Hi Joe

Often the Green Left in Australia have their own well thought out news.

Its the lightweight Useful Idiots who don't realise that many of their anti-American views are fed by Putin's new organ http://rt.com/news/

RT rarely explains that RT is Russia Today - not as obvious as Pravda but the official word of the Russian Government nonetheless.

Hence RT on Ukraine produces http://rt.com/news/158276-referendum-results-east-ukraine/ and quietly employs Snowden http://rt.com/news/154308-snowden-glasgow-university-rector/ .

Correction I meant - Often the Green Left in Australia have their own well thought out views.

And the World Socialist Web Site often has good articles - like https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/05/12/fuku-m12.html [cut and paste]

Its media outlets controlled by governments (that repeat government Press Releases) tacitly censored and controlled and by super-moguls (ie Murdoch) that are dangerous for democracy.

Hi Pete,

I always try to check out The Guardian (as well as The Australian), I'm working through Luke Harding's book on the 'Mafia State' now. It reads pretty convincingly.

We'll see about Putin's plans soon enough. As head of a bunch of thugs, I don't think he can stop, or show any lack of resolve, otherwise he's gone and harder men like Lavrov will take over and Putin will be dropped into the mincer.

As a very disillusioned Leftist, I've come to suspect that the entire disgusting process in Russia, from the Tsar to Lenin to Stalin to Khrushchev to Brezhnev and Andropov etc., down to Putin, has been a fairly seemless movement from sh!t to sh!t, same Secret Police, same bureaucrats, a process which has held Russia back for a hundred years. As the cruel joke goes, what's the definition of socialism ? Answer: The longest and most painful route from capitalism to capitalism.

And, of course, they're not there yet. Marx would call it 'primitive accumulation', perhaps a more backward and predatory form of capitalism that Russia was at in 1914.

Joe

A priceless analysis, presented here for free, is:

Overall Obama seems to follow the Democrat "wet" dictum of avoiding confrontation at all costs. Obama may be a highly educated calculator of what is doable but charisma and Dubya's rat cunning can work wonders. Obama can't seem to motivate America's European allies into forming a united front - especially noticeable over Syria, now Ukraine.

Along those lines I suspect that Obama, Hagel and Kerry assess Ukraine as too far in the Russia sphere to save. In terms of other failures in the works it'll be interesting to see if Afghanistan collapses to the Taliban while Obama is still in office or just after he leaves. It would be unfortunate if Obama, America's first "Black" President, is grouped with the failed Jimmy Carter and then also suffer's the Nixon-like fate of not Viet... but "Afghanistan-isation".

I suspect Putin is attempting to tap Russia's main strengths while the going is good. That is utilising Russia's oil-gas economic power before the world's unconventional oil and gas resources become fully on stream. The new technology oil and gas from the US and Canada will make traditional source countries less powerful for a period.

Putin also wishes to use Russia's comparatively powerful military (conventional and nuclear) before Russia's military is relegated to third or fourth place behind China's and India's. Even if Russia has types of alliances with China and India - leaders like Putin (he may well still be in power in 2030) would not want Russia to be merely a junior ally.

Putin recognises the going is good for while the reticent Obama is still in office - a hawkish Republican elected in 2016 would be a different matter.

Pete