Anglo-Zionism and the Confederation of Europe

February 07, 2023

Source

By Batiushka

Introduction: The Origins of Anglo-Zionism

When I discovered the Saker in 2014, I at once discovered his term of genius ‘Anglo-Zionism’. That, after all, is exactly what it is. It is Anglo-Zionism that has poisoned the European well for over 300 years. The bankers who left Venice for Amsterdam and then moved to London, having financed their agent, the bloodthirsty Anglo Cromwell and so brought the monarchy in England under merchant-banker (‘parliamentary’) control, founding the Bank of England in 1694 and bribing the Scots to union in 1707, were Zionists.

So began Anglo-Zionism. The Anglos were the traders of British Imperialism and the Zionists were the bankers of British Imperialism, of whatever nationality they might be. Of course, there was intermixing, as some Anglos became bankers and some Zionists became traders, for example even moving to the Caribbean for the slave-trade, from which the family of the former UK Prime Minister Cameron made its millions. And Mr Cameron’s great-great-grandfather was a German Jewish banker who became a British citizen in 1871. It is a small world.

Anglo-Zionism in Europe

From all this was born the Anglo political system. Generally speaking, the right-wing party (the Tories) were the Anglos, the left-wing party (today called Labour) were the Zionists, though again there were exceptions, for example, the Jewish Prime Minister Disraeli, was in the right-wing party. This system has continued in the UK to this day, where, unsurprisingly, they talk about their ‘Judeo-Christian’ civilisation. Thus, the supposedly Labour Blair regime ministers were almost all Scots, homosexuals and Jews.

When the ultra-Tory Blair, ‘son of Thatcher’, was despatched after doing his appointed duty, a man called Jeremy Corbyn eventually became the leader of the Labour Party. Unlike Blair, he actually was left-wing, a true-believing Socialist. As a result, he was naturally pro-Palestinian and so was immediately branded by the Anglo-Zionist British Press as an ‘Anti-Semite’. They got rid of him through intrigues, including inducing him to be anti-Brexit (two-thirds of his supporters, his working-class backbone, were pro-Brexit and so, unnaturally, but with no other choice, voted pro-Brexit Tory). Corbyn was replaced with an Establishment millionaire called Starmer, who looks like a cardboard cut-out of a Tory. How did he get the job? Simply because he is married to a Jew and his children are therefore Jews.

However, the same system was exported all over Europe. In the Soviet Union the ideologue of the Third International was Bronstein (Trotsky) who wanted World Revolution. In Romania, the man who replaced Ceausescu in 1989 was a Jew. The present Romanian leader is a German. The situation in the Ukraine is well-known from the billionaire arms-dealer Poroshenko (real name Walzman) to the millionaire actor Zelensky (his name probably a translation of Gruen). In France the Zionist lobby has been strong from the 19^th century on. Although the current French President Macron is French, he is a Rothschild banker. Franco-Zionism. There are dozens of other examples throughout Europe over the last 300 years, especially since Napoleon.

Anglo-Zionism in the US

However, the main bastion of Anglo-Zionism is undoubtedly the USA, which the bankers from London seriously colonised during the First World War. specifically during the 1916 turning-point, when it became apparent to the Round Table organisation there would only be one winner, neither Germany, nor Great Britain, but the USA. As soon as Russia had been taken out of the equation through US bankers via their British agents and Russian traitors in Petrograd in early 1917, the first US troops appeared in France less than one month later. All had been pre-planned.

Today in the US, the Republican Party represents the Anglos and the Democratic Party the Zionists. The billionaire Trump, like Bush, is a typical White Anglo nationalist WASP: America first. On the other hand, Biden is a typical Zionist, just like Obama and Clinton before him, though quite unlike Kennedy. An electoral accident, he of course had to be eliminated. And he was.

For 250 years the Anglos and the Zionists have worked together in the US, they have had the same self-interested interests – money and power. However, there are now discussions between them regarding the Ukraine. Already half of the Anglo Republicans want out of the Ukraine (1). It is too costly and they want to save the US (and their own fortunes) from its multiple self-inflicted wounds just in case it goes under. But the Zionists are thinking along the same lines. There is only one solution.

The Ukraine

The Anglos wanted the Ukraine in order to defeat their traditional rival, Russia. However, for the Zionists the Ukraine had another purpose, it was to destroy White Europe, the same purpose they had in fomenting the First and Second World Wars, so ensuring Zionist domination of the world – ‘Globalism’. Not all neocons are Wolfowitzes, Kagans and Nulands. Many are Anglos. Today, we are already seeing that the Republicans are increasingly beginning to support Zaluzhny, the Kiev military commander, whereas the Democrats still stand behind the Jewish Zelensky, but are now wavering.

The Republicans originally wanted to weaken Russia. The Republicans are nationalists, so are the Russians. It is now just dawning on them that Russia does not want to recreate the Soviet Empire or any other sort of Empire, all they want is to protect Russians, not to invade other countries. In any case, they are not going to weaken Russia any more through the Ukraine. All that they have done so far is to strengthen Russia. The Ukraine has not served its purpose. As for the Zionists, they are happy to kill as many White Europeans, especially Russian and Ukrainians, as possible, but above all they want world power.

The interests of Anglos and Zionists coincide. For if the Russians do not want world power after all, then the real rival is China, which has real mercantile power. Therefore, the pivot to China, where there is real money. Once the US has lost in the Ukraine, and Kadyrov confidently predicts that it will be over by the end of 2023 (2), the US will turn its attention to China. But it is already happening. That is what the balloon show was all about. China is a much more interesting option for the money-grubbers, whether Anglos or Zionists. But where does that leave benighted Europe?

Europe’s Demons

A spectre has long been haunting Europe, or rather two spectres, or rather two Legions of Demons: Unionist Demons and Nationalist Demons, Centripetal and Centrifugal forces, who have both been issued with strict instructions never to allow Unity in Diversity.

The Unionists are represented by all the big, supranational, unaccountable and so violent, corrupt and bullying institutions, whose blood-soaked hands have tormented Europe for over 2,000 years: the pagan Roman Empire, the Frankish barbarian ‘Holy Roman Empire’, the ‘Reformed’ centralist Papacy with its ‘Crusades’ and tyrannical medieval ‘unity’, Napoleon, Hitler and the EU. These torments all come out of exactly the same Unionist cauldron, boiling with love of power, greed and hatred for the Nation-State and the little people. The demons dance around the cauldron, hellishly gloating at the immense suffering and bloodshed they have caused to the innocent for two millennia.

Always the same victims.

The Nationalists are represented by wars and massacres between the Germans and the Wends, the English and the Welsh and the Scots, the medieval Italian city-states, the principalities of medieval Rus, by the Anglo-French Hundred Years War, the Central European Wars of ‘Religion’, the Normans and the English, the Turks and the Greeks, the English and the Irish, the Russians, both before and after 1917, and the Poles, Finns, Latvians, Georgians and Ukrainians, the Swedes and the Finns, the Germans and the French, the French and the Bretons and Corsicans, the Danes and the Norwegians, the Greeks and the Bulgarians and Macedonians, the Austrians and the Serbs, the Serbs and the Bulgarians and Croats, the Spanish and the Basques and Catalans, the Czechs and the Slovaks, the Hungarians and the Romanians, the Ukrainians and the Carpatho-Russians, the EU and Brexit, Grexit, Nexit, Frexit etc, and by all those many other interminable bullying conflicts between big neighbours and little neighbours, between capitals and provinces. One such conflict is going on at this very moment in the Ukraine, with hundreds of thousands of dead already. These torments too all come out of exactly the same Nationalist cauldron, boiling with love of blood and hatred for Unity. The demons dance around the cauldron, hellishly gloating at the immense suffering and bloodshed they have caused to the innocent for two millennia.

Always the same victims.

Overcoming the Demons

The most dangerous thing in European history is not the suicidal stupidity of Europeans, but when outsiders make it even worse by interfering. For example, to some extent, to what extent exactly is still being debated, the British elite in their island were responsible for meddling in Continental Europe and so creating both the First and the Second World Wars. However, modern Europe is the invention of the US. Itself a Union, built on the blood of over 600,000 of its own, it wanted to create a similar Union in Europe. The result is the EU with its ring of captive stars: ‘One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them. One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them; In the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie’.

More clearly, the latest conflict in the Ukraine has come about completely through the meddling of the world bully, which styles itself ‘the world’s policeman’, the US. As the US is now losing in this conflict, and losing very badly, what will happen once the US world bully is gone from the scene, not only from the Ukraine, but from Europe in general? After all, the US departure from Europe seems to be inevitable in the coming generation, maybe by the centenary of the US Occupation of Europe in 2045, if not well before that.

Will the present Unionist US-devised United States of Europe, the EU, which is about to collapse with its Demons of Unionism, fall back into petty nationalisms and intertribal massacres as before? Will Europeans once more have to obey the Demons of Nationalism? Could Europeans not at last learn to live in peace after two thousand years of interfering in the lives of other Europeans and, far worse, after a thousand years of interfering in the lives of Non-Europeans? What could replace Unionism and Nationalism?

Conclusion

There can be no peace in Europe, until the East and the West of Europe accept one another on an equal footing. And the only axis which can unite Europe is the Moscow-Berlin-Paris axis, the one which was disrupted before 1914. This axis is the only one that could also bring in Budapest, Bucharest, Belgrade, Athens, Warsaw, Stockholm, Rome, Madrid and even London, even if the latter has first to overturn its brutal Establishment by violence, even though the US will have dropped it. And we include Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn in this. The Balts may not like Russians because of the Soviet Occupation, but that was a long time ago and the Balts, unlike their puppet-elites, do not like the American Occupation that replaced it and being forced to exile themselves abroad just to live.

To ensure peace in Europe and to avoid both Unionism and Nationalism, there needs to be a Confederation of Europe from Moscow to Berlin to Paris to London. The rest will gather round them. If such a Confederation can be designed with care, it could achieve that long-elusive balance of Unity in Diversity which Europe needs. For far too long Europe has been on the wrong side of history, through its suicidal impulses of inviting its enemies in. It is time to stop sitting on the US fence and climb it. Co-operation with Moscow, rather than conflict, is to open the gateway to resources and all Eurasia and to cease that foolish isolationism, which for a thousand years has made Europe into a seat of ethnocentric pride and aggressive violence.

7 February 2023

Notes:

1. https://news.mail.ru/politics/54958857/?frommail=1

2. https://news.mail.ru/politics/54963166/?frommail=1

NATO´s internal gold war

April 03, 2022

with Brexit negotiations still unfinished

Source

By Jorge Vilches

Brexitology focused keenly on UK fish but fully ignored the EU´s gigantic gold reserves supposedly still vaulted in custody at the Bank of England. Adding insult to injury, a UK-EU no-deal financial services crash-out divorce went by almost unnoticed… not only without the bang of the still postponed “financial equivalence” protocol… but also without a mere whimper from specialized media and Remainers. Now, the Ukraine crisis with its new payment requirements for the badly needed Russian oil & gas…overlapping with essential yet unfinished Brexit business…will necessarily evolve into a vicious NATO internal gold war. Paraphrasing James Carville spiced with some traditional British flavor, “It´s the bloody gold, stupid” [Refs.1+ 2]

Rule Britannia

As UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson would have it, the physical repatriation of the EU gold supposedly still vaulted in London would “mightily” affect the future of Europe with very deep, high-voltage political impact both sides of the English Channel. In this scenario No.10 Downing Street would easily negotiate the EU gold bullion availability only under specific Brexit conditions favorable to the UK. Actually, doing this could turn out to be absolutely necessary and should go far beyond the enormous intrinsic value of the EU gold supposedly still vaulted at the BoE. Let me explain.

[Ref. 3 thru 13]

NATO gold in London

Russia´s new rubles or gold payment requirements for any of its goods or services will necessarily prompt a major gold war between the UK and the EU probably resulting in NATO´s first-ever internal head-on gloves-off confrontation. After WW2 the idea was to keep Europe´s gold bullion safely away from the former Soviet Union and Josef Stalin, just in case. So decades ago current EU member states deposited most of their gold in custody at the Bank of England (BoE) in London. Now, the UK will dare to weaponize the approval of EU gold repatriation requests and other gold-related issues as a very convincing bargaining tool for lots of still unfinished yet most important Brexit business. So,

(a) Whitehall could indefinetly delay the EU gold delivery unless Brexit pending issues are agreed in favor of the UK.

(b) Or, quite simply, the BoE would not ever return such EU gold supposedly kept in custody for the past decades because it has been partially or totally sold off or loaned out or compromised as explained below with former UK Prime Minister James Gordon Brown knowing about it all too well.

The Mother of European conflicts

If history is any guide, hostilities will explode the instant the EU member states individually or collectively rightfully demand a yet-non-existant fully independent world-class functionally detailed audit of the EU gold supposedly still in ´custody´ at the BoE. This should take plenty of time and is the perfect excuse for delaying the whole process always under the exclusive perview of London, not Brussels. Or unmanageable problems would arise as soon as EU nations require immediate repatriation of at least some of such ´theoretical´ bullion, most probably all of them at the same time in view of circumstances. Then, either (1) some gold could possibly slowly be returned here and there (albeit with great delay ) but only under very vague London terms and changing the unfinished Brexit aftermath to levels yet unheard of, or (2) no gold would be returned as it has been sold off or compromised in different ways as explained hereinafter. And the UK better not decide to pay Russia even with a single gold coin as the EU would rightly wonder who owns it.

BoE darkness

The London gold and silver markets have always been beyond “opaque” without any significant reporting of transactions or positions. No data has ever been offered either on commercial banks holding accounts at the BoE, or precise technical identification of gold custodies, let alone those belonging to EU members. As Venezuela knows all too well – and EU member states could be next — who may or may not be acknowledged as a valid claimee of anything vaulted in Threadneedle Street or whereabouts is an open subject left to the entire discretion of the Canary Wharf masters, not EU politicians. Same goes for the enormous unallocated gold and silver liabilities of the so-called ´bullion banks´… or any other pertinent data. [Refs. 14+15+16]

The (bad) German experience

Very recently Germany had to wait 5 long years to forcefully and painfully repatriate only a portion of its gold from the BoE and never got back any of the gold bars originally deposited, which clearly explains the delay. [Ref.17+18]

So while the EU freezes to death and its economy stops dead in its tracks, the many pending questions include

(a) does the BoE still have all of the EU´s gold bullion… or has it been sold off or loaned out as many experts insist ?

(b) is the BoE willing and able to immediately return the EU gold it may still have left to legitimate owners, if any ?

(c) who are the legitimate owners of BoE-vaulted gold after decades of European reshuffling of political borders ?

(d) would the ECJ decide gold ownership… or the British Judiciary… or the BoE ? On what basis, exactly ?

(e) has the BoE lent, swapped, re-hypothecated, leased, leveraged or encumbered such bullion now lien with other many alleged legitimate claimees also standing in line with ´fractional un-allocated synthetic´ bullion custodies unfit-for-purpose per “Digital Derivative Pricing Schemes“ thru which no one can know who owns what where (if anything) ?

I kid you not.

Today´s “paper gold” derivative transactions constitute a genuine pure-bred Ponzi scheme exceeding many-fold the real gold bullion theoretically behind them, probably with a 100 to 1 ratio or higher as London´s Square Mile knows all too well. Of course, the ECB, the IMF and the BIS would also claim it actually is “their” gold no ?

British economist Peter Warburton was 100% correct when he described that Westerncentral banks were using derivatives to control commodity prices and protect government currencies against the public’s recognition of currency devaluation. Warburton’s essay “The Debasement of World Currency: It Is Inflation But Not as We Know It” is posted at https://www.gata.org/node/8303

But however it unfolds, the “continental gold” now possibly still vaulted in London will necessarily trigger an internal NATO existential conflict in no uncertain terms (and desperation) in absence of the much-needed audit parameters and still missing gold bar serial numbers records affecting ownership and status claimed by more than one (supposedly legitimate) recipient, plus gold bullion quality and purity data, overdue custody costs, transportation & insurance, etc.

In passing, when push gets to shove (and it will, trust me) per their ´special relationship´ the US Federal Reserve would side with the BoE because it finds itself in exactly the same situation regarding the physical bullion they should still be theoretically vaulting for third parties, sovereigns included. In synchronized lockstep with Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism, the Fed´s gold custodies have never been audited either — as they should have – and the specialized commentariat worldwide is convinced that such bullion is not fully available either. Furthermore, the US would welcome any new additional problems for the EU as that was the whole idea behind provoking Russia into this unnecessary war.

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Jorge Vilches – proud to have been introduced many times as “ the quintessence of the independent columnist ”.

Former op-ed contributor for The Wall Street Journal – New York and other financial media, has studied this topic in depth for the past 20 years. WSJ-NY “The Americas” column, editor David Asman today Fox Business News anchor.

References

(#1) http://www.gata.org/node/13310 (#2)https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/25/too-big-for-fed-have-central-banks-lost-control/ (#3) https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/the-destruction-of-the-euro?gmrefcode=gata

(#4) https://www.rt.com/business/507178-global-debt-record-high-pandemic/ (#5) http://www.gata.org/node/20642

(#6) http://plata.com.mx/enUS/More/403?idioma=2 (#7) http://www.gata.org/node/4279

(#8) https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/will-covid-19-lead-to-a-gold-standard

(#9) https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/the-psychology-of-money?gmrefcode=gata

(#10) https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/the-destructive-force-and-failure-of-qe?gmrefcode=gata

(#11) https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/will-covid-19-lead-to-a-gold-standard

(#12) https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/anatomy-of-a-fiat-currency-collapse

(#13) https://www.wsj.com/articles/mountain-of-small-loans-looms-over-europes-pandemic-hit-banks-11611147480?mod=mhp

(#14) https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/london-gold-vaults-bait-and-switch-lbma-prepares-bigger-changes/

(#15) http://www.gata.org/node/19734

(#16) https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/prospects-for-the-uk-and-the-pound?gmrefcode=gata

(#17) https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/european-central-bank-gold-reserves-held-across-5-locations-no-physical-audits-will-not-disclose-gold-bar-list/

(#18) https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/koos-jansen/guest-post-47-years-after-1968-bundesbank-still-fails-to-deliver-a-gold-bar-number-list/ (#19) https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/the-looming-derivative-crisis?gmrefcode=gata

(#20) https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/amid-london-gold-turmoil-hsbc-taps-bank-of-england-for-gld-gold-bars/

(#21) http://www.gata.org/node/19735 (#22) https://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/09/18/if-scotland-splits-what-happens-to-the-gold/ (#22)https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/hyperinflation-is-here

(#23) https://www.thectsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/open-letter-to-RBA.pdf

(#24) https://reaction.life/why-is-the-euro-and-the-eu-allowed-to-cost-almost-anything/

(#25) http://gata.org/node/2092

Britain’s Colonial Past and Brexit. The Real Link Which Remainers Can’t Deal With

Martin Jay is an award-winning British journalist based in Morocco where he is a correspondent for The Daily Mail (UK) who previously reported on the Arab Spring there for CNN, as well as Euronews. From 2012 to 2019 he was based in Beirut where he worked for a number of international media titles including BBC, Al Jazeera, RT, DW, as well as reporting on a freelance basis for the UK’s Daily Mail, The Sunday Times plus TRT World. His career has led him to work in almost 50 countries in Africa, The Middle East and Europe for a host of major media titles. He has lived and worked in Morocco, Belgium, Kenya and Lebanon.

Martin Jay

January 6, 2021

The Brexit deal snatched at the last minute by Boris Johnson is not the amazing coup, trumped by his media officials or the conservative press. But it is a good deal for the UK and a pretty good escape plan for the EU which was faced with a new battle in 2021: to deal with the political turmoil of Britain ‘going alone’. Given that the EU already has enough political tumult with Poland and Hungary blocking a 2 trillion dollar rescue package for countries hit hard by Covid, the last thing the EU needed was a new crisis of its own making.

Yet the deal is still controversial both in the UK and in Brussels as in many ways the real test will be in the coming years, whether EU giants like Germany and France chose to allow the UK to grow – thus becoming a bigger and bigger customer to the EU 27 – or for it to become a pariah which the EU punishes through its arbitration system, agreed in the fine print of the final draft. Some sceptics will argue that when Britain starts to grow in certain sectors, it will have its wings clipped by an overzealous EU which will cry foul play every time one EU member state complains that it can’t compete with British goods or services. This is the real heart of the deal: whether this part of the agreement will be exercised fairly.

But does the EU really do “fair”? One look at how it treats Iran within a human rights prism while not condemning Saudi Arabia’s appalling war in Yemen should tell you much. Or how it supports the repressive regimes of many North African countries who acknowledge its fake hegemony while signing up to training courses for its police forces in how to effectively spread fake news through social media platforms and carry out better “surveillance”. Or just the number of human rights scandals on home soil which dog the EU, as more and more debating chambers in the European Parliament are named after journalists murdered while uncovering graft – while the perpetrators remain free.

The EU doesn’t really do well when we examine it in this light. Fairness and equality are not really its traits. In fact, the quip from Vladimir Putin that the EU “can’t even create a single market in its energy sector” when complaining about market access in Germany is very true. The “level playing field” is very much just a buzz phrase in Brussels to distract the embedded journalist to not look too hard at how ineffective the EU is at playing on it. A sort of reverse theory of logic which dictates the more you talk about something the less likely you are to do anything about it. And there are too many examples of this doctrine. SMEs is another. “Small and medium-sized business” which we are told in tomes of EU reports provide the solution to unemployment as studies show that they are the ones who employ workers quickly. And yet, the EU does almost everything it can to destroy them in reality through allowing the European parliament to be an orgy scene of multinational companies – invariably non-EU ones – who use the lobbying system to ensure than new EU directives push them out of the market altogether.

There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors in Brussels and for remainers in the UK, who are still angry over Brexit now going though, much of their grief is really based on ideals built on the foundations supporting a pantheon of ignorance and mythology.

The EU doesn’t do fairness. It doesn’t even do democracy and in fact doesn’t even faintly pretend to. Yet it remains quiet when its millions of supporters harp on about how democratic it is, chiefly sighting the most useless and futile institution ever created: the European parliament. “Look, the EU is democratic. It has its own parliament!” people often say without taking stock of how the European parliament is probably the only assembly in the world which has no power whatsoever to propose draft legislation and is more or less run by powerful lobbying firms. For the EU itself, it is a farcical, last minute idea bolted on to allude to the idea of being democratic. But most portly MEPs who blow hundreds of millions of dollars each year travelling to Strasbourg every three weeks – burning a hole in the ozone layer the size of London – will tell you after two glasses of Chilean house red that they are nothing more than EU civil servants rubber stamping the important stuff that the adults do down the road in the European Commission. And that’s on a good day.

Yet fairness and its opaque interpretations is a big part of what Brexit is really all about. Certainly, the feral remainers in the UK who still dream of the deal being scuppered. Many are left-wing and believe naively that to belong to the EU assures Britain stays multicultural and will never fall victim to a rise of the far right – a desperate, yet equally hilarious notion, given that the EU itself is a white supremacist organisation essentially ran by white, middle aged men, many of whom are European freemasons whose delusion views about taking more power in Brussels is actually feeding the far right movement in Europe. The more the political crisis the EU finds itself in, the higher the number of far right seats in the European Parliament. It’s no longer a mystery or an enigma. Many top EU officials now admit that the EU has a real identity problem and are dumbfounded to see that its power grab is part of the solution.

But it’s also about how British people see themselves and how they cope with achievement. Winners and losers, if you like. Many remainers believe that any excursion to win in any given field should be discouraged and that being an EU member state was a perfect way of instilling this assiduous virtue which comes from the same loins as “it’s not the winning that matters, but the taking part”.

For 11 years I worked in Brussels as a journalist pouring over the texts of financial services directives, many hundreds of pages. A theme always became clear though in all of them which was that the City of London needed to “harmonize” its rules more in line with new rules which France and Germany wanted to introduce. The effect of this each and every time was to take away the business from London. And this is really the crux of Brexit. The EU has been trying to diminish the UK’s lead in many sectors through a disingenuous ruse which led Britain to believe that its membership was a genuinely fair and decent one. In reality it was entirely indecent and in the end enough people woke up and realised that EU membership really wasn’t worth much, given that it meant Britain handing over much of its gains from being a leader.

And what in God’s name is so wrong with leading? Remainers who pen clever op-eds now in the left-wing press are the real conservatives obsessed with Britain’s colonial past when they make the erroneous link with Britain’s pink history. It is just plain wrong to assume that British leadership at anything is colonial. Those same journalists fail to see that Britain’s colonial past was a failed venture and ended up almost bankrupting the country. Many, by contrast, who voted for Brexit see the UK embracing new relationships all over the world and signing trade deals with countries like Turkey, free now of the “colonialism” of old white men in Brussels who probably dance naked around trees once a year and have funny handshakes. Brexit is very much about an anticolonialism and yet many remainers are still joined at the hip with their khaki pasts. They are, by definition, conservative and racist as they equate anything to do with coming first with Britain’s war with the Mau Mau in the 1950s. They want Britain to be an “also ran” and dependent on Brussels for help tied to a colonial and abusive master who can’t look forward, is out of touch with reality and is racist to the core. If anything, Brexit is an end to colonialism and the embrace of a new set of economic ideals which places Britain as equal partners in trade with countries like India. If India can put aside its colonial past and wrongs by Britain, then why can’t remainers? The real link between Britain’s imperial past and Brexit is that the European Commission is still stuck with this model of governance itself, complete with the Brylcreem, the Sten and the khaki shorts. Remainers are not anti-imperialists at all. They are just anti-British imperialists who much prefer to be enslaved by Jean-Christophe, Luc or Hans in Brussels.

Why Is Europe Courting Revolution?

Source

Alastair Crooke

November 2, 2020

All eyes remain on the U.S. election, and on fathoming its consequences. But in the shadow of ‘The Election’, there are other ‘moving parts’: Germany just offered Washington ‘a sweetheart deal’ in which, Europe – with Germany leading – accepts to leverage America’s full-spectrum strategy of isolating and weakening Russia and China. And in return it is asking the U.S. to acquiesce to German leadership of a ‘power-political’, European entity that is raised to parity with the U.S. That, bluntly, is to say, Germany is angling for ‘superpower’ status, atop an EU ‘empire’ for the new era. Putin recognised such a possibility (Germany aspiring to be a superpower) during his recent speech to Valdai.

But the other ‘moving parts’ to this bid are very much in motion, too: Firstly, Germany’s ploy is contingent on their hopes for a Biden win, which may, or may not, occur. And then, too, President Macron seeks for himself, and for France, the leadership of Europe – with this latter – to an extent – being contingent on a ‘no deal’ Brexit taking place at the end of the year, that would further weaken a dis-animated and fading Merkel. France rather, plots the ‘Great Reset’ of Europe: A regulatory and values enforced ‘space’, underpinned by a common fiscal and debt regime that would rebuild France’s economic infrastructure.

All this raises many questions: Should Trump win, he can be expected to puncture any German (or French) aspiration to drain away some of America’s power, however nicely the German FM wraps it, as the U.S. not so much losing power, but as gaining “a strong partner on equal terms”. Huh!

The idea that Europe can leverage this partnership through sweet-talking Germany’s commitment “to the West as a system of values”, which is “at risk in its entirety”, and which, only Germany and the U.S. together can keep strong – does seem a bit of a daydream. Even when sugar-wrapped with “defending against the unmistakable Russian thirst for power, and Chinese ambitions for global supremacy”. Firstly, there is still Trump, and secondly —

China and Russia clearly see the game. Yet European leaders seem to expect that the former will continue as if nothing is awry. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer seems to think so (she is both Defence Minister, and Chair of the CDU, Merkel’s own party). In terms of containing “China’s aggressively controlled state capitalism”, she suggests creating a European trade sphere that is open only to those who want to strengthen and support the liberal, rules-based order – and to which other states must ‘submit’ (Macron’s words). These are the bones to how Brussels proposes to achieve ‘strategic autonomy’ (Charles Michel’s term).

Here are some extracts of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer’s ‘deal’ given in a 23 October speech:

“… Most of all, America has given us what we call ‘Westbindung’ … Westbindung, to me, is and remains, a clear rejection of the historic temptation of equidistance. Westbindung anchors us firmly in NATO and the EU and ties us closely to Washington, Brussels, Paris and London. It clearly and rightly positions us against a romantic fixation on Russia – and also against an illiberal corporative state that rejects parties and parliaments [i.e. China] … Westbindung is the answer to the famous “German question”, the question of what Germany stands for … Only America and Europe together can keep the West strong, defending it against the unmistakable Russian thirst for power and Chinese ambitions for global supremacy … To be the giver [in a process of ‘give and take with the U.S.] would require us to take a firm power-political stance. To ambitiously play the geopolitical game. But even looking at all this, there are still some Americans who are not convinced that they need NATO. I understand that. Because there is one thing still missing: That is for the Europeans to take powerful action themselves, when push comes to shove. So that the United States can see Europe as a strong partner on equal terms, not as a damsel in distress. As you can see: the German dilemma is a European dilemma as well. We stay dependent [on the U.S.], but at the same time, we must come into our own. In strengthening Europe like this, Germany must play a key role … enabling it to operate more independently of, and more closely with, the United States at the same time …”.

Three major geo-political issues here are intersecting: Firstly, Germany is metamorphosing politically, in a way that holds disturbing parallels with its transition in the pre-WW1, European setting. In short, the ‘German Question’ is surfacing again (but not in AKK’s way): When the Berlin Wall fell, Russia supported the reunification of Germany and pinned hopes on Germany being a partner for the wider unification project: the construction of a ‘Greater Europe’.

It proved to be a chimaera: Germany, far from supporting Russia’s inclusion, instead, favoured the expansion of Europe and NATO to Russia’s borders. The EU – under U.S. pressure – was forming a Greater Europe that would eventually include all the states of Europe, except Russia.

But in so doing, West Europe absorbed into the EU the tumour of East European neuralgia on Russia. Berlin, all the while, has played on America’s visceral hostility towards Russia – more as a tool to build out its European space up to the Russian border. Germany thus has prioritised assuaging Eastern European ancient antipathies, above any real attempt at a relationship with Russia. Now Germany wants to ‘play it again’: In a July interview, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said that the Russian leadership must be “confronted with a clear position: We are well-fortified, and in case of doubt, ready to defend ourselves. We see what Russia is doing, and we will not let the Russian leadership get away with it”.

Well: Fool me once … but fool me twice …? The Navalny episode was the last straw. It was a blatant lie. Merkel and Macron knew it to be a lie. And they knew that Moscow knew it, too. Yet they both preferred to toss the Russophobes another ‘bone’. Moscow gave up with them.

The real puzzle is why Moscow put up with this play for so long. The answer perhaps, lies with the Russian two-headed eagle, whose heads face in opposite directions: one toward Europe, and the other toward Asia. Merkel’s obvious deceit is stretching and testing social trust in Russia, just too far. The Russian élites may lean towards Europe, but their base looks East. Navalny was the humiliating straw that broke the camel’s back

Now Macron – still energised, but himself politically weakened – hopes to drain further Merkel’s strength (in mercantilist terms), through engineering a UK no-deal Brexit that would damage Germany’s huge trade surplus with Britain, at the very moment that Germany is losing markets in Russia (and now possibly in China); and when America, if Trump is re-elected, would likely embark on a trade war with Europe.

Weakening Merkel’s hand – that is – in opposing an European joint debt instrument, together with a common fiscal policies, is the aim, so that France might draw down on German fiscal resources placed within a ‘common pot’, and then deployed to revamp the French economy.

The Brussels plan for a ‘Great Reset’ – transforming the European economy, and the social sphere – through automation and technology is, as Tom Luongo has noted delusional: “[W]hat’s been pretty clear to me is Europe’s delusions that it can subjugate the world under its rubric, forcing its rules and standards on the rest of us, including China, [whilst] again allowing the U.S. to act as its proxy – [as Europe] tries to maintain its [‘power-political’] standing is delusional”.

Why?

‘Delusional’, as although China may be an “aggressively controlled state capitalism” in Euro-speak, it is also a major ‘civilisational state’, with its own distinct values. Brussels may call their regulatory space ‘open’, but it is clearly exclusionary, and not multilateral. The action of this politics is only pushing the world towards a separation of distinct regulatory spheres – and toward deeper recession.

On the practical plane, whereas first phase Covid tended to provide support to Europe’s incumbent governments, this present infection spike is shredding support for incumbents. Protests and riots are increasingly taking place across Europe. Episodes of violence have been met with horror by the authorities, which suspect that organized crime and radical groups are at work to spark a political wildfire. And that potential is very much there.

To the structural unemployment already incurred in phase one, now must be added another wave of possibly irreversible unemployment, (again) in the services sector. For small businesses and the self-employed, it is a nightmare. Not surprisingly, the anger grows as those losing their means of living observe that civil servants and the middle classes more generally, are passing through this episode, virtually unscathed.

European governments have been caught off-guard. There is absolute confusion as governments try to square keeping the economy alive, with containing the infected from overwhelming hospitals – achieving neither. This represents the cost of the ‘summer opening’ to save the tourist season. No one is on their balcony these evenings banging cooking pots in communal solidarity. Today, protests and riots have taken their place.

Into this mounting anger is inserted dark suspicion. Some may view Covid as pure conspiracy; others will not. Yet it is not ‘conspiracy’ to believe that European governments may knowingly have used the pandemic to increase their tools of social control, (despite ‘distancing’ being a genuine medical containment strategy). Was this concerted in anticipation of the changes implicit to the ‘Great Reset’? We do not know. Yet, from the outset, western governments couched their measures as ‘war’ – and as war that required war-time state-directed economics, and war-time public compliance.

Rightly or wrongly, it is becoming a culture war. Overtones of the anger on U.S. streets. Again, dark suspicions that cultural life is being closed down in order to prepare Europeans for the drowning of their cultural identities into a big Brussels-made, melting-pot. These fears may be misplaced, but they are ‘out there’, and viral.

It is Europe’s political fabric and societal cohesion that is in play – and its leaders are not just confused: They fear.

It would indeed be hubristic delusion then, were European leaders to proceed with the automation ‘Great Reset’, and add yet more structural unemployment to a pile, already threatening to topple, under its growing weight (into mass protest). Do they want revolution?

Corbyn and the Tyranny of Correctness

OCTOBER 30, 2020 BY GILAD ATZMON

By Gilad Atzmon

Liberal film maker Michael Moore, who in 2016 predicted Donald Trump’s electoral victory, is again interfering with the premature celebration over Biden’s victory.

 Yesterday, just  five days before the election, Moore sounded the alarm, strongly suggesting that the polls showing Biden with a comfortable lead over Trump are not accurate. 

In a TV interview Moore said: “The Trump vote is always being undercounted. Pollsters- when they actually call the Trump voter, the Trump voter is very suspicious of the ‘Deep State’ calling them and asking them who they’re voting for.”

 Moore is devastated by the thought that Trump may continue residing at the same address for another four years, but that does not affect the acuity of his observation. In this peculiar world, a large proportion of Americans are reluctant to admit their support for the elected president. This is not just an American phenomenon. Many Brits won’t admit that they voted Brexit and would probably vote Brexit again. Many Brits wouldn’t admit that they supported the Tories but when they voted, they served up the Labour party its biggest blow in its electoral history. The same happened in Israel’s recent elections. Netanyahu performed far better on election day than in the pollsters’ predictions. The explanation given in Israel was that his voters do not tell the truth to pollsters.

History provides us with a manifold of occasions in which the masses pretended to support the regime, the ruling party or a tyrant. What we  see in the West currently is the opposite. A large segment of the public is actually fearful of the opposition, of those who are committed to ‘liberate’ them from their ‘crypto fascist’ rulers in the name of ‘liberal values’ and ‘freedom.’

Americans aren’t fearful of Trump, his party, the intelligence services, the NSA, the FBI or the CIA.  They are actually afraid of the ‘progressive’ social media giants and their ‘community standards’. In the USA much of the mainstream media  isn’t shy of being one sided and  blatantly conceals  news that may present the presidential challenger in a negative light. It is even more disturbing that many Americans appear to be fearful of the opposition and its powers over them. This suggests that America isn’t even remotely a free place. In America, as in Britain, the opposition has evolved into a dark, authoritarian force.

What is at the core of this authoritarian shift?  The so-called Left; ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’ are totally removed from the cultural and political core values that made the Left into a meaningful argument. The level of detachment is so severe that most Leftists, progressives and liberals don’t even remember what those values are. The so-called Left has failed to adapt to the new reality. They, evidently,  seek political  power, but they fail to provide a plan that would make the world a slightly better place. It doesn’t take a genius to point at Trump’s dysfunctional operation as much as it is easy to point at Boris Johnson’s comical cabinet but what is it that the opposition offers instead? I would have liked to say ‘not a lot,’ but the answer is actually ‘nothing at all.’

The humiliating crash of Jeremy Corbyn is probably the most useful window into the evaporation of Left and progressive politics on both sides of the Atlantic. When Corbyn was elected to lead the Labour Party in September 2015, he was regarded as a principled Left ideological icon, a man who had supported the oppressed throughout his entire political career: even those who did not support him agreed that Corbyn was Britain’s leading anti racist. Within days of  Corbyn’s nomination as the Labour PM candidate, Corbyn displayed all the traits of a rock star. Millions of young Brits and others around the world saw him as a hero of justice and offered themselves as his avant-garde in his battle for justice and against austerity.

Yesterday, the same Corbyn was subject to the final humiliating blow. He was suspended from the party he led until a few months ago. What happened between 2015 and 2020?  

As soon as Corbyn assumed the lead of Labour both he and his party were subject to relentless attacks by the Israel Lobby and British Jewish Institutions. One after another, Corbyn’s closest allies were targeted. Corbyn didn’t stand up for any of them, or if he did, he made sure to conceal his intervention. Thousands of Labour members were suspended and expelled from the Party for criticising Israel, its lobby, or noting any exceptionalist aspects of Jewish political culture. But throughout the witch hunt, Corbyn remained silent. And when it came to politics, Corbyn couldn’t take a firm position on Brexit or any other matter. It took Corbyn only four years to waste the huge support he had initially  and to reduce his party into a tragic act. In those four years, the British Labour Party explored every authoritarian method. It harassed and collected private information about its members, it even spied on its members’ social media accounts.  It operated in concert with the police and the Israel lobby against its own precious members. During all that time while Corbyn was the leader of the party,  not once did he act as a  leader and stand  up and call for a stop to the madness.  

Corbyn was suspended yesterday following his reaction to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) verdict that Labour had broken the law in its handling of antisemitism complaints during the period when Mr Corbyn was in charge.

No one in the treacherous British press dared mention it, but the meaning of this suspension is that even the ex-leader of the Labour party, a person who was a PM candidate last December, is not allowed to express his personal views. All he is allowed to do is to follow the script. Clearly it isn’t just the masses who are terrorised by tyranny of correctness, even the Labour Party and its leadership are subject to the most authoritarian proscriptions. They are commanded to follow a script. The only question that remains open  is who writes the script and who translates it into English?

But the absurdity is even greater. The EHRC was formed by the Labour government back in 2007. Its non-official task was to tackle right wing racism in an attempt to interfere with the British National Front. From its inception, the EHRC was designed to police thought and speech. Looking at Corbyn and the damage the Labour party inflicted on itself, the chickens have come home to roost. Labour has been beaten by the dictatorial machine it invented to police its political enemies.

We do not yet know who is going to win the USA presidential election. But even if Biden wins, it is impossible to deny the fact that pretty much every second American voter believes that Trump is the better man to lead the country. The same applies in Britain, even if Labour had won the last election, every second Brit believes that Brexit is the right way forward.

I believe that if there is anything left out of the Athenian spirit and Christian ethos that made the West into a precious civilization that inspired others, it is that we must  ‘love our neighbour.’  In 2020 loving your neighbour means to agree to disagree, to see a human and humanity in each other. To love your neighbour is to search for that which unites us and to stand firm against those who break us into biological identitarian segments separated by gender, skin colour, sexual orientation etc. To love your neighbour in 2020 is to seek harmony.

The Left in its current authoritarian form cannot lead us towards this goal. It is an occupied zone. The Left needs a reset, it needs to delve into its metaphysical origin: into that unifying instinct that is also universal. Corbyn was a star when people believed that he really cared for ‘the many’ and not ‘the few.’ He evaporated as a political power when the many understood that he and his party were puppeteered by the very few.  

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A Delegated System of Governance: Understanding the Concepts of Imamat and Wilayat in Shi’a Islam, Part II

October 13, 2020

by Mansoureh Tajik for the Saker Blog

 “In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

In Part I of this topic (See here), the inception of the Islamic Republic of Iran under the leadership of Imam Khomeini was referenced as a specific example of a system in governance based on Imamat and Wilayat as interpreted, implemented, and practiced in Shi’a Islam. Iran was a nation pegged and primed to become a model for a fully secularized, westernized, and liberalized society in a Muslim majority land. This was a nation endowed with lucrative material wealth and natural resources, several millennia of civilization, culture, and written history but headed by a darling pro-Western puppet regime brought about through series of costly overt and covert schemes and operations.

As well it was stated in the article that the inception of this system was to bring the Word of God into the governance of people exactly when supercilious Western elites, that is, the sorts of elites who have this delusion that history begins and ends with them, were gleefully celebrating an envisioned modern Atlantis in which the Word of God has no place in its systems of governance. Still, the Islamic Republic of Iran happened. Not only did the Islamic Republic of Iran happen, it became a significant, enduring, and dynamic force to reckon with despite all options on and under the table that were thrown at it. Talk about the showing of a heavenly middle phalange. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Before attending to the next segment, I would like to address here a question posed in the comment section of the part I of the essay since the response to that helps with specific points in the overall argument of the essays. “daniel” on October 02, 2020  ·  at 4:46 am EST/EDT wrote:

“99.25% of the participants voted “yes” to an Islamic Republic system of government in Iran[1] replacing a system of monarchy based on an inherited position transfer from a king to his eldest son.”

Was the Iran 1979 referendum (results shown above) a once off thing & considered binding for life or was it set up as a recurring probing exercise which follows some regular interval, say a 50 years cycle?

Until 1979, any major movement, like the Constitutional Movement of 1906 or any systematic mechanism that could have legitimately and authentically admitted the will of the people into the system of governance had often been violently suppressed. I addressed some of that in another essay last year titled “Willfully and Consciously Demonizing Shia: the Leadership of the Pious.” Please see here.

The revolution of 1979 happened because for hundreds of years almost all major and minor movements to reform the system of governance according to authentic desires and will of the people of Iran had failed. The referendum in 1979 was the first and the ONLY straight forward mechanism at that time to get the voices of the people heard, clearly documented, and actualized. After some revisions to the constitution 10 years later, another nationwide referendum was held and 97.38% of the participants approved the revised version of the constitution. Furthermore, through direct election of their representatives into Majlis Shoraye Islami (an assembly of 290 seats) and Majlis Khobregah Rahbari, the Assembly of Experts for Leadership (consisting of 88 seats), the people of Iran could make decisions about the constitution and the Wali Faqih, respectively.

When there are already appropriate, effective, and functioning venues and mechanisms in place, the need for a referendum becomes null and void unless either all of those systems become so corrupt and dysfunctional that the will of the people can no longer be genuinely manifested, or the issue in question is so novel that the approval of which does not fall within the realm of the established mechanisms and requires a nationwide referendum. So far, we have had neither of those situations occurring in Iran.

I would like to add a comment that I thought the answer provided by another commenter “arash” a good use of the instrument of jadal—a form of argument when one uses already accepted conventions of the opponent as proof and/or refutation of one’s own argument. Although I think “daniel” may have asked the question out of sincere curiosity, I do understand the sensitivity of the question and what may have prompted that response. A repeated ad nauseam favorite false statement by the Zionist West, Inc. has often been that a democratic referendum can work in a Muslim land only once: to bring about an Islamic State into power (often referencing Egypt and Muslim Brotherhood experience of 1950s as example); then it is stopped for good. Nevertheless, we are glad that the democratic processes work so very well and in an exemplary manner at least in the US, France, UK, and elsewhere in the West. Electoral College Votes. Two Party Systems. AIPAC. Industry Lobbies. Yellow Vests. Brexit. Arbitrary Lockdowns…

People. Glass Houses. Stones.

Now, in continuing with our topic in this follow-up essay, we start with defining the terms and concepts related to the topic of wilayat and Imamat. The term wilayat is derived from tri-literal root word “wāw lām yā,” literally meaning “something that comes very closely on the heels of another of a similar essence without distance and separation between the two.”^[1] Depending on the context, the word wali could take different (but related) meanings. Prominent among the meanings are guardian, protector, friend, ally, encouraging, aiding, assisting, heeding, following, parent, and offspring.^[2] The common denominator and implicit in all these meanings of wali and its derivatives are two conjectures: 1) a spiritual and devotional nearness, intimacy, and companionship; 2) a reciprocal and mutual relationship both in theory and in practice.

Generally speaking, anyone and anything can become anyone’s wali and/or one can choose him/her/it as his wali, be it an informal choice and/or a formal declaration though laws and conventions. If you want to know who your wali is, you must take an inventory of who and what your closest allies, companions, influencers, friends, masters, and followers are and how you spend most of your time. While at it, you should examine what credentials those awlia (plural form of wali) have, where they are leading you, what the final destination and ultimate consequence of the path in which you are following that wali are. Let’s make the meaning of the term more palpable and empirical.

An alcoholic has chosen alcohol and its colleagues –that is, anything and anyone connected to it by way of selling, serving, producing, distributing, and more – as his awlia. He spends part of his time chasing after getting that alcohol and the remainder of his time following where that alcohol takes him (in mind, body, and soul). Obedient to his wali to the bone. Ditto with a drug addict, sex addict, food addict, fame addict, internet addict, and you name it. For capitalists, capital et al. are their awlia. For Satan worshippers, Satan is their wali. They chase to find it and they follow where it leads, a downward spiral to be sure. For some Trump and his handlers are their wali/awlia; for others Biden and his handlers are their wali/awlia. Some choose Muhammad bin Salman as their wali, and some do the same with Abul Fattah el-Sisi. Sultan Erdogan Jr. is wali to some and Netanyahu is wali to others. Zionism, imperialism, globalism, and more are all awlia to this, that, and the other. For some, their ego is their wali and for some others their wants, lusts, ambitions and greed.

A troupe of wretched examples to be sure. The reality of our world is such that hopeless examples of wali far exceed the worthy and upright ones. As Molana Jalal-iddin Muhammad (Molavi) in Mathnavi reminds us: رشته ای بر گردنم افکنده دوست — می کشد هر جا که خاطرخواه اوست“A bridle around my neck placed by the beloved – Taking me place to place wherever s/he desires.” So, it behooves us to choose wisely that/s/he which/who we choose as our wali. Generally speaking, that is.

More specifically, however, about the term wali (and its plural form awlia), Quran issues certain caveats. There is a verse in Quran (2:255) called Ayatul Kursi which is memorized and often recited by Muslims with the two verses that follow it, verse 256 and verse 257.^[3] The trio offer many blessings and bounties for those who recite them regularly. So, they are quite well-known among those who are blessed enough to have chosen Quran as their regular companion. All three verses and their translations are in the reference sections. Here, however, I would like to restate first Verse 257 in which the word Wali with a specific meaning of Protecting Guardian and its plural form awlia meaning guardians are used:

 “Allah is Wali [Protecting Guardian] of those who have believed. He brings them out of the darkness(es) toward the light. And those who disbelieved, their awlia [guardians] are the Taghut [transgressing oppressor and evildoers] who bring them out of the light toward the darkness(es). Those are the companions of the fire and they abide therein forever.”

Thus there is only One True Wali for humanity and that is God, the Protecting Guardian. If a person or a collective (an Ummah) chooses anyone and anything other than God as his/her/their guardians, then they are eventually led into nothing but all sorts of darkness: Oppression, misery, ignorance, transgression and more. The choice is clear: Choose One True Wali, or become slaves to many masters and false gods and their self-serving impulses. If a nation does not choose God as One True Wali, it appears that any good-for-nothing two-bit jerk with some capital, fire power, and conniving skills would dare to imagine himself as qualified to be their master and make decision for them. I am just saying.

Logic, reason, wisdom, common sense, and intelligence all dictate that we, as individuals and/or as collectives choose the best and the most qualified for guardianship, administration, and caretaking of our affairs according to our beliefs and ideals. And nobody is putting a gun/sword over anyone’s head to choose God as their Wali.

I can see an explosion of fiery questions in so many minds. Wasn’t Islam spread by sword?! Didn’t Allah-fearing Muslims attack nations and forced people to convert to Islam or get decapitated?! Does the word Daesh/ISIS mean anything?! I am very grateful that you are asking all these questions, notwithstanding the questionable assumptions. The key to answering all these questions is following all the intricate details that one way or another link to the concept of wali and use concrete and true examples to distinguish true from false, which by the end of these essays we will have done, Inshallah.

Verse 256 of Chapter 2 (Baqarah) that we mentioned above states that:

“There is no compulsion in the religion. Certainly a distinction has been clearly made between the right and the wrong. Therefore, whoever disbelieves in false idols/evildoing transgressors and believes in Allah, then certainly he has grasped onto a robust anchor that will not break. And Allah is All-Hearing and All-Knowing.”

Since there is no (read, must not be any) compulsion in this religion and the distinction between right and wrong has been clearly made, our job is to first reject all false awlia and then accept One True Wali. If we do not, our punishment/the consequence is to fall into dizzying vortices of fear and regret. If we succeed in doing this though, then we have grasped onto a “robust anchor”—an unbreakable, firm, unwavering, and lasting chain and handhold. Again, the choice is clear and is ours.

Now, we need to follow up on two clues: 1) How God as Wali translates into the concept of wilayat of a person, which means guardianship, stewardship, caretaking, safekeeping, and supervision by other than God; 2) What/who the bands in the unbreakable chain of “robust anchor” are.

As Muslims, we believe the Almighty God has absolute Wilayat, the Absolute Protecting Guardianship, of all creation, including the human beings. This Wilayat takes two inter-linked and inter-related types of laws that govern us (humans) and the world in which we live. One form relates to the laws of Taqwin, or the innate laws of nature. Everyone and everything from a speck of dust to electrons to multi-cellular complex beings to the universe at large submits to, or is a Muslim to, these laws of Taqwin.

We are able to study the chemistry of water because the electrons, the protons, the neutrons, the atoms, the molecules, the hydrogen bonds, and every drop of water, every stream, river, lake, and ocean all faithfully submit to the laws of Taqwin. Because there is a law, we can learn from the repeated patterns made possible by that law and try to manipulate observable things around us. It does not really matter if someone believes in God or s/he is an agnostic or an atheist. Every ounce of his/her existence submits, or is a Muslim to the laws of Taqwin set by God, the Creator. When we study biology, anatomy and physiology, biochemistry, parasitology, microbiology, immunology, virology, ecology, and whatever else, we are in fact trying to understand the laws of Taqwin regardless of whether we fully understand or willingly admit this fact or not.

Most of these laws could be observed, learned, experimented with, and from them countless lessons could be drawn. God’s Wilayat in Taqwin is Absolute. That we can manipulate a gene, for example, it does not mean that somehow we have gained some sort of a veto power to overwrite the laws of Taqwin. It only means the laws of Taqwin that govern the genes offer a level of flexibility to be “interpreted,” to a certain point, in practice. So, those “scientists” with a tiny bit of knowledge but huge propensity for arrogance should exercise caution not to get too cocky since they do not really know when their arrogance might just force them to nosedive into abyss. Wilayat over Taqwin is not our topic of discussion here, so we leave it be.

The other form of God’s Wilayat relate to the laws of Tashri’e. These are laws that are sent to people by God through His great Messengers and Prophets (May peace be upon them all) to guide humanity in this life and prepare/educate/equip them with the appropriate knowledge and skill for the Hereafter. The first prophet, we are taught by Quran, was Adam (peace be upon him) and the last one was Prophet Muhammad. However, great prophets of God were not merely some post office employees given a piece of mail to deliver. They were also given the responsibility and mandate to govern the societies of believers in accordance to the laws set by God Almighty. In other words, they were delegated by God to govern; an authorized or deputized Wilayat. In this regard then a prophet is Wali of God, and all prophets are Awlia of God, Awlia-Allah.

Why? Because the one who knows and understands the laws best, the one who has been trained and assisted by the Law Maker the best, the one who is the most truthful, honest, trustworthy, pious, and pure and behaves most authentically in accordance with the laws of God and obeys him in heart, body, mind, and soul is the best qualified person to govern the believers of God based on His laws. It is not an unreasonable and illogical concept that would be hard to grasp. It is rather simple.

Is it stated in Quran that the prophets of God have guardianship over the believers’ affairs? Yes. A few examples are helpful. During the time of Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him), he had the legitimate Wilayat and guardianship to govern and lead the society of the believers. During the time of Prophet Moses (peace be upon him), he had the legitimate Wilayat and guardianship to govern and arbitrate the affairs of the believers. Likewise with Prophet Isa Son of Maryam (peace be upon him), Prophet David (peace be upon him), Prophet Issac (peace be upon him), Prophet Muhammad  and all other prophets of God. Relevant verses abound in Quran but here are a few examples:

In Chapter 4 (Nisaa), Verse 64:1-8, it is stated: “And We did not send any Messengers except for them to be obeyed by Permission from God.”

Chapter 4, Verse 59:1-10 reads: “O you who believe! Obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those among you who have the guardianship of your affairs.”

Chapter 26 (Shu’ara), Verses 105-110: “The people of Noah denied the Messengers. When their brother Noah said to them, ‘Will you not fear God? Indeed, I am a trustworthy Messenger to you. Therefore, fear God and obey me. And I do not ask of you any payment for it. My payment is not but from the Lord of the Worlds. So, fear God and obey me.”

Chapter 26, Verses 142-145: “When said to them their brother Saleh, ‘Will you not fear God? Indeed, I am to you a trustworthy Messenger. So, fear God and obey me. And I do not ask of you any payment for it. My payment is not but from the Lord of the Worlds.”

Chapter 26, Verses 160-164: “People of Lut denied the Messengers. When said to them their brother Lut, ‘Will you not fear God? Indeed, I am to you a trustworthy Messenger. So, fear God and obey me. And I do not ask of you any payment for it. My payment is not but from the Lord of the Worlds.”

Therefore, this guardianship, this delegated (by God) system of governance is entrusted to Prophets who are trustworthy and get their wages/salary directly from God. They are not there to fill their pockets, accumulate wealth, and fulfill their lofty desires at the expense of people and under the guise of governing them. They have primacy over any other person for that position.

These are all Prophets of God and we are saying that Prophet Muhmmad was the last of the Prophets. Then, what happened after him? Was the world left without a Wali? Were people and the believers left on their own to find someone, anyone, to govern their affairs? Was there any criterion? Did the Prophet leave the people stranded to fight and divide? Would that even be a responsible and wise thing to do?

It is quite evident that we Shi’a Muslims believe that Wilayat did not end with the Prophet and the guardianship of the society of the believers, the Muslim Ummah, had a clear path to take. This brings us to the next phase of the essay in which we explore the term Imamat and how a major division occurred as soon as the Prophet passed away. We are entering into a very complex territory and a minefield and, with God’s Help, I will need to do some major mine neutralization. So, stay tuned, please.

References

[1] Jafari MR & Haeri SH (1390). “An Inquiry into the meaning of the term Wali.” Quarterly Special in Imamat Research, No. 1, Imamat Cultural Foundation, Spring 1390.

[2] Norasideh AA, Feyzullah-Zadeh AA, and Mastery Farahani J (1391). “Semantics of the term ‘Wali’ in Al-Quran Al-Karim.” Arabic Literature Bulletin,No. 7 (6/65), Pages 151-168. Shahid Beheshti University, College of Literature and Social Sciences.

[3] Holy Quran, Chapter 2 (Al-Baqara), Verses 255-257:

اللّهُ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ هُوَ الْحَیُّ الْقَیُّومُ لاَ تَأْخُذُهُ سِنَهٌ وَ لاَ نَوْمٌ لَّهُ مَا فِی السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِی الأَرْضِ مَن ذَا الَّذِی یَشْفَعُ عِنْدَهُ إِلاَّ بِإِذْنِهِ یَعْلَمُ مَا بَیْنَ أَیْدِیهِمْ وَمَا خَلْفَهُمْ وَ لاَ یُحِیطُونَ بِشَیْءٍ مِّنْ عِلْمِهِ إِلاَّ بِمَا شَاء وَسِعَ کُرْسِیُّهُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَ الأَرْضَ وَ لاَ یَۆُودُهُ حِفْظُهُمَا وَ هُوَ الْعَلِیُّ الْعَظِیمُ (255)

“Allah is One, there is no God but Him, the Ever existing, the Sustainer of all that exists. It does not overtake Him either slumber or sleep. To Him belongs all there is in the heavens and whatever on the earth. Who is the one who can intercede with Him except with His permission? He knows what is before them and what is behind them. And they will not encompass anything of His knowledge except that which He Wills. His dominance extends to all the heavens and the earth. And it will not tire Him the guardianship of them both.”

لاَ إِکْرَاهَ فِی الدِّینِ قَد تَّبَیَّنَ الرُّشْدُ مِنَ الْغَیِّ فَمَنْ یَکْفُرْ بِالطَّاغُوتِ وَ یُۆْمِن بِاللّهِ فَقَدِ اسْتَمْسَکَ بِالْعُرْوَهِ الْوُثْقَیَ لاَ انفِصَامَ لَهَا وَاللّهُ سَمِیعٌ عَلِیمٌ (256)

“There is no compulsion in the religion. Certainly a distinction has been clearly made between the right and the wrong. Therefore, whoever disbelieves the false idols/evildoing transgressors and believes in Allah, then certainly he has grasped onto a robust anchor that is unbreakable. And Allah is All-Hearing and All-Knowing.”

اللّهُ وَلِیُّ الَّذِینَ آمَنُواْ یُخْرِجُهُم مِّنَ الظُّلُمَاتِ إِلَی النُّوُرِ وَالَّذِینَ کَفَرُواْ أَوْلِیَآۆُهُمُ الطَّاغُوتُ یُخْرِجُونَهُم مِّنَ النُّورِ إِلَی الظُّلُمَاتِ أُوْلَئِکَ أَصْحَابُ النَّارِ هُمْ فِیهَا خَالِدُونَ (257)

“Allah is Wali [Protecting Guardian] of those who have believed. He brings them out of the darkness(es) toward the light. And those who disbelieved, their awlia [guardians] are the Taghut [transgressing oppressor and evildoers] who bring them out of the light toward the darkness(es). Those are the companions of the fire and they abide therein forever.”

In Defence of Sovereignty

August 18, 2020

By Francis Lee for the Saker Blog

For the benefit of Frau Merkel & Nordstream-2

No sovereignty = No democracy: If a State is subordinate to another State or group of states it is no longer sovereign. That is to say if it ceases to exercise control over its vital policies, economic, political, social and cultural. Moreover it follows that if it is not sovereign it cannot be democratic since the key policies it might wish to enact and carry out are decided elsewhere.

The increasingly unbalanced assessment regarding the UK’s eventual exit from membership of the EU (if indeed it ever really happens) seems predicated on a series of fixed, cliché-ridden political positions which haven’t changed since the whole issue became live. The great national ‘debate’ seems to be an emotionally charged affair with little attention to facts and more focused upon personalities and taken-for-granted assumptions of the ‘everybody knows’ type. This presumably is post-modern politics I suppose. But at the heart of the debate is the issue of sovereignty.

Let us firstly consider the international economic issues involved according to the conventional wisdom of the hyper-globalists. It is argued that both nation states and the whole concept of national sovereignty is now defunct. Their reasoning is based upon the following premises. 1. Most products have developed a very complex geography – with parts made in different countries and then assembled somewhere else, in which case labels of origin begin to lose their meaning. 2. Markets when left unfettered will arrive at optimal price, allocative, and productive efficiency. 3.This means that capital, commodities and labour should be free to move around the globe without let or hindrance to achieve these goals. 4. Any barriers to this process – capital controls, trade unions, exchange rate controls, welfare expenditures, minimum wage legislation, wages and even public goods – will give rise to price and allocative distortions. Q.E.D. Apart from point 1., the rest of these claims are in fact highly contestable and could easily be shredded by reference to historical experience and empirical testing, but hey, if the theoretical paradigm is sound who cares about historical experience and empirical testing.

Such globalization has come to be seen and defined by its proponents as the ‘natural order’ of things, almost a force of nature. This, it is further argued, will be an inexorable process of increasing geographical spread and functional integration between economic and political activities. This current orthodoxy goes by various names, Washington Consensus, Market Liberalisation, Neo-liberalism, Globalism and so on and so forth. In fact, there is nothing ‘natural’ about this stage of historical development since the whole phenomenon has been politically driven. From the outset there has been a coalition of globalist oligarchs, technocrats and heads of state et.al working through global institutions the IMF, World Bank, BIS, WTO, NATO, the EU, CIA – the list is extensive. They control the economic, political and military superstructures which form the ruling global system and constitute the vanguard of the whole process.

Turning to the EU as the regional prototype for the globalization, anti-state project, it was Patrick Buchanan, an American conservative who once correctly stated in ‘The American Conservative’ that the US Congress ‘‘is an Israeli occupied zone’’ by which he meant of course that Israel and the Israeli Lobby, both external and internal, has had a huge input into the framing and operation of US foreign policy. In a similar vein the EU is also occupied territory under the occupation and control of US imperialism. (This process of blatant meddling in European affairs by the US-CIA started with Operation Gladio in the late 1940s at about the same time as Operation Mockingbird and Operation Paperclip.) However, the perceived enemy was not merely Soviet communism, but also sotto voce, European social and political theory and practice, namely, Gaullism and social-democracy. These latter political groupings have long since been politically cleansed with the EU being reconfigured as neo-liberal, and, since the alignment of the EU security structures with NATO, as neo-conservative vassal states overseen and represented by odious little Petainist/Quisling occupation regimes. This is only too apparent when the fawning behaviours of Johnson, Macron and Merkel vis-à-vis the US are observed. Whenever the US master says jump, the Europeans will reply ‘how high’ And this is even more pronounced by the newly arrived Eastern European states. A group which Dick Cheney once described as the ‘new Europe.’ By which he meant the political force which was operationalised to fundamentally change the political direction of the EU in the late 20^th century. Euro-widening was meant to prevent euro-deepening, and it worked a treat.

Perhaps the most salient (and bogus) claim deployed by the pro-Globalization camp is the use of the time-honoured TINA ‘there-is-no-alternative’ Varoufakis approach. This is invariably deployed to shut-down any genuine discussion. Of course it was Mrs Thatcher who pioneered this method of political discourse, with, it should be added, considerable success. Reading the editorials in the ‘leftist’ publications, I couldn’t help being reminded of those little Thatcherite homilies trotted out by the Tory press during the Thatcher ascendency.

But now, not to be outdone, the centre-left has taken upon itself the mantle of ‘progress’ and ‘modernity’ providing the ideological rationale for the globalist tendency. This has involved a 180 degree turn and is apparently using the same language and political orientation as the Globalists. Try this one on: ‘’Nations are increasingly irrelevant when it comes to effective action on the environment and social and immigration policies …’’ This was taken from a centre-left publication. Yep, distilled, undiluted globalization – TINA. That could have been George Soros speaking. As if sovereign nations could not pool their resources, enter into bi-lateral agreements, engage in trade and diplomacy, enter into negotiations with others precisely to confront common issues such as the aforementioned environmental, immigration and social issues.

But in this ‘stateless’ or seemingly becoming ‘stateless’ world I do feel obliged to point out that the United States as a nation is sovereign and has every intention of remaining so. Contrary to the globalist patter, however, this super-state shapes and formulates both economic and foreign policy for itself and its vassal states in Europe and East Asia, but of course these vassal states are not fully sovereign and are subject to the rule of the one that is – the USA. The reality we have in the EU consists not of a unified assemblage of sovereign states but a de facto occupied zone of a political, economic and military empire, under both US aegis and control.

As the late Egyptian Marxist, Samir Amin, put it:

‘’Conceived of at the end of WW2 the ‘European Project’ was born as the European part of the Atlanticist project of the United States, much in the spirit of the first Cold War initiated by Washington and given voice by Churchill’s speech in Fulton Missouri in 1946 in which he intoned. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”  This has been a project which the European bourgeoisies – at that time weak and afraid of their own working classes – adhered to practically without conditions. This is still largely true, as seen in the choices put into effect by the ruling classes and political forces of the right and majority left, at least in certain European countries, above all in Great Britain, where it has been done clearly and ostentatiously. In other countries there is perhaps a small piece of hesitation, whilst in Eastern Europe the process is managed by political classes formed in the culture of servility … There is no longer, at present, a European project … A North Atlantic project under American command has replaced it

Thus the European ‘project’ is not moving – or not moving fast enough, or not moving at all – in the direction that is needed to bring Washington to its senses. Indeed it remains a basically ‘non-European’ project, scarcely more than a European part of the American project. The European’s Constitution is for a Europe which is settling – has settled ? – its dual and Atlanticist option. Hence the potential contained in the clash of political cultures, which could theoretically lead to an end of Atlanticism which remains mortgaged to social-liberalism of the majority sections of the left (electorally speaking, the European socialist parties). But social-liberalism is a contradiction in terms, since liberalism is by its nature non-social or even anti-social … a stable and generally multipolar world will be socialist or it will not exist at all. (2)

Inter-governmental policy is perfectly possible, however, without the surrender of national sovereignty to an imperial hegemon. However, If the European Vichy regimes choose to accept the imposition of US policy imperatives that is their choice – a political choice, not an iron law of political development.

The fact is that nation states unquestionably remain the most significant force in shaping the world economy – this in spite of the hyper-globalist rhetoric coming from the Bilderbergers and neo-liberal/Washington consensus proponents. The nation state has always played a fundamental role in the economic development of all countries and indeed in the process of globalization itself. In fact, the more powerful states have used globalization as a means of increasing their power vis-à-vis the weaker states. The US and the G7 design and establish, international trade agreements, organizations, and legislations that support and govern trans-border investments, production networks, and market penetration, constitutive of contemporary economic globalization. Advanced capitalist states, in particular, use these political instruments to shape international decision making and policy in their own interests.(3)

A contemporary example of this is the US – qua sovereign hegemon – forcing policies, such as membership of NATO, down the throats of their (apparently willing) ‘allies’ (read vassals) and ‘partners’ in order to carry out the US’s geopolitical policies by mobilizing their Quisling regimes in both Europe (particularly Eastern Europe) for possible conflict with Russia, China and Iran (which are de facto sovereign states). It can be seen that the sovereignty of Europe is limited by the Transatlantic hegemon to the extent that Europe lacks both military, political and key areas of economic decision making to individual European G7 states. The fact that these semi-sovereign euro states are forced – as is everyone else – to use the US$ as the global currency means they do not really control their own economies. Let us assume for the sake of argument that Sweden has a trading surplus with the US; this means that it is exporting more than it is importing in terms of US goods. This means that the Swedish currency – the Krona – will appreciate against the US$. But the Swedish government may not want its currency to appreciate by being palmed off with US Treasuries which will never be redeemed. In order therefore to stop its own currency appreciating against the dollar it will have to buy US dollars or dollar denominated assets, (usually Treasury Bills) to keep its own currency at a lower exchange rate to the dollar. This results in an appreciating dollar which means the US can buy more stuff on world markets without producing any additional goods and services! Great deal if you can get it! Moreover by accepting the US$ and Treasuries as a means of payment for goods produced in Europe these semi-peripheral states are on the wrong end of what the French politician Valery Giscard D’Estaing once termed an ‘exorbitant privilege’. Such is the position of sovereign states, semi-sovereign states, and non-sovereign states.

In geopolitical terms it should be understood that the abasement of Europe to American interests is frankly abject. Europe has become a forward base for the Pentagon, military industrial complex, and neo-con infested State Department to play their war games against Russia and latterly against China. If there is a war with Russia, please note it is intended to be carried out on European soil not American.

In terms of present and future membership not only was the admission of the Eastern European periphery a massive error for individual European states, but future membership bodes even worse for the EU ‘project’. Turkey is not only authoritarian, a US proxy and a member of NATO, which is bad enough, but it also funds and arms our most inveterate enemies, ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Jabhat Al Nusra, and various other jihadist alphabet soup grouplets. This same state was at that time mooted for membership of the EU by both the UK and Germany. Moreover, future candidates for EU/NATO status include Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. None of these states could be considered to be even remotely sovereign and/or democratic and generally are totally and openly corrupt. It is all part of the long march toward Russia’s western frontier by NATO/EU, a process begun by Clinton (Mr) in the 1990s. But apparently this is of no consequence to the contemporary ‘left’ which doesn’t seem unduly worried by these developments.

As for the EU/NATO, do we really want to belong to an organization who has these people as members/applicants? It’s a bit like Groucho Marx’s famous witticism – ‘’I wouldn’t want to belong to a club which would have me as a member.’’ More important in this respect does the EU/NATO even allow us a choice in the matter?

One final point. Okay it is argued that if we – the UK – leave the EU the roof falls in, of course that is a complete non sequitur, but let’s run with it for a moment. Membership is therefore imperative! Really?

Well in 1946 due to costs of the WW2 the UK was flat broke. Lord Keynes was despatched to Washington and negotiated a loan from the Americans. Of course there were strings, or in IMF/World Bankspeak, ‘conditionalities.’ 1. Britain had to end the system of imperial preference of intra-empire trading, mainly because the Americans wanted to get into this lucrative market. 2. The British empire had to be wound up, and the Americans would then carry the baton for the Anglo-Zionist empire, with all the costs but mostly advantages that accrued from this position. The UK’s long retreat from East of Suez began with Indian independence in 1947 and continued well into the 1960s.

The roof did not fall in, however, Britain, in spite of continuing imperial delusions of grandeur, adjusted to its new position in the world. There was, after all, an alternative to imperial nostalgia, maybe it never quite worked out as planned, but it happened, nonetheless.

Thus the TINA hypothesis is basically invalid. There are – pace the globalist dogma – always alternatives, you may not like them, but to deny their existence is neither a serious nor honest position to take.

NOTES

(1) Samir Amin – The Liberal Virus – p.86 p.89.

(2) Samir Amin – Beyond US Hegemony – p.148.

(3) Peter Dicken – Global Shift – The State Really Does Matter, Chapter 6

Foreign Interference in Elections: Is it Real or Just Political Noise?

Philip Giraldi

July 30, 2020

A recently concluded British Parliamentary inquiry has determined that Russia may have interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum, which resulted in the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union. But, ironically, it also concluded that Russia might not have interfered given the fact that the British government never bothered to try to find out if there had been any attempt made by the Kremlin to manipulate the voting.

The Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee is reportedly perplexed by the lack of official interest in what might have been a foreign intelligence operation that had major impact, all too plausible given that it is assumed that Moscow would have welcomed Brexit as a first step that will eventually put an end to European political and economic unity.

So, no one knows if Russia or anyone else interfered in Britain, which is perhaps just as well as inquiries into voting in the U.S. also in 2016 have likewise created nothing but confusion and no smoking pistol. And, of course there is a question of definitions of interference. Millions of pounds were spent on advertising by those pro- and con-Brexit, just as billions were spent in political adverts in the United States. Much of the “information” provided in that fashion was deliberately misleading, often fearmongering, both in the U.K. and the U.S., suggesting that the problem is much bigger than one country’s possible attempt to influence the vote, if that even took place.

There were similar claims about Russian generated fake news and “a massive hacking attack” in the French presidential election in 2017, while Germany’s Federal Election was notable for a lack of any identifiable Kremlin interference in spite of warnings from some observers that Berlin would be targeted.

So, while claims of Russian interference in elections are fairly common, they are difficult to prove in any serious way. And one should recognize that the “victimized” governments and political parties have strong motives to conjure up a foreign enemy to explain to the public why things are going wrong, be it for coronavirus fumbling or for general political ineptitude. To be sure, as the allure of blaming Russia has faded China is increasingly being targeted by American politicians as a scapegoat, indicating that there must always be a foreigner available to blame for one’s problems.

The most recent nugget to come out of the U.S. Congress on foreign interference in elections originates with Adam Schiff, the sly head of the House Intelligence Committee. In an interview with MSNBC, Schiff revealed that U.S. intelligence has obtained information suggesting multiple nations could be trying to meddle in the 2020 U.S. elections, to include feeding or “laundering” possible disinformation through Congress.

Schiff explained how various nations us different tactics to get “fake news” messages through to the American voters. Some governments openly support a particular candidate or policy, while others like the Chinese provide misinformation during their trade negotiations with Washington. He observed that “The Russians may get involved in hacking and dumping operations or social media campaigns. The Iranians may have their own tactics and techniques like the North Koreans may have theirs.”

A letter signed by Schiff, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Mark Warner, D-Va has asked for a counterintelligence briefing for Congress regarding foreign efforts to interfere in the upcoming election. It includes “We are gravely concerned, in particular, that Congress appears to be the target of a concerted foreign interference campaign, which seeks to launder and amplify disinformation in order to influence congressional activity, public debate, and the presidential election in November.”

Democratic Party presidential candidate presumptive Joe Biden also has confirmed that he has received briefings about Russian alleged plans to interfere in November saying “The Russians are still engaged in trying to delegitimize our electoral process. China and others are engaged as well in activities that are designed for us to lose confidence in the outcome.”

Of course, there are a number of things to say about the claims that other nations are possibly planning to meddle in the voting. First, the list of possible players being presented by Schiff and others is all too convenient, kind of like a Congressional dream list of bad boys. Russia pops up because of longstanding claims about it, but China is a new entry in the game because it all ties up into a neat package, including the “Wuhan virus” and its challenges both to American economic supremacy and to U.S. naval power in the South China Sea. And of course, there are Iran and also North Korea.

One should ask what exactly China, Iran and North Korea stand to gain by attempting to “interfere” in the election? What message could they possibly be sending and what would be the mechanisms they would use to get their points of view across to a skeptical American public? In a campaign that will undoubtedly cost hundreds of billions of dollars in advertising and other “messaging,” what exactly is the possible place of Iran and North Korea?

There is also a lack of “realism” in the Schiff comments. By far the country that interferes the most in U.S. politics is Israel. Israel and its domestic Lobby initiate legislation relating to the Middle East and Israeli diplomats, lobbyists and soldiers all have free access both to Capitol Hill and to the Pentagon. If a Congressman dares to speak up against the Jewish state’s crimes he or she is smeared in the media and eventually forced out of office by a well-funded pro-Israel opponent. No other country gets away with all that. As it is highly likely that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be pulling out all the stops to reelect Donald Trump in November, why isn’t the Jewish state included on Schiff’s list?

And then there is the tantalizing bit about concerns over disinformation being “laundered” through Congress. It is difficult to imagine what exactly Schiff is referring to as the corrupt gasbags in Congress already constitute one of the world’s biggest sources of false information, second only to the fully coopted U.S. mainstream media.

In any event, if some countries that are accustomed to being regularly targeted by the United States are taking advantage of an opportunity to somehow diminish America’s ability to meddle globally, no one should be surprised, but it is a politically driven fantasy to make the hysterical claim that the United States has now become the victim of some kind of vast multi-national conspiracy to interfere in its upcoming election.

The European Union and the USA are threatened with disintegration الاتحاد الأوروبيّ والولايات المتحدة مهدّدان بالتفكك؟

The European Union and the USA are threatened with disintegration

Written by Nasser Kandil,

Ten years ago, when Gondoleezza Rice was a researcher and obtained a master degree in the political science she predicted of the disintegration of the Soviet Union before she assumed any governmental position. Due to her thesis she got an outstanding scientific position that allowed her to preoccupy the positions she assumed during the era of President George W. Bush. She described what will happen to the Soviet Union which actually happened “The historical empires and the great contemporary countries are disintegrated suddenly without any premises to observe or to have a long context to rely on regarding the disintegration, it is as a flood and earthquake, it just happens”. These true words can be applied on the situation of other empires and superpowers.

What the EU is witnessing nowadays in addition to the reasons of Britain’s exit from the Union as a sign of the end of the presumptive age of the Union and the popular reasons about the advantages in being in it indicate that there are serious risks that threaten the continuation of the Union which lost its mission in the international political and economic geography as a framework that includes Europe from East to West and which can replace the NATO due to the financial incentives in besieging Russia inside its borders. Today it loses its ability to present an example capable to face two kinds of crises; the first kind is the crises of the financial collapse which rocked Greece, Italy, and Spain where the EU appeared in its French and German background an interest group that is away from the threatened countries, and where its support is governed only with loan in exchange of conditions as the International Monetary Fund does. The second kind is represented by the Corona virus where the confrontation plans seemed local and where the EU seemed not exist because the support came from outside the EU especially from China and Russia which are not supposed to be among the traditional supporters.

When hundreds of Chinese doctors and experts and tons of equipment and field hospitals enter to Italy and when the Russian President Vladimir Putin opens the land route in front of his military trucks to transfer aids, experts, and doctors to Italy, then it is not an exaggeration to say that we are in front of a reverse movement of the fall of Berlin Wall since we see that the European eastern countries are accused of treason in Europe while they thank the Chinese and Russian aid as the President of Serbia did, And when we see the scene repeated in Italy and Spain by lowering the flag of the European Union and when we read articles of leaders that raise existential questions about being in the EU to the extent of doubting of the justification of its presence then we do not hesitate to ask whether the EU and the Euro system not only Schengen are threatened with collapse?

In the USA there are many serious questions about the federal system and what does it present to the states especially the states that have more income and contribution in the federal budget. After the outbreak of Corona virus, the barriers which were set on the entrances of the major roads that link the states together sound like there is a need of a visa granted by a state to the visitors of other states. Therefore, it is enough to say that the federal system has been hit in the core. New York State provides an example of how it suffers from the federal system through the miserable scenes of hospitals transmitted by the social media, where its patients are distributed on rusty iron beds in corridors, backyards, and parking. So there are major questions about the usefulness to stay under the federal system if it is incapable of providing help when disaster strikes. Therefore after Corona and along with the collapse of stock markets and banking system it is no longer surprising to witness an escalation in the debate about the justifications to bear a partnership of loss and the necessity of the federal system especially with the presence of old and renewed calls of rebellion that will meet more advocates whenever the federal system seems incapable.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,

الاتحاد الأوروبيّ والولايات المتحدة مهدّدان بالتفكك؟

ناصر قنديل

– تنبأت غونداليسا رايس بتفكك الاتحاد السوفياتي، عندما كانت صفتها الباحثة التي نالت شهادة الدكتوراة في العلوم السياسية قبل أكثر من عشر سنوات من توليها أي مسؤولية حكومية، ونالت بسبب أطروحتها مكانة علميّة لفتت نحوها الأنظار ورشحتها للمناصب التي تبوأتها في عهد الرئيس جورج بوش الإبن، وقالت في وصفها لما سيجري في الاتحاد السوفياتي، وقد جرى فعلاً، «إن الإمبراطوريات التاريخية والدول العظمى المعاصرة، ترحل وتتفكك فجأة دون أن تمنحك مقدّمات تراقبها وتبني عليها سياقاً طويلاً ينتهي بالتفكك، إنها كما الطوفان والزلزال عملية تحدث فجأة، إنها تحدث وحسب». وهذا الكلام الذي صح في حال الاتحاد السوفياتي، لا يمكن إنكار إمكانية أن يصح أيضاً في حال غيره من الإمبراطوريات والدول العظمى.

– ما يشهده الاتحاد الأوروبي هذه الأيام، بخلفيّة فهم إضافية لأسباب خروج بريطانيا من الاتحاد كعلامة على نهاية الزمن الافتراضي لعمر الاتحاد، وبدء تبلور أسئلة شعبية حول جدوى البقاء تحت عباءته، يقول إن مخاطر حقيقية تتهدد استمرار الاتحاد، الذي فقد وظيفته في الجغرافيا السياسية والاقتصادية الدولية كإطار جامع لأوروبا بغربها وشرقها يتيح بقوة الحوافز المالية، الحلول مكان حلف الأطلسي، لمحاصرة روسيا داخل حدودها، وهو اليوم يفقد قدرته على تقديم نموذج قادر على الحياة في مواجهة نوعين من الأزمات، لا مبرر لبقائه إذا عجز عن إثبات أنه آلة جماعية أشدّ فعالية من القدرات المنفردة للدول على مواجهتها، النوع الأول هو أزمات الانهيارات المالية التي عصفت باليونان وإيطاليا وإسبانيا، وظهر خلالها الاتحاد، بخلفيته الفرنسية الألمانية، جهة مصلحية تتخذ مسافة من الدولة المهددة، وتكون مساهمتها محكومة بسقف هو الإقراض كما يفعل صندوق النقد الدولي، مقابل شروط، والنوع الثاني هو التهديد الذي مثله فيروس كورونا، حيث لم يظهر الاتحاد أنه موجود، وبدت خطط المواجهة محلية حصراً، كما بدا العجز محلياً، لكن بدت المعونة حاضرة من خارج الاتحاد، وخصوصاً من الصين وروسيا، المفترض أنهما من خارج نادي الأصدقاء التقليديين.

– عندما يدخل الصينيون بمئات الأطباء والخبراء وأطنان المعدات والمستشفيات الميدانية إلى إيطاليا، وعندما يحرك الرئيس الروسي فلاديمير بوتين الطريق البري لشاحناته العسكرية لنقل المساعدات والخبراء والأطباء نحو إيطاليا، فليس من المبالغة القول إننا أمام حركة معاكسة لسقوط جدار برلين، ونحن نرى بأمّ العين أن دول أوروبا الشرقية تتهم بالخيانة أوروبياً، وهي تتوجّه بالشكر على المعونة الصينية والروسية كما فعل رئيس صربيا، وتتسابق بإعلان تخلّيها عن علم الاتحاد الأوروبيّ، وعندما نرى المشهد يتكرّر بقوة في إيطاليا وإسبانيا، بإنزال أعلام الاتحاد الأوروبيّ، ونقرأ مقالات وآراء لقادة في الدولة والأحزاب تطرح أسئلة وجودية حول فرص البقاء في الاتحاد الأوروبيّ، وصولاً للتشكيك في مبررات بقائه، عندها علينا أن لا نتردد في طرح السؤال عما إذا كان الاتحاد، وربما منظومة اليورو، وليس منظومة الشنغن فقط، تتهدّدهم مخاطر الزوال؟

– في الولايات المتحدة الأميركية أسئلة لا تقل خطورة تتعالى أصواتها في العديد من الولايات الأميركية، حول النظام الفدرالي وماذا يقدم لولاياتهم، خصوصاً بالنسبة للولايات الأكثر دخلاً ومساهمة في الميزانية الفدرالية، ومع تفشي فيروس كورونا، ظهرت الحواجز على مداخل الطرق الكبرى التي تربط الولايات ببعضها، توحي بأن المطلوب تأشيرة دخول تمنحها الولاية لأبناء الولايات الأخرى ليتاح لهم الدخول إلى أراضيها. وهذا كافٍ للقول إن النظام الفدرالي أصيب في الصميم، وتقدم ولاية نيويورك نموذجاً عما تعانيه مع النظام الفدرالي عبر المشاهد التي تتناقلها وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي لمستشفياتها، بحال تدعو للشفقة، على مرضى يتوزعون أسرة حديدية صدئة، في الممرات والباحات الخلفية ومواقف السيارات، وأسئلة كبرى عن جدوى البقاء في النظام الفدراليّ ما دام عاجزاً عن تقديم النجدة عند وقوع الكارثة، وبعد زلزال كورونا لن يكون مستغرباً، مع تداعي البورصات والنظام المصرفي، أن نشهد تصاعداً في النقاش حول مبررات تحمل الشراكة في الخسائر، وحول جدوى النظام الفدرالي نفسه، تلاقي دعوات استقلال، قديمة متجددة لأصوات وازنة في عدد من الولايات تنادي بالتمرّد على الصيغة الفدرالية، وستلقى مزيداً من المؤيدين كلما بداً النظام الفدرالي عاجزاً.

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It’s No Accident Britain And America Are the World’s Biggest Coronavirus Losers

By Nesrine Malik – The Guardian

There’s something profound about the irony. The world’s highest coronavirus death tolls belong to two countries whose leaders came to power promising the restoration of greatness and control – the United States and Great Britain. Neither can claim to have been caught by surprise: both nations had the benefit of time, ample scientific warnings, and the cautionary examples of China and Italy.

The similarities are striking, the conclusions unavoidable. Here in the UK, we comforted ourselves with the belief that while our own buffoonish rightwing leader had his faults, at least he was no Donald Trump. But in the end, Boris Johnson has managed to stumble over even this lowest of hurdles. The UK government’s response to the crisis has turned out to be nearly as flippant and ill-prepared as the US’s.

Two nations that prided themselves on their extraordinary economic, historical and political status have been brought to their knees. Their fall from grace is the outcome of a damaged political culture and distinct form of Anglo-American capitalism.

Over the past four years, reckless political decisions were justified by subordinating reality to rhetoric. The cost of leaving the EU would be “virtually nil”, with a free trade agreement that would be one of the “easiest in human history”. Imaginary enemies were erected and fake fights confected as both countries pugnaciously went about severing their ties with other nations and international institutions.

Political discourse focused on grand abstract notions of rebirth and restoration, in a way that required few concrete deliverables. All the Tory government needed to do was Get Brexit Done, no matter how slapdash the job. In the US, all Trump needed to do to maintain his supporters’ loyalty was bark about a wall with Mexico every now and then, pass a racist travel ban, and savage various public figures for sport.

This is corrosive stuff – not only to the quality of public debate, but to the caliber of politicians. When the business of government becomes limited to populist set pieces, its ranks are purged of doers and populated instead with cheerleaders. This is how we ended up with the current cast of dazed-in-headlights Tory cabinet members. In the US, the very notion of an “administration” has been worn away. As the New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen puts it, “There is no White House. Not in the sense that journalists have always used that term. It’s just Trump – and people who work in the building.”

By the time Covid-19 hit their shores, the UK and US were lacking not just the politicians but the bureaucracies required to respond effectively. Prior to the crisis, Trump repeatedly attempted to defund the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC]. In the UK, the pandemic inconvenienced a Tory cabinet embroiled in a feud with its own civil service. The intellectual and practical infrastructure to deal with facts had been vandalized.

But there is a longer, non-partisan history that rendered both nations incapable of an adequate response to the pandemic. The special relationship is not just one of linguistic and cultural proximity, but an ideological partnership forged in the post-second world war era. Anglo-American capitalism, pursued by both right and center-left parties, rooted in small government and powered by exceptionalism, had dismantled the state. No notice or warning could have refashioned the machinery of government quickly enough to save lives. An economic and political model that hinges on privatization, liberalization and the withdrawal of labor rights created a system prone to regular crises, despite such shocks being framed as one-offs.

The economic and regulatory kinship was strengthened by the transformation of Britain’s quaint and mercantile financial sector into a replica of the US’s aggressive markets. The City caught up with Wall Street.

An interventionist foreign policy – publicly moralistic but privately cynical – gave the model an expansionist edge, which helped both nations project power abroad and defend their own financial and political interests. But the wars led to quagmires, and the rapidly expanding financial sectors to economic near-death experiences. Neither triggered significant rethinking or reflection. After the 2008 financial crisis, when this system came within “48 hours” of the “apocalypse”, two center-left leaders, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, chose to shore up the infrastructure that had brought their economies to the brink, recapitalizing the banks and revitalizing the markets, opting for more regulation rather than fundamental reform.

Just as the financial crash was treated as the malfunctioning of a particular unsupervised bug in the system rather than as a feature of it, so is the failure to grapple with the pandemic being cast as an unforeseen, exogenous event, rather than a result of an ideology that enables the state to scramble unprecedented resources to save banks but not lives. A nurse will wear a bin liner as PPE in the US for longer than a failing bank can go unfinanced.

Hollow triumphalism about making America great again and Britain taking back control becomes more and more likely in such a system. Trump and the Tories alighted on this formula not entirely out of mendacity or ideology. Without radically challenging Anglo-American capitalism, they have nothing else to offer their voters. And so they must separate economic suffering from politics, and attempt to blame it on immigrants and outsiders. They must blame other countries and international institutions – the EU, WHO, NATO – for the feelings of helplessness experienced by their own citizens. The swagger is a facade. Behind it hides a rotting national landscape.

As the bodies pile up, the failure of the US and the UK will be somehow spun into victory. The triumphalism will intensify; that is certain. The only question now is how many will continue to believe it.

• Imam Khamenei Highlights West’s Failure amid COVID-19 Battle

“One Country, Two Systems”? Britain and Northern Ireland on Brexit

By Tom Clifford
Global Research, December 17, 2019

One country, two systems. Britain is leaving the European Union. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is not leaving on the same terms.

In the UK election, more Irish nationalists than Unionists were elected in Northern Ireland for the first time since Ireland was partitioned in 1921. Not surprisingly, it led to Sinn Fein renewing its calls for a vote to leave the UK and unite with the Irish Republic. This is not going to happen for reasons steeped in history. But also crucially there is not a groundswell of opinion, on either side of the border, for it. But Northern Ireland feels a lesser part of the UK today than at any time since Lloyd George was prime minister.

Hold the front page, as they used to say in pre-internet and website days. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is talking nonsense. There was, he said adamantly, no question of checks being needed on trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom under his European Union withdrawal agreement.
“There will not be checks on goods going from Northern Ireland to Great Britain,” Johnson said in November.

Not so fast. His own Brexit secretary, Steve Barclay, had to contradict him. Goods going from Northern Ireland will have to be accompanied by exit declarations and “targeted interventions” from customs officers, he said.

Brexit, The Tories and the “Irish Question”

Johnson, according to his own allies, is a non-starter regarding trust. Let us not forget, he is actually the leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party. The Democratic Unionist Party feel they have been abandoned by him. On this, they are right. The DUP were convenient bedfellows when it suited him and when their usefulness was up, they were ruthlessly pushed out. This is no reason for non-Unionists to gloat. If the prime minister can dispatch his allies, then for those of a different political persuasion the occupant of No 10 Downing Street poses, at the very least, a troubling dilemma. Can he be taken at his word or trusted? The evidence suggests not.

Johnson is reneging on his absolute commitment to his allies in the DUP that a “border in the Irish Sea” is something “no British government could or should” ever accept.

DUP leader Arlene Foster was in no doubt. She said the British prime minister betrayed Unionist voters in Northern Ireland when he sealed a deal with the European Union that would introduce a trade barrier down the Irish Sea, jettisoning Northern Ireland from British customs procedures. He reneged on a promise he made when he spoke at their annual conference.

Foster said the party could no longer take Johnson at his word and would have to check if what he said “was actually factually correct”.

“Once bitten, twice shy, we will certainly be looking for the detail of what this [Brexit] is going to look like,” Foster said.

In his victory speech on Friday morning, Johnson said the UK is “leaving the EU as one United Kingdom”. Even if we ignore the Scottish question, this is utterly fraudulent. It is a matter of fact that Northern Ireland is not about to leave the EU on the same terms as Britain.

Crown subjects in Northern Ireland have a right to be told by their prime minister the truth about their status. Johnson displays a reluctance to tell the obvious truth that on the border, borders, literally, on the schizophrenic.
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Tom Clifford is an Irish journalist based in China. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Tom Clifford, Global Research, 2019

 

British Election Heralds Collapse of United Kingdom

Finian Cunningham

December 16, 2019

Boris Johnson is entitled to crack open a few bottles of champagne after being re-elected prime minister, with his Conservative party winning a landslide majority. But when the celebrations are over, Britain is facing a thumping hangover – from the inescapable fact that half of the United Kingdom is now on an irrevocable path of separatism and independence.

Johnson has won a decisive mandate to “get Brexit done”, at least from London’s perspective. His party now has a substantial parliamentary majority of 80 seats in the House of Commons which will ensure delivery on his promise to execute Britain’s departure from the European Union on January 31. The actual final severance will take another year or two to complete because of negotiations between London and Brussels to definitively hammer out divorce terms. But at least Johnson can claim that he has consummated the final journey to leave the EU on January 31, a journey which began over three years ago when Britons had originally voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum.

However, crucially, the Conservative government’s mandate for Brexit only applies to England and Wales. It was in these two countries that saw the significant swing of voters from the opposition Labour party to Johnson’s Tories. Thus, in effect, his parliamentary majority stems from voters in England and Wales.

By total contrast, in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the other two regions which make up the United Kingdom, the voters resoundingly rejected Johnson’s Brexit plans and voted for parties wanting to remain in the European Union. The outcome is consistent with the 2016 referendum results when Scotland and Northern Ireland both voted against Brexit.

Moreover, the latest election results have reinforced the call for independence in both Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The Scottish Nationalists swept the election to enhance their already existing majority. They now control nearly 90 per cent of all seats in Scotland. Party leader Nicola Sturgeon says there is an unquestionable mandate to hold a second referendum for Scottish independence. The previous independence referendum held in 2014 was defeated. But Scottish nationalists claim that popular support for their cause has surged since the Brexit referendum in 2016. The Scots, by and large, do not want to leave the EU. To remain in the EU therefore necessarily means separating from the United Kingdom and its central government in London.

Boris Johnson has so far rejected calls for holding a second Scottish independence referendum. But his position is untenable. Given the parliamentary numbers for separation stacking up in Scotland, he will have to relent. Nationalists there are demanding the holding of another plebiscite as early as next year.

In Northern Ireland, the election outcome is perhaps even more momentous. For the first time ever, nationalist parties have a majority over pro-British unionist parties. Mary Lou MacDonald, the leader of Sinn Fein, the main nationalist party, says that there is now a clear mandate for holding a referendum on the question of Northern Ireland leaving the United Kingdom. Given the breakthrough nationalist majority in the latest election, that would inevitably lead to a United Ireland, from the northern state joining with the existing southern state, the Republic of Ireland.

Nationalists in Northern Ireland have long-aspired for independence from Britain. Northern Ireland was created in 1921 from an audacious act of gerrymandering by the British government when it partitioned the island of Ireland into an independent southern state (which became the Republic of Ireland) and a small northern state (which became Northern Ireland). The latter remained under Britain’s jurisdiction. The arbitrary, imperialist act of partitioning Ireland was done in order to give the British authorities in London a mandate to rule over a portion of Irish territory because in newly created Northern Ireland the pro-British unionists were in a majority over nationalists. It was British establishment cynicism par excellence.

The present political structure of the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is only a century old. (Before that, the UK included all of Irish territory, but London was forced to grant partial Irish independence due to an armed insurrection.)

In any case, nearly a century after the setting up of Northern Ireland the natural demographic changes in its population have now created a majority for nationalists. The outcome of the election on December 12 is an undeniably huge historic event. For the first time ever, the nationalist mandate has overcome the unionist vote. The historic violation by British gerrymandering against Irish nationalist rights to independence and self-determination has finally been reversed in terms of electoral ballot.

When the Northern Ireland peace deal known as the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998 to bring an end to nearly 30 years of armed conflict, enshrined in that treaty is the “principle of consent”. The British government is treaty-bound to abide by the electoral mandate of a majority in Northern Ireland wanting a United Ireland.

The threshold for triggering a referendum on Northern Ireland leaving British jurisdiction has now been reached. And nationalist parties are openly demanding that the legislative process to achieve that separation is now implemented.

Jonathan Powell, a seasoned British diplomat who oversaw the negotiations of the Good Friday Agreement, is not one for hyperbole. But in an interview with Matt Frei for Britain’s LBC Radio on December 14, Powell said he expected to see the “collapse of the United Kingdom” within the next decade, if not sooner. He was referring specifically to the electoral results in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Boris Johnson’s seeming victory in the British election is a double-edged sword. He may claim to have a mandate to cut off ties with the European Union. But the results also mean Scotland and Northern Ireland are empowered to now cut off their ties with the rest of Britain. The separation of those two states, leaving behind England and Wales, spells the end of the so-called United Kingdom.

Johnson’s election success is not “unleashing great potential” as he claims. Rather, it is unleashing an existential constitutional crisis for the British establishment.

Finian CUNNINGHAM

Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages

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The Most Dangerous Political Party in Europe

DECEMBER 16, 2019 BY GILAD ATZMON

By Gilad Atzmon

 The Brits cast their votes. They had a choice between Nationalist – hard capitalism and a socialist manifesto that promised a four day workweek, free broadband, free higher education, saving the NHS and equality ahead. The election results couldn’t be more definitive:

 When people are asked to choose between hard capitalism and socialism, capitalism wins.

 A lot can be said about the collapse of Labour and its leader. How is it possible that Corbyn, clearly a well meaning man, managed to get squashed by the pompous, not so nice, Boris Johnson?  How is it possible that the unruly Bojo crushed Britain’s socialist elder, the man who just three years ago appeared to be a rock star and the only hope for change? How is it possible that the British working class turned their backs on the man who promised to save their NHS, raise minimum wages and push for an equal and fairer society?

 The working class in Britain, as in most Western societies, is divided into three segments: The Working Working Class – they tend to vote Tory;  The Workless Class – they would have voted for the Brexit party but ended up voting Conservative and, finally; The Don’t Want to Work Class which happens to be what is left of Labour’s now illusory constituency. As it seems, even they failed to buy into Corbyn’s lengthy list of ‘free’ gifts.

 Brits may come to regret their electoral choice, possibly within the near future. Some already claim that the worst result of the election was that the Tories won, however, the best consequence of the vote is that the Labour Party has been shredded into infinitesimal particles of political dust. The Party, as we know it, may well be finished.  Yet, what many Brits, and Labour voters in particular, may not fully understand is that the election result saved them from the menace of the most insanely tyrannical political party in Europe.

 For the past three years the Labour Party has turned against its best and most valuable members: it suspended and expelled its own members for telling the truth. In some cases Labour even targeted private citizens, all in the hope that these acts would appease its detractors within the Jewish community’s leadership. I have kept relatively quiet about all this, I didn’t want to be the person who revealed the full extent of the authoritarian tactics undertaken by Corbyn’s Labour nor did I want any responsibility for Labour’s political demise: this job was left to Britain’s Jewish institutions, the Jewish Chronicle, the JLM, the Chief Rabbi, the BOD and the CAA  who have all viciously smeared Corbyn and on a daily basis since the day he was elected to lead the Party.

However, now that Labour has been humiliated and is allegedly ‘seeking reflection,’ this is the right time for me to expose the tyrannical horrors this sycophantic party inflicted on its members and supporters. And, as you may imagine, I have a personal story to tell.

 My readers will remember that last year, just before Christmas, the impoverished Islington Labour Council spent  £136.000 of its taxpayers’ money on Likud Party godfather Sheldon Adelson’s lawyer in its efforts to prevent me from playing in a Rock & Roll concert at one of their venues. Two weeks before Christmas, Labour politician and Islington Council leader Richard Watts shamelessly complied with a ‘request’ from the Herut/Likud UK chairman to bar my performance. This means that  a compromised Labour politician willingly acceded to a request made by a foreign political party, one described by prominent Jewish intellectuals such as Albert Einstein and Hanna Arendt as “akin to Nazi and Fascist parties.”

 It didn’t go very well for Islington’s Labour council. A Christmas miracle occurred at its venue last December when a saxophone playing Santa Claus took care of my musical duties with near perfection execution. News of the Islington scandal spread rapidly. Thousands of people wrote to the Labour council. Many others resigned from the party in protest. One would have expected that after this fiasco, the Labour party would get off my back, But instead, this collective of uniquely ungifted characters failed to draw the most obvious and necessary lessons.

Compromised Labour politicians continued with their desperate campaign to appease the Israel Lobby by repeatedly trying to damage my reputation and music career. In January another caricature of a Labour councillor stepped in. Labour’s parliamentary candidate, Rachel Eden who is listed on the Zionist We Believe in Israel, was desperate to cancel my concert at Reading Jazz Club. Eden met with a wall of resistance. She failed to cancel my concert although she was quite successful in exposing her own true loathsome face. I am delighted to report that Eden didn’t make it into the parliament this week.

 By the end of January I realised that I was facing a campaign orchestrated by Labour to destroy me and my work. A few days after the sold out Reading concert I received the following letter from a British promoter.

“Hi Gilad,

 Hope all is well with you despite the absurdities they keep throwing at you.

I have a choice of dates for you in January next year at the XXX,. I’ve been told that if we want to book you again it has to be discussed at (Labour) council level. I’m hoping the process will be smooth…but who knows with the Labour party these days?

 See you soon,

XXXXX”

 More evidence appeared that the Labour party was deliberately attempting to destroy my artistic career and harm my reputation with the goal of seriously damaging my ability to make a living.

 Things continued to escalate. Labour Party leaders may have been foolish enough to think that ‘destroying’ Atzmon would somehow vindicate Corbyn from the crimes he didn’t commit. By March Labour was waging an all out war against my music.  As the Nazi party did, so Labour launched open warfare against a jazz venue. This time the links led directly to Corbyn’s closest ring within the Labour party. Momentum together with Jewdas, the racially exclusive Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) and Guardian Journalist Owen Jones joined forces in an attempt to mount pressure on the Vortex Jazz Club. When the club didn’t surrender, Labour’s local council, acting like the mob,  sent the police to bully the club. But even this desperate measure backfired. In its reasonable response, something unfamiliar to Labour politicians, the club requested that the police do their homework and find out who I was and what I stood for. The cops called the club a few hours later and apologised, admitting that there was nothing wrong with Atzmon.  They confirmed that there has never been a single unlawful activity attached to my name in Britain or anywhere else.

The fact that promoters and music lovers did not bow to Labour tyranny and continued booking me and coming to hear me play in every jazz venue and festival in the country should have delivered a message to the Labour leaders who pushed the anti-Atzmon war. Seemingly, the authoritarian collective, who aren’t even gifted at being authoritarian, decided upon a different  form of malevolence. They began to expel and suspend members for reading Atzmon. In some cases, they even reported their own members to the police for doing just that.

A few months ago a FB friend was suspended from the Labour Party in part because he shared articles by me and had even dared to communicate with me in the open. The Labour ‘dispute team’ accused my friend of sharing an article by me titled The Primacy of Jewish Genes. The article delved into Jewish scholarship and actually ridiculed the idea of ‘a Jewish gene,’ ‘Jewish biologism’ or a  ‘Jewish race.’

A few months after he was notified by the Labour dispute team of his suspension, the police were knocking on my FB friend’s door. The evidence the police presented of possible ‘hateful communication’ was literally identical to the Labour document. It is not clear whether the Labour party filed the police complaint against my friend or if documents were stolen from Labour and somehow triggered the police investigation. What is clear beyond doubt is that Corbyn’s Labour Party was compiling ‘incriminating’ evidence against its own members. The party has engaged in intensive surveillance of its own members, searching personal and intimate communications and digging into personal social media.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand why a party that displays such blatant disregard for elementary freedoms is not just unfit to govern. Corbyn’s Labour has been a horrendous, tyrannical Orwellian operation. Luckily, the Brits, and amongst them many Labour veterans, realised that Labour in its current authoritarian state presents an imminent threat to freedom. On election day, the Brits gave the party a fatal knockout.

I learned from my friend that the Police interrogation lasted for an entire afternoon and led to nothing, my friend is a genuine anti racist and there was nothing in his communications that even resembled hatred or any form of bigotry. At one point during the questioning, the policeman asked my friend about my article and my friend said he wondered what was wrong with it. The policeman’s answer was shocking albeit amusing. “We are also puzzled by it. We looked into it and found nothing wrong in this Atzmon guy, we thought maybe you could tell us.”

On 11 December, just one day before the general election, the press informed us that the police were probing anti Semitism within the Labour Party and had submitted an evidential file against five Labour members to the Crown Prosecution Service. It is unclear how these bundles of ‘evidence’ made it to the police in the first place, did the party report its members?  Some people believe that the files were stolen from the party by members who were even more morally compromised than their party. Either way it is clear that in compiling such files the party was acting against its members. And if this is how Labour treats its core members, try to imagine what this party could have done to its dissenters if it had been given the chance to form the government.

Three days before the election I learned about another former party member who had been permanently expelled from the party. Amongst her ‘thought crimes,’ she was accused of sharing my thoughts.

Item number one on her ‘draft charge’ from Labour was “posting an article by Gilad Atzmon that Israel runs the British Press.”

The article titled This is how Israel Runs the British Press was not an opinion piece, it was actually a leaked document that revealed the extent of Hasbara’s/Mossad’s/Sayanim’s operation in the UK. It explained how Israel and its agents manage to dominate news coverage in Britain and beyond. The leaked email revealed how BICOM (British Israel Communication & research Centre) runs the News desk for the BBC, Sky and the FT.

Corbyn’s Labour has been targeting its best members for most of the last three years and has used the most disgusting authoritarian tactics. It has intimidated activists, suspended and expelled people for truthful statements and pressured artists and venues. When some of these stories came out, a few ardent Labour supporters insisted that it was the Blairites and the Zionists in the Party who were behind this mess. They were either misled or are lying to themselves, the Corbynites were at least as bad as the others, they might well have been worse.  Foolishly, naively and wickedly, Momentum, the racially exclusive JVL and other compromised elements associated with Corbyn, thought that by targeting their comrades and yours attempting to destroy my career they could appease the Lobby and their detractors within the Jewish community. Obviously, they failed in their goal. What they achieved was the opposite. They exposed themselves for what they are: a bunch of tyrannical, compromised caricatures unfit to govern.

As of today, Corbyn is finished. The prospect of equality in the near future in Britain is gone. Corbyn, who didn’t miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, can only blame himself for the disaster his presence in British politics inflicted on all of us and on the Left in particular. But Corbyn did not create this disaster alone, he surrounded himself with advisers who were at least as gullible and dysfunctional has he.

 We learned this week that Chris Williamson, the Labour MP who supported, for a few minutes, my right to make a living and then found himself back peddling in an attempt to survive the Lobby onslaught, garnered just 695 votes last Thursday.  Williamson’s political career is probably finished. Rachel Eden, the Labour MP candidate who tried to stop me from performing in Reading failed to make it into the parliament. I guess that fighting a jazz artist and an arts centre earned her some enemies within her own constituency. I, however, am still alive and kicking. My music and literary career is untouched. Despite the desperate attempts by Corbyn’s Labour to eradicate me on behalf of the Lobby, I publish my commentaries on a daily basis and I play music every night.  On election day, I played at the Oxford Jazz club, The room was sold out well in advance. At 22.10 as I started my second set, I played a requiem for Labour and Corbyn, I made the political dirge as respectful as I could.

What we saw in Britain last Thursday could be described as a populist coup against the Labour party except Labour wasn’t even in power. One may wonder how the socialist opposition party managed to make itself so reviled. It was not Corbyn’s zigzag over Brexit that made him hated, it is not the free gifts he vowed to spread if elected, it is not the nonsense labels of anti-Semitism stuck on him, these actually made him popular. It was his party’s tyrannical and authoritarian inclinations that made Labour’s core support run away.

To locate a Labour’s enclave use a magnifying glass,

Last Thursday Labour was practically wiped out and throughout the entire country. If you want to locate Labour ghettos on the map, you may need to use a magnifying glass. The Brits managed to save themselves from a dangerous bunch of ‘well meaning’  vindictive Orwellian characters. Labour has been severely punished by the Brits. From this point on, any authoritarian attempt by Labour to interfere with elementary human rights should be met with fierce resistance: exposed and denounced. I tend to believe that in order to save the Labour Party from its current rotten state, it had better be killed off first.

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Election Result Signals a Possible End of the United Kingdom

By Alan MacLeod

Source

On the face of it, Thursday’s election result could hardly have been better for Boris Johnson and his ruling Conservative Party. Campaigning on a simple slogan of “get Brexit done,” the Tories romped to victory, winning 365 of a total of 650 seats, easily enough for a comfortable majority government. In his victory speech, the Prime Minister claimed that he was humbled that the British public had put their trust in him, and promised to make it is mission to work night and day, flat out, to get Brexit done by January 31^st, “no ifs, no buts, no maybes.”

Even better, his rivals suffered huge defeats; after what he called a “very disappointing night for the Labour Party,” Jeremy Corbyn announced he was standing down after four years in charge. Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson suffered the embarrassment of losing her East Dunbartonshire seat.

The results will be interpreted as a very clear mandate for Johnson to push forward in his plans for a quick departure from the European Union. And yet the irony is that it is precisely this insistence from many in the Conservative and Unionist Party, to give it its full name, that could lead to the breakup of the union, ending the United Kingdom forever. An October poll found that the majority of English Conservative voters would accept the fragmentation of the UK as a price for leaving the EU. Those voters may get their wish– and sooner than expected.

Scotland, who overwhelmingly voted to stay in the EU, gave the Scottish National Party (SNP) an enormous majority as the party won 47 of the country’s 59 seats on 45% of the total vote share, 12 more seats than it got in 2017. This is added to the 69 out of a possible 129 representatives in occupies in the local Scottish government, a remarkable achievement in a multi-party, proportional representation system.

The result is an undeniable mandate for a second independence referendum, the last on coming in 2014, where 45% of Scots voted to leave the union. Polls suggest that the majority will vote for independence this time. A key talking point from the anti-independence side was that the country could not be certain of staying in the EU if it left the UK, a trump card that has now turned to dust. Johnson has talked of blocking a second referendum, but SNP leader and First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon has suggested they might organize one anyway, without the backing of London, and as imminently as in a few months.

In England, the two unionist, pro-EU parties, Labour and the Liberal Democrats felt the ire of voters, leaving the political center rather vacant. Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland the strongly right-wing Protestant Democratic Unionist Party leader Nigel Dodds spectacularly lost his seat to Sinn Fein’s John Finucane. Finucane’s father was the victim of an infamous murder by loyalist paramilitaries. But Sinn Fein, a leftist party that stands for a united Ireland, has its own deep connections to the IRA. Since September, surveys have shown that a majority of Northern Irish also favor leaving the UK and unifying with the Republic of Ireland, which wrested its own independence from the UK in 1922 after a bitter armed struggle. The fact that Johnson is charging ahead with Brexit, which has much more profound consequences for Northern Ireland due to its land border with and deep connections to the EU member state to its south, will do nothing to reverse this trend.

For the first time in history, the north has elected a majority of Irish nationalist and republican politicians to the Westminster parliament, with Sinn Fein receiving 47% of the vote itself. Its leader Mary Lou McDonald claimed that the calls for a referendum on Irish unification were now “impossible to ignore.”

The underlying reason for the growing nationalist and separatist sentiment is the decades of neoliberal policies that have brought with it economic dislocation, austerity and a generalized discontent. Both real wages and living standards have been on a long, slow decline since the 1970s. This has been most apparent in the post-industrial north of England, not coincidentally the area with the strongest pro-Brexit sentiment. On the other hand, the populations of the ravaged cities of Glasgow and Belfast have had their energies channeled into a more progressive vision of independence.

It is precisely the Conservative Party who are most responsible for implementing the economic changes that have led to this situation. Ironic then, that they have been granted the dubious honor of pushing through a Brexit that will likely only make the problem worse. In his victory speech outside 10 Downing Street, Johnson described himself as a “one nation Conservative.” He may be ruling over a much smaller one very soon.

Someone Interfered in the UK Election, and It Wasn’t Russia

By Caitlin Johnstone

Global Research, December 14, 2019

CaitlinJohnstone.com 13 December 2019

Ladies and gentlemen I have here at my fingertips indisputable proof that egregious election meddling took place in the United Kingdom on Thursday.

Before you get all excited, no, it wasn’t the Russians. It wasn’t the Chinese, the Iranians, Cobra Command or the Legion of Doom. I’m not going to get any Rachel Maddow-sized paychecks for revealing this evidence to you, nor am I going to draw in millions of credulous viewers waiting with bated breath for a bombshell revelation of an international conspiracy that will invalidate the results of the election.

In fact, hardly anyone will even care.

Hardly anyone will care because this election interference has been happening right out in the open, and was perfectly legal. And nobody will suffer any consequences for it.

Rania Khalek

✔@RaniaKhalek

The centrists and mainstream media outlets are responsible for the right wing win in the UK. They spent all their time bashing and smearing Jeremy Corbyn bc they will always prioritize smashing the left, even if it means allying with the far right. Shameful.

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4:18 AM – Dec 13, 2019

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Nobody will suffer any consequences for interfering in the UK election because the ones doing the interfering were extremely powerful, and that’s who the system is built to serve.

As of this writing British exit polls are indicating a landslide victory for the Tories. Numerous other factors went into this result, including most notably a Labour Party ambivalently straddling an irreconcilable divide on the issue of Brexit, but it is also undeniable that the election was affected by a political smear campaign that was entirely unprecedented in scale and vitriol in the history of western democracy. This smear campaign was driven by billionaire-controlled media outlets, along with intelligence and military agencies, as well as state media like the BBC.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been described as the most smeared politician in history, and this is a fair description. Journalist Matt Kennard recently compiled documentation of dozens of incidentsin which former and current spooks and military officials collaborated with plutocratic media institutions to portray Corbyn as a threat to national security. Journalistic accountability advocates like Media Lens and Jonathan Cook have been working for years to compile evidence of the mass media’s attempts to paint Corbyn as everything from a terrorist sympathizer to a Communist to a Russian asset to an IRA supporter to a closet antisemite. Just the other day The Grayzone documented how establishment narrative manager Ben Nimmo was enlisted to unilaterally target Corbyn with a fact-free Russiagate-style conspiracy theory in the lead-up to the election, a psyop that was uncritically circulated by both right-wing outlets like The Telegraph as well as ostensibly “left”-wing outlets like The Guardian.

US and UK Military-Intelligence Apparatus Campaigns to Destroy Jeremy Corbyn

Just as Corbyn’s advocacy for the many over the plutocratic few saw him targeted by billionaire media outlets, his view of Palestinians as human beings saw him targeted by the imperialist Israel lobby as exposed in the Al Jazeera documentary The Lobby. For a mountain of links refuting the bogus antisemitism smear directed at Corbyn, a lifelong opponent of antisemitism, check out the deluge of responses to this query I made on Twitter the other day.

This interference continued right up into the day before the election, with the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg flagrantly violating election rules by reporting that early postal votes had been illegally tallied and results were “looking very grim for Labour”.

Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz

There was extreme election interference in the #UKElection. It didn’t come from the Russians. It didn’t come from the Chinese. It came from the billionaire class and its political/media lackeys. And it was perfectly legal.

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The historically unprecedented smear campaign that was directed at Corbyn from the right, the far-right, and from within his own party had an effect. Of course it did. If you say this today on social media you’ll get a ton of comments telling you you’re wrong, telling you every vote against Labour was exclusively due to the British people not wanting to live in a Marxist dystopia, telling you it was exclusively because of Brexit, totally denying any possibility that the years of deceitful mass media narrative management that British consciousness was pummelled with day in and day out prior to the election had any impact whatsoever upon its results.

Right. Sure guys. Persistent campaigns to deliberately manipulate people’s minds using mass media have no effect on their decisions at all. I guess that’s why that whole “advertising” fad never made any money.

I am not claiming here that the billions of dollars worth of free mass media reporting that was devoted to smearing Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party had a greater effect on the election results than Brexit and other strategic stumbles in the party. I’m just saying that it definitely had a much greater effect than the few thousand dollars Russian nationals spent on social media memes in the US, which the American political/media class has been relentlessly shrieking about for three years. To deny that a media smear campaign the size and scope of that directed at Corbyn had an effect is the same as denying that advertising, a trillion-dollar industry, has an effect.

Which means that plutocrats and government agencies indisputably interfered in the British election, to an exponentially greater extent than anything the Russians are even alleged to have done. Yet according to British law it was perfectly legal, and according to British society it was perfectly acceptable. It’s perfectly legal and acceptable for powerful individuals to have a vastly greater influence on a purportedly democratic election than any of the ordinary individuals voting in it.

A free and healthy society would not work this way. A free and healthy society would view all forms of manipulation as taboo and unacceptable. A free and healthy society would not allow the will of members of one small elite class to carry more weight than the will of anyone else. A free and healthy society would give everyone an equal voice at the table, and look after everyone’s concerns. It certainly wouldn’t tolerate a few individuals who already have far too much abusing their power and wealth to obtain even more.

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Switzerland: the political system and the cold arrogance

by Paul Schmutz Schaller for the Saker Blog

Since more than 125 years, Switzerland has a very interesting tradition of popular votes. There are three situations which lead to a popular vote:

a) (Small) changes of the constitution, proposed by the government and approved by the parliament.

b) (Small) changes of the constitution, proposed by a popular initiative, which needs to collect 100’000 signatures (not online!); actually, there are 5.44 millions who are entitled to vote so that 100’000 are about 1.84% of all.

c) New laws or changes of existing laws, proposed by the government and approved by the parliament, if there is a popular referendum, which needs 50’000 signatures.

In the last 10 years, there were 85 popular votes, with very diverse subjects, for example: social and economical questions; questions of immigration and asylum; questions of environment, energy, and nutrition; taxes; transport (roads, railways); medical questions; security and army. Of the 85 popular votes, 16 were of category a) (13 of them were approved in the vote), 46 of category b) (6 of them were approved, against the recommendation of the government), and 23 of category c) (in 16 cases, the proposal of the government and the parliament was approved). Hence, in 16 of the 85 votes, the government did not win. The participation was quite variable; usually, it is between 40% and 50%.

Please do not think that these votes are something like “people” against “elite” or “working class” against “monopoly capital”. Such votes do not exist in reality, at least not in Switzerland. Nearly each vote is the result of some divisions among the ruling classes. Each side tries to convince the population that it supports the real interests of the people while the other side defends only egoistic, particular interests. Of course, in most cases, there are huge differences concerning the financial resources of the two sides. Moreover, the press is in the hands of very few people (as usually in Western countries), which gives them a big advantage. Nevertheless, they are not omnipotent and it arrives that their money and their propaganda is not well targeted.

By the way, the results are usually not overwhelming clear. Only sometimes for subjects of category a) since in these cases, a popular vote is necessary even if there is no serious political opposition. Aside from such cases, there was only one popular vote in the last 10 years, where the losing side got less than 20%. The subject was a popular initiative of a small political party, which demanded a radical change of the tax system without being able to simply explain how the new tax system would work. They got only 8%. On the other hand, close results occur regularly.

Some examples of popular votes

Let me now discuss some examples. As in many other countries, the financing of the retirement is a problem in Switzerland, due to important changes in the age structure of the population. Generally speaking, I think that the Swiss population is quite aware of the problem. However, obviously, right wing parties and left wing parties greatly differ on the method how to solve this problem. In this situation, a quite creative idea emerged in the parliament. In 2017, the government had lost three popular votes, two concerning the retirement and one concerning tax relief for commercial enterprises. The first two were lost mainly due to the opposition of right wing parties while the third was opposed by left wing parties. So, the parliament proposed a combination of the two subjects, considering that both sides would have some advantages as well as disadvantages. This proposition was clearly accepted in a popular vote in 2019.

The immigration question has occupied the Swiss population since at least 50 years. In 2014, a popular initiative for the limitation of the immigration was accepted in a popular vote by 50,3% against 49,7%. This was almost a political sensation, which had some immediate consequences. Since the result was close and very unexpected, some people quite quickly proposed to repeat the popular vote. However, one must underline that these were rather amateurish people, politically speaking. No important political party, which was among the losers of the vote, gave support to this proposition and a second popular vote will not happen. On the other hand, popular initiatives are usually formulated quite generally and it is up to the parliament to elaborate the precise laws. In this case, the winners of the vote were not satisfied with the elaboration of the parliament.

Switzerland has the reputation of being a beautiful country and I shall not say the contrary. Protection of the environment has a long popular tradition in this country. In 2012, a popular initiative was accepted with 50.6% against 49.4%. It demanded the restriction of the construction of secondary residences, which was mainly a problem in the touristic regions of the Alps. This result also was a huge surprise. In this case, there were no demands for repeating the vote; however, again, the winners were not completely satisfied with the successive elaboration of the laws by the parliament.

In a popular vote in 2014, it was rejected that Switzerland buys new fighter jets. This also was an important defeat for the government. Many Swiss think that fighter jets are expensive prestige objects. Clearly, the subject is not closed and more popular votes will come. I wonder whether the recent experiences with Yemen and Saudi Arabia will have some influence.

My last example is from 2013 where a popular initiative – called fat cat initiative – was accepted with 68,0%. In the history of Switzerland, this was the highest score for a popular initiative which was not supported by the government. The subject turned around the excessive salaries of top managers. The vote was a kind of protest against the parallel world in Switzerland, formed by the top managers of big enterprises and their sponsors. Ordinary Swiss people have no access to this world, which functions in its own way. I would think that few people have the illusion that the acceptance of this popular initiative will change much. But it was a warning to this parallel world, indicating that the population is not completely defenceless against them.

In the light of the Swiss experiences, let me make some comments about the most famous popular vote in the world of the last years, namely the vote on Brexit of June 2016. Recall that the participation was 72.2% and the result was 51.9% to 48.1%. In the international press, this was characterized as a close vote. Moreover, prominent politicians, for example former prime minister Blair, almost immediately demanded a repetition of the vote, based among other things on online petitions. From my point of view, this all is nonsense. A difference of 3.8% cannot be judged as close, considering also the high participation and the fact that the British government was against Brexit. The actual prime minister Johnson may be what he is, but for me, his main argument – that one has to respect the popular vote on Brexit – is completely legitimate.

A government of national unity

The Swiss government consists of seven members, called federal council. In principle, each one has the same power; the president changes each year by a rotation principle. Federal councils are elected by the parliament. As a consequence of the system of popular votes, the Swiss government is a government of national unity, not by law, but by tradition. Important political forces are integrated in this way. In the last 80 years, there are three essential examples. Beginning in 1943, the worker and trade union movement was integrated and has – since 1959 – two members of the government. Since 1971, Swiss women are entitled to vote and now, a Swiss government without women is unthinkable (actually 3 of the 7 are women). In connexion with the problems of immigration, the Swiss party with the clearest position against exaggerated immigration became the most important party. As a consequence, this party has now 2 members of the government.

Again from a Swiss point of view, the political system in France is not effective. It systematically excludes large parts of the population, in particular the parties of Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon. It is obvious for me that the protest movement of the “Gilets Jaunes” is a consequence of this exclusion, provoked by the political system.

The next elections for the Swiss parliament will be on 20 October 2019. In December 2019, the new parliament will elect or re-elect the 7 federal councils. Concerning the parliament elections, everybody expects important gains for the green and ecological parties. This will then raise the question whether one of the federal councils should be from an ecological party. Such questions are among the most discussed and most interesting in Swiss politics.

Generally speaking, the Swiss population is very content with the political system. Usually, the approval rating of the government is much higher in Switzerland than in other Western countries.

Relations with the European Union (EU)

Switzerland is not a member of the EU, but is surrounded by countries of the EU. Therefore, the relations with the EU are crucial. Some 25 years ago, the EU was quite popular in Switzerland. But this has very much changed. Today, it is merely seen as a necessary evil to have good relations with the EU. Paradoxically, the majority in Switzerland seems however to be opposed that other countries leave the EU.

Recently, the Swiss government has negotiated a new bundle of treatises with the EU. For the EU, the subject seems to be settled. However, in Switzerland, the result of the negotiations will have no chance in a popular vote (which necessarily will be held). The Swiss government is aware of this situation and looks for some improvements. I must say that I am looking forward to a confrontation between the Swiss population and the EU concerning these new treatises.

Why are there dissidents in Switzerland?

One cannot say that the Swiss political system is bad. As I said, the country is quite beautiful and, moreover, quite rich, modern, and open to the world. So, why are we not all happy? Why are there dissidents like me? Of course, I can only give my own explications. By the way, if you read “About the Saker” on this website, you will easily conclude that the Saker is a Swiss citizen, but not particularly happy about his experiences in Switzerland – to say the least.

From an abstract point of view, you can say that Switzerland is a typical Western country. Take as an example the fact that the “approval rating” in the Swiss population of countries like Russia, Iran, or Syria is very small. And since the case of the Occident in the world is utterly unfair, it is only logical that you become a dissident if you live in a Western country. Ok, this is a simple formula, which moreover is not wrong. However, in some sense, it completely misses the point. I claim that nobody becomes a dissident just by rational reflection. What really matter are life experience and a protracted confrontation with the society.

I would say that a dissident is somebody who expects nothing more from his or her country. Who no longer looks for being integrated. Not because of revenge, but because of he or she has tried hard for some reasonable time, but did not find any possible way. Accordingly, I completely lost my faith in Switzerland. I would not longer appreciate being identified with Switzerland. I owe nothing to this country. Ok, I admit that I was disappointed when Roger Federer lost the Wimbledon final despite having match points. And I would support Swiss football team (soccer, for Americans) against most other countries, including China and Russia (but not against Syria, Iran, or Venezuela). But this is more nostalgia, than anything else.

In fact, I consider Switzerland as a boring country. No positive dreams, no ideals, no engagement, no ideas, not even serious discussions. Only chilling defence of the achievements – which, in principle, is not wrong, but the problem is the “only”. And above all, an intolerable arrogance against all that is not glorifying Western hegemony.

“But you have the right of expressing all this criticism.” I hear this argument since 50 years. But only recently, I understood what is thoroughly wrong with it. It suggests that criticism is the aim. But no, I was not born for criticizing. Looking for critics was never my first reaction, except maybe very occasionally in my youth. Ok, I had my own ideas – but for constructive reasons. What I was looking for was the opportunity to contribute to the society as well as possible. But again and again, I was frustrated. The society did not at all care about my contributions. They wanted just my subordination to the existing order. So, finally, I lost interest and became a dissident. Obviously, this made me more calm and easy-going. And as the Saker says: “The deserts are filled with submarines.”

Tell me again how we are likely to benefit from #Brexit

Brexit is crazy, there are no perceivable advantages or benefits for the average British citizens. Nearly 50% of our trade is with the EU and there are no guarantees that can be replaced from elsewhere. Boris Johnson seems to believe that his friend Trump will help him but any trade deals with the USA would be at a cost and could seriously jeopardize public institutions, particularly the NHS.

Undoubtedly there will be a sharp increase in unemployment, factories closing, farmers bankrupt, loss of investment, the pound falling in value resulting in higher prices. This is not scare warmongering, it’s an unavoidable reality.

According to my energy provider 50% of our energy requirements, gas and electricity, are imported from the EU, so we will be at risk of price hikes and a lack of supply. Immigration, the main motivation of Brexiteers, is unlikely to fall, because it’s immigration which we desperately need.

Another complaint by Brexit supporters is that the EU was making British law, but from my experience not one has been able to be specific in regard to which laws they are referring to or which laws hadn’t been approved by the British Government.

So please tell me why are we going through all this uncertainty, pain and expense, what are the possible benefits? No doubt a few individuals might benefit, the likes of Johnson and Farage, from lower wages and lucrative trade deals from sources which do not have the UK’s interests at heart.

The Western Alliance Is Falling Apart

By Peter Koenig

Global Research, August 02, 2019

Ever since Imran Khan became the 22^nd Prime Minister of Pakistan in August 2018, the winds have changed. While his predecessors, though generally leaning eastwards, have often wavered between the US and the China orbit, Khan is in the process of clearly defining his alliances with the east, in particular China. This is for the good of his country, for the good of the Middle East, and eventually for the good of the world.

A few days ago, RT reported that China, in addition to the expansion of the new port in Gwadar, Balochistan, has entered agreements with Pakistan to build a military/air base in Pakistan, a new Chinese city for some half a million people, as well as several road and railway improvement projects, including a highway connecting the cities of Karachi and Lahore, reconstruction of the Karakoram Highway, linking Hasan Abdal to the Chinese border, as well as upgrading the Karachi-Peshwar main railway to be completed by the end of 2019, for trains to travel up to 160km / hour.

This rehabilitation of dilapidated Pakistani transportation infrastructure is not only expected to contribute between 2% and 3% of Pakistan’s future GDP, but it offers also another outlet for Iranian gas / hydrocarbons, other than through the Strait of Hurmuz – for example, by rail to the new port of Gwadar which, by the way, is also a new Chinese naval base. From Gwadar Iranian hydrocarbon cargos can be shipped everywhere, including to China, Africa and India. With the new China-built transportation infrastructure Iranian gas can also be shipped overland to China.

In fact, these infrastructure developments, plus several electric power production projects, still mostly fed by fossil fuel, to resolve Pakistani’s chronic energy shortage, are part of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also, called the New Silk Road. They are a central part of the new so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which was first designed in 2015 during a visit by China’s President Xi Jinping, when some 51 Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) worth then some US$ 46 billion were signed. Pakistan is definitely out of the US orbit.

Today, in the CPEC implementation phase, the projects planned or under construction are estimated at over US$ 60 billion. An estimated 80% are direct investments with considerable Pakistani participation and 20% Chinese concessionary debt. Clearly, Pakistan has become a staunch ally of China – and this to the detriment of the US role in the Middle East.

Washington’s wannabe hegemony over the Middle East is fading rapidly. See also Michel Chossudovsky’s detailed analysis “US Foreign Policy in Shambles: NATO and the Middle East. How Do You Wage War Without Allies?”.

A few days ago, Germany has refused Washington’s request to take part in a US-led maritime mission in the Strait of Hormuz, under the pretext to secure hydrocarbon shipments through this Iran-controlled narrow water way. In reality it is more like a new weaponizing of waterways, by controlling who ships what to whom – and applying “sanctions” by blocking or outright pirating of tankers destined for western ‘enemy’ territories.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas announced last Wednesday in Warsaw, Poland, that there “cannot be a military solution” to the current crisis in the Persian Gulf and that Berlin will turn down Washington’s request to join the US, British and French operation “aimed at protecting sea traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, and combating so-called “Iranian aggression.”

This idea of the Washington war hawks was conceived after Iran’s totally legal seizure of the British-flagged Stena Impero oil tanker, after it rammed an Iranian fishing boat a couple of weeks ago. However, nothing is said about the totally illegal and US-ordered British piracy of the Iranian super tanker Grace I off the coast of Gibraltar in Spanish waters (another infraction of international law), weeks earlier. While Grace I’s crew in the meantime has been released, the tanker is still under British capture, but western media remain silent about it, but lambast Iran for seizing a British tanker in the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump – from China to Iran to Venezuela – Threats and Sanctions Everywhere – A Chronicle of Disorganized Chaos Foretold

Germany remains committed to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – JCPOA (the Iran nuclear deal), from which the United States unilaterally withdrew a year ago, and Germany will therefore not intervene on behalf of the US.

Add to this Turkey – a key NATO member both for her strategic location and NATO’s actual military might established in Turkey – moving ever closer to the east, and becoming a solid ally of Russia, after having ignored Washington’s warnings against Turkey’s purchasing of Russian S-400 cutting-edge air defense systems. For “sleeping with the enemy” – i.e. moving ever closer to Russia, the US has already punished Turkey’s economy by manipulating her currency to fall by about 40% since the beginning of 2018. Turkey is also a candidate to become a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and so is Iran.

Turkey has become a de facto lame duck as a NATO member and may soon officially exit NATO which would be a tremendous blow to the North Atlantic Alliance – and may tempt other European NATO nations to do likewise. Probably not overnight, but the idea of an ever more defunct NATO is planted.

All indications are that the future, economically and security wise – is in the East. Even Europe may eventually ‘dare’ making the jump towards better relations with primarily Russia and Central Asia and eventually with China.

And that especially if and when Brexit happens – which is by no means a sure thing. Just in case, the UK has already prepared bilateral trade relations with China, ready to be signed – if and when – the UK exits the EU.

Will the UK, another staunch US ally, jump ship? – Unlikely. But dancing on two weddings simultaneously is a customary Anglo-Saxon game plan. The Brits must have learned it from their masters in Washington, who in turn took the lessons from the Brits as colonial power for centuries, across the Atlantic.

Western, US-led war on Iran is therefore unlikely. There is too much at stake, and especially, there are no longer any reliable allies in the region. Remember, allies – shall we call them puppets or peons, are normally doing the dirty work for Washington.
So, threatening, warning and annoying provocations by the US with some of its lasting western allies may continue for a while. It makes for good propaganda. After all, packing up and going home is not exactly Uncle Sam’s forte. The western alliance is no longer what it used to be. In fact, it is in shambles. And Iran knows it.

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21^st Century; TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image is from The Freedom Articles

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“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling)
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Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Peter Koenig, Global Research, 2019

Boris Johnson, Brexit and the Deep State

August 01, 2019

by Nick Griffin for The Saker Blog

Nick Griffin, a life-long opponent of the European Union and former Member of the European Parliament, explains why – after three years of believing that the rulers of Britain would block Brexit, he now believes it is more likely than not to be delivered.

Are the British people really going to get Brexit? For years, the answer given by well-informed realists has had to be ‘No!’ The UK’s ruling elite was so thoroughly Europhile that they would do whatever it took to block the will of the British people, and Brussels would go along with this deceit, just as they did when the French, the Dutch and the Irish were sold out to the EU by their own masters.

But today I’m going to tell you that it is now more likely than not that Brexit WILL happen. Indeed, assuming the new Boris Johnson regime manages to cling on to power, or is forced into a general election in which Johnson reaches some sort of deal with Nigel Farage, it is now virtually guaranteed.

Of course, there is a faint possibility that the whole Johnson business is a giant game of three-dimensional chess, and that he’s running an elaborate scam with no intention of getting Britain out. But, realistically, if that was the plan, there would be absolutely no purpose in delaying such a betrayal, still less in raising so many expectations.

To encourage and then dash such hopes would be ludicrously self-defeating, so we have to assume that Johnson and Co are serious and that – barring a series of events outside of their control, they WILL deliver Brexit.

So what has changed? Has the Europhile British elite suddenly had a change of heart and decided to do the decent thing by the people who pay their inflated salaries?

Of course not. Leopards don’t change their spots. But, in the case of the UK elite, it was always divided into two leopards, with very different spots. One of them, for years now the stronger animal, was blue with yellow, spots – a thoroughly European beast.

The colours of the, until recently, smaller animal are harder to discern. At first glance, they could be seen to resemble the American flag although, of course, that’s just part of the camouflage. Look closer and the thing’s coat actually looks more like a mass of intertwined dollar signs and Israeli flags!

Even within the USA, opinion has been divided on Britain’s membership of the European Union. Obama, for example, more or less ordered the Brits to vote to Remain – a factor in the decision of quite a few of them to vote to Leave! The neo-cons, by contrast, have become much more hostile to Brussels – particularly since the EU started to display alarming degrees of sympathy for the Palestinians.

It wasn’t always like that. During the Cold War, the US elite was more or less unanimously in favour of British membership of the EU, which right from the start was consistently promoted by the CIA as a block to balance the Soviet Union.

When the Communist regime collapsed in 1989, the US power elite gradually shifted its position on the EU. It moved from fervent support to a sort of agnostic, nothing to do with us boredom. But then it gradually became clear that the European Union was steadily becoming the pawn of the German industrial complex.

Even worse, the Germans were beginning to cosy up to Russia. Within just a few years, the combination of German manufacturing, the European market and Russia’s raw materials were clearly presenting a future threat to the global hegemony of Wall Street, the Federal Reserve and the American military-industrial complex.

On top of this, the in-built liberal-socialist majority within the EU was making it an increasingly large stumbling block to the globalist privatisation free-for-all favoured by the ultra-capitalist ideology promoted by the extremely influential followers of Ayn Rand.

Franco-German moves to create a European Army were seen as a challenge to NATO and to its Stateside leadership, and only served to strengthen the arguments of the anti-EU faction within the US elite.

All this led a significant section of the US Deep state to move towards hostility to the European Union, and to put in place measures to undermine it. From about 2008, this included the relentless media promotion (and, no doubt, funding) of dissident, Euro-sceptic political movements, particularly UKIP in Britain and the Five Star Movement in Italy.

Extremely well-funded globalist and neo-con think tanks, particularly the Henry Jackson Society and the London-based Policy Exchange, began to organise. Their mission – to lay the theoretical groundwork for a globalist, economically liberal, Atlanticist faction within British politics to challenge the pro-EU majority.

To cut a long story short, that faction has just grabbed control of the British ship of state! The Europhile elite have not changed their minds, the highly honed survival instinct of the British Conservative party, which has made it the oldest political party in the world, has simply handed the reins of power to a different bunch of politicians, in hock to a different foreign power. The UK just lurched even further out of the orbit of the Brussels bureaucrats and even closer to the Anglo-Zionist Empire.

Johnson and his gang really do appear committed to delivering Brexit, but before those who voted for it in the first place get too excited, it has to be said that, in delivering the letter of what the people voted for, this bunch will go on to drive a coach and horses through the spirit of that vote.

Because the British people voted Brexit fundamentally in a collective cry of anger and pain over being turned into marginalised outsiders in their own country. Brussels rule was conflated not just with losing our traditional weights and measures, but with the destruction of the old industries – fishing, coal, steel, ship-building – and the devastation of the working class communities that relied on them.

And, of course, with mass immigration, including that from former British colonies in the Third World, an influx which if anything was slowed down by the more recent arrival of generally far more assimilable East Europeans, courtesy of the EU.

On top of that was all the unease of millions of normal people over the political elite’s Gaderene rush to embrace social ultra-liberalism, in particular dripping wet law and order policies and a mania for LGBTQ+ triumphalism. Relentless newspaper headlines about crackpot rulings by the European Court of Justice led to ‘Europe’ getting the blame for a breakdown in law and order and in traditional justice.

Finally, with the majority of the political class urging people to vote to Remain, voting to Leave became a way of punishing the political elite, not just in Brussels, but in Westminster as well.

And yet, looking at the new Boris Johnson cabinet, and listening to his first few speeches as new Prime Minister, it is already all too clear that, while we are going to get Brexit, it certainly will not be the Brexit that the majority of Brits thought they were voting for!

To illustrate this, let’s take a brief, non-exhaustive look at some of the key players in the Johnson regime.

Let’s start with the man himself, noting the speed with which he spoke out about his pride in his partial Turkish Muslim and east European Jewish ancestry and the way in which, if ‘Islamophobia’ or ‘anti-Semitism’ rear their heads, he automatically finds himself thinking in terms of those ancestral loyalties, rather than what is good for Britain – as the British people are surely entitled to insist on in their Prime Minister.

Then, in one of his final campaign speeches, Johnson told the LGBT+ Conservatives (the tautology neatly sums up the state of the party and, more generally, Britain’s ruling political and media classes) that he has their back:

“I will continue to champion LGBT+ equality, get tough on hate crime and ensure that we break down barriers to a fairer society,” Johnson said, according to the group.

“We must do more to ensure that trans rights are protected and those who identify as trans or intersex are able to live their lives with dignity,” he continued, noting that he was one of the first senior party leaders to support same-sex marriage.

Following his meeting with the queen to officially accept the premiership, Johnson specifically mentioned the LGBTQ+ community in his speech outside No. 10 Downing Street.

“[The U.K.’s] brand and political personality is admired and even loved around the world for our inventiveness, for our humour, for our universities, our scientists, our armed forces, our diplomacy for the equalities on which we insist — whether race or gender or LGBT …….. and for the values we stand for around the world,” he said

Once upon a time, British political leaders justified going to war by speaking of making the world safe for democracy. Boris Johnson started his premiership by committing Britain to a global struggle to make the world safe for buggery!

Nor is this fixation with LGBTQ+ new. Although the never-satisfied ‘gay’ lobby is whining about a couple of throwaway ‘homophobic comments’ he made decades ago, Johnson voted in 2003 to repeal Section 28 of the Local Government Act of 1988, by which Margaret Thatcher prohibited local authorities from “promoting homosexuality” or “pretended family relationships.”

This vote opened the door to the indoctrination of school-children with homosexual propaganda. Johnson also voted for civil partnerships for homosexuals and attacked the institution of marriage as ‘bourgeois convention’.

Johnson has also wasted no time reiterating his support for an amnesty for huge numbers of illegal immigrants and boasting of sharing the views of pro-immigration Labour party MPs. Ominously, he has also refused to pledge even to attempt to stick to the upper limits on immigration promised – but of course not delivered – by his predecessor Theresa May.

With Brexit making it harder for Poles and Hungarians to come to Britain, it is already clear from Johnson’s waffle about making the UK ‘open’ and ‘welcoming immigrants’, that, far from stopping immigration as millions of voters expected, Johnson’s Brexit will merely swap Polish immigrants for more Pakistanis, Bulgarians for Botswanans.

Johnson probably will set Britain free from Brussels, but he is also openly committed to speeding up the process by which the duly ‘liberated’ Brits are replaced in their own country by a further flood of immigrants. And the social liberals posing as Johnson’s fake conservatives will urge the stupid Brits to suck it up and celebrate their added diversity.

We’ve already seen the start of this process in Johnson creating what he refers to as a “cabinet for modern Britain” – wording that The Guardian’s Kehinde Andrews rightly described as a “euphemism for non-white”.

Leading Johnson’s Great Replacement charge will be Home Secretary Priti Patel, who has spoken gushingly of how the new government will “ continue to push for a dynamic, global Britain that is outward looking ……Our vision is for a truly global country – one where we welcome the brightest and best, where we are more outward facing, and where we decide who comes here based on what they have to offer.”

The Brits can’t say they weren’t warned. Because capitalism demands not just cheap labour, but also an endless supply of new consumers. Even the worse educated and least assimilable featherless biped on the planet thus has plenty to offer big business. The door is going to open wide to them all.

Patel was forced to resign two years ago after holding secret meetings with Israeli ministers. The meetings included a visit to an Israeli army field hospital in the occupied Golan Heights, where wounded Al Qaeda and ISIS fighters were patched up and sent back to continue fighting against the pro-Christian government in Syria. Patel asked officials within her department to look into whether British aid money could be funneled into this medical centre.

The same dangerous obsequiousness to Israel has also been shown by Johnson’s new Chancellor, Sajid Javid. Two years after becoming MP, Javid told the Conservative Friends of Israel annual lunch that as a British born Muslim if he had to go and live in the Middle East, he would not go to a Muslim majority country: “There is only one place I could possibly go. Israel. The only nation in the Middle East that shares the same democratic values as Britain”.

He is talking, let us remind ourselves, about the last openly racist state on the planet, whose supporters around the world insist on the right of Jews to have their own exclusive homeland, at the very same time as denouncing any attempt by any white nation to restrict immigration or preserve traditional ethnic identities as ‘neo-Nazi’. And the state which has done more than any other –except Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Barak Obama’s White House – to fund, arm and aid the Islamist head-cutters at war in Syria.

In her resignation letter Patel admitted she “fell below the high standards that are expected of a Secretary of State.” Not for the first time! In the past she has been criticised for taking trips to Bahrain funded by that country’s repression Salafist regime, and attending a conference in Washington paid for by the Henry Jackson society.

As already noted, the Henry Jackson operation is one of the best-funded and most dangerous of all the trans-Atlantic neo-con think tanks. It constantly agitates for hostility to Russia, Iraq-war style meddling in the Middle East on behalf of Eretz Israel and Big Oil, and for a poisonous mixture of ultra-right-wing economics and social liberalism – including the privatisation of national assets and the promotion of LGBTQ+ agendas at the expense of traditional values.

The same sort of poison is promoted in Britain by the closely connected Policy Exchange think-tank. This was founded by Michael Gove, who Johnson just appointed as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in many ways his political Chief of Staff in parliament.

Gove’s counterpart within the government itself is Munira Mirza, who Johnson just appointed Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit. She was previously Development Director at Policy Exchange and also worked on a range of its publications, including Living Apart Together: British Muslims and the paradox of multiculturalism.

As with all the other material coming out of the Johnson camp about multi-culturalism, this argued that the chief problem with Islam is that it hinders ‘integration’ – i.e. the process by which traditional British cultural and ethnic identity is replaced by the ultimate corporate dream of an atomised mass of rootless, identical consumers. And by which the traditional values once upheld by Christians and now defended mainly by Muslims are to be replaced by the anti-morality of the LGBTQ+ brigade and corporations greedy for pink pounds and rainbow dollars.

As with so many neo-cons on both sides of the Pond, Mirza started off as a Trotskyite. She was a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party. When it was dissolved in 1987 she followed other key comrades into the Living Marxism operation and then Spiked magazine, which has very successfully operated a policy of entryism into what passes for politica thought in Britain. Her Wiki entry quotes an article in the London Review of Books which noted that “Many of Munira’s ex party members have become influential in Conservative or Eurosceptic circles since the dissolution of their party, whilst remaining closely associated with each other’s endeavours.”

This includes the former party leader Frank Furedi, whose wife Ann is one of Britain’s most powerful abortionists. Strange ‘conservatives’ indeed! But, there again, one reading of these ‘ex’-Trotskyites’ new-found fondness for ultra-right-wing economics and privatisation is that the resulting exploitation and public anger will lead to the revolutionary crisis that eluded them when they were all wearing Che T-shirts in the late sixties! Or perhaps, it just pays better!

Coming back closer to Johnson, his campaign chief was Gavin Williamson. When Defence Secretary, Williamson was a notorious hawk against Russia and China, and for greater UK involvement in the Middle East. He also spoke out vigorously against Britain’s continued participation in Galileo, the global navigation satellite system created by the European Union. He is one of those pushing for a new UK system, compatible with the American GPS, and fully integrated with Five Eyes, the intelligence alliance between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States and the UK. As with all such manoeuvres, it is hard to see where money gives way to ideology and power-politics and, of course, they are hopelessly entangled.

It is Williamson who has given one of the clearest glimpses into the Atlanticist obsession of the new regime: “Tthe cornerstone of European security is not the European Union, it is Nato. Let’s be absolutely clear. Our involvement in Nato is going to be there, long, enduring and for many, many defence secretaries after me.”

Another part of the Anglo-American elite can also be seen when you turn over another stone in the Johnson camp.

.Andrew Griffith, the new chief business adviser to Number 10 is a former Rothschild investment banker who joined Rupert Murdoch’s Sky in 1999, and became finance chief for the group in 2008.

Johnson has been spending up to 13 hours a day at Griffith’s lavish £9.5m townhouse,

A Johnson campaign source said Griffith had kindly opened up his home to let members of the transition team meet there. If paying the piper leads to the donor calling the tune, how much more power accrues to the Rothschild/Murdoch man providing the dancers with a 9.5 million pound house?

Finally, we just have time to consider Johnson’s new Chief Whip, Mark Spencer. Taking the new regime’s enthusiasm for LGBTQ+ issues towards its logical liberal intolerant end, he has said that Christian teachers who dare to voice opposition to same-sex marriage should be subject to ‘Extremism Disruption Orders’. In other words, legislation brought in supposedly to stop Islamist hate-preachers recruiting terrorists is to be used against Christians who stand by the teachings of the Bible!

So, yes, we can now expect Brexit from Johnson. But Britain is also going to get more mass immigration. And ruthless demonization of anyone who dares oppose it. More LGBTQ+ propaganda for children – and ruthless repression of anyone who dares oppose it.

More pressure for British participation in neo-con, Zionist and Salafist wars in Syria, Iran and Yemen. More insane and dangerous sabre-rattling against traditionalist and Christian Russia.

And more looting of what remains of Britain’s common wealth by the privatisation vultures. Finishing off the monetisation of the NHS is sure to surface as a great ambition for this corporate puppet regime sooner rather than later. Almost certainly a couple of months before Johnson delivers Brexit and obliterates Jeremy Corbyn in a snap general election.

It remains to be seen whether the globalist kleptomaniacs behind the new regime will also find a way to turn the removal of EU subsidies into an opportunity to arrange a massive transfer of farmland in Britain from farmers, workers’ pension funds and the old landed aristocracy and into the hands of global corporations. If that’s on the agenda too, remember where you heard it first!

All the above presupposes, of course, that the juvenile and utterly irresponsible anti-Russian, anti-Iranian and anti-Chinese sabre-rattling – of which the Johnson regime is as guilty as its predecessors – doesn’t actually start World War Three. Because, if it does, there’ll be nothing left to privatise and loot except the last tin of beans in the irradiated rubble.

Don’t get me wrong: This is not to condemn Brexit. The British people voted for it, and its delivery will be a Good Thing (not least because it has added, and will continue to add, to the instability in the EU which has disrupted the efforts of its bureaucratic rulers to maintain a firmly anti-Russian line, and because, however imperfect, Brexit is a blow for national sovereignty against a particularly nasty little imperial project.

All of us who, one way or another, helped set in motion or advance the process which defeated the pro-EU whores who had sold Britain to Brussels can be rightly proud of having done their bit to break the claws of the largest leopard in the London-based elite.

But you can also be sure that the British majority are going to be mightily disappointed with the new Johnson regime leopard and how Brexit turns out. They voted to restore the old Britain, particularly the Old England. What they will get instead is an even faster dissolution than we saw under EU rule.

They voted against ‘political correctness gone mad’ and in a bid to cling on to traditional values. What they will get is a quasi-Trotskyite cultural Marxist regime – all the more destructive for having the label ‘conservative’ – which grinds their faces – and especially the faces of their children and grandchildren – in LGBTQ+ filth.

They voted Brexit hoping to stop immigration. Instead, the next ten years will see an absolutely swamping change in Britain’s demographics, as the dying early Baby Boomers are replaced with Johnson’s ‘New Britons’ from all corners of the world.

They voted to kick out a Brussels Occupation Government. What they will get instead is a New York Occupation Government. Which is a polite way of putting it, for there is in fact really nothing American about America’s neocons.

“Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss”, is how the Who put it. But it was all summed up even better by the great English visionary William Morris, in A Dream of John Ball, his revolutionary classic about the very first English Peasants’ Revolt against an alien elite:

“I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name.”

A comprehensive history of everything awful Boris “the clown” Johnson has said

A comprehensive history of everything awful Boris Johnson has said

A comprehensive history of everything awful Boris Johnson has said

By Micha Frazer-Carroll

Image via BackBoris2012 Campaign Team / Flickr

So many gaffes! Maybe so many that we need to stop calling them “gaffes”! Blunderous BoJo, what ever shall we do with him? We all make slip ups sometimes. But the former foreign secretary, who today will become our PM, has had his fair share of headlines surrounding Alleged Accusations Of “Racially Charged” Race-Related Comments Reportedly Said By Some To Be Motivated By Race. Or as we like to call it: racism.

He’s also ventured into misogyny and classism in his time – and over the weekend became part of a conversation around the rise of the far-right, led by David Lammy. In the name of the public record, we took a deep dive and pulled together a comprehensive history of times Boris has really, really fucked up. Chronologically. Buckle up!

• In his 2002 column in the Spectator, Boris penned an article titled: “Africa is a mess, but we can’t blame colonialism”.
• In the piece, Boris described the continent as a “blot” and suggested that it would be better off if it was colonised again, writing: “The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more…the best fate for Africa would be if the old colonial powers, or their citizens, scrambled once again in her direction; on the understanding that this time they will not be asked to feel guilty.”
• In 2002, in a column in the Telegraph, BoJo described black people as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”.
• In 2004, Boris was asked to apologise to Liverpudlians after writing in the Spectator that they were “wallowing” in “victim status” after the Hillsborough disaster. Boris said those who lived in the city needed to acknowledge the role played “by drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground”.
• In the 2005 leadership contest, bumbling BoJo said “voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3”.
• Boris described Papua New Guineans as prone to “cannibalism” and “chief-killing” in his column in the Telegraph in 2006.
• Boris blamed rising house prices on women graduates in his Spectator column in 2007. It’s almost as if people should stop giving him columns.
• In the same article, he managed to wrap classism into sexism, writing: “The result is that in families on lower incomes the women have absolutely no choice but to work, often with adverse consequences for family life and society as a whole – in that unloved and undisciplined children are more likely to become hoodies, NEETS, and mug you on the street corner.”
• Also in 2007, BoJo described Hillary Clinton as looking like a “sadistic nurse in a mental hospital”.
• In 2008, Boris allowed a piece to be printed that claimed black people have lower IQs, under his editorship at the Spectator. “Orientals…have larger brains and higher IQ scores,” the piece read. “Blacks are at the other pole.”
• London assembly member Jennette Arnold accused BoJo of all-round sexist conduct in 2012, arguing that he generally treats women assembly members in a “disrespectful, patronising” way that was different to the men.
• In 2013, Boris suggested that the increase in Malaysian women going to university was down to the fact that they have “got to find men to marry”. Groans were reportedly heard from Malaysian women in the audience.
• Boris dabbled as a wordsmith in 2016 when he wrote a poem about the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: “There was a young fellow from Ankara / Who was a terrific wankerer / Till he sowed his wild oats / With the help of a goat / But he didn’t even stop to thankera.” Boris won a £1,000 poetry prize for the limerick.
• In a Tory party conference speech in 2016, Boris claimed that “the values of global Britain are needed more than ever” and that British “beliefs” are necessary to “lift the world out of poverty”.
• In the same speech, he called Africa a “country”.

• After Barack Obama suggested that the UK should remain in the EU, BoJo said that the then-president should stay out of the conversation as he was “part-Kenyan” and had an “ancestral dislike” for the UK.
• In 2017, Boris met with Steve Bannon, founder of Breitbart News, a self-described “platform for the alt-right”.
• Boris also apologised to political prisoner Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe in 2017 after saying she was in Iran “training journalists”, when she was in fact on holiday. He was accused of risking adding an extra five years to her time in prison due to the mistake.
• Boris was asked to apologise after referring to Emily Thornberry using her husband’s name to ridicule her in the commons in early 2018.

• Last summer, Boris wrote in his column in the Telegraph that the burqa was “oppressive and ridiculous”, comparing Muslim women to “bank-robbers” and “letterboxes”.

What a silly bumbling, potential Prime Minister he is. Good thing people’s views don’t tend to have an impact on their policies or anything