Cyrill Vatomsky, Where All Politics Are Global

The August 12 KSCO AM 1080 broadcast of the Embassy of the New World Order, featuring Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman. As usual, this is only an outline to accompany the podcast of the show. Please go to the blog page at http://cyrillvatomsky.com to download or stream the mp3 file.

The show covered lots of subjects in no particular order:

• My disagreements with Laina on how dangerous the results of Turkish elections last month were. I personally think that the situation in Turkey makes it a great example of how economic liberalization of 1980-s resulted eventually in establishment of a moderate Islamic party. Laina is very concerned and has been vocal about it on her blog as well.
• The issue of Kosovo and how it affects other aspects of foreign relations. I am coming on record as no longer supporting independence for Kosovo. It is a geopolitical issue and I am treating it as such. US insistence on Kosovo independence is ill advised because if pushed through, it will cause problems for one of the staunchest supporters of the US - Georgia that also wants to be a NATO member. Geopolitically Georgia's location on the Caucasus isthmus between Black and Caspian Seas is way more important to the US then Kosovo will ever be. I think that the US should drag its feet and give this issue to the Russians as a victory. Creating the precedent of Kosovo independence will push South Ossetia and Ablhazia away from Georgia.
  
• Religion has been discussed a lot in different parts of the show, including a little exchange with a caller that claimed he had seen Jesus. I actually asked for an opportunity to be introduced, but I don't think it went anywhere. I am an atheist, so it is pretty silly to try to convert me.
• Lots been said about moderate religions, and a potential for moderate Islam. In general the consensus was that Islam is preoccupied with appearances and acts like a testosterone poisoned teenager. Grow up already.
• Just a bit about the death of democracy in Russia. Or was it an abortion or maybe a miscarriage. 40% of Russians are apparently ready to vote for whomever Putin appoints, regardless of the person. There does seem to be any pretense anymore in Russia about democratically electing their presidents. Too bad.
• A caller wanted our opinions of the rise of China and supposed future confrontation between US and China. Maybe, someday, but for now China is hardly a military giant. As for economics, I want prosperous China.
• Some talk about America leaning left and most importantly, my take on the split in the "conservative" movement in the US.
  

Take a listen.

 

 

[Added some followups below] 

[Also, the story continues here. ] 

I have to admit, I do not understand  this. My first reaction did fit a common Internet acronym WTF.  So far only Forbes picked up on this subject among the Western media. Read for yourself and see if your reaction is different:

What Forbes' news wire reprint does not mention is that one of the explanations offered for this absurdity is
 

Here is more from the Kommersant article, once again only available on the Russian side of its web site (translating in a hurry, fairly loose, so be nice):



According to Kommersant Daily, the report claims that the supposed biological weapon is designed to be ethnically specific and will target health of Russian people including causing infertility among Russian women.

The Kommersant article also offers a litany of quotes from health care professionals concerned by recent developments and predicting dire consequences to clinical research in general and to public health in particular. Clinical research funding figures in Russia are incomparable to these in the West and inability to send samples for clinical tests, in cases of bone marrow transplants for example,  will result in simply put it, deaths.

My recent trip to Russia has elevated the word "obscurantism" (мракобесие) in my day to day vocabulary. There has been way too many noticeable examples there, mostly on personal level: weird ideas of Russian exclusivity, destiny, superiority mixed in with Feng Shui, pagan worship of medicinal stones - all fermented inside superficial Christian Orthodoxy. Superficial, because during the 80 years of the Communist rule, study of religion has been mostly substituted with shamanic soul searching and cultural psychosis of hodge-podge of obscurant beliefs.

To make sure, the idea of banning DNA shipments to prevent the West from developing an ethnic-specific anti-Russian weapon is preposterous. Nikolai Yankovsky from the Russian Institute of General Genetics told Echo of Moscow radio:


There got to be some other explanation. Maybe against my better judgment I flatly refuse to believe that such obscurantism can be the real cause. But I am still flabbergasted and can only offer several meager explanations in no particular order:

• It is after all a case of grandiose obscurantism on governmental level where paranoid bureaucrats are really exposing their convoluted world view.
• It is a beginning of a PR campaign to counter dismal health care and public health record of the current administration. After all the dreadful life expectancy figures can not be helpful and blaming the West has always worked like a charm in Russia.
  
• Somebody within Putin's coterie is eyeing medical field. I can't fathom how this ban could help improve the field but them vultures think in different terms.
• There is an internal struggle within Putin's coterie and someone with financial interests in medical field is being squeezed.
• The Federal Customs service is setting up a new racket - new opportunities for bribery or extortion.
• It is a trial balloon and The Kommersant Daily is in error - no such ban has been authorized.

Except for the last option, all other explanations are scary. I do not know what would bother me more - grandiose obscurantism of cosmic proportions or blatant disregard for human life for political or financial goals. Probably the former, since after spending one fifth of the last two and a half years in Russia dealing with my mother's cancer I am quite sanitized to customary insensitivity of the Russian establishment, medical or not.

I am sorry, but this is your second scary thought of the week.

A FOLLOWUP: The original Kommersant article is now available on their English language site here. 

MORE FOLLOWUPS:

Here are some quotes from Moscow Times:  

The Health and Social Development Ministry, meanwhile, said the new rules referred only to exports in large quantities.

"The system for the export of biological materials for sick individuals remains unchanged," the ministry said in a statement.

 Compare the above with this:

Federal Customs Service chief Andrei Belyaninov told Kommersant that all biological specimens had been banned from export.

"No foreign institution is able to destroy Russian's health more effectively than [Health and Social Development Minister] Mikhail Zurabov," Mentkevich said.

I am willing to add another bullet to the above list of possible explanations:

• gross incompetence.

The general idea was to try to cut into the smuggling of human organs business but the only way Federal Customs and Russian officialdom in general know how to react is to ban everything outright.

НИИИИЗЗЯЯЯЯ! 

The first Embassy of the New World Order radio show after I returned from my trip to Russia. Naturally, most of the show was dedicated to my views and my assessment of what is current state of Russia. As always, this is not a transcript, this is just an outline of what went on during the show. Take a listen.

Resignation of Tony Blair and assessment of his legacy will wait, but for eight now I can safely state that the main factor in Blair's legacy will be transformation of the Labour Party decidedly to the right. Gone are Clause Four and most of the Socialist agenda of the British Labour in force since early 20th century. Whatever else Tony Blair did will be overshadowed by this departure from Socialism.

Elections of Nicolas Sarkozy will have to wait as well, although there is really not much to say here, other then very soon he will find himself in the same situation Margaret Thatcher and Jacques Chirac found themselves. The situation that Thatcher won and that victory led to what is now the UK, and the situation that Chirac lost and  thus wasted  a decade of his country's future.

As I said, most of the talk was about Russia, its social and moral state, its economic state. And I have to admit I am quite afraid for its future. Socially and morally the country is in trouble. Combination of the clannish society that is in the early stages of transformation from feudalism (socialism, communism being really just versions of feudalism) towards capitalism and unheard of speed of such transformation attribute to various problems. The society is very uncaring, it is in fact downright hostile. My experiences with medical system and subsequently with death and funeral arrangements for my mother were quite eye opening.

But there is an economic component to this as well that scares me. I am afraid for the future of Russia and if it can avoid mistakes and problems of early capitalist development I will be happy for it, but I seriously doubt it will avoid them. Russians discovered mortgages and debt and they are treat them as booze. They are drunk with debt. Mortgages are everywhere and rates are astronomical. Real estate prices in St Petersburg and Moscow are through the roof and mortgages. People are borrowing like crazy without ever hoping to pay back. Consumer credit reaches I was told 60 percent and more. The balance of good vs bad debt is going to be very unhealthy.

Combine this with resurgence of Russian Nationalism brewed together with Russian Orthodoxy. Some of my dear friends have succumbed to this obscurantist psychobabble of Orthodoxy offering the only spiritual opposition to inhuman Western imperialism.  And when an economic crash comes this poisonous brew might create something really ugly. Combine this with isolationist policy Mr. Putin is dragging Russia into. One of my friends commented that the worst thing Putin has ever achieved was this foreign policy fiasco - that Russia has no friends. Some might disagree that Warsaw Pact was hardly a friendship club, but still the country was not alone. Now it is. Even Lukashenka, the mad President of Belarus is no longer a friend.

The second hour was mostly dedicated to Russian - Estonian standoff around relocation of the Bronze monument to Soviet Army from a square in the center of Tallinn to a military cemetery. Leaving aside clumsiness of Estonian authorities in carrying out what they had an absolute right, legal and moral, to do, reaction in Russia was absolutely inadequate. The Speaker of the Duma called for severing diplomatic ties with Estonia. Jerks in the streets called to send tanks into Tallinn. Russia stopped passenger train service between St Petersburg and Tallinn, as well as deliveries of some energy resources. Parliamentarians and cabinet members called for boycott of Estonian goods - the PR frenzy machine was working 24/7. And in the mean time, there was nothing from Putin. Vilhelm Konnander (an incredibly astute observer and analyst of all things Eastern European) has some interesting explanations. According to Albatz at Echo Moskvy, there were no interruptions in almost tax free transit through Estonia to Russia - the Putin Inc. money making machine was working all along.

And amidst all this I am talking to a friend of mine and he just drops in passing "I don't like Estonians". Add this to the nationalistic obscurantism. It does not even occur to some that stating something like that is sick. Imagine someone here say something like I don't like Mexicans?!

On the way back from Russia I picked up an issue of The Wall Street Journal Europe and read an interesting column by Amir Taheri about economic isolationist policies of Ahmadinejad - the president of Iran. I always thought it is important to recognize philosophic similarities to understand who's company who keeps.That column by Taheri is a great illustration of how the isolationists in the US are quite close philosophically to Ahmadinejad, Chavez or Zhirinovsky  - fascists and socialists. While they purport to be pro-capitalists. Just a side note.

The ending of the show somehow turned to discussing Putin. Thanks to La Russophobe who does a great job of finding all kinds of writings about Russia, I came to a new (to me) blog called  Streetwise Professor with some hard hitting comments about Putin's V-Day speech. Other links of note for this show: Marginalia has a very interesting discussion of how decades of falsifying history of the USSR affect our current views and attitudes towards contemporary events like the standoff in Estonia. Vladimir Socor writes about standard catch words that reveal the mystic obscurantism of Russian Orthodox Nationalism.

The Easter Sunday broadcast of the Embassy of the New World Order on KSCO AM 1080.

Some talk about Easter in Russia, mostly how my family celebrated it when I was a school boy in 1970-s.

Nancy Pelosi trip to Syria. I suspect that one of the Israeli government people told Pelosi or even more likely a Pelosi staffer that "wink wink" we might be willing to start talking with Assad. This would be a normal thing - secretly pass information, establish an intermediary and start slowly moving sides together.

Instead this unsophisticated and ignorant in issues of diplomacy publicity hound opened her mouth and started talking about this on a press conference. Naturally, Israel had only one thing to say to it - we didn't tell her anything. What a dumb thing to do.

I don't really care what happens to Pelosi and if she is going to be investigated under Logan Act, but it is quite possible she ruined a potential for some sort of talks. There is a reason provincial politicos should get decent training before they adventure into foreign affairs.

British MoD decided to allow captured Royal Marines to sell their stories to the media. Not sure I like this move.

Fidel Castro agrees with yours truly. I have been calling this ethanol craze an obscenity for some time. To turn food into fuel while people are starving shows serious disconnect between priorities in the US and elsewhere. The most curious side of it, however, is that this abomination is being pushed by the left that supposedly cares about starving in the third world.

Naturally, it is only a pretense. None of the anti-globalization people care about the third world. They care about changing the first one to their liking. Otherwise they would embrace globalization because it is the only thing that has been consistently lifting people out of poverty.

Show ends with a three minute part of Te Deum from some 12th century Easter Liturgy played by Hortus Musicus.

Enjoy.

Dr. Laina Farhat Holzman was my guest on today's Embassy of the New World Order show on KSCO AM 1080. As usual, we covered a variety of subjects, but mostly revolving around her and my special interests: Iran, Iraq and Russia:

The escalating crisis with Iran taking 15 British soldiers hostage. What were reasons, what would be options. Laina seems to think it was more likely to come from the top, I just think it follows the "Who would rid me of this meddlesome priest!" pattern. Like with Putin and Litvinenko.

It appears, at least Laina thinks this it the case, that Iran is actually actively seeking a military confrontation, a war. This is not outside of realm of possibilities. Ahmadinejad is loosing popularity and control and may actually repeat the folly of the Argentinian junta that tried to capture The Falklands.

Some options were suggested on how to deal with the current crisis, including blockade, capturing Iranian vessels, bombing refineries. 

Situation in Iraq got some attention. Especially correcting some of falsities from other media.

Russia has banned non-citizens from selling produce on its markets was another subject and there were callers. 

As it is his way, Pipes only stayed for about 15 minutes. Nonetheless, he did not at all sound an "islamophobe" to the contrary, he came across as caring for the people. And he did sound optimistic - Islam, he said, does not have to be the way it is now. And now is not the best of times for Islam.

The sound quality is not too good, unfortunately. We were having connection and broadcast equipment problem and issues at the time of my show. I will not even going to post the rest of the Sunday show since the station was at low power most of the time and the quality was not adequate.

This coming Sunday I will have a chance for a quick interview with Daniel Pipes. Should be very interesting. Naturally, we shall talk about Iran, Islam in general and I want to know what he thinks of the future of the Middle East.

There will be no caller participation during the interview, so if you have any questions for Mr. Pipes, put them as comments to this blog entry.

December 03, 2006 Embassy of the New World Order

• 100,000 fewer houses for the poor were built during his 8 years then in 5 under the previous administration.
• Venezuela has, on the whole, slipped on the Human Poverty Index because of its failure to improve access to basic needs
• Inflation is on the rise and price controls have led to shortages of Venezuelan staples like coffee and beef.
• Venezuela’s homicide rate has doubled to become the highest in the world, with 10,000 people murdered annually out of an overall population smaller than that of Canada.

• The media is more concerned with headlines, that’s why they are all badgering Rice and Hadley and others in the Administration – WILL BUSH ADMIT, WILL BUSH CONFESS?!
• The same exact people that has for decades been complaining about the realpolitik – inspired foreign policy when US cozied up to dictators here and there to offset Soviet dictators there and here. Now, the same exact people are lauding the return of the realist Mr. Baker.

But in places where Democrats made their most-impressive inroads this year, one heard a distinctly different message of economic nationalism. Nationalism begins from the populist premise that working people aren't doing so well. But instead of blaming the rich at home, it focuses its energy on the poor abroad. The leading economic nationalist today is probably Lou Dobbs, who on nights other than Election Night natters on against free trade, outsourcing, globalization, and immigration on CNN.

An even harder-edged nationalism defined many of the critical House races, where Democrats called for a moratorium on trade agreements, for canceling existing ones, or, in some cases, for slapping protective trade tariffs on China. These candidates also lumped illegal immigrants together with terrorists and demanded fencing and militarization of the Mexican border. In Pennsylvania, Democratic challengers Chris Carney and Patrick Murphy defeated Republican incumbents by accusing them of destroying good jobs by voting for the Central American Free Trade Agreement and being soft on illegal immigration. "Fair trade" candidates also won back formerly Republican seats in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. Jerry McNerney, who defeated 14-year Republican incumbent Richard Pombo in California, says on his Web site: "I am deeply worried about the way this nation is plunging head-long into the global economy without a plan or a national consensus."

According to exit polls, Schwarzenegger won among men, women and everybody more than 30 years old. He won among all income groups except those making less than $30,000 a year. And he won among all but the least educated, as Angelides managed to eke out a victory only among high school dropouts.