🗽 Whereas the U.S. requires other Governments to follow its instructions, and considers their own instructions to be moral demands, Russia and China and their allies reject — on principle — any country’s dictating to another.

The main ideological conflict in the world used to be between capitalism versus communism. After the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, that became replaced by the ideological conflict being between imperialism and anti-imperialism. With the expansion of America’s NATO military alliance against Russia, after 1991 — after the communist dictatorship there had ended — to include as new members all of the Soviet Union’s former Warsaw Pact allies in Europe, and with America’s aim now being to bring into NATO the former Soviet allies to the south of Russia, such as Azerbaijan and Georgia, American imperialism is viewed in Russia increasingly as an existential threat, which it certainly is.

The basic difference between the U.S. Government and its allies, on the one hand, and between Russia and China and their allies, on the other, is the same difference in either case: whereas the U.S. and its allies require other Governments to follow their instructions, and consider their own instructions to be moral demands (and thereby binding, actually commands instead of mere suggestions), Russia and China and their allies reject — on principle — any country’s dictating to another. They don’t consider it to be moral, at all, but instead profoundly immoral — they consider it to be imperialistic, dictatorial, bullying, hostile toward international democracy — and they simply won’t accept it; they reject it morally, outright. Iran, too, feels that way about the matter. So, too, do many other countries. That’s the basic difference: the imperialists versus the anti-imperialists.

In other words: the U.S. and its allies consider imperialism — the supposed right of a nation to command another nation — to be something that should be within the bounds of, and accepted by, international law. The U.S. Empire doesn’t call itself an “Empire,” but it is one, and its empire is therefore called instead “the Washington Consensus”, which is a “consensus” in hostility against whatever countries the U.S. Government wants to become regime-changed — to turn into an American colony. The “Washington Consensus” is actually an imposed ‘consensus’. It is a consensus against nations that disobey that ‘consensus’.

#Brazil #China #ClimateChange #Imperialism #UnitedStates #EricZuesse

🔗 READ MORE by Eric Zuesse

🇧🇷♻️🌎 With nothing to hold governments or the UN accountable, protection remains elusive when juxtaposed against the reassurance of neoliberal profit.

For the second consecutive year, Latin America has been established to be the most dangerous region for environmental activists. According to a recent annual report by Global Witness titled “Last Life on Defence”, 227 environmental activists and indigenous leaders were killed in 2020, with three out of every four killings occurring in Latin America.

Colombia once again led the statistics in the region with 65 environmental activists murdered, among them indigenous and afro-descent individuals, as well as small scale farmers. In Peru and Brazil, almost three quarters of the murders took place in the Amazon regions of the respective countries, indicating that indigenous populations remain in the crosshairs of attackers. Nicaragua’s increase in killings – from 5 in 2019 to 12 in 2020, made the country the most dangerous in the region per capita in terms of environmental activists. Read more by Ramona Wadi ⬇️

#Brazil #LatinAmerica #ecology #HumanRights #neoliberalism

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/10/11/violence-against-environmental-activists-escalates-alongside-political-impunity/

@strategic_culture

🇧🇷🌳 It is only the indigenous communities who are clarifying the importance of their inclusion in political decision-making with regards to the environment.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/11/10/state-backed-violence-against-indigenous-communities-in-brazil-contradicts-plans-for-protection/

#Brazil #ClimateChange #JairBolsonaro

@strategic_culture

⚠️ There is far more to the current multi-modal geopolitical war than just what’s happening in Ukraine.

This conflict has led to a myriad of downstream effects and moves which are just as important as what the encirclement of Bakhmut means.

For years the wildcard in the BRICS Alliance has been India 🇮🇳

💬 Read more by Tom Luongo

#India #Brazil #BRICS #geopolitics

@strategic_culture