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Geopolítica e Política

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Geopolítica e Política

Lusa - Lusística - Mundial

Bad News

Andrei, the Saker, is going to shut down his blog

31.01.23 | Duarte Pacheco Pereira

Struggle between East and West

28.01.23 | Álvaro Aragão Athayde

Nikolay_Danilevski_800_665_90.jpeg

Russian philosopher, naturalist, and economist Nikolai Danilevsky. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

 

What can Nikolai Danilevsky

teach us about today’s struggle

between East and West?

 

The new Cold War has an ideological component, but it’s very different from what most people in the West imagine it to be.


Paul Robinson / November 28, 2022 / 5 min read | Original here • Has comments

 

November 28 marks the 200th birthday of Russian thinker Nikolai Danilevsky. Relatively unknown in the West, Danilevsky is extraordinarily influential in modern Russia, and understanding his ideas is essential to grasping the essence of the current political conflict between Russia and the West.

In the early 1990s, two theories of humanity’s future competed for the attention of those interested in international affairs. The first was Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History, which predicted that every country in the world was destined eventually to adopt the same social-economic and political system, namely Western-style liberalism. The second was Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, which stated that rather than converging, the countries of the world were separating into distinct civilizational blocs.

To Russians, none of this was remotely new. For the Fukuyama-Huntington debate did little more than echo a long-standing argument that has been raging among Russian intellectuals since the infamous debate between the Westernizers and Slavophiles in the 1840s.

The Westernizers were Fukuyama-ists before Fukuyama. They had what academics like to call a “teleological” view of the world, considering that the iron laws of history dictated that all societies eventually converged on a common end (telos in Greek). For them, this end was synonymous with the West. As the mid-19th century liberal Russian thinker Konstantin Kavelin put it, “The difference [between the West and Russia] lies solely in the preceding historical facts; the aim, the task, the aspirations, the way forward are one and the same.”

The Slavophiles countered this argument by contending that Western civilization had peaked. Russia, by contrast, still had much to offer the world through its own unique, Orthodox, culture. Only by developing this uniqueness and avoiding assimilation into the West could Russia contribute to universal civilization.

Interestingly, this argument still viewed Russia and the West as connected. Russia, by protecting its Orthodox heritage, was seen as being able in due course to export it to the West and so save the latter from itself. Slavophilism did not reject the idea of a common future.

It is here that Danilevsky stepped in, making the decisive break with teleological thinking. A biologist by profession, he adopted an organic view of the world. Human civilizations, he maintained, were organic beings that were born, matured, and died. None could be said to constitute the “End of History.”

In his most famous work, entitled Russia and Europe, he outlined a theory that Russia and Western Europe were entirely distinct “cultural historical types.” Different cultural historical types, he said, developed in their own separate ways. In opposition to theories of cultural convergence, he compared the world to a town square from which different roads (i.e. different civilizations) moved out in different directions. Each cultural historical type was inherently distinct, and consequently it made no sense to try to force it to develop along the path of another.

Other Russians built on Danilevsky’s theory. Late nineteenth century philosopher Konstantin Leontyev, for instance, postulated that civilizational life cycles had three stages: primary simplicity, flowering complexity, and secondary simplicity (the period of decay). Flowering complexity represented the peak of development. On an international scale, this meant that one should avoid the alleged homogenization that would come with everybody adopting Western-style liberalism, and instead celebrate a multiplicity of different civilizational types. The “End of History” would quite literally be the end of human development, and was thus to be avoided.

Later, Eurasianist thinkers used geology, botany, linguistics, and other fields of study to try to provide a scientific basis for the idea that the space of the Russian empire and later the Soviet Union constituted a coherent entity distinct from those around it. Originally devised by Russian émigrés in the 1920s, Eurasianism crept into the Soviet Union in the Brezhnev era, influencing among others the ethnographer Lev Gumilyov. Gumilyov argued that ethnic groups (etnoi) were a natural phenomenon and that what suited one group did not suit another, although those with certain complementarities could form a superetnos. The superetnos that was the Soviet people was entirely different from the superetnos of the West and as such should develop entirely in its own separate way.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, civilizational thinking has become de rigueur in Russia. A study by San Francisco State University professor Andrei Tsygankov showed that the most cited Russian authors in Russian academic articles on topics of international relations were Danilevsky and Leontyev. The idea that civilizational differences are real and can be objectively determined is now widely accepted outside the very narrow circle of Russia’s few remaining liberals.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was rather late in coming round to this point of view. In the early 2000s he was a traditional Westernizer, speaking of Russia’s eventual integration into Europe. More recently, however, his tone has changed. Speaking to the Valdai Club at the end of October, he used the words “civilization,” “civilizations,” and “civilizational” some 20 times, and commented that “real democracy in a multipolar world is primarily about the ability of any nation—I emphasize—any society or civilization to follow its own path.”

To rub in the point, Putin mentioned Danilevsky and cited his statement that progress lies in “walking the field that represents humanity’s historical activity, walking in all directions,” adding that “no civilization can take pride in being the height of development.” Putin followed this by calling for a “free development of countries and peoples,” in which “primitive simplification and prohibition can be replaced with the flourishing complexity of culture and tradition.” Though Putin didn’t say it, the language was pure Leontyev.

Some commentators argue that the “New Cold War” between Russia and the West differs from the original in that lacks an ideological component similar to the conflict between communism and capitalism. Others maintain that there is such a component and that it consists of the struggle between democracy and autocracy. Putin’s speech shows that both points of view are wrong.

For the speech reveals a very coherent philosophy well founded in a specific Russian intellectual tradition with origins in Danilevsky. However, this philosophy has nothing to do with autocracy and democracy. In fact, the very essence of civilizational theory is that no system is inherently the best. Putin is not making any claims about how states should organize their internal affairs, let alone promoting autocracy versus democracy. He is, however, making a claim about how the world as a whole should operate, and contrasting the vision of a world converging around Western values and institutions with that of a world consisting of distinct civilizations each advancing towards their own unique destinations. The New Cold War does, therefore, have an ideological component but it’s very different from what most people in the West imagine it to be.

Only time will tell which vision of the world turns out to be accurate. But for now, the terms of the intellectual debate have been set. Two hundred years on, it is very much Danilevsky’s moment.


Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy. He is the author of numerous works on Russian and Soviet history, including Russian Conservatism, published by Northern Illinois University Press in 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

END

 

The Anglo-American Empire

Further Evidence That The U.S.-UK Deep State Is One Country, Not Two

20.01.23 | Duarte Pacheco Pereira

Cecil Rhodes, The Face of Empire

We must stop flagellating ourselves over the sins of the past and learn to live with them

 

 

Further Evidence That

The U.S.-UK Deep State Is One Country, Not Two


Eric Zuesse • Oriental Review • January 19, 2023 • Original here

Because there is so much evidence that the U.S. and UK have one actual Government, a single Deep State, that makes the major international-policy (war-and-peace) decisions, and that neither country’s public has authentic sovereignty over its allegedly ‘democratic’ Government, but, instead, all ‘citizens’ of both are actually subjects of this single behind-the-scenes secret Deep State, my recent book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL, couldn’t possibly fit all of that evidence in, but, in retrospect, maybe I should have included a few items that I did not: the first of which concerns the decision by Truman to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and which Churchill informed Parliament was a joint decision, made by both himself and Truman, not ONLY by Truman, though Churchill’s Government had not participated, at all, in the Manhattan Project, which had produced the A-bomb, and though Churchill was not, at all, formally, an official of the U.S. Government, and though he had no actual power over the matter, except at the most secret, Deep State, level, which controls BOTH Governments. So: here that evidence is:

On 9 September 2016, History Today bannered “Churchill, God and the Bomb”, and opened:

Addressing Parliament on August 16th, 1945, Winston Churchill insisted that the decision to attack Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945 and Nagasaki on August 9th had been a joint one between the US and the UK. Over the next decade his public position was consistent and devoid of moral qualms: in war, he maintained, weapons get used. The A-Bomb was a weapon, the Allies were at war with Japan and, consequently, the A-Bomb was a legitimate military option. ‘The historic fact remains’, he wrote in 1953, ‘that the decision whether or not to use the atomic bomb … was never even an issue.’  

The article goes on to speculate about whether this had been a religious decision by Churchill, but here is not speculation, but instead evidence, the relevant excerpt from Churchill’s 16 August 1945 speech to Parliament:

On 17th July [1945] there came to us at Potsdam the eagerly awaited news of the trial of the atomic bomb in the [New] Mexican desert. Success beyond all dreams crowned this sombre, magnificent venture of our American Allies. The detailed reports of the [New] Mexican desert experiment, which were brought to us a few days later by air, could leave no doubt in the minds of the very few who were informed, that we were in the presence of a new factor in human affairs, and possessed of powers which were irresistible. Great Britain had a right to be consulted in accordance with Anglo-American agreements. The decision to use the atomic bomb was taken by President Truman and myself at Potsdam, and we approved the military plans to unchain the dread, pent-up forces.

Truman and Churchill, 1952

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sits in US President Truman’s White House office in 1952

While FDR was alive, before his death on 12 April 1945, he was struggling, ever since August of 1941, to deal with Churchill and other pro-imperialists (including in America) while not antagonizing and feeding Stalin’s constant fears that the dominant intensely anti-communist passion and dream of producing an American empire to spread ‘capitalism’ and ‘democracy’ throughout the world, in both of these Western Governments, would produce after WW II an effort by UK and U.S. to ultimately conquer the Soviet Union itself. One of the pro-imperialists in FDR’s Government was Allen Dulles, who was known by insiders to be intensely hostile toward the Soviet Union (and scheming at least as much against that country as against Germany, even while WW II was being waged), and at the very end of FDR’s life, he nearly succeeded in making impossible FDR’s plan for the U.N., which FDR had invented and was consumed at the War’s end to design and hoped to put into place. FDR’s being immediately succeeded by Truman made Dulles’s (and Eisenhower’s, and Churchill’s) America and U.N. real and dashed what FDR had been striving for in the years 1941-1945, which was a very different U.N.

Here is from page 27 of the 2005 My Dear Mr. Stalin: The Complete Correspondence of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Jose[h V. Stalin, from the Introduction to that Correspondence, written by the book’s Editor, Susan Butler:

The second rift [between FDR & Stalin] was more serious. In March 1945 Allen Dulles, head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in [Berne] Switzerland, met with Gen. Karl Wolff, the ranking SS officer in Italy, who wanted to negotiate the surrender of the German Army in Italy. Molotov was informed of the negotiations and requested Soviet representation at the discussions; the request was refused on the grounds that the discussions concerned a military surrender on an Anglo-American front, not a national capitulation [of Germany]. Stalin didn’t believe it. Responding to Roosevelt’s assurance that no negotiations [of Germany’s surrender] were taking place, Stalin wrote, “It may be assumed that you have not been fully informed.” He included, as evidence of the inaccuracy of much of what the highest level of the Allied command “knew,” a letter from the Red Army chief of staff to General Marshall pointing out that the information on German troop movement Marshall had given them was false. Roosevelt was so taken aback by Stalin’s accusation this time that he commented to Anna Rosenberg [23 March 1945], “We can’t do business with Stalin. He has broken every one of the promises he made at Yalta.” But a few weeks later he recovered his equilibrium, on April 8, 1945, admonishing Churchill for suggesting a bilateral economic commission in Greece because it would [FDR said] “look as though we for our part, were disregarding the Yalta decision of tripartite action in liberated areas. …

The last three messages Roosevelt sent, one to Churchill, one to Stalin, and one to Harriman, all within forty-eight hours of his death, all have to do with preserving and protecting the feeling of trust between Stalin and himself, and to preserving the Yalta agreements. At Yalta, Roosevelt succeeded in his supreme objective: bringing the Soviet Union into the United Nations and largely on his own terms. … Churchill’s supreme objective was to preserve the British Empire.

What resulted, of course, was the U.N. as a mere talking-forum, instead of, as FDR had been aiming: as the global democratic federal republic of all nations and with the executive, legislative, and judicial powers to set and enforce all international laws, but NONE intranational — so as to preserve the independence and national sovereignty of each and every nation, and establish the laws between all nations.

Truman surrounded himself with people who believed as he did, that empires were/are okay, and that Russia’s communists were just as bad as Germany’s nazis; and, by the time of 25 July 1945, he finally accepted the advice of his hero, General Eisenhower, and secondarily also of Churchill, that if America would not win control over the world, then the Soviet Union would; and, from that moment on, everyone has been in Truman’s world, not in the world that FDR had so carefully been planning to follow after WW II. This is even more the world of Truman and Eisenhower than of Truman and Churchill, because Truman venerated Ike and considered Churchill to be only a friend and the leader of the British Empire, not an American hero. Ike’s advice on this matter (creating the UK-U.S. “Special Relationship” and thereby continuing the British Empire indirectly through the coming American empire and as the Deep State and its “Five Eyes” but especially the MI6-CIA union) was far more influential than Churchill’s was. But Churchill had the nerve to pretend otherwise (that he and Truman, instead of Ike and Truman, established America’s military-industrial complex or “MIC” = Deep State). He was a braggart. But his having lied about the decision to nuke Japan doesn’t mean that he wasn’t Cecil Rhodes’s supreme agent. What had been Rhodes’s dream became global reality because of Churchill, Eisenhower, and, especially, Truman (though perhaps only Churchill knew where its roots came from; maybe neither of the other two did). Churchill was Rhodes’s ultimate champion, but would never brag about THAT. Like Rhodes had said: it must be a “secret society.” And it still is.

 

 

Q&A with Stephen Bowman, Author of The Pilgrims Society and Public Diplomacy, 1895–1945

Q&A with Stephen Bowman, Author of The Pilgrims Society and Public Diplomacy, 1895–1945

 

 

 

 

 

 

END

 

BRASÍLIA, 08-01-23

Golpe Esquerdista ou Golpe Globalista?

16.01.23 | Álvaro Aragão Athayde

No palanque do Fórum Econômico Mundial, Lula defendeu uma nova ordem econômica mundial

No palanque do Fórum Econômico Mundial, Lula defendeu uma nova ordem econômica mundial.

 

Um artigo da autoria de Jaime Nogueira Pinto seguido de um comentário de minha autoria.

 

 

2023-01-16 04.16.59.jpgApoiantes de Jair Bolsonaro invadem sedes do Congresso, Palácio Presidencial e Supremo Tribunal Federal

 

Brasil paralelo

Terão os invasores dos Três Poderes, em Brasília, ao soltarem os seus instintos predadores, desencadeado o discreto estado de excepção que estava a ser montado e precisava deles?

Jaime Nogueira Pinto · Observador · 14 de Janeiro de 2023 às 00:19 · Original

Domingo, 8 de Janeiro: milhares de populares, protestando contra o que consideram a eleição fraudulenta de Lula da Silva, concentram-se em Brasília, na Praça dos Três Poderes. Nas horas seguintes, vão invadir e vandalizar as instalações do Congresso Nacional, do Supremo Tribunal Federal e do Palácio do Planalto.

Já na noite de sexta-feira, 6 de Janeiro, se tinham registado, em São Paulo, actos de protesto, interrompendo os acessos ao Aeroporto de Congonhas. Perante esta agitação e perante numerosos indícios de que, em Brasília, poderia haver graves perturbações da ordem pública, o novo ministro da Justiça e Segurança Pública contactara os directores da Polícia Federal e da Polícia Rodoviária Federal para evitar a ocorrência daquilo que qualificava como previsíveis “actos antidemocráticos que podiam configurar crimes federais” de “pequenos grupos extremistas”. Para impedir estas eventuais acções violentas de “pequenos grupos extremistas” que não podiam “mandar no Brasil”, o Ministro preconizou e autorizou o uso da Força Nacional, uma unidade especial, criada em 2004 e dependente da SENASP – órgão sob a sua tutela. A força, às ordens do poder central, é constituída por polícias militares e civis e por peritos, e destina-se a actuar em crises de segurança pública. Segundo os media brasileiros, o Ministro pôs esta força em alerta em Brasília, para que as centenas de homens que a constituem estivessem prontos a intervir.

Perfil de um democrata

O Ministro da Justiça e Segurança Pública, desde 1 de Janeiro de 2023, é Flávio Dino de Castro e Costa, conhecido por Flávio Dino. Flávio Dino, de 54 anos, é natural de São Luís do Maranhão, onde foi dirigente estudantil, tendo-se licenciado em Direito na Universidade Federal do Maranhão, onde também leccionou.

Em 1989, foi um dos dirigentes juvenis da campanha presidencial de Lula. Foi Juiz Federal no Maranhão e Secretário Geral do Conselho Nacional de Justiça. Em 2015, foi eleito Governador do Maranhão, cargo que exerceu até 2022.

Em 2006 renunciara à magistratura e filiara-se no Partido Comunista do Brasil (PC do B). O PC do B foi fundado em 1962 por dissidentes do Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB) contrários à destalinização iniciada por Kruschev e adoptada pelo PCB. O novo partido, que nos anos 60 começou por se identificar como estalinista, tornou-se depois maoista, abrindo relações com o Partido Comunista da China.

Foi o PC do B que, durante o regime militar, na volta dos anos 60 para a década de 70, criou a guerrilha da Araguaia, na região amazónica. Eram algumas dezenas de militantes e foram combatidos pelo Exército. Os seus chefes eram José Amazonas, Ângelo Arroyo, Maurício Grabois e Elza Monnerat (a dirigente do Comité Central do PC do B que, nos anos de Getúlio Vargas, escalara o Morro dos Dois Irmãos, perto do Rio, para pintar ali o nome de José Estaline).

A guerrilha foi vencida e, na transição, o PC do B acabou por integrar-se na normalidade democrática. Foi neste partido que, em 2006, se inscreveu Flávio Dino. Mas em Junho de 2021, depois de 15 anos de militância, anunciou a sua saída nas redes sociais, agradecendo ao PC do B “a acolhida fraterna”, mencionando “diferenças de estratégia e táctica”, e não de princípios e fins, como razões do abandono, e reconhecendo “o papel histórico do Partido na defesa de um novo projecto nacional de desenvolvimento para o Brasil”.

Este anúncio foi depois ratificado numa carta à “Companheira Presidenta” Luciana dos Santos, que terminava assim:

“Acredito que uma grande Frente da Esperança será um vector decisivo para um novo ciclo de conquistas sociais para o Brasil. As bandeiras da Igualdade e da Liberdade, sínteses das melhores utopias e projectos, serão erguidas cada vez mais alto. E venceremos. Abraços fraternos.”

Foi só depois dos “abraços fraternos” aos correligionários do PC do B que Flávio Dino passou para o Partido Socialista Brasileiro, um partido fundado na transição democrática que tem como símbolo uma simpática pomba da Paz. O Partido Socialista, com mais de 600 000 filiados, é o 9º do Brasil, e era, para Flávio Dino, que na juventude já andara pelo PT de Lula, uma etiqueta mais adequada para seguir em frente.

Terá sido por amor à paz e à pomba da paz socialista que o Ministro se esqueceu de mandar avançar a Força Nacional? Teria mudado de ideias desde que, na véspera, mobilizara as suas centenas de agentes de elite para impedir os “bolsonaristas da ultra-direita” de assaltar e saquear o Supremo Tribunal e o Congresso? Congresso esse com uma maioria de direita que pode dificultar muito as tentações mais radicais do Executivo Lula. E as campanhas populares para levar à intervenção militar, ainda que impressionantes, não costumam ser eficazes. Os militares não intervêm assim…

As Américas ao rubro

Com a eleição de Lula da Silva no Brasil, praticamente todos os países importantes da América Latina – México, Argentina, Chile, Colômbia –, bem como o Peru, a Bolívia e as Honduras, passaram a ter governos de esquerda mais ou menos populista, mais ou menos radical. E a estes podemos juntar os abertamente ditatoriais e comunistas Cuba, Venezuela e Nicarágua. Quer isto dizer que os países com as maiores populações e as maiores economias do subcontinente estão à esquerda.

Alguns dizem que, dada a ineficácia ou incapacidade de os governos lidarem com os problemas estruturais e sociais da região, o descontentamento leva a uma espécie de alternância, em que direita e esquerda se sucedem, porque os descontentes, que são a maioria, votam sempre contra o que está.

A isto talvez só escape, como excepção, o Uruguai, que desde 1985 tem uma circulação pacífica de poder, mantém um Estado social modelar e vê a economia crescer. Mas o Uruguai tem 3,5 milhões de habitantes e uma produção-exportação de base agrícola e agroindustrial.

Estas esquerdas não estão em total sintonia, embora tenham raízes ideológicas próximas. Dividem-nas os métodos e a práctica – o colombiano Petro chamou ditador ao venuzuelano Maduro e o chileno Gabriel Boric não hesitou em dizer que a experiência chavista-madurista da Venezuela tinha falhado. Em resposta, Maduro referiu-se a uma “esquerda cobarde”, visando Boric e outros legalistas. Boric tentou referendar recentemente uma Constituição woke, mas perdeu por larga margem.

Além de uma retórica utópica, radical e populista, ao modo do século passado, estes regimes – os que mantêm as instituições democráticas a funcionar – introduziram os temas da Nova Esquerda, desde o zelo ambiental, às políticas de género e alguma agenda do wokismo anglo-saxónico. Mas nenhum, à excepção das ditaduras cubana, venezuelana e nicaraguense, se tem empenhado contra a economia do mercado.

E também aí há divisões, por exemplo, em matéria ambiental: o chileno Boric e o colombiano Petro são ambientalistas firmemente empenhados na “descarbonização”, enquanto Lula, Lopez Obrador e Maduro insistem na continuidade das explorações do petróleo e gás, essenciais para a economia dos seus países.

Com a vitória no Brasil, uma grande mancha vermelha cobre o subcontinente americano. E o Brasil, com mais de 200 milhões de habitantes, metade da população do Subcontinente, é a potência dominante da América do Sul.

Foi aqui que, numa eleição renhida, Lula da Silva triunfou em Outubro, graças à votação maciça nos Estados do chamado Nordeste, onde ganhou por 70 contra 30%. Os Estados mais desenvolvidos, mais instruídos, mais industrializados – São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais – votaram maioritariamente por Bolsonaro. E no Congresso, no Senado e na Câmara dos Deputados, há uma clara maioria de direita.

A invasão, o saque e as destruições dos indignados bolsonaristas – que não poderiam nunca beneficiar a oposição a Lula – caíram do céu para o novo poder. Talvez por isso, o aparelho de Segurança mobilizado por Flávio Dino não tenha recebido ordens para actuar. Isto foi notado até por um órgão de informação notoriamente progressista e hostil a Bolsonaro como o New York Times que, na edição de 9 de Janeiro, além de sublinhar a estranha abstenção das forças da ordem, que nem mesmo eventuais “cumplicidades” na Polícia Militar explicariam, confessa a sua perplexidade perante a ausência da Força Nacional, convocada na véspera, e da Guarda Presidencial do Planalto.

A ditadura dos juízes

No Estado de São Paulo, o jornalista José Roberto Guzzo, um respeitadíssimo colunista do Estadão, não se inibe de denunciar aquilo a que chama a “ditadura dos juízes”. Segundo Guzzo, nos últimos anos, os Juízes do Supremo Tribunal Federal, os chamados “Ministros”, vêm exercendo uma tutela sobre as instituições que, para o jornalista brasileiro, se configura como uma “ditadura do Poder Judiciário”.

O Supremo Tribunal Brasileiro tem algumas prerrogativas semelhantes às do Supremo Tribunal dos Estados Unidos: é o Tribunal de última ou terceira instância, os seus onze membros são indicados pelo Presidente da República e aprovados pelo Senado e, não sendo vitalícios, só se reformam aos 75 anos. Estes juízes nos últimos tempos têm vindo promover medidas executivas com efeitos directos e imediatos, usando e abusando da sua função de tutela da Constituição. No que é, segundo Guzzo, uma práctica anti-constitucional, o ministro Alexandre de Moraes tem também proibido de falar deputados federais, como Bia Kicis e Carla Zambelli, socorrendo-se ainda da pomposa Assessoria Especial de Enfrentamento à Desinformação para policiar as redes sociais. Tudo isto – sempre segundo o artigo de Guzzo no Estadão – depois de terem os Juízes eliminado a lei, aprovada pelo Congresso Nacional, que obrigava os réus condenados em segunda instância a cumprirem pena de prisão. Graças a esta medida, Lula saiu da cadeia. Depois, anularam as acções penais contra o ex-presidente por razões processuais, incluindo a condenação por corrupção passiva e lavagem de dinheiro – o que lhe limpou a ficha e permitiu a sua candidatura e vitória. Deste modo, conclui Guzzo, foram anuladas todas as condenações da Operação Lava Jato – “o único momento, em 500 anos de História, em que a Justiça mandou para a cadeia condenados por corrupção de primeira grandeza”.

Já antes do 8 de Janeiro, o governo Lula anunciara a criação de uma Procuradoria Nacional de Defesa da Democracia (PNDD), aprovando a instituição no seu primeiro dia de presidência, pelo decreto 11.328. Entre outras funções, a PNDD tem o encargo de “representar a União, judicial e extrajudicialmente” na demanda e instrução, “para resposta e enfrentamento”, da “desinformação sobre políticas públicas”.

Entre Orwell e Tocqueville

Esta “resposta e enfrentamento à desinformação sobre políticas públicas” serve, claramente, para abrir a porta à censura prévia e dissuadir a crítica aos poderes instalados. De resto, o ministro Jorge Messias, titular da chefia da Advocacia Geral da União, declarou como objectivo da nova Procuradoria para a Defesa da Democracia – “contribuir com os esforços da democracia defensiva e promover pronta resposta a medidas de desinformação e atentados à eficácia das políticas públicas”.

Talvez para completar estes esforços em prol da Democracia, o ministro Flávio Lino tenha criado no Ministério da Justiça uma plataforma, denuncia@mj.gov.br, para acolher as denúncias dos cidadãos vigilantes – presumimos que anónimas – sobre os terroristas do 8 de Janeiro. Até à manhã de segunda-feira, 9 de Janeiro, já tinham sido recebidas três mil. “Qualquer informação ou pista é bem vinda”, pode ler-se na plataforma.

Quem conheça a história das revoluções da Esquerda – da Revolução Francesa à Soviética, da Espanha em 36 ao PREC do Portugal dos “brandos costumes” – não demorará muito a estabelecer paralelos e a tirar ilações e consequências.

Os manifestantes que invadiram e saquearam as sedes dos Três Poderes em Brasília, com os titulares dos Três Poderes fora da capital federal e com os defensores convocados nas vésperas estranhamente ausentes, estão por enquanto detidos em instituições prisionais provisórias. Também para aí foram mais de mil dos acampados em Brasília.

Os invasores, ao soltarem os seus instintos predadores num acto impensado ou manifestamente mal-pensado – tanto mais que teriam certamente presentes os acontecimentos norte-americanos depois da derrota de Trump – acabaram por ser, objectivamente, os “inocentes úteis” e os detonadores do discreto estado de excepção que estava a ser montado e que precisava deles para funcionar.

Estas disposições preventivas, com algum cheiro orwelliano, parecem enquadrar-se no despotismo descrito por Tocqueville; um despotismo que tem, do lado dos dominados, “uma multidão inumerável de homens parecidos e iguais que rodam sem parar à volta de si mesmos para disfrutar dos pequenos e vulgares prazeres com que enchem a alma”; e do lado dos dominadores, “um poder imenso e tutelar que se ocupa de garantir-lhes os prazeres e velar sobre a sua sorte. Um poder que é absoluto, detalhado, regular, previdente e doce”.

Tocqueville, em A Democracia na América, compara este poder ao “poder paternal”, com a diferença que, enquanto o poder paternal preparava os homens para a idade adulta, o novo poder pretende mantê-los na infância, contentes e felizes, mas sempre sob tutela. Sob esta tutela, os denunciantes eram sempre considerados bons cidadãos – exemplares, mesmo.

Será que o Brasil do denuncia@mj.gov.br, o Brasil desta esquerda corrompida, também básica e maniqueísta, vai vencer e prevalecer, aproveitando o direitismo primário, instintual e irreflectido do inimigo – para o qual a Direita tem vindo a ser empurrada, de dentro e de fora?

 

Golpe Esquerdista ou Golpe Globalista?

Jaime Nogueira Pinto, que continua a ler a realidade política em termos obsoletos —Esquerda versus Direita, em lugar de Globalistas versus Soberanistas— viu uma Revolução Esquerdista, quiçá Comunista, em lugar de ver a Doutrina Monroe em acção. Haja Deus!

 

 

 

 

 

 

FIM

 

Will 2023 be Worse Than 2022?

Is Joe Biden willing to destroy the world to “weaken Russia”?

15.01.23 | Duarte Pacheco Pereira

2023-01-15 09.17.27.jpg

Philip Giraldi • The Unz Review • January 10, 2023 • 1,700 Words • Has Comments

 

Even though one has become accustomed to seeing the United States government behaving irrationally on an epic scale with no concern for what happens to the average citizen who is not a member of one of the freak show constituencies of the Democratic Party, it is still possible to be surprised or even shocked. Shortly before year’s end 2022 an article appeared in the mainstream media and was quite widely circulated. The headline that it was featured under in the original Business Insider version read “A nuclear attack would most likely target one of these 6 US cities — but an expert says none of them are prepared.” The cities were New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and San Francisco.

The article seeks to provide information and tips that would allow one to survive a nuclear attack, repeating commentary from several “experts” in emergency management and “public health” suggesting that a nuclear war would be catastrophic but not necessarily the end of the world. One should be prepared. It observes that “those cities would struggle to provide emergency services to the wounded. The cities also no longer have designated fallout shelters to protect people from radiation.” It is full of sage advice and off-the-cuff observations, including “Can you imagine a public official keeping buildings intact for fallout shelters when the real-estate market is so tight?” Or even better the advice from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s “nuclear detonation planning guide” that for everyday citizens in a city that has been nuked: “Get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned.” Dr. Ron Paul asks “Are they insane? They act as if a nuclear attack on the United States is just another inconvenience to plan for, like an ice storm or a hurricane.”

The article argues that the six cities would be prime targets as they are centers for vital infrastructure. The bomb blasts would kill hundreds of thousands or even millions of Americans with many more deaths to follow from radiation poisoning, but the article makes no attempt to explain why Russia, with a relatively sane leadership, would want to start a nuclear war that would potentially destroy the planet. Also, the targeting list of the cities provided by the “experts” is itself a bit odd. Surely Russia would attack military and government targets as a first priority to limit the possible retaliation while also crippling the ability of the White House and Pentagon to command and control the situation. Such targets would include both San Diego and Norfolk where the US Atlantic and Pacific fleets are based as well as the various Strategic Air Command bases and the underground federal government evacuation site in Mount Weather Virginia.

Reading the article, one is reminded of the early years of the Cold War that sought to reassure the public that nuclear war was somehow manageable. It was a time when we elementary school children were drilled in hiding under our desks when the air raid alarm went off. Herman Kahn was, at that time, the most famous advocate of the school of thought that the United States could survive the “unthinkable,” i.e. a nuclear war. An American physicist by training, Kahn became a founding member of the beyond neocon nationalist Hudson Institute, which is still unfortunately around. Kahn, who served in the US Army during the Second World War as a non-combat telephone lineman, started has career as a military strategist at the RAND Corporation. Kahn endorsed a policy of deterrence and argued that if the Soviet Union believed that the United States had a devastating second-strike capability then Moscow would not initiate hostilities, which he explained in his paper titled “The Nature and Feasibility of War and Deterrence”. The Russians had to believe that even a perfectly coordinated massive attack would guarantee a measure of retaliation that would leave them devastated as well. Kahn also posited his idea of a “winnable” nuclear exchange in his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War for which he is often cited as one of the inspirations for the title character of Stanley Kubrick’s classic film Dr. Strangelove.

The appearance of the Business Insider article dealing with a cool discussion of the survivability from a nuclear war suggests that the nutcases are again escaping from the psychiatric hospital here in the US and are obtaining top jobs in government and the media. While one continues to hope that somehow someone will wake up in the White House and realize that the deep dark hole that we the American people find ourselves in mandates a change of course and a genuine reset, there is little daylight visible in the darkness.

My particular concern relates to the entangling relationships that have kept our country permanently at war in spite of the fact that since the Cold War ended in 1991 no potential adversary has actually threatened the United States. Now, the federal government appears to be in the business of cultivating dangerous relationships to justify defense spending and placing the nation on the brink of what might prove to be catastrophic. The current US mission to “weaken Russia” and eventually also China in order to maintain its own “rules based international order” includes such hypocritical and utterly illegal under international law anomalies as the continued military occupation of part of Syria to deny that country’s leaders’ access to their oil fields and best agricultural land. A recent UN humanitarian agency investigation determined that the Syrian people are suffering and even starving as a result of that and US imposed sanctions that the Biden Administration maintains against all reason and humanity.

At the present time, however, the most entangling of all relationships, even more than with Israel, has to be the engagement of the US in the proxy war being fought against Russia on behalf of Ukraine, which is exactly what threatens to turn nuclear if someone blinks at the wrong time. Billions of dollars in direct aid as well as billions more in the form of weapons stripped from arsenals in Europe and the US have been given to the corrupt regime of President Volodymyr Zelensky while Zelensky continues to work assiduously to milk the situation and draw Washington into a deeper war directly confronting Moscow.

In fact, by some reckonings the war has already begun, with the US and its allies clearly dedicated to crippling the Russian economy while also getting rid of President Vladimir Putin. The 101st Airborne is now in place in Romania next to Ukraine to “warn” the Kremlin while the Pentagon has recently admitted that some American military personnel are already in Ukraine, contrary to the denials by White House spokesmen. The British have also revealed that some of their elite Special Ops personnel are on the ground. And there are reports that more American soldiers will soon be on the way, ostensibly to “track the weapons” being provided to Zelensky, which will include US-made, Patriot Missile batteries some of which might even be placed in NATO member Poland to provide air cover over Western Ukraine, a definite act of war as seen by Russia, which has warned that such a move would mean that the US and its allies had “effectively become a party” to the war in Ukraine and there will be “consequences.” “Consequences” means escalation.

The soldier-“trackers” mission may be in response to reports that weapons provided by NATO have been corruptly sold or given to third countries by the Ukrainians. The several US initiatives taken together could produce a rapid escalation of the conflict complete with dead Americans coming home in body bags and an inevitable direct US involvement in combat roles that could lead anywhere, but at this point it is the Russians who are acting with restraint by not targeting the NATO and US “advisers” who are already active in Ukraine.

Suspicion is also growing that the United States “green-lighted” in advance recent cruise missile attacks carried out by Ukraine against military targets deep inside Russia. Since the attacks, the White House has declared that Ukraine has “permission” to attack Russia and has basically conceded to the unbalanced Zelensky the right to make all the decisions and run the war that the US is largely funding, which is a formula for disaster. It is already known that Ukraine is receiving top level intelligence provided both by the US and also other NATO states. The precision attacks on Russia suggest that the Ukrainian army was given the coordinates of possible active targets, something that the US would be capable of providing but which would have been beyond the abilities of Ukraine, which possesses no satellite surveillance capability. If it is true that the White House was involved in escalating the conflict it would be a very dangerous move, inviting retaliation by Moscow.

To be sure, some idiots in Washington, mostly of the neocon variety, continue to see war against Russia as something like a crusade for world freedom. Rick Newman, Yahoo’s top Finance Columnist, observes how “Budget hawks in Congress are worried about granting President Biden’s request for an additional $38 billion in aid for Ukraine to help defeat the invading Russians.” He concludes “They’re right. Thirty-eight billion isn’t enough. Make it $50 billion. Or even $100 billion. The more, the better, until the job is done.”

Apparently, the bellicose Rick does not quite get that Russia has made clear that if it is about to be defeated by force majeure it will go nuclear. And Congress and the White House don’t seem to get it either, with both the Republican and Democratic parties oblivious to the real danger that confronts the American people. Nuclear war? Sure! Just hide in your basement, if you have one, and tune in.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

Readers’ comments here.

 

 

Announcing Sheikh Imran Hosein Birmingham Lecture on the The Coming Malhama (WW3)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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