U.S. ups the ante: are we indeed headed into WWIII and what can save us?

Gilbert Doctorow, 9/9/22

The UK and Commonwealth may be mourning the passing of Queen Elizabeth II yesterday. I am in mourning as well, but for a very different reason: the gathering of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in the Ramstein air base in Germany yesterday reshuffled the deck on Western military and financial assistance to Ukraine, raising contributions to the ongoing holy crusade against Russia from still more nations and adding new, still more advanced precision strike weapons to the mix of deliveries to Kiev. It was an open summons to the Kremlin to escalate in turn, as were the test firing the same day of a new intercontinental rocket, the Minuteman III, from Vandenberg air base in California and the unannounced visit to Kiev yesterday of not only Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was featured in Western media accounts, but also other top officials of the Biden administration. The most notorious member of this delegation was surely Blinken’s deputy, Victoria Nuland, who had stage managed the February 2014 coup that put in power in Kiev the Russia-hating regime that Zelensky now heads.

Gilbert Doctorow: U.S. ups the ante: are we indeed headed into WWIII and what can save us?

Related:

A Former US Marine Corps Officer’s Analysis of the Ukraine War (archived, in case the original is removed)

H/T: Natylie’s Place: Understanding Russia

Rahul Gandhi – The Most Establishment Populist, protests rising prices, lack of jobs

Rahul Gandhi – The Most Establishment Populist

This ambitious attempt to reconnect with the masses fails to take into account what Gandhi himself acknowledged in London: that the INC was central to building the structures that it now claims have been captured by the BJP and RSS. Gandhi also ignores that the INC [Indian National Congress] itself was central to corrupting these structures.

Banerjee’s criticism gets to the heart of the problem that Gandhi faces with the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Looking to the people of India for support to oppose the BJP makes sense, it will indeed take a large supporter base to remove the BJP and release its grip from the tools of power. The INC and Gandhi, however, cannot expect to build such a support base on an anti-corruption and anti-state capture march. As Gandhi himself acknowledged, the INC was central to putting in place the structures of independent India. What he fails to recognize, or acknowledge, is that the INC also has its own very real and recent history of exploiting these very same structures, whether to suspend the rule of law and hold on to power or simply to extract wealth while in power. In the multiparty contest to dethrone Modi, the INC cannot easily pivot from embodying the Indian state itself to campaigning on a populist charge to oppose the deep state.

Related:

India’s main opposition protests rising prices, lack of jobs

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW DELHI (AP) — Thousands of Indians rallied on Sunday under key opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, who made a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government over soaring unemployment and rising food and fuel prices in the country.

Notes for Self:

Read More »

Real Estate CEO: Recession Could Be “Good” if “Unemployment … Puts Employers Back in the Driver Seat”

The CEO and president of Douglas Emmett Inc., a real estate corporation worth over $3 billion and based in Santa Monica, California, said on an August 2 corporate earnings call that a recession could be “good” for the commercial real estate business “if it comes with a level of unemployment that puts employers back in the driver seat and allows them to get all their employees back into the office.” The executive, Jordan Kaplan, then repeated that “the thought would be that unemployment would be up. And therefore, employers would be in the driver seat to bring people back in the office, which is where they want them.”

Real Estate CEO: Recession Could Be “Good” if “Unemployment … Puts Employers Back in the Driver Seat”

CIA intimidated Britain to force ‘ally’ to cut ties with China’s Huawei

“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests” ― Henry Kissinger

Aug 24, 2022 – The Donald Trump White House and CIA ran “black ops” to intimate close US “ally” Britain to cut all ties with China’s tech giant Huawei, hurting the UK’s own economic interests in order to advance Washington’s trade war on Beijing.

Multipolarista

Resource: 5G wars: the US plot to make Britain ditch Huawei

Europe Looks To Reduce Dependence On China’s Critical Minerals

Europe Looks To Reduce Dependence On China’s Critical Minerals

China is the dominant player on the markets for the materials used in solar panels, batteries, and magnets. European countries have recently ramped up efforts to establish local supply chains and diversify imports away from one dominant supplier, especially if this supplier is Russian ally China.

According to the European Commission, China provides 98% of the EU’s supply of rare earth elements (REE).

China could reduce exports of critical materials, as authorities said in the latest five-year plan that the country would cut overseas shipments to meet the rise in demand domestically, Deutsche Welle noted earlier this year.

Germany’s economy, Europe’s biggest, became more dependent on China during the first half of 2022, according to a study by the German Economic Institute (IW) seen by Reuters.