Posted on 10/03/2011 4:49:50 PM PDT by barmag25
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he wants to bring ex-Soviet states into a "Eurasian Union" in an article which outlined his first foreign policy initiative as he prepares to return to the Kremlin as the country's next president. Putin said the new union would build on an existing Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan which from next year will remove all barriers to trade, capital and labor movement between the three countries. "We are not going to stop there and are setting an ambitious goal -- to achieve an even higher integration level in the Eurasian Union," Putin wrote in an article which will be published in Izvestia newspaper on October 4. Putin said last month he would run in the March 2012 presidential election and his current public approval ratings show that he is set to win. Putin's initiative comes as Russia nears the end of its 18-year-old negotiations to join the World Trade Organization. In the article Putin made no secret of his skepticism about the global trade watchdog. "The process of finding new post-crisis global development models is moving forward with difficulty. For example, the Doha round (of international trade talks) has practically stopped. There are objective difficulties inside the WTO," he wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at ca.news.yahoo.com ...
Say, maybe they should try a common currency....
“Say, maybe they should try a common currency...”
LOL! (...because it’s working so well for the EU.)
I had a professor one time that said someday there will only be three or four leaders of the world. So....now we have EU, maybe another EU, the possible NAU (North American Union), UAE....who’s next? I wish this professor was still alive.
Dah! But what to kall this new ‘union’. Oh, mebe ve vill kall it USSR 2.0?
Dah! 2.0 because now ve have all the bugs vorking properly! Ha! Hahahahaha!
Hey, that’s kinda catchy! You could make it a little more folksy by spinning it as a friendly council of equals that’s in charge of a bigger institution. I think those are called “soviets” in Russian...
The march toward the demise of the nation-state continues. It’s rather distressing when seeming nutcases like Alex Jones are shown to be right.
Plus, you know they have warehouses full of the old letterhead stationary and such.
Note to Putin,
Been there done that,
Repeatedly Germany chooses to die rather than go that way.
yes, comrade.
now that they have gas and oil to make a living.
What I see it as, though, is a European Union clone without the common currency. (I think € will not last in EU either.) The reason for that is clear. WTO is not willing to admit Russia, and the process is completely out of control (or is under control but not how Russia would like it to be.) So Putin is essentially taking the ball and going home, to build his own team and to play on his own terms. With India and China in tow he just may be able to do it. If Brazil joins too then it would be the end of WTO.
Another important item here is that this new union of his will consist of young, aggressive economies. These economies produce a lot and consume a lot; there will be plenty of trade. I'm sure the intent is to make this union into something that is more important than the WTO. Countries that are left overboard are Europe and the USA/Canada; these are largely mature consumption economies, with a smattering of high technologies. These countries are also largely post-capitalist, where industry is unwelcome, investments are foolish, and social equality is all the rage. In other words, these are countries that one would do well by staying away from.
As Yogi Berra says, it’s deja vu all over again.
>>>Nobody there wants another USSR. What they want is another China - where the economy is capitalist but the political control is centralized and minimally influenced by the rabble. <<<
In other words, what we used to call fascism.
We have always been at war with Eurasia
Europe can be had for a song. This is your chance. Just step up and cosign, and you can run half the world.
The Union of the Republics of Soviet Socialists, The URSS, No...
Bah, I can't think of any more, What Putin Should do is create and Alliance with the Eastern European Countries, a Pact of some Sort.
Putin could then be some sort of First among Equals, a Supreme Soviet, if you will.
Well, let's see what the dictionary says:
dictatorial movement: any movement, ideology, or attitude that favors dictatorial government, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism
Well, what do you know - you are right! :-)
But they still can do it and sell to their populations - just by using different words. In fact, you don't have to sell fascism to China, they are living it since days of Deng Xiaoping. India may remain democratic for a while (until another flurry of terrorist acts, perhaps.) Russia was living in fascist dictatorship since ... forever, probably; there is no record of slavs on Russian land not living under one ruler or another. That would be an easy sell.
The Fascism 2.0 will not have to be aggressive. Neither was the previous release; but Hitler just decided to get it all in one move - that's where he failed. If only he stayed within German borders (or perhaps with Sudetenland) and wasn't so fixated on Jews he'd die in his bed and be known as a great politician. Alternative history is interesting to me, I read a lot of it.
Anyway, Fascism 2.0 can be built (see China) and it can be successful enough, for a certain definition of success. Slavery was also "successful enough" - even for some slaves, especially in ancient times, not in the early USA. Back then, in Greece or Rome, slavery was just one of several fates that you could draw; and it wasn't the worst one.
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