The situation in Ukraine may seem complicated, but the origin of what Western governments and media euphemistically call this 'crisis' is very clear.

It wasn't the corruption of former President Yanukovych, it wasn't Putin's "annexing of Crimea", and it wasn't "pro-Russian militias on the orders of Putin" demanding independence. It all started, as with so many other 'crises' around the globe, with Western politicians and bankers deciding that they needed more 'lebensraum'¹, and sources of cheap human capital and natural resources, to prop up Western nations' junk economies that have been looted by the same bankers and politicians.

Picture, if you will, the following fictional scenario:

This week on SOTT Talk Radio we spoke with author William Patrick Patterson about the mysterious teachings of Georges Gurdjieff. After many years as a student of The Fourth Way and discovering no answer to the question that had gradually formed in him - what is the 'self' in self-remembering? - Mr. Patterson was called to explore Advaita Vedanta (non-dualism). In doing so, he realized the full significance of the ideas and practices of The Fourth Way and how this sacred and seminal teaching provided not only the necessary foundation, but was applicable on the very highest levels.

Mr. Patterson is the founder/director of The Gurdjieff Studies Program and has led groups, as well as given seminars and talks, throughout the United States for many years. He has written nine books on the teaching and directed, written and narrated the award-winning video trilogy The Life & Significance of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, and the just-released video Introduction to Gurdjieff's Fourth Way: From Selves to Individual Self to The Self. A new video talk has also recently been released:William Patrick Patterson Explores The Life & Teachings of Carlos Castaneda.

His latest book is Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff: The Man, The Teaching, His Mission.

Running Time: 01:12:00

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While Western leaders plot more Wars of Distraction, Mother Nature unleashed her fury last month in the form of torrential rainfall and devastating landslides across all continents. From the U.S. to Nigeria, from the Balkans to Japan, flash-flooding from cloudbursts turned highways into rivers and mountains into fountains of mud and rock. Three waterspouts appeared off the Swedish coast; six waterspouts - some of them coming ashore - terrified residents in Genoa; and tornadoes AGAIN hit Istanbul and the city of San Cristobal de las Casas in southern Mexico.

Raging wildfires and 'severe drought' alternated with 'monsoons' in western U.S. states. The worst wildfires are burning at the most northerly regions of the planet: Canada and Siberia. More typhoons slammed into Japan and China, dumping several feet of water and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate their homes. Meanwhile hurricanes in both the Atlantic and Pacific caused coastal damage in California and Hawaii, where the first direct hit from a hurricane in 22 years occurred on the same day as an earthquake.

Remember those 'crater-holes' in Siberia? Something similar appeared in Utah this month, while more sinkholes swallowed more cars, and a 1km-long rift opened up in northern Mexico. The discovery of hundreds of new methane plumes off the Northeastern U.S. coast coincided with researchers reporting a major increase in methane outgassing in the Arctic. As South Africa was hit by its strongest quake in 45 years, Californians moved one step closer to 'the big one', with the state's strongest earthquake for 25 years destroying buildings and injuring 200 people.

As above, so below: up in the skies, spectacular 'jet-lightning' bolts, 'earthquake lights', meteor fireballs and 'UFOs' were caught on camera... stand by for the Signs of the Times in August 2014:


Not a Youtuber? Watch it on Sott.net's Vimeo Channel:


SOTT Earth Changes Video Summary - August 2014 from Sott.net on Vimeo.

Two days ago, following French president Hollande's announcement that France would not deliver the Mistral warship that was bought, paid for (and partially built) by Russia, I wrote on my Facebook page:

"Today, I am surfeited with the insanity on this planet. I left the US because of the madness there, Bush invading Iraq; now, the contagion seems to have spread everywhere."

I wasn't just saying that for effect, I was definitely plunged into a black hole of despair at the realization that there really isn't a single leader of any so-called civilized Western country, who has two neurons firing and an ounce of conscience.

Within hours of the destruction of Malaysia flight MH17 on July 17th, with the wreckage and bodies still smoldering, western politicians already knew what had happened and who was to blame. This fact alone is highly suspicious and reminiscent of the 9/11 attacks when, within an hour of the first plane hitting the WTC, western politicians and media pundits had already named Osama bin Laden as the likely culprit. On both occasions, were they reading from a pre-prepared script?

Despite what you may have heard, or think you heard, there is no official explanation as to what happened to MH17. If you 'know' that Russia was responsible, then you've fallen victim to the lies and anti-Russian propaganda of the West.

At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." These became known as the infamous "Nuremberg Laws."

Many husbands and wives of Jews in Germany were forced to choose between divorce or concentration camps. Hitler would not allow "interracial" marriages and those that chose to remain married were punished by imprisonment in camps where many died. There were also many couples who committed suicide together.

Three years later, at 11: 55 p.m. on November 9, Gestapo Chief Heinrich Mueller sent a telegram from Berlin to all security police stations and units in Germany. The following paragraph is an excerpt from that telegram:

In shortest order, actions against Jews and especially their synagogues will take place in all of Germany. These are not to be interfered with... Preparations are to be made for the arrest of 20-30,000 Jews in the Reich. Primarily propertied Jews are to be selected...

The Terror had begun in earnest.

The Nazis engineered the Kristallnacht attacks so that they would appear to be unplanned and set off by the anger of the German people over the assassination of a German official in Paris at the hands of a Jewish teenager.

In two days, over 1,000 synagogues were burned, 7,000 Jewish businesses were trashed and looted, dozens of Jewish people were killed, and Jewish cemeteries, hospitals, schools, and homes were looted while police and fire brigades stood by. The pogroms became known as Kristallnacht, or the "Night of Broken Glass, " for the great quantity of shattered glass from the store windows that littered the streets of Germany.

Did anyone else notice that the 'ceasefire' in Gaza sort of came out of the blue? Pundits put this down to 'war weariness' on both sides, but the precise timeline of events leading up to the ceasefire has me a little perplexed.

On Monday, 18th August, a 72-hour ceasefire was declared as part of the talks in Cairo. The following day, Tuesday, the Israeli delegation left at 4 pm, precisely the time when the IDF would later say that Hamas had fired rockets at Beersheba, thereby "breaking the ceasefire".

This week on Sott Talk Radio we spoke Jon Ryman, creator of the excellent short documentary called 'White Widow' - The Samantha Lewthwaite Conspiracy.

The so-called "white widow" grabbed the headlines over a protracted period last year for her alleged leadership of the attack on Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya. Samantha Lewthwaite first rose to 'fame' as the alleged 'wife' of alleged London '7/7' tube bomber, Germaine Lindsay, and since then has been a veritable rising star in the phony world of Islamic terrorism, particularly in Africa.

As with so many other supposed 'Muslim terror leaders', the story of Lewthwaite appears to be one large fantasy that reveals disturbing insights into how British, Israeli and US intelligence agencies run the bogus 'war on terror' from behind the scenes.

Running Time: 01:55:00

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Remember when August was considered a 'slow-news month'? Neither do we! Hot on the heels of last week's failed attempt to smear the Russian humanitarian aid convoy as a 'Russian invasion of Ukraine', US-led hysteria reached fever-pitch yesterday when blanket media coverage once again shrieked 'Russian invasion of Ukraine!' Citing 'US intel' about Russian troop movements and Porky-shenko's alleged claim that Russian military had crossed into Ukraine, the US government called - via puppet state Lithuania - an emergency UN Security Council meeting to discuss the "thousands of Russian troops crossing into Ukraine". "10,000" Russian troops in a full-scale ground invasion became "1,000" Russian troops, which became grainy satellite images of dubious quality, which became USA's UN lobbyist for perpetual war, Samantha Power, posting tweets from the UNSC meeting that amounted to 'Russia is a poopy-head'.

The timing reflects the extent to which Kiev has lost military control of the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, now called Novorossiya, to say nothing of political influence over the people living there. As a result of this consolidating of the 'reality on the ground', the peace talks between Russia, the EU and other Eurasian partners in Minsk this week, and the upcoming EU Summit in Brussels and NATO's Summit in Cardiff next week, this latest volley of propaganda fired at Russia by the US empire-builders is a sign of their desperation to prevent the inevitable: rapprochement and back-room deals between the EU and Russia.

On August 7, Aleksandr Zakharchenko was made Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Donetsk People's Republic, replacing Alexander Borodai (now deputy PM). The man who assumed leadership of the Donbass Militia in April, unifying the rag-tag groups of fighters into a single fighting force, Igor Strelkov, has been replaced by Vladimir Kononov. The leadership in Lugansk has experienced a similar shuffling of personnel. Considering Strelkov's reputation in the region, this came as a shock to many, with rumors of his being seriously wounded in battle. (These rumors have been denied by Novorossiyan sources). But if recent events are any judge, the new leadership has signaled a turning point in the war of independence being fought in the Donbass.

It has begun, and there can be only one. No, this isn't Highlander, it's global politics at its worst. How does it all fit together? The coup in Ukraine, militarized police shootings in Ferguson, the 'Islamic State' threatening to behead all of Christendom, a looming worldwide Ebola epidemic and Israel is up to its old tricks again with more indiscriminate bombing of Palestinians. To top if all off, there appears to be no doubt that our climate is in the midst of a major 'shift' to something radically different from what we've known to date.

Running Time: 02:05:00

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