Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, March 06, 2014
The Real Way the West Can Impact Ukraine / Politics / Natural Gas
By: Money_Morning
Dr. Kent Moors writes: The weather is taking a decidedly better turn here in London these past few days.
It's a good thing, because all of the talk currently in British circles is about the deteriorating situation in Ukraine.
These concerns involve the all-too-obvious geopolitical impacts of a Russian takeover of Crimea and perhaps a broader swath of Eastern Ukraine.
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Thursday, March 06, 2014
Ukraine and the Paet-Ashton leak. Only Olga Bogomolets knows - if you can find her / Politics / Eastern Europe
By: Michael_T_Bucci
I woke to find an email from a gentleman in UK who alerted me to an important breaking story/video from Russia that had been uploaded to YouTube. It showed how propaganda is a two-way street.
F R O M R U S S I A
The story/video appeared Wednesday, March 5 reporting the release of a taped conversation between Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton.
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Wednesday, March 05, 2014
Would England Use Force To Stop Scottish Independence? / Politics / UK Politics
By: Andrew_McKillop
No to English Annexation
At its simplest, any English action to prevent Scotland seceding from the 1707 Union would be a land and resource grab. Muddy England has one of the highest population densities in the world, about 400 persons per square kilometer, compared with about 75 in Scotland. Overcrowded England needs Scotland for lebensraum, as Hitler called it. Apart from oil and gas, Scotland also has whisky, fishing, lumber and tourist assets and resources. Which overcrowded England has less of, or none at all.
Wednesday, March 05, 2014
US Schools Go Full-Bore Soviet / Politics / Educating Children
By: Jeff_Berwick
Wendy McElroy writes: 
"Give me the children until they are seven, and anyone may have them afterwards." – attrib. St. Francis Xavier.
Obama is cementing his redefinition of America by federalizing the minds of its future: children. The federal Common Core program seeks to “align” the curriculum and standards of public school systems that have been under state jurisdiction. The program is said to be voluntary but then, so are taxes.
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Wednesday, March 05, 2014
Bankers Reveal Their Crimes / Politics / Banksters
By: LibertyGoldAndSilver
The alternate financial media has been abuzz of late with bizarre stories of the alleged suicides of prominent members of world banking and finance. Over recent weeks, between eight and twelve (some say as many as twenty) successful traders and managers involved with FOREX trading and other derivative currency speculation, have conveniently “decided” to throw themselves from the roof tops of a variety of JP Morgan Chase banks in London, Hong Kong, and New York. Another top banking official, William Broeksmit, former executive at Deutsche Bank, was found hanged in his London home.
Wednesday, March 05, 2014
Has the U.S. has Installed a Neo-Nazi Government in Ukraine? / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Michel_Chossudovsky
According to the New York Times, “The United States and the European Union have embraced the revolution here as another flowering of democracy, a blow to authoritarianism and kleptocracy in the former Soviet space.” ( After Initial Triumph, Ukraine’s Leaders Face Battle for Credibility, NYTimes.com, March 1, 2014, emphasis added)
“Flowering Democracy, Revolution”? The grim realities are otherwise. What is a stake is a US-EU-NATO sponsored coup d’Etat in blatant violation of international law.
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Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Czar Putin's Annexation of Crimea Ukraine, Lesson for Independent Scotland? / Politics / UK Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The ease to which the Russian military descended upon Crimea and several eastern parts of Ukraine reeks of pre-planning of several several weeks if not months. Therefore Russia is not just reacting to events in Kiev but will likely have orchestrated the whole build up including the events that saw the Berkut special police open fire on protestors in Kiev, as all part of Putin's plan for the dismemberment of Ukraine before Ukraine forms closer ties with the European Union, ultimately joining the EU and NATO.
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Will Russia Go to War Over Ukraine? Don’t Bet on It / Politics / Russia
By: Vitaliy_Katsenelson
It is hard for me to see a full-blown war between Russia and Ukraine. There are so few cultural differences between these two countries. Ukraine has its own language, but almost everyone (outside of small villages) speaks flawless Russian. If there is a war between these two countries, it will be a civil war.
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Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Ukraine Crisis - Three Views / Politics / Eastern Europe
By: John_Mauldin
All eyes are on Ukraine as the drama continues to unfold. Today, for an early Outside the Box, I’m going to offer three sources on Ukraine. The first is a note that I got from the head of emerging-market trading at one of the world’s largest hedge funds. This is what he sent out last week, ahead of any real action:
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Ukraine and the 'Little Cold War' / Politics / Russia
By: STRATFOR
We must consider the future of Eurasia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Since 1991, the region has fragmented and decayed. The successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia, is emerging from this period with renewed self-confidence. Yet Russia is also in an untenable geopolitical position. Unless Russia exerts itself to create a sphere of influence, the Russian Federation could itself fragment.
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Ukraine Mounting Tensions, World at Boiling Point Exacerbated by News Media / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: Michael_T_Bucci
The tensions in Ukraine continue to mount. Russian reports wrestle with Western ones, which are solidly aligned in demonizing Russia while concealing hard facts underlying a Western-engineered coup. I'm afraid independent writers in the West (and Russia too) submitting balanced opinion will find few venues available to them now; fewer friendly editors courageous enough to brave censure at the hands of our Western version of the "state-controlled" press. "War fever" - induced by major papers, AP, Reuters, etc., - infecting both conservatives and liberals - means McCarthyism II will no doubt be resurrected and enforced in short order. Dossiers from NSA Utah will help sort critics and dissenters from patriots.
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Preparing for Obama’s 2015 Budget / Politics / Government Spending
By: F_F_Wiley
The goal that was identified by Simpson-Bowles was to reduce the deficit as a percentage of GDP to below 3%, but what our budget projection shows is that over the course of the next ten years (or in ten years) the percentage will actually be below 2%. So we’ve made substantial progress in reducing the deficit. - White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest, offering a preview of Obama’s 2015 budget proposal to be unveiled tomorrow
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Monday, March 03, 2014
Government Water and Drought in California / Politics / Water Sector
By: MISES
Kathryn Muratore writes: Everyone is well-aware of record snow in the northeast and a drought in the west. I think back to when I was a Philadelphian who had never crossed the Mississippi and realize how foreign the weather of California is to the average east-coaster. In the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Valley, alike, it does not rain between about April 1st and October 1st. I don’t mean “it doesn’t rain much.” I mean it Does. Not. Rain. At. All.
Monday, March 03, 2014
Is Ukraine A Case of Botched Kingmaking? / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Raul_I_Meijer
John Kerry made me laugh yesterday. Not that he seems to be a very amusing man, but then I don’t think he was looking to entertain. And there’s not a lot of funny material to be found in the Ukraine situation to begin with, obviously. But John still found an angle. Kerry, in his quest to appear muscular in his use of language and make Russia look like a nation filled with demons, said this on Sunday’s Face The Nation:
“You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text … “
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Monday, March 03, 2014
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel 'Defense Cuts' Are Smoke And Mirrors / Politics / US Military
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Last week Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel proposed an additional 40,000 reduction in active duty US Army personnel, down to 450,000 soldiers. As US troops are being withdrawn from the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it might make sense to reduce not only the active duty military but the entire military budget. However, from the interventionists' reaction to Hagel's announcement you might think President Obama announced he was shutting down the Pentagon!
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Monday, March 03, 2014
Memo To Putin – To Punish You, We Will Pay More For Oil, Gas And Gold / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Andrew_McKillop
Push Down the Ruble, Push Up Oil, Gas and Gold Prices
True to its self-assigned role of gung-ho promotion of the New World Order (whatever that is) the 'Wall Street Journal' of Rupert Murdoch led its Monday March 3 edition with the news that “The U.S. and its European allies vowed Sunday to isolate Russian president Putin and punish his nation's economy, demanding he withdraw what they called an occupation force from Ukraine's Crimean region”.
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Sunday, March 02, 2014
Why The EU Will Not Resist Putin's Ukraine Military Coup / Politics / Energy Resources
By: Andrew_McKillop
Gaseuro Recycling and Petrodollar Recycling
Much more discreet and more easily denied than also-denied petrodollar recycling operated by the US and Saudi Arabia, the EU's gaseuro and petroeuro recycling operated with Russia, especially by Germany, Italy and France but also by other EU states is starkly different to the “petrodollar system” because it is an economic win-win. Because of this, the EU after ritual blethering and cries of alarm will avoid operating economic, trade, monetary or other sanctions against Russia.
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Sunday, March 02, 2014
New York Times Fed's Transcripts the Greatest Propaganda Coup of Our Time? / Politics / Propaganda
By: Mike_Whitney
There’s good propaganda and bad propaganda. Bad propaganda is generally crude, amateurish Judy Miller “mobile weapons lab-type” nonsense that figures that people are so stupid they’ll believe anything that appears in “the paper of record.” Good propaganda, on the other hand, uses factual, sometimes documented material in a coordinated campaign with the other major media to cobble-together a narrative that is credible, but false.
Sunday, March 02, 2014
Third World America - Bp Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill Coverup - Video / Politics / Oil Companies
By: Jesse
As we approach the fourth anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Disaster, perhaps it is a good time to remember the great success it represents, the success in shifting the thoughts of attention deficient Americans from the things that really matter, like honest and accountable government.
Is anything really different, or have we just been prompted to move on and think about something else? Will the US be better prepared to deal with the next financial or environmental crisis?
Saturday, March 01, 2014
Putin and the Central Asia Black Hole / Politics / Russia
By: Andrew_McKillop
From Black Hole to Nuclear Singularity
The former United States National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in his 1997 book “The Grand Chessboard”, called the wide sweep of post-Soviet Eastern Europe and Central Asia the "Black Hole" and "Eurasian Balkans." The area is what geopoliticians as far back as the USA's Alfred Thayer Mahan, in 1900, called a Debated and Debatable region – meaning a disputed ethnic cauldron prone to instability and constant conflict, with only restricted, or even totally absent national identities, riven with religious, historical, political, ethnic and cultural influences, often organized into tribal or clan systems of power, nearly always poor - and always unpredictable. Despite or because of this, also due to resource and market search, and for self-defence, outside powers have continuously sought control or at least prime influence in this region. Past and present powers engaged in what the British called The Great Game, and the Soviets called The Struggle of the Shadows feature Russia, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Pakistan, India, the US and the EU.
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