E.U. Crisis Enters the Tunnel of Uncertainty

Monday Monday, can’t trust that day. This week the Euro crisis enters the Tunnel of uncertainty  A week never to be forgotten. Nerves are on edge. Fortunes will be lost on the markets. The awakening of the multitudes to a prolonged storm of hardship will hit home through the evening news channels.

In reality it is just decision time. In politics nothing happens by chance.  Over stated threats have for some time become part of the new culture of fear being spread among the population to replace  expensive wars. We seemingly have more to fear from statements emanating from the offices of a credit rating agency.  Virtual money on the stock market is transforming itself into virtual losses which the taxpayer is being asked to bail-out. It’s getting scary out there and the thing is people, global leaders are seemingly unable to control the monster they created. More fear.

It isn't the tunnel of love for this weeks Euro crisis reality show as the Eurozone faces collapse
 Pictures from Rotterdam and Dusseldorf 2011


It was politicians who created the Big Bang in October 1986 when deregulation became self regulation – which seemed sometimes as though the City Boys Gang who took over the block made it up as they went along.

The Big Bang City Boys Gang now has governments by the throat and is asking not only for money it creates out of thin air but also for the political clout necessary to save it from any vengeance by Mob Gang.

This week will show if politicians have it in them to stand up to the market monster. They know if they don’t their positions will be first to fall to the Mob Gang who are licking up to elements hell bent on securing a fist fight with the City Boys Gang.   Fear is not a one way ticket.  Some people this week may feel terrorised by the markets and while one answer is to terrorise the terrorists, the other is for strong leadership.

E.U. Crisis, Markets Crashing: Berlusconi Takes a Direct Accusation he is Incompetent as the Reaper Knock, Knock, Knocks on Italy’s Door.

The Grim reaper returned on Friday 5^th August 2011 almost four years to the day it first appeared to strike its boney knuckle on the door of Superstate part 1 & 2.

Should the “Core Vanguard” dump the southern flank to the mercy of the mighty Bond markets which have issued themselves with a license to kill, then this crisis becomes a burning topic about the health of the European family.

The issue is not only about European pensioners who expect to be well cared for in old age, but the realization that money just isn’t there to shoulder this burden of carrying weaker debt ridden states the size of Italy. Transferring cash from wealthy Northern pension funds to large southern pension systems which are just not working properly will test just how much Europe people really believe in.

A painting depicting the Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi hangs in a Rotterdam office August 2011

Speaking on the BBC today programme, Former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi said "The weakness of EU institutions is not by chance… the populist mood is becoming more and more strong in Europe." Regarding the crisis in Italy Prodi commented “There is no hope for change while this government is in charge” but then added “and you can’t change the garment in the middle of a storm.” He stressed there was "A problem of power in Europe." "We don't know who is in charge," he told Evan Davis.

Big question is if Greece, Italy and Spain were finally forced out of the Euro family home by Bonders, will it mean northerners seize back their first class citizens status over their poorer southern cousins. Cheaper sunnier places to retire might sound appealing but will they be welcome in the lands they have made newly impoverished. In the end it comes to the old saying “Blood is thicker than Water.” Superstate Europe needs to decide who its blood brothers are.

Secret Ai Weiwei Message found in Rotterdam

Ai Weiwei pictured during an interview commissioned by the Rotterdam architecture museum.
click on picture 

Secret Ai Weiwei message found in Rotterdam.

Confronting the past to bring it into the modern world  is open code for reconciliation in Europe’s tribal and social conflict zones.

The Ai Weiwei code was discovered in a clever interview with the master during a recent visit to the renowned Rotterdam Museum for Architecture. It clearly demonstrates that architecture (living together)  is closer than you think.

Germania Magna is Back; All Roads Now Lead to Berlin.

Against the odds Angela Merkel has cleverly taken Germany to the top as Europe’s undisputed heavyweight champion of the European Dimension: Art of Superstate Part 1 & 2 goes to a Saxon Queen.

A Mercedes Benz sign over Rotterdam points the way
 to Europe's new Germania Magna. 2011

Renowned for shrewdness and political vision she has nurtured a sense of European destiny north of the Alps. Her people have prospered. Her country is now a modern Germania Magna at the heart of a European Superstate, part 3.

Consisting of  “The Core” Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Finland and a bunch of smaller satellites Eurozone #2 will now seem an attractive financial opportunity to Denmark and Sweden.

There will soon be a serious rush of thought, ideas and political searching to decide the future.

But Europe means all its corners. They all must eventually prosper if the project is to become a United states of Europe and this spirit must never be diluted. Failure lies ahead if the periphery slides into a backwater of forgotten peoples.

It is a bold move to make a two speed Europe but it has to be done if Europe is to keep up with the challenges ahead. The world is dividing into powerful regional groups. China India, Islamic Unity and for us the Atlantic alliance. Floaters such as Brazil, Russia and Africa will play the game as they see fit.

Within the European block, Germany can guide the centre with Eastern and Northern neighbours. It was always an option to speed up the Art of Superstate. Merkel has chosen this option. These are interesting days ahead.  

Violence, Veils & Bloodlines by Louis J Salome; A Reflective View:

In Harmony, we reunited. Tales of riverbanks.

It had been a hot Spring day. I was travelling north towards Amsterdam. It was Lou Salome’s choice to fly from Boston to join a river cruise from Bruges to Amsterdam that gave his memoirs a full circle twist for us two men.

Dorothy, the river boat’s tour guide had just called on the phone. Her Dutch tones and confident air produced a settling exchange of information. “He is here, waiting, come to the boat “

I was heading to meet Lou Salome, a New Hampshire based American journalist and author, who in his book Violence, Veils and Bloodlines recounts revealing and poignant memoirs from his travels through recent historical wars and conflict zones. As a foreign correspondent, Lou Salome spent over 35yrs covering relevant hot spots shaping todays political landscapes. For much of that period, he was stationed in Jerusalem, but he spent time in Bosnia, Ireland, Algeria, Somalia, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Soviet Union.

His extraordinary revealing book explores how entrenched notions of self, family, and tribalism dictate human behavior in our modern world. He defines tribalism as a natural instinct for people of common backgrounds to band together while dividing themselves from people of other backgrounds.

"But Lou, if you go back through the mine field 
and give yourself up it will mean certain death. 
Lets swim the river to Turkey and freedom." I said
"But Martin" replied Lou "I can't swim." 
From the Khabur Beach party, Iraqi Kurdistan March 1991.
 

In short, Lou wrote a book giving the reader a rare opportunity to be a companion to a road-worn, wise but never weary observer of the World.   

It was twenty years ago in March 1991, Lou Salome, then of the Atlantic journal, met me, an AP photojournalist, in a Damascus hotel. The Gulf war had just come to a swift and inconclusive finish and media people in the region were broadening their radar for extra news stories.

I was asking to go to Beirut to cover possible hostage releases while Salome pondered whether to try Kurdistan to check out reports of an uprising there against Saddam Hussein. The outcome was next day we both were crossing the Syrian desert in a taxi toward the mighty Tigris river, and into North Iraq.

Salome recounts the journey in Violence, Veils and Bloodlines. The Chapter covers how we crossed the swollen river at the invite of would be President of Iraq Jabal Talabani to join rebelling Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and their ensuing defeat at the hands of Saddam's Republican guard. It recounts how we fled the battle field under fire with fourteen other journalists. And, the night time flight in a Dump truck, over treacherous mountainous passes near Iran, to the apparent safety of a rebel camp situated between an Iraqi minefield and the Harbur river along the Turkish border.

This close encounter with war and its effects made two strangers friends and respectful of each other as human beings. Much became of our understanding of conflict while sitting it out in the camp waiting for a solution to materialize while the Republican guard pushed the retreating Peshmerga past our location.

Eventual escape came after Turkish authorities permitted local Kurds to assemble a raft which ferried the foreign correspondents over the fast flowing Harbur.

Back in Damascus a mere ten days later we departed company, April 1991. The episode described in the chapter made us mindful of the need to nurture the positive sides of human nature. However, for Lou and I contact was lost. Salome went to London where he was assigned to cover Africa and the middle east while I re-located to the Romanian capital Bucharest to cover post Communism and the Balkan wars.

Our paths missed on a number of occasions in Bosnia and Bulgaria. Lou tried to re-connect, but for professional reasons I had decided to remain beyond easy reach.

Now twenty years on almost to the month Lou Salome and myself were reuniting to celebrate our friendship and discuss his book.

Violence, Veils and Bloodlines is relevant in today’s world. Reporting from such places as Belfast, Kabul, Bosnia and Somalia, Salome provides a unique perspective on the role nationalism and tribalism play in conflicts around the globe. While sweeping in its scope, the work bears witness to one man's examination of his family roots and ethnicity, and the ways in which tribalism is found lurking under his own roof.

I had a small extract from the book with me in the car. I came across it while searching for Lou on the Internet two weeks prior. I just caught him as he was leaving for Boston Airport to fly to Europe on holiday with his wife Patricia. At some stage they would be passing by boat through Netherlands for Amsterdam near to where I am currently living. A flurry of texts, emails and cell phone calls set up the meeting. 

Dorothy called again “The roads are closed around the central station, come by the harbor route we will be waiting beside the boat at the riverbank.” “And the name of the boat,” I asked. “Harmony,” she replied “Come to Harmony, you can talk to Lou in Harmony.”

“River Harmony,” the name of the cruise boat, a fitting compliment to the small make shift Kurdish raft which took us to safety from the camp over the Harbur river just twenty years past.

….............Near the Syrian-Iraq border, far from Northern Ireland, Martin Nangle and I were knocking on doors looking for help to reach Iraq in March 1991, hours after the end of the first Persian Gulf War. A freelance photographer, Nangle was on assignment for a wire service’s London office. “Where are you from” a Syrian asked. “Ireland Nangle answered. “Irlanda. Irlanda, “ the Syrian shouted with hard hand shaking joy. ….........extract..

This review is continued on the Review Page      http://martinnangle.blogspot.com/p/review-page-violence-veils-and.html
 

E. U. Crisis: An Alternative Union, Grab it and Change it While you Can

It may be dawning on the so called Euro elites that top down leadership devoid of anchors to the reality of citizen approval and the democratic process is equated with failure. Especially as the crisis swells towards a threatening Tempest.

The United Kingdom faced such a political and economic crisis in the 1970's. It was especially prevalent in the North of Ireland until communities eventually came together to decide their destiny.

Uncanny, how the song below 1978 by Belfast Punk Band Stiff Little Fingers spells the same message for Europe today and the present crisis as it did back then for Ulster youth. 

Sunny Ulster flies again. Where there is a will, there is a way. The 

annual Marching season gets started for 2011.

The controversial Stiff Middle Finger sculpture 

by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan in front of the Milan Stock Exchange 2010.

Some say it reflects feeling towards the E.U. establishment.

Nothin' for us in Belfast... 

We ain't got nothin' but they don't really care     
They don't even know you know
Just want our money
And we can take it or leave it
What we need is

An Alternative Ulster
Grab it and change it it's yours......

Take a look where you're livin'
You got the Army on your street
And the RUC dog of repression (police)
Is barking at your feet
Is this the kind of place you wanna live?
Is this where you wanna be?
Is this the only life we're gonna have?
What we need is

An Alternative Ulster..
Get an Alternative Ulster
Ignore the bores and their laws
Get an Alternative Ulster


They say they've got control of you
But that's not true you know
They say they're a part of you
And that's a lie you know
They say you will never be
Free free free

Alternative Union......

Get an Alternative Union      

The BBC's Gavin Hewitt talks of “Europe's state of anxiety......that this is a time for fresh thinking in Europe.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14031601

Of course it is time for fresh thinking. Isn't that what crises are for....As for the Punk Band I remember them well keeping me awake as they practised in their flat above me in Osborne Park during the Belfast Summer of 1978. I was thinking back then there must be some alternative to this kind of music.

Greek Crisis: The Athens 300 Strike the Spartan Spark

Wednesday June 29 13:10 hours tweets: Greek PM is addressing parliament - making the point that 300 rioters do not reflect the opinions of 11 million Greeks.

In days past around the year 480 BC 300 Spartans gave their time to saving Greece.

The battle of Thermopylae was the scene for King Leonidas to engage the mighty Superpower of the day. Then, as now, they lost the first battle but their actions helped win the war.

Xerxes, The Greek Tragedy mask of Dionysus, Reaper at the door 2011

 The battle for Athens on the day June 29^th may be have been the scene for 300 untrained and lightly armed rioters. They were declared by politicians not to speak for 11 million Greeks. But this day was observed by many millions more Europeans. They see not rioters but a statement. Not a wanton orgy of destruction but a desperate attempt to control their destiny. Not a defeat but a beginning of serious focus on EU leadership who have lead the Union into trouble. Not a victory for the bankers but an urge to resist them with people power.

The Greek PM may be right when he says the Athens 300 do not reflect the opinion of 11 million Greeks. They may just end up reflecting the opinion of 300 million Europeans.

Greek Crisis: Union Blues: A morning in the European Union of Discontent.

0953 Protesters have been urging MPs to reject the package, shouting, "Don't bow your heads, the only way is resistance!"
0956 tweets: Quite rightly the people of #Greece do not want to pay for a debt not caused by them. Make the banks pay! #solidarity
emails: The Greek people are upset because of the injustice of being robbed of their pensions and savings.
1130 Clouds of tear gas are billowing around the square in front of parliament
1134 BBC News A group of demonstrators who were in front of the parliament building suddenly surged at the barricade at which point a volley of tear gas and stun grenades was fired by the police.
Emails: the parliament and its members will most probably be arrested and charged with treason.
1139 BBC News More and more riot police are now streaming out from behind the parliament building, wearing their gas masks, wearing their helmets, carrying their shields.
emails: Good luck to the Greek revolutionaries.
1203 BBC News Protesters have been seen throwing rocks and molotov cocktails.
1204 BBC News The anger of the crowd is intense and it's a very different atmosphere from yesterday . This time it feels like the whole crowd feels angry with the police.
1221 tweets: Been massively teargassed - police fired it outside parliament #greece. End result of gas - dry-retching, streaming eyes, burning skin.
tweets: Parliament is expected to pass austerity plan. Protesters will probably be v angry.
1247 BBC News Police have cleared most of the square, but still the tear gas comes.
emails: They are calling the politicians "traitors" -
1258 Twitter There are clashes everywhere now. The situation is very critical. Which country will be next to fall? a very sad day for Europe and world equality.
1310 tweets: Greek PM is addressing parliament - making the point that 300 rioters do not reflect the opinions of 11 million Greeks.

After all the calls for a new Europe, has it come to this! Athens before the vote.
Pictures: Yannis Bakahis Reuters: Simela Pantzartzi EPA

texts: The Greek government are serving the interests of foreign companies rather than the Greek people.
1329 Greek prime minister tells parliament they must avoid the collapse of the country at all costs
1331 The vote in parliament is due to begin shortly, after being delayed slightly by the violent clashes outside the assembly between police and protesters.
1336 Reuters says the vote in the Greek parliament has begun.
1403 Protesters have attacked the offices of the Finance Ministry, off Syntagma Square.
It's a very weird situation. Things are not well here.
1408 Breaking News The vote in favour of the austerity measures has passed the 151 votes needed for them to be passed

1417 BBC News There was a deep rumbling "boo" among protesters in the square when the result was announced over the tannoy system.
emails: The Greek Government have just sold their souls to the IMF / EU. Greece will now be in debt to them forever. Such a shame.
1754 That's it for our live coverage from Greece for the day. The Greek parliament voted narrowly in favour of a drastic package of austerity measures. which would save the country from defaulting on its debts. Syntagma Square in Athens was filled with demonstrators and violent clashes continue between protesters and the police.
1754 Thanks for following our rolling coverage. You can continue to get all the latest news developments via the front page of the BBC News website.

Greek Stairway to E.U. Superstate or Goddess Eris: Looking for leadership, Seeing the Enemy

It is the year 2011. Her name is Eris

Some Greeks say she reigns in Berlin. 

  I am walking in heaven, on the stairway to Discordia, Ruin and Revolution. Dear Goddess, please help me.

When a democratically elected government becomes your enemy you have a powerful weapon to fight it with. The weapon of free choice to decide your peers at an election.

This is the pillar which holds up society above dictatorship. Once choice is removed by rulers, people's trust follows out the door and soon struggle looks inevitable to restore freedom.

The Europe project was designed and created to banish internal wars and conflicts of varying natures. The project is now becoming a focus of hate. An opaque institution riddled with business interest using financial means to gain economic and eventually political control. The means justifies the end, even if it hurts the lives and future of those it is meant to serve and protect. It seems money is more important than people. Was it ever any different since the first raiding party took the road to the tribe next door.

Five long years of economic hardship is to be imposed on a democratic people by an unelected faceless financial bureaucracy . This is how many Europeans will see the outcome of this weeks crucial Greek parliamentary vote, if it goes through, if gets implemented and if it doesn't provoke a massive violent backlash on the streets of Athens and beyond.

Van Rompuy's talk of his new "palace" offered a perfect excuse for Cameron to court popularity at home by attacking a Europe with its head still stuck in the clouds

 Already the legions of unemployed youth are massing along the southern flank of the E.U. for a response to more, more and more. Their older leaders have deserted them but new ones will be cultivated on the streets, bars and cafés in Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Naples, Rome and Athens.

For an unemployed youth generation, disobedience and revolution is a necessary obligation.

Five years hard, is a sentence dished out to serious criminals, terrorist combatants, political prisoners and now seemingly to be meted out to innocent civilians en mass for the wrongs of bankers and politicians. A group of insiders who have mostly escaped free, bar mild rebuke, from the crisis they provoked. Bankers in bed with politicians to line their pockets is the classic gift to a revolutionary cause.

Citizens are now to be forced fed the lie they are the true cause of this crisis, that they and not their leaders are to blame for the world standing on the brink of another crisis. The blame is shifting to the poor to carry the can or be dammed as the ones who destroyed society. They are the greedy lot who are now getting their comeuppance, even though they had little or no say in the running of private banks and investment bodies who gambled and lost.

In short they are being criminalised if they refuse to accept a sentence of Five Hard.What criminal ever came out of prison with nothing but hatred for those who put them inside.This a gambit on how far the establishment can push citizens before there is a backlash. Quo Bono from this move.

It has been suggested Brussels can win by offering to ease the victim's hardship sentence if the victim acquiesces to more Brussels control over them, more Europe, more togetherness, more stability and less say in self determination for Europe's tribes. Maybe a good thing in the long run.

Superstate was born in 1999. Now 2011 it demands nourishment. But a Superstate demanding supper from the twists of strong arm tactics over protesting citizens who are its own family, creates the reason d'etre of its own destruction.

This is a time when citizens survey the road ahead for true leadership. They can't see leadership, can't find leadership, it just isn't there, just isn't there. Only see the enemy.

Where Power lies: Revolution is the Solution: Act 1V Scene 2, Greeks Resist Hated Bankers

The Greek tragedy moved to Act 1V Scene 2, A rough night in Luxembourg. Sunday 19th June 2011.
A circle of actors parading as political leaders of the modern world begin a blame game over failure to protect the purses of their money lenders demanding at least a pound of flesh from the skinny Greek debtor. The debtor can’t pay. The lenders won’t negotiate. The politicians at the meeting can’t decide what to do.

Saturday June 18th 2011 Dusseldorf, what lies ahead for the Eurozone.

The watching audience in Athens shouted and chanted “Thieves! Thieves,” with a unified hatred of the money lenders, and international capitalism.

The politicians were scenting defeat. “Not I to blame” said the lady. “Nor I,” declared the Roman charlatan. “Ce n'était pas moi, je n'étais pas là” sang the little one.
The mood at the meeting turns somber in the closing hours of the long night. “I remember the Treaty of Versailles” moans the lady, “Me, I remember the loss of an Empire” splutters the Roman, “I remember nothing, because I wasn’t there” chirps the little one turning to the audience for approval.

“What shall we do, who shall we ask for advice” they demand. “Ask a friend, that guy on the street walking his dog, ask him for advice” they chanted ensemble. The man is surprised by the actors, but reaches for his book and reads a passage.

“Then I saw, Sonia, that if you wait for everyone to get wiser it’ll take too long.. ...That’s the law of their nature, Sonia… that’s true! … And I know now, that whoever is strong in mind and spirit will have power over them.
That’s how it has been until now and that’s how it always will be. A person has to be blind not to see it! Then I understood, Sonia, that power is only entrusted to the person who dares to bend down and pick it up. There is only one thing, one thing which is required, you just have to dare!” Crime & Punishment; Dostoevsky.

The Athens audience clapped and cheered loudly crying “We have the solution, it’s revolution.”

To Boldly Go: The End of Homo Sapiens and the Creation of Homo Superior

God is declared dead. Now as species, we can turn attentions to our own managed future.

For all the memory we collectively possess, and that isn’t a lot, we know that human nature is a circular journey to be repeated over and over again. Technological advancement however is a linear process. This process is now so rapid we are frightening ourselves with our own capabilities. Think ICBMs , chemical and biological stuff, voodoo DNA manipulation etc and you get an idea of how much the genie is out of the bottle.
Is it all bad news. Well yes if it is controlled by egotistical dictators and extremists hell bent on reversing the clock to medieval status for an us and them society.
And no, if the age of enlightenment continues to supply the benefits of strengthened democracy and limits to the personal ambitions of those who have no regards for the well being of others.

In the short future, just as homo sapiens said cheerio to Neanderthal man and other cousins, then the time of homo sapiens is drawing to a conclusion.

Humanity’s Atheist Future. A new improved species for a new improved world. “Ideas are more important than knowledge.” Picture Posting, The Hague, June 2011

It all has to do with the genie and voodoo stuff I mentioned. Why take a chance with homo sapiens when we can create homo superior by speeding up a process which will happen naturally. Controlled to mirror values espousing human dignity, modern technology offers a door to a future where we can rise above the endless need to hate and destroy each other. A behavioral component most likely essential to homo sapiens character. Why else would we do it.

Moving into the evolutionary fast lane we can surpass our outdated genes and addictions. Evolution can create abilities to conquer our natural predators. Epidemic disease, virus, disorganization, apathy and poverty.

Present time leaders should endevour to managed destiny until we are ready to bury homo sapiens. Refraining to war with ourselves and attacking our cultural and ethnic diversity, while upholding our faith as an evolving species and our future existance within the beautiful universe.

And the timeframe for this transgression to homo superior . If a thousand years is too long or too short one thing is for sure, thinking about it means the process has commenced. “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.”

Bashar al-Assad, Asma al-Assad, Mahar al-Assad, a “Trio of Repression, Murder and Dictatorship.” Syria Calling, there is a denial of information service

In February 1982 Syria’s murderous president, Hafez al-Assad instructed his younger militant brother Rifaat al-Assad to surround the rebellious northern town of Hama with tanks and artillery. The town was then protesting against the secretive regime of the Assad family. Rifaat al-Assad ordered the Syrian army to open fire on Syrian citizens. When the firing stopped approximately 20,000 lives were lost. This event has been described as “the single deadliest acts by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East". The vast majority of the victims were civilians.

As a working journalist in western Europe I didn’t hear about this atrocity until 1991 when I visited Damascus on my way to Iraq’s Kurdistan. Such was the successful cover-up through Hafez al-Assad’s denial of information service to the outside world.

Syria Calling, there is a denial of information service.  Above picture from "A Game of Chess" Gemeente museum, The Hague. by Marcel  Dzama.  

                                  

                            From the video "No one does it like you" Gemeente museum, The Hague 2011 by Marcel Dzama


The current paranoid Assad family of president Bashar al-Assad, his wife Asma al-Assad and his younger murderous brother Mahar, who is currently conducting a siege of the northern rebellious town of Jist al-Shughour, are a reincarnation of this evil, a “Trio of Repression, Murder and Dictatorship.”

It used to be said the first causality of war is the truth. By shutting the flow of information, Assad’s Trio of Repression has assumed the world will forget or become disinterested in Syria. A gross miscalculation in the new information era.

They believe free societies will again ignore events happening in Syria by using the same denial of information to the world which was used by the father, Hafez al-Assad to crush Hama 30 years past.

Addiction to power and privilege may have now detached them from the realities of moral leadership just as it did the father but the realities of the Arab spring will not go away. Information services are here to stay and it is this service to the world which will crush the Assad family in Damascus.

Once the world picks its side, and it has already done so, then the “Trio of Repression” will be outlawed, hunted down and paraded before the international courts at The Hague.

In Sickness and in Health, the International Court must Evolve.

In sickness and in health…Mladic is sick, so he claims. There no doubt in the mind of millions he is truly a sick person. He had no consideration for his own sickness at Srebrenica and went about his work then .

Nicu Ceausescu was also a sick person. Nicu wanted to be exempt from trial and justice but he died all the same from his sickness in an Austrian hospital waiting for a transplant.

Mladic faces the ICFY camera in the Hague 2011, Nicu Ceausesu in the Bucharest dock waiting judgement in 1994

Even though Ceausescu and Mladic are sick and guilty of crimes against citizens they expect to be treated well and courteously for they are sick. And the world, in their eyes, generally consisting of more caring people than they are, should respect their sickness.

The International court took its time to catch the Balkan Butchers but it got them all the same. Mladic and Karadzic most likely will meet the fate of their mentor Milosovic in a prison cell. But this turn of events can mean more for those who know that the world cannot always protect them. When sick people such as the Balkan Butchers and dictators sons attack and kill it is true they often succeed. We are witnessing such actions now during the Arab Spring.

The international court needs to evolve into a proper global sheriff for justice . If protection for citizens  is beyond their capability then at least hunting down the criminals fast and on time is a step in the right direction. It is a shame the world had to wait so long for a political swap to bring Mladic to face justice.

The Balkan Butchers Captured or Dead. Why the European Union should help Serbia.

 Finally, the arrest of Ratko Mladic. Why so long. Facing the truth needs courage.

The Ghosts of unimaginable horror returned to haunt Europe, post Communism.
top, the Balkan Butchers, Sniping citizens in Sarajevo,
The gate sign at Auschwitz shortly before it was stolen.

It cannot escape the attention of those who know this story, the time and means Mladic managed to remained free in Serbia. Professional soldiers fighting for popular causes always win sympathy. But Ratko Mladic is no combatant to be proud of. A self declared enemy of a whole group of people he is cut from the same grain as the psychotic perpetrators of earlier crimes against humanity. Young Serbs I met at the beginning of the war agonized over the route their leaders were taking them, openly sobbing while discussing the unbelievable madness gripping their country and their future.

Some of that madness protected Mladic for so long. Now a new direction is planned. It should be noted that that direction is towards the European Union. Even in the midst of a financial crisis and citizen’s criticism of its management, the European Union still has a noble focus for Europeans. A focus which encompass ideology that within the new European family such barbaric madness will become less of an option to devise and operate. Within the EU, times of social chaos can be shared with and by the rest of the Union. It's the stuff of which to make Rome proud.

There are reasons, and Mladic is one of them, why the E.U. in Brussels must work hard to keep its ideals and founding spirits alive. An overweight privileged centralized clique will harm these principals. Whereas, a leaner and fitter service will provide better value, trust and a following. The E.U is not invincible, nothing is, but it is admirable that Serbs see the Union as a lightning rod for stability and a return to civilized politics.

Europe, through the Union, must focus on cleaning up legacies from its recent past. It must remove the ancient tribal European addiction to violence and horror against those who are labeled different but in reality are the very same.

Balkan wounds run deep and long. Much needs to be done to heal this part of Europe ripped apart in savagery. But the removal of the Butchers is a good day for Serbia.

Journalism Goes where Angels Fear to Tread, The Age of Belief is over Forever

Hurray for Communications.
Communication power highlights the mirage issues of cultural collision, the order of power and sterility of institutions no longer relevant to society. Within a decade of the digital revolution, political revolutions are back in vogue. Can it be because success breeds success. Change is here to stay. The world is better connected and we have nothing to fear from it. Can it also be that personal connections across social and political differences raise questions about the fundamental nature of our character. All is open to debate and the searching eye of modern journalism.

Poggibonsi was revealed to her as they sang--a joyless,straggling place, full of people who pretended.
 When she woke up she knew that it had been Sawston................ E.M Foster "Where Angels fear to tread"

We no longer feel afraid to question powerful circles that thrive on lies and fear. The human species is growing up. Fundamentalists are the last kickback of a dying system where people are asked to accept and believe in things they neither want or understand.
Although it did a fine job fooling all the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time during the Dark ages, the Churches are finally exposed as just a private enterprise selling Heaven and Hell. Heaven and Hell is revealed ---a joyless, frightening place, full of people who pretend.

By cruel betrayal of patrons and clients in systematically brutalizing children in its care, Catholic power and faith towards human spirituality has passed from heaven to earth where people understand and accept the reality of human frailty. The age of belief is over forever. There will never be another heaven or hell. The age of new communications gives rapture to such fantasies before they can become facts.

Senate of Fools: Bank power verses People power

From bankpower bailouts to defense of the unknown person….
It is hard to imagine the NYPD making an error of judgment over the Strauss-Kahn affair. These tough cops know a thing or two about chasing after people in and around the block.

Accusations of power abuse by him are emerging in the light this arrest. They centre on his behavior towards women. Women have rights too and as such should be respected.

But this fair cop by the boys in blue goes deeper than just a flush of passion from some power drunk.It is about challenging the attitude of those, in whom power is invested by the people for the people. And, to whom (the people) they ultimately will be judged for their actions.

The NYPD moved to protect the rights of an unknown against a rich and well connected abuser of position. Well nothing new in that story you might say. Been happing since Brutus and the Gang slapped Caesar in the Senate. But today is different. Cover ups are getting harder and harder to operate. There is no Mark Anthony around to cover Strauss-Kahn. He is on his own unable to make a speech.

 People need a banking system that works for society and its citizens and not against them in the name of profit.

In the new world of instant communication who gets their story out first is in front. Strauss-Kahn whether innocent or guilty is finished.
He has no longer any friends in the Senate of Fools. The game is changing before their very eyes. The masks are slipping from their anonymity. They are human after all. The political/banking alliance is no longer a frightener. Neither is its weapon of virtual debt.
"Let me issue and control a Nation's money and I care not who makes its laws". - Mayer Rothschild, 1790. This is not 1790.

Technology is the rock on which our new society is built and it has ignition., It is taking off like a rocket. Across the world people are winning strength from being in communication and understanding the commonality of their existence. Eurozone leaders need to chose, bank power or people power.

Strauss will be sidelined but not his behavior. That kind of behavior is associated with wrong, and a banking/political system in which its functionaries stray too far from the madding crowd.

The End is at Hand: A Change of E.U. Leadership will mean a Stronger Europe. 9WBWMKNGUCUE

Merkel and Sarkozy have failed to lead the people,

London's Hyde Park corner 1971, during the Cold War.
A time of crisis and financial instability.

opting instead to support the interests of those who print money over the well being of Europe’s citizens.


In times of need real leaders always step forward.
 
So let it be with 2012……. Let Right have its chance to challenge the Status Quo.


Whereas the dream is not over, it is fast becoming a nightmare phase for citizens. Vast sums of computer money is swirling around the financial markets where its addictive lure haunts the offices of those who are easily bought and sold by the roll of dice.
The current leadership was not ever a reflection of those men and women who began the European project. They have become career people, drunk on privilege and shallow on vision; In the pockets of financial institutions who argue life is impossible without them, but never really explaining how or why this should be.

Better to let the citizens imagine their fate should they allow a banker to lose all or permit a private bank to collapse. And never ever ever tell the truth, there is no God, no Hand of Providence, no End to life as we know it, only stories of might be if you don’t vote for those who print the money.

It is tough at the top playing the game of Hide and Seek, but here they come ready or not and if your caught it’s not their fault.

http://martinnangle.blogspot.com/    9WBWMKNGUCUE 

The Great Abbottabad Compound Raid, not a Win but not a Defeat.

The great Abbottabad compound raid takes out a Jessie James of modern outlawism.

War does not just happen, it is created. Sometimes people go to great lengths to fuel its beginning with little thought for how it ends. The world is still at war and has been since we learnt the effect of throwing a stone to secure something we wanted or needed.
For where are we ten years on after 9/11 but only looking at a new phase of revenge acts where the papers will look the same ten years from now.

US forces kill Osama Bin Laden in a raid on his Abbottabad hideout in Pakistan 10 years after the 9/11 attacks.
Picture shows: a compilation of Americian newspapers after 9/11 and ten years after.

They read the same as always. War is never over and we wait and wait for this one to finish as a stalemate and the next one to begin. All wars have roots. They are usually the product of unpopular if not illegal actions by the strong over the weak. We constantly reframe reality to suit our version of events hoping time will banish memory and forgiveness will come with a new set of circumstances.

The Arab spring rolls on and the roots of future conflict are sown in Syria, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen to name a few. But is this the chance for America to turn the page on this issue known as the “War on Terror.” Today it is a stalemate, not a win but not a defeat.

Extracts from newspapers May 12th 2011
US security and and intelligence officials said documents showed Bin Laden had calculated how many Americans would have to die before the US withdrew from the Middle East. He encouraged his followers to attack cities such as Los Angeles, as well as New York.

The fight between us and you was not led by Osama alone," "You have to fight one generation after the other, until your life is ruined. "What is coming is greater and worse, and what you will be facing is more intense and harmful," said Nasser al-Wuhayshi, addressing al-Qaida's enemies.
 (The following day May 13th many innocents were slaughtered in Pakistan by the local Taliban)

Iraq dossier to make case for war …..In secret evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Major General Michael Laurie said: "We knew at the time that the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war…….

We have been travelling forever in circles around the imperfect character of homo sapiens with its inherited aggressive nature from animal ancestors. Can the advance of communication and technology offer a future where war is illegal and humanity blends and mixes into a higher level of tolerance. Can we speed it up. Will science be the religion which unites the world away from the mysteries of heaven and hell. We have that possibility, do we have the courage, do we have the leaders.

Eurozone break-up now a Reality as Banking crisis becomes a Crisis of Trust



Kubuswoningen Rotterdam by Piet Blom 1984.
 Living in a cube world 2011 where the
dice has landed against all punters


Even under pressure from growing popular sentiment to dump the Euro and possibly the EU itself, Bankers and to a degree the leadership in Brussels are still refusing to believe they can’t force nations to carry the can for their gross miscalculations. The miscalculations I talk about is plain attitude.

And what an attitude they have towards the everyday “Mob.” Scratch below the surface of “ A pride of Pigs” and you will soon find old allegiances to self preservation and nationhood are not so dead after all.

This crisis of leadership for the EU and hopes of millions for a United and fair Europe is fast becoming a crisis of Trust.


 The millstone of the banking institutions around the necks of nations can and will be cut loose simply because it can.

Bankers can talk all they want about lending this and borrowing that but it matters little if people refuse to sit at their table. After all any nation has the power to create central banks and print currency. Working people know where their interests lie. And it isn’t in a Luxembourg Chateau. If Bankers want to gamble they should also know there is no payout on a fixed fight. Stacking the dice so you win each and every time can soon turn into a roadhouse brawl…………….roll baby roll

The Big Wobble: Will Piggi fuel the Euro meltdown.



The Euro meltdown continues. Will bankers greed reduce the power
 of the currency to junk status.  Has this ever happened before.
  

 When you owe someone a dosh of the old spondulicks it is in the interest of the lender to keep the debtor in business. Crushing his ability to repay usually results in a swift disappearing act. In the case of piggi (Portugal, Ireland, Greece Go Independent) running out of the coral and into the woods, the lender will be faced with a redundant bacon slicer. And the piggi will stay out of sight until the slicer gets so rusty and so unused it becomes worthless.

So let it be with the Euro. Repaying debts marked up in Euros will put the Piggi in the woods firmly behind those who wish to break the power of the lender’s bacon slicer.

Who might that be then. Oh Mr Sterling, Ms Dollar, Master Yen, Swiss cheese et all. French and German politicos and their greedy banking masters should listen to the sound of Molotov Cocktails burning their house down. For like King Canute they will not stop the sea.

The tide of public anger sweeping ashore says loud and clear, Rome was not built in a day and neither will acquiescence to become slaves to a bankers income. Whose army is going to collect the taxes to repay Jean-Claude Trichet. This is not what people voted for in 1973, 1981 and 1986

Reducing the value of the Euro to junk status will not be so difficult if Spanish and Italian people join the walk to the woody woody.

Habet, Hoc Habet, Now he's done for!

It is the fate of combatants to kill and to be killed. In war there are no good guys bad guys acting out the part for the audience. Just winners and losers. Osama bin Laden lost his fight and his life against a better opponent. The US army has done its job and done it well.
It is the role of politicians to sell that action to the people as they will have to live with today’s decisions tomorrow and for some time to come.

Among the graffiti slogans still scrawled on walls at Pompeii, the famous Roman town preserved under a layer of volcanic ash: "Caladus, the Thracian, makes all the girls sigh."

After the July Plot in 1944, Hitler decided that the leaders should have a slow degrading death. They were hung with piano wire from meat-hooks. Their executions were filmed and later shown to senior members of both the Nazi party and the armed forces.
A version of these films was later combined into a 30 minute movie by Goebbels. It was shown to cadets at the Lichterfelde cadet school but viewers supposedly walked out of the screening in disgust.

Watching snuff movies is the stuff to turn stomachs. Let’s hope the White House calls time on this movie and doesn’t get dragged into making a film series of public executions reminiscent of Rome’s Gladiatorial Circus.

Propaganda is a delicate dish. To serve it well one must know the tastes of those who are about to use it.

Osama Bin Laden: the Making of a Legend

The following report is extracted from the BBC London dispatches 3 May 2011 Last updated at 11:09 GMT
US intelligence agents focused in particular on one of Bin Laden's couriers

A high-risk operation was given the green light by President Barack Obama…. his counterterrorism adviser termed "one of the gutsiest calls by any president in recent memory" had achieved its aim, the death of Washington's most wanted man.

President and his team ……..with White House officials watching the operation unfold on a live video feed.

Welcome to Immortality, my Name is......

According to an official from Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the ISI, there were 17 or 18 people in the compound at the time of the attack, while US officials say those who survived the attack included a wife, a daughter, and eight to nine other children.
A woman was also killed. She was originally reported to be one of Bin Laden's wives, though later reports suggested his wife was only wounded. There have also been conflicting reports as to whether the woman who died was being used as a human shield.

The ISI and US officials contradict each other as to whether a detainee was taken away alive.

The al-Qaeda leader was in his bedroom when he was shot twice, officials said - once in the head and once in the chest.
At the climax, at the end of a 40-minute firefight, one of the soldiers uttered the words: "Geronimo E KIA" - meaning a man visually identified by a code word for Bin Laden had been killed in action, officials said.

"The concern was that Bin Laden would oppose any type of capture operation. Indeed, he did. It was a firefight. He, therefore, was killed in that firefight, and that's when the remains were removed......other US officials who spoke to news agencies on condition of anonymity denied that Bin Laden had returned fire.

Bin Laden's body was then flown to Afghanistan before eventually being buried at sea. US officials said this was to avoid his grave becoming a shrine

US officials said this was to avoid his grave becoming a shrine.
US officials said this was to avoid his grave becoming a shrine.

US officials said this was to avoid his grave becoming a shrine.
US officials said this was to avoid his grave becoming a shrine.

US officials said this was to avoid his grave becoming a shrine…………….

The road to Starry Saintdom is littered with crimes and miracles

Celebrity status for holy men now.

Since their concept in the annals of time Churches have revolved around mysticism, ignorance and the necessity to plunder free will. The Catholic church has been no exception to this proven formula for control of human attention. History is littered with horrific legacies of men doing God’s work on Earth.

Destination Saintdom. An advertising poster shows Saint Paul and colleague near Kracow train station 2009.    

Today, Christianity is dying a slow and inglorious death as the mysticism on which it feeds is stripped bare of it sacred shroud by progressive science and universal education. It is being exposed to reveal its self . A pied piper of hope leading children in a merry circle. They follow the tune because the piper promises a reward for those who follow. The children obey as children do. Here is a leader who is taking them somewhere. But the piper doesn’t say to where he is leading them. He leaves it to the fertile imagination of the children to discuss his motives and direction. They fuel the mystic party with whispers and tales made up on the spot. It is not so good to shine much light on mystic matters for that light might disappoint the viewer. So the piper says little and allows the children to create their own world around him and the tune he plays. Thus, avoiding attention to the fact he leads them in a circle with no real destination or purpose to his actions.

The creation of Stars & Saints is a business just like everything else. To profess to the world that someone deserves starry Saintdom as a result of curing a currently incurable disease simply by willing it, is a stroke of remarkable arrogance towards modern scientific sanity. Brilliant if you can pull it off. And even more brilliant if more children follow this new addition in the merry mystical tune of the medieval song, Ring a Ring of Roses a Pocket full of Posies, hush a, hush a, We all Fall Down.

For whom, Power doth crush.

Power is an unpredictable energy. Ask any dictator, revolutionary or parliamentarian. It scorns good and evil alike. It is absolute in its own character, changing, evolving, enticing but never faithful to those who pick it up from where it lies waiting for those who give it life.

Danger lies in its seductive, addictive and abusive nature. It grows, swells and balloons beyond the control of individuals and family cohorts. Like Atlas carrying the burden of our planet on his shoulders, Power finally weighs down its carrier into a broken shadow of their former self. It then deflates becoming again attractive to those who notice its siren call.
Like all drugs which produce initial feelings of grandeur and well being, abuse over use leads to paranoia and eventually death to dignity and self respect. Democracy is an evolving, thought out response to coping with Power’s alluring attractions.


Middle East Dictators, Royals and Authorian regimes face the Book of Power. Its changing personality offers little regard to current holders. Its  focus is on continuing existance. No one has ever controlled Power beyond a given cycle. For Syria, Lybia and the Gulf states, the weight of Power is crushing their cycle. 

 In a recent interview with an international women’s magazine the wife of the Syrian dictator allowed herself to be attached to the following published article. Bashar Al-Assad may be crushing his protesters seeking change but he should remember Power can desert any host, destroying him and his family.

Extracted from the Article "Asma al-Assad, A Rose in the Desert." February 25th 2011, A report of disturbing contradictions:

Asma al-Assad, Syria’s dynamic first lady, is on a mission to create a beacon of culture and secularism in a powder-keg region—and to put a modern face on her husband’s regime.

Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic…..She’s a rare combination: a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement. Paris Match calls her “the element of light in a country full of shadow zones.” She is the first lady of Syria.
Syria is known as the safest country in the Middle East, possibly because, as the State Department’s Web site says, “the Syrian government conducts intense physical and electronic surveillance of both Syrian citizens and foreign visitors.”
It’s a secular country…… the Muslim veil is forbidden in universities, a place without bombings, unrest, or kidnappings, but its shadow zones are deep and dark. …..In Syria, power is hereditary. The country’s alliances are murky. There are souvenir Hezbollah ashtrays in the souk, and you can spot the Hamas leadership racing through the bar of the Four Seasons. Its number-one enmity is clear: Israel.


Iraq is next door, Iran not far away. Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, is 90 minutes by car from Damascus. Jordan is south, and next to it the region that Syrian maps label Palestine. There are nearly one million refugees from Iraq in Syria, and another half-million displaced Palestinians. “It’s a tough neighborhood,” admits Asma al-Assad.
The story prints three comments Posted: 2-25-2011

1, In the midst of the chaos in the Middle East today, it is refreshing to read about Mrs. Assad. Polished, poised, well-educated, articulate, beautiful, she is a woman to admire in these tumultuous times


2, I really enjoyed my view into Mrs. Assad's world. She seems down to earth and dedicated to her causes. Great job for daring to profile a woman who is not a cookie-cutter American!


3, This may be the most disgusting article ever published in Vogue, and is surely the first time it has ever put out pure propaganda for a ruthless hereditary dictatorship. It is like all the pieces claiming that Gaddafi's son Saif was some kind of good guy reformist (how stupid do they look now). What's next for Joan Juliet and the once-admired sellout Nachtwey (writer& photographer) -- an admiring profile of Mugabe's first lady? Kim Il Sung's daughter? Hey if Gaddafi does somehow stay in power why not do one of his wives. You should be ashamed.

In democracy, opinion matters. As such it becomes less threatening to those who hold Power for the time they have it.
http://omgeemag.com/2011/03/07/vogue-on-asma-al-assad-the-first-lady-of-syria/

http://www.vogue.com/vogue-daily/article/asma-al-assad-a-rose-in-the-desert/