Issue 84, October 2011

Nation Revisited

# 84, October 2011.

 

There’s No Limit to What We Can Do

We are paying back the money we borrowed to buy houses and cars and the government is trying to pay back the money it borrowed to fund defence and social security. Britain and most European countries have announced austerity budgets but President Barack Obama intends to spend $450 billion on infrastructure works to create employment. He plans to get the money by taxing the super-rich.

Some people have called for a return to the Gold Standard to stop nations spending more than they can afford. But that system was abandoned by the UK in 1931 when we defaulted on our loans and devalued the pound by 24%. The dollar was divorced from gold by the “Nixon Shock” of 1971. Gold was then valued at $35 an ounce - it recently traded at $1,800 an ounce. 

The value of currencies is decided by the foreign exchange markets. At the moment 1.55 dollars, or 1.15 euro buys 1 pound. These rates are based on national assets, industrial output and market confidence. Banks and governments use ratings agency assessments when deciding who to lend to and at what rate of interest; the same piss poor agencies that presided over the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Nations in surplus lend money to America but not to Haiti. America owes a massive $14 trillion and Haiti only $1.2 billion. But America has got a better credit rating than Haiti. The average American earns $150 a day but a Haitian subsists on $2 a day and cannot give a cent towards the national debt. Haiti was the first black state to achieve independence from France. It was in a bad way before being devastated by an earthquake. Now it’s one of the poorest countries in the world. The neighbouring Dominican Republic is a paradise by comparison but its Spanish ascendency is struggling to control Haitian infiltration.

Social programmes have distributed wealth in the developed world but poverty is rampant in sub-Saharan Africa. It would be better to pay fair prices for African produce and raw materials than letting economic refugees into Europe. And it would probably be cheaper than detaining illegal immigrants in internment camps.

National deficits are gigantic but nations that can send rockets into space and harness atomic power must be able to reform international capitalism. We abolished slavery because it was the right thing to do but mechanisation and cheap labour had already made it uneconomic. 


We will abolish usury in the same way; with good intentions and modern methods. We have unleashed the information technology revolution, transformed agriculture and almost wiped out infectious diseases. There is no reason why we cannot dispense with usury and adopt a fair means of exchange. There is no limit to what we can do if we have the will to do it.

The Party’s Over
 

Union Movement was the first political party in the UK to campaign against global capitalism and Third World immigration and call for a programme of humane repatriation. But following the death of Oswald Mosley and the demise of UM patriotic opinion was hijacked by the reactionary right and lead up the garden path of petty nationalism. Now that the BNP is on its last legs we need a new party.

At the time of the “leaked list” in April 2009 the BNP had 11,560 members, 2 MEPs, 100 councillors and 1 member of the London Assembly. But following poor results in the 2010 general election it has split into several factions; only 8 councillors are left and its 2 MEPs are at war with each other.

BNP refugees who hate the EU can join UKIP, or the English Democrats, and those motivated solely by racial hatred can join the English Defence League.  The rest of us need an intelligent party that’s not obsessed with plots and fantasies.

The BNP blame their unelectable image on a “controlled media” run by a “liberal elite.” But it wasn’t David Dimbleby or the BBC who humiliated Nick Griffin on Question Time – he did it himself.

Margaret Christine posted on the BNP website (25/09/11): “People should boycott the BBC, they have no interest in Britain or its culture, what can you expect from an establishment where most of its bosses are Muslim.”

The irony is that most of the media supports BNP policies on quitting Europe and controlling immigration. Far from being radicals the BNP are part of the rightwing populist consensus. But their policies are unrealistic. After 38 years in the EU most of our trade and our aerospace, defence and power industries are integrated with mainland Europe. Asian-owned firms like; Toyota, Honda, Corus and Jaguar Land Rover are only in the UK because we are in the EU. And our armed forces are tied to France for the next fifty years by the Anglo-French Defence Treaty of 2010. 

Britain might be able to leave the EU and retain access to the internal market. We would still have to pay our dues and comply with EU rules and regulations. But we would have no say in EU government. Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein signed the Shengen border agreement to join the European Economic Area and Switzerland has signed a separate treaty; we would have to make similar concessions.

The BNP’s Commonwealth policy is almost a century too late. Australia and New Zealand depend on Asian markets, Canada is united with the USA in NAFTA, and South Africa and Zimbabwe are black-run states. Our future is with Europe and we need committed representatives to defend our interests in Brussels. But the MEPs of UKIP and BNP are only there to cause mischief and they can’t even cooperate with each other.

The following rambling nonsense is from the BNP website: “UKIP is slavishly pro-bank, sickeningly internationalist and blatantly under the thumb of a small but noisy pro-Zionist lobby. This is why Farage will not permit anyone to discuss issues such as the banksters’ fiat money swindle, Common Purpose or the pro-EU work of secretive but well-financed bodies linked to the US power elite and deeply sinister international financiers such as George Sorros.” 

The BNP wages a spiteful and divisive campaign against workers from Eastern Europe. But instead of complaining that 1 in 38 births in the UK are to Polish mothers they should be congratulating them for boosting the white population; children of European immigrants will grow up to be British by race, culture and nationality.

They are also wrong about increasing defence spending by 1% over inflation. Our armed forces would be better employed guarding our borders against illegal immigration instead of enforcing American foreign policy all over the world. Our expeditionary force in Afghanistan is a total waste of lives and money. We should bring our troops home and use the money saved for health and education.

The BNP has a history of ridiculous policies. Some of Nick Griffin’s statements prove that academic achievement has got nothing to do with common sense. He once suggested issuing assault rifles to civilians. He advised the Italians to sink refugee ships from North Africa. And he now wants to build prisons for “hardened and repeat criminals” on the British Antarctic island of South Georgia. This might not prove popular with prison officers or visitors.

Our problems are the result of bad government not conspiracies. Britain pioneered many scientific breakthroughs but when we should have gone for automation we went for immigration. And instead of accepting our status as a European country we tried to be a world power on borrowed money. 

These problems must be addressed by applying the following principles:        

1. Defend British interests in the Euro Parliament.     
2. Stop immigration and start repatriation.
3. Mind Britain’s business and keep out of foreign wars.

Such policies would be supported at the polls, but it’s obvious that the BNP’s old-fashioned nationalist policies have failed. After 30 years of campaigning they only averaged 1.9% at the last general election. 

Votes cast in England & Wales in the 2010 General Election
 

Con     10 726 614

Lab        8 609 527

Lib         6 836 824

UKIP        919 546

BNP         564 331

Green      285 616

PC           165 394

ED             64 826

The combined vote of the anti-EU parties; UKIP, BNP and ED was 1 548 703. The pro-EU Liberal Democrats polled over 4 times as many with 6 836 824 votes. Most people vote according to tribal loyalties but the Green Party has shown that minority parties can get elected. They now have 130 councillors, 2 MEPs and party leader Caroline Lucas is MP for Brighton Pavilion.

 

Fatuous Statements
 

The BBC Radio 4 news blamed the Socialist Workers’ Party for stirring up the rioters in Tottenham. Dave Cameron threatened to cut benefits to convicted rioters, and Nick Griffin suggested chaining them to lampposts for 48 hours! Politicians have always thought it necessary to make instant comments. We reported similar fatuous statements in Nation during the Miners’ Strike 37 years ago.

Nation was the duplicated forerunner of this newsletter that was published from 1973 to 1975. It reappeared as Nation Revisited in 2005.

Who Done It? (Nation # 4, March 1974)
 

After Minister for Energy Patrick Jenkin had made an ass of himself by advising people to clean their teeth in the dark one might have thought that Tory politicians would have tried to control their tongues. Not so; soon after we had true-blues up in arms because of an inoffensive ad which suggested that couples share a bath in order to save power. Britain is the abortion capital of the world and a centre for the distribution of drugs and pornography. While our country wallows in filth and the very instincts of our race are mutated, the defenders of the old-school-tie become outraged at a harmless advertisement. If the ad had shown mixed race or same-sex couples in the tub it would no doubt have been hailed as a symbol of our progressive Commonwealth.

Latest in a long line of silly utterances came from Mrs Jill Knight MP. If one ignores the fact that miners have paid in full into the social security scheme and are therefore entitled to draw on it, Mrs Knight’s call to have their social security payments stopped might be defensible. What we would like to know is where the lady was when the Uganda Asians were queuing for their cash handouts? Why, if she is so interested in the dole does she not speak-out about the thousands of aliens who live off it in Britain? It seems to be acceptable for those who have never contributed a penny to scrounge off the state but a wicked shame when a British coalminer tries to avail himself of a welfare fund that he and his fellow workers have paid for.

British government policy has supported detente with the Soviet Union and has given positive encouragement to terrorists in Ireland and elsewhere, yet they have just discovered a Reds-under-the-bed plot to destroy Britain. If it wasn’t for the Reds, we are told, the miners would be content to work for peanuts. If the Reds support a particular cause it does not follow that it’s wrong. So far as we know the Reds support fine weather; does that mean that Heath, Wilson and their myopic disciples pray for rain?

We do not defend Reds but it is not Britain’s piddlingly unimportant Communist Party that sold us body and soul to usury; it is the Tory, Labour and Liberal parties that turned our country into a multiracial dumping ground, pushed Britain into a suicidal war, from which we have never recovered, and destroyed the British Empire. The same gang that wage economic war on overseas Britons in Rhodesia and who grovel to African tribesmen at the UN. Of course, this suits the Kremlin and the Heavenly Palace in Peking but the Reds did not do it – they did.

 

The Need for Change
 

Most people are conservatives by nature. We like things to stay as they are and we are suspicious of change. But without change there can be no progress and we end up with Bishops wearing mitres and gaiters and Rabbis with beards and ringlets. These symbols of the past serve no practical purpose but they comfort the faithful in times of change.

Human progress is a constant battle between accepting new ideas and clinging to old ways. We have come a long way from living in caves and hunting wild animals to standing on the threshold of space. We exploit science and technology but at heart we still crave the warmth of the campfire and the protection of the tribe.

Finding a balance between the forces of change and stability is never easy. In China it resulted in the unprecedented slaughter of The Cultural Revolution. A nation steeped in tradition leapfrogged several centuries to become a world power. But in doing so she butchered millions of people and destroyed an ancient way of life.

In Europe we took hundreds of years to achieve a social revolution that the Chinese accomplished in a generation. But we still have relics of the past. UK judges and lawyers wear powdered wigs left over from another age. And our antiquated parliamentary procedures have to be seen to be believed. The Queen has to ask permission to be admitted to the House of Commons and there’s lots of banging on doors by men in tights. The whole thing looks like a sketch from Monty Python.

But most Britons would keep things as they are. They cling to the way that we have always done things. So we will keep our old-fashioned ways as our scientists unravel the secrets of the universe. We will keep the monarchy and the establishment as we try to build an egalitarian society. And we will continue to bow our heads to mere mortals who claim to represent the Almighty.  

Change comes whether we like it or not and actions that we used to regard as perfectly normal become unthinkable. Nobody would smoke a cigarette in a restaurant but it was acceptable behaviour just a few years ago. Attitudes change and we follow fashions in thinking just as we do in dress. If this was not the case men would still be wearing top hats and women would be disenfranchised and perpetually pregnant. But Britain is a particularly conservative country that can take a long time to adjust. We have suffered a moral, demographic and political revolution but in our hearts we are still having muffins for tea.

Pope Gregory X111 decreed the current calendar in 1582 and it was soon adopted by Catholic Europe. But the Protestant states changed slowly and Britain took 170 years to scrap the Julian calendar in 1752. By this time Britain was 11 days behind and there were riots in the streets with angry mobs denouncing the “Popish” calendar and demanding “give us back our 11 days.”

Decimal currency was proposed in the UK parliament in 1795. The first step was taken in 1849 with the introduction of the florin - one tenth of a pound. But when we finally went decimal in 1971 the popular press and the far-right were solidly opposed to a reform that had taken 176 year to complete. We will probably be just as slow to embrace European unity and stay on the sidelines for a century or so.

Staring into the Abyss
 

According to Jeremy Warner in the Daily Telegraph (06/09/11) “The West is staring into the Abyss.” He predicts a world Depression similar to the 1930s. His newspaper competes with the BNP for melodramatic headlines. Peter Mills recently posted a story about the euro under the heading: “The Juggernaut of Doom.” These apocalyptic headline writers see no hope for the future. Such defeatism in time of war would have been punished with a firing squad. They have been forecasting disaster for so long that they can’t stop; as Friedrich Nietzsche said: “If you stare into the Abyss, the Abyss will stare back at you.” 

The gloom-mongers should lighten up and pick a more optimistic slogan. President FD Roosevelt said: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” He also said: “Nothing succeeds like success.” And Sir Arthur Phelps said: “Nothing succeeds like a parrot with no teeth.”

Economic problems are man-made and will be solved by international agreement. The Dutch and British East India Companies pioneered finance capitalism to build empires, fight wars and create industries. That was fine when the European powers dominated the world. But then came America, Russia, Japan and China to compete in the marketplace; and now Korea, Brazil and India are surging ahead as Europe and America stand still.

Oswald Mosley used to say: “You can’t have a street full of grocers all making a living.” World trade is reaching saturation point and all nations are trying to undercut each other. In 1939 we went to war to knock out the opposition but nuclear weapons have ruled out that option. We shall just have to come up with new trading arrangements to suit the modern world. Instead of wallowing in defeatism our jaundiced journalists should look on the bright side and stop trying to depress us with their negative propaganda.

The Bretton Woods agreement was not perfect but it lasted a generation and enabled Europe to recover from the war. It’s now time for the leaders of the world to reconvene and devise a new plan. The current imbalance of wealth and productivity must be addressed.

The End of Empire
 

Barack Obama has announced a half trillion dollar spending spree to get America out or recession. He is gambling that the world’s reserve currency is too big to fail. When the British Empire was at its height the pound sterling was the world’s favourite currency and every Bank of England banknote was inscribed: “I promise to pay the Bearer on Demand the sum of. . .” 


A promise backed by the wealth of the British Empire and the power of the Royal Navy. From the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 to the First World War a century later Britain ruled the waves. British forces decided Turkish foreign policy by making war on Russia. We incorporated the whole of South Africa into the empire at terrible cost to the civilian population. Together with the other colonial powers we carved up Africa by drawing straight lines on maps that cut across races and cultures. And we ruled India with native troops who were loyal to an empire that denied them equality.

In 1914 we went to war with the Central Powers with a volunteer army expecting an easy victory. But we were fighting modern armies equipped with the latest weapons and trained to the highest standards. By 1917 we owed £850 million – almost half of our GDP, or £1 trillion by today’s standard. We were also running out of soldiers and had no choice but to accept American help with troops and money. Our empire effectively ended in 1917 but we remained in a state of denial for 39 years, until we were ordered out of Egypt by the American ultimatum of 1956.

Europe was reduced to poverty by WW2 and America assumed the leadership of the West. The Bretton Woods Agreement of 1945 pegged European currencies to the dollar until 1971 when America’s gold reserves only covered 22% of dollars issued. Deficit spending on the Vietnam War made the system unworkable. Gold parity and fixed exchange rates were abandoned but America remained a super-power and the dollar kept its place as the world’s reserve currency.

America today can be compared to Britain in 1917; she is bristling with weapons and bravado but almost out of money. Her insatiable appetite for cheap labour has sucked in immigrants from the Third World and created a social welfare budget that cannot be met. In pursuit of commercial gain she has invaded and bullied nations all over the world; exactly as Britain did a hundred years ago. And just like Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Spain and Italy, America will discover that the cost of empire eventually outweighs its advantages. And history shows us that once that happens there is no turning back.

Most Americans are indifferent to politics and ignorant of history. They are frightened to reduce military spending and they cannot dismantle the social state that feeds clothes and educates their teeming masses. The Pax Americana has run its course and the future depends on a new alignment of world power based on geopolitics. The USA will build a self-sufficient economy in North America; the nations of Europe will unite and the world will adopt a new economic system based on regional production and consumption. The old order has run its course but the foundations of a fairer future are already well established.

My Son the Colonel
 

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s fall from power – as I write he is thought to be holding out in his home city of Sirte – is due to NATO bombing and covert assistance to the rebels. Israel has been accused of supporting him because his dear old mother, Aisha Gaddafi, was allegedly Jewish. One can imagine her shopping in the Souks of Tripoli and proudly telling everyone about, “my son the Colonel.”

Israeli arms dealers may have sold military equipment to Libya. They certainly sold arms and ammunition to the Iranians during their war with Iraq. But that does not mean that the Zionist state supported the Gaddafi regime. It just means that some Jews had dealings with him.
 

Israel’s 120 member Knesset is divided between 13 political parties elected by PR and requiring only 2% for a seat. Politics is therefore a matter of endless horse trading and often bitter confrontation. It’s difficult to get them to agree to anything so it’s not surprising that they have different views about Gaddafi.

But the myth of Jewish solidarity endures. Jewish bankers and revolutionaries supported the Bolsheviks in 1917 but the Rothschild’s were backing the Romanov regime and lost heavily when Russian industries were nationalised.

Ze’ev Jabotinski MBE, the spiritual father of Likud, won the support of the authoritarian Polish President Jozef Beck in 1936 for the resettlement of East European Jewry in Palestine. But most German Jews hated Jabotinski as a protégé of Benito Mussolini and an ally of Adolf Hitler. If they had supported him they might have saved themselves a lot of trouble.

The Jews are split into tribes, nations and factions just like every other religion. They may be driven together by persecution but they are not the monolithic force imagined by their critics.

Gaddafi used the vast oil wealth of Libya to give his people the highest standard of living in Africa. He started out as an Arab Nationalist and expelled American forces from Libya. But he supported the IRA and financed nationalist movements all over the world – although he drew the line at Nick Griffin in 1987. In recent years he turned against the Palestinians and since his affectionate meeting with Tony Blair in 2007 he has scrapped his weapons of mass destruction and welcomed big business.

The Libyans lost thousands of men fighting the Italians from 1911 to 1931 under Omar al-Moktar. They lost thousands more fighting for the Italian Empire in Egypt and Ethiopia. Their country was destroyed by tank and artillery battles between Allied and Axis forces during the Second World War. And now they have been bombed by NATO and fought over by armed rebels and hired mercenaries.

The new government will have to rebuild the country. They have got rid of an ageing dictator but they now have a new master. NATO has occupied another part of the world for the benefit of Western banking, construction and oil companies. And the warmongers in Washington are already screaming for war in Syria and Iran.