">As a result, even those criminal cases that were opened on charges of separatism against the leaders of the blue and white camp were closed.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><figure style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 48px 0px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><img alt="" src="https://history.vz.ru/image/ddab23e1-40ba-4c1f-91ec-ae8550703891.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; width: 730px;" /></div><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; opacity: 0.6; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Komsomolskaya Pravda, December 2004. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Report on Viktor Yushchenko's victory in the third round of presidential elections in Ukraine</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Nevertheless, having suffered a painful defeat, a significant part of the nomenklatura of the Kuchma era tried to distance themselves from Yanukovych, moving into the camp of opponents, taking a wait-and-see attitude or completely withdrawing from business. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Nobody believed in the political future of the Donetsk group leader.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, the "Party of Regions" managed to regain its lost positions in power, while it began its revival, relying precisely on the Russian movement. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The start of the election campaign of the "regionals" in the 2005 parliamentary elections was given on June 12, that is, on the Day of Russia in Simferopol, at an event organized by the Russian Community of Crimea. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Yanukovych became an honorary member of this organization along with such figures as Yuri Luzhkov, Konstantin Zatulin and Alexander Dugin. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 2006, at the local elections in Crimea, the Regions chose to abandon their party brand for the only time, forming the “For Yanukovych” bloc with the Russian organizations of Crimea. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">And it gave a very successful result.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">"Regionals" began to integrate other systemic pro-Russian forces of the South-East. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, according to the tradition of Ukrainian politics, the closer the applicant was to power, the further he became from Russian software installations.</span></span><a name="date20120703" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The last major successes of the pro-Russian wing in the Party of Regions were the adoption of the so-called Kivalov-Kolesnichenko language law (written on the basis of the program for the preservation and development of the Russian language of the Odessa City Council), which granted the Russian language a full-fledged regional status, and the ratification of the so-called Kharkiv agreements with the Russian Federation on maintaining the base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Following this, Yanukovych turned the course 180 degrees and embarked on the path of European integration, which ultimately led him to the loss of power, flight to Rostov-on-Don, and Ukraine to civil war.</span></span><a name="date20100421" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The establishment of the "Party of Regions" as the main pro-Russian force against the backdrop of the end of the economic crisis of the 1990s pressed the positions of the left forces. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">After the parliamentary coalition of 2006, the Socialist Party lost its electoral core in central Ukraine, and the CPU remained in the status of a junior partner of the Regions.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 2005-2007, Natalia Vitrenko's Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) became a point of attraction for those who rightly considered the Party of Regions to be too soft and inconsistent in defending Russian interests. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">During this period, there were the most resonant actions of direct action, in which the PSPU played an active role: disruption of NATO exercises in the Crimea in 2006 and 2007, counteraction to the UPA march on Khreshchatyk in Kyiv in 2007. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 1998, she managed to get her party into the Rada, receiving 4.4% of the vote. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">However, this was the greatest success of the Progressive Socialists. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">PSPU bore the generic problems of the Russian movement of the 1990s - the archaic methods of political struggle, leaderism, leading to internal conflicts and splits, the imprint of marginality.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Gradually, the niche of the radical pro-Russian force was occupied by younger political projects. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">In 2011, a landmark book by the Donetsk historian, director of the Ukrainian branch of the Institute of the CIS countries Vladimir Kornilov “Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">A shattered dream." </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The book is dedicated to how, as a result of Lenin's national policy, Kharkiv and Donbass ended up as part of Ukraine. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Modern Russian autonomists appealed to the historical experience of those years, while Ukrainian nationalists considered Kornilov's book a guide to separatism.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">A few months earlier, activists of the parties "Russian Unity" - a deputy of the Supreme Council of Crimea Sergey Aksenov and "Rodina" - a deputy of the Odessa City Council Igor Markov, with the participation of a number of friendly public organizations, held an action unprecedented for the Russian movement - the celebration of May 9 in Lviv under the red flag of Victory . </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The reaction of local nationalists resulted in riots, and only the professionalism of the police made it possible to avoid bloodshed.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The pro-Russian forces began to stake on a new generation of the Russian movement - young, well-educated and ideologically motivated activists. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">It was these people who, in the ten years that have passed since the first Maidan, prepared the ground for the Russian Spring of 2014 with their activities. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The Russian movement actively adopted methods that previously ensured victory in Ukraine for nationalist and Euro-Atlantic forces: network structures, its own media, working according to modern media standards, social networks, direct action, street activism, interaction with civil society, etc.</span></span><a name="date20140222" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The February 2014 coup d'etat and the ensuing mass movement of those who did not accept the results of the Maidan drew a line under the history of the Russian movement in Ukraine. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">It was no longer possible to exist further as a full-fledged social force within the framework of the Ukrainian state. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Legitimate democratic mechanisms for protecting their rights and interests have been exhausted. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The authorities have formed a public consensus, according to which the Maidan is the greatest achievement of the Ukrainian people, and Russia is the aggressor country. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Everyone who did not fit into this consensus was either marginalized, like the remnants of the Party of Regions, or physically eliminated, like the writer Oles Buzina.</span></span><a name="date20140316" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><figure style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 48px 0px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><img alt="" src="https://history.vz.ru/image/2dabe2e1-3c67-4d09-97a4-4904f54d809c.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; width: 730px;" /></div><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; opacity: 0.6; text-align: center;"></figcaption></figure><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">The annexation of Crimea by Russia, unrecognized by Ukraine, automatically placed all citizens of Ukraine who shared the views of Crimeans into the category of state criminals. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">No legal public organization could declare such ideas. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">After the start of the war in Donbass, those who supported Donetsk and Lugansk were brutally dealt with in the rest of Ukraine - at best, they were arrested and tried, and at worst, they were subjected to physical destruction, as happened with the opponents of the Maidan on May 2, 2014 in the House trade unions in Odessa.</span></span><a name="date20140502" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--color-orange); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--color-orange); display: block; position: relative; top: -60px; visibility: hidden;"></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><figure style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 48px 0px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><img alt="" src="https://history.vz.ru/image/3834cd05-772c-43a5-bbc0-e9804ad9a01b.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; width: 730px;" /></div><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; opacity: 0.6; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Kommersant, May 2014. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;">Report on the tragedy in the Odessa House of Trade Unions</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; font-size: medium; vertical-align: inherit;">The only thing left for the Russians in Ukraine was resistance - first civil disobedience, and then armed struggle. </span></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-40623936123761292912022-10-13T00:38:00.002+11:002022-10-18T08:32:34.258+11:00Australian Strategic Defence Review: my submission<p> The Australian Government is conducting a <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/about/reviews-inquiries/defence-strategic-review" target="_blank">Defence Strategic Review. Details here.</a></p><p>My <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TsasTWF6A9B7VQkNLWhyKaOjD0QvsTkw/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">submission can be downloaded here</a>. </p><p>I included a number of things recently written, including this <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/the-defence-strategic-review-must-not-confine-itself-to-more-of-the-same-but-address-a-new-world/" target="_blank">summary comment on the review</a>.</p><p>I have also included as introduction the text of <a href="http://dennisargall.blogspot.com/2021/09/on-war-letter-to-foreign-minister.html" target="_blank">a letter I wrote to the foreign minister at the beginning of the Iraq occupation</a>. Unfortunately it is still relevant.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-37226958266958643392022-09-25T10:39:00.011+10:002022-09-25T21:01:38.401+10:00We are at war...<br />My statement that "we are at war" yesterday in this blog may shock. <br /><br />But wiser people than I foresaw the present situation.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/03/ukraine-theres-no-way-out-unless-the-west-understands-its-past-mistakes">Malcolm Fraser, former conservative prime minister of Australia, 1975-1983, set out the history that led to the mess in Ukraine in 2014 in this article in </a><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/03/ukraine-theres-no-way-out-unless-the-west-understands-its-past-mistakes">The Guardian</a>.<br /><br />Malcolm Fraser lacked audience: his former party dismayed at his drift from his former anti-Soviet passion, the other side unable to see other than the Malcolm they hated because he brought down Gough in the end of 1975. All that of course meant he was not listened to, was 'wrong' before being read. Malcolm lamented to me that he no longer had a party to vote for.<br /><br /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_F._Cohen">Stephen Cohen</a>, eminent elder statesman of Russian studies in the United States, in 2014 <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/patriotic-heresy-vs-new-cold-war/">set out possible Ukraine futures in this article in The Nation</a>. He included these remarks:<br /><blockquote>§ Yet another risk factor is that the new Cold War lacks the mutually restraining rules that developed during the forty-year Cold War, especially after the Cuban missile crisis. Indeed, highly charged suspicions, resentments, misconceptions and misinformation both in Washington and Moscow today may make such mutual restraints even more difficult. The same is true of the surreal demonization of Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin—a kind of personal vilification without any real precedent in the past, at least after Stalin’s death. (Henry Kissinger has pointed out that the “demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.” I think it is worse: an abdication of real analysis and rational policy-making.)<br /><br />§ Finally, the new Cold War may be more perilous because, also unlike its forty-year-long predecessor, there is no effective American opposition—not in the administration, Congress, the establishment media, universities, think tanks or the general public.</blockquote>Opposition to the western ferocity now in Ukraine is muted because of simplistic human rights thinking on the left, notably in Green parties; plus entrenched hostility towards Russia. <br /><br />We ignore the evidence of history. It was especially the attitude of the British in negotiations for a USSR-UK-France treaty in 1939 that made World War II a reality. With collapse of the tripartite talks, Stalin turned to Germany and signed a nonaggression pact that enabled the carve-up of Poland and the invasion of France by Germany. [<a href="https://www.rbth.com/history/331039-ussr-britain-france-talks-wwii">link</a>] [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact">link</a>] [<a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781566637855/1939-The-Alliance-That-Never-Was-and-the-Coming-of-World-War-II">link</a>]<br /><br /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa">Germany turned against the USSR in 1941</a> with an attack on Russia and countries in between. In World War II somewhere between 100 and 300 million people died, the greatest numbers of them civilians. There is general acceptance of Russian deaths over 20 million. I recall conversation with a senior officer in the Australian department of external affairs in the 1960s who dismissed such numbers of Russians as nothing but Soviet propaganda. <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/world-war-two-casualties-by-country">Here are some numbers</a>. <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution">What distinguishes the Holocaust</a> within this overall much larger numbers was the extermination of classes of people: Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, prisoners of war, more. But we need to see beyond the Holocaust.<br /><br />Failures of diplomacy are pinned up for scoffing. Failures in war are so often eulogised. But far from anything Australia might eulogise, it's important to remember, as we follow the American grand strategic plan to take down Russia, that there is relevant history. <br /><br />Since 1700, there have been four attempts to take down Russia.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/karl-xii-king-of-sweden/">Karl (Charles) XII of Sweden</a>, a young king and supposedly a military genius, won lesser angagements against Russia but aiming for Moscow in 1709 lost much of his army, lost his Swedish empire and saw the rise of the Russian empire under Peter the Great. <br /><br /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of_Russia">Napoleon, definitely a military genius</a>, in marching on Moscow, achieving a success in battle at Borodino outside Moscow. He then occupied a Moscow that had been abandoned and deliberately burned. His forces were decimated in retreat. <br /><br />Hitler, a strategic genius better known for his tyranny and evil, needed the east for resources. His march on Moscow led to the unravelling of his empire, complicated by fighting on two fronts: against Stalin in the east, Eisenhower in the west, with British support. <br /><br />And now we have two-front Biden. Taking on Xi and Putin at the same time. <br /><br />We support Biden because, well, those others are bad guys, we know that. Though our economy is sustained by businesses trading with China, and Coles and Woolworths sell frozen fish, Alaskan Pollock, caught in Russia, exported through China. And of course our petroleum purchases, mainly via refineries in other countries, include Russian oil. <div><br /></div><div>... and we can't face thinking about war.<br /><br /></div>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2568732704217083030.post-72248538908688934392022-09-24T23:37:00.003+10:002022-09-25T08:48:17.264+10:00Endlessness<p> The screen is black at the beginning of this </p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IHUiiqZkZE8" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/movie/about-endlessness/1969202243862" target="_blank">Watch the film on SBS </a>if you are in Australia. </div><div><br /></div><div>A Swedish perspective on life. </div><div><br /></div><div>-----</div><div><br /></div><div>On a midsummer evening in 1979 I sat in the garden of Frank Barnaby's home in Stockholm. He was the much respected Director of the <a href="https://www.sipri.org/" target="_blank">Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI</a>. I asked earnest questions about the nuclear strategic balance and Swedish neutrality. "Our situation is quite simple" he said, "many missiles will land short, on us."</div>Dennis Argallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465343834162583738noreply@blogger.com0