ISRAEL SHAMIR

I

Things move really fast nowadays. Just yesterday we hardly dared to call the Israeli policy of official discrimination against Palestinians by the harsh word ‘apartheid’. Today, as Sharon’s tanks and missiles pound defenceless cities and villages, the word barely suffices. It has become an unjustified insult to the white supremacists of South Africa. They, after all, did not use gun-ships and tanks against the natives, they did not lay siege to Soweto. They did not deny the humanity of their kaffirs. The Jewish supremacists made it one better. They have returned us , as if by magic wand , to the world of Joshua and Saul.

As the search for the right word continues, the courageous Robert Fisk proposes calling the events in Palestine a ‘civil war’. If this is civil war, a lamb slaughter is a bullfight. The disparity of forces is just too large. No, Virginia, it is not ‘civil war’, it is creeping genocide.

This is the point in our saga, where the good Jewish guy is supposed to take out his hanky and exclaim: “How could we, eternal victims of persecutions, commit such crimes!” Well, do not hold your breath waiting for this line. It happened before and it can happen again, for the mad idea of being the only Chosen ones, the idea of supremacy, whether of race or religion, is the moving force behind genocides. If you believe God chose your people to dominate the world, if you think others but subhuman, you will be punished by the same God whose name you took in vain. Instead of a gentle frog, he would turn you into a murderous maniac.

When the Japanese got a whiff of this malady in the 1930s, they raped Nanking and ate the liver of their prisoners. Germans, obsessed by the Aryan superiority complex, filled Baby Yar with corpses. As thoughtful readers of Joshua and Judges, the father pilgrim-founders of the United States tried on the ‘Chosen’ crown and succeeded in nearly exterminating the Native American peoples.

The Jewish chosen-ness led to genocide time and again. Outside of Jerusalem’s Jaffa gate (Bab al-Halil), there was once a small neighbourhood called Mamilla, destroyed by real-estate developers just a few years ago. In its place they created a kitschy ‘village’ for the super-rich, abutting the plush Hilton Hotel. A bit further away there is the old Mamilla cemetery of the Arab nobles and the Mamilla Pool, a water reservoir dug by Pontius Pilate. During the development works, the workers came upon a burial cave holding hundreds of sculls and bones. It was adorned by a cross and the legend: ‘God alone knows their names’. The Biblical Archaeology Review, published by the Jewish American Herschel Shanks, printed a long feature [i] by the Israeli archaeologist Ronny Reich on this discovery.

The dead were laid to their eternal rest in AD 614, the most dreadful year in the history of Palestine until the Twentieth Century. The Scottish scholar Adam Smith, wrote in his Historical Geography of Palestine: “until now, the terrible devastation of 614 is visible in the land, it could not be healed”.

By 614 Palestine was a part of the Roman successor state, the Byzantine Empire. It was a prosperous, predominantly Christian land of well-developed agriculture, of harnessed water systems and carefully laid terraces. Pilgrims came in flocks to the Holy places. The Constantine-built edifices of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives and of the Holy Sepulchre were among the man-made wonders of the world. The Judean wilderness was enlivened by eighty monasteries, where precious manuscripts were collected and prayers offered. The Fathers of the church, St Jerome of Bethlehem and Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea, were still a living memory. One of the best Palestinian writers, on a par with the Minor Prophets, blessed John Moschos, just completed his Spiritual Meadow.

There was also a small, wealthy Jewish community living in their midst, mainly in Tiberias on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Their scholars had just completed their version of the Talmud, the codification of their faith, Rabbinic Judaism; but for instruction they deferred to the prevailing Jewish community in Persian Babylonia.

II

In 614 local Palestinian Jews allied with their Babylonian co-religionists and assisted the Persians in their conquest of the Holy Land. 26,000 Jews participated in the onslaught. In the aftermath of the Persian victory, the Jews perpetrated a massive holocaust of the Gentiles of Palestine. They burned the churches and the monasteries, killed monks and priests, burned books. The beautiful basilica of Fishes and Loaves in Tabgha, the Ascension on the Mount of Olives, St Stephen opposite Damascus Gate and the Hagia Sion on Mt Zion are just at the top of the list of perished edifices. Indeed, very few churches survived the onslaught. The Great Laura of St Sabas, tucked away in the bottomless Ravine of Fire (Wadi an-Nar) was saved by its remote location and steep crags. The Church of the Nativity miraculously survived: when Jews commanded its destruction, the Persians balked. They perceived the Magi mosaic above the lintel as the portrait of Persian kings.

This devastation was not the worst crime. When Jerusalem surrendered to the Persians, thousands of local Christians became prisoners of war and were herded to the Mamilla Pool area. The Israeli archaeologist Ronny Reich writes:

They were probably sold to the highest bidder. According to some sources, the Christian captives at Mamilla Pond were bought by Jews and were then slain on the spot.

The Oxford Professor Henry Hart Milman’s History of the Jews describes it in stronger terms:

It had come at length, the long-expected hour of triumph and vengeance; and the Jews did not neglect the opportunity. They washed away the profanation of the holy city in Christian blood. The Persians are said to have sold the miserable captives for money. The vengeance of the Jews was stronger than their avarice; not only did they not scruple to sacrifice their treasures in the purchase of these devoted bondsmen, they put to death all they had purchased at a lavish price. It was a rumour of the time that 90,000 perished.

An eyewitness to the massacre, Strategius of St Sabas, was more vivid:

Thereupon the vile Jews… rejoiced exceedingly, because they detested the Christians, and they conceived an evil plan. As of old they bought the Lord from the Jews with silver, so they purchased Christians out of the reservoir… How many souls were slain in the reservoir of Mamilla! How many perished of hunger and thirst! How many priests and monks were massacred by the sword! How many maidens, refusing their abominable outrages, were given over to death by the enemy! How many parents perished on top of their children! How many of the people were brought up by the Jews and butchered, and became confessors of Christ! Who can count the multitude of the corpses of those who were massacred in Jerusalem!’

Strategius estimated the victims of the holocaust at 66,000.

In plain prose, the Jews ransomed the Christians from the hands of the Persian soldiers for good money to slaughter them at Mamilla Pool, ‘and it ran with blood’. Jews massacred between 60,000 and 90,000 Palestinian Christians in Jerusalem alone, almost 1.5 million in today’s values (the total earth’s population was according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica about 300 million, twenty times smaller than today). A few days later, the Persian military understood the magnitude of the massacre and stopped the Jews.

III

To his credit, the Israeli archaeologist Ronny Reich does not try to shift the blame for the massacres onto the Persians, as it is usually done nowadays. He admits that ‘the Persian Empire was not based on religious principles and was indeed inclined to religious tolerance’. This good man is clearly unsuitable to write for the Washington Post. That paper’s correspondent in Israel would have had no trouble describing the massacre as ‘retaliatory strike by the Jews who suffered under Christian rule’.

The holocaust of the Christian Palestinians in year 614 is well documented and you will find it described in older books. It has been censored out of modern guides and history books. Elliott Horowitz described, in his brilliant expose of the Jewish apologia [ii]how almost all Jewish historians suppressed the facts and re-wrote history. The cover-up continues even now. Recent Israeli publications attach the blame to the Persians, as they push the responsibility for Sabra and Shatila massacre onto the Lebanese Maronites. Horowitz writes:

Raul Hilberg, in The Destruction of the European Jews, asserted that “preventive attack, armed resistance, and revenge are almost completely absent in two thousand years of Jewish ghetto history”. Avi Yona, a leading Israeli historian, Leon Polyakov, author of History of Anti-Semitism (published at the expense of Marc Rich, the thief – ISH) and many others glossed over the holocaust of 614, kept silent or denied it completely. Benzion Dinur, a former director of the Holocaust Museum Yad va-Shem, told his readers euphemistically, in language that might have offended him if used with regard to Jews, that “recalcitrant Christians were firmly held in check’.

As a rule, Jewish historical and ideological writing is notoriously unreliable and apologetic, Horowitz shows. Granted, ‘not all Jews’, vide Horowitz, Finkelstein and other wonderful men, but they would be the first to agree with the truth of the above. The feeling of self-righteousness and perpetual victim-hood reinforced by a tendentious, distorted historical narrative is a source of mental disease, an obsession common to many modern Jews. This obsession intoxicates Jews and gives them unusual strength in promoting their own distorted narrative. In a way, this massive distortion of reality turns Jews into victorious berserks of ideological struggle. Still, while being a successful strategy, it is a mental disease, a danger to the souls of Jews and to the lives of others.

The Jews are not unique. Germans were intoxicated by the injustice of Versailles, and Adolf Hitler voiced it. Eric Margolis of the Toronto Sun[iii] wrote about Armenians inflamed by the story of their holocaust. They massacred thousands of their peaceful Azeri neighbours in the 1990s, and uprooted 800,000 native non-Armenians. ‘It’s time to recognize all the world’s horrors’, Margolis concludes. It is time to recognise the danger of inflammatory and one-sided narrative, I would add. The same system of tendentious reality-distorting narrative was deployed by the activists of militant feminism, communism, psychoanalysis, neo-conservatism, neo-liberalism, Zionism and a plethora of smaller movements as the means to enrage and intoxicate supporters for the ideological struggle.

As a result, we live in a psychotic, sick world. Our only system of communication, the media, is the enforcer of the malady and leads us to our perdition. It is necessary to promote balanced, alternative discourse in order to return to the common sense. Since the Jews have become so prominent in the modern world, the lopsided Jewish discourse has to be deconstructed and the crown of martyrdom carefully removed.

The tragic events of 614 should be returned into historical narrative, for it will help the Jews to heal their paranoid delusion. Without this knowledge one cannot understand the provisions of the treaty between the Jerusalemites and Caliph Omar ibn Khattab, concluded in year 638. In the Sulh al Quds, as this treaty of capitulation is called, Patriarch Sofronius demanded, and the powerful Arab ruler concurred to protect the people of Jerusalem from the ferocity of the Jews.

The genocide of the AD 614 was the most horrible, but not the only, genocide wreaked by Jews in those troubled years. Though the biblical story of the Canaan conquest by Joshua is just a story, it influenced Jewish souls. The Sixth Century was a century of strong Jewish influence, and it had more than its fair share of genocide.

Just a few years before 614, in 610, the Jews of Antioch massacred Christians. The Jewish historian Graetz wrote:

[The Jews] fell upon their Christian neighbours and retaliated for the injuries which they had suffered; they killed all that fell into their hands, and threw their bodies into the fire, as the Christians had done to them a century before. The Patriarch Anastasius, an object of special hate, was shamefully abused by them, and his body dragged through the streets before he was put to death.

For Graetz, as for IDF spokesmen, Jews always kill ‘in retaliation’. This dogma was not invented by CNN and Sharon: it is deeply rooted in the Jewish psyche as the ultimate defence. This historian (like other Jewish historians) did not care to mention that

The Jews of Antioch disembowelled the great Patriarch Anastasius, forced him to eat his own intestines; they hurled his genitals into his face.[iv]

IV

After the Arab conquest, a majority of Palestinian Jews accepted the message of the Messenger, as did the majority of Palestinian Christians, albeit for somewhat different reasons. For local Christians, Islam was a sort of Nestorian Christianity without icons, without Constantinople’s interference and without Greeks. (The Greek domination of the Palestinian church remains a problem for the local Christians to this very day.)

For ordinary local Jews, Islam was the return to the faith of Abraham and Moses. They had not been able to follow the intricacies of the new Babylonian faith anyway. The majority of them became Muslims and blended into the Palestinian population.

V

Modern Jews do not have to feel guilty for the misdeeds of Jews long gone. No son is responsible for the sins of his father. Israel could have turned this mass grave with its Byzantine chapel and mosaics into a small and poignant memorial reminding its citizens of a horrible page in the history of the land and of the dangers of genocidal supremacy. Instead, the Israeli authorities preferred to demolish the tomb and create an underground parking-lot in its place. That did not cause a murmur.

The guardians of the Jewish conscience, Amos Oz and others, have objected to the destruction of ancient remains. No, not of the tomb at Mamilla. They ran a petition against the keepers of the Haram a-Sharif mosque complex for digging a ten-inch trench to lay a new pipe. It did not matter to them that in an op-ed in Haaretz, the leading Israeli archaeologist denied any relevance of the mosque-works to science. They still described it as ‘a barbaric act of Muslims aimed at the obliteration of the Jewish heritage of Jerusalem’. Among the signatories I found, to my amazement and sorrow, the name of Ronny Reich. One thought he might tell them who obliterated the vestiges of the Jewish heritage at Mamilla Pool.

Censored history creates a distorted picture of reality. Recognition of the past is a necessary step on the way to sanity. The Germans and the Japanese have recognized the crimes of their fathers, have came to grips with their moral failings and have emerged as humbler, less boastful folks, akin to the rest of human race. We Jews have so far failed to exorcise the haughty spirit of the Chosen-ness, and find ourselves in a dire predicament.

That is why the idea of supremacy is still with us, still calling for genocide. In 1982, Amos Oz [v] met an Israeli who shared with the writer his dream of becoming a Jewish Hitler to the Palestinians. Persistent rumours identify the potential Hitler as Ariel Sharon. Whether it is true or not, slowly this dream is becoming a reality.

The Haaretz published an ad on its front page [vi], a fatwa, signed by a group of Rabbis. The Rabbis proclaimed the theological identification of Ishmael (the Arabs) with the Amalek. ‘Amalek’ is mentioned in the Bible as the name of a tribe that caused trouble for the Children of Israel. In this story the God of Israel commands His people to exterminate the Amalek tribe completely, including its livestock. King Saul botched the job: he exterminated them all right, but failed to kill nubile, unwed maidens. This ‘failure’ cost him his crown. The obligation to exterminate the people of Amalek is still counted among the tenets of the Jewish faith.

At the end of WWII, some Jews, including the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin, identified the Germans with Amalek, and a Jewish religious socialist and a fighter against Nazis, Abba Kovner, hatched a plot in 1945 to poison the water-supply system of German cities and to kill ‘six million Germans’. He obtained poison from a brother of the future President of Israel, Efraim Katzir. Katzir supposedly thought Kovner intended to poison ‘only’ a few thousands German POWs. The plan mercifully flopped when Kovner was stopped by British officials in a European port. This story was published last year in Israel in a biography of Kovner written by Prof Dina Porat, head of the Anti-Semitism Research Centre at Tel Aviv University [vii].

In plain English, the Rabbis’ fatwa means: our religious duty is to kill all Arabs, including women and babies and their livestock to the last cat. The liberal Haaretz, whose editor and owner are sufficiently versed to understand the fatwa, did not hesitate to place the ad. Some Palestinian activists recently criticized me for associating with the Russian weekly Zavtra and for quoting the American weekly Spotlight. I wonder why they have not condemned me for writing in Haaretz? Zavtraand Spotlighthave never published a call to genocide, after all.

It would be unfair to single out Haaretz. Another prominent Jewish newspaper, The Washington Post, published an equally passionate call to genocide by Charles Krauthammer [viii]. This adept of King Saul cannot rely upon his audience’s knowledge of the Bible, so he refers to General Powell’s slaughter of routed Iraqi troops at the end of the Gulf war. He quotes Colin Powell saying of the Iraqi army: “First we’re going to cut it off, then we’re going to kill it”. For Krauthammer with his carefully chosen quotes, multitudes of slain Arabs do not qualify for the human pronoun ‘them’. They are an ‘it’. In the last stage of the war in the Gulf, immense numbers of retreating and disarmed Iraqis were slaughtered in cold blood by the US Air Force, their bodies buried by bulldozers in the desert sand in huge and nameless mass graves. The number of victims of this hecatomb is estimated from one hundred thousand to half a million. God alone knows their names.

Krauthammer wants to repeat this feat in Palestine. ‘It’ is already cut off, divided by the Israeli army into seventy pieces. Now it is ready for the great kill. ‘Kill it!’ he calls with great passion. He must be worried that the Persians will again stop the bloodbath before the Mamilla Pool fills up. His worries are our hopes.

Convened at the residence of the US ambassador in Brussels by President Trump, the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, was told off in public for his incapacity to maintain the political coherence of the Alliance.

Contrary to mainstream thinking, the NATO summit did not set the United States against the other members of the Alliance, but President Trump against the intergovernmental senior administration. For Thierry Meyssan, the problem is not whether or not we appreciate the personality of the tenant of the White House, but whether we support him because he is the elected representative of his people, or if we prefer the system’s bureaucrats.

Since 20 January 2017, the arrival at the White House of a believer in productive capitalism has shuffled the international order to the detriment of financial capitalism. Imperialism, which until now had always been blindly defended by US Presidents to the point where we identified it with US foreign policy, is now based on bureaucracies, and in the front line are the administrations of NATO and the EU.

Donald Trump, acting as he said he would during his electoral campaign, is very predictable. However, his capacity to change the system is absolutely unpredictable. So far, he has not been assassinated like John Kennedy, nor forced to resign like Richard Nixon [1], and continues on his path, one step forward, one step back.

The Western powers have forgotten this, but in a Republic, the unique role of elected representatives is to control the administrations of the states they govern. However, progressively, a form of « pensée unique » has taken hold of them all, transforming the elected members into senior civil servants and the states into administrative dictatorships. The conflict between President Trump and his predecessors’ senior civil servants is simply a tentative to return to normality. It is also a titanic battle comparable to that which opposed the two French governments during the Second World War [2].

Scalded by the NATO summit of 25 May 2017, during which Donald Trump imposed the addition of the war against terrorism to the objectives of the Alliance, and by the G7 summit of 8 and 9 June 2018, where Donald Trump refused to sign the final Declaration, the NATO administration attempted to preserve the objectives of imperialism.
First of all, it signed a joint Declaration with its counterparts from the European Union on the evening before the summit, [3]. By doing so, it guaranteed the link subordinating the EU to NATO, instituted by Article 42 of the Treaty of Maastricht. This Declaration was signed by the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, and by the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker. Tusk is of Polish origin, born of a family which worked in secret for NATO during the Cold War, while Luxembourg citizen Juncker is the ex-representative responsible for the secret services of the Alliance in his country (Gladio) [4]. The European senior civil servants know that they are in danger since ex-special adviser to Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, came to Italy to support the creation of an anti-system government with the clearly-announced intention of dynamiting the European Union.
Secondly, the NATO administration imposed the signature of the first draft of the Joint Declaration at the start of the summit and not at its end [5]. There was therefore no discussion of the Alliance’s anti-Russian doctrine.

Aware of the trap that had been set for him, President Trump decided to surprise his civil servants. So while all the participants expected a speech about the minimal financial contribution by the Allies to the common war effort, Donald Trump questioned the very foundation of the Alliance – protection against Russia.

Convening the Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, at the residence of the US ambassador in the presence of the Press, he observed that Germany nourished its economy with gas from its Russian « friend » while at the same time asking for protection against its Russian « enemy ». By pointing out this contradiction, he relegated the question of finance to second place, which, nonetheless, he did not abandon. Above all, a week before his meeting with President Vladimir Putin, he rendered null and void the long indictment against Russia contained in the Declaration at the beginning of the summit.

Contrary to the comments in the Press, this remark by President Trump was aimed less at Germany than at Stoltenberg himself. It underlines the negligence of the senior civil servants who administrate NATO without ever questioning NATO’s raison d’etre.

The confrontation between the White House and Brussels continues [6].

On one hand, NATO has just endorsed the creation of two joint command centres (at Ulm in Germany and Norfolk in the USA)… and the increase of its personnel by 10%. Meanwhile, the European Union has just created the « Permanent Structured Cooperation » (a capabilities programme which enjoys a budget of 6,5 billion Euros) and France has added the « European Intervention Initiative » (an operational programme). Contrary to the speeches about European independence, these two structures are submitted to the Treaty of Maastricht, and are therefore at the service of NATO. They add to the complexity of European bureaucracy, to the great satisfaction of its senior civil servants.

On the other hand, President Trump has discreetly opened discussions with his Russian counterpart with a view to withdrawing both Russian and NATO troops from their front-line positions.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation
Pete Kimberley

[1] Richard Nixon was certainly forced to resign because of his responsibility in the Watergate affair. But this only existed by the will of the informer « Deep Throat », namely Mark Felt, one of J. Edgar Hoover’s assistants.

[2] Because of the World War and France’s defeat, the National Assembly, meeting in the spa town of Vichy on 10 July1940, proclaimed « the French state », de facto cancelling out the Republic. This change of régime had been supported for a long time by anti-parliamentarian groups and parties. From this moment on, France was represented by two rival governments – the legitimate government of the Republic, in exile in London, and the legal government in Vichy. In August 1944, the government of the Republic was reinstalled in Paris by de Gaulle, while the state government continued in Sigmaringen, Germany, until April 1945.
The confusion between the French Republic and the French state is still current today, to the point where it is used indiscriminately to speak of the President of the Republic with the formal title of « head of state » and the title « head of the state ».

[3] “Joint Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation”, Voltaire Network, 10 July 2018.

[4] « La guerre secrète au Luxembourg », par Daniele Ganser; « Luxembourg : Jean-Claude Juncker refuse de démissionner pour le Gladio »; « Gladio-Luxembourg : Juncker contraint de démissionner », Réseau Voltaire, 4 et 10 juillet 2013.

[5] “NATO Opening Summit Declaration”, Voltaire Network, 11 July 2018.

[6] Brussels is the headquarters of both NATO and the EU.

By George Ades – I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been asked: “Why doesn’t Putin give Assad S-300?”

First of all, I would like to say that if I were Putin, I wouldn’t be supplying the Syrian military with S-300s, at this moment in time.

Russia is in Syria, by invitation of the legitimate government of that Sovereign State, for one purpose: to rid Syria of the terrorist proxy army of the west. NOT to start WWIII.

Let me explain. What happens if the Syrian military gets S-300s and uses them to shoot down a US/NATO or Israeli plane? Will these superior forces back down and leave Syria alone? Unlikely.

The S-300 may be one of the best anti-aircraft weapons around, but it’s not a nuclear weapon. By itself, it will not be enough to deter a determined adversary. A lot more will be needed to counter the retaliation that will surely come once such a weapon is used by the Syrians. Is the Syrian military and people, fatigued by years of fighting these proxy forces, in a position to handle an all out war with Israel and/or the US/NATO? And what would Russia’s response to such an eventuality be? Would they stand idly by and see an ally destroyed by the US and its minions? What happens if they DO get involved, if the Russians themselves start shooting down Israel and/or NATO planes? THINK….

Both S-300 and S-400s are present in Syria. They are in the hands of the Russian military and since the terrorists have no official airforce of their own, their purpose is to act as a deterrent. So far, this has worked pretty well.

Let Syria liberate its soil first. Let the Syrians retake control of their own borders. Let them draw a breath from all these years of fighting and there will be plenty of time to supply that country with all it needs to safeguard its integrity. Now is not the time.

The Russian government’s and its military’s primary concern is to safeguard the Russian people’s welfare and security.

They are not there to satisfy some people’s lust for blood.

Russia has not invaded or bombed, threatened to invade or bomb any country. All the actions of the Russian leadership indicate that they are always pressing to resolve issues not by force, but through dialogue.

The Russian military is strong no doubt, but its function is the defence of Russian soil and that of the Russian nation.

Please avoid making shallow comments like: “Russia is afraid of taking on Israel.” If Israel had attacked Russia or Russians, I have no doubt they would more than adequately defend themselves. Remember, we are not talking about schoolyard fights here. Once the missiles start flying, it will get ugly very quickly and it will be nothing like watching a Hollywood movie from the comfort of your living rooms, while going through a six pack.

MIKE WHITNEY via UNZ

The Democratic Party has made a strategic decision to bypass candidates from its progressive wing and recruit former members of the military and intelligence agencies to compete with Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections. The shift away from liberal politicians to center-right government agents and military personnel is part of a broader plan to rebuild the party so it better serves the interests of its core constituents, Wall Street, big business, and the foreign policy establishment. Democrat leaders want to eliminate left-leaning candidates who think the party should promote issues that are important to working people and replace them with career bureaucrats who will be more responsive to the needs of business. The ultimate objective of this organization-remake is to create a center-right superparty comprised almost entirely of trusted allies from the national security state who can be depended on to implement the regressive policies required by their wealthy contributors. Here’s more background from Patrick Martin at the World Socialist Web Site:

“An extraordinary number of former intelligence and military operatives from the CIA, Pentagon, National Security Council and State Department are seeking nomination as Democratic candidates for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections. The potential influx of military-intelligence personnel into the legislature has no precedent in US political history.

If the Democrats capture a majority in the House of Representatives on November 6, as widely predicted, candidates drawn from the military-intelligence apparatus will comprise as many as half of the new Democratic members of Congress. They will hold the balance of power in the lower chamber of Congress….

… it should be noted that there would be no comparable influx of Bernie Sanders supporters or other “left”-talking candidates in the event of a Democratic landslide. Only five of the 221 candidates reviewed in this study had links to Sanders or billed themselves as “progressive.” None is likely to win the primary, let alone the general election.” (“The CIA Democrats, Patrick Martin, The World Socialist Web Site)

Progressive candidates are being ignored to make room for center-right functionaries who will focus on reducing government spending, rolling back Trump’s trade policy, and supporting the foreign wars. This new wave of fiscally-conservative Democrats will execute their tasks in a party that serves as the political wing of the federal bureaucracy. Democrat leaders have long-abandoned the idea that a party should be a vehicle for political change. Their aim is to create a top-down pro-business collective that marginalizes activists and liberals in order to avoid disruptive political convulsions that impact corporate profitability. Here’s more on the Dems’ attack on its liberal base from an article by Patrick Martin:

“The New Jersey Democratic Party establishment successfully imposed its choice in contested congressional nominations, brushing aside several candidates backed by Bernie Sanders and his Our Revolution group. Nearly every Sanders-backed candidate in other states—for governor of Iowa and congressional seats in Iowa, Montana New Mexico and California—suffered a similar fate.” (“US primary elections in eight states confirm rightward shift by Democratic Party”, Patrick Martin, The World Socialist Web Site)

As a result “Only a handful of candidates running under the Bernie Sanders banner survived primaries held in six states on Tuesday. As of Wednesday afternoon, only seven of 31 candidates endorsed by Our Revolution —- had been declared winners.” (USA Today)

Simply put, Democrat leaders have successfully derailed the progressive bandwagon. Even so, Sanders role vis a vis the Democratic Party has always been a bit of a ruse. Here’s how author Tom Hall sums it up:

“The major political function of Sanders’ campaign is to divert the growing social discontent and hostility toward the existing system behind the Democratic Party, in order to contain and dissipate it. His supposedly ‘socialist’ campaign is an attempt to preempt and block the emergence of an independent movement of the working class.” (“Is Bernie Sanders a socialist?”, July 16, 2015), Tom Hall, World Socialist Web Site)

Sanders’ task will become increasingly difficult as progressives realize that the Dems are building a party apparatus that sees activism as a fundamental threat to their strategic objective, which is to create a secure environment where business can flourish. Sanders has helped the party by seducing leftists with his fake liberalism, but he has undermined the aims of working people who need an independent organization to advance their own political agenda. As long as Sanders continues to sell his populist snake oil from a Democratic soapbox, liberals are going to continue to hope that the party can be transformed into an instrument for progressive change.

The evidence, however, suggests the party is moving in the opposite direction. Here’s more from Patrick Martin’s:

“The Democratic Party’s promotion of a large number of military-intelligence candidates for competitive districts represents an insurance policy for the US ruling elite. In the event of a major swing to the Democrats, the House of Representatives will receive an influx of new members drawn primarily from the national security apparatus, trusted servants of American imperialism……The preponderance of national security operatives in the Democratic primaries sheds additional light on the nature of the Obama administration (which) marked the further ascendancy of the military-intelligence apparatus within the Democratic Party….

The Democratic Party is running in the congressional elections not only as the party that takes a tougher line on Russia, but as the party that enlists as its candidates and representatives those who have been directly responsible for waging war, both overt and covert, on behalf of American imperialism. ….

The upper-middle-class layer that provides the “mass” base of the Democratic Party has moved drastically to the right over the past four decades, enriched by the stock market boom, consciously hostile to the working class, and enthusiastically supportive of the military-intelligence apparatus which, in the final analysis, guarantees its own social position against potential threats, both foreign and domestic. It is this social evolution that now finds expression on the surface of capitalist politics, in the rise of the military-intelligence “faction” to the leadership of the Democratic Party.” (“The CIA Democrats,” Patrick Martin, The World Socialist Web Site)

The dramatic metamorphosis of the Democratic party hasn’t taken place in a vacuum but in a fractious and politically-charged environment where elements within the intelligence community and law enforcement (FBI) are attempting to roll back the results of the 2016 presidential elections because their preferred candidate (Hillary Clinton) did not win. And while these agencies have not yet produced any hard evidence that their claims (of collusion with Russia) are true, there is mounting circumstantial evidence that senior-level officials at these agencies were actively trying to entrap members of the Trump campaign to justify more intrusive surveillance in the hopes of uncovering incriminating evidence that could be used in impeachment proceedings.

As more information surfaces, and we learn more about the “unmasking,” wiretapping, National Security Letters, FISA warrants, paid informants and other surveillance abuses that were directed at the Trump campaign, we should think back to 2005 when the New York Times first reported that the National Security Agency had been eavesdropping on Americans inside the United States “without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying.” (“Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts,” New York Times) That incident was reported just 13 years ago and already we can see that the infrastructure for a permanent Orwellian police-state – that uses its extraordinary powers of surveillance to sabotage the democratic process and maintain its stranglehold on power – has already arisen in our midst. And while Russiagate is proof-positive that these malign spying techniques are already being used against us, the Democratic party is now creating a home for deep-state alums and their military allies so they continue to prosecute their war against personal liberty and the American people.

Libya’s destruction by FUKUS (France, UK, US) was never about weapons of mass destruction or R2P protection of populations. From the jump, FUKUS goals in Africa were threefold:
1. Destroy Gaddafi’s Jamahariya so as to prevent the formation of a sovereign African currency bloc. The planned creation of an African monetary fund was signaling the death knell of the franc CFA currency from which France and other parts of the EU bloc derive much of their power. The Libyan operation was also a continuation of what happened prior in Ivory Coast. The ousted Ivorian president who wanted to leave the franc CFA currency is now rotting for close to a decade at the imperial court like Milosevic before him.
2. Steal Libyan sovereign wealth funds (almost 500 billions euros) to prop up the failing Western banking system.
3. Most importantly, to secure the Taoudeni basin in the Sahel. Taoudeni is a sort of consolation prize and collateral in a time of crisis for the FUKUS bloc who would love to get their hands on Siberia… The Taoudeni basin is rich in hydrocarbons, rare earths, gold, gas, you name it. And it’s smack dab in the middle of a most important trans-Saharan trade route through which lucrative fungible assets transit.
In the meantime, “Fremen” in the Sahel will continue to wreak havoc upon foreign invaders. Lots of potential targets for those “Fremen.” Besides FUKUS, Germans, Dutch and other EU forces are now setting up bases in the Sahel to secure the resource war booty.
Seen from Mali, when the war against Ghaddafi erupted, the whole downtown administration sector of Bamako was a gift from Libya so tons of Malians went to war to support him. Meanwhile, Gbagbo was ousted thanks to French special ops and a year later Mali went through a coup d’etat by a US-trained officer. Nowadays, there are regular attacks in the north of Mali by various jihadi groups on UN camps while Touareg secession is blocked, preventing control of the resources by anyone not aligned with AFRICOM/France.

Written by Robert Bridge; Originally appeared at strategic-culture.org

In the past, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) justified its militarization of large swaths of Eastern Europe by pointing to the omnipresent threat of terrorism, or some ‘rogue’ foreign state, inherently understood to be Iran. Today the mask has slipped and it is no longer denied that NATO’s primary target is Russia.

But first, a trip down nightmare lane. The road to ruin – at least as far as US-Russia relations were concerned – began immediately following the 9/11 terror attacks. Three months after that fateful day, in December 2001, George W. Bush informed Vladimir Putin that the US was withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a strange move considering that the treaty had kept the peace between the nuclear superpowers since 1972. This geopolitical “mistake,” as Putin rightly defined it, allowed the US to begin the process of deploying a missile defense system, smack on the border with Russia, allegedly to shield the continent against an attack by Iran. Never mind the fact that Tehran had absolutely no reason, not to mention the wherewithal, to carry out such a suicidal mission. But Washington has never been one to let facts get in the way of a forced move on the global chess board.

Thus, the Bush administration advocated on behalf of a land-based missile defense system with interceptors based in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic. However, due to serious objections from Russia, not to mention the apprehensive citizens of the host countries, the plan had reached an impasse in 2008 – just as Obama was replacing Bush in the White House. Some would call that impeccable timing. What happened next can only be described as a devious sleight of hand on the part of Washington.

In September 2009, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama, announced to great fanfare that the US would “shelve” the Bush plan. This announcement was received in Moscow and beyond as a sign that America’s first black president was truly the real deal when it came to working on behalf of global peace. Suddenly, it appeared that the Bush reign of error had been an ugly anomaly, a bad eight-year dream. That grand illusion lasted for about as long as it took to read that sentence.

Barack Obama, the man who had seduced the global masses with his velvety albeit telepromoted delivery, shifted gears the very next day, announcing that the US would be deploying, in four phases, sea-based SM-3 interceptor missiles in Eastern Europe instead. An opinion piece in the New York Times, penned by then Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, provided all the information to understand that the world had been hoodwinked.

“Steady technological advances in our missile defense program — from kill vehicles to the abilities to network radars and sensors — give us confidence in this plan,” Gates wrote. “The SM-3 has had eight successful tests since 2007, and we will continue to develop it to give it the capacity to intercept long-range missiles like ICBMs. It is now more than able to deal with the threat from multiple short- and medium-range missiles — a very real threat to our allies and some 80,000 American troops based in Europe that was not addressed by the previous plan.”

“We are strengthening — not scrapping — missile defense in Europe,” he concluded.

With the benefit of hindsight and common sense, it seems that Washington’s plan from the start was to move forward with the sophisticated SM-3 system; the bulky Bush initiative just provided the necessary distraction to usher in the advanced Obama plan, which presents a major threat to the global strategic balance.

But all that is ancient history compared to what is happening today. Under the guise of ‘Russia aggression,’ a concept that was peddled to the unsuspecting masses based on the fake news of a Russian ‘invasion’ of Ukraine and Crimea, compounded by claims that Russia somehow swayed the 2016 US presidential elections, US-led NATO has dropped all pretensions and declared open season on Russia. Combined with Donald Trump’s empty threat that the US would exit NATO if member states did not start spending more on defense (2 percent of annula GDP), Eastern Europe has become a veritable hothouse of paranoia-driven militarization.

In what the Kremlin has described as the greatest amassing of military assets on its border since World War II, NATO troops and hardware have set up camp from as far north as Estonia, down through Latvia and Lithuania, into Romania and Poland, where the rotation of US troops is now standard operating procedure.

Meanwhile, massive military games aimed at deterring the Russian bogeyman continue unabated on Russia’s border. In April, British journalist Neil Clark described just one of these exercises, dubbed Summer Shield. The NATO military exercises “got underway at the Adazi military base. Soldiers from Latvia, the US, Bulgaria, Estonia, Canada, Lithuania, the UK, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovakia, Germany and also non-NATO member Sweden are taking part in the drills,” Clark wrote.

He then went on to make a rather unsettling yet accurate observation: “Today’s mantra regarding ‘Russian aggression’ is the 2003 equivalent of ‘Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction,’ to be repeated ad nauseum by anyone supporting NATO’s Drang nach Osten. And like the WMD claim, it’s based on zero evidence.”

Such reckless behavior would have been difficult to fathom less than a decade ago.

But these are brave new times, and American madness has settled upon the realm of foreign relations like a noxious cloud, forcing client states to crack open their tattered wallets or be left out in the cold when the big, bad Russian bear comes a knocking.

Consider the case of Romania, one of Europe’s poorest countries. Prompted by Donald Trump’s warning that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members must fork over 2 percent of their GDP on military spending, Bucharest just made a down payment on a $1 billion American-made M142 HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System), as well as four new multi-function corvettes.

Romanian Defence Minister Mihai Fifor told Jane’s that these exorbitant purchases would “improve Romania’s national and allied defense capability” and emphasized that Romania’s commitment to the 2% of GDP spending cap “for the next 10 years is strong”.

Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said, “We want those procurement programs to also strengthen our defence industry based on offset arrangements where possible”.

This was not the first American military incursion into Romania under the guise of guarding against Iran and other alleged rogue players.

In May 2016, the US activated its $800 million missile shield in Romania, which Russia obviously views as a direct threat.

“At the moment the interceptor missiles installed have a range of 500 kilometers, soon this will go up to 1000 kilometers, and worse than that, they can be rearmed with 2400km-range offensive missiles even today, and it can be done by simply switching the software, so that even the Romanians themselves won’t know,” Vladimir Putin told reporters during a visit to Greece in May 2016.

“We have been saying since the early 2000s that we will have to react somehow to your moves to undermine international security. No one is listening to us,” Putin warned.

It remains to be seen how long NATO tone deafness will continue before the militarization of Eastern Europe gets completely out of control and the situation becomes untenable. Or perhaps the point of no return has already come to pass and, fait accompli, we are merely enjoying an illusory calm before the storm.

Comments:

Q: Since ABM systems cannot be used until the ICBMs have been launched, isn’t it an appropriate defense to attack these ABM systems, maybe 30 seconds before an ICBM launch?

A: It is well known that the MDS is not capable to defend against full scale nuclear attack from Russia. What US hopes for is that within 10-15 years it might become capable to defend against retaliatory counterattack after the first strike – meaning that, after a full scale nuclear attack against Russia, Russia will be left with less than 20% of it’s capability and then, they hope, they will be able to defend themselves with the MDS. That’s what I hear from military experts.

As of now, neither side is able to attack the other with ICBM’s because retaliatory counterattack is guaranteed to destroy the attacker – that’s what nuclear parity is all about. With the MDS program US is trying hard to tip the scale in their favor.

Via GEFIRA,

The efforts of individual countries to access the gas fields in the south-eastern part of the Mediterranean make the area very vulnerable to new conflicts and war and can also lead to a dispute within NATO and affect Europe’s energy security, putting the EASTMED pipeline in question. The war for natural resources is looming large.

The first problem is the relationship between Cyprus and Turkey. Ankara, the only capital which recognizes North Cyprus, says that all activities related to the extraction of gas in the Cypriot area are an encroachment on the interests of North Cyprus. While Turkey does not recognize agreements between Cyprus and other countries on the issue of economic exclusive zone (EEZ) or licenses for gas exploration in Cypriot territorial waters, Nicosia holds the opposite opinion. Ankara, through the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) puts forward claims that it is entitled to look for gas and oil in Cypriot waters and has the right to defend its interests there. Cyprus issued a number of concessions to various mining companies on more than half of the blocks (i.e. parts of the economic exclusive zone on which companies could explore gas or oil) located within the Cypriot EZZ. President Erdoğan warned Cyprus and international gas exploration companies that the violation of Turkish interests would have bad consequences.1)In the middle of February 2018 the warning was made good and so the Saipem 1200 mining vessel operating for Italian company – Eni was blocked by Turkish ships. Italy responded by sending a military ship to the area.2)This shows how explosive the situation is now that two NATO member states want to pursue economic goals without backing them with diplomacy.

It is worth mentioning that also in February a Turkish coast guard boat rammed a Greek patrol ship in the Aegean Sea,3)which shows that the Turkish government is willing to use military force.

The deepening cooperation between Cyprus, Greece, Israel and Italy regarding the EastMed gas pipeline project4)is another flashpoint. The new pipeline, whose aim will be to supply gas from the Caspian Sea to Southern Europe, would weaken the transit role of the Turkish TANAP.

Another potential conflict is the one between Turkey and Egypt over the rich Zohr gas field discovered only in 2015. Ankara does not recognize the 2003 Cypriot-Egyptian EEZ accords and the 2013 sea border agreements between Cairo and Nicosia, which assign the Zohr gas field to Egypt.5)6)At the beginning of February 2018, the Egyptian government warned Turkey that further interference in this area would be met with a decisive reaction.7)

The relations between Turkey and Egypt are already strained. Though Turkey was a supporter of the Egyptian Brotherhood and Mohamed Mursi, who took power in Egypt in 2011, nowadays there is no love lost between Ankara and Cairo, because in 2013 the Trukey-friendly government was toppled. In a 2016 interview, President Erdoğan gave vent to his anger, calling the current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a “putschist” who killed thousands of his own people.8)

The sea area between Israel and Lebanon is the most explosive area, which extends along the edges of three Lebanese gas exploration Blocks: 8, 9, 10 of which Block 9 is said to be the most profitable and is claimed by Israel. In the first half of February 2018, Lebanon signed a contract for exploratory and production works with Italian Eni, French Total and Russian Novatek.9)Since the works are to be carried out in Block 9,10)Israel described Lebanon’s action as “very provocative”,11)paving the way for a military showdown. In response to it, the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasr Allah threatened to target Israeli offshore gas platforms.12)

The Israeli media are already speculating about the third Lebanese war and suggest that the Hezbollah attack on Israel is inevitable.13)In mid-February, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared that Washington could help resolve the dispute between Israel and Lebanon, but Hasan Nasr Allah refused to have talks with the United States, a dishonest broker. Hezbollah is supported by Iran as is Lebanon by Turkey. Tel Aviv accuses Ankara of supporting Hamas, while Turkey says it merely defends Islam and Palestinians.14)The presence of Israeli troops in Cyprus is perceived by President Erdoğan as interference in the Turkish sphere of influence. It was in June 2017 that Israeli commandos carried out the largest military exercises so far, aimed at counteracting a possible annexation of Cyprus by Turkey.15)

Gas deposits in the Eastern Mediterranean attract the attention of European, Russian, Iranian, Turkish and American armed forces. Cyprus occupies here a strategically important place. The number of players is a sum of the countries directly involved and their allies. Gas, like crude oil, has the potential of igniting a new wave of violent encounters between enemies and friends.

References

1.	↑	Erdogan warns Greece, Cyprus over gas search, Aegean islets, ABC News 2018-02-13.
2.	↑	Italy sends frigate to Cyprus’s EEZ, Ekathimerini 2018-02-13.
3.	↑	Greece says won’t tolerate border challenges after Turkish collision, Reuters 2018-02-15.
4.	↑	Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Israel sign MoU for East Med gas pipeline, New Europe 2017-12,05.
5.	↑	Egypt defends Cyprus gas deal after Turkey criticism, Daily Mail 2018-02-08.
6.	↑	Egypt rejects Turkey’s stance on Cyprus demarcation agreement, Energy Egypt 2018-02-09.
7.	↑	Egypt warns Turkey over eastern Mediterranean economic interests, Reuters 2018-02-07.
8.	↑	Erdoğan blasts Egypt’s ‘putschist president’ Sisi in al-Jazeera interview, Al Araby 2016-07-22.
9.	↑	Risking Israeli dispute, Lebanon signs deal with 3 oil firms, The Washington Post 2018-02-09.
10.	↑	Lebanon to begin offshore energy search in block disputed by Israel, Reuters 2018-02-09.
11.	↑	Israel, Lebanon argue over offshore energy block, Cyprus Mail, 2018-01-31.
12.	↑	Hezbollah threatens Israeli offshore gas rigs with missiles, Ynetnews 2018-06-02.
13.	↑	Rockets, missiles and more: predicting the third Lebanon war, Jeruselem Post 2018-02-09.
14.	↑	Turkey rejects Israel’s claim Ankara helps Hamas, The Jerusalem Post 2018-02-15.
15.	↑	Israeli Commandos Heading to Cyprus for Largest-ever Drill, Haaretz 2018-02-15.

What I really think is that this is a charade. In fact, the US is making room and facilitating the full entry of Russia into the Middle East, its takeover of the critical gates to the Mediterranean Sea from the Turks, while at the same time facilitating the undermining of Israel through the setting up of a One-State Solution.

If the two-state solution is no longer in the cards, the only alternative is the one-state solution. Right? But isn’t that what the Iranians said all along? Isn’t that the position of Israel’s sworn enemy? Yes, the one-state solution, democratic and multi-cultural!

Trump is just a cover – and a soother of the Israelis’ worst fears, but in fact he is setting up their demise under the guise of US support. Every time there is a further retreat by the US from its strongholds in Syria, this time East Ghouta, all we hear about is North Korea and how hard the US might come down on them.

The North Koreans and the South Koreans, for those who follow at a minimum the latest developments, are doing just fine, hob-nobbing like two brothers at the Olympics, talking about concrete steps towards reunification, while all the MSM are on another planet describing an upcoming unprovoked war as a matter of convenience.

The US is actually assisting, in this way, in cleaning up thousands, tens of thousands of an overpopulation of disposable young Arab males, while at the same time assisting in giving control over Syria back to its legitimate government, under Russian ownership. Furthermore, it closes its eyes to the incredible advance of the Iranian and Hezbollah forces to the very border of Israel, while talking about “high minded” issues like the nonsensical Embassy move to Jerusalem.

By using the false issue of Kurdistan as a direct hit on Turkey, the US is basically pushing its ally into the arms of its centuries-old enemy, which is Russia. If Russia were to take control over the Bosporus and Dardanelles militarily, it would never, ever be able to subdue the Turk guerrillas who would oppose such a perceived humiliation. But if the Turkish government declares itself a vassal of Russia – their savior from the Kurdish threat, that would bring full legitimacy to its capitulation… even if the Turks fought against such an existential threat for about 500 years. All of that goes up like the vapors of a narghile pipe.

The end of the Cold War actually took place in-between 1979-83 with the final Madrid Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which means that the world is now being carved up in a different way, finally rolling up the loose ends, specifically the difficult-to-sell American retreat from Europe and the Middle East.

ISRAEL SHAMIR

Do you remember the terrible onslaught of the mainstream media on presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016? Dozens of revelations about his fake hair, pussy grabbing, tax avoidance and what not; dozens of public polls proving that the nation wanted Hillary and hated Trump, opinion pieces convincing you that only racist white trash could think of voting for him. They even printed that Time weekly (or was it Newsweek?) cover with a Madam President! greeting. And then came the day of counting.

This development comes to my mind as I follow the incessant attacks in the Russian media and social networks on presidential candidate Paul N. Grudinin (usually nicknamed Gru). Russian state-owned TV is supposed, by its charter, to play a neutral role in the election campaign. They did it for a week after his name was entered into the race. In that week’s time, Gru’s rating skyrocketed and almost reached that of President Putin. This was an unexpected turn of events for the Kremlin, whose political witch-doctors expected Gru to make a modest showing and to improve the doubtful legitimacy of the forthcoming elections.

When they recognised the magnitude of their mistake, they gave a command to their obedient TV channels, and Gru became the target of their daily attacks. Out of eight candidates, Gru is the only one who gets negative coverage. About him, they speak bad or nothing, just like about Trump in the US in his time.

A veteran candidate, the old Nationalist Zhirinovsky gets plenty of time on the TV, for he has only one message, Down with Gru. His wild attacks on Gru are broadcasted in every election campaign program every evening on the TV.

There is a spoiler, a tiny ‘Russian Communists’ Trotskyite party, whose only purpose in life is to steal votes from the mainstream Communist Party (KPRF). It is a virtual party that disappears after elections to come back to life before new elections. Some innocent souls in the Russian hinterland vote for them being convinced that this is theCommunist Party. They are violently anti-Gru, and post like mad in Facebook their denunciations of the not-quite-communist Gru.

However, Gru is not a run-of-the-mill communist candidate. A successful manager of an agricultural holding called Lenin Sovkhoz, he is a good example of Russian industrialists otherwise called ‘Red directors’, that is managers of Soviet factories and enterprises who adjusted to the new system. They are producers of goods for local consumption, and their interests do not coincide with those of the Putin (or Yeltsin) oligarchs. Those oligarchs made their fortunes by importing consumer goods and exporting raw materials; they are the base of Putin’s power.

The producers, both industrialists and agriculturalists, want more protectionist measures and cheaper credits, they want to boost the buying power of ordinary Russians, that is increase salaries and pensions. Their fortunes lie with the fortunes of the ordinary Russian workers. They are dissatisfied with President Putin, and even more with his government led by Mr Medvedev.

Gru became the candidate for a plethora of political organisations from the Left and from the Right; he is supported by Russian Nationalists, though his main alliance is with the KPRF (the mainstream Russian Communist Party). He is a combination of Sanders and Trump, for workers, against immigration, for protective trade barriers and low-cost credits for small producers. A self-made-man of the upper-middle class, not a billionaire, but definitely a wealthy man, he does not scare middle-class Russians who would be afraid to support a real red-in-tooth-and-claw Communist.

Though the official prediction grouop, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, VTSIOM (ВЦИОМ) claims 70% of electorate will vote for Putin and only 7% for Grudinin, the feeling on the ground is very different. There are a few sites allowing people to express their preference by “voting”; a biggish site of this sort is http://president-rf.ru/ where out of 180,000 voters 60% preferred Gru, and only 30% voted for President Putin. On other sites, Gru gets anything from 30 to 80 per cent of the vote.

It is difficult to predict the result, and it is still over a month until election day, but VTSIOM’s assessment appears too low to justify the ferocious campaign against Gru. If he were about to get 6-7%, the top wheeler-dealer, the presidential administration, would not bother and would not activate its troll factories and fake social network accounts to stop Grudinin. It seems that man has a chance to win the battle, that is if the elections are reasonably fair.

Putin has been a good president, and a popular one, but he has his limitations. He still feels obliged to keep the Deal he made with the late President Yeltsin; he still keeps fighting the Soviet memory, he is surrounded by his buddies who roll in cash; he does not support local production except for the weapons industry. While he was good for a long while, there is a feeling that the country is ripe for a changing of the guard.

A teacher in the preparatory school may be wonderful, but sooner or later, the child should move on, to new teachers. Gru is the first man who has excited the Russians since 1996, and he is likely to make a strong bid.

The Russian Left is Different.

Grudinin has the support of the left and of the right; of workers and of managers; of communists and of nationalists. How could this happen? The main reason is that the Russian Left is quite different from the European Left. The Russians are Bolsheviks. The Western Left is predominantly Menshevik.

Historically, the Russian Social Democrats were divided into Bolsheviks, the Majorites, and Mensheviks, the Minorites. The actual argument that divided the Social Democrats into these majority and minority groups is of little importance now and of even less relevance. Nowadays, the Majorites are the Left for the Majority, while Minorites are the Left for Minorities.

The Russian Left is the force for the majority, for the workers, for the natives. The Western Left is for gender, ethnic, religious minorities. If you’d ask a Western worker about the Left, he will probably tell you: the Left is not for us, they care only for gays and migrants who take our jobs.

Mensheviks are (and were) better for Jews, as Jews are the ultimate minority. Bolsheviks accepted Jews as individuals and equals, not as a separate and preferred minority group. Bolsheviks fought against the Bund, the Jewish Social Democrats, while the Mensheviks joined with the Bund.

Stalin observed (and Trotsky quoted that in his book on Stalin):

“the majority of the Menshevik group were Jews. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of the Bolshevik group were ethnic Russians. In this connection a Bolshevik observed in jest that the Mensheviks constituted a Jewish group while the Bolsheviks constituted a true-Russian group and, therefore, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for us Bolsheviks to organise a pogrom in the Party”.

While being comradely to Jewish comrades, Stalin effectively de-Jewified the Russian Communist Party by bringing in many ethnic Russian workers and peasants. He treated the Jews as just one of the tribes populating Eurasia, not as the Chosen Ones. This is the sin of Stalin in Jewish eyes, and that is why they condemn him now.

The Jewish influence in the Western Left has survived all these years and even outlived the massive Jewish involvement with the Left. After 1968, the Jews en masse departed to new pastures, but their influence lingered, entrenching the Jewish-friendly Menshevik tendency. They adapted the Western Left to fit their preferences and made it suitable for cohabitation with the elites. Along the way, they had lost their working class support, but they were more interested in keeping with the rulers.

The Jewish-run Mensheviks fit perfectly into the oligarchy. They believe that Anna and Susan Wojicki, the former wife of Sergei (“Google”) Brin and her sister, are unhappy discriminated women, unlike welders and auto mechanics, who are white men, the patriarchal lords of the world.

The Bolsheviks struggle for women’s equality is exemplified in free kindergartens, and the Mensheviks, in reserved places for women in the directorships of large companies.

Mensheviks are concerned about the rights of transgender people to a urinal of their preference. The Bolsheviks are concerned about the right of workers to work, to a decent wage, to their share of natural resources. You can easily understand what sort of Left is preferred in the eyes of mainstream media and their billionaire owners.

Migrants provide another cause of distinction. The Western working class achieved much during the years of the Cold War, when the Western ruling class had to compete with the Communists for workers’ loyalty. Now the rulers are eager to void these achievements – and the easiest way is through population replacement by the massive importation of migrants and refugees. For this purpose, Capital is waging wars in the Middle East and fanning strife in Africa, and they facilitate the refugees’ flight to Europe and America.

The Mensheviks, that is the Western Left, support migrants against the indigenous population, in the name of their anti-racism and internationalism. However, for all practical reasons they do the work for their masters, because migrants are easier to manipulate, they help to lower salaries, to undermine the workers’ organisations, and to destroy natural solidarity.

The Bolsheviks are against the causes of mass migration, against the use of migrants and refugees to the detriment of the indigenous population. This is the position of the Russian Communists, whose anti-migration rhetoric is so outspoken that even Trumpists would find it too brusque.

Mr Grudinin has a history of anti-immigration demands behind him. He calls for enforcing a visa regime with the Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kirgizstan, as now their working migrants do not need a Russian visa. He insists that every working migrant should be given the same salary as a native Russian worker, the idea being that in such conditions there will be less demand for migrants’ labour. Perhaps it makes sense to hire inexperienced dirt-cheap Tajik migrants, but if for the same price you can hire a qualified Russian worker, you will probably employ the latter.

Grudinin’s suggestions are anathema to the neo-liberal Kremlin. Putin keeps the doors of Russia wide open for immigration, to the detriment of native workers. If the immigration flow has decreased it is mostly the result of Rouble’s depreciation.

In the West, these ideas of limiting migration belong fully to the realm of the Right, or even the Alt-Right. They are described as “populist”, meaning they are popular but disapproved by the ruling elites. The Western Left has been manipulated into an unpopular position, while the popular (‘populist’) ideas have been transferred to the Right.

In Russia, the Russian Communists did not follow the path of the Mensheviks. They made all sorts of compromises, but they always stayed for the workers. They do not fight for gays, migrants and upper-class feminists. They make allies with the producers and against the rentiers and bankers.

Perhaps the Russian Communists will show the way to their Western comrades as they did a hundred years ago. These two branches of the world Left movement have had a checkered history. In the 19th century, the new-born Russian revolutionary movement was keen to learn from the West; the Russian Narodniks went on a pilgrimage to visit Marx in London seeking his advice. The Western revolutionaries of that time (including Marx) were as distrustful of Russians as Robert Mueller or John McCain. They thought Russia was so backward and so reactionary that a Russian progressive Left was an impossibility.

And then something unexpected had happened. When the guns of the First World War struck, only the Russian Left, led by Vladimir Lenin, did not lose their heads, but led their country to the victory of socialist revolution. After 1917, for many years the Russian Left was the guiding star for the world Left.

The Russians paid heavily for their cutting edge achievement, while the European peoples became the main beneficiaries of the October Revolution. They’ve got all the Russians fought for, for free. Their leaders were afraid their workers would go over to the Communists; and thus the welfare state came into being.

Eventually, both branches of the Left forgot their history. The Western Left forgot their victories were due to the Red Army’s might, and they proudly preached the new-fangled theories of Euro-Communism. The Russians, always eager to learn a new trick, fell for it, and dismantled the socialist state, sincerely expecting they would live as good as Swedes. The end was gruesome: the Russians were plunged into long years of depopulation and de-industrialisation, while the flagship of the Western left, the huge Euro-Communist parties of France and Italy disappeared. Swedish socialism has almost perished.

Over the years, the Western Left virtually disappeared, and its place was taken by the pseudo-left, who appropriated the name of the historical Left parties. Capital raised in its secret labs this poisonous pseudo-Left, with one supreme goal in mind – to make the very name of communism obnoxious and repelling.

For the Bolsheviks, the Good Ones were workers, they were the salt of the earth. Everyone could join this class by identifying with workers. The Menshevik pseudo-left has offered a shortcut to join the Good Ones: Identity Politics. You are Good if you are discriminated against. If you are black, you suffer discrimination, even if you are an Obama. If you are a woman, you suffer discrimination. If you like BDSM, you are discriminated against. If you are a migrant, you are discriminated against. If you are a Jew, a Soros or a Rothschild, you are still suffer discrimination, for just half a century ago your grandfather was not allowed to join a country club.

For Bolsheviks, discrimination is not the most urgent problem. They are surely against discrimination; but it takes a backseat after the really important question: labour/capital relationship. When the working people win, discrimination will vanish, they say. By keeping the eye on this most important bottom line, the Bolsheviks are the greatest natural enemies of the 1%.

The cause of socialism was defeated in 1991, no doubt, but it is not the first defeat. In November 1941, when the German troops reached the outskirts of Moscow, it also appeared socialism had been defeated. However, in 1945 socialism rebounded. Since 1991, the winner, Capital, claims its victory is irrevocable and irreversible. It is, they say, the end of history.

But victories and defeats can be reversed. The Soviets did not know that. They believed that “the victory of socialism is inevitable because it is progressive.” Perhaps in the long run it is inevitable, but it can happen in a thousand years, and meanwhile a nuclear war or biological experiments can exterminate the human race.

The most basic ideals of French Republic – democracy, liberty, equality – were defeated by Napoleon, by the Bourbons, by Orleans, but they rebounded.

Nothing is inevitable. The Soviet Bolsheviks believed in inevitability – and lost; while their adversaries just fought hard, not giving an inch – and won. Their attitude should be emulated. The people of the West are ready for the real-Left turn. Recent successes of Jeremy Corbyn in England, of Bernie Sanders in the US, of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France prove it. They are soft, but hard ones will come, too.

This is not the beginning of the end of the cruel man-eating neo-liberalism and its Menshevik allies, but this is the end of the beginning in the universal battle for socialism, as Churchill said of the British victory over the Germans at El Alamein. The light at the end of the tunnel is already visible. And then the Russian Communists will again become the beacon for the workers of the world.

Gru’s success can change a lot of things. His worldview has many points in common with Donald Trump. In a month’ time, we shall know how far this Russian Trump has succeeded in advancing.

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam

This article was first published at The Unz Review.