Germany has destroyed the European Dream

Today I am spitting nails. I have not been as angry as this for 20 years. The last time I felt my blood boiling like this was in 1995, when Serbian nationalist gunmen entered the Bosnian town of Srebrenica and, with the collusion of the Dutch troops who were meant to protect them, took away 8,000 men and boys, murdered them ion cold blood and buried them in graves they had dug themselves.

That is how furious I am today.

And why? Because I have seen Germany destroy a weaker nation for political ends. I have seen Germany destroy all notion of European solidarity. I have seen Germany reveal its true self — the monstrous bully of Europe that cannot suffer dissent and insists that its orders must be followed, on pain of destruction.

In 1871 the failed. In 1914 they failed. In 1945 they failed — but defeating them cost 2n million lives and the destruction of Europe.

But in 2015 they have succeeded. They have finally achieved their end. They have crushed a sovereign nation, not with tanks and bombers, but with threats and banks.

We believed, in our innocence, that suffering appalling want for years after 1945 so that Germany could be reconstructed, was worthwhile because then, Germany would be a good European nation. Billions were poured into its economy and restructuring under the Marshall Plan, so that Germany would be a good European nation. Further billions were poured in for decades as NATO maintained vast armies along the Rhine — so that Germany would be a good European nation. We allowed Germany to re-unify, believing that it was, by then, actually a good European nation. For the same reasons we allowed it to organise an Exchange Rate Mechanism that favoured Germany by keeping the costs of its exports down, and we then even allowed them to change the name of that and call it a ‘currency union’ — which it is not.

Why did we do all this? Because we wanted Germany to be a good European nation and at the back of our minds, always, were those 72 million dead and the images of the horrors of Auschwitz.

And all of that, all of it, failed. Germany has revealed, one again, the ghastly monster of its true nature. It will stop at nothing to impose its will on others.

What is the deep, rotten cancer at the core of the German psyche that makes Germans think they have a right to tell others how to run their countries? What is the evil in their national character.? I wish I knew because as far as I can see we have done everything that could be done to appease them and the monster that corrupts their national soul.

And none of it was enough. None of it will ever be enough. Germany is the enemy, the enemy of freedom and democracy. It is the dark totalitarian vampire at the heart of Europe, that sucks the blood of liberty and will go on sucking it, until the continent is a dried out husk and freedom itself is dead.

It is too late now to demand forgiveness for errors past; to late to claim that the evils once done were then, not now, and that the sins of the parents should not be visited on the children. It is too late now to insist, yet again, that Germans have changed, because every single living German is guilty as charged in the indictment of the monstrous behaviour of their nation. A nation has been destroyed in their name and with their sanction. Democrcy has beenn snuffed out, because they allowed it, indeed, desired it.

Today’s Germans are are just as culpable as those who sent Jews to the gas chambers or who helped round up gays for execution. There is a rot at the heart of the German soul that we now must understand can never be cut out. If all the effort we have made to make them a civilised, good European nation over the last 70 years has failed, then there can be no hope. Germany is a beast that can never be treated with, and must instead be chained.

For me, this week has been a personal tragedy. I voted twice, in the 1970s, for the UK to join the EEC, as it was then. I believed in the dream of Europe. All thorough the 1980s and 90s, while the ‘democratic deficit’ at the heart of Europe worried me deeply, I held on to my faith. I told myself that Europe was bigger than this, that it would be all right. I told myself how apt it was to choose ‘Ode to Joy’ as the European anthem, to express hope for a harmonious, democratic future.

After the millennium I went on believing; I had no interest, ever, in the euro project, an ill-favoured child from the outset, but despite the increasing evidence to the contrary, I told myself that the European commitment to peace, democracy and human rights counted for more than these worries.

This week, Germany pulled aside its mask and I saw how wrong I had been. The entire European project is nothing more than an attempt to turn the whole continent into a satrapy of Berlin. Just as in 1871, in 1914 and 1945. Every one of the German promises was a lie. It will accept our acquiesence in its Master Plan, but if we resist, it will bludgeon us until we surrender.

Just as it has done with Greece.

Oh, in the end, this had little to do with Greece, other than the public whipping of an errant child who dared disobey its master. The real message in the destruction and pauperisation of a tiny, weak, poor country, the message in condemning its children to starvation, is not for the Greeks. Germany doesn’t care about Greece. It’s just more beaches for them to clog up, more locals for them to be rude to.

The message is for the Italians and the Spanish and the Portuguese and the French, to show them what will happen to them if they aver dare to stand up against Germany. That is the real reason why the Greek nose had to be rubbed in urine — except, it’s not even Greek urine, but German.

Well, I say enough. Germany would like to be the economically-driven Gestapo of Europe, but we are still free. We can rally to the Greek side. We can shout from the rooftops, march in the streets, besiege the German Embassies and Consulates, telling them, you shall not do this.

We can boycott their services and products. Don’t buy German cars. Don’t patronise German shops. Let us see a Europe full of boarded-up Aldis and Lidls. German flags should be in flames all over Europe, their pyres surmounted by effigies of Merkel, Hitler’s true daughter.

We can flood the internet with our disapproval of their monstrous and unacceptable behaviour and we should challenge every German we meet, not with violence, but with a patient explanation of why their behaviour is not acceptable and that until they mend their ways, they are not welcome among us; that they should go home and tell their Chancellor that she has disgraced them both as Germans and Europeans, or accept that they really are the monsters they appear to be.

The European Project has no future now. It has been eviscerated, by Germany. Many people’s dreams, including mine, have been shattered. But we will live on.

Today is the 14th of July, Bastille Day, here in France. Today they will read off the roll of the sons of this tiny village who gave their lives for France to be free from the German monster. It is a fitting day to be reminded that Europe is once again under threat from it.

There’s a storm coming.

‪#‎ThisIsACoup‬

Rod Fleming on Google+

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Germany, the bully of Europe

It’s not that often I agree with Suzanne Moore. So that has to be noteworthy for a start. I find myself agreeing with Joseph Stiglitz more often — and why not, I mean he is a Nobel Prize winner. I am pretty sure for all three of us to be in agreement is pretty exceptional though.

And what are we agreeing about? Germany’s atrocious, scandalous bullying of Greece, that’s what.

I am no fan of Margaret Thatcher, but her fears, expressed before Germany was re-unified, have proven correct: Germany is once again Europe’s bad-mannered thug, and it has begun to flex its muscles.

Of course it always was; three times in under 70 years, it invaded its neighbours and created havoc. (Okay, the first was technically Prussia, but that’s a detail.)

The last expression of its natural tendency to be King Rat caused 72 million people to be killed and Europe — as well as substantial other parts of the globe — was devastated. Well, after that one we got smart and took Germany’s tanks and bombers away.

So now they are using their financial power to do the same thing, bully and intimidate smaller countries. Last month we heard the head of the ECB — a German — ask that democracy in Greece should be suspended and a ‘technocrat’ appointed to run it instead. After all, we can’t have an annoyance like democracy getting the way of the Master Race’s plans now, can we? And freedom, what’s that?

Today we hear German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisting that no debt restructuring will be offered to Greece. If they cannot behave like good Germans — which is what, apparently, being European now means — then they can starve. If they wish for forgiveness they must kiss the jackboot of the goose-stepping schoolyard bully and thank it for not sweeping down the Danube and delivering the punishment in person. Except they can’t because we took away their tanks and bombers. Thankfully.

Well, this is where I agree with Stiglitz. It is Germany’s boneheaded insistence on ‘austerity’ that has ruined the Greek economy. And they are determined to reduce all Greeks to third-world status just to show what happens when you dare to stand up to the Master Race. Just like they did in 1914. And 1939. And that Franco Prussian entanglement.

As Stiglitz points out, Germany, after it ruined Europe and killed 72 million people, was given the BIGGEST BAIL-OUT IN RECORDED HISTORY. Its war reparations were written off. Of course none of the other European nations got this free hand-out because they –INCLUDING Greece — were the ones who gave Germany this gift.

Why did we do this? Because making Germany pay for the destruction it caused in the First World War was its reason for starting the Second World War. Better that the other European nations stayed on rations than give the Germans another excuse to do the same again, nein? I mean, 72 million is a lot of people.

Through the Marshall Plan, the US injected vast amounts of money to rebuild Germany — far more than any other state received. For decades, billions more were poured in as part of NATO defence policy. Germany was allowed to re-unite, although this immediately destabilised Europe — which the British and French attempted to defuse by pushing for enlargement of the Union.

Then, Germany was allowed to establish a fixed exchange-rate mechanism that favoured its own economy and ensured that the normal economic pressures, which would have cause its currency to rise and make its products less competitive were negated by the presence of weaker currencies in the group. This then became the euro — which is just another exchange-rate mechanism, not a currency union at all. That is why the Swedes, when asked, refused to join. The Swedes have a proud tradition of resisting German bullying.

And the euro has worked exactly as the Germans planned — it has sucked wealth out of the weaker economies and given it to Germany.

So Germany’s economic success is not because it’s thrifty or hard-working, but because everyone else has been pouring billions — trillions — into its economy for SEVENTY YEARS.

And now, big bully Germany would rather see Greeks starve than do the decent thing and write off the so-called ‘debt’ — mostly, by the way, in favour of German and French banks.

Greece should have none of it. It should leave the euro and go back to the drachma. The US Government has today made it clear: it will not let Greece fall. The IMF has said the same. The Greeks have nothing to fear. If they stick up for democracy, the bully of Europe cannot harm them.

Yet what a bitter taste it leaves, for once again — for the third time in a hundred years — a European nation needs the USA to save it from Germany.

And this is where I agree with Moore: I have always considered myself a good European. I still am. But if being a European means standing by and allowing this appalling behaviour on the part of the bully of Europe, then I want no part of it.

The UK will hold a referendum on EU membership within two years. Thanks to Germany, I will be campaigning for an exit. Maybe nobody will listen, but I will do my little best. It’s time to tell the schoolyard bully to go off and stand in the corner in shame, alone.

The last time we had to stand up to Germany and its shocking behaviour was 1939. It looks like we’ll have to do it again. And we have discovered something — taking away its tanks and bombers has not made Germany a good European.

Very, very far from it. Enough already.

Rod Fleming on Google+

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Greece in Overwhelming Vote for Democracy.

With 15% of the vote now counted, Greece looks set to vote ‘NO’ in its referendum by an ‘overwhelming’ majority of a huge turnout.

We should all congratulate and thank Greece. It has set itself up as a beacon of hope and democracy against the unelected suprastate that would crush it and further enslave it to the failed model of ‘austerity’.

The economic competency of the Germans and the French, the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund has been shown, by far better economists than I, to have been about the level of a bunch of schoolchildren. Greece was forced into unnecessary recession and at the same time expected to make huge loan repayments in order to serve the political ends of Germany and France. The consequence has been an even greater Depression than that which afflicted the USA in the 1930s, with over 25% unemployment and hardship that no-one else in Europe would put up with.

And that is why it has been so important for the lenders to break tiny Greece. Because when they come for you, they don’t want you to think that there’s any way out. They don’t want you to realise that states are sovereign and can just tear up debts. At the moment their targets are Italy and Spain; they dread the consequences if these two states were to tear up their loans and tell their lenders to raffle themselves — which they are perfectly entitled to do. But make no mistake, these people, Merkel, Hollande, Juncker and Lagarde  are out to destroy democracy and the sovereignty of the people, and concentrate power in the hands of oligarchs, bureaucrats, and completely unaccountable quangos and corporations.

Iceland proved them wrong and they have been very quiet about that. But they won’t be able to keep quiet about Greece.

The Greek economy is actually in surplus, by about 2%, if we discount the loan repayments. It is not Greece’s economy or its economic management that is at fault, but the slavish insistence of the European anti-democratic hegemony on ‘austerity’.

Well, it looks like Greece has given these economic bullies a kick in the testicles that they will remember.

It should now declare that all the debt is suspended. It should declare a repayment holiday with no interest increment. It should invite China to invest hugely in its infrastructure and tourism economy. It should print drachmas and float them. And it should continue to tell the anti-democratic hegemony that governs Europe that its day is done.

And then we should all do the same.

Rod Fleming on Google+

The post Greece in Overwhelming Vote for Democracy. appeared first on Rod Fleming's World.

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A Greek Lesson in Democracy

Greece is the oft-lauded birthplace of democracy and perhaps it is fitting that this small and fiercely idiosyncratic European country may be about to give the world a lesson in it.

It would be true to say, as John Redwood has pointed out, that the entry of Greece into the Euro a decade and a half ago was sheer hubris and folly. That hubris has been shown up for what it was since 2010. During this time, Greece has been subjected to so-called ‘austerity’ measures that have brought the country to its knees and have, five years later, not produced any improvement and indeed very much the opposite. In some areas, unemployment has risen to 60% and Greece’s banks are now closed.

In the last few weeks and months, we have seen a troika of New Imerialists – Christine Lagarde of the IMF, Jean-Claude Juncker, Pesident of the European Commission and Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor, openly bully and strong-arm the democratically elected Prime Minister of a sovereign nation, Alexis Tsipras. It has been an absolute disgrace and an affront to democratic principles. We saw heavy-handed and insensitive ‘diplomacy’, that was clearly intended to undermine Tsipras and to coerce him into capitulating to yet more horror and misery. The result was that Tsipras did the one thing the New Imperialists hate the most — he decided to ask his own people what he should do. He actually dared ask for a democratic mandate. What impudence!

That is the one thing the New Imperialists insist must never happen. The European Project, the euro zone and the world’s financial system operate through deals being done that are not given a mandate by popular vote, which then can never be undone — or so they would like to think. The very concept of a referendum is anathema to them: political solutions are for the senior members of the diplomatic cabal to impose on the people.

They can never come out and openly say that they regard democracy as an inconvenience to be subverted and steamrollered whenever it suits them. But we are all supposed to play along with the blatant pretence that they think democracy has value. The lies, deceit, and sheer contempt, of the New Imperialists, are manifest in their tactics with Tsipras: they intended to browbeat him into ignoring the will of the people who had elected him. Instead he threw it back in their faces and turned the matter over to that people.

And in so doing, Alexis Tsipras has shown himself to be that rarest of the rare: an honest politician who respects his mandate. He has shown exactly what his opponents, the bullies who would compromise him, do not have: integrity.

The vote, a referendum on the terms under which their misery will be prolonged, how much more shame and suffering Greeks must endure, will be held on Sunday. How will they vote?

Had Greece had an independent currency, it would have devalued in 2010. This would have stimulated inward investment and exports. Greece is not a major exporting nation but it is still a significant part of the economy. However, Greece relies heavily on tourism, which always benefits from a low currency.

At the same time, its central bank would have minimised interest rates to stimulate growth and reduce the cost of debt servicing. It would have had to accept a reduction in its national credit rating, but the corollary would have been that it would simply have written off a significant amount of the debt that it ‘owes’. The government, risking a small amount of inflation, would have printed more money — exactly as the UK did. It may even have issued new bonds — in drachmas, not euros.

There is no reason why Greece should not have been successful if it had been able to do this. Instead, it has been nailed to the cross of a failed neo-liberal economic model. The ‘emergency bail-out’ money, paid since 2010, did not go to Greece, but to foreign banks demanding their viggerish. In other words, yet again, taxpayers’ money in other European nations is being spent to keep their own profligate and dysfunctional banks operating, while calling it a ‘bail-out’ to a Greek economy that is only in the mess it is because of those very lenders’ slavish adherence to a discredited ideology.

There is no doubt which way Greeks should vote on Sunday; they should vote ‘No’ to the ridiculous demands for further ‘austerity’.

This will give Greece a unique opportunity that it must grasp: to free itself from the straitjacket of the euro and once again manage an economy in its own interests, not those of Europe’s paymaster, Germany.

Greece should reintroduce the drachma as soon as it can get the presses rolling. It should establish a favourable exchange rate against the Euro; this will mean that savers will not lose out in the exchange but at the same time, that the economy will be attractive to investors.

It should default, as Iceland did, on all debt. If it agrees to honour any at all, this should be on condition of a five year renewable repayment holiday, during which time, no interest will accrue. Further it should insist that any such debt will be repaid, ultimately, in drachmas, not euros. If creditors refuse to accept these terms, Greece should consider itself under no obligation to repay them.

It should immediately make overtures to China, which has immense reserves of capital ready to invest and will do so. Russia has no money, so no matter how politically attractive that avenue might be to Tsipras, it is doomed to failure. But opening upGreek investment markets fully to China is a real possibility. After all, the British, themselves not burdened with the euro, are doing exactly that.

Yet underlying all this is a simple fact: Greece accounts for 2% of the euro zone economy. Europe could easily — so easily that no-one would even notice — just write off the Greek debt and return it to a zero balance.

It won’t for political reasons. The power players in the euro zone do not care about Greece in itself; they worry about the message they might send to Italy, Spain, Portugal and to a lesser extent Ireland, should they appear ‘soft’ on Greece. A Greek exit from the euro would be a gnat-bite; were Italy, Spain and Portugal to follow suit, it would provoke an existential crisis for the euro and perhaps an end to the European Project as it is now understood.

At the same time Euopean leaders are viscerally opposed to the idea of countries outside the euro zone being able to trade freely with it while setting their own interest rates and fiscal policy — which is exactly what Greece, and should they also decide to grow a backbone, Italy, Spain and Portugal would become. It’s a Domino Theory that has teeth.

This is also an ideological conflict. Alexis Tsipras, the Greek Prime Minister, is a radical Leftist and the established authorities on Europe have drifted so far to the right, to satisfy Germany, as to be totally hostile to everything he stands for — like equality, justice, social inclusion and fairness. They want to see him humiliated, and they want, through that, to humiliate the Greek people, so that they will toe the neo-liberal economic line; even though that line has been a failure across Europe.

Forcing Greece to suffer unnecessary ‘austerity’, to a level that would get Merkel booted out of office were she to try it at home, is as nothing to the New Imperialists. Above all else, on their agenda, is that the other peoples of Europe do not discover ‘austerity’ for the sham that it is, a means of taking money directly from the poorest and weakest and giving it to the richest and strongest.

At every turn the essential, governing principle of democracy has been, is being and will be corroded and debased by the neo-liberal economic system until it is destroyed. That principle is simple: it is that ‘sovereignty resides with the people’. This is the foundation of modern democracy, and it is under threat from every side; from unelected supra-national organisations like the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and even the United Nations; from a network of quangos and appointees at both supra-national and sub-national level, and by trade agreements that allow corporations to sue populations for making decisions that affect only the territories they are sovereign over.

We have gone so far in allowing the democracy that is perhaps our most precious asset to be stripped from us that it will now take catharsis to turn the tide, to begin to reclaim some of that which is rightfully ours.

Greece stands on the cusp, the tipping point of the balance. Which way will the people vote? We don’t know. The Greeks have steadfastly endured a horror of ‘austerity’ that has come close to destroying their country and has ruined the lives of millions. Perhaps they will, like a drowning man, clutch in shame at the straw offered by the New Imperialists — submit to yet more horror and abuse and we will let some scraps from our table fall your way, if we think you’ve been good enough.

But perhaps they will not. Perhaps they will remember that it is to them that we owe democracy itself and will vote down the troika’s vicious proposition, which can only lead to more suffering and, in fact, only a delay of a year or so in Greece’s inevitable departure from the euro. Perhaps the spark of defiance that they have showed so often before will kindle again.

Perhaps they will show that democracy is a precious thing, not to be sold for a pittance. That sovereignty is all we have and if we let it go, then we condemn ourselves to perpetual slavery, to the dominion of the New Imperialists.

The voters in the Greek referendum should consider very carefully on Sunday. They have the choice to re-establish the rule of democracy in their own country instead of being dictated to  by people who are either unelected or whom they did not elect. Yes it will be difficult for a while should they leave the euro, but they will survive and their country will be stronger for it.

More than that, they will not only be voting for themselves, but for the rule of democracy, and to relight the candle of hope for the rest of the world. If they do so, they will be owed a huge debt of gratitude by everyone else on the planet.

Rod Fleming on Google+

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