Russia-Ukraine gas talks collapse –like when the US tried to pull off its little con game using Georgia to bomb South Ossetia. Vladimir Putin has responded to the US and its Klan of Western European allies, that Russia will not be dragged further into the Third World by capitalist imperialism. That’s what it’s all about, too, as both the former Chinese and Russian ‘socialist’ bureaucrats were promised full partnerships in the imperialist capitalist world if only they would tag along quietly behind the US and its world allies. Instead, the Pentagon has been trying to push both countries backwards and not forwards. The USA government has been having its own way for the last three decades doing it, too.
Colonialism 101 is something that the former ‘Marxist-Leninist buffoons running China and the Soviet Union back then never learned for themselves, let alone taught to others in their pantomime of playing ‘Great Helmsmen’ cartoon roles for the world public. Both Russia and China drifted away from internationalism and solidarity with the oppressed of the poorer and exploited Third World masses of destitute laborers, and instead began to ape assholes like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in their politics. They wanted their places on the big table alongside their capitalist associates of Great Britain and the US, Germany, France, and Japan. The dummies were conned, and Putin is quite aware of that by now. Further, he understands Peak Oil is a reality, as well as Peak Gas.
In his words, ‘Cheap Energy’ is over for you guys, and now we’re not just going to sit by and let you pillage everything from our country, Russia. Sadly, our own US ‘leaders’, from Obama to Clinton to Bush to all of the schmucks up there are nothing but criminal robbers and murderers, and world war is soon in the cards if the common folk don’t begin to wise up in the US and Britain, Germany, France, and Japan quite soon. Not to mention the utter ecological destruction of our planet in the cards for all of us quite soon, too, if we continue to fail to act.
That picture is of the university in Gaza being bombed by the US… Oh, I meant Israel. Sorry….
Happy New Year.
News just in about unrepentant criminals and their family members…. This story is about one Russian man, Mr. ‘Michael’ Khodorkovsky, and how his family is not taking his trip to the Federal Pen very well. In deed they are not!
‘Khodorkovsky’s business partner, Platon Lebedev, also received a 14-year sentence.
Khodorkovsky didn’t say anything in court; he just smiled from inside a bulletproof-glass enclosure. But his elderly mother, Marina, shouted to the judge, “You be damned, and your ancestors too.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-russia-tycoon-20101231,0,6457166.story
Sounds like the man has a lovely and devoted mom, doesn’t she? She certainly took the bad news for her son poorly, but what about Michael’s brothers and sisters, David, Barack, and Angela? How are they taking the news of his criminal convictions? Poorly, too, it seems. They don’t think that a business owner robbing billions is a crime!
West chides Russia over ex-tycoon Khodorkovsky trial ….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12097060
Mike Whitney writes in today’s edition of Counterpunch the following….
‘…The Obama administration has also interceded on Khodorkovsky’s behalf even before the verdict was delivered. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the US was troubled by “what appears to be an abusive use of the legal system for improper ends”.
“The apparent selective application of the law to these individuals undermines Russia’s reputation as a country committed to deepening the rule of law.”
Gibbs failed to note how many crooked CEOs or CFOs of major Wall Street firms have been investigated, indicted, prosecuted, arrested, tried, or convicted?
So far, that number is zero. So much for the Obama administration’s commitment to the rule of law.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also put in her two-cents saying that a conviction would have a “negative impact on Russia’s reputation.”
Right. This is the same Hillary Clinton who has thrown her support behind the Patriot Act, the intrusive/illegal TSA “pat downs”, the limitless detention of terror suspects, increased surveillance of US citizens, and the de facto repeal of habeas corpus.
Clinton’s credibility on civil liberties is zilch.
Imagine what it would be like to live in a country where the rich had to play by the same rules as everyone else? Presumably, one would have to move to Russia. There is no expectation of justice in the US today. None.
Khodorkovsky was convicted because he’s a crook and because the Russian justice system is less corrupt than the one in the US. His incarceration is a victory for the people who want to see the law applied fairly regardless of how rich someone is.’
full commentary at… http://www.counterpunch.com/whitney12312010.html
We might mention also here that this Democratic Party Administration of Obama’s was earlier this year proclaiming its own ‘right to assassinate American citizens without any trial or legal process accorded to the victims they would choose…