What are the consequences when elected governments make policy based on faith and imperial hubris instead of science and expertise? It’s a question that is forcing itself on the world as we watch the United States, Britain, NATO and the Harper government continue to up the ante in the confrontation with Russia over the Ukraine.

The following statement was released on Facebook on April 6 by the renowned Ukrainian-born classical pianist Valentina Lisitsa. It is in response to the decision of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra to cancel two performances by her with the symphony planned for April 8 and 9 of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto #2.

For over a year, the United States has played out a scenario designed to (1) reassert U.S. control over Europe by blocking E.U. trade with Russia, (2) bankrupt Russia, and (3) get rid of Vladimir Putin and replace him with an American puppet, like the late drunk, Boris Yeltsin.

The US-EU sponsored coup in the Ukraine and its conversion from a stable Russian trading partner to a devastated EU economic client and NATO launch pad, as well as the subsequent economic sanctions against Russia for supporting the Russian ethnic majority in the Donbas region and Crimea, illustrate the dangerous vulnerability of the Russian economy and state.

Russia’s President Putin is reported to have said in a conversation a while back that he could be in Kiev in two weeks. In our press, this was reported as yet more evidence of aggressive intentions, but, giveneven a moment’s thought, that is a patently false interpretation.

Since the overthrow of the Yanukovych government at the end of February 2014, the mainstream media en masse has attempted to whitewash the nature of the current interim Ukrainian government. With Ukraine now having Europe’s first government since Hitler’s time to include fascists in high-profile cabinet positions, one might wonder how their presence affects the operation of the state.

Mr Putin represents himself as a left-wing politician, but in reality he is rightwing. This is the master stroke of his PR. He wants to reform communal services, education and health, in a most libertarian way.