Month: October 2024

The fertility rate is the average number of children born per woman of child-bearing age in a country.

Usually, a woman between 15 and 45 is considered to be in her child-bearing years.

Below, voronoiapp.com shows a list of countries with the lowest fertility rates as of 2024, according to data compiled by Statista. All figures are estimates.

A fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman, known as the “replacement rate,” keeps the population stable by replacing both parents and accounting for infant mortality, assuming no migration and constant mortality rates.

Taiwan’s fertility rate is estimated at 1.11 children per woman, the lowest in the world. 

Europe leads our ranking with eight countries, followed by Asia with six, North America with five, and Africa with one.

Authored by Conor Gallagher via NakedCapitalism.com,

With the ongoing US/Israel rampage across the Middle East, we’re getting an increasing number of glimpses into the dark recesses of the neocon mind. This includes fantasies like “total victory” and daydreams about Israel assassinating Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. We recently featured one such vision here at Naked Capitalism from neocon-connected Simon Watkins at OilPrice. In it, he raises an option for Israel in attacking Iran out of Azerbaijan,  which would lead to another front in war, destruction of Middle East and Caspian energy infrastructure, the tanking of the global economy, and potentially the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, if not more — just the usual neocon reverie.

While Watkins version is unlikely (see comments on his piece here), there are pathways for the Caucasus to get sucked into the US/Israel slaughter in the Middle East. Neocon fever dreams unfortunately do play a role, but there’s also a lot else going on, and I’d like to take a more sober look at that here.

The Caucasus is at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and is therefore one of the most contested centers for the vital issues of energy transfer and trade logistics. All the major players from the Middle East conflicts, as well as others, are heavily involved in geopolitical maneuvering here.

Much of the intrigue in the Caucasus centers around the so-called Zangezur Corridor, a 42-kilometer strip of land in southern Armenia wedged between Azerbaijan and its exclave, Nakhchivan, and bordered by Iran to the south.

This small piece of coveted territory plays an outsized role in larger trade and energy projects due to the fact that whoever controls it will increase their influence in the region. It is of major interest to all the large players in the wider Middle East conflict, including Iran, Russia, Türkiye, Israel, and the US.

The latter happens to be in large control of its fate due its recent infiltration of the Armenian government, which has become an outpost of the US, and the Zangezur Corridor is a big bargaining chip for Washington.

The nine-point ceasefire agreement signed under Russian mediation that ended the 2020 war between Azerbaijan and Armenia included a  stipulation that the latter is responsible for ensuring the security of transport links between the western regions of Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan, facilitating the unhindered movement of citizens, vehicles and cargo in both directions. Azerbaijan and Turkiye have latched onto that point, insisting they have the right to set up transportation links through southern Armenia.

Baku wants travel of people and cargo between Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan to be free of inspection and customs and expects Yerevan to agree to the deployment of Russian border guards along the corridor. Moscow agrees with the deployment of its border guards, even if it doesn’t see eye to eye on the customs issue (it wants the Russians to conduct the security checks).

While Türkiye, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia might not see eye to eye on Zangezur, there had been a concerted effort to find some agreement that works for all sides. Baku wanted a broader “3+3” framework, involving Russia, Iran, Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. Russia was steering the process until Armenia last year turned to the US and EU to replace Moscow, a decision that quickly resulted in Armenia’s loss of the contested Nagorno-Karabakh territory and more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fleeing.

The insertion of the US into the equation makes a peaceful agreement more unlikely while increasing the odds that destabilization spills over from the Middle East.

The starting point for any conflict in the southern Caucasus that draws in outside actors would be another round of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The latter receives heavy military support from Israel and Türkiye while Armenia is now a western proxy with support primarily from France and the US, as well as India.

While Washington unleashes the crazies — both in the State Department and in its proxy states where its fevered support of neo-Nazis, jihadis, and genocidaires increasingly looks like a go-for-broke strategy — it would be surprising if it and Israel didn’t try to push forward with more recklessness in the Caucasus.

Will the other actors — Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Russia — be able to find mutually acceptable paths forward rather than conflict?

The prospects aren’t looking so great at the moment. Peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia (with heavy input from the Americans) intended to settle long-festering border issues, as well as the Zangezur question, are currently circling the drain. The chief hold up is the Zangezur issue.

On October 14, Azerbaijan’s defense minister instructed the country’s military to stay on high alert and “to be ready to take preventive measures against all possible provocations of revanchist forces on the conditional border.”

Both Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Erdoğan have made frequent statements about taking the Zangezur Corridor by force if necessary, and in any new conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia it’s entirely possible — if not likely — that they make an effort to do so.

The problem there is that Iran is increasingly worried about the prospect of the corridor as its influence is under attack across the Middle East and is drawing red lines as it becomes isolated on the issue.

It’s easy enough to imagine plenty of scenarios under which conflict spreads from the Middle East to the Caucasus, especially when factoring in the machinations of the current all-or-nothing US/Israel approach. Rather than speculate on those hypotheticals, I will here provide a brief summary of the positions of all the players as they relate to the Zangezur Corridor and how their positioning is likely attached to the current US/Israel rampage in the Middle East.

Iran 

Tehran is reportedly making it clear to the US that if Israel/US attacks its energy infrastructure, it will respond in kind in the region, and that includes not just the Middle East but the South Caucasus as well — specifically Azerbaijan.

That makes sense as Azerbaijan supplies 40 per cent of Israel’s energy needs. The strong weapons-for-energy relations between Israel and Azerbaijan continues to be a major concern for Iran where the media report on secret Israeli military bases in Azerbaijan and the belief that sabotage against Iran is frequently directed by Israel from Azerbaijan.

On the issue of the Zangezur Corridor, Tehran says that it crosses its red line.

Regional peace, security and stability is not merely a preference, but a pillar of our national security.

Any threat from North, South, East, or West to territorial integrity of our neighbors or redrawing of boundaries is totally unacceptable and a red line for Iran.

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) September 5, 2024

The implementation of the Zangezur Corridor would be a negative for Tehran in about every conceivable way. Iran would be eliminated as a bypass route around Armenia. Details from Al Monitor:

Iran earns a 15% commission from Azerbaijan’s gas supplies to Nakhchivan. It serves also as a route for Turkish exports to Central Asia. An average of about 12,000 Turkish trucks use the route monthly, with Iran charging passage fees of up to $800 for their 1,800-kilometer (1,120-mile) journey to the Turkmenistan border.

More than the money, however, Iran doesn’t want to lose influence over Azerbaijan, which relies on transit through Iran to connect to its exclave. And Tehran is especially worried about a NATO Turan Corridor which sees the West link up hypothetical client states throughout central Asia. From  Dr. Vali Kaleji, a Tehran-based expert on Central Asia and Caucasian Studies:

Iran sees the creation of the Zangezur corridor as a matter beyond the access of the Republic of Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan exclave and believes that this corridor will provide direct military access for Türkiye as a NATO member in the Caucasus and west of the Caspian Sea. Indeed, a significant number of Iranian elites and experts believe that the expansion of Türkiye’s presence in the South Caucasus, especially through the Zangezur corridor, will strengthen pan-Turkism in the region, which is a direct threat to the Azeri regions of north-western Iran.

In 2022 Iran opened a new consulate in southern Armenia and has conducted more frequent military drills on its border with Azerbaijan, as well as in the Caspian Sea. Should Azerbaijan and Türkiye attempt to take Armenian land by force, an Iranian intervention would make sense, but what is Tehran to do if Armenia agrees to the Zangezur Corridor? Taking action in that case would come at a moment when Iran’s plate is awfully full and put Tehran at odds with everyone else in the region, including Russia.

In September, Iran summoned the Russian ambassador over Moscow’s support for Zangezur. There are reports of other issues between Iran and Russia, although it’s unclear how much meat is on the bone there. Regardless, recent news from the South Caucasus is reason for more concern for Tehran.

On October 8, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russian border guards will withdraw from the Armenian-Iranian checkpoint by January 1. Since 1992 Armenia’s borders with Türkiye and Iran have been the responsibility of Russian troops.

Due to Armenia’s cozying up to NATO and coupled with Azerbaijan being a Mossad outpost, Tehran understandably views this development as part of an increasing threat from its north.

Israel and Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan wants the Zangezur Corridor. The question is how do they want to get there?

The problem is if they go for it, the US/Israel could try to make sure it becomes a conflict. You can understand temptation for Türkiye and Azerbaijan but could play right into trap. No doubt this item was under discussion by Putin and Aliev during the former’s visit to Baku in August and so far Azerbaijan — which also has strong ties to China (more on that later) — is refusing to play its role in the West’s attempt to direct the play.

Relations between Iran and Azerbaijan have long been difficult due to a variety of issues, but it’s important to remember that doesn’t always mean endless escalation until conflict as it frequently does for nations in the orbit of the rules-based international order. Baku and Tehran also find ways to cooperate, such as on the International North-South Transport Corridor that will run through both countries and connect Russia to India.

That being said, Baku’s friendly relationship with Israel is increasingly problematic, and both sides are accusing the other of espionage and terrorism. From 2016 to 2020 Tel Aviv accounted for 69 percent of Azerbaijan’s major arms imports, including its loitering munitions, which gained notoriety in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War.

This relationship with Israel serves as a counterweight to Iranian influence on Azerbaijan, which includes pressure against the development of trans-Caspian routes through Azerbaijan. There is also the issue of Iran’s West Azerbaijan and East Azerbaijan Provinces, which are mostly populated by Azeris and Kurds. Baku makes some noise about self-determination, but this is mostly an American neocons dream. They have long imagined using the ethnic Azerbaijani population in Iran to destabilize the country. Oddly enough, Iran’s current president Masoud Pezeshkian, who came to power after his predecessor died in a helicopter crash on a return flight from Azerbaijan, is part ethnic Azeri, as is Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei.

According to non-neocon accounts, (and maybe some Iran expert readers can add more insight) Iranian Azeris are mostly well integrated into Iranian society and there’s not a whole lot of dissatisfaction for outside actors to exploit. That rarely stops the neocons, however, who often view conflict as the key to unlock repressed ethnic tensions that will be unleashed in their favor.

Back in June, the US State Department announced that it had lifted its longtime ban on giving weapons and training to Ukraine’s notorious Azov Brigade (often referenced by its earlier name Azov Battalion).

Since then, efforts to normalize Azov—which mainstream media had long ago grudgingly admitted was full of “neo-Nazi ideology”—have only grown.

The group’s members have never been shy about sporting Nazi-inspired patches either. Ultimately, they haven’t changed, only their Western supporters’ perceptions of them have. 

Ukrainian scholar and historian, Dr. Marta Havryshko, has underscored this trend surrounding Azov, explaining that yes the group has “changed” – but not in the ways Ukraine’s supporters think, or what’s popularly portrayed in Western media attempts to whitewash the militia group.

Below is her scathing critique in full…

“Azov changed” – the mantra of many liberal and progressive public in the West, who, after 24 Feb. 2022, demonstrate sympathy toward the Azov movement, whitewashing its past, justifying its present, and showing no concerns about its future. My answer: Yes. It changed. Here are some indicators…

Enlargement & penetration of the entire security sector in Ukraine

Instead of one Azov regiment, there are now two brigades: the 12th in the National Guard and the 3rd in AFU. Another Azov unit, Kraken, acts under the direct supervision of Ukrainian Military Intelligence run by Budanov.

Weaponry

Thanks to lobbying and political expediency, the US lifted the ban on weapons to Azov. Now, it has all kinds of heavy weapons from the West and trains its members to use them whenever they’re needed against “external and internal enemies”.

Excusing past criminal activity

Some members of Azov were engaged in criminal activities and imprisoned before 2022 for gangsterism but released after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now, they are celebrated and decorated as “freedom fighters.”

Media support 

Azov enjoys an enormous media presence. Many Ukrainian and foreign media fall into the trap of “elite brigades,” “true patriots,” and “just nationalists.” They don’t question Azov’s ideology and are unwilling to confront Azov members directly with tough questions about its ideology and political plans.

Experts’ backing 

Some scholars and analysts consciously downplay the role of radicalism and extremism in Azov, arguing that it is “depoliticized” and that claims about its threats to democracy are exaggerated and the product of Kremlin propaganda.

Indoctrination & military training of youth 

Centuria, a paramilitary Azov youth movement, widened its activities across Ukraine. It penetrates schools. It prepares youth for the street violence. It is already used for political violence against LGBTQI+, feminist, and leftist activists.

Mobilization of fear

Azov weaponizes the fear of Russia in Ukraine and beyond. Common slogans: “They will kill all men and rape all women,” “They will organize another Holodomor,” “They will mobilize all men to the war against NATO,” etc.

In sum, yes, Azov changed drastically after February 2022, but most importantly, the attitude of many liberals changed toward Azov, not its very nature.

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

A Ukrainian official said Tuesday that American politicians are pressuring Ukraine to lower the minimum age of conscription from 25 to 18 to make more young men available for combat.

“If this information has surfaced, I can confirm it: American politicians from both parties are putting pressure on President Zelensky to explain why there is no mobilization of those aged 18 to 25 in Ukraine. The argument of our partners is that when the US fought in Vietnam, people were drafted from the age of 19,” Serhiy Leshchenko, an advisor to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, wrote on Telegram.

Back in April, Zelensky signed a bill that lowered the minimum conscription age in Ukraine from 27 to 25. Leshchenko said that Zelensky is resisting the pressure to start conscripting 18-year-olds.

“That’s why the Americans are hinting that Western weapons alone are not enough and that mobilization from the age of 18 is necessary,” Leshchenko pointed out.

President Zelensky did not give in and continues to persuade politicians from both parties to provide weapons without changing the draft age,” the Ukrainian official added.

Right before Zelensky signed the bill lowering the draft age to 25, he received a visit from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who called for younger Ukrainians to be sent to the frontlines.

“I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can’t believe it’s at 27,” Graham said. “You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27. We need more people in the line.”

However, it’s never really about the Ukrainians…

Ukraine has trillions of dollars worth of critical minerals in their country.

Vladimir Putin cannot be allowed to access that money and those resources because he will share it with China. pic.twitter.com/gKlSMjSjEK

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) June 9, 2024

In the early days of the war, Graham said Ukraine would be willing to “fight to the last person” as long as the US continued to provide the weapons.

Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

• EU ministers are debating alternatives to Russian gas imports as the Ukraine transit deal expires in December 2024.

• Concerns are rising regarding rising Russian LNG imports and the effectiveness of EU sanctions on re-exports.

• Some EU members advocate for stricter LNG reporting and alternatives like Azerbaijan are being discussed, but no concrete solutions are yet agreed upon.

European Union energy ministers are discussing the flows of natural gas from Russia to the EU as the transit deal via Ukraine is nearing its end.

The ministers are also talking about the issue of Russia’s LNG shipments to the bloc, which have been rising in recent months.

The EU’s latest package of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine included in June a ban on reloading services of Russian LNG in EU territory for the purpose of transshipment operations to third countries, after a transition period of 9 months. This covers both ship-to-ship transfers and ship-to-shore transfers, as well as re-loading operations, and does not affect import but only re-export to third countries via the EU, the bloc said.

Now several EU member states, including France and Belgium, are calling on the European Commission to propose stricter requirements for reporting LNG import volumes by suppliers and storage companies.

“We have seen in Belgium a doubling of LNG volumes. These are probably destined for security of supply within Europe but we have difficulty implementing this (14th) package that’s why we are calling for a tracking system,” Belgium’s Energy Minister Tinne van der Straeten said, as carried by Reuters.

Regarding remaining pipeline gas flows from Russia to the EU via the Ukraine transit route, Ukraine has already said on several occasions that it would not extend the current gas transit deal which expires on December 31, 2024.

But Slovakia, which continues to receive Russian gas, has said it would like to continue using the route via Ukraine.

EU energy ministers have been discussing replacing Russia with Azerbaijan as a supplier, but there haven’t been many details about how this could work, technically and politically, Bloomberg notes.

The EU is nowhere near an agreement on replacing Russian flows, and a possible deal could even be struck at the 11th hour or early next year, anonymous sources familiar with the discussions told Bloomberg.

Authored by Peter Hanseler via VoiceFromRussia.ch,

Introduction

In less than two weeks, the 2024 BRICS Summit will take place in Kazan from 22-24 October. Our team will be there to follow and report on what is likely to be the most important geopolitical event of the year.

We are using the summit as an opportunity to publish several articles on this issue of the century. In this first article, we describe the adverse geopolitical environment in which this organisation is developing.

I would like to preface this with the following: Reliable geopolitical statements are based on facts. As the geopolitical facts change almost daily, this fact makes it difficult or impossible to produce analyses that will stand the test of time.

Several key geopolitical parameters are either completely in flux or will not have been decided at the time of the BRICS summit. I consider the following parameters to be crucial for medium-term geopolitical developments: (1) war in the Middle East; (2) war in Ukraine; (3) interest rate developments and the behaviour of the Fed until the end of this year as an indicator of the instability of Western financial markets with the inevitable consequences for the global economy; (4) US presidential elections.

For China and Russia, which play a leading role in BRICS – Russia currently holds the chair – the following questions arise: Should BRICS accept few, no or many new members? Candidates are lining up, but some are under enormous pressure from the US to avoid joining BRICS. Should a new payment mechanism independent of the US dollar be introduced now, further upsetting the balance in already unstable financial markets? Such decisions, or even the mere communication of them, have the potential to significantly alter the entire geopolitical situation within hours – positively or negatively, depending on the observer’s point of view.

This article can therefore be no more than a transcription of thoughts on significant geopolitical developments that are currently taking place simultaneously and unpredictably. A full assessment is impossible. Many factors cannot be reliably assessed – such as developments in Africa, Asia and South America.

The feigned disinterest of the West

For a long time, the Western media maintained an ironclad silence on the subject of BRICS. A glimmer of interest appeared when Turkey expressed interest in joining BRICS. Now there is radio silence again. Alternative media are outdoing each other with predictions that BRICS will change the world tomorrow. The Russian media are holding back in this fireworks of jubilation. But to interpret the silence of the Western media as a lack of interest in BRICS would be more than naive.

The Mainstream Media in the West as Hate Mongers and Warmongers

In retrospect, people are always amazed at how people allowed their leaders to behave so foolishly and against the interests of their own nations on the road to world wars.

The answer is banal: the mainstream media regularly play a devastating role, both on the road to war and during war. The mainstream media allow themselves to be used and wring their hands when those media that report honestly are destroyed. Without journalists who sell their souls and trample on the interests of their own country, there would be no such catastrophes.

A few gallows should be kept ready for the ladies and gentlemen responsible. That would be nothing new, by the way. Julius Streicher, publisher of the Nazi hate newspaper “Der Sturmer”, was hanged in Nuremberg.

Hate propaganda can lead to a broken neck – Julius Streicher, former publisher of the newspaper “Der Stürmer”

This picture is intended to be a visual lesson in how it can end when you throw all journalistic principles overboard for evil.

The population in the West is already powerless

Since the brainwashing is not yet absolute, significant parts of the European population are still far from believing and supporting the madness spread by the media. The closed front of hatred – for example, against Russia – takes place primarily in the media, which are in complete lockstep throughout the West, with a few exceptions.

Significant parts of the population – in France, Germany and Austria, for example – have expressed their disgust with their leaders at the polls, and in a functioning democracy this should have led to political change. The political elites in France and Germany – and recently also in Austria – have used illegal means to prevent the political participation of those parties that advocate peace, for example in Ukraine, accompanied by the media labeling those who advocate peace as “Nazis” or at least “right-wing extremists. I have never heard of Adolf Hitler advocating peace.

There are certainly parallels with those dark times. The actions of the Nazi regime after it seized power in 1933 are virtually identical to those of today’s elites in Europe against dissenters in terms of restricting freedom of expression: inciting the masses against those sections of the population who question the policies of the powerful; bringing the media into line; and – especially in Germany – violating the law beyond recognition. For example, denying the winner of the regional elections in Thuringia the right to participate in the government or to have a blocking minority.

Freedom of expression in the midst of agony

Representative of the trend that freedom of expression in the West is hanging by a thread, here is a quote from John Kerry, on the occasion of a WEF meeting that took place between September 23 and 27.

“Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to hammer [disinformation] out of existence.

What we need is to win…the right to govern by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change.

In other words, Kerry qualifies freedom of expression as a problem and announces that this “problem” would be solved by the state if Kamala Harris wins. We leave this thought in the air and refer to our article: “US elections decide on war or peace”.

If it weren’t for the internet and blogs, the powerful would have already achieved their goal, because fortunately it seems practically impossible to silence all voices of reason.

BRICS: From an economic project to a geopolitical force

When representatives from Brazil, Russia, China and India first met formally on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in 2006, the world looked very different. Even in 2009, when the first formal BRIC summit was held in Yekaterinburg in June 2009, without South Africa – hence “BRIC” instead of “BRICS” – the world was different. The original goals of the BRIC countries were to achieve better economic cooperation between countries that had not yet been openly declared enemies or even sanctioned by the West. There seemed to be no rush (yet).

From 2014, pressure on Russia increased as a result of Maidan and Crimea. Russia was portrayed as the villain and sanctions were imposed. President Putin continued to seek diplomatic solutions for another eight years, welcomed Minsk I and II, but was again deceived. The artillery shelling of civilians in Donetsk by the “peaceful” Ukrainians did not stop, and NATO was building up the Ukrainian army for an attack on Russia.

Russia began to prepare for the foreseeable, especially economically, because militarily it had been doing so with great energy and creativity since the attack on Georgia in 2008. When the situation escalated in February 2022, Russia had apparently done its economic homework and could count on the loyalty of its partners in BRICS and SCO. The US miscalculation can be explained by the fact that Americans are unfamiliar with the concept of loyalty, while the EU miscalculation can be explained by the fact that most of its members are ruled by leaders whose stupidity borders on idiocy.

Russia has weathered the economic war unleashed by the West, despite a storm of sanctions unprecedented in world history. The losers are to be found in the West, with Germany being hit the hardest – also due to a senseless economic policy.

The U.S. did not limit its economic war to Russia, but also began to sanction China in 2014, as always with flimsy arguments. The EU – as a vassal of the US – has willingly gone along with this, and is currently doing so out of its own self-interest, since the industrial pearl that is Germany has already lost out due to misguided economic policies, bad decisions by its automotive industry and suicidal sanctions against Russia. Auto industry experts are speechless and wringing their hands: Since Covid, Mercedes has not managed to get its factories above 50% capacity – a complete collapse is becoming apparent across the board.

Next came the freezing of the reserves of the Russian Central Bank and the expropriation not only of Russians, but of anyone with a “Russian connection”, a term that is not legal in nature and has opened the door for governments and banks in the West to stage a raid.

China, which is only a few steps behind Russia in terms of sanctions, has become a target for the West because of its industrial superiority. It is the great new enemy of the US and Europe.

It would be naive to neglect the South China Sea and Taiwan, which are hot spots along with Ukraine and the Middle East, because what is at stake is nothing less than military domination of the Pacific, which the Americans have held since 1945, and control of one of the world’s most important transportation routes. Once the Americans are somewhere, you can’t get rid of them – even 80 years after a conflict. In Germany, for example, the US still operates 40 military bases. This alone makes it clear that Germany is not even nominally sovereign, but a mere vassal of the US. What “interests” the US “protects” for others around the globe remains in the dark.

Although most people consider military conflicts to be more important than economic wars because they are more bloody and evoke more emotion, history teaches us that the economically stronger ultimately prevails. As a consequence of this thought, it can be argued that the economic war as the decisive part of the 3rd World War is already in full swing.

In addition to many small military conflicts – such as in Africa – two increasingly escalating wars are currently raging: the conflict in Ukraine has been going on for two and a half years, and the latest conflict in the Middle East has been raging for a year.

Military escalation in Ukraine

Since last September, it has been clear who will prevail militarily in Ukraine. The advance of Russian troops across the entire front is accelerating steadily. We regularly recommend a YouTube channel that provides an unemotional daily report in English (“Military Summary”) and Russian (“Военныe сводки”) of events at the front and has not made any mistakes: only facts.

Ukraine’s Kursk adventure will end as it was bound to end; the last elite Ukrainian troops that (President) Selenski assembled for this suicide mission and equipped with modern equipment will leave Kursk as prisoners or in body bags. My sources speak of more than 21,000 casualties on the Ukrainian side.

Since the military outcome of the matter was decided – that is, since September 2023 – (President) Selenski, on behalf of his masters in Washington, has been wasting his men – young and old – at an ever-increasing rate. The death rate on the Ukrainian side has doubled from last year to June 2024: 60,000 to 80,000 men lost – per month. The number of Ukrainian prisoners of war is also increasing daily due to military encirclement. The fresh soldiers who have been thrown to the front since the beginning of the year do so after a 10-day quick fix, following a veritable hunt by recruiting troops throughout the territory of western Ukraine. These men do not want to go to the front and flee at the first opportunity. They know the war is lost, and they are not willing to give their lives for a country whose leadership they do not respect and whose fight is hopeless. Even CNN and the New York Times are reporting this.

The latest attempt by the U.S. and Britain to escalate the situation by using NATO’s long-range weapons against Russia failed because of President Putin’s clear response that in this case NATO countries, the U.S. and Europe would be directly involved in the war in Ukraine and that Russia would therefore make appropriate decisions based on the threat, given the changed nature of this conflict. This statement caused President Biden to backtrack within hours. Russia then further tightened its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons, making it clear that the concept of proxy wars would no longer be tolerated in the future.

It is not possible to say how long these two statements by President Putin will prevent the escalation. On October 3, another attack was carried out against the Kursk nuclear power plant – it is not known whether long-range weapons were used. It was rumored that at the next Ramstein meeting, Germany would authorize the use of long-range weapons despite the warning from the Kremlin. However, President Biden has now announced that he would not be attending this meeting due to the hurricane situation in the US. Shortly afterwards, Anthony Blinken also canceled. Meanwhile, the meeting has been canceled for the time being. Believing in victory looks different.

On October 8, Foreign Minister Lavrov reaffirmed the new doctrine and its automatic application in the event of the use of long-range weapons.

“As soon as this decision is taken [by the West to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles], if it is taken, we will learn that, and the contingency mentioned by Vladimir Putin will already be in action,”

Sergei Lawrow – 8 Oktober 2024

Selenski’s ‘victory plan’ was rejected in Washington anyway and testifies to the president’s complete loss of touch with reality. Even Czech President Petr Pavel has pointed this out. Although he is a vocal supporter of Ukraine and a former NATO general, he nevertheless expressed the view that parts of Ukraine would probably end up belonging to Russia. He softened this statement by describing this Russian occupation as ‘temporary’. Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, has also come out strongly against Ukraine joining NATO. Fico has long been a thorn in the side of the hawks, and they will regret that the attempt on his life did not bear fruit. I would not be surprised if a second attempt is made, as has already happened with Donald Trump.

The interim conclusion is that Russia has already won militarily against Ukraine, but the dying goes on without changing the outcome. The only thing left for NATO to do is to use long-range weapons against Russia in order to extend the war to the whole of NATO.

Escalation in the Middle East

The situation in the Middle East is even worse. After the events of 7 October 2023 were portrayed as a massacre of Palestinians, Prime Minister Netanyahu used this event, referred to as the “9/11 moment”, as an opportunity to massacre the population of Gaza. In January 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled unequivocally that this was genocide. To no avail, because since its creation in 1948, Israel has only respected the law that benefits it.

In the months following October 7, it emerged that the vast majority of the deaths that day were at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces and that the alleged mass rapes and beheadings of children were pure invention. These clear denials of Israeli propaganda were, incidentally, not made by obscure blogs, but by the Israeli daily newspaper “Haaretz”.

The entire Western public has been subjected to an unprecedented brainwashing, which in Germany, for example, has gone so far as to issue a memo to the staff of public television stations dictating the wording and adjectives they should use in their reporting. See our article “ARD–Glossary justifies genocide – Dr. Goebbels would be proud“.

Apart from a few courageous students, who were labeled anti-Semites for protesting against this genocide, no one in the West seems to be bothered by the fact that genocide is becoming fashionable again as a war tactic. After the Israeli military expanded the slaughter to the West Bank, Israel turned its attention to Lebanon. The leader of Hezbollah was eliminated by dropping 86 massive bombs on a residential neighborhood consisting of six buildings. Hundreds of civilians died. Israel uses such barbaric methods to eliminate a few officers of Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The attacks in Pager are also acts of terrorism and war crimes. Western media celebrate them as ingenious moves by Mossad.

Genocide and terror are “legal” for the US and the entire West. The Holocaust was also legal, as was the slaughter of over 15 million Russian civilians. The Nazi regime provided these “actions” with a “legal basis”. We have thus returned to a time when the terms “legal basis”, “law” and “law” have degenerated into empty phrases to assuage the consciences of those who actually commit these atrocities.

Since 1979, Iran has been described by the West as the epitome of evil and a terrorist state, even though it has not attacked another country in 150 years. That may be about to change. When the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was liquidated by the Israelis in Tehran on July 31, 2024, Iran held back. Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, was apparently persuaded by the U.S. not to respond militarily as a cease-fire was being worked out in Gaza. Iran showed its goodwill.

This was followed shortly afterwards by the pager attack, the assassination of Hassan Nasrrallah and the invasion of Lebanon. The Americans have once again pulled the wool over Iran’s eyes and set a trap. The response from Tehran last week was a missile attack with almost 200 missiles. The US and Israel are calling it a failure, but Israel has banned the dissemination of information about the damage. Film footage shows that over 80% of the missiles hit their target and the damage to military infrastructure is considerable. Iran only attacked military targets, not civilian ones. This distinguishes Iran from the real terrorist state, which has probably systematically killed over 100,000 civilians since last October.

Israel and the US should think carefully about whether this is a good idea before launching further attacks on Iran: Russia has equipped Iran with S-400 air defense systems and fighter jets – probably including pilots; at the same time, Moscow is clearly distancing itself from Israel and calling on Russian citizens to leave the country.

The risk of a conflict in which the US and Russia face each other directly in the Middle East has therefore increased noticeably. Neither China nor Russia have the slightest interest in Iran being forced into a war. As a member of the SCO and BRICS, Iran has become an ally of these two major powers and they would therefore have to respond militarily, which would make a direct confrontation between the US and Russia/China de facto inevitable.

I rule out a military victory for Israel and the US over Iran for the following reasons: Firstly, due to its military successes in the 1960s and 1970s, Israel lives from a myth as a military superpower in the Middle East, which is based on conflicts that lasted a few days or weeks against opponents who were inferior to the Israelis in every respect.

In 2006, however, Israel clearly lost against Hezbollah and the ineffectual Israelis had to call off their offensive against Lebanon after a month. The Israelis were also unable to achieve their loudly proclaimed goals against a significantly less powerful Hamas despite their genocidal approach.

Iran is a huge country with an area of 1.6 million square kilometers and a population of 90 million, with an army of just under one million men including reservists. Moreover, Iran is over 1,700 km away from Israel, which rules out a land war. Even the Americans, who cannot even prevail against the Houthis, will have no chance here. Attacking Iran is therefore complete nonsense and madness.

If you listen to experts, even air strikes seem practically impossible and extremely risky for aircraft due to the Russian S-400 defense systems. Iran has hundreds of thousands of state-of-the-art missiles at its disposal and could cover Israel with hundreds of missiles every day for months. The Israelis’ miraculous Iron Dome may be suitable against old Quds missiles, but they are practically ineffective against modern Iranian missiles, as the last attack showed.

Unless the Americans have completely lost their minds, they will not comply with the wishes of the Israeli Mini-Hitler. That would probably also be worse for the Biden-Harris government. If the conflict escalates, Iran will multiply the price of oil through attacks on oil infrastructure and a possible blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which would mean the end of the Harris campaign.

The third major conflict for supremacy in the South China Sea and over Taiwan is not yet being waged kinetically, but it could just as well start tomorrow or in a year’s time.

The forces that control the USA are the cause of this evil

Overview

It sounds simplistic, but there is actually one party ultimately responsible for all the incidents described: The US. It is – rightly – afraid of losing its role as hegemon after 80 years.

The US’s problem is multifaceted. Firstly, the world’s most indebted country is economically in the doldrums: The published economic figures, which paint a slightly better picture, are sugarcoated. Secondly, society in the US is more divided than ever before: the election campaign between Harris and Trump is hate-filled and this is not about the choice between two people, but about the choice between the deep state and the anti-establishment, which we already described in detail a month ago (US elections decide war or peace) and therefore do not cover this aspect in this article. Thirdly, the strategy of destroying or dismembering Russia implemented after the fall of the Soviet Union has become a distant prospect by conventional means; the war against Russia in Ukraine has failed. Fourthly, over the last 45 years, the US has lost its formerly dominance in the Middle East. The last bastion is Israel, which is being led to its doom by a sociopath under the expert leadership of the US. Fifthly, in my opinion, the biggest problem for the US is the rise of BRICS, as the American empire cannot exist without the supremacy of the US dollar. With the rise of BRICS, this dominance will disappear. For this reason, the US is fighting BRICS with all means at its disposal, be it by exerting pressure on new or potential members (e.g. Saudi Arabia) or through military intervention (e.g. Russia and Iran).

US economy: The world’s richest country driven to the wall

The US took over as hegemon after the Second World War with 22,000 tons of gold, an economy that produced 70% of the world’s industrial goods and a monetary system (Bretton Woods) that was imposed on over forty members and made the US dollar the world currency. In addition, the US was practically spared from the Second World War – as it had been from the First World War. The country and the civilian population suffered no damage whatsoever and compared to the losses suffered by many other warring parties – first and foremost the Soviet Union – the American losses in both world wars can be described as homeopathic.

Despite this “starting capital”, the US as hegemon did not succeed in maintaining this strength over time. The list of coups, military conflicts and major wars launched by the US in the last 80 years is almost endless and has led to millions of civilian deaths, destroyed countries and complete military defeats for the US.

The image that the US paints of itself as a “friendly hegemon” is a complete farce. The US was not only brutal and ruthless towards enemies, but also towards friends. If a friend stepped out of line, it was destroyed militarily (Iraq, Libya), subjected to decades of sanctions (Cuba, Iran) or blackmailed by other means (Switzerland).

The biggest problem for the United States is the fact that it has always lived beyond its means and spent more money than it earned. This led to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system after just 26 years, when President Nixon was forced to close the gold window, which led to them ripping off their partners in the Bretton Woods system. Then the genius Henry Kissinger invented the Petrodollar, which turned the US dollar into the “King Dollar” and gave the US an instrument for unlimited debt, which the Americans also used as a weapon. Anyone who tried to break away and sell raw materials in currencies other than the US dollar was destroyed (Iraq, Libya).

The turning point came at the latest with the freezing of Russian central bank funds, an infringement of assets that was primarily started by the vassals in the EU in 2022, with even “neutral” Switzerland participating in this – until then – unthinkable breach of the law.

In my opinion, this action will go down in the history books as one of the greatest blunders, as it not only heralds the end of the Petrodollar, but also greatly accelerates the coming together of the Global South, which is characterized by the fact that the Chinese and Russians no longer conduct 60%, but only 15% of their transactions in US dollars and the BRICS countries – whenever possible – conduct their trade activities outside the US dollar. This trend is accelerating with each passing year and will sooner or later lead to the collapse of the US budget, as it is dependent on the world holding US dollars, or else the US will collapse.

The stock markets in the West are still close to their highs, but are a miserable measure of the economic health of the Collective West. Most of the countries in this group are effectively bankrupt and are keeping themselves alive by printing money and cutting interest rates. Interest rate cuts that are based on the lie that inflation has been defeated. Every European or American who has to watch their budget has tears in their eyes – from laughter or weeping – when they look at the official inflation figures.

The official figures have nothing in common with reality. It is the West’s last gasp before collapse. Here, too, history is repeating itself. In the 1970s, Americans were also led to believe that inflation was under control and the Fed Chairman at the time, Arthur F. Burns, lowered interest rates. An inflationary storm then broke out, which Burns’ successor, Paul Volcker, finally got under control again by raising the key interest rate to 19.1% (June 1981).

On October 4, ZeroHedge reported that global food prices have risen the most in 18 months. The parallels with the 1970s in terms of inflation are striking and worrying.

This drastic cure would no longer be feasible today. At today’s interest rates, the US is paying over one trillion US dollars in interest per year on its gigantic mountain of debt. That is more than the US spends on its gigantic military apparatus. Very few people can even imagine what a trillion actually means:

Here are some examples of what a trillion actually means:

• One million seconds equals 11.5 days – one trillion seconds equals: 32,000 years.

• If someone were to give away a million every day since the day Christ was born, they would still have enough money today to continue this process for another 715 years – until the year 2,739.

• One trillion grains of rice weigh approximately 30,000 tons.

It is only a matter of time before this house of cards collapses. Whether the catastrophe starts in Europe, the US or Japan is of secondary importance, as this will lead to a domino effect.

Bloodbaths accompany the loss of US supremacy in the Middle East

In our three-part series “Bloodbaths are changing the world”, we have meticulously detailed the rise of the military-industrial complex in the US (Part 1) as the basis for the US’s aggressive foreign policy.

Until the overthrow of the Shah of Persia in 1979, the US dominated the Middle East and thus also controlled a large part of the world’s oil reserves.

In the following maps, the influence of the US is colored red. The coloring in the following maps should not be considered absolute.

Influence of the US (red) in the Middle East until the fall of the Shah of Persia – Source: VoicefromRussia.com

In 2001, the situation looked much worse for the US – its influence was much smaller.

Situation on September 11, 2001 – Source: VoicefromRussia.com

In part 2 of our bloodbath series, we explained how the US used 9/11 as an excuse to plan a huge campaign to conquer Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iran. A plan that was in no way inferior to Hitler’s megalomania.

Influence US in September 2001: (red) – the plan: (yellow) – Source: VoicefromRussia.com

It turned out differently: all war campaigns led to disaster for the US. Nevertheless, the Americans destroyed the following countries either completely or significantly: Afghanistan (US withdrawal), Iraq (US withdrawal with a small contingent remaining against the will of the government), Libya (no [official] ground troops, country destroyed), Syria (lost, but to this day still some ground troops in the oil-rich part), Sudan (no control), Somalia (no control).

The situation today is as follows: A disaster for the US.

In addition, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt joined BRICS last summer (Saudi Arabia joined but has not yet signed up). The following countries in the Middle East have also submitted formal applications for membership: Kuwait, Bahrain and Turkey – more on these in our follow-up articles to this report.

The geopolitical reach of the US in the Middle East is therefore extremely limited. Furthermore, anyone who believes that Israel does not do exactly what the US orders is naive.

Israel would not be able to survive a month without US financial and military support. The US has once again found a sociopath (Prime Minister Netanyahu) to do the dirty work for the US, including genocide.

The power of the Zionists

Much more important, however, is the question of who is able to influence the US to such an extent and how this is done. The short answer: the Zionists.

What is Zionism? – “Zionism (from Zion) refers to a political ideology and associated movement aimed at the establishment, justification and preservation of a Jewish nation state in Palestine.”

The Zionists are in charge of the Israeli government today, although they only represent around 10% of the electorate. One of their most extreme representatives is the current Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

In our series on Israel, we mentioned the ultimate goal of the Zionists several times and proved this, among other things, with the help of an entry in Ben Gurion’s diary, namely the creation of a Greater Israel that included Israel, Jordan, Iraq, parts of Syria and areas of Saudi Arabia. This also proves that the term “river” in the Israeli saying “From the river to the sea” does not mean the Jordan, but the Euphrates. This ultimate goal is always dismissed in the West as a conspiracy theory, as well as an old hat, since Ben Gurion’s diary entry dates back to 1948. However, the following statement by Smotrich from October of this year confirms the unbelievable:

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich:

I want a Jewish state that includes Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/k08V7wYNGU

— Globe Eye News (@GlobeEyeNews) October 10, 2024

It is no secret that the American government is riddled with Zionists – such as Blinken and Sullivan. Even Joe Biden describes himself as a Zionist.

The Zionist movement is organized worldwide. By far its most powerful lobbyist is the extremely wealthy AIPAC – The American Israel Public Affairs Committee; in essence a Zionist lobbying organization in the US.

In the US, all lobbying organizations must be registered as such, which is required by law under FARA – the Foreign Agents Registration Act. This has been in place since 1938 to prevent foreign influence on American politics. AIPAC is expressly excluded from this.

AIPAC has unlimited access to members of the US Congress and Senate at all times. There has never been a US president who has dared to go against the express will of AIPAC. And AIPAC is the organization that Netanyahu can fully rely on at all times in his religious war mania and to ensure the supply of weapons and money not only from the US.

This short paragraph should suffice to show that (1) Israel’s goal is not peace, but gigantic expansion at the expense of practically all its Arab neighbors; (2) the question of whether Israel dominates the US or the US dominates Israel is irrelevant: the Zionists are in decisive positions in many countries – including the US and Israel.

As long as the Zionists occupy these positions of power worldwide, there will be no peace in the Middle East.

Priority number 1 for the US: Prevent BRICS!

Whether the US can maintain its hegemony ultimately depends not on military successes, but on economic might, because the US has not won a war since 1945, but has still been able to maintain its world dominance.

Every hegemon that has ever lost its status has lost it because it went broke. Nevertheless, the US’s approach makes perfect sense from its perspective. The weakness of the US can no longer be hidden. They are now trying to weaken their opponents – at least to create a balance on a relative level – by causing wars that are waged by third parties who weaken each other in the process.

This is intended to prevent the “rest of the world” from realigning itself collectively. BRICS stands for precisely this realignment: a realignment through the creation of a multipolar world. If BRICS is successful, the US will disappear as a hegemon and will then be one of many players at the table, with defunct empires regularly acting as if they were playing a major role for centuries to come. Just like President Macron or Boris Johnson, for example, who from a rational point of view are just ridiculous loudmouths with countries that belong on the geopolitical dustbin.

The West’s cast-iron silence on BRICS should therefore by no means be interpreted as a lack of interest. The really important geopolitical developments are known to take place in the background. I personally believe that this organization poses the greatest threat to the US. Russia and China are the two countries that are leading the development of this organization. It therefore makes perfect sense from an American point of view to fight these two countries most aggressively.

The Russians and Chinese are aware of this and are reacting with the discretion and restraint typical of both countries. There have been 200 events on BRICS in Russia this year and not a lot has been heard.

It is a huge challenge for BRICS to develop in a well-structured way in this geopolitical turmoil. Some members are already at war with the Collective West (Russia, Iran), Saudi Arabia may not make up its mind as it is obviously under enormous pressure due to its huge investments in the UK and US. The formal signature for accession is still pending.

The war against Russia in Ukraine has completely failed and has considerably weakened Europe – especially Germany – and exposed NATO as a chatter club. The time will come when even the last naive person in Europe will realize that Europe is once again being used as a blunt and willing instrument of its masters in Washington against Russia. This is a betrayal of national interests. Bought morons in the service of Washington. But how Germany has managed to elect a government whose intellectual abilities are difficult to describe is down to the society that made a choice back in 1933, the consequences of which we all know. The Germans seem to have a special ability to regularly shoot themselves in their own feet – the left and the right.

To date, US efforts to bring down BRICS by weakening Russia and China have failed.

Nevertheless, the geopolitical turmoil that the US has caused in recent years is certainly influencing the development of BRICS – both negatively and positively.

Negatively, as potential members are being bullied, such as Saudi Arabia. Attempts are also being made to influence full BRICS members by luring and threatening them (India, Brazil). Other countries that would like to join BRICS are put under pressure, even if the general public is not aware of this, as this happens in the background or the pressure is exerted for other, pretextual reasons (e.g. Venezuela).

The positive effect of the US’s behavior is that many countries are becoming acutely aware of what could befall them if they are treated in the same way as Russia and China, although many countries in the Global South are mere microcosms compared to these two giants and therefore lack the resilience of Russia and China. Since BRICS sells multipolarity credibly and actually behaves in a spirit of partnership and not hegemonism, the prospect of living under the umbrella of this community is extremely attractive. This is evident from the long list of countries that would like to formally join or have expressed a strong interest.

Looking into the crystal ball

Now one has to ask what the best strategy for BRICS will be: Just grow fast? I do not hold this opinion. Based on conversations with my contacts, BRICS decision-makers seem to think along similar lines. It is possible that no new full members will be admitted at all this year and a status called “ Partner” will be introduced, because the big growth step of last August (increase from 5 to 9 members) must be consolidated and in the current geopolitical environment it is an advantage to be smaller and more flexible.

What can be considered certain: BRICS has evolved from an economic association to a geopolitical entity. In times of conflict, such an economic community must secure itself geopolitically. It is very possible that the SCO, a security policy organization, will move closer to BRICS or even merge with it.

From an economic perspective, the biggest challenge for BRICS is to create an efficient payment or settlement system independent of the US dollar. At present, most trade activities within BRICS are settled in local currencies, but no solution has yet been found for settling trade deficits among the members. A lot is being written and rumored, but the Russians and Chinese are keeping their cards close to their chests on this matter. We will hopefully be able to comment on this before the summit begins.

In the next part, we will provide the latest figures on BRICS. The fact that BRICS is the big economic magnet of the Global South can be anticipated. Over 50 countries want to join and this would create an organization that would outshine everything that has ever existed, because BRICS is already stronger than the G7 in terms of all important parameters.

Conclusion

What the death throes of a hegemon look like is currently being demonstrated to the global public in all its gruesome detail. An unbelievable number of people are dying, genocide is once again considered acceptable in the West, the media are becoming drivers of hatred, concealing objectively important developments and lying through their teeth. “Friends” (better: vassals) are sent into the fire for ‘the good cause’. Their own population is lied to and economically ruined. It is becoming increasingly difficult for the hard-hit empire to credibly convey the noble slogans of “freedom”, “democracy” and “prosperity” to its people.

Being able to develop in an orderly and free manner in such an adverse environment is a huge challenge for an organization like BRICS. This organization, which was launched as a purely economic association, was originally designed to assert itself in free competition. Today, hatred, sanctions and wars are being used as a means to put an end to this organization. A loose economic alliance is becoming a geopolitical alliance and, in the event of further escalation, has every chance of becoming a military alliance.

I am not an augur, but I would not be surprised if BRICS adopts a strategy of resilience rather than growth and flexibility rather than size. We will know more on October 24.

This graphic, via Voronoiapp.com, shows where beer prices have increased the most across NFL teams between 2013 and 2023, based on data from Team Marketing Report via FinanceBuzz.

The Carolina Panthers saw the sharpest increase in beer cost, likely due to having the cheapest 16-ounce beer in the league in 2013, at $4.36.

Four teams saw beer prices more than double, including the Philadelphia Eagles, where a beer cost a hefty $15.35 in 2023.

On average, the price of beer rose 25% across the NFL, lower than the pace of inflation, which was 31% over the period.

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security… And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.”

– Historian Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45

Brace yourself: a tsunami approaches.

While we squabble over which side is winning this losing battle to lead the country, there is something being concocted in the dens of power, far beyond the public eye, and it doesn’t bode well for the future of this country.

Anytime you have an entire nation so mesmerized by the antics of the political ruling class that they are oblivious to all else, you’d better beware.

Anytime you have a government that operates in the shadows, speaks in a language of force, and rules by fiat, you’d better beware.

And anytime you have a government so far removed from its people as to ensure that they are never seen, heard or heeded by those elected to represent them, you’d better beware.

We’ve got to get our priorities straight if we are to ever have any hope of maintaining any sense of freedom in America.

As long as we allow ourselves to be distracted, diverted, occasionally outraged, always polarized and content to view each other—rather than the government—as the enemy, we’ll never manage to present a unified front against tyranny (or government corruption and ineptitude) in any form.

Mind you, by “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

This is the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedoms of its citizenry.

So, stop with all of the excuses and the hedging and the finger-pointing and the pissing contests to see which side can out-shout, out-blame and out-spew the other.

Enough already with the short- and long-term amnesia that allows political sycophants to conveniently forget the duplicity, complicity and mendacity of their own party while casting blame on everyone else.

This is how evil wins.

This is how freedom falls and tyranny rises.

This is how good, generally decent people—having allowed themselves to be distracted with manufactured crises, polarizing politics, and fighting that divides the populace into warring us vs. them camps—fail to take note of the looming danger that threatens to wipe freedom from the map and place us all in chains.

The world has been down this road before, as historian Milton Mayer recounts in his seminal book on Hitler’s rise to power, They Thought They Were Free.

We are at our most vulnerable right now.

The gravest threat facing us as a nation is not extremism but despotism, exercised by a ruling class whose only allegiance is to power and money.

We’re in a national state of denial, yet no amount of escapism can shield us from the harsh reality that the danger in our midst is posed by an entrenched government bureaucracy that has no regard for the Constitution, Congress, the courts or the citizenry.

No matter how often the team colors change, the playbook remains the same. The leopard does not change its spots.

Scrape off the surface layers and you will find that nothing has changed.

The police state is still winning. We the people are still losing.

In fact, the American police state has continued to advance at the same costly, intrusive, privacy-sapping, Constitution-defying, heartbreaking, soul-scorching, relentless pace under the current Tyrant-in-Chief as it did under those who occupied the White House before him (Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc.).

Consider for yourselves:

• Police haven’t stopped disregarding the rights of citizens.

• SWAT teams haven’t stopped crashing through doors and terrorizing families.

• The Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security haven’t stopped militarizing and federalizing local police.

• Schools haven’t stopped treating young people like hard-core prisoners.

• For-profit private prisons haven’t stopped locking up Americans and immigrants alike at taxpayer expense.

• Censorship hasn’t stopped.

• The courts haven’t stopped marching in lockstep with the police state.

• Government bureaucrats haven’t stopped turning American citizens into criminals.

• The surveillance state hasn’t stopped spying on Americans’ communications, transactions or movements.

• The TSA hasn’t stopped groping or ogling travelers.

• Congress hasn’t stopped enacting draconian laws.

• The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t stopped being a “wasteful, growing, fear-mongering beast.”

• The military industrial complex hasn’t stopped profiting from endless wars abroad.

• The Deep State’s shadow government hasn’t stopped calling the shots behind the scenes.

• And the American people haven’t stopped acting like gullible sheep.

So you can try to persuade yourself that you are free, that you still live in a country that values freedom, and that it is not too late to make America great again, but to anyone who has been paying attention to America’s decline over the past century, it will be just another lie.

The German people chose to ignore the truth and believe the lie.

They were not oblivious to the horrors taking place around them. The warning signs were definitely there, blinking incessantly like large neon signs.

“Still,” historian Robert Gellately writes, “the vast majority voted in favor of Nazism, and in spite of what they could read in the press and hear by word of mouth about the secret police, the concentration camps, official anti-Semitism, and so on.”

The German people backed Hitler because for the majority of them, life was good.

In a nutshell, life was good because their creature comforts remained undiminished, their bank accounts remained flush, and they weren’t being discriminated against, persecuted, starved, beaten, shot, stripped, jailed and turned into slave labor.

Life is good in America, too.

Life is good in America as long as you’re able to keep sleep-walking through life, cocooning yourself in political fantasies that depict a world in which your party is always right and everyone else is wrong, and distracting yourself with bread-and-circus entertainment that bears no resemblance to reality.

Life is good in America as long as you don’t mind being made to pay through the nose for the government’s endless wars, subsidization of foreign nations, bloated workforce, secret agencies, fusion centers, private prisons, biometric databases, invasive technologies, arsenal of weapons, and every other budgetary line item that is contributing to the fast-growing wealth of the corporate elite at the expense of those who are barely making ends meet—that is, we the 99%. 

Life is good in America for the privileged few, but as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, it’s getting worse by the day for the rest of us.

So, please spare me the media hysterics and the outrage and the hypocritical double standards of those whose moral conscience appears to be largely dictated by their political loyalties.

Anyone who believes that the injustices, cruelties and vicious callousness of the U.S. government are unique to any one particular administration has not been paying attention.

Via The Cradle

Syrian and Russian fighter jets carried out several air raids on Wednesday targeting positions belonging to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist group, formerly Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front. 

The strikes hit HTS positions in the countryside of the northern Idlib governorate, as well as in the countryside of the northwestern city of Latakia, for the second day in a row, according to Al Mayadeen’s correspondent. “The raids targeted military training sites and warehouses, in addition to an underground tunnel in the vicinity of the town of Benin in Jabal al-Zawiya,” Al Mayadeen reported. 

Russian and Syrian jets have stepped up their bombardment of HTS positions in the Idlib and Latakia countryside over the past few days. 

Syrian-Russian airstrikes targeted the extremist group’s encampments in the Al-Basel Forest west of Idlib city on Monday, as well as the hills surrounding the towns of Sheikh Bahr and Kafr Jales. 

Sources told Al Mayadeen that the strikes two days ago hit an underground machinery warehouse in Idlib city. 

According to the opposition-linked war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Syrian army forces brought in additional military reinforcements to Idlib from the suburbs of Aleppo and its western countryside. 

Syria intensified its bombing campaign against Idlib in October last year, following a drone attack carried out by extremists under HTS command, which targeted a Syrian military college, killing dozens. According to several reports, anti-government extremist militants in northern Syria have expanded their drone arsenal and expertise in drone warfare through recent cooperation with Ukraine. 

Idlib is the last governorate of Syria under full control of extremist armed opposition groups. Damascus’ forces made their first advancement towards Idlib in 2019 when they captured the town of Habeet in the Idlib countryside.

The latest strikes on Idlib come as Syria has withstood repeated Israeli attacks. Damascus has, over the years, accused HTS and other extremist groups in the country of close cooperation with Tel Aviv. 

Northeastern Syria has also witnessed significant escalation in recent months, particularly after heavy fighting broke out in August between pro-government Arab tribes and Washington-backed Kurdish militants of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) near US-occupied parts of the country. 

The fighting has come to an end, yet tensions remain high. Tribal figures and academics in Syria’s northeast have attempted to bridge the divides between Damascus and several Kurdish organizations with a new national dialogue initiative. Syrian officials held talks with SDF officials and US-backed Kurdish authorities last year, but the negotiations never progressed. 

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

The health of the economy has been a major determining factor in many past presidential elections, and the health of the economy is certainly going to have an enormous influence on the outcome of the upcoming presidential election.  In fact, according to a poll that was just released by Rasmussen the economy is the number one issue by a wide margin for voters in the ultra-important swing state of Pennsylvania.  

Unfortunately for the Democrats, most Americans are not pleased with how the economy is performing, and it appears that conditions are now taking another turn for the worse.  

The following are 10 signs that the economy is a giant mess as the election approaches…

#1 The number of Americans filing first time claims for unemployment benefits just hit the highest level in over a year…

The number of people filing for unemployment for the first time was at its highest levels in more than a year, partly due to storm damage and labor stoppages.

Initial jobless claims for the week ending Oct. 5 came in at 258,000, up 33,000 from last week’s level of 225,000, and the highest since it hit the same level in August 2023, data from the Labor Department shows.

#2 According to Primerica’s latest Financial Security Monitor report, the percentage of middle-income households that “rate their personal financial situation negatively” has hit the highest level that they have ever recorded…

Primerica’s latest Financial Security Monitor report for the third quarter found 55% of middle-income households now rate their personal financial situation negatively, a 6-point jump from the previous survey.

“For the first time in a year, a majority of middle-income households are feeling negative about their personal finances,” said Glenn Williams, CEO of Primerica. “In fact, this latest report represents the highest negative rating we’ve seen since we began fielding the survey exactly four years ago.”

#3 I am old enough to remember a time in this country when you were set for life if you had a million dollars.  Unfortunately, thanks to our endless cost of living crisis it now costs 4.4 million dollars to live “the American Dream” over the course of a lifetime…

You can live the American Dream, but it will cost you.

The lifetime tab for such aspirations as owning a home, driving new cars, raising kids and taking annual vacations comes to a cool $4.4 million, according to Investopedia, the financial media site.

That’s more than the average American earns in a lifetime.

#4 The company that produces more french fries than anyone else in North America is cutting production and laying off workers due to a dramatic slowdown in consumer demand…

Lamb Weston, the largest producer of french fries in North America and a major supplier to fast-food chains, restaurants and grocery stores, is closing a production plant in Washington state. The company announced last week that it would lay off nearly 400 employees, or 4% of its workforce, and temporarily cut production lines in response to slowing customer demand.

#5 At one time Boeing was flying high, but now it has decided to lay off approximately 10 percent of its entire workforce…

The CEO of Boeing told employees late Friday that the company plans to cut 10% of its total staff “over the coming months.”

“Our business is in a difficult position, and it is hard to overstate the challenges we face together,” said Kelly Ortberg, who started at CEO of the troubled aircraft maker two months ago and has been dealing with a strike by 33,000 hourly workers for half his time on the job.

#6 The banking industry continues to deeply struggle.  So far this year, banks in the United States have permanently shut down over 700 local branches…

US banks closed more than 700 branches in the first nine months of the year, forcing thousands to travel further to access vital services.

Bank of America closed the most locations of any bank, shuttering 132 between January and September.

U.S. Bank followed swiftly behind, having closed 101 of their own branches.

#7 After 75 years, True Value has been forced to file for bankruptcy and will be “selling substantially all of its operations to a rival”…

True Value, a 75-year old hardware store brand, has filed for bankruptcy and is selling substantially all of its operations to a rival, the company announced Monday.

In a press release, True Value said it will continue day-to-day operations of selling hardware and other homeware tools to its 4,500 independently operated locations during the Chapter 11 process, which includes a $153 million stalking horse bid from rival company Do it Best.

#8 Did you ever think that you would live to see a day when hundreds of 7-Eleven stores would be closing?  Sadly, that time has now arrived…

Several hundred “underperforming” 7-Eleven locations across North America are closing, the convenience store announced.

Seven & I Holdings, the chain’s Japan-based parent company, revealed in an earnings report Thursday that 444 locations of 7-Eleven are shutting down because of a variety of issues, including slowing sales, declining traffic, inflationary pressures and a decrease in cigarette purchases.

#9 Home Depot apparently believes that rough times are ahead, because they are dumping millions of square feet of warehouse space…

Home Depot is hastily exiting warehouse space, to the tune of 3.2 million square feet in a month, according to Bisnow.

Since late August, Home Depot has put up nearly 4 million square feet of warehouse space for sublease, including a 1.3M SF Phoenix warehouse and a 1.1M SF distribution center in the Inland Empire, according to CoStar Analytics.

#10 At this point, things are so bad that even Disney is laying off workers…

According to sources cited by Deadline, Disney is pushing ahead with new layoffs as part of a broader “cost-saving initiative.” About 300 employees across Disney’s corporate divisions will be impacted this week.

The layoffs of 300 employees began on Tuesday and will continue until the end of the week. They are all US-based employees who work across the company’s corporate operations, including legal, HR, finance, and communications.

If you have recently lost your job, I feel very badly for you, because the employment market has gotten a lot more “complicated” than it was in the old days.

Once upon a time, being good at what you do was enough.

But now other considerations are often more important than pure merit…

A top Oregon state official has been put on administrative leave after a pink-haired, DEI-obsessed subordinate complained he was making hiring decisions based on qualifications instead of personal identity considerations, according to a report.

Mike Shaw, who until recently served as the Oregon Department of Forestry’s second-in-command, was put on blast by Megan Donecker, the department’s former DEI strategy officer, for looking “beyond gender and identity in hiring, seeking only candidates most qualified for the job,” OregonLive reported.

He was formally placed on administrative leave Aug. 6 after Donecker filed a formal complaint, according to the Daily Mail.

Isn’t that nuts?

Our society is getting crazier with each passing day, and I am deeply concerned about where all of this is heading.

Sadly, the tough economic times that we are experiencing now are not even worth comparing to the pain that is coming if we don’t turn things around.

Our system is literally crumbling right in front of our eyes, and unless something dramatic happens economic conditions in this country will soon become extremely harsh.

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Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.