China and Russia to establish joint rating agency
RT | June 3, 2014
No more Fitch, Moody’s, or Standard & Poor’s for Russia and China, as they have agreed to establish a rating agency on joint projects, and later, international services, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Tuesday.
“The establishment of an independent rating system is being discussed. Many countries would like to have more objectivity in the assessment of rating agencies,” Siluanov said.
“There will be a Russian-Chinese rating agency, which will use the same tools and criteria for assessing countries and regional investments that existing rating agencies use,” the minister said.
To President Obama: Let’s just assume for a moment we have a climate crisis
By Paul Driessen | Watts Up With That? | June 2, 2014
As we start hurricane season today, we note the unprecedented 3142 day drought of major hurricane landfalls, shattering a record that goes back to the year 1900.
Despite clear evidence to the contrary, president Obama is now warning us that “storms like Hurricane Sandy will become more frequent as climate change intensifies.” It’s merely the latest in the administration’s seemingly endless stream of headline-grabbing scare stories, designed to justify the job-killing, economy-strangling, family-bashing rules for vehicles, power plants, cement kilns, refineries, factories, farms, shopping malls and countless other facilities that are or soon will be regulated by Environmental Protection Agency fiat. We need to keep one vitally important fact in mind.
Every one of these “looming calamities” is based on assumptions, assertions and computer models that represent the real world about as well as the special-effects T-rexes and raptors do in Jurassic Park. The data on hurricanes says otherwise:
Climate modelers and disaster proponents remind me of the four guys who were marooned on an island, after their plane went down. The engineer began drawing plans for a boat; the lumberjack cut trees to build it; the pilot plotted a course to the nearest known civilization. But the economist just sat there. The exasperated workers asked him why he wasn’t helping.
“I don’t see the problem,” he replied. “Why can’t we just assume we have a boat, get on it and leave?”
In the case of climate change, those making the assumptions demand that we act immediately to avert planetary crises based solely on their computer model predictions. It’s like demanding that governments enact laws to safeguard us from velociraptors, after Jurassic Park scientists found that dinosaur DNA could be extracted from fossilized mosquitoes … and brought the carnivores back to special-effects life.
Climate models help improve our conceptual understandings of climate systems and the forces that drive climate change. However, they are terrible at predicting Earth’s temperature and other components of its climate. They should never be used to set or justify policies, laws and regulations – such as what the Environmental Protection Agency is about to impose on CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Even our best climate scientists still have only a limited grasp of Earth’s highly complex and chaotic climate systems, and the many interrelated solar, cosmic, oceanic, atmospheric, terrestrial and other forces that control climate and weather. Even the best models are only as good as that understanding.
Worse, the models and the science behind them have been horribly politicized. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was ostensibly organized in 1988 to examine possible human influences on Earth’s climate. In reality, Swedish meteorologist Bert Bolin and environmental activist groups wanted to use global warming to drive an anti-hydrocarbon, limited-growth agenda. That meant they somehow had to find a human influence on the climate – even if the best they could come up with was “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” [emphasis added]
“Discernible” (ie, detectable) soon metamorphosed into “dominant,” which quickly morphed into the absurd notion that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have now replaced natural forces and become the only factors influencing climate change. They are certainly the only factors that climate activists and alarmists want to talk about, while they attempt to silence debate, criticism and skepticism. They use the models to generate scary “scenarios” that are presented as actual predictions of future calamities.
They predict, project or forecast that heat waves will intensify, droughts and floods will be stronger and more frequent, hurricanes will be more frequent and violent, sea levels will rise four feet by 2100 [versus eight inches since 1880], forest fires will worsen, and countless animal species will disappear. Unlikely.
Natural forces obviously caused the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age and the Pleistocene Ice Ages. (A slab of limestone that I dug up has numerous striations – scratches – left by the last mile-thick glacier that covered what is now my home town in Wisconsin.) After long denying it, the IPCC finally acknowledged that the LIA did occur, and that it was a worldwide agricultural and human disaster.
However, the models and computer algorithms the IPCC and EPA rely on still do not include the proper magnitude of solar cycles and other powerful natural forces that influence climate changes. They assume “positive feedbacks” from GHGs that trap heat, but understate the reflective and thus cooling effects of clouds. They display a global warming bias throughout – bolstered by temperature data contaminated by “urban heat island” effects, due to measuring stations being located too close to human heat sources. They assume Earth’s climate is now controlled almost entirely by rising human CO2/GHG emissions.
It’s no wonder the models, modelers and alarmists totally failed to predict the nearly-18-year absence of global warming – or that the modeled predictions diverge further from actual temperature measurements with every passing year. It’s no wonder modelers cannot tell us which aspects of global warming, global cooling, climate change and “climate disruption” are due to humans, and which are the result of natural forces. It’s hardly surprising that they cannot replicate (“hindcast”) the global temperature record from 1950 to 1995, without “fudging” their data and computer codes– or that they are wrong almost every time.
In 2000, Britain’s Met Office said cold winters would be a thing of the past, and “children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” The 2010 and 2012 winters were the coldest and snowiest in centuries. In 2013, Met Office scholars said the coming winter would be extremely dry; the forecast left towns, families and government agencies totally unprepared for the immense rains and floods that followed.
In 2007, Australia’s climate commissioner predicted Brisbane and other cities would never again have sufficient rain to fill their reservoirs. The forecast ignored previous drought and flood cycles, and was demolished by record rains in 2011, 2013 and 2014. Forecasts of Arctic and Antarctic meltdowns have ignored the long history of warmer and colder cycles, and ice buildups and breakups.
The Bonneville Power Administration said manmade warming will cause Columbia River Basin snowpack to melt faster, future precipitation to fall as rain, reservoirs to be overwhelmed – and yet water levels will be well below normal year round. President Obama insists that global temperatures will soar, wildfires will be more frequent and devastating, floods and droughts will be more frequent and disastrous, rising seas will inundate coastal cities as Arctic and Antarctic ice shelves melt and disintegrate, and 97% of scientists agree. Every claim is based on models or bald-faced assertions unsupported by evidence.
And still the IPCC says it has “very high confidence” (the highest level it assigns) to the supposed agreement between computer model forecasts and actual observations. The greater the divergence from reality, the higher its “confidence” climbs. Meanwhile, climate researchers and modelers from Nebraska, Penn State, Great Britain and other “learned institutions” continue to focus on alleged human influences on Earth’s climate. They know they will likely lose their government, foundation and other funding – and will certainly be harassed and vilified by EPA, environmentalists, politicians, and their ideological and pedagogical peers – if they examine natural forces too closely.
Thus they input erroneous data, simplistic assumptions, personal biases, and political and financial calculations, letting models spew out specious scenarios and phony forecasts: garbage in, garbage out.
The modelers owe it to humanity to get it right – so that we can predict, prepare for, mitigate and adapt to whatever future climate conditions nature (or humans) might throw at us. They cannot possibly do that without first understanding, inputting and modeling natural factors along with human influences.
Above all, these supposed modeling experts and climate scientists need to terminate their biases and their evangelism of political agendas that seek to slash fossil fuel use, “transform” our energy and economic systems, redistribute wealth [upward], reduce our standards of living, and “permit” African and other impoverished nations to enter the modern era only in a “sustainable manner,” as defined by callous elitists.
The climate catastrophe camp’s focus on CO2 is based on the fact that it is a byproduct of detested hydrocarbon use. But this trace gas (a mere 0.04% of Earth’s atmosphere) makes life on our planet possible. More carbon dioxide means crops, forests and grasslands grow faster and better. CO2’s role in climate change is speculative – and contradicted by real-world measurements, observations and history.
Computer models, scenarios and predictions of planetary Armageddon are little more than faulty, corrupt, even fraudulent pseudo-science. They have consistently forecast what has not happened on Planet Earth, and failed to forecast what did happen.
They must no longer be allowed to justify EPA’s job-killing, economy-strangling, family-bashing rules for vehicles, power plants, cement kilns, refineries, factories, farms, shopping malls and countless other facilities that are or soon will be regulated by agency fiat.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
UK announces Yuan clearing Bank in London
The BRICS Post | June 2, 2014
The UK government has agreed to establish a yuan-clearing bank in London that would “act as a signal for London’s growing yuan activities”.
Mark Boleat, policy chairman for the City of London Corp said consultations were ongoing for a long time with the People’s Bank of China, Bank of England and many banks in London, and the PBOC has now decided to appoint the clearing bank.
“We assume it’s going to be a Chinese bank, because that’s the way the PBOC does things,” Boleat said in an interview to a Chinese daily in London.
China and the UK had signed an agreement last year to establish a reciprocal 3-year sterling/renminbi (RMB, or Chinese yuan) currency swap line.
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne had said earlier this year that a clearing bank was the next logical step to take in building trade ties with China.
“It would be an important further milestone both in the development of the renminbi as a currency of the world’s economic future, but also of London and the U.K. as the western center for renminbi trading,” said Osborne.
China has also signed an agreement with Germany to work on appointing a clearing bank in Frankfurt.
Meanwhile, the UK administration would also allow Chinese banks to open new branches in the country soon.
Previously, Chinese banks, as well as many other international banks, were only allowed to set up subsidiaries, which are subject to the strict capital requirements that apply to Britain’s local banks, hence the lending and financing capacity is proportional to the balance sheet of the subsidiary.
Hungry for land: small farmers feed the world – with less than a quarter of all farmland
GRAIN | May 28, 2014
Governments and international agencies frequently boast that small farmers control the largest share of the world’s agricultural land. When the director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization inaugurated 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming, he sang the praises of family farmers but didn’t once mention the need for land reform. Instead, he announced that family farms already manage most of the world’s farmland – a whopping 70%, according to his team.
But a new review of the data carried out by GRAIN reveals that the opposite is true. Small farms, which produce most of the world’s food, are currently squeezed onto less than a quarter of the world’s farmland – or less than one fifth if you leave out China and India.
“We are fast losing farms and farmers through the concentration of land into the hands of the rich and powerful,” said Henk Hobbelink, coordinator of GRAIN. “The overwhelming majority of farming families today have less than two hectares to cultivate and that share is shrinking. If we do nothing to reverse this trend, the world will lose its capacity to feed itself.”
Marina Dos Santos of the Coordination of the Brazilian Landless Movement (MST), and of La Via Campesina, states: “Today, the peasantry is criminalised, taken to court and even made to disappear when it comes to the struggle for land. Currently, there are an alarming numbers of deaths that go unpunished. States have created legal concepts such as terrorism and sabotage to intimidate our struggle. Every day we are exposed to systematic expulsion from our land. This affects not only peasants fighting to stay on the land, but also many other small farmers and indigenous peoples who are the target of greedy foreign interests. We want the land in order to live and to produce, as these are our basic rights against land grabbing corporations who seek only speculation and profit.”
“People need to understand that if the current processes of land concentration continue, then no matter how hard-working, efficient and productive they are, small farmers will simply not be able to carry on,” said GRAIN’s Camila Montecinos. “The concentration of fertile agricultural land in fewer and fewer hands is directly related to the increasing number of people going hungry every day.”
GRAIN’s report also provides new data that show that small farmers still provide most of the world’s food, and that they are often much more productive than large corporate farms. If all of Kenya’s farms matched the output of its small farms, the nation’s agricultural productivity would double. In Central America, it would nearly triple. Women are the major food producers, but their role remains unrecorded and marginalised.
The international agencies keep on reminding us that we need to produce more food to feed the growing population. But how much more food could be produced almost immediately if small farmers had access to more land and could work in a supportive policy environment, rather than under the siege conditions they are facing today?
“The vast majority of farms in Zimbabwe belong to small holders and their average farmsize has increased as a result of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme. Small farmers in the country now produce over 90% of diverse agricultural food crops, while they only provided 60-70% of the national food before land redistribution. More women own land in their own right, which is key to food sovereignty everywhere,” said Elizabeth Mpofu, General coordinator of La Via Campesina.
We need to urgently put land back in the hands of small farmers and make the struggle for genuine and comprehensive agrarian reform central to the fight for better food systems. Something peasant organisations and landless people’s movements have long been fighting for.
GRAIN’s new report, Hungry for land: small farmers feed the world with less than a quarter of all farmland provides an in depth review of the data on farm structures and food production worldwide and comes to the following 6 central conclusions:
1. The vast majority of farms in the world today are small and getting smaller
Due to a myriad of forces, average farm sizes have shrunk dramatically over the past decades, particularly in Asia and Africa.
2. Small farms are currently squeezed onto less than a quarter of the world’s farmland
Despite what the UN and others report, small farms occupy less than 25% of the world’s farmland today – just 17%, if we exclude India and China.
3. We’re fast losing farms and farmers in many places, while big farms are getting bigger
One major reason why small farms are disappearing is the rapid growth of monoculture plantations. In the last 50 years, 140 million hectares – well more than all the farmland in China – have been taken over for soybean, oil palm, rapeseed and sugar cane alone.
4. Small farmers continue to be the major food producers in the world
By definition, peasant agriculture prioritises food production for local and national markets as well as for farmers’ own families – not commodities or export crops. GRAIN compiled staggering statistics that show how, even with so little land, small farms produce the bulk of many countries’ food supply.
5. Small farms are technically more productive than big farms
Industrial farms have enormous power, clout and resources, but small farms almost everywhere outperform big farms in terms of productivity. If all of Kenya’s farms matched the output of its small farms, the nation’s agricultural productivity would double. In Central America, it would nearly triple. If Russia’s big farms were as productive as its small ones, output would increase by a factor of six.
6. The majority of small farmers are women, yet their contributions are unrecognised and marginalised
Women’s immense contribution to farming and food production is not captured in official statistics and they are discriminated against when it comes to controlling land in most countries.
The report is accompanied by illustrative maps and a fully-referenced dataset. Available for download at: http://www.grain.org/e/4929.
More on the farmers’ struggle for land: “Land is life! La Via Campesina and the Struggle for Land” at: http://viacampesina.org/downloads/pdf/en/EN-notebook5.pdf.
Contacts
Mr Henk Hobbelink, Spain (EN, ES, NL): +34933011381, henk@grain.org
Ms Camila Montecinos, Chile (EN, ES): +56222224437, camila@grain.org
Ms Elizabeth Mpofu, Zimbabwe (EN): + +2634576221, nkbnyoni@yahoo.co.uk
A new take on land reform in Zimbabwe
IRIN | February 5, 2013
LONDON/HARARE – More than 10 years after the chaotic and often violent farm invasions that accompanied Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform programme, a new book argues that the redistribution programme has dramatically improved the lives of thousands of smallholder farmers and their families.
Starting in 2000, the government implemented an initiative to acquire 11 million hectares of white-owned farmland and redistribute it on a massive scale; the programme was often carried out in the form of farm invasions led by frustrated war veterans and supporters of President Robert Mugabe. By its conclusion, only 0.4 percent of farmland remained in the hands of white commercial farmers, and smallholder farmers dominated the agricultural sector.
The land reform programme was followed by years of drought, hyperinflation and an economic meltdown.
Thirteen years later and more than 8,000km away, it still raises strong emotions. At a recent event hosted by London’s Chatham House at which authors of the new book, Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land, defended their work, the hall was packed, and a polite but persistent group of anti-Mugabe protesters occupied the pavement outside.
The book avoids passing judgement on the often violent manner in which the programme was executed. “This is not a book about what might have been, could have been, or should have been,” write authors Joseph Hanlon, Jeanette Manjengwa and Teresa Smart. Instead, it focuses on the results of a study they carried out in Mashonaland, a region of northern Zimbabwe covering three provinces, which found that many of the ‘fast-track’ farmers are faring much better than has been widely assumed.
Despite receiving very little government assistance, “we saw that these farmers had a real passion for farming. We found that farmers are making investments, building houses and barns… and buying farm implements,” said Manjengwa. “They are making the land their own, and they are becoming serious commercial farmers.”
Finding success
When Samson Pfumo, a 52-year-old teacher from Harare, applied for and received a 60-hectare plot in Marondera District through the land redistribution programme, his expectations were low.
“My brother, a war veteran, encouraged me to apply to the government for a piece of land, but I was pessimistic because of the controversy that surrounded the land reform programme,” Pfumo told IRIN. “When I got an offer letter for the plot [in 2005], I only set up a small mud-and-dagga [hut] and hardly visited the farm.”
When the economy started improving in 2009, after the formation of a coalition government, Pfumo developed a keener interest in farming and started raising pigs. A year later, he had 60 pigs, some of which he sold to buy farming implements and to start growing maize for feed.
Today, he has five large pig pens housing more than 300 pigs, which he periodically slaughters for sale, with each pig fetching an average of US$150. He is also rearing about 500 chicks for sale and is considering venturing into tobacco farming after noting that many resettled farmers have been making good profits from the crop.
“I managed to buy a truck to ferry meat to my clients and a luxury car. My two sons are now studying at reputable universities in South Africa because I can afford it, thanks to the piggery project,” said Pfumo, who has left teaching and now lives on the farm with his wife and mother.
Controversial progress
Manjengwa and her colleagues found that even the less ambitious among the new farmers surveyed, who mainly received smaller plots of five or six hectares, had greatly improved their standard of living. After being mostly poor, landless and unemployed prior to resettlement, virtually all of them were able to grow enough food for their families, and to sell the surplus to pay for their children’s school fees. But many were doing much better than that, producing significant quantities of maize, tobacco and other crops for sale, and building up capital in the form of livestock, farm buildings and equipment. They were also starting to employ labour.
The issue of labour is contentious because so many farm workers lost their jobs and their homes when the old white-owned farms were broken up; some are still homeless and unemployed. However, Hanlon, Manjengwa and Smart estimate that around 550,000 family members and 350,000 paid labourers now work full-time on land that previously employed 170,000 workers.
Charles Taffs, president of Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers’ Union, reminded those at the meeting at Chatham House that the workers now being hired are not the same ones who were driven off the commercial farms. He also asserted that the figures presented in the study did not add up.
Zimbabwe’s agricultural production experienced a dramatic drop following the upheavals of 2000, but according to the authors, it is now returning to the levels of the 1990s. This is despite the fact that many rely on a much more labour-intensive form of farming than that used by the earlier white commercial farmers.
The authors also point out that, although many of the white-owned commercial farms were efficient and productive, many others were struggling and had far more land than they could use; some of the most fertile land in the country had gone uncultivated. The new smallholders have brought much of that unused land into cultivation.
Dilemma
Manjengwa and her colleagues are not the first to suggest that Zimbabwe’s controversial land reform programme has achieved a number of positive results. A 10-year study of land reform in Masvingo Province, led by Ian Scoones from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex and published in 2010, challenged a number of the “myths” surrounding fast-track land reform, finding that many of the 400 households sampled were employing labour and expanding their farming operations.
“The suggestion that the fast-track land reform programme was not an unmitigated disaster presents dilemmas about whether to accept this growing body of evidence and risk endorsing the methods used to achieve the asset transfer,” commented Admos Chimhowu of Manchester University’s Institute for Development Policy and Management, who pointed out that neighbouring South Africa has yet to find a solution to its land reform challenges.
Le Pen on Ukraine crisis: US pursuing own interests, not those of EU
RT | June 1, 2014
The EU is responsible for the developments in Ukraine, French right-wing leader Marine Le Pen said in an interview, stressing the bloc should have its own opinion on global events and not slavishly follow the America’s lead.
“The EU added fuel to the fire by offering the partnership to the country where half of the population is looking to the East,” Le Pen told Der Spiegel newspaper.
Le Pen said she supports federalization in crisis-torn Ukraine, where the coup-appointed government has launched a massive military operation in the country’s eastern regions. The offensive has already claimed dozens of lives, both among the militias and local civilians. Schools, a kindergarten and hospitals in several cities have come under fire.
The French leader warned the EU against falling into Washington’s steps, as those have nothing to do with Europe’s interests.
“The United States is trying to expand their influence in the world and first of all in Europe. They are pursuing their own interests, not ours,” Le Pen said.
She went as far as to call the EU “an anti-democratic monster,” where people’s right to self-determination is stolen.
“I want to stop it [the EU] getting fatter, continuing to breathe, touching everything with its paws and reaching into all areas of our legislation with its tentacles,” she said.
Earlier Le Pen repeatedly stated that Russia is being unfairly “demonized” and that the campaign against the Russian political administration has been cooked up at the highest levels of EU leadership, with the implicit support of the US.
“I am surprised a Cold War on Russia has been declared in the European Union,” she said at a meeting with Russia’s State Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin in April. “It’s not in line with traditional, friendly relations, or with the economic interests of our country or EU countries and harms future relations.”
Le Pen’s National Front far-right party in France has been steadily gaining popularity and scored a triumphant success in the latest EU elections by gaining around 25 percent of the votes.
The Democrats’ New Fake Populism
By Shamus Cooke | Worker’s Action | May 30, 2014
It would have been hilarious were it not so nauseating. One could only watch the recent “New Populism” conference with pity-induced discomfort, as stale Democratic politicians did their awkward best to adjust themselves to the fad of “populism.”
A boring litany of Democratic politicians — or those closely associated — gave bland speeches that aroused little enthusiasm among a very friendly audience of Washington D.C. politicos. It felt like an amateur recital in front of family and friends, in the hopes that practicing populism with an audience would better prepare them for the real thing.
The organizers of the conference, The Campaign For America’s Future, ensured that real populism would be absent from the program. The group is a Democratic Party ally that essentially functions as a party think tank.
The two co-founders of Campaign for America’s Future are Robert Borosage — who works closely with the progressive caucus of the Democratic Party — and Robert Hickey, who works with Health Care for America Now, an organization that prioritized campaigning for Obamacare. On the Board of Directors is the notorious liberal Van Jones, no doubt carefully chosen for his non-threatening elitist politics.
The “new populism” seems to mistakenly believe that if Democrats merely advocate for a couple of “popular” ideas — as opposed to their usual unpopular policies that they actually implement — that they can suddenly transform themselves into “populists.”
The unofficial and uninspiring leader of this grouping, Senator Elizabeth Warren, summarized the “radical” populist platform of these reborn Democrat revolutionaries, doing her drab best to inject life into a zombie political party:
“We believe that Wall Street needs stronger rules and tougher enforcement, and we’re willing to fight for it.”
“We believe no one should work full-time and live in poverty, and that means raising the minimum wage — and we’re willing to fight for it.”
“We believe people should retire with dignity, and that means strengthening Social Security — and we’re willing to fight for it.”
“We believe that a kid should have a chance to go to college without getting crushed by debt — and we’re willing to fight for it.”
It’s true that 90 percent of Americans would agree with Warren, but the devil is in her lack of details. Warren’s popular platform falls incredibly flat because there are no concrete demands to inspire people, just generalizations. This important omission didn’t happen by mistake.
The Democrats simply do not want a new populist movement; rather, their opportunistic goal is to win elections by simply being more popular than the Republicans. Any of Warren’s above ideas — if they ever enter the halls of Congress as a bill — would be sufficiently watered down long before any elated response could be reached from the broader population.
How might Warren transform her ideas if she actually wanted a populist response? Some examples might be:
1) – Jail the bankers who crashed the economy. Tax Wall Street earnings at 90% and nationalize any bank that is “too big to fail” in order to bring them under control.
2) – Raise the national minimum wage to $15 an hour.
3) – Expand Social Security by lowering the retirement age to 60, to be paid for by expanding payroll taxes to higher earners — who currently pay no Medicare and Social Security taxes on income over $110,000.
4) – Free university education — to be paid for by taxing the rich and corporations. Eliminate crushing student debt.
Such demands would be much more likely to inspire people than what the “populist” Democrats are offering, and inspiration is the missing populist ingredient that the Democrats are organically incapable of provoking.
What’s preventing the Democrats from becoming inspirational? They know all too well that by venturing too far to the left they could easily instigate a real mass movement. And such a movement is not easily controlled and would inevitably demand much more than the corporate-minded Democrats are willing to concede, which, at this point, is virtually nothing aside from musty rhetoric.
Unlike the Republican’s populist turn to the right that created the now-defunct Tea Party, a true left turn would mean have the potential to rejuvenate the millions’ strong labor movement, while engaging tens of millions more into active political life, driving people to participate in mass marches, rallies, labor strikes and other forms of mass action.
This was what happened during the “old populism” in U.S. history, which the Democrats are taking their trendy namesake from. The populist movement of the late 1800’s was a genuine mass movement of workers and farmers, which briefly aligned in an independent political party, the People’s Party, also known as the populists.
The populist movement that included strike waves and local rural rebellions had nothing to do with the lifeless politics of the Democratic Party, and threatened the very foundation of America corporate power. The Democrats are keenly aware of this type of real populist “threat,” and they are willing to do anything to stop it.
For example, the Occupy movement proved that the Democrats fear real left populism much more than they fear far-right populism. We now know that the Obama administration worked with numerous Democratic Party mayors and governors across the nation to undermine and destroy the Occupy movement through mass arrests, police violence and surveillance. And because Occupy succeeded in changing the national conversation about income inequality, the Democrats were forced to engage with the rhetoric of the movement they dismembered, and now use the plagiarized language as proof of their “populism.”
Aside from Elizabeth Warren, the other rock star of the “new populism” conference was the nominally-independent “socialist” Bernie Sanders, who essentially functions in Congress as a Democrat. Sanders’ politics fits in perfectly with the rest of the progressive caucus Democrats, which is why he was invited to the conference. Sanders can perhaps outdo Warren when it comes to anti-corporate-speak; but like Warren he keeps his solutions vague and his movement building aspirations negligible.
If by chance Sanders chooses to run for president as an Independent — as many radicals are hoping — his fake populist politics and empty rhetoric are unlikely to drastically change, limiting any chance that a “movement” may emerge.
It’s doubtful that many people have been fooled by the “left turn” of the Democratic Party. But on a deeper level the politics of “lesser evilism” still haunts labor and community groups, and keeping these groups within the orbit of the Democratic Party is the ultimate purpose of this new, more radical speechifying. Until these groups organize themselves independently and create their own working class political party, the above politics of “populist” farce is guaranteed to continue.
EU vote: Freight train of opposition
By Brett Redmayne-Titley | Press TV | May 31, 2014
While EU leaders and their Washington sympathizers marginalize, rationalize, and excuse away Sunday’s historic European Union parliamentary election results, they deliberately avoid the greater point of concern. The people are coming.
French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, called the sudden increase in new opposition Members of the European Parliament ( MEP) an, “earthquake.” He, too, missed the correct metaphore. This staggering election result is a freight train. More passengers are climbing aboard daily. Destination: Capital City.
On Sunday, May 25, 2014, recently formed national opposition parties scared the status quo to the marrow. In Greece, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, and Poland pro-nationalist parties gave, for the first time, a viable, potentially foundation changing political presence to their disenfranchised countrymen. Many of these opposition parties have sharply divergent philosophies. In values these parties are not a coherent group. Some have established track records in their governments and some are fringe parties, even devoutly neo-fascist.
Regardless of their philosophy these parties share a similar agenda. As Pepe Escobar wrote in a piece for Russia Today:
“What matters to the average citizen is… How to deal with immigration; how to fight the eradication of the welfare state; the implications of the free trade agreement with the US (TTIP); the value of the euro – and what the ECB Mafia is actually doing to fight unemployment.”
Fed up with being ignored by their governments and with the daily unhealthy reminders of the “benefits” of EU austerity measures, the public well knows the decisions made in Brussels benefit only the top 1%. Established EU voting power in the parliament will now face an opposition that is making its presence shown as they already have in their homelands.
Shocking the EU old-guard, the damage to established politics in Brussels summed up as; UK Independence party- UKIP (27.5%/ 19 seats); Front National/ France (25%/ 24 seats); Syriza Party/Greece (26.5%/ 8 seats); Alternative fur Deutschland/ Germany (7%/6 seats); . Danish People’s Party/ Denmark (26.7%/seats ).
The big surprises were, the Sweden Democrats (9.7%/ 1 seat); the Congress of the New Right/Poland (7.1%/4 seats); the Golden Dawn Party/ Greece (9.4%/ 5 seats) and Spain’s Podemos that formed just this past March 2014(8%/ 5 seats).
Far worse for EU national leaders, UKIP, Danish People’s Party, Front National, and the specifically anti-austerity Syriza Party all came in first place in their nations’ EU ballot boxes.
David Cameron, showing his keen grasp of the obvious, looked pale while muttering his blasé synopsis of Sunday’s disaster:
“People are deeply disillusioned with the European Union. The EU needs to change; it can’t be business as usual.”
Indeed.
Writing in, Open Europe, Mats Perrson had a more accurate take on Sunday’s election.
“The temptations in Brussels will be to view this as the peak of anti-EU sentiment. This would be a huge gamble. These elections are a clear warning: offer voters a polarized choice between more Europe and no Europe and sooner or later they will choose the latter.”
The “latter” is likely to be shown in several upcoming national elections. The existing EU leaders have never shown a foundation in populist thought, therefore commanding austerity for all. Except themselves. The chance that the EU will voluntarily shift from pure US backed capitalist thought and return to a preferred socialist model is zero. The will of the people is bad for “business as usual.”
Cameron had good reason to look pale. Despite his Conservative Party losing six seats and the lapdog, supposedly opposition Labor Party losing ten of their eleven seats, the new populist freight train is now bearing down on him from two more directions — Scotland and UKIP.
The Scottish independence referendum is set for September 18, 2014, and thanks to their party’s affable, answer-for-everything leader, Alex Salmond, chances of victory are getting closer to 50-50 everyday. This scares Westminster to the core of their elitist souls. Sunday’s vote will only embolden UK fence-sitters who have, thanks to the persistent Salmond, a lot of good reasons to rid themselves of the sinking UK ship.
Cameron’s nemesis is Nigel Farage and his brash take-no-prisoners UKIP party. The devastation of EU austerity policies is obvious in every corner of the UK except the power center of London. With a completely ethnocentric, UK first agenda UKIP has many reasons to be popular. Before the EU election UKIP was already surging in preparation for the upcoming national election.
“The most extraordinary political event in the past 100 years,” crowed Farage with that mocking grin that has so endeared him to his parliamentary adversaries. Well, maybe not. But UKIP was the first political party other than the Tories and Labor to win a national election in over one hundred years. With the UK national election of May 17, 2015 next in UKIP’s headlights, social conditions worsening, and privatization buying up the country, including the beloved Royal Mail, Sunday may be a timely precursor to a pending historic moment. For Mr. Salmond, the surging opposition support across the EU is very good press indeed.
Speaking in France, Francois Hollande looked to be in shock. Despite his approval ratings plummeting, austerity measures increasing, and growing unemployment, all thanks to a shrinking GDP, Hollande has strangely developed a penchant for multiple expensive wars in central Africa. Like his Washington war partners, his French public can be damned, but he always has more money for war.
All this from a socialist?
Hence, Marine Le Pen’s Front National scored a clear first place victory with almost 25% of the French vote. The Front National has a long history in France but has only come to prominence, by necessity, in recent years. Small wonder that Front National had rendered Hollande virtually speechless. The light bulb had suddenly gone on. He’s done.
Across Europe every one of these suddenly relevant political parties are the new subject of passionate conversation. The uninformed are asking, the informed are growing, and the accelerating freight train of opposition is stopping to add new cars for more passengers, more and more often. With the EU governments currently in denial, the repeatedly discredited press unable to spin this disaster into victory, and Ukraine reminding everyone daily of the horrors of EU democracy, conditions for these opposition leaders are very favorable.
Of course, across the pond Washington was also in denial. Writing for the “respected” Brookings Institute, Douglas J. Elliott, as a true American, was of course blind to the value of growing opposition via democracy. Offering of a synopsis he summed up, “Protest parties critical to the status quo did very well,… but not well enough to upset the fundamental balance of power in Brussels.” He added, “The French and UK governments were weakened a bit. Most other governments avoided serious new problems.”
Really? Likely Farage, Le Pen, and Salmond would enjoy a hearty laugh responding to Mr. Elliott. They will not have to. Their parties will in upcoming national elections.
Sweden is first up. With the Feminist Initiative and Sweden Democrats having taken their first ever European Parliament seats by offering very pro-Austria, nationalist opposition agendas, the National election of Sept, 14, 2014, will be a litmus test for the following May.
May 7, 2015, could see a truly historic change in UK politics. In the national election it will be UKIP versus those other two parties. Regardless of the outcome UKIP will pick up more Members of Parliament and at the very least be a very powerful force in the many coalitions the UK government functions as. Mr. Farage already has reason to grin from ear-to-ear. A year from now?
Greece has the potential to rock the world to the core on June 16, 2016. With Syriza serving notice on Sunday and even the vile agendas of Golden Dawn getting votes enough to be members of the European Parliament, two years hence they may take over power. Greece is the laboratory setting for exposing every possible horrifying social condition of EU austerity which continues to get worse. Both parties blame the EU and want to have Greece opt-out. In the summer of ’16 this is now a very distinct possibility. If Greece was to leave the EU it would set a disastrous precedent since already UKIP is calling for a national referendum on doing just that. If London leaves the EU the Euro is done.
The EU citizens are not so easily put down. Unlike the completely bought-and-paid-for US government and court system voter manipulation via money has not yet had the same controlling effect on voters and elections. As with America, it is the established political parties that are the bar to actual democracy. National opposition parties began to cure this on Sunday.
Democracy in the EU still has a chance. Sunday’s vote proves this. In America there is no viable third party for socially impoverished Americans to attach themselves to in order to get some, any, representation. The Golden Dawn party now sitting at the EU table, despite its similarities to the American tea party, would never be allowed a seat in the U.S. Congress.
Mr. Elliott, like the rest of the established elite, miss the greater point of the EU vote. While the freight train of opposition loads more passengers in preparation for huffing and puffing into Brussels, it will pick up even more passengers before making one more stop. Washington DC.
Previously across a disadvantaged developing world democracy is pro-American, or it is terrorist and therefore brutalized.
The “Empire”, i.e., America and its Zionist puppet masters must have EU support to survive. Too far afield to effectively conquer the world by itself, so far EU leaders have been the support troops for the American conquest of Ukraine. Come the next national elections throwing ever more precious national coffers at America’s feet will be a subject of great campaign controversy. This will slow the “empire” at the very least.
An impoverished Europe knows that there is no money left for war and that the wars are not in their countries’ true national interests. As these many opposition parties continue to gain national and EU power their aversions for war will be part of their very vocal opposition.
Syriza leader, Alexis Tsipras, regarding Ukraine and Russia said, “Our message is: No New Cold War in Europe!”
Nigel Farage caused an uproar when he said that the EU had,”blood on its hands over its imperialist expansionist policies towards Ukraine.”
These kinds of statements will become a European mantra. This is very bad for the success of the empire. America is stone broke. Except for multiple financial crimes against humanity it would have no money for war. These financial war crimes are rampant across the EU and within the EU parliament. Replenishing the coffers and troop build-ups of NATO will not likely continue. This will leave America only its own people to pillage for a few shekels more for war.
Let’s now strip the veneer of political correctness regarding the EU vote and translate it for all to hear far and wide. The people are “mad as hell.” They are not going to take it anymore. No more austerity. No more war!
Mr. Cameron. Mr. Holland. Mr. Kerry. You had better be listening. That sound you ignore coming from Brussels…. Its a train! …
Brett Redmayne-Titley spent his formative years with his family in Queensland, Australia, Ghana, West Africa, and the Bahamas. Visiting over fifty counties over four decades he has seen the world slowly destroyed by greed, capitalism and empire.
Did the Jews Lose Europe?
By Gilad Atzmon | May 30, 2014
Following the surge of right wing parties in Europe’s Parliamentary election, Forward, the once-progressive Jewish outlet asks, “Have the Jews Lost Europe?” The tone of this question implies that until just a few days ago, at least some Jews believed that Europe was, in part, a ‘Jewish property.’ Such views were not baseless; Jewish Lobbies have dominated British and French policies by means of aggressive lobbying (CFI, LFI, CRIF etc’).
Following the European poll, Dave Rich, deputy director of the ultra Right Wing Jewish para-military Community Security Trust, is concerned. He detects a growing resentment of Jewish politics in Europe. His article in the Forward openly examines whether Jews have lost their grip on the European continent.
Rich begins by quoting Israeli veteran concentration camp guard Jeffrey Goldberg. “At what point,” asks Goldberg, “do the Jews of America and the Jews of Israel tell the Jews of Europe that it might be time to get out?”Apparently, says Rich, “Goldberg is not the only one to have had this thought. In fact, according to a 2013 opinion poll … more than a quarter of Jews in the E.U. have considered emigrating at some point in the past five years, because in their own countries they do not feel safe as Jews.”
Rich is also upset by growing European opposition toward Jewish blood rituals such as shchita slaughter and Jewish orthodox circumcision, a horrid unhygienic religious ceremony in which a Rabbi sucks the blood from an infant’s wounded penis (Metzitzah B’Peh). Rich is worried that ‘neo Nazis’ within the European parliaments may scrutinize Jewish religious practices and culture.
Rich may be correct, this kind of barbaric tribal blood ritual should have been banned ages ago. For some reason, our ‘Left’ and ‘Humanists’ failed to examine these morbid practices while at the same time their enthusiasm for human rights led them to ban the veil.
Rich himself operates within a hard core right wing Jewish supremacist organisation that is committed to the security of one race that happens to be his own. One would expect racially driven Rich to bond with or at least respect European racists whom he dismisses as ‘neo Nazis.’ After all, Rich and his organisation advocate their own ethno centrism that is, at least categorically, no different than that of some of Europe’s most radical far right groups.
Rich quotes British commentator Paul Mason who contends that, “The Euro project was supposed to make sure the continent could never again go fascist. If European legislatures are now crawling with fascists, what was the point of that?” Leaving aside Mason’s apparent ignorance in matters to do with Fascism, Rich and Mason reveal that the political agenda involved in setting the ‘European project’ had aims beyond those expressed at its creation. In other words, those Europeans naïve enough to believe that the ‘Euro project’ was created to address their needs and wants can now learn from the Jewish press about the true agenda behind the creation of the EU.
However, Rich sees reason for optimism, “in several countries, the far right polled surprisingly poorly,” he states. “This is especially the case for those countries hit hardest by Europe’s economic problems of recent years; Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Cyprus.” But Rich fails to mention that in these few impoverished countries the Jewish population is tiny and Jewish political lobbying is marginal. If this explains the failure of the far right in those countries, it is possible that the rise of right wing parties in other parts of Europe is partially a reaction to aggressive Jewish lobbying and intervention. This is certainly the case in Britain, France, Hungary and Greece.
In a desperate attempt to divert attention away from Jewish politics, Rich argues that “West European far-right parties… do want to cut immigration (or stop it altogether) and roll back the cultural and religious diversity that has become part of the E.U.’s guiding philosophy.” Rich fails to mention that it was Jewish progressive groups and institutions that for decades have been at the forefront of the pro immigration campaign and the call for diversity. Rich also forgets to explain that this kind of Jewish support wasn’t driven by humanist or universal concerns. The Jewish Left obviously believed that immigration and diversity were very good for the Jews.
Rich concludes by arguing that European Right Wing politics “are not driven primarily by anti-Jewish sentiment … And Europe’s Jews do not need our American friends to remind us where that can lead.” Rich is correct here, the surge in political awareness of the European underclass and impoverished middle class is not driven ‘primarily’ by anti Jewish feelings, however, increasingly, political commentators identify European malaise with Jewish and Zionist politics. The European new Left was badly beaten in polls last week due, in large part, to its Jerusalemite nature and affiliation. The new left in Europe is driven by kosher ideology, it is dominated by Jewish lobbies such as LFI (Britain) and CRIF (France) and if this is not enough, the entire progressive dissent discourse is closely identified with Jewish interests and is largely funded, directly and indirectly, by liberal Zionists such as George Soros and his Open Society Institutes.
Bearing all that in mind, the political shift in Europe carries a clear message to Jewish institutions. Now’s the time for immediate and deep reflection.
The Rise of the European Right: Reaction to the Neoliberal Right
By James Petras | May 30, 2014
The European parliamentary elections witnessed a major breakthrough for the right-wing parties throughout the region. The rise of the Right runs from the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom, the Baltic and Low countries, France, Central and Eastern Europe to the Mediterranean.
Most, if not all, of these emerging right-wing parties mark a sharp break with the ruling neo-liberal, Christian and Social Democratic parties who have presided over a decade of crisis.
The ‘new Right’ cannot be understood simply by attaching negative labels (‘fascist’, ‘racist’ and ‘anti-Semitic’). The rise of the Right has to be placed in the context of the decay of political, social and economic institutions, the general and persistent decline of living standards and the disintegration of community bonds and class solidarity. The entire existing political edifice constructed by the neo-liberal parties bears deep responsibility for the systemic crisis and decay of everyday life. Moreover, this is how it is understood by a growing mass of working people who vote for the Right.
The so-called ‘radical Left’, usually defined as the political parties to the left of the governing Social Democratic parties, with the exception of SYRIZA in Greece, have failed to capitalize on the decline of the neo-liberal parties. There are several reasons that account for the lack of a right-left polarization. Most of the ‘radical Left’, in the final account, gave ‘critical support’ to one or another of the Labor or Social Democratic parties and reduced their ‘distance’ from the political-economic disasters that have followed. Secondly, the ‘radical Left’s’ positions on some issues were irrelevant or offensive to many workers: namely, gay marriage and identity politics. Thirdly, the radical Left recruited prominent personalities from the discredited Labor and Social Democratic parties and thus raised suspicion that they are a ‘new version’ of past deceptions. Fourthly, the radical Left is strong on public demonstrations demanding ‘structural changes’ but lacks the ‘grass roots’ clientelistic organizations of the Right, which provide ‘services’, such as soup kitchens and clinics dealing with day-to-day problems.
While the Right pretends to be ‘outside’ the neo-liberal establishment challenging the assumption of broad powers by the Brussels elite, the Left is ambiguous: Its support for a ‘social Europe’ implies a commitment to reform a discredited and moribund structure. The Right proposes ‘national capitalism’ outside of Brussels; the Left proposes ‘socialism within the European Union’. The Left parties, the older Communist parties and more recent groupings, like Syriza in Greece, have had mixed results. The former have generally stagnated or lost support despite the systemic crisis. The latter, like Syriza, have made impressive gains but failed to break the 30% barrier. Both lack electoral allies. As a result, the immediate challenge to the neo-liberal status quo comes from the electoral new Right parties and on the left from the extra-parliamentary social movements and trade unions. In the immediate period, the crisis of the European Union is being played out between the neo-liberal establishment and the ‘new Right’.
The Nature of the New Right
The ‘new Right’ has gained support largely because it has denounced the four pillars of the neo-liberal establishment: globalization, foreign financial control, executive rule by fiat (the Brussels troika) and the unregulated influx of cheap immigrant labor.
Nationalism, as embraced by the new Right, is tied to national capitalism: Local producers, retailers and farmers are counterpoised to free traders, mergers and acquisitions by international bankers and the giant multinationals. The ‘new Right’ has its audience among the provincial and small town business elite as well as workers devastated by plant closures and relocations.
The ‘new Right’s’ nationalism is ‘protectionist’ – seeking tariff barriers and state regulations to protect industries and workers from ‘unfair’ competition from overseas conglomerates and low-wage immigrant labor.
The problem is that protectionism limits the imports of cheap consumer goods sold in many small retail shops and affordable to workers and the lower middle class. The Right ‘dreams’ of a corporatist model where national workers and industries bond to oppose liberal competitive capitalism and class struggle trade unions. As the class struggle declines, the ‘tri partite’ politics of the neo-liberal right is reconfigured by the New Right to include ‘national’ capital and a ‘paternalistic state’.
In sum, the nationalism of the Right evokes a mythical past of harmony where national capital and labor unite under a common communal identity to confront big foreign capital and cheap immigrant labor.
Political Strategy: Electoral and Extra-Parliamentary Politics
Currently, the new Right is primarily oriented to electoral politics, especially as it gains mass support. They have increased their share of the electorate by combining mass mobilization and community organizing with electoral politics, especially in depressed areas. They have attracted middle class voters from the neo-liberal right and working class voters from the old Left. While some sectors of the Right, like the Golden Dawn in Greece, openly flaunt fascist symbols – flags and uniforms – as well as provoking street brawls, others pressure the governing neo-liberal right to adopt some of their demands especially regarding immigration and the ‘deportation of illegals’. For the present, most of the new Right’s focus is on advancing its agenda and gaining supporters through aggressive appeals within the constitutional order and by keeping the more violent sectors under control. Moreover, the current political climate is not conducive to open extra-parliamentary ‘street fighting’ where the new Right would be easily crushed. Most right-wing strategists believe the current context is conducive to the accumulation of forces via peaceful methods.
Conditions Facilitating the Growth of the Right
There are several structural factors contributing to the growth of the new Right in Europe:
First and foremost, there is a clear decline of democratic power and institutions resulting from the centralization of executive – legislative power in the hands of a self-appointed elite in Brussels. The new Right argues effectively that the European Union has become a profoundly authoritarian political institution disenfranchising voters and imposing harsh austerity programs without a popular mandate.
Secondly, national interests have been subordinated to benefit the financial elite identified as responsible for the harsh policies that have undermined living standards and devastated local industries. The new Right counterpoises ‘the nation’ to the Brussels ‘Troika’ – the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission.
Thirdly, ‘liberalization’ has eroded local industries and undermined communities and protective labor legislation. The Right denounces liberal immigration policies, which permit the large-scale inflow of cheap workers at a time of depression level unemployment. The crisis of capitalism combined with the large force of cheap immigrant labor forms the material basis for right-wing appeals to workers, especially those in precarious jobs or unemployed.
Right: Contradictions and the Double Discourse
The Right, while criticizing the neo-liberal state for unemployment, focuses mainly on the immigrants competing with nationals in the labor market rather than on the capitalists whose investment decisions determine levels of employment and unemployment.
The Right attacks the authoritarian nature of the European Union, but its own structures, ideology and history pre-figure a repressive state.
The Right rightly proposes to end foreign elite control of the economy, but its own vision of a ‘national state’, especially one linked to NATO, multi-national corporations and imperial wars, will provide no basis for ‘rebuilding the national economy’.
The Right speaks to the needs of the dispossessed and the need to ‘end austerity’ but it eschews the only effective mechanism for countering inequalities – class organization and class struggle. Its vision of the ‘collaboration between productive capital and labor’ is contradicted by the aggressive capitalist offensive to cut wages, social services, pensions and working conditions. The new Right targets immigrants as the cause of unemployment while obscuring the role of the capitalists who hire and fire, invest abroad, relocate firms and introduce technology to replace labor.
They focus the workers’ anger ‘downward’ against immigrants, instead of ‘upward’ toward the owners of the means of production, finance and distribution who ultimately manipulate the labor market.
In the meantime the radical Left’s mindless defense of unlimited immigration in the name of an abstract notion of ‘international workers solidarity’ exposes their arrogant liberal bias, as though they had never consulted real workers who have to compete with immigrants for scarce jobs under increasingly unfavorable conditions.
The radical Left, under the banner of ‘international solidarity’, has ignored the historical fact that ‘internationalism’ must be built on the strong national foundation of organized, employed workers.
The Left has allowed the new Right to exploit and manipulate powerful righteous nationalist causes. The radical Left has counterpoised ‘nationalism’ to socialism, rather than seeing them as intertwined, especially in the present context of an imperialist-dominated European Union.
The fight for national independence, the break-up of the European Union, is essential to the struggle for democracy and the deepening of the class struggle for jobs and social welfare. The class struggle is more powerful and effective on the familiar national terrain – rather than confronting distant overseers in Brussels.
The notion among many radical Left leaders to ‘remake’ the EU into a ‘Social Europe’, the idea that the EU could be converted into a ‘European Union of Socialist States’ simply prolongs the suffering of the workers and the subordination of nations to the non-elected bankers who run the EU. No one seriously believes that buying stocks in Deutsche Bank and joining its annual stockholders meetings would allow workers to ‘transform’ it into a ‘People’s Bank’. Yet the ‘Bank of the Banks’, the ‘Troika’, made up of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF, set all major policies for each member state of the European Union. Un-rectified and remaining captive of the ‘Euro-metaphysic’, the Left has abdicated its role in advancing the class struggle through the rebirth of the national struggle against the EU oligarchs.
Results and Perspectives
The Right is advancing rapidly, even if unevenly across Europe. Its support is not ephemeral but stable and cumulative at least in the medium run. The causes are ‘structural’ and result from the new Right’s ability to exploit the socio-economic crisis of the neo-liberal right governments and to denounce authoritarian and anti-national policies of the unelected EU oligarchy.
The new Right’s strength is in ‘opposition’. Their protests resonate while they are distant from the command centers of the capitalist economy and state.
Are they capable of moving from protest to power? Shared power with the neo-liberals will obviously dilute and disaggregate their current social base.
The contradictions will deepen as the new Right moves from positions of ‘opposition’ to sharing power with the neo-liberal Right. The massive roundups and deportation of immigrant workers is not going to change capitalist employment policies or restore social services or improve living standards. Promoting ‘national’ capital over foreign through some corporatist union of capital and labor will not reduce class conflict. It is totally unrealistic to imagine ‘national’ capital rejecting its foreign partners in the interest of labor.
The divisions within the ‘nationalist Right’, between the overtly fascist and electoral corporatist sectors, will intensify. The accommodation with ‘national’ capital, democratic procedures and social inequalities will likely open the door to a new wave of class conflict which will expose the sham radicalism of the ‘nationalist’ right. A committed Left, embedded in the national terrain, proud of its national and class traditions, and capable of unifying workers across ethnic and religious ‘identities’ can regain supporters and re-emerge as the real alternative to the two faces of the Right – the neo-liberal and the ‘nationalist’ new Right. The prolonged economic crisis, declining living standards, unemployment and personal insecurity propelling the rise of the nationalist Right can also lead to the emergence of a Left deeply linked to national, class and community realities. The neo-liberals have no solutions to offer for the disasters and problems of their own making; the nationalists of the new Right have the wrong -reactionary – answer. Does the Left have the solution? Only by overthrowing the despotic imperial rule of Brussels can they begin to address the national-class issues.
Post-script and final observations
In the absence of a Left alternative, the working class voters have opted for two alternatives: Massive voter abstention and strikes. In the recent EU election, 60% of the French electorate abstained, with abstention approaching 80% in working class neighborhoods. This pattern was repeated or even exceeded throughout the EU – hardly a mandate for the EU or for the ‘new Right’. In the weeks and days before the vote, workers took to the streets. There were massive strikes of civil servants and shipyard workers, as well as workers from other sectors and mass demonstrations by the unemployed and popular classes opposing EU-imposed ‘austerity’ cuts in social services, health, education, pensions, factory closures and mass lay-offs. Widespread voter abstention and street demonstrations point to a huge proportion of the population rejecting both the neo-Liberal Right of the ‘Troika’ as well as the ‘new Right’.
Study: Median CEO pay in US crosses $10 million for first time
Press TV – May 28, 2014
The median pay package for a chief executive officer (CEO) in the United States rose above $10 million for the first time in 201, according to a new Associated Press/Equilar pay study, while worker pay stagnates.
A typical American CEO at an S&P 500 company earned a record $10.5 million in 2013, an increase of 8.8 percent from $9.6 million in 2012, the study showed.
Chief executives, generally the most senior position in a large public company, now make 257 times the average worker’s salary, up sharply from 181 times in 2009.
Last year was the fourth straight that CEO compensation rose following a decline during the Great Recession. The median CEO pay package has climbed more than 50 percent since the recession.
“We are still dealing with a situation where CEO compensation has spun out of control and CEOs are being paid extraordinary levels for their work,” says Gary Hewitt, director of research at GMI Ratings, a corporate governance research firm.
The highest paid CEO was Anthony Petrello of oilfield-services company Nabors Industries, who made $68.3 million in 2013. The second-highest paid CEO among companies in the S&P 500 was Leslie Moonves of CBS. Moonves’ total compensation rose 9 percent to $65.6 million in 2013.
Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold CEO Richard Adkerson received a total payment of $55.3 million, making him the third-highest paid CEO last year.
CEO pay remains a divisive issue in the US. The 8.8 percent increase in total pay that CEOs got last year dwarfed the average raise a US worker received.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said average weekly wages for US workers rose 1.3 percent in 2013. At that rate an employee would have to work 257 years to make what a typical S&P 500 CEO makes in a year.
According to a study released earlier this month by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the growing income inequality in the United States has reached a 50-year high.
Exxon, BP Defy White House; Extend Partnership with Russia
By Nick Cunningham | Oilprice.com | May 26, 2014
Several of the largest oil companies in the world are doubling down in Russia despite moves by the West to isolate Russia and its economy. ExxonMobil and BP separately signed agreements with Rosneft – Russia’s state-owned oil company – to extend and deepen their relationships for energy exploration. The U.S. slapped sanctions on Rosneft’s CEO Igor Sechin in late April, freezing his assets and preventing him from obtaining visas.
However, the sanctions do not extend to Rosneft itself, allowing western companies to continue to do business with the Russian oil giant. ExxonMobil signed an agreement with Rosneft, extending its partnership to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on Russia’s pacific coast. Known as the Far East LNG project, the export terminal will receive natural gas from Russia’s eastern fields as well as from Sakhalin-1, an island off Russia’s east coast. Rosneft announced the deal in a press release on its website on May 23.
The following day, Rosneft and BP signed an agreement to jointly explore oil in the Volga-Urals region. It will consist of a pilot project in the Domanik formations, and if successful could lead to the development of shale oil in Russia. Rosneft will maintain a 51 percent ownership of the joint venture and BP will own 49 percent.
The signing of the agreement occurred during a ceremony at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. The oil majors attended despite pressure from the White House to boycott the event. Many big name companies chose not to attend even though they have large economic interests in Russia, including PepsiCo, German companies E.ON and Siemens, and some of the biggest banks in the U.S.
By defying the White House, the oil majors salvaged what would have otherwise been an embarrassing event for the Kremlin. The absence of the world’s largest companies would have demonstrated Russia’s increasing isolation. Instead, Russia used the event to detail plans to expand its massive energy sector. “(They’re) eager to continue work on projects in Russia,” Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak said of ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell.
BP CEO Bob Dudley emphasized his company’s determination to stick with Russia. “We are very pleased to be a part of Russian energy complex,” he said at the forum. “President (Putin) has urged us today to invest into shale oil… There’s so many natural resources in Russia, the openness and partnerships Russia has with companies from all over the world is a good thing for energy,” Dudley added.
Even though there are international sanctions on Rosneft’s Igor Sechin, Dudley insisted that their business with Rosneft will continue. “It does not affect our cooperation with the company itself,” Dudley said, referring to sanctions on Rosneft’s boss. He was even able to meet Sechin privately.
French oil giant Total S.A. also signed an agreement with Lukoil – Russia’s second largest oil company – to explore for shale oil and gas. Total’s chief executive Christophe de Margerie also went to lengths to reassure the Russian hosts. “My message to Russia is simple – business as usual,” he said at the event.
To be clear, the oil companies are not legally running afoul of international sanctions. But their collective shrug in the face of European and American pressure to boycott Russia – along with the $400 billion natural gas deal Russia signed with China last week – illustrates the difficulty which the West will have at undermining Russia’s energy sector, if it chose to do so. Russia is too big of a prize for the likes of ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell.
Or viewed another way, the moves to deepen business in Russia suggest that the world’s biggest oil companies are confident that the U.S. and Europe won’t be so bold as to truly attack Russia’s energy machine.
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MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) – Vaccine Risk Statement
MMR Vaccine (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) Is It Safer Than Measles, Mumps and Rubella?
Physicians for Informed Consent | December 2024
… It has not been proven that the MMR vaccine is safer than measles, mumps, and rubella. The vaccine package insert raises questions about safety testing for cancer, genetic mutations, and impaired fertility. Although VAERS tracks some adverse events, it is too inaccurate to measure against the risk of measles, mumps, and rubella. Clinical trials do not have the ability to detect less common adverse reactions, and epidemiological studies are limited by the effects of chance and possible confounders. Safety studies of the MMR vaccine are particularly lacking in statistical power. A review of more than 60 MMR vaccine studies conducted for the Cochrane Library states, “The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate.”19 Because permanent sequelae (aftereffects) from measles, mumps, and rubella are so rare (especially in children with normal levels of vitamin A and infected after birth),6,15-17 the level of accuracy of the research studies available is insufficient to rule out the possibility that the MMR vaccine causes greater death or permanent disability than measles, mumps, and rubella. – Read full article
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- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
