The National Center for Public Policy Research, a major cog in the Beltway neocon machine, treated the arrest of the arch-oligarch as a "setback for democracy," and "an attack on free-market policies." The National Center has been the main focal point for anti-Russian polemics among the American neo-conservatives (cf. future-of-russia.org), run by the Center for the Future of Russia, which is identical to the National Center itself. The Center says, "Khodorkovsky joins Boris Berezovsky, Yakov Goldovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky, Platon Lebedev, Alexei Pichugin and Yury Shelfer as those who have been imprisoned or forced to leave the country by Putin's government in recent history." Significantly, all these mentioned have Israeli citizenship. Whether or not these billionaires also were part of a Mossad operation against Russian interests is entirely another matter, but sources close to this author claim that this was considered the case in the higher reaches of the Russian military and intelligence brass.

There is not a question, at least for the National Center, that both the "free market" and "democracy" depend upon, or are identical with, the unlimited freedom of the oligarchs to control the political process. However, when one considers that sitting on the board of the National Center is one James Cleo Thompson, the CEO of Thompson Petroleum Corporation, their worries about Russia's protection of its oil supply comes into sharper focus. Further, much of the operating budget of the National Center derives from the aforementioned Sarah Scaife Foundation. Further, the National Center has received hundreds of thousands in grants from the Koch family, which derive their money from the Koch oil and gas conglomerate. There is a banner on each of the Russia websites the National Center sponsors that says "Say nyet to KGB-controlled oil supply." Apparently, clicking this sends a petition to one's congressman saying "this issue is important to me."

Ariel Cohen says this about the Khordokovsky arrest: "With the attack on YUKOS, the ex-KGB faction in the Kremlin has reverted to state-led repression against private capital and independent power centers. A crackdown on the independent media has been going on for three years. The U.S. should send a strong signal to President Putin that such policies may cost Moscow America's good will and cause damage in tens of billions of dollars." Needless to say, the Heritage Foundation is controlled by the same foundations that control the National Center. For Cohen, however, the fact that the oligarchs are entirely pro-Israeli adds another worry to his analysis. Nevertheless, Cohen, and the entire neocon and liberal Beltway establishments could not have been more wrong when they forecasted near economic collapse for Russia due to this arrest. In fact, Russian GDP growth has increased, and the end seems nowhere in sight. It is also ironic that while Cohen and the National Center demand "openness" in the Russian media, they themselves hide the financial sources of their influence.

The purpose of this digression is to set the stage for understanding Putin, Lukashenko and Kuchma (and, it seems, Yanukovytch, who will no doubt be forced to declare martial law before long). The phony, high sounding phrases of "democracy," "press freedom" or free markets" mask a major drive to take over Russia's oil and gas reserves and use it to prop up the American economy, now sinking in debt. The very fact that the oligarchs listed above controlled the majority of the Russian economy, and that the National Center and the Heritage Foundation claim that this is the foundation for the "rule of law" is at least an honest admission as to what republicanism and democracy truly are.

It is Russia's control over her own oil and gas reserves that make her the primary focal point for resistance to the new world order. It therefore stands to reason that major oil and gas concerns would fund the sort of bogus research and pompous posturing done by the National Center, the Post, or Ariel Cohen. Of course, given that the economy in Russia and Ukraine is in the hands of the oligarchs, the state, as said before, remained the only weapon to maintain Russian sovereignt, economic or otherwise. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the main line of attack found at such organizations is the attack on the state, her security services and her intelligence services, pejoratively termed "the KGB" by one and all.

It is further significant that the actions of the Presidents being discussed here have both led to massive economic growth as well as substantial personal popularity for themselves. If Putin were to run for President today, he would receive about 85% of the vote without campaigning. Their economies are improving by leaps and bounds, unemployment and inflation are under control and the hated oligarchs are either in exile or under police surveillance, which, taken together, is a sure fire method to win the loyalty of the population. The opinions of western academics or neocon hatchet men, diametrically opposed to the views of actual Russians or Ukrainians, should be taken at their source.

Ultimately, of course, the use of state power should be engaged in with the final purpose of establishing independent and self-governing ethnic cultures. At present, it is the universal drive of western capital to create a monotone and culture-less world to serve their alchemical ends that is the most significant danger to communal liberty and ethnic solidarity. Ethnic solidarity itself should be the final end of state action against the new world order and its parasitic oligarchical class. It is no accident that the neutering of Russia remains the primary goal of the western ruling powers as we come to the end of 2004. Russia alone, preferably with the support of the other Orthodox Slavic powers, as the wealth and the size to create a counterpoise to this Babylonian system of economics. The Islamic world, suffering defeat after defeat throughout the 20th century, perennially divided, offers no solution to the world crisis at this time, and this is unlikely to change. Regardless, Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism is created under the aegis of the CIA in places such as Albania, Kosovo-Methoia, Chechnya and Bosnia. China's continuing economic growth and concomitant military prowess remains a potential force in world politics, but the stability of China proper is another matter, as well as the ever present threat of the economy overheating through too much growth, too fast. China alone, it seems, will remain a regional power, even if reduced to the Han sections of the country.

Regardless of these speculations, it remains the purview of Putin, and Russian public opinion, to offer the standing challenge to the new world order and its American leader. The state is a useful weapon, but it remains as it has always been, an unpredictable behemoth with interests of its own, over and above the purely negative role as defensive mechanism. Therefore, a specifically ethnic nationalist program for Russia and Ukraine will demand a strong leaning towards the local and the small scale, financed by small loans at low rates, as Alexander III did In Russia with the Peasant Land Bank in 1888. Trade among the Slavic nations, along with Armenia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan should be given priority over that from the west, and a counter trade alliance needs to be strengthened, as it has already been formed through Putin's leadership. The only means whereby prosperity can be diffused throughout the laboring population is a rejection of the typical IMF prescriptions, and instead offer protection to the small farmer and entrepreneur. The currency, of course, should become non-convertible and this protected by predatory speculation such as that which melted down the Asian economies by George Soros. The larger enterprises should be controlled by the workers themselves, though labor organization, with an eye to integrating the life of work with that of the ethnic experience and ethnic culture.

As Hillaire Belloc prescribed long ago, a tax system may be erected that penalizes the movement of capital from small to large, but encourages and even subsidizes the move from large to small. Large subsidies and tax breaks should be the norm for families with children, providing more tax breaks given the number of children born, with a complete tax free life for those with four or more children. This sort of investment will pay off as the children grow and take their place as guardians of the ethnic and religious tradition of the Russians. As the Belarusian, Ukrainian and Russian populations are shrinking, this remains the largest problem, though the easiest to solve. Presently, the city of Moscow is offering 1,000 roubles for young families to have children, and St. Petersburg is toying with the idea as well. However, in order to be effective, it must be done at a national scale. Generous state assistance should be given to single mothers, as well as families, and, with this protection, the barbaric practice of abortion should be forever banned, as the alleged reason for it will disappear.

It may well be the case that the neocon mind is merely waiting for the demographic catastrophe to exert such pressure that the Slavic populations will no longer be large enough to resist the capitalist machine. It strikes this author as odd that those writers who claim thier love of the "Russian people" while attacking their government never seem to bring the demographic issue up. It is almost like their belief is the would will be better off without the Slavs or Orthodoxy. Of all the issues the western press deals with in respect to Russia, the demographic one is the most muted. There must be a reason for that.