Showing posts with label EU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EU. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Put The US In The Time Out Chair

 


Put The US In The Time Out Chair

by C.A. Matthews 

When you work in a kindergarten, you see a lot of a particular kind of behavior. One kid—sometimes the biggest physically in the group but not always the most mature emotionally or mentally—will walk over to a fellow student and take a toy or object away from him without a moment’s thought. The big kid just yanks it out of the smaller kid’s hands and might even hit him over the head with it in the process. The teacher is then forced to step in to protect the injured child because obviously the big kid doesn’t understand that he’s acting like a douchebag and has broken all the rules of civilized society.

Placed into the “time out chair,” the big bully sits there and stews, spouting off all sorts of gripes about how the smaller kid didn’t “share” the toy with him when he asked nicely. Of course the teacher or a staff member never witnessed any manners whatsoever on the part of the bigger child. It’s all lies and the big kid knows it, but he sits in his time out chair and continues to whine and cry about how unfair everybody is to him simply because they won’t share their toys and don’t care to be beat up by him. Oh, boo-hoo-hoo!

Flash forward a few decades and you’ll see the “big kid” acting like a douchebag once again, taking things that don’t belong to him and screaming that it’s not fair that the “little kids” don’t like having their resources grabbed in a violent manner without permission. Here is an example of our current president doing just that on the behalf of the American people:

On Tuesday night US Central Command announced that it had "conducted precision airstrikes in Deir ez-Zor Syria" in order to "defend and protect U.S. forces from attacks like the ones on August 15 against U.S. personnel by Iran-backed groups."

"The President gave the direction for these strikes pursuant to his Article II authority to protect and defend U.S. personnel by disrupting or deterring attacks by Iran-backed groups," CENTCOM said.

Iran has denied any link to the troops targeted in the airstrikes, up to ten of whom were reportedly killed. (...)

"US claims to be in Syria to fight ISIS, but it rarely fights ISIS," journalist Aaron MatΓ© tweeted of the exchange. "It's actually there to deny Syria its own oil and wheat, and to occasionally attack Syrians and their allies who defeated US-backed sectarian death squads in the dirty war." -- US Invades Syria, Kills People,Claims Self-Defense

The US simply takes away resources from Syria like a bully grabbing a toy away from a smaller kid. Aren't you pleased that we have such a respectful and neighborly Commander-in-Chief? 


It's not like Americans haven't done it before. After bombing Afghanistan for twenty years and then withdrawing, the US decided to keep $7 billion worth of Afghans' money sitting in our banks. Yeah, the big bullies stole ordinary Afghans' money, and now millions of Afghan children are starving. But when did doing the right and moral thing ever stop a bully from grabbing a smaller kid's lunch box?

The biggest and most destructive sanction currently facing Afghanistan is the seizure of more than $7 billion of the country’s assets that are held at the US Federal Reserve. This is equivalent to about 40 percent of Afghanistan’s economy, and about 14 months of the country’s imports – which include food, medicine, and infrastructure needs that are vital to public health. --US Sanctions on Afghanistan Could Kill More Civilians than 20 Years of War

According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), nearly 23 million Afghans, or 55% of the population, are facing “extreme levels of hunger.” Of those, almost 9 million are at risk of famine.

UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch called it “a crisis of hunger and starvation.”

Yet there is little discussion inside Washington of the disastrous impact of US sanctions. --Millions in Afghanistan Are Starving Due to US Sanctions

Sometimes, bullies will gather together into a grouping of bullies to make it easier to gang up on a weaker kid or kids. Gangs of bullies are able to grab a ton of toys or "resources", as they’re known to most grown ups. A recent headline tells us that's exactly what a gang consisting of the US, NATO, and a few others are doing in Ukraine:

Representatives of Western governments and corporations met in Switzerland this July to plan a series of harsh neoliberal policies to impose on post-war Ukraine, calling to cut labor laws, “open markets,” drop tariffs, deregulate industries, and “sell state-owned enterprises to private investors.”

Ukraine has been destabilized by violence since 2014, when a US-sponsored coup d’etat overthrew its democratically elected government, setting off a civil war. That conflict dragged on until February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded the country, escalating into a new, even deadlier phase of the war.

The United States and European Union have sought to erase the history of foreign-sponsored civil war in Ukraine from 2014 to early 2022, acting as though the conflict began on February 24. But Washington had sent large sums of weapons to Ukraine and provided extensive military training and support over several years before Russia invaded.

Meanwhile, starting in 2017, representatives of Western governments and corporations quietly held annual conferences in which they discussed ways to profit from the civil war they were fueling in Ukraine.

In these meetings, Western political and business leaders outlined a series of aggressive right-wing reforms they hoped to impose on Ukraine, including widespread privatization of state-owned industries and deregulation of the economy.

On July 4 and 5, 2022, top officials from the US, EU, Britain, Japan, and South Korea met in Switzerland for a so-called “Ukraine Recovery Conference.” There, they planned Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction and performatively announced aid commitments – while salivating over a bonanza of potential contracts.

--West Prepares to Plunder Post-War Ukraine with Neoliberal Shock Therapy: Privatization, Deregulation, Slashing Worker Protections

There’s no aggressive behavior under the sun that would surprise a kindergarten teacher, and there’s nothing new about how stronger nations treat weaker ones. The US and its Western allies want cheap liquid natural gas, and they don’t want to go crying to Russia or even Saudi Arabia to get it. So, they take it from Syria. The indiscriminate bombing and killing of innocent civilians along the way is just the price you pay for being the smaller kid in the global classroom.    

Western corporate interests—especially those of the military industrial complex, such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, etc.—wanted to make some money off of the disintegrating Soviet Union thirty-something years ago. It seemed like a piece of cake to these capitalists to walk in and take their resources since the Cold War was now officially over. The largest part of the former Soviet Union (now simply “Russia”) helped many of the weaker kids (former Soviet nations) in their classroom get back on their feet economically. This cooperative activity didn’t sit well with the West. The US of Big Bullies and friends started working on angles to grab the natural and man-made resources of the weaker nations of the now defunct USSR. 

The unrest in Ukraine in 2014 gave the West the opportunity they’d been looking for to make a grab for these resources. The CIA helped to instigate a coup against the elected government of Ukraine because the Ukrainian voters (heaven forbid!) elected a pro-Russia president who wanted to increase trade with their much larger neighbor. With Ukraine’s ports and a liquid natural gas (LNG) pipeline (the Russian-German Nord Stream 2), Russia and Ukraine together could make some serious cash by selling LNG to European countries to heat their homes and businesses.

The US of Big Bullies and its gang of NATO wasn’t going to suffer this indignity. How dare a weaker kid keep his toys and share them with another kid—a kid we don’t like (and are possibly even jealous of)! Grabbing Ukraine’s resources and causing the big brotherly country that helped them (Russia) to collapse at the same time became US priority number one. Six months and a lot of death and destruction later, the entire world can see what happens when a big bully like the US tries to get its way by grabbing resources from and then hitting a smaller kid who simply wanted to get along with his fellow classmates, or neighboring countries in this instance. 


I realize that I’m simplifying things, but, like most teachers have discovered, sometimes it’s the best way to get down to the root of an aggressive behavior so we can end the aggression once and for all. We can’t continue hiding this behavior of resource grabbing or else it will never stop. We can't keep denying it, lying about it in our mainstream media, or attempting to rename it. 

The US military intervention in other countries has got nothing to do with giving Syria or Afghanistan or Ukraine "freedom and democracy." It's the US acting like a big bully by bombing weaker nations into submission in order to make a lot of profits for the military industrial complex and other Western corporations. All moral people must expose this evil for what it is so we can deal with it like adults, not children. 

It's time we put the US and NATO in the time out chair.

I sent a few grabber-hitters to the time out chair when I worked in a kindergarten class. Usually by the end of the school year these bullies matured a little emotionally. They began to understand why hitting and stealing toys/objects from their classmates wasn’t a good idea. Their first grade teachers praised our patience and stick-to-it-ness. It (almost) made the stress of dealing with these miniature Napoleons worth it.

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t have a school year to wait and see what will happen if we don’t stop the US and the West’s aggressive behaviors. We’ve got warmongers in Congress who want to provoke a war with China next. What’s sane about a bully taunting and grabbing at resources from other countries who own nuclear weapons? Nothing. Nothing at all. 

The next time you read how a far away country like Syria is a “threat” to the US look at what kind of natural resources they have. Look at where it’s positioned on the globe. Perhaps it’s located next door or within a short bomber’s flight distance of another country we’re jealous of and want to push out of our “classroom” so we can grab all their “toys”.

And stop making excuses for the United States of Bullies—even if you're a member of their "gang." Because how will Americans ever  grow up and stop their aggressive ways if they’re not taught a lesson by sitting in the time out chair?


Related Articles

US Invades Syria, Kills People, Claims Self-Defense https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/us-invades-syria-kills-people-claims

US Carries Out Airstries in Syria's Deir Ez Zor Province https://popularresistance.org/us-carries-out-airstrikes-in-syrias-deir-ez-zor-province/ 

US Sanctions on Afghanistan Could Kill More Civilians Than 20 Years of War  https://multipolarista.com/2022/02/05/us-sanctions-afghanistan-death-war/

Millions in Afghanistan Are Starving Due to US Sanctions https://multipolarista.com/2022/01/23/afghanistan-starving-us-sanctions/

'We Will Die by Poverty before Dying of Covid’: Young Adults and Multi-Layered Crises in Afghanistan  https://areu.org.af/publication/2205e/

US Judge Says Billions in Seized Central Bank Funds Belong to Afghan People https://scheerpost.com/2022/08/30/us-judge-says-billions-in-seized-central-bank-funds-belong-to-afghan-people/

West Prepares to Plunder Post-War Ukraine... https://multipolarista.com/2022/07/28/west-neoliberal-recovery-conference/

Revealed: US & EU Plans to Plunder Ukraine (video) https://youtu.be/1WsB-vvMLZk

This is Why the EU Doesn't Want Russian Gas (video) https://youtu.be/vC9yRNYWb84

The Uncomfortable Truth About Zelensky, featuring Scott Ritter (video) https://youtu.be/qmpnVbbqqOE 

Free Speech Doesn't Matter If Propagandists Determine What People Say  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/free-speech-doesnt-matter-if-propagandists

 

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Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Perfect Vision: 2020



Happy New Year!

We're all looking forward to a happier and saner year, which could be the last one with the present occupant in the White House. What could be better than having our resident historian do a wrap up of all things "twenties" as we head into the year with a "perfect vision" of what the world could really be like...


Perfect Vision: 2020
by Coast Watcher 

What went before:

A hundred years ago, the 1920s were a time of great social change across the Western world. The newly-won voting franchise of women in both the United States and Britain changed the political landscape for good.

In the United States a series of Republican governments made it acceptable to be greedy. A laissez-faire attitude toward business dealings led to a burgeoning stock market and corruption at high levels of the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover administrations. These governments came into direct conflict with the growing Socialist movement in America, most of which was driven by post-WWI feelings caused by the horrendous loss of lives in that conflict.

The commensurate desire for a better, more peaceful world sat at odds with the capitalist desire to drive down wages, promulgate longer working hours and unsafe working conditions, all in the drive to increase profits. Then as now the rise of share prices did not mean better conditions for the workers—quite the opposite. When the shareholder—and especially the board member—profits, the working person loses.

A similar situation arose in Britain. Men returning from the “War to end all wars” rightly wanted to see a reward for their blood and sacrifice. The Labour Party and union movement gained followers and strength to the point where they could challenge the dominance of the Conservative and Liberal Parties, which had held a monopoly on parliamentary governance for centuries. The Labour Party under Ramsay MacDonald took office for a short period—January to November 1924—with a strong commitment to nationalization. Although it lost the next election to the Conservatives, the precedent had been set. The massive General Strike of 1926 showed the union movement had teeth. It paralyzed the country for weeks before a settlement was reached.

In France the right wing of politics predominated, with the country focused on post-war recovery efforts. Restoration of those areas of the country destroyed by warfare, and assertion of France’s territorial gains following the various treaties with the losing Central Powers were uppermost in French government policies. Even so, labor movements also made efforts to redress the balance between the employers and workers.

Germany turned into a hot mess. Radical left wing groups fought lethal battles with the radical right. Inflation ran rampant with billions of Marks needed to buy even the most basic items of food. Stability of a kind was achieved late in the decade at great cost and some lenience over war reparations on the part of the victorious powers, only to fall to pieces with the rise of the Nazis.

Italy saw the “Red Years” of 1919-1920, with widespread general strikes and labor unrest, mostly directed at the rising power of the Fascisti under Benito Mussolini. Mussolini created a coalition of big businesses and crushed the labor movement, taking control of the entire country in 1922. Any pretense at democratic government ended in 1930 with Mussolini’s declaration of single-party governance, which lasted until his downfall following the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943.



Where we are now:

We face dangers and changes our grandparents and great-grandparents of the 1920s would never have conceived of. Climate change is a real factor in spite of certain politicians’ fondest wishes and active opposition to remedial action (and I’m looking at Trump's sale of national parks to developers and fracking operations,  Bolsanaro of Brazil’s accelerated destruction of indigenous peoples and the Amazon jungle, and Doug Ford of Canada who enacted a policy of dismantling wind turbines). The current bush fires in Australia have killed over 500 million animals and laid waste to vast areas of that country. Certain species such as the koala bear may not recover. Similar fires have hit the Congo, Siberia, and California. The Californian fires were made worse by a telecommunications company restriction firefighters’ access to the network at a crucial time. Capitalist greed will and does threaten lives and property.

Temperatures in Australia and India have reached record and life-threatening levels for sustained periods. Ice melt from the poles and glaciers have already raised global sea levels, threatening coastal communities world wide. The thought that tomorrow will be the same as today is finding increasingly poor soil to flourish in all but the most rabid right-winger. Recent polls show the majority of Americans now believe climate change is real and dangerous.

It’s pretty obvious that the world seems to be becoming increasingly polarized between Left and Right. Social media bears a lot of the responsibility for this. Far from becoming a “village green gossiping session” writ large, it has allowed and enabled anyone with an opinion—no matter how extreme—to voice that opinion to the world instantaneously. “Moral disengagement” is used to rationalize anything from school bullying, through willful environmental destruction to Nazism.

To some extent this had a major effect on the recent UK General Election. A sizable percentage of Labour voters in the party’s traditional Northern English heartlands voted to leave the EU. They were subjected to a storm of criticism and insults for doing so, which caused them to reject their party’s values and vote Conservative, thus handing Labour an epic defeat. Boris Johnson won a landslide victory, another term of office, and within two weeks of the election result the Conservatives began their sell-off of Britain’s cherished National Health Service and reneged on a pledge to protect workers rights.

France is undergoing a general strike of epic proportions, fueling the gilet jaune movement against President Macron. Support for French workers is coming from international sources, especially Germany. Macron’s position looks increasingly shaky.


Looking forward:

So what will the new Twenties bring? Let's be optimistic here.

On the run-up to the election President Trump’s supporters will double-down over his impeachment but with little effect. Senator McConnell’s obstruction of due process will cost both of them dear in the 2020 election. Having learned their lesson the Democratic Party’s national committee will not pull the rug from under Senator Bernie Sanders and his supporters, as they did in 2016. Sanders is riding high in the polls, and even mainstream media is giving him reluctant coverage.

Sanders will become the 46th president of the United States, so expect an increase in social programs, environmental change remedial action and a decrease of American military action abroad. Trump's impeachment and eventual jail sentence will see the end of his business empire. Sander's policies will expand Medicaid, Social Security, women’s rights and environmental protections.

Britain’s situation is one unique in the annals of her long history. The British people have a talent for brilliant improvisation which has got the country through difficult times. The voting public will wake up to the havoc the Conservative government inflicts on the country’s infrastructure and vote them out next election. Whether this will come in time to prevent irreparable damage to the NHS remains to be seen.

It’s possible that Scotland will leave the United Kingdom to become a member of the EU in her own right. Whether this will lead to greater “freedoms” is debatable. The EU is nothing more than a thin veneer of socialist values concealing a hard core of capitalism. More likely Scotland will realize on which side her best interests lie and remain within the UK.

I think the growing awareness of environmental change will lead more and more people to ask - Why does the world obsess over the antics of politicians and border issues when our planet is burning down around us? I believe if we make it through the next thirty years without a global crisis destroying humanity, we’ll be secure for the future.

It’ll be interesting to see what the world of 2120 will look like. Maybe some of those babies born this year will live beyond their hundredth birthday to see it.

BIO: Coast Watcher looks to the past in order to interpret today and predict the future. Let's do our best to bring about his more positive predictions for 2020. The alternatives don't bear consideration.





*** 
From Friends of the Earth:
Last winter, beekeepers lost nearly half of their hives. Now beekeepers are bracing for another winter of record bee die-offs -- largely thanks to the use of bee-killing pesticides.

And it gets worse. 40 percent of wild bees and other essential pollinators are at risk of extinction. Scientists have warned that further decline of bees and other insects could lead us to a “collapse of nature’s ecosystems.” Pesticides are a key driver of this crisis.

The EPA has the power to stop the decline of bees -- but it’s sitting on its hands. This holiday season, bees need you to demand the EPA ban bee-killing pesticides. But you must act fast!


Bees and other pollinators are vital to our food system. They pollinate two-thirds of the food we eat every day -- from almonds to blueberries. Without bees, we would have a hard time feeding our families some of our healthiest and favorite foods. 

But rampant neonic use is driving alarming bee die-offs. And the EPA is greenlighting their use in record amounts. Our recent study found U.S. agriculture is now 48 times more toxic to insect life than it was 25 years ago, and neonics are mostly to blame. 

Sadly, neonics hurt more than just bees. Recent studies show that these pesticides make songbirds lose weight and delay migration. This is especially concerning because more than half of all songbird species are in decline.

The EPA has had years to take action and protect bees and birds, but the pesticide industry is lobbying hard to prevent it from taking action. Now, the agency needs to know engaged environmentalists like you are watching and we won’t stand by while they let bees die! 


Neonic pesticides are the most widely-used insecticides in the world. They’re long-lasting and systemic, staying in the environment for years. We can’t even wash them off our food. Each day the EPA fails to ban them, our bees and our environment suffer.

The pesticide industry -- including companies like Bayer-Monsanto and Syngenta -- wants to keep selling products that are poisoning bees, and the EPA is letting them.

This winter, bees need our protection -- our entire ecosystem depends on it. Can we count on you to tell the EPA to protect our beautiful bees before it’s too late?  


Standing with you,
Jason Davidson,
Food and agriculture campaigner,
Friends of the Earth
 ***

Tell the CEOs of Hershey, NestlΓ© and Mars:
"You have broken your promise and continue to profit off of child labor. These children are taken from their homes and paid low or even no wages to conduct the “worst forms of child labor” under international law. We demand you stop these practices immediately!"

The candy you got for Chirstmas is probably the result of child labor.

Are you mad? I am.

These kids are working to harvest cocoa, some starting as young as 10. They are swinging machetes, carrying heavy loads, spraying pesticides — all considered the “worst forms of child labor” under international law―for extremely low or even no wages.


This kind of corporate pressure only works when we can draw national attention to it, and shame them.

But corporations can insist on standards for manufacturing and agriculture. It’s time to hold Big Chocolate accountable.


Thank you,

Mike Phelan
Progress America
***
The violent attacks on the Jewish community in New York over the past weeks have been devastating.  Unfortunately, these are not isolated incidents but part of a growing wave of anti-Semitism that is plaguing our country and world.   It must be stopped.  I, and all my colleagues at IFYC will not rest until our Jewish co-workers, colleagues and community partners feel safe and free in this nation and around the globe. 
 
  There is so much to do, but we can all do something. As a Muslim American, I believe we must come together as a national interfaith community to push back against this rising tide of hate.  I know that our religious theology, practice, rituals, and values may be, and are, vastly different from one another. But our commitment to shared responsibility towards our world brings us together.
 
  The poet Rumi said, “The wound is where the light enters you.” As Hanukkah comes to a close, there are pillars of light shining from synagogues and homes across the country. Our thoughts and prayers are no longer enough. Our tweets and Facebook posts are no longer enough. Our empty words of solidarity that aren’t followed by action, are no longer enough. 
 
  Rebuilding takes courage and commitment. It means we must confront these issues of hate, anti-Semitism, islamophobia, and others, within our own communities while also continuing to build relationships with those who are different than us. We have to physically show up to spaces that may be unfamiliar to us — like mosques or temples or churches — and be willing to engage with others across our shared values and our deep differences. This work requires us to bring our whole selves into relationship with one another and share the stories of the common good we create together. 
 
  As we enter the New Year I ask that you consider what you might do to make the world safer for all people and ask that you join me in pledging to confront anti-Semitism in 2020.

Below are just some ideas and resources that may help:
With peace,

Jenan Mohajir
Senior Director of Leadership
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Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Carols for the New Era


A gift many of us are hoping the Electoral College will consider.

Carols for the New Era
We've entered an era of fear and dread. Not many feel like singing of "Peace on Earth" when so many are suffering from so little attention given to their needs for food, shelter and clean water. It's not a time to sing "Joy to the World!" when there's little joy to be gained from the knowledge that millions of votes in Michigan alone weren't counted and Wisconsin voting machines had their tamper seals broken. 

And freedom of speech and the freedom not to be spied upon by our own government? To quote Bloom County's Bill the Cat: "Aaack! Pfft!"

Presenting a collection of carols for the new era:

Let Him Go (Home) 
(Sung to the tune Let It Snow)

Our government is surely lying
because Ed caught it outright spying
How'd we know this fact to be so?
Let him go! Let him go! Let him go!

Our cell phones the Fed's been tapping
This info has us hap'ly clapping
By his sacrifice it came to show
Let him go! Let him go! Let him go!

When Ed finally came to say
How he hated living far from his home
A year-end pardon is all he wants
Why can't Obama grant one over the phone?

Our democracy is quickly dying
'Cause our human rights are flying
Out the door--there's naught to crow, so--
Let Ed go! Let Ed go! Let Ed go... home!


Oh, Little Town of Washington (Sung to the tune of Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem) 


Oh, little town of Washington--
Corrupt and backward DC!
Filled with one-percent brown-nosers
Bribed servants--far as the eye can see
Yet in your dark halls shineth
The wisdom of one so bright
Our hopes and fears from this past year
Need Bernie's leadership tonight!

Oh, little town of Washington
Your politicians lie!
Lobbyists purchase base men's souls
For a bigger slice of pie
You've silenced all progressives
To keep us in the dark
That way you rule with greedy fools
With morals of a shark

Oh, little town of Washington
How sad it is to know
The bought-off mainstream media
Killed all chance for it to grow
A dynamic coalition
Led by Bernie and the Greens
Gov'ment for all and one that calls
For investment in energy clean!


God Help Us--Racist Donald Trump! (Sung to the tune of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen)

God help us! Racist Donald Trump
Has made the Hillbots pay
They've installed a fascist dictator
Through blatant pay-to-play
The Dems' manipulation
Has led us all astray

O-oh, regrets of a country destroyed, country destroyed
O-oh, regrets of a country destroyed

God help us! Racist Donald Trump
Has made the pundits laugh
His choice of cab'net sec'taries
Is nothing short of daft
Without Bernie's guidance
We'll land knee-high in crap

O-oh, regrets of a country destroyed, country destroyed
O-oh, regrets of a country destroyed

Here's some e-candy (below) for your stocking to help deal with the pain of a Trump presidency. If you have any new words for carols for the new era, email them to us at thebernieblog2016@gmail.com Thank you.
 ***
Now we take a closer look at what's happening in Europe and
how it closely parallels the results of our recent election.



The Rise of the Right
by Adrian J. Matthews

Over the last decade European politics has undergone a broad and significant shift to the right. The Sweden Democrats, the French National Front, the Dutch Party for Freedom, and the UK Independence Party (UKIP) have all made inroads into mainstream politics. The recent Austrian election saw a tight race between the far-right Freedom Party and the Green Party--and the latter won only after a recount. Dutch Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders was recently convicted of hate speech following comments he made during the country’s 2014 elections. In spite of this, the party is leading the polls ahead of the March 2017 parliamentary elections in the Netherlands.

With history downgraded to a minor role in some national schools’ curricula, it’s not entirely surprising the lessons learned from World War II are overlooked by the modern generation of young adults. Ignorance rules. Without the lesson of history, the rampant right-wing nationalism in Germany and Italy that gave rise to the conflict is no longer seen as undesirable. It’s telling that the demographics show the majority of supporters for these right-wing parties are under 30 years of age. Unlike their grandparents, the terrible waste of lives seen seventy years ago in World War II isn’t even a part of their world view.

Much of the support for the Right stems from the refugee and economic migrant crisis gripping Europe. The mass migration of peoples from Africa and the Middle East into the European continent is causing conflict with the citizens of the EU nations. A sharp rise in crime, radical cultural differences and immigrants "taking our jobs" are the three predictable reasons given for this attitude. Fear of "the other" is rife. Such feelings play easily into the hands of the right-wing demagogues. It’s no secret that most, if not all, of the right-wing parties view the European Union with deep prejudice. To the far right national sovereignty is all. Surrendering more and more of a nation’s powers to govern itself to a centralized authority is anathema to them. Any laws or regulations that emerge from the EU parliament and bureaucracy promoting freedom of movement and legal rights for immigrants are decried in violent terms.

The EU doesn’t help matters by its insensitive "one-size-fits-all" approach to issuing rules and regulations. For instance, what may apply to Poland might not work at all well in France. What might suit Denmark and Sweden wouldn’t work in Spain or Italy. Again, this approach leads to dissatisfaction with the EU as a whole. Even the more progressive governments in member countries often view the diktat with unease. The benefits a country’s membership bring are often overshadowed by such sentiment. In many EU countries, moves to withdraw from the EU are on the rise, usually instigated by the political right. The shock result of the Brexit referendum, induced by UKIP, looks set to take the United Kingdom out of the EU. In spite of the result causing a shambles that has still not been addressed to anyone’s satisfaction, other member nations may follow Britain’s example.

All of which has the European Union leadership deeply worried.

During his State of the Union address on September 14 this year, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker recently referred to what he termed the “galloping populism” that is sweeping Europe. He announced that the next twelve months would be crucial for the European Union, that it faces a battle for survival in the face of rising nationalism. To quote Juncker, “the European Union doesn’t have enough union. There are splits out there and often fragmentation exists.”


Yet the EU’s approach to settling the refugee crisis seems mishandled and uneven. What is less obvious are the reasons why this mass movement of people is taking place. Climate change is affecting agriculture all over the world, especially in the developing nations of Africa. Once-fertile regions are yielding less and less crops as the years go by. Political unrest and extremism doesn’t help. In the Middle East, ongoing wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan contribute a woeful toll in refugees forced from their homes.

The fault for both wars and climate change lies squarely with Big Business. The military-industrial complex likes to keep wars at a rolling boil in order to make yet larger profits. Industry across the world prefers not to take steps to control the pollution it causes, since such controls cut into their profit margins. As a consequence people are forced out of their homes and country by war, climate change and economic decline, which leads in turn to rising conflict in the countries they eventually settle in. Big Business doesn’t care about such things, since it’s usually aligned with right-wing politics and generally benefits from strife.

The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States caused shock waves around the world. The Right applauds it; the Left is appalled by it. To most political pundits the rise of the Right and the potential for another world war now seems inevitable. Some right-wing supporters are of the opinion that the world must be reduced to rubble so humanity can build anew. 
What the left-wing, liberal and progressive movements across the world can do about the matter before such a war breaks out remains to be seen. If enough progressive candidates can win elections at all levels of government in the First World countries then the potential Armageddon may not happen. The signs are there that such a left-wing backlash is growing – but will it grow large enough in time?

BIO: Adrian is a British citizen living in the USA, watching the political situation closely on both sides of the pond.
***




We just had our third All Hands call in which the volunteers and staff working to create a Brand New Congress got together to talk about our progress and the direction we’re headed in the future. We’re all incredibly grateful and privileged for the wonderful support we’ve received so far from people like you, and we’re excited to let you know how we are doing.




Here are some highlights of what we’ve accomplished so far:

  • We’ve received about 2,450 candidate nominations.
  • 34 of these nominees have gone through at least 3 rounds of thorough vetting.
  • Of these 34 nominees, we are ready to announce 5 candidates who we want to draft.
  • Our amazing volunteer-run help desk, led by Brad Lacke, has been answering every single question and piece of feedback.
  • Our volunteer-run call team, led by Andi Duncan, Caitlin Remmel, and Taylor Apodaca has been calling nearly 300 signups a week to unearth great nominees from our supporters across the country.
  • Our volunteer-led data management team has created a great tracking system that lets us find high-skilled volunteers for specific projects. This month we welcome new team lead Sandy Menor.
  • We’re launching a brand new website in the next couple weeks to introduce our first five candidate draftees.
  • Allison Jester, one of our excellent volunteers, put together a video explaining how to find candidates featuring Alex, Corbin and Issy from the BNC working group.
  • We’ve created a volunteer-run research team that is putting in work everyday to look up people in every single district to find potential candidates outside of just the nominations we are getting.
  • Another volunteer research team is currently hard at work researching the details of every single one of the 435 congressional districts in America so we know what we’re up against.

While we’re proud of how far we’ve come, we know there is a long road ahead. BNC is a campaign to recruit 400+ candidates to run in a unified campaign behind one plan to rebuild, reform and repair America. The whole idea here is to give America a way to really sweep Congress clean. We think that if we can announce a great slate of 400+ honest, dependable candidates, America will pledge to volunteer in huge numbers and donate millions of dollars to fund a powerful campaign. But there is a staggering amount of work to do to put together a slate of over 400 candidates, create a fully fleshed-out platform, and start creating the infrastructure necessary to run the biggest grassroots-backed national campaign ever. We know this won’t be easy, which is why all of us are working all-out to make it happen.


We’re committed to working until the very end to make a Brand New Congress a reality.  If you believe in our mission and want to see it through, please help us continue by contributing anything you can. Because of your support so far, we’ve been able to hire five full-time organizers and go to over 100 cities to recruit volunteers that have made all this work possible. Let’s keep the momentum going all the way to 2018.

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