What we have been watching for the last 3 years has been a sort of post-modern presentation of Shakespeare. We’ve had treachery, greed, unquenchable narcissism, and a degree of Theater of the Absurd not seen since Saturday Night Live’s, Stefon, and his description of celebrities you can see at New York’s hottest clubs such as: “Blingo (Black Ringo), Jewish Dracula Sidney Applebaum, nine-year-old Tokyo pimp Ichi Yakaguro, and 300-pound Chinese baby deejay DJ Baby Bak Choy.” And of course, we have President Donald Trump, famous for posing as his own public relations man, John Barron – a portmanteau of the name, “Barron’s”, (a weekly financial newspaper published by the Dow Jones & Co.) and that of his own son, Barron Trump, a quasi-royal with a feudal empire that extends beyond Queens and deeply into the borough of Manhattan.
There have been so many plot twists, so many inane characters, and so many meaningless subplots that the labyrinth containing the entirety of this mystery has kept us glued to the nightly news like never before in our history. And now, we all know the names of leading investigative journalists such as Maggie Haberman, and beloved modern-day muckrakers like Rachael Maddow.
The question we all ask is whether what we’re watching is the dismemberment of our Constitution, the resurrection of 20th Century fascism, or the end of western democracy itself. Our treasury has been plundered by Republican tax giveaways to billionaires; our school children are routinely massacred by gun enthusiasts; our water is becoming polluted again; and our forests are on fire. Are we looking at Yeats’s, Second Coming, where “things fall apart, the center cannot hold”? Or are we being subsumed by yet another season of The Apprentice, produced and directed by Donald Trump for the reality TV culture of Amurika?
I think we’re lost in a post-modern absurdist play, but one containing a play within a play at its center – Hamlet’s Mousetrap. And this mousetrap reveals the “conscience of the king”, the real motive: the Russian economy and the macroeconomics of oil.
But now, back to this week’s news cycle where, finally, we’re getting back to the infamous, Steele Dossier – the libretto for this 3-year long tragicomedy. Follow the meandering paths in the Dossier, and you’ll discover the macroeconomics that permit Sheikhs to pay the US for sanctions against their competitors, and you’ll also hear the sound of Russia groaning under the punishing sanctions that we placed on them for their resumption of The Great Game.
The Dossier says that Carter Page and his “associates” were offered a “brokerage fee” of a 19% stake in Rosneft, Russia’s state-owned oil monopoly, if his people could get the West’s sanctions regime on Russia lifted. The offer was made by Igor Sechin, CEO of Russia’s state oil company. According to NATO, there are three types of economic sanctions on Russia: The first restricts access to Western financial markets and services for state-owned businesses in the banking, energy, and defense sectors. The second places an embargo on exports to Russia of high-technology oil exploration and equipment. The third is an embargo on exports to Russia of military goods.
The sanctions regime was placed on Russia following their invasion of Ukraine in 2014. And Russia’s resulting economic pain is likely why Paul Manafort, who was working with Igor Sechin, inserted the softening of Russian sanctions into the GOP platform during the Republican Convention. When the lifting of sanctions failed to materialize, even with the help of the US president whom they had installed in office, it is thought that Russia found it necessary to privatize part of Rosneft for cash. It held talks with more than 30 potential buyers from Europe, the US, Asia, and the ME. Rosneft signed a deal on Dec. 7th, 2016 with Glencore Plc and Qatar’s state-owned wealth fund which is Glencore’s largest shareholder shortly before Trump took office. The purchase was facilitated by the sanctioned, Gazprombank. But there is doubt that this highly publicized deal was anything but a sham concocted to bypass the sanctions. Perhaps Robert Mueller will tell us more about this con in due time.
This is the play within the play, and this is why we have Donald Trump as President of the United States. It’s all about lifting the sanctions, and as usual, it’s all about the oil. So, yes, impeach Trump, put all the scoundrels in jail, defeat Republicans in every state in the nation, and repair the damage done by the Republicans to our governmental institutions. Let’s recover from this assault on our democracy and reclaim our government. But let’s also recognize what the play was all about in the first place. Sanctions.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Deborah Long is a Principal at Development Management Group, Inc. and founder of several non-profit charitable organizations. If you find her perspectives interesting, controversial, or provocative, follow her at: https://www.facebook.com/debby.long.98499?ref=br_rs
Deborah Long is a Principal at Development Management Group, Inc. and founder of several non-profit, charitable organizations. If you find her perspectives interesting, controversial, or provocative, you can follow her at: https://www.facebook.com/debby.long.98499?ref=br_rs