Nestle + hot water+ Flint = poison

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localism and municipalism

As an anti-globaliser and an anti-imperialist
I see that large economic and political blocks
are just empires by another name.

I believe that for democracy to work and be
seen to work, you need to see the whites of
your politicians eyes. Only then can you
see if they're lying and, only then can you
go grab them and shake them a bit. Otherwise,
you can guarantee that politicians will use
your ignorance as a chance to rob and trick
you.

Here's a wonderful solution that is getting
a rough political ride.

I've appreciate David Graeber's work since
he was part of the Occupy movement. he's an
anthropologist who has studied economic
systems, and his book "Debt the first 5000 years"
is a good lesson in what money should do
for a fair society, as opposed to the one we have,
run by banks.
It will soon come to a choice between

bankocracy/ globalisation and

local democracy.

that will be brought on by TTIP. 

Are we going to chisel the headstone of
democratic governance at the end of this
year? or are we going to charge out of
this sick "democratic" sham and ponzi economy
and become free?

more later. read below

checkit: Guardian

Why is the world ignoring the revolutionary Kurds in Syria?

David Graeber

Amid the Syrian warzone a democratic experiment is being stamped into the ground by Isis. That the wider world is unaware is a scandal

Wednesday 8 October 2014 09.04 BST

Last modified on Wednesday 15 October 2014 15.42 BST

Comments 482

In 1937, my father volunteered to fight in the International Brigades in defence of the Spanish Republic. A would-be fascist coup had been temporarily halted by a worker’s uprising, spearheaded by anarchists and socialists, and in much of Spain a genuine social revolution ensued, leading to whole cities under directly democratic management, industries under worker control, and the radical empowerment of women.

Spanish revolutionaries hoped to create a vision of a free society that the entire world might follow. Instead, world powers declared a policy of “non-intervention” and maintained a rigorous blockade on the republic, even after Hitler and Mussolini, ostensible signatories, began pouring in troops and weapons to reinforce the fascist side. The result was years of civil war that ended with the suppression of the revolution and some of a bloody century’s bloodiest massacres.

I never thought I would, in my own lifetime, see the same thing happen again. Obviously, no historical event ever really happens twice. There are a thousand differences between what happened in Spain in 1936 and what is happening in Rojava, the three largely Kurdish provinces of northern Syria, today. But some of the similarities are so striking, and so distressing, that I feel it’s incumbent on me, as someone who grew up in a family whose politics were in many ways defined by the Spanish revolution, to say: we cannot let it end the same way again.

The autonomous region of Rojava, as it exists today, is one of few bright spots – albeit a very bright one – to emerge from the tragedy of the Syrian revolution. Having driven out agents of the Assad regime in 2011, and despite the hostility of almost all of its neighbours, Rojava has not only maintained its independence, but is a remarkable democratic experiment. Popular assemblies have been created as the ultimate decision-making bodies, councils selected with careful ethnic balance (in each municipality, for instance, the top three officers have to include one Kurd, one Arab and one Assyrian or Armenian Christian, and at least one of the three has to be a woman), there are women’s and youth councils, and, in a remarkable echo of the armed Mujeres Libres (Free Women) of Spain, a feminist army, the “YJA Star” militia (the “Union of Free Women”, the star here referring to the ancient Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar), that has carried out a large proportion of the combat operations against the forces of Islamic State.

How can something like this happen and still be almost entirely ignored by the international community, even, largely, by the International left? Mainly, it seems, because the Rojavan revolutionary party, the PYD, works in alliance with Turkey’s Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK), a Marxist guerilla movement that has since the 1970s been engaged in a long war against the Turkish state. Nato, the US and EU officially classify them as a “terrorist” organisation. Meanwhile, leftists largely write them off as Stalinists.

But, in fact, the PKK itself is no longer anything remotely like the old, top-down Leninist party it once was. Its own internal evolution, and the intellectual conversion of its own founder, Abdullah Ocalan, held in a Turkish island prison since 1999, have led it to entirely change its aims and tactics.

The PKK has declared that it no longer even seeks to create a Kurdish state. Instead, inspired in part by the vision of social ecologist and anarchist Murray Bookchin, it has adopted the vision of “libertarian municipalism”, calling for Kurds to create free, self-governing communities, based on principles of direct democracy, that would then come together across national borders – that it is hoped would over time become increasingly meaningless. In this way, they proposed, the Kurdish struggle could become a model for a wordwide movement towards genuine democracy, co-operative economy, and the gradual dissolution of the bureaucratic nation-state.

Since 2005 the PKK, inspired by the strategy of the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas, declared a unilateral ceasefire with the Turkish state and began concentrating their efforts in developing democratic structures in the territories they already controlled. Some have questioned how serious all this really is. Clearly, authoritarian elements remain. But what has happened in Rojava, where the Syrian revolution gave Kurdish radicals the chance to carry out such experiments in a large, contiguous territory, suggests this is anything but window dressing. Councils, assemblies and popular militias have been formed, regime property has been turned over to worker-managed co-operatives – and all despite continual attacks by the extreme rightwing forces of Isis. The results meet any definition of a social revolution. In the Middle East, at least, these efforts have been noticed: particularly after PKK and Rojava forces intervened to successfully fight their way through Isis territory in Iraq to rescue thousands of Yezidi refugees trapped on Mount Sinjar after the local peshmerga fled the field. These actions were widely celebrated in the region, but remarkably received almost no notice in the European or North American press.

Now, Isis has returned, with scores of US-made tanks and heavy artillery taken from Iraqi forces, to take revenge against many of those same revolutionary militias in Kobane, declaring their intention to massacre and enslave – yes, literally enslave – the entire civilian population. Meanwhile, the Turkish army stands at the border preventing reinforcements or ammunition from reaching the defenders, and US planes buzz overhead making occasional, symbolic, pinprick strikes – apparently, just to be able to say that it did not do nothing as a group it claims to be at war with crushes defenders of one of the world’s great democratic experiments.

If there is a parallel today to Franco’s superficially devout, murderous Falangists, who would it be but Isis? If there is a parallel to the Mujeres Libres of Spain, who could it be but the courageous women defending the barricades in Kobane? Is the world – and this time most scandalously of all, the international left – really going to be complicit in letting history repeat itself?

Proof that Germany runs Brussels

In a European Union that has no democratic legitimacy,
power is wielded by the most powerful, come what may.
There is no doubt in any person's mind that Germany
runs the EU. I think that they do so in the name of
their banks which are (like Belgian and French banks)
on the edge of a precipice, permanently, because of
their derivatives betting books.

So, here's proof that Juncker was installed as a prince
regent in the name of the German Empire.
The Brits didn't want Juncker in that post, because they
probably wanted one of their corrupt bankers to get
the job.

checkit: DAILYTELEGRAPH

Germany's record trade surplus is a bigger threat to euro than Greece

..

We watch with interest to see how Mr Juncker chooses to navigate these treacherous political reefs, especially since he holds his current job by German patronage. It was Chancellor Angela Merkel who shoe-horned him into the Berlaymont last year against British objections.

…

US v EU, part 4 Proof that US targets Germany

You could easily say that the US targets everybody,
unless they happen to be in the cabal at the head
of the snake which is doing the targetting.

The US scattered derivatives around the world
to trick everybody out of billions. But in the trade
world, the US is particularly targeting China,
even though the US created that monster, and
Germany.

Part of the fight is over how every nation or
trading block is trying to dump its own currency
in order to make their products cheaper for
foreigners to buy. Germany has stitched up
the Euro as the weak currency that the
Deutschmark could never be. All the Germans
have to do is let out some rumours that
Greece is about to default and the Euro tanks.

[Professor Werner]
[some people were in on it, and others not]

checkit: DAILY TELEGRAPH

Germany's record trade surplus is a bigger threat to euro than Greece

..

With a few honourable exceptions - such as Mr Fratzscher – the German policy elites refuse to acknowledge that there is anything wrong with their surplus policy, or even that there is any need to discuss the subject at all.

This refusal to view matters from anybody else’s point of view is testing patience around the world. Germany has displaced China as the arch-villain in the US Treasury’s reports to Congress on currency manipulation, and for obvious reasons.

…

Varoufakis tries to democratise a banking cartel

It still remains to be seen whether Varoufakis was indeed
the great defender of Greece. I tend to think he was.
The only question I have is whether he knew, by February
that come-what-may, the troika would screw Greece
anyway. If he knew, he should have said that.
He did indeed leave many hints to that effect. He
did inform Greeks and the world very clearly
about how corrupt Brussels was, and he has said
even more since.

Verdict: he was certainly a brave politician. Whether
he qualifies as a brave person or a brave Greek waits
to be seen.

Nevertheless, he has been lobbing logic-bombs at Brussels
and Frankfurt, rather effectively since jumping from the
burning ship that is Greece.
I saw him at the South Bank Centre. He has
certainly grasped this opportunity with both hands.
He now has a large number of followers. He has
decided, in his new venture, to attack the belly of
the beast which destroyed Greece.

The Brussels democracy-free zone

The Eurogroup and the Troika were born there.

To do that, he has decided to found the first 

pan-European party which has some basic goals

it wants to achieve. 

His main argument is that 

if the EU continues as is

(which it would otherwise)

it'll be dead in 10 years.

So, now is the time to change it.

He wants to rid the EU of the cartel-like nature 

of its head office and get every European citizen 

feeling as if the EU represents them. What we
have now is a coddled Brussels elite working
for the benefit of (mainly) German banks. The EU,
which began as a steel and coal cartel, is now
a banking cartel.

What will the reaction be?

I think Brussels is so numb and full of useless elites

that they will snicker at him. But when they 

see any success, they will begin to attack him

with all their devious shenanigans.

Here's a part of an interview with Red Pepper

about the party he will soon get off the ground.

Here, he mentions the sick nature of the Beast:

(1 below)

it's a bankocracy, stupid
The second bit (2 below) is about where the real power is
in Europe, on a day-to-day basis. Of course, the EU is
in permanent crisis, so the people making the "critical"
decisions are in charge. It's a banking crisis, so the
banks are in charge. Varoufakis (below), for me, kinda
misses the point, though I believe he knows it. Is he
trying not to piss off Frankfurt bankers? Eventually, if his party
succeeds even moderately, he will have to uncover the
Head of the Beast: Deutschebank. The other banks are
secondary, yet still very sick. When Varoufakis says
"noone is in control," I think he is trying to convey
that they're just putting out banking fires, or doing
what the banks say. It's "obvious" to me, as an outsider.
In crisis mode, politicians put out the fires for the people
who rule them. So, it looks as if they're not in control
because they're acting like bank clerks.
  They really have "no choice" at this point,
not being able to see how bank failure can be bad (short term)
but excellent in the long term (text 2 below).

Here, Mark Blyth explains the shitstorm very well,
in front of the benevolent employees of Google
in Cali :


[starts at 17:09 Soc Gen bank, ING,
17:55 bank debts are double EU GDP
18:25 UK banks 4x GDP (but with own currency)
18:35 France banks 3.5x GDP (in the Euro)
20:50 the EU dance with death.
Save German banks by-

Kill the Greeks, kill the Portuguese, kill the Irish

What Blyth actually said was, if things had been left
to the market, the troubles would have forced banks
to start dumping Greek debt which would have started
a bank run,
I think that the EU knew that those PIIGs countries
were the weakest, and so the troika decided to
put their countries on show-trial, keep them there
as a potemkin village, showing everybody that
the EU is handling its problems, meanwhile the
troika is quickly or slowly bleeding these countries'
economies dry.

checkit:
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2016/01/29/why-a-pan-european-democracy-movement-interviewed-
by-nick-buxton/
1
Q: Is democratising Europe a matter of reclaiming fundamental principles or about developing a new concept of sovereignty?
A:
It’s both. Nothing is new under the sun. The concept of sovereignty doesn’t change, but the ways it is applied to multi-ethnic and multi-jurisdictional areas like Europe has to be rethought. There is an interesting debate that happens mainly in Britain, as the rest of Europe doesn’t seem interested. It was always frustrating trying to convince the French and the Germans that there is a profound difference between a Europe of Nations and a European Union. The Brits understand this better, especially the Conservatives, ironically. They are supporters of Edmund Burke, anti-constructivists who believe there has to be a one-to-one mapping between nation, parliament and money: One nation, one parliament, one money.

When I ask my Tory friends, ‘But what about Scotland? Are the Scots not a bona fide nation? If so, should they not have a separate state and currency?’, the answer I get takes the form: Of course there is a Scottish, Welsh, and English nation and not a UK nation, but there is a common identity, forged as result of wars of conquest, participation in empire and so on. If that is true, and it may be, then it is possible to say that different nationalities can be bound together by an evolving common identity. So this is how I would like to see it. We are never to going to have a European nation, but we can have a European identity that corresponds to a sovereign European people. So we preserve the old-fashioned concept of sovereignty but we link it to a developing European identity, that is then linked with the single sovereignty and a parliament that keeps checks and balances on executive power at the level of Europe.

At the moment, we have ECOFIN, the Eurogroup, and the European Council making important decisions on behalf of the European people, but these bodies are not answerable to any parliament. It is not good enough to say that members of these institutions are answerable to their national parliament, because members of these institutions, when they go back home to appear in front of their national parliament, say ‘Don’t look at me, I disagreed with everything in Brussels but I didn’t have power to affect a decision so I am not responsible for the Eurogroup’s or Council’s or Ecofin’s decision’. Unless institutional bodies can be censured or dismissed as a body by one common parliament, you don’t have sovereign democracy. So that should be the objective in Europe....

2
NEXT QUESTION: where is the day-to-day power in Europe
Q:
Where, then, is power in Europe?
A:
This is an interesting question. On the surface, the only powerful people in Europe are Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank, and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. But having said that, they are not even that powerful themselves. I have seen Mario Draghi look extremely frustrated in Eurogroup meetings, at what was being said, at his own powerlessness, at having to do things that he thought were terrible for Europe. At the same time, Angela Merkel clearly feels circumscribed by the demands of her own parliament, her own party, on the need to keep a kind of modus vivendi with the French that she doesn’t agree with.

So the answer to your question is that we have managed to create a monster in Europe, where the Eurozone is supremely powerful as an entity but where no one is in control. The institutions and rules that have been put in place in order to maintain the political equilibrium that set up the whole Euro currency project disempowers almost every player that has anything to do with democratic legitimacy.

US vs EU, part 3 Germany is being swamped by refugees

Despite wanting 1 million ME Schartzers to
have a Big Fat Permanent Greek vacation,
amongst the Greek Schwartzers,
the Syrians are smarter than the Germans.

The Syrians see that US and UK are largely
responsible for them leaving Syria
and yet those countries are hard to get to.
So, the Syrians see their best hope is
Germany or any other superficially social-
democratic country that will look after them
until they can get on their feet.

If the Syrians hadn't had a plan to get to
the Fatherland, they would have been made
into a political football.
Many EU and non-EU countries are putting
up borders and engaging their armies in a
game of

Kick the Refugees Around

except for Greece, a country that even the

Syrians feel sorry for.

So, it is both ironic and fitting with natural law 

that the refugees have forgiven Greece
and instead pushed the German

government(s) to their limits, logistically and 

financially. 

Such is the price of success in Continental 

Europe during the nascent

the Great Mid East War,

the Great Troika War 

and the Great US/EU war
[what you know as the Refugee Crisis]

checkit: Reuters & Automatic Earth

[Automatic Earth says]
Hope some of that goes toward giving them jobs.
[Reuters]
• German States To Spend At Least €17 Billion On Refugees In 2016 (Reuters)

Germany’s federal states are planning to spend around €17 billion on dealing with the refugee crisis in 2016, newspaper Die Welt said on Tuesday, citing a survey it conducted among their finance ministries. The sum, bigger than the €15.3 billion that the central government planned to allocate to its education and research ministry in 2015, is a measure of the strain that the influx is causing across the country as a whole. Germany is the favoured destination for many of the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa, partly due to the generous benefits that it offers.

The German states have repeatedly complained that they are struggling to cope, and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policy has caused tensions within her conservative camp. Die Welt said that excluding the small city state of Bremen, which did not provide any details, current plans suggested the states’ combined expenditure would be €16.5 billion. The paper said actual costs would probably be even higher because the regional finance ministries had based their budgets on an estimate from the federal government that 800,000 refugees would come to Germany in 2015. In fact, 965,000 asylum seekers had already arrived by the end of November.
...

US vs EU, part 2- Greece should take 1 million refugees

That's what Wolfgang Goebbels,
I mean, Schauble (Germany Fin Min) said.


The Reuters story (below) is so full of German
bullshit, I don't know where to start.

The Automatic Earth website says that a
Fin Min should not do politics, but since
the Troika controls Greece, and Schauble
is the true head of the Troika, then it is
ALL Schauble's game.

[transl: Varoufakis- Schauble runs Eurogroup]
[http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/12/debt-rattle-december-29-2015/]

Let's give this analysis thing a try-

The 1 million refugees that (will have) landed
on Greece in 2015 should have stayed in
Greece. It's as if Greece invited them.

["don't care for any sex. get me out of feckin Greece!"]



The Schengen rules state that the
country in which a refugee lands
is the place where s/he are to
register. If the refugees were Germans,
then they would have asked to register
right after drying themselves off
after swimming the last 50 metres
to Lesbos.
The last time that we had German
refugees, they were Jews escaping
certain other German politicians and their
genocidal logic. 

It may be that Greece has "welcomed"
1 million refugees when young Greeks
are economic refugees of the Troika,
and have scattered all around the EU and
beyond.

The pre-existing condition here is the
Troika memorandum neo-liberal colonisation
of Greece. Others of you may have thought
that since Greece is broke that the EU needs
to control the country while extracting their
loans. In actuality, Greece is the scapegoat for
Deutschebank's financial problems, of which
Greece's bad loans are only a small part. But,
the German (and EU) public cannot be told that
they're bailing out Deutschebank. So, Greece is
in lock-down, and nobody cares that it's 25%
drop in GDP and 30% unemployment means
that the loans will never be paid.

While Greeks' government employees' wages
have been dropped 40%+, and pensions have
dropped about 50%, the private sector has been
allowed to tear up any collective bargaining
agreements and pay employees whatever they feel
like, Greece is being subjected to the sale of
public and private assets (like banks) at firesale
prices to foreigners, of course. Any protections that
local companies had are being eradicated at the
beck and call of international (tax-avoiding)
corporations.     


I would say, therefore, that it is odd that the Troika
(i.e. Germany) is taking little notice of Greece's
pain, and yet expects Greece to also be swamped 
by refugees that, by international law, Greece would
be required to care for. [Here, I add that even Greeks,
if they are not working, are not allowed free health care]
This would mean that refugees would have more
rights than the locals.

Greece is now quickly entering the Second World
being dragged on their bare butts.

As we know, the Syrian refugees know very well
that Greece is F%^&*ked. So, they get out of their
dinghies and all they can say is "GERMANY!"

It is therefore the KING of ALL IRONIES that
in its attempt to F%^&*k Greece, the Germans
have been swamped by the 1 million "guests" and
their "organised robotic" systems are at breaking
point [see next story].

Added to this is the fact that Germans are beginning
to understand the state that Greece is in, by saying
that "we would like to send the refugees back, but
Greece is no place for humans to live." So, Germans
are (at the same time) saying that Greece should
register refugees and that Greece is not place for
refugees to live. Stupendous. I guess they don't
teach irony in the schools of the Fatherland.

The next point is that a trip from Greece to Germany
has many intermediate stops. It could be excused that
a poor country let the foreigners slip out of their grasp.
But, the Syrians [bless their soles] were determined
to walk to Germany. In so doing, they passed many
other countries, some of which [Slovenia, Crotia,
Hungary, Slovakia, Austria] are EU countries, that
ALSO DID NOT STOP THEM or REGISTER THEM.
So, it's not just Greece that f%^&*ed up, but all those
other countries. It's as if all those countries also said
something like "F^&*ck the Germans. They got most
of our money as well," and sent the Syrians on their way.

So, that's one way that the US has shown the cracks in
the EU between countries. The member countries couldn't
give two shits about any other member country, least of
all Germany. This will help splinter the EU faster than
you can say "stickefinger" [German for "middle-finger salute"]

Next,
The wise Germanae think that Greece cannot control its
external borders [which just happen to be the EU's external
borders]. Only 3 big problems with that
[beyond the economic ones]:
1 water
2 Turkey
3 EU indifference
4 Greece does not control its Treasury [see Troika]

Number 3- the EU has been advised for years that Turkey
is a threat to the EU in many ways and as such should
pay Greece to beef up its borders, or have a permanent
border force paid for by all EU citizens. EU has always
flatly refused this. [maybe that's why Germany is "taking
charge" of this issue. more below]
Number 2- I hope in later stories to prove conclusively
that Turkey is using the refugees to flood Greece and
the EU, as only one of its tactics. It also endangers
air traffic by sending military planes over the invisible
border which is full of Greek tourist islands and their
airports. Turkey also has a Wester-Thrace political
bribery office in Brussels, even though the Treaty of
Versailles states that Turks have no further claims
on "Turks" within Greece.
Number 1- how can you control a water border? The
Law of the Sea would make most of the Aegean a
Greek lake, but the Turks will not allow this law that
most of the world follows to be employed, under
threat of war. So, Greece can only protect what waters
are Greek, but Turkish refugee smugglers benefit
from the international waters in between them and
Greece. This is why a border force is needed. The
boats don't have papers and are usually without
a captain.
Number 4- Varoufakis showed us clearly that the
Troika [since when, I don't know] has the keys to
the safe at the Greek Treasury. The Troika has
also cancelled Greek laws that are designed for
the benefit of Greeks (silly Greeks). The Troika
approves all new laws, or cancels the ones it
doesn't like. So, Greeks cannot make any serious
changes to their country without Schauble's
approval. So, he's being disingenuous, at best.

Next,
I'm worried that the Germans want the EU
(i.e. themselves) to take over Greece's external
borders. I think that this is a creeping imperial
action. The only solution there would be for
the EU to have a backbone and take over this
topic and do something. Not much chance of
that though. So, Germany is now a threat. It
could be a double threat, because it is trying
to keep Turkey sweet to stop the refugee flow.
This could mean that they could "guard"
with their eyes closed, so that Turkey could
be allowed to do anything it wants against
Greece. In this case, Greece's navy [whatever
crap it is] could not react. 

ADMISSION of Greek evil
- I've been hearing that Tsipras is indeed turning
a blind eye to migrant movements and registers
as a bargaining chip with the Troika, to try
to get better terms in the Memorandum. [Fat
F%^&Kin chance of that happening]

ADMISSION of a Good Idea
If the German idea for a common EU army
was truly European, that would limit and
perhaps end NATO's work in the EU. The
US would put a stop to all that talk, very quickly,
truth be told. Indeed, Germany is still occupied
by drunken US soldiers, and so Germany itself
is owned.

Further intrigue:
Germany berates Greece (it's slave) and
wants to "kiss up" with its small Central
European neighbours who have more
experience dealing with the Germans and
are quite prickly as a result. 

More Moronic Islamophobic Implications
Shauble equates migrants with European defence.
In the same sentence! Since migrants, therefore defence.
Something tells me he doesn't like Schwartzers,
especially Muslim ones (and Greek ones).

More Lebensraum
Schauble wants to get involved in the Middle East. Do
you think he'd like to install some peacekeepers? no
Feckin' way. Germany is now helping the French. The French
are always one Charlie or one Kings of Death Metal from
bombing the Mid East. France is also trying to sell armaments
(like UK and US) in the Mid East, and so must put on a show.
So, UN-be-damned. We Europeans have to own the ME. I'm
going to be sick.

check this story of Teutonic ridiculousness below
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany-idUSKBN0UA09620151227

German politicians slam Greece over handling of refugee crisis


Reuters

Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and a senior Bavarian politician criticized Greece on Sunday over the way it is managing its role in Europe's biggest migration crisis since World War Two. [WW2 produced lots of Greek refugees too, thanks to you-guessed-it: Costick 67]

Schaeuble, who has clashed repeatedly with Greek officials this year over economic policy, told Bild am Sonntag that Athens has for years ignored the rules that oblige migrants to file for asylum in the European Union country they arrive in first.

He said German courts had decided some time ago that refugees were not being treated humanely in Greece and could therefore not be sent back there.

"The Greeks should not put the blame for their problems only on others, they should also see how they can do better themselves," Schaeuble said.

Greece, a main gateway to Europe for migrants crossing the Aegean sea, has faced criticism from other EU governments who say it has done little to manage the flow of hundreds of thousands of people arriving on its shores.

Joachim Herrmann, the interior minister of the southern state of Bavaria, that has taken the brunt of the refugee influx to Germany, criticized the way Greece is securing its external borders.

"What Greece is doing is a farce," Herrmann said in an interview with Die Welt am Sonntag newspaper, adding any that any country that does not meet its obligations to secure its external borders should leave the Schengen zone, where internal border controls have been abolished.

The EU's border agency Frontex has agreed to increase its presence in Greece at the end of the month, while European guards will help Greeks manage their frontier with Macedonia following concern over Athens' commitment to controlling migration.

Herrmann said it was also important to secure the border with Slovenia so that all people entering the Schengen zone from Croatia could be properly registered and potential terrorists spotted.

"If this is not guaranteed within a few weeks, we will have to become active on our own borders," he said.

SOLIDARITY

In contrast to his criticism of Greece, Schaeuble sought to offer to compromise with eastern European countries that have voiced reluctance to accept migrants under EU quotas.

"Solidarity doesn't start by insulting each other," Schaeuble said. "Eastern European states will also have to take in refugees, but fewer than Germany."

The influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants, many fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, also means that European countries will have to increase spending on defense, he said.

"Ultimately our aim must be a joint European army. The funds that we spend on our 28 national armies could be used far more effectively together," Schaeuble said.

Schaeuble said the Middle East would not become stable without stronger European engagement.

Germany has gradually adopted a more assertive role in global missions. Earlier this month, lawmakers approved a mission in Syria, including sending six Tornado reconnaissance jets, a frigate to help protect a French aircraft carrier, refueling aircraft and 1,200 military personnel.

(Reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

US empire vs the EU, part 1

This is a set of theories I'm working on,
having watched the Syria crisis develop.

I will try to show that the US and its
acolytes (who have some of their own goals)
are attacking the EU and parts within it.
I will do my best to prove every step of
the thought process, with some detours along
the way, in successive stories.

the OUTLINE goes like this:

A US UK Turkey  vs  the rest of the EU
US position
-world empire needs to spread
-Euro is a threat to the dollar
-can usually get short-sighted idiot
countries to follow it into war
-wants Kurdish oil 

UK position
-hates a federal Europe
-wants to protect its thieving banks
-wants to sell arms to the Mid East

Turkey position
-knows it will never get in the EU
-wants to think it is a regional power
-one funder of the "I-State"
-buys I-State oil
-has a serious problem balancing
national pride with the Kurdish issue
-has a trigger-happy army
-risks losing Kurdish areas if war spreads
-wants its Turkmen cousins in Syria to gain
autonomy
-fears the US may want to build a Kurdistan


The EU/Brussels/Germany/ECB/Deutschebank position
-a useless union built by imperial French and Germans
-on top of a mercantilist steal/coal cartel
-no intention of being democratic
-run from Brussels, unless Germany has a point
to make
-political decision to have Euro was fatal mistake
-ineffective internal and external politics because
of a power vacuum.
-Federalising may interest the imperialists but
not many of the small countries
-it is in the process of a crypto-federalisation
around Germany's interests (Euro)
-does not realise that it is already disintegrating
-hates Yanis Varoufakis

A The Whole Shooting Match
-the US wants to help destroy the EU
through forcing it through crises.
1 banking : Deutschebank owes US UK banks
2 refugees: below
3 currency: Euro was a disaster waiting to happen

B US pushed for regime change after fall
of Soviet Union
-includes Syria (Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan)
-pushed for regime change from 1990s
-funding various parts of civil war
-bombing Syria (with UK)
-Turkey gov has been caught giving arms
to rebels in Syria

C US UK (with Turkey's help) want to
swamp EU with (Muslim) refugees
-from all their invasions (see above)
-others like Saudi are funding parts of this
-Turkey controls the flow to Greece
(and wants to particularly flood Greece)
-this will start EU nationalist economic/racial turmoil
-notice how US empire suffers no turmoil (just
the continental EU)

D Refugees land in Greece and head north
-they want to go to Germany, Sweden, Holland
-Germany wants Greece to take all 1 million
refugees because of Schengen treaty
("refugees register were they land")
-Germany is essentially Greece's
slave master (has bankrupted Greece to
save Deutschebank)

-therefore, refugees do not want to stay in
Greece, (but ironically want to go to German)
and refuse to register in Greece
-this forces the turmoil to the north (while it
seems the Germans wanted to make Greece suffer the
entire flood by itself)
-Greece is feeding and housing refugees and
not complaining about them leaving
-this will destroy EU Schengen (open borders) treaty

E the longer and deeper the war, the more 
permanent the refugees become
-nominally Christian nations will need to
show how Christian they are by helping
the refugees
-Christian countries will need to stamp out
racism
-many nations (Slovakia, Czech Rep, Poland,
Hungary) are refusing to take or are limiting
refugees. There is no EU law which can stop
them doing so. Therefore, EU states will squabble.

F Weak EU will not be able to stop the squabbling
-the EU does not want to intervene in refugee crisis
-this will pit one EU nation against another
-in the context of the Euro, this may splinter
the EU and kill the Euro

G EU will be ruined
- it may take a few years, but I hope to be
around for that

Parallel issues
- De-centralised Iraq means Kurds have oil
-US wants to control Kurdish oil
-US may give Kurds (Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Syria)
more autonomy
-Turkey, without doing anything, is treading a
fine line between helping US, Saudi and losing
the Eastern 25% of its country to the Kurds.
Unfortunately, Turkey is deeply into the Syria
conflict
-US wants to create a permanent Islamic Civil
War. This is easy since the Sunni governments
have most of the oil (Saudi, Emirates). US
benefits from arms sales and controls the
whole region
-Russia has become involved in a plainly legal manner,
defending the government of Syria, by request
-This could ruin all US empire's plans
-The likelihood of World War goes up exponentially

So, what I have built here is a massive 5-layer
chessboard, with the game already under way

The next stories will fill out my theories as stated above.

California drought + Nestle= severe drought

A new story about how Nestle doesn't
believe that water is a human right. It
has been taking fresh water from the
California public supply, bottling it
and selling it in a state with 25
million people in such a drought
that they're painting their lawns green.

This is boardroom sphincter politics.
In order to trump all your colleagues,
you have to be the most outrageous
asshole in the room. So, you get
ideas like:

Let's steal water during a record drought!

First, we needed Russia Today to
report on somebody catching Nestle
diverting much-needed water (was the
state not interested?)

and then, having Nestle lie about their policy
of limiting the right to water

which is actually their policy as stated by this,
their Chief Operating Asshole

hydrate this: Guardian

Nestlé boss says he wants to bottle more water in California despite drought

CEO Tim Brown refuses to stop sourcing from drought-stricken state
‘Absolutely not … people would buy another brand of bottled water’

Water flows from a pipe connected to a spring on Frazier Mountain in Los Padres National Forest near Frazier Park, California. Water has become a hot political issue in the state.

Rupert Neate in New York
@RupertNeate

Thursday 14 May 2015 17.17 BST

The boss of Nestlé Waters has said the company wants to increase the amount of water it bottles in California despite a devastating drought across the state that has triggered demonstrations at the corporation’s bottling plant.

Tim Brown, chief executive of Nestlé Waters North America, said the company would “absolutely not” stop bottling in California and would actually like to “increase” the amount of ground source water it uses.

Asked in a local radio interview if Nestlé would consider following Starbucks’ lead and stop bottling water in California during the drought, Brown said: “Absolutely not. In fact, if I could increase it, I would.

“The fact is, if I stop bottling water tomorrow, people would buy another brand of bottled water,” Brown said in a discussion with a Nasa hydrologist on 89.3 KPCC radio. “People need to hydrate. As the second largest bottler in the state, we’re filling a role many others are filling. It’s driven by consumer demand, it’s driven by an on-the-go society that needs to hydrate. Frankly, we’re very happy they are doing it in a healthier way.”

Brown admitted that Nestlé currently wastes about 30% of the 700m gallons of water a year it draws from the ground in California. On Tuesday, the company announced plans to reduce water waste at its bottling plants in Bakersfield and Tulare by 12%.

More than 82,000 people have signed a petition calling on Nestlé to stop bottling from a spring in southern California, and protesters armed with plastic pitchforks have blocked the entrance to a Nestlé plant in Sacramento.

Despite the protests, Brown said: “We feel good about what we’re doing delivering healthy hydrating to people throughout the state of California.”

Starbucks has announced plans to stop sourcing its bottled water from California after embarrassing revelations that its “water conservation” Ethos brand bottled water was sourced from the drought-stricken state.

“It seems hard to imagine, but more than 1bn people on our planet can’t get clean water to drink,” Starbucks says on its website. “Ethos® Water was created to help raise awareness about this terrible crisis and provide children with access to clean water.” Five cents from the sale of each Ethos bottle, which costs about $2, goes towards Starbucks’ Ethos Water Fund supporting water, sanitation and hygiene education programs across the world.

The company said it would move Ethos production to Pennsylvania for the duration of the drought. “We are committed to our mission to be a globally responsible company and to support the people of the state of California as they face this unprecedented drought,” John Kelly, Starbucks’ senior vice-president of global responsibility and public policy, said last week.

Walmart, which also bottles water in California, has refused to move its production out of the state. “The drought in California is very concerning for many of our customers and our associates,” a spokesman said. “We share those concerns and are tracking it closely. Our commitment to sustainability includes efforts to minimize water use in our facilities. We have and continue to work with our suppliers to act responsibly while meeting the needs of customers who count on us across California.”

Sustainability charity Food & Water Watch has called for a moratorium on all water bottling across the state. “It’s the worst drought we’ve seen in a long time, and it’s irresponsible of the state to allow Nestlé to bottle water that’s supposed to be a public resource,” a spokesman said. “We’re calling for a moratorium on bottling water for private profit.”

the Faulty of Basel

I've borrowed this from a recent Keiser Report show
that deals once again with the problems that occur
when banks take over an economy. The tendency
for crises is just one problem.

If banks do what they're supposed to, like
recycling savings into worthy manufacturing
or other types of businesses, in order to aid
economic growth, then all would be well.

If , instead, the banks take on the role of
Centres of Advanced Gambling and
Money Printing, they undermine the proper
economy. There is plenty of proof that this
is going on, and I'm not an economist, but take
it for granted, or check my previous stories.

A major reason for my concern is much of
this happened in post -1929 US and
elsewhere, but cooler heads finally prevailed
after about 7 years, laws changed and then the
war took care of the rest. This time, the bankers
are truly in charge, unless we can do something.

I can however, distill the issue with a few
graphs.
-the FINANCIALISATION tipping point (2007 onward)

[Zerohedge]

This is happening to two countries particularly
today. One is in advanced, past the tipping point
Fin SNAFU- Switzerland
while the UK (the City of London) is starting to
head over the cliff at full speed.
The Swiss and London provide a place to hide
untaxed money, a base for financial crimes
(with no fear of prosecution), providing a great degree of
secrecy directly or through shell companies.
With the rest of the economy faltering, these
countries are stuck relying on their thieving banks
for bribery money (i.e. political contribs),
and some taxation/ employment. 

The 2007/08 crash has led to the government
of the UK supporting, or even owning, major
international banks (Let's not even get into
the crimes those banks are committing, without
anybody going to jail). But, suffice it to say that
banks are robbing all UK citizens in many
hidden ways. For example: zero interest means
there's no financial reason to save, pushing people.
into risky investing just to get a few percentage
points.

STORY 1 Bankers Pushing Countries Off a Cliff

Switzerland tried to slow the death of the rest of
its economy by pegging to the Euro. That looked
like a move that would create safety, but then
the Swiss money men smelled that the ECB
would drop the value of the Euro with
Quantitative Easing. Before that happened,
the Swiss pulled the peg, and the Euro dropped
30% vs the Swiss Franc:
A
Mark O'Byrne
Gold Demand Explodes as Volatility and Fear Stalk Market
Posted on January 20, 2015 by Mark O'Byrne 
Gold Demand Explodes as Volatility and Fear Stalk Market
Although the extent to which the surprise move by the Swiss National Bank last week has damaged financial institutions will not be apparent until the end of the month, it is already clear that enormous damage has been wreaked on many businesses exposed to the foreign exchange markets.
On Thursday the SNB unpegged its currency from the euro without warning. The peg was put in place three years ago during the height of the euro crisis to prevent the Swiss franc from rising too much relative to its EU neighbours and damaging its exports.
The shock move caused the Swiss franc to rally almost 30% against the euro and 28% against the dollar. To maintain the peg, the SNB had been forced to accumulate around €500 billion leaving it very vulnerable to a euro devaluation.
It would seem that the move was not coordinated with the ECB or the Fed and may be endemic of a new low phase in global central bank communications. Many times throughout the financial crisis central banks have coordinated efforts to stabilise market volatility and to manage stimulus programs in concert.
The SNB shock announcement seems to have happened in isolation and could mark the start of a far less accommodative stance by national central banks. This is not surprising as with a strong dollar, the U.S. is able to reduce the costs to foreign markets of its goods and services, thereby producing a massive competitive advantage. Now that the euro is going to start debasing itself too, it is natural that the Swiss also abandon a peg which is about to become indefensible. The question “Who next?” will break ranks. Currency wars and related volatility are now in full swing.
According to Bloomberg, Citigroup, the largest currency dealer globally, lost around $150 million on the move. Deutsche bank also lost $150 million and Barclays are reported to have incurred losses of €100 million.
…
B
Tavakoli Structured Finance, Inc.
The Financial Report
By Janet Tavakoli
Swiss National Bank and Foreign Exchange: Well Played!
Posted January 16, 2015
The Swiss are being Swiss, meaning the Swiss National Bank (SNB), unlike most other Central Bankers, haven’t completely lost their minds. Yesterday, the Swiss National Bank lifted the cap on the franc versus the euro. In other words, SNB decided it was the right time to stop playing rope a dope.
The market reaction was brutal, punishing the Euro and every foreign exchange and options trader on the wrong side of this trade. Some forex trading firms will go under. Foreign exchange trading desks within banks are, of course, part of ongoing unwilling taxpayer largesse.
Misdirection and a Quick Reversal
Recall that on 30 November 2014, the Swiss National Bank issued this formal press release after the gold referendum was voted down:
…

STORY 2 Paying banks to lend

Since the crisis, large banks have been paid off
for their crappy gambling debts and we're
being robbed to pay for it.
Well, then, maybe banks could just start
lending to businesses to help the economy
grow? That would be too easy.
Most Quantitative Easing worldwide, as in the
EU, is only designed to get banks to lend money.
This is despite the fact that these crappy private
banks can actually print money of their own.
It's a bank war

BANKS vs The Rest of Us

STORY 3 European Soviet Union

The tendency for banks to be the friends of our
leaders, elected or not (like Druncker and Druncker)
means that our governments need to
control the whole economy so that nothing
implodes and causes the Depression that
the working and middle classes are slowly going through,
to spread and deepen. That is the very definition
of Fascism (forget the racist overtones).
There are two levers for Fascism
1 centralised political power - Merkel
2 centralised financial power- ECB/ Draghi

[they're going to ruin both the Euro and the EU.
it's already their job to make the Euro's value fall
to aid German exports]

Extreme Fascism is the same as extreme
Communism. They use the same levers to control
the economy and the people of a country or Union.
While Communists do it to make the politburo rich,
fascists do it to make themselves and their rich buddies
even richer. That includes their Central Banks
(notice the Centralisation) which
are all private institutions that look after the bailed-out
banks. These Central Bankers meet in Basel regularly
to figure out what to tell their governments to do.
I leave the last word to

Gorby

Story 4 Gold+man+sacks runs everything BTW

[in German]

This goes way beyond banking. When you see how they 

have their (destructive) charges in very key positions, 

you'll begin to wonder how that could possibly be by

chance, and there's no chance of banking changing 

while those zombies are in their places

[video at 17:00 - your proof]