I was on RT this morning, commenting on the events in Ukraine.
Honestly, I don't understand how anyone can believe the utter rubbish coming out of the EU and peddled by the mainstream Western media these days. Srdja Trifkovic explains the whole thing pretty clearly here, but let me try summing it up even further.
Brussels did not offer Kiev a "deal" - they demanded unconditional surrender. Current trade arrangements with Russia, far more favorable to Ukraine than what the EU offers, would have ended - yet Kiev would have nothing to show for it but promises of eventual EU "aid."
Think of it this way: someone offers you a "deal" to quit your job, and in return he'll move into your house, take all your possessions (to do with them as he pleases) while you go beg on the street to make rent (because you have to support him living in your house now), all for a promise that in a decade or so, he might give you some money. Maybe. If he's not broke by then.
Would you do such a thing? No? Then why would Ukraine?
Ah, but the "evil Russians" this and that. Nonsense. Moscow is all about commerce, while Brussels and Washington are all about coercion. It isn't Moscow's (phantom) operatives staging "revolutions" and promoting "regime change" around the world, but "activists" funded by EU and US governments - even as EU and US citizens sink into poverty themselves, bled dry to support an Empire.
The EU is not some mythical land of plenty, with rainbows and unicorns and manna from heaven. It is the hungry of Greece, the robbed of Cyprus, the debtors of Ireland, the corruption of Italy, the ghost cities of Spain and the destitute of Portugal. It's the "guest workers" of Poland, the starving Bulgarian potato-diggers, and the Nazis of Croatia.
And EU's support for the rioters in Kiev basically means that "democracy" is whatever they say it is, and violence is perfectly acceptable if it's for the "proper" (that is, EU) cause. You'd think people who lived under such "logic" for 70 years, and profess to despise it, would recognize it when it's shoved in their faces.
I understand the Galicians wanting to rejoin Austria-Hungary (not that they'd be any happier there, but whatever). I even understand Vitaly Klitschko; he did take a lot of blows to the head. But what's everyone else's excuse?
Honestly, I don't understand how anyone can believe the utter rubbish coming out of the EU and peddled by the mainstream Western media these days. Srdja Trifkovic explains the whole thing pretty clearly here, but let me try summing it up even further.
Brussels did not offer Kiev a "deal" - they demanded unconditional surrender. Current trade arrangements with Russia, far more favorable to Ukraine than what the EU offers, would have ended - yet Kiev would have nothing to show for it but promises of eventual EU "aid."
Think of it this way: someone offers you a "deal" to quit your job, and in return he'll move into your house, take all your possessions (to do with them as he pleases) while you go beg on the street to make rent (because you have to support him living in your house now), all for a promise that in a decade or so, he might give you some money. Maybe. If he's not broke by then.
Would you do such a thing? No? Then why would Ukraine?
Ah, but the "evil Russians" this and that. Nonsense. Moscow is all about commerce, while Brussels and Washington are all about coercion. It isn't Moscow's (phantom) operatives staging "revolutions" and promoting "regime change" around the world, but "activists" funded by EU and US governments - even as EU and US citizens sink into poverty themselves, bled dry to support an Empire.
The EU is not some mythical land of plenty, with rainbows and unicorns and manna from heaven. It is the hungry of Greece, the robbed of Cyprus, the debtors of Ireland, the corruption of Italy, the ghost cities of Spain and the destitute of Portugal. It's the "guest workers" of Poland, the starving Bulgarian potato-diggers, and the Nazis of Croatia.
And EU's support for the rioters in Kiev basically means that "democracy" is whatever they say it is, and violence is perfectly acceptable if it's for the "proper" (that is, EU) cause. You'd think people who lived under such "logic" for 70 years, and profess to despise it, would recognize it when it's shoved in their faces.
I understand the Galicians wanting to rejoin Austria-Hungary (not that they'd be any happier there, but whatever). I even understand Vitaly Klitschko; he did take a lot of blows to the head. But what's everyone else's excuse?
3 comments:
"EU and US citizens sink into poverty themselves, bled dry to support an Empire."
From what I understand the cost of foreign aid is trivial. The military costs (more relevant to US case than EU) are more substantial, but hardly bleeding the US dry. Military spending as a % of GDP is lower than most of the Cold War.
To the extent the EU and US go bankrupt it won't be because of empire but rather due to growing entitlements and welfare linked to demographic trends.
That's not to say the foreign policy of the US and EU isn't insane and wasteful, it clearly is; but simply to put things in perspective.
Michael, what you quote are the visible costs. But there are the unseen, opportunity costs as well.
The welfarism and demographics are part and parcel of this particular imperial enterprise, as is the stifling of economic activity and support for transnational big business - which ties into foreign adventures to "make the world safe" for big corporate donor X, making it more unsafe for everyone.
Think of it this way: military spending and foreign aid are trees, but the imperial government with all its trappings is the forest.
And here is Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute, talking to RT about the events in Ukraine.
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