Courtesy of The Automatic Earth.
DPC Real Estate Exchange from Dime Bank building, Detroit 1918
Someone should shut up George Soros. The Financial Times offers him a podium because he’s rich, and if you’re rich, people today think you must be smart, and right, as well. We admire money, not brains; indeed, we confuse the two.
George is not right. George is much more old than right. George writes a plea for the United Kingdom and the European Union that misses on just about every single point. Because George lives in the past. When he was not yet so old.
If the Scots want to break free from the United Kingdom, that is their god – or UN, whichever comes first -given right. And people like Soros need to butt out of that discussion.
Britain Needs Greater Unity Not A Messy Break-up
This is the worst possible time for Britain to consider leaving the EU – or for Scotland to break with Britain. The EU is an unfinished project of European states that have sacrificed part of their sovereignty to form an ever-closer union based on shared values and ideals. Those shared values are under attack on multiple fronts. Russia’s undeclared war against Ukraine is perhaps the most immediate example but it is by no means the only one. Resurgent nationalism and illiberal democracy are on the rise within Europe, at its borders and around the globe.
The EU is not an unfinished, but a failed project. It wasn’t, and isn’t, based on values and ideals, but on money. It may have once been a good idea, but it’s run many a mile off the rails. The EU, like NATO, should be disbanded. They are both organizations that have accumulated so much power that this can only possibly backfire on the people they represent.
They’re organizations in which power accumulates by itself, they can’t stop accummulating ever more of it because there are no backstops and no breaks built into their statutes. ‘Resurgent nationalism’, in Europe and elsewhere, is a direct effect of this, and the very last thing that should happen, if we know what’s good for us, is for the EU and NATO to be employed to fight against it.
How do we know, how can we be so sure? This is how: While the EU announces new sanctions against Russia, to go into effect tomorrow, and NATO builds up its ‘presence’ on Russia’s borders, Amnesty releases a report that even gets covered by the mother of all MSM’s, Newsweek:
Ukrainian Nationalist Volunteers Committing ‘ISIS-Style’ War Crimes
Groups of right-wing Ukrainian nationalists are committing war crimes in the rebel-held territories of Eastern Ukraine, according to a report from Amnesty International, as evidence emerged in local media of the volunteer militias beheading their victims. Armed volunteers who refer to themselves as the Aidar battalion “have been involved in widespread abuses, including abductions, unlawful detention, ill-treatment, theft, extortion, and possible executions”, Amnesty said.
The organisation has also published a report detailing similar alleged atrocities committed by pro-Russian militants, highlighting the brutality of the conflict which has claimed over 3,000 lives. Amnesty’s statement came before images of what appeared to be the severed heads of two civilians’ started circulating on social media today, identified by Russian news channel NTV as the heads of rebel hostages.
There are over 30 pro-nationalist, volunteer battalions similar to Aidar, such as Ukraina, DND Metinvest and Kiev 1, all funded by private investors. The Aidar battalion is publicly backed by Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, who also funds the Azov, Donbas, Dnepr 1, Dnepr 2 volunteer battalions, operating under orders from Kiev. Last spring Kolomoyskyi offered a bounty of $10,000 of his own money for each killed Russian “saboteur”.
That is not nothing. That is a very strong condemnation of a whole range of private armies that have been executing war crimes against Ukraine citizens, private armies ‘operating under orders from Kiev’. Financed by ‘us’. And yes, Newsweek mentions ‘alleged atrocities’ committed by rebel forces (still called pro-Russian so we can imply Putin being involved). But even if that is true, it does not, not now and not ever, make our support of private armies beheading their own co-citizens ‘alright’.
These people have been able to commit their crimes because we, the US, EU and NATO, have backed them. This is not about, as George Soros claims, ‘Russia’s undeclared war against Ukraine’, this is about Kiev’s loudly declared war on its own people. Which ‘we’, along with a bunch of slumdog warlord billionaires, encouraged. And paid for.
That is why and how we know that the EU and NATO should no longer be allowed to exist. If we don’t disband both, we will, so to speak, never go to heaven, because if there is a god, (s)he will not look down kindly upon this. NATO and EU inflict too much damage on too many people, in the case of the EU economically (PIIGS), politically and now militarily (Ukraine), and in the case of NATO – obviously – militarily around the globe. NATO has degenerated from a keeper of the peace into a war mongering force, a.k.a. a means for the US to make other nations pay for its global hegemony dreams.
So we have that Amnesty report about Kiev-directed war crimes, and what do you think the Kiev parliament has as an answer to that? Well, this:
War Crimes Acceptable? Parliament Mulls Amnesty For Kiev’s Troops In East Ukraine
The Ukrainian parliament is to debate a law on amnesty for Ukrainian troops who have committed war crimes in the course of military actions in Eastern Ukraine. A bill on amnesty for military personnel who committed war crimes during the military crackdown in Eastern Ukraine was introduced in the Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) on Wednesday, its website says. The bill assumes the discharge of legal responsibility and punishment of military staff and “other people” for the actions which “bear the marks of war crime.”
The Amnesty researchers interviewed dozens of victims and witnesses of the abuses and crimes, as well as local officials, police and army commanders in Lugansk area. The watchdog pointed out that while formally operating under the command of the Ukrainian security forces combined headquarters in the region, members of the Aidar battalion act “with virtually no oversight or control, and local police are either unwilling or unable to address the abuses.”
If you live in the west and you aspire to go to heaven, you better make sure this kind of stuff, and these kinds of people, are no longer backed up by those you elect to represent you and spend you tax money. And even if you don’t believe in heaven, you should at least have an inch of decency left in your life, and that too would make it imperative that you stop these atrocities being committed in your name.
Which brings me back to Soros.
Britain Needs Greater Unity Not A Messy Break-up
Since world war two the European powers, along with the US, have been the main supporters of the prevailing international order. Yet, in recent years, overwhelmed by the euro crisis, Europe has turned inward, diminishing its ability to play a forceful role in international affairs. To make matters worse, the US has done the same, if for different reasons. Their preoccupation with domestic matters has created a vacuum that ambitious regional powers have sought to fill.
No George, you have things upside down. It’s the ‘prevailing international order’ that has caused the crisis. Not prevented it.
The resulting breakdown of international governance has given rise to a plethora of unresolved crises around the globe. The breakdown is most acute in the Middle East. The sudden emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or Isis, provides the most gruesome example of how far it can go and how much human suffering it can cause. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, military conflict has spread to Europe. Two radically different forms of government are competing for ascendancy. The EU stands for principles of liberal democracy, international governance and the rule of law.
Again, no George. And again, you got it upside down.. It’s not the breakdown of international governance – in the model of it we have today – , but its very existence that ‘has given rise to a plethora of unresolved crises around the globe’. There’s nothing wrong with international governance by itself, the problem is in the way we’ve set it up, and what we thus have allowed it to turn into.
Too much power gets concentrated at the top – this is just as true for the US as well -, and the shit that floats to the top of that should never be trusted with that kind of power. They should at best be allowed to run rural Five and Dimes, and only under strict supervision.
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin maintains the outward appearance of democracy by exploiting a narrative of ethnic and religious nationalism to generate popular support for his corrupt, authoritarian regime.
It’s not Putin who started this, George, no matter how much your past may have warned you off about Russians. Putin is not the Stalin you once knew. It’s ‘us’ who started this.
As a major power and global financial centre, Britain ought to be centrally involved in crafting a European response to this threat. But like the US and the EU itself, Britain has also been distracted by internal matters. David Cameron has been persuaded by anti-European zeal – not least within his own party – to put UK membership in the EU to a vote in 2017. A poll on Scottish independence is only days away. Just when Britain should be confronting grave threats to its way of life, it is preoccupied with divorce of one type or another. Divorce is always messy.
What can I say, George? Where do you think this ‘anti-European zeal’ comes from? As for that divorce thing, how many wives have you had? You of all people should know a divorce is not necessarily all that bad. Messy, perhaps.
For Scotland and the rest of the UK to enter into a currency union without a political union, after the euro crisis has demonstrated all the pitfalls, would be a retrograde step that neither side should contemplate. Yet without it, an independent Scotland could not benefit from the low interest rates that a strong pound has brought. These considerations ought to outweigh whatever possible benefits independence might bring.
Retrogade, you said? Am I right to interpret that to say that increased centralization is always a good thing in your view? And as for ‘benefit from the low interest rates that a strong pound has brought’, do you really think that ultra low rates have been such a blessing for the world? Or do you perhaps merely mean to imply they have been for you? In my view, an economy that can exist only through severe central bank manipulation (which is what ultra low rates represent) doesn’t have a long life expectancy.
[..] Britain has always played a balancing role between hostile blocs. Its absence would greatly diminish the weight of the EU in the world.
Oh come on, Britain has always been blood thirsty, that’s how it built an empire. Balancing role my donkey. And as for diminishing the weight of the EU, that’s something I’m all for.
The EU has proved to be the best guarantor of peace and human security since the end of the second world war. The importance of preserving the shared values underpinning a whole way of life far outweigh any possible advantages of independence. The difficult times we are facing call for increased unity, not divorce.
Georgie boy, this is not 1950 anymore. In Ukraine, the EU has proven itself the opposite of ‘the best guarantor of peace and human security’. It has supported, and still does, depraved private armies. The second world war is long gone, there are new problems today.
What has been proven since WWII is that increased unity/centralization is NOT the answer to everything, it indeed turns into a problem all by and of itself. That is what the EU and NATO represent. the problem of ‘increased unity’. Which is that power doesn’t stop accumulating, and the wrong kind of people scoop it up to execute their depraved power games.
[..] to vote for independence from the UK now would be to prematurely surrender Scottish leverage in London, and Britain’s leverage in the world.
Scotland doesn’t want leverage in London, it wants leverage in Edinburgh. Only 7% of the taxes Scots pay get distributed by their own government, the other 93% (!) goes through the hands of London. What’s wrong with no longer wanting that? What’s wrong with a dozen other European regions not wanting it?
Yes, there are cases in which extreme right will try to decide things in its favor. That may not be a good thing. But US, NATO and EU quite openly encourage just that in Ukraine. So what exactly are we talking about here? Are we going to tell the Scots and Catalans and Basque that they can’t determine their own lives, in the same way we tell that to the Donbass?
George, you’re 84, and your time is up. When it comes to – attempts at – decision making, that is. I hope you’ll live to be over 124, but leave younger people’s decisions alone. This is not 1948 anymore, and it’s not even 1984 either.
The solution to these issues is not in more centralization, be it the UK, the EU, or globalization in general. Centralization will always, of necessity, be a problem in itself. The only thing we can do, no matter how large the setting, is set up a system, based on law, that prevents the wrong kind of people from floating to the top. And the more centralized power becomes, the more harm these wrong people can do.
In the meantime, let’s let Scots be Scots and Catalans, Catalans. The worst they can do by becoming independent is accelerate the demise of an already bankrupt financial and political system.
