Making Russia disappear; hanky-panky in the blogosphere

On a typical day this blog can expect to get 50 or 60 page views from Russia. In the three years I've been putting out this unique combine of investment tips, political commentary, highly selective personal memoir, and downright awful offal, page views from Russia rank third in number, after only the US and Canada.

So when there are zero page views for several days in a row, I know something is going on.

My Russian readers are back, as of shortly after noon today. 

It's as if a tap was turned off, and then turned on again.

Was it something I said?

Russians enjoy something lacking in much of the Western world; leadership. There's not a whole lot of folks who don't understand who is in charge in Russia.

We can disagree to the nth degree over whether the man governs for "the people" or for a mafia of oligarchs, but we can all agree that one man is in charge.

Nobody is sure who is in charge in America, but most people are agreed that it ain't Obama. The "Oracle of Nairobi" has pretty much dropped the ball on every file that he's ever handled. 

Single payer universal health care morphs into the biggest profit subsidy for private health care ever imagined.

Closing Gitmo morphs into keeping that festering sore open forever, or till the last inmate dies.

Hope and change morphs into dope and rage...

"Red lines" come and go, as well they should, because most of what comes out of Obama's mouth is about political expediency that doesn't look more than 15 minutes into the future.

The Ukraine fiasco is that only because Obama couldn't decide, and still hasn't, what America's "strategic interests" are in that corner of the world. And unless you buy into the "American exceptionalism" fantasies of the PNAC crowd, you have to admit there are none.

A cursory reading of history and a glance at a map will confirm that Russia, on the other hand, does indeed have legitimate strategic interests in Ukraine, specifically in Crimea, and it didn't take Putin long to act in the interests of the nation he is leading.

The presumptuous dilettantism of Nuland and Pyatt was nipped in the bud before they were done congratulating themselves on their "revolution."

That has of course led to the most embarrassing howls of outrage from the PNAC acolytes in Washington, and also from their more devout devotees like Tusk in Poland and the incomparable Harper-Baird combination in Canada.

I don't for a moment imagine that Putin is some sort of modern day messiah who is leading his people to the promised land. But I do believe he is a hard-nosed realist who is preventing Russia from being steam-rollered by the "American exceptionalism" juggernaut that rules Washington and most of its helper-states these days.

And for that Mr. Putin should be celebrated.

US claims Putin stirring up trouble in Ukraine

John Kerry had some startling revelations in a presentation to Congress today; Russia is behind the unrest in Eastern Ukraine.

Yup, in the last 48 hours we've seen the handiwork of Russian agents sent to create chaos.

This is surely one of the most shameless cases of the pot calling the kettle names in all of history. Check out Victoria Nuland's comments last December, when she admitted that the US has spent $5 billions stirring up chaos in Ukraine.

And it was Nuland and US ambassador Geoff Pyatt who were caught out selecting a new non-elected government for the country.

While no one's hands may be clean, who's are dirtier?

What is Canadian PM Harper talking about when he talks about democracy?

The reason I frame that as a question is because I don't know.

I'm of a generation that was indoctrinated to believe that the ballot box, whatever its shortcomings, was a step forward from the bad old days of mob rule.

And it makes a certain amount of sense. Y'all put the guns down and go for a vote, and if you don't like the way the vote went, well, you suck it up and get out there and work really hard to make sure the result is different in four or five years.

What you don't do is pick up the guns and undo what just happened at the ballot box.

Stephen Harper has a record that suggests he's all about picking up the guns if you're not happy with what happened in the polling booth.

When Hamas won an election in Gaza in 2006, deemed free and fair by the international observers on the ground, Harper was the first international leader to denounce the result. Democracy is great, but only when the voters vote the right way.

When the democratically elected Manuel Zelaya was pushed aside in favour of the oligarchs in Honduras in 2009, the Harper government spoke of the putsch as a "restoration of democracy" and went on to sign a free trade deal with the new non-elected government. Democracy is great, but only when people vote responsibly.

Canada's response to the overthrow of Egypt's Morsi  was this;

Canada firmly believes that implementing a transparent democratic system that respects the voices of its citizens, and that encourages and respects the contributions of civil society and all other segments of the population—including religious minorities—is the best way to restore calm and give all Egyptians a stake in the future stability and prosperity of Egypt.
"On behalf of all Canadians, I extend my heartfelt condolences to the families of those killed in the political violence of the past several days and wish a speedy recovery for those injured.
"All Egyptians have the right to live in a free, democratic and secure society"

Overthrowing a democratically elected government is "implementing a transparent democratic system."

You have to love that last line (this comes from the website of Canada's Dept. of Foreign Affairs); it's OK for the army to overthrow the democratically elected government because "all Egyptians have the right to live in a free and democratic society..."

What the fuck is that? Orwell must have had a orgasm right there in his grave!

Which brings us to Ukraine. The government of the unelected "Yats" Yatsenyuk, the result of the Nuland-Pyatt putsch well documented everywhere, was not yet 24 hours old before John Baird was on the ground in Ukraine extolling the virtues of democracy!

Mr. Baird! Mr. Harper! "Democracy" is what it's called when you elect a government...

Overthrowing an elected government is commonly known as something else!

Why nobody's going to war over Ukraine

Short answer; because everybody's done their due diligence and decided it's simply not worth it.

That didn't stop a parade of neo-cons from making fools of themselves on the American Sunday morning news shows, but contrary to their alarmist exhortations none of them seriously believe that the events of the past few weeks are the first step of Putin's push to rebuild the Soviet empire.

Putin did what was entirely predictable; he has secured a perimeter around some real estate that is strategicallly important to Russia. As the leader of Russia, that was the only responsible course of action open to him.

All the claptrap about "violations of sovereignty" is not to be taken seriously, especially when it comes from US politicians, who historically have shown far less respect for the sovereignty of others than virtually any other nation on earth, a record that goes back well over a hundred years.

If Yanukovich had been something other than an incompetent dolt, he would have taken strong measures when the Nuland-Pyatt recording came to light. When you are the legitimate head of state and foreign diplomats are caught out planning your removal, there can be only one response.

The Americans should have been sent packing immediately. Instead, Yanukovich did nothing, sending the US the message that he was more concerned with preserving his own hide and his ill-got wealth than he was with leading his nation.

Thus emboldened, the string-pullers in Washington continued to ramp up the pressure, goading their "democracy activists" to ever more egregious acts of lawlessness, a process that has ended quite predictably in the current impasse.

Crimea has been returned to its historical status as an outpost of Russia. The rest of Ukraine is an economic basket case that neither the EU or Russia are particularly interested in nursing back to some semblance of health.

Nor is America. Sure, Ukraine is a great piece of the geo-strategic puzzle, and parking a few missle installations around the country would be a great anti-Russian statement.

But Putin has long seen such gestures for what they are; empty sabre-rattling.

So regardless of the blowhard rhetoric of people like Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird and his French counterpart, what's done is done.

No serious person believes there will be a war over Ukraine.