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Tuesday 9 June 2009

Lessons for the Left from the European elections 2009

By Mikael on Tuesday 9 June 2009, 14:01

This is a preliminary analysis of the results of the European elections, viewed from a Finnish perspective, and in the light of some of the main European trends: the defeat of the Left, the success of the Greens, a lot of Rightist Nationalist Conservatism, intellectual stagnation and anxiety for the future. The strategic conclusion is that the Left must decide to build a democratic European state...
 
... Mitro Repo, the Orthodox priest and vote magnet (with 71 517 out of a total of 1 670 486 votes; the voting turnout in Finland being 40,2 %) of the Finnish Social Democrats , is not even a Social Democrat. That the Social Democratic leadership offered him an electoral platform is the clearest sign of its intellectual and moral bankruptcy. Again, Liisa Jaakonsaari (45 335) , the other new MEP of the Social Democrats, is not on the Left. Of the candidates who can be characterized as belonging to the Left, the two most successful, namely Annika Lapintie (Left Union, 29 010) and Kimmo Kiljunen (26 837) were not elected. This summarizes the electoral defeat of the Finnish Left.

The Social Democrats, in particular, and the Left in general, suffered severe losses in Germany, France, Italy, UK, Spain, Greece, Sweden, Austria, Portugal (where, however, the Left Bloc won 2 seats), Denmark (although the Socialist People's party, which belongs to the Green group in the EP, won 2 seats), the Netherlands and Belgium. In Poland, the Social Democrats kept their positions and even increased their seats in the EP with 2 new MEPs, while in Hungary the Socialist Party lost 5 of its 14 seats. The Czech Social Democratic Party, founded 2002 and thus a late-comer in the history of Social Democracy, increased its number of MEPs from 2 to 7. In Slovakia, the “Direction – Social Democracy”, also was victorious (32,5 % of the votes; up from 3 to 5 MEPs; however, the turnout was only 19,6 %). In spite of the rise of Social Democracy in Eastern Central Europe, the overall picture is that Rightist and conservative forces have won the elections.

Yet the the Left can rejoice with the Greens in the success of the latter in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France and Greece (and also to cry with the Greens of Europe, because no Green MEPs were elected from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania or Poland). The personal results of Heidi Hautala (58 952) and Satu Hassi (56 855), the two elected Finnish Green MEPs, are impressive. By the way, over the years a considerable part of the Left has migrated to the Greens. Satu Hassi is a good example, as is the Danish Socialist People's Party.

The old Finland-Swedish Leftist Nils Torvalds (the father of Linus) scored an excellent result (14035). He will be the substitute of Carl Haglund (16 853), the elected candidate of the Capitalist establishment of the Swedish People's Party. Add the good result of the open-minded journalist Björn Månsson (13 309) , and the picture emerges of a party with a constituency on the left rather than on the right of the centre.

Another subject for rejoicing is the astounding success of the Pirate Party in Sweden, which got 7,1 % of the votes in its first elections. The voters for the Pirate Party have understood what has not yet penetrated into the brains of the fossils among the commentators who do their best to explain it away: the crucial importance of the Internet for the future of mankind. Only one representative of the Pirate Party made it into the EP, though. His name is Christian Engström.

The political shipwreck of the European Social Democrats and Socialists is a fact. When the Finnish Social Democrats chose Heinäluoma and then Urpilainen to chair their party instead of Tuomioja, they missed their very last chances. No rescue is in sight.

The Left of the future is green. It has got rid of the ideology of economic growth, it is bent on dismantling every nuclear power station, and its security policy is not Atlantist. Thus it has liberated itself from the doctrines of such political dinosaurs as Tony Blair, Göran Persson and Paavo Lipponen (and the already mentioned Liisa Jaakonsaari).

The Left will remain a loser in the EU as long as it does not realize that the EU should have been its own cause ever since the Manifesto of Ventotene (1941). It will be lost in the wilderness until it stops looking for an alternative to EU instead of seeing the alternative within the EU.

The European Left is presently traversing a long phase of mineral exploration, in order to extract its most resistant metals. The process might require too much time, and it may already be too late to prevent a new world war or other catastrophes of the same magnitude. As long as the EU-leaders are named Sarkozy, Berlusconi, Barroso and Fogh Rasmussen,  anything can happen. Can one trust that the Greens, who seem to be as struck by the prevailing climate hysteria and hypocrisy as the rest, will continue to refuse the present proposal to build new nuclear reactors and export them to all parts of the world in order to, as they say, “reduce the emissions” (although, in reality, nuclear power is exclusively about making money and, in some countries, nuclear weapons)? Let's hope so. However, be sure that the politicians who won the European elections, or at least did not lose their positions in the power structure (e.g. the above-mentioned Sarkozy, Berlusconi, Barroso and Fogh Rasmussen &Co) prefer to just forget about the “emissions” from the nuclear power plants, in other words, the radioactive waste and plutonium.

In these very days, more precisely from June 6 to 16, the “Loyal Arrow 09”, as the NATO calls its military manoeuvre, is taking place in Northern Sweden. It started in the midst of almost total public silence (at least in Finland), undisturbed by any painful electoral debates. What is the relation of NATO, its immense military-industrial-academic basis and ideological doctrine of superiority in weapons of mass destruction, to our famous western democracy? When did the Swedes and the Finns elect NATO to defend themselves? Should there not have been referenda about the NATO-membership in the countries which joined the Atlantic Pact in 1949 or later,after the dissolution of the Soviet Union? If a European Left had existed, would it not have questioned the existence of NATO? A European Left would not have let itself be fooled by the fancy talk about the “crisis management” of the EU and the NATO, and the pretended peaceful and humanitarian motives of the “rapid deployment forces”, including the NATO Response Force, which is at this moment being tested in neutral Sweden and Finland under NATO military commanders. The Left would have notified the electorate about the real and potential “emissions" from this entire parasitic production of business corporations like EADS, BAE, Dassault, Lockheed, Boeing and others, which carry on and flourish in spite of (or maybe precisely because of?) the global financial and economic depression. One would expect a European Left, which really wants to tackle the enormous waste of the resources of the earth and the harmful influence of the human species on the environment and the climate (?), to start taking on the military-industrial complex. How many times did you hear that word during its most recent electoral campaigns?

The voting turnout in the whole EU was 42,85, which is 3% less than in the EP elections 2004. How to interpret these numbers? At least, the election result does not prove that people in general and people on the Left in particular, are becoming less interested in the EU. However that may be, the Left now needs to engage itself more, not less, in the basic issues concerning the EU. It must find again its own federalist roots, the original Leftist European project. Let the Treaties of Rome (1957) and The Single European Act continue to symbolize the EU of Capital. The EU of the Left, on the other hand, started with the Ventotene Manifesto(1941) and continued with the [Draft Treaty Establishing the European Union|http://www.spinellisfootsteps.info] (1984), which needs to be re-constituted and updated from an ecological point of view and in the light of the digital evolution. I shall finish my preliminary analysis with a table, which aims at engaging the citizens in the debate about the EU, and add some further comments.

 EU-table CLICK ON THE TABLE TO OPEN IT IN A NEW WINDOW

Comments to the table's questions and answers: Dare to deal with the diseases which I believe Thomas Wallgren refers to as underlying “cultural problems”. However, the EU is the patient, not the symptom.

Neither Finland nor any other member country should withdraw from the EU, which marks the beginning of a new political world system in which the states do no longer have (or, rather: do no longer believe that they have) absolute sovereignty.

It would be reactionary to try to dissolve the EU. The dissolution of the EU would signify a return to the Europe of Nationalism and war.

Not the EU as such, but the irresoluteness of the Europeans regarding their union, threatens the democracy. Let us decide to build a democratic European state, and we will have one.

The treaty of Lisbon is a symptom of underlying political problems; the lack of democracy, in the first place. The Lisbon Treaty is to cover up the fact that the EU does not have a democratic constitution like, for instance, he USA and India. In addition, the Lisbon Treaty explicitely binds the EU to NATO, which is unconstitutional. Military alliances should not be made by way of basic legislation.
The Irish NO to the Lisbon Treaty must be respected which means that the treaty deserves to be scrapped. By the way, the treaty will not become any better than it is even if the Irish would accept it in a second referendum.

The essence of the Lisbon strategy is that states (and the EU) should be regarded as business corporations. Thus economic competition and rivalry is elevated into the norm of behavior, not only in the economic, but also in the international sphere. The EU must be biggest and collect the biggest profits! How could a European Left ever accept this arch-bourgeois, Capitalist ideology?

For Capital, accumulation is Moses and the Prophets (as Karl Marx stated). The Left in Europe has to break with the economic growth dogma, and with the reminiscences of the myth of “man's domination over nature” in the classics of Socialism and Federalism.

Hope Heidi Hautala of the Greens can explain how the Lisbon strategy can avoid being a major cause of environmental problems.

Hope Claes Andersson will tell his reasons for the continuation of NATO.

With one, or maybe two exceptions, all seem to think that the EU would not need any military organization for its territorial defense, which is somewhat surprising.

European rapid deployment forces? During the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s, some leading statesmen of the USA and Europe have rehabilitated the notion of Imperialism. Consider, for instance, the statements of Mr Robert Cooper, General Director of the external relations of the EU, and the right hand of Mr Javier Solana. What are the RDF, if not a regrettable relapse into the idea of the moral superiority and the duty of the West to develop, civilize and, if necessary, punish the rest of the world?

European Nuclear disarmament, yes: the first and maybe most pressing task of a European Left is to wake up END, the broad, popular movement for the denuclearisation of Europe 'from the Atlantic to the Urals'. The identity of the EU as a peace project, the very possibility of a Europe beyond Imperialism, depends on whether the Europeans decide, unilaterally, to abolish the French and British WMD and to tell the Americas to withdraw theirs from European soil. (Note that both the French and the British governments are still, and unilaterally, going on with their production of new nuclear missiles and warheads.)

The so called nuclear renaissance, the actual plans to construct new nuclear power plants, is as fatal as the nuclear weapons development, to which it is closely connected. Every new investment in nuclear power is a terrible mistake. The dismantling of the existing reactors will be a very long and complicated story. I am glad that all (in the table) say no to more nukes.

Finally, one would believe that Leftists support the opinion that the EU should have its own Postal Service. Are we not in favor of public services? Which national peculiarities speak against a common European Post? Indeed, should we not strive to establish a global Postal Service?' “It seems to me that the long struggle which led to this great institution [.i.e the Post] throws some light on social progress in general”, wrote my compatriot Laurin Zilliacus only half a century ago, “and that the itinerary of the Post still might prove to be our road towards a peaceful, united world” (quoted from ''Det gula hornet. Glimtar ur postens oroliga historia.'' Helsingfors 1957)  If the institutionalized so called Left continues to allow the Capitalists to rob us of such essential public services as the Post, we will probably soon also have to witness how Mitro Repo &Co give their blessing to the privatization of the public libraries. As everybody should be aware of by now, Google Inc. has already proceeded quite far along that road.

Mikael Böök
9 June 2009

3 comments

Sunday 24 May 2009

NIGD Reflections (contd.)

By Mikael on Sunday 24 May 2009, 11:50

Do we have common references? The answer is yes. Vashudhaiva kutumbakam, we are all one family. We are also an association and an organisation, the Network Institute for Global Democratization (NIGD). NIGD's present chairperson, Matti Kohonen, has sketched our agenda. That, obviously, is also a common reference.
But we need further ones, in particular, for our communication in the networked institute. Our communication is part of an effort to build a common culture, and I mentioned books, which in my view suit the purpose: H.G. Wells' "The Open Conspiracy"; I. Wallerstein's "European Universalism"; and M.K. Gandhi's "Hind Swaraj". These works are relatively short, which means that no researcher and/or a social activist can pretend that he or she does not have the time to read them. Each one relates strongly to global democratization. One difference is that Gandhi and Wells are precursors while Wallerstein is a living member. Gandhi, of course, is much more of a practitioner than Wells and Wallerstein, who are theorists. But Wallerstein strives to greater universality than Wells, who is limited to the European universalism. In the writings and speeches of NIGD members which I have seen or heard, you often find literal references to at least one of these three, very different, figures. I have not seen any references to the theory or praxis of Simone Weil, nor have I studied her works, but I have heard or read some very interesting quotations from them.

The network itself is also a common reference, and a new one, because never before has humanity had an internet. Yet the humanity is still divided in 190 and something so called soverign states. To hell with that sovereignty! 'The hell' is not a universal notion, though.

Previous NIGD Reflections:
http://blog.spinellisfootsteps.info/post/2008/12/09/NIGD-Reflections

Where the hell is that? Here:

Of the old flame forthwith the greater horn
Began to roll, murmuring, as a fire
That labours with the wind, then to and fro
Wagging the top, as a tongue uttering sounds,
Threw out its voice, and spake: "When I escap'd
From Circe, who beyond a circling year
Had held me near Caieta, by her charms,
Ere thus Aeneas yet had nam'd the shore,
Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence
Of my old father, nor return of love,
That should have crown'd Penelope with joy,
Could overcome in me the zeal I had
T' explore the world, and search the ways of life,
Man's evil and his virtue.  Forth I sail'd
Into the deep illimitable main,
With but one bark, and the small faithful band
That yet cleav'd to me.  As Iberia far,
Far as Morocco either shore I saw,
And the Sardinian and each isle beside
Which round that ocean bathes.  Tardy with age
Were I and my companions, when we came
To the strait pass, where Hercules ordain'd
The bound'ries not to be o'erstepp'd by man.
The walls of Seville to my right I left,
On the' other hand already Ceuta past.
"O brothers!"  I began, "who to the west
Through perils without number now have reach'd,
To this the short remaining watch, that yet
Our senses have to wake, refuse not proof
Of the unpeopled world, following the track
Of Phoebus. Call to mind from whence we sprang:
Ye were not form'd to live the life of brutes
But virtue to pursue and knowledge high."
With these few words I sharpen'd for the voyage
The mind of my associates, that I then
Could scarcely have withheld them.  To the dawn
Our poop we turn'd, and for the witless flight
Made our oars wings, still gaining on the left.
Each star of the' other pole night now beheld,
And ours so low, that from the ocean-floor
It rose not.  Five times re-illum'd, as oft
Vanish'd the light from underneath the moon
Since the deep way we enter'd, when from far
Appear'd a mountain dim, loftiest methought
Of all I e'er beheld.  Joy seiz'd us straight,
But soon to mourning changed.  From the new land
A whirlwind sprung, and at her foremost side
Did strike the vessel.  Thrice it whirl'd her round
With all the waves, the fourth time lifted up
The poop, and sank the prow: so fate decreed:
And over us the booming billow clos'd."
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/8789/8789-h/p8.htm#26

no comment

Wednesday 15 April 2009

De Gaulle's mistake and Sarkozy's double mistake

By Mikael on Wednesday 15 April 2009, 19:20

The recent article in the German Times by the French journalist Francois d'Alancon has the merit of commenting on an event - the return of France to NATO - that has not got the coverage and the debate that it deserves. But that may be its only merit. D'Alancons's thoughtless praise of Sarkozy's 'pragmatism' is saddening.

Charles de Gaulle and Altiero Spinelli were at the antipodes of the post-war reconstruction of Europe. They started from radically different assumptions: de Gaulle, from conservative patriotism and national 'souverainisme'; Spinelli, from progressive socialism and federalism.

Yet both de Gaulle and Spinelli came to support the view that Europe should be politically and militarily independent from the USA, although both had at the beginning welcomed the membership of their own countries in the Atlantic alliance.

However, de Gaulle wanted to build Europe's independence on nuclear deterrence, which was probably the greatest mistake he made during his long and heroic career. From a military point of view, nuclear weapons have proved to be a new Maginot line in the sky, unless we think that they will once more be detonated in a war between nations, which would mark the end of the human race.

Spinelli, in the debate on the European Defence Community (EDC) at the beginning of the 1950s, supported the proposal that the armed forces of the member countries of the European Coal and Steel Comunity be integrated into a common European army. The projected EDC, however, was adopted by no one else. De Gaulle and his followers, including his opponents in the internal politics, the French communists, who more or less openly supported his foreign policies, were against it. How would Spinelli and the Italian Eurocommunists later on, in the 1970s and 1980s, have organized the defense of Europe? It seems that they did not make any essential contribution to the military thought of that period. Yet they understood that the road to the future must pass through nuclear disarmament, and even via the unilateral European abolition of these weapons of mass destruction. In sharp contrast to the left in France, which continued on the path of de Gaulle, having at the end of the 1970s also formally adopted the nuclear force de frappe as a necessary part of the French national defense, the Italian left came out in favour of the great European popular mouvement for nuclear disarmament in the 1980s.

Sarkozy's 'pragmatism', which means keeping and modernizing the French WMD, while militarily subordinating France and Europe to the USA, is pure opportunism. It merely provides further confirmation that Sarkozy, in comparison with his predecessor de Gaulle, is a political clown, somebody who like his Italian counterpart Berlusconi and his British colleague Blair, builds his fame and fortune on appearances in the media. In sum, Sarkozy is hardly more than a phenomenon of what Hans Magnus Enzensberger once named "the consciousness industry".

We remember what his wife Carla Bruni told the reporters: "je veux avoir un homme qui a le pouvoir nucléaire". Yet this man, or the inert power structure which he represents, actually 'has the nuclear power'. What does this mean? And what shall we make of the personal integrity of the journalist Francois d'Alancon from the Catholic journal la Croix who hails the the French decision to rejoin the military structures of NATO? Evidently, Catholics are supposed to believe that the the M51 missiles and their 'oceanic' warheads are compatible with Dominus Iesus! And Voltaire is rolling in his grave.

It is time to put an end to the reign of these dangerous media puppets. With the internet, another media landscape is possible. The Real News Network , for instance, is a TV news agency that is independent from the transatlantic military-industrial complex. Lets watch their news, lets donate some euros per month to support their service. With our blogs and wikis, we can build an alternative media for a real European Union without nuclear arms. Yes, we can!

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Friday 20 March 2009

Denuclearization starts at home

By Mikael on Friday 20 March 2009, 15:04

Counterpunch has published an excellent article by Harvey Wasserman about the financial crisis of the French-European nuclear company Areva.

"The myth of a successful nuclear power industry in France has melted into financial chaos" , Wasserman writes. "With it dies the corporate-hyped poster child for a "nuclear renaissance" of new reactor construction that is drowning in red ink and radioactive waste. Areva, France's nationally-owned corporate atomic façade, has plunged into a deep financial crisis led by a devastating shortage of cash."

In an earlier Counterpunch-article (Striking a Blow Against Nuclear Power, 13-15 February) Wasserman reported that the American national grassrots No Nukes campaign has scored an important victory. On 11 February, 2009, a proposed $ 50 billion boondoggle for new atomic reactors was stripped out of the US federal budget. "The victory gives a giant boost to solar, wind, efficiency, mass transit and other Solartopian technologies that can solve gobal warming, sustain real economic growth and bring us a truly gree-powered earth".

In Europe, too, the nuclear issue is key to solving the present crisis, and a Europe-wide political movement for the denuclearization of Europe is badly needed. A European Union, which has rid the continent of weapons of mass destruction and decided to build upon decentralized, renewable sources of energy, may finally develop into a free and united democratic state. If, on the other hand, Europe disintegrates economically and politically, or if the EU is built as a nuclear power, the end result can only be chaos and war.

The ongoing production of new missiles and warheads in France (M51) and Britain (Trident) must be halted immediately, European nuclear disarmament must be inscribed in the constitutional treaty of the European Union, the present Euratom-treaty must be abrogated and/or re-negotiated: we need a European treaty on the gradual phasing out of the existing nuclear power plants. Let the babies of the nuclear renaissance, such as Areva's mismanaged and delayed project in Olkiluoto (Finland), die in their infancy!

An Austrian participant in the conference on Participative Democracy of the Forum de la societé civile in Florence, 20-21 February, made me a little gift: a pince with the characteristic sunny logo of the anti-nuclear movement, and the text: RAUS AUS EURATOM.

Start making a lot of these anti-nuclear pinces, please! And let the visionary Manifesto of Ventotene for a Europe free and united inspire your thoughts. The second world war had hardly begun when Rossi and Spinelli started writing it. It was, in a way, our last chance. Because, if a third world war breaks out, visionaries or visions will no longer be needed.

"The UK will begin to scale back its stockpile of nuclear warheads if Russia and the US agree to new reductions, the prime minister [Gordon Brown ]said yesterday [16 March; as reported in The Guardian 17 March], as he gave warning that Iran faces harsher penalties if attempts to enrich uranium continue". The hypocrisy of the players of the multilateral disarmament game, such as Brown and Sarkozy, has long since passed the border of criminality. The more they speak about peace and the climate, the more radioactive waste and plutonium they are piling up for our grandchildren.

"Iran is a test case", Mr Brown says. No, our test cases are Britain and France. Denuclearization starts at home.

Greetings from Finland,

- Mikael

no comment

Wednesday 11 March 2009

More about Abolition

By Mikael on Wednesday 11 March 2009, 10:06

Dear J-M,

many thanks for your thoughts, and for the presentation of the radioactivity and waste problems of the nuclear power industry by Marie-Christine Gamberini from Friends of the Earth!

You ended your message with this sentence: Il faut articuler les deux : l'informationnel et le politique. (One has to articulate both The Informational and The Political)

Evidemment, but the transformation of The Informational is about to transform The Political in a way which is comparable to what happened during the 15th century with the breakthrough of the movable type and the printing press.

The global spread of internet use, still a relatively young development, leads to new forms of social and political praxis. This email message, which I am writing to you and copying to a public webpage (blog), is an example. Instantly public coordination of thoughts and actions between persons living in different corners of Europe has only become possible after, say, 2001 (to choose an ominous year), with email, blogs and wikis. Still more recently, it has become a part of our everyday life. The likes of Sarkozy, Blair, Merkel and Vanhanen (Vanhanen is the prime minister of my country, Finland) are losing, or have to a big extent already lost, their control over the framework(s) of our communication and action. The interesting political problem now is , of course, to determine how big that extent is. Through the internet we, the people, are each day gaining a little bit more control over them, the modern princes.

The present political structure is utterly obsolete and extremely destructive; its ideology inherently militaristic and racist. The leaders of the national governments more often than not appear as dangerous criminals. Their biggest crime is to incessantly threaten mankind with extermination. Obviously, their everlasting "modernization" of the existing nuclear weapons systems, their ongoing armaments in outher space and missile defense installations, are crimes against humanity.

While they continue to waste our planet's resources on their private, Nationalist bads (as opposed to the global public goods we all need), these hypocrites speak about solving the climate crisis.

Yet their present political system, which consists of 191 mutually competing and more or less militant (militaristic) "sovereign" National States with the trillion-dollars-yearly-military-budget United States of America on top, is the biggest single obstacle to ecological, non-wasteful and CO2-emissions reducing solutions.

What can we do? We can think globally, but we can only act locally as well as, hopefully, regionally. In the immediate present, European action is key, because Europe is a particularly weak link in the global chain of power. Here, the false consciousness may still give away to reason, as we have seen in the European Nuclear Disarmament movements of the 1980s.

The conditions are at hand for a very large assembly of ourselves, the peoples of Europe, against the Berlusconis!

The European Union must become a real European Union, founded on disarmament and international cooperation instead of NATO and market fundamentalism. The vision of the "Manifesto For a Free and United Europe", written by the Ernesto Rossi and Altiero Spinelli on the prison island of Ventotene, must finally become reality, let be that the context of 2009 differs wildly from 1941, when the Ventotene manifesto was written.

The French and British nuclear weapons systems are the top of the iceberg. Those who point out that the American and Russian warheads are counted by the thousands, while the British and French ones are only counted by the tens or hundreds, are numb. They have let themselves to be brainwashed by the Game of Disarmament (as Alva Myrdal bitterly called her 1976 book about the disarmament negotiations in the UN); the cynical, multilateral business of arms control.

The 60 new M51 missiles, which are presently being produced for the French nuclear submarines by EADS Astrium (EADS Astrium is an aerospace subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company EADS, based in Portsmouth and Stevenage, England; their factories and subcontractors are spread over the EU and the world) could alone destroy our planet, as each missile will carry six independently targetable TN 75 thermonuclear hydrogen bombs.

To start with: let's get rid of these remnants of the European colonial Empires, the "independent" French and British nuclear arms. The rest will follow suit. The necessary rethinking and refoundation of democracy, security, our models of production and consumption, will become possible once we agree to European unification on the basis of European nuclear disarmament. We need to gradually phase out the nuclear power stations as well, because they produce ever growing heaps of radioactive waste and plutonium. As everybody knows, we have to invest in renewable energy sources like wind-, solar and geothermal energy. Moreover, the present financial-economic-political crisis cannot and will not end without breaking the system of the militaristic national states. In order to create a stable secure financial system, we need, first and foremostly, to break out of the permanent war economy.

Europe must be founded as a democratic state on the abolition of its own nuclear weapons systems and a gradual phasing out of its nuclear power plants. Through its denuclearisation, Europe will acquire a new identity and become the bearer of the emerging political system, which is based on the new internet of mankind. The internet is the new global Informational Power, which can check and balance the previously existing national Executive, Legislative and Judicial state powers. It does not need a chairman or a decision-making body, because it is self-regulating, cybernetical. It is an extension of our literacy and library. Its governing principle is the ethic of the public librarian: to deliver all information to all without delay.

Whether it happens in Europe or elsewhere, "We, the People" of the internet will finally break the obsolete and criminal political structures of today. The most probable alternatives are either world war and utter destruction, or a Neo-Fascist American world dictatorship. The latter is still a possible outcome even if the unusually positive figure of president Obama dominates the picture for the time being.

All the best.

Mikael

no comment

Thursday 5 February 2009

Declan Ganley and the Nationalist Right

By Mikael on Thursday 5 February 2009, 08:34

The Nationalist Right is rallying around Irish businessman Declan Ganley and his Libertas movement. Ganley's supporters include MEPs Philippe de Villiers and Paul Marie Coûteaux, both members of the Mouvement pour la France, and Greek MEP Georgios Georgiou. Other politicians backing Libertas are Lord Alton, a life peer in the British House of Lords; Finnish MP Timo Soini; Bulgarian MP Mincho Kuminev; and Polish regional assemblyman Cyprian Gutkowski.

All the above-mentioned right-wingers have lent their personal support to Declan Ganley's applicaton for Libertas to become a European political party.

It seems that Declan Ganley is trying to sink the EU with the help of these and other conservative Nationalists. Ganley is in turn backed by powerful circles within the US military-industrial complex, who do not wish to see a united and democratic state emerge on the old continent. These are the same circles as those who oppose newly elected president Obama's plans to withdraw the troups from Iraq. For them, a united and democratic Europe, as described in  the constitutional draft from 1984 ("The Spinelli Project"),  is a nightmare, since they fear that it would spell the end of the political and military supremacy which the USA has had over Europe after World War II.

In my country, Finland, the chairperson of the "True Finns" Party, MP Timo Soini has until recently squarely rejected the European Union and Finland's membership in the same. He has only shown deep contempt for the European Union. Thus on 29 January, Mr Soini wrote in his blog that he will not run in the elections for the European Parliament, because "my morals and my conscience will not sink to the level of the EU".

However, yesterday Timo Soini came forth with a declaration to indicate that the the "True Finns" are no longer demanding that Finland leaves the EU. Could it be that Mr Soini hopes to get financing via Libertas for "True Finns" who are, after all, morally prepared to candidate in the coming euro-elections?

Within the Finnish electorate, the support for the "True Finns" Party is now bigger than that of the Leftist Union. According to a recent poll, only 7.5 percent would vote Leftist Union, while 8.2 percent would vote for the True Finns. Meanwhile, the support of the Social Democrats has fallen to under 20 percent.

It was the Finnish Social Democratic Party which led Finland into the EU in the 1990s. Unfortunately, the Social Democrats did not, and do not, have any vision of the future of the EU itself, if we except the now vanished Neoliberal pipedreams of Tony Blair.

What was "The Spinelli Project"? This is the question the European Left must now ask itself.

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

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Thursday 8 January 2009

The saving angels

By Mikael on Thursday 8 January 2009, 12:31

"L'homme n'est ni ange ni bête, et le malheur veut que qui veut faire l'ange fait la bête." – Pascal *)


In these hours, the colloquium "Nouveau monde, nouveau capitalisme. Ethique, développement, régulation" (New world, new capitalism. Values, development, regulation) takes place in Paris, hosted by Nicolas Sarkozy.

Among the participants are Tony Blair and Angela Merkel.

Eric Besson, the Secretary of State in charge of Strategic Planning, Public Policy Evaluation and Digital Economy Development, delivered the opening words. On the homepage http://www.colloquenouveaumonde.fr/home/, Besson writes:

"With this crisis, States remembering 1929 terrible consequences have even come to be the insurer of last resort.
In order to learn the lessons thoroughly and re-create the right conditions for a sustainable and solidarity-based growth, we need to gain back trust in capitalism – this is regulation’s purpose - and his core values. Capitalism ought to be this well-acknowledged wealth creation system as well as a humanistic economic, social and organisation, able to create and fairly redistribute wealth while living up to its very principles: freedom and accountability, entrepreneurial risk valuation without sharing mistakes.
This crisis, like any other, could bring change. Time has come to draft a “new capitalism”, more responsible and ethical. Time has come to draw a “new world” of solidarity and multilateralism, where the coordinated economic governance initiated over the last few months will be strengthened and institutionalized.

Combine the epithet "digital economy development" in Besson's title with the expression coordinated economic governance. The result is a vision of a capitalism which is governed with the help of some kind of generalized and "multilateral" digital bookkeeping. Interesting!

But not very promising, at least not with these guys. As long as they cook their magic pudding of atomic bombs (the new warheads and missiles M51 and Trident) and missile defense, their capitalism cannot be much more transparent than the system which has just crashed. It is corrupt at the root, however much Sarkozy may speak of the amorality on financial capitalism (he used this word a while ago). Question to which it is necessary to return: what was said at the colloquium about the tax havens?

To many, including the present writer, one of the main goals of this conference seems to be to pave the way for Tony Blair to become the first president of the European Union.
___
*) Man is neither angel nor beast; and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the beast. The French philosopher André Glucksmann referred to this famous dictum by Pascal in his recent opinion about the policy of the Israeli government in Gaza. For Glucksmann, "he who would act the angel", is Hamas; for me, Sarkozy and Blair.

no comment

Saturday 3 January 2009

On the legacy of 1989

By Mikael on Saturday 3 January 2009, 08:43

Compared with traditional letters, what news does email bring? How Modern is the Modern Post? The new thing is that I can post to more than one at a time. Via the web, I can actually post to everybody, insofar as every potential reader can reach the web.

"Dear All ( Especially ex-Soviet Union/Eastern European Friends, Companieros), What do you all think of this analysis - 20 odd years on ??", the signature Merlin asked , quoting an editorial of Financial Times 2 January 2009.

I can partly agree with the editors of the FT, that "the legacy of 1989" is an inspiration for tough times. The Third Reich started a world war and ended militarily defeated; the Soviet Union did not start any world war and it ended practically without firing a shot. It is precisely the relatively non-violent way in which the Soviet Union ended which inspires me. The editors of the Financial Times feel the same, I believe, when they note that "for most of the 350m people of the former communist bloc, totalitarianism ended peacefully. There was no Communist revanchism, no descent into anarchy and no nuclear Armageddon."

However, instead of comparing how the two aforementioned, relatively short-lived Totalitarian Empires ended, they draw parallels to 1789, and to 1917, as if the destruction of the Berlin wall had marked the beginning of a social and political revolution.

"It is not the west as such that triumphed but the universal values that the west, for all its many shortcomings, upholds", they write. Have the last twenty years been a period of revolutionary progress towards a better future for mankind?

Nothing really important has changed, except that mankind has got an internet (Internet).

At the beginning of 2009, "the west" continues to uphold "the universal values" by preparing for nuclear Armageddon. To say so may seem unfair given that "eastern" countries or blocs (the Shanghai Cooperation Organization?) are responding in the same way, that is, by building and/or installing doomsday arms. Or call them weapons of mass destruction to avoid religious overtones.

But it is not unfair to put the blame on both the west and the east, because these concepts should by now be politically outdated and obsolete: "We must learn to be loyal, not to 'East' or 'West', but to each other, and we must disregard the prohibitions and limitations imposed by any national state," to quote what E.P.Thompson and the other signatures of the END Appeal said already at the beginning of the 1980s (See Protest and Survive. Ed. by E.P.Thompson and Dan Smith. A Penguin Special 1980, p 225.)

The editors of Financial Times seek their inspiration in what they call "the overthrow of Communism". For many of us, however, the year 1989 marks the end of the Cold War over Europe, of which the Berlin Wall was a symbol. For the present writer, at least, the legacy of 1989 is to do with the greater possibility of European Nuclear Disarmament (END) and a development of Europe in the direction envisaged by Altiero Spinelli.

In this morning's email, I found the following reflections by Wayne Hall:

"I do not think that Europeans should have to consult the US government on the question of whether European governments have or do not have nuclear weapons. And as far as American nuclear weapons policy is concerned, that too is a subject that Americans should take responsibility for themselves. Particularly since it has long been the view of the American "right" that nuclear weapons decisions are questions with a bearing on national sovereignty, and that no outside party has a right to tell America what weapons it can and cannot have.

If that is a principle that has so much popular support in the US, then it should be asserted as a principle in Europe, and elsewhere, also. The Saintes Appeal represents an assertion of that principle of European political autonomy on nuclear issues."

During the holidays I have been reading some of Luigi Einaudi's articles from 1948 and earlier (See Footnote). Einaudi, who was President of the Republic 1948-1955, is one of the great European federalists. About the atomic bomb, he wrote:

"Il dilemma è: si vuole che il divieto agisca entro l'ambito della piena sovranità degli Stati rinunciatari (all'uso della bomba atomica) ovvero si riconosce che il divieto presuppone una rinuncia alla sovranità medesima? Questa è la cote alla quale fa d'uopo saggiare la serietà e la sincerità dei propositi di coloro i quali affermano di essere contrari all'uso della bomba atomica."

I cannot give a good English translation of the quotation, but here is a try: "The dilemma is: do you want the ban (of the use of the atomic bomb) acting within the  scope of full sovereignty of states , or it is recognized that the  prohibition presupposes a surrender of the sovereignty? This is the  touchstone of the seriousness and the sincerity of the goals of those who  claim to be opposed to use of the atomic bomb." (Grateful for corrections.)

The paradox that sovereignty is also needed to decide about nuclear disarmament can be solved if we recognize the sovereignty of the people versus that of the state. We, the peoples of Europe, can decide about European nuclear disarmament. States may not be capable of doing that decision because of the limitations to their sovereignty. The sovereign state, as Einaudi notes in another of his articles, is actually a myth.


Footnote:

The texts by Luigi Einaudi to which I refer are: La Società delle Nazioni è un ideale possibile? ; Chi vuole la pace? ; Il mito dello Stato sovrano, and Chi vuole la bomba atomica?  These articles are linked to the page of the ISTITUTO ITALIANO PER GLI STUDI FILOSOFICI.

no comment

Sunday 28 December 2008

The same subject continued

By Mikael on Sunday 28 December 2008, 23:35

Greetings from Finland! We have had a beautiful Sunday between Christmas and New Year. The news are bad, as usual, with the Israeli air strike on the Palestinians in Gaza on top. In these days we also learn about the ongoing visit of president Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife to Brazil. The new arms deal which Sarkozy has made with Lula is noteworthy. On Christmas eve 2008, the Associated Press reported that

Brazil began a program to develop a nuclear submarine in 1979 and Silva last year announced $540 million in new funding for the program and for uranium enrichment efforts.
The nation has five conventionally powered submarines.
The two countries also agreed to build a submarine base and shipyard in Rio de Janeiro and to have 50 EC 725 Cougar helicopters built by Brazil's Helibras, which is controlled by Eurocopter, a branch of the French-German defense group EADS.
"The agreements will enable Brazil to give the technological leap needed to restructure its armed forces and set in motion its new defense strategy," Silva said.
Brazil said last week that it will beef up troops in its vast Amazon rain forest, build nuclear and conventional submarines to protect offshore oil fields and modernize its weapons industry under a new national defense plan."

The development of the military and industrial complex seems to be unstoppable. While the financial system has crashed and the economy has been hit by depression, the weapons producers and the arms traders flower. Has anybody heard of any 'bailout' plans for the arms industry? No, because there is no crisis in the war economy.

Our world is still floating in the direction which E.P.Thompson, writing at the beginning of the last decade of the Cold War, called 'exterminism'1

Therefore, Pierre Villard, the co-chair of the Mouvement de la paix and member of the international co-ordinating committee of Abolition 2000, really hits the nail on its head when he says that resolute action for the denuclearization of Europe is the best gift, which the Europeans can give to the world. C’est le plus bel acte de confiance que les Européens pourraient donner au monde!2

I am also with Villard when he demands that the IAEA be allowed to inspect all the military facilities of the nuclear states (what a shame that so is not already the case!). Furthermore, I agree with his pragmatic approach to the dismantling of the civilian nuclear power stations. Dans l’immédiat, dépêchons-nous de prendre des mesures efficaces pour couper tous les liens qui peuvent exister entre nucléaire civil et nucléaire militaire, Villard says. Yes, effective measures to cut the links between the civil and the military applications of nuclear technology are certainly needed immediately in, for instance, France and Brazil.

At the end of his speech, Pierre Villard added:

"Le parlement européen par sa résolution adoptée le 10 mars 2005 sur la mise en œuvre du TNP a rappelé que "l'objectif de l'union et l'objectif ultime du TNP sont l'élimination des armes nucléaires". Il faut donc maintenant passer à la mise en œuvre de cette résolution qui disait : "le parlement européen demande instamment à l'Union d'œuvrer résolument en faveur de l'établissement de la convention modèle sur les armes nucléaires, qui a été déposée aux Nations unies et qui pourrait fournir un cadre de mesures dans un processus de désarmement légalement contraignant".


Who is opposed to making a 'model convention' on global nuclear disarmament? Not me, I am all for it. Yet I wonder when the European Parliament, in addition to producing the 'model convention' , will proceed to drafting 'a model constitution' , not for the whole world, but for a European Union without nuclear weapons?

There is a precedent which ought to serve as the starting point . At the beginning of the 1980s, when both Western and Eastern Europe experienced a popular movement for European nuclear disarmament (END), the Italian MEP Altiero Spinelli drafted a constitution of the political European Union to come, based on the opinion that "the United States must be prepared to disengage itself militarily and to accept the denuclearization of Europe" .3

The draft Treaty Establishing the European Union (as the draft constitution was officially called) was adopted by a big majority of the European parliament in February 1984. However, the governments of France (Mitterrand), Britain (Thatcher) and Western Germany (Kohl) preferred to dump the projected democratic European state for their national reasons of state. Then Spinelli died, believing that the result of all his efforts had been "only a miserable little mouse, which many suspect is a dead mouse" 4.

The history of nuclear weapons policy is one of uncertainty and irresoluteness. So is the history of the European Union. The two histories are indeed intertwined to a degree that we might as well finally admit that they are one and the same history.

Despite the wars and armed conflcts that took place in the global South, the Cold War was fought over Europe. Did the Cold War over Europe ever end? If it did end, then why did the USA not disengage itself militarily from Europe? Why is France and Britain producing new nuclear missiles and new nuclear warheads? And why is the word 'disarmament' not to be found in the Treaty of Lisbon?

References:

1 Thompson, E.P.: "Notes on Exterminism, the Last Stage of Civilization", in New left Review (ed.): Exterminism and Cold War. London 1982, pp 1-35.
2 Pierre Villard's speech at the conference "A World Without Nuclear Weapons", arranged by the Socialist group of MEPs in Brussels, 9 December 2008. http://www.mvtpaix.org/actualites/actualites.php#Conference
3 Spinelli, A.: "Atlantic Pact or European Unity". Foreign Affairs 40, July 1962, p 552. The text of the Treaty Establishing the European Union is found (inFrench and English), at www.spinellisfootsteps.info.
4 Spinelli: Discorsi al Parlamento europeo, 1976-1986, a cura di Pier Virgilio Dastoli (Bologna 1986) p 369, quoted and translated by John Pinder: "Altiero Spinelli's European Federal Odyssey" (paper for the symposium "Altiero Spinelli - European Federalist", Brussels, 10 September 2007). Part of Spinelli's speech is reproduced on a video which was produced at the EP to commemorate him twenty years after his death (ca 5 min 30 sec into the video).

no comment

The END is the beginning

By Mikael on Sunday 28 December 2008, 00:52

Is Sarkozy pursuing a strategy of power balance vis-à-vis the USA, when he goes on with the production of the M51, the new "Oceanic" thermonuclear warheads, and the exports of nuclear technology, including the nuclear submarine to Brazil?

The Brazilian diplomat Sergio Duarte, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, put his finger on a very sensitive point at the conference of the Socialist group in the European  Parliament, 9 December 2008, when he said:

Among the many dangers ahead, one must surely include an ever-growing proliferation of separate disarmament agendas, which all too often reflect the parochial interests of specific countries or groups of countries, rather than the common good or the collective international interest.

States and governments always act for their reasons of state. So when they speak about disarmament, it means they want to gain some special advantage for themselves. This is why they always fail to reach agreement on disarmament. The Saintes Appeal may not contain  the word unilateral, yet unilateral nuclear disarmament is what it is calls for.

Millions of people already understand that
- our world is heading towards more violence and war;
- the economic depression deepens;
- the talking about ecology and global warming is just talk;
- inequality, crime and terrorism are growing.

European Nuclear Disarmament (END) is not the remedy to all these problems. But it it is the first goal that has to be achieved before those problems can even begin to be solved. The END can be  the beginning:
- of general nuclear disarmament including the dismantling of the costly and dangerous "missile defense";
- of a green economic new deal;
- of using science and technology in an ecological way in Europe;
- nuclear weapons and democracy are incompatible, but END makes people power possible, which helps to fight inequality, crime and terrorism.

It is not enough to say NO to the Lisbon treaty. We need to say YES to the European Union. Without the END, however, there will only be a society of sovereign European states with nuclear arms, but without democracy, and the above-mentioned  negative megatrends  will continue as before.  (to be contd)




2 comments

Tuesday 16 December 2008

More about missile defense

By Mikael on Tuesday 16 December 2008, 13:04

(From a letter to a German friend)

Some months ago, I engaged in a polemic with a historian and a nuclear weapons expert in Hufvudstadsbladet (daily newspaper in Swedish in Finland). I found that the expert shared my view that the existing missile defense of the West is worthless if it comes to intercepting Russian strategic nuclear missiles. However, the expert accepted the explanation given by the Americans for the planned radar and interceptor bases in Czhechoslovakia and Poland, namely, that these are built as a shield against Iranian attacks, because the Iranians are not expected to have, now or later, missile systems nearly as effective as the Russians.

My purpose in the aforementioned exchange of articles was to draw attention to the "economic" side of missile defense: that the main motive behind missile defence is indeed that it does not work, and that, for this very reason, missile defense is an unfailing goldmine for the military-industrial complex. Shortly after this polemic in the Finnish-Swedish newspaper took place (or at least later than I knew of it), George Monbiot published his excellent column on missile defense in The Guardian (London). Did you read that one? The title of Monbiot's column is The Magic Pudding (I have already quoted it earlier in this blog)

When considering the (relatively) autonomous development of the military industry, the German word Selbstgesetzlichkeit comes to my mind. Would you use that word in this context? Also, one comes to think of the term which was coined by E.P.Thompson in the European nuclear Disarmament Movement of the 1980s : Exterminism.

no comment

Tuesday 9 December 2008

NIGD Reflections

By Mikael on Tuesday 9 December 2008, 10:00

The Network Institute for Global Democratization (NIGD) is a network of more or less academic researchers or social activists, and especially for persons who try to be both. In his Diario europeo, Spinelli mentions a conversation with Immanuel Wallerstein in Rome 11 January 1964. "Nel pomeriggio, visto i due prof. della Columbia, Frankel e Wallerstein, piacevoli conversazioni." Last March, at a social evening for NIGD members and supporters in Helsinki, I in my turn had the possibility to have a nice chat with prof. Wallerstein and other members of the network. Enclosed here are a couple of recent postings to NIGD's mailing list. My message can be summed up in two sentences. First: European nuclear disarmament. Then a positive change in the climate.

[Subject: open space vs. institutional power (4 Dec)]



Dear NIGD-members,

thanks for your reflections. Some of you have said much with few words. I shall try do the same. It will be in 3 parts, though. This is part 1.

Mikko Sauli (like others before him) pointed to the need to define the relation of the social forum to institutional power, and Tord Björk rejected (like he has done before) the basic 'open space'-concept of the forum. But the solution to the problem of the political power of the forum lies precisely in its being an 'open space'!

The social forum is an embryo of world society and "world government"; the most promising so far. So if the WSF fails to grow into a baby and an adolescent youth, it will have to be reinvented - as an open space. I put quotation marks around the not-yet-existing kind of "government", because "world government" cannot and will not be like the previous state government. H.G. Wells is one of the thinkers and visionaries who have had more than an inkling of how it is going to work:

" Existing states are primarily militant states, and a world state cannot be militant. There will be little need for president or king to lead the marshalled hosts of humanity, for where there is no war there is no need of any leader to lead hosts anywhere, and in a polyglot world a parliament of mankind or any sort of council that meets and talks is an inconceivable instrument of government. The voice will cease to be a suitable vehicle. World government, like scientific process, will be conducted by statement, criticism, and publication that will be capable of efficient translation".[1]

With his usual clout for anticipation of things to come, Wells wrote this already around 1930 ( in his political manifesto, called "The Open Conspiracy"; later also published under the title: What To Do with Our Lives?). Today it is easier to see what government 'conducted by statement, crticism and publication' means. It means cybernetic government, self-governing cyberspace, indeed, an open space. The institution in which this power must be rooted is, of course, the internet, which has in less than two decades spread to practically all peoples in all corners of the globe.

However, before the internet and its cyberspace can become established and sustainable, a leap forward is required in the emerging area of global power politics, which sofar has gone under the name of 'internet governance'. What is at stake here , if you like, is 'world governance' over 'world governance'.

Perry Barlow, in A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (1996) issued a necessary warning:

"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather."

So, if the state governments with their executive, legislative and judicial powers shall not run the net, then who shall?

Answer: Internet governance is like running a library. It consists, essentially, in keeping the books, and more precisely, in keeping the vast catalog of numbers and addresses which need to be matched in order to be readable by humans. This task, the task of the ICANN, is a typical task for librarians! Moreover, fino in fondo the internet is the new public library - the public external memory - of mankind. The internet is an extension of our literacy and of all our libraries.

Cyberspace, 'open space' - the difference between these two exists only in our heads. In reality, they are one and the same. However, in order to interpret their meaning in terms of social power structures, it is necessary to reconsider our traditional, Montesquiean doctrine on the division of statepowers. Cyberspace - the open space - is the Fourth state power, the Informational Power. It cannot but be global and cosmopolitan. It has to be free from the fetters of the military-industrial complexes, i.e. the hierarchical organization of empires and nation-states.

[1] See Wells, H.G.: The Open Conspiracy. H.G. Wells on World Revolution. Edited and with a Critical Introduction by W. Warren Wagar. Praeger 2002, p 70-71.

[2] From experience, I know that this formulation may invite an argument about 'Euro-centric' attitudes. The libraries of Sumer, however, precede the earliest evidence of the Greek myth about Europe with a couple of millennia. Hardly any social institution is more universal than the library.

Best wishes,

- Mikael



[Subject: the state of the movement (5 Dec)]

As in my preceding note, I start from the premise that we are trying to build an 'open space', that is, a world where the freedom of information reigns and where the peoples are in power (I refer, in other words, to our commitment to 'global democratization'). Tord Björk already commented that I omit the empirical evidence of the European and World Social Forums. No, I do not want to neglect the real experience and shortcomings of the forum process, but I think that our definition of the forum and its open space has been far too narrow. Above all, it must extend to the other 'open spaces', and therefore to the libraries and the internet, in the first place, because these (when combined as I sketched in part 1) may actually enable a common independent (from the resons of state) 'information' and thus 'human understanding' of mankind. But also to the 'open spaces' which are called universities (this word also refers to 'universal' as opposed to national or corporate), and, of course, to journalism and the free press. But these are all (we are all) still mental prisoners of the old system that has to go.

For years, the political 'line of demarcation' against 'Neoliberalism' enabled a broad union, but the crash of its casino economy has now practically deleted its significance. At the level of consciousness, we have moved from more or less peaceful times to a period of war and revolution. Thus questions which we 'normally' shunt aside, because of their terrible and/or confusing character, suddenly have to be answered and decided. These questions are not about 'isms'. They are about real things, such as atomic warheads, nuclear power plants and the radioactive waste, which was dumped in Somalia with the help of the mafia during the decades before the tsunami 26 December 2004 (as reported by UNEP, although the UNEP failed to mention the role of the mafia) [1]. If we do not manage to launch a common offensive for the abolition of the weapons of mas destruction and the dismantling of the nuclear power plants, then we might as well give up. The choice is, as Albert Camus wrote 8 August 1945, between "collective suicide" or "an intelligent use of the achievements of science" [2].

One of the intelligent uses of electronics, and thus of the atomic science, has already been mentioned and appraised: the internet, a technology, which can literally be (and which nearly is) owned by everybody, and which can literally govern itself, provided that the librarians keep the books with its names and numbers and secure its continuity.

Recently, a French anti-nuclear activist opened her speech at a demonstration in my home town Lovisa (which already has two Soviet type nuclear reactors, and a new 'western' NPP coming): - In the case of a leakage from the nuclear power plant, we may not smell or fell it, she said. Already for this reason, we are totally dependent upon the central political power for news and assessments of the accidents and catastrophes.

This state of absolute dependence is of course the same, or even worse, in the case of the the military applications, the missiles and the missile defence installations on the ground and in outer space: from its beginning, the nuclear state has been incompatible with democracy, with people power. Since 1945 when the war ended and the nuclear age begun, democracy is thus nothing but an illusion built on a fraud. And this is still our predicament because we have not felt compelled enough to make the choice which Camus immediately saw that we will have to make. The point I want to repeat, then, as far as our movement is concerned, is that the time for the choice is now or never, and that it is most naive and stupid to believe that the presidents of the republics, the ministers of the governments, and their diplomats are capable of solving this problem, which can only be solved from within our movement.

However, to return for a change to the positive and intelligent use of our knowledge: What happens when the connection to the internet is broken? Well, some irritation, at most. An expletive word about bad service. A healthy reminder of the fact that it is not absolutely necessary to be connected with all and everybody all the time! In sum, the problem with the lost connection bears no resemblance with the problem caused by a nuclear explosion or leakage; the connection can and it will be fixed by some simple computer assistants without help from any high political authorities -- that is, if we manage to keep the net off their criminal reasons of state.

Never were the reasons of state more criminal than they are in the age of the internet. Yet it seems that our movement for justice has sofar not had the guts to communicate and discuss openly about the 9/11-contradictions, and to demand an international judicial investigation of the 9/11-crimes, i.e. the destruction of the twin towers and the persons who happened to be inside them, the demolition of the third tower which was not even hit by a plane (and which had been evacuated) , the likewise spectacular "attack" on the Pentagon which succeeded under the nose of the whole imperial military machinery in spite of the collapse of the WTC being already shown on television, the mysterious fragmentation of the fourth plane, and then, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, backed up with the lies about 911 and ever new lies and the bogus "war on terror" ... And so it seems, that the task of bringing up the 9/11-issue, and keeping it alive in the public consciousness (via the internet, where else?), has been left to a special section called "Truth movement", as if it where possible to specialize in "the truth"!

A propos, I do not know how true this anecdote is (may the concerned persons answer themselves), but it is told that the great Noam Chomsky was approached by the leading figures of the movement for truth, among them the philosopher David Ray Griffin and the physicist Steven E. Jones. The latter asked, as I do you here, for Chomsky to join the appeal for an independent international investigation, and Chomsky, in turn, is reported to have suggested that the evidence (the evidence of the untruths, I may add) be submitted for publication in a couple of leading scientific journals. Which is precisely what Griffin, Jones et alios did hereupon. Moreover, their evidence was peer-reviewed and published in couple of scientific journals; not the most often quoted, perhaps, but what the heck, decide for yourself, and express your own honest opinion,perhaps there is still some time to do it. [3] Do you seriously believe that the present crisis can be solved if we decide to avoid and forget this necessary Auseinandersetzung with the lies on which the present order is based? What future order can be built on the current lies about 9/11?

To sum up: Resolute and unified action to abolish the vast weapons systems of mass destruction on the ground, in the seas, in the air and in space and to successively dismantle the existing nuclear power plants instead of planning and building new ones - "the social" of the social forum must include and constantly reveal this aspect of the real power politics. Otherwise, we are not even considering the real relations of force (the strentgh, but also the weakness, of our adversaries).

Secondly, 'a global justice movement' ought not to let the perpetrators of the 9/11 crimes go unpunished. [4]

And, thirdly, I have tried to formulate the need to give our movement a library dimension, which, when specified and concretized, means building the common library and external memory of mankind with the building blocks that are already at hand, namely, the existing public and academic libraries and the internet. This equals the extending and the guaranteeing of the continuity of the 'open space' of which the peoples of the social forum are speaking.

Having thus pointed to three crucial problems which arise when we take an inward look on our movement, one (the "library dimension") rather universal and timeless, the two others more specific and acute, I proceed to affirming my conviction that the agendas which our movement has already produced for the solution of the current crisis, are both relevant and realistic, and yet not viable, because too narrowly focussed on the financial system and the economy. For instance, the "Green New Deal" proposal, which was recently brought to my attention (actually via the seemingly harmless Facebook area of the Net) by German Attac and Tax Justice activist Sven Giegold, would be a very good one, but only if it would clearly indicate that we must take on the military-industrial complex, and especially the parts which keeps it all together, the aforementioned WMD systems. There can e.g. be no tax justice if we do not get rid of missile defence, because "under Bush the corruption has acquired Nigerian qualities", and

"Missile defence is the biggest pork barrel of all, the magic pudding which won't run out however much you eat. The funds channelled to defence, aerospace and other manufacturing and service companies will never run dry because the system will never work." [5]

In the third part of my analysis I shall take a closer look at the proposals I have been able to spot concerning the casino crash thanks to this nigd-list, and other social forum related net-forums.

All the best.

- Mikael



[1] See After the Tsunami. Rapid Environmental Assessment. UNEP 2005, p 134.

[2] See Camus: Actuelles. Ecrits politiques. Gallimard 1958, pp 67-69.

[3] In particular, see Steven E. Jones, Frank M. Legge, Kevin R. Ryan, Anthony F. Szamboti, James R. Gourley: "Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction", In Open Civil Engineering Journal 2008:2, pp.35-40. (http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/gen.php?file=35TOCIEJ.pdf)

[4] Sofar, only the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq have been "punished", that is, by invasion and war. The actual trials and judgments are still ahead. By the way, did you notice that the evidence which the US police hase been able to produce against the main suspect, Mr Osama Bin Laden, has not even been enough to publish a warrant on him. See Chapter 18 of David Ray Griffin: 9/11 Contradictions. An Open Letter to Congress and the Press. 2008. The title of the chapter: "Is there hard evidence of Bin Laden's responsibility?"

[5] See George Monbiot's column "The Magic Pudding" , August 19, 2008. (http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/08/19/the-magic-pudding/)



[Draft resolution on Sarkozy and Blair (6 Dec)]

Dear NIGD,

while preparing part 3 of my reflections about the situation and the future of NIGD (parts 1 and 2 were posted to this list yesterday, and the day before) , I receive a draft resolution, which my friend Wayne Hall and others (whose common denominator is membership in Attac Hellas) are proposing to the Greek EcoGreens, who meet in Athens this week-end. Although not a Greek EcoGreen myself, I feel that the resolution concerns me and us; indeed, I suggest that we all endorse it.

Best
- Mikael

--- start of draft resolution ---

The focus on positive programmatic proposals for environmentally and socially responsible solutions to today's financial crisis is admirable but we should never forget that we are engaged in politics, not academic discussion, and that we are up against opponents who are relentlessly political in everything they do.

French president Sarkozy's choice of Tony Blair to co-host with him in Paris in early January, AFTER the expiry of France's term in the EU presidency, a high-profile conference entitled "New World: Values, Development and Regulation"

http://www.wiseupjournal.com/?p=658

suggests that France has not given up on two ambitions that should be perceived as threatening: the ambition to shape Europe "in its own image" and the ambition to install Tony Blair in the position of first full-time president of the reformed European Council, a post created by the Treaty of Lisbon.

The organizers of the planned Paris conference have succeeded in securing the participation in it of prestigious names such as Joseph Stiglitz, names formerly associated with oppositional to neo-liberal economics and politics.

This means that a renewed respectability is going to be bestowed on Sarkozy's plans for Blair, which had received a setback last May when Angela Merkel refused to support them and Sarkozy was obliged to issue a retraction, acknowledging that "Blair's involvement in the Iraq war had damaged his standing among EU fellow members."

The European Greens must regain the political initiative on this question, which is in danger of being lost. The electoral campaign for the 2009 European elections is an opportunity to mount a counter-campaign to Sarkozy's attempt to construct a European Union in the image of the Bush administration that Americans have now voted out of office.

Let us recall the fact that the International Criminal Court in the Hague has been asked to probe war crimes allegations by Tony Blair. There is a standing demand in Britain that Blair be put on trial in the Hague as a war criminal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od_jdg7n6-s&feature=related

and it is time for it to become Europe-wide. The European Greens are in a position to spearhead a campaign centred on this demand.

--- end of draft resolution ---

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Wednesday 19 November 2008

The Black Birds and a watcher

By Mikael on Wednesday 19 November 2008, 23:39

"They know many trades all of them, equally badly"

Photos by Leena Krohn


  Vadim Zakharov's Black Birds, now in Athens, have also been here.

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Saturday 15 November 2008

Actuality of Spinelli

By Mikael on Saturday 15 November 2008, 09:08

In celebration of the 180th anniversary of the swearing-in of the first Greek government under Ioannis Capodistrias (1828) the Municipality of Aigina organizes ai international conference on 22-23 November in conjunction with the Capodistrias Cities Network, the Athenian office of the European Parliament and the office of the European Commission in Athens, at the initiative of the Active Citizens’ Association of Aigina.

The theme of the conference is: Capodistrias – Spinelli – Europe. The preliminary program is found here.

I add a "mindmap" about the actuality of Spinelli here.

Actuality of Spinelli FreeMind Map

Actuality of Spinelli PDF

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Saturday 8 November 2008

A comment on the new Google Settlement Agreement

By Mikael on Saturday 8 November 2008, 13:26

(from a letter to J.)


Hi J.,

a Norwegian friend gave me a link to the page "Libraries on Planet Google" on the ARCL Blog, which was precisely what I was looking for, having read the press release about the new agreement between Google and a number of American university libraries, which you kindly posted to me yesterday.

While reading these comments to the new agreement with Google in the ARCL Blog, I cannot help thinking that the commentators are all myopic, narrowly American, incapable of seeing the USA and themselves in the larger, global context, and therefore also not able to formulate the necessary questions about the future of the library, which — the library being our common external memory — is one of the key questions of our common future. Am I unjust?

[...]

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Did you know that the European nuclear industry dumps radioactive waste in Somalia?

By Mikael on Saturday 8 November 2008, 00:38

Did you know that the European nuclear industry dumps radioactive waste in Somalia? I did not, but I have strong reasons to suspect that so is the case. Today, I wrote about this sad fact in the blog of the Lovisa Movement.

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Thursday 6 November 2008

We should not be longing for a President of the world

By Mikael on Thursday 6 November 2008, 09:02

(from a message to F., a librarian in Africa)

F. thank you! I have now joined the cause "Implement Waki Report now" on Facebook, and invited some of my Facebook friends to follow my example. This is only a very small and purely symbolic gesture, of course. I am glad that Obama won. Hopefully, the power of the American people will increase in the American federal state. However, the larger society of mankind remains without any democratic power. For instance, we were not allowed to vote for Obama. But that is as good, because we should not be longing for a President of the world. What we need to build, on the other hand, is the world's public library. This process has started, the internet is the beginning of it, and one of its corner-stones. I write the internet with a small initial letter, because it is already an everyday phenomenon, and common property.

Rauhaa ja rakkautta (peace and love in Finnish)

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Saturday 1 November 2008

Theses on the financial architecture

By Mikael on Saturday 1 November 2008, 10:25

"What opportunities for citizens' action exist around the process?" , asks EURODAD's Bretton Woods II conference FAQs , and answers: "Citizens groups are signing the statement calling for an open process. This is a major and rare opportunity to make proposals for a new financial architecture. It is an excellent time for citizens' groups to make proposals about policies and about institutions that are equitable and inclusive and break decisively with the current model."

Theses:

  1. Our internet is an extension of our literacy. It is the world's public library. It cannot be owned by somebody else than ourselves.
  2. The library and the internet are 'equitable and inclusive and break decisively with the current model'. They are open spaces.
  3. To open the process and lay the necessary new foundations of public finances, let's use what we have: the library and the internet.
  4. Let the librarians keep the books. -- The librarians of the Sumerians kept the books 'of what they owed and what they owned' as well as 'the text of hymns, prayers and incantations'[1]. Re-unite what has been separated ever since. For instance, make the financial data of Clearstream and SWIFT available on the public internet. In general, re-combine the financial bookkeeping with the transmission of the cultural heritage.
  5. Libraries, not bombs! Bretton Woods I took place just before the nuclear nightmare begun. Bretton Woods II must put an end to it.
  6. Bretton Woods II needs to agree on a global taxation of financial transactions (FTT) to aid the citizens. The FTT will make the financial world more transparent, generate revenue for library and other development, and curtail financial speculation.
Footnote:

[1] Quoted from: Fred Lerner: The Story of Libraries from the Invention of Writing to the Computer Age. New York 2002, pp 13-14.

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Thursday 30 October 2008

The same subject continued

By Mikael on Thursday 30 October 2008, 09:33

I do not think that we should try to sell the idea of a global tax on financial transactions (FTT) with the "insurance fund" argument. All sound economical systems should provide mechanisms for saving some money or resources for the bad days, but certainly not "to protect citizens from the astronomical costs of bailing out further banks and financial institutions".

In general,  I consider the main argument for a global FTT to be that it can help open the black boxes of the world's computerized financial system; thus I recommend an information-oriented approach to the FTT. The revenue generated by such global taxation may also be significant, and the FTT might also be used to stabilize the financial system , but the really important function of a global FTT should be to further global democratization by increasing the public's knowledge about what is going on in the world of finance.
The Schumacher lecture of Susan George, which I already quoted, contains a vision of how another, alternative financial system should be constructed. One of the necessary points on the agenda is the abolition of the tax havens, about which John Christensen and Richard Murphy from the Tax Justice Network have published a fresh article, Tax havens and the financial crisis.

But neither Susan George nor Christensen & Murphy mention Clearstream. While looking for news about Clearstream I found, to my dismay, that Denis Robert, the French investigating journalist has recently been sentenced in court for libel against the bank of all banks in Luxembourg. So Clearstream has scored a victory in its tenacious efforts to silence him! Hope to be back on this subject when I have more details about the continuing harassment of Denis Robert.

Choike has collected signatures on a statement "on the proposed "Global Summit" to reform the international financial system". (http://www.choike.org/bw2/). This relates to the planned G20 meeting on the financial crisis, which president Bush will be hosting on the 15th of November. The main demands of the statement are that a global summit on the financial crisis

  1. " is inclusive and participatory of all governments of the world;
  2. includes representatives from civil society, citizen?s groups, social movements and other stakeholders;
  3. has a clear timeline and process for regional consultations, particularly with those most affected by the crisis;
  4. is comprehensive in scope, tackling the full array of issues and institutions;
  5. is transparent, with proposals and draft outcome documents made publicly available and discussed well in advance of the meeting."
I signed this statement as an individual, because these are elementary democratic demands. Yet I am convinced that the governments will not be capable of doing any good and right things without a strong pressure from non-governmental, civic movements. Susan George, in her Schumacher lecture, has sketched the programme we should be agreed on and forcefully put forward now:
  • "... a new Keynesianism, not military this time, but environmental; a push for massive investment in energy conversion, eco-friendly industry, new materials, efficient public transport; the green construction industry and so on";
  • "... take taxes up to the European level and to the international one through currency and other financial transaction taxes";
  • "... debt cancellation for poor countries";
  • "Tax havens that allow affluent individuals and corporations to avoid paying their fair share of the conversion should be shut down: it would be cheaper to pay the inhabitants of the Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein and the rest a living wage for twenty years. Plenty of cash would remain for eco-investments, job-creation and poverty relief."
In its essence, this is the program of ATTAC. But it has two weak spots. We must also, and in particular, raise the demand for European Nuclear Disarmament and make it a condition of the European Union, to be inscribed in its constitution.  This is a goal to achieve for Europeans, in the first place. Every important political question is connected to it: the future of NATO, the question of how to organize a global governance, the orientation of the real economy, which is a permament war economy, and of which the nukes and the related weapons systems (missile defense, and "star wars", in particular) are the top of an enormous economical -- or rather, uneconomical -- iceberg. Without this demand the movement will continue to lack a real political perspective. It will continue to grope in the dark. The weapons of mass destruction are also the weakest point of our adversary, it is his means to keep us scared and under his control; but when we attack him united on this point, we will we be real and courageous again, and we will win.

Secondly, we must make an offensive towards the heart of the present financial system, which is a computerized system, where the money is becoming equal to digital information. The "shadow banking system" , which now breaks down, has its centre in Luxembourg, in the financial machinery of Clearstream, the "notaries of the world". It is a myth that the financial system is non-transparent; yes, it is opaque to us, the people, but every deal of the financial capitalists in their tax havens is certainly being documented, all the data are there, and for the ones who have all the data, it is not non-transparent at all. As long as Clearstream, Euroclear and SWIFT are not under democratic control, the financial system cannot be controlled by the people. The situation now is, that the average journalists or ministers or economists, for that matter, have scarcely heard about these nodal points in the financial machinery, the digitalized clearing-houses, which have come into being only during the last few decades, and without which the financial globalization would not have been possible.

The role of information in the financial system has always been of prime importance, but the networked computer has changed the basic conditions - far from being opaque, the system is now transparent and controllable, at least in principle, thanks to the digital networks.

PS.  In addition to Susan George´s impressive Schumacher lecture (see above), I also re-read her "Budapest Paper" from October 2001, where she constated that we had all entered 'an age of radical insecurity and post-State conflict.'

In order to end this age of insecurity, we need to recognize the library-cum-internet as a global state power on pair with the national state powers. Instead of being hidden in the secret databases of Luxembourg's shady notaries, the financial data of the world must be recorded in public libraries and archives.

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Monday 20 October 2008

A Global Taxation of Financial Transactions

By Mikael on Monday 20 October 2008, 10:50

Taxing and regulating the financial transactions is more necessary than ever. We need a global and comprehensive global Financial Transactions Taxation (FTT).

The FTT should combine a currency transactions tax with a tax on all transactions in securities.

The purpose of the general taxation of financial transactions should be threefold:
  • To provide instruments for the stabilization and the regulation of the global financial flows;
  • To generate funds for the financing of social and economic development and public service;
  • To make the financial system transparent, and, thereby, to further global democratization.
Today's highly centralized and digitalized systems for financial transactions and clearing, such as SWIFT, Clearstream and Euroclear, must be placed under democratic control. This is conditio sine qua non of greater financial transparency.

A Financial Transactions Tax Organization (FTTO), corresponding in many ways to the Currency Transactions Tax Organisation (CTTO), which is described in the Draft Treaty on CTT (2001) [1] by Lieven Denys and Heikki Patomäki, will probably be needed to implement the necessary FTT.

According to the the most recent report from the Bank of International Settlements, "a huge shadow system" is at work within the present financial system. [2] Ernest Backes and Denis Robert have exposed a central part of this shadow system in their books about Clearstream.[3] At he center of their investigation stands the networked, digital computer and the insight that, henceforward, banking and finance are, essentially, a computer programming project.

The management of the information about the financial flows, must, in the end become a task for public archivists and/or librarians [4]. The software which is developed for the financial management must also be free and open.

Mikael Böök
member of the ctt-team

References

[1]See the Draft Treaty on Global Currency Transactions Tax, written by Heikki Patomäki and Lieven A. Denys. This consultative document was first introduced at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in January 2002. The text of the draft treaty in English and in various translations to other languagues are found at www.nigd.org/ctt

[2] "Moreover, as evidence has accumulated that the financial system as a whole is no longer functioning effectively, those charged with prudential oversight must also ask themselves what went wrong. How, for example, could a huge shadow banking system emerge without provoking clear statements of official concern?", see Bank for International Settlements. 78th Annual Report, 1 April 2007– 31 March 2008, p 146.

[3] See Robert, Denis & Backes, Ernst: Révelation$ . Les Arènes, Paris 2001; and Robert, Denis: La boîte noire . Les arènes. Paris 2002.

[4] According to the present writer, the internet is becoming the new public library of mankind. The road forward towards democratic self-government goes via the "open space" of the social forum(s). I have presented some thoughts on this subject in a writing about The Documentation of the Social Forum(s).

Note: The above entry is also found at www.cttcampaigns.info

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