Issue 51, December 2008

Nation Revisited

An occasional e-mail to friends. # 51, December 2008

Racism

Believing that other races are inferior is stupid and misguided. There are scientists and academics of all races just as there are criminals and degenerates of all races.

Almost the whole world agrees that it’s unacceptable to discriminate against people on account of their ethnic origin: except for the Zionists. They believe that they are God’s chosen people and that all others races are at their disposal. In support of this monstrous fallacy they have set up the state of Israel and have tried to invade and colonise every neighbouring state. Their international supporters keep them supplied with money, armaments and diplomatic backing. And their powerful media friends are ready to scream “Nazi” at anyone who denounces Israeli aggression.

The only state founded on racism is protected by America and the Christian world. Countries with laws against discrimination are supporting a regime dedicated to racial supremacy. But not all Jews are bigots; even in Israel there is growing opposition to Zionism.

Since WW2 a great tide of Third World migration has swept over Europe and America. This has been encouraged by capitalists who welcome cheap labour, by one-world dreamers and by liberal guilt trippers who want to bow down to their former colonial subjects in an act of contrition.

While the boom lasted nobody was too bothered about the influx. The native population simply moved to another area and left the decaying inner cities to the newcomers. But boom has turned to bust and people are starting to worry about their jobs and accommodation. This does not mean that they are racists. They do not despise the teeming millions of Africa and Asia; they just do not want to be overrun by them.

In response to their fears political parties have emerged to campaign against immigration. Some of them, like the Dutch socialists, use economic arguments; others resort to cruder propaganda. In a democracy freedom of speech is supposed to be allowed. But the very same politicians and press barons who support Zionism try to silence people for questioning mass migration.

Nations have a natural right to self-determination and ethnic survival. But arrogant notions of racial supremacy always end in disaster.

Helping the lower paid

Gordon Brown has tried to boost our flagging economy by reducing taxation. The idea is to get people to spend money and stimulate trade and industry. But poor people always spend their money because they have no choice. Others waste it on drink, drugs, gambling, takeaway food, tattoos, pit bull terriers and the like. They need no encouragement to spend their money.

The poor, as the Catholics say, will always be with us. Even the boom of recent years left them behind. And attempts at social engineering have failed to remove the blight of the sink estate. If anything the underclass is growing as industry succumbs to the credit crunch.

When Tony Blair was elected in a blaze of Murdoch euphoria in 1997 he promised “education, education, education,” but there is little sign that the Blair generation has been anywhere near a place of education. The hooded figures that hang around in threatening gangs have not arrived from Mars; they are the product of a Labour government. And the disorganised young mothers herding their kids through the supermarket have grown up on social security. They know how to claim benefit but not how to find a job or a man that works.

The poor will hardly be helped by Gordon’s giveaway. Only an increase in benefits would help them, and that could only be achieved by raising taxation, not by reducing it. His tax reduction is a short-term gimmick that will have to be paid for at a later date.

Gordon Brown can’t influence events that are dictated from across the Atlantic. As Detroit faces meltdown so does British manufacturing. We have not been competing with American industry we have been part of it. Our prime minister has no control over global economics. Despite his swaggering at international conferences he is helpless in the face of recession. If he really wants to help the poor and the unemployed he should make way for someone in touch with reality.

Britain will never achieve lasting prosperity as part of an American-led global conglomerate. Nor can we go it alone when we need to import food and fuel. The only answer is to transform the EU into a representative entity capable of feeding and defending itself. We must abandon our dependency on America that has been Labour Party policy since the end of the war.

Barack Obama inherits an economy ruined by a decade of deficit spending, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the massive trade imbalance with China.  Bill Clinton was forgiven for lying and cheating because his government returned a fiscal surplus. He was right when he put his survival down to “the economy, stupid.” But ten years of Bush and Cheney has left the new president with a daunting task. He will not be greatly concerned about Britain’s problems.

Time for a rethink

A failed pact between the anti-federalists parties has been in the news. UKIP enjoyed positive press coverage and the support of television star Robert Kilroy Silk during the last Euro election. This time they are not so lucky. They still have media backing but a series of scandals has tarnished their image. The BNP is hoping to pick up the Euro-sceptic vote. They have been boosted by the publicity from their leaked membership list but they cannot expect the same favourable treatment as their more respectable rival.

The BNP are constrained by the intellectual straightjacket of insular nationalism. Their policies call for a siege economy that could not fund health and social security. They are pledged to quit the EU but their dream of reviving the White Commonwealth looks increasingly unlikely now that Canada, Australia and New Zealand have established their own markets and alliances. Farmer Nick grows his own vegetables but residents of tower blocks would have to eat supermarket food cooked with imported fuel bought with precious dollars. Their defence policy is as confused as their economic policy. They want to withdraw from the United Nations and the European Union but rely on President Barack Obama’s army to defend us. Their policies do not stand scrutiny but their propaganda goes down well in areas affected by Third World immigration.

The UK has been badly battered by the credit crunch. We are not in the fortunate position of Norway, a country with a tiny population of 4.7 million and plenty of oil. We have 60 million mouths to feed and declining gas and oil reserves. We need to be members of the world’s largest trading bloc.  

The dire predictions of the Euro-sceptics have not materialized. After 35 years Britain remains a distinct nation with its own language and traditions. We have been “enriched” with Third World Immigrants but that was happening long before we joined the EU. The isolationists must rethink their approach to Europe; they should reform it from within instead of constantly threatening to withdraw.

Since the two disastrous world wars our continent has survived and even prospered. The great empires have gone but the historic nations are intact and the madness of fratricide has passed into history. It is unthinkable that the major states of Europe will ever try to destroy each other again.

The EU is dominated by Old Gang politicians and undoubtedly in need of reform. We must elect representatives who believe in Europe for the Europeans. The teeming millions of Asia and Africa will not be kept out by the pronouncements of petty states. Only a massive programme of resettlement financed by the GDP of half a billion Europeans can solve the economic refugee problem. We can wave little flags of token independence or aspire to the real independence of political, economic and military self-sufficiency.

No second chance

British and American banks have been saved from collapse by government intervention. Taxpayers’ money has bought shares in the banks making them partly state owned. Now America proposes to do the same for its ailing motor industry. This goes against the doctrinaire policy of economic liberalism that has prevailed since the Eighties. The shortsighted dogma that shut down the coalmines opened our borders to unlimited immigration and made us dependent on cheap imports.

According to the Reagan-Thatcher gospel all state participation is bad and all private enterprise is good. They even advocated privatising the police and the prison service by subcontracting their duties to security companies. Some fanatical “libertarians” even support the private armies that regularly shoot civilians in Iraq. They argue that private enterprise is always better than nationalized industry and point to over manning in the civil service as proof.

But banks and motor companies have been a poor advertisement for capitalism. Successive British governments poured billions into the motor industry before it collapsed. But the money was given unconditionally and managers who had squandered private capital did the same with state subsidies. All public money should be spent under strict supervision and failed managers should be sacked not promoted.

The credit crunch is the result of unfettered capitalism. Bankers and brokers were allowed to trade without restrictions. But instead of acting in the public interest they took foolish risks for the sake of a quick profit. The idea that they are conscientious guardians of our money is a total myth. The image of the dependable, sober suited bank manager went out with Margaret Thatcher; today’s bankers are a lesser breed altogether.

The idea that capitalists can be trusted to regulate themselves was demolished by the Guinness and Enron scandals. International finance has shown itself to be dangerously out of control and contemptuous of authority. Their irresponsible dealing has resulted in a stock market crash to rival the Great Depression of the Thirties. We cannot blame them for promoting the wrong shares. The stock market is a casino and every deal is a gamble. But we can blame them for buying and selling worthless sub prime mortgages.

The pundits are now saying that we must allow the economy to settle down before reducing the scale of state involvement. But the financiers do not deserve a second chance. We should take the most efficient banks into public ownership and let the rest go under. And instead of paying off their bosses with “golden handshakes” we should charge them with criminal negligence. Managing the nation’s money is a job that should be taken seriously.

Global War

This first appeared on Sharon Ebank’s website in 2007

The Project for the New American Century is a non profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good for America and for the world: and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle.” William Kristol, Chairman

That is the preamble to the programme of the New American Century, the neocon think tank that directs American foreign policy. It goes on to list all the trouble spots of the world and makes concrete proposals for American military action. None of this is secret, anyone can log on to the NAC website and read the full spine-chilling plan for the total American domination of the planet.

Kristol and his fellow neocons are confident of success. According to Lawrence Korb, Restoring American Military Power 2006:

“The US has more nuclear weapons than it needs for deterrence. The US maintains an estimated 10,000 weapons in its arsenal even though Russia’s nuclear arsenal has fallen into gross disrepair and China has less than two-dozen missiles capable of striking US territory. It costs nearly $18 billion a year to maintain this arsenal of warheads, associated delivery vehicles, and supporting infrastructure.”

America has signed an arms limitation treaty with Russia that will restrict her nuclear arsenal to 2,200 warheads by 2012. But at the moment the Americans have enough intercontinental missiles to destroy most of the capital cities of the world from the United States. And they have short-range missiles that could wipe out the rest of the world from their warships deployed in every ocean.

America’s most loyal ally is Israel. According to the dissident Israeli scientist Mordechai Vanunu the IDF has over 200 nuclear warheads that can be carried by aircraft or missiles fired from submarines.

On paper at least America is so powerful that no nation could hope to win a war against her. And yet this mighty power could not defeat the Vietnamese peasant army of Ho Chi Minh, nor do they look like winning in Iraq or Afghanistan. This disparity between military hardware and battlefield success is an enigma that continues to puzzle the Pentagon.

The answer lies in the pronouncements of the New American Century. They are so convinced of the rightness of American policy that they are literally incapable of seeing the other side of the argument. When they told American soldiers that grateful Iraqis would thank them for their liberation they really believed it; and when the Iraqis greeted them with gunfire they were genuinely disappointed.

The Americans have grown up in a country that has almost everything. They have a potentially self-sufficient economy and an overwhelming sense of national confidence. They are fully aware of their military and industrial might and tend to disregard anything foreign as an irrelevance. Most Americans do not possess passports or have any desire to go abroad. If their President tells them that he is defending the US by attacking Iraq they believe him implicitly. When he says that Iran is part of an axis of evil they accept it without question.

So we have an imperialist government supported by an uneducated and jingoistic population. Not surprising then that they tend to underrate the opposition. The British and French spent most of the last century fighting Arabs. We lost thousands of men in Iraq during and after the First World War when we first attempted to secure Middle East oil for ourselves. Together we occupied all the Arab lands from Morocco to Oman, and jointly colluded with Israel in the fateful attack on Egypt in 1956, which spelt the end of empire for both countries.

We have paid the price of empire in the burning sands of Africa and Arabia. The Americans are still learning that empires have to be constantly defended and that every conquered territory will eventually be abandoned. The Middle East is not a near-empty continent with just a few thousand Native Americans to brush aside. It is an ancient land that has been fought over for centuries. Its cities are densely populated and its peoples are used to hardship and sacrifice.

To justify their blatant attempt to steal all the oil in the Middle East the Americans have seized upon the Muslim terrorist attack on the United States. 9/11 has become the reason why they have invaded countries on both sides of the Persian Gulf. I do not subscribe to conspiracy theories but 9/11 was certainly a golden opportunity for the hawks of the pentagon that always regretted that they had not toppled Saddam during the first Gulf War.

The generals were right to think that they could wipe out the Iraqi and Afghan armies with their formidable air power, but they were completely wrong in thinking that a devastating attack would be the end of the fighting. If they had studied the British campaign in Iraq in the Twenties or the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the Eighties they might have realized what they were facing. But American generals are dismissive of foreign experiences.

There is no secret to American foreign policy. They have clearly stated their objective to rule the world for the benefit of America and all mankind. They do not understand why any nation would reject them and they are not prepared to be rejected. During the Cold War the scriptwriters of Hollywood came up with the idea of a Soviet threat to the world. We were told that the Russians wanted to destroy us all and that it was necessary for us to trust in America to defend us. Since the Soviet system has collapsed they have come up with the Islamic threat. Now Muslims are the enemy. We have a new clash of civilizations that obliges America to conquer half the world and threaten the other half.

Anyone who points out that the 9/11 attack was a response to the occupation of Palestine is accused of being a collaborator. When the Mujahideen fought the Red Army in Afghanistan the Americans backed them with billions of dollars and taught the resistance fighters that modern armies can be defeated by guerrilla tactics. They are only doing to the Americans and their NATO allies what they did to the Russians. In the Afghan War Osama Bin Laden and his men learned about mine laying and sabotage, they studied telecommunications, ballistics, aeronautics and all the techniques of warfare. They became what the Americans wanted them to be, an efficient and capable guerrilla army.

Al Qaeda is just as open as the neocons. They clearly state that they want the Americans and their allies to withdraw from all Muslim countries. It is doubtful that Al Qaeda is really a monolithic organization with any kind of international command structure. It’s more likely that individual groups of imitators model themselves on it. The results are deadly, as the attacks on London and Madrid have shown. By supporting America the UK and Spain have put themselves in the firing line. And by allowing almost unlimited immigration of Muslims the European countries have imported terrorism.

So long as Palestine is occupied by Israeli forces backed by America there will be conflict in the Middle East and terrorist attacks around the world. The security forces are getting better at catching terrorists. But 9/11 showed how terrible this type of warfare can be and how difficult it is to defend a city against attack from the air.

As well as despising foreigners America also disregards the United Nations. But the rest of the world will be listened to. Europe is emerging as a great power in her own right and Russia has recovered from 90 years of economic stagnation to resume her place at the table of the mighty. The Palestine-Israel problem will be resolved by international agreement. Eventually America will be forced to accept that she is just another nation that has enjoyed a brief period of glory. Some people are suspicious of the UN but we must have a forum for international discussion. The alternative is too terrible to contemplate.

The demographic changes sweeping the world could change America beyond recognition. The North American Free Trade Area may end up as a very different country from the United States. NAFTA will be too concerned with economic survival to pursue neocon dreams of world domination. The constant search for raw materials and fuel will get harder as the world population continues to increase and develop. The little wars in Africa, Asia and South America are about drugs, diamonds and raw materials. They are different to the Middle East only in scale; the underlying causes are the same.

Views on the news

The Mumbai killings have revived the simmering conflict between India’s religious communities. India is a fast growing economic power with advanced military and aerospace capacity. She is churning out graduates and dominates the IT market. But the fault lines of race, religion and culture run through the subcontinent. And it’s along these lines that countries divide in times of great stress. The credit crunch will produce unforeseen consequences around the world. From Peru to the Congo racial and tribal consciousness is stirring. Some of these differences are as trivial as an alphabet and some are fundamental. In times of plenty people will rub along together. They are, after all, united by common humanity. But when they are struggling to make a living the acceptance of strangers is stretched to breaking point. It’s all very well for the great and the good to lecture us on tolerance. But in the real world people do identify with their own kith and kin.

Tory frontbench spokesman Damian Green has been arrested on an obscure charge that carries a life sentence. Using powers conferred on them by anti-terror legislation the police raided Green’s home and office. If the Russians had arrested a prominent opposition figure the Americans would have demanded an explanation and threatened sanctions against Moscow for undermining democracy. This was the last blunder of the institutionally useless Sir Ian Blair; the man who dismissed the murders of the Soham schoolgirls and presided over the assassination of an innocent Brazilian worker. The Tories and the Libdems must stand up for themselves this time. The police must have been acting with the backing of their own officers. And the air-headed Jacqui Smith and her boss Gordon Brown must have sanctioned it. This is not a misunderstanding; it’s a deliberate assault on the parliamentary system from a government that’s out of control. Gordon Brown has called for opposition support during this time of crisis. But we do not have a government of national unity; we have an arrogant regime committed to the failed globalist policies that have resulted in the current crisis.

Euro-sceptics are given to circulating tracts from The Brussels Journal and the EU Observer. These usually warn of secret plans to turn the EU into a vast concentration camp run by Brussels beaurocrats and policed by jackbooted thugs. The anti-federalists are rather like evangelicals who attempt to prove their case by quoting from the Bible. If you don’t accept the authority of the Good Book in the first place it proves nothing. The Euro-sceptics cling to America and see an enlarged NATO as the model for the future. But the dollar system is collapsing and America is in the grip of imperial rigor mortis. The recession will reshape the international power structure. Nobody knows the shape of things to come. But it’s a fair bet that an economic bloc of related nations, that can feed and defend itself, will be in a better position than a go it alone Britain that can do neither. China, Russia, India and Brazil are growing economies desperate to export to the world. If we do not achieve collective self-sufficiency we will be buried by cheap labour competition.