Thursday, December 4, 2014
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
The Importance Of The Cancellation Of South Stream
by Alexander Mercouris
The reaction to the cancellation of the Sound Stream project has been a wonder to behold and needs to be explained very carefully.
In order to understand what has happened it is first necessary to go back to the way Russian-European relations were developing in the 1990s.
Briefly, at that period, the assumption was that Russia would become the great supplier of energy and raw materials to Europe. This was the period of Europe's great “rush for gas” as the Europeans looked forward to unlimited and unending Russian supplies. It was the increase in the role of Russian gas in the European energy mix which made it possible for Europe to run down its coal industry and cut its carbon emissions and bully and lecture everyone else to do the same.
However the Europeans did not envisage that Russia would just supply them with energy. Rather they always supposed this energy would be extracted for them in Russia by Western energy companies. This after all is the pattern in most of the developing world. The EU calls this “energy security” - a euphemism for the extraction of energy in other countries by its own companies under its own control.
It never happened that way. Though the Russian oil industry was privatised it mostly remained in Russian hands. After Putin came to power in 2000 the trend towards privatisation in the oil industry was reversed. One of the major reasons for western anger at the arrest of Khodorkovsky and the closure of Yukos and the transfer of its assets to the state oil company Rosneft was precisely because is reversed this trend of privatisation in the oil industry.
In the gas industry the process of privatisation never really got started. Gas export continued to be controlled by Gazprom, maintaining its position as a state owned monopoly gas exporter. Since Putin came to power Gazprom’s position as a state owned Russian monopoly has been made fully secure.
Much of the anger that exists in the west towards Putin can be explained by European and western resentment at his refusal and that of the Russian government to the break up of Russia's energy monopolies and to the “opening up” (as it is euphemistically called) of the Russian energy industry to the advantage of western companies. Many of the allegations of corruption that are routinely made against Putin personally are intended to insinuate that he opposes the “opening up” of the Russian energy industry and the break up and privatisation of Gazprom and Rosneft because he has a personal stake in them (in the case of Gazprom, that he is actually its owner). If one examines in detail the specific allegations of corruption made against Putin (as I have done) this quickly becomes obvious.
His agenda of forcing Russia to privatise and break up its energy monopolies has never gone away. This is why Gazprom, despite the vital and reliable service it provides to its European customers, comes in for so much criticism. When Europeans complain about Europe's energy dependence upon Russia, they express their resentment at having to buy gas from a single Russian state owned company (Gazprom) as opposed to their own western companies operating in Russia.
This resentment exists simultaneously with a belief, very entrenched in Europe, that Russia is somehow dependent upon Europe as a customer for its gas and as a supplier of finance and technology.
This combination of resentment and overconfidence is what lies behind the repeated European attempts to legislate in Europe on energy questions in a way that is intended to force Russia to “open up” its the energy industry there.
The first attempt was the so-called Energy Charter, which Russia signed but ultimately refused to ratify. The latest attempt is the EU's so-called Third Energy Package.
This is presented as a development of EU anti-competition and anti-monopoly law. In reality, as everyone knows, it is targeted at Gazprom, which is a monopoly, though obviously not a European one.
This is the background to the conflict over South Stream. The EU authorities have insisted that South Stream must comply with the Third Energy Package even though the Third Energy Package came into existence only after the outline agreements for South Stream had been already reached.
Compliance with the Third Energy Package would have meant that though Gazprom supplied the gas it could not own or control the pipeline through which gas was supplied.
Were Gazprom to agree to this, it would acknowledge the EU’s authority over its operations. It would in that case undoubtedly face down the line more demands for more changes to its operating methods. Ultimately this would lead to demands for changes in the structure of the energy industry in Russia itself.
What has just happened is that the Russians have said no. Rather than proceed with the project by submitting to European demands, which is what the Europeans expected, the Russians have to everyone’s astonishment instead pulled out of the whole project.
This decision was completely unexpected. As I write this, the air is of full of angry complaints from south-eastern Europe that they were not consulted or informed of this decision in advance. Several politicians in south-eastern Europe (Bulgaria especially) are desperately clinging to the idea that the Russian announcement is a bluff (it isn’t) and that the project can still be saved. Since the Europeans cling to the belief that the Russians have no alternative to them as a customer, they were unable to anticipate and cannot now explain this decision.
Here it is important to explain why South Stream is important to the countries of south-eastern Europe and to the European economy as a whole.
All the south eastern European economies are in bad shape. For these countries South Stream was a vital investment and infrastructure project, securing their energy future. Moreover the transit fees that it promised would have been a major foreign currency earner.
For the EU, the essential point is that it depends on Russian gas. There has been a vast amount of talk in Europe about seeking alternative supplies. Progress in that direction had been to put it mildly small. Quite simply alternative supplies do not exist in anything like the quantity needed to replace the gas Europe gets from Russia.
There has been some brave talk of supplies of US liquefied natural gas replacing gas supplied by pipeline from Russia. Not only is such US gas inherently more expensive than Russian pipeline gas, hitting European consumers hard and hurting European competitiveness. It is unlikely to be available in anything like the necessary quantity. Quite apart from the probable dampening effects of the recent oil price fall on the US shale industry, on past record the US as a voracious consumer of energy will consume most or all of the energy from shales it produces. It is unlikely to be in a position to export much to Europe. The facilities to do this anyway do not exist, and are unlikely to exist for some time if ever.
Other possible sources of gas are problematic to say the least. Production of North Sea gas is falling. Imports of gas from north Africa and the Arabian Gulf are unlikely to be available in anything like the necessary quantity. Gas from Iran is not available for political reasons. Whilst that might eventually change, the probability is when it does that the Iranians (like the Russians) will decide to direct their energy flow eastwards, towards India and China, rather than to Europe.
For obvious reasons of geography Russia is the logical and most economic source of Europe’s gas. All alternatives come with economic and political costs that make them in the end unattractive.
The EU's difficulties in finding alternative sources of gas were cruelly exposed by the debacle of the so-called another Nabucco pipeline project to bring Europe gas from the Caucasus and Central Asia. Though talked about for years in the end it never got off the ground because it never made economic sense.
Meanwhile, whilst Europe talks about diversifying its supplies, it is Russia which is actually cutting the deals.
Russia has sealed a key deal with Iran to swap Iranian oil for Russian industrial goods. Russia has also agreed to invest heavily in the Iranian nuclear industry. If and when sanctions on Iran are lifted the Europeans will find the Russians already there. Russia has just agreed a massive deal to supply gas to Turkey (about which more below). Overshadowing these deals are the two huge deals Russia has made this year to supply gas to China.
Russia's energy resources are enormous but they are not infinite. The second deal done with China and the deal just done with Turkey redirect to these two countries gas that had previously been earmarked for Europe. The gas volumes involved in the Turkish deal almost exactly match those previously intended for South Stream. The Turkish deal replaces South Stream.
These deals show that Russia had made a strategic decision this year to redirect its energy flow away from Europe. Though it will take time for the full effect to become clear, the consequences of that for Europe are grim. Europe is looking at a serious energy shortfall, which it will only be able to make up by buying energy at a much higher price.
These Russian deals with China and Turkey have been criticised or even ridiculed for providing Russia with a lower price for its gas than that paid by Europe.
The actual difference in price is not as great as some allege. Such criticism anyway overlooks the fact that price is only one part in a business relationship.
By redirecting gas to China, Russia cements economic links with the country that it now considers its key strategic ally and which has (or which soon will have) the world’s biggest and fastest growing economy. By redirecting gas to Turkey, Russia consolidates a burgeoning relationship with Turkey of which it is now the biggest trading partner.
Turkey is a key potential ally for Russia, consolidating Russia's position in the Caucasus and the Black Sea. It is also a country of 76 million people with a $1.5 trillion rapidly growing economy, which over the last two decades has become increasingly alienated and distanced from the EU and the West.
By redirecting gas away from Europe, Russia by contrast leaves behind a market for its gas which is economically stagnant and which (as the events of this year have shown) is irremediably hostile. No one should be surprised that Russia has given up on a relationship from which it gets from its erstwhile partner an endless stream of threats and abuse, combined with moralising lectures, political meddling and now sanctions. No relationship, business or otherwise, can work that way and the one between Russia and Europe is no exception.
I have said nothing about the Ukraine since in my opinion this has little bearing on this issue.
South Stream was first conceived because of the Ukraine's continuous abuse of its position as a transit state - something which is likely to continue. It is important to say that this fact was acknowledged in Europe as much as in Russia. It was because the Ukraine perennially abuses its position as a transit state that the South Stream project had the grudging formal endorsement of the EU. Basically, the EU needs to circumvent the Ukraine to secure its energy supplies every bit as much as Russia wanted a route around the Ukraine to avoid it.
The Ukraine’s friends in Washington and Brussels have never been happy about this, and have constantly lobbied against South Stream.
The point is it was Russia which pulled the plug on South Stream when it had the option of going ahead with it by accepting the Europeans’ conditions. In other words the Russians consider the problems posed by the Ukraine as a transit state to be a lesser evil than the conditions the EU was attaching to South Stream .
South Stream would take years to build and its cancellation therefore has no bearing on the current Ukrainian crisis. The Russians decided they could afford to cancel it is because they have decided Russia’s future is in selling its energy to China and Turkey and other states in Asia (more gas deals are pending with Korea and Japan and possibly also with Pakistan and India) than to Europe. Given that this is so, for Russia South Stream has lost its point. That is why in their characteristically direct way, rather than accept the Europeans’ conditions, the Russians pulled the plug on it.
In doing so the Russians have called the Europeans’ bluff. So far from Russia being dependent on Europe as its energy customer, it is Europe which has antagonised, probably irreparably, its key economic partner and energy supplier.
Before finishing I would however first say something about those who have come out worst of all from this affair. These are the corrupt and incompetent political pygmies who pretend to be the government of Bulgaria. Had these people had a modicum of dignity and self respect they would have told the EU Commission when it brought up the Third Energy Package to take a running jump. If Bulgaria had made clear its intention to press ahead with the South Stream project, there is no doubt it would have been built. There would of course have been an almighty row within the EU as Bulgaria openly flouted the Third Energy Package, but Bulgaria would have been acting in its national interests and would have had within the EU no shortage of friends. In the end it would have won through.
Instead, under pressure from individuals like Senator John McCain, the Bulgarian leadership behaved like the provincial politicians they are, and tried to run at the same time with both the EU hare and the Russian hounds. The result of this imbecile policy is to offend Russia, Bulgaria's historic ally, whilst ensuring that the Russian gas which might have flown to Bulgaria and transformed the country, will instead flow to Turkey, Bulgaria's historic enemy.
The Bulgarians are not the only ones to have acted in this craven fashion. All the EU countries, even those with historic ties to Russia, have supported the EU's various sanctions packages against Russia notwithstanding the doubts they have expressed about the policy. Last year Greece, another country with strong ties to Russia, pulled out of a deal to sell its natural gas company to Gazprom because the EU disapproved of it, even though it was Gazprom that offered the best price.
This points to a larger moral. Whenever the Russians act in the way they have just done, the Europeans respond bafflement and anger, of which there is plenty around at the moment. The EU politicians who make the decisions that provoke these Russian actions seem to have this strange assumption that whilst it is fine for the EU to sanction Russia as much as it wishes, Russia will never do the same to the EU. When Russia does, there is astonishment, accompanied always by a flood of mendacious commentary about how Russia is behaving “aggressively” or “contrary to its interests” or has “suffered a defeat”. None of this is true as the rage and recriminations currently sweeping through the EU’s corridors (of which I am well informed) bear witness.
In July the EU sought to cripple Russia’s oil industry by sanctioning the export of oil drilling technology to Russia. That attempt will certainly fail as Russia and the countries it trades with (including China and South Korea) are certainly capable of producing this technology themselves.
By contrast through the deals it has made this year with China, Turkey and Iran, Russia has dealt a devastating blow to the energy future of the EU. A few years down the line Europeans will start to discover that moralising and bluff comes with a price. Regardless, by cancelling South Stream, Russia has imposed upon Europe the most effective of the sanctions we have seen this year. .
The reaction to the cancellation of the Sound Stream project has been a wonder to behold and needs to be explained very carefully.
In order to understand what has happened it is first necessary to go back to the way Russian-European relations were developing in the 1990s.
Briefly, at that period, the assumption was that Russia would become the great supplier of energy and raw materials to Europe. This was the period of Europe's great “rush for gas” as the Europeans looked forward to unlimited and unending Russian supplies. It was the increase in the role of Russian gas in the European energy mix which made it possible for Europe to run down its coal industry and cut its carbon emissions and bully and lecture everyone else to do the same.
However the Europeans did not envisage that Russia would just supply them with energy. Rather they always supposed this energy would be extracted for them in Russia by Western energy companies. This after all is the pattern in most of the developing world. The EU calls this “energy security” - a euphemism for the extraction of energy in other countries by its own companies under its own control.
It never happened that way. Though the Russian oil industry was privatised it mostly remained in Russian hands. After Putin came to power in 2000 the trend towards privatisation in the oil industry was reversed. One of the major reasons for western anger at the arrest of Khodorkovsky and the closure of Yukos and the transfer of its assets to the state oil company Rosneft was precisely because is reversed this trend of privatisation in the oil industry.
In the gas industry the process of privatisation never really got started. Gas export continued to be controlled by Gazprom, maintaining its position as a state owned monopoly gas exporter. Since Putin came to power Gazprom’s position as a state owned Russian monopoly has been made fully secure.
Much of the anger that exists in the west towards Putin can be explained by European and western resentment at his refusal and that of the Russian government to the break up of Russia's energy monopolies and to the “opening up” (as it is euphemistically called) of the Russian energy industry to the advantage of western companies. Many of the allegations of corruption that are routinely made against Putin personally are intended to insinuate that he opposes the “opening up” of the Russian energy industry and the break up and privatisation of Gazprom and Rosneft because he has a personal stake in them (in the case of Gazprom, that he is actually its owner). If one examines in detail the specific allegations of corruption made against Putin (as I have done) this quickly becomes obvious.
His agenda of forcing Russia to privatise and break up its energy monopolies has never gone away. This is why Gazprom, despite the vital and reliable service it provides to its European customers, comes in for so much criticism. When Europeans complain about Europe's energy dependence upon Russia, they express their resentment at having to buy gas from a single Russian state owned company (Gazprom) as opposed to their own western companies operating in Russia.
This resentment exists simultaneously with a belief, very entrenched in Europe, that Russia is somehow dependent upon Europe as a customer for its gas and as a supplier of finance and technology.
This combination of resentment and overconfidence is what lies behind the repeated European attempts to legislate in Europe on energy questions in a way that is intended to force Russia to “open up” its the energy industry there.
The first attempt was the so-called Energy Charter, which Russia signed but ultimately refused to ratify. The latest attempt is the EU's so-called Third Energy Package.
This is presented as a development of EU anti-competition and anti-monopoly law. In reality, as everyone knows, it is targeted at Gazprom, which is a monopoly, though obviously not a European one.
This is the background to the conflict over South Stream. The EU authorities have insisted that South Stream must comply with the Third Energy Package even though the Third Energy Package came into existence only after the outline agreements for South Stream had been already reached.
Compliance with the Third Energy Package would have meant that though Gazprom supplied the gas it could not own or control the pipeline through which gas was supplied.
Were Gazprom to agree to this, it would acknowledge the EU’s authority over its operations. It would in that case undoubtedly face down the line more demands for more changes to its operating methods. Ultimately this would lead to demands for changes in the structure of the energy industry in Russia itself.
What has just happened is that the Russians have said no. Rather than proceed with the project by submitting to European demands, which is what the Europeans expected, the Russians have to everyone’s astonishment instead pulled out of the whole project.
This decision was completely unexpected. As I write this, the air is of full of angry complaints from south-eastern Europe that they were not consulted or informed of this decision in advance. Several politicians in south-eastern Europe (Bulgaria especially) are desperately clinging to the idea that the Russian announcement is a bluff (it isn’t) and that the project can still be saved. Since the Europeans cling to the belief that the Russians have no alternative to them as a customer, they were unable to anticipate and cannot now explain this decision.
Here it is important to explain why South Stream is important to the countries of south-eastern Europe and to the European economy as a whole.
All the south eastern European economies are in bad shape. For these countries South Stream was a vital investment and infrastructure project, securing their energy future. Moreover the transit fees that it promised would have been a major foreign currency earner.
For the EU, the essential point is that it depends on Russian gas. There has been a vast amount of talk in Europe about seeking alternative supplies. Progress in that direction had been to put it mildly small. Quite simply alternative supplies do not exist in anything like the quantity needed to replace the gas Europe gets from Russia.
There has been some brave talk of supplies of US liquefied natural gas replacing gas supplied by pipeline from Russia. Not only is such US gas inherently more expensive than Russian pipeline gas, hitting European consumers hard and hurting European competitiveness. It is unlikely to be available in anything like the necessary quantity. Quite apart from the probable dampening effects of the recent oil price fall on the US shale industry, on past record the US as a voracious consumer of energy will consume most or all of the energy from shales it produces. It is unlikely to be in a position to export much to Europe. The facilities to do this anyway do not exist, and are unlikely to exist for some time if ever.
Other possible sources of gas are problematic to say the least. Production of North Sea gas is falling. Imports of gas from north Africa and the Arabian Gulf are unlikely to be available in anything like the necessary quantity. Gas from Iran is not available for political reasons. Whilst that might eventually change, the probability is when it does that the Iranians (like the Russians) will decide to direct their energy flow eastwards, towards India and China, rather than to Europe.
For obvious reasons of geography Russia is the logical and most economic source of Europe’s gas. All alternatives come with economic and political costs that make them in the end unattractive.
The EU's difficulties in finding alternative sources of gas were cruelly exposed by the debacle of the so-called another Nabucco pipeline project to bring Europe gas from the Caucasus and Central Asia. Though talked about for years in the end it never got off the ground because it never made economic sense.
Meanwhile, whilst Europe talks about diversifying its supplies, it is Russia which is actually cutting the deals.
Russia has sealed a key deal with Iran to swap Iranian oil for Russian industrial goods. Russia has also agreed to invest heavily in the Iranian nuclear industry. If and when sanctions on Iran are lifted the Europeans will find the Russians already there. Russia has just agreed a massive deal to supply gas to Turkey (about which more below). Overshadowing these deals are the two huge deals Russia has made this year to supply gas to China.
Russia's energy resources are enormous but they are not infinite. The second deal done with China and the deal just done with Turkey redirect to these two countries gas that had previously been earmarked for Europe. The gas volumes involved in the Turkish deal almost exactly match those previously intended for South Stream. The Turkish deal replaces South Stream.
These deals show that Russia had made a strategic decision this year to redirect its energy flow away from Europe. Though it will take time for the full effect to become clear, the consequences of that for Europe are grim. Europe is looking at a serious energy shortfall, which it will only be able to make up by buying energy at a much higher price.
These Russian deals with China and Turkey have been criticised or even ridiculed for providing Russia with a lower price for its gas than that paid by Europe.
The actual difference in price is not as great as some allege. Such criticism anyway overlooks the fact that price is only one part in a business relationship.
By redirecting gas to China, Russia cements economic links with the country that it now considers its key strategic ally and which has (or which soon will have) the world’s biggest and fastest growing economy. By redirecting gas to Turkey, Russia consolidates a burgeoning relationship with Turkey of which it is now the biggest trading partner.
Turkey is a key potential ally for Russia, consolidating Russia's position in the Caucasus and the Black Sea. It is also a country of 76 million people with a $1.5 trillion rapidly growing economy, which over the last two decades has become increasingly alienated and distanced from the EU and the West.
By redirecting gas away from Europe, Russia by contrast leaves behind a market for its gas which is economically stagnant and which (as the events of this year have shown) is irremediably hostile. No one should be surprised that Russia has given up on a relationship from which it gets from its erstwhile partner an endless stream of threats and abuse, combined with moralising lectures, political meddling and now sanctions. No relationship, business or otherwise, can work that way and the one between Russia and Europe is no exception.
I have said nothing about the Ukraine since in my opinion this has little bearing on this issue.
South Stream was first conceived because of the Ukraine's continuous abuse of its position as a transit state - something which is likely to continue. It is important to say that this fact was acknowledged in Europe as much as in Russia. It was because the Ukraine perennially abuses its position as a transit state that the South Stream project had the grudging formal endorsement of the EU. Basically, the EU needs to circumvent the Ukraine to secure its energy supplies every bit as much as Russia wanted a route around the Ukraine to avoid it.
The Ukraine’s friends in Washington and Brussels have never been happy about this, and have constantly lobbied against South Stream.
The point is it was Russia which pulled the plug on South Stream when it had the option of going ahead with it by accepting the Europeans’ conditions. In other words the Russians consider the problems posed by the Ukraine as a transit state to be a lesser evil than the conditions the EU was attaching to South Stream .
South Stream would take years to build and its cancellation therefore has no bearing on the current Ukrainian crisis. The Russians decided they could afford to cancel it is because they have decided Russia’s future is in selling its energy to China and Turkey and other states in Asia (more gas deals are pending with Korea and Japan and possibly also with Pakistan and India) than to Europe. Given that this is so, for Russia South Stream has lost its point. That is why in their characteristically direct way, rather than accept the Europeans’ conditions, the Russians pulled the plug on it.
In doing so the Russians have called the Europeans’ bluff. So far from Russia being dependent on Europe as its energy customer, it is Europe which has antagonised, probably irreparably, its key economic partner and energy supplier.
Before finishing I would however first say something about those who have come out worst of all from this affair. These are the corrupt and incompetent political pygmies who pretend to be the government of Bulgaria. Had these people had a modicum of dignity and self respect they would have told the EU Commission when it brought up the Third Energy Package to take a running jump. If Bulgaria had made clear its intention to press ahead with the South Stream project, there is no doubt it would have been built. There would of course have been an almighty row within the EU as Bulgaria openly flouted the Third Energy Package, but Bulgaria would have been acting in its national interests and would have had within the EU no shortage of friends. In the end it would have won through.
Instead, under pressure from individuals like Senator John McCain, the Bulgarian leadership behaved like the provincial politicians they are, and tried to run at the same time with both the EU hare and the Russian hounds. The result of this imbecile policy is to offend Russia, Bulgaria's historic ally, whilst ensuring that the Russian gas which might have flown to Bulgaria and transformed the country, will instead flow to Turkey, Bulgaria's historic enemy.
The Bulgarians are not the only ones to have acted in this craven fashion. All the EU countries, even those with historic ties to Russia, have supported the EU's various sanctions packages against Russia notwithstanding the doubts they have expressed about the policy. Last year Greece, another country with strong ties to Russia, pulled out of a deal to sell its natural gas company to Gazprom because the EU disapproved of it, even though it was Gazprom that offered the best price.
This points to a larger moral. Whenever the Russians act in the way they have just done, the Europeans respond bafflement and anger, of which there is plenty around at the moment. The EU politicians who make the decisions that provoke these Russian actions seem to have this strange assumption that whilst it is fine for the EU to sanction Russia as much as it wishes, Russia will never do the same to the EU. When Russia does, there is astonishment, accompanied always by a flood of mendacious commentary about how Russia is behaving “aggressively” or “contrary to its interests” or has “suffered a defeat”. None of this is true as the rage and recriminations currently sweeping through the EU’s corridors (of which I am well informed) bear witness.
In July the EU sought to cripple Russia’s oil industry by sanctioning the export of oil drilling technology to Russia. That attempt will certainly fail as Russia and the countries it trades with (including China and South Korea) are certainly capable of producing this technology themselves.
By contrast through the deals it has made this year with China, Turkey and Iran, Russia has dealt a devastating blow to the energy future of the EU. A few years down the line Europeans will start to discover that moralising and bluff comes with a price. Regardless, by cancelling South Stream, Russia has imposed upon Europe the most effective of the sanctions we have seen this year. .
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Most interesting interview of Dmitry Orlov
I want to draw your attention to a recent interview of Dmitry Orlov by by Chris Martenson from Peak Prosperity. I agree with every single word Orlov's says during this interview, and I think that he did a fantastic job explaining many complex issues. Frankly, I consider that a *must listen*.
Enjoy!
The Saker
Enjoy!
The Saker
The quote by Putin which says it all...
My Bulgarian colleagues have always told me that whatever happens, they
would certainly implement South Stream, because this corresponds to
their national interests. But here, unfortunately, this did not come to
pass. If Bulgaria is deprived of the opportunity to act as a sovereign
nation, then they should at least demand money from the European
Commission to compensate for their lost profits, because direct revenues
to Bulgaria’s budget alone would have been no less than 400 million Euros a year. But ultimately, this is also the choice of our Bulgarian
partners; it seems they have certain obligations. Still, that’s not our
business – it’s our partners’ business.
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Of Podcasts, Donations and Books
Dear friends,
I would like to announce that I will be recording the next Saker Podcast #3 the coming week-end and, hopefully, make it available here by Monday morning on the (temporary) Saker Podcasts home page:
https://sites.google.com/site/sakerpodcast/home
Please note that thanks to the kind help of a wonderful lady "A" the Saker Podcast #1 transcript is now available for download from Mediafire (one zipped file containing the transcript in ODT, PDF and RTF formats). Just click on the link above and then click under the transcript download link under Saker Podcast #1.
"A" is now transcribing the 2nd podcast and will be providing transcripts in the future.
Now is the time to post your questions for the next podcast. Please do not email me your questions, but post there in the comments section under this post. Important: questions do not have to be about the Ukraine or any one specific topic: this podcast is for *you* so you ask whatever you want on any topic you want and I will try my best to reply to it. I will be accepting questions until Thursday December 4th at 1800 GMT.
As we have agreed upon, I am using the opportunity of this podcast to remind you to send in your donations to support my work and this blog. I have to report that the feared "donor fatigue" syndrome has apparently kicked in and that donations were very, very small this month (sorry! I had to tell you). Please don't let that happen and help me keep putting in the work-hours needed to do it all!
The following contributors have sent me donations in November via PayPal:
AN, MW, AB, RA, BG, MD, JT, AW, DS, GSH, PZ, HRS, PM, DK, PB, JDB, SF, RM, SD, ND, MM, KK, VF, DF, MM, MM, JMC, MD, RZ, RA, SM, GS, RH, HPO, SB, DK, GC, BS, KG, DK, BP, AV, TRH, DN, SE, BS, JC, HPO, JH, JL, AW, HMK, SC, VED, AA, JEM, KS, VA,
The following contributor has sent me a donation in November via Amazon:
MD
Speaking of donations,
A supporter of the Saker blog has offered me and the community a nice way of supporting my work. Here is what he offers:
I would like to announce that I will be recording the next Saker Podcast #3 the coming week-end and, hopefully, make it available here by Monday morning on the (temporary) Saker Podcasts home page:
https://sites.google.com/site/sakerpodcast/home
Please note that thanks to the kind help of a wonderful lady "A" the Saker Podcast #1 transcript is now available for download from Mediafire (one zipped file containing the transcript in ODT, PDF and RTF formats). Just click on the link above and then click under the transcript download link under Saker Podcast #1.
"A" is now transcribing the 2nd podcast and will be providing transcripts in the future.
Now is the time to post your questions for the next podcast. Please do not email me your questions, but post there in the comments section under this post. Important: questions do not have to be about the Ukraine or any one specific topic: this podcast is for *you* so you ask whatever you want on any topic you want and I will try my best to reply to it. I will be accepting questions until Thursday December 4th at 1800 GMT.
As we have agreed upon, I am using the opportunity of this podcast to remind you to send in your donations to support my work and this blog. I have to report that the feared "donor fatigue" syndrome has apparently kicked in and that donations were very, very small this month (sorry! I had to tell you). Please don't let that happen and help me keep putting in the work-hours needed to do it all!
The following contributors have sent me donations in November via PayPal:
AN, MW, AB, RA, BG, MD, JT, AW, DS, GSH, PZ, HRS, PM, DK, PB, JDB, SF, RM, SD, ND, MM, KK, VF, DF, MM, MM, JMC, MD, RZ, RA, SM, GS, RH, HPO, SB, DK, GC, BS, KG, DK, BP, AV, TRH, DN, SE, BS, JC, HPO, JH, JL, AW, HMK, SC, VED, AA, JEM, KS, VA,
The following contributor has sent me a donation in November via Amazon:
MD
Speaking of donations,
A supporter of the Saker blog has offered me and the community a nice way of supporting my work. Here is what he offers:
Hello everyone. I am a small leatherworking business owner and when Saker reached out to the community a while ago I decided to show my support. In collaboration with Saker, my girlfriend and I introduced to our store our new line of promotional Vineyard of the Saker hand-crafted Leather Key-Chain and Coffee Coasters. Purchasing any of these items will see 30% of your purchase donated to Saker directly, and we also offer 20% discount coupon code on any item in the store (save promotional items) as further gratitude after purchasing one of these items – thanks for your support!
All I can add to this is that I have seen the finished product, and it is very very well done. So if you want to get a well made leather item while helping the Saker blog, this is, I think, I great way to do it. And just in case somebody gets the wrong idea that these folks are trying to make money off this blog, I can tell you that it took me a lot of emails to finally convince them to accept to donate 30% to my work as they wanted to give me almost every cent. So they are truly doing that only to help me and support my work.
To purchase, simply click on the links in "Key Chain" and/or "Coffee Coaster" here:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/212498318/vineyard-of-the-saker-key-chain?ref=related-0
https://www.etsy.com/listing/212506505/vineyard-of-the-saker-coffee-coaster?ref=shop_home_active_1
One more good thing to report:
With the help of two very kind friends, I have begun working on an book to try to explain the *real* Russia to the western public, the one the MSM tries so hard to hide. It is too early for me to provide details about this major project yet, but I have been asked to completely block all my Wednesday mornings for this work. So on Wednesday mornings, starting tomorrow, there will be no posting and no moderation of comments. I apologize for that interruption, but I think that once you found out the details, which are still being finalized, you will completely approve of this decision.
Speaking of books, Pepe Escobar has recently released a book of his own, entitled Empire of Chaos and which you can now get as an ebook from Amazon for pennies ($3.99!!):
http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Chaos-Roving-Eye-Collection-ebook/dp/B00OYVYD3G/
I have seen a draft version of this book and I can sincerely say that I recommend it with unqualified enthusiasm. Yes, sure, Pepe is a friend, but his book, a collection of essays is a fantastic compendium of all the crazy, vile and sometimes even comical stuff the Empire is busy doing world wide. And, of course, Pepe wrote it all in his direct, deliberately non-academic style, while producing analyses which very few academics, if any, could match. Pepe is really "Da man" right now, one of the best informed sharpest analyst out there, and this book is most definitely a "must read". The only bad thing is that it comes with Amazon's friggin DRM "defective by design" restrictions. Well, no big deal. Just get the book, pay the few pennies this costs - it is well worth it - then do a little research here and there (sorry, I legally cannot say where exactly) and this problem can easily be removed.
So, friends, please keep Pepe and myself in the business of informing you and thanks in advance for any help you can provide!
Kind regards,
The Saker
To purchase, simply click on the links in "Key Chain" and/or "Coffee Coaster" here:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/212498318/vineyard-of-the-saker-key-chain?ref=related-0
https://www.etsy.com/listing/212506505/vineyard-of-the-saker-coffee-coaster?ref=shop_home_active_1
One more good thing to report:
With the help of two very kind friends, I have begun working on an book to try to explain the *real* Russia to the western public, the one the MSM tries so hard to hide. It is too early for me to provide details about this major project yet, but I have been asked to completely block all my Wednesday mornings for this work. So on Wednesday mornings, starting tomorrow, there will be no posting and no moderation of comments. I apologize for that interruption, but I think that once you found out the details, which are still being finalized, you will completely approve of this decision.
http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Chaos-Roving-Eye-Collection-ebook/dp/B00OYVYD3G/
I have seen a draft version of this book and I can sincerely say that I recommend it with unqualified enthusiasm. Yes, sure, Pepe is a friend, but his book, a collection of essays is a fantastic compendium of all the crazy, vile and sometimes even comical stuff the Empire is busy doing world wide. And, of course, Pepe wrote it all in his direct, deliberately non-academic style, while producing analyses which very few academics, if any, could match. Pepe is really "Da man" right now, one of the best informed sharpest analyst out there, and this book is most definitely a "must read". The only bad thing is that it comes with Amazon's friggin DRM "defective by design" restrictions. Well, no big deal. Just get the book, pay the few pennies this costs - it is well worth it - then do a little research here and there (sorry, I legally cannot say where exactly) and this problem can easily be removed.
So, friends, please keep Pepe and myself in the business of informing you and thanks in advance for any help you can provide!
Kind regards,
The Saker
Saker rant: Russians are just pathetic at public information
The deal between Russia and Turkey signed yesterday is truly a game changer for the EU and it is at least as painful as the Russian retaliatory sanctions against the EU agricultural export. Having achieved such a victory, you would imagine that the Russians would be eager to not only explain it, but also make some good PR from it.
Think again.
I just went to the English version of the Russian President's website in the hope of finding a fully translated version of the Putin-Erdogan press conference. Check out what I really did find:
That's right. Chess.
Quick look at the Russian Foreign Ministry's English page:
Apparently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs thinks of November 22nd as "current news".
Now, I am hardly a big admirer of Stalin, but when I see how these people work I cannot but think about the fact that in Stalin's times they would have been shot as saboteurs...
I can hear some of you - anti-state libertarians - thinking that the state just cannot get it right. You think it is only the state? Ha! Check out Gazprom's page today:
Yup. That is this multi-billion dollar mega-giant's idea of "information". My local convenience store can do better...
There are a lot of people out there who are under impression that Russia is cornered, losing this Cold War v2 against the Empire, that the Russian economy is about to tank, that the sanctions are having a dramatic effect, etc. In part, this is due to exposure to the Idiot-Tube (which many in Russia call the Zombo-box, the box to make zombies) and the rest of the MSM, but this is only part of the explanation. The main culprit is the Russian state and media - including RT - who just don't seem to understand even the basics of PR such as:
1) When an important event happens, make darn sure that you provide a simultaneous translation into all major languages, then post the recorded video, and provide a transcript.
2) Make sure that good infographics, photos, footage, presentations are available to the press and the blogosphere.
3) Provide contact information to individuals who would reply to questions, help arrange interviews, provide background information, etc.
But no, not in Russia. Apparently in Russia every success has to be hidden as it it was some truly shameful event.
I think that the Poroshenko regime has (yet again) disgraced itself by placing foreigners in ministerial positions. And yet, when I see how absolutely and terminally incompetent Russians are in public information I wish they stopped trying themselves and hired an American PR firm. Honestly, look at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website and tell me that any group of US high school kids could not do way, way better?!
The sad reality is that to try to honestly 'cover' Russian political developments from abroad is an extremely frustrating and disappointing exercise. You get exactly *ZERO* help from the very people who should be most interested in your efforts. Thank God for the Russian blogosphere which is full of dedicated and talented people (Colonel Cassad, Anna-news, Kazzura, South Front, Anti-Maidan and many, many others), who do, on their free time, what highly paid professionals are paid to do in the West.
But yeah, Russia will eventually prevail and it will eventually become obvious to everybody that the EU cannot take on Russia and the AngloZionist Empire cannot take on the "Russia+China combo". Heck, with time people will even come to realize that Russia and China have forged a strategic alliance which make them more powerful than the US/EU/NATO combined. But I sure hope that Putin will find the time to fire all the imbeciles who are in charge of Russian public information and replace them with a new generation of younger Russian who understand what has to be done, and how that should be done. Either that, or hire Americans.
The Saker
Think again.
I just went to the English version of the Russian President's website in the hope of finding a fully translated version of the Putin-Erdogan press conference. Check out what I really did find:
That's right. Chess.
Quick look at the Russian Foreign Ministry's English page:
Apparently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs thinks of November 22nd as "current news".
Now, I am hardly a big admirer of Stalin, but when I see how these people work I cannot but think about the fact that in Stalin's times they would have been shot as saboteurs...
I can hear some of you - anti-state libertarians - thinking that the state just cannot get it right. You think it is only the state? Ha! Check out Gazprom's page today:
Yup. That is this multi-billion dollar mega-giant's idea of "information". My local convenience store can do better...
There are a lot of people out there who are under impression that Russia is cornered, losing this Cold War v2 against the Empire, that the Russian economy is about to tank, that the sanctions are having a dramatic effect, etc. In part, this is due to exposure to the Idiot-Tube (which many in Russia call the Zombo-box, the box to make zombies) and the rest of the MSM, but this is only part of the explanation. The main culprit is the Russian state and media - including RT - who just don't seem to understand even the basics of PR such as:
1) When an important event happens, make darn sure that you provide a simultaneous translation into all major languages, then post the recorded video, and provide a transcript.
2) Make sure that good infographics, photos, footage, presentations are available to the press and the blogosphere.
3) Provide contact information to individuals who would reply to questions, help arrange interviews, provide background information, etc.
But no, not in Russia. Apparently in Russia every success has to be hidden as it it was some truly shameful event.
I think that the Poroshenko regime has (yet again) disgraced itself by placing foreigners in ministerial positions. And yet, when I see how absolutely and terminally incompetent Russians are in public information I wish they stopped trying themselves and hired an American PR firm. Honestly, look at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website and tell me that any group of US high school kids could not do way, way better?!
The sad reality is that to try to honestly 'cover' Russian political developments from abroad is an extremely frustrating and disappointing exercise. You get exactly *ZERO* help from the very people who should be most interested in your efforts. Thank God for the Russian blogosphere which is full of dedicated and talented people (Colonel Cassad, Anna-news, Kazzura, South Front, Anti-Maidan and many, many others), who do, on their free time, what highly paid professionals are paid to do in the West.
But yeah, Russia will eventually prevail and it will eventually become obvious to everybody that the EU cannot take on Russia and the AngloZionist Empire cannot take on the "Russia+China combo". Heck, with time people will even come to realize that Russia and China have forged a strategic alliance which make them more powerful than the US/EU/NATO combined. But I sure hope that Putin will find the time to fire all the imbeciles who are in charge of Russian public information and replace them with a new generation of younger Russian who understand what has to be done, and how that should be done. Either that, or hire Americans.
The Saker
Who won? Who lost? You tell me!
I won't make this one long or analytical. I am sure that somebody will do that within the next 24 hours. But I will say this: the Ukrainians blackmailed Russia over gas, and that created North Stream and South Stream. The Bulgarians decided to cave in to the Eurobureaucrats and that created today's deal with Turkey. For 63bcm. Which happens to be the maximal output of South Stream. But that is all short term. The long term is this: Russia is creating a unified gas distribution network which will be able to send gas from anywhere in Russia to any part of the Russia border.
As for the clueless Europeans, they appear to be literally speechless. Especially the clueless Bulgarian and Serbian politicians who look like idiots and will have to do a lot of explaining to their own people.
The German economy is hurting because of the interruption of trade with Russia and Merkel is in very hot water. Just like Hollande who has to explain why France is now looking at huge losses over the Mistral debacle.
The way I see it, not only did Russia not lose anything, Russia achieved two crucial things: she now firmly put Turkey into her corner (not a trivial achievement if you look at the issues of the future of Iran and Syria) and she created a situation in which EU sanctions only hurt the EU. How one can present that as a defeat for Russia is beyond me.
As for the bad old USA, they are busy sabotaging their own shale gas industry and undermining Saudi Arabia by keeping the oil prices down. What kind of long-term strategy is that? It is sustainable?
Finally, while the Empire still talks about sanctions, Russia is busy buying gold. Lots of gold.
You might wonder what Kiev is doing. Cutting it's gas consumption in half (leaving a large part of the population without heat or hot water) and stealing the pensions from the people of the Donbass. But Kiev has nothing to worry about, Lithuania promises to help :-)
So you still think Russia is losing this one?
The Saker
[Sidebar: The real market for Russian gas will not be a dying EU economy, but the growing and energy hungry mega-market of China. Russia is also selling China it's top-of-the-line S-400 missiles which is a nightmare come true for the US and Taiwan. And all of this involves huge sums of money, immense projects and a deep strategic alliance for decades into the future.]As for Turkey, this "faithful" NATO member and US ally, it was more than happy to backstab the EU which had denied it membership for decades. Not only did Turkey sign a deal with Gazprom, it also agreed to have Russia essentially built its entire nuclear industry. Russia and Turkey also agreed to boost trade and tourism. Politics is politics, but business is business. Nothing personal here, but Uncle Sam can go and... well, you know what :-)
As for the clueless Europeans, they appear to be literally speechless. Especially the clueless Bulgarian and Serbian politicians who look like idiots and will have to do a lot of explaining to their own people.
The German economy is hurting because of the interruption of trade with Russia and Merkel is in very hot water. Just like Hollande who has to explain why France is now looking at huge losses over the Mistral debacle.
The way I see it, not only did Russia not lose anything, Russia achieved two crucial things: she now firmly put Turkey into her corner (not a trivial achievement if you look at the issues of the future of Iran and Syria) and she created a situation in which EU sanctions only hurt the EU. How one can present that as a defeat for Russia is beyond me.
As for the bad old USA, they are busy sabotaging their own shale gas industry and undermining Saudi Arabia by keeping the oil prices down. What kind of long-term strategy is that? It is sustainable?
Finally, while the Empire still talks about sanctions, Russia is busy buying gold. Lots of gold.
You might wonder what Kiev is doing. Cutting it's gas consumption in half (leaving a large part of the population without heat or hot water) and stealing the pensions from the people of the Donbass. But Kiev has nothing to worry about, Lithuania promises to help :-)
So you still think Russia is losing this one?
The Saker
Monday, December 1, 2014
Off-topic but apparently needed: Judaism and Christianity - back to basics
I have received a lot of outraged comments for my statement that Orthodox Judaism is at its core just a type of "anti-Christianity". My critiques informed me of the fact that since Judaism was older than Christianity, it could hardly have been an anti-Christianity. Here are some samples of these comments:
As is so often the case, modern propaganda works by a mix of ignorance and learned assumptions. You could say that this is a case of "unknown unknowns" to paraphrase Rumsfeld. This is case, all the self-righteous outrage above is based on a very simple fallacy: the assumption that what we call "Judaism" today is the religion of the Jews before, or until, the times of Christ. This assumption is completely wrong.
What we call "Judaism" today is basically the continuation of one of the many Jewish sects which existed at the time of Christ: the famous sect of the Pharisees. Specifically, it is the continuation of that part of the sect of the Pharisees which did not accept Christ (others did, Saint Paul was a Pharsisee and so what is immensely famous teacher, Saint Gamaliel the Elder). Besides being intellectually very sophisticated, one of the unique features of the Pharisees was that they met in "assemblies" to read the Scripture and worship. The word "assembly" in Greek (which was the lingua franca of the time) is συναγωγή "sinagoge" - or "synagogue" in modern English. When the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Legions of the Roman Emperor Titus in 70AD the Pharisees were the only ones that had a ready structure which could be used in the absence of the Temple, the synagogue.
Please keep in mind that as such there were no "rabbis", at least not as an institution, before 70AD. There were priests and teachers and some teachers were addressed as 'rabbi', but 'rabbinical Judaism' (which what modern 'Judaism' really is did not exist at that time).
The other crucial feature of the Pharisees was that they (correctly) believed that not all of the teachings of God had been written down and that Oral Tradition was as important as the written one. Other Jewish sects, just like modern day Protestant denominations, insisted that sola scriptura.
There is no overstating the catastrophic importance of destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. Not only did it take away the place of worship around which the lives of all the Jews of the entire Middle-East centered at the time, but it also destroyed the building in which the Messiah had been predicted to come to preach and it happened at the time predicted by the Prophet Daniel. For those Jews who did not accept Christ, this was very, very bad news indeed. Something needed to be done urgently, and indeed it was. Here are the main axes this "response" took:
1) Under the pretext of correction and standardization the various Holy Books which we today think of as the "Old Testament" were expunged from the most evident passages which were referring to Christ. The Book of Psalms was especially butchered. A "new old Testament" of sorts was created by a group of scholars called the Masoretes who produced a fraud, a re-worked collection of texts we nowadays call the Masoretic Text of the Bible purged from all the key references to Christ (the *real* original text of the books of what we call today the Old Testament has not been preserved in Hebrew, but it exists in translations made from Hebrew into the Greek in the late 2nd century BC by 72 scholars working for Ptolemy Philadelphius, hence the translation is called the Septuaginta or simply LXX).
2) A new class of teachers tasked with the "correct" interpretation of the written and oral traditions emerged, the rabbis. Their main task was the "explain" what had happened in 70AD and what that mean for the Jewish people.
3) A "new old Oral Tradition" was created and this time it was put in paper. This is what eventually became known as the Talmud (of which there are two, but nevermind that), the anti-Christian book par excellence.
4) Exactly in accordance with the words of Christ and the Apostles Paul and John the Evangelist, Devil-worship and black magic also soon were integrated into the "new old" corpus of traditions and this is the basis of what today is called the Kabbalah.
5) Finally, and logically, the focus of worship turned from a worship of God to self-worship. In this recent addition, it is the entire Jewish people which are the innocent and suffering Messiah and the so-called "Holocaust" is that mystical sacrifice from which the salvation of the world will come. In this latest school of thought, the Jews are collectively called to "fix/repair" the world, to do the work of the Messiah.
Okay, now before there is the usual tsunami of outraged comments spiced up with the usual accusations of anti-Semitism and the rest of the inevitable nonsense, let me tell you immediately that I have no intention at all to prove any of the above. I simply have no time for that. If you are interested, you can easily find all this information online, from books written by anti-Judaic scholars like Michael Hoffman to books written by authoritative Jewish scholars like Jacob Neusner. The latter will, of course, not at all put the same interpretation to these events as I do, but he will not disagree with the basic facts and chronology.
The point for me is this: you can take any good book or course on the history of what is called "Judaism" today and check for yourself that all the facts above are true. I particularly recommend "The Way of Torah: An Introduction to Judaism" by Jacob Neusner which, if I am not mistaken, exists in the form of audio lectures from the Teaching Company's "Great Courses" series. From an non-Judaic perspective I recommend the books "Judaism's strange god" and, especially, the huge "Judaism Discovered" (over 1000 pages!) by Michael Hoffman. You can get them from an online bookstore or even in the form of a (possibly unauthorized and therefore free) PDF download. But even a short trip to your local library should give you enough confirmation that I am not making things up.
If you take the time to study the roots and evolution of what we called "Judaism", and which could be called something like "rabbinical/Phariseic Talmudism", you will come to the inevitable conclusion that modern "Judaism" is not the religion of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but the religion of Maimonides, Karo and Luria. This religion has *nothing* in common with the religion of the Jewish people before Christ, just as modern Jews, especially the Ashkenazim, have no genetic connection to the Jewish people of 2000 years ago. We are dealing with a fraud whose main effort is to prove that it is the real thing, just as the Papacy is trying to prove that it is "the" original Church of Christ while in reality neither one of them have their roots in the times of Christ.
Depending on your personal beliefs there are only two religions today which can claim to be the real, true, continuation of the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: Orthodox Christianity (simply because it is the original form of Christianity which itself is the accomplishment of the ancient faith of the Jewish people) or Karaism (simply because it the closest non-Christian denomination to trace its roots to pre-Talmudic "Judaism" at least in the version of the Sect of the Sadducees).
I rather not have a long discussion about this fascinating, but complex, topic. I just wanted to explain why I wrote the modern Judaism is basically a form of anti-Christianity and try to clam down those who suffered a heart-attack or stroke from the indignation at hearing such a self-evidently ignorant and bigoted thought :-)
Now let's get back to the modern world and its numerous problems.
Cheers and kind regards,
The Saker
Well, the first cannot possibly be true as Judaism existed well over thousand years prior, and ever since was an introverted worldview. (If you don't know much about it, no need to put such sort of labels. Everybody has a right to preach his own religion, not just the Orthodox Christians).Sigh...
Surely you're aware that Judaism is MUCH older than Christianity, Saker? However some of them may feel towards the goyim, I think there's a good bit more to their religion than mere anti-Christian animosity.
WTF!? and with that the fools and naive can point and chant "anti-semite" - and could you blame them? Well yes you could, but still. That one sentence pollutes any nuance, any thoughtful analysis, any factual argument saker makes. Shame saker is turning out to be a religious zealot - or at least an anti-jewish one.
As is so often the case, modern propaganda works by a mix of ignorance and learned assumptions. You could say that this is a case of "unknown unknowns" to paraphrase Rumsfeld. This is case, all the self-righteous outrage above is based on a very simple fallacy: the assumption that what we call "Judaism" today is the religion of the Jews before, or until, the times of Christ. This assumption is completely wrong.
What we call "Judaism" today is basically the continuation of one of the many Jewish sects which existed at the time of Christ: the famous sect of the Pharisees. Specifically, it is the continuation of that part of the sect of the Pharisees which did not accept Christ (others did, Saint Paul was a Pharsisee and so what is immensely famous teacher, Saint Gamaliel the Elder). Besides being intellectually very sophisticated, one of the unique features of the Pharisees was that they met in "assemblies" to read the Scripture and worship. The word "assembly" in Greek (which was the lingua franca of the time) is συναγωγή "sinagoge" - or "synagogue" in modern English. When the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Legions of the Roman Emperor Titus in 70AD the Pharisees were the only ones that had a ready structure which could be used in the absence of the Temple, the synagogue.
Please keep in mind that as such there were no "rabbis", at least not as an institution, before 70AD. There were priests and teachers and some teachers were addressed as 'rabbi', but 'rabbinical Judaism' (which what modern 'Judaism' really is did not exist at that time).
The other crucial feature of the Pharisees was that they (correctly) believed that not all of the teachings of God had been written down and that Oral Tradition was as important as the written one. Other Jewish sects, just like modern day Protestant denominations, insisted that sola scriptura.
There is no overstating the catastrophic importance of destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. Not only did it take away the place of worship around which the lives of all the Jews of the entire Middle-East centered at the time, but it also destroyed the building in which the Messiah had been predicted to come to preach and it happened at the time predicted by the Prophet Daniel. For those Jews who did not accept Christ, this was very, very bad news indeed. Something needed to be done urgently, and indeed it was. Here are the main axes this "response" took:
1) Under the pretext of correction and standardization the various Holy Books which we today think of as the "Old Testament" were expunged from the most evident passages which were referring to Christ. The Book of Psalms was especially butchered. A "new old Testament" of sorts was created by a group of scholars called the Masoretes who produced a fraud, a re-worked collection of texts we nowadays call the Masoretic Text of the Bible purged from all the key references to Christ (the *real* original text of the books of what we call today the Old Testament has not been preserved in Hebrew, but it exists in translations made from Hebrew into the Greek in the late 2nd century BC by 72 scholars working for Ptolemy Philadelphius, hence the translation is called the Septuaginta or simply LXX).
2) A new class of teachers tasked with the "correct" interpretation of the written and oral traditions emerged, the rabbis. Their main task was the "explain" what had happened in 70AD and what that mean for the Jewish people.
3) A "new old Oral Tradition" was created and this time it was put in paper. This is what eventually became known as the Talmud (of which there are two, but nevermind that), the anti-Christian book par excellence.
4) Exactly in accordance with the words of Christ and the Apostles Paul and John the Evangelist, Devil-worship and black magic also soon were integrated into the "new old" corpus of traditions and this is the basis of what today is called the Kabbalah.
5) Finally, and logically, the focus of worship turned from a worship of God to self-worship. In this recent addition, it is the entire Jewish people which are the innocent and suffering Messiah and the so-called "Holocaust" is that mystical sacrifice from which the salvation of the world will come. In this latest school of thought, the Jews are collectively called to "fix/repair" the world, to do the work of the Messiah.
Okay, now before there is the usual tsunami of outraged comments spiced up with the usual accusations of anti-Semitism and the rest of the inevitable nonsense, let me tell you immediately that I have no intention at all to prove any of the above. I simply have no time for that. If you are interested, you can easily find all this information online, from books written by anti-Judaic scholars like Michael Hoffman to books written by authoritative Jewish scholars like Jacob Neusner. The latter will, of course, not at all put the same interpretation to these events as I do, but he will not disagree with the basic facts and chronology.
The point for me is this: you can take any good book or course on the history of what is called "Judaism" today and check for yourself that all the facts above are true. I particularly recommend "The Way of Torah: An Introduction to Judaism" by Jacob Neusner which, if I am not mistaken, exists in the form of audio lectures from the Teaching Company's "Great Courses" series. From an non-Judaic perspective I recommend the books "Judaism's strange god" and, especially, the huge "Judaism Discovered" (over 1000 pages!) by Michael Hoffman. You can get them from an online bookstore or even in the form of a (possibly unauthorized and therefore free) PDF download. But even a short trip to your local library should give you enough confirmation that I am not making things up.
If you take the time to study the roots and evolution of what we called "Judaism", and which could be called something like "rabbinical/Phariseic Talmudism", you will come to the inevitable conclusion that modern "Judaism" is not the religion of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but the religion of Maimonides, Karo and Luria. This religion has *nothing* in common with the religion of the Jewish people before Christ, just as modern Jews, especially the Ashkenazim, have no genetic connection to the Jewish people of 2000 years ago. We are dealing with a fraud whose main effort is to prove that it is the real thing, just as the Papacy is trying to prove that it is "the" original Church of Christ while in reality neither one of them have their roots in the times of Christ.
Depending on your personal beliefs there are only two religions today which can claim to be the real, true, continuation of the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: Orthodox Christianity (simply because it is the original form of Christianity which itself is the accomplishment of the ancient faith of the Jewish people) or Karaism (simply because it the closest non-Christian denomination to trace its roots to pre-Talmudic "Judaism" at least in the version of the Sect of the Sadducees).
I rather not have a long discussion about this fascinating, but complex, topic. I just wanted to explain why I wrote the modern Judaism is basically a form of anti-Christianity and try to clam down those who suffered a heart-attack or stroke from the indignation at hearing such a self-evidently ignorant and bigoted thought :-)
Now let's get back to the modern world and its numerous problems.
Cheers and kind regards,
The Saker
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