As war rages, Ukraine faces a second invasion—one of debt, privatization, and resource plunder. Under the guise of aid, global powers are seizing its land and wealth, threatening its future.
Elizabeth yet again stuns me with her clarity and purpose. She shares eloquently in this jam-packed article the financial slavery of a nation taking place right in front of our eyes, literally today. She brought to my attention that the word Mortgage is derived from French meaning "Death Pledge" and could not better describe the wholesale theft of the Ukrainian people's right to their own land and resources.
This article offers an alternative path to private bank debt-based funding (which has similarly enslaved most of the West under the guise of free market capitalism) by instead choosing public banking, which works beautifully, profitably (for the people) in North Dakota. We at http://WEconomy.Us have built "an economy for the rest of us" by creating a people's (regional, not crypto) digital currency, a truly FREEMARKETplace and guidance to create jobs, and invite you to inquire how it can be harnessed in your community.
Ukraine has long had no sovereignty, other than when the CIA and State decide it is convenient.
You may recall that Zelenskii won the 2019 election on a platform of peace and reconciliation with Russia, then immediately changed his tune after he was summoned to the US Ambassador.
Great article, but this isn't new. Read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins. The game is the same - only in a different place and a different time.
As someone with ties to Ukraine and some first-hand knowledge of the war brought to Ukraine by means of 2014 coup (April 2014 was when the war ON Eastern Ukraine by Kyiv started), the only thing there was to protect in 2022 was the right of Kyiv regime to commit atrocities in Eastern Ukraine and threaten Russia, and, of course, the profits of "Biden", all to the detriment of Ukraine itself. Outside of a very small and rabid self-proclaimed nazi groups from Western Ukraine there was no appetite for any Russia-Ukraine war on either side. Too much common history, culture and family ties for that border to even matter. The war was brought by the people who wanted the riches of Eastern Ukraine (where most of resources are), but did not want the people (who mostly happened to be ethnic Russians with pro-Russia views), so they had to be expelled from their land Gaza-style by all means necessary, political, economic and military. For those people, Russia came too late to help them fight for their independence.
I lived much of my adult life in Ukraine. Of course, the average frustrated Ukrainian was not itching for war.
However, the war has been a boon to the oligarch class in Ukraine. Floods of free money for skimming and fawning MSM coverage, to boot.
So what if Ukraine goes into debt? Zelenskii isn't going to have to pay that off. So what if minerals (which are not especially rare or the rights especially valuable) sold? It won't come from Budyanov's holdings. Their kids are not press-ganged off the streets, as happened to the son of the lady who cleaned my apartment.
Nobody of influence and authority cares, nobody in Washington, nobody in Brussels, nobody in Kiev.
Here, I am in accord, Feral. Let's take this a step further and ask the question, Who specifically? No, I didn't think Ukraine was itching for war, but some very nasty people were. They wanted revenge on Russia. Why? Zelensky, the puppet of these nasty creatures, has said Ukraine should be Big Israel. Hmmm, what does that tell you? Yes, there are big money, big Ag, big big, big, but nothing for anyone else only the bigs. The only people who get hurt are the same, the useless eaters just trying to live and they are in the way of the Oligarch's who don't feel compelled to share this planet with inferior, unsophisticated mere humans or are they really sub-humans. who and why are good questions.
Ukraine never had any sovereignty. Upon the fall of the USSR Western finance through local oligarchs took control of Ukraine just as they did to Russia. Russia was able to regain most of its sovereignty when the Putin administration took over in 2000.
Robbing Ukraine was not enough they wanted to use as a proxy to wage war against Russia, hence the 2 color revolutions, multiple agreements reneged on, etc.
By the way, the US invested $5,000 million not $65 million as mentioned in the article:
Nuland is lying. She was there herself in Kiev up to the Maidan-coup to bribe the Ukrainians with money and cakes. And even the Western media wrote that the US/CIA had invested 5-6 billion dollar in the regime-change that ousted the legitimate OSCE- monitored elected Yanokovitc.
Kwame Nkrumah was deposed for writing that neocolonialism is a dangerous form of imperialism that uses debt to exploit less developed countries. He said the struggle against neocolonialism was meant to prevent the financial power of developed countries, I.e. the axis of genocide, from impoverishing less developed countries through solidarity, like that which Cuba and Venezuela maintain despite sanctions.
Dear Elizabeth, Your precedent analysis of Ukraines fate at the hands of its American friends begs the question…When do we the people of this sacred earth take back our land, resources, collective sovereign wherewithal and the means of our fundamental wellbeing? It’s time to free ourselves from the robotic rabid vultures who control & in-debt us! It’s ‘now’ time and historically potent for we the people to renew our local and regional economies ecologically. Green the means of production away from the merchants of death and greed.
The answer to your question "when ...?" is NOW. It's time for "back to the land". Move to a rural community, grow food, and build resilient land-based community. It needs a tidal-wave of people doing this. Scott McIntyre's comment above re North Dakota looks interesting too. I moved from U.K to very rural Portugal to do just this.
I'm in NY state and can remember the countryside peppered with small farms supporting a family's wholesome lifestyle. Times were good and people were independent until they started getting paid less for their milk because of corporate farms and price manipulating
Where I am, there used to be three times as many people living in this region, on the land in the 1950s. They've moved to cities. There are hundreds of abandoned 'quintas' (small-holdings, usually about 1->4 hectares). Slowly they are being bought up by Northern Europeans like myself, and foreigners are rediscovering a different lifestyle possibility.
Fortunately the rugged, rocky and hilly terrain does not lend itself to Big-Ag (unlike in the Alentejo which now has a serious water shortage). Unfortunately, Eucalyptus plantations have sprung up everywhere here for the paper industry, draining the water table. There are fairly predictable fires which lowers the price of the trees but which are still o.k for paper (toilet paper & kitchen towel).
So Ukraine allowed itself to be used / abused by western powers in a proxy war against their nuclear armed near super power neighbor for all the wrong reasons, then take hundreds of billions in "aid" and support, much of which was siphoned off by their leaders and now you want us to feel sorry for them because of an unfair or unbalanced deal to pay some of it back? I don't care that Ukraine has to pay back these billions at higher than normal rates or give up territory or even their sovereignty and / or dignity. They sold those rights years ago. This is a lesson in a people that failed to stop western meddling and now it is FAFO time. I do not blame Russia for any of this mess. Ask yourself what we would do if Russia decided to put military assets in Mexico or Cuba? Oh wait, we know all about Russia in Cuba let alone on the Mexican border. Grow up. Ukraine should be grateful for peace and if it takes them 20 years to break even on any deal, so be it.
Reassembling the soviet union is a bad idea, particularly after it has become largely independent states. And our dream of corporate domination in the name of capitalism will only end in bitter disappointment for everyone who is not a billionaire
The Ukraine was a part of Russia long before the 'Soviet Union' was formed, and the actions of the Zelensky regime (banning the Russian language and Church) point clearly to one reason Russia felt it needed to help out those former Russians in Eastern Ukraine (who voted to 'secede' and were denied). I'm not so sure that allowing the East to 'go home', or at least become independent, is such a bad idea.
I do, however, totally agree with your second sentence.
Great! They allowed their dogs to board the trains fir the border while telling the Africans to walk. Karma at work. When some of your "wonderful broads" came to the USA, they didn't want their kids (little goats) to go to schools with black children! They should take their racist butts back to Ukraine.
With a few minor glitches, this is the culmination of the original plan, Making Ukraine into "Lebensraum" (Eng. Space to Grow) - Hitler's and the Third Reich's dream of land, slaves and resources.
The Fourth Reich (EU) has even been reconstituted - right down to England and the US, who armed and encouraged German Nazism as a battering ram against the USSR, ducking behind the curtain when the end is nigh. Psychopathy has no nationality, it is woke globalism and it never sleeps.
The US has NO right to anything in Ukraine - period. She is a victim of the US Empire as are so many on this planet. We should be paying them reparations for the damage that We-the-Indefensible Nation have done to that country.
Yep, it's all been said before - sadly it has to be forever repeated. Lord Acton basically said it in the 1800s too.
Also John Adams, early in the 1800s said ""All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arises not from deficits in the Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor and virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation, ... ".
Slowly Ukraine becomes what we have known it would be turned into from the start of the NATO and EU's ambitions, since the 2014 coup. Wonder when Ukrainians will start taking out those in the western world that did this to their country and peoples.
Elizabeth yet again stuns me with her clarity and purpose. She shares eloquently in this jam-packed article the financial slavery of a nation taking place right in front of our eyes, literally today. She brought to my attention that the word Mortgage is derived from French meaning "Death Pledge" and could not better describe the wholesale theft of the Ukrainian people's right to their own land and resources.
This article offers an alternative path to private bank debt-based funding (which has similarly enslaved most of the West under the guise of free market capitalism) by instead choosing public banking, which works beautifully, profitably (for the people) in North Dakota. We at http://WEconomy.Us have built "an economy for the rest of us" by creating a people's (regional, not crypto) digital currency, a truly FREEMARKETplace and guidance to create jobs, and invite you to inquire how it can be harnessed in your community.
Ukraine has long had no sovereignty, other than when the CIA and State decide it is convenient.
You may recall that Zelenskii won the 2019 election on a platform of peace and reconciliation with Russia, then immediately changed his tune after he was summoned to the US Ambassador.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Great article, but this isn't new. Read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins. The game is the same - only in a different place and a different time.
As someone with ties to Ukraine and some first-hand knowledge of the war brought to Ukraine by means of 2014 coup (April 2014 was when the war ON Eastern Ukraine by Kyiv started), the only thing there was to protect in 2022 was the right of Kyiv regime to commit atrocities in Eastern Ukraine and threaten Russia, and, of course, the profits of "Biden", all to the detriment of Ukraine itself. Outside of a very small and rabid self-proclaimed nazi groups from Western Ukraine there was no appetite for any Russia-Ukraine war on either side. Too much common history, culture and family ties for that border to even matter. The war was brought by the people who wanted the riches of Eastern Ukraine (where most of resources are), but did not want the people (who mostly happened to be ethnic Russians with pro-Russia views), so they had to be expelled from their land Gaza-style by all means necessary, political, economic and military. For those people, Russia came too late to help them fight for their independence.
I lived much of my adult life in Ukraine. Of course, the average frustrated Ukrainian was not itching for war.
However, the war has been a boon to the oligarch class in Ukraine. Floods of free money for skimming and fawning MSM coverage, to boot.
So what if Ukraine goes into debt? Zelenskii isn't going to have to pay that off. So what if minerals (which are not especially rare or the rights especially valuable) sold? It won't come from Budyanov's holdings. Their kids are not press-ganged off the streets, as happened to the son of the lady who cleaned my apartment.
Nobody of influence and authority cares, nobody in Washington, nobody in Brussels, nobody in Kiev.
Here, I am in accord, Feral. Let's take this a step further and ask the question, Who specifically? No, I didn't think Ukraine was itching for war, but some very nasty people were. They wanted revenge on Russia. Why? Zelensky, the puppet of these nasty creatures, has said Ukraine should be Big Israel. Hmmm, what does that tell you? Yes, there are big money, big Ag, big big, big, but nothing for anyone else only the bigs. The only people who get hurt are the same, the useless eaters just trying to live and they are in the way of the Oligarch's who don't feel compelled to share this planet with inferior, unsophisticated mere humans or are they really sub-humans. who and why are good questions.
Unfortunately, you are correct 😔!!!
Isn’t the US taxpayer in a few trillion dollars in debt as well?
@richard cunningham
You are starting to catch on.
----------
https://youtu.be/Gfcfdt0jcWs?si=ugvsUHm4DDRLEkEF
Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor
Who rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom
Sinister cynical instrument
Who makes the gun into a sacrament --
The only response to the deification
Of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations'
Idolatry of ideology
North South East West
Kill the best and buy the rest
It's just spend a buck to make a buck
You don't really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery
IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt
See the paid-off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
Open for business like a cheap bordello
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you're going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution
IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt
Dear Billy or Richard - nice poem/lyrics.
Artist is Bruce Cockburn:
https://youtu.be/Gfcfdt0jcWs?si=8xq0940qJIsZwKqK
Thank you - I was a bit slow on making the connection with the video.
Billy is the poet.
Thank you.
Operation Gladio check out The Colonel's Corner on Rumble explains it all
The United States debts are all denominated in US dollars.
Ukraine never had any sovereignty. Upon the fall of the USSR Western finance through local oligarchs took control of Ukraine just as they did to Russia. Russia was able to regain most of its sovereignty when the Putin administration took over in 2000.
Robbing Ukraine was not enough they wanted to use as a proxy to wage war against Russia, hence the 2 color revolutions, multiple agreements reneged on, etc.
By the way, the US invested $5,000 million not $65 million as mentioned in the article:
https://www.unian.info/politics/910206-since-1991-us-has-invested-5-billion-to-promote-democracy-in-ukraine-but-they-did-not-finance-maidan-nuland.html
So far more than 1 million Ukrainians have been killed in the war and more than 2 million injured.
The best hope of Ukraine is that the vampire West be defeated and kicked out of Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
Nuland is lying. She was there herself in Kiev up to the Maidan-coup to bribe the Ukrainians with money and cakes. And even the Western media wrote that the US/CIA had invested 5-6 billion dollar in the regime-change that ousted the legitimate OSCE- monitored elected Yanokovitc.
Kwame Nkrumah was deposed for writing that neocolonialism is a dangerous form of imperialism that uses debt to exploit less developed countries. He said the struggle against neocolonialism was meant to prevent the financial power of developed countries, I.e. the axis of genocide, from impoverishing less developed countries through solidarity, like that which Cuba and Venezuela maintain despite sanctions.
Dear Elizabeth, Your precedent analysis of Ukraines fate at the hands of its American friends begs the question…When do we the people of this sacred earth take back our land, resources, collective sovereign wherewithal and the means of our fundamental wellbeing? It’s time to free ourselves from the robotic rabid vultures who control & in-debt us! It’s ‘now’ time and historically potent for we the people to renew our local and regional economies ecologically. Green the means of production away from the merchants of death and greed.
Sincerely
Ted Dobson
The answer to your question "when ...?" is NOW. It's time for "back to the land". Move to a rural community, grow food, and build resilient land-based community. It needs a tidal-wave of people doing this. Scott McIntyre's comment above re North Dakota looks interesting too. I moved from U.K to very rural Portugal to do just this.
I'm in NY state and can remember the countryside peppered with small farms supporting a family's wholesome lifestyle. Times were good and people were independent until they started getting paid less for their milk because of corporate farms and price manipulating
Where I am, there used to be three times as many people living in this region, on the land in the 1950s. They've moved to cities. There are hundreds of abandoned 'quintas' (small-holdings, usually about 1->4 hectares). Slowly they are being bought up by Northern Europeans like myself, and foreigners are rediscovering a different lifestyle possibility.
Fortunately the rugged, rocky and hilly terrain does not lend itself to Big-Ag (unlike in the Alentejo which now has a serious water shortage). Unfortunately, Eucalyptus plantations have sprung up everywhere here for the paper industry, draining the water table. There are fairly predictable fires which lowers the price of the trees but which are still o.k for paper (toilet paper & kitchen towel).
So Ukraine allowed itself to be used / abused by western powers in a proxy war against their nuclear armed near super power neighbor for all the wrong reasons, then take hundreds of billions in "aid" and support, much of which was siphoned off by their leaders and now you want us to feel sorry for them because of an unfair or unbalanced deal to pay some of it back? I don't care that Ukraine has to pay back these billions at higher than normal rates or give up territory or even their sovereignty and / or dignity. They sold those rights years ago. This is a lesson in a people that failed to stop western meddling and now it is FAFO time. I do not blame Russia for any of this mess. Ask yourself what we would do if Russia decided to put military assets in Mexico or Cuba? Oh wait, we know all about Russia in Cuba let alone on the Mexican border. Grow up. Ukraine should be grateful for peace and if it takes them 20 years to break even on any deal, so be it.
Reassembling the soviet union is a bad idea, particularly after it has become largely independent states. And our dream of corporate domination in the name of capitalism will only end in bitter disappointment for everyone who is not a billionaire
The Ukraine was a part of Russia long before the 'Soviet Union' was formed, and the actions of the Zelensky regime (banning the Russian language and Church) point clearly to one reason Russia felt it needed to help out those former Russians in Eastern Ukraine (who voted to 'secede' and were denied). I'm not so sure that allowing the East to 'go home', or at least become independent, is such a bad idea.
I do, however, totally agree with your second sentence.
Great! They allowed their dogs to board the trains fir the border while telling the Africans to walk. Karma at work. When some of your "wonderful broads" came to the USA, they didn't want their kids (little goats) to go to schools with black children! They should take their racist butts back to Ukraine.
Brilliant analysis, Elizabeth!
With a few minor glitches, this is the culmination of the original plan, Making Ukraine into "Lebensraum" (Eng. Space to Grow) - Hitler's and the Third Reich's dream of land, slaves and resources.
The Fourth Reich (EU) has even been reconstituted - right down to England and the US, who armed and encouraged German Nazism as a battering ram against the USSR, ducking behind the curtain when the end is nigh. Psychopathy has no nationality, it is woke globalism and it never sleeps.
The US has NO right to anything in Ukraine - period. She is a victim of the US Empire as are so many on this planet. We should be paying them reparations for the damage that We-the-Indefensible Nation have done to that country.
Time to reread Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
Yep, it's all been said before - sadly it has to be forever repeated. Lord Acton basically said it in the 1800s too.
Also John Adams, early in the 1800s said ""All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arises not from deficits in the Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor and virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation, ... ".
Slowly Ukraine becomes what we have known it would be turned into from the start of the NATO and EU's ambitions, since the 2014 coup. Wonder when Ukrainians will start taking out those in the western world that did this to their country and peoples.