Dmitry Orlov
If I had to characterize the current international situation using only one word, the word "chaos" would be a pretty decent choice (albeit not the only one). Chaos in the Ukraine, chaos in Venezuela, chaos everywhere the Empire is involved in any capacity and, of course, chaos inside the US. But you wouldn't know that listening to the talking heads and other "experts" who serve roughly the same function for the Empire as the orchestra did on the Titanic: to distract from the developing disaster(s) for a long as possible.
I decided to turn to the undisputed expert on social and political collapse,
Dmitry Orlov whom I have always admired for his very logical, non-ideological, comparative analyses of the collapse of the USSR and the US. The fact that his detractors have to resort to crude and, frankly, stupid ad hominems further convinces me that Dmitry's views need to be widely shared. Dmitry very kindly agreed to reply to my questions in some detail, for which I am most grateful. I hope that you will find this interview as interesting as I did.
RTWed, 17 Apr 2019 10:49 UTC
© Ruptly
Assange protest in the streets of Quito, Ecuador
Riot police have attacked scores of people who flooded onto the streets of Ecuador's capital and
branded their president a "traitor." Protesters were venting anger at the decision to hand Julian Assange over to the UK.
The massive rally in Quito was held to voice unease over the role Ecuador played in arranging for Julian Assange's arrest last week in London. The situation became more tense when police - wearing heavy riot gear - clashed with protesters, using batons to chase them down the street.
A Ruptly video shows some protesters being beaten and taken to the ground amid the demonstration.
Comment: A SOTT reader in Quito, Ecuador informs us that:
Approximately 20,000 citizens of all ages and backgrounds - although especially lower income workers and middle class social-media users - took part in a peaceful protest.
The people were seriously pissed! Chants and cries inundated the streets:
"Traitor! Traitor!... Free Julian Assange... You betrayed our Sovereignty!... Out with the Son of a Bitch!... Lenin Moreno, You're going down!"
There were a considerable amount of activists with Anon Guy Fawkes masks. The historical center was made inaccessible by riot police and at around 7:30pm, some of the younger men couldn't contain their indignation and things got violent, from both sides: stone throwing, tear-gas bombs, swinging batons...
At the moment of this writing, the privately-owned mass media has kept the general public seriously misinformed of international reactions to Assange's arrest event...
From
RT: Roger Waters slams UK as accomplice of US Empire in Assange saga:
"To think that the UK has become such a willing accomplice and satellite of the American Empire that it would do such a thing in contravention with all laws, moral, ethical, and actual legal restrictions is absolutely, stunningly appalling and makes me ashamed to be an Englishman.
"If we let the UK get away with allowing him to be extradited to the United States, we allow the United States government, at their whim, to torture him and to detain him possibly for the rest of his life."
See also:
Former chief architect/engineer of Notre Dame Cathedral, who oversaw renovation of its electrical wiring and installed a modern fire detection sytem in 2010
French media reports citing an interview with the former French Inspector-General for Historic Monuments
Benjamin Mouton, who oversaw the installation of state-of-the-art fire prevention systems in the Notre Dame Cathedral in 2010, and who was responsible for the building from 2000 to 2013, cast doubt on
today's leak to the Associated Press that the fire was likely caused by an electrical short-circuit.
Benjamin Mouton was interviewed live on TV on Monday evening as the fire continued to burn the 850-year-old symbol of French culture and history. Here's what he had to say:
"I don't understand this at all. The fire's spread is extremely curious. With really old oak like that, it's super-hard, so you'd need a lot of smaller wood to first get the fire hot enough for the oak beams to burn.
In 2010 we replaced all the electrical wiring, so there's no way this was sparked by a short-circuit. We put new wiring in place according to modern standards. And we went even further; we installed state-of-the-art fire protection and detection systems in the cathedral.
At all times, there are always two men on standby in the Cathedral, day and night, to go investigate anything the moment an alarm goes off, then if necessary to call the fire emergency services.
I am really stunned that this [the fire] has happened. It's incomprehensible."
Paul Joseph Watson
Summit NewsMon, 15 Apr 2019 06:20 UTC
The famous Notre Dame cathedral in Paris is on fire, with one worker claiming that the blaze was deliberately set.
The roof of the historic building has completely collapsed.
"The cause is not yet clear, but officials say it could be linked to renovation work," reports the BBC.
However, TIME columnist Christopher J. Hale tweeted, "A Jesuit friend in Paris who works in #NotreDame told me cathedral staff said the fire was intentionally set."
LCI.frMon, 18 Mar 2019 20:29 UTC
Paris' second-largest church was DELIBERATELY set on fire last month
In the aftermath of the Saint-Sulpice fire, the investigators have already drawn some conclusions. Our sources say that the incident began Sunday at around 1:30pm, at an entrance to the church overlooking Palatine Street in the 6th arrondissement, and that
its cause was "human" and "deliberate."
"The near-disaster occurred close to a spot where a homeless person's clothes were stored - though this person was not present at that time," said our source. This same source stated that "accidental origin of an electrical or technical nature, or negligence, have been discarded."
"It's now a question of whether the perpetrator is someone who isn't all there in the head, or has some sort of mental instability. There are known homeless persons who come often, but they are typically peaceful," comments another source.
Comment: Saint-Sulpice church remains open. But after what just happened to Notre Dame cathedral, for how much longer?
Something is clearly going on here. Notre Dame is Paris' largest church (cathedral), and Saint-Sulpice is its second-largest.
We're not aware of any further information from officials in France about what took place at the Saint-Sulpice. It's as if they caught someone doing it, discovered who they were, then covered up for them.
Given this precedent just three weeks before Notre Dame, it's reasonable to suspect that it too was deliberately targeted.
Manufactured 'clash of civilizations/religions', anyone?
The
West is under attack by Putin;
he is at war with us and wars demand extreme measures. Putin's influence is spreading: everywhere he is nibbling away at the foundations of democratic society. He is
the dictator of Russia;
still evil, still an empire; Russians are
genetically driven to co-opt and penetrate and gain favour: it's who they are and what they do.
Russian scum! Putin interferes in referendums and elections all over the democratic world.
A world that, for no good reason except his own needs, he calls his enemy. When his bots swung the US election and made his
puppet POTUS, the world community began to wake up to the threat. Putin is
bent on restoring the USSR and, until he can, he assembles an
empire of losers, basket-cases and rogue states. When the
weather is cold, we should fear him more. Putin's whole
existence depends on having an enemy and we are that enemy. We must defend against Putin's
threat to democracy; he threatens our democracy
because he hates democracy and
he fears democracy. We must defend against these
multi-faceted,
aggressive,
unacceptable,
bullying,
continual and
sinister attacks on the
Rules-Based International Order which
our democracies uphold. (Added to which, he's short and can't
hide the fact and that makes him a
megalomaniac.)
I humbly offer a few proposals so that we can better defend our precious heritage of democracy against his attacks.
CBSMon, 02 May 2016 19:27 UTC
© getty
The charred remains of the roof of the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St Sava, which went up in flames in Manhattan, NYC, on May 1st.
Investigators in three cities are looking into large fires at Orthodox churches that occurred around the religion's Easter celebrations and caused widespread damage.
The blazes in New York City, as well as Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, caused only minor injuries, according to multiple reports.
The New York City conflagration on Sunday
at the Trinity Chapel Complex that was host to the Serbian Orthodox Church in Manhattan produced dramatic images of flames shooting through windows that filled social media.
FDNY investigators haven't given any indication yet what started the blaze,
reports CBS New York. Only the church caretaker was injured when he rushed in to try and put the fire out, which began shortly after parishioners had wrapped up Easter celebrations at the cathedral.
Comment: Curiously, the Valaam monastery in Russia
also caught fire on Easter Sunday, 2016.
The British
Daily Mail came up with a conspiracy theory: Catholics around the world conspired to torch these churches because they're upset at the Orthodox Church for blocking the canonization of a Croatian Cardinal suspected of collaborating with the Nazis.
With no evidence provided, this rather sounds like someone was 'blowing smoke'. There could, however, be more to this cluster of events than symbolic connection...
RTMon, 15 Apr 2019 16:57 UTC
© Getty
UK military deployed equipment at the airport to 'catch' the 'drone' but it evaded them every time
The drone attack that caused chaos at Gatwick before Christmas was carried out by someone with knowledge of the airport's operational procedures, the airport has said.
A Gatwick chief told BBC Panorama
the drone's pilot "seemed to be able to see what was happening on the runway".
Sussex Police told the programme the possibility an "insider" was involved was a "credible line" of inquiry.
About 140,000 passengers were caught up in the disruption.
The runway at the UK's second busiest airport was closed for 33 hours between 19 and 21 December last year - causing about 1,000 flights to be cancelled or delayed.
In his first interview since the incident, Gatwick's chief operating officer, Chris Woodroofe, told Panorama:
"It was clear that the drone operators had a link into what was going on at the airport."
Comment: Yes, it was a 'drone' alright, a really OUT THERE one with intelligence beyond our ken!
See also:
© Ruptly
Julian Assange being removed from the Ecuadorian embassy
Tonight both Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange are in jail,
both over offences related to the publication of materials specifying US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and both charged with nothing else at all. No matter what bullshit political and MSM liars try to feed you, that is the simple truth. Manning and Assange are true heroes of our time, and are suffering for it.
If a Russian opposition politician were dragged out by armed police, and within three hours had been convicted on
a political charge by a patently biased judge with no jury, with a lengthy jail sentence to follow, can you imagine the Western media reaction to that kind of kangaroo court? Yet that is exactly what just happened in London.
District Judge Michael Snow is a disgrace to the bench who deserves to be infamous well beyond his death. He displayed the most plain and open prejudice against Assange
in the 15 minutes it took for him to hear the case and declare Assange guilty, in a fashion which makes the dictators' courts I had witnessed, in Babangida's Nigeria or Karimov's Uzbekistan, look fair and reasonable, in comparison to the gross charade of justice conducted by Michael Snow.
© Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times
Two people were trapped in their car, center, for more than an hour after 26 power poles came crashing down on East Marginal Way on Friday afternoon. The two were discharged from the hospital late Friday.
The more than
two dozen power poles that collapsed near the Museum of Flight on Friday underwent a "full inspection" three years ago, and
showed no risks of a mass failure, said Debra Smith, the recently-hired CEO of Seattle City Light.
Some were replaced in 2016 as a result, some were due to be replaced within five years, and others had many years remaining, "but there were none that were outside of the identified life span," Smith said in an interview Saturday.
Engineers this weekend are examining the 26 snapped wooden poles for clues, and walking East Marginal Way South to determine how and where to rebuild lines west of the huge roadway, she said.
City Light doesn't have an explanation yet about why any of the poles suddenly toppled at 4 p.m. Friday, causing a domino effect where not just one but an entire row snapped.
Comment: Ok, now that is weird.
Some kind of power surge? Perhaps not via the power grid
per se (which utilities and companies would have noticed), but from the atmosphere? From below ground? But then why would such an externally-sourced surge snap strong wooden poles in the same manner along a discrete, specific area?
An eyewitness in this King 5 Seattle News report describes seeing "a flash of light" and hearing "an explosion" just before "they all came tumbling down..."
This ABC News report includes footage from people's camera-phones, recorded shortly aft it happened. The weather doesn't look particularly windy, though there could still have been a super-brief meteorological micro-burst moments before...
Here's CCTV footage of the moment it happened. It is overcast, raining, and somewhat windy, but the trees in the background don't move as much as one might expect during the intensity of a micro-burst:
Also notice how, in the second angle CCTV view, beginning at 00:35, there's a flash, followed by the pole in view beginning to keel over. Note also that it broke right at its base, at ground level...
More info from another
Seattle Times report:
Meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Seattle said there were no Boeoi strikes in Western Washington on Friday.
There was a decent burst of wind accompanied by moderate rain earlier in the day, but nothing particularly alarming, said Carly Kovacik, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle.
Around 16,500 customers in South Seattle, Tukwila, Burien and White Center lost power as a result of the incident, but power was restored to all but 300 of them by 6 p.m., according to Seattle City Light. Some Boeing offices in the area lost power, White said.
David Drum, a structural engineer who works at Boeing, said he left his office around 4:15 p.m. and saw at least 10 poles on the ground on the west side of the street.
"It was really dramatic. Really dystopian. The poles were snapped. They hit the ground with enough force and splintered," he said. "It must have taken a lot of force to do what I saw."
Indeed, it's as if some powerful EM force bent everything - power poles, street signs, a couple of trees, street lights - over, in
one direction and on
one side of the street.
Also, Seattle City Light power company has
announced that an unnamed "third party" will be conducting an "independent" investigation into what happened. Hmmm...
It's very interesting that Boeing HQ is located nearby... in fact, it's located RIGHT THERE!
Rough location of downed power poles in red. Known Boeing, Inc. facilities marked in yellow...
The mile-long stretch where these poles broke corresponds more or less exactly with the stretch of East Marginal Way in Seattle where Boeing offices, hangars and testing centers are located. Boeing Field airport, named after the founder of the major airplane and weapons company, runs parallel to this stretch of road...
Boeing's run of bad luck continues...
Comment: See also: