Spinelli's Footsteps

Summary

Mikael — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:59:00 +0200

Dear forum goers,

hope you will have a good meeting. I cannot make it to Brussels today. Below, please find a short summary of my thoughts:

There is a necessary connection between any new constitution and the military strategy. To finish with the so called war on terror, working group 1 ought in my view to amend the draft treaty on EU which was approved by the representatives of several European peoples in February 1984. Points of departure for the re-drafting: the emerging informational hegemony of the internet; the dissolution of the military alliances, e.g. of NATO; the unilateral abolition of our weapons of mass destruction. Congo, and the millions of human beings killed there since the assassination of Lumumba, must also be kept in mind. Make the new draft even shorter and more gemeinverständlich than the draft from 1984. Make sure it will be swiftly translated into all languagues.

As for the debt crisis, let us all join the struggle of ATTAC for a tax on financial transactions. An FTT must not exclude the money trade. (1). Its purposes are two: to kill the financial speculation; to regulate the capitalists in order to give people power a better chance (2). The tax revenue should be spent on a useful purpose, e.g. on optical fiber networks owned by the public libraries, but that is not why an FTT is needed.

Warm regards,

Mikael

Explanations:

1: Presently, it seems that the EU-negotiators plan to introduce a financial transactions tax without a currency transactions tax. Source: Patomäki, Heikki: "Financial transaction tax (FTT): An analysis of the EU Commission proposal" (http://www.cttcampaigns.info/Patomaki_EU_FTT).

2: The capitalists are a group which roughly corresponds to that which is described by Nicholas Shaxson in his book Treasure Islands. Tax Havens and The Men Who Stole The World. Bodley Head 2011. People power (democracy) is our political goal. The old political system must go and the new system, which we call federation, must come in its stead.

Occupy the Spinelli Building, continued.

Mikael — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 12:34:00 +0200

Dear members of the Forum permanent de la societé civile,

how do we figure the Convention 2012, for which we are preparing? My own first associations are to 'something like the Congress of India, and even to Gandhi's 'Hind swaraj'. My second thoughts then go in the direction of what Altiero Spinelli described as the third phase in the unfinished second part of his autobiography:

"Fra il '54 e il '60' (?) ho lavorato sull'ipotesi che fosse possibile mobilitare l'europeismo, ormai diffuso, in una protesta popolare crescente - il Congresso del Popolo Europeo - diretta contro la legittimità stessa degli stati nazionali" -- Between '54 and '60 '(?) I worked on the assumption that it was possible to mobilize Europeanism, by then common, in a growing popular protest - the Congress of the European People - directed against the very legitimacy of nation states." (The English is mine and, as you can see, English is not my first language.)

Today, the 'Europeanism' which Spinelli had in mind would have to be squarely combined with the denuclearisation of Europe; but this was already made clear in my previous message yesterday, I think.

Spinelli, who already in the 1960ies spoke up for European nuclear disarmament and the military disengagement of the US from Europe, did not live to see Chernobyl (the Chernobyl disaster happened in April 1986, Spinelli died in May that year). Neither did he hear about the Fukushima catastrophe. Nor did he experience the fall of the Soviet Union, or the rise of the internet, two world historical developments, which should by now have resulted in the dissolution of NATO as a military organisation.

Obviously, the power relations between the West and the rest have also changed considerably since Spinelli's time. Why would "we" in the West still want to keep and modernise "our" nuclear strike forces (that is, the French, British, Israeli, and, of course, US nuclear weapons systems)?

The most important "reason" for this madness is nothing else than the tendency of the transatlantic, Western, military-industrial complex to continue its "development" by itself, unregulated, like a stone in motion with its own inertia. This tendency is what the historian E.P. Thompson, when he analysed the Cold War between Russia and West in the 1980ies, labelled as Exterminism. Unfortunately, the European Nuclear Disarmament (END) movement which Thompson inspired seems to have ended. But the phenomenon he called Exterminism certainly lives on.

The modernisation and proliferation of the weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which are nowadays built with nanotechnology, biotech and robotics, and the corollary of this process, namely the counter-weapons, like the ongoing construction of the missile defence shields, all together form an inexhaustible goldmine. With the extraction of its deadly military-industrial-academic gold, even more than with its virtual management in the tax-havens, our whole vicious anti-social, unsustainable, un-economical and speculative financial architecture stands and falls. Has not the word Capitalism begun to sound like an euphemism?

And yet this system certainly continues to be Capitalism at home, and global Imperialism abroad. Because, in their efforts to legitimise the aforementioned Complex, our governments also try to imagine and convince us of some more or less vague military threats to deter with their modernised doomsday arsenals. And nowadays it is, of course, the countries of the Global South, rather than Russia, which are supposed to pose those threats.

I now would like to come back to the question with which I begun this message: how do we envision the coming Congress of the European Peoples in 2012? Have we, as a part of our preparations, thought of setting up a working group on the military-industrial complex? Have we had the guts to enter the nuclear issues? Can you advice me on which PrepCom I should choose for my participation?

Greetings from Loviisa/Finland,

Mikael Böök

Footnote: The autobiography of Altiero Spinelli, "Come ho tentato di diventare saggio", was published in 1984 and 1987. The quoted sentence appears on p. 348 of the the edition in 1999 from the Società editrice il Mulino 1999. The name of Spinelli embellishes the house of the European Parliament in Brussels, yet his literary work seems not to have been translated into English. Neither, it seems, are translations into French or German to be found.

Occupy the Spinelli Building

Mikael — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:11:00 +0200

On December 6, which was Finland's 94th National Day, my compatriot friends got one of those long email messages which most people have to delete or move to the "read later" folder. Here, I shall omit the introduction and the stories about my previous adventures in Äkäslompolo, Lapland, because only the Saami, or the tourists who have visited their beautiful country, would have a chance to understand what I meant with those parts.

Anyway, the northernmost and the northeasternmost parts of Suomi have been struck with gold and uranium fever, and mining companies from all over are coming in to cure it. At the same time, Rovajärvi, formerly an exercise field for the heroic Finnish army that fought the Soviet aggressor during the Winter War 1939-1940, is being leased to some foreign companies for the testing of drones and other UAV.

The contents of my long email were summarized in a short political program, which i reproduce here for your information:

1. Refrain from building more nuclear power plants in Finland, France and the other European countries where they may be planned. Follow the wise German decision to phase out nuclear power and expand the alternative ways to produce electricity and other energy.

2. Eliminate, unilaterally, the French and British nuclear forces. This will require popular, civic, action from all over Europe, as in the European Nuclear Disarmament (END) movement in the 1980ies, but on an even bigger and wider scale. Politically, this means that we form an independent European federal state, but without a nuclear strike force.

3. Stop uranium mining and enrichment, especially in Finland and Niger. Redefine independence so that it no longer means the destruction of the lands and livelihoods of the Saami, the Tuareg, the tourists, and all the other more or less permanently resident peoples.

4. Urge the United States, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and the other actual and potential nuclear weapon states to follow Europe's lead, as described in paragraphs 1-2. Require that the U.S. withdraws its nuclear weapons from Europe, those which are still present. This proposal is based on the theory that nuclear weapons, nuclear umbrellas and missile shields are unable to guarantee their (or our) independence. The theory remains to be proven with empirical evidence. So let's undertake the necessary practical experiments. (Some people still believe that the opposite theory was empirically proven at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, but their reasoning is based on Apriorism, and thus banned by modern science. Besides, look at the proliferation of the nuclear weapons, and consider the growing risk for nuclear terrorism, just to mention two corollaries of the theory on which our present political leaders base their practice.)

5. Break with the nuclear complex and with the military-industrial complex. (In reality, these are one and the same complex; the nuclear complex is only, so to speak, the tip of the military-industrial complex.) Any realistic combat against the resource wastage, the environmental pollution and the global warming tendency must begin here, but politicians and journalists are too cowardly to tell you so aloud. These are opinions and suggestions that can only be expressed and turned into reality through a popular uprising movement that forces the politicians and the media to turn their dirty coats after the wind. For them, it takes too much courage to say that NATO is no longer a stability factor, but a monster, designed to strike fear in us with its weapons of mass destruction and Prompt Global Strike. Restructure the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) , the largest air and space group in Europe and the second largest in the world, to become a group of purely civilian production. Develop and execute a plan for the conversion of the war industries. Unravel the German and French arms deals with Greece, which contributed significantly to the indebtedness of that country.

6. Retake the F-word, where F stands for Federalism. The F-word is not ugly, but it requires the denuclearisation and an economy that dumps the military-industrial complex. In spite of our much advertised soverign debt, we do have all that we need to change things for the better. For instance, the debt has not reduced our skills, we are certainly still able to produce our living, to satisfy our material needs (and even to to take care of our souls, if only we admit that our concept of national sovereignty is unwise.) Let's occupy the Spinelli Building and re-constitute the sane vision of Altiero Spinelli about a democratic European state.

This program only indicates where we need to start solving our problems, it does not pretend to tell how all the important problems can be solved, or to be the most important statement on everything that is the case. However, neither Frau Merkel nor Monsieur Sarkozy, or the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, has so far showed the way, nor is it likely that they will ever be able to take the lead. The journalists have let us know what economists and finance experts think. Well, they have been talking a lot about our problems, but have you ever heard them coming up with the above political proposals?

Cheers,

Mikael

Democratic sovereignty?

Mikael — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 10:15:00 +0200

From the email list of the European Social Forum (ESF), http://lists.fse-esf.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fse-esf

Dear all,

It is interesting to compare and to complete Yannis Almpanis' analysis "Papandreou government will probably fall until Friday" (http://bit.ly/sKcexb) with Attac France's statement "Référendum grec: une première avancée démocratique" (http://bit.ly/vYTJnE).

Attac France deserves thanks for its bold expression of political hope and fighting spirit in a situation that seems to grow ever more chaotic and dangerous. Almpanis, in turn, reminds us of some roots of Papandreou's politics, which are easily ignored by non-Greeks, and of the more general truth that Papandreou and his likes always put their own political survival above the interest of the people.

Attac France takes for granted that "NO" is going to win in the proposed referendum about the EU's bailout package, and concludes that this victory will make it necessary to put forward a concrete alternative to the neoliberal model:

"Mais elle (la vicoire du "NON") posera concrètement la nécessité d'une alternative au modèle néolibéral, qui devra commencer par la dénonciation des dettes illégitimes, le refus des politiques de régression sociale, la reconquête de la souveraineté démocratique sur notre monnaie commune, l'euro. Attac mettra dans les semaines à venir toute son énergie pour construire la solidarité européenne avec le peuple grec, faire triompher le non à l'austérité, et poser les premiers jalons de la refondation d'une Europe démocratique et solidaire."

To this I would like to wholeheartedly subscribe. For the alternative to be more concrete and precise, however, it is not enough to focus narrowly on the financial and social dimensions of the crisis. Our alternative must be European, we also have to take a common stand on the European Union.

"le peuple grec, en défendant ses droits sociaux et sa souveraineté démocratique, défend les droits de tous les peuples européens -- the Greek people, by defending their social rights and democratic sovereignty, is defending the rights of all European peoples",

Attac France says. But we will now also have to discover and to defend our common European "democratic sovereignty".

Therefore, everybody should take a close look at this pair of political words — the so called "democratic sovereignty". Beacause, nowadays, these words form an odd couple indeed. What is actually the sovereignty of a European country, say France, say Greece? Is it the sovereignty of Charles de Gaulle and his atomic strike force? Is it based on the "conventional" weapons — helicopters, warships, submarines, tanks etc. — imported to Greece from France, Germany and the USA?

Be aware, please, that "soverignty" is to do with aggression and defence, with war and peace. Note that it is futile to speak about "models" if you omit the military and the massive arsenals of destruction from the discussion.

Our alternative European model also must bring with it another kind of "sovereignty" than that which is cherished by the present European governments and the EU.

When demanding a different "model", it is high time to put questions like the conversion of the military production of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), for instance, squarely on the agenda. We must take on the military-industrial and academic complex!

After the Fukushima disaster, some European peoples have democratically decided to rule out the construction of new nuclear power plants. Let us hail those decisons, and let us pronounce a common "NON" to nuclear energy. We need a complete revision of the EURATOM pact from 1957, which has as its main purpose to "further" nuclear energy production.

Finally, lets say "YES" to European Union, lets create a democratic European state. That, dear activists of the European Social Forum, was actually the whole idea of the original eurofederalists like the Italian Altiero Spinelli (1907-1986), whose name still embellishes the building of the European Parliament. See what a mess they have made of the original good idea!

Yours in peace,

Mikael

2 November, 2011

Can alterglobalization endure and grow without doing away with the official myth about 9/11?

Mikael — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:36:00 +0300

Some rapid comments and questions upon reading the article "Elbowed Out of Spotlight by 9/11, Anti-Globalization Movement Endures" by Mark Engler:

1. What if the official account is false and 9/11 was orchestrated by leaders of the military industrial complex in order to start the "war on terror" (including the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq) and to hit our growing globalization-critical movement? What if 9/11 was a State Crime Against Democracy (SCAD)? (About SCADs, including the 9/11 SCAD, see American Behavioral Scientist, Volume 53, Number 6, February 2010.)

2. Obviously, the crimes of 9/11 caused an enormous backlash for all anti-imperialistic movements. The more interesting question is whether we can endure and grow without doing away with the official myth about 9/11.

3. Could the enduring alterglobalisation movement and the persisting movement for truth about 9/11 become one and the same justice movement?

4. "Recent opinion polls show that nearly half of New Yorkers continue to doubt the official account of 9/11: that's 10 million people." ( Quoted from the article "9/11 In-Depth: Long Suppressed Academic Evidence to Stream Live During Toronto International Hearings, September 8-11, 2011", CNBC News 6 September, 2011.) So the opinion is divided, to say the least. And that's only the New Yorkers. However, the need to re-investigate 9/11 has rarely been discussed at the social forums, with the exception of the first USSF in Atlanta. It is as if we, the peoples of the social forum, had reached a consensus. Let half of the world believe that the total demolition of 3 skyscrapers with 2 airplanes had to be an inside job, but we agree with the government that all it was was a terrorist attack by fanatical Muslims (!?) Yours in peace.

We need Eurobonds and a new charter for Europe, but is it possible without ...

Mikael — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:09:00 +0300

Susan George, in a recent interview, asks the Europeans to end the financial control of their governance, to issue Eurobonds, and to ceate a new charter for Europe. Read the interview at the Transnational Institute, here!

If we were to use our possibilities to discuss the current situation and arrive at common conclusions, then I would propose that we take this interview with Susan George as our starting point. Here the problems of the present are analysed in their historical setting, the much hyped "debt crisis" is reduced to realistic proportions, and some of the necessary steps towards the solution of the problems are explained. Let me repeat Susan George's proposals:

"How should social movements respond to the crisis? What alternatives can we put on the table? * Carry out debt audits to determine how much is "odious". * Develop a debt workout mechanism that isn't skewed entirely in favour of creditors. * We need Eurobonds and a new charter for Europe with an ECB that's much closer to the US Federal Reserve. * Use Keynes' bancor as the currency for trade. We'll need another interview to talk about that! * Meanwhile, I'd be more than happy with public, non-profit ratings agencies and governments that govern for citizens rather than for banks."

However necessary these economic and political measures, one may of course doubt that they are sufficient. In order to arrive aa an alternative to the Treaty of Lisbon, I think that we must also take on the problems which belong in the area of defence and military strategy, because

a) the present economy is militaristic, it is a war economy built around the military-industrial-academic complex, which is integrated with the nuclear complex, the aerospace and space industries, and so many other sectors of the economy. This is the elephant in our drawing room, which the media fail to see.

b) achieving "a new charter of Europe" is not possible without a common European understanding of human security in the age of nuclear weapons, nanotechnology, robotics and genetech. The road to a better future for our continent goes via denuclearisation and a military reform, which starts from the idea of human security.

Letter to Elizabeth

Mikael — Sun, 08 May 2011 05:30:00 +0300

Dear Elizabeth,

today is Mother's Day here in Finland. Do you have children? If yes, I hope they come and see you, or send you greetings. If no, I wonder if your own mother is around still so that you can go and see her, or send her greetings. If your mother is dead, I hope you have recognised it is springtime so that you can enjoy God's creation. But if you did it already yesterday, and have a terrible headache this morning, and hope your mother had never given birth, then have one more for the road, and you will be happier when you die. There are many more possibilities, of course. After all, OBL's funeral in December 2001, which was reported by UNI, the Indian news agency, might have been faked. I said as much in a short letter to the editor (of "Hufvudstadsbladet", our main newspaper in Swedish). I also wrote a longer piece, but that one was refused by the editors of two publications. The first just said he doesn't publish it; the second, that it was far too long. When are you going to send me your controversial essay?

Cheers,

Mikael

The Finnish book-entry register, or 'ceterum censeo tributum commercii esse delendum'

Mikael — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 11:10:00 +0300

This entry is about an issue in the the up-coming parlamentary elections in Finland. It should be the key issue, but it is not.

The Finnish book-entry register (also known as nominee registration of securities; fi hallintarekisteri; sv förvaltarregister) provides a method of tax evasion, especially with regards to stock investments. This system was created right before the recession in 1991. The book-entry register does not keep a record about the identity of the owner of the shares. Instead, it only registers the bank or body which keeps the shares in custody.

Hitherto, the book-entry services of Euroclear Finland (which has been trusted to keep the Finnish book-entry register) have been open only to foreigners, but now Mari Kiviniemi's government wants to allow also Finnish citizens to register their shares in this way, that is, anonymously and by proxy. Finnish journalists have deplored this, saying that it will become much more difficult than before to reveal Finnish tax evaders and to keep track of e.g. the corporate connections of the politicians. The existence of the book-entry register was already bad enough in itself. It has meant, for instance, that we hardly know who owns Nokia; 85 % of the shares of Nokia's shares are hidden in this register. An unknown number of these and other shares in the book-entry registry certainly also belongs, illegally, to Finns. Now, however, the government of Finland wants to make this kind of tax evasion legal.(1)

My first, spontaneous reaction to this reform, which has yet to be approved by the parliament, is to label it as criminal. Yet I have some difficulty in seeing how a young, vibrant, democratically elected female Prime Minister in a Nordic country could be a simple criminal.

What is and what is not an economic crime in "the era of free movement of capital", where "transferring sums of money from Helsinki to a region such as the Isle of Man requires only a few clicks of a mouse" (2)

Firstly, we would need to know how Mari Kiviniemi &Co are thinking and justifying their own actions. But here the difficulty is, that the present guard of career politicians like Mari Kiviniemi (Center Party), Jutta Urpilainen (Social Democratic Party) or Jyrki Katainen (Conservative Party) are not really supposed to express, or even to have, their own deeper ideas and beliefs. (Or, it is we who are not really supposed to know what the beliefs and ideas of the politicians are, or to require that they have them.)

Regardless of what these ministers and would-be ministers may be thinking in general, their way of thinking on tax justice is deeply problematic. Considering the planned extension of the book-entry services to Finnish nationals , we have to presume that they think like Mr Niclas Virin, the former head of department of the Swedish National Tax Board, who goes around repeating the phrase:

'Ceterum censeo contributum commercii esse delendum.'

In other words, they believe that corporate tax is always harmful and should therefore be got rid of altogether.

Needless to say, I do not agree. However, it is not about whether you or I agree or disagree with Mr Virin and Ms Kiviniemi. It is about how they manage to agree with themselves.

References:

(1) Voima magazine has an excellent article in Finnish about the book-entry register reform, see Jari Hanska: ''Veronkiertotemppu & kuinka se tehdään.'' Voima 3/2011.

(2) See the article Finns dodge taxes. Tax evasion costs Finland at least three billion euros annually, reports the online financial newspaper Taloussanomat. Helsinki Times 29 August 2009.

(3) See Mr Virin's 2006 speech in English ''Why? Why do we tax business income?''.

Libyan war and human (in)security

Mikael — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:11:00 +0300

In OpenDemocracy, Mary Kaldor analyses the ongoing Libyan war. The best scenario is that Gaddafi is removed and democracy is established, but a more likely scenario is a freezing of the current division between east and west Libya. A third possibiity is as in Iraq, a protracted ‘new war’, she writes, and goes on to criticize the military approach of the Western powers:

From a human security perspective, the appropriate course of action is to protect civilians throughout Libya and guarantee their right to peaceful protest. The first task should have been to declare Benghazi and the liberated areas a UN Protected Area or safe haven. International peace-keepers would have had to be deployed to help protect the liberated areas. Humanitarian and reconstruction assistance and support for a democratic political process would also have to be provided so that the liberated areas could provide poles of attraction for other parts of the country. (See Kaldor, Mary: "Libya: war or humanitarian intervention?", OpenDemocracy 29 March 2011)

Kaldor's analysis is sharp and revealing. However, it is one thing to say what should have been done instead of what was actually done, i.e. to deploy UN peace-keepers on the ground instead of starting a war from the air. But what should we do now to improve the worsening situation ? That is another question, and a very urgent one. Because, as Kaldor fears, the outcome of this military "Odyssey" will probably be something like her second, or third scenario.

A pessimist would say that there may be no such "we", which is able to intervene against the economic and political forces of war. Gone are the days of the European Nuclear Disarmament movement, of which Mary Kaldor was one of the most vibrant leaders back in the 1980ies.

But, instead of painting a bleak picture of ourselves, why do we not again boldly put the denuclearisation of Europe on the agenda?

In their article "Nuclear Follies" (OpenDemocracy 13 March 2011) Dan Plesch and Harald Heubaum, reminded the readers of Open Democracy about the the export of French nuclear reactors to Libya, which President Sarkozy and Colonel Gaddaffi agreed and publicized only a few years ago (in the summer of 2007).

"(t)he events in Libya and Japan have one thing in common", Plesch and Heubaum constated. "Each case serves as a powerful reminder of the dangers of nuclear power and the short-sighted, irrational risk analyses of those pursuing the technology."

This parallell between the recklessness of the Japanese nuclear reactor builders and the irresponsibiity of the European nuclear rector exporters also needs to be considered in the analysis of the Libyan war.

Mary Kaldor's article arrived while I was reading the book about human security which she has published together with the American military officer Shannon D. Beebe (The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon. Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace, N.Y. 2010). I was actually quoting some of the basic propositions of their excellent work in a message to the mailing list of the European Social Forum. I shall insert a glimpse of those principles here as well, with quotation marks around the words of Beebe and Kaldor. My own remarks I have put within parentheses:

"the primacy of human rights"; "the goal is protecting civilians, not defeating an enemy";

"legitimate political authority" (this has to be something else than presidents of the republic who gladly act as salesmen for the nuclear and military industries);

"a bottom-up approach"; "ultimately, the people who live in areas of insecurity must solve their own problems" ( Well, where I live is probably relatively secure, although the distance from here to the NPP Lovisa, which was built in the 1970ies, is only ca 15 kilometers. Still, I cannot but consider that NPP to be a human security risk) ;

"effective multilateralism" (this means yes to UN operations, OK, but humanity has already waited some sixty odd years for the UN to achieve the nuclear disarmament. It just has to start somewhere, has it not? So why not start the nuclear abolition *unilaterally* here in Europe, to begin with? In addition, the UN is part of the problem when it comes to dismantling the nuclear power plants; it is no secret that the IAEA is in favour of constructing more, not less, NPPs.)

"regional focus" (so let's focus on the denuclearisation of our region and on the dismantlement of our military-industrial-academic tentacles e.g. the military aircraft industries of the EADS complex);

"clear civil command", "this means that the military must operate in support of law and order and under rules of engagement that are more similar to those of police work than to the rules of armed combat" (but this can only be achieved if we strengthen a global offentlighetsprincip, which is the Swedish term for the Freedom Of Information, defend our internet and support WikiLeaks; I keep remembering their "Collateral Murder" movie).

The human security may not be so much about what President Obama or NATO should be doing. Rather, It is about how we, the citizens, could be the change.

Spinelli Group

Mikael — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 10:08:00 +0200

Happy New Year! The Spinelli Group arranges one of its first its event in Brussels tomorrow, January 12, 2011. The event is called « The United States of Europe – Towards a Transnational Society? », and the main speakers there will be Joschka FISCHER, ancien Ministre allemand des Affaires Étrangères, and Jean-Marc FERRY, Philosophe.

I saw the Spinelli Group on the Net a couple months ago, and decided to join it. Btw, you may want to join it yourself. At the time I joined, there were not many other Finns. MEP Satu Hassi (Green) had joined. She is good. I shall write to her about my group membership and interest in Spinelli's thoughts and legacy.

Another who has joined is Pier Virgilio Dastoli. As you may remember, Dastoli is the former secretary of Spinelli, and he used also to direct the EU's mission to Rome.

As a Spinelli Group member, I got an invitation to the above-mentioned event - from Daniel Cohn-Bendit. But I will not attend the event. Am preparing for a trip to West Africa and the world Social Forum in Dakar 6-11 Februar.

Hierarchies are fluid and merit-based, however and whatever merit means to the peers. This also makes it difficult for established members to continue to hold onto their positions when they stop making valuable contributions. In volunteer organizations, this is often a major problem, as early contributors sometimes try to base their influence on old contributions, rather than letting the organizations change and develop. (Stalder & Hirsch 2002)

Pessimism of the intelligence: It remains to be seen whether the founders of the new group are old authoritarians or capable of following the soft approach to collaborative intelligence.

WikiLeaks and The Library (continued)

Mikael — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 08:08:00 +0200

Dear fellow librarian,

thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I can understand and accept your refusal to attaching your library, or your library society, to any single movement, like the WikiLeaks. Also, I cannot but agree when you note that it is not up to the librarians to react to every single country, dilemma or violation of freedom of speech.

Yes, the responsibility "to react" in every single case, rather belongs to the journalists and the citizens than to the personnel of the library or archive.

In the case of WikiLeaks, the journalists have indeed reacted. Fortunately. The fact that they have published, and continue to publish the WikiLeaks, is perhaps their most important general "reaction". And that is how it is supposed to be. As was previously mentioned, the International Federation of Journalists and the Reporters sans frontières, too, have come out to condemn the "desperate and dangerous" backlash over WikiLeaks.

What worries me and a great many people is the general, or should I say, structural, threat to the intellectual freedom which is imminent in the present situation. This is to do with the digital revolution and the necessary transition to a new political world-system which should be as democratic as possible, and where the militancy and warfare of the national states should be stemmed, checked and balanced by the global civil society.

Some are prone to see the present situation as a "cyber war", and others happily haste to engage in the combat. However, the internet must not be conceived as, or become, a war-zone. If the internet ceases to be an open public space, like the library, we will witness a dangerous backlash of democracy both internationally, and within the single nations.

So what ought librarians to do? It is our obligation to maintain and to defend the openness and civic nature of the internet, and of the library itself. No internet sites, or servers, should be blocked, or denied of service, as long as their content is legal. The legality of of information, in so far as it needs to be defined at all, must be judged by independent courts of justice, not by political executives, private corporations or militant groups (not to speak of the military proper).

The above-mentioned decision of the American Library of Congress to block the content of the Wikileaks (or even parts of it, such as the US Diplomatic Cables) , has set a very bad example. Libraries, too, have to conform to the laws and the courts of justice, but they must not allow their intellectual freedom to be arbitrarily restricted and suppressed, nor must they engage in self-censorship.

The intellectual freedom and the freedom of speech are great to have and to celebrate, but only if we use them are they really worth anything. I wish you a good working-day.

- Mika

PS Two additional remarks for the analyses of the WikiLeaks phenomenon . 1) It may be interesting to compare WikiLeaks with Greeenpeace. Isn't WikiLeaks for the political crisis what Greenpeace has been for the ecological crisis? 2) WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks and, more in general, the extension of the public sphere brought by the computers and the internet, is not about a single state such as the USA. It is about the world political system, and every single state in the world. Most probably, its is also about the banks and the financial system. Finally, it is about the libraries, too.

WikiLeaks and The Library

Mikael — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 11:13:00 +0200

TRUTH WILL OUT (Julian Assange). Poster by By R_SH on Flickr

Dear librarians and other citizens,

greetings from Finland where I am trying to understand the world, and what I am.

I visit the library. Therefore, I am a citizen. But now my library has blocked WikiLeaks:

"The Library decided to block Wikileaks because applicable law obligates federal agencies to protect classified information. Unauthorized disclosures of classified documents do not alter the documents' classified status or automatically result in declassification of the documents."

Thus blogged, on December 3, 2010, the Director of Communications of the US Library of Congress (http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2010/12/why-the-library-of-congress-is-blocking-wikileaks/).

My library? Yes, the US Library of Congress, one of the world's greatest and finest libraries, belongs to US, the peoples. It must not become the Ministry of Truth of the US Federal State!

We are looking for The New Universalism. Well, here it is, in a nutshell: it is the openness of the library.

On closer thought, however, the Universalism of the library is not precisely new. Indeed, it is as old as the famous ancient library which was located in Egypt, Africa, the library of Alexandria, of which we read: "Other than collecting works from the past, the library was also home to a host of international scholars, well-patronized by the Ptolemaic dynasty with travel, lodging and stipends for their whole families".

The open space of the Library of Congress must be re-opened! If it remains closed, our open space of the world social forum, also is in danger. This is the famous "clear and present danger" (cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_and_present_danger)!

Of course, the censorship of the LOC is ridiculously easy to circumvent. Its staff and visitors just have to leave the reading rooms of the LOC, and visit the nearest internet café, in order to read the WikiLeaks. Or go to the nearest newsstand to read the the newspapers... However, it is the very principle of the library which has to be defended. Which is to serve us, the citizens, with all the documents, without delay.

On December 2, 2010, the International Federation of Journalists, and the Reporters sans frontières, condemned the desperate and dangerous blockades against WikiLeaks, and expressed its concern against the repressive measures taken against Julian Assange and Bradley Manning:

"The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today condemned the political backlash being mounted against the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks and accused the United States of attacking free speech after it put pressure on the website's host server to shut down the site yesterday. Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today condemned the political backlash being mounted against the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks and accused the United States of attacking free speech after it put pressure on the website's host server to shut down the site yesterday. " "The IFJ is also concerned about the welfare and well-being of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, and Bradley Manning, the United States soldier in Iraq who is under arrest and suspected of leaking the information. Both men are the target of a growing political campaign mounted by government officials and right-wing politicians". http://www.ifex.org/united_states/2010/12/02/wikileaks_backlash/

Now is the time for library and information professionals (LIS) everwhere to join the professional communicators in their defense of WikiLeaks and free speech. Libraries and social forums unite! Provide space forWikiLeaks on the Library's internet servers!

- Mikael

Update: It was asked how, precisely, we can support WikiLeaks. One immediate answer is Mass Mirroring its website.

Fighting Fire with Buckets

Mikael — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:34:00 +0300

Fighting Fire with Buckets is the title of an excellent WEED-paper by Peter Wahl on the attempts of the European Union to reform the financial sector. The text can be downloaded here as a PDF..

The EU itself, as a "frontrunner of the financialisation" of the world economy, "bears a certain co-responsibility for the crisis", which "has deepened the contradictions inside the EU culminating in the Greek crisis", it is constated in the introduction. The paper examines the measures and strategies whereby the EU tries to solve or alleviate the problems:

The directive on European supervision of banks, insurance, securities and systemic risk; a compromise "which strengthened the national component and weakened the supranational" was reached at the ECOFIN conference, and approved by the European Parliament in September 2010; it will enter into force in January 2011;

EU:s proposal on regulating the Credit Rating Agencies (EU 2009a:2);

The projected Directive on Alternative Investment Fund Managers (EU 2009c), which refers to the regulation of Hedge Funds, Private Equity Funds, real estate funds, commodity funds and infrastructure funds;

Regulation of OTC-trading of derivatives like Credit Default Swaps (CDS) , which have been used for speculation at large scale, presented by Commissioner Barnier in September. "The basic idea of the regulation is to establish a central counterparty (CCP) for all trade with derivatives", Wahl writes. This "would be quite a strong instrument and it will be interesting to see, whether it will survive the further law making process" (p 27);

Discussion on the subject: Making the finance sector pay for the costs of the crisis. This could lead to the introduction of a Bank Levy, a Financial Activities Tax (FAT) or a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT), or a combination of these.

The forty-page analysis of the pros and cons of these proposals, and their deficiences, ends with these words:

Today, the world is confronted with historically exceptional challenges, such as climate change, hunger, poverty and increasing shortage of important raw materials. Under these circumstances, finance has to meet qualitatively new requirements. The world needs financial markets at the service of sustainable development, of social equity at global level for the coming decades. Tremendous efforts need to be financed. We cannot afford another crisis like the present one, and we cannot afford a financial system, which serves at first place the profit interests of a tiny minority. A new paradigm is needed with regard to finance. In the light of these realities, the EU regulation of finance is like fire fighting with buckets.

My comments:

One reflection which imposes itself on the reader is that 'the overall economic bias in the process of integration' (which Wahl rightly identifies as the main problem of the EU, p 12) cannot be fully understood with a purely economic analysis, which abstracts from the political and military reality. For instance: can we grasp the real significance of the Greek crisis without taking into account that country's huge imports of fighter jets and similar military hardware from the factories of the transatlantic military-industrial-academic complex? What restrictions did the EU impose - or is it planning to impose - on the military spending and the arms exports of its member countries?

Wahl's analysis admirably highlights the many economic "asymmetries and imbalances within the EU". Will the European integration continue? Or, are we already witnessing the disintegration of the Eurozone and the whole EU? To these questions an economic analysis can not provide any meaningful answers. The question of Europe's Union is, today more than hitherto, a question of its political and military independence from the USA. Will "Europeanism continue to be a relatively superfluous appendage to Atlanticism and will hardly go beyond the economic liberalization of the three Communities", as Altiero Spinelli wrote in Foreign Affairs, (July 1962), or will it become strong enough to create a democratic and independent Federal state?

One of the necessary conditions for a democratic European state is the unilateral denuclearization of Europe. As Spinelli wrote (in that same article): the Americans will have to accept it. So let us think and act as if a free and united Europe already existed.

Ufology

Mikael — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:15:00 +0300

Former Air Force Officers allege that UFOs have Tampered With Nuclear Missiles. This story at AOL is widely popular.

However, if we are rationalists, we use Occam's Razor which says that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Therefore, I should like to cut short the explanations which are based on stories from former officers about UFOs, which have tampered with US nuclear missiles. Especially if the US authorities are alleged to have tried, or still try, to keep the stories secret.

When asked for simple explanations, I would present either one of the two following:

1. Sensations bring money to their vendors. There are media magnates out there who earn money on the ufology.

2. Ufology is used in a conspirative way by the military-industrial-academic complex in order to scare and control us, the people. In this particular case, yes, the extraterrestrials do provide an additional pretext, albeit only a vague and unofficial one, for the continuation and further development of the nuclear weapons systems.

In My Humble Opinion

Mikael — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 23:37:00 +0300

During the last days, a lot of irritating messages about so called "chemtrails" have arrived in my mailbox. In my humble opinion, "chemtrails" is a diversion, because the evidence for the alleged secret global spraying of the atmosphere is lacking.

There is, however, a general tendency towards "geoengineering" the Earth's climate. This was recently described in the Slate-article "Can Space Reflectors Save Us? Why we shouldn't buy into geoengineering fantasies". Geoengineering is a fatal strategy, to be resisted and combated like uranium mining and the construction of new nuclear power plants.

The question is: how to deconstruct the biggest oil burner and polluter of the environment, i.e. the military-industrial-academic complex, in order to achieve the necessary degrowth of production and consumption?

Let 11 September 1906 be our starting point, as it marks the birth of satyagraha in South Africa and India's non-violent liberation movement. And let's find out what really happened on 11 September 2001. The evidence in favor of the hypothesis that WTC in New York was brought down by explosives in the process known as controlled demolition, is already overwhelming. (See The Mysterious Collapse of WTC Seven Why NIST's Final 9/11 Report is Unscientific and False, by David Ray Griffin.)

Responses to the ETUI Economists (continued)

Mikael — Tue, 04 May 2010 10:58:00 +0300

This is a direct continuation of the discussion in the previous entry.

Matti Kohonen:

The open letter did of course address further down from the paragraph issues that I would agree with, one of them being that the Greek Crisis is indeed an European crisis. I'm in some general terms a supporter of European integration, and in many ways i'm a living testament of a generation who have greatly benefited from integration, as it seems not at all odd at the moment that being a Finn, I study in the UK, and work in France while paying taxes in Finland, and getting French social security reimbursed from the Finnish KELA. If I fall ill, I have the same rights as national citizens. I vote in the Finnish Parliamentary and Presidential elections, while for municipal and European elections I can vote in the UK as I have a second residence there due to my studies.

It is really this level of personal mobility, career mobility, and the necessary mobility of social and economic rights that I find one of the best achievements in Europe. Europe has the great advantage over many other continents in this regard, but we still lack further integration in terms of fiscal policy, government accountability, and proper anti-corruption efforts (both in private and public sectors). Europe does all too little to advice its citizens of these rights, and help them achieve them. The so-called 'European Information Bureaus' dotted across the Union, are simply propaganda bureaus about EU institutions, where as they should be helping citizens in getting along with their lives.

One of the reasons is that integration costs money, as the Euro demonstrates that in order to have a common economic area that precisely facilitates the moving around of people, companies, and speeding up cross-border flows the price to pay is that we also have to look after the countries and regions who don't benefit enough from this mobility, as mobility goes both ways, this time the rich Greeks have pulled their money in the recent years, and especially months, out of their own national economy.

The Greek Central Bank in an article in the Daily Telegraph is quoted saying that 3 billion euros left the county in January, and 5 billon euros left in February. Assets in the Greek financial system have flown in particular out through HSBC and Société Générale banks that have branches in Greece. From UK housing market to Swiss bank accounts wealthy Greeks are putting their money outside the country.

"Switzerland, the UK and Cyprus have been the largest recipients of the money, with the wealthiest Greeks looking to move their deposits to Swiss banks accounts to escape the more punitive tax measures many fear will be introduced in the wake of the country's economic crisis. " www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/7557213/Greek-banks-hit-by-wealthy-citizens-mo ving-their-money-offshore.html

Both Switzerland and Cyprus are tax havens, so no use looking for unpaid capital gains taxes on the wealth parked offshore. This is a huge greek tragedy! Transaction taxes should be put up immediately for money entering these secrecy spaces.

In February 2010 the Greek Finance Minister, declared that every cash transaction over 1500 euros would be considered as illegal unless declared. This is good but not enough to tackle informality and corruption. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE61824V20100209

The total Greek banking assets are 245 billion in September 2009, so even relatively speaking in two months, some 4% of all greek assets have been moved away. If the rate continues, Greece would face an Argentinian style capital flight scenario. If it had its own currency, it would most definitively have already gone to a downward spiral, if not already into hyperinflation.

Greek banks cannot be said to be in any way prudent, they have played along with the system of corruption. Corruption in Greece has been rampant, as when Transparncy International surveyed Greek households, 13.5% said they had paid a bribe in that year, on average 1355 euros, ranging from getting a doctor's appointment, a university degree to paying off the tax man to pay less taxes.

This is not an external shock, this is deep corrupting in banking, government and throughout society that caused the Greek Crisis. My answer echoes with what the Argentinians shouted when the Menem government brought down the country "que se vayan todos". I'm sure it's what is already being said in the streets across Greece.

- - - -

Back to the trade union economist. The theory of economic catching up which Greece, Portugal, Spain have done in past 20 years says that it's fine for labour cost to rise as long as it going along with rises in labour productivity. What the ETUI economist is implicitly asking, and this I would support if he were asking it explicitly, is cross-european wage bargaining mechanisms. Meaning that trade unions would start asking for common bargaining across Europe, leading to potentially common european strikes as well.

To tackle corruption, however, EU should have a common prosecution service. This means that a Brussels public prosecutor, when Union public funds are being mispent, or when cases of corruption are being suspected, could simply open an inquiry. The size of the bail-out would justfify the new measure, of giving EU a legal arm to the spending powers of member states. This would be similar to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in the US, an essential part of handing out Federal funds. 'Checks' size of 120 billion euros should not come without 'balances'.

After the Greek Bankruptcy, we can't say that EU has no common fiscal policy, as we'll be all paying for this for the next ten years. And yes, why not have common labour policy as the ETUI economist points out in his blog. For that purpose, the trade unions should organise collective actions across Europe. Maybe a European-wide collective bargaining, including potential european-wide strikes?

So I do not still agree that the Greek tragedy is a European-wide strategy made in Germany, for this one you can't blame the Germans. It's a Greek Tragedy, made in Greece due to private and public corruption, it has European implications as the Greek currency can't sink as a result, thus bringing down the Euro as a whole. This calls for a bail-out, and as other countries bail out the Greeks they will ask for checks and balances in Greek corruption.

Mikael Böök:

Yes, the trade union economists of the ETUI should ask for cross-European wage bargaining mechanisms. (In my view, they should also explicitely support the creation of European public services such as e.g. a European Post Office.)

Also:

"To tackle corruption [... the ] EU should have a common prosecution service" (Matti Kohonen)

So far so good.

But these points lead back to the fundamental European problem: An EU which is no more than a common market and, (partly) a common currency, is a house of cards. A more solid EU has to be built on political and military union. Economists, trade unions and social movements have not proved capable to settle for this federal option. Apparently, the idea of a free and united Europe is beyond their political horizon. They cannot see how the "nuclear issues" are linked to "the Greek crisis" (which is a European crisis). They believe that the review conference on nuclear proliferation and the general strike of Greek workers and employees happen in two separate worlds, which are not causally connected to each other.

And yet these seemingly separate worlds of economics, politics and society are closely interlinked. Is it possible to understand the economic development, including its criminal dimensions (e.g. the tax evasion of the banks and the millionaires, and other types of financial crime) without taking into account that the present world economy is, generally speaking, a 'permanent war economy'? Can you get a true picture of the economic corruption and bribery, if you turn your eyes from the military-industrial-academic complex?

"Greece remains among the top five largest recipient of major conventional weapons for 2005-2009, but has fallen from third place for 2000- 2004. The transfer of 26 F-16C from the United States and 25 Mirage-2000-9 combat aircraft from France accounted for 38 per cent of the volume of Greek imports."

(http://www.sipri.org/media/pressreleases/100315armstransfers)

<i>Thirty-eight per cent!? </i> How do you relate this astounding figure from the Stocholm Peace Research Institute SIPRI to the Greek financial and budgetary crisis? How much of the famous Greek national debt, which all and everybody are now talking about, is owed to the banks, which financed the military procurements of the various Greek governemnts? Which banks, and in which countries? How many of the millions, which the Greek millionaires have by now moved into safer havens, did they earn through arms transfers? How much did ministers and employees get in the form of bribes and commissions?

Can there be tax justice as long as we have a permanent war economy and a military-industrial-acedemic complex? Is a sound financial system compatible with weapons of mass destruction? Are those persons who decide about the solutions to the Greek crisis any other than those who decide about the nuclear proliferation? Here is a timely quote from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:

"The United States spent over $52 billion on nuclear weapons and related programs in fiscal year 2008, but only 10 percent of that went toward preventing a nuclear attack through slowing and reversing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology. That is the main finding of Nuclear Security Spending: Assessing Costs, Examining Priorities, a new study that uses publicly available documents and extensive interviews with government officials and experts to calculate the U.S. nuclear security "budget." (http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/?fa=view&id=22601)

President Obama may be serious about moving towards a world without nuclear weapons, but we need give him a helping hand and act together for the unilateral denuclearization of Europe.That is also absolutely necessary if we want to achieve social and economic justice.

I suppose that the ETUI economists support the demands of the Greek workers and employees who start their general strike tomorrow. At least I do.

Responses to the Open Letter on the Greek Crisis from Economists at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI)

Mikael — Sat, 01 May 2010 10:00:00 +0300

Below you may read my message (posted April 29, 2010) to the mailing list of the NIGD and the subsequent reply by Matti Kohonen, plus my reply to Matti Kohonen

Dear NIGD,

after this message, you find a copy of my personal signature to the open letter, which a group of economists, including Andrew Watt at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), has written to European policymakers, criticising their collective failure to address the Greek crisis as a European crisis.

As my "Organisational affiliation", I decided to enter "NETWORK INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL DEMOCRATIZATION".

I can only hope that you will find my behavior to be appropriate and to accept it.

The text of the Open Letter from the trade union economists is found here:

http://www.etui.org/en/Media/Files/Open-letter-to-European-policymakers-The-Greek-crisis-is-a-European-crisis-and-needs-European-solutions

Actually, I am far from enthusiastic about the content of this open letter; I only find it to be barely acceptable as a statement on the immediate Greek financial crisis. An ironical comment on this letter would be, that it represents a tradeunionistic point of view. If there would at this moment exist a European political force with the necessary power and authority to intervene positively and constructively in the present situation, it would no doubt start from the demand that Europe must unilaterally abolish its nuclear weapons.

"Stop there", I can hear some of you object, "and don't mix up things which must necessarily be kept apart!" My answer is, that the widespread mental habit of keeping economics and finance apart from politics and military strategy is based on sheer illusion, and that it shows a lack of intellectual courage, which is unadmissible on the side of those who make their living from research on human history and the social reality.

As the tradeunion economists write, the increased exports of Germany, Austria and the Netherlands has corresponded to a demand expansion in Greece, Spain, Ireland, and other members of the eurozone. "The problem is symmetrical and the solution must be as well."

However, "the solution" requires more than a common market and a common currency. Europe must become a real political union, a democratic federal state. And this, in turn, requires a basic political consensus concerning, in particular, the foreign policy and the military strategy. At the center of this issue are -- since 1945 -- the global weapons systems "of mass destruction".

What is to be done? One thing is clear: we should only undertake such tasks which are in our power to carry out. The denuclearisation of Europe certainly is one such task, because the European nuclear armaments, and the power plants based on the nuclear fuel cycle, are *solely our responsibility*, something which, if you excuse the dramatic example, could never be said about the climate on this earth, or the development of its general temperature.

Therefore, let us raise the demands put forward in the Appeal of Saintes: "

# 1. From the Atlantic to the Urals, no nuclear weapon must be stationed or installed in Europe any longer.

# 2. Nuclear weapons must not threaten Europe or any other part of the world.

# 3. Europe must initiate, pursue in good faith, and bring to a successful conclusion the process of abolishing nuclear weapons everywhere, as required by Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

# 4. The Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament must achieve this result by whatever means are required.

# 5. The Vienna-based IAEA must cease its promotion of nuclear energy and devote itself exclusively to monitoring civilian and military nuclear installations, preventing the diverting of fissile materials towards the building of new weapons, and aiding in the dismantling of existing weapons and nuclear plants.

# 6. The Vienna-based Organisation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty must become operational.

# 7. All possible light must be shed on the real causes and consequences of nuclear catastrophes such as Cheliabynsk and Chernobyl.

# 8. The 1959 agreement between the IAEA and the WHO, which forces the WHO to spread disinformation and lies about nuclear matters, must be abrogated.

# 9. The EURATOM Treaty must be abrogated and no new nuclear plant must be built.

# 10. Europe must become a totally nuclear-free zone, so as to contribute to total denuclearisation of the planet without waiting for similar action by other states or continents.

We call on Europe's citizens, NGOs, states and people to unite and take action to achieve these objectives in the shortest possible time.

Saintes, France, 11 May 2008 "

(http://acdn.france.free.fr/php_petitions/index.php?petition=12)

Who are the European nuclear armaments meant to "deter", if not the peoples of the global South? During a pause in the preparatory seminar in Dakar last November, I shortly discussed the issue of European Nuclear Disarmament (END) with Samir Amin. He agreed vividly to my opinion, that END is very much in the interest of the peoples of the global South, and should be placed high on the political agenda. So let's not be fooled by the efforts of the Western political establishment to focus everybody's attention on the Middle East. As far as "the nuclear issues" are concerned, Europe should still be our focus.

All the best,

- Mikael
Open letter to European policymakers: The Greek crisis is a European

crisis and needs European solutions



We urge you to read this open letter (see below).



If you broadly agree with its content, please manifest your support by

sending the following details to: openletter@etui.org

Please copy and paste this table in your email



First Name*  MIKAEL

Family name*  BÖÖK  (BOEOEK)

E-mail*  BOOK @ KAAPELI dot FI

Organisational affiliation

         NETWORK INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL DEMOCRATIZATION (NIGD)

Address

       EDOEVAEGEN 20, 07750 ISNAES

Country

  FINLAND

* Response necessary for us to include you.

To the above letter, Matti Kohonen replied as follows:

Dear Mikael, and NIGDers,

The Greek crisis is a major step in the global financial crisis as it enters its second year. I fear this the beginning of a second phase of the crisis where major states may start to have serious fiscal difficulties, as the stimulus packages are running out and fiscal deficits show some of the structural weaknesses of the global financial system which caused the Greek crisis, with rampant Greek corruption as the local link.

However I can't sign this petition, it has 100% wrong analysis on the crisis, is based on Neo-classical economics, and I don't agree with the 4 preambules of the petition.

" Greece's fiscal catastrophe has four causes. First, there is the past fiscal weakness of the Greek state, in particular the inability to generate tax revenues, as a share of GDP, in line with its European neighbours, but also inexcusable statistical manipulation. Second, Greece's relative competitiveness has steadily worsened, especially within the euro area, as reflected in a sustained current account deficit as a result of above-average increases in unit labour costs and prices and a stronger economic growth dynamic. Third the economic crisis - which, given the country's conservative banking sector was a classic external shock - has ravaged public finances, just as in other countries. And last but not least, fourth, the interest cost burden has dramatically increased, as genuine concerns about fiscal sustainability combined with speculation and misinformation to dramatically raise the rate of interest on new Greek government bonds."

fiscal weakness of the Greek state is true, it has a tax per GDP of 32%, and only 8% for direct taxation while e.g. Germany manages to collect 12% in direct taxation (this explains the main part of the gap). This points to rampant corporate and self-employed tax evasion, meaning that the crisis in greece is of their own making in great part.

since when are NGOs and trade unions asking for a reduction in unit labour costs, current account deficit may not be good, depending how much foreigners have your bonds and at what interest rate. Calling for lower labour cost for me is out of line.

this is 100% wrong, the Greek banking system is rotten to core, as most banking systems in Europe that facilitate criminal capital flight to tax havens, and support offshore banking centres like Cyprus that is also a flag of convenience with little or no regulation on shipping labour, tax, safety, etc. The Greek banks have happily opened offshore accounts for Greek millionaires and billionaires assisting them to pay no tax, there you have the Greek 'tax gap'. Sure they don't have their own banking crisis based on lending, maybe this is the 'conservative' side of it, but for me I'd call that 'prudent' which is a virtue in banking, but 'conservatism' means you assist the wealthy to do what they want.

speculation may have a role, but the rating agencies have done right to downgrade bonds of a government that runs a long-standing fiscal deficit without any idea of how it's going to be paid, it's a recipe for disaster. The problem is that they do it so abruptly, and not gradually as the secretive public finances in Greece, helped with Goldman Sachs have assisted in hiding the debt mountain, just like Lehman did in the banking world. This is totally corrupt from the Greek government's side, and they should be the ones responsible.

Just like the financial crisis in Finland in the early 1990s, Asian financial crisis in late 1990s, and now esp. the East European countries where salaries have been cut to bring fiscal balances... it's the ordinary people who are suffering from this, with unemployment, lower wages, so we should call for an end to the casino economy that plays on the fortunes of ordinary citizens.

This petition doesn't address the issues, and I have to say that trade unions should stop hiring orthodox economists so that we'd get better advocacy material to work on.

Mikael's petition seems much better on stopping the nukes!

Best,

Matti

My reply to Matti's answer follows here:

Hello Matti and all,

the open letter from the trade union economists addresses one issue, which you seem to miss completely, namely, that "The Greek crisis is a European crisis and needs European solutions". Would you agree that "a coordinated [European] economic policy" is needed? Or do you (and I do not mean only you, Matti) think that it would be better if the European Union disintegrated and disappeared altogether?

It also seems to me that you (Matti) misinterpret the economic analysis of the trade union economists, not taking into account their main argument, which concerns the economic imbalances within the EMU. They write:

"Due to strong differences in wage setting, Greek nominal unit labour costs increased by more than 30% since the start of EMU - and the increases in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland were even higher - whereas in Germany they rose by just 8%."

The ETUI economists here join the analysis of former German deputy finance minister, UNCTAD economist Heiner Flassbeck, who is of the opinion that Germany has for long been outcompeting the PIIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) by means of wage dumping. (Read the short article "The Greek Tragedy and the European Crisis, Made in Germany", by Heiner Flassbeck in the webzine of Monthly Review 13 March 2010, http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/flassbeck130310.html ).

As far as I can understand, the ETUI economists are not, as you seem to suppose, calling for a reduction in the wages of Greek workers and employees. They write:

"Greece must not be forced into massive demand deflation: having avoided the mistakes of the Great Depression at European level it makes no sense to repeat them at national level. On the contrary it is in Europe's vital interests to resolve the Greek crisis on the basis of rising incomes across the continent and to put in place the needed machinery to cope with competitive and fiscal imbalances in the future."

However, my own critique of the ETUI is based on my conviction that many of the economic and financial problems of the EU and its members are political and military in nature, starting from "the nuclear issues" (which also have strong ecological dimensions). Thus it is simply not possible for the EU to formulate a "coordinated economic policy" until it has settled for an independent foreign policy and security policy. Independent from the USA, that is. Denuclearization is not the panacea, it would not bring the solution to all problems, but it is a keyword, and the condition without which no favourable European economic, political and cultural solutions will be found.

In the discussion on the present Greek financial crisis, the excessive military spending of the Greek governments is rarely analyzed more closely. The ETUI economists do not even mention that 4-6 percent (?) of the Greek budget has for years been reserved for the military, e.g. for buying fighter jets and high-tech systems from coporations like Lockheed and Raytheon for thousands of millions of dollars. All too often, trade union economists avoid taking on the military-industrial complex, because the complex "creates jobs". For similar reasons, they keep silent about the necessary denuclearisation.

The weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and the missile defence and space war systems which have been constructed around the WMD, form the heart of the military-industrial-academic complex which plays such a big role in our social, economic and cultural life. That monster has to be killed.

Greetings from Finland,

- Mikael

PS "Greece remains among the top five largest recipient of major conventional weapons for 2005-2009, but has fallen from third place for 2000- 2004. The transfer of 26 F-16C from the United States and 25 Mirage-2000-9 combat aircraft from France accounted for 38 per cent of the volume of Greek imports." (SIPRI ). Aucun rapport avec la crise financière et budgétaire de la Grèce ?

RE: An Open letter to EU Foreign Minister on depleted uranium and HAARP

Mikael — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 12:07:00 +0300

A year ago, the "Capodistrias-Spinelli-Europe Initative" was launched with a declaration signed by, among others, Mr Wayne Hall from Aegina (Greece) and myself. Referring to the ideas and actions of two noble European unity builders from the past, namely Ioannis Capodistrias (1776-1831) and Altiero Spinelli (1907-1986), we expressed our belief "that the unification of Europe is today necessary and more feasible than in any other preceding period of history", and that this "is a matter which moreover concerns not only all of our continent, its peoples and its citizens, but humanity as a whole".

We also stated, in particular, that: "A united Europe cannot but be a Europe of peace and ecology, independent of the United States, nuclear-free, in solidarity with poorer countries, establishing relations of mutual friendship and collaboration with all countries, and particularly those in its immediate vicinity."

Today, however, I have decided to dissociate myself publicly from the Capodistrias-Spinelli initiative. This is because of the content of an Open Letter, which Wayne Hall has posted yesterday to Catherine Ashton, the newly appointed Foreign Minister of the EU, and signed in the name of the "Capodistrias-Spinelli-Europe initiative" together with Peter Vereecke of "The Belfort Group" and Aliki Stefanou, representing the "Greek Movement against Chemical Aerial Spraying". A draft of the said Open Letter to Ashton is found here; you have to scroll down a bit on the page to see it.

Explanation: I have seen no evidence to prove that a planetary Chemical Aerial Spraying is being secretly carried out on behalf of unknown authorities; nor do I wish to contribute to the spreading of disinformation about an alleged use of electromagnetic "earthquake weapons" by the US military in order to trigger the recent natural disaster in Haiti. .

Of course, I shall remain committed to

educating the people on Ioannis Capodistrias and Altiero Spinelli, and
building a free, united, democratic and denuclearized European state approximately on the political lines drawn by these two fellows.

Lovisa, Finland 2 April, 2010.

Mikael Böök

9/11 information ethics

Mikael — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 10:03:00 +0200

Peter Barber is the deputy comment editor of Financial Times (London). On June, 7, 2008, Mr Barber published the article "The Truth is Out There", which is a report on on the 9/11 Truth Movement. Senior medical librarian Elizabeth Woodworth's "evidence-based response", together with Mr Barber's article in annex, appeared in Global Research (Toronto) on June 11, 2008. I found this example of a 'thesis' and an 'antithesis' on a blog called "Campaign for Cooperation in Space" and tried to enter some comments of my own there. However, the comments section of the blog (more precisely, to the entry http://peaceinspace.blogs.com/911/2008/06/globalresearchc.html) said: "We're sorry, we cannot accept this data". Below, please find the comments I wanted to add:

A comment by a foreigner who does not speak English at home

I think it is a bit unfair to call Barber's article an 'ad hominem approach to a critically serious matter'. Journalism, after all, is not science; and the journalist must be allowed to spice his stories with details of human interest, lest the reader be bored to falling asleep. So when, for instance, Mr Barber mentions Dr Griffin's dogs, it is not yet to be classified as an attack on the venerated philosopher's personal integrity.

Mr Barber, on the other hand, although his report on the 9 / 11 TM is unusually sharp and meticulous, fails to mention the identity of the person, or group, which he calls 'the author of one of the most rigorous of the websites that aim to debunk the conspiracy theories, Debunking911.com', with whom he, as he reveals in his article, has been in contact by email. A journalist of course has, and should have, the right not to reval his sources, but is it allright to expose the intellectuals of the 9 / 11 TM in public while letting their 'debunkers' remain in anonymity? The 'author of Debunking911.com' should indeed tell who he is on his website, but, as far as I can see (I hope to be corrected, if I am wrong), he does not do that.

As already noted above, Mr Barber's article is not (at least not in my view) attacking any individual person in an unjust way, but he comes close to making the members of the public who lend an ear to 9 / 11 truthers collectively responsible for unforgivable naivety, or stupidity: 'they believe that the key to the mystery is hidden somewhere within the pictures', he states, although it becomes clear from his own article that the intellectual aim of the 9 / 11 TM is, precisely, to penetrate beyond the false appearances, that is, 'the pictures'.

'Gage, who had worked himself into a fever, exhorted the audience to stand up and be counted', Barber reports from an event with the architect Richard Gage as main speaker. Well, I was not there in San Francisco to listen to Gage, but still I wonder if this assembly of the truthers' community really was like a prayer night meeting of some evangelical free church.

These comments notwithstanding, I find that the writings by Elizabeth Woodworth* and Peter Barber on the 9/11 Truth Movement both provide much food for thought, to say the least. Therefore, I for one have put both on my list of recommended readings on the difficult subject of information ethics.

Mikael Böök

Lovisa, Finland

www.kaapeli.fi/book; blog.spinellisfootsteps.info

See also:

Elizabeth Woodworth: The Media Response to the Growing Influence of the 9 /11 Truth Movement Reflections on a Recent Evaluation of Dr. David Ray Griffin http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16505

Elizabeth Woodworth: The Media Response to the Growing Influence of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Part II: A Survey of Attitude Change in 2009-2010 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17624

Enough of Blair, Bush and Berlusconi! Long live the 911 Truth Movement!

Mikael — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 09:02:00 +0200

you wrote:

It might be my imagination but I have been sensing a despondency or at least a lack of optimism in your e-mails.

We must try to be beyond optimism and pessimism, like in the famous Romain Rolland quote (a favourite of Gramsci's):'pessimism of the intelligence, optimism of the will'. Ernst Bloch's Prinzip Hoffnung points in the same direction.

And Gandhi said something like this: what we do probably completely lacks significance, but it is very important that we do it anyway.

So let's hope that the Spinelli component is gaining strength from day to day. Let me give you some examples: only recently, there appreared a first scholarly biography of the man (the one by Graglia). And, by the way, yourself and myself also illustrate the growing importance of Spinelli : only 5 years ago, I had hardly heard about the guy; by now I have already managed to spread the word abt his Ventotene manifesto and 1984 draft constitution to several friends and foes, via email, www and printed articles. And then, look at all those, young and old, intellectuals and activists, who are soooo bitterly anti-EU. The time is approaching when they are bound to (re)discover Spinelli...

Finally, let's not forget that Spinelli is dead and that we must try to supersede him. He certainly had an inkling about 'the atomic age', yes, when we compare him with the contemporary zombies of Paris, Berlin, London and Brussels:

Contemple-les, mon âme; ils sont vraiment affreux! - Baudelaire

But Spinelli did not yet know of the nanotech, biotech and robotics based weapons systems of the 2010s; nor did he, on the other hand, have any first hand experience of the new superpower of the cyberlibrary, which is now offered to us.

And then, W, you also wrote:

I have been wondering what solutions might be possible.

You commented, perhaps not without irony, that people (read: myself) would not be ready to change their attitude. On the contrary, people (including myslf) will not be die-hard if you manage to document your view in a convincing manner. However, in the case of the 'chemtrails', what you have said so far leads me to ask: would you be ready to part from the truth, if that would help to mobilize the people for our goals?

No, lying must be condemned in politics, even when no other "solution" seems available. Enough of Blair, Bush and Berlusconi! Long live the 911 Truth Movement!

All the best.

- Mika

PS Do you need more grounds for hope? Here comes:

""What the election and the global embrace of Obama's brand proved decisively is that there is a tremendous appetite for progressive change - that many, many people do not want markets opened at gunpoint, are repelled by torture, believe passionately in civil liberties, want corporations out of politics, see global warming as the fight of our time, and very much want to be part of a political project larger than themselves.

Those kinds of transformative goals are only ever achieved when independent social movements build the numbers and the organizational power to make muscular demands of their elites. Obama won office by capitalizing on our profound nostalgia for those kinds of social movements. But it was only an echo, a memory. The task ahead is to build movements that are - to borrow an old Coke slogan - the real thing. As Studs Terkel, the great oral historian, used to say: "Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up."

Quoted from Naomi Klein's new preface to the 10th anniversary edition of her book No Logo which has been published a week ago.