The BRICS summit in Johannesburg that ended Thursday took on six new members but in other ways failed to live up to its billing, as explained in this episode of George Galloway’s MOATS.
George Galloway interviews journalists Pepe Escobar, and Ahmed Kaballo & Clinton Nzala of African Stream.
Republished with permission from George Galloway and MOATS — The Mother of All Talk Shows. These interviews aired on Wednesday. Watch the entire program here.
Every country pursues its own interests. India is trying to have its cake and eat it too – one foot in BRICS and the other with Uncle Sam.
Saudi Arabia agreeing to join Iran in the BRICS is a very big deal. Groundbreaking, I would say.
Totally agree.. A certain trespasser to the region will have to try their gun-boat diplomacy somewhere else, and for them, there is always somewhere else..
Brilliant interview. It’s so refreshing to listen to genuine, articulate people discussing the calamities of today.
Great post, thank you CN!
We can’t be too optimistic about the developing multi-polar world. To be simplistic: don’t underestimate the power of the empire and US dollar. De-dollarization and the collapse of the empire will take time. As long as we don’t have a nuclear war, that is.
Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism has written some good pieces about this. George Galloway and Pepe Escobar have both interviewed prof. Michael Hudson before – he is one of the top experts on international balance of payment systems. Pepe was in a great discussion with profs Radhika Desai and Hudson on this issue recently. (Hosted by Ben Norton at Geopolitical Economy)
Do not underestimate the power of capitalism.
“De-dollarization and the collapse of the empire will take time.”
Do you think Jonny it’s in competition with climate/societal collapse? And which one is first? It is evident, that either is a contender to the ultimate destruction of planet earth and its creatures.
I’m not sure Valerie, it looks like environmental and societal collapse will be slow but steady, as it has been so far. The only threat (see Bulletin of Atomic Scientists etc.) that could destroy us all very quickly is full-scale thermonuclear war. We can only hope that the empire is only bluffing on the first strike threat. Using nuclear weapons against Russia/China would be a “Samson Option” for the US: if they empire cannot maintain world hegemony, it will destroy the whole thing.
In the meantime, we can try to appreciate the things we have now, and be mindful of the good things. We can try not to worry too much about things not in our control. That might be a good idea anyway… The Stoic philosophers and Buddhists had it figured out.
I take comfort in knowing that there are folks out there (like you and other commenters here) who are informed and honest about the issues.
Thankyou for that Jonny. I’m not convinced about the “slow but steady” aspect though. I’ve seen so many changes in just the past 5 years. (All of them alarming.)
I tend towards the Stoic approach and find humour a great antidote.
The US is losing its petrodollar. Putin played it beautifully — distract Biden in Ukraine while Putin made economic alliances around the world with strategically picked countries. Expanded BRICS will now control almost 50% of the global oil production, and with BRICS 11 possibly including Venezuela, Algeria and Kazakhstan next year, it may control as much as 90% of all oil and gas traded globally. Whoever controls energy, controls the world. Furthermore, looking at the countries now in BRICS11, we see that they also control major overland and maritime transportation hubs: the Arctic Sea Route; the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC); BRI’s East West Corridors; the Persian Gulf; the Red Sea; and the Suez Canal. The West has been blindsided by its own arrogance, stupidity and hate. And the Democrats actually want to re-elect a doddering old fool who has been so busy covering up his family’s criminal activity that he missed the whole transition of power from the West to Russia-China-Global South. By following the WEF’s unhinged green agenda, the West has just written its obituary. What a bunch of fools the entire US government is!
I doubt the millions of Ukrainian civilians whose lives have been shattered, or the tens of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian war wounded and the families of more than 100,000 dead soldiers on both sides would agree that “Putin played it beautifully”. What kind of cold, heartless individuals have we become?
Do you really think the Western countries care one whit about the lives lost in Ukraine? They wanted this war to attempt to weaken and destroy Russia. That’s their only concern. That Putin understands the motivations of the West is not on him. The loss of life is tragic of course. Don’t tell me the US and NATO don’t believe the loss of life wasn’t worth it.
Putin stuck with Minsks and put on a table three more agreements – with US, NATO and Ukraine last March – April. Our golden billion leaders are unhinged and need to be stopped. Rus need to avenge their casualties hard.
Now it is too late and not much can be done until maximalist / zero sum leaders are removed in the west. Balkanization of Rus is now out of the closet. And after Rus then we would get decolonization of China, India, Brazil etc, etc.
Expectations were high. The existence of the Brics is a direct result of the US weaponizing its currency on the one hand and using its military to destroy nations it didn’t like. Think of what could have occurred if after WWII it had decided to use it’s power to unit the world rather than divide it.
Modi hijacked the summit.
It is truly amazing how naive other BRICS leaders are when it comes to Modi’s coming-from-the-heart performance.
For details, please view “Mi Mi Mi” – The Muppets “Ode To Joy” video on YouTube.