Eurasia: A Geo-political re-alignment

[Lauren Johnson]

A couple of more commentaries:

from the [URL="http://www.moonofalabama.org/2014/07/germany-getting-ready-to-divorce-us-ally.html"]Moon of Alabama
[/URL]

rom recent talks and discussions in Germany I conclude that the U.S. is losing more and more support and sympathies. The admiration of earlier times has turned into disgust. While a lot of higher politicians and some journalists still cling to some (well paid) myth of U.S. friendship the party base in all political parties as well as the general public has changed its opinion. The NSA spying headlines are only one, though important issue. Consider how you would feel about such an intrusive "ally":

• German intelligence employee arrested on suspicion of spying for US on Bundestag NSA committee
  
• NSA whistleblowers testify in Bundestag inquiry, disclose totalitarian' surveillance
  
• Germany NSA's main target, claims ex-staffer
  
• Irked by N.S.A., Germany Cancels Deal With Verizon
  
• German parliament drops US telecom firm Verizon over links to NSA spying
  
• NSA Turned Germany Into Its Largest Listening Post in Europe
  
• Report: NSA targeted German privacy activist
  
• NSA targets Tor administrators and people searching for privacy tools, reports claim
  

The German constitution, as interpreted by the constitutional court, defines privacy as a basic human right. That the U.S. is so casually violating the basic human rights of all German citizens is met with utter disgust. Even the paid and trained Atlantic Council (a U.S. lobby) trolls in German news-site comments have problem defending this issue.

But the NSA spying is not the only problem. The economic breakdown after 2008 clearly had its roots in the United States and is, in Germany, blamed on lax U.S. regulations. And while Germany itself pressed for a change in government in Ukraine the outbreak of violence, the bloody coup and the fighting in the east is considered as "Fuck the EU" U.S. intervention in European affairs.

It may still take a decade or more but my sense is that the U.S.-German alliance in on its way to an unfriendly divorce. Something that 15 years ago seemed unthinkable.
Posted by b on July 4, 2014 at 11:28 AM | Permalink

and from Zero Hedge

Not even we anticipated this particular "unintended consequence" as a result of the US multi-billion dollar fine on BNP (which France took very much to heart). Moments ago, in a lengthy interview given to French magazine Investir, none other than the governor of the French National Bank Christian Noyer and member of the ECB's governing board, said this stunner at the very end, via Bloomberg:

• NOYER: BNP CASE WILL ENCOURAGE DIVERSIFICATION' FROM DOLLAR
  

Here is the full google translated segment:

Q. Doesn't the role of the dollar as an international currency create systemic risk?

Noyer: Beyond [the BNP] case, increased legal risks from the application of U.S. rules to all dollar transactions around the world will encourage a diversification from the dollar. BNP Paribas was the occasion for many observers to remember that there has been a number of sanctions and that there would certainly be others in the future. A movement to diversify the currencies used in international trade is inevitable. Trade between Europe and China does not need to use the dollar and may be read and fully paid in euros or renminbi. Walking towards a multipolar world is the natural monetary policy, since there are several major economic and monetary powerful ensembles. China has decided to develop the renminbi as a settlement currency. The Bank of France was behind the popular ECB-PBOC swap and we have just concluded a memorandum on the creation of a system of offshore renminbi clearing in Paris. We have very strong cooperation with the PBOC in this field. But these changes take time. We must not forget that it took decades after the United States became the world's largest economy for the dollar to replace the British pound as the first international currency. But the phenomenon of U.S. rules expanding to all USD-denominated transactions around the world can have an accelerating effect.

In other words, the head of the French central bank, and ECB member, Christian Noyer, just issued a direct threat to the world's reserve currency (for now), the US Dollar.

Putting this whole episode in context: in an attempt to punish France for proceeding with the delivery of the Mistral amphibious warship to Russia, the US "punishes" BNP with a failed attempt at blackmail (recall that as Putin revealed, the BNP penalty was a used as a carrot to disincenticize France from concluding the Mistral transaction: had Hollande scrapped the deal, BNP would likely be slammed with a far lower fine, if any). Said blackmail attempt backfires horribly when as a result, the head of the French central bank makes it clear that not only is the US Dollar's reserve currency status not sacrosanct, but "the world" will now actively seek to avoid USD-transactions in order to escape the tentacle of global "pax Americana."

And, the biggest irony of all is that in "punishing" France for dealing with Russia, that core country of the Eurasian alliance of Russia and China, the US merely accelerated the gravitation of France (and all of Europe) precisely toward Eurasia, toward a multi-polar (sorry fanatic believers in a one world SDR-based currency) and away from the greenback.

Meanwhile, the DOW yawns and closes above 17,000.

[Paul Rigby]

Theoretical Views on Ukrainian Nationalism, Socialism and Capitalism since the Dissolution of the USSR

By Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson

http://syncreticstudies.com/2014/10/06/t...-the-ussr/

The disturbing events in the first two months of 2014 show the severity of the Ukrainian issue and its significance for the west. To argue that the violent and unopposed protests were arranged and protected by US intelligence is to argue the obvious: no one risks their life for abstract issues such as EU membership.

Major media have far more freedom in describing an obscure culture like the Ukrainian. Journalists, editors and advertisers do not know the first thing about Ukrainian history, and yet these people are in charge of disseminating useful information to the public without the tools to discriminate. Few deny that the western-imposed "capitalist shock" of the early 1990s was a total disaster, outstripping even the German invasion of 1940 in terms of economic destruction. That suddenly, this awareness no longer functions is to stretch credulity. Regardless of the poll consulted or its language, pro-western opinions in Ukraine rarely get over 5%. The west is associated, even in Lv'iv with amoral politics, irrational economics and naked oligarchy claims to be both universal and democratic.

Whether Russian nationalist or Ukrainian Banderite, nationalists have no illusion concerning the nature of the west. To the extent that the west is atomized, alienated and a laboratory of psychological pathologies, Ukrainian "nationalists" reject it. Therefore, it is not a stretch to argue that the "OUN" protesters in Kiev were hired and bussed in from elsewhere. It is laughable to argue that such a group would jettison their entire agenda to lose their independence in a bankrupt and imperial European Union. However, since the chances of any editor being so questioned is slim, they can print what suits them.

The relations between Ukraine and Russia, specifically in the economic sphere, have been largely strained since Ukraine declared independence from the USSR in 1992. Major issues such as the status of the Black Sea Fleet, Ukrainian dependence on Russian gas, Russian speakers in Ukraine, the USSR's human rights record, and relations with western powers such as the EU or NATO are just a few of the most significant issues. This paper will seek to analyze the problems these two states face within the context of the major international relations approaches of realism/statism, Dependency (as a cognate of critical theory), Constructivism and postmodernism. All of these approaches have important insights into this critical area of global conflict.

However, the single event is the 1991-1995 meltdown. Hitler's invasion of the USSR destroyed roughly 40% of the Russo-Ukrainian economy. The US engineered wealth transfer from Ukraine to Washington liquidated about 80% of the Russo-Ukrainian economy in all sectors. To place this cataclysm in any other position is similar to analyzing Hitler without mentioning the Versailles Treaty. Yet, in academia, both are normally done and, at the same time, pass peer-review.

The classic idea of Realism is that states are united entities that seek their own self interest in an anarchic global climate. This self interest is usually defined as the search for security at the expense of their neighbors. Realism is a simple approach to international relations that has its strengths, especially its ability to create crisp, easy to understand models, and its drawbacks, namely in the area of the state itself and the groups that come to control it. While too much is ignored in realist theory, it serves as an excellent introduction to the way states behave in the absence of an overarching world government. In other words, realism serves as an excellent foundation in analyzing state behavior, through it must be supplemented in matters of detail from other approaches.

Any Realist worth his salt will observe the decaying USSR as an entity that was no longer able to defend itself in the Cold War environment. Economic dissolution, ethnic separatism, confused and ossified leadership, the humiliation of Chernobyl, the lost war in Afghanistan and the threats from the US under Reagan all conspired to force the USSR to slowly loosen its control over its subject states. From the point of view of the subject states such as Ukraine, Lithuania or Georgia, there was more security to be found in independence than remaining a part of a dying empire. Hence, from a simple cost benefit analysis, one can hold that the declaration of independence (after a national referendum) in 1992 was a simple exercise in rationality. There was nothing to be gained any further in being a part of an empire that was dismantling before their eyes.

Several facts, however, slowly began to emerge that challenged this basic assumption. First of all, the dependence on Russian gas and oil supplies harmed the "benefit" side of the independence equation. Only by plugging into other sources of supply and finance could this be overcome. Secondly, given the fact that the newly poor Ukrainian state could not maintain the old soviet stock of nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil, these were given back to Russia, with Ukraine swearing off all nuclear weapons forever. This gave an edge to Russia (or the CIS) in military power over the newly independent states. Thirdly, the Ukraine could not afford to pay the old Soviet pensions and salaries to the high tech sector, leading to elite groups largely dissatisfied with the emerging independent system. Lastly, large minorities of Russian speakers in the eastern part of Ukraine served as a major brake on any real consolidation of state independence (Motyl, 51-52).

Realism then slowly dissipates in the face of the facts: the Ukrainian state was not necessarily viable, it could not fill the gap left by the old soviet economy, and there were too many powerful groups, especially in the resource rich east, that refused to accept an integral Ukraine. Motyl writes on his seminal book on this topic: "The post-totalitarian imperative, however, is for post-Soviet (and western) elites to realize that the successor states have virtually nothing to work with and that, while transforming what exists into something that might be possible, but doing it all at once is not" (Motyl, 52).

Concerning realism and the unity of the state, Motyl adds, "They are homelands of particular nations, which can serve as ready made vehicles of consensus, civil society and political stability" (Motyl, 54). But this is precisely what Ukraine does not have. The Ukrainian heartland is in the relatively undeveloped western and southern part of the country, where Russians dominate the industrialized eastern parts (at least in the cities). While it is true that these latter areas did vote for independence in 1992, to Ukrainian nationalist movement has been stymied every time by their protests.

The disintegration of Ukrainian industry makes any economic policy a lost cause. The raw materials for reconstruction are not present. Ukraine survived the Mongols, Polish genocide, Turkish violence, Peter's depopulation schemes, Stalin's genocide and Hitler's mismanagement only to succumb to liberalism.

Dugin argues that bilingualism is not a socially significant variable, since, of itself, it does not harm Ukrainian development or even a rich sense of identity. The ability of Russia to absorb and transform cultural elements into a usable synthesis permits the growth of Shevchenko and Franko studies within the bosom of Russian Slavophilism (which these two writers share quite a bit with).

Regardless of the tightly filtered reports on the coup in Kiev, the European Union has long been bankrupt, with a shrinking population, a total lack of identity and a degenerating work ethic. Immigrants from the third world, imported by corporate elites to work for inhuman wages, will further strain the already non-functional EU economy. Yet, even if this were a surmountable obstacle, the conditions inherent in EU and/or NATO membership are far beyond Ukraine's capabilities. The entire economy, military and political system will be remade from Brussels and Washington, as "Ukrainian nationalists" allegedly sign their nation's death warrant. This is the sort of argumentation dripping out of Columbia University and The Washington Post.

Ukraine, even under the most ideal circumstances, has no role in the EU. Germany has long made its separate peace with Russia, building a partnership that will slowly unravel the elitist and artificial EU structure. Genuine nationalist fighting for Ukrainian independence have far more in common with Russian royalists than the alienated cubicle workers in Europe. Within a Russian-led bloc, Ukraine becomes an essential part of Eurasia. As Europe and America face the prospect of total bankruptcy and purposelessness, the rising giants in Asia are just beginning their climb to power (albeit using western technology and corporate organization).

With Turkey declaring for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (in a turn of evens Dugin failed to foresee) and Germany rejecting EU structures and seeking its own national interests in bilateral treaties with Moscow, the stage managed violence in Kiev is the last arrow in Soros' withered quiver.

The political work of dissident Viechslav Chornovil (d. 1999) is significant because he was able to put a strong nationalism within an ethical framework relative to Ukraine in the post-modern world. Realism appealed to him at least in the sense that an independent Ukraine requires a strong state. Her vulnerabilities and state-led economy demanded one. Corruption cannot be fought without one, and her many enemies must be kept at bay.

Like Shevchenko and much of the Ukrainian philosophical tradition, there are no rights outside of the ethnic collective. Rights must be about something and have a goal. They are not licenses that permit arbitrary behavior. The ethnic collective is made up of strong local governments, though corruption has a tendency to show itself most obnoxiously in regional economic clans.

A strong state implies the minimization of factions. Unity is needed for the sake of rebuilding and restructuring. As of 2014, not only has this not occurred, Ukraine has gone from an industrialized hub of the USSR to a fourth world hovel with no clear identity or mission. However, part of Chornovil's theory was that the core ideas of a nation cannot be destroyed. It is the essence that survives change. The sheer number of times Ukraine has been depopulated are too depressing to recount, but from Peter's revenge against Mazepa to the present demographic disaster, Ukraine has long been capable of recovering from imminent threats to its survival.

Nationalism is based on virtue: one does not sacrifice for abstract ideas of "rational choice," nor can virtue develop when there are no clear collective ends to be pursued. In times of crisis, however, the main virtue is courage. Specifically, the ability to transcend the base desire to survive by risking all for the sake of national independence and dignity.

Independence inherently imparts self-determination as a deduction. It is rare that such a view is morally understood, since self-determination never seems to apply to people, only the state. Self-determination implies discipline, moral and social sacrifice and the ability to reject one's own petty interests for the sake of broad social goals. Of course, without a society (connoting unity and identity), there are no social goals.

If there is one approach that can create usable models for Ukrainian and Russian economic relations, it is Dependency. This approach has been the bane of Ukraine's existence since independence in 1992. Ukraine existed as part of the Soviet periphery, and hence, dependency theory holds many challenges for an independent Ukraine. There are two ways to define dependency here. First, that the USSR was dependent on Ukraine for much. This includes iron and steel, literate scientific elites (Ukrainians were over-represented in the USSR's elite groups), as well as providing for over 40% of Russian grain during the Soviet era. These are not negligible items. Hence, one might say that realism will win the day, in that the Ukrainian mentality is that an Ukrainian economy for Ukrainian people would automatically lead to prosperity, given the advantages of the Ukrainian economy itself. However, this was to prove false. The soviet economy was an integral unity, where Ukraine was one part (albeit a central part) of this integrity. Hence, given that Ukraine was "built" as a dependent entity on the entire USSR, independence was irrational, since it would lead to the creation of an independent, but distorted and dependent economy.

Roman Szporluk, far more of a nationalist writer than Motyl, writes, "It is obvious that today's Ukraine cannot be considered merely a part of soviet space. Ukraine is not only linked to Russia but also to the countries Central Europe and the Black Sea region." (Szporluk, 364). The conclusion is that independence made perfect sense from both a geographic and economic point of view, since Ukraine had many weapons to break the bonds of dependency. This included ties with central Europe and the use of the large Black Sea coast to built a strong merchant marine. Russia, however, had its weapons these included a large Russian minority in the east, and the big variable, Russian oil and natural gas, the real engine of Ukrainian dependence. The Soviet empire was based on the idea of mutual dependence both for the sake of control over the periphery as well as economic rationality.

The dependency approach here can be defined as making up specific areas of concern for our topic:

The concept of "distortion," where the economy of Ukraine (and all the dependent states of the old USSR) is fashioned by the imperial center, Moscow in this case, for the interests not of Ukraine, but of the entire USSR. Hence the economy is distorted, built over 70 years to serve something other than the Ukrainian population as a whole. It is a part of a larger entity.

The creation of an elite class that is a part of the imperial design, not the national entity. In Ukraine's case, it is basically the membership in the Ukrainian Communist Party, recruited, trained and supervised by the all Soviet party and hence, "cosmopolitan" in scope, they were a-national and hence, would form a negative group in the declaration of independence.

These oligarchies serve as a brake on real development. This is because their professional and financial interest is served in serving the empire, and hence, their rule will always inhibit a real national growth.

Lastly, dependency also posits that the nature of economic growth in a system of dependency means that many areas of the economy will be chronically underdeveloped, since, at least in the Soviet case, other areas important to national growth were being dealt with elsewhere in the empire. Hence, upon independence, many basic areas of economic development would be radically undernourished or non-existent. In Ukraine, this includes the banking sector and public health (Kubálkova, 100).

Hence, Dependency tells us much about the relations between these two states after independence. Making matters worse, many Ukrainian nationalists (manifested in the 2004 Orange Revolution) sought closer ties with the west as a means of breaking ties with Russia. But this begs the question of a new form of dependence upon western aid and diplomatic support, itself a distorting factor in Ukraine's development.

Ivan Dziuba, one of the remaining nationalist dissidents from the era of the "sixtiers" follows Chronivil in building a concept of nationalism that is specifically Ukrainian. Nationalism in this case serves to protect the economy from the manipulation, speculation and uncertainty of international financial forces over which nations have minimal control. An empire is the polar opposite of a nation, despite the jejune claims of the academic class. No imperial entity was simultaneously. Tsar Nicholas I distrusted nationalism for this very reason. Empires are federations of ethnic groups that can either benefit from or be exploited by the powers in the capital.

Unfortunately, Dziuba advocated a strong tendency towards European integration, but considering his life under the USSR, this is hardly blameworthy. Today, the west is dying. It cannot pay its debts, it is in a state of constant war, its native stock is not reproducing, few trust elites and the financial oligarchy, especially since 2008, has shown itself openly as the only cohesive ruling class. There is nothing to be gained, and much to lose, by trading one dependency for another.

Dependency, the opposite of self-determination, must be fought. If dependence on the will of others is an evil for a person, then it is equally evil for a society. Dependency, given the sheer volume of power wielded by a few banks, is not an easy dragon to slay. Dziuba argues that several ingredients are needed to make independence something other than a word. First, the old folk traditions should be restored. The USSR and western liberalism have artificially destroyed them. They need to be rehabilitated as does the village that nursed them.

Integrity, secondly, is the symbiosis of different functional groups, regions and mentalities in the country with the purpose of creating true unity. Symbiosis suggests that society is an integrated whole differing in function and regional specialization. This not only is consistent with nationalism, but is required by it. Only the capitalist state sees itself as absolute, while seeing the population as mere disembodied egos.

Third, national unity is achieved by a strong integration of national history, its philosophical implications and its native theology. Ukraine is an Orthodox nation whose heritage was forcibly eliminated by Polish noble clans, Peter's secularizing contempt and Soviet persecution. Ukraine has always defined its ethnic identity as connected to its Orthodoxy, and therefore, Orthodoxy as social and political goals of significance.

Unfortunately, the uniat movement was also imposed by force, and the stubborn loyalty to this mutated hybrid religion has more to do with rejecting Russian control than theology. The unia has no theology it uses a truncated and Latinized "Byzantine" liturgy with the occasional Catholic idea (such as purgatory) thrown in, creating a hodge-podge of undigested Christian ideas with no inherent connection. It has no coherence and no purpose.

If the cosmopolitan emptiness of global capitalism was to ever become a reality, says Dziuba, it would be the death of thought. One official idea would be left, and nominalist-positivist ideology would offer no means to critique it. All would come down to ego gratification within a virtual corporate matrix. It is not human, it is not life, and it cannot think. The very assertion that there is such a thing as "European values" or an "international community" shows the vapidity and cynicism of the globe's would be rulers. While condemning nationalism as "mythical," these contrived conceptions are accepted as real.

Alexander Dugin holds that Russia, along with Brazil, India and China, make up the semi-periphery. The essential concept is that economic forces make international history. Economics is fetishized into ideologies that serve the interests of the metropolitan centers. In his analysis of Dependency in his Theory of a Multipolar World, he summarizes its mentality in several concepts, which can be reduced to the idea that the political class is promoted as having economic power. Profits accrue to private actors, while politicians take the blame for failures.

Then, relative to Russia, he states:

"Russia's sovereignty depends on the ability of Central Europe to achieve freedom in the face of the US and China to maintain and fortify its influence in the Pacific. In turn, Europe and China, as well as all other possible civilizations, become even more dependent on Russia's ability to indicate the demands of global rule and to create a coalition of Eurasian continental alliances. Therefore, the strategic project of defending its own social independence makes Russia unique. She will assisting the building of this reality elsewhere, regardless of distance" (Dugin, 2012: 4.4).[1]

Constructivism too is an essential part of understanding Russo-Ukrainian relations. It analyzes the vision that political and economic elites have of both themselves and the "other." Both the self and the other are constructed from materials coming from history, economics and political issues. In this case, perception is the key, and perception, in this case, has much to do with international relations since reality is not important, only its interpretation (Guzzini, 119).

For Dugin, the initial Russian vision had Kiev at its center. The Mongol occupation changed this, and shifted Rus' from a Central European to a Eurasian power. As this occurs, Kiev becomes part of the western fringe of Russia, largely under the rule of Poland, Austria and the Cossack state. These had little relation to the developing Muscovite tsardom.

The most significant element was the civilizational status of Moscow. The anomaly of St. Petersburg pushes elite Russia to the west, but her core is Eurasian. Ukraine, influence by Poland and Central Europe, is a nation. Russia is now a civilization. The understanding of Kiev as a nation rather than a civilization underscores its vulnerability.

This can be applied to the relations between Russian and Ukraine rather easily. The Russian construction of reality is based on the integral idea of Russian space, which includes Ukraine. Russian elites in general will point to the existence of common languages and approaches to political science, and the long term relations between the two states as both a part of the Tsarist and Soviet empire. But these facts do not make up the construction, they are the material conditions of the construction that Ukraine is Russia.

In Dugin's view (manifest in the book above), Constructivism has its strength in that it deals primarily with the creation of "consensus." On the one hand, it takes from the ethnic and historical fundament of a nation in developing basic policy. Foreign and domestic issues are not distinct. On the other, it also covers the nature of a manipulated or artificial consensus typical of western capitalism.

Gogol's uncompleted work on Ukrainian history takes an appealing view on Russo-Ukrainian relations that rarely appears even in detailed treatments. His simple argument is that a) Russia and Ukraine developed differently due to the political environment that created them; b) that, due to similarities that cannot be ignored, Ukrainian autonomy is certainly an ethical imperative, but one that is close to Russia. Drahamanov, Kulish, Kotlyarevskiy and Gogol himself promoted a Ukrainian mission without excluding Russia.

In more contemporary terms, social-nationalist politician Olexander Moroz has a coherent and defensible understanding of these mutual constructions. Constructions are inherently problematic in an era where social unity is non-existent, and state forms remain fluid and changing. There is nothing to construct, and any stereotype will be false. Only liberal modernity could possibly have developed this view of social relations because, since Kant, reality has been considered as much a creation of the mind as it is an interpretation of external objects.

Moroz refuses to permit constructions to distort the import of events since 1989. There is an oligarchy, they manipulated privatization in their own interest, and the west (that is, financial and academic elites) supported the process. This does not mean a farmer from Minnesota caused the Ukrainian meltdown or that there is an integral "west" to make reference to. These are merely abbreviations for more complex "communities" of power. Western science has long been positivist, and nominalism has disastrously become the default epistemology of the herd. These ideologies are constructions, not the analysis of them.

Facts matter, but only in their interpretation of current events. The facts of this long association is interpreted in two different ways. For Russia it is proof of identity, for Ukraine it is proof of empire and distorted development. Moroz's view might be summarized like this:

The results of privatization can accurately be described as semi-industrial "feudalism." Ultimately, liberalism is not as vapid as it seems, it is the rule of capital and the manipulation of demand. It is an imperial ideology eternally seeking cheap labor to exploit and raw materials to plunder.
It is no accident that the oligarchs rejected single-member district voting. This is because such a system has a geographical focus, while capitalism and financial speculation does not. Land is seen as a commodity since it is the primary asset of farmers. It often becomes collateral for loans and hence, entire societies can fall into the hands of a handful of speculators.

Private property is a mystification. Mystification and constructivism are not entirely distinct. Capital must rule through images, slogans and prime facie plausible ideologies. Politicians are the public face of the financial and industrial clans. Moroz argues that capitalism cannot be reduced to competition, or that private property (that is, capital) is its core idea. Competition is eliminated through financial consolidation, and capital slowly becomes the property of a handful.

Pseudo-nationalist agitation against Russia is artificial and designed to blame her for all Ukrainian problems. It is false nationalism because it sees the EU as the future of Ukraine, which cancels Ukrainian independence just as thoroughly as Marxism. Numerous polls show the majority of Ukrainians having positive views of both Eurasian integration and Russia in general. However, it is equally significant that only a small minority want to reestablish some form of the old USSR.

The above strongly suggests that the agitation against Russia is mystification; a construction of the west based on stereotypes and self-interest. Ukraine's educated population, natural resources and strategic location are essential to continued elite control in the west. What Moroz advocates is a modernized army, a revitalization of the village, state-directed investment in several strategic areas, labor corporations that can negotiate with firms on an equal footing, the creation of a domestic market and a market-based society with substantial regulation and social insurance.

In his "Open Letter to Yanukovytch" (2013) Moroz argues, with little controversy, that Ukraine is experiencing another "Ruin." Elections are a farce, since political parties have nothing to do with politics, but represent the interest of economic and regional elites. Moroz's agenda is expanded upon in this letter. "Folk Orthodoxy," that is a UOC tightly bound to local tradition, is required to show the true ends of life in contradistinction to the hedonistic consumption of capital. The strong must support the weak, as the church preaches. Labor should receive the due value of their work and have a substantial say over corporate policy. The present political system of Ukraine has been designed for elite rule: President and Prime Minister, both powerful, check each other, meaning that leadership is impossible and the clans operate freely.

Five million hectares of Ukrainian land is presently owned by foreigners which, if permitted to continue, cancel any hope for independence. Oligarchy functions by transferring their debt to others, using bribery and favors to remove private debt and the state to pay their public debts. In the most extreme way, Ukraine is an example of the complete externalization of costs and internalization of profit. Oligarchy produces nothing. They live parasitically from the work of others, and, worse, the work of generations prior. They take over profitable companies, take all the value-added for themselves, and then, when little remains, they sell off the company in pieces.

Finally, east and west are also mystifications. While capitalist oligarchy is definitely western in origin, it does not typify the west as a whole. The USSR was imperial and violent, but this does not mean Russians are inherently imperial. Constructionism is not a "theory" of national life or international politics, it is an admission that elites manipulate images for the sake of distorting and falsifying reality.

As of 2014, eastern Ukraine remains nationalist in the countryside. That they are silent shows how urban power dominates the rural. For example, parishes of the Kievan Patriarchate might be an indicator of national concepts. The diocese in Dnipropetnovsk has 142 substantial parishes. Chernigov diocese has about 132 (though many remain illegal). During World War II, the OUN had a huge organization in the east, with about 5000 fighters and a large support network. Both German and Soviet documents mention this. In fact, most Ukrainian nationalist intellectuals are from eastern Ukraine.

Constructionism is useful when dealing with definitions of "Ukrainian." For many years, describing oneself as "Russian" had no relation to ethnicity or language. It meant that they were of the upper class, urban and educated. Ukraine was depopulated in the east after the war, and former Red army veterans settled there. Eastern Ukraine retains a substantial nationalist population, but these are mostly in the countryside rather than the cities.

The Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine is also focused on the question of dependency, and looks to Russia and the Eurasian Union to remove itself from the moribund EU. Only about 30% of Ukrainian trade is with the EU, while 50% is with the CIS. The EU trade is mostly primary products, while trade with the CIS is high value added. Independence really meant the looting of Ukraine; the crisis, beginning in 2007, was created by speculation and usury. It is clear that the modern economy is destroying itself, as most of the world's wealth is in the hands of banks and speculators. In Ukraine, 80% live below the poverty line, and as a result, about 20% want reunification with Russia and 81% want a strong customs union with Eurasia. This is about 65-70% in western Ukraine.

PN Symmonenko, part of the National Communist movement, accepts a Titoist approach to socialism. He sees any turn to the west in Ukrainian history to have been a disaster. Today, Ukraine offers little to the west, but would be integral to Eurasia. Ukraine has immense economic potential, but the IMF, insisting on primary exports, is already dismantling what is left of Ukraine. Small and medium firms are to be left in private hands. Oligarchy is the enemy of mankind and any allies are accepted against them. Ukrainian capitalists are not part of the nation, but seek short term profit at the behest of the EU, seeking only cheap labor and raw materials. Production based largely on credit cannot last. This is the nature of the western crisis.

Both Vitrenko and Symmonenko argue that capitalism is oligarchy. It is less efficient than central planning and less just. Capitalism is immoral both in its foundations and its psychological effects. National Communism sees a strongly pan-Slavic nationalism, Eurasian integration and a clear rejection of the west, that is incapable of stopping its own decline. Capitalism is separating the economy from any other values. It stresses short term profits at the expense of the common good. It's view of private property amounts to oligarchy, since most property is in the hands of the few. Ethnic unity, the non aligned movement, withdraw from the IMF and a focus on domestic production, corporate organization and a basic equity is the path to recovery.

References:

"Putin in New Ukraine Gas Warning." BBC News Online. 30 October 2009. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8335041.stm)

Brown, Chris. (1992) International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches. Columbia University Press.

Dugin, A. (2001) Украина или Империя: Киев это прошлое, Москва настоящее и будущее. Вторжение, 18

Guzzini, Stephano (ed) (2006.) Constructivism and International Relations: Alexander Wendt and His Critics. Routledge

Kubálkova, V. (1981). International Inequality. Taylor and Francis.

Motyl, Alexander. (1993). Dilemmas of Independence. Ukraine after Totalitarianism. CFR

Szporluk, Roman. (2000). Russia, Ukraine and the Breakup of the Soviet Union. Hoover Press

Moroz, O. Political Anatomy of Ukraine. Parliamentary Press, 2004

Мороз О. О. Політична анатомія України


Пострадянські країни на історичному роздоріжжі: ліберальний чи соціальний шлях розвитку

The post-Soviet countries in the historic crossroads: a liberal or social development path.

Moroz, SPU site:

http://www.spu.pl.ua/post.php?id=4



The need for acceptance and the basic provisions of the new edition of the program of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, Report of the Chairman of the Theoretical Council Oleksandr Moroz's Socialist Party at XIX Congress of the Socialist Party

Доповідь Голови Теоретичної ради СПУ Олександра Мороза на ХIХ з'їзді СПУ

10-17-13

SPU Site, http://www.spu.pl.ua/post.php?id=12043



Open Letter to President Yanukovych

http://www.spu.pl.ua/view_cat1.php?cat=8&page=39

SPU Site



Standards of law and the prospects for democracy in Ukraine

Стандарти правової держави і перспективи демократії в Україні

By Alexander Moroz

Date: 16/05/2013

Statement by Oleksandr Moroz 6 Forum "Europe-Ukraine"

http://www.spu.pl.ua/post.php?id=11658

[1] Суверенитет России напрямую зависит от того, сможет ли континентальная Европа добиться самостоятельности перед лицом США, а Китай сохранить и укрепить свое влияние в Тихоокеанском регионе. В свою очередь, Европа и Китай, а также все остальные потенциальные «большие пространства» в еще большей степени зависят от способности России отразить вызов глобализации и создать систему евразийских континентальных альянсов. Поэтому стратегическая задача отстаивания собственной самостоятельности обществом, совершенно не похожим на другие общества, заставляет его тесно сотрудничать с потенциальными партнерами по многополярности, как бы далеко они не находились.

[Paul Rigby]

[video=youtube_share;abK0Kxb2ufg]http://youtu.be/abK0Kxb2ufg[/video]

[Paul Rigby]

German Editor's Plea for Sanity on Ukraine

http://russia-insider.com/en/2014/11/20/...ace_russia

Deep in the collective memory of us Germans a few words linger that we cannot forget.

One is Stalingrad, when our Fathers or Grandfathers ate snow and vomited blood, because they were forbidden to capitulate; when a million were encircled, and survivors marched without boots on their way to imprisonment. Few made it back home.

Today the question is simple: should this folly repeat itself? Should Germans again lose their lives between the Volga and the Don in a senseless conflict? Our own dead exhort us to peace and so does that long gone enemy.

Twenty-seven million Russians died by the German war machine, according to official Russian statistics. We don't just address cold figures here, but recognize the essence of the tragedy: of all peoples, it was the Russians who paid the highest blood toll, even greater than the Jews.

While Israel still expects compensationmoney or nuclear-submarines, the Russians forgave us long ago. Even Stalin rejected collective guilt: "Hitlers come and go, the German people remains".

Thereafter, the political chains of Soviet occupation were so oppressive... that the communists actively promoted German culture. East Germany was never so Russified as West Germany was Americanized.

Sarah Wagenknecht (a prominent East German politician), Stalin's prettiest daughter, had learnt Goethe by heart. Who among Western German politicians can match that?

The truth is that whenever Germans and Russians co-operated, be it under Otto Von Bismarck or Willy Brandt, it was not only good for both our peoples, but also for the whole continent; and what in the past stood between us, was only ever the extremisms of left and right.

Yet nobody in Germany wants another Hitler, and in Russia Socialisms is passé. We can become friends, if we respect our differences.

But the Americans cry we must nonetheless defend freedom. They are misled by the fact that the Cold War constellation has reversed.

Today the descendants of Stalin and Brezhnev are not to be found in Moscow, but in Brussels this is where the Politburo resides, with all-powerful commissars. The more that Western Europe dechristianizes, the more the Third Rome reverts to the Faith.

The battle against the family, and virulent sexual re-education, are being inflicted in the EU under a heading called Gender Mainstream, to an extent that was not even the case with the early Bolsheviks.

And the national crippled Anti-fascism is under Angela Merkel a worse enemy for freedom of speech than it was under Erich Honecker. In other words, though Russia is no flawless democracy, more pluralism reigns there than in a US-Colony like Germany.

Every decent German has thus the duty to resist, and dissent from the warmongering against Putin. The encirclement of our neighbour to the East is not in ours, nor in the European interest, but only serves Anglo-American power.

One needs no doctoral degree to see through the transparent trick in rambling on about defending freedom to cover malice. When Washington and London speak of human rights, they are talking code for mining rights.

By the way, when feeling unsure about war and peace, don't take advice from the media.

Talk rather with your dad or granddad about Stalingrad, and listen to yourself. What does your inner voice say?

[David Guyatt]

German Editor's Plea for Sanity on Ukraine

http://russia-insider.com/en/2014/11/20/...ace_russia

Deep in the collective memory of us Germans a few words linger that we cannot forget.

One is Stalingrad, when our Fathers or Grandfathers ate snow and vomited blood, because they were forbidden to capitulate; when a million were encircled, and survivors marched without boots on their way to imprisonment. Few made it back home.

Today the question is simple: should this folly repeat itself? Should Germans again lose their lives between the Volga and the Don in a senseless conflict? Our own dead exhort us to peace and so does that long gone enemy.

Twenty-seven million Russians died by the German war machine, according to official Russian statistics. We don't just address cold figures here, but recognize the essence of the tragedy: of all peoples, it was the Russians who paid the highest blood toll, even greater than the Jews.

While Israel still expects compensationmoney or nuclear-submarines, the Russians forgave us long ago. Even Stalin rejected collective guilt: "Hitlers come and go, the German people remains".

Thereafter, the political chains of Soviet occupation were so oppressive... that the communists actively promoted German culture. East Germany was never so Russified as West Germany was Americanized.

Sarah Wagenknecht (a prominent East German politician), Stalin's prettiest daughter, had learnt Goethe by heart. Who among Western German politicians can match that?

The truth is that whenever Germans and Russians co-operated, be it under Otto Von Bismarck or Willy Brandt, it was not only good for both our peoples, but also for the whole continent; and what in the past stood between us, was only ever the extremisms of left and right.

Yet nobody in Germany wants another Hitler, and in Russia Socialisms is passé. We can become friends, if we respect our differences.

But the Americans cry we must nonetheless defend freedom. They are misled by the fact that the Cold War constellation has reversed.

Today the descendants of Stalin and Brezhnev are not to be found in Moscow, but in Brussels this is where the Politburo resides, with all-powerful commissars. The more that Western Europe dechristianizes, the more the Third Rome reverts to the Faith.

The battle against the family, and virulent sexual re-education, are being inflicted in the EU under a heading called Gender Mainstream, to an extent that was not even the case with the early Bolsheviks.

And the national crippled Anti-fascism is under Angela Merkel a worse enemy for freedom of speech than it was under Erich Honecker. In other words, though Russia is no flawless democracy, more pluralism reigns there than in a US-Colony like Germany.

Every decent German has thus the duty to resist, and dissent from the warmongering against Putin. The encirclement of our neighbour to the East is not in ours, nor in the European interest, but only serves Anglo-American power.

One needs no doctoral degree to see through the transparent trick in rambling on about defending freedom to cover malice. When Washington and London speak of human rights, they are talking code for mining rights.

By the way, when feeling unsure about war and peace, don't take advice from the media.

Talk rather with your dad or granddad about Stalingrad, and listen to yourself. What does your inner voice say?

Hard not to feel some sympathy for this viewpoint...

[Paul Rigby]

Guns and Butter

"End of the Unipolar World - The Battle for Europe" with Umberto Pascali

Historic $400 billion natural gas contract links Russia and China for thirty years; sunset of the dollar system; Iran, Libya & Iraq challenge the dollar; Wall Street & the City of London control of national governments; which way will Europe go?; history of NATO destabilization & occupation of western Europe; assassinations of European political & business leaders; reconfiguration of the world.

http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/103646

Who really killed Pier Paolo Pasolini?

A biopic by Abel Ferrara at the Venice biennale will reconstruct the last hours of the Italian film director, who was murdered in 1975


Ed Vulliamy
The Observer, Sunday 24 August 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/au...are_btn_fb

"Want to go for a spin?" the poet and maestro of Italian cinema asked the rent boy, according to the latter's confession to the police. "Come ride with me, and I'll give you a present."

So began the events leading to the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini, brilliant intellectual, director and homosexual whose political vision based on a singular entwinement of Eros, Catholicism and Marxism foresaw Italian history after his death, and the burgeoning of global consumerism. It was a murder that, four decades later, remains shrouded in the kind of mystery and opacity Italy specialises in un giallo, a black thriller.

The encounter occurred in the miasma of hustling around Roma Termini railway station at 10.30pm on 1 November 1975. And it marks the point of departure for a film tipped to win the Golden Lion at the Venice biennale festival this week Pasolini, starring Willem Dafoe and directed by Abel Ferrara, Bronx-born of Italian descent. The film deals with the last day of an extraordinary life. Ferrara says: "I know who killed Pasolini," but will not give a name. But in an interview with Il Fatto Quotidiano, he adds: "Pasolini is my font of inspiration."

At 1.30am, three hours after the station rendezvous, a Carabinieri squad car stopped a speeding Alfa Romeo near the scrappy coastal promenade of Idroscalo at Ostia, near Rome. The driver, Giuseppe (Pino) Pelosi, 17, sought to run, and was arrested for theft of the car, identified as belonging to Pasolini. Two hours later, the director's body was discovered beaten, bloodied and run over by the car, beside a football pitch. Splinters of bloodied wood lay around.

Pelosi confessed: he and Pasolini had set off, and he had eaten a meal at a restaurant the director knew, the Biondo Tevere near St Paul's basilica, where he was known. Pino ate spaghetti with oil and garlic, Pasolini drank a beer. At 11.30pm they drove towards Ostia, where Pasolini "asked something I did not want" to sodomise the boy with a wooden stick. Pelosi refused, Pasolini struck; Pelosi ran, picked up two pieces of a table, seized the stick and battered Pasolini to death. As he escaped in the car, he ran over what he thought was a bump in the road. "I killed Pasolini," he told his cellmate, and the police.

Pelosi was convicted in 1976, with "unknown others". Forensic examination by Dr Faustino Durante concluded that "Pasolini was the victim of an attack carried out by more than one person".

On appeal, however, the "others" were written out of the verdict. Pelosi had acted alone and the master was dead in a squalid tryst gone wrong and best forgotten, perhaps even deserved. But fascination with Pasolini and his films (in Italy, his writing too) increased as did that with mysteries that still hang over his last hours.

The renown of his work is manifestly on merit: New York's Moma mounted a retrospective in 2012, the BFI in 2013. In April this year the Vatican, which had once pursued Pasolini and helped secure a criminal conviction for blasphemy, declared his masterpiece, The Gospel According to St Matthew, "the best film ever made about Jesus Christ". This expression of Pasolini's radical faith portrays Jesus as a revolutionary "red Messiah", according to the Franciscan doctrine of holy poverty, which in part influences the current pontiff, Francis.

But the compulsion of his death is less explicable: in 2010 the former mayor of Rome and leader of the centre-left Democratic party, Walter Veltroni, demanded that the case be reopened on the basis of a convergence of strange, and politically charged, circumstances.

Pasolini was killed the day after his return from Stockholm, where he had met Ingmar Bergman and others in the Swedish cinematic avant-garde, and given an explosive interview to L'Espresso magazine. In it, he addressed his favourite theme: "I consider consumerism to be a worse form of fascism than the classic variety."

Pasolini's view of a new totalitarianism whereby hyper-materialism was destroying the culture of Italy can be seen now as brilliant foresight into what has happened to the world generally in an internet age. But his critique had been, for months before the murder, more specific. He had singled out television as an especially pernicious influence, predicting the rise and power of a type such as media-mogul-turned-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi long before time. More specific still, he had written a series of columns for Corriere della Sera denouncing the leadership of the ruling Christian Democratic party as riddled with Mafia influence, predicting the so-called Tangentopoli "kickback city" scandals 15 years later, whereby an entire political class was put under arrest during the early 1990s. In his columns, Pasolini declared that the Christian Democratic leadership should stand trial, not only for corruption but association with neo-fascist terrorism, such as the bombing of trains and a demonstration in Milan.

Again, a spine-chilling vindication: these were the so-called "years of lead" in Italy, culminating in the bombing of Bologna station five years after Pasolini's death by neo-fascists working with the secret services, killing 82 people.

I was a student in turbulent Florence in 1973, returning every year thereafter and affiliated to a radical organisation called Lotta Continua (Struggle Continues); and I well remember Lotta Continua's newspaper taking contributions from Pasolini, though his relationship to the radical movements spawned by 1968 was ambiguous. He had identified with police officers against student rioters because, he said, they were "sons of the poor" attacked by bourgeois "daddy's boys".

So it was that, in the wake of the murder in 1975, those close to Pasolini saw the hand of power behind his killing. It would not have been a first: prominent leftists were often attacked or killed; feminist Franca Rame, who would marry the anarchist playwright Dario Fo, was gang-raped by neo-fascists, urged by the Carabinieri.

Members of Pasolini's family and circle of friends, and the writers Oriana Fallaci and Enzo Siciliano raised possible political motives for the killing and produced evidence that contradicted Pelosi's confession, such as a green sweater found in the car that belonged neither to Pasolini nor Pelosi, and Pasolini's bloody handprint on its roof (there were barely any bloodstains on Pelosi). Motorcycle riders and another car had been seen following the Alfa Romeo.

In January 2001 an article appeared in La Stampa that turned conspiracy theory into a hard lead. It concerned the death in 1962, in a plane crash, of Enrico Mattei, head of the ENI energy giant, made into a famous film by Francesco Rosi, with whom Pasolini had worked.

The article's author, Filippo Ceccarelli one of Italy's expert political journalists cited inquiries by a judge, Vincenzo Calia, into political intrigue within ENI, which found the plane had been shot down. Judge Calia implicated the man who succeeded Mattei, Eugenio Cefis, in cahoots with political leaders. The report cited a journalist who had worked on The Mattei Affair film with Rosi, Mauro di Mauro, who was kidnapped and disappeared without trace.

Long before Calia's investigation, published in 2003, Pasolini had worked on the posthumously released book Petrolio, featuring barely disguised versions of Mattei and Cefis, and revealing knowledge of how the ENI scandal and murder went to the heart of power and the P2 Masonic lodge, of which Cefis was a founder member. "With 25 years' foresight," wrote Ceccarelli, "Pasolini the writer had been aware of the outcome of a long investigation."

Then, in 2005, the floodgates opened. Pelosi, interviewed on television, retracted his confession, saying that two brothers and another man had killed Pasolini, calling him a "queer" and "dirty communist" as they beat him to death. They frequented, he said, the Tiburtina branch of the MSI neo-fascist party. Three years later, Pelosi gave further names in an essay called "Deep Black", released by the radical publisher Chiarelettere, revealing connections to even more extreme fascist cells tied to the state secret services, saying he had not previously dared to speak, after threats to his family.

One of Pasolini's closest friends, assistant director Sergio Citti, then came to the fore to say that his own investigations had produced evidence entirely overlooked: bloodied pieces of the stick dumped close to the football pitch, and a witness ignored by the official investigation who had seen five men drag Pasolini from the car.

Citti introduced a new theme: the theft of spools from Pasolini's last film, Salò, the return of which he had tried to negotiate. The gang of thieves frequented, it emerged, the same billiard bar as Pelosi, and had called Pasolini on the last day of his life to organise a meeting. Another investigation by the writer Fulvio Abbate tied the killers to the famous Magliana criminal gang on the coastal outskirts of Rome.

Yet the case remains closed, and there are those within Pasolini's circle as well as in the political class who prefer it so. Author Edoardo Sanguineti calls the death "delegated suicide" by a sado-masochist bent on his own destruction. Pasolini's cousin Nico Naldini also a homosexual poet wrote in the ambiguously entitled Brief Life of Pasolini about the director's "fetishistic rituals" and "attraction for boys who made him lose his sense of danger".

Pasolini had died, so history insists, as though in a scene from one of his films. "It is only at the point of death," Pasolini had said in 1967, "that our life, to that point ambiguous, undecipherable, suspended acquires a meaning."

[Paul Rigby]

[video=youtube_share;i9thOkMfWKE]http://youtu.be/i9thOkMfWKE[/video]

[Paul Rigby]

She's magnificent:

[video=youtube_share;gnHPmcUgfRU]http://youtu.be/gnHPmcUgfRU[/video]

[Lauren Johnson]

This just couldn't actually happen, could it? Europe is still an occupied territory. From ZeroHedge:

Slowly but surely Europe is figuring out that as a result of the western economic and financial blockade of Russian, it is Europe itself that is suffering the most. And while Germany was first to acknowledge this late in 2014 when its economy swooned and is now on the verge of a recession, now others are catching on. Case in point: the former head of the European Commission, and Italy's former Prime Minister, Romano Prodi who told Messaggero newspaper that the "weaker Russian economy is extremely unprofitable for Italy."
The other details from Prodi's statement:

Lowered prices in the international energy markets have positive aspects for the Italian consumers, who pay less for the fuel, but the effect will be only short-term. In the long-term however the weaker economic situation in countries producing energy resources, caused by lower oil and gas prices, mostly in Russia, is extremely unprofitable for Italy, he said.

"The lowering of the oil and gas prices in combination with the sanctions, pushed by the Ukrainian crisis, will drop the Russian GPD by five percent per annum, and thus it will cause cutting of the Italian export by about 50%," Prodi said.

"Setting aside the uselessness or imminence of the sanctions, one should highlight a clear skew: regardless of the rouble rate against dollar, which is lower by almost a half, the American export to Russia is growing, while the export from Europe is shrinking."

In other words, just as slowly, the world is starting to grasp the bottom line: it is not the financial exposure to Russia, or the threat of financial contagion should Russia suffer a major recession or worse: it is something far simpler that will lead to the biggest harm for Europe's countries. The lack of trade. Because while central banks can monetize everything, leading to an unprecedented asset bubble which if only for the time being boosts investor and consumer confidence, they can't print trade - that all important driver of growth in a globalized world long before central banks were set to monetize over $1 trillion in bonds each and every year to mask the fact that the world is deep in a global depression.

Which is why we read the following report written in yesterday's Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten with great interest because it goes right to the bottom line. In it Russia has a not so modest proposal to Europe: dump trade with the US, whose call for Russian "costs" has cost you another year of declining economic growth, and instead join the Eurasian Economic Union! From the source:

Russia has presented a startling proposal to overcome the tensions with the EU: The EU should renounce the free trade agreement with the United States TTIP and enter into a partnership with the newly established Eurasian Economic Union instead. A free trade zone with the neighbors would make more sense than a deal with the US.

It surely would, but then how will Europe feign outrage when the NSA is found to have spied yet again on its "closest trading partners?" Some more on Russia's proposal from EUobserver:

Vladimir Chizhov told EUobserver: "Our idea is to start official contacts between the EU and the EAEU as soon as possible. [German] chancellor Angela Merkel talked about this not long ago. The EU sanctions [on Russia] are not a hindrance".

"I think that common sense advises us to explore the possibility of establishing a common economic space in the Eurasian region, including the focus countries of the Eastern Partnership [an EU policy on closer ties with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine]".

"We might think of a free trade zone encompassing all of the interested parties in Eurasia".

He described the new Russia-led bloc as a better partner for the EU than the US, with a dig at health standards in the US food industry.

"Do you believe it is wise to spend so much political energy on a free trade zone with the USA while you have more natural partners at your side, closer to home? We don't even chlorinate our chickens", the ambassador said.

The treaty establishing the Eurasian Union entered into life on Thursday (1 January).

It includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia, with Kyrgyzstan to join in May.

Modeledon the EU, it has a Moscow-based executive body, the Eurasian Economic Commission, and a political body, the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, where member states' leaders take decisions by unanimity.

It has free movement of workers and a single market for construction, retail, and tourism. Over the next 10 years, it aims to create a court in Minsk, a financial regulator in Astana and, possibly, to open Eurasian Economic Commission offices in Astana, Bishkek, Minsk, and Yerevan.

It also aims to launch free movement of capital, goods, and services, and to extend its single market to 40 other sectors, with pharmaceuticals next in line in 2016.

And as a reminder: The Eurasian Economic Union, a trade bloc of former Soviet states, expanded to four nations Friday when Armenia formally joined, a day after the union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan began.

So the ball is in your court, Europe: will it be a triple-dip (and soon thereafter quadruple: see Japan) recession as your Goldman-controlled central bank plunders ever more of what little is left of middle-class wealth with promises that this year - for real - is when it all turns around, or will Europe acknowledge it has had enough and shifts its strategic, and trade, focus from west (speaking of the TTIP, Germany's agriculture minister just said "We can't protect every sausage" referring to the TTIP) to east?

Considering just whose interests are represented by the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, we won't be holding our breath.

[David Guyatt]

Actually, it could happen. But only if European politicians grew a pair.

For me Prodi mentioned what is truly the real point in all this:

"Setting aside the uselessness or imminence of the sanctions, one should highlight a clear skew: regardless of the rouble rate against dollar, which is lower by almost a half, the American export to Russia is growing, while the export from Europe is shrinking."

Anyone with half a brain can see what these US imposed Russian sanctions are aimed at doing, so why not radically change things before it's too late?