Freelander

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So, what is a sanction? Depending on the dictionary, this word may be defined as:

–Action by one or more states toward another state calculated to force it to comply with legal obligations.

Or as:

–A coercive measure, especially one taken by one or more states against another guilty of violating international law.

But we did not need to resort to the dictionary to understand that the word sanction implies the existence of at least two subjects, the sanctioner (A) and the sanctioned (B), plus an object (C): a law or rule to which A and B are submitted by virtue of whatever previous and legitimate pact, be this explicit (a contract, a mutual agreement) or implicit (the Law in general, the ‘social contract’, the family, etc). Thus, in order for A to impose sanctions on B we absolutely need, at the very least, four elements: 1st), that both subjects acknowledge to be mutually bound to C; 2nd), that C stablishes the authority of either part (or of A towards B) to punish the other in case of breach; 3rd), that B has effectively broken the pact and is guilty according to C (or to complementary and mutually accepted rules); and 4th), that the sanction corresponding to the breach is either provided in C or may be legitimately established in accordance to complementary and mutually accepted rules.

Hence it follows that the so-called ‘economic sanctions’ imposed by the West on the Russian Federation (RF) on occasion of the latter’s Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine cannot properly be called sanctions, for even if three of the above elements were met in this case (which I do not know), the fact is that no one whose authority on such matter be mutually acknowledged by both the West and the RF has so far declared the latter guilty of by its SMO violating international law or legal obligations. Thus, the West has no more right to impose unilateral sanctions on Russia than Russia has on the West. Either those sanctions are illegitimate, or they cannot be called sanctions at all, which is what I think.

Indeed, when I am angry with the shop tender down the street because he is not behaving according to my wishes, and then I stop buying stuff from him, I am not sanctioning him: I am retaliating in order to coerce him to comply with my desires. And the same goes for the case in study: Western ‘economic sanctions’ on Russia are, actually, economic reprisals, also known as blackmail; and that is how anyone concerned with the truth should properly call them.

Most people would  agree with the idea that the world is basically governed by Big Money. There are exceptions, but I think we may assume as a fact that this is the general rule. Better informed ones would be able to go a bit further, and point to a few instances of individuals or institutions who are at the top of the Big Money pyramid. Surnames like Rockefeller, Rothschild, Du Pont, Bush, Morgan, or investment funds like Black Rock, State Street and Vanguard, to name only a few, are very familiar to most politically aware and knowledgeable citizens. These families and their funds own big chunks of (when not totally) the most important corporations in the world, in key sectors like energy (Big Oil), media and entertainment, banking, weapons industry, computing, mining, pharmacy (Big Pharma), fertilizers, etc. Thus, multinationals like Exxon, Shell, Texaco, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, BNP, Monsanto, Ratheon, Pfizer, Bayer, and many other banks, oil companies and all sorts of firms yield astronomical amouns of money to a few dozen trilllionaire households. In turn, such wealth allows them to control, when not directly own, the most important film productors, social networks, media platforms, newspapers and even all kinds of official and unofficial institutions all over the planet, mostly in the so-called Western world: Neflix, Disney, the Hollywood propaganda industry, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, The New York times, the WHO, the WEF, and on and on (forgive me if I did not mention your favourite one). With these amounts of money, power and influence, they are in the position of basically control the world, with perhaps the exception of China, arguably Russia, and a bunch of countries economically and politically irrelevant.

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Since Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine, there has begun a tendency, widespread on virtually all the media, plus independent reporters, analysts, bloggers, vloggers, writers, influencers and whatnot, towards publicly mentioning a potential (or impending!) WWIII 3 and/or a thermonuclear war. I am sure many of these people are honestly and really afraid that such events, specially the second, may eventually come about. But, on the other hand, it is well known that no headtitle gets an article more clics than those containing either “WWIII” or “nuclear war” in it. And even readers who “simply” clic on those contents usually do not hesitate in sharing them, thus decissively contributing to their popularity and making them “viral”. Continue reading →

I confess that at the beginning of September, after the Ukrainian “Kharkov counter offensive”, and influenced by the heavy criticism for Vladimir Putin and his “way of doing things”, for a couple of days I somewhat lost my faith in him. I swallowed all the critics, analysis and reports on several “friendly” channels, I processed the information and concluded that the allies might indeed, after all, lose this war. Also I thought that an “upgrade” from SMO (special military operation) to ATO (anti terrorist operation) was desirable, inevitable and imminent, because it was “so obvious” that Moscow had committed too few troops to the said SMO.

But then I came again to my senses and realised my misjudgement. Or so I think. There are several reasons why.

I believe I understood, like an epiphany, that Russia is fighting one single war on two totally different fronts: one is the conventional, military struggle against NATO on Donbass soil; the other is the economical and geopolitical wrestle against the US hegemony. But I insist: despite these two extremely disparate fronts, this is only one war, and therefore the respective battles must -or should- be fought in coordination.

Yes, it is true that Moscow made a blunder on the Kherzon area; a mistake of which I am confident they have learnt the lesson. It should not be repeated; although of course another blunders will ensue: probably the Russian high command and intelligence services are not performing as they should.

And, yes, it is also true that Moscow has too few troops involved in the SMO. The Kremlin perhaps ought to upgrade to ATO or even formal war, commit more troops and weapons, and finish Kiev off in one week, thus sparing thousands of civilians, soldiers and militias, plus goods, constructions, infrastructure, assets — in the short term. Continue reading →

Almost four decades ago Hollywood released a comedy titled Trading places. In the plot, two filthy rich old billionaires discuss on whether people, once modeled by their upbringing, can be changed by the environment. One sustains that we basically remain the same throughout all our lives, whereas the other argues that the surrounding circumstances can result in dramatic personal changes. In order to settle the debate, they agree, even at the cost of significant personal expenses, on carrying out an experiment on two subjects by drastically altering their personal lives.

The billionaires make a bet on the result. At the end of the experiment, it turns out that, indeed, a beggar is turned into an educated, well-off and successful broker whereas a very rich businessman will see his life ruined and wrecked. In view of this outcome, the billionaire who loses the wager pays his debt to the other: one American dollar. The bottom line of this comedy is to show how third person’s lives can be changed by the mere caprice of the powerful, just like that, simply for fun.

For the past two decades we have been witnessing how the global elites, by use of their extraordinary influence and control of the finance and media, are imposing their agendas, via social engineering, on a good half of the planet’s population; and there are incessant -and incensed- debates on whether they do it in order to preserve and increase their wealth, or because they genuinely believe that “The great reset” will ultimately result in a better world. Personally, I cannot help but constatly recall Trading places. The way I see it, the global elites are like those billionaires in the comedy: they do not need more money; they have much more than they -and their descendants- will ever be able to spend in the rest of their lives, and can even afford a good deal of losses. They may or may not believe in their own social agendas, but mostly promote them for fun.

I can -and do- perfectly envisage the Soroses and Rockefellers of this world enjoying their yatchs in paradise-like islands while having a good laugh at watching how their social experiments turn out. No particular goal is necessarily involved in such games except that of amusing themselves and enjoying their power. As far as there is no atomic Armageddon at a planetary scale -and they will take good care this does not happen- all there is to it is pure entertainment. Eventually, one of them will say to some other: “Well, I was right. Now you owe me one dollar”.

I am convinced that, unless we seriously consider this plausible scenario, we will not be able to fully understand and apprehend the apparently crazy social changes and political turmoil we are being the victims of.