Political Philosophy: America

Showing posts with label America. Show all posts

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Somewhere.. Across the Ocean. Australia - What Now?

If you wonder what to have for dinner check - amazon.com/Mish-Mash-Elli

It seems the US is purposely working to isolate Australia from all its possible trade partners to keep it in American orbit. First starting an unnecessary war of words with China. Next angering France just before a free trade agreement with the EU is to be finalized.

Let’s find out – if Germany supports the delay of the free trade agreement – then perhaps that’s what the Americans want – if not then I am wrong and it’s just France whingeing about the lost billions.

America is trying to weaken the EU by encouraging the small EU members to disobey the powerful German and French masters in Brussels, but do not have the money to that Brussels can afford to spend. On the other hand, Germany seems increasingly less keen to finance Eastern ‘dissidents’ like Poland and Hungary.

Now Australia participates into two military arrangements against it's main business partner - China. Both are with America - one with Britain, the other one with Japan and India. How that will affect all of us remains a mystery.

Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Let’s Sing the Ukrainian Song Right

Merkel 1, Putin 0, Obama -1.

The current score of the dirty chess game started by Merkel is as above. I’ll explain;

She starts with a half-hearted offer for EU negotiations that is easy to reject. It’s understandable - Ukraine is a big country with big issues and Germany is reluctant to pay for it. In jumps Putin like a knight in shining armour (or more likely - half naked) with bags of resque money to reward his now rejected friend Yanukovych - the brave president of Ukraine elected by the people. But the people it seems don’t want Yanukovych and they don’t want Putin’s money (and they are aware he is half naked) - they would rather prefer the shiny EU with difficult conditions and no money hoping mostly to rush to Germany and make some easy Euros perhaps because any economic development is difficult to imagine in an EU where only Germany is booming and the rest are stagnating (especially the new and poor members). Bam - Yanukovych is gone (even Putin doesn't love him anymore) and the mob establishes a pro EU government by making sure the parliament votes as they prefer. Also they are quick to ignite ethnic tensions by banning the Russian language historically spoken by a big part Ukrainian citizens an act guaranteed to ingnite anger and indignation.

At this moment the score is Merkel: 1 and Putin: - 1. Merica is just zero for now waiting for an opportunity to open, Putin counter attacks ostensibly “to protect” compatriots in Crimea but mostly to get back at Merkel for making him look dumb. But Merkel keeps her cool - instead Obama jumps into the fray to see if he can catch some easy fish in these troubled waters but only exposes his irrelevance. After having wasted any influence and good will he may have had by not attending the Olympics he has no options but to talk pointedly while no one hardly listens. That is a minus 1 and plus 1 for Putin to equal zero.

But where are the interests of the people of Ukraine in this whole game you may ask? Sadly no one seems to care! Even the new rulers in Kiev seem to be more interested in distributing government posts that will enable them to profit at the back of the people of Ukraine, the US taxpayer, the people of Russia and even the EU taxpayers if they are not vigilant.

I know what you are thinking - this is a useless sad story without a happy ending and no inspiring moral. There is moral: we the people have the power to keep the corrupt scheming rulers accountable. The people of Ukraine - Ukrainians, Russians, Tatars, Jews, Moldovans, Gypsies have to unite against the demagogues - not because it is a good thing to do but because the other option is slavery under the boot of Russia, the EU, the IMF too but first and foremost under their own homegrown corrupt oligarchs and politicians.

The price of gas goes up? Guess who will profit!

Epilogue

In a warm August evening in 1978 I was walking along the seaside of the Bulgarian resort of Primorsko with a couple of friends when we met a large group of Russians who invited us to join them. Soon after that we met a similarly large group of Polish holidaymakers and sat all together around a table in the park. The Russians brought a couple of bottles of Stolichnaya vodka and after some rounds offered to sing a Russian song. The moment they started there was trouble: “This is not a Russian song,” the Polish guys objected. “It is a Polish song!” The proceeded to agree the sing the song only if the Russians agree it is in fact a Polish song. Tempers flared - fueled by the Stolichnaya. The on of the Russians shouted above all: “It’s actually an Ukrainian song! Let’s sing the Ukrainian song!” For reasons incomprehensible to me but apparently obvious to the Russians - the Polish agreed and we all sang together the Ukrainian song. All of us Bulgarians, Russians and Polish - there wasn't a single Ukrainian present.

So it looks like we (as we the people, we the humanity, we the nations) can do it. We an sing the Ukrainian song and sing it good and not out of tune if we want to. If we don’t we will be enslaved and no one can save us.

Sunday, January 01, 2012

The Strait of Hormuz between Allah and Mammon

The Ayatollahs: Allah, Petrol and the Great Satan

The last weeks brought a seemingly incoherent actions by the Iranian dictators. First they threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, next they invite international inspectors to play the game of cat and mouse with the Iranian nuclear program and its suspected military aspects.

What could be the reason for such inconsistent behavior. Either stick it up to the man (the USA, the Western world and the world public opinion) or meekly accept their superiority and do as they say. It would be difficult to divine supernatural causes because I would expect an omnipotent and omniscient God to inspire consistency. So if it is not Allah it must be the Great Satan who can be blamed for the wavering of the faithful.

That has certain logic behind it. The United States have hurt the international transactions of Iranian banks by imposing sanctions on them and have paraded an aircraft carrier near the narrow straight which is so important for international oil trade although not affecting particularly US oil imports which come mainly from other sources.

So if not God or the Great Satan who can be the culprit? The last suspect is Mammon. The Ayatollahs are not so worried about things divine or they would have defied the Great Satan but more about things pecuniary. That is why it is easy for them to continue with the military posturing – they know that the US is no position politically, military or financially to sustain another war (and Iran is a much more dangerous adversary than Saddam's Iraq or Afghanistan) and on the other hand the rulers of Tehran wouldn't risk their earthly positions in a war with the USA too because the fate of Saddam, Milosevic and Gaddafi is not something to be desired. On the other hand it turns out that petrol has become the US main export. So both countries US and Iran (actually even Russia) will benefit from a rise in the price of petrol and certain military posturing won't hurt (especially bearing in mind that the US military are facing painful cuts and need an excuse to boost the perception that the bloated defense budget is still needed).

Nuclear weapons are something else althogether. The USA has demonstrated with Saddam that this pretext can be used easily for an intervention that is why the Ayatollahs invite international monitors to preempt such a possibility.

That makes them quite clever and decisive and not inconsistent at all. They need a foreign enemy to scare the ignorant part of their subjects into submission (the Arab spring was preceded by the demonstrations against voting irregularities in Persia, now Russia has the same problems but more about that later).

Unfortunately it looks like it's not Allah or other high ethical principle or enlightened idea that motivates them and the Americans but petty business interest which could be not bad if it leads to good results but higher price of petrol is a good result only for those who trade in it and for the rest of us remains the hope to manage to save enough for an electric car to be able to travel further than the natural limitations of a bicycle.

There could be one good consequence of all this – expensive gas leading to less pollution.

Links:

Political Philosophy

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Somewhere.. Across the Ocean. Australia - What Now?

Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Let’s Sing the Ukrainian Song Right

Sunday, January 01, 2012

The Strait of Hormuz between Allah and Mammon

U.S., EU Rebuff Iran's Hormuz Passing Threat | New Middle East News

Iran plans missile tests near Strait of Hormuz | World | DAWN.COM

Iranian missile spin closes Hormuz for five hours | MELCHIZEDEK ...

Iran backs off threat to close oil strait | News24

Iran Delays Missile Test & Suggests Talks - War On Terror News

THE BIBLE BLOG | Blog | Strait talking: Iran gets tough as US fleet ...

Iran - Press TV

Britannia Radio

BBC News -Iran denies test-firing long-range missiles in Gulf

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