Sanctions--What're They Good For?

Here’s a quick thought to start the day. Over at the Off-Guardian, Kit Knightly asks a provocative question. It’s a question that falls in line with the Covid Hoax—a virus created and paid for by the US (but, as with so much else, outsourced to China) which seemed to feed almost seamlessly into … The Great Reset! That fizzled, at least for the time being, although Little Tony has come out of hiding to suggest a renewal of the Covid Regime. I suspect a less compliant subject population will be the outcome, but, whatever.

Anyway, Knightly looks at the effect of sanctions, starting with a Clint Ehrlich tweet:

Clint Ehrlich @ClintEhrlich

The Russian Ruble is nearing its pre-invasion value. Sanctions were designed to collapse its value. They failed.

In fact the Ruble is basically now back to pre-special operation levels. So Knightly asks:

Is Russia the REAL target of Western sanctions?

Soaring oil prices, energy and food crises on the horizon…is it possible the REAL target of this economic war is us?

Knightly goes through pretty much the whole sanctions backfire, and compares the current sanctions regime to 2014. He points out that, back then and again in 2017, the Saudis (doubtless at our request) flooded the world market with oil—effectively kicking Russia in the gut. Why hasn’t this happened again?

It’s a superficially attractive argument, but the reality is that a lot has changed since then in the world political-economy, a lot that allows Russia to be the driver of events, rather than reacting to what others do to them. After over two decades of being kicked around by the US, that has to be an exhilarating feeling. And getting to push Germany around? Icing on the cake. Sanctions are driving the price of all Russia’s strategic resources—wheat, oil, gas, you name it—through the roof, and that’s good for Russia. Very good.

Nevertheless, beyond that, the reaction in the US is … weird. ‘Let them buy electric cars’, and futile releases from the Strategic Reserve? Warning that there will be food shortages?

So here’s the second half of Knightly’s article, which I’m including in large part for the killer quote from George Orwell on the changing concept of war:

Meanwhile, according to CNN, the US is likely to enter a full-blown recession by 2023, France is considering food vouchers and countries all over the world are expected to begin rationing fuel.

So, the sweeping sanctions imposed against Russia by the West, allegedly in response to the invasion of Ukraine, are not having their stated aim – tanking the Russian economy – but they are driving up the price of oil, creating potential energy and food shortages in the West and exacerbating the “cost of living” crisis created by the “pandemic”.

You should always be wary of anybody – individual or institution – whose actions accidentally achieve the exact opposite of their stated aim. That’s a simple rule to live by.

Remember how Orwell described the evolution of the concept of war in 1984:

War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.

Recall that “the worst food shortages for fifty years” were predicted as a result of Covid. But they never materialised.

Likewise, we were due to experience Covid-related energy disruptions and power cuts. Short of the UK’s damp squib of a “petrol crisis”, they never really arrived.

But now they are heading our way after all – because war and sanctions

Increased food prices, decreased use of fossil fuels, lowering standards of living, public money poured into “renewables”. This is all part of a very familiar agenda, isn’t it?

Regardless of what you feel about Putin, Zelensky, the war in general or Ukrainian Nazis, it’s time to confront the elephant in room.

We need to be asking: What exactly is the real aim of these sanctions? And how come they align so perfectly with the great reset?

Perhaps the real tell is, What are we hearing from the GOPe? I’ll admit I haven’t been following that too closely, but I do know that most of the usual suspects—Neocons and Principled Conservatives, the Grahams and Cruzes and such like—all seem to be mongering for more war. Who’s talking about confronting the structural problems in our political economy, the moral problems that are overwhelming our constitutional order? Those are the things that have the Republican base exercised, but who’s leading?

It’s still early days, but not too early. Are our “leaders” for us or ‘agin’ us? Is all the war mongering just convenient deflection? We know it is for the Zhou regime. How about for the ‘loyal opposition’?