It was a couple of days ago that we could see the press conference with the participation of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. We could have an opportunity to listen to the argumentation of the two parties at length. We, that is, those who had access to the material posted on YouTube or elsewhere. We could feel like lay judges or assessors in a trial, weighing what one side to the conflict says against what the other side to the conflict says. And that’s it. Having listened to the announcements, we can form our opinion, make an evaluation and pass judgement.

Is that what we are usually confronted with? Not by any means! Television or radio broadcasters along with the press and internet news outlets cut the announcements of the parties involved into a handful of selected sentences and then put them together intertwined with the interpretation imposed by those who run the medium. We never, ever get the opportunity to listen – at ease – to the argumentation of the contestants.

It is even worse. What the media present – the aforementioned digested precis – is immediately followed up by TV talking heads or by a written comment from a big figure, and they again dissect what we have had no opportunity to listen to in full. They thus make sure that we – the recipients of the news – know precisely how to understand things or – to put it even better – who is the guilty party. They serve no useful purpose for us. They might be easily dispensed with. If they were dispensed with, then what would we need journalists for?

One might answer: for nothing. Yet, no. Journalists could be useful after all. How? They should be given the task of letting the politicians or leaders have their full say, also in confrontation with their opponents. How? By organizing such conferences or visiting the said politicians or leaders in their places and having them lay down their views and evaluations of events and of the actions taken by their opponents. That’s it.

Oh, yes. Journalist might also come in handy explaining or reminding of things that the viewers, listeners, readers might not be familiar with or may have forgotten. If Minister Lavrov or Secretary Truss mention the Minsk Protocol (the document signed in 2014 by Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France), then the journalists would duly remind of or explain (delete as applicable) what the Protocol was all about. Here again, a full text made available for all to read would be a must. No interpretations, no cuts allowed. You see the point?

If a conflict between Serbs and Albanians arises, the journalist should do his best to contact the best advocates of either side’s interests on either side to the conflict, let them present their case and, again, that’s it. The journalist might – if possible – hold an Oxford-like debate, where belligerents have their say, without being interrupted, without being compelled to answer questions that direct their attention and that of their listeners, viewers or readers away from what they really want to say, and without any audience that is instructed to boo and hiss so as to exert pressure on the speaker. The readers, viewers or listeners should then be left alone with what they read, saw and heard to evaluate, to judge, and to draw inferences. Why are we not given this opportunity?

Have you heard straight from the horse’s mouth via your media what Saddam Hussein or Muammar Qaddafi had to say, how they viewed the conflict with the West, what they complained about? Highly unlikely, to put it mildly. Instead, all you can hear is that President Assad is nasty, that President Lukashenko is Europe’s last dictator, that President Putin is a killer, that President Hussein gassed Kurds while Qaddafi or Milošević used to eat babies for breakfast or dinner in between pauses devoted to herding their opponents in concentration camps. Can’t we see how biased it all is?

There are two or four – depending on the point of view – political powers that vie for global dominance: the collective West, and the collective East. The former is made up of the English-speaking countries (Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand) and the European Union with Germany as its leader and France as the leader’s right-hand man; the latter is composed of the Russian Federation and China. In either political camp there are centripetal and centrifugal forces. Apparently, Berlin and Paris go hand in hand with Washington and London when it comes to subverting the stability in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia; for all that, France and Germany seek to emancipate themselves from American patronizing. Similarly, Moscow and Beijing are mutually attracted by shared interests and simultaneously divided by frictions. Russia and the Middle Kingdom make a stand against the collective West, which they perceive as a threat. Still, they vie for preponderance in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kirghistan), Siberia and generally for leadership in this part of the world. The conflict between the Anglophere and Russia seems to be coming to the fore, with China and the European Union creating a backdrop to it. The Geneva talks held recently between Washington and Moscow look like a continuation of similar endless negotiations between the United States and the former Soviet Union. The first Cold War ended, the second one is in progress. The former brought a peaceful victory for one party to the conflict; how will the current one end? In a hot war? In another relatively peaceful solution? Which country will emerge victorious?

The ideologically motivated green economy seems to be doing a grave disservice to the collective West and especially the European Union. Prices for energy are skyrocketing while measures taken to combat the notorious virus stymie huge sections of economy and make Europeans and Americans feel insecure about the future. Add to it the rapidly changing ethnic make-up of the Old Continent and its extension across the Atlantic and you begin to wonder why should Washington, London, Paris and Berlin be concerned with Moscow and Beijing in the first place. Are German Turks, French Algerians or English Sikhs really going to fight tooth and claw against Russians and Chinese to defend their adopted father-?, mother?-lands if even these words and the notion of national patriotism are frowned upon by the post-Western world hell-bent on extirpating all traditional values of loyalty, self-sacrifice, family and faith? Who do the post-Western liberal governments want to rely upon in times of trouble? On deracinated indigenous Europeans and Americans or on “new” Europeans and Americans made dependent on the welfare, protective, and ubiquitous state? Or maybe on both kinds of Europeans and Americans, those who have been taught to feel guilty about their heritage and pacifist in their dealings with other nations, and those new Europeans and Americans who have been taught to hate European heritage while living off the fat of the land produced by those they hate?

 

Before a volcano erupts, there are warnings. The earth shakes, it stinks of sulphur. Cracks appear.

The confrontation between the great powers enters its final phase. The leading media tell us that humanity should have learned a lesson from the twentieth century. There should be no more wars, in the world government (UN, G20, G8, EU, ASEAN, IMF, WTO, …) all countries are working hand in hand for a bright future. Rubbish! If there had been no nuclear weapons, World War III – a massive, mutual attack – would have started long ago. Globalization and world trade have a soporific effect on people’s consciousness. Nuclear weapons, on the other hand, have a sobering effect. Cruise ships sail happy passengers between hostile countries, other huge container ships transport goods on order, even if a stubborn president introduces tariffs once in a while. The world seems so intertwined and united by WTO that any conflict with weapons seems unprofitable and barbaric. Yet, it is the fleets of the great powers that “secure” this peace. Still, the tension between the powers is constantly growing. Have Americans, for instance, resigned themselves to the fact that China is growing like a yeast dough? That the Chinese dragon, fed by outsourced American economics, is slowly but surely swallowing Eurasia? The off-shore balancer always intervened in history when someone threatened his domination. Just as England once fought everyone (Spain, France, Russia, Germany) in Europe to preserve its hegemony on the Old Continent for decades, so too did the US fight Japan in the 1940s to secure its dominance in the Pacific. China is now expanding its influence in Southeast Asia. Australia is responding by buying American nuclear submarines, which were previously unavailable. In this way, the USA is trying to balance the equilibrium in the Pacific region. Australia was originally supposed to get the submarines from France but cancelled the contract and became entangled in the conflict with Paris, as these submarines could not have technically withstood the Chinese ones. Thus, rifts develop between countries that have had peaceful relations for years: France and Australia.

Do you remember the brilliant Japanese General Yamamoto and his famous appearance at the General Staff in Tokyo shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor? He defied his colleagues at the time and flooded them with data (steel production: USA produces 5 times more than us, aluminium production is 10 times larger than that of Japan, etc.), which was an argument for not starting the war against the USA. The decision-makers did not listen, and Yamamoto had to die for his homeland later. Imagine a Chinese general who now, at the end of 2021, wants to convince his colleagues of the superiority of the USA in readiness for war. They would laugh at him. After all, China has long since surpassed the USA in many areas that are most important for waging war. By the way, American weapons are based on electronics, and electronics are semiconductors and microcontrollers. Hence 20,000 US soldiers on Taiwan, where these parts are mainly produced. And ask yourself: how many days would it take China to occupy Taiwan? A new blitzkrieg on the horizon? How quickly can the current state of affairs be overturned? Continue reading →