When the Trump administration revived Reagan-relic Zionist Elliot Abrams early this year to orchestrate regime change in Venezuela, a new era of instability was born in the Western Hemisphere. Approaching a year into this project, the domestic flames have mostly been put out by the willful Nicolas Maduro, while Washington-backed liberals in Chile, Colombia, Bolivia...
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In a recent article entitled "
After my work in the Middle East had finished, at least for the time being, I was waiting for my flight to Santiago de Chile. In Paris. I could count on a few ‘free’ days, processing what I had heard and witnessed in Beirut. Day after day, for long hours, I sat in a lounge,...
Read MoreThey pledged to do it, and they did - Bolivian feudal lords, mass media magnates and other treasonous “elites” – they overthrew the government, broke hope and interrupted an extremely successful socialist process in what was once one of the poorest countries in South America. One day, they will be cursed by their own nation....
Read MoreNot long ago I read that a US Assistant Secretary of State, or perhaps it was a member of the National Security Council, said that now that Washington had reestablished control over Ecuador, it would not be long before the governments of Bolivia, Venezuela, and Cuba would be overthrown. Venezuela is proving to be hard...
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Better not mess with the former Brazilian president; Putin and Xi are his real top allies in the Global Left
He’s back. With a bang. Only two days after his release from a federal prison in Curitiba, southern Brazil, following a narrow 6×5 decision by the Supreme Court, former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva delivered a fiery, 45-minute long speech in front of the Metal Workers Union in Sao Bernardo, outside of Sao Paulo,...
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Tires are burning, smoke is rising towards the sky. It is October, the 18th day of the month, the capital city of Lebanon, in the past known as the “Paris of the East”, is covered in smoke. For years I was warning that the country governed by corrupt, indifferent elites, could not hold together, indefinitely....
Read MoreThe presidential election in Argentina pitted the people against neoliberalism and the people won. What happens next will have a tremendous impact all over Latin America and serve as a blueprint for assorted Global South struggles. The presidential election in Argentina was no less than a game-changer and a graphic lesson for the whole Global...
Read MoreNeoliberalism is – literally – burning. And from Ecuador to Chile, South America, once again, is showing the way. Against the vicious, one-size-fits-all IMF austerity prescription, which deploys weapons of mass economic destruction to smash national sovereignty and foster social inequality, South America finally seems poised to reclaim the power to forge its own history....
Read MoreAt J. Nehru University, most students know about China and Russia only from the BBC, Reuters and other Western media outlets. Even those individuals who claim they belong to the left are not immune; influenced mainly by the British propaganda. It has been like this for years: usual confusion, all around India: tough nationalistic, even...
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Introduction: I recently spoke to a relative of mine who, due to her constant and voluntary exposure to the legacy AngloZionist media, sincerely believed that the three Baltic states and Poland had undergone some kind of wonderful and quasi-miraculous economic and cultural renaissance thanks to their resolute break with the putatively horrible Soviet past and...
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It is very popular these days to talk and write about the “trade war” between the United States and China. But is there really one raging? Or is it, what we are witnessing, simply a clash of political and ideological systems: one being extremely successful and optimistic, the other depressing, full of dark cynicism and...
Read MoreThe plunder is getting worse
American capitalism is based on plunder. With the continental USA plundered, American capitalism hoped to continue enriching itself by plundering Russia as it did under Yeltsin, carefully including the Russian “Atlanticist Integrationists” in the spoils in order to have support from the liberal, progressive forces in Russia for stripping Russia of its assets. But Putin...
Read MorePreface to My Russian Book
I am Russian. That’s how I feel and therefore, that’s what I am. I was born in Russia, in the Soviet Union – in what was and still is a stunningly beautiful city on the Neva River called Leningrad. For some reason, out of the almost 20 books that I have written, only 2 (if...
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Today’s world is at war on many fronts. The rules of international law and order put in place toward the end of World War II are being broken by U.S. foreign policy escalating its confrontation with countries that refrain from giving its companies control of their economic surpluses. Countries that do not give the United...
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I’m Bonnie Faulkner. Today on Guns and Butter, Dr. Michael Hudson. Today’s show: De-Dollarizing the American Financial Empire. Dr. Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend, a Wall Street Financial Analyst and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri,...
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Every time you think the corporatocracy’s manufactured anti-Semitism hysteria cannot possibly get more absurd, they somehow manage to outdo themselves. OK, stay with me now, because this is a weird one. Apparently, American Hitler and his cronies are conspiring with some secret group of “Jewish leaders” to stop British Hitler from becoming prime minister and...
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The G20 Meeting in Japan
President Trump has threatened China’s President Xi that if they don’t meet and talk at the upcoming G20 meetings in Japan, June 29-30, the United States will not soften its tariff war and economic sanctions against Chinese exports and technology. Some meeting between Chinese and U.S. leaders will indeed take place, but it cannot be...
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As predicted, Putin's popularity takes a nosedive. This fact is not often discussed in the West, but the popularity of Vladimir Putin is in decline and has been so ever since, following his reelection, he kept more or less the same (already unpopular) government while that government very clumsily attempted to "sneak by" undetected a...
Read MorePutin’s approval rating is high, but it has declined over the past year. The decline is mainly related to domestic policy. Apparently, the public perceives recent Kremlin economic policy as a continuation of the disastrous policies that Washington imposed on Russia in the 1990s when Russia was loaded up with foreign debt while state assets...
Read MoreIntroduction In these times, when the United States pursues an unprecedented military build-up, promotes coups and trade wars, breaks weapons agreements, organizes the illegal seizure of overseas financial accounts, building barriers and walls along the southern border, Washington can count on the mass media to provide a variety of propaganda messages, ranging from the predictable...
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You are so kind-hearted! I shed a tear thinking of American generosity. “So many delightful goodies: sacks of rice, canned tuna and protein-rich biscuits, corn flour, lentils and pasta, arrived at the border of troubled Venezuela - enough for one light meal each for five thousand people”, - reported the news in a sublime reference...
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Maybe Donald Trump isn’t as stupid as I thought. I’d hate to have to admit that publicly, but it does kind of seem like he has put one over on the liberal corporate media this time. Scanning the recent Trump-related news, I couldn’t help but notice a significant decline in the number of references to...
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The Saker: Could you summarize the state of Venezuela’s economy when Chavez came to power? Michael Hudson: Venezuela was an oil monoculture. Its export revenue was spent largely on importing food and other necessities that it could have produced at home. Its trade was largely with the United States. So despite its oil wealth, it...
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A group of 30 respected intellectuals, writers and historians has published a manifesto bewailing the imminent collapse of Europe and its supposed Enlightenment values of liberalism and rationalism. The idea of Europe, they warn, “is falling apart before our eyes”, as Britain prepares for Brexit and “populist and nationalist” parties look poised to make sweeping...
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The travails of French President Emmanuel Macron reflect the contradictions of the system he represents: namely late-stage managerial, social-democratic and globalist capitalism. In a consumer democracy, everyone is entitled to infinity stuff. That is how it works. I am not sure if you recall, but we fought World War II based on the simple proposition...
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The Gilets Jaunes in 2019
Paris, France, 9 January 2019 French Democracy Dead or Alive? Or perhaps one should say, buried or revived? Because for the mass of ordinary people, far from the political, financial, media centers of power in Paris, democracy is already moribund, and their movement is an effort to save it. Ever since Margaret Thatcher decreed that...
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Is it for real or more bait and switch?
Never before has any presidential administration been as all over the place in terms of national security and foreign policy as is that of Donald J. Trump. Indeed, one might well argue that there is no overriding policy at all in terms of a rational doctrine arrived at through risk versus gain analysis of developing...
Read MoreThe closure of Gatwick, the second largest airport in Britain, just before Christmas after the sighting of a mysterious drone near the runway, received wall-to-wall coverage from the British media, dominating the news agenda for the best part of a week. Contrast this with the limited interest shown when a majority stake in the airport...
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I do not believe that GDP growth – or the pursuit of wealth in general – ought to be an end in itself. Nonetheless, the fact is that virtually all countries today do consider the production and redistribution of wealth to be a fundamental goal. In this context, GDP per capita (minus wealth from national...
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In less than two months, the yellow vests (“gilets jaunes”) movement in France has reshaped the political landscape in Europe. For a seventh straight week, demonstrations continued across the country even after concessions from a cowed President Emmanuel Macron while inspiring a wave of similar gatherings in neighboring states like Belgium and the Netherlands. Just...
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The French are the best. The men

So it appears the privatization of France isn’t going quite as smoothly as planned. As I assume you are aware, for over a month now, the gilets jaunes (or “yellow vests”), a multiplicitous, leaderless, extremely pissed off, confederation of working class persons, have been conducting a series of lively protests in cities and towns throughout...
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Every automobile in France is supposed to be equipped with a yellow vest. This is so that in case of accident or breakdown on a highway, the driver can put it on to ensure visibility and avoid getting run over. So the idea of wearing your yellow vest to demonstrate against unpopular government measures caught...
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Macron’s Popularity Collapses While Interior Minister Predicts Civil War
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Emmanuel Macron, the current president of the French Republic, is a weird dude. Now, after just 18 months in power, he is also a very unpopular dude. The French media have been making much of the fact that Macron’s prime minister, Édouard Philippe, has been slightly...
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With Jair Bolsonaro’s victory in Brazil’s presidential election at the weekend, the doom-mongers among western elites are out in force once again. His success, like Donald Trump’s, has confirmed a long-held prejudice: that the people cannot be trusted; that, when empowered, they behave like a mob driven by primitive urges; that the unwashed masses now...
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Introduction Bankers, agro-business elites, commercial mega owners, manufacturing, real estate and insurance bosses and their financial advisers, elite members of the ‘ruling class’, have launched a full-scale attack on private and public wage and salary workers, and small and medium size entrepreneurs (the members of the ‘popular classes’). The attack has targeted income ,pensions, medical...
Read MoreIf the report below from John Helmer is correct, the implication is that Alexei Kudrin, Putin’s good friend and a member of the Russian government, is a traitor to Russia. The way I read Helmer’s report, Kudrin, a hero to Washington but widely regarded in Russia as an agent of the billionaire oligarchs that Washington...
Read MoreIntroduction The decisive electoral victory of far-right Brazilian presidential candidate, Jair Bolsonaro startled politicians and analysts of the traditional parties of the left and right. The possible implications for the present and near future raises a number of fundamental questions whether it represents a ‘model’ for other countries or is the result of the specific...
Read MoreIntroduction Business writers, neo-liberal economists and politicians in North America and the EU heralded Latin America’s embrace of a ‘new wave of free markets and free elections’. Beginning in 2015 they predicted a new era of growth, stability and good government free of corruption and run by technocratic policy-makers. By early 2018 the entire neo-liberal...
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How can I write a review of Andre Vltchek’s new book
This week I was interviewed on Russian TV about the possible new anti-Russian sanctions that Washington is considering that would prohibit anyone in the entirety of the world from holding Russian government bonds. Think about this for a moment. Washington thinks that Washington has the right and the power to block sovereign countries and their...
Read MoreIntroduction For decades and longer, the United States and Europe lectured and encouraged countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia to welcome and accept foreign investment as the virtuous path to modernization, growth and prosperity. With few notable exceptions western leaders and academics promoted unlimited flows of capital (and the outflows of profits). No section...
Read MoreIntroduction Political leaders, media moguls and journalists have saturated the public throughout the world with claims and accusations that President Trump is destroying the World Order, undermining historic alliances, western values, the world trade organizations and violating national and international constitutions and institutions. In the United States, legislators, judges and leaders from both parties have...
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The recently elected neoliberal government of Mauricio Macri has decided to seek a $50 billion IMF credit line, which will only enable more capital flight for the upper class and greater unpayable debt for the rest of the population, says the economist Michael Hudson. SHARMINI PERIES: It’s The Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries, coming...
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Following the re-appointment of Medvedev and his more or less reshuffled government, the public opinion in Russia and abroad was split on whether this was a good sign of continuity and unity amongst the Russian leadership or whether this was a confirmation that there was a 5th column inside the Kremlin working against President Putin...
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Introduction “Immigration” has become the dominant issue dividing Europe and the US, yet the most important matter which is driving millions to emigrate is overlooked is wars. In this paper we will discuss the reasons behind the massification of immigration, focusing on several issues, namely (1) imperial wars (2) multi-national corporate expansion (3) the decline...
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For a generation, acceptance of the neoliberal doctrine “there is no alternative” has paralyzed politics in the West. If there is no alternative, what is politics to be about? The Authoritarian Center The traditional governing parties, center “left” and center “right” all follow the same neoliberal policies and constitute the self-designated “center”. Mainstream media enforce...
Read MoreRussian president Vladimir Putin’s speech at the St. Petersburg International Economic Conference last weekend shows the Russian government’s ensnarement by neoliberal economic policy. Putin defended globalism and free trade, and he warned that crisis will result from the breakup of the global system. In fact, crisis is the result of globalism and neoliberal economics. For...
Read MoreThis is the lecture I would have given if I had been able to accept the invitation to address the St. Petersburg Economic Conference in Russia this weekend. Executive Summary: From the standpoint of Russia’s dilemma, this is an important column. Putin’s partial impotence via-a-vis Washington is due to the grip that neoliberal economics exercises...
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