In These New Times

Time 2021-01-09 11:04:25

Web Name: In These New Times

WebSite: http://inthesenewtimes.com

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General Sir Nicholas Carter has warned that Russia and China, authoritarian regimes as he has it, are using the covid crisis to undermine Western societies. He even accuses them of seeking to win without fighting. That is probably true in accordance of the dictum of Sun Tzu. In fact, they may already have won. But not in the eyes of out gallant general. This is a man who called for the army to be deployed against coronavrus back in March. He is the symbol and the rallying point of all those who refuse to recognise that the empire is over. In this speech he was introduced in this web conference by David Petreaus, a seasoned neocon. The neocons, the infection which won’t go away, are indeed back. Some of them are featured in the Transition Integrity Project, a more or less brazen attempt to overthrow the president of the USA in the, highly likely, event that he wins the coming election. Where this leads the USA is anyone’s guess but the great hope of the neocons, judging by past form , is that America will once again lead the world to a New World Order by defeating the Russia/China alliance. That certainly seems to be a long shot, but politics as the art of the impossible is exactly attuned to dying empires.What concretely, does Carter propose. He has realized that modern warfare is about modern technology, specifically 5G, AI, robotisation and cybernetics. Isn’t it a bit late in the day to realise this? Well, the West thought they could win through their Jihadi irregulars destabilising the Middle East and thence both Russia and China. Empire on the cheap, if you like, actual investment, long term investment, in new technology being beyond the scope of America’s corporate welfare system. So, that all has to change- there has to be a reset. The pretext for the reset is the lockdown, a proposal first mooted by the Chinese and their friends in the WHO. Perhaps the Chinese hoped to out the war party once and for all and Carter and Petreaus have duly obliged. Their language may be newspeak but their intentions are transparent. The US/UK and their self-declared allies have decided to reassert their birthright, their ‘ownership” of the “international community”.Covid, of course, is about politics rather than public health. In the first instance, it is essential in order to set the US election within the framework of the “new normal”. This enables the subversion of the electoral process as never before. In particular, it allows the postal voting which , as Trump correctly points out, is a guaranteed means of electoral fraud. All that matters if that the outcome, presumably a victory by Donald Trump, can be contested. Why the removal of Trump is such an imperative I can’t say. That it is an imperative is beyond question. If the neocons are in the mix , as they appear to be, then it can only be a question of war or peace. I would then surmise that Trump, despite all appearances, intends to seek an American diplomacy which permits a detente with Russia/China wheres his adversaries seek a New World Order built on the ashes of Russia and China. Trump’s policy then would be a realistic pursuit of US national interests as opposed to the entrenched fanaticism of fantasists.It is significant that Trump has consistently sought to downplay the coronavirus crisis in contrast to most of the media, the democrats in general and the neocons in particular. Not only is coronavirus a cover for electoral fraud, it is instrumental in furthering the aims of the war party. The USA has to “reset”, restructure in the interests of war. This would entail economies of scale, the monopolisation of the economy, the rapid running down of social programmes, the destruction of independent wealth, the middle class and the scaling down of the population. If fascism is defined as the orientation of an entire society to war then this is fascism- fascism with a transhuman face: the human values of yesteryear and their advocates reduced to naught. We can already get more than a glimpse of this in the lockdown, already a dystopia which leaves 1984 or Brave New World looking not so bad after all. Is this then between an Orwellian vision and a Huxley vision. I believe not. We are firmly placed in Oceania and Orwell’s world of rivalries between power blocks. The Western elites have retreated from globalisation which is now being led by China. They make seek to retool for global war, a ‘challenge” too far I would say, regress into a fourth world misery, or finally embrace the new multipolar reality where no one is top dog, not even China, and the world finds a new equilibrium.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Multipolar world, Oceania, Uncategorized | Tagged: covid coup | Leave a Comment Exit Johnson, enterGove Posted by seumasach on April 18, 2020 Cailean Bochanan18th april, 2020For three years the news and media covered Brexit to the exclusion of everything else. Coronavirus was, therefore, something of a relief: exit Brexit, enter Covid 19. The question remains: what is the relationship between the new agenda and the old one?On the domestic front the implications of the corona-coup are self-evident and self-declaratory: the suspension of civil rights, the destruction of what remains of British business (fuck business!) in favour of financial/corporate control of the entire economy and the imposition of total social control, especially medical control over the people. You could describe this as the fulfilment of the Thatcher agenda. I prefer to go back to the Elizabethan roots of the Anglo-system. The main goal of the novus homo, the new men, who had come to power via the great plague, the Black Death was to avoid being threatened by other emerging new men, notably the potentially wealthy and , therefore, dangerous peasant, yeoman class. This fear of this aspiring undercurrent of humanity gave rise to the overpopulation scare which obsessed the Elizabethan elite, the Raleighs, Donnes, Bacons etc. The solution was gloriously simple, although at the time it still posed logistical problems: take the land from the English natives and give them native land in the Americas. Just as today the elite fear those of independent means who may also be able to think independently. They hope to end this worry and also to reduce the working class, in as far was it still exists, to a situation in which they either work for them or don t work at all. They will also be highly indebted, also to them, and their status will therefore be that of indentured servants. The rest of the population are surplus to requirement and they certainly can t be exported as they were from the early 17th century.That takes care of the home front but Britain continues to aspire to global power. This brings us back to question I posed at the start. What is Britain s Brexit strategy in times of coronavirus? What brought this to mind for me was the strange disappearance of the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, remember? This after, his after enemy and nemesis, Michael Gove, announced, with all due solemnity, on the 27th of March that Johnson had tested positive for Covid-19. Despite having made a recovery after a spell in intensive care and appearing to be well and in good spirits as he reemerged form it, he is no longer in any way involved in government- not so much as a phone call to his replacement Dominic Raab. Am I the only one who finds this odd?Has any change in foreign policy coincided with the absence of the Prime Minister? Yes, Dominic Raab has announced that there can no longer be “business as usual” with China. That is significant: Britain has a great deal of business with China which is a major investor in this country. Most notably Huawei is playing a large role in updating the UK s mobile phone network, the so-called 5G development. That was Johnson s controversial choice. Expect this now to be reversed. However, it wouldn t be necessary to sideline the Prime Minister in order to get him to reverse that decision. Coronavirus and China s alleged nefarious role in allowing it to propagate would suffice for that. However, joining a US-UK-French alliance against China might be. France , of course, is an EU member. Did we leave Europe with such a fanfare only to start re-engaging with it? Brexit populism, of which Johnson is the embodiment, was based on old wives tales about making trade deals with the Commonwealth, certainly not with the French. However, as I wrote back in 2016 after the Brexit vote: It may come as a surprise to little englander Brexit voters that they weren’t voting to leave Europe but to destroy it. It wasn’t a vote against globalisation but for Anglo-American globalisation. Neo-conservatism, the infection that just won’t go away, is back in the form of a new unelected junta about to take control of Britain. It’s chief ideologue is Michael Gove of the neocon Henry Jackson society. According to Gove:“For Europe, Britain voting to leave will be the beginning of something potentially even more exciting — the democratic liberation of a whole continent”So we are to leave Europe in order, subsequently, to meddle in it. So, are about to see the democratic liberation of Europe led by the chief ideologue of a new unelected junta about to take control of Britain? Absolutely not: democracy is now definitively off the agenda. But we are seeing a course correction. Brexit as conceived by the brexiteers never made any sense at all from the point of view of British imperial interests. It s underlying programme, a union of English speaking peoples, or Oceania as portrayed by George Orwell, is simply not viable. It lacks a substantial industrial base, layed waste since the Thatcher years and the elevation of the financial sector at its expense. The Western block must, therefore, include Europe, more specifically Germany. The German, and European business elite, have increasingly been looking East, especially to China, the world s leading productive economy. They have also been looking to Russia especially for oil and gas. Germany s Ostpolitik is really it s default position- the one it will follow unless otherwise constrained. It is now being aggressively constrained. US/UK policy, (yes, they re together again despite MI6 s attempt to overthrow Trump!) is now to reincorporate Germany into the West aided and abetted by France whose own Ostpolitik failed in 1812. Is Boris Johnson the man to lead this new European policy? The question answers itself. Apparently, he is to be allowed out on May 7th to lead celebrations of the last time we got the better of Germany. He is being given a new role as a ceremonial head of state with the full blessing of the actual one.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: The coronavirus coup | Leave a Comment NATO report exposes the West’s 5Gquandary. Posted by seumasach on August 13, 2019 NATO report exposes the West’s 5G quandary.Cailean Bochanan13th August, 2019National Security Adviser, John Bolton has been in London this week hoping, amongst other things, to pressure the UK government into dropping Huawei from it’s 5G project. With a New Cold War in the air the Americans have raised the spectre of a threat to national security, of China using it’s 5G expertise to spy. We already spy on each other using the Five Eyes network to get round restrictions on intelligence agencies spying on their own citizens: China would be an unwelcome guest at this particular party. Bolton has already claimed his lobbying has provoked a rethink on behalf of the UK government in “appreciation” of the US point of view. If Brexit means anything at all it means rallying to the Americans , a return to Oceania and an Orwellian standoff with Eurasia: that is why Johnson is prime minister.So, in conformity with this geopolitical realignment it is logical that the UK abandon it’s flirtation with Chinese technology and and put it’s Orwellian 5G project back in the safe hands of Western companies. What could be the problem? The problem according to a recent NATO study, “Huawei, 5G, and China as a Security Threat” is that Huawei “is currently the only company that can produce ‘at scale and cost‘ all the elements of a 5G network, with its closest competitors Nokia and Ericsson not yet able to offer a viable alternative”. In other words, Huawei is indispensable! Well, that is a problem.It is also a humiliation for the West: we have already lost the technological race for 5G.So the question isn’t really whether Huawei should be involved in 5G or not, it’s whether we have 5G or not, at all. Well, I for one prefer that question. 5G is just one more nefarious telecommunications industry project threatening public health, as is extensively and reliably documented, as well as civil liberties and privacy. And it does so on a massively increased scale. It also has sinister undertones of transhumanism an ideological current which goes back to the English renaissance which views humanity as “work in progress”. It is familiar from the works of Francis Bacon, the Darwins and the Huxleys. The musings of Elon Musk on microchips in the brain are enough to make us nostalgic for the good old days. Can’t we just go back to 1984?But returning to question of 5G or not 5G, what solutions does the NATO report come up with?“With a binary choice of ‘take it or leave it’ not among the options – there are as of yet no equivalent alternatives to Huawei 5G technology; the West is neither able nor willing to afford a technological stagnation, and with the expected socioeconomic benefits in the promise of 5G, states will likely remain pragmatic in their approaches. Whether by issuing security guidance to reinforce the security of critical government and commercial functions, strengthening risk assessment and management processes, or agreeing on transparency and accountability mechanisms, national responses will likely seek to improve risk mitigation.”Logic doesn’t seem to be a NATO strongpoint: with no available alternatives to Huawei the choice is precisely ”take it or leave it”. The rest is what the French call “langue de bois” and the anglo-saxons would call, more bluntly, “bullshit”. So in addition to not recognising the problem NATO doesn’t offer any solutions.The truth is that the Western model, or, more specifically, the Anglo-American model has exhausted itself in terms of major infrastructural project development. The scandal in the UK over prematurely obsolete schools and hospitals built through private finance initiatives or so-called public/private partnerships has dramatically exposed this reality. A children’s hospital in Edinburgh has just been “completed” for what will eventually amount to half a billion pounds. However, it can’t be opened due to structural flaws and already union representatives are talking about the need to demolish it. The US/UK are bottom of the league when it comes to fibre optic connections into people’s homes. Verizon won a contract to provide fibre optic to homes in New York. They failed to do so and are being sued by the City authorities. In fact, 5G is a poor man’s fibre optic but it still requires massive, and politically impossible, fibre optic roll-out and investment in masts placed in close proximity. Plus, of course, Huawei technology.In contrast, the Chinese excel in long term, developmental and infrastructural projects. Through the Belt and Road Initiative they are building roads, bridges, airports, ports , high speed trains. Unfortunately, it also involves 5G, for the moment. If 5G was being carried exclusively by Western companies the American NSA would have unrestricted access to all data and therefore, total political control. The Chinese have effectively blocked that. However, we, the people, do not have to choose between a total surveillance state run by the USA or by the Chinese. Not because slaves can’t choose their masters but because we choose not to be slaves. We can simply reject 5G outright as we have every right to do as it constitutes an assault on our persons and our privacy. Italy leads the way in doing precisely that, with growing opposition at very level of civil society, the professions, local authorities and NGOs. Just as 5G epitomises an emerging technocratic elite governance, the opposition to it is a reaffirmation of democracy and citizenship. Let’s make technology our servant and not our master.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Ecological and Public Health Crisis, Oceania | Tagged: Stop 5G! | Leave a Comment De-dollarizing the American financialempire Posted by seumasach on July 15, 2019 Interview with Michael HudsonGuns and Butter7th July, 2019Economist Michael Hudson continues his discussion of Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire with a focus on US monetary imperialism; President Trump’s demand for lower interest rates undercuts America’s requirement for foreign investment to fund its domestic and balance of payments deficit, increases the carry trade and turns IMF and World Bank policies on the US; analysis of US economic domination of the world from its position as the world’s largest creditor post-WWI; analysis of US economic domination of the world from its position as the world’s largest debtor after the 1971 close of America’s gold window; emergence of the dollar-debt standard; how war has bankrupted the US; the difference between imperialism and super imperialism; US bribes foreign governments; China’s banking system; China and Russia stockpile gold as the world breaks out of dollar domination.Read moreShare this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Currency Wars, Uncategorized | Tagged: de-dollarisation, decline of dollar, End of empire, gold standard | Leave a Comment Britain in purgatory Posted by seumasach on April 14, 2019 Cailean Bochanan14th April, 2019At last, some clarity is coming to Brexit. We now know that Theresa May wasn’t just running down the clock for a no-deal departure and that the EU is prepared to give extensions without any plan or clue to a plan being on offer. Even if the EU isn’t heaven a no-deal Brexit would certainly be hell and the UK has therefore entered a sort of purgatory to be purged of the sin of hubris.We are learning still more about the British constitutional system: it doesn’t , as claimed, rest on the sovereignty of parliament. An attempt by parliament to seize control has failed miserably. How can a mere aggregation of constituency I.e. local representatives act decisively on national issues: they voted to save their seats. It was the great elitists the Whigs, who despised the people with a vengeance, who extended the franchise in order to make sure the spectre of Stuart monarchical power, which had raised it’s head once again under George the Third, could never again return to haunt them. This led to the gradual emergence of the executive, prime ministerial power through the two-party system  within the legislative itself, in contradiction to the much-vaunted doctrine of the separation of powers. Such a system worked at it’s peak during times of nations consensus such as the the two world wars and Cold War, the famous post-war consensus. So even the British constitution works when there is consensus but what happens when the country is split down the middle, from top to bottom? Nothing happens by the look of it.But there is no shame in being dysfunctional: there are plenty of other dysfunctional countries. Spain continues to be divided along exactly the lines of the civil war fought over eighty years ago and torn apart by regional division. Similar entrenched divisions are evident in many other European countries: that is one reason why they are so committed to the EU. The EU enables them to transcend irreconcilable local feuding and move to a new, higher terrain. The political stability of Britain post- Good Friday Agreement also depends on EU membership.The Greek crisis was largely blamed on the EU and was widely cited by left-leaning, Brexiteers. But they failed to note that Greece didn’t actually leave: Greece will eventually resolve it’s economic and political problems within the EU.But we have boldly set out to go it alone and we’ve got as far as complete paralysis. We desperately want to move, “to just get on with it” in our fabled, no-nonsense, everyday, down to earth sort of way. To keep ongoing to the end of the road!But the UK is already at the end of the road.The factors which have enabled our essentially parasitic, imperial  economic model to serve the needs of our people are no longer there no matter how we seek to escape EU financial regulation, protect our tax havens and enable illegal money flows into the country.And extraditing Assange or jumping on the anti-Maduro bandwagon won t stop US competition in the offshore game. Under Trump “business” trumps the Special Relationship. The world has left us behind. China is leading the way with the greatest project of economic construction in human history, the Belt and Road Initiative. The EU-China summit shows that Europe is buying into it. Trump is already boasting about his big deal the with China, the grandfather of all deals, the greatest deal in human history etc.- so he tells us. It is a sad delusion that Brexit Britain will be global Britain. Outside the single market the UK is economically insignificant. Thatcher destroyed the UK’s industrial base but at least her single market idea enabled the UK to become , to some extent, a hub for incoming investment.. March 31st didn’t see Brexit but another historic event went largely unnoticed: the Basil 111 accords came into force changing the status of gold within central banking reserves. In other words, the beginning of the return of gold as money and the beginning of the end of the dollar reserve fiat system introduced in 1971. This in turn threatens the status of the pound which hung onto the dollar’s coat tails under that system.With a no-deal Brexit looking like a leap into the abyss rather than just a leap in the dark it would appear to be off the agenda. The other imagined forms of Brexit constitute a huge mass of fudge best epitomised in Corbyn’s membership of “a” customs union and close alignment with the single market, whatever that’s supposed to mean. If only the problem were a disconnect between the people and the political class as it has become fashionable to claim. The vagaries of Labour Party policy are the result of an attempt to connect to the people, a people itself hopelessly divided and confused as would be expected when you reach a fork in the road, when you face a historic shift in the status of the UK, something which can’t be grasped within the parameters of the everyday.The remain option is now the only logical one but may still be politically impossible. Unable to leave and unable to remain our stay in purgatory may be a prolonged one. Another extension may be necessary. It is a national humiliation.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in brexit crisis | Leave a Comment Enter Captain Corbyn! Posted by seumasach on September 27, 2018 Cailean Bochanan27th September, 2018The analogy coming forcibly to mind of late was of Britain as a ship adrift without a captain heading towards the rocks as the crew below indulged in an endless brawl, unaware of or indifferent to the grim fate awaiting them. But my spirits have been lifted by the Labour Party conference; could it be that someone has emerged who can put the ship of state back on course to somewhere that is not the abyss. In other words, can Corbyn finally end his highly ambiguous stance on Brexit and at the crucial moment come out for Remain.Without of course stating anything of the kind, Corbyn has pointed to that as the only logical outcome. The bare facts are that there is a consensus now in the Labour Party that Labour will vote against any deal negotiated by Teresa May which doesn’t satisfy the criteria that Labour has set down and that Labour will oppose a no-deal Brexit. Well, no deal which could conceivably be negotiated by May could satisfy those criteria therefore Labour will vote down whatever she comes up with. That means that deal would fail to pass the Commons leaving us with a no-deal Brexit. Opposing this at any cost, Labour would then campaign for a referendum with the two options being: Remain or the deal negotiated by May. They would win support for this in the Commons and the country would vote by a clear majority for Remain.This was the logical kernel of the fudge agreed upon at the LP conference. But it was a tiny island of logic in a sea of fudge. Truth-telling is political suicide in the contemporary world: everything must be approached obliquely, through dissimulation, through fudge. Labour haven’t actually come out for Remain. It has been tentatively suggested as an option; all options are on the table, therefore, Remain is on the table. It could even be on the ballot paper (how could it not be!) should it come, in extremis, to a second referendum.  The main element of dissimulation is the claim that Labour prefer to have a General Election so that they can take on the Brexit negotiations, so that they can take on May’s hopeless conundrum. As if they hadn’t learnt the one clear lesson of the last two years: there is no such thing as a Soft Brexit! They must have worked out by now that the Soft Brexit scenario was merely an invention of the hard line brexiteers to help sell a Hard Brexit i.e. Brexit by lulling the people into a false sense of security and then blaming Europe for a Hard Brexit and the whole mess that would flow from it. Incidentally, why they would want a mess in the first instance is a very good question that, with a bit of luck, we will learn the answer to in the years ahead. Anyway, returning to Labour’s fudge, they’re professed aim of demanding a General Election provides a very good alibi in anticipation of  any accusations of being closet Remainers and helps smooth over divisions in the party between those with the perfectly achievable goal of Remain and those who insist on pursuing the impossible mirage of a benign Brexit, a Brexit for jobs, a Brexit for Ireland and other such nonsense.I’m being a bit unfair. There is a benign Brexit option: the Norwegian option. This could come in handy if Labour are unlucky enough to win a General Election called, for some reason, by Teresa May. After all, it would be very difficult for them to call a referendum after reaching their heart’s desire of a chance to negotiate a Brexit for jobs”. So they could leave the EU but remain in the single market, maintain free movement etc.. Only, they wouldn’t have any input into the EU project. That wouldn’t be the end of the world. The EU has developed quite nicely without our input: they’re already working with Russia and China to bypass US sanctions against Iran and uphold the Iran deal. Britain would just have to sit things out for a while in the sin bin, quarantined from a world that is passing us by. But the ship of state would still be afloat!Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit fiasco, brexit mudge and fudge, Corbyn agenda | Leave a Comment World leaders call for trust economy at Russian economicforum Posted by seumasach on May 27, 2018 As US-led globalization degenerates into a cacophony of, hopefully, idle threats and the generalized incoherence that flows from internal division, the 22nd St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) shows that globalization itself is not dead. As a multipolar project led by China we can hope to see a constructive globalization process subject to new forms of global governance. The key issue of the moment is the joining of this process by Europe and the related question of the replacement of the dollar as the standard means of international payment. Consciously or unconsciously, Trump has played the role of facilitator of this process which is now unfolding at breathtaking speed leaving so many lagging behind, most especially the Western intelligentsia which has never really got beyond liberal imperialism and has certainly never caught on to the idea of a multipolar world, to the idea of the equality of nations.Xinhua26th May, 2018The 22nd St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) concluded a plenary session Friday as world leaders gathered here to discuss pressing economic challenges.Held under the theme Building a Trust Economy this year, the forum, often referred to as Russia s Davos, attracted some 15,000 participants from 70 countries to Russia s northern capital and second largest city.The leaders noted that there are alarming trends that might compromise economic growth, including rising protectionism and unilateralism, the spiral of sanctions and risks from radical technology transformation.Recognizing the need for a concerted effort in response, they called on countries to enhance mutual trust, remove trade barriers and boost bilateral and multilateral cooperation to drive forward global growth. Read the rest of this entry Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: The 22nd St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIE | Leave a Comment May surrenders as Brexiteers agree to goquietly Posted by seumasach on December 9, 2017 Cailean Bochanan9th December, 2017On a historic day, yesterday Britain resigned its role as a junior partner in the Atlantic Alliance and embraced a new role as a junior partner in the European Alliance.Something had to give way as the impossibility of Brexit became increasingly obvious. I had anticipated that it would be the government and the Tory party. Instead they both emerged intact at the expense of Brexit itself.The thorn at the heart of the Brexit gorse bush had been the question of the status of Northern Ireland. Given the impossibility of a hard border between north and south Northern Ireland had to be given special status meaning de facto, continued membership of the Single Market and the Custom’s Union. The loyalist veto of this arrangement meant instead that the whole UK has been given a special status: the UK will remain in both the Single Market and the Custom’s Union. Officially, this arrangement is only temporary, for the duration of the so-called transition. However, since the Irish border problem will not simply go away the UK’s special status will continue indefinitely to be finally resolved, presumably, by our renewed integration into the EU. There is no alternative.One would have anticipated an immediate backlash against this arrangement by the Tory brexiteers but they have simply rolled over. The British ruling has shown again some of their more positive, traditional attributes: an ability to act pragmatically and to discard useless ideology. What cannot be cannot be, and Brexit cannot be.That begs the question: what was it all about in the first place? That is beyond my meagre intellectual abilities. However, two things may be pertinent. Firstly, the EU shows no sign of falling apart as was hoped and expected by the neocon wing of the Brexit movement. Euroscepticism is not on the rise and the Catalan declaration of independence, which elicited a brief frisson of excitement in the Brexit camp has not triggered a cascade of regional movements towards the CIA’s favourite Europe of the Regions outcome. Secondly, Trump has adopted a hostile attitude to the UK and has already, effectively, ended the Special Relationship with the result that Britain just has nowhere to go.These changes may also explain why the Europeans have conceded what they said they would never concede, namely, that the UK can leave the EU and still enjoy the benefits of membership of the EU. But, of course, the unspoken, unspeakable reality, from the brexiteers point of view, is that we aren’t really leaving the EU, except in a purely formal sense. But for the meantime we are in a state of limbo with a special status under a kind of EU mandate.Ultimately, this astonishing outcome reveals the level of disconnect between ideology and reality. All the current ideologies flow from the Anglophilosophy  and the presuppositions of Anglo-American globalization- globalization from below at the expense of sovereign structures. This is perfectly embodied in the Brexit cult of “free-trade”. What we seeing now is globalization accompanied by global governance stemming from sharing of sovereignty. The Single Market reflects that but it will be even more evident as the One Belt, One Road project takes off. Who is going to regulate or “nationalise” the high-speed trains which will soon connect China and Europe? Who will regulate international trade and an international means of payment now that the Dollar-fiat reserve currency system is coming to an end? Of course, some of these agencies of global governance already exist but they will undoubtedly be transformed, extended or replaced in the coming years.Britain has, as of yesterday, begun to resolve it’s relationship with the nascent multipolar world order. The fact that Brexit is only a virtual event, or, at least, a real non-event and that that is understood by all will have immediate effects. Most importantly, our deal with are major creditor, China, should be back on to the accompanying smirk of George Osborne. Major problems lie ahead concerning uncontrolled debt, speculative bubbles and lack of income at personal, corporate and national levels with the banks once again looking vulnerable. But, as of yesterday, we will resolve them within a European and multipolar context.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit fiasco, brexit mudge and fudge | Leave a Comment Hague despairs ofBrexit Posted by seumasach on August 31, 2017 The latest news is that Hague is leading the campaign against any backsliding on the Brexit decision.  He has not , therefore, despaired of Brexit and is all for pressing on with it come hell or high water. Adding to that the fact that Hague  claims he voted, remain and we have to admit that these are deep, and troubled, waters. It has now become fashionable for remain supporters to insist on Brexit being carried through despite the dire straits ahead. Also noteworthy is the flurry of excitement in the Brexit camp following the eruption of the Catalan crisis: this, presumably, was to be the catalyst for European disintegration. But, no one, least of all Trump, came to the support of the Catalan nationalists and the whole affair has blown over. Similarly, the post-electoral crisis in Germany seems to be heading to a resolution thanks to the co-operative approach of the SDP. This highlights the strength of consensus in Germany concerning Europe, trumping as it does ideological differences. European integration goes marching on to the despair of the British government.Cailean Bochanan31st August, 2017In 2011 William Hague described the Euro as a burning building with no exits . But it appears to still be standing as the pound sinks to parity and , no doubt, beyond. And now he despairs of the Brexit process blaming the British people for their mistake in not giving their full backing to the government in the recent general election: I think the result was a mistake. Collectively, by the people of this country. One cannot help but recall Hague s denunciation of the then Labour government in 2001: We have a Government that has contempt for the views of the people it governs. But I suppose we must concede that the electorate can make mistakes- after all they voted for Brexit in 2016, a decision whose catastrophic consequences have since become ever clearer. Indeed, one could argue that two wrongs make a right and that the British people corrected, to some extent, that fateful vote by failing to follow it up with a rounding endorsement of the Brexit Junta.Would it have made any difference had they given May the thumbs up? According to Hague: Britain will get a worse deal as a result of the election. But what was the deal anyway given that Britain is totally dependent on inward investment and incoming labour to keep a wasteland created by forty years of Thatcherism afloat and both will be undermined by Brexit? Well, the hope was that the burning building could be brought to the ground. Hague s despair is simply the realization that that is not going to happen.The election has contributed to that conclusion. Britain needed a united front of the entire political class to apply maximum pressure. They appeared to have it but Labour was waiting to see which way the wind was blowing and have seen that it is still the prevailing westerly, blowing the ship of state back towards Europe where it now belongs if it belongs anywhere. They have adopted a de facto remain position after discussions with the Europeans. Oh, the treachery of it all!But a more significant factor was the need for a united front with Washington led by a politician with the left-liberal credentials capable of influence in Europe. Someone like Hilary Clinton. Instead they have a man who opportunistically used the Brexit vote to advance his own nationalist credentials in order to win an election but who has since purged his team of ideologues of this hue. What remains is a realist administration based on the military which has no interest in either exporting a nationalist revolution or the neocon obsession with bringing down the EU. Indeed, Trump has, wittingly or unwittingly, advanced the cause of European integration and independence from US tutelage. The disarray in London following his election contributed mightily to discrediting European eurosceptic movements as well as these latter being tarred by association with the Beast in the White House.And so we come to the negotiations with Brussels. As I predicted on the 26th June, 2016: The fact that Brexit is only a trigger for “more exciting” perspectives[the destabilization of Europe] explains many of the peculiarities of the Brexit campaign. They have done nothing to elaborate a clear alternative to EU membership, they don’t want to leave any time soon and many of their promises over the NHS and immigration have already been shown to be worthless.These things are beside the point and there will be no attempt to negotiate in good faith. I rest on my laurels.It remains only say that Hague has effectively announced the end of the Brexit neocon project. Europe will not fall but this government, and likely a whole lot else, will.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: brexit fiasco | Leave a Comment May and the eternaltriangle Posted by seumasach on January 28, 2017 Cailean Bochanan28th January, 2017If Theresa wants a special relationship with Donald  and Donald wants a fantastic relationship with Vladimir, what kind of relationship with does Theresa  want with Vladimir? She wants to engage but beware : beware, no doubt, that Vladimir s relationship with Donald doesn t get too fantastic.All in all, May s response seems to be in keeping with with Britain s values of tolerance and laissez faire but the reality is that May used the Washington trip to mark a complete about turn in British foreign policy aligning it with that of Donald Trump. Indeed, her words are the surest confirmation yet of the winds of change blowing in Washington.Quite simply May totally the contradicted the Fallon doctrine, an obvious shot across the bows of Trump, proposed by her defense secretary only last week that “The UK is sending a clear message that we are committed to defending democracy across the world and support Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.” According to May, however: “The days of Britain and America intervening in sovereign countries in an attempt to remake the world in our own image are over.” The shift is confirmed by her foreign secretary’s statement on Syria in which, ever gracious in defeat, he concedes that Assad may be allowed to stay after all.Of course, one could point to elements in May’ speech contradicting this interpretation, notably her claims that the UK and US will continue to lead the world in the face of rising challenge of Russia and China. I would respond that these contradictions stem from the hybrid nature of her speech: it is like an adaption of the speech she would have given had Clinton won the presidency to the emerging Trump doctrine. Indeed, she continues to sing the praises of doctrines which Trump has totally repudiated such free trade and adherence to the various “globalist” institutions. In an unfortunate lapse she said at the joint press conference that she “thinks” Trump has just given his 100% backing for NATO.Most interestingly, May reaffirms that she doesn’t wish the EU to fail. I wouldn’t rule out that she is telling the truth on this. After all, she has only recently given a long speech focused on Britain’s need to make a trade deal with Europe post-Brexit. Is that really compatible with this new deal with the USA. Europe rejected TTIP: will they really accept it through the back door via a trade deal with Britain. May may be cognizant of Ukraine’s attempt to play both sides in trade deals with Russia and the EU: they ended up with nothing.UK/US leadership in the world is bluff and bluster: trumpet the charge whilst stealthily retreating. But the West truly will be lost if we don’t begin constructive engagement with the rising stars of the East soon and May must already deep in anxious dreams be haunted by that smug grin of George Osborne standing triumphantly alongside President Xi.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: trump agenda | Leave a Comment Supreme Court ruling heralds constitutionalchaos Posted by seumasach on January 24, 2017 Cailean Bochanan24th January, 2017It is not necessary to read beyond the first sentence of today s Supreme Court Ruling to arrive at the heart of the matter The devolution Acts were passed by Parliament on the assumption that the UK would be a member of the EU, but they do not require the UK to remain a member. Read the rest of this entry Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in brexit crisis, Constitutional change in Britain | Tagged: brexit fiasco | Leave a Comment Soros changes tune onEU Posted by seumasach on January 23, 2017 and provides the key to understanding May s enigmatic speechCailean Bochanan23rd January, 2017After triumphantly hailing the disintegration of the EU for so long, George Soros now admits to some exaggeration behind the claim. To cover his change of tack he claims that neither Russia nor China want the EU to disintegrate and therefore it won t. This is disingenuous to say the least. Russia and China never wanted the EU to disintegrate. It was Soros himself and the forces he represents in Western elites who wanted it. Funnily enough his most emphatic forecast of Eurodoom came right after the Brexit vote which, according to him, rendered the disintegration of the EU practically irreversible . But now the EU is safe from the soothsayer s curse.Could this have anything to do with the election of Donald Trump? It has everything to do with it. Soros clearly anticipates the defection of the Americans from the Atlantic Alliance and now looks towards Europe to take on the mantle of his obsessive, compulsive anti-Russian policy. I hadn t considered this possibility before because it seems such a long shot: Europe can only look east now. This explains the curious feature of May s speech last week: its eurocentricity. The election of Trump has left the Brexit project of a fortified special relationship taking a step back from a collapsing EU in total disarray. May s speech was, in fact, a corrective, a reorientation towards an EU which is now the last great hope for our values and, in her distinctly fuzzy, despairing vision, a bulwark against authoritarian Russia. So she was telling the truth after all when she said she didn t want the EU to collapse. She is now doing what the Kippers (UKIP) suspected she would all along: talking hard Brexit whilst trying to work out some satisfactory accommodation behind the scenes.This looks like a tall order and, anyway, hard Brexit talk costs political lives. The most obvious one is that of Jeremy Corbyn who has quite pointedly failed to walk through the open door of opposing Brexit and has become instead the enabler of Brexit by failing to join a cross party coalition amendment to article 50. But May herself is now set to trigger the disintegration of the UK, a process she is certain not to survive (as Soros himself charitably points out). What is more the inevitable emergence of an English nationalism as opposed to a UK nationalism will see splits in both the major parties. We may never know what Brexit was about but its unintended consequence will make themselves felt only too painfully in years of chaos and utter confusion. The home of farce is about to live the mother of all farces.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit | Leave a Comment Brexit and the flash crashmystery Posted by seumasach on October 9, 2016 Cailean Bochanan9th October, 2016Friday’s flash crash may remain a mystery but it should be no mystery that the pound is in freefall and that it could become the focus of hostile trading.This is not just about Brexit itself but what is behind Brexit. If we want to destroy our own economy by leaving the single market that it is our business. But if we want to use Brexit to turn the UK into a base for hostile operations against our creditors and closest trading partners that is their business.Incredibly, that is exactly what has happened. We have appointed negotiators who delight in the prospect of the implosion of the EU. Boris Johnson has endorsed Change Britain whose neo-conservative leadership sees the end of the EU as inevitable and desirable. His clowning has taken him as far as putting a good word in for Erdogan regarding EU membership for Turkey. This is our foreign secretary. Liam Fox’s ultra-atlanticist views and his visceral animosity to the EU are well known. Defense secretary Fallon has seen fit to launch the amazing provocation of vetoing EU security arrangements.Much is being made of supposed European hostility towards us but with this crowd it looks more the other way round.The May government wasted no time at all in reversing our growing ties with China. Obviously we weren’t going to be entering into a strategic partnership with a”security threat”. Wrecking out rapport with our biggest creditor and supplier was simply destructive. You either enter negotiations with your creditors or you wait for the bailiffs to come in. Jumping on the “isolate China” bandwagon only made sense if you were thinking in terms of taking them out . The dramatic developments in the USA where the Pentagon has effectively marginalized the White House on foreign policy were our cue to enter into just such a hostile posture towards both Russia and China. So at the first key test of our supposed new-found sovereignty and independence we chose to align ourselves with the Pentagon.So “Global Britain” now has a hostile stance towards most of the Eurasian land mass. Meaningful negotiations with the EU, Russia or China are precluded. At the same time the dreadful reality of our economic plight cannot be hidden by the massaging of statistics. You only have to walk down any high street to see that Britain’s consumer economy model is dead. We are not a great trading nation. Out deficits and debts only get worse. If we were a business we would have closed down years ago. We are a bankrupt country that has chosen to go down hitting out wildly just so that the military industrial complex can keep itself afloat. We cannot of course afford Trident but will press on with it regardless. Everyone else will have to pay the price. It is an astonishing fact that the opposition of virtually the entire legally operating business community is as vehemently opposed to this whole unfolding scenario as it is marginalized by it. It seems we are to be taught a lesson in where the real power in this country lies.A few months after the Brexit referendum we have made clear our indifference to our economic future and instead are intent on bringing the world to the brink of WW3. And then we wonder about the “mysterious” sinking of the pound.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit fiasco | Leave a Comment Remain: an open door forCorbyn Posted by seumasach on July 25, 2016 Cailean Bochanan25th July, 2016Jeremy Corbyn is on safe ground in making a U-turn over Brexit. He had originally insisted that Article 50 should be triggered immediately but now seems to have backed down on this and is talking about the possibility of a second referendum after negotiations have been completed. Of course, there will be no negotiations until Article 50 is triggered but let’s not get bogged down in technicalities. Read the rest of this entry Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in British economy | Tagged: brexit crisis, Simply stay! | Leave a Comment After Brexit: Obama back ontrack Posted by seumasach on July 15, 2016 Cailean Bochanan15th July, 2016It looks like Brexit was Obama’s preferred option all along. In any case, both sides of the Atlantic have been suspiciously quick to catch on to the idea of a TTIP between the US and the UK  after Britain has jumped from the back to the front of the cue. Obama has a new global role for us now that US-EU TTIP is dead in the water. It’s not exactly independence day but it’s not entirely bad news either.Of course, a trade deal with the USA, between two de-industrialised debtor nations,  offers little in itself. But there has to be more to it. Hopefully, it’s one step back in order to take several steps forward.First of all, it’s about what we’re no longer doing. We are no longer America’s poodle in Europe pushing through a neo-liberal agenda, TTIP, a new cold war, NATO expansionism and aggression and acting as wrecker and saboteur of last resort in the process of European construction. Brexit is independence day for Europe. Rather than a domino effect as hoped by the neocons, now marginalized by Theresa May, we are seeing a wave of Euro- enthusiasm across Europe following Brexit and to follow there will be a swathe of Eurozone measures aimed at banking and fiscal union, control of borders and European security. We can also expect friendly overtures towards Russia, China and Iran.Anglo-American diplomacy will also go into high gear with detente with Russia. The appearance of  a sell-out will be countered by sabre-rattling in the South China Sea.Ironically, Brexit, conceived by Little Englanders  of the UKIP or IngSoc milieu, is the catalyst for global transformation. It pertains more to the wider world than to Britain itself.Nevertheless, there must be something in it for us unless, amidst all the theatricality, we are to be given the role of real life proles in an Orwellian Oceania. One of most striking features of the new government is the ommission of Osborne not because he jumped the gun in his negotiations of a deal in Washington the other week, but because of his association with austerity. The government’s disavowal of austerity and declared intention of investing heavily in UK economy and infrastructure seems incompatible with the pound s very vulnerable status. It only makes sense if some kind of global currency reset is imminent along with Chinese style real economy QE on a global scale. That appears to be a long shot but Brexit may have triggered a global transformation which astonish us all.As for Britain s relationship to all this: look for Brexit to be the mother of all mudge and fudge. At some point we can reintegrate ourselves into a Europe, or Eurasia, which will, in any case, no longer be the one we left.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Global peace process | Tagged: brexit agenda, global reset, Obama agenda | Leave a Comment The new Mrs T and theCity Posted by seumasach on July 5, 2016 Cailean Bochanan5th July, 2016It seems that Theresa May s victory is not so certain after all. Andrea Leadsom, the self-proclaimed successor to Mrs Thatcher, is all the rage amongst the rank file Tories. Her victory would certainly have repercussions. In Scotland the reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister would certainly constitute that material change of circumstances that would trigger a new referendum on independence. In fact, a referendum would be unnecessary: a unilateral declaration of independence would go unopposed. Read the rest of this entry Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: brexit crisis | Leave a Comment All quiet on the Brexitfront Posted by seumasach on July 4, 2016 Cailean Bochanan4th July, 2016Suddenly an eerie silence descends on Britain’s tumultuous political scene.One or two shots are still going off: Gove has a drink problem according to the Johnson camp; Leadsom may have been stashing money offshore it is suggested and has been outed as a Remain supporter until only recently. Any remaining obstacles to Theresa May as prime minister are being removed. That s all.On the other side of the house the anti-Corbyn forces are going quiet. It looks like Corbyn will be staying.The coup has failed. Neocon forces, those who gave us the Iraq War, have not seized control over both sides of the House.Having “taken our country back” we now await events elsewhere to give us direction. Specifically, the US presidential elections. If our relationship with the EU is now in question the “special relationship” is no less so. Under Obama it appeared to come to an end and even now Kerry is talking up reversing Brexit. Trump may applaud British isolationism but intends the same for his own country. Clinton, if the FBI don’t take her out, remains the great hope of the Atlanticists and neocons. She promises the renewal of the Anglo-American partnership and hegemony.We can expect May’s cabinet to reflects Britain’s suspension between Europe and America: on the one hand Gove or Fox, who would seek to trigger article 50 and commence hostilities against Europe and on the other Osborne, who still wants another special relationship. that with China, and , therefore, implicitly, to reverse Brexit.Last Thursday vote has resolved nothing. The people have decided without, on either side, having the remotest clue what the stakes were. We are now undergoing a crash course in the geopolitical forces that are to shape the century.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: brexit crisis | Leave a Comment Globalists v. globalists Posted by seumasach on July 2, 2016 Cailean Bochanan2nd July, 2016Pundits of every hue, seduced by the image of true -born Englishmen wielding pitchforks in the face of the dark forces of Mammomisn, are interpreting the Brexit vote as a victory over “the globalists”. As if the likes of Rupert Murdoch are not globalists.Rather than elite versus people the contest is very much within elites and both sides are globalists. Read the rest of this entry Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: brexit crisis, NWO v. multipolar world | Leave a Comment “Brexit means brexit’? Posted by seumasach on June 30, 2016 Cailean Bochanan30th June, 2016This is all becoming quite surreal. The fall of Boris Johnson seems to be a result of his attempt to present the Brexit vote as a mandate to renegotiate our membership of the EU. The theory must have been that the Europeans heartbroken to lose us, would do anything to ingratiate themselves to us. Read the rest of this entry Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: the brexit disaster | Leave a Comment The Brexit Fraud Posted by seumasach on June 30, 2016 Cailean Bochanan30th June, 2016The British people have just voted to leave the EU but the prime minister has refused to leave. His heart just isn’t in it. Nor does he want to step down now. Surely, as prime minster he is obliged to accept the result of the referendum which he called and duly invoke article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, specially crafted to the needs of a country which has been on the way out for some time. Read the rest of this entry Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: Down with the unelected Brexit junta!, Simply stay! | Leave a Comment Brexit: a neoconservativecoup Posted by seumasach on June 26, 2016 Cailean Bochanan26th June, 2016Now that we have voted for Brexit we will not know what exactly the program of the Remain camp was.However, the program of the Brexit leadership was blurted out by an emotional Nigel Farrage in the early hours of Friday morning:“For the whole of Europe.  I hope this victory brings down this failed project and leads us to a Europe of sovereign nations, trading together, being friends together, co-operating together.  And let’s get rid of the flag, the [EU] anthem, Brussels and all that has gone wrong.”It may come as a surprise to little englander Brexit voters that they weren’t voting to leave Europe but to destroy it. It wasn’t a vote against globalisation but for Anglo-American globalisation. Neo-conservatism, the infection that just won’t go away, is back in the form of a new unelected junta about to take control of Britain. It’s chief ideologue is Michael Gove of the neocon Henry Jackson society. According to Gove:“For Europe, Britain voting to leave will be the beginning of something potentially even more exciting the democratic liberation of a whole continent”So we are to leave Europe in order, subsequently, to meddle in it.This is Gove’s permanent revolution agenda to borrow a term from one of the neocons great inspirational figures, Leon Trotsky.In my last article on the EU question I noted that that Cameron had failed to negotiate the opt-outs that City of London interests would require whilst at the same time Brexit would leave British banks excluded from the EU. That depended on the assumption, of course, that the EU still existed. If it could be subverted then the dilemma could be resolved.As a Brexit campaigner from Chatham House told me it was a question of stepping back from Europe and watching it disintegrate. This implies passivity on behalf of these Brexit interests but I would suggest that in reality they would be proactive. Just as the State Department and the CIA have been proactive in destabilizing Europe’s periphery with a view to destabilizing Europe itself.The fact that Brexit is only a trigger for “more exciting” perspectives explains many of the peculiarities of the Brexit campaign. They have done nothing to elaborate a clear alternative to EU membership, they don’t want to leave any time soon and many of their promises over the NHS and immigration have already been shown to be worthless.These things are beside the point and there will be no attempt to negotiate in good faith It also explains why 250 billion has already been “made available” to the British economy i.e. the City of London: while the revolution is awaited in Europe an interim bailout of the zombie banks is inevitable. All the talk of freeing up funds for social spending, the Brexit turn to the working class, is simply hot air. It’s the banks, silly!Of course, Brexit brings in its stead enormous costs. We have ,at one fell swoop, thrown away all our geopolitical trump cards- cards which would have enabled us to negotiate a way out of the troubled waters of end of empire. The Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China was of enormous potential benefit to us but was entirely dependent on our being a bridge into Europe. A deal with our largest creditor and, therefore, holder of sterling denominated assets was crucial if we were to achieve , at least, an orderly decline in our currency. It also brought with it the possibility of a new role for the City as an offshore trading hub for the Yuan and the extension of the finance necessary for national reconstruction. That is all effectively over- powerful financial interests did not want the deal and they have won out.And yet, man does not live by bread alone. The English people have expressed a wish to regain control of their own destiny. They have every right to do so. The regional integration process which is everywhere evident, from Mercosur and ALBA, to the African Union, Asean and the Eurasian Union concerns the voluntary ceding of sovereignty not the submission to a Bonaparte or a Bolivar. It is true that the UK, in as far as it still exists, can negotiate deals with whoever it wishes without belonging to the EU’s formal structures. Were it a question, that is, simply of Brexit rather than of turning Britain into a base for a neocolonial project, for the next episode in the extension of the Empire of Chaos.Here is the rub. Here is why the British people made a catastrophic error on Thursday, one which they will live to bitterly regret. Britain will pay a terrible price for hosting a neocon junta which is set to continue Britain’s long and dishonorable tradition of interference in the sovereign affairs of other countries. Until we remove it “the markets” will be ruthless. China who intimated back in 2010 that they were no longer buying UK government bonds, no longer have a motive to hold them or to invest them in Britain. Several hundred billion could be dumped for gold, for example, leaving sterling reeling and subjecting Britain to an apocalyptic inflationary crisis.In the meantime events are moving a breakneck speed.All the signs are that the Junta has already lost it’s nerve following the massive, unprecedented falls in sterling on Friday. Following Cameron’s resignation Johnson and Gove appeared at one of the most lackluster press conferences ever given. It was positively funereal. Johnson appeared to be in state of bewilderment  whilst Gove with his langue de bois makes Van Rompuy look like d’Artagnan. Significantly, Johnson blurted out some incoherences seemingly addressed to Britain’s youth implying that there would still be free movement. He knows and fears that while the brexiteers hold the cabbage patches, the youth may hold the streets.At the same time the European leadership have shown that they are not completely inept and have seen through the game. That’s why they put out the blunt message: get out now! They know that Gove wants to string things out, a bit like Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk, scoring propaganda points whilst awaiting for Clinton and the neocon cavalry to help put the European “establishment”to the sword.On the home front, Salmond and McGuinness, two of the sharpest cards in British politics reacted promptly and appositely. The union is now dead in the water: Scotland will begin negotiations to remain in Europe and will only be able to do so as an independent country. We will inevitably choose that option especially as the true enormity of Thursday’s aberration become evident. At the same time, there can be no repartition of Ireland now that the existing border has de facto ceased to exist.Unsurprisingly, the Brexit vote has triggered a conspiracy to remove Corbyn from the Labour leadership.Britain now enters into a prolonged economic and constitutional crisis. Its resolution depends most of all on the recognition of the sovereign wishes of all the nations which make up the UK and the exposure of the false position of the Brexit Junta and its neoconservative, neocolonial agenda.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment Cameron spins the City sdemise Posted by seumasach on February 21, 2016 Cailean Bochanan21st February, 2016It is unusual for the British establishment to risk a consultation with the people unless major changes are underway- changes which are sufficient to provoke divisions in the establishment itself. It goes without saying that the negotiations with the EU are not essentially about child benefit for Polish families living in the UK. They are about “sovereignty” although in a very limited sense: the “sovereignty” of the City of London. The deal struck triumphantly by Cameron is revelatory. It shows that conflict within the establishment  concerns the least bad option for the City: whether to face exclusion from the EU market and displacement by Paris or Frankfurt as Europe’s leading financial centre or to remain inside Europe and to take up arms against a sea of Eurozone banking regulations and by opposing end them. That is the question! Read the rest of this entry Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Battle for Europe, UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, Britain into Europe-Europe out of NATO, Cameron's EU deal, Chinese soft power, european bank "bail-in", european banking union | 2 Comments Britain in itsbubble Posted by seumasach on December 5, 2015 Cailean Bochanan5th December, 2015When Bassar-al Assad is re-elected as president of Syria in about 18 months time it is unlikely that David Cameron will still be in office. He is no doubt delighted to have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat on Wednesday in the House of Commons but it may turn out to be a pyhrric, pig in a poke. Read the rest of this entry Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment If you can t beat them jointhem! Posted by seumasach on October 20, 2015 Or WW3 to stop the bloodshed Cailean Bochanan20th October, 2015Russia s bold move to finally bring effective military force to bear against ISIL has given rise to some strange political activity in the West and heightened, collective, cognitive dissonance.Casually turning on the TV to watch the Scottish National Party s conference in Aberdeen I couldn t believe my eyes when a Syrian refugee was given the platform and proceeded to deliver a rant against Syria s President Assad which would be worthy of John MacCain. According to this gentleman extremism in Syria is caused by Assad and we need to establish No bomb zones to protect civilians. Readers may notice a similarity between No bomb zones and the famous No fly zones which also never happened. Read the rest of this entry Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Syria | Tagged: "War on Terror", east-west coalition against ISIL, no bomb zones, no fly zones, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment Cameron fends off Robertson onLibya Posted by seumasach on October 15, 2015 Cailean Bochanan18th October, 2015Once again Cameron s nemesis, the spectre of the disastrous Libya intervention, has raised its head. This time SNP foreign policy spokesman, Angus Robertson, speaking during Prime Minister s question time in the House of Commons, has referred to the total anarchy and civil unrest: in Libya as one of the unintended consequences of that war. He went on to ask, in reference to the military intervention in Libya as well as those in Iraq and Afghanistan: “What assurances can you give that you have learnt lessons from past mistakes and you will not repeat them?” As it transpired, Cameron fended off the attack with some ease, quipping: Would you be happier with Gaddafi running Libya?” Read the rest of this entry Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Libya | Tagged: corbyn leadership | Leave a Comment The anti-Corbyn coup isstillborn Posted by seumasach on October 12, 2015 Cailean Bochanan12th October, 2015The long awaited coup against Jeremy Corbyn has finally materialized. Up to fifty Labour MPs are reported to be prepared to vote for military action in Syria were it to be put to a vote. What possessed them to put forward this woefully mistimed move is anyone’s guess. Perhaps they had been reading Socialist Worker and been inflamed by its reports of “some 10,000” barrel boms “dropped in the first six months of this year” and how Russia “wants to shore up Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which is crumbling, so it is attacking all forms of opposition.” In any case, they have decided that the time has come for another UK intervention to protect civilians by creating safe havens for them. That would involve, as Labour MP John Woodcock put it, “greater involvement from air forces to sustain a no-fly zone and will certainly require an end to the hand-wringing over President Putin’s disgraceful deceit in bombing anti-Assad rebels rather than Daesh [Isis].” Read the rest of this entry Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Syria | Tagged: corbyn leadership, End of empire, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment The left on the horns of a Chinesedilemma Posted by seumasach on October 4, 2015 Cailean Bochanan4th October, 2015I had the impression that Osborne’s recent and startling announcement of various deals with China, including the integration of our financial markets, no less, had been met by a stunned silence. But John McDonnell, the new Shadow Chancellor made this reference to them in his speech to the Labour Party Conference:“I found the Conservatives’ rant against Jeremy’s proposal to bring rail back into public ownership ironic when George Osborne was touring China selling off to the Chinese state bank any British asset he could lay his hands on.”“Ironic” is putting it mildly: The Chancellor has essentially admitted the failure of the Thatcher revolution and called in the state to rescue Britain. Only it’s not the British state, which no longer knows how to run anything unless it’s into the ground. You might have thought the left would be enjoying this “irony” a bit more than they appear to be. More, for example, than William Keegan writing in the Guardian who is dismayed that Osborne is “kowtowing to a communist Chinese government” and denounces his “cloying approach to a regime notorious for its abuse of human rights”. Keegan is something of a soft left neo-keynesian and , therefore, those criticisms could be largely expected. What about the hard left?In an article in Socialist Worker Alex Callinicos gives us the line. He is, of course, scrupulously politically correct:“The problem here isn’t that the companies are foreign-owned.”Why shouldn’t foreign companies take the place over? Don’t they have rights too? The problem lies elsewhere. Callinicos points out that Chinese companies are “still subject to considerable state control” and that capital “is still not allowed to flow freely in and out of the country” However, Callinicos insinuates this is changing and China is embracing the free movement of capital.So we have two major threads in this leftist discourse: on the one hand, dealing with China is wrong because China is communist and , on the other , it is wrong because China is no longer communist.Callinicos goes on to denounce the fact that Chinese investment will be centered on the the City of London at the expense of the “national base of companies operating in Britain.” Callinicos’ thinking in all this is particularly fuzzy. Capital exported from China can still be and is controlled by the Chinese leadership for all their rhetoric about free markets. This is particularly true of the banks. As Dend Xaoping himself used to say:”Whatever you do keep control of the financial system!” In addition, I don’t believe the behavior of Chinese banks will merely replicate that of our own: riding high on bubbles and carry trades, manipulating rates and prices and laundering funds of dubious origin. If they did China certainly wouldn’t be in the position it is today. Anyway, as Osborne announced, there is already large scale Chinese investment in the real economy, largely in infrastructure and housing. There is every reason to believe that this would increase with funding available from Chinese banks operating in the City. The principles of Chinese finance contradict completely those the City of London. We are, therefore, looking at systemic change in the British financial system.The British left desperately need to get to grips with this issue and quickly. This is because they have essentially abandoned their neo-Keynesian perspectives and accepted the need to balance budgets. But how can they reconcile this with their claim to be anti-austerity. Balanced budgets imply genocidal austerity unless there is some countervailing tendency. That tendency is incoming investment something which, seemingly unbeknown to the left, we have been beneficiaries of for decades. All that is happening,as Osborne’s policy shows, is that the form this investment takes is changing.For a long time China was obliged to accept fiat pounds to cover its massive trade surplus with Britain and reinvest these pounds in UK government bonds. This was win/win for Britain and largely explains the surprising prosperity of post-Thatcherite Britain. The bankruptcy of the City and its subsequent bailout changed all that. China ceased to buy new UK government bonds (note that, in addition to its massive trade deficit, Britain no longer has a current account surplus not including trade) although they agreed not to divest from existing bonds, sinking sterling. Instead, they wanted to reinvest the surplus funds in the UK. So, on the one hand, we can no longer fund our deficit with Chinese bond purchases and on the other we have the prospect of hundreds of billions worth of inward investment. So balanced budgets and Osborne’s policy are two sides of the same coin. It would be truly reckless to embrace balanced budgets without wholeheartedly welcoming the incoming investment which will render the outcome far less austere. The left are caught in a dilemma which they must resolve if they don’t want to be outflanked by the Tories.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in British economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, China-UK comprehensive strategic partnership, Chinese soft power, End of empire | Leave a Comment There will be no Third WorldWar Posted by seumasach on September 28, 2015 Thierry MeyssanVoltairenet28th September, 2015The liberal hawks and the neo-conservatives have been unable to provoke the confrontation with Russia for which they were trained during the Cold War. Finally, the voice of reason has prevailed. While discrete negotiations are under way to seek an end to the crisis in Ukraine, Russia and China are preparing to convince the United States and their allies to participate in a global alliance against Islamic terrorism. After 5 years of tension, both the project for the seizure of power by the Muslim Brotherhood the « Arab Spring » and the proclamation of a Caliphate have failed. Peace is saved.Read moreShare this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Global peace process, Syria | Tagged: Assad must stay, East-West alliance against ISIL, Obama's realist turn, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment Osborne blazes the Deng Xiaopingtrail Posted by seumasach on September 28, 2015 Cailean Bochanan28th September, 2015Once again I have been proved to be wrong. I had interpreted the decentralization of the British state as the key development linked to inward, especially Chinese, investment and predicted that a Tory/SNP duopoly would dominate Britain in the coming years. But Osborne’s barnstorming performance in China, following on from Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, opens up completely different perspectives. His idea of integrating our financial markets with those of China suggests nothing less than a Chinese takeover of the City of London rather than piecemeal investment in Britain’s devolved regions/nations. This chimes in too with Corbyn’s plan for a National Development Bank which is tantamount to central planning, hitherto an absolute taboo. It is not difficult to see that the kind of infrastructure overhaul that Britain requires cannot be done merely through devolved assemblies and combined councils but must be Britain wide and centrally planned. It also makes much more sense for China to finance the whole thing through the banks which can issue credits for projects as required just as they would do in China. And so we go from the Panarin-type post-imperial scenario of fragmentation to one of systemic transformation of Britain as a whole.Such a radical revolution is inconceivable without opposition. It is striking that as Osborne blazes the trail down China way, the knives are out for Cameron back home. Cameron has been until recently vociferous in his claim that Assad must go. He obviously had an intuition that someone must go: but it has turned out to be himself. He has called it a stab in the back but the blows are coming from all sides, decisively from Michael Ancram, et tu Ancram, who has raised the specter of Libya, hitherto the politically correct war, ominously drawing the parallel between Cameron and Libya and Blair and Iraq. This is deadly and given the reality of what was done to that once thriving country and its catastrophic consequences for Africa and Europe this just won’t go away. Of course, just about all of us were implicated, but all the more need for a scapegoat.An excellent analysis of recent events in Australia by WSWS focuses on a conflict between the ardently pro-Chinese Malcolm Turnbull and “powerful sections of the Australian military and intelligence apparatus as well as the media and political establishment, not least within the Liberal-National Coalition”This presumably parallels tensions here and it looks like Cameron has found himself on the wrong side of this argument. In other words, the proposed financial merger with China will go ahead over the dead bodies of assorted dead-enders, security state and MIC interests and neocons. In these historic September days the Blairites and the Cameronites have commenced their exit from the British political scene.Is this another Glorious Revolution? In 1688 certain Dutch financial interests were invited to take over Britain to establish a financial system orientated towards war and empire. This time we have invited a foreign power in the to rebuild an economy gutted by a failed hegemonic project. We have come a full circle since this marks decisively the end of empire and a new historical époque in which war will no longer be the normal state of affairsShare this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in British economy, Multipolar world | Tagged: China-UK comprehensive strategic partnership, Chinese soft power, End of empire, National Investment Bank | Leave a Comment George Osborne: We should embrace China, not fear itsrise Posted by seumasach on September 20, 2015 The Chinese Communist Party, the biggest communist party in the world and , in my opinion, one of the best. Father Ted Crilly“Recent volatility should not and will not put us off. It should drive us forward, so that we integrate China’s new financial markets with our own so they are deeper and better able to absorb shocks. George OsborneThis must be the most neglected and most surprising aspect of this Tory government s policy. Not only have they signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China, begun to issue UK government bonds in Yuan and broken ranks with the USA in becoming the first Western country to sign up for the AIIB: they are now also about to integrate our financial markets with those of China (completely mind-boggling!). Since the nature of China s financial system, with its orientation to productive imvestment, is the complete opposite of our own this can only be seen as a totally revolutionary step: something which chimes in with Corbyn s proposal for a National Investment Bank. But while Corbyn comes across as an unreconstructed Bennite, Osborne is more a born again follower of Deng Xaoping. The left are now taking control of both major parties in Britain! Watch out for a wave of interest in things Chinese and a politically-correct campaign against Chinaphobes.Guardian19th September, 2015The United Kingdom must strive to become China’s “best partner in the west” by forging ever closer economic ties that will bring benefits to all parts of the country, George Osborne has said.Read moreShare this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in British economy | Tagged: China-UK comprehensive strategic partnership, Chinese soft power, Deng Xaoping, UK-China strategic partnership | Leave a Comment Jeremy Corbyn and the new politicalcentre Posted by seumasach on August 15, 2015 Cailean Bochanan15th August, 2015The Blairites may be right in claiming that a Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn won’t win the 2020 general election. But they are missing the point : by that time we can expect the most pressing issues in British politics to have been resolved. The next five years are crucial in setting the direction for a new, post-imperial Britain and Corbyn as Labour leader buoyed up by the mass movement that will put him there will play a crucial role. The Blairites have misread this badly denouncing Corbyn as throwback to the past when, in fact, it is they who hold that position.British politics is in a state of flux and it will be become more and more evident that things cannot be understood within the framework of the old left/right divide. The significance of the recent developments in Greece has been missed : pragmatism prevailed over ideology. The contradiction is that ideological rigidity and sectarianism  seems more entrenched than ever, at least, in certain quarters.Last night’s Corbyn  rally in Glasgow bore out that point : it was very much a rally of the faithful in an atmosphere of revivalist enthusiasm. All the leftist shibboleths new and old were itemized: global warming, identity politics, even the old warhorse “class”, nationalization, socialism and so on. Of course, Corbyn has to press all the right buttons but I maintain despite that that he will prove to be a pragmatist. Otherwise, what was someone like myself who has long dissociated himself from the left doing there?I was there because I anticipate Corbyn playing a strong hand concerning the most pressing issues we face and because I don’t expect these issues to be resolved by the victory of either the left or the right. I expect them to define a new center ground in British politics which can draw support from left or right or neither.The first of these is the renewal of Trident. Corbyn will oppose it vehemently and hopefully the British people will take tp the streets in their millions to the same end. The left have always opposed it on moral grounds and have claimed, to counter the right, that it is not effective as a deterrent. Actually, it is very effective as a deterrent : would Russia still exist as a unitary state without it? The left’s longstanding opposition is, however, no longer the point. What clinches the argument is that the Cold War is over and Jeremy Corbyn seeks constructive cooperative relations with Russia. He does this as a pragmatist despite his ideological difficulty with what he chooses to see as a homophobic government. The simple fact is that Russia has no aggressive intent towards Britain, quite the contrary, and since there is no other nuclear threat in sight there is no need to cough up 100 billion for Trident. Apparently, many in leading military circles also hold this view and not many of them will be Corbyn supporters.The cost of Trident is anyway prohibitive for a country in the kind of financial state we’re in. The left has developed a complacent view on the debt since there has been no run on UK bonds or on sterling despite QE. They fail to see that this because the Chinese have agreed not to ditch sterling assets. The Chinese have instead sought a deal with the UK government evidence for which can be found in the rarely noted Comprehensive Geostategic Partnership we have signed with China and the fact that we are issuing UK government bonds in RMB. To Corbyn’s credit he does not share the prevailing left view that the debt doesn’t matter and that we can simply go on for ever borrowing money from people who don’t want to lend to us or simply go on devaluing the currency to monetize the debt and then force feed it to China and others in exchange for their exports. Without actually explaining this he admits that the budget has to be balanced. Actually, the principle is also a problem since interest payments are only manageable due to negligible interest rates. Anyway, Corbyn shares with the SNP and the Tories the new consensus view that the debt is a problem and, given that, the ridiculous costs of Trident are also a problem to be overcome simply by canceling it.Corbyn’s realism about Britain’s financial plight also extend to the realization that simply cutting the budget won’t work. Whether we like it or not the survival of millions of people and Britain’s social cohesion depends on welfare spending and that isn’t likely to change soon. We need to look at the other side of the equation; income. There isn’t any: we lose massive amounts every month running up our monster trade deficit. Almost everything we consume we import and our exports are limited by a depleted industrial base. We must therefore, reinvest in that base both to boost exports and to substitute for imports. Corby proposes a financial system orientated to this end, some form of national investment bank. How can anyone disagree with this even if the modalities remain to be determined?Whatever form it takes it is clear that foreign investment will play a major role in the recapitalization of Britain. The deal with China probably concerns this and ,in fact, it’s already happening. However, were Britain to withdraw from Europe this investment would be threatened. The recent Greek crisis saw a surge of anti-European and anti-German feeling and, most notably, a shift on the radical left towards a eurosceptic position. Corbyn has already come out for the EU in principle and has thus provided something of a corrective to left’s Little Englander drift. The fact that born-again eurosceptic Owen Jones is sharing his platforms illustrates this. The anti-European left and right will then hopefully be marginalized by the time of the referendum and they will have been by a new pragmatic consensus.Corbyn’s promise to renationalize the railways looks highly ideological but he certainly knows what he;s talking about on this question. Privatization has been a disaster which has seen a natural monopoly milked and undermined by private interests. Adam Smith wouldn’t have any problem with nationalization in this case. In the end it may just come down to a form of words : the mess has to be sorted out by the state in the interests of the nation. Is that or isn’t it nationalization? How many London commuters find the remedy just as sweet by any other name. One could say the same regarding the disarray in the utilities or the education system. Does any state simply leave these things to hobble along anyhow or assume that the market will for some obscure reason sort everything out? Only, Britain it would seem. The utilities only work at all because they’re being run by people like EDF, a state run company although the state ,of course, isn’t Britain. But maybe the British state can have at least some say. After all, we’re British!The simple reality is that the required program for Britain is fairly obvious and we can expect to find it insinuating its way into the manifestos or discourse of the most unlikely bedfellows. We’ve understood that we don’t want any more wars and must now turn our attention to the mess on the home front.(Does that mean it has to be like Dad s Army?) Ideology, however, still reigns and it’s only right and fair that the most passionate adherents of the various secular faiths should have one last chance to insult each other in a frenzy of self-righteous indignation before going quiet in the face, hopefully,  of the  concurrence of the mainstream on simple pragmatism.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in British economy | Leave a Comment New Cold War or WaronTerror? Posted by seumasach on June 15, 2014 Cailean Bochanan15th June, 2014The betrayal of the Iraq army leadership facilitating last week s capture of Mosul by the so-called ISIL may become a watershed in US foreign policy in providing a significant diversion from the Ukrainian fiasco and turning attention from quasi-cold war tensions towards the new Obama doctrine already outlined in his West Point speech, anticipated by Blair s 23rd April speech and ratified by an intervention by Kofi Annan last week on BBC Newsnight.What is this new doctrine? It is called, with great originality, the War on Terror. Thus, we return to 2001 and the post-9/11 doctrine but in a geo-political environment which has become completely transformed. In 2003 , on the eve of the Iraq War, the USA was still regarded as the undisputed global superpower, even though a resurgent Russia and China were already disputing that status. Today it has suffered a series of military reverses and the catastrophic state of its economy and society can longer be hidden. After the dismissal of Rumsfeld in 2006 in a palace coup the stage was set for Obama to turn around US foreign policy in the aftermath of the failed Iraq and Afghan wars. He is generally regarded as having failed in this respect and that judgement has seemed to have been confirmed by the dramatic events of the last week. We appear to be condemned to relive the historical cycle of US military intervention.But, as I say, the context is completely different. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan post-9/11 were the beginning of a global war for hegemony. This war failed and no such perspectives are in sight for a severely weakened USA. Rather than being the opening shot in an attempted roll-back of Russian and Chinese power War on Terror II could lead to a re-engagement of these two emerging superpowers by Washington. Tony Blair s above-mentioned speech already prefigures this development: In this speech I will set out how we should do this, including the recognition that on this issue, whatever our other differences, we should be prepared to reach out and cooperate with the East, and in particular, Russia and China. This was followed up by Kofi Anna s call for a de facto alliance with Russia , China and Iran: Mr Annan – the UN’s former envoy to Syria – said he did not believe that there was the “stomach” for “boots on the ground”, but that a group made up of permanent members of the UN Security Council, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and possibly Egypt could agree a common approach. Already, the ISIL surge has raised a prospect that was previously unthinkable: joint US-Iranian military co-operation.I have, for some time, been talking up a strategic alliance between Washington and Moscow as the great paradigm shift in global geo-politics. It was, admittedly, difficult to see how such a shift could come about. Indeed, the failure of Obama s reset was just another amongst a litany of seeming failures. But if that remains a strategic goal of Obama, and I believe that it must, then War on TerrorII would be the key to its realization.The roller-coaster unleashed by the Arab spring continues. The events in Iraq last week serve as a cover for the surreal Ukraine fiasco, which in turn obscured defeat in the Syrian war which in turn diverted the world s attention from the chaos engendered in Libya by NATO intervention. Since the hand of the NATO and Western intelligence assets is clearly present in all these scenarios you might think Obama s strategy is merely to cover failure with even more failure. But their may be a different logic at play,a convoluted logic of end of empire. If so, the cycle may be broken in Iraq and by the time the ISIL has been checked we may see the clear outlines of a new international order.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Iraq, New Cold War | Tagged: End of empire, Obama's realist turn, retreat from empire, US-Russia strategic partnership | Leave a Comment It came in with the bond markets and it will go out with the bondmarkets Posted by seumasach on July 1, 2011 Cailean Bochanan1st July, 2011We have a sense that capitalism is coming to an end. If by capitalism we mean that system which was introduced into England subsequent to the Dutch invasion of 1688 then that is true.With the setting up in 1694 of the Bank of England, a consortium of private financiers came to the fore or rather came to exercise their power from behind the scenes of Britain s political facade. In this original public-private partnership, they lent to the government at interest and used the bonds issued as the basis for leveraged banking. Swift defined concisely this new interest: that set of people, who are called the Monied Men; such as had raised vast Sums by Trading with Stocks and Bonds, and lending upon great interest and Premiums; whose perpetual Harvest is War, and whose beneficial way of Traffick must very much decline by a Peace Elsewhere he talks of a new estate to whom every house and foot of land in England paid a rent-charge, free of all taxes and defalcations and where the gentlemen of estates were, in effect, but tenants to these new landlords A whole class, these new landlords on behalf of whom the entire nation is taxed. Does this not ring a bell in post-bailout Britain?: the whole nation is mortgaged to the banker elite, which for all that their methods have evolved since the early seventeen hundreds, are essentially the same interest as Swift was describing and warning us about. At least, in Swift s day the consortium s original loan was from their own funds, however ill-gotten: today the banks are lending back to the government the funds they received from the government to bail them out, basic usury as conceived then has become the fraudulent shenanigans of the notorious carry trade . Now that there is no longer even the pretence that banking is about investing in business, understood as legitimate business, and now that the various bubbles from the dot.com through the housing market to commodities have exploded in our faces the monied men limit themselves to milking the state for all its worth and the ultimate bankruptcy of the system is the bankruptcy of the state itself. Curiously, the flow of funds into government bonds is being characterised as a flight to safety , yet the returns provided fall well short of inflation generated by endless treasury money issuance. Where then is the profit in the profit system? Wealth creation is over and the financiers are limiting their ambition to, instead of creating new wealth, monopolising all that already exists. It s not at all clear where, if anywhere, the rest of us fit into the picture. We ll soon find out: the peril of the flight to safety is becoming evident and nothing will glitter which is not gold. The burst of the bond bubble and the collapse of the dollar/pound will be dramatic events indeed, the cue for our long awaited awakening or our plunge into the abyss.Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in UK economy | Tagged: End of empire | Leave a Comment Thanks to the machinations of the US ruling class what was a terminal financial crisis has become an existential crisis for the American people and a civilizational collapseWe already knew that this was going to be the worst winter for the U.S. economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s, but now a new round of lockdowns threatens to rip the guts out of hundreds of thousands of small businesses all around the country.  As I write this article, 33 million peopleare under “stay-at-home orders” in California alone.  With each passing day, state governments are implementing even more new restrictions, and those new restrictions are going to increasingly choke the life out of economic activity in this nation.Johnson s grandiose plans for a D-10 alliance against China are already running into trouble. Germany is not banning Huawei, Japan s position is ambivalent and Australia seem hesitant to self-destruct for the dubious privilege of a war with their closest trading partner, China. What is more France is following it s own interests in the Brexit negotiations rather than the EU or Atlanticist position. Multipolarity is showing itself as a reality as nations pursue strategic autonomy rather than imperial dictates Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has toned down his tantrum over Chinese diplomat Zhao Lijian’s posting of a piece of art depicting soldiers about to slit an Afghan child’s throat. China not only refused to delete the picture, it demanded that Australia investigate and apologize for its soldiers’ alleged atrocities in Afghanistan. But unexpectedly, Morrison was reported by the South China Morning Post on December 3 as saying he wanted a “happy co-existence” with China.As above, so below! The Italian Renaissance continues to bear fruit. Here, the two Italian scientists find a striking analogy which confirms, at one and the same time, the electrical nature of universe and of life and conscientiousness itself. Even more intriguing both galaxies and neurons only account for about 30 percent of the total masses of the universe and brain. Further, both galaxies and neurons arrange themselves like pearls on a long string. In the case of the universe we know that this is due to the predominance of plasma, an electrically polarised state of matter which spreads throughout the universe . This is also suggestive of the reckless folly that is mankind s experimentation with electro-magnetic radiation, as in mobile technology, 5g etc.An astrophysicist at the University of Bologna and a neurosurgeon at the University of Verona have claimed that the brain resembles the universe. The two Italian researchers came up with the galaxy-brain theory that is out of this world: The structures of the perceptible universe, they say, are astonishingly comparable to the neuronal networks of the human brain.From the Defender 2020 NATO military exercises back in March, the biggest since the 90s- carried out incidentally in the midst of a supposedly deadly epidemic, to this grandiose scheme to maintain US naval superiority in the China Seas the contours of war are clearly delineated under the shadow of covid panic. Whilst the people s fear remains focused on covid, this is the truly frightening bit. Trump has fired Esper but will Trump survive: the anti-Trump coup means the military/industrial complex moves to centre stage, the deep state becomes the state and, in Europe, the EU rather than just living under the shadow of NATO becomes NATO. If we can assemble the collective will and determination to see it through, I m confident Battle Force 2045 will maintain our maritime superiority far into the future and ensure the United States Navy remains the greatest in the world for generations to come, he said.The new plan, which matched a document Defense News first obtained and reported on last month, marks a significant increase in the 355-ship fleet the Navy has been working toward. Esper acknowledged the U.S. will face challenges in building a 500-plus ship fleet under tightening budgets. But he stressed the buildup is necessary, citing China s troubling and brazen destabilizing actions in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as Beijing s plans to modernize its force in the next 15 years and field a world-class military by 2049. The fracturing of the ‘One Normal’, by contrast, provides some kind of respite to much of the globe. A crucial element of the reset, rarely mentioned, is the formation of a global alliance against Russia and China. In the absence of a clear cut Democratic victory that has suddenly become a lot less doable. In particular, reducing Europe to a NATO outpost against Russia is inconceivable;e with America wobbling at the helm.This article underestimates the possibility under cover of covid of reinforcing the transatlantic relationship under a Biden presidency. Under this reset the EU would become virtually identical to NATO and Europe would be to spearheaded to challenge Russia. Of course, this would be contrary to the interests of a substantial proportion of the business community but a startling aspect off the covid panic is the absence of concern for this constituency: F business as Johnson famously put it. It turns out that the the West, or more specifically the Anglosphere isn t in fact about capitalism let alone democracy: it s about war and the pursuit of a New World Order on the ruins of the West s rivals, Russia and China. Europe has been preparing a global gold standard since the1970s Posted by seumasach on July 20, 2020 This article is a revelation to me: I have been looking t this issue for some time but have been unaware of the EU s preparatory moves towards a gold-backed international financial system. Despite the endless stream of ridicule directed against the EU leadership it would appear that something of real value has been accomplished. This all makes sense when we recall Giscard d Estaing s reference to America s exorbitant privilege of being able to issue fiat to cover a permanent trade and capital deficit. Perhaps to complete the picture we only need to suppose a vast underestimate of China s gold holdings.Jan NieuwenhuijsVoima15th July, 2020Research reveals that European central banks have prepared a new international gold standard. Since the 1970s, policies that paved the way for an equitable and durable monetary system have gradually been implemented.Read moreShare this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Currency Wars | Tagged: gold standard, new global financial system | Leave a Comment Coronavirus: the position of Doctor StefanoMontanari Posted by seumasach on April 2, 2020 La forza della Verita31st March, 2020The biography of Dr. Stefano Montanari, nanopathologist (here his curriculum) tells of a man who, after graduating in pharmacy in 1972 with a thesis in Microchemistry, has started dealing with applied research in the field of medicine since his university days.Author of several patents in the field of cardiac surgery, vascular surgery, pneumology and designer of systems and equipment for electrophysiology, he has carried out scientific consultancy for various companies, directing, among other things, a project for the realization of a heart valve biological.Since 1979 he has collaborated with his wife Antonietta Gatti in numerous researches on biomaterials.Since 2004 he has been the scientific director of the Nanodiagnostics laboratory in Modena where research is carried out and top-level consultancy is offered on nanopathologies. Lecturer in various national and international masters, he is the author of numerous scientific publications.For years, it has been carrying out an intense work of scientific popularization in the field of nanopathology, especially with regard to sources of pollution from ultrafine dust.Together with his wife, Dr. Stefania Gatti deals with diseases and pathologies deriving from micro and nano, to be precise, it was precisely Dr. Gatti, much more than 20 years ago, the first scientist to discover these diseases. This  is a flu virus whose origin is unclear. It belongs to the coronavirus class of viruses. The common cold is due to a coronavirus . They are usually completely harmless and do not cause death. It is extremely infectious, that is, capable of entering the body of other people with enormous ease but remains harmless, free of any clinical sign, of symptoms, in the vast majority of people.Where it does have a pathological effect, it is in the old, especially those who take certain drugs, old people who have lung diseases or old people who already have other diseases.Healthy people suffer absolutely no harm from this virus which is probably ubiquitous, we find it everywhere, like billions of other viruses. I am convinced that if we went to look for the virus in the 60 million Italians at least 30 million, probably more, would have it: this virus stays there without doing any harm like a huge number of other viruses.Mortality is very low from viruses, probably even non-existent.I heard a hospital junior doctor say that having a disease with the virus or caused by the virus is the same, but I think this person should go back to elementary school a little bit, because this lacks logic: dying from a disease means that that disease is the cause of death . For example, a heart attack causes death. If you go under the train that trauma is a cause of death. If you go under the train and have a cold, the cold is not the cause of death. The cold is incidentalI am convinced that if we went to check all the deaths out of 650,000 people who die physiologically every year in Italy, we would find that more than half, perhaps even more, because they are old people, have the corona virus in their body. So we are faced with something enormously hyped Montanari goes on to say that: “I consider it a virus like many others. This is not just any flu, it is a particular flu that affects the lungs. There are influenzas that affect the intestine and therefore diarrhea, there are influenzas that affect the stomach and therefore vomiting, there are influenzas that affect the nervous system and therefore headache, while this affects the lungs.This affect on the lungs means that certain cases, especially in the elderly (as we see the dead are over eighty and in Italy this the median group affected by death, therefore nothing has changed compared to the normality of the statistics) these people need respiratory assistance, ie respirators.The respirator is a common device in the hospital (I have done more than 40 years in the operating room). The fact that we do not have them or we have too few of them to counter what you want to call an emergency , is the fact that for 10 years we have destroyed our health system: we have closed hospital wards, even closed small hospitals, the equipment is bought little and badly, the prices in Italy are much higher for the equipment as for almost everything or everything that is needed in a hospital. Why? Because in Italy there is a system of widespread corruption, so if something costs 10 in a clean country, it costs 20 in Italy; this means that the little money we have is misused.We are faced with an emergency that we are not prepared for because our rulers have been unprepared for at least 10 years and have destroyed a health system. When I hear that the Italian one is one of the best health systems in the world, I shake my head in disbelief.Regarding the images of military vans carrying the coffins leaving the hospital in Bergamo, Dr. Montanari declares that: They are not people who died from the virus crown. From coronavirus there are 3 dead and even here I  have some doubts. The more or less ascertained deaths are 3. It is the Istituto Superiore della Sanità who says that (here the ISS Report).This virus changes quickly therefore certainly the Italian one is not the same as the Chinese one as well as the German one, which was isolated in Germany, it is not the same as the Italian one and it is not the same as the Chinese one. Since it is a new virus, it is seeking its stability, a status in which to remain for a while. So it changes with enormous speed, tomorrow is no longer today s. It is not the only virus that does this, there are many. We constantly live in communities with viruses, we even host a huge number of them in our body and many of them are also indispensable for our life, they are chemical chains (this is also particular because it is made of RNA and not DNA) like many others. So it is normal for it to change very quickly. So when we go looking for a drug for this virus we run after something that runs faster than we do. Regarding the images of hospitals full of  people, however, he says that “we are not prepared to manage a disease that affects the lungs because our politicians have destroyed our health system. All these coffins belong to the 650 thousand deaths that we have every year in Italy. There is no increase in mortality this year, you can see these coffins in any hospital on any day. Many years ago I refused a job in children s oncology precisely because I could not bear the spectacle of the white coffins that passed in front of me continuously, so we are talking about nothing new. You know very well that as a journalist you can make what you want appear. Don’t you remember when 1 or 2 years ago every day there was talk of the two Italian marines who were in India. 27 times a day we heard that news. Today it is no longer talked about but nothing has changed except that attention has been diverted to somewhere else. Here we are talking about 3 dead, as long as it is only these 3 dead. If you don t like it, fine, but those are the facts”Dr. Stefano Montanari explains that: “This is a viral interstitial pneumonia, there are many of them. Look, here in Italy for several months we had an  atypical pneumonia and it was never mentioned. For example in October (5/6 months ago) there were patients with atypical pneumonia, which we don’t usually see (usually we see bacterial pneumonia) and they were pneumonias of which nothing was known: the origin was unknown, they were impossible to counter pharmacologically and we had to wait for these patients to heal on their own. And they healed on their own.We, contrary to what we are led  to believe, have our own immune defenses, which are very strong, much stronger than the vast majority of drugs. Just on our skin we have bacteria, viruses, fung that are used to fight pathogenic bacteria, viruses and  fungi, that is, carriers of disease. When we put on gloves to fight this crown virus we make a disaster from the point of view of our health because we prevent our fungi, bacteria and viruses that are on the skin from interacting with pathogenic ones. Then with our gloved hands we touch our clothes, the cashiers of the few open shops (who touch the money, the counter) on which the viruses have settled, but the glove prevents our immune defenses that are on the skin from acting.So wearing gloves is infinitely worse than not wearing them. We are faced with reactions from complete imbeciles, who do not know the principles of biology.We already have immune defenses like all living things (from clover, rhino, elephants) we have the ability to heal on our own.If you have a headache and I give you some nail polish on your toenails, it wasn t the nail polish that made you recover from your headache,  your body took your headache away. My old professor of physiology was a gentleman named Luigi Di Bella and he said that untreated flu lasts 7 days, treated flu lasts 1 week . So we continue to interact arrogantly with nature  not knowing what we are doing. For example, right now I am seeing in the video a carabiniere with a mask.Here we are idealing with madness. Why? Because this mask is not able to stop anything. I mean, if this carabiniere is sick it stops his saliva from spreading the virus, it does something. But if this gentleman is not infected and thinks that that mask protects him from the viruses that fly off a droplet of saliva, which are of an infinite quantity, there are billions of billions per square meter of sidewalk, that is an illusion.Because these gentlemen believe that viruses are as big as sewer rats,  perhaps because Beatrice Lorenzin, then, for some reason, Minister of Health, made them believe it. We are faced with things that are neither in heaven nor on earth. Viruses are there  in huge quantities, they are capable of entering in huge numbers into cells. One cell is a few thousandths of a millimeter large, so a huge number of viruses can enter it. We are talking about something extremely small. When you put the cloth mask in front, it s like putting up a gate to stop mosquitoes from entering the house. People don t realize it, but there is more. Those masks should be thrown away continuously for the sick. For the non-sick, they are of no use. Patients should throw that mask every 3 minutes, every minute because it is already full of these viruses, but they don t. The carabinieri use it for three days in a row, so what are we talking about here.Regarding the reason for these increasingly restrictive measures imposed by the authorities Montanari says that there are various reasons: The first reason, the smaller one, is that in 2017 bonds were issued, that is, bonds that bet on an infection, curiously from a coronavirus, which would take place between 2020 and 2021, so whoever played on that bet wins, but this is small stuff because we are only talking about a few hundred million.The bulk is in two games: the first game, the vaccines. We, the global regime , will force the world to get vaccinated. Now, getting vaccinated against a virus that does not give immunity like the case of this virus is something that is neither in heaven nor on earth. If I had said this, 50 years ago when I took my pharmacology exam, to my professor who was one of the greatest Italian pharmacologists, he would have thrown me out the door because only an incompetent can imagine such a thing.A vaccine against a virus that does not give immunity does not have any chance of working; this regardless of the vaccine that works or does not work for measles, rubella, etc Here we are talking about a virus that does not give immunity. Then we are talking about a virus that changes at a huge speed, so moreover it is a virus that you can’t catch up with. It is a virus like that of the common cold, to which family it belongs, and you cannot  vaccinate against a cold  because the common cold does not give  immunity. You can catch a cold 200 times in a lifetime but it won’t give you immunity. So thinking about a vaccine is a multi-billion worldwide scam, vaccinating 7 billion and 600 million individuals, if they are all forced to be vaccinated, will constitute a colossal, truly colossal business. Regarding the situation in which a smoker finds himself, Dr. Montanari says that: A smoker fares badly. We all have tubes on the bronchi that become thinner and thinner and bring the air to 600 million bags that are called pulmonary alveoli in which we exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. Along these tubes all healthy people have a small and very thin layer of mucus, indispensable because it blocks dust, viruses, bacteria. Healthy people have vibratile eyelashes in the bronchi, that is, a kind of whip that whips these powders, viruses, bacteria out of the lungs, throw them out.The smoker has a much much thicker mucus layer. The vibrating eyelashes not only do not make it to what has been enveloped by this mucus (which is phlegm in the smoker) but they are even paralyzed by smoke.So the invaders slide down, towards the pulmonary alveoli and never come out of it. So the smoker gets the viruses, bacteria and fungi in an infinitely greater number than a non-smoker does, so even in this case. With regard to the tampons for testing, Dr. Montanari maintains that to perform the analysis of those tampons you need very special equipment, it is not that it can be done in the kitchen. That equipment is not always available and then competence is needed in using it. Then, from what appears, more than 80% of the positives are false, they are false positives. So it s a big risk because we risk telling a person that he s positive when he isn’t. What is more, most of those who are actually positive have no symptoms, as for the vast majority of viruses that exist in the world.So we risk transforming healthy people into sick people and this is very serious also because in medicine we have known it for many years, depressed people, in a bad state of mind, react much worse to pathologies, and they often get sick. You also prevent these people from the possibility of going out (in Emilia Romagna the order prohibiting it has already gone out) and if you cannot sunbathe, you do not properly metabolize vitamin D, essential to protect us, to protect our immune system. So we re at home, in a bad mood, we can t metabolize vitamin D, so we get sick more. All these decisions taken by complete incompetents are deleterious because they make the situation worse. People should be told to stay out, stay in the sun, walk, try to move, stay healthy, eat healthy. But no these incompetent people don t realize the harm they do or maybe they do realize it, I don t know.These disasters didn’t happen with sars. With the Avian flu, we, Italy,  bought 27 million doses of vaccine, we threw away 26 million and 700 thousand doses although we had paid for them. We don t even have the money to buy respirators, but we have the money to buy a vaccine that we throw in the sewers. Unfortunately when we are ruled by incompetents, I don t want to talk about corruption even if I have some temptations, but I don t talk about it, but it is like Commander Schettino to the nth degree. Regarding the duration, Dr. Montanari says: “I don t know whether it is a seasonal virus but like almost all viruses it is almost certain to be sensitive to temperature  You see nature, which is much wiser than our leaders, than many doctors and is not even corrupt, knows very well that when we get sick we have to raise our temperature because the high temperature (higher is better) improves our immune defenses and lowers the vital capacity of bacteria, fungi and viruses,  What does the doctor do? He gives you tachipirine, madness because it takes away that defense. Here we are, faced with  the total incompetence of the doctor, who gives you tachipirine when your temperature is 37.8. It is like a besieged city and you break down the walls because you wants to get some air. We are living through pure madness.In summer, when the temperature rises, this virus may decrease its vital capacity, so to speak.  It is more than likely that in summer this virus will fall away but that isn’t the real point. Consider that we have 20,000 deaths a year of flu, yet nobody talks about 20,000 deaths.We have 49,000 deaths a year from hospital-acquired infections. The data is official (read here), That means from 130 to 140 people who die every day because they are hospitalized for an appendicitis and die of pneumonia. Nobody talks about it. In one day we have had more deaths from these infections than we have had from corona virus since the beginning of this farce. We are faced with something that is beyond the absurd, far beyond the absurd and gives rise to many suspicions. Answering another question from the journalist in the studio on those with pre-existing pathologiesMontanari says: You see if I throw you off the tenth floor and you had a cold or flu or arthritis, I can t say that you died of flu, arthritis or a cold. You  died because I threw you off the tenth floor. The data from the Istituto Superiore di Sanità show that they are all people who dies have cancer, very serious diabetes, who are obese, who are old, in their eighties. They are people who died from other diseases.Regarding young people, how sure are we that the 32-year-old boy died of the corona virus and not with the corona virus (he was said to have had health problems due to an infection contracted in Cuba two years ago).Surely you don’t think that if a person is infected with corona virus they will then recover from cancer or another disease: that is absurd. This person had an infection, had cancer and also happened to have the coronavirus. Hmm? Here we really are facing a colossal scam. On herd immunity he says that it is a monstrosity invented by pharmaceutical companies that does not exist. If you want you can make a broadcast in which I explain why it is a scam, much to the chagrin of the simpletons. Herd immunity does not exist. But even if did existed, how does herd immunity exist for a disease that does not give her immunity? . If we look at the economic aspect, which is not part of my skills, we are shutting down the world. Italy s economy was already at its limit. All activities are blocked, but the stock exchange that continuously falls does not stop. This means that those who are ultra billionaires, who have tens or hundreds of billions of them, can buy companies listed on the stock exchange for two lire. When you decide to call off this farce and say that everything is over, although in reality this virus will continue to do what it has done so far, that is to say, nothing, these people will find themselves master of the world, they will have everything. Those who aren’t super rich but with a few  pennies have bought three, four restaurants or shopswill have to close them so who the rich will be infinitely richer but we will have a flood of poor who will still be poorer. These will be other consequences of an epidemic created on purpose. Regarding the correlation between pollution and viruses, he says that: “my wife and I have been talking about it for many years. When there are dusts, micro nano particles these viruses stick to them, they are infinitely smaller, and these micro and nano particles act as a vehicle for these viruses, as for dioxins, urans, hydrocarbons, etc all this is widely known. Then some genius turns up now saying but if it were so. For twenty years, however, we have always said it unheeded. Share this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Ecological and Public Health Crisis | Tagged: Dr Stefano Montanari, The coronavirus coup | Leave a Comment Vector of the European political agenda is changing: Russia is becoming a necessarypartner Posted by seumasach on February 20, 2020 As the conference proceeded, negotiations between the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and the Head of the Russian Foreign Ministry were held. They paid special attention to “practical issues of developing a dialogue between the EU and the EAEU with the prospect of creating conditions for the formation of a common economic and humanitarian space from Lisbon to Vladivostok”Anastasia FrankThe Duran19th February, 2020One of the main political events of the past week was the Munich Security Conference, which brought together more than 150 heads of state, senior diplomats and prime ministers in the Bavarian capital for an open discussion of burning issues of the current political agenda.A topic important for discussion was the vector of further interaction between Russia and the countries of Europe. French President Emmanuel Macron, whose current aspirations were assessed by Sergei Lavrov, who was in charge of the Russian delegation, as “pragmatic” and “politically discerning”, has repeatedly called for the need to resume a sustained dialogue with Moscow, noting the fact that it was extremely difficult to predict economic benefits from sanctions in Russia and the retaliatory measures in the foreseeable future.Read moreShare this:TwitterFacebookRedditLike this:Like Loading... Posted in Battle for Europe, Multipolar world | Tagged: eu russia convergence, EU-EAEU convergence, Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), ostpolitik | Leave a Comment Privacy Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use. To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

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