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I have just been immersed in an extraordinary experience: a mini-tour of conferences in Brazil encompassing four key cities – Sao Paulo, Rio, Salvador, Belo Horizonte. Full houses, sharp questions, fabulously warm people, divine gastronomy – a deep dive into the 8th largest economy in the world and major BRICS+ node.
As much as I was trying to impress the finer points of the long and winding road to multipolarity and the multiple instances of frontal clash between NATOstan and the Global Majority, I was learning non-stop from an array of generous Brazilians about the current inner contradictions of a society of astonishing complexity.
It’s as if I was immersed in a psychedelic journey conducted by Os Mutantes, the iconic trio of the late 1960s Tropicalia movement: from the business front in Sao Paulo – with its world-class restaurants and frantic deal-making – to the blinding beauty of Rio; from Salvador – the capital of Brazilian Africa – to Belo Horizonte, the capital of the third-wealthiest state in the Federation, Minas Gerais, a powerhouse of iron ore, uranium and niobium exports.
Chancay-Shanghai
I learned about how China chose the state of Bahia as arguably its key node in Brazil, where Chinese investment is everywhere – even if Brazil is not yet a formal member of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
In Rio, I was presented with an astonishing work on Stoics Zeno and Cleanthes by essayist Ciro Moroni – delving among other issues into the equivalences between Stoic theogony/theology and the Hindu Vedanta – the tradition of culture, religion and sacred rituals in India up to the Buddha era.
And in a sort of psychedelic synchronicity, I felt like Zeno in the Agora as we debated the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine at a lovely round pavillion – a mini-Agora – in fabled Liberty Square in Belo Horizonte, across the street from a fabulous exhibition of Treasures of Peruvian Art.
Much to my astonishment, a Peruvian, Carlos Ledesma, flew in from Lima especially for my conference and the exhibition; and then he told me about the Chancay port being built south of Lima, owned 70% by COSCO and the rest by private Peruvian capital; that will be a sister port of Shanghai.
Chancay-Shanghai: APEC in action across the Pacific. Next November, there will be three nearly simultaneous key events in South America: the G20 in Rio, the APEC summit in Lima, and the inauguration of Chancay.
Chancay will be boosted by no less than five rail corridors that may eventually be built – certainly with Chinese investment – from the agribusiness Valhalla in the Brazilian Center-West all the way to Peru.
Yes, China is all over the place in its largest trade partner in Latin America – much to the despair of a Hegemon sending lowly functionary Little Blinken to Beijing to hear the letter of the new law by Xi Jinping himself: it’s cooperation or confrontation, a “downward spiral”. Your downward spiral.
A river from Tibet to Xinjiang
At the Belo Horizonte conference, I shared the stage with remarkable Sebastien Kiwonghi Bizaru from Congo, who supervises PhD programs at the Candido Mendes University as well as being a Professor of International Law, after an extraordinary academic journey.
He is also the author of a ground-breaking book examining the highly debatable role of the UNSC in the conflicts of the Great Lakes – focusing on Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
With top researcher Natacha Rena, we pored over a map of China retracing her travels east to west last year all the way to the Xinjiang border – as she filled me in on the astonishing Honggqi River – or Red Flag River – Project, first proposed in 2017: no less than an attempt to divert water from Tibet to the dry lands and deserts of Xinjiang by building an enormous, over 6,000 km-long artificial river, including the branch canals.
The projected river will be slightly less longer than the Yangtze, diverting 60 billion cubic meters of water a year, more than the annual flow of the Yellow River. Predictably, ecologists in China are attacking the project, which may have already had an official go-ahead and is proceeding discreetly.
And then, as I was on the road between Rio and Minas Gerais, the BRICS 10 Ministers of Economy and heads of Central Banks met in Sao Paulo: and all of them hailed the drive towards “independent” payment settlement mechanisms. Russia is the 2024 president of this crucial group.
Russian Vice-Minister of Finance, Ivan Chebeskov, went straight to the point: “Most countries agree that payment in national currencies is what the BRICS need.” The Russian Ministry of Finance privileges the creation of a common digital platform congregating the BRICS Central Banks’ digital currencies and their national systems of transmitting financial messages.
Crucially, at this BRICS 10 meeting, most members stressed they are in favor of totally bypassing the U.S. dollar for trading.
Russian Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov was even bolder: he said that Russia is proposing to BRICS the creation of an independent and “de-politicized” global system of payments.
Siluanov hinted that the system may be based on blockchain – considering its low cost and minimal control exercised by the Hegemon.
BRICS map the new world in Sao Paulo
A day before the meeting in Sao Paulo, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow supported the development of these BRICS strategies, noting that “if we manage to develop independent financial mechanisms, that will seriously question the globalization mechanism currently led by the West.”
As over 100 nations are currently researching or embryonically implementing a digital currency in their Central Banks, a big breakthrough is imminent in Russia – a process I have been following in detail since last year.
In the end, it’s all about Sovereignty. That was the crux of the most serious debates I had this past week in Brazil, with academic players and on several podcasts related to the conferences. It’s the overarching theme hanging over the Lula government, as the President seems to cast the figure of a lonely fighter cornered by a vicious circle of 5th columnists and comprador elites.
In Belo Horizonte I was presented with yet another astonishing book by a former, brilliant government official, the late Celso Brant. After a sharp analysis of the modern history of Brazil and its interactions with imperialism, he reminds the reader of what stellar Mexican writer and poet Octavio Paz said in the 1980s about Brazil and China: “These will be the two great protagonists of the 21th century.”
When Paz rendered his verdict, every indicator favored Brazil, which since 1870 held the largest GDP growth in the world. Brazil exported more than China, and from 1952 to 1987 was growing at annual rate of 7.4%. Continuing the trend, Brazil would be the 4th largest economy in the world by now (it’s between 8th and 9th, side by side with Italy, and could be the 5th, were not for direct destabilization by the Empire starting in the 2010s, culminating with the Car Wash operation).
That’s exactly what Brant shows: how the Hegemon intervened to crash Brazilian development – and that started way before Car Wash. Kissinger was already saying in the 1970s that “the United States will not allow the birth of a new Japan under the Equator line.”
Hardcore neoliberalism was the privileged tool. While China under Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping and then Jiang Zemin went Full Sovereign, Brazil was mired in neocolonial dependency. Lula tried – and is now trying it again, against all odds and surrounded on all sides, with Brazil branded as a “swing state” by U.S. Think Tankland and potential victim of new rounds of imperial Hybrid War.
Lula – and some solid academic elites away from power – know full well that as a neo-colony, Brazil will never fulfill its potential of being, side by side with China, as prophesized by Paz, the great protagonist of the 21st century.
That was the major takeaway of my psychedelic tour of Tropicalia: Sovereignty. Viktor Orban – accused by simpletons of being a member of a fuzz “Neofascist International” – nailed it with a simole formulation: “The inglorious period of Western civilization will be brought to an end this year, by replacing the world built on progressive-liberal hegemony with a Sovereigntist one.”
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red flag river…this could explain why china is so insistent on the issue of tibet and the strange neolithic battles with india in the himalayas. water will be the next great resource war.
in the end india will be forced to choose between the west and the brics, but they will play both sides off of one another, to the last minute before ditching the dying west, unlike argentina that has sold herself to the zioneocon empire for a handful of centavos, like the whore she is.
The writing is onthe wallfor the Hegemon and its bootlickers. The world is leading in a different direction for the Globalists and Rule-Based Order. The ship is leaving the port and the smart money will follow.
BRIC-o-Rama Pepe? Putin/Kremlin clearly stated that BRICS cannot replace G20 [4]. Also Putin-o-Rama “Multipolar” World is just empty rhetoric [3], as he’s WEF-ing/resetting Russia even without Schwab [5].
In other related news:
Tucker Carlson interviews Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin | YouTube | 2024-04
Video Link
Of course, Dugin is not Putin’s brain! Kissinger/Schwab are Putin’s brain, as they recruited/trained him to be deployed in Russia as colonial administrator.
Here’s what Dugin, a true Russian patriot, had to say about Putin’s incoherent and contradicting worldview [1][2]. BTW, Putin never met with him and he is not Putin’s brain. That’s just Western propaganda. Klaus is Putin’s brain, for he recruited him in the 90s, trained, and installed at the helm of Russia by a decree.
Also, his multipolar world talk is just talk [3]. He worships the West and wants to be with them [4][5].
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[1] Alexander Dugin was never Putin’s brain – The Post
https://unherd.com/thepost/alexander-dugin-was-never-putins-brain/
Excerpt: Each article is illustrated with individual photos of the philosopher, and individual photos of the president. There are no photos of Putin and Dugin together, because the two have never met.
Excerpt: By 2017, Dugin was openly critical of the president — in an interview that year, he derided Putin for holding an incoherent worldview: “I think that even he doesn’t understand what he’s saying because now he’s a liberal, now a conservative; now he’s for sovereignty, now for globalism, and now against globalism.” As of 2022, Dugin has no personal or professional links to the Kremlin. “Those who think that I stand on the periphery of power are correct.” Dugin stated a few years ago. “I have no influence. I don’t know anybody, have never seen anyone, I just write my books, and am a Russian thinker, nothing more. I write books, somebody reads them.”
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[2] ‘Putin’s brain’ says he doesn’t have Putin’s ear. Do we know who does? – CSMonitor
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2015/0127/Putin-s-brain-says-he-doesn-t-have-Putin-s-ear.-Do-we-know-who-does
Excerpt: Dugin’s insistence that he has no direct knowledge of Kremlin inner-workings seems particularly poignant, since he is named most frequently by Western Kremlin-watchers as the key influence on Putin’s geopolitical views over the past decade. After Russia annexed Crimea and supported pro-Russian rebellions in eastern Ukraine last year, Foreign Affairs magazine went so far as to label the charismatic ultranationalist as “Putin’s Brain.”
Excerpt: Dugin says he never enjoyed special access to the corridors of power, and whatever input he had was shut down last summer when he and other “patriots” were forcibly sidelined by the Kremlin. Furthermore, he has no idea who may be helping Putin come up with his “incoherent” and “contradictory” Ukraine policies these days. “Anything anyone tells you about how Putin decides things is either disinformation, or error,” he adds.
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[3] 20+ years passed, but Putin’s empty “multipolar world” rhetoric remains:
Dec 3, 2002, Vladimir Putin and Jiang Zemin: “There is a need to create a multipolar world”.
Mar 21, 2023: Putin and Xi Jinping: “Moscow and Beijing will promote a multipolar world.”
[4] Kremlin: BRICS Can Not Replace G20 | 2022-07 | Sputnik International
https://sputniknews.com/20220714/kremlin-brics-can-not-replace-g20-1097311824.html
[5] Resetting Without Schwab: Russia & the Fourth Industrial Revolution
( Riley Waggaman aka Edward Slavsquat | Whitney Webb | Unlimited Hangout ) | 2022-07
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2022/07/investigative-reports/resetting-without-schwab-russia-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/
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500+ Anon001 comments archive @ The Unz Review | TUR
https://www.unz.com/comments/all/?commenterfilter=anon001
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Pepe are you still peddling that f35 nuke bullshit or just hoping nobody talks about it again?
The US is livid! Here we are, bravely instigating FUKUS with Australia and Japan, in a sincere attempt to “bring” Freedom and Democracy to the Indo-Pacific Region, and along comes sneaky China, queering our pitch and opening up international trade! There oughta be a Law or against it, or at least a Rule.
India has no choice for now……India/China border is thousands of miles, unresolved DISPUTES…..
Troll. Snake. Please go somewhere else to inject your poisons.
Looks like Mr. Escobar will elaborate on the F-35 incident, at the time I post this the livestream has not begun yet.
https://www.youtube.com/live/UMbcN74xG5E?si=o-iYscjvQn1wd1cj
India still imagines it will be the new landing place for the Jews after they leave the former United States in ruins – which is a richly deserved end for a nation of bullying assholes who thought they’d get away with their act forever. The Indians have cooperated with Israel in its genocide of the Palestinian people and have even sent weapons and men. They are despicable and utterly unaware that Khazarians don’t have allies – they just have people they exploit temporarily until they are no longer of any use. The Indians can either follow the path of the United States or find a better way with BRCS. My suspicion is they will eventually go with BRCS when they have no other choice. But what will they do with the jew parasites who have touched down in Delhi and elsewhere? It’s better to never let the parasite in than to try to get rid of the cancer later.
The moment smart people believe that their money will be safe in China and elsewhere, and the moment investors realize that China offers a credible and secure alternative, it’s over for the ((Americans)). The money flying out of Jew York, ((London)), and the west will be dizzying in its speed and scale. And a whole bunch of untalented Americans are gonna realize how useless they are and how their wealth was tied to the privileges brought by the reserve currency and US militarism. I hope the JEWsa becomes a slaughter-house.
Meh, basically he doubled down but said to wait for the details. I forgot that Haiphong has a tendency to use clickbait titles, but no harm no foul.
Others claim something similar about an Israeli F-35, but that story goes that it was delivering a conventional standoff weapon and was not shot down. The interesting question I find here is whether Israel has the capability to use EMP nukes against other countries. Also, would Israel’s backers manage to talk them out of using such a weapon?
https://www.youtube.com/live/UMbcN74xG5E?si=gxooe1Ps4qBE8ZKZ
We must not get our hopes up, Brazil is a country with a “shitcracy” and soon there will be new elections and with a good investment in dollars you can “elect” any “son of a bitch” who returns to more of the same and the backwardness of the brown
Let us remember how after Lula’s first government, the case of the coup d’état against Dilma and Lula’s imprisonment followed, as is typical in all “shitocracy” and although it is now recognized that everything was false, nothing happens and we return to the millennium southern stagnation.
Brazil’s has been elevated from the first place of being the shettest country in Americas to the second one by OOSSAA. Good for them.
However, Paul Landowski’s statue of the Crist Redeemed is beautiful.
Let me get this straight. First, Pepe admits that Brazil is a neo-colony. OK. I agree. But then, without skipping a beat, right in the next and almost final sentence he says: “That was the major takeaway of my psychedelic tour of Tropicalia: Sovereignty.” But wait. How can a neo-colony even dream about “sovereignty”? Isn’t that a non-sequitur? Or is it some kind of sick joke? How the hell do those two juxtaposed sentences even make any sense? Well, Pepe did sort of admit he was on drugs. What was it? DMT? Was he channeling Terence McKenna? I don’t think so — McKenna seemed much more lucid and rational.
Listen, Pepe, my fellow Brazilian, I must warn you that your over-the-top optimism borders on the ludicrous — if not the outright mendacious. Calling all flying Pepes: please get your ass down back to earth and let’s talk some reality. Like… facts. Here is a headline from the mouths of our “5th Column”, as you put it, otherwise known as our dear congressmen, elected by the people of Brazil: “The 2024 budget forecasts expenses of R$ 5.5 trillion [about USD 1.1 trillion], most of it to refinance public debt.” You can read the whole thing here, at the site of our Federal Congress, where they include a bunch of helpful charts which will make your jaw drop:
https://www.camara.leg.br/noticias/1028308-orcamento-de-2024-preve-despesas-de-r-55-trilhoes-a-maior-parte-para-refinanciar-a-divida-publica/
So, yes, you read that correctly: most of Brazil’s budget — almost 50% — goes to refinancing our debt. How’s that, for “sovereignty”? The fact is Brazil has a heinous debt problem. Maybe to you Americans that may be equivalent to a bad hair day, who knows. But let me give you just an example: Education gets the equivalent of USD 22 billion, whereas payment of debt gets about USD 500 billion. Ain’t that a doozy? How can any country sustain that sort of ravenous rapacious financial bankster rape? Does what I’m writing even translate into the American mind? Can any of you even fathom such an outrage? Shouldn’t people be rampaging in the streets here in Brazil, demanding the heads of all our comprador representatives? It’s unfathomable. And utterly disgusting.
So, Pepe, could you do me a favor? Could you tone it down a bit, buddy? First, as Brazilians, let’s get this messy little hairdo — oops, I mean heinous debt — problem of ours minimally under control. Then and only then, Pepe, should you give yourself the luxury of getting high again on your geopolitical tropicalia sovereignty crack to your heart’s content.
Having thought about it, I think Mr. Escobar is right in his optimism. I could shit on the country I live in a thousand times and with good reason, but what would be the point? I don’t think BRICS is a bad idea, so fuck Trump too, LOL. Africa has a right to become developed as well as any other place.
Some good things from Mariupol, Russia:
Video Link
Remember Fukushima? An Israeli company Magna BSP was in charge of security for that nuclear facility. Strange Japan would allow a foreign company to be security of it’s nuclear facility but not so strange when you know Japan is a defeated American vassal. Anyway, Japan was working with Iran to develop it’s energy sector (energy is key to any modern economy) and the Zionist wanted to stop this so they detonated a small nuclear device to sabotage Fukushima as a warning to the Japanese government to stop their dealings with Iran.
Absolutely true. Chinese civilization was founded upon those rivers that start from Himalayan headwaters. The British making trouble in Tibet in the 1800’s made every government since then realize the importance of not letting it be separated (though before that it was just because the Tibetan Empire used to raid China and the Mongols).
“… the Tibetan Empire used to raid China and the Mongols.”
Many states raided “China” and then became part of China. For example, the minority Jurchen tribe enlarged China after it brought along its territory in north and parts of northeastern China to form the Jin dynasty. When the remaining Southern Song was invaded by the Mongols they included not only Jin territory but also entered Tibet whose people had spread throughout much of Southwest China like Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunnan. It was the Mongols who started the tradition of requiring all future Dalai Lamas to be officially approved by the central Chinese government. All the Dalai Lamas during the Ming and later Qing dynasties underwent the same ceremonies (held in Tibet). The present Dalai Lama was born in the Chinese province of Qinghai and he requested the ceremony be held there rather than in Lhasa. China at the time was under Kuomintang rule, and the Nationalists acceded to his request.
Correct. Though many would have people believe Tibet only became part of China in 1950.
The only reason westebeers care anything about Tibet is because of Hollywood “seven years in Tibet”. Which was written by a Nazi who ended up there. He then suddenly felt affinity to a people who were isolated and oppressed (roll of the eyes). Things Nazis do to “reform” themselves. He should have been glad he wasn’t killed by t the Tibetans like the French and British missionaries that used to go there. But yeah that is washed from western history now…. When those governments used to ask the Qing Emperors to make the Tibetans stop attacking the missionaries. Ahh but the documents still exist for serious scholars. But there isn’t much of that in the West now it seems
“When those governments used to ask the Qing Emperors to make the Tibetans stop attacking the missionaries”
If I remember correctly, the most bloody incident was the Younghusband military ‘expedition’ which, after being pushed back by the Tibetans – probably with the help of some Qing troops stationed on the plateau – started shooting indiscriminately at any Tibetan native they met on their retreat. But then, shooting at natives and destroying local habitats were a speciality of British imperialism; Churchill even boasted about it regarding his incursions in Afghanistan.