Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Xi Jinping follows in Putin's footsteps

The general secretary of the Communist Party, and president, of China Xi Jinping was initially chosen as a compromise by the Central Committee and Party delegates in 2012. It was a compromise between the desire to stay close to the Communist ideals and the desire to capitalize on the modern era reality that China has become a global economic power to be reckoned with.

But this son of an elite founding member of China's Communist Party, who has taken many twists and turns along his way to the top, is anything but a compromising figure. Throughout his first term as the general secretary, he has shown his willingness to dispose of the government of years past, instill a unified economic identity, continue to censor outside world, as well as cement his place in China's history books.

Soon after his father was imprisoned for being vocal and confrontational within China's Communist Party, the teenager Xi Jinping found himself target of the scorn of many of his peers and authorities that now viewed his family in a negative light. He learned his first lesson from his father - that being vocal in opposition to authority is an approach that doesn't achieve the desired result in China. So he immersed himself in his studies, went to the farm lands to perform manual labor with the country's peasant population. This was the call of Mao Zedong to all of China's population living in large cities.

This experience toughened up the young Xi and he soon found himself accepted as a member of the Communist Party, despite his father's tainted legacy. He began to establish a network of influential party members that would turn out to be his main support base in his pursuit for the top of the party hierarchy. He finally achieved that goal in 2012, when he was selected as the new general secretary of the Communist Party.

His actions after he took power in China, mimic those of the actions taken by Vladimir Putin, when he was elected to the reigns in Russia in 2000. A house cleaning of all the corrupt officials and a crackdown on unwritten, but previously accepted, bribe to conduct business policy. Just like Putin, Xi Jinping dismissed and imprisoned former long standing security and economic officials, that may have presented obstacles to his policies and vision. And just like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping did it all under the guise of performing a service to the country and upholding the moral high ground for which every man, woman, and child should strive.

Xi Jinping, in a remarkably similar fashion to Putin, was able to consolidate power by antagonizing elements within the ruling party, and within China, which would have stood in his way of making unilateral decision on their behalf. This was something Vladimir Putin coined the "verticals of power" a decade earlier.

Unlike Russia, China does not have democratically elected leaders. Xi Jinping does not need the same trick that Putin used from 2008 through 2012, when Putin served as Russia's Prime Minister, to side step consecutive term limit law. Xi Jinping's continuity in power solely depends on the Communist Party election every five years. So this year, he brought down the hammer.

Having already brushed aside many of his potential opponents early on in his reign, he has now enshrined his name and ideology into the Chinese constitution. The "Xi Jinping Thought for the Modern Era with Chinese Characteristics" is an ideology that has been unanimously adopted by the Party Congress and has now been written into the constitution. With no apparent understudy declared to take over for him in the future, this new Mao-degree status paces the way for Xi Jinping to rule for decades without any significant opposition.

While Xi Jinping certainly started by following Vladimir Putin's blueprint for the consolidation of power, he has since then surpassed it. Xi Jinping doesn't have any real opposition within the country at this point in time, while Vladimir Putin's opposition keeps growing. But that is largely due in part to Russia's remaining free press coverage and recent economic woes. Neither of theses factors are present in China.

Will Xi Jinping rule China until his death? Does the economic trouble that has forced the Russian people to re-evaluate its leadership have a chance to do the same in China? Leave me your thoughts and questions in the comments below.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Crisis via Modern Warfare - Broadcast Media and the Interne


Let me be Captain Obvious for a moment - It is all about the money. It is not about giving you the true unbiased information about events foreign and domestic. It is about how profitable each minute of airtime can be for the parent corporation. 

It doesn't surprise me anymore, but the manner in which the mainstream media conducts its news broadcasts and disseminates irresponsibly bias information is anything but newsworthy. It is, in fact, more commerce-oriented rather than being genuinely informative. The way CBS, NBC, FOX, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, and countless others stay on the air is by keeping their commercial time slots full and profitable. In order to do so, these corporations need to attract advertising interest through high viewer ratings. Since market research shows that the attention span of an average American has dipped to an all time low, the broadcasting companies need to find ways to "spice up" their news and make them more entertaining. As a result, what the average viewer receives on a nightly basis from these so-called news sources is a regurgitated version of the truth that has been skewed, dramatized, and fragmented enough between commercials to keep you on the edge of your seat to prop up the networks' viewer ratings. In effect, it becomes this entertainment with the pretense of being the news.

In this example, we will use the current events in Ukraine to reveal the mainstream media's malfeasance. Due to this perversion of the news broadcast, it has become an inadvertent instigator of heightened tensions worldwide through misinformation and horrific omissions of the general public. In order to get viewer ratings, a broadcasting corporation will use inflammatory titles and edgy rhetoric like 'Invasion' and 'Cold War', instead of reality-bearing labels like 'Unrest', 'A New Day in Ukraine', 'Tensions on the Rise', and 'Russian Response'. Why would a broadcasting company use the fear-inducing and instigating labels? In order to raise its viewer ratings, of course. An average American viewer will dismiss a basic newsworthy label, because it's simply not sexy enough. However, pitch them a conflict-inducing story line on a world scale, and you have a viewer for the next half hour. What these labels do, however, is form a predisposition in the viewers' minds that sets them up for a news story that is anything but objective. 

Outside of rephrasing and omitting facts, these news corporations fail to do basic fact-checking that is the staple of a good news reporter. One fact that almost every news corporation have gotten woefully wrong is stating that the current Ukrainian government is legitimate. While it is certainly true that the protesters overthrew the previous Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, the protests themselves were all peaceful through December until the radical factions arrived at the scene. The radical far right-wing parties that brought violence with them, and subsequently instigated a response after over a month of burning and killing security forces. It is these radical factions that "inspired" the Ukrainian Parliament to abandon Viktor Yanukovych and vote him out, just after the president's February 21st agreement with Western representatives to transition to a new unity government that would provide equal representation for all Ukrainians. The reason being, is that a unity government that represents all Ukrainians would be completely against the far right wing parties Right Sector and Svoboda (Freedom), who brought violence to the protests. These parties want an "ethnically clean" Ukraine and regard the Holocaust as a "bright period" in history. Many in these parties are proud descendants of the militant Ukrainian freedom fighters who volunteered into the Nazi Wehrmacht during World War II and committed bloody atrocities for eight years after the end of the war. Therefore, the presidential agreement of February 21st was completely against their stated interest. 

Even before the change of government, the United States and European Union were at a tug of war as to who gets to control the spoils of an imminent government change in Ukraine. In a leaked phone call between a US diplomat Victoria Nuland and a US ambassador in Ukraine, they were clearly discussing how the United States is working to "assist" a government change, cherry-picking Yanukovych's successor, and saying f**k the European Union with respect to the Ukraine's future. Yet this segment got only a brief mention in the Western mainstream media, as it would not bring the desired volume of viewers and might actually turn viewers away with disgust at politicians altogether. http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/feb/07/eu-us-diplomat-victoria-nuland-phonecall-leaked-video

The current interim government of Ukraine has initially made two promises after an armed takeover - Russian language would no longer play a prominent role in Ukraine (changing the existing law that dictated both Ukrainian and Russian would be supported equally) and that the people responsible for the Independence Square sniper fire (that killed nearly a hundred protesters and security forces combined) will be brought to justice. Neither of these promises came to fruition. The interim government backed off the Russian language reform and is no longer interested in investigating the culprits behind sniper fire. 

Here is where the Russian media churned up its propaganda machine - going as far as saying that the Russian language will be banned in Ukraine and anyone speaking Russian will be subjected to criminal persecution. Completely false, but reported by the Russian media. Which makes Russian media... just like any other bias mainstream media. 

The Western media, beating the drum of doing the right thing and spreading democracy, just stepped over the initiative to bring those responsible for the Independence Square massacre to justice. But, surprise surprise, in the age of information we are able to obtain evidence that suggests the Ukrainian right-wing factions are responsible for the sniper fire that killed the security forces and protesters alike. This, of course, would explain why the interim government is no longer interested in the investigation which would bring the guilty parties to justice. In a phone call between EU Foreign Affairs Chief and Estonian Foreign Minister, it was disclosed that there is a growing understanding that the people responsible for the Independence Square sniper fire (which killed nearly a hundred protesters and security forces) were the leading right-wing parties that sought armed escalation and confrontation - and that these are the same parties that stand behind the current interim government. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhY02at4v4U Once again, the Western media stepped over this information, and never reported it again - because it's not good ratings. 

Here is a video of the shootings http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5dc_1393953567

If I was still in Ukraine, I would be very fearful of far right wing parties like the Right Sector and Svoboda(Freedom). They represent the extremists who brought the violence to Independence Square and may have been the direct culprits behind the sniper fire that caused the massacre of February 20th. Their representatives Dmytro Yarosh (Right Sector) and Oleh Tyahnybok (Svoboda) are sure to run in the upcoming Ukrainian elections. And they should be feared, as their extremist views could easily divide Ukraine without any external intervention if these individuals gain any significant elected posts.

Now for the the leading political figures in Russia, EU and US. And this is the kind of analysis you will never get from the mainstream media. Let me state it again - it is all about the money. Neither Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, nor Vladimir Putin can give a damn about the people of Ukraine. When they see Ukraine from a geopolitical perspective, this is what they see -

United States and European Union's perspective:
1) Another nation to conform to the Euro currency and prevent European Union's disintegration.
2) Increased Defense Budget for European Union and the United States due to fear.
3) Access to natural resources available within the Ukraine,
4) Access to Ukrainian territory for the purpose of stationing NATO forces at the Russian border.

Russian perspective:
1) Secure Ukrainian Natural Gas and Oil fields, as well as the supporting pipelines.
2) Keep Russia's only warm water sea port and the home of the Black Sea Fleet (Crimea). 
3) Increased Russian Defense Budget to protect Russian interests in the area.
4) Have a neutral government in Ukraine that is cooperative with Russia.
5) Keep the NATO forces at the edge of the Ukrainian border, not the Russian border. 

Vladimir Putin is not interested in invading Ukraine, but he does want to create the fear of invasion, to create enough instability in Ukraine that will influence the upcoming election. The threat of Crimea's secession, is only designed to create instability - he won't actually go through with it because the plan is not economically feasible from a Russian fiscal perspective. 

Despite denials by all Russian officials, and legal correctness, for all intents and purposes the troops on the ground in Crimea are of Russian origin. Let me explain, these are forces that were trained an equipped by the Russian Federation, and subsequently disavowed so that Russia may legally deny that they are Russian forces.

United States and European Union are largely incapacitated, because of their dependence on Russian natural gas and oil. Therefore, any punitive measures, would hurt both parties. 

In order to resolve this conflict, Ukraine must be united as a whole and defend its own interests, independent of all foreign influence. But that is not going to happen, until countries to the East and West of it stop regarding it as a juicy steak on their plate.