ex-kgb analyst predicts US civil war

[robertmf]

Russian political scientist says civil war will break out in the US next year - Topix

hahahaha Where to begin ... like Northern California would enter into an alignment with LaLaLand. Reading the last paragraph reminds me to always check source of information.

Political scientist: “Civil war will break out in the US next year, in 2010 the country will break into six pieces”

Moscow – APA. Mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar.

Around the end of June 2010, or early July, the U.S. will break into six pieces,” Russian political scientist Igor Panarin predicts, APA reports. California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

"There’s a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds. "But if we’re talking reasonably, it’s not the best scenario -- for Russia." Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama "can work miracles," he wrote. "But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

[RIKO]

Originally Posted by robertmf ... he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats ...

Scary thought.

[Qdos]

I think they need to look to their own home affairs more seriously...

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/600/42/373091.htm

[Carbo]

I read this in the WSJ the other day. It is utterly infantile reasoning. not even worth a look.

[Kvartiraokhotnik]

Originally Posted by Carbo I read this in the WSJ the other day. It is utterly infantile reasoning. not even worth a look.

Are we still on for that bet Carbo?
That the dollar will no longer be the world reserve currency by the end of 2009?
I hope so

[robertmf]

Originally Posted by Qdos I think they need to look to their own home affairs more seriously... http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/600/42/373091.htm

Apparently "things" are getting internally serious enough to bring back the "thought police" and expansion of the definition of treason.



Alexander Osipovich
Published: Wednesday, December 24, 2008

MOSCOW - Russia's worsening economic situation may spark popular unrest, the interior ministry warned Wednesday, in the first high-level admission that unpaid wages and job losses could lead to protests.

Underlining the country's economic woes, a Kremlin official said falling oil prices meant Russia would run a budget deficit in 2009 after years of surpluses.

Economic discontent could create a "protest mood," Deputy Interior Minister Mikhail Sukhodolsky said in comments carried by the RIA Novosti news agency.

"The current situation may aggravate the protest mood caused by discontent among the country's working population over unpaid wages or the threat of layoffs, as well as unpopular measures implemented as part of the anti-crisis program," Sukhodolsky was quoted as saying.

His comments came several days after riot police in the Pacific port of Vladivostok forcibly broke up a rally of 1,000 demonstrators protesting a government decision to raise import tariffs on used foreign cars.

The decision was meant to protect Russian automakers from the world economic slowdown, but it has provoked angry protests in Vladivostok, where thousands are employed in the import of cars from nearby Japan.

Some observers have warned that Russia's mounting economic woes could lead to further anti-government protests.

Sukhodolsky said the crisis could also increase crime by destitute people, singling out the many foreign workers employed in Russia.

"The reality is, the country could face a significant increase of marginal elements without the means to live," he said, quoted by RIA Novosti.

"There is special concern about illegal immigrants, as well as legal foreign workers tricked by their employers. It is already possible to establish a certain growth of crime committed by foreigners."

Many of Russia's construction workers and other menial labourers come from impoverished former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

Earlier this month about 250 Tajik builders halted work on a construction site in the city of Yekaterinburg to protest unpaid wages, in what the Kommersant newspaper called the first major strike of the crisis.

An advisor to President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday that Russia would run a budget deficit in 2009 for the first time in years.

"Yes, there undoubtedly will be," Arkady Dvorkovich said, according to RIA Novosti.

"The deficit is caused by the fall in oil prices, above all," he said, adding that the government would tap into its reserves accumulated from years of high oil prices in order to cover the gap.

He also held out the possibility Russia could seek external loans to overcome the fallout from the global financial crisis.

"If necessary, we will do this," Dvorkovich was quoted as saying by news agencies, although he said Russia would not turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as it did in the 1990s.

"We are only talking about loans from the market . . . The discussion is not about the IMF or other such organizations, we will definitely not ask for their services."

Russia has had budget surpluses since 1999. Until recently the state enjoyed strong revenues from the soaring price of oil, Russia's main export, but oil prices have plummeted since this summer amid the global economic slowdown.

Ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meanwhile backed a statement criticizing the Kremlin's measures on the economic crisis as anti-democratic and offering proposals to help Russia emerge from the turmoil.

Gorbachev has formed a new group alongside 13 other politicians and independent economists to propose ways of steering Russia through the downturn and criticize the government where necessary.

"The anti-crisis measures are being adopted without a democratic process and the subsidies given out often vanish into thin air or end up in someone's pocket," their memorandum said.

[robertmf]

Originally Posted by Qdos I think they need to look to their own home affairs more seriously... http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/600/42/373091.htm

Well, Gobachev has apparently "seen the light". He is now schlepping subversive Vuitton luggage

Louis Vuitton Ad Shows Gorbachev Accompanied by Subversive Text
By DAN LEVIN (NT Times online)

Even if you don’t read Russian, a recent print ad for Louis Vuitton is something of a visual joke: Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last leader of the old Soviet Union, sits in a limousine as it passes a remaining part of the Berlin Wall, an open Louis Vuitton bag beside him.

If you do read Russian, the ad seems to be even more curious: poking out of the bag is a publication with the headline, “The Murder of Litvinenko: They Wanted to Give Up the Suspect for $7,000.”

The reference is to Alexander V. Litvinenko, the former K.G.B. spy who died last November after being poisoned with a radioactive isotope, polonium 210. On his deathbed, Mr. Litvinenko accused President Vladimir V. Putin of orchestrating his murder; the British authorities have accused one of Mr. Litvinenko’s associates, Andrei K. Lugovoi, of the crime, and have requested his extradition from Russia, which the Kremlin has refused.

Last week, as the translation of the headline in the ad started circulating on the Internet, some natural questions arose. Was the message placed there deliberately? And what did it mean?

Both Louis Vuitton and its ad agency, Ogilvy & Mather, were quick to dismiss any significance. “Our company has absolutely no intention to pass any other messages than the one on ‘personal journeys,’” the gist of the campaign in which Mr. Gorbachev appeared, said Pietro Beccari, director of marketing at Louis Vuitton, in an e-mail message.

Besides, he said, if the placement had been deliberate, the words would not have been put “upside down, in Cyrillic and in need of a magnifying lens to be read.” The ad was photographed on June 1 by Annie Leibovitz.

Daniel Sicouri, Ogilvy’s chief executive for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, also denied any political undertones, saying Ms. Leibovitz’s stylists brought Russian magazines to the photo shoot to make the pictures look authentic and any reference to the Litvinenko affair was coincidental.

“Remember, at that time, this was the news of the day,” he said. “Whatever the news of the day is includes political information.”

A representative of Mr. Gorbachev said he had been unaware of the contents of the magazine during the photo shoot. He “was perplexed by this thing when it was brought to his attention a few days ago,” Pavel Palazhchenko, Mr. Gorbachev’s personal aide and translator, wrote by e-mail.

“As a separate matter,” he said, “Gorbachev’s position on the Litvinenko affair is that it should be thoroughly investigated as a criminal case.”

But not everyone is convinced that this all was serendipitous. “In an industry where sesame seeds are hand-placed on a hamburger bun by food technicians before a shot, one would reasonably assume that this was not something that happened by chance,” said Robert Passikoff, president of a brand research consultancy, Brand Keys. “Ads like these get art-directed to the very millimeter and airbrushed so that the advertiser gets exactly what they want.”

Perhaps the advertiser is getting just that, Mr. Passikoff said. “Given that Louis Vuitton and Ogilvy are receiving precisely the kind of attention and buzz that is regarded as being the measure of success these days, it counteracts those effects if they admit to doing it,” he said. “Once you declare it was an overt and planned act, it has no meaning.

[Qdos]

Heh, doesn't that mean Gorbi has just broken the revised treason laws?

[robertmf]

Originally Posted by Qdos Heh, doesn't that mean Gorbi has just broken the revised treason laws?

Да **snicker** you're on the ball today ... not to mention his being in NYC. Perhaps he thinks (erronously) that distance will prevent the Bulgarian poisoned umbrella tip from finding him.

[Carbo]

Originally Posted by Kvartiraokhotnik Are we still on for that bet Carbo? That the dollar will no longer be the world reserve currency by the end of 2009? I hope so

I could potentially see a situation where, like the inter-war years, there was in effect two reserve currencies (this time dollar and euro, that time pound and dollar). The Fed's quantitive easing should see to a considerable weakening of the dollar. However, currencies only gain and lose strength against eachother, or, some hard-currency nuts would like to have it, gold. The ECB will be exposed as being heinously wrong in it's hawkish line, and I'm willing to predict that by early summer, they too will be down hard against the zero interest rate bound.

Under those circumstances, it's difficult to see what will usurp the dollar. Gold? Well, despite the potential for financial armageddon, or at the very least, debt-deflation, gold has hardly moved. I expected it to be well over a 1000 by now, and perhaps hitting 2000 at some stage this year. Currently, it languishes down at 800.

So, yes, I do think the buck will be, or will have a share of, reserve currency status this time next year.

[robertmf]

Originally Posted by Carbo I could potentially see a situation where, like the inter-war years, there was in effect two reserve currencies (this time dollar and euro, that time pound and dollar). The Fed's quantitive easing should see to a considerable weakening of the dollar. However, currencies only gain and lose strength against eachother, or, some hard-currency nuts would like to have it, gold. The ECB will be exposed as being heinously wrong in it's hawkish line, and I'm willing to predict that by early summer, they too will be down hard against the zero interest rate bound. Under those circumstances, it's difficult to see what will usurp the dollar. Gold? Well, despite the potential for financial armageddon, or at the very least, debt-deflation, gold has hardly moved. I expected it to be well over a 1000 by now, and perhaps hitting 2000 at some stage this year. Currently, it languishes down at 800. So, yes, I do think the buck will be, or will have a share of, reserve currency status this time next year.

This is your rant for the New Year 2009 ? Somehow I expected ..umm.. 'more'.

Yes the $dollar$ will remain as the major world currency since there is minimal risk. This is based on trust by others in the USA country creditworthiness and esp. political stability.

Would the yuan or ruble become a world currency ? Well not under the current political climes there - too much wealth risk.

[Carbo]

Originally Posted by robertmf This is your rant for the New Year 2009 ? Somehow I expected ..umm.. 'more'. Yes the $dollar$ will remain as the major world currency since there is minimal risk. This is based on trust by others in the USA country creditworthiness and esp. political stability. Would the yuan or ruble become a world currency ? Well not under the current political climes there - too much wealth risk.

I do have a rant planned, but I just have one or two things to do right now. Give me a bit of time.

[robertmf]

Originally Posted by Carbo Give me a bit of time.

Being American, I not only claim ignorance of geography, but also demand as a birthright cheap gas/petrol and instant gratification ... so hurry up I have a very short attention span. LOL :-)

Of passing interest, It is -7C and clear here in Philly and only -4C and snowing in Moscow; according to my wee weather icon.

[robertmf]

Glenn Beck — who has a daily TV show on a popular cable news network and therefore must be taken more seriously in some quarters than scruffy people ranting on streetcorners — assembles his friends to war-game the coming civil war. Apparently a combination of 95% tax rates and a flood of unwashed Mexicans is going to provoke militias made of Bubbas to rise up against the U.S. government. Also, Obama is going to force states to accept stimulus money against their will.

The Coming Civil War | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

Fox News "war games" the coming civil war - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

[Jack17]

Russian political scientist says civil war will break out in the US next year - Topix

This analyst is an astute salesman who knows his audiance. It's just pablum for the Russian masses. Not much science here; but this guy overnight is, I'm sure, the most popular political scientist in Russia.