Eso’s Chronicles 232/ 3
The Krsuk salient 03
© Eso A.B.

What a title horriblis! It spells ‘Kursk’ backward. I beg the reader’s forgiveness; it is meant to show just how screwed up things have become. Latvia, like it or not, represents the enemy on the salient’s left flank.

While the Latvian government hopes that in the event of WW3 NATO will send its armed forces to defend it on its northern flank, most everyone in Latvia knows that a Russian attack is not imminent except for deliberate provocation of anxiety by the Latvian government, a descendant of the Soviet communist apparatchiks, whose majority fear being short-circuited and having to suffer the consequences of their surrender of the Latvian nation to the combined interests of Western powers—all the while blaming the Russians.

In spite of such propaganda tactics working on its own population, it is likely that the Western powers, with Germany in the lead, know of the economic abyss and difference of identification that prevails between the Latvian government and its people. If cooperation with the Russians may not be in the interest of the NATO cabal as a whole, it is not in the interest of the Germans (though it may be in the interest of the Scandinavians and the Latvian government may be counting on it) to join any military type NATO interference in the Baltics. As far as the interests of Germany are concerned, it need not fear that Russia is anxious to engage it in another bloody conflict, when between the Germans and Russians there exists a tradition, despite the nightmare of Hitler, of economic cooperation many hundred years old.

The real threat to peace today is a consequence of U.S. President Harry S. Truman’s support of Israel in the Middle East against the interest of the Arabs, the people indigenous to the Middle East. The threat comes not from the people of Israel as such, but is the result of nearly a half a century of expansionism and repression of Arab interests by a Zionist government, which has been attempting to establish itself in the image of an eternal government of the Israeli people. Some success of its internal policies are attributable to the fact that through Zionism Israel provides direct religious support for capitalism as an everlasting economic order.

In short, a major source of the tensions in the world today arises from the government of Israel; and it is the Middle East or the right flank of the Krsuk salient of the Zionists (rather than eager Latvian. Ukrainian, and Georgian former communist apparatchiks) that threatens world peace.

Even as world leaders are meeting in Geneva to try to forge a nuclear treaty between Iran and the rest of the world http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24877014 , the Israeli leader Netanyahu said (see link) that he "utterly rejected" such a deal with Iran, and that his country would not be obliged to abide by it. Defense analysts have speculated the Israelis may take military action to disrupt Iran's program.

In short, seeing their long-term goals dismantled by a treaty of peace, the Zionist government and its allies are likely to seek a casus belli to once again set it back on track.

If by some miracle, however, no casus belli is triggered, the change would be no less dramatic than an earthquake measuring nine on the Richter scale. Many years of negative precedents would begin to be overturned; not least the gradual adaptation of Israel to a culture that must live within its means, and a refusal of the Israeli people to follow the aggressive Zionist government.

Unfortunately, the casus belli is likely on order and should be in the news relatively shortly.

When we think of all the potential for catastrophes, we realize that it is not only casus belli that is a threat, but that life on our planet is faced with a whole series of causa morti or gifts of death. Next to

1) Casus belli, the other deadly gifts are:

2) catastrophic radiation release at Fukushima that renders Japan uninhabitable for humans;

3) sends lethally irradiated human beings as refugees to all parts of our planet;

4) releases radiation poisoning over the entire Pacific ocean, which results in

5) the birth of grotesque life forms;

6) winters without heating or engine fuel, because the war is likely to destroy the infrastructure of modern society;

7) the stink of corpses emanating from all cities;

8)  not to mention soylent meat (the last capitalist enterprise) at low prices from assisted suicides by de facto legalization of narcotics;

9) instantly worthless money.

The conference on nuclear weapons with Iran stopped short of a deal. The next round is expected on November 20th. The following are links that lead the eye to the movement under the rug:

1] The Israeli leader Netanyahu said that he “utterly rejected” a deal with Iran http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24877014 , and that his country would not be obliged to abide by it. Defense analysts have speculated the Israelis may take military action to disrupt Iran's program.

2] An interesting verbatim Press Conference by Prince Saud al-Faisal and John Kerry: http://www.voltairenet.org/article180878.html  

3] E Meinel at EMSNews as always provides an interesting background to Western orientation and interests: http://emsnews.wordpress.com/2013/11/10/france-working-for-netanyahu-scuttles-iran-nuke-talks-in-paris/  

4] RT, as befits the current Russian stance, takes a laid back perspective: http://rt.com/news/iran-nuclear-program-deal-487/  

5] Whether a casus belli will occur before November 20, the date set for the next stage of the conference is anyone’s guess, but this observer has few doubts that work toward it proceeds at a feverish pace.

This series attempts to put the present events in the context of the Battle of Kursk (1943) in the Soviet Union, the loss of which by Hitler brought the Soviet Army into Latvia within a year. The preparations for that event went on for a long time. The events in the Middle East are brewing even longer. The pressure valves on the kettle are whistling loudly.

Eso’s Chronicles 231/ 2
Urban Blitz 02
© Eso A.B.

Any geopolitical overview of post-Soviet Eastern Europe, the Baltic countries especially, runs up against a glass shield that has been firmly placed between the economic realities as they are for the majority of the Balts with their boots on the ground (formerly the sod), and the intelligentsia (political and literary), the passive support of the perma frosted urban mindset and brain activity that guars urban life at the expense of life on our planet.

The link between the urbanite and the intelligentsia (intelligence services?) goes back a long way, perhaps as far back as Buddha, when his maharajah father had the castle guards open the gates for the young prince to go visit a young maid named Amrita, who lived in a leaf hut in a subtropical wood. The maharajah was anxious to debrief the young prince upon his return—not about his sexual escapades with Amrita, but about what sort of weapons the brothers of he maid had stacked against the walls of the shack.

The reason why the maharajah needed to have this information was because he planned to increase the size of his castle grounds by another 1500 housing units. To get this done, he needed to cut down a sizeable area of the wood that surrounded his castle. As it was likely to happen, Amrita and her family, too, were to lose their humble abode. The maharajah authorized his son to offer the family a shack along the outer walls of his court if they offered to provide him with information about possible resistance.

When the maid learned from the young prince the reason for his questions, while young Buddha’s head lay in her lap, the young maid placed a long nail against his ear and hit it hard with  hammer. This was the end of Buddha who was innocent and in no way to blame. Unfortunately, this marked only the beginning of the forest peoples’ troubles, who were immediately labeled ‘terrorists’. As soon as the maharajah recovered from his shock, he sent his army into the surrounding wood and cut down all the wood that grew around the castle at least a hundred yards deep. A famous story from India recounts what actually happened on the day when the maharajah sent his soldiers into the wood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khejarli .

This terrible story repeats itself to this day. The Latvian State Forestry Service relentlessly advertises that the Latvian Wood is in fine shape, while all around the countryside, wherever the people have trees on their private property, the trees are relentlessly disappearing, because the people are forced into cutting them to cover the increasing taxes that force them out of their homes. The urbanites offer them subsidized apartments in the city, which are—as thousands of elderly people are discovering—without heat, health services, or any chance of escape other than by alcohol, or death, or both, hopefully, into a kinder parallel universe.

The urbanites are a dogmatic people, who once inside the gates of a castle become so dependent on the price’s graces, that they side with ever increasing vehemence with the prince and set themselves against subsistence gardeners in the wood. No mercies can be expected from urbanites by countryside people then or now. The countryside persons today, whether in Latvia, Russia, China, or America are completely subject to urbanite exploitation, illustrated by their treatment of horses during WW2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_World_War_II.

The pathological behavior or urbanites is vigorously denied by human rights activists, who justify their self-righteous behavior by arguing that they manifest humaneness to the highest degree. Actually, it is simply carrying on with the traditions of brutality behind an additional curtain.

Whenever anyone wonders why the Balts are so passive in opposing the dogmatic orientation of their governments, one ought to remember the characteristics of urbanism. The orientation of the Latvian government—of a Parliamentary nature--so obviously runs against the economic interests of the common people, that its very humanity is in question.

Instead, a tsunami like wall rolls forward on a debris of opinion that the Baltic people have been from the beginning of time oriented toward the West and that they despise the Russians (as heirs to all things Soviet) with every ounce of native spirit they possess. This of course is simply a lie. The very first self-acknowledged Latvian, Krishyanis Waldemahrs, who as a student dared put next to his name the designation: ‘a Latvian’, worked as a journalist in St. Petersburg, led ‘The Young Latvians’ movement, and was among those who believed that the Latvians of his day should be a more or less autonomous community within a united Russia. Indeed, Waldemars was strongly opposed to the feudal system of government then still advocated by the ruling caste of Germans.

With such a gossamer embrace of the West never questioned during the last twenty-one years of ‘renewed’ Latvian independence, the government of Latvia stands 100% for all things urban and Western: membership of NATO, membership and federalization within the EU, capitalism, urbanization, glass and cage-like castles, and elimination of small farms. As for the last, this is the reason why up to 25% of all Latvians have emigrated from the country as economic refugees, which is considerably more than the number of Latvians who fled the advance of the Soviet Army, which returned to reoccupy Latvia within a year after the defeat of the Germans at Kursk.

I certainly do not wish to deny that the Soviet order that followed for the next forty-five (45) years did not traumatize the Latvian sense of self-worth and autonomy. However, I do not wish to diminish the benefits of Latvia’s federalization within the Soviet Union. While the Ulmanis regime of independent Latvia had done much to advance the interests of the Latvian middle class, the economic problems of the country were not to be solved by short=term measures. The occupation of the Soviets was a quid pro quo: on the one hand the Soviets advanced the Latvian underclass, which was extensive, while on other hand, the Latvian middle class suffered a significant decline. The West notably added to this decline, by forcing the Soviet Union to put much of its resources in military armament. While many Latvians excelled in the areas of he arts and academia of the Soviet Union, these breakthroughs were insufficient to advance the awareness of Latvians as a micro community it had been in antiquity or since the revival of the community by the Herrnhuter movement after its collapse as the community following the Great Northern War http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Great_Northern_War_Baltic_Theater.png, which ended in the first decade of the 18^th century.

Not surprisingly, the collapse of the Soviet Union and government put into leading positions not what had been the underclass, because it was insufficiently educated and autonomy oriented, nor anything resembling a Western middle class, but the Soviet apparatchiks, who while not particularly educated, had leadership experience and little in the way of obstacles to prevent easy intrusion into areas occupied, in the West, by the middle class, neoliberal enterprisers, and politicians.

Western intelligence services (it is my guess) did not sleep. The Soviet Union was criticized and belittled at every turn. NATO or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a military alliance presumed to oppose the Soviet Union, quickly reoriented itself and attempted to gain further advantages vis a vis Russia. Western corporations attempted to infiltrate or seize Russian businesses by means of the law. Many advisers to such corporations were from Eastern Europe. They were not to be outdone by older advisors such as Zbigniev Brzezinski (see blog 217) from Poland, who served the United States as a National Security Advisor.

As readers of my blogs know, I am neither pro Western nor anti Eastern. If it comes to my preference, I rather chose the East over the West, because to my mind the recent past of the Balts relates closer to that of the communities of the East than the West—even though one would never guess that this is so from the information one gathers in the media and the actions of government.

As the reader can see, this is a long story during the telling of which I have almost forgot that I am supposed to write about the coming New Battle of Kursk, and that the northeast of Europe forms the northern flank of the Kursk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kursk salient. So, why did I choose the name ‘Kursk’? Because next to Hiroshima, it is one of the great cataclysmic slaughter fields of all time and more is coming.

Eso’s Chronicles 230/ 1

New Kursk 01

© Eso A.B.

 

The following link by “Battlefields” on the battle of Kursk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22xpNBJCS4U  in 1943 is lengthy and leaves something to be desired, nevertheless, it shows how the battle took a long time being prepared by both Germany and Russia. The preparations and their length by both sides are most impressive, not least, because they show that both sides had their apprehensions about coming out on the winners’ side. In this writer’s opinion, another such battle (not necessarily of tanks, which may have become an outmoded weapon) is being prepared for in the Middle East and in the Baltic; in other words, a battle across a very wide front indeed.

 

While I cannot give any actual outlines of the battle to come, I will present its rough outlines and raisons d'être in the next few blogs.

 

Just yesterday there was a news item in the Reuters News Service, that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has warned Israel http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/07/us-palestinians-israel-kerry-idUSBRE9A60P220131107  that if it does not join the American-brokered peace negotiations in the Middle East, it was likely to be soon facing a Third Palestinian Intifada and other geopolitical problems in the not too distant future.

 

The Secretary of State’s warning comes in the context of a reassessment of recent American and NATO strategies, which likely caused all the Great Powers who form on what was once Pangaea http://geology.csupomona.edu/drjessey/class/Gsc101/Plate.html , the original land mass of our planet, to tickle their nuclear buttons. In other words, Europe, Asia and all the abutting lands, have for approximately a thousand years been facing a concerted Western strategy to occupy the land whence they themselves originally came from. Wishing to shed the spiritual discipline of their forebears, the Westerners decided that they would create a history of their own, albeit a history of fiction, which would allow them to attack the descendants of the powers that remained in charge of their own ancient homelands.

 

In the thousand years or so since the Carolingian kings the divisions and regroupings occurred among the various powers in the Western lands have been many. The original attacks by the West on the East can be identified with the early Crusades, starting about the 11^th and 12^th centuries of the 2^nd millennium. In these attacks only the peripheral borderlands of the East were chiseled from it, and some beachheads captured, notably at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea and northeastern Europe.

 

My own country, Latvia, is part of the chiseled part of the East. Originally, the Germans, part of the great migration of the Goths (first as Vikings to the Black Sea region, then as various tribes of Goths backing away toward the northeast of Europe (the so-called Benelux countries), under the pressure of the advancing Turkic tribes or, as some prefer to call them—Huns. In the Benelux area, the Goths split up in three four main branches: the Germans, French, English, and Scandinavians. Latvia, then part of a geographical area known as Livonia, has its origins in the German desire to be independent of French Rule and the burden of French Paris as their capital city. Thus, early German warriors, known as Teutonic Knights, ventured into the relatively sparsely settled wooded lands of the European northeast, and established a city we now know as Riga. Originally, Riga was slated to become the future capital of Germany.

 

Riga was founded in 1201 by cannon Albert of Bremen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_of_Riga, who was elevated to the rank of bishop by his uncle Hartwig archbishop of Bremen and Hamburg. Bishop Albert also founded the Teutonic Knights with whom he subjugated most of the Baltic tribes native to the area.

 

Though seldom mentioned and for political reasons never pressed, one of the reasons for the founding of Riga was to found a future capital city for the Germanic people.  One of the subtitles that Bishop Albert gave to Riga was Jerusalem, which indicates, at the very least, that in his mind’s eye Riga in the future was ‘up there’ with Constantinople and other major cities of the West and East. Again for political reasons, this high status for Riga remains unrealized and is reason why the subject is deliberately muted. Nevertheless, those powers, which have an eye on the future, of Europe as a federated state, retain an interest in Riga as a city founded by Germans. Not least among these are Latvians come under the Anglo-Saxon influence and are linking their future with NATO, which in one way or another is replacing the Teutonic Brotherhood.

 

Russia, too, has a no less greater interest in Riga than the West. To understand this better, we have to remember the trading history of Russia, which begins above the polar circle in Murmansk, moved south to Novgorod the Great, and later--with the building of St. Petersburg—moved even further south. By the beginning of the 20^th century, Riga, then still part of tsarist Russia, had become the third largest city in Russia. While today Riga has lost its glory, the recent military maneuvers by Russia and NATO http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/tensions-rise-with-russia-as-nato-to-stage-biggest-war-games-in-seven-years-29733358.html  suggest that its geopolitical importance is not being overlooked in the centers of power and is the cause of considerable hubris in government circles of Latvia itself.

 

Eso’s Chronicles 229/ 15
The E E* Elite
© Eso A.B.

The bell on my computer signaled the arrival of email. When I read the letter, I discovered that an acquaintance was sending me the text of a speech given by a Latvian poet. The speech was called “A Preamble and Afterword”. I read the text and decided to respond to the Afterword.

Discussion about a Preamble to the Latvian Constitution is presently among a number of political themes. Unfortunately the Preamble or the poet consists of what Americans call, ‘patriotic gore’ and worse.  It is irrelevant with regard to the situation in Latvia as I observe it. It only shows how removed in Latvia, most everyone including the poet, is from everyday reality. To sum up crudely: the country’s innards have been gutted, and the body has no stomach for more ‘positive’ government cures.

The following are a few lines from the Preamble of the speech:

My translation (for space saving reasons, I abut the sentences): “If it (the nation-State) makes no sense, then we have nothing. In this sense a Preamble http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pr%C3%A9ambule (the link is this Writer’s addition) to the Constitution may mean renewal of lost sense. A nation-State cannot exist on a material plane if idea, image, and sense are not alive in the consciousness (heads and hearts) of the people.”

I agree with these sentiments and believe that most readers of any nationality will, too. The words do not stand out for their originality though. Moreover, what if it is not the nation-State, but the Government makes no sense?

My answers to the poet’s eleven (11) parts of the ‘afterword’ is that the Latvian Government has been steadily steering toward a state with a small s since ‘professional’ politicians took over the country on August 21, 1991. The date stands for the date that Latvia as a State was officially reestablished.

I separate the points made in the  ‘afterword’ numerically; and my responses alphabetically; re (incidentally, the poet intends to present the text sarcastically): “Instructions: How to destroy your Nation”:

“1) Make it stylish to make statements which belittle the Nation in the public arena, the more, the better. Laugh and guffaw loudly, so that all see your crown of plastic.”

Answer: There is a difference between the nation (Latvia, America) and the Government (lead by presidents Bush, Obama, or perhaps a bank, or foreign investors). Whenever a Government is intrusive (and a Parliamentary government Is intrusive, because it bypasses direct democracy for a representative one), there is confusion in the public mind between what is a nation and how it differs from Government. Such confusion is arises, because ‘public space’ is populist by nature. This why the public always speaks true, while politicians always lie or tell fairy-tales..

“2) Persuade yourself that others are responsible for the nation’s troubles, excepting you.

Answer: Presumptions that put all blame on people is not common among people encouraged to do political debate.

“3) Cultivate opinions that discredit the leadership, enlighten it with unfounded accusations, compromise it until it is ruined--so the only opinion that remains and prevails is yours alone.

Answer:  Political leadership and media in Latvia have proven to be selective as to who they permit to express themselves; generally ‘opinion makers’ are they who conform to a political party’s interests or speak on behalf of a financial institution, either a bank or the Financial Ministry. Not surprisingly these views are self-serving.

“4) Support the interests of foreign nations wherever possible, and pleasure yourself, whenever possible, by taking shelter in a foreign power’s ineffable gentleness, whispering (to it), as the criminal novelist Nicci French put it: “Kill Me Softly”.

Answer: One cannot help smelling Russophobia in such a statement. As for ‘love of money’, money is the ‘secret glue’ of neo-liberal society. If America serves us as an example: Neo-liberal society becomes unglued the moment money loses value.

“5) Do not fear to be ideologically corrupt for the sake of personal benefit, and do not hide your wish to be a foreign agent, because it is self-evident

Answer: Rabid anti-communists seldom notice how money oils the ideological skids of neo-liberalist ideology.

“6) Attack the Creative Intelligentsia for not doing anything, but attack it even more if it does something.

Answer: Just who and what constitutes the ‘creative intelligence’? Is the poet attempting to recreate an anti-populist intelligentsia under a new name? The ‘renewed’ Latvian Government has a tradition of belittling the Latvian people by putting itself on a pedestal. Few observers believe that ‘intelligentsia’ is a valid concept. It is unlikely that it is more valid when replaced by ‘creative intelligence’ http://old.russ.ru/antolog/intelnet/ar_intelligentsia.html. Are populists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism who voice their disgust with ‘creative intelligence’ to be denied a platform by a remainder of the presumptuous?

“7) Do not seek to pull Kant’s formula, the law of morals, or the starry sky spoken of in Latvian stories of old over your head, but seek it elsewhere, better—do not seek it al all.

Answer: As Gwendolyn Brooks, American poet, wrote: “If Thou be more than hate or atmosphere,/ Step forth in splendor, mortify our wolves,/ Or we assume a sovereignty ourselves.”

“8) Take care of only your personal biological necessities and spit on national, historical, and religious symbols, which Wittgenstein insisted are no less important than your biological necessities. Hmm, who is Wittgenstein to teach you anything?

Answer: The Government is in the habit of not remembering Latvia’s history past 1940. Unfortunately, as a result of Government invented mythology, Latvian historians are largely agents of the State and Religion. There is a distinct phenomenon among historians not to question past events. The Latvian language-- dependent on words of endearment during its oral phase-- loses half its soul (religion) when written.

“9) Bark at everyone whoever comes near your chain and expresses concern over the Latvian language and Latvia’s future, because such concerns prove paranoia, claustrophobia, Russophobia, senility, and social backwardness; assert that a nation of a million and a half people has nothing to worry about from a neighbor with one hundred and fifty million inhabitants, who wish to domineer and ridicule us; howl and bark all the louder==after all, you are fed to do so. Only do not forget to crawl on all fours.

Answer: This is pure Russofobia and a consequence of the failure to cultivate in ourselves the confidence to integrate other nationalities with our own—if only our Government would create economic conditions that do not reduce the nation’s inhabitants to a feral state, and if our writers could make a living writing.

“10) Be courageous when writing brutal commentaries on the internet, do not fear being lewd, enjoy your anonymity, and cultivate verbal destruction of others online. Be vulgar and cynical when communicating, because, after all, not might, but people with gentler qualities will decide the future of Latvia.

Answer:  A last minute acknowledgement that populists may not be un-humans after all. Be that as it may, yet another attack on populism. The poet should acquaint herself with books that explain and educate one as to the history of populism and its long tradition among Latvians.

“11) When exiting the elevator press all buttons.

Answer: This is what the Latvian government has done every day for twenty-one years: after pushing the ‘Up’ buttons, it pushes those who have  exited the elevator after them into the elevator shaft. This forces the Latvian people to cut down their forests and live in the quantum gap they discover in the pit of the shaft.

*E E =East European

 

Eso’s Chronicles 228/ 14

Should London Be The Next Capital of Europe?

© Eso A.B.

 

The author’s entry ‘did not make it’ to the shortlist of the Brexit Prize http://www.cityam.com/article/1383184050/city-economist-shortlist-100000-prize-brexit-plan. For what it is worth, I republish my entry (submission #1300) here. Edits have been made wherever I believe it necessary for clarity's sake).

 

When Washington, D.C. (D.C.=District of Columbia, U.S.A.), was created in 1790 as a result of a compromise between the Southern and Northern States of America, because both sides feared that the location of the capital city in either domain will give either side undue say in the affairs of state, significant new ground was broken in the art of fair government.

It is interesting that the American precedent may again play a role, this time in the governance of the European Union, which may be said to be divided, on the basis of historical experience, in states with an Eastern and Western orientation. This situation is especially onerous to the Eastern states, because the establishment of the capital of the European Union in Brussels is a consequence of a Europe as it presented itself immediately after World War 2, and has been greatly influenced by the subsequent political contest between two economic ideologies, communism and capitalism.

While we are told that Communism (championed by the Soviet Union in the East) has lost to Capitalism (championed by the West), the former, the ‘losers’ have not in the minds of their own people conceded the loss to the West to the extent that they should abandon their sovereign states to a  centralized and ‘federated state’. After all, who will surrender his or her right to ‘equality’ to some phrase that gives a little more of the balance to the next man or woman.  As for the ‘winner’—given the present financial and economic instability in the world—he has not proven his success beyond any doubt.

Therefore, as a consequence of the above, if there should be held a referendum in Great Britain as to its membership in the European Union and should the citizenry of Great Britain vote to ‘out’ of the European Union, it will be to the cheer of many citizens of Europe. To understand the “cheer”, we must cast a glance at the lay of geography of Europe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe.

As the map at the above link shows, the conventional view of Europe is bound by five (5) seas: the Arctic and Atlantic oceans (north and west of Europe); the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian seas (along the southern end of Europe); and the mountain ranges of the Urals and Caucasus that separate ancient Tartary (east and southeast) from what we now call Asia. Nevertheless, as the link also notes: “…the borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_antiquity—are somewhat arbitrary….” To wit: in ‘classical antiquity’ Europe embraced also parts of Northern Africa and the Middle East. Furthermore, one may also argue that following World War 2, which was ‘won’ by the Soviet Union and a consortium of Western Allies, Europe extended its borders (if that name is generously allowed for) as far East as the Sakhalin Islands and as far South as the Indian Ocean.

In other words, the above mentioned areas have been in constant flux and interaction (sometimes violent) over a long period of time. Therefore, when one talks of Europe, one also speaks of cultures that overlap with each other, which is in spite of the fact that at one time the history Europe [following the so-called Great Schism (religious and political)] was captured by the self-absorbed viewpoint of Western Christianity, which in our time is being shaken by an awakening of Islam.

Whatever the reasons for decreasing the geographical limits of Europe, the establishment of Brussels (Belgium) as the de facto capital of Europe was dictated by an element of elitist dominated post WW2 military bureaucracy, which herded and cajoled the surviving nationalist governments to enter the European Union, which they expected to turn, in due course, into a centralized federation of states. Needless to say, this was done without consulting the opinions of the people of Europe, who became aware that the chicanery of the surviving elements of the bureaucracy had lost them not only their sovereignty, but globalized them in a manner that caused them loss of their history and denied their sacrifices of life an honorable heritage. Therefore, today they see their future not as reality, but some ‘fancy fish’ in an aquarium.

Specific juridical steps that ought to follow an ‘out’ vote should take place within Article 50 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_the_European_Union of the Lisbon Treaty, not in the form of an exit from the European Union, but in the context of an Amendment to said Article. The Amendment is to be guided by an additional question on the Referendum: whether Britain ‘in’ or ‘out’ (of Europe) will project more self-assured if there is added the following: “In the event the referendum vote results in an ‘out’ vote, will you agree to recommend that London propose itself part of an Olympiad of EU Capital Cities for a twenty-five (25) year period, thereby denying Brussels and any other city the image of an ‘eternal capital city’? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels.

As the added question points out, the citizens of the European Union have not up to this point in time had an opportunity to decide the location of their capital, let alone discover that Europe has many worthy candidates for the role of capital city. Indeed, the location of Brussels is based on the medieval geopolitical model formed by former Benelux nations, without taking into account the geopolitical alignment of the post Cold War order, the latter which suggest a Europe of rotating rather than fixed capital cities. Here, a brief summary of the history of the ‘rotating capital cities’ of Europe since the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire.

When Byzantium, later also known as Constantinople (now Istanbul) came under increasing pressure from westward moving Turkic tribes (some call them Huns), the dominant Frankish tribes in the area found it expedient to move northwestward, just as some Slav tribes first moved to Kiev, later to Moscow.

The move northwest by the Franks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franks perhaps strengthened by earlier Frank tribes in that area, helped create the so-called Carolingian kingdom, with King Charlemagne at Aachen among its most notable heads. The Capetian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Capet  dynasty turned the Franks into the French, and established Paris as the capital of then Western Europe. While other emerging nations were never wholly satisfied with the arrangement, even greater unhappiness was experienced by an offshoot of the Franks, the German tribes to the East of the French dominated West. This is one of the reasons, why the Germans made an attempt to establish an alternative de facto capital in Riga, currently the capital city of Latvia. To do so, they needed the cooperation of the Slavic people, who at that time continued to make their home in the wood, where with the help of reindeer herds, apple trees, turnips, and other forest and water goods, they practiced a subsistence economy.

When the German attempt, led by the Teutonic knights, failed (for a number of complex reasons), the Germans retreated from Riga to Koenigsberg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Prussia , which was not only closer to the home lands of the Germans, but which soon thereafter became the capital of Prussia, which became the founding state of modern Germany. When the founding efforts of Germany were completed, the de facto German capital was moved from Koenigsberg to Berlin, located a short distance to the west.

Berlin ceased to be an effective alternative site for a capital for Europe following its devastation consequent to the war initiated by Hitler, which war he and his military lost.

While the fall of the Soviet Union reestablished Riga as a potential future candidate for the capital of Europe, the political and economic orientation of the Soviet Union was opposite that of the Western nations. Also, the political leadership of post-Soviet Latvia (soon become submissive to the Brussels bureaucracy) unilaterally denied its people a say in the matter by refusing them a referendum provided for by their Constitution. This is the reason why this participant in the IEA Brexit Prize comes from Latvia.

What makes a referendum regarding membership in the European Union by the people of England of such importance is that the result—whether ‘in’ or ‘out’—will enlarge the participant pool of potential future Capital Cities of Europe, even as it stops any one city from becoming dominant.

While a rotating capital city of Europe may presently seem as a difficult thing to achieve, in practice it should be no more difficult than, say, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Olympic_Committee  deciding in which country to hold the next Olympic Games. The rules as to which country will be Europe’s successor capital appear to be ideally suited by the methods already established by the IOC:

“Countries wishing to host the Summer Olympic Games or the Winter Olympic Games compete aggressively to have their bid accepted by the IOC. The IOC members, representing most of the member countries, vote to decide where the Games will take place. Members from countries which have cities bidding to host the games are excluded from the voting process, up until the point where their city drops out of the contest.”

Eso’s Chronicles 227/ 13

Federalist Overkill

© Eso A.B.

 

While Jefferson in spite of his egalitarian rhetoric never found a way to eliminate slavery--which was eliminated (in the long-term) by the victory of the Capitalist north in the American Civil war--the Capitalist victory led to (surprise!) the bonding of humankind with consumerism, surely a form of slavery. It was Capitalism in intimate cooperation with Industrialism that broke the back of the labor intensive economies which prevailed in pre-industrial economy.

Undeniably, Capitalism was greeted as a liberating force—at first. Fired up by the Industrial Revolution, capitalists were able to entice former slaves (largely blacks) and coolies (mostly Chinese) to provide cheap labor that was needed to industrialize America. Though most Americans look back at the violence that accompanied the capitalist take-over as inevitable (therefore somehow pardonable), the violence was not violence per se, but violence as a continuous war against the small farmer and nature. The latter is best illustrated by the slaughter of the passenger pigeons and buffalo. While the following link http://www.petersenshunting.com/2012/09/04/was-the-buffalo-nearly-hunted-to-near-extinction/  is written from the point of view of a ‘hunter’ and is an apologia of sorts, the ‘picture’ makes one’s hair stand. Similar excuses for the amoral behavior of urbanites continue today among city dwellers, who cannot imagine countryside people wishing their cities and them dropping dead in the aftermath of the plunder of our planet. The continuous violence of our urban based civilization is well illustrated by the following summation of the history of wolf hunting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_hunting . The urbanites, continue to rage across our planet unhindered.

 

To what can we attribute Jefferson’s failure to abolish slavery and Capitalist violence? Today we know that the answer is a simple one: Capitalists did not hesitate to print money, which over a period of time compelled everyone to use it. Its use made slave labor too expensive for the farmers to continue it, while it decreased the cost of labor in factories, where machines could be serviced by three daily shifts.

 

After two hundred years of so-called Industrial Revolution, the capitalist three cards Monte has become transparent and the tricksters are preparing for their demise the best way they know how. The capitalists are printing ever more money, while China has stopped buying Western debt and has begun to convert whatever credibility paper still has into gold.

 

We also see like preparations (or is it Enlightenment turned delusionary?) in the forced march attempt of the European Union (war not excluding) to federalize the nations who have joined it in hopes that centralization will provide greater security. Russia is attempting to create a Custom Union with the aim of bringing the countries joining it under a federalist government http://www.academia.edu/2400416/Federalization_in_Russia_and_Spain_The_Puzzle_of_Reversible_and_Irreversible_Outcomes . What is unique about the federalization of Russia is that under the Soviet regime (with Russia in lead), this geopolitical part of our planet was perceived as providing an alternative to Western capitalism. As the absence of any unique perceptions by brain=mass of the post-Soviet leadership reveals, whatever uniqueness may have existed at the founding of the Soviet Union, was dissipated by instituting capitalism by way of mimesis. In short, the founders of the Soviet Union acted on the basis of erroneous analysis of reality, which for that reason failed to communicate itself to succeeding generations, andt the cancer of Moscow grow unimpeded.

 

The optimists among anti-federalists should look at the pro-federalist dance of the unelected politicians in Brussels as the dance of fat in an overheated pan about to catch fire. The fire--a burnt through floor, collapsing under the weight of the Potempking facades of the financial system and economy--is already here. What escapes the media pundits is that two hundred years of so-called Industrial Revolution has devoured itself by overconsumption, overproduction, and resumptuous overconfidence.

 

In the words of Irish poet Yeats: “things fall apart, the centre cannot hold….” At a time of overproduction, resource exhaustion, and forgetting of experiences in the past, federations fail to survive.

 

We see that in Europe—in spite the enormous sums of money spent on advertising the federal love song, which sings of the advantages of an increasingly authoritarian government are not persuasive because its promises come without guarantees. The suicide rate in many bankrupt or near bankrupt countries is climbing. America, a federation of states for a long time is reducing its food stamp program for 50 million Americans and preparing for riots. America does not provide an example for an inspiring government, when so many are billionaires, but most of its people are poor, the middle class is diminishing, and the crime rate is rising.

 

For its part, England, fearful that if it is likely to be federated into the EU, London will lose its position to Brussels, which led by the German faction, will have little trouble taking from London its position as one of the great financial centers of the world, and transfer it to Frankfurt. As a possible solution to the problem, England will hold a popular referendum as what to do if the people vote against EU membership?

 

The governments of most European countries are worried about the reaction of their people when they discover that they all have been put in a huge warehouse and all the exits are locked, and stood guard over by NATO. So far, federations have not let anyone leave the system on the basis of a referendum.

 

The politicians of my own country, Latvia, who during the past twenty-one years have created a fascist type of parliament that serves its members reasonably well, but not the country, recently voted against holding a referendum, even though it is mandated by the Latvian Constitution if a given number of citizens demand it. However, the referendum has been avoided by the parliament quintupling the number of signatures required to proceed. Due to the below poverty level incomes of 80% of Latvia’s inhabitants and no easy electronic poling system, the new requirement is beyond reach of those who are calling for a referendum.

 

In short, Latvia is a ‘democratic’ country, where unhappiness--if it is contrary to government definition of what is allowed as unhappiness--is not allowed to express itself. This writer sees parallels in Latvia’s Parliamentary fascism with socialist Venezuela’s new Vice Ministry of Supreme Social Happiness “….whose primary purposes will be to enforce ‘happiness’. In other words, something along the lines of… beatings will continue [and… referendums will be repressed—my adlib] until happiness returns”…. or everyone dies, or the unhappiness of a remainder of Latvians overfills the cup. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-26/boldly-go-where-no-socialist-has-gone-venezuela-creates-ministry-supreme-happiness

 

Eso’s Chronicles 226/ 12
Blood to Go
© Eso A.B.

America’s misfortune is that it inherited ‘democracy’ in the form of an unsolved European crime, but was fooled into believing that the crime was a divine gift through the Magna Carta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta , Pilgrims-Calvinists http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_religion_were_the_pilgrims , and the Age of Enlightenment and Reason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment.

What America has not understood to this day is that urban ‘democracy’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_democracy is a delusion that finds for itself a delusionary act to translate into. It is like you have just come on the street after seeing a fantastic movie and are asking yourself: “Where can I find myself a lover or heroic role similar to the one in the movie?” You find the answer by going into a pizza parlor and ordering a pizza with anchovies. In short, you slap yourself in the face with the tail of a fish.

True democracy exists only in the wood, where every tree offers an opportunity to either hide or climb if whoever comes towards you appears stronger than you and you have not made your greeting friendly, or—if you are more courageous—you make him-her your dinner and no human rights organization will make an issue of it. In our post-wood civilization, where the ‘natural’ environment has been turned into an urban setting, ‘democracy’ is but a longue durée memory of the liberties in the wood, now best expressed through liberal capitalism, libertarianism, and libertinism. As stated in the previous blog in a slightly different context, ‘democracy’ is the death of death itself, which in every day language translates itself as “this is all there is” , “enjoy it while you can”, “the strong rule”, “the rich chose the music”.

I have also written that the event that set the modern era into motion was the substitution of the Christianity of the Wood with a Christianity of urbanites, which Christianities do not much differ from ‘democracy’ in the wood and ‘democracy’ in the city respectively. Because these bipolar versions of democracy and Christianity are not well understood and even less discussed, the original versions have fought the latter version with bloody and tragic fury, while the latter (in possession of nuclear bombs, and night vision goggles) claim the former belong in a oo.                                                               

I have no particular wish to pick on America, because—as stated in the first sentence—Europe is where the alternate or neo- versions of ‘Christianity’ and ‘Democracy’ took root and were the gospel stories were ghost written and ancient literature was rewritten. In so far as other governments (Russia, China, et al) have evolved influenced by European and American versions of Christianity and democracy, these, too, face a bloody comeuppance. As much as a comeuppance spells disaster, it cannot be avoided, because there is no other solution to the never faced problems of governments and the economy other than through a reintroduction of death in a manner never to be forgotten. I dare say, I see Robespierre, Stalin, and Pol Pot as comic book characters to the Saturn whom many artists have been prophesying as being on the way, but never quite succeeding in portraying the horror, because their works, always based on experiences of their times have never reached the crescendo that is yet ahead. Were we to create an artistic series, we would likely begin with the tapestries once covering piles of potatoes on a French http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/04/20/article-1378818-0BA5552900000578-103_634x399.jpg potato field, take a look at the Goya’s Saturn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_Devouring_His_Son , and end with Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ http://www.jkrweb.com/art/images/guernica.jpg , which in 2003 the U.S. had removed from the hall of United Nations http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/02/guer-f08.html  because Collin Powell had war on Iraq and execution of Saddam Hussein in mind.

It is worth noting that the false flag of urban ‘democracy’ has been propping itself up by selecting fascism and communism as the bugaboos which will seize power if ‘democracy’ is turned out of its blood smeared offices. America and its cronies in Europe have ‘outlawed’ fascism by pointing to the atrocities of Hitler against the Jews. Russia, too, through Lavrov, its foreign minister, states: “Sure enough, the Russian-Belgian contacts had to string along with the twists and turns of the European history, but we can say with full confidence that mutual affection between our peoples has been the constant of our relationship. Now that ideological contradictions are a thing of the past…” In other words, now that bloody ‘democracy’ has a clear field as a result of the collapse of fascism and communism and there appears to be no chance of a re-analysis, ‘democracy’ may resume ruining the planet.

                                                               As we ought to know, both Belgium and Russia have their own bloody histories. Belgium’s King Leopold II (1835-1909) exceeded Hitler’s and Stalin’s murders, perhaps more than the two put together http://www.historytoday.com/tim-stanley/belgiums-heart-darkness . Yet Lavrov’s statement clears the field for a Europe and Russia--‘knocked for a loop’ by their recent histories--to make recovery of their former ways and with renewed underhanded methods compete over the colonization of Eastern Europe through cooperative federalization greased by compliant politicians of impoverished nations. Sadly, the people of the formerly occupied nations are unable to gather their wits because their minds are massaged and whitewashed by urban democratic ideals and their forests are turned into tree stumps by banks.

Yet as a number of  founding fathers of American ‘democracy’ pointed out, especially Jefferson http://www.ushistory.org/us/20.asp , America was not a federalist nation. In short, at least some of the founding fathers of America implicitly argued that the future of democracy ought to evolve along the lines of an autarky. To be sure, some have suggested that an autarky is a de facto fascist state, while forgetting that an autarkic government was the nature of government when humankind subsisted on the goods of nature and these had not been exhausted by being turned into ‘resources’ by proto-capitalist and capitalist governments, which decimated forests to plant grains, which are more quickly turned into money than animal furs.

Unfortunately, Jefferson’s ideas did not prevail, and America, its territory at that time (1743-1826) yet in a natural state, was wide open to invasion by technology, which began its assault by building railroads and killing off the native population. Technology, no doubt, facilitated the development of capitalism, which exploited and continues to exploit the planet: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24222392

The dangerous momentum that built America, turned catastrophic after the U.S. claimed to have ‘won’ WW2 (1945) and brought the Soviet Union to its knees (1991). Its wealthy, bloated, and simplistic minded elite began to overreach when they presumed to export ‘democracy’ with increasingly bloody methods to countries not yet directly under the control of their Federal Reserve Bank. As evidence of spying by the NSA shows https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/france-newest-ally-angry-over-nsa-spying , ‘democratic’ proto-invasions began as early as 1960s, though not yet on such a scale as in the present computerized era. Due to the financial and economic crisis, instigated by dysfunctional ‘democratic’ governments, now striking all Western-born nations simultaneously, Europe has become increasingly frantic in its attempt to become a Federalized Union. Brussels power plays have brought alarm to at least one European country—England.