Fascism and Socialism: Still Not Opposites The Eurasian movement of Putin and his allies draws from both Nazism and Stalinism.

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Dear Reader (Including the trenchcoat-wearing FCC minister with breath like he’s been sucking a urinal cake looking over my shoulder, tapping hisBIC pen on his glass eye, and sighing every time I write something he doesn’t like)

I’ve got to bang out this “news”letter pretty quickly. I’m sitting in a too-small fake wicker chair at the coffee shop at the Broadmoor (one of my favorite hotels, btw). The time difference here puts me two hours behind at six in the morning. Plus, I don’t want the housekeeping staff to find the body in my room. If I didn’t need coffee so badly I would have taken care of that already. But one must prioritize. I think the high altitude here is making my brain itch.

FASCISM, AGAIN

Timothy Snyder has written the best piece I’ve seen on what’s going on in Kiev. It’s worth reading just as a primer. But it’s also interesting in other ways. I had not read a lot about the “Eurasian Union,” a proposed counterweight to the European Union, in much the same way the Legion of Doom is a counterweight to the Justice League. Putin and a band of avowed “National Bolshevik” intellectuals are in effect trying to put the band back together. Snyder writers:

The Eurasian Union is the enemy of the European Union, not just in strategy but in ideology. The European Union is based on a historical lesson: that the wars of the twentieth century were based on false and dangerous ideas, National Socialism and Stalinism, which must be rejected and indeed overcome in a system guaranteeing free markets, free movement of people, and the welfare state. Eurasianism, by contrast, is presented by its advocates as the opposite of liberal democracy.

The Eurasian ideology draws an entirely different lesson from the twentieth century. Founded around 2001 by the Russian political scientist Aleksandr Dugin, it proposes the realization of National Bolshevism. Rather than rejecting totalitarian ideologies, Eurasianism calls upon politicians of the twenty-first century to draw what is useful from both fascism and Stalinism. Dugin’s major work, The Foundations of Geopolitics, published in 1997, follows closely the ideas of Carl Schmitt, the leading Nazi political theorist. Eurasianism is not only the ideological source of the Eurasian Union, it is also the creed of a number of people in the Putin administration, and the moving force of a rather active far-right Russian youth movement. For years Dugin has openly supported the division and colonization of Ukraine.

Via: NRO

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Humiliated by Putin

Spooked because their constituents strongly oppose intervening in Syria's civil war and alarmed by President Barack Obama's inept handling of the crisis, members of Congress were about to vote down a resolution authorizing military strikes.

Mr. Obama was spared a humiliating defeat when Russian President Vladimir Putin tossed him a lifeline. Like a trout dazzled by a fisherman's lure, our president snapped up the bait.

"Putin openly despises your president," Russian political analyst Andrei A. Piontovsky told The New York Times. So why would he help Mr. Obama out of a jam?

The Russian leader was following sage advice offered by a Chinese general 2,500 years ago.

"Do not press a desperate foe too hard," advises Sun Tzu in "The Art of War." "Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across." If you know your enemy and you know yourself, you'll win all your battles, Sun Tzu said.

As Con Coughlin, defense editor of the London Telegraph, wrote, Mr. Putin knows that "Mr. Obama will grab any excuse he can find to avoid military action against Damascus."

And Mr. Putin knows that because he's so vain, Mr. Obama is more likely to act to protect his own reputation than America's. So when another stupid thing Secretary of State John Kerry said provided an opening, the Russians pounced.

In response to a reporter's question, Mr. Kerry said Syrian dictator Bashar Assad could avert a U.S. military strike -- which earlier in the day he said would be an "unbelievably small, limited kind of effort" -- if his regime gave up its chemical weapons.

This was a "major goof," one official told CNN. He "clearly went off script."

What a swell idea, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. We'll ask our ally to turn his chemical weapons over to an international body. Mr. Assad readily agreed.

Via Real Clear Politics

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No longer ‘Fundamental Transformation of America’ but the Free World

Obama hates America and capitalist society; doesn’t loathe Putin as much as he envies him. Totalitarianism is where Obama plans to take the US and the Free World

He’s no longer solely America’s biggest headache.

It’s now Obama’s ‘Fundamental Transformation of the 
Free World’,  and for anyone awake, it can be watched being played out day by day.

The unquenchable ego of President Barack Hussein Obama is rebuilding the Russian bear and destabilizing the entire Free World.

With 13 questionable US government YouTubes showing that chemical attacks did take place on August 21 in Syria—with no proof who was responsible for them—Obama, who was trying to advance World War III—merely stumbled back into his own trap.  And that’s only if he’s not part of the Putin act.

Last night’s address to the nation proved a walk back on the ‘Highly propagandized America Attack on Syria’. Russian president Vladimir Putin came out of this one like a John Wayne movie hero.  But unfortunately it won’t end there.

One day after Obama’s putting-Syria-attack-on-ice televised address to a captive nation,  we get to hear how Putin is now arming Iran.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin will offer to supply Iran S-300 air defence missile systems as well as build a second reactor at the Bushehr nuclear plant, the Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday. (AFP, Sept. 11, 2013)

Via: Canada Free Press

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Obama is a laughing stock: Column

Remember that dumb cowboy George W. Bush, who alienated all our allies and dragged us into wars of choice in the Mideast? And remember that goofball Mitt Romney, whom Joe Biden a year ago accusedof wanting to go to war in Syria?

Both of them must be having a big laugh over the way things are going for Obama now. When I wrote last week on our bumbling Syria diplomacy, it seemed that things couldn't possibly go further downhill. Boy, was I wrong.

Last week, it seemed our only ally was France. But now the French are having second thoughts. Obama's efforts to get support at the G20 conference came to nothing. Even the pope is undercutting him.

Meanwhile, at home, polls show Americans are against a strike, and Obama is facing double-digit defections among Democrats in the Senate. The outlook for passage in the House, meanwhile, looks so bad that a resolution to authorize war may not even make it to a vote. If it's sure to fail, why force members -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- to go on record? You can bet they don't appreciate Obama putting them in this position.The Pentagon isn't happy, and even The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates, a reliable Obama supporter, calls his policy "dumb."

Some critics are even comparing the collapse of American influence under Obama to the end of the Soviet Union. Well, that may be an exaggeration -- but Obama promised a "fundamental transformation," after all..

Via: USA Today

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Putin greets Obama with Syria threat

PUTIN GREETS OBAMA WITH SYRIA THREAT - President Obama arrived in Russia today to find the already failing relations with his host in even worse condition. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to provide his Syrian allies with a missile shield in the event of U.S. air strikes further complicates Obama’s flagging effort to win international support for an attack on Damascus. As the Guardian reports, Putin’s warning that an attack without UN backing would provoke military aid from Russia may drive away the handful of international partners for Obama’s proposed attack.

[Watch Fox: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., appears in the noon ET hour]

Liar’s poker in St. Petersburg - Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that the main combat unit of the Syrian rebels is part of al Qaeda adds a further chill to U.S.-Russia relations. Putin said Secretary of State John Kerry “lies openly” about al Qaeda’s role among U.S.-backed rebels in Syria. Putin’s comments came after Kerry’s testy exchange with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., over the role of terrorists groups in the rebellion. Kerry claimed that al Qaeda-allied groups were a small fraction of the force. State Department officials dismissed Putin’s charge.

[House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, told reporters he was “stunned” by Kerry’s claim.]

Video portrays role for radical Islam among Syrian rebels – Intelligence analysts are examining a new video featuring Syrian rebel commanders amid symbols of the Islamist movement. Chief Intelligence Correspondent Catherine Herridge is looking at warnings that radicals are seeking chemical weapons and their role among U.S.-backed Syrian rebels.

Via: Fox News Politics

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Russia sharply steps up criticism of U.S. over Syria

MOSCOW – Russia dramatically escalated its denunciations of American threats to attack Syrian military targets on Saturday, as President Vladimir Putin called the arguments about chemical weapons that underlie the U.S. case “utter nonsense.”

The Foreign Ministry said a U.S. attack would be a “gross violation” of international law.
Speaking out for the first time since an alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus on Aug. 21, Putin called on President Obama to find a nonviolent way out of the crisis.

“I would like to address Obama as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate: Before using force in Syria, it would be good to think about future casualties,” Putin told Russian news agencies in Vladivostok during a tour of the country’s flood-stricken Far East.

“Russia is urging you to think twice before making a decision on an operation in Syria,” he said.
Next week’s Group of 20 economic summit in St. Petersburg would be a good forum for discussing the Syrian issue, he said, “so why not take advantage of it?”

The White House argued Friday that intelligence shows more than 1,400 people died from exposure to chemical weapons in an attack carried out by the Syrian military.

Putin said he was sure the attack was the work of rebels trying to provoke international — and especially American — involvement in the Syrian conflict. The regime of Bashar al-Assad, he said, would have had no reason to use chemical weapons at a time when it had gained the upper hand in the fighting.

“While the Syrian army is on the offensive, saying that it is the Syrian government that used chemical weapons is utter nonsense,” Putin said.

Via: Washington Post

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