E.U. Crisis: Brexit’s Irish Backstop

The UK’s new PM Boris Johnston today steamrolled over Brexit’s Irish Backstop. It didn’t go down well with EU negotiators. Ten weeks to go to the next deadline, “This will be the final deadline” we have been told and still they can’t work it out.

Billboard poster on the Irish Border and a vintage steamroller at a
Hampshire fair. Images 2019
 

One reaction to Johnston's “Steamer” (slang) as reported in the Daily Telegraph came from an EU diplomat who said:

“Three years on and still this letter fails to put forward any realistic alternatives for the backstop. Hope and imagination don’t keep the border away. 

“This letter is not a request to renegotiate - it’s a clear-cut attempt to avoid it all cost.

“If the British government was serious it would just ask the EU to trust them. Because if they did the EU would have to look at it.”

TRUST!  Now there’s a word for the political classes to digest.

“Trust in Me!
Trust in Me!!
It’s Not Lying...
I am only Trying...
Trust in Me.
Trust in Me!”

Theme to the US drama series “Sneaky Pete” 

EU crisis: B is for Brussels, Bollocks to Brexit and Barefaced Betrayal

EU’s stop-Brexit man Guy Verhofstadt was in the UK campaigning for the “Bollocks to Brexit” party (Liberal Democrats).  This party along with an array of anti-Brexit forces are standing for office in the forthcoming EU parliament elections. Their mission is to force the majority of UK voters to abandon their democratically expressed wish to leave the European Union. By force, not persuasion but by Barefaced Betrayal through underhand parliamentary tactics. 

The tactic is to present the people with an offer they cannot accept with an option to remain in the EU. A tactic which would rip the country apart to the delight of the EU.  

Verhofstadt’s message:

“We thought let’s go to the city and the country where these populists and nationalists have created this mess. This way we can show to the rest of Europe, on the continent, never, never again an exit from the EU.

It is precisely this EU parlance which has created this mess if you can call it a mess.  I prefer to see it as a direct challenge to him and his like who are really saying “Bollocks to Democracy.”

Across Europe a crisis of democracy is coming to represent a struggle between an EU Geo-political economic block and the
wishes of citizens to advance their own destinies through self-determination. Democracy's survival is at the heat of this
struggle. Image South England May 2019.    

The EU wants to snuff out nationalism and with the identities of nations and peoples. It wants to create a totality of “Oneness” and is fixed on course to do so without any consultation or engagement with the European people– one language (vote EU), one army, one European identity, one European Superstate. A state where dissension and democracy face hostility from unaccountable faceless men and women overtly fanatical about their own brand of the European project, a project now so distant from what it was when the UK joined in 1975.

So fanatical is the current EU leadership, they scorn democracy’s legitimate outcomes for a token exercise in voting for a toothless parliament with a duty to rubber stamp the EU commission’s will.

All around Europe and beyond its borders the battle between the Brussels led European Project and Nationalism, Identity, Self Determination and most importantly the fight for Democracy has picked up speed.

Thursday, May 23^rd 2019 is a chance for people to take charge. Euroskepticism is the new counterculture repelling the neo-liberal assault on values of dignity, nationhood and the individual’s self.

EU CRISIS: Juncker’s EU Irish Border Facing Resistance.

And the lesson is beware the quagmire of Irish politics. Put another way which is stronger, Irish Nationalism or Ireland’s loyalty to the European Union.

There’s talk of a new border at the Gap of the North. The Moyry pass is to be defended from those who rest beyond the Pale. Just as Hadrian’s Wall was the limit of Roman control Juncker’s Border is the new frontier for its latter-day equivalent in the shape of the European Union.

Two Walls 30 years apart. From Berlin in 1989 to the EU's Southern
 Flank between Hungary and Serbia. image 2018 from series
War and the Plastik Heaven

The big question is who will build, enforce and man its presence. Who will punish those who flout its authority? 

I recently visited the Border Wall at the EU southern flank. From the Serbian side I was confronted by Hungarian border guards who informed me I was breaking their laws by just taking a photograph of their fence. They failed to arrest me because they could not make the incursion into Serbia. The conversation all seemed a bit silly. The guards were happy to hear I would be leaving the area after taking my pictures.

As we approach the 30^th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in November 2019 some of us are asking if Walls aren’t easy to live with or or indeed to live without. Juncker’s Border may prove to be more of a temporary face saving EU exercise that that of the Berlin Wall. The Moyry pass at the Gap of the North is now well defended by an alliance of British and Irish citizens determined to keep it open.

The Irish border at the Gap of the North pictured during
the recent Troubles. Image from
The South Armagh Citizens Wallpaper Project 2012 -2022 

  

E.U. Army Gets Organised Under Cover of Brexit.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for the creation of a “real, true” European army while addressing MEP’s at the European parliament Strasbourg on November 13th 2018.

Little if any of the call was reported in the UK press as Brexit chaos dominated the news there. She was echoing a similar call by her French counterpart President Macron to “protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America.” It cites the army’s function as engaging in external operations and missions.

The move to supplant NATO has led to friction with US President Trump who has recently taunted the French Macron about his failing popularity and political pressure from angry protesting and rioting French citizens over living standards.

As Chancellor Merkel and French President Macron mull over plans to conquer the woes of the world, Paris is burning and the ADF in Germany marches on and on towards taking power.

We were told it would never happen. We were told Europe’s leaders have no appetite for such a plan. We were told to trust the EU that it had no ambitions to become a powerful Superstate giving itself the right to intervene militarily in international missions and operations.

Now the plans are set in motion. 27 countries are involved. Each are designated contracts in creating the newest and possibly one of the mightiest armies since Germany’s Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht teamed up with Italy’s Benito Mussolini in 1940.

Two scenes. Left Adolf Hitler surveys maps with Benito Mussolini at the Wolfs lair Poland August 1941
and the perceived confrontation between allies at the G7  Meeting Canada June 2018.
 image US archive and G7 handout.

The EU call to produce arms is listed from PESCO as:

LAND, FORMATIONS, SYSTEMS

(Euro Artillery) Slovakia, Italy/  Armoured Infantry Fighting Vehicle / Amphibious Assault Vehicle / Light Armoured Vehicle Italy, Greece, Slovakia/ Indirect Fire Support (Euro Artillery)

Slovakia, Italy/ Integrated Unmanned Ground System (UGS)

Estonia, Belgium, Czechia, Spain, France, Latvia, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Finland/ EU Beyond Line Of Sight (BLOS) Land Battlefield Missile Systems

France, Belgium, Cyprus  

MARITIME

Maritime (semi-) Autonomous Systems for Mine Countermeasures (MAS MCM)

Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania/

  

AIR, SYSTEMS

European Medium Altitude Long Endurance Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems – MALE RPAS (Euro drone) Germany, Czechia, Spain, France, Italy/ European Attack Helicopters TIGER Mark III France, Germany, Spain/  

CYBER, C4ISR

Strategic Command and Control (C2) System for CSDP Missions and Operations

Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal/ European High Atmosphere Airship Platform (EHAAP) – Persistent Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Capability

Italy, France/ Electronic Warfare Capability and Interoperability Programme for Future Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (JISR) Cooperation

Czechia, Germany

SPACE

European Military Space Surveillance Awareness Network (EU-SSA-N)

Italy, France/

The EU has always been accused of backroom dealing to advance the federalist dream of an armed Superstate. They have always said they put the Union and its citizens first. Somehow building an army to defend the Union against those who liberated it. Russia, the US and possibly a post Brexit UK hardly sounds like an Ode to Joy.

EU CRISIS: The House of Doll is Exposed to Europe’s Cultural Divisions

House of Doll. Culture wars are still a part of an
evolving post colonial Europe. Image Netherlands
2012 

We are in the moments a Brexit anti-hero makes its appearance. The confidence lines after the 2016 referendum between Leave and Remain over right and mistake are blurring. Post Brexit distinctions are re-shaping and becoming sharper and more bitter.

These distinctions are basic. Who rules!  Who decides the shape and form of society! For some the people’s views are second to the visions of those who are holding the power of law and order. To others in the game “People power” is everything.

In UK politics the question of whether surrender of national sovereignty justifies taking what is on offer from the European Union.

Across Europe a deeper and more profound debate is still bubbling. The deepening of the culture wars has formed a front where traditional and popular culture is linked to past colonial times, contemporary social political correctness and the sense that communities are being forced to accept new norms and reject old customs through finger pointing decree and shame and name tactics.

It has worked in the past in culture wars. China, Cambodia and the Soviet Union were all successful in implementing thought change and correct-thinking citizens, albeit after a decent into a horrible and inhuman society.

Whether Brexit will abdicate the UK’s sovereignty, or the EU succeeds in forming a left-leaning politically correct Superstate in its own image will soon be known. The 2019 EU elections and the Brexit finale are approaching. The phony peace abates. An opening salvo commences, pitching the democratic forces of Economic Nationalism against technocratic columns of Liberal Globalism.  

Abortion: Ireland Abortion Referendum: A Victory Celebration For Concern.

Abortion, one of the most polarising social and moral issues of modern times.
Ireland recently voted to decriminalise the practice.
Image Bucharest clinic 1990 from the series Post Communism. 

So, what was so disturbing about the Ireland abortion referendum. Well it was not the result. As a male member of our species I care little for the outcome. In fact I don’t know why men even bothered to vote in what is really a female issue. Most species kill. As part of the family of species on the planet we do our fair share of killing. Some of it we rightly scorn and sometimes we punish the perpetrators. Some of it (killing) is illegal one day which then becomes lawful the next. Like the Irish abortion referendum. That’s our choice. We decide what killing is lawful and what is not.

What is disturbing about the Dublin victory celebrating transforming the once illegal killing of un-born babies into the lawful killing of un-born babies is…..

First, how the victorious turned their attention to calling for the imposition of the lawful killing of un-born babies in the North of Ireland. Technically a region within a foreign and sovereign country – the UK. Would the Irish like to be told by a foreign country who to kill and who not to kill?  

Not a big deal really, as that will be a decision for the people of Northern Ireland and none else.

What is more disturbing is the changing nature of what abortion is being called. From the illegal killing of un-born babies to the lawful killing of unborn babies it now becomes the termination of something. The unborn are now a something and quite possibly they can then become a nothing.  From what was once regarded as murder, today’s attitudes have transformed this once murder charge action into “The lawful termination of a nothing.”

Now, where does this attitude fit in with exterminating Jewish Untermensch, lynching US niggers, genocide against snobby African Tutsis, urban Cambodian dwellers and their stupid intellectuals and so on for the rest of the sub-humans.

Shock horror! How can one talk like this! It is disgusting. And yes, it is disgusting to talk such degrading language, but so is calling killing the un-born “The lawful termination of a nothing.”

  

  

Martin Nangle: Salisbury Exhibition. The Citizens Wallpaper and The Search for the Golden Lion.

Of all the Gallery joints in all the towns in all the World, that Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia had to walk into the pizza place next door to my exhibition spot at Gallery 4 Salisbury library on till April 30th 2018.
Come and enjoy my exhibition if you are about. We don't serve Novichok -just old fashioned English beer. 

So here's looking at a good show.

Martin Nangle brings an exciting original exhibition to Salisbury Library's Gallery 4 for March and April 2018.

The Citizens Wallpaper and The Search for the Golden Lion brings together photojournalism from 1990s Transylvania and 2018 Myanmar/Burma, with excerpts from the Citizens Wallpaper project. What unites this contrasting material is a focus on ordinary people and their lives. The whole exhibition demonstrates how photojournalism can assist local communities in creating their own artistic visual representations.

            

MARTIN NANGLE* Photojournalist

Martin Nangle is an award - winning photojournalist. During the Northern Ireland conflict from 1977 – 1989 he worked for national and international media. After his assignment to cover the fall of the Berlin Wall he was seconded to Associated Press London bureau to work in Europe and the Middle East. Locations included Jerusalem, Damascus, Kuwait, Iraq, Cairo and later the Balkans. He documented culture and society during the early years of post-Communism and the secessionist Wars in Yugoslavia. He recently returned from Myanmar/Burma where he recorded daily life against the background of civil conflict.

Martin Nangle is currently chairman of APAC association (Associated Photojournalism for Art & Culture). The association combines citizens’ journalism and photojournalism to present visual representations of culture, identity and tradition.

EU Crisis: Brexit Go Bragh 2018. Countdown To A New Beginning.

March 29^th 2018, It is exactly 365 days to the date the UK leaves the European Union.  Many divisions, recriminations, doubts, hopes, realisations, pros and cons about the decision to leave the EU have dominated our society since the historic vote in June 2016.

The UK’s PM Tereasa May is leading a fractured British nation out of a fractured European Union. Brexit will happen after all; plans for an integrated Global economic and political system will continue.

Unions are difficult. A contrast with Brexiteers today and the EU and
to the problems between Britain and Ireland
depicted in translations from 1798 - 2018.

The EU will also continue, but with a damaged ideology after the shocks of 2016. The European Union elites were inept to the groundswell of anti- EU opinion since the stealth introduction of the Lisbon Treaty. Brexit was the UK’s response; dissent still exists across the European Union.  

In the year to follow on from this 29^th March 2018 the UK will make ground on the Global network. The EU will have hard decisions to make about how to listen and accommodate those seeking a political stake in this European Union. Change at the heart of the bureaucratic Superstate machine can make that happen.

It would be a better for both Unions – UK and the EU - for economic cooperation as well as political interconnection to prevail by 2019-2020.

The powerful European Council can impress Europe’s citizens and the international community with a magnanimous will, a steel commitment and a showpiece ability to deliver an orderly UK retreat from the EU - even if a minority of swirling hawks in the Berlaymont Building are poised to swoop on any sign of disorder in order to progress an unpopular Federalist agenda.    

  

Brexit 2017: A Very Machiavellian Game of Chicken

At the half way stage of this Brexit phenomena, it would not be unfair to cite the negotiations as heading for a possible collapse as attitudes harden across the table.

The talks are becoming fraught. Tensions are rising. Leaders playing this political game of chicken are wondering if the chicken’s head will stay put or be lost in the current scramble for the best pieces in the Brexit end game. Better to checkmate with a Queen and a Knight -if you got them at that point.

The UK's Berlin Wall moment, otherwise known as Brexit, continues its
 uphill struggle as protagonists lose the original spirit of unity over future
 power and glory in a post neo-liberalism order. Image 2017    

And all of this could have been prevented. Or maybe it was not to be prevented, for who wins this game of chicken will go forward into the post Neo-Liberal world order as a victorious player to be reckoned with. The looser will be humiliated for years to come.

Both sides have serious handicaps. For the UK, preparation for an EU crash out scenario are underdeveloped while worst for the EU is they have no contingency what so ever, to date, for a post Brexit UK victory. Playing good chess calls for forward thinking.

Should it lose, EU member states will worry and will doubt the EU’s fitness for purpose, while a defeated UK will set Westminster alight. Brexit has become a tug of attrition between UK & EU aspirations and reputations in a game that pits democratic national sovereignty (White) against a technocratic system of government (Black) – trade is the excuse, but power is the reason – Glory is the prize- there is everything to play for.

Meanwhile, as Brexit talks evolves into the UK’s Berlin Wall moment, the widening revolt against the EU’s plans for More Europe has moved into a new phase. Germany, Austria, Catalonia and Northern Italy have each in their own way turned more than slightly away from the Brussels’s integralism ideology.

European elites are curiously silent about the most recent serious shock to Spain’s unity. Their response is to support the Madrid government. They cite respect for the Spanish constitution and how it is not prudent to interfere in a country’s internal affairs.

The EU is fundamentally flawed, and everyone seems to know it – even the EU itself. But reform is not possible because the mechanism for reform is not written into the EU’s DNA. As such, the deteriorating situation in trust and respect for the EU’s political agenda across Europe will continue as people take more and more interest in what concerns them – the power to determine their future in their own best interests.     

Danke, Deutschland – Alternative Für Deutschland Party Thanks Supporters as it Breaks Through Twelve Percent .

Europe’s most important EU member state, the all powerful resurgent Germany, gasps at the surprise rise of the anti Euro and anti-immigration party Alternative für Deutschland. The far right party won 94 seats in the September 2017 elections with 12.5% of the national vote.  The party has finally broken through the 11% barrier, the symbolic percentage figure that makes others sit up and take notice.

Staring at the surreal after the German Right party Alternative für Deutschland
makes gains in the September 2017 elections. Image Frank Gehry buildings in
Dusseldorf.

Feeble, lousy, inadequate are words being used by the German media to describe recent past performances of European Liberal Democracy.  There has been plenty of warning signs and plenty of dissenting voices in pointing out the failures of the Neo-Liberals and the European Dimension but still against it all the Brussels federalist machine keeps on spouting “More Europe” and “we will win back the people when they re-discover the European project.”

Meantime the Right marches on and on and on.  

Germany is leader of Europe and the European project. German citizens are not content to sit back and not be consulted about the backroom design of its new character, directions and political roles. Germany is the sum total of its people and as such need to be fully on board for concent to future changes.

National Populism is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Learning to accommodate it and address its concerns is just as much a problem for the European project elites as it is for those at grassroots.  

Brexit: Germany’s Quiet Coronation as Europe’s Undisputed Commander.

A fully recovered Germany from the horrors of the last century looks
to resume its position on the world stage. It now surpasses Brussels
 to speak and lead  on behalf of Europe with Chancellor
Angela Merkel firmly in the driving seat.
 Image: Dusseldorf Germany 2012.

Berlin's role as the de facto leader of the European Union has long been recognised. Germany’s seat at the club of world powers for the 21st century has just come of age. It has accepted the mantle of power.

The crowning was announced at the G7 meeting in Taormina Sicily last week when Chancellor Merkel declared that Europe can no longer completely rely on its longstanding British and US allies.  The job of rehabilitating Germany to full recovery after the horrors of the Second World War is now complete. The country can return to work global politics with a clean bill of health.

During a meeting which highlighted differences in opinion and policy she said “Europe would have to take our fate into our own hands” This can only mean Berlin’s leadership will speak and lead on behalf of the European Union on the world stage.

For Brexit and the negotiations to follow this means European Union is now Germany. Dealings with the Brussels technocrat and bureaucratic maze are becoming more and more irrelevant. Direct talks between the main five economic players in Europe are more likely to be the goal of the Brexit negotiations.

Merkel’s declaration at the G7 summit is dramatic. It is historical. And it is proof that since the backlashes of 2016, the position of the EU Brussels machine is greatly diminished.

As re-established and re-democratised Germany resumes its openly declared position as the main power broker in Europe the question must be asked “Is the goal for a federalist Europe with one currency, one passport, one capital and one army now a spend dream or just a new reality for German destiny!”

The Isis Phenomenon: Sweden Looks Right

Those who know history understand well that none can win a war over another culture while it exists in any shape or form.

The folly of the Bush administration to attack the Islamic world after 9/11 has long been apparent. What wasn’t apparent is the scale of the response to the West’s badly constructed intervention.

Although fractured in parts due to old sectarian fault lines the Islamic world can hold out for ever to western efforts to bring it into line with its liberal principals. Culture change must come from within.

After a lethal truck attack by Islamic extremists in Stockholm,
Sweden questions its EU borders policy and whether less openness is a safer option.
 Image from series "Periphery" 

All across the Middle East new armies are being constructed; when launched, only another army can halt their march. Where are the global intuitions to prevent this happening! Are we at a League of Nations moment once again!

The latest attacks in London and Sweden by “Lone wolfs” who are prepared to sacrifice the lives of innocents and themselves is just the beginning of the beginning.

What if the trucks used were laden with chemical or bio-logical weapons.

It is only a matter of time before a cornered Isis resorts to these terror tactics. Better to accept that Isis exists and will continue to mutate in reaction to perceived western interference. Better to negotiate now than wait until negotiations are untenable and the word is plunged into a permanent conflict with the Muslim world akin to the two centuries of Crusader wars of the middle ages.


Better not to corner the beast which may prove to be more savage than one’s self. 

Invitation to Exhibition: Excerpts From Extraordinary Journeys

May I invite you to view my photojournalism exhibition titled "Excerpts From Extraordinary Journeys". It opens Thursday 6 April 2017 at 15.00 hrs in ArtCetera Studio, 43b Rosemary street, Belfast BT1 1QB and runs till 20 April 2017.  

Location: https://goo.gl/qQjfao  Tel: 028 90 5738500 

Image from series  Divided Cities - the Road to Damascus.

While in the Levant in the early 1990s, I witnessed the persistence of old narratives. The images in this exhibition capture the sense that these recurring stories are an extension of a troubled past.

I saw my own presence as part of this bigger picture, within which, identities have been fractured, borders disputed and peoples migrated. These are common issues relating to distinctiveness, citizenship, and dispossession that demonstrate the continuity of past and present.

From the exhibition "Excerpts From Extraordinary Journeys."

   

1. Excerpts from Extraordinary Journeys focus on the experience of conflict in - East Europe and the Near East. Martin Nangle’s observation documents society’s ability to maintain a sense of direction despite incredible obstacles.

 

War and Conflicts
1977 - 1989 Northern Ireland

1989 - 1995 The Fall of Berlin Wall 
1990 - 1991 Revolutions in Eastern Europe with special focus on Romania & Bulgaria
1990 - 1991 The Gulf War, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, Intifada Israel & Palestine
1991 - 1992 The Break-up of USSR in the republic of Moldova
1992          The Siege of Sarajevo
1992 - 1995 Bosnia, Croatia & Serbia

 

Divided Cities

This is a visual narrative about daily life in cities divided by segregation barriers; the physical "Walls" reflect the consequences of the social and political issues of our time. They symbolise our conflicts and embody the solutions which characterise the societies we create.

Divided Cities continues the social and political journey through Europe and the Levant.
It commences in Belfast in 1973 and continues to the present.
Belfast      1973-1989
Berlin        1989 Fall of the Wall, 
Jerusalem 1990-1991
Sarajevo   1992-1994 

Nicosia      2015

 

Post Communism 1989 - 2001 
This journey explores the role of culture and tradition in Romania during a time of extreme austerity, uncertainty and romantic courage during post communism. The project documents how a culture and its people survived the near collapse of its society.

European Union; The Art of Superstate  2001-2017
A series of portraits and images of daily life focuses on Western European Society's preoccupation with neo pluralism and multi-culturalism. The rise of the Euroskeptics and the Brexit referendum are illustrated though pictures from Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and the UK.

EU Decline: Mists Lift off Brexit’s Pillars.

 "We are leaving. We are coming out. We are not going to be a member of the EU any longer," says the British PM.

And so says the labour opposition but in different words. “We are not wed to free movement”

The mists surrounding the pillars to uphold Brexit are beginning to clear.

Power revolves in Washington this month. Incoming president Trump is facing a counter-attack by those he spectacularly defeated in the November 2016 elections. They are wedging obstacles into his programmes before they have started. US ambassador to Brussels claims Trump wants to see the break-up of the EU. The ambassador calls a break-up “Lunacy.”

Mists clear over Stonehenge during the 2017 new years day .
The ancient pillars have stood the test of time for their connection with the people and its environment.
 From the series "Antiquity."  

This is hardly a shock. The EU is doing that break-up all by itself. US observers are asking which countries are next to leave. There are a handful of northern countries with large swaths of Euroskeptic voters. Some of these countries finance ministries give the maximum life span for the Euro and ultimately the Europe project at seven years.

So seven years is what Europe has got to clean-up the Brussels mire. EU Break-up is assured if there continues to be no change to Brussels’ determination to pursue federalism at all costs and beyond consultation with Europe’s citizens. Inclusion, co-operation and humility are words they could learn and practice.

All great man made edifices standing the test of time are built in rock, stone and with the sweat and labour of people.

The EU needs to realise it cannot trick Europe into its mystic utopia by shrouding its aims in secrecy. 

E.U. Decline; Italy Speaks: Rivoluzione Continua

Grown people know the world they live. Today’s world is financial terrorism- neo-liberal internationalism – economic slavery.  It is called globalism; where living standards are lowered in the rich west through a weapon named “Austerity” - in order to increase living standards elsewhere.

The backlash, to this policy (a policy led by the financial globalists), is the wave of populist uprisings of 2016 where “Revolution” (a transfer of power from one political base to another) is well underway. 

Italy is the latest country to express its rejection of the establishment. All eyes are now on France.

Death of the EU lies squarely with dictatorial attitudes of the EU commission and its Europhile cabinet cohorts. It’s about attitude. About those who have it and those who reject it.

Italy Speaks: The revolt against Globalisation and the establishment parties which promotes it continues a path to victory.
Image- Bucharest 1990, From  the series Revolutia Continua, about the revolutions which supported the end of communism
across eastern Europe.  

The EU federalist clique since 1993, railroaded their ideology of a born again Empire. They ignored Europe's citizens; their national identity, their histories of struggles from past dictatorial regimes and replaced democracy with a distorted combination of Plutocracy and technocratic bureaucracy while instructing those who asked to be consulted to shut -up.

How did neo-liberalism expect the people to ultimately respond to the EU’s half-baked notion that its idealism cannot be wrong! For the greater good of Superstate and finally an Empire with its own trans-national army - sacrifices had to be made; Greece, youth unemployment, nation states, forced immigration quotas, cheap labour and above all obedience from Brussels to member governments not to critise or expose the final solution to Europe’s divisions.

Would it be an idea for federalists’ politicians to recognise that voters are aware! That citizens are conscious of the dreadful spins they put on everything to suit their chances of political advantage; to attain the 2025 goal of Superstate, universal taxation and a strong army to force its will. 

The new picture for Europe is what kind of future relations we citizens want with the EU (if any) and the rest of the world which is 93%. There can be no going back to the EU of old. It is past time the Brussels federalist bubble realise this. 

US Elections 2017: Trump’s America, Reality Anger in the USA.

An American dream becomes reality anger in the 2017 US election. It is not an anger of violent rage. It is a contest within modern augmented perceptions about two visions of the developed world.

One side of the vision feels brow beaten by excessive political correctness. It experiences stagnation in living standards and harbours an opinion that establishment elites have abdicated political responsibility to faceless technocrats and undemocratic bankers.

Seeing is believing. What the public sees is a fake world where reality is something to handle as one sees fit.
In the shadow world of the left behind an awaking has rocked the cradle of a patronising elite who use
managed perceptions of reality to push their global vision of a technocratic world government. Has at last the
substance of this narrative wore off. Are we witnessing a return to politics of the real. Or will the technocrats just up
the daily dosage and sedate the masses.  image November 2017.    

This is rural southern and middle America; the backbone of one vision of white American culture. They are experiencing the sober reality of distress and identity politics. Angered, they have sent a hard response to Washington.  Against a backdrop of continuing upsurges of western populism reacting to a stalled globalisation, that response was personified. Its name is Donald Trump; the 45^th President of the United States of America. 

Managing the world is a different slant on the vision of changing the world. The global financial community who now lead the management philosophy are being challenge by the backlash of the disaffected who call for change.

Interesting times to witness if the 45^th president can deliver the change he has promised or will the forces of global management re-enforce its position and relapse western citizens into mediated reality where none really knows what is fake and what is real.

In the harsh world of managed perceptions and outcomes does anyone now believe in anything!

EU Decline: Hungarian Referendum: A Counter-Revolution Against EU Federalists.

Hard border between Northern Ireland  (UK)  and the
Republic of Ireland during the "Troubles." 1969 -1990.
Hungary's  new border fences are the result of
new troubles brought about by EU policy
 over free movement of people. Image 1983

This EU project is led by the European Commission. The Commission is like a collection of government ministries supported by an army of thirty-three thousand employees. Its focus is an attempt to create a modern Federalist Superstate; a successor to the many forms of government that have ruled Europe since the collapse of the Roman Empire of past ages. To some this may sound appealing. To others it sounds the stuff of nightmares.

Empires do not end gracefully and often are credited with a legacy of internal strife and civil war. From the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD till the close of the World Wars of European origin, various empires, federations, confederations, dictatorships, kingdoms, isms and the like have shaped, built, destroyed and defined the continent.

Euroskeptics view EU ideologues as sick and dangerous patients to be cut adrift and quarantined. They see the commission as a fanatical body of brainwashed elites that forces Europeans to follow “More Europe.”

The European Commission, aka “Good Europeans” view the skeptics with similar disdain. Democracy is dangerous and leads to wars – this they say about Europe in the 1920’s and 30’s. Better to direct the people how do it than ask for their viewpoint.

This is a clash of political thought over what is the better system for ruling Europe in the 21^st century.

A clash of political cultural identity between the Democratic Nation State which emerged from 19^th century Europe and the continuity of European empire.

 Interestingly Churchill said in 1943 “Empires of the future will be empires of the mind.”  The new counter –revolution spawning in Hungary and spreading to central and Eastern Europe is taking the politics of culture and identity closer to central stage. “Who am I and do I own my country?” “Shall I be told to move aside to make room for another people and another culture regardless of how I feel about it?”

I see the EU project entering into decline over its dogmatic approach to fulfill the aims of the Lisbon treaty. One can only comprehend that the EU as an intuition to bring Europe together is creating the opposite effect on almost half of the continents citizens.

EU Decline: National Populism Confronts Federalist Liberal Elitism.

Vehement federalists and former prime ministers of Luxembourg and Belgium, Jean Claude Juncker (EU commission chief) and Guy Verhofstadt (Federalist leader), speaking on behalf of the pro EU lobby in the Strasbourg parliament (Week 37) looked despondent, sounded angry, became frustrated and appeared cornered.  

"Battle for survival" and "existential crisis" – were phrases used by Juncker.

It was extraordinary to watch. I say extraordinary; most Skeptics and Brexiteers at the parliament session in Strasbourg wanted to hear conciliatory notes.

After the victorious post-Brexit vote it is clear the federalist command went into camera to plan their response. Rather than address genuine concerns and fears about where their federalist plan is taking Europe and its citizens, they have emerged to declare a counter offensive against National Populism.

Brexit revolution throws the  EU into decline. Across Europe the Nation State
is asserting its primacy over a weak and mistrusted Brussels leadership to create
a Federalist Superstate.  image England 2016 

Unstoppable Nationalist Populist sentiment spreading across Europe was treated to a display of attitude and commendation.

These ultra-federalists projected a weak notion they can and will persuade citizens of Europe to accept their mantra of “More Europe.” Sadly it seems, they may have no further intention of even attempting to do any persuading. They show little interest in the views of the people. They are convinced they can ultimately steamroll citizens into their federalist Superstate Europe by a declared 2025 deadline using the tools provided by the Lisbon treaty.

A Europe under threat seems to be the EU federalist’s last throw of the dice. They openly are pushing for the EU army they believe will save their plan. Creating diversions and promoting external in internal threats is a way to temper political and social grumblings. It worked for Rome and the Soviet Union-right! But it only works if you control the orders to send the troops into action-right!

Are they so blind they cannot see the power they craved for slipping away from the Brussels citadel and re-forming in the north nation states and to the east where the politics of culture and identity has gripped its people?  

Of-course they are blind just as they were blind to the idea of a positive vote for Brexit.

As this blog stated in an earlier post, the EU response to Brexit was a planned attack on an East European country with threats of expulsion from the organisation over allegations of corruption and misconduct.  

Hungary has come under a proxy threat from Luxembourg (of all countries) over its handling of the migrant crisis, refugee quotas and asylum seekers treatment.  Luxembourg is renowned for being Europe’s number one big international corporation tax haven. A system set up by commission boss Junker while he was PM there.  

The EU (Junker) also recently attacked an international American Corporation in a prodding attempt to claim the right to set tax laws for sovereign member states-Ireland; and of course the saga of the EU army and the Commissions role (Junker) in invoking it into action rolls on and on.

These federalist pipe dreams are sounding more dangerous and desperate. Their obsession with reaching “More Europe” in its totality is now fanatical and fuelling unmeasured responses from National Populism.

At the latest “Unity” summit in Bratislava, “divisions” were led bare. The German Chancellor declared the EU in a “Critical Situation.” Merkel’s call to correct the “Critical situation” was to drum up the usual taboos-internal and external defense, terrorism, security co-operation, jobs in security etc. 

Reassessment of critical situations, redefining relationships and the re-mapping of new courses is not an admission of failure but a deed of courage to find and lead out of a “Critical Situation.”