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Howard Skillington's avatar

It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future. - Yogi Berra

I needed no crystal ball to anticipate in mid September of 2022 that something nefarious was about to happen to the Nordstream pipeline. Germany was within a few days of getting a critical infusion of cheap natural gas from Russia, which would enable it to continue as the industrial powerhouse of the European Union. Sure enough, “someone” wrecked that eleven billion dollar investment, which had been undertaken jointly by Russia and our German “ally.”

Why did I expect that to happen? Keeping Germany and Russia from making an alliance has long been a fundamental tenet of US foreign policy, inherited from the British Empire. At the moment the gas started flowing, Germany would have much more incentive to build close ties with Russia than to continue to be one of America’s NATO lapdogs.

Recall that candidate Trump very sensibly advocated ending NATO eight years ago – a move made impossible by subsequent US actions and which, in any case, would have gotten Mr. Trump assassinated by the CIA during his first few months in office.

NATO is, of course, far from a defensive alliance. It is the rationalization and instrument for the projection of would-be US hegemonic power through Europe and beyond, pushing ever eastward. Just ask Germany, with its post-Nordstream economy in tatters, how beneficial NATO membership is.

Perhaps my Nordstream prediction was a lucky guess, but I have a similar feeling as we approach October 22nd. That’s the opening day for the BRICS summit scheduled to be hosted by Russia in Kazan – 550 miles East of Moscow. At that meeting Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, Nigeria, Cuba, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Venezuela, Bolivia, Syria, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, and Bangladesh anticipate BRICS membership - the hopeful future of the world economy. (Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, and Ethiopia already joined BRICS on January 1st.)

For the failing US economy’s Dollar to continue to serve as the planet’s reserve currency – enabling us to export our deficit spending to the rest of the world – has become increasingly dubious. With the future belonging to the BRICS nations, it will be untenable. Arrangements are already being devised for BRICS exchange rates to be based upon a basket of currencies and commodities, independent of the Dollar.

The future of the US economy without reserve currency status is dire – far more unthinkable than a German-Russian alliance. And, as we have seen, our “leaders” have no scruples about taking such matters into their own hands.

While I would be very much surprised if our “leaders” don’t manage to slip some sort of turd into the BRICS punch bowl before the 22nd, predicting the timing of their gambit is more difficult. Both Zelensky and Netanyahu are desperate to induce the US to engage in a potentially catastrophic war with Iran and Russia, respectively, and they are surely cognizant of the US motivation to do something disruptive in time to throw a spanner into the gears of the growing BRICS juggernaut.

As for my prediction of what good can possibly come from any mischief the US may commit at this juncture, that’s easy: approximately zero.

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Paul  Weiss's avatar

As a fellow Jew, thoroughly happy to have been born and raised in the United States, I find it similarly embarrassing and upsetting to find so many of my co-religionists in the forefront of the fight to destroy the system of government of the country that gave our ancestors refuge (not that most of them give a damn about the faith of their fathers, but that’s another issue). These people are mentally ill, but unfortunately are quite intelligent, and without much in the way of morals, so they can do a lot of damage. Their record, tragically, speaks for itself.

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