Category Archives: Intolerance

GreeceWatch: Delays, cuts, vitriol. and misery

Posted on 2012 September 23 | Leave a comment

In Greece, of late, it’s all about timing — the two biggest questions being the timing of that Troika report on which the next round of the bailout depends and whether or not Greece gets an extension of time to implement the full slate of cuts needed to win the bailout. France now wants Greeks to get the latter, and allegations are made that the former’s being delayed to benefit Barack Obama’s presidential run.

There’s speculation Greek bondholders may have to take a second haircut, some austerian umbrage from the IMF, and prime ministerial austerian duet, a huge budget deficit gap, a judicial strike, a bankrupt city, a new regressive tax, and hints of ex-cabinet member corruption.

Political rhetoric is heating up, with Golden Dawn much in the news [including its new office in New York City], a stunning bit of political amnesia, a Muslim’s charge of racism against Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, another bloody attack on immigrants, more signs of schism with the coalition’s smallest party, and a German “Nein” to a wartime reparations bid.

France pleads for for time for Greece

It’s the French prime minister, and all he is saying is give Greece a chance.

From Reuters:

Greece should be allowed more time to meet deficit targets set by international lenders provided the crisis-racked nation is sincere about reforming its economy, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Sunday.

In an interview posted on news website Mediapart, Ayrault also said that a planned 120 billion-euro ($155.87 billion) European Union stimulus package was not big enough and that the European Central Bank had yet to play the role of a “real” central bank.

“The answer must not be a Greek exit from the euro zone,” Ayrault was quoted as saying. “We can already offer it more time…On the condition that Greece is sincere in its commitment to reform, especially fiscal reform.”

Will the Troika’s deadly dose be delayed for Obama?

The latest speculation: The Troika’s holding back on a report devastating to Greece until after the November election, so that the potenial market shudders won’t adversely impact Barack Obama’s election chances.

While there are denials, the anonymously sourced stories are another clear indication that Europeans are scared spitless at the thought of a Mitt Romney victory.

From Philip Aldrick of the London Telegraph:

A decision on granting Greece the next round of its bail-out will be delayed until after the US election to avoid the risk of an economic earthquake jeopardising President Barack Obama’s chances of being returned to the White House, European officials have said.

The report by the “troika” of Greece’s foreign lenders, the European Central Bank, European Commission and the International Monetary Fund, was expected during October but will now come after November 6. Its findings will decide whether to release further tranches of rescue funds to Athens.

“The Obama administration doesn’t want anything on a macroeconomic scale that is going to rock the global economy before November 6,” a European Union official said. “As far as European leaders are concerned, they don’t want [Republican candidate Mitt] Romney, so they’re probably willing to do anything to help Obama’s chances.”

Read the rest.

Spanish military threatens coup over Catalonia

Posted on 2012 September 22 | 3 Comments

While officers of the Portuguese military are warning that they might intervene against the austerity regime being forced on an increasingly angry nation, the military threat in Spain comes from the opposite direction, invoking the ghost of fascist dictator Francisco Franco.

The threat from Col. Francisco Alamán Castro was buried at the very bottom of a report on the secession movement in Catalonia by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the London Telegraph. Why it wasn’t the lead is simply beyond our ken:

A serving army officer, Colonel Francisco Alaman, has fuelled the flames by comparing the crisis with 1936 – when Gen Francisco Franco seized power – and by vowing to crush Catalan nationalists, described as “vultures”.

“Independence for Catalunya? Over my dead body [Spanish original "per sobre del meu cadàver" — esnl]. Spain is not Yugoslavia or Belgium. Even if the lion is sleeping, don’t provoke the lion, because he will show the ferocity proven over centuries,” he said.

Retired Lt-Gen Pedro Pitarch, a former army chief, said the words reflect “deeply-rooted thinking in large parts of the armed forces”. He also accused Madrid of bungling the Catalan drama disastrously.

“Are we looking at a failed state?” he asked. Investors holding Spanish debt are listening carefully.

Read the rest.

The Catalonian independence is becoming a formidable force, able to mobilize millions to march for their cause, ad they did earlier this month.

Here’s a video from the movement produced and aired before the 11 September march:

And here’s a brief video made on the day of the march, featuring interviews with English-speakers:

The movement also boasts an English-language website, Help Catalonia.

And in this remarkable October 2011 video, the late veteran socialist jurist and politician Gregorio Peces-Barba, one of the principal authors of the post-Franco constitution, jokes about bombing the Catalonian capital, Barcelona:

Here’s the quote, from the Help Catalonia website:

I believe that we’ll be in a better position than in the past. I don’t know how many times we had to bomb Barcelona in the past, but next time we’ll be able to find a solution that does not involve bombing that city.

For many centuries now, that has been Spain’s main concern regarding this issue, ever since Count-Duke Olivares had to confront the Portuguese and Catalan uprising. By the way, it seems to me that Catalans celebrate a defeat on their so called national day.

At that point in history a decision was made, namely, letting go of the Portuguese and retaining the Catalans. I always like to joke about this. What would have happened had we retained the Portuguese, but let the Catalans go? Perhaps it would have been a better deal for us. Well, that’s all in the past now, we can’t… anyway, it might’ve been a huge problem. We wouldn’t have had Madrid vs. Barcelona soccer matches. Of course, that’s always of the utmost importance.

There’s a certain irony in a man who professes to be a socialist harkening back to the bombing carried out by Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

Before Franco’s victory, the Second Spanish Republic had granted regional autonomy to Catalonia, which was quickly abolished by Franco after his victory, along with the use of the Catalonian dialect.

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Posted in Culture, Europe, Governance, History, Intolerance, Military, Politics, Video, Warfare

GreeceWatch: Bailout III, cuts, misery, racism

Posted on 2012 September 13 | Leave a comment

The pace of austerian misery increases, and as the latest cuts make clear, the victims are precisely those most in need, a hallmark of neoliberalism.

We open with a dispute over an IMF official’s proclamation that a third bailout will be needed, then move on to the latest [miserable] unemployment numbers, followed by the latest sitdowns between the the coalition government and the Troikarchs.

The coalition will face its first general strike as the extent of the cuts becomes clearer, including reductions in the state heating fuel subsidy, cuts to assistance for the disabled [provoking a wheelchair protest at the finance ministry], a two-year raise on the retirement age, the decision to impose income taxes on the nation’s poorest, home prices continue to plummet, and there’s a big private sector layoff.

We conclude with the latest developments in anti-immigrant violence, including a parliamentary committee’s vote to censure the party, possible criminal charges against one of the party’s parliamentary delegates, plans to stiffen hate crime prison terms, and an attack on Roma invoking racist stereotypes and violence.

Greece needs third bailout — or not

A senior executive of the International Monetary Fund apparently spilled the beans on something nobody else wanted revealed.

And while both Greece and other IMF officials were quick to deny his claim, we suspect it’s true.

Quite simply, the Troika has inflicted so much misery on the country that somebody’s going to have to do something to prevent misery from transforming itself into righteous rage.

From Capital.gr:

Greece will need a third bailout package from the euro zone, and the country?s European creditors will have to find the money for it, according to a senior International Monetary Fund official.

“Greece will require additional financing, which may take the form either of official-sector involvement or of additional loans, hopefully on more favorable terms,” Thanos Catsambas, an IMF alternate executive director, who represents Greece at the Fund?s board, said in an interview.

According to Wall Street Journal Mr. Catsambas is an IMF veteran with experience of Fund programs in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. In his current position, he has knowledge of the continuing negotiations between Greece and its troika of creditors—the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank.

Read the rest.

Innocence of Muslims: Sects, lies, and videotape

Posted on 2012 September 13 | 2 Comments

“Sam Baceli,” the man who directed the hate-filled Innocence of Muslims that’s inflamed the Middle East and inspired the violence that led to the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, has been unmasked.

And while he claimed he was Jewish and held Israeli citizenship, he’s a really a Coptic Christian from El Cerrito with a criminal record for fraud and backed by another Southern Californian with a lengthy record of connections with right wing militias.

From Gillian Flaccus and Stephen Brau of the Associated Press:

The self-proclaimed director of “Innocence of Muslims” initially claimed a Jewish and Israeli background. But others involved in the film said his statements were contrived as evidence mounted that the film’s key player was a southern Californian Coptic Christian with a checkered past.

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, told The Associated Press in an interview outside Los Angeles Wednesday that he managed logistics for the company that produced “Innocence of Muslims,” which mocked Muslims and the prophet Muhammad.

The movie has been blamed for inflaming mobs that attacked U.S. missions in Egypt and Libya this week as well as U.S. Embassy in Yemen on Thursday.

Nakoula denied he had directed the film, though he said he knew the self-described filmmaker, Sam Bacile. But the cellphone number that the AP contacted Tuesday to reach the filmmaker who identified himself as Bacile traced to the same address near Los Angeles where Nakoula was located.

Read the rest.

But the U.S. Justice Department disagrees, telling the Associated Press today that “Nakoula is filmmaker of anti-Muslim movie blamed for violence.”

And then there’s that criminal record

Wired’s Danger Room blog got the goods on Nagoula, specifically, documents from his federal criminal record.

Noah Shachtman reports:

He went by many names, the man who helped produce “The Innocence of Muslims,” the inflammatory video now roiling the Middle East: Matthew Nekola; Ahmed Hamdy; Amal Nada; Daniel K. Caresman; Kritbag Difrat; Sobhi Bushra; Robert Bacily; Nicola Bacily; Thomas J. Tanas; Erwin Salameh; Mark Basseley Youssef; Yousseff M. Basseley; Malid Ahlawi; even P.J. Tobacco.

But his real name — the one he used when he was sent to prison for bank fraud — was Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. His habit of adopting other identities earned him a 21-month sentence in federal prison. During 2008 and 2009, court documents [PDF] reviewed by Danger Room. . .show that Nakoula again and again opened bank accounts with fake names and stolen social security numbers. Then Nakoula would deposit bogus checks into the new accounts and withdraw money before the checks bounced. The scheme worked for more than a year, until he was indicted in June of 2009. Eventually, he was ordered to stay off of the internet unless he got his probation officer’s permission, and pay a $794,700 fine.

Yet Nakoula’s fakery apparently continued. Actors hired to perform in “Innocence” say they had no idea the movie they were making would be so deliberately offensive to Muslims; in fact, many of the most provocative lines were overdubbed after the fact. Basseley swears he’s not “Sam Bacile,” the director and writer of the movie; he just happens to have a similar name, and coincidentally was found at the address tied to the cellphone of “Bacile.”

Read the rest.

The producer who sells insurance

Sam Klein, identified as a producer of the film, is another character with a checkered past.

From Adam Nagourney of the New York Times:

The history of the film — who financed it; how it was made; and perhaps most important, how it was translated into Arabic and posted on YouTube to Muslim viewers — was shrouded Wednesday in tales of a secret Hollywood screening; a director who may or may not exist, and used a false name if he did; and actors who appeared, thanks to computer technology, to be traipsing through Middle Eastern cities. One of its main producers, Steve Klein, a Vietnam veteran whose son was severely wounded in Iraq, is notorious across California for his involvement with anti-Muslim actions, from the courts to schoolyards to a weekly show broadcast on Christian radio in the Middle East.

Yet as much of the world was denouncing the violence that had spread across the Middle East, Mr. Klein — an insurance salesman in Hemet, Calif., a small town two hours east of here — proclaimed the video a success at portraying what he has long argued was the infamy of the Muslim world, even as he chuckled at the film’s amateur production values.

“We have reached the people that we want to reach,” he said in an interview. “And I’m sure that out of the emotion that comes out of this, a small fraction of those people will come to understand just how violent Muhammad was, and also for the people who didn’t know that much about Islam. If you merely say anything that’s derogatory about Islam, then they immediately go to violence, which I’ve experienced.”

Read the rest.

So who is Klein?

Well, there’s this, from the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Over the years, Klein has worked with a variety of far-right groups, including the Church at Kaweah, which the SPLC lists as a hate group. The Church of Kaweah is a secretive cohort of militant Christian fundamentalists in California who are preparing for war and who believe that churches should avoid government regulation and answer only to God. Kaweah has its own militia, headed by David “Dutch” Johnson (aka Dutch Joens), a longtime antigovernment veteran of the militia movement. Johnson looks forward to the battle that will begin when “Dictator Obongo” institutes martial law. He has called Mexicans savages “who can’t run their own government” and recommended sending guns to drug cartels to “decrease the excess population in Mexico so they don’t come north.”

Klein also conducts drills with the Christian Guardians, a San Francisco-based group headed by Andrew Saqib James, an American-born Pakistani Christian who calls Islam “a giant crime syndicate” and hopes his group will become “the most feared militia in the world.” The Church of Kaweah’s website has advertised joint trainings with the Guardians, describing them as a “unique system of learning how to survive the Muslim Brotherhood as we teach the Christian Morality of Biblical Warfare.”

Read the rest.

A story about lies and overdubs

Another set of revelations concerns the role of the actors who starred in the film.

Turns out they thought they were shooting a low-budget sword-and-sand saga, and many of the words they appear to speak on the screen were actually dubbed in after the shooting was done.

The Gawker’s Adrian Chen reports:

Cindy Lee Garcia, an actress from Bakersfield, Calif., has a small role in the Muhammed movie as a woman whose young daughter is given to Muhammed to marry. But in a phone interview this afternoon, Garcia told us she had no idea she was participating in an offensive spoof on the life of Muhammed when she answered a casting call through an agency last summer and got the part.

The script she was given was titled simply Desert Warriors.

“It was going to be a film based on how things were 2,000 years ago,” Garcia said. “It wasn’t based on anything to do with religion, it was just on how things were run in Egypt. There wasn’t anything about Muhammed or Muslims or anything.”

In the script and during the shooting, nothing indicated the controversial nature of the final product, now called Muslim Innocence. Muhammed wasn’t even called Muhammed; he was “Master George,” Garcia said. The word “Muhammed” was dubbed Continue reading →

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Posted in Africa, Culture, Deep Politics, Film, Intolerance, Media, Mideast, MSM, Politics, Video

Sam Bacile: Hate-provoking filmmaker and. . .

Posted on 2012 September 12 | 5 Comments

The death of U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens in a Benghazi rocket attack today resulted from rage against a cheesy film trailer [Google it; we’re not posting it].

The fellow who says he made the film calls himself “Sam Bacile,” and he claims to be an American who holds Israeli citizenship who makes his living either as a filmmaker or a real estate developer.

Problem is, there’s no evidence he’s made any films beyond Innocence of Muslims, which seems to be precisely designed to produce the kind of outrage it’s generated.

He’s not listed on the Internet Movie Data Base, and his name doesn’t appear in the data base of ZABA Search [a comprehensive database] either in California or anywhere else in the U.S. And a Google search for his name reveals no hits before the release of the film trailer.

Having covered both the film industry [and even having worked in it], we can say that if there’s one thing filmmakers want, it’s recognition. And real estate developers are widely reported on.

Given the bizarre lack of any prior web presence who a man who claims two high-profile vocations, we’re amazed at the credulity or the mainstream media in swallowing claims made over the phone to two reporters.

The Wall Street Journal’s Matt Bradley and Dion Nissenbaum identify him as a “52-year-old writer, director and producer,” while the AP reported he was 56.

Bacile claimed his film was financed by Jewish donors.

From AP’s Shaya Tayefe Mohajer:

“This is a political movie,” Bacile told the AP. “The U.S. lost a lot of money and a lot of people in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we’re fighting with ideas.”

Bacile said he believes the movie will help his native land by exposing Islam’s flaws to the world.

“Islam is a cancer, period,” he said repeatedly, his solemn voice thickly accented.

The two-hour movie, “Innocence of Muslims,” cost $5 million to make and was financed with the help of more than 100 Jewish donors, said Bacile, who wrote and directed it.

Read the rest.

And then there’s this, from AP reporter Esam Mohamed [emphasis added]:

Though Bacile was apologetic about the American who was killed as a result of the outrage over his film, he blamed lax embassy security and the perpetrators of the violence.

“I feel the security system [at the embassies] is no good,” said Bacile. “America should do something to change it.”

A consultant on the film, Steve Klein, said the filmmaker is concerned for family members who live in Egypt. Bacile declined to confirm.

>snip<

He told the AP he was an Israeli Jew and an American citizen. But Israeli officials said they had not heard of Bacile and there was no record of him being a citizen. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not permitted to share personal information with the media.

Read the rest.

Adding yet another layer of complexity to an already-murky tale, the film was heavily promoted by an Egyptian-American of the Coptic Christian faith.

So, we have a movie the looks like it was made by a high school student yet clearly designed to inflame outrage among Muslims, and it’s endorsed by Terry Jones, the Koran-burning Florida Fundie pastor.

And it comes just as Israel is beating the war drums and searching for a provocation to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities and the Middle East and North Africa are aboil with tensions stirred up by an Arab Spring heavily promoted by Washington.

A U.S. ambassador is dead, the U.S. embassy grounds in Egypt were stormed and a flag burned, and millions of Muslims are outraged by a tawdry piece of trash designed to incite anger by a man who didn’t seem to exist before his trailer hit You Tube.

Forgive us for thinking something deep is afoot within that infamous wilderness of mirrors.

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Posted in Africa, Culture, Deep Politics, Film, GWOT, Intolerance, Mideast, Politics

GreeceWatch: Troikarchs, cuts, Golden Dawn

Posted on 2012 September 9 | Leave a comment

The Troika’s in Athens, poring over the list of cuts the coalition government hopes will win them their next big chunk of bailout cash. The Troika, it appears, isn’t happy, even though the Greeks added billions of cuts beyond those demanded.

The prime minister got a dressing down from the president of the European Union, and was the target of some peculiar optimism from the German finance minister.

Meanwhile, thousands of Greeks were protesting against austerity in the country’s second-largest city and catching some doses of tear gas from police; meanwhile police themselves were staging their own anti-austerity protests.

Angela Merkel is suddenly singing a different tune, ruling out a Grexit and suggesting the country be given more time to implement all those harsh cuts, while a Swedish minister suggests the Grexit may be just a year away. Cities are being told to sell off their properties and hike taxes, a bus blockage struck the Albanian border, and the country’s deadliest volcano is making some disturbing noises.

And Golden Dawn’s at it again, targeting immigrants.

Troika unhappy with coalition cuts plan

The Troika’s in town, and they’re not happy with the list of cuts handed them by the coalition ogvernment of conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.

Just why they’re unhappy remains a question.

From Ekathemerini:

There is a “long way to go” in talks between the Greek government and the troika, which has qualms about some of the measures Athens has identified in order to meet its target of cutting public spending by 11.5 billion euros over the next two years, a Finance Ministry source said on Sunday following talks between the two sides.

Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras held on Sunday afternoon his first meeting with Klaus Masuch of the European Central Bank, Matthias Mors of the European Commission and Poul Thomsen of the International Monetary Fund since the trio returned to Athens on Friday. It was the first chance for the Greek government to present the cost-cutting measures to the troika.

“They have objections to some of the measures,”a Finance Ministry source said after the meeting. “They want more details to understand some of the measures better.”

As he left, Thomsen said the officials had held a “good meeting,” while Masuch said that the troika would be working “day and night” with the government to resolve any problems.

“This is just the start, there is a long way to go,” said the Finance Ministry official.

Read the rest.

GreeceWatch: Northern silence, coalition woes

Posted on 2012 August 30 | Leave a comment

We open with the latest racist bile from Golden Dawn, then cut to some strangely reticent money lords of the North who pointedly don’t do their usual Greek dissing.

The conservative prime minister takes another shot at the leading opposition party in parliament, while his own coalition partners can’t bring themselves to inflicting more misery on their constituents. Unemployment costs continue to sar, while police fire tear gas at any tax collectors, and the government decides to tax unused cars.

Golden Dawn legislator: Immigrants wretched, no military value

We open with another look at the parliamentary leader of Golden Dawn in this video report from Athens News:

Their summary:

Golden Dawn MP Ilias Kasidiaris compares immigrants in Greece to first waves of Xerxes’ army at the 480 BC Battle of Thermopylae against the Persian invasion, describing them as “wretched” and with “no military value” The video was posted by party supporters on the Internet after the event on Sunday, August 26

Money men of the North silent on Greece

In one of the curious cases where silence can sometimes speak volumes, the finance ministers of Holland and Germany refrained from their usual disparaging comments about Greece when pressed by reporters to say whether Greece will get any money eurocash after the current bailout runs dry.

From Agence France-Presse:

Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager and his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schaeuble, declined to comment on providing more aid to Greece, saying they needed to wait until a report on the country’s fiscal situation due to be published as late as October, Bloomberg reported.

Before a meeting with Schaeuble in The Hague de Jager said it’s “too early to speculate” on giving more assistance to the cash-strapped country. He also said he’ll work with Schaeuble on “effective” banking supervision.

“It’s totally clear we wait on the report of the troika” made up of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund “and we all agree we will not make speculation before we have this troika report,” said Schaeuble.

Both officials have signaled opposition to providing more funds to Greece. “We can’t make yet another new program,” Schaeuble said Aug. 18. “There are limits.” Greece has received a pair of aid packages with commitments totaling 240 billion euros ($301 billion).

Read the rest.

We suspect there’s a move afoot, signalled by eurobank head Mario Draghi’s abrupt dropping out of that central bankster conclave in Wyoming this weekend — though just what it is, we can’t say.

Samaras drops another Syriza slur

The conservative prime minister has been more vocal about the number two party in Parliament these days.

His latest assault on the left coalition Syriza dubs them “Loobby of the Drach,” implying that Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras wants the country off the euro and back onto the drachma.

From Andy Dabilis of Greek Reporter:

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said that his trip to present German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande with details of plans to make another $14.16 billion in cuts could keep Greece in the Eurozone and prevent a return to the drachma and what he said would compete the ruination of Greece.

Samaras reiterated claims he made ahead of the critical June 17 elections in which he said that his chief rival, Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) leader Alexis Tsipras – who wanted Greece to ditch bailout deals with international lenders because of punishing austerity measures that came with them – would have pushed Greece out of the Eurozone of the 17 countries using the euro as a currency.

“The lobby of the drach lost a decisive round,” he said, adding that: “We, however, have a very difficult task ahead of us: the last but most difficult decisions.” Samaras was throwing down the gauntlet to Tsipras and others who support the Leftist leader, such as Panayiotis Lafazanis, who said Greece still faced going bankrupt, what the Premier said was a “bogeyman.” Samaras said Tsipiras represented the “Lobby of the Drach.”

Read the rest.

Quote of the day: Uh, like that’s just wrong, dude

Posted on 2012 August 28 | Leave a comment

From FT Alphaville:

“I’m really sick of this government giving away our taxes to those corrupt Greeks,” said the owner of a pet shop in Amsterdam who asked not to be identified by name because he does not declare all his income to the authorities.

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Posted in Culture, Europe, Hypocrisy, Idiocy, Intolerance, Politics

GreeceWatch: Futility, posturing, intolerance

Posted on 2012 August 25 | Leave a comment

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras made his trek to the Money Lords of the North, and he didn’t even get a lousy T-shirt.

Yeah, both the Iron Chancellor and the ersatz Socialist told him they wanted Greece in the eurozone, but even that’s more rhetoric than reality — given that Germany’s already planning its Grexit strategy.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras made his trek to the Money Lords of the North, and he didn’t even get a lousy T-shirt.

We open with the latest news, Samaras’s Parisian journal, follow up with Friday’s Merkel meet-up, word of some political Franco-German strategizing, Berlin’s preparations for a Grexit, Barack Obama’s Grexit worries, a very strange Greco-German settlement, and Greek cash woes.

We close with the latest developments in the cultural crisis fomented by pitting shell-shocked Greek natives against immigrants, “legal” and otherwise.

First, a video report from Britain’s SkyNews:

Merkollande deals out the tough love

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande spelled it out for Samaras today, following the prime ministers successive meetings with leaders of the eurzone’s two most powerful economies.

The cost for staying on the common currency will be unrelenting austerity, with no extensions granted to ease the misery for the Greek people.

From Xinhua:

Both French President Francois Hollande and Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said Saturday that Greece must stay in the eurozone.

They affirmed the position when talking to the press after they held talks on the Greece bailout.

“Greece is in the eurozone and Greece must stay in the eurozone, but it still has to demonstrate the credibility of its program and the willingness of its leaders to go the whole way, while doing it in a way that is bearable for the population,” said the French leader.

“Greece will manage it, will remain in the eurozone,” Samaras said.

Hollande also said Europe must make a decision quickly about Greece’s future once a key report is released next month by the troika of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Read the rest.

Irish president delivers a Tea Party smackdown

Posted on 2012 August 23 | 1 Comment

A year before poet/politician Michael D. Higgins was elected to the largely ceremonial Irish presidency in 2011, he engaged in a memorable debate with with Boston talk show host and Tea party founder Michael Graham.

It was less a debate than a smackdown, and Higgins delivered a powerfully passionate and eloquent assault on the Tea Party’s fear-mongering, their assaults on healthcare, and their reckless use of the anti-Semitic label to tar opponents.

The clip was uploaded to YouTube in March, but just went viral this week, reports Genevieve Carbery of the Irish Times:

In the 2010 Newstalk radio clip, the then Labour TD Michael D Higgins tells talkshow host Michael Graham to “be proud to be a decent American rather than being just a w[an]ker whipping up fear”.

Mr Higgins said Graham was using the same tactics as former Conservative vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin “to get a large crowd, whip them up, try and discover what is the greatest fear, work on that and feed it right back and you get a frenzy”.

It’s a memorable moment, and a sad reminder of the degraded nature of political discourse on this side of the pond.

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Posted in Class, Culture, Europe, Health, Intolerance, Politics, Video

GreeceWatch: Contraction, Germans, sell-offs

Posted on 2012 August 14 | Leave a comment

We’re late in posting today, having edited more than a hundred wedding photos taken Sunday. . .

But there’s lots to report, starting with the latest numbers, with economic contraction growing tighter still. We’ve got more signs of a coalition in jeopardy, more nasty jabs from up North, bond sales, a wave of selloffs and privatizations — including the ports and the postal service — and the fate of one man who stood up to austerity.

But the most amazing tale is of a the Troika-installed privatization czar, whoi was given her job as Greek overlord despite the fact she’d been booted from her previous job after revelations of corruption.

And then there’s the latest racist violence, including the murder of a young immigrant and the torching of a mosque, plus the likely culprits getting a taste of their own medicine.

There’s a cold winter ahead for Greek schoolchildren, fears of a Syrian refugee horde, and story about one business blessed by the crisis.

Greek economic contraction continues

And the latest numbers are — what else? — notably dour.

From Athens News:

The country’s economy contracted 6.2 percent in the second quarter as belt-tightening to slash deficits continued to take a toll, hampering efforts to meet targets set by the troika for continued bailout funding.

Currently in its fifth consecutive year, the economic downturn has driven unemployment to record highs, with nearly one in four unemployed and more pain expected ahead.

“It’s not a major surprise, we knew the economy was continuing to struggle but hopefully it’s some sign that the rate of decline is starting to bottom out,” said Chris Williamson, chief economist at London-based research firm Markit.

“Hopefully the first half of the year was as bad as it gets and we’ll see some improvement now,” he said.

The second quarter preliminary GDP estimate was based on seasonally unadjusted data and follows a 6.5 percent GDP decline in the previous quarter.

Read the rest.

Rally looks like that austerity is working like the Troika promised, no?

Coalition on the brink of breakup?

More signs are emerging that Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ three-party coalition is growing brittle, with the left-most party showing signs of nervousness at being linked to an austerity regime designed to meet the needs of investment banks and not their constituents.

From Ekathemerini:

Samaras is due to meet Eurogroup chief and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker in Athens on August 22 before talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on August 24 and French President Francois Hollande the following day. He is also pursuing meetings this month with European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde.

Samaras could be in a position to present to Juncker, Merkel and Hollande the details of the 11.5 billion euros in savings Greece plans to make over the next couple of years. Samaras, PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos and Democratic Left chief Fotis Kouvelis are likely to be supplied with the final list of spending cuts around August 20. The measures will need the coalition leaders’ approval.

This appeared far from a foregone conclusion yesterday as two Democratic Left MPs, Odysseas Voudouris and Yiannis Micheloyiannis, both expressed doubts about the cuts their party leader is set to approve.

“The government is slipping and not keeping to its promises,” said Voudouris. “We were committed to finding the 11.5 billion from tax evasion and waste but I don’t see the Finance Ministry looking in these areas.”

“If farmers’ pensions are cut, if pensions under 1,400 euros are cut, if civil servants’ bonuses are reduced and if benefits for the long-term unemployed are cut, Democratic Left should leave the coalition,” said Micheloyiannis.

Voudouris and Micheloyiannis left PASOK to join Kouvelis’s party earlier this year.

Read the rest.

The inherent contradictions of the financial order on which globalization depends are becoming clear.

Money’s value depends on public confidence, and when those with the most money act like confidence men, the public will lose confidence, especially when the folks on whom they’re supposed to bestow their confidence at getting rich while everyone else is growing poor.

Another nasty sound bite from a German

They must use an alarm clock to keep these going, or maybe one of those fancy mechanical clocks they put in town squares centuries back.

You’ve got your mechanical Merkel, her finance ministers, the Bundesbankers, and her cast of CSU party luminaries.

Here’s the latest, from a foxy guy [his last name shared with a certain short-legged, bushy tailed canine], via A. Papapostolou of Greek Reporter:

Germany will block any new aid to Greece if Athens does not fully comply with the terms of previous rescue packages, even if other countries support unlocking funds, a senior lawmaker said today.

The deputy head of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative parliamentary bloc, Michael Fuchs, told business daily Handelsblatt that Berlin was ready to use its veto if it is unhappy with findings from the Greece creditors’ “troika”.

“You can quote me: even if the glass is half-full, that is not enough for a new aid package,” he said in an interview to appear in the paper’s Monday issue. “Germany cannot and will not agree to that.”

More from The Economic Times of India:

“Even if the glass is half full, that won’t be sufficient for a new aid package. Germany cannot and will not agree to that,” Michael Fuchs told German newspaper Handelsblatt.

“We long ago reached the point where the Greeks must show they are capable of delivering a shift. A policy of the last, last, last chance won’t work anymore and must come to an end.”

Read the rest.

But that was just the first cry of the clock

Greek Reporter’s A. Papapostolou brings us word of a second grumbling German:

German Economy Minister Philipp Roesler expressed disappointment with the efforts of debt-wracked Greece to implement necessary reforms, in an interview with the weekly magazine Focus.

“I’ve lost my illusions,” said Roesler, who is also vice chancellor and leads the pro-business Free Democrats in Germany’s ruling coalition.

“I proposed with German businesses a whole series of support measures for the Greek government. The Greeks have hardly responded to our offers,” he told Focus according to an advance copy of an article to appear in its Monday edition.

Read the rest.

That Greek big bang is the sound an auctioneer’s gavel

Unlike American banks, which have been sitting on a lot of foreclosed property, the usual suspects are demanding that Greek foreclosures go under the gavel. And that means more misery.

Here’s the story from Keep Talking Greece, with their headline:

Troika Pushes Greek Banks to Bring Under the Auction Hammer 100,000 Properties

Does the big bang rolls with forceful violence towards Greece’s property owners? Are those who bought homes on loans and found themselves unable to meet their obligations at risk to be kicked out of the four walls and the ceiling, they used to call ‘their own’? The Troika apparently puts pressure on the banks to start foreclosures by Continue reading →

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Posted in Banksters, Class, Corpocracy, Crime, Debt, Economy, Education, Europe, Finance, Governance, Intolerance, Labor, Mideast, Politics, Schools, Warfare, Wealth

Europe’s war on the wandering poor accelerates

Posted on 2012 August 9 | Leave a comment

As we’ve noted countless times before, immigrants become targets when economic times get tough, whether they’re Irish-Americans in the United States in the late 19th Century or Eastern European Jews in 1930s Germany and Austria.

As the Library of Congress notes:

As immigration from Europe and Asia neared its crest in the late 19th century, anti-immigrant sentiment soared along with it. The U.S. was in the grips of an economic depression, and immigrants were blamed for taking American jobs. At the same time, racialist theories circulated in the press, advancing pseudo scientific theories that alleged that “Mediterranean” types were inherently inferior to people of northern European heritage. Drawings and songs caricaturing the new immigrants as childlike, criminal, or subhuman became sadly commonplace. One 1891 cartoon claimed that “If immigration was properly restricted, you would never be troubled with anarchism, socialism, the Mafia and such kindred evils!”

The same phenomenon is at work in crisis-gripped Europe today, with many in Northern Europe complaining about “lazy” Mediterranean peoples, and folks in the south singling out immigrants from a chaos Middle East and Africa who are fleeing violence Europe did so much [with the deep-pocket assistance of Uncle Sam] to provoke.

And there are Europe’s own native-born “aliens,” the Roma, Sinti, and Trvaelers often collectively called gypsies.

A French socialist ethnic cleansing

First, a video report from euronews of the latest action against Europe’s wanderers, the Roma, carried out by the French Socialist [sic] government of François Hollande, carrying out a tradition set by his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy:

Next, the details from Radio France Internationale:

French authorities on Thursday evicted several hundred Roma from improvised camps in the north of the country and planned to deport others from the southern city of Lyon. Roma rights groups have accused the Socialist government of carrying right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy’s policies on the question.

Two Roma camps on state-owned land near Lille were evacuated on Thursday morning. About 200 people were expelled from one and “15 caravans” from the other, according to Villeneuve d’Ascq deputy mayor Maryvonne Girard.

And officials sent about 240 Roma back to Romania from Lyon, the biggest such deportation since President François Hollande took office in May.

Rights campaigners accuse Hollande of breaking an election promise that camps would not be dismantled unless alternative accommodation was available.

“At least the last president had the honesty to say what was going to happen,” commented Father Arthur, a Catholic priest who had planned to baptise six Roma children in Lille as a sign of resistance to evictions.

Last week Interior Minister Manuel Valls declared that he would not oppose evictions that a court ruled legal.

But on Wednesday he said he would review the provisions introduced by the Sarkozy government for handling Roma, raising the possibility of lifting an employment ban introduced in 2007.

Read the rest.

The BBC adds that the raid also targeted “a camp housing about 160 Roma in the 19th arrondissement of Paris” which was evicted Wednesday.

They add:

A Roma rights campaigner, whose name was given only as Jean-Philippe, told France 3 television the voluntary returns were “expulsions in disguise”.

The compensation given – 300 euros (£237; $317) per adult – was a waste of public money, he argued, because many of the Roma would return to France.

Campaigners argue that the Roma face discrimination in their home countries.

The Roma are EU citizens, mostly from Romania or Bulgaria, but French law requires them to have a work permit and prove they have the means to support themselves if they intend to stay for more than three months.

Read the rest.

GreeceWatch: MIBs linger, money games, hate

Posted on 2012 August 9 | Leave a comment

The MIBs are in Greece to say, at kleast through the end of September, meaning the next big bailout bundle won’t be arriving until October at the earliest. But never fear! The eurobank’s found a way to slip the country some chump change in the interim.

More details of the planned pension cuts and delays have emerged, and they’re not pleasant, doctors are saying they can’t cope with the cuts, the immigrant question flies to the fore again [a matter of “national survival,” says the national police], and the left is coming out strong against the coalition’s “labor reserve” gambit.

And to close, we’ve got some more deep politics, with a German twist.

The Men in Black extend their stays

And that’s because the coalition government headed by New Democracy’s Antonis Samaras hasn’t been able to make all those billions in cuts demanded by the Troika, the folks who dispatched the MIBs to Athens.

They’re staying through the end of September, says the usual anonymus official source — which means Greece will have to wait at least until early October to get those much needed billions in bailout cash.

From Agence France-Presse:

A favourable report from the auditors of the so-called troika of the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank is key to disburse its part of Greece’s next instalment of 31.5 billion euros in rescue funds.

The disbursement had previously been expected in September, already a delay due to a two-month political deadlock caused by back-to-back elections in May and June.

The delay could pose difficulties for the Greek government, which is already expected to resort to issuing fresh short-term debt in order to repay 3.2 billion euros to the ECB on August 20.

Getting a favourable decision from the auditors is not assured.

“Much work remains to be done,” said the source.

Read the rest.

But wait! Something’s already in the works

And it should tide the Greeks over til the next bailout round, according to more of those unsourced leaks.

Seems the European Central Bank plans to loan money directly to Greek banks, initially bypassing the national government. It’s a clever little scheme, with the banks using the money to buy short-term government bonds and raise a stopgap €4 billion for the government.

Amazing.

From Spiegel:

The Greek central bank will accept the dodgy bonds as collateral, and will provide the country’s equally troubled commercial banks with freshly printed euros — which ultimately come from the ECB.

What is particularly absurd is the fact that, for the past two weeks, the ECB has no longer been accepting Greek government bonds as collateral for its refinancing operations. But the Greek central bank — which in reality is little more than the Athens branch of the ECB — is still allowed to accept them. The fact that the euro bankers are willing to go through such contortions shows just how precarious the situation is. At the moment, a Greek default is being fought off from week to week — and politicians are trying to duck responsibility.

In theory, Europe’s leaders created the temporary euro rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and its successor, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), precisely to support countries facing financial bottlenecks. But providing more help for Greece would be a very tough sell for Europe’s politicians. Chancellor Angela Merkel would have to get the consent of the German parliament, the Bundestag, which could prove tricky. And Merkel’s junior coalition partner, the conservative Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), has been adopting an increasing shrill tone against Greece lately — meaning that the government could plunge into crisis if the chancellor supports more aid for Athens.

Read the rest.

More details of pension cuts, extended years emerge

While the cuts will inflict some pain on existing pension holders, the outlook for those still working has goten considerably grimmer.

But then they’ve still got jobs, at least for now.

From Ekathemerini:

A substantial increase in the minimum number of years that Greeks will have to work to qualify for a basic state pension and reductions of up to 15 percent in retirement pay over 700 euros per month are two of the measures being considered by the government in order to meet the target for spending cuts over the next two years.

Sources told Kathimerini that government officials are thinking of raising the minimum number of working years needed before retirement from 15 to 20. This would qualify the retiree for a basic pension of under 400 euros per month once they reach the age of 65.

The coalition is considering this as an alternative to raising the retirement age from 65 to 67.

A fresh reduction in pensions is also likely. One option would be to reduce pensions between 700 and 1,000 euros per month by 3 percent, those between 1,000 and 1,400 per month by 5 percent and any pension over 1,400 by 10 percent.

The alternative is to reduce pensions between 700 and 1,000 euros by 2 percent, those between 1,000 and 1,300 by 3 percent, from 1,300 to 1,600 by 5 percent, from 1,600 to 2,000 by 10 percent and any over 2,000 by 15 percent.

“The adjustment of pensions will have to happen, even though it will be unpleasant,” said Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis. “This is the only way we can avoid even worse consequences.”

Read the rest.

Doctors say they can cope with cuts

And, no, they’re not talking about surgery, except for the budgetary variety.

From Capital.gr:

Greece’s National Organization for Health Care Provision, known as EOPYY, will be unable to cope with any further cuts to health spending as demanded by the country’s international lenders, the union representing EOPYY doctors said.

The so-called troika of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank wants cuts totaling 1.2 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in health spending, of which 800 million euros concerns EOPYY, at a time when Greece’s largest state-run health care provider has debts of 1.5 billion euros, the Athens-based union said in an e-mailed statement today.

The union called on the Health Ministry to pay by Aug. 20 all money owed to EOPYY doctors for the first half of 2012 and to provide a written timetable for the repayment of previous debts to the entire medical profession, Bloomberg reported.

Failure to fulfil this requirement will result in doctors suspending the terms of their work contracts until at least Sept. 2 when they will examine any developments, the union said.

Read the rest.

Greek war on immigrants heats up

Continuing our ongoing theme of the targeting of immigrants and transients that inevitably accompanies economic collapse.

The latest developments surround that massive ongoing roundup of what Americans call “illegals” launched in Athens over the weekend and now underway across the country.

We begin with an Athens News video of a press appearance by the national police spokesperson, claiming the roundup’s “a matter of national survival”:

The program notes:

Greek Police spokesman Christos Manouras describes the country’s massive new deportation campaign for illegal immigrants as “an issue for national necessity and survival.” He said 2,500 police officers at the Evros border region and 2,000 in Athens are taking part in operation Xenios-Zeus with similar action to follow in other Greek cities.

Next, a story reporting on one of the consequences of the roundup.

From Ekathemerini:

The mayor of the northeastern port of Alexandroupoli, Evangelos Lambakis, on Wednesday lashed out at Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias following the latter’s decision to transfer hundreds of undocumented immigrants to unused police academy facilities in Komotini, Xanthi and Didymoteicho.

“The Public Order Minister wants to turn the capital’s problem with immigration into a problem for Thrace,” Lambakis told Skai. “We are in a state of war,” Lambakis said, noting that local residents who vehemently object to the planned transfer of the migrants are to stage a protest rally in the city’s central square on Wednesday evening.

The mayor described Dendias as “unreliable.” “I don’t believe him, whatever he says, and I don’t believe that they only aim to detain the migrants temporarily at the police academy units, for 30 or 60 days,” he said.

Read the rest.

Golden Dawn capitalizes on an outrage

The neo-Nazi party with the Hitler salute emerged as a new political force in the last two rounds of parliamentary elections, playing on the same racist xenophobia exploited by the German original.

Just as Jews and leftists were regularly beaten on the streets of Germany even before Hitler took power, Golden Dawn thugs have been dishing out their own beatings of leftists and immigrants.

While slapping women got them some bad press, their latest target was a relatively safe victim, an Islamic immigrant who admitted the brutal beating and Continue reading →

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Posted in Class, Debt, Economy, Europe, Finance, Health, History, Intolerance, Labor, Politics, Video, Wealth

EuroWatch: Bond madness, contractions, agendas

Posted on 2012 August 7 | Leave a comment

We’ll have a GreeceWatch up soon with events in that country, while this post focuses on the other eurozone countries, the eurozone itself, and the latest European bank scandals.

We open with a sobering look at the irrationality of the European bond game, a eurobond nay-say from the world’s biggest bond buyer, and an ominous date for eurzone banking union debut.

From Germany, we’ve got the latest downward numbers, a controversial tank sale, the booming Beemer biz in China, and an Occupy eviction outside the eurobank building

We’ve got the latest bad numbers from Britain, a Spanish austerity immigrant target, a union plea to the throne, and a Vegas casino mogul’s Spanish dream [Sheldon Adelson], a critical French court case on the europact, Italian economic contraction, an Irish housing collapse, a trio of banking shenangan stories, and a costly clerical dressing down of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

Ignorance, rumors run game with trillions at play

The folks who play the €6.7 European bond market are simply playing hunches, based on media reports and political pronouncements — and even they’re frightened by their own power and the potential consequences of their actions, they told Katrin Benhold of the New York Times:

Fundamental economic concerns that some European countries have too much debt is a major factor driving the market. Many investors are worried about the medium and long-term risk of holding European government debt, and have made what they consider the rational decision to reduce their holdings or even bail out. And while European leaders maintain that the common euro currency will survive the crisis, not all economists are so sure.

Some traders worry openly that too many of their colleagues lack the skills to decipher conflicting signals from Europe’s leaders in an industry ever more dependent on perception and political guesswork. The short-term fluctuations of bond rates, they concede, are not always an accurate reflection of value and risk. Yet traders are being taken as the last word by politicians on any range of government policies — and are often misinterpreted, they said.

“We used to be able to measure everything to the nth degree,” said Tim Skeet, managing director of fixed income at the Royal Bank of Scotland. “These days, nothing is measurable. This has become less about number-crunching and more about the oracle of Delphi.”

Read the rest.

Now that’s just downright scary.

And the biggest bond player of all says the end is near

Don’t buy those European bonds, because you’ll never get it back, he says.

From Capital gr.:

[Bill] Gross, Founder and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Pimco, manager of the world’s largest bond fund, wrote in an editorial in the Financial Times on Monday that the ultimate aim of European leaders is to get their hands on private-sector money because they know they will need it to fund the European economy. The current public-spending program is not sustainable and efforts to fix the debt crisis have been, and will be, futile, he said, according to CNBC.

Policymakers in Europe now face an unprecedented expansion of risk spreads and credit agency downgrades which “almost guarantee that sickbed countries can never be discharged from intensive care,” he added. He warned investors not to part with their money.

“Investors get distracted by the hundreds of billions of euros in sovereign policy checks, promises that make for media headlines but forget it’s their trillions that are the real objective,” Gross wrote. “Even Mr Hollande in left-leaning France recognizes that the private sector is critical for future growth in the EU. He knows that, without its partnership, a one-sided funding via state-controlled banks and central banks will inevitably lead to high debt-to-GDP ratios and a downhill vicious cycle of recession.”

“Psst…investors: Stay dry my friends!” Gross said.

Read the rest.

The full article is posted at Financial Times behind a paywall.

But investors aren’t getting his message

While Goss is practically screaming at investors to stay out, most people who play the market believe in a political solution to the eurozone debt crisis.

From the London Telegraph:

In the latest of its quarterly surveys of investors, ratings agency Fitch has found that European fixed-income investors expect the troubled eurozone to stay intact.

Fitch said that only a “small minority” – 5pc – of those surveyed believe the eurozone end-game will be a wide-scale break-up.

A further 9pc think there will be multiple sovereign debt defaults within the zone but do not expect these events to cause a break-up.

In addition, 21pc of respondents expect Greece and possibly one or two more countries to exit the union.

However, the majority expect a move towards fiscal union – 33pc – or a “muddling through” – 31pc.

Fitch reaffirmed its belief that a full break-up and demise of the euro is highly unlikely, because of the huge costs and the strong political commitment to Economic and Monetary Union.

EU banking union coming on a fateful day

If you had to pick the worst possible date to announce a grand design, you’d be hard-pressed to top 9/11.

But that’s just when the European Commission unveils its grand plan for a currency zone banking union, a key plank in the Angela Merkel-backed plan to transfer control of eurozone member state financial control to eurocrats in Brussels and eurbanksters in Frankfurt.

The plan was authorized in June by what was hailed as a breakthrough summit of eurozone leaders, with Merkel holding the upper hand.

From EurActiv:

The proposal should include details to set out a single European banking supervisor, a common EU deposit-guarantee scheme and a single bank-resolution fund to wind down the region’s bad bank.

The official reportedly said that under the plan the European Banking Authority, which currently oversees all 27 EU members, will lose control over the euro-zone nations that would come under the remit of the European banking supervisor. The new body would be an agency of the European Central Bank.

The EU needs a banking union to allow the European Stability Mechanism, the permanent rescue fund, to recapitalise banks directly.

Read the rest.

But that’s just one item technocrats and politicians will face when they come back from their vacations to face a momentous September agenda,

From ANSAmed:

September looks set to be a hot month for the eurozone, with its 17 member states needing to provide the markets with concrete answers to the problems of Spain and Greece. The EU Commission is currently examining Spain’s long-term budget which it has “received favourably”; it will look “in detail” at the defict-reduction measures for 2013-2014 over the coming weeks before giving an overall evaluation in October. Madrid has still made no formal request for assistance, but in a letter addressed to EU President Herman Van Rompuy on August 3 Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy – who on Monday spoke by telephone with US President Barack Obama – asked for another Eurogroup meeting of eurozone finance ministers to be convened as soon as possible and called for the implementation of the decisions taken at the EU summit in June.

The Eurogroup meeting could take place on 3 September when European Central Bank President Mario Draghi will also be in Brussels for a hearing at the Europarliament, but there has been no official confirmation to date. EU sources say another Eurogroup meeting would allow members to “take stock of the situation” particularly concerning Greece ahead of the visit to Athens by the Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker. In particular, they could evaluate the 11.5 billion euros package of measures agreed by the Greek government and the country’s three international creditors – EU, IMF and ECB – in order to prepare the mandate for the so-called troika’s next mission in early September. Meanwhile Athens has passed “ad hoc” legislation to facilitate the necessary and long-awaited privatisations.

Read the rest.

Crash continues to spread northward

With Germany and other northern economies dependent to some extent on sales to countries in the southern eurozone, news that the impacts of the crash are heading north continues to emerge.

The latest from Mike Obel of International Business Times:

Europe’s strongest economies are being dragged down by the recessions in weaker European countries, some of which are expected to join beleaguered Greece in seeking a bailout.

Germany, the continent’s No. 1 economy, reported Tuesday that industrial orders fell by 1.7 percent in June from May, a greater-than-expected drop. The main reason for the large decline was a 4.9 percent fall in orders from nations in the 17-member euro zone.

Among those nations is Italy, which reported Tuesday that its economy contracted in the April-through-June period for the fourth straight quarter. Gross domestic product fell 2.5 percent from the Continue reading →

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Posted in Banksters, Class, Debt, Economy, Europe, Finance, Governance, Health, Intolerance, Law, Politics, Wealth

EuroWatch: Big meeting, Spain, Greek cuts

Posted on 2012 August 1 | Leave a comment

The seismic shift continues, with movement both north and south.

We’ve got more bad financial numbers, heavy White House pressure to get the European mess straightened out, American economic indicators of a European hit, a major Thursday meeting at the eurobank starring some big names, another warning of German central banker reluctance to fund eurobond buys, and some good rating news for Germany.

Spain is a hot topic, with the Italian prime minister hustling Madrid to make a Spailout bid, some favorable rater news, the crisis in Catalonia [which nonetheless signed on to the austerity deal while other regions are still resisting], video and newspaper reports on growing austerity resistance, a don’t-blame-the-Germans plea from Madrid, and some stock market turmoil.

We’ve got the latest from Italy on the peripatetic Marion Monti, and the near-certainty of a bailout for his country, and French bonds selling at rock-bottom rates.

From Greece comes word that the memorandum-imposed cuts have finally been agreed, along with the details on some of specifics, a rare kudo from the IMF boss, dissension over the proposed closing of Greek universities, the use of Greece as a GOP SuperPAC campaign slur, an ethnically pure Golden Dawn food handout, and declining population and bribe numbers.

There are terms for the Cyprus bailout, and some concluding musings about the euro salvation scramble and its real beneficiaries.

We’ll open with a perspective piece. . .

Europe’s good old days

And they were only last month, if only you believed the headlines.

From Bloomberg Businessweek’s Emma Ross-Thomas:

Remember Europe’s good old days? You know, June? The Greeks had finally elected a government, and the country’s new ruling coalition was willing to stick with an austerity program. In Brussels, a June 29 summit ended with German chancellor Angela Merkel yielding a little on the need for harsh medicine for any country that applied for rescue funds. The leaders of Spain and Italy claimed victory, and markets momentarily stopped pummeling their bonds.

Now, deeper into summer, Europe is lurching back into full-blown crisis. This time it’s not Greece (though talk of a Greek exit from the euro has been revived). The flash point is Spain, the euro area’s fourth-largest economy, which may need a full-fledged bailout. That in turn would make it much more expensive for Italy to raise money, as investors worry that it will be next to need a rescue Europe may not even be able to afford. What will happen if Europe can’t rescue Italy? No one knows.

In the early days of the euro crisis, policymakers and economists could not imagine the contagion spreading beyond the euro’s periphery, where the smallest economies—as well as Spain—were to be found. The need for an Italian rescue was seen as remote. Now Spain and Italy are at the heart of the story, which could yet end with a breakup of the euro zone. A botched rescue of Greece will not in itself deal a body blow to the euro. A botched rescue of Spain and Italy could.

Read the rest.

More bad numbers announced

This time from the manufacturing sector, where the southern malaise is afflicting the north.

From Agence France-Presse:

Eurozone manufacturing activity slumped to a three-year low in July, with an economic downturn across the single currency area dragging down star performer Germany, new survey data showed on Wednesday.

The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), a survey of 3,000 eurozone manufacturers compiled by Markit research firm, fell to 44.0 points in July, down from 45.1 points in June. A score below the neutral 50 mark indicates contraction.

The index has now fallen over 12 consecutive months to hit a 37-month low with Markit warning that rates of manufacturing decline in Germany, France and Spain were “either at or close to the steepest since mid-2009.”

“The eurozone faces a deepening slide back into recession,” said Markit chief economist Chris Williamson citing faster rates of decline in output and new orders translating into staffing reductions and cuts to inventory holdings.

“Rates of decline hit the fastest for three years or more in Germany and France, but Spain and Greece continue to stand out in seeing particularly disappointing performances,” Williamson added, with only Ireland bucking the trend.

Read the rest.

Obama administration steps up the heat

The White House is becoming even more involved in the eurocrisis, driven by the desperation inspired by the approaching November elections and a critical Thursday meeting.

From Paul Carrel and Gernot Heller of Reuters:

The United States raised pressure on euro zone leaders to take decisive action to solve the region’s debt crisis, notably by lowering troubled members’ borrowing costs, on the eve of a crucial European Central Bank meeting.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the euro zone must take steps including “bringing down interest rates in the countries that are reforming and making sure those banking systems can provide the credit those economies need”.

He made the comments in an interview with Bloomberg Television recorded in Los Angeles on Tuesday and broadcast on Wednesday, a day after he flew to Germany to meet Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and ECB President Mario Draghi.

Read the rest.

But Geithner was only the warm-up to the main event.

Obama gives a jingle to the Troikarchs’ man in Rome

Prime Minister Mario Monti, the unelected technocrat installed by the Troika to replace the then-distressed/now resurgent Silvio Berlusconi, got a jingle from a friend in a very high place.

Monti’s become the austerian emissary, hopping hither and yon on the Troika’s mission, the technocrat of choice with just the right background.

From Agence France-Presse:

US President Barack Obama called Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti on Tuesday to ask about the latest developments in the eurozone debt crisis and prospects for the future, the Italian government said.

Obama “asked for his views on the situation on the eurozone and on the likely developments,” the government’s press office said in a statement.

At a campaign donor event in New York on Monday, Obama said that “decisive steps” needed to be taken by eurozone leaders to tackle the crisis.

“I don’t think ultimately that the Europeans will let the euro unravel. But they’re going to have to take some decisive steps,” he said.

Read the rest.

A London Telegraph report offers some motivation for the Washington push:

Manufacturing contracted in China and Europe and slowed in the United States and Canada in July as the eurozone debt crisis dented global and domestic demand.

Manufacturing in the world’s biggest economy grew at its slowest pace in nearly three years last month, while Chinese factory output grew at its slowest rate in eight months.

Eurozone manufacturing activity contracted for the 11th month in a row as star performer Germany was began to feel the affects.of a two-and-a-half-year debt crisis which has sapped growth and market confidence.

Whle in Britain the sector shrank at its fastest rate in more than three years in July, as wet weather and the euro crisis hit output, new orders and exports.

The final Markit US Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index stood at 51.4 in July, below both a preliminary estimate of 51.8 and June’s reading of 52.5. It was the lowest reading since September of 2009. A reading above 50 indicates growth.

Read the rest.

Mixed expectations for Eurobank meeting

An all-star cast of chiefs of state is gathering in Frankfurt in hopes of cobbling out a package of measures to ease the crisis.

Just how successful they’ll be is another question entirely, given the rapid spread of the crisis and the reluctance of a certain Northern nation to send more cash down South.

From Deutsche Presse-Agentur’s Andrew McCathie:

The European Central Bank meets in Frankfurt Thursday amid market concerns that it might fail to meet expectations of new action to tackle the debt crisis following ECB chief Mario Draghi’s pledge to do what it takes to safeguard the euro.

Analysts are not expecting the bank’s 23-member governing council to announce another a rate cut, after it delivered a 25-basis-point reduction in borrowing costs to a historic low of 0.75 per cent at its July meeting.

But Draghi’s comments last week that the ECB would do whatever it takes to protect the eurozone sparked market speculation that the bank would stem the surge in borrowing costs in countries at the centre of the crisis – notably Spain and Italy – by reactivating its controversial government bond-buying programme.

Since then, Draghi’s remarks have been backed by a round of coordinated statements from key European political leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and the head of the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker.

Read the rest.

But the Bundesbankster wants to just say no

The intractability of the economic crisis is nowhere more clear than in Germany itself, where the administration of Chancellor Angela Merkel, a reluctant convert to the notion of more Spanish and Italian bond buys, is being met head-on by the reluctance of the Bundesbank, normally her staunchest ally.

From Olider Tree of International Business Times:

Bundesbank head Jens Weidmann has warned that Germany’s central bank is “more important” than other European institutions, as tensions continue to rise between Berlin and Brussels over how to save the euro.

The warning comes after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said last week he would do “whatever it takes” to save the common currency, prompting speculation the ECB was poised to buy bonds from debt-ridden nations in a bid to lower borrowing costs and prop up their economies.

The move, according to Weidmann, would violate the ECB’s charter Continue reading →

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Posted in Banksters, Class, Culture, Debt, Economy, Europe, Governance, Health, Intolerance, Law, Politics, Video, Wealth

UC Davis’s pepper-spraying cop skeedaddles

Posted on 2012 August 1 | Leave a comment

Lt. John Pike, the UC Davis campus cop who became a figure of infamy after blasting peace UC Davis Occupy protesters with an industrial-sized canister of pepper spray, has departed university employment and left for parts unknown.

From Howard Blume of the Los Angeles Times:

The UC Davis police officer who pepper-sprayed students during a campus protest last fall no longer works for the university, the Sacramento Bee reported Tuesday.

The employment of Lt. John Pike, who was captured on cellphone video in the act of spraying peaceful demonstrators, “ended on July 31, 2012,” UC Davis spokesman Barry Shiller said.

Shiller would not comment on the circumstances of Pike’s departure, citing privacy restrictions governing the release of such information. Pike declined to comment to the newspaper, saying he wanted to consult an attorney before speaking. Pike had been on paid administrative leave.

His actions Nov. 18 sparked widespread outrage with the dissemination of a video showing him repeatedly spraying the chemical irritant into the faces of seated students. Pike and other campus police officers contended that the spray was the “most appropriate” tool on hand to deal with what they described as an unruly mob that encircled the officers and refused to disperse.

Read the rest.

Lt. Pike servced as an exemplar of the University of California’s growing intolerance toward dissent, and inspired a considerable amount of ridicule.

Notably, his actions made him an iconic image, incorporated into at least two Tumblr websites. Some of our favorite images:

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Posted in Culture, Global Corporate U., Governance, Intolerance

EuroWatch: Crisis heats up, bonds rebuked, more

Posted on 2012 July 20 | 1 Comment

Tectonic shifts are underway across the continent. A leading IMF official has resigned, charging that incompetent bureaucrats and hacksrepeatedly ignored warnings about the impending crisis.

We’ve got a major bombshell in the announcement that the eurozone’s central bank is refusing Greek bonds as collateral, a move that sent Spanish share prices down and seems certain to add more intensity to a national tragedy. [The story's after the jump, grouped with out other Greek items.]

We got another harsh eurobankster warning, graphic eviden ce of what’s at stake in the event of euro breakup, the latest on the Spailout, a warning of a Spanish regional collapse, the flight of Iberian young to former colonies, and an airline that won’t be taking them.

From Greece, we’ve got another resignation from government, the return of electricity to a sweltering hospice, a Samaras meeting, another warning from another German, a visit from Bubba. a Prime Ministerial strike-breaking raid, more racist attacks [including a video].

From Italy, we’ve got a prime ministerial coup against provincial governments, a Sicilian mayor’s warning of civil war, a rating agency’s back-pat, and more legal worries for a seemingly resurgent Baron of Bunga Bunga.

There’s a Cyprus bank upgrade, a German business upbraid, suspicions of deep French agendas, and a very untransparent European Parliament.

We begin with a trio of videos.

BBC: Wildfires sweep across Southern Europe

Just as austerity cuts are demolishing firefighting services, an epidemic of fires has erupted in Greece and other countries along the southern edge of the continent.

From BBC News:

Associated Press: ‘The Dark Knight’ Paris Premiere Cancelled

The Colorado theater midnight Batman massacre carried out by a armor-clad gunman who told police “I am the Joker” has a European echo:

From Deutsche Welle: Greece – Crisis in sports

A stark report on the sad plight of competitive sport in the country that gave us the Olympics:

IMF economist resigns in anger

The International Monetary Fund, the critical third member of the Troika now engaged in the deconstruction of Europe for the benefit of investors, is riddled with incompetence and hacks, declares one of its leading economist in a tempestuous resignation letter.

What’s even worse, senior officials ignored clear warnings of the approaching economic crisis.

From Ian Talley of the Wall Street Journal:

A senior International Monetary Fund economist is resigning from the Fund, writing a scathing letter to the board blaming management for suppressing staff warnings about the financial crisis and a pro-European bias that he says has exacerbated the euro-zone debt crisis.

“The failure of the fund to issue [warnings] is a failing of the first order, even if such warnings may not have been heeded,” Peter Doyle said in a letter dated June 18 and copied to senior management.

Doyle is formerly a division chief in the IMF’s European Department responsible for non-crisis countries. He currently acts as an adviser to the Fund but is expected to officially leave in the fall.

“The consequences include suffering [and risk of worse to come] for many including Greece, that the second global reserve currency is on the brink, and that the Fund for the past two years has been playing catch-up and reactive roles in the last-ditch efforts to save it,” he said in the letter.

>snip<

“After twenty years of service, I am ashamed to have had any association with the Fund at all,” he said in the letter. Mr. Doyle wasn’t immediately available for further comment.

Read the rest.

EuroWatch: Swearing, violence, misery, more

Posted on 2012 July 14 | 1 Comment

Our first items the latest eurozone exit pronouncement, but interesting nonetheless.

Spain’s much in the news, with popular anger rising over the government’s surrender to the Troika, a hate-spouting parliamentarian, and demands for more investor control of Spain and some German schooling.

Lots from Greece, including anxiety over the coming visit of the Troika’s, a token Merkelian delay, a little stroking from a europol, another IMF diktat, rising polarization, and some fascinating poll results [including a public demand of the coalition government], a racist blood drive, and more.

By way of a side trip to Iceland [for a WikiLeaks win, it's on to Italy, where another downgrade has hit and the Bundesbanker scoffs at high borrowing cost , and then to Ireland, with some good and bad economic news.

We close with bad European news for an all-American company.

Italian, Irish incentives to eave eurozone

There could be an Itxit or an Irxit before there’s a Grexit, at least if national governments follow the logic, says a financial powerhouse.

Either way, there’s money to be made.

From Capital.gr:

Italy and Ireland have more incentive to quit the euro than Greece, while Germany may have limited room to prevent departures from the currency union, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Using cost-benefit analysis and game theory, BofA Merrill Lynch foreign exchange strategists David Woo and Athanasios Vamvakidis concluded in a July 10 report that investors “may be underpricing the voluntary exit of one or more countries” from the bloc.

“Our analysis produces a few surprising results that even readers who may disagree with our conclusion are likely to find interesting,” the strategists wrote, according to Bloomberg.

Italy, the euro area’s third-largest economy, would enjoy a higher chance of achieving an orderly exit than others and would stand to benefit from improvements in competitiveness, economic growth and balance sheets, they said.

While Germany is the nation deemed able to leave the euro zone most easily, it has the least incentive of any country to quit because it would face weaker growth, possibly higher borrowing costs and a negative hit to its balance sheets, the strategists said. Austria, Finland and Belgium also have little reason to quit, they said, while Spain has the weakest case for leaving among economies most directly affected by the crisis.

The analysis is based on a framework which ranks eleven of the 17 euro-area nations on criteria such as how orderly their exit from the bloc would be and how it would affect economic growth, interest rates and balance sheets. Ireland and Italy received an average ranking of 3.5, while Greece was at 5.3 and Germany had the highest score at 8.5. The lower the number, the more there would be to gain from leaving.

Read the rest.

Hmmm. So Germany’s the country that’d be hurt most by a collapse of the common currency. In that light, Angela Merkel’s singular mission to save the euro at all costs becomes even more comprehensible.

Spain borrows a third of a trillion

Now wonder they’re so eager to pump more cash into Spain, since they’ve got so much there already.

From ANSAmed:

Spanish banks’ borrowing from the European Central Bank jumped by 17% in June compared to the previous month and loans were worth 337,206 billion euros, according to data published today by Bank of Spain.

Loans by the ECB to Spanish banks multiplied by seven in a year, from 14,777 billion euros to the 337,206 billion received in June, when the Spanish government announced its bailout request, the Bank of Spain said.

In the same period, the reliance of Italian banks on EBC loans, which is lower than Spain’s, remained stable.

Read the rest.

Protests in Spain challenge austerity

First, a video of a violent confrontation in Madrid between police an anti-austerity protesters via vlogger antikriegTV:

And another Madrid street scene from vlogger normajed1:

And here’s raw footage from yesterday in Madrid from RT:

ANSAMed reports on yesterday’s events:

For the third day, public employees gathered to protest the government’s proposed 65 billion euro austerity plan, which is to be approved by the Cabinet today.

Called by Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), Union General de Trabajadores (UGT) and Central Sindical Independiente y de Funcionarios (CSIF) unions, hundreds of public employees blocked the capital’s main throughfares this morning and gathered in front of regional government headquarters, chanting ‘’Hands up, this is a robbery’‘ and calling for Madrid president and PP member, Esperanza Aguirre, to step down. Another 200 justice system employees gathered in Valencia in a similar protest against the harsh austerity packet, which includes cuts to year-end bonuses and leave time. The three major unions, CCOO, UGT and CSIF have announced they will form a national platform to include all public sector employees in opposing the austerity plan.

The long, the short, and the tall. . .

The only question who a Spanish conservative was telling to get fucked. The context implies that she meant those who will suffer from the just announced, Troika-compliant austerity measures just announced the by the conservative prime minister.

Either way, she’s a real class act — a class warrior you might say [and we will].

From Basque region news service eitb:

Andrea Fabra, a deputy of the ruling party PP in the Spanish parliament, became the center of political storm in the recession-hit country on Friday after video showed her insulting unemployed citizens saying “Fuck them all” just seconds after Spanish PM announced austerity measures.

The video shows the Spanish deputy, daughter of Castellon’s regional council president Carlos Fabra, clapping and yelling “Fuck them all” as Mariano Rajoy announced cuts in unemployment benefits as part of new austerity measures designed to slash 65 billion euros from the public deficit by 2014.

Rajoy also announced a 3-point hike in the main rate of Value Added Tax on goods and services to 21 percent and cuts in civil service pay and perks.

Spain’s main opposition party PSOE has asked the PP deputy to give up her seat. “Andrea Fabra must leave her seat. She is not worthy of representing the citizens. He shouted ‘Fuck them all’ when Rajoy announced the cuts to the unemployed, “the Socialists claimed on their Twitter account.

Fabra has admitted having pronounced those words but claims she was referring to the PSOE members of parliament, who were interrupting Rajoy’s speech with jeers and boos.

Read the rest.

“Fuck ‘em all,” choruses Rajoy-hoy’s money man

Not that he said it literally. But in agreeing to stick the citizens with the tab for any losses on the coming bailout, he’s done just that.

From ANSAmed:

The Spanish government will guarantee that emergency loans received under a European bailout package of up to 100 billion euros will be repaid, Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemaine Zeitung, stressing creditors should not fear losses.

The minister told the paper that ‘the Spanish economy will give a positive surprise’ to markets ‘in the next three years’.

‘We are responsible for the repayment’, he said in the interview quoted by the Europa Press agency. ‘I am convinced there will be not even the slightest loss for creditors’.

Read the rest.

Hell, just give Spain to investors, says ~~Bundesbank~~ster

Yep, Germany’s central bankster has just declared that rather than simply letting investors say how Spain’s bank’s should be run, they should just tell everybody what to do.

Right, let financiers run the country because they’ve got everybody’s best interests at heart, right?

Sure.

From Agence France-Presse:

European assistance to ailing Spain should target the country’s entire economy and not just the banking sector, the head of Germany’s central bank said in an interview published Saturday.

“The banks’ balance sheets are a reflection of the overall economy,” Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann told newspaper Boersen Zeitung.

“If investors see that the conditions set down for aid to Spain go beyond just the framework of the banking sector, this would also have Continue reading →

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Posted in Banksters, Class, Corpocracy, Debt, Economy, Europe, Finance, Governance, Health, Intolerance, Labor, Politics, Video, Wealth

Golden Dawn: Subhuman horde imperils Greece

Posted on 2012 July 11 | Leave a comment

From Athens News [story] [vlog], an alarmingly racist parliamentary pronouncement that sounds remarkably like a Hitler stump speech, though with a different cast of villains:

Program notes:

Ilias Kasidiaris, spokesman for Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn, says mass illegal immigration is part of a plot to turn Greece into “a wretched protectorate inhabited by subhumans, with no conscience, with no country, with no national culture.” He said minefields and Army special forces were needed to secure Greece’s border with Turkey. 7 July 2012. Read a Human Rights Watch Report on racist attacks in Greece.

Golden Dawn rhetoric translates into violence

UPDATE: Here’s a report on the rising racial violence in Greece from RT’s Jacob Greaves:

Program notes:

Greece is also in turmoil. Violent clashes have shaken the city of Agrinio in the west. Supporters of the far-right Golden Dawn party fought with anarchists, leaving cars and shop windows smashed, and one person injured. Golden Dawn’s influence is rising. It gained around 7 per cent of the vote in the recent general election. RT’s Jacob Greaves takes a look at xenophobia in today’s Greece.

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Posted in Culture, Ethnicity, Europe, History, Intolerance, Mideast, Politics, Race, Video

Important documentary: The Power Principle

Posted on 2012 July 8 | Leave a comment

An important documentary by Scott Noble. The Power Principle exposes the hidden agenda driving American foreign policy over the last seven decades and its gruesome consequences.

Historian Michael Parenti calls the film “A gripping, deeply informative account of the plunder, hypocrisy, and mass violence of plutocracy and empire; insightful, historically grounded and highly relevant to the events of today.”

In an interview for Soldiers for the Cause, a veterans group supporting the Occupy movement, filmmaker Noble outlines the theses advanced in his documentary:

The Cold War was not just a struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States; the real struggle was between American corporations and the Third World.
Top policy planners in the US and other Western nations were acutely aware that the Soviet Union had a conservative foreign policy. You can see this in numerous declassified documents.
Nevertheless, the American government engaged in what can only be described as a campaign of terrorism against the American people, constantly invoking the “Soviet Menace” to justify military spending and war.
The United States does not have a free press.
The Pentagon is a Keynsian Mechanism.
The American government was responsible for genocide during the Cold War.
The Empire is similar to the mafia.
Corporate interests are inextricably wed with military policy.
American imperialism is not of recent vintage.
Elites deceive themselves as well as the public.
The US is not exceptional. It is behaving pretty much as powerful states always have.
Western elites supported fascism prior to, during and after WWII.
A WWIII scenario is almost inevitable unless the American public wakes up – and fast.

For more information see the film’s website.

And now, the documentary:

The Power Principle – I: Empire

The program notes:

An Introduction to the Empire; Iran – Oil and Geopolitics; Guatemala – the “merger of state and corporate power”; The Congo – Neocolonialism; Grenada – “The Mafia Doctrine”; Chile – “libertarianism with a small l”; Globalization: Consequences.

1945: Grand Area Strategy; Fascism: a “rational system of the plutocracy”; Case Studies: the Greek Communists; The Italian Communists; the Spanish Anarchists; Fascism’s Western backers; Trading with the Enemy; Fascism as “preservation of civilization”; the Cold War and “A Century of Fear”.

The Power Principle – II: Propaganda

The program notes:

The Soviet Menace?; Case Studies: El Salvador, Nicaragua; Propaganda: Self-Deception and blowback; The “International Communist Conspiracy”; Declassified Documents; NSC 68; The Pentagon as Keynsian Mechanism; The Military Industrial Complex; The War against the Third World; Shifting rationales; What is imperialism?; Case Study: Haiti; “War is a racket”.

Fear-based conditioning – The War of the Worlds, The Triumph of the Will; World view Warfare; The Russians are coming; Television: The “perfect propaganda medium”; Soviet vs. American propaganda; Hollywood and the Pentagon; Psywarriors and the media; Operation Mockingbird; The Pentagon Pundits; Project Revere; The Bomber Gap; “scare the hell out of them”.

The Power Principle – III: Apocalypse

The program notes:

Mutually Assured Destruction; MAD men – Curtis Lemay and the super hawks; MAD men – Hermann Kahn and the Rand Corporation; Over flights as provocation; Cuba: the “danger of a good example”; terrorism against Cuba; “Unconventional warfare”; the Cuban Missile Crisis and the “man who saved the world”.

Why did the Soviet Union collapse?; Gorbachev: a “more violent, less stable world”; the Pentagon’s New Map; Did Ronald Reagan end the Cold War?; The Brink of Apocalypse: Able Archer; The betrayal of Russia; The expansion of NATO; Yugoslavia and Libya; the Yeltsin coup; Living standards in the former Soviet Union; A third way?

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Posted in Africa, Asia, Class, Corpocracy, Crime, Cuba, Culture, Deep Politics, Economy, Europe, Film, Geopolitics, Governance, GWOT, History, Holocausts, Intolerance, Labor, Latin America, Mideast, Military, MSM, Noteworthy, Politics, Secrecy, Socialism, Spooks, Video, Warfare, Wealth

Category Archives: Intolerance

GreeceWatch: Delays, cuts, vitriol. and misery

Spanish military threatens coup over Catalonia

GreeceWatch: Bailout III, cuts, misery, racism

Innocence of Muslims: Sects, lies, and videotape

Sam Bacile: Hate-provoking filmmaker and. . .

GreeceWatch: Troikarchs, cuts, Golden Dawn

GreeceWatch: Northern silence, coalition woes

Quote of the day: Uh, like that’s just wrong, dude

GreeceWatch: Futility, posturing, intolerance

Irish president delivers a Tea Party smackdown

GreeceWatch: Contraction, Germans, sell-offs

Europe’s war on the wandering poor accelerates

GreeceWatch: MIBs linger, money games, hate

EuroWatch: Bond madness, contractions, agendas

EuroWatch: Big meeting, Spain, Greek cuts

UC Davis’s pepper-spraying cop skeedaddles

EuroWatch: Crisis heats up, bonds rebuked, more

EuroWatch: Swearing, violence, misery, more

Golden Dawn: Subhuman horde imperils Greece

Important documentary: The Power Principle

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