STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 3 March 2014

[Demeter]

2. UKRAINIAN POLITICAL SUBTHREAD

SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE AN AMBULANCE-CHASER, OR AS IF I'M FOLLOWING THE FIRE TRUCKS, LOOKING FOR THE NEWS AND FACTS BEHIND THE ODIOUS CONCOCTIONS OF MSM PROPAGANDA...

Some Perspective on Russian Intervention in the Ukraine by Ian Welsh

http://www.ianwelsh.net/some-perspective-on-russian-intervention-in-the-ukraine/

1) The journalists talking about anschluss are morons. This is not Germany in the 30s, Russia is not going to try and conquer Europe.

2) The Ukraine was part of Russia for centuries, and has been independent for about 20 years.

3) The Russian Army is not the Red Army: it is not capable of conquering Europe.

4) The Crimea is majority Russian already and had been part of Russia, yes, for centuries.

5) Russia was NEVER going to allow Ukraine to kick them out of Sevastopol and the Crimea.

6) Americans spent 5 billion dollars promoting the Ukrainian revolution. That’s a lot of money. Granted that the Ukrainian government was a corrupt bunch of thugs, Putin is not crazy to think the West fomented the revolution. The West DID foment revolution. There was fertile ground, but 5 billion dollars is not chicken feed.

7) The West is not going to fight a war for the Ukraine. Russia is.

8) The East of Ukraine is still pro-Russia.

9) What the Ukrainian parliament did with armed protesters standing over them is not, ummm, necessarily what they would have done without guns being waved in their general direction.

Analysis: it is highly unlikely that Putin will go for Kiev, though I won’t categorically rule it out. Crimea will be part of Russia, whether de-facto or de-jure. The eastern parts (which is where all the industry is, by the way), may be partitioned off as a rump state, or brought into Russia. In both cases, if it happens, referendums will be held. They will not need to cheat on them, as long as they don’t go too far West, they’ll win them fairly.

I will be frank: the West needs to stop fomenting these revolutions. Russia is not going to allow NATO to creep up to their border without taking action. You’d have to be crazy to think that Russia was going to allow the Ukraine, including Crimea, to become part of NATO, and yes, that was the West’s (or rather, America’s) endgame. (The Europeans think the Americans are crazy to be baiting the bear like this. But the Europeans need Russian natural gas.) Russia is no longer the USSR. It is not an existential threat to the West, or even to Europe. It is a corrupt resource state with a big army and nukes which controls a lot of territory, but the idea that it would win a full-on conventional war with America is deranged. All the US is accomplishing here is driving Russia into the country which is actually a danger to American dominance: China. This was totally unnecessary, but the entire thrust of US policy since the USSR has been to try and cripple Russia, starting with the completely deranged “shock doctrine” economic policies foisted on Russia right after the USSR’s collapse: doctrines which lead to an actual collapse in Russian population.

Putin thinks the US and the West are Russia’s enemies. He is not wrong. Can you imagine if Russia spent 5 billion dollars fomenting a pro-Russian revolution in Mexico? How would the US react? (And let us not forget the US invasions of Grenada and Panama). If the US had broken up and California was its own state, would the rump US state feel they had a right to intervene in it? Also, once more, the IMF will give Ukraine money in exchange for “reforms”. If you think those reforms will be good for the Ukraine, you are not just sadly mistaken, you are an idiot, or I hope you’re well paid to have such opinions. IMF reforms do not help ordinary people.

Finally, if I were a Western Ukrainian, I probably would have supported the revolution: Yanukovych was just too corrupt and too brutal. This isn’t about choosing sides, this is about understanding them.

Carnival in Crimea By Pepe Escobar

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-05-280214.html

...NATO's ultimate wet dream is to command a Western puppet Ukrainian government to kick the Russian navy out of its base in Sevastopol. The negotiated lease applies until 2042. Threats and rumors of reneging it have already emerged.

The absolute majority of the Crimean peninsula is populated by Russian speakers. Very few Ukrainians live there. In 1954, it took only 15 minutes for Ukrainian Nikita Krushchev - he of the banging shoe at the UN floor - to give Crimea as a free gift to Ukraine (then part of the USSR). In Russia, Crimea is perceived as Russian. Nothing will change that fact.

We're not facing a new Crimean War - yet. Only up to a point. NATO's wet dream is one thing; it is quite another to pull it off - as in ending the Russian fleet routinely leaving Sevastopol across the Black Sea through the Bosphorus and then reaching Tartus, Syria's Mediterranean port. So yes, this is as much about Syria as about Crimea.

The new Ukrainian Orange, Tangerine, Campari, Aperol Spritz or Tequila Sunrise revolution seems so far to have answered NATO's prayers. But it's a long and winding road for NATO to reenact the 1850s and remix the original Crimean War...

PEPE IS EVEN MORE UNKIND THAN IAN. READ MORE AT LINK

Reichstag Fire in Kiev FROM CLUB ORLOV

http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2014/03/reichstag-fire-in-kiev.html

Monday Noon Update:

• The Kiev regime announces general mobilization; only 1% to 1.5% of conscripts bother to turn up

• A dozen major cities—pretty much everything southeast of the line that runs from Kharkov to Odessa—are flying the Russian tricolor

• Ukraine's naval flagship is flying Russia's naval flag

• The newly appointed head of Ukrainian navy has defected to the Russian side in Crimea within a few hours of being appointed

• Most of the Ukrainian military units in Crimea have gone over to the Russian side voluntarily, without a single shot fired

• Ukrainian troops from Kirov have been ordered to march on Crimea, but have refused to obey (illegal) orders from Kiev

• During the last two weeks of February 143,000 Ukrainian citizens have requested asylum in Russia

Once upon a time I had an excellent history teacher, who has made a lasting impact on how I view the world. “It's about the dates,” he taught us; “Be sure to remember the dates, and you'll have the key to history.” You see, dates are important because most of the important historical events are, in fact, anniversaries. There is a hackneyed phrase that history does not repeat—it rhymes; but it would be a lot closer to truth to say that history has a rhythm—a rhythm based largely on multiples of the annual cycle...On 23 February of this year in Kiev there took place a coup d'état in which armed neo-Nazi militants surrounded and took over Parliament and forced the parliamentarians, under duress, to replace the elected government with opposition figures who were supported and promoted by the EU representatives and the US State Department. Representatives of the party of the overthrown government—the Party of Regions—were threatened into resigning.

What provided the rationale for the coup d'état was the killing of demonstrators by uniformed snipers, blamed on the previous government. The overthrown president, who has since fled to Russia, was accused of mass murder, and the new government demanded his extradition (a dumb move, since Russia's constitution forbids extradition). But there are serious questions about this interpretation of events: the special forces were never issued rifles and were never ordered to open fire on the protesters; there were quite a few special forces members themselves among those killed; the killings were carried out in such a manner as to incite rather than quell protest, by targeting women, bystanders and those assisting the wounded. The killings were followed by a professionally orchestrated public relations campaign, complete with a catchy name—“Heaven's Hundred” (“Небесная сотня”)—complete with candlelight vigils, rapid clean-up and laying of wreaths at the scene of the crime and so on. Unfortunately, this name has a nasty antecedent in the “Black Hundred” (“Чёрная сотня”), which was the name of a coalition of anti-Semites and ultra-right-wing nationalists back in 1905. It is illustrative of a certain ham-handedness on the part of the PR campaign's authors, and bears a similarity to the choice of white ribbons—a World War II symbol worn by Nazi collaborators and Wehrmacht auxiliaries in Nazi-occupied territories—which were shipped in from abroad for the anti-government demonstrations in Moscow in December of 2011. These demonstrations are commonly thought to have been organized by Western NGOs. It would seem that the same PR organization is behind both events. Wouldn't it then make sense to assume that this PR organization is staffed by fascists, hence their consistent choice of fascist symbols and terminology?

Now let's look back exactly 81 years. On February 23, 1933, somebody set fire to the Reichstag building in Berlin (the fire was blamed on the Communists, but this remains far from proven and the event is commonly suspected to have been a false flag operation). A day later, Hitler used the fire as an excuse to assume emergency powers and to flush the Communists from government, giving the National Socialists a majority. February 23, 1933 is the day remembered as the definitive turning point in the rise of fascism in Europe, setting it on course for World War II and the loss of millions of lives. Obviously, this is far from a replay but more of a faint echo. It is a work-out of a long sequence of events. Leaving aside the dim past which gave rise to such organizations as the Black Hundred and its Pogrom artists, the major problem is that Western Ukraine (Eastern Poland prior to World War II) was never properly de-Nazified (the technical German term for this process is Entnazifizierung). Then there was the fateful mistake of giving away Russian Crimea to Ukraine by Khrushchev (a Ukrainian), neatly paralleling the giving away of Abkhazia to Georgia by Stalin (a Georgian). Then came the years of neglect following the collapse of the USSR during which Ukraine, never quite capable of self-governance, achieved truly stunning levels of misery and corruption and became famous for its main export—young prostitutes. Then came the Orange Revolution, in which Yushchenko, who is the husband of a former Reagan-administration neocon, was thrust into office in a US-orchestrated campaign. He, along with his side-kick Yulia Tymoshenko, continued the orgy of corruption, until they were voted out of office and replaced by an equally venal, but additionally very thick-headed Yanukovych, who was the one chased out of office on the anniversary of the Reichstag fire.

And now the situation in the Ukraine is roughly as follows. The new Ukrainian government, born, as it were, of an incestuous relationship between a Ukrainian neo-Nazi skinhead and his pig (or was it a US State Department operative?) lacks legitimacy. In the Russian-speaking provinces in the east, people are taking over local governments and appealing to Russia for help, which Russia is quick to offer, moving troops into the historically Russian Crimean peninsula and handing out Russian passports to anyone who wants one. (Interestingly, they are handing out Russian passports to the members of Ukrainian special forces, who are now on the run. Clearly, the Russians don't think that the allegations of mass murder will stick.) Having lost 26.6 million dead fighting fascists during World War II, it is not in Russia's political DNA to allow fascists to rise to power right in the Slavic heartland. Nor is a newly resurgent Russia, whose team just came in first at the winter Olympics in Sochi, beating the old Soviet record for the number of medals, is likely to strike a relaxed pose with regard to a fascist takeover of Ukraine. And so, on March 1, the Russian parliament approved Putin's request for the use of the armed forces in Ukraine. Right now in Western Ukraine they are busy demolishing World War II memorials and celebrating Nazi collaborators as national heroes, but my guess is that, as events unfold, Western Ukraine will finally be de-Nazified, 70 years late. I realize that many readers in the US may find what I say here shocking, but it must be understood that they are subject to the same ham-handed PR campaign that has run amok in Moscow and Kiev. The people who run this campaign are not particularly well-read, but there are two books that they apparently find seminal and follow slavishly, textbook-fashion: George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Their initiatives tend to be a blend of these two approaches to mind control. Specifically, they have embraced the concept, from 1984, of “two minutes of hate”—a daily ritual in which the populace is made to redirect its negative emotions away from the obvious failings of its own government and toward a possibly nonexistent external enemy. And so US citizens, saddled with their feckless, thieving Presidents and Congressmen and gradually going broke as a result, are being systematically conditioned to hate Vadimir Putin...

Now, Putin is only the most competent Russian leader since perhaps Peter the Great, enjoys greater popularity among his own people than Bush and Obama ever did put together, and is a respected statesman around the world, which, by the way, sees the US as the greatest threat to world peace. Putin's first great initiative, dictatorship of the law, transformed a once lawless Russia into a generally law-abiding state, though slightly too conservative and restrictive for some people's taste. His second great idea, sovereign democracy, made Russia almost completely impervious to Western attempts at political manipulation. Add to that his economic successes (Russians' incomes have doubled repeatedly while US incomes have stagnated) and his foreign policy successes (his government recently prevented a major conflict in Syria, then engineered a rapprochement between the West and Iran) and you can begin to see why he makes US State Department apparatchiks and assorted US neocons absolutely livid with rage. That kind of anger tends to be catchy, and so we find journalists and commentators in the US so wrapped up in their negative feelings towards Putin that they are neglecting to do their job, which is to inform people. Even some otherwise fairly intelligent Russians have managed to get caught up in it. If Putin now manages to achieve peace in Ukraine, then perhaps they will all succumb of apoplexy, and the world will rejoice...

MORE BITTER TRUTHS AT LINK