March 1st 2016 apart from being St Davids Day and Wales National Day.
It is also four years since the formation of Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr - The Great Unrest.
Four years ago Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr was only present in West Wales but since then we have expanded to South Wales and North Wales and have supporters in mid Wales.
We have also produced the magazine Liberation the third Issue will come out at end of March 2016 as will a new Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr website..
Today we adopt a new flag for our Welsh Socialist Republican Movement by combining the White Eagle of Snowdon with Red Flag of the 1831 Merthyr Rising - we authentically combine national and social liberation for Wales in our symbolic flag on this St David's Day March 1st 2016.
What did we say on our foundation in March 2012 :
"Leanne Wood taking the leadership of Plaid Cymru will spread and perpetuate the illusion that Plaid Cymru is or can become a vehicle for a progressive, socialist and republican movement, that Plaid Cymru can challenge the Westminster imposed austerities, take Wales out of the neo-imperialist wars in the middle east and elsewhere, and get rid of those imposters posing as the Prince and Princess of Wales.
Plaid Cymru cannot really do this, because it is at bottom the party that represents Welsh businessmen, and not the working people of Wales.
Its call for an independent Wales inside the European Union only seeks to change one set of rulers from Westminster for another in Brussels, the pound for the Euro.
The essential link between national and class oppression was exposed in Ireland by James Connolly. In Wales, Gethin ap Gruffydd is one of the few Welsh patriots that recognises that at root the national question in Wales is a class question." in 2012.
There are less people in Wales today who share the illusions about Plaid Cymru being the vehicle for a progressive socialist republican movement in 2016 than in 2012 - truth is a process that is revealed over time and actions always speak louder than words.
Here are a few actions from Yr Aflonddwch Mawr over the past four years in defence of Wales and exposing Imperialism and Capitalism.
Trident replacement is high on the political agenda. Before long the House of Commons will vote on whether to go ahead with this massively expensive programme to manufacture more nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
On 27th. February the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is holding a national demonstration to urge MP's to vote against Trident.
I will not be present because this occasion will have no real impact on its intended targets.
In nearly sixty years of existence CND has had no success in bringing about nuclear disarmament in Britain.
The last time it experienced a mass upsurge of support was during the late nineteen seventies and early eighties.
Tensions between the Soviet bloc and the Western bloc were sharpening and the prospect of a nuclear war seemed very real. But during the mid-eighties with the rise to power of Gorbachov in the USSR these tensions abated.
As fears of nuclear war declined so the mass membership of CND slipped away.
During its heyday in the early eighties CND had a very diverse membership in terms of social composition and political affiliations. But as participation fell CND membership became concentrated among particular types of people, especially pacifists and Christians.
The main concern of these elements – who considerably overlap - is primarily the promotion of “peace” (whatever that means) and not bringing about nuclear disarmament.
What is most important for these people is not any practical outcomes of CND activities but their own inner feelings, convincing themselves that they are doing the right thing and thus are morally righteous.
In recent years CND activities have attracted little public attention. A lot of its members are keen on activities such as silent, quasi-religious vigils in out of the way places, clutching poesies and candles. Some of the things they do are just plain daft such as knitting a scarf miles long to stretch between nuclear significant sites.
In so far as these sort of activities get noticed, most members of the public see them as ineffective. In the absence of any success in getting rid of nuclear weapons other issues have been tagged on to CND. It opposes nuclear power and military drones even though these have little, if any, relation to nuclear weapons
.
The upshot of this sort of behaviour is that CND has attracted few new members and has a declining, ageing membership. At the last CND National Conference it was revealed that Youth CND had only one member and that there are only two CND student groups in the whole of Britain.
At a time of growing international conflicts there is an urgent need for an effective campaign to stop the politicians squandering our money on what many military commanders regard as a useless weapons system. Yet CND is clearly not up to the job and on its present trajectory is heading towards extinction.
The experience of CND and more recently the Stop the War Coalition shows that the traditional campaigning methods employed by such groups are ineffective in changing state policy. The politicians simply do not care if tens of thousands of people march in London or sign yet another online petition.
Only more militant direct actions directly challenging the state, such as blockading and entering nuclear weapons installations, could have a chance of making the politicians change their stance. In the past CND did take serious direct action such as the Greenham Common women's protest against cruise missiles.
But now the pervasive influence of pacifism has rendered CND impotent.
"Fascism, xenophobia, and demagoguery are as American as genetically modified apple pie"
In his diaries, Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels highly praised Lindbergh, e.g.:
April 19, 1941: “Public opinion in the USA is beginning to waver. The Isolationists are very active. Colonel Lindbergh is sticking stubbornly and with great courage to his old opinions. A man of honour!”
April 30, 1941: “Lindbergh has written a really spirited letter to Roosevelt. He is the president’s toughest opponent. He asked us not to give him too much prominence, since this could harm him. We have proceeded accordingly.”
June 8, 1941: “These American Jews want war. And when the time comes they will choke on it. Read a brilliant letter from Lindbergh to all Americans. It really tells the Interventionists where to get off. Stylistically magnificent. The man has something.”
What if I told you about a nativist rally in which a charismatic white man drew a massive crowd of avid followers, using hate speech to whip them into a racist frenzy before pledging to cleanse America of a foreign threat -- all while 1,300 local policemen stood guard outside the building?
You’re probably thinking: Trump.
However, the particular event I refer to took place on Feb. 20, 1939, at Madison Square Garden where 22,000 frenzied members of the German-American Bund cheered Fritz Kuhn as he stood before a 30-foot high portrait of George Washington flanked by black swastikas, leading them in a chant of “Free Amerika!”
A U.S. citizen who served in the German Army during WWI, Kuhn stirred up his loyal supporters by “explaining” how both Lenin and J. P. Morgan were Jewish and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s real name was “Rosenfeld.” (Other Kuhn-spread rumors were often aimed at the high-profile First Lady, e.g. Eleanor gave the president gonorrhea -- which she’d “contracted from a Negro” -- and visited Moscow to learn “unspeakable sexual practices.”)
Kuhn’s proselytizing did not go unnoticed by the Third Reich; he attended the 1936 Olympics as an honored guest and met Adolf Hitler by special invitation.
The Land of the Free™, you see, has a long history of embracing and supporting fascists. This tendency, ever evolving in sophistication, is mocked or ignored at our own peril.
“America’s most powerful radio commentator”
Donald J. Trump is hardly the first wanna-be dick-tator to both use and attack the media as a method of spreading his xenophobic vision. During the Depression, for example, Father Charles Coughlin was preying on the fears of everyday Americans. the Canadian-born Catholic priest rose to prominence as a radio commentator with as many as 40 million listeners on 47 stations.
“Coughlin believed that Professor Felix Frankfurter and labor leader David Dubinsky exercised undue influence on FDR,” says historian Robert Herzstein. “He called them communists.”
When Coughlin was asked by a Boston Globe reporter to prove this allegation, the priest belted the journalist in the face.
While his anti-Jewish attacks cost him some of his audience, Coughlin remained popular and undeterred in his rants against the “Christ-killers and Christ-rejecters.” In 1938, he reprinted the notorious anti-Semitic tract “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” in his newspaper, Social Justice.
For his efforts, the Nazi press labeled Coughlin “America’s most powerful radio commentator.”
Trump with Wings?
While Coughlin was creating fertile ground, Charles A. Lindergh, Jr. was bringing fascism to the skies. Still wielding international clout thanks to his Spirit of St. Louis exploits, Lucky Lindy received an invitation to visit Germany in 1936 “in the name of General Goering and the German Air Ministry.”
After touting German air power, the Lone Eagle was feted by Goering and attended the opening ceremonies of the Berlin Olympic Games where he characterized Hitler as “undoubtedly a great man” who’d “done much for the German people” and helped make Germany “the most interesting nation in the world.” On his next excursion to the Fatherland, Lindbergh flew himself and his wife to Munich in 1937 for more aviation-related meetings.
“Lindbergh returned to America to become an outspoken leader of the isolationist ‘America First’ movement, funded with Ford money, that tried to keep the United States out of World War II,” writes historian Kenneth C. Davis. Lindbergh, in one speech, told American Jews to “shut up” and accused the “Jewish-owned press” of pushing the United States into the war.
In his diaries, Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels highly praised Lindbergh, e.g.:
April 19, 1941: “Public opinion in the USA is beginning to waver. The Isolationists are very active. Colonel Lindbergh is sticking stubbornly and with great courage to his old opinions. A man of honour!”
April 30, 1941: “Lindbergh has written a really spirited letter to Roosevelt. He is the president’s toughest opponent. He asked us not to give him too much prominence, since this could harm him. We have proceeded accordingly.”
June 8, 1941: “These American Jews want war. And when the time comes they will choke on it. Read a brilliant letter from Lindbergh to all Americans. It really tells the Interventionists where to get off. Stylistically magnificent. The man has something.”
After America entered WWII, Lindbergh became a target of derision. Because he had sided with America’s enemies, popular opinion quickly turned against him. The “Lindbergh Beacon” atop a Chicago skyscraper was renamed the “Palmolive Beacon,” and the Colorado Rockies mountain dubbed “Lindbergh Peak” was judiciously re-christened “Lone Eagle Peak.”
However, the damage done to his image was eventually forgiven, thanks to his storied efforts as a pilot in the Pacific war. In the end, Lindbergh’s reputation remained intact.
“Part of the beauty of me is that I'm very rich”
The above quote is Trump, of course, but the predatory pursuit of profit long ago transcended national borders/loyalty. The “very rich” were doing their fascist thing long before The Donald got his first “small loan.”
In the decades before WWII, doing business with Hitler’s Germany or Mussolini’s Italy (or, by proxy, Franco’s Spain) proved no more unsavory to the captains of industry than selling military hardware to Saudi Arabia does today.
“Many leaders of Wall Street and of the U.S. foreign policy establishment had maintained close ties with their German counterparts since the 1920s, some having intermarried or shared investments,” writes investigative reporter Christopher Simpson. “U.S. investment in Germany accelerated rapidly after Hitler came to power.” Such investment increased “by some 48.5 percent between 1929 and 1940.”
Among the U.S. corporations investing in Germany during the 1920s were Ford, General Motors, General Electric, Standard Oil, Texaco, ITT, and IBM -- all of whom were thrilled to see the German labor movement and working-class parties smashed. For many of these companies, operations in Germany continued during the war (sometimes using concentration-camp slave labor) with overt U.S. government support.
“Pilots were given instructions not to hit factories in Germany that were owned by U.S. firms,” writes Michael Parenti. “Thus Cologne was almost leveled by Allied bombing but its Ford plant, providing military equipment for the Nazi army, was untouched; indeed, German civilians began using the plant as an air raid shelter.”
Occupied Wall Street
The support for global fascism also included Sullivan and Cromwell, the most powerful Wall Street law firm of the 1930s. Allen and John Foster Dulles -- the two brothers who guided the firm boycotted their own sister’s 1932 wedding because the groom was Jewish while simultaneously serving as the contacts for I.G. Farben, the company putting the gas in Nazi gas chambers.
During the pre-war period, the elder John Foster led off cables to his German clients with the salutation “Heil Hitler,” and blithely dismissed the Nazi threat in 1935 in a piece he wrote for the Atlantic Monthly. In 1939, he told the Economic Club of New York, “We have to welcome and nurture the desire of the New Germany to find for her energies a new outlet.”
Little brother Allen, who actually got to meet the German dictator, promoted the post-war idea that multinational corporations are instruments of U.S. foreign policy and therefore exempt from domestic laws. This concept eventually took root in institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, etc.
Leonard Mosley, biographer of the Dulles brothers, defends Allen by evoking the all-purpose alibi of anti-communism. The younger Dulles, Mosley claims, “made his loathing of the Nazis plain, years before World War II … (it was) the Russians (who tried) to link his name with bankers who financed Hitler.” However, in 1946, both brothers would play a major role in the founding of the U.S. intelligence community and the subsequent recruiting of Nazi war criminals.
“Import shock troops to help him run for president”
A Third Reich supporter with perhaps the most similarities to Trump was Henry Ford, the autocratic magnate who despised unions, tyrannized workers, and fired any employee caught driving a competitor’s model. Ford, an outspoken anti-Semite, believed that Jews corrupted gentiles with “syphilis, Hollywood, gambling, and jazz.” In 1918, he bought and ran a newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, which became an anti-Jewish forum.
“The New York Times reported in 1922 that there was a widespread rumor circulating in Berlin claiming that Henry Ford was financing Adolf Hitler’s nationalist and anti-Semitic movement in Munich,” write James and Suzanne Pool in their book Who Financed Hitler. “Novelist Upton Sinclair wrote in The Flivver King, a book about Ford, that the Nazis got $40,000 from Ford to reprint anti-Jewish pamphlets in German translations, and that an additional $300,000 was later sent to Hitler through a grandson of the ex-Kaiser who acted as intermediary.”
An appreciative Adolf Hitler kept a large picture of the automobile pioneer besides his desk, explaining: “We look to Heinrich (sic) Ford as the leader of the growing Fascist movement in America.” Hitler hoped to one day “import some shock troops to the United States to help (Ford) run for president.”
On Henry Ford’s 75th birthday in 1938, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle from the Führer himself. He was the first American (GM’s James Mooney would be second) and only the fourth person in the world to receive the highest decoration that could be given to any non-German citizen. An earlier honoree was none other than kindred spirit, Benito Mussolini… you know, the guy who equated fascism with corporatism.
Trump 2016
I could go on (e.g. U.S. support for Mussolini) but I’m hoping you don’t need further evidence that fascism, xenophobia, and demagoguery are as American as genetically modified apple pie.
What sets Trump apart from his predecessors is that he’s not siding with official enemies. He’s demonizing the already-demonized. He first slandered Mexicans, then Black Lives Matter. When his poll numbers rose, he raised the rhetoric to another level.
Once the United States joined the Good (sic) War, the Nazi supporters discussed here had to become more covert and publicly contrite. The average 1940s American was conditioned to temporarily loathe Germans (and Japanese) thus, you’d win no votes extolling the virtues of Nazism.
Today, however, every time ISIS (or any such group) kills Americans or American allies, Trump’s support grows, with voters saying stuff like: “Even though people don’t want to hear it because a lot of what he says is inflammatory toward certain groups, it is the truth” AND “He’ll keep a sharp eye on those Muslims.”
To anyone consciously and intensely programmed to fear and hate Muslims (and most non-white humans), Trump probably sounds sensible. He’ll stand up to the bogeymen and allow frightened Americans to sleep at night. Decades of relentlessly effective military-industrial propaganda sowed these seeds and now Trump is reaping the low hanging fruit.
In 2016, we’ll discover how many bad apples he can find.
Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr is starting a discussion on the European Union and Barry Jones opens the discussion on the European Union and its State - he writes
Illusions of some sections of the Labour Movement, the left and other liberals have led to a reservoir of continuing support for the EU. In addition the hijacking of the Out Campaign by UKIP has alienated many others. I have noticed four main themes in this EU support: The EU protects our human rights especially from from the Tories. The EU has prevented wars in Europe. We are financially better off in the EU We need to be part of the EU to trade
Each of these need to be addressed. I wish to concentrate on the burgeoning EU Super State THE NATURE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AND ITS STATE
One of the main faults of the “Social Democrats” of the 2nd International (apart from backing the “Great War”) was their failure to understand the nature of the State. ( Jeremy Corbyn is making the same mistake in 2016)
The view of Scientific Socialists, (Marxist/Leninists) is that the state is not a neutral body assisting government but is an instrument by which one class imposes its rule over another. This applies to the capitalist state and the state under socialism.
“The state is the product and the manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms”(p.12 The State and Revolution” V I Lenin.
Many advances in Social Services, Pensions, Health Care and Education have also blurred the perception of the British State.
However, these advances can easily be lost as we have seen recently, exposing the true nature of the bourgeois state its laws, police, civil service and judiciary.
How then should we view the role of the European Union, its institutions and political direction?
Since being agreed in 1957 and established in 1958, the “Common Market” or The Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (TEEC) “Treaty of Rome” there have been many incremental and insidious changes.
Through the The Merger Treaty, The Single European Act, The Amsterdam Treaty ,Maastricht Treaty, the Nice Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty bit by bit the nature of this Trade agreement has changed and the power of the EU over its member states has been increasing.
The much vaunted vetoes of individual nations have all but disappeared.
The latest, the Lisbon Treaty effectively bans socialism or any restriction on the free market.
The imposition of The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will shackle and imprison socialism along with the countries that wish to implement any public control or any standards which will or may reduce profits or infringe upon the Free Market.
It is effectively impossible to obtain all the details of the TTIP agreement that the unelected Commissioner is negotiating (see However, one dangerous element is that there appears to be no way to change TTIP or opt out after it is agreed).
The fact that there is an elected Parliament gives the impression the the EU is democratic in nature but this could not be further from the truth.
The attached graphics outline the way the EU is governed and the Parliament has effectively one power only, that is to sack the Commission in total, which it did in 1999 as a result of a high level of fraud. (the EU finances have never been approved by the auditors).
The real government of the EU is the unelected officers of the Commission one of whom, Cecilia Malmström, is negotiating the TTIP agreement in secret.
A claim was made by John Hilary, the Executive Director of campaign group War on Want, in an Independent Voices article.
In the piece Hilary said he had met with Malmström earlier this year and challenged her on why she insisted on continuing the TTIP negotiations when so many EU citizens (over 3 million) were against it.
She coldly said “I do not take my mandate from the European people.”
Later in a video Malmström says: “I have not said that. What I was trying to explain was that the mandate to negotiate TTIP and all other trade agreements is given by the Council [of Ministers].
This clearly indicates that the Council itself does not consider itself answerable to the European people.
If this structure was not bad enough the day to day running of the EU is in the hands of an appointed Secretariat even more removed from democratic control.
It currently consists of 7 directorates-general, the Legal Service, 5 departments under the Secretary-General (e.g. internal audit, general political questions) and has around 3200 employees. (See attachment 2). It is perhaps odd that those attacking socialism and clamouring for less state intervention in society are not wanting the same from the EU
To understand the bureaucracy, treaties and thousands of directives would take a legal mind and tremendous patience. Suffice to say the government by the Commissioners is not open to scrutiny or open to criticism.
Returning to TTIP, if the Treaty is binding and cannot be altered or exited, this raises the question of how it can be implemented. We have seen Greece crippled by the IMF, the EU Bank and Merkel the Italian government replaced and the banks in Cyprus robbed but legal enforcement may have to resort to physical force.
In this context the proposal by Jean Claude Juncker (see below) for an EU army becomes frightening. Our police force is already undergoing training in Israel and Saudi Arabia. How long before they put this training into practice at home.
In the coming capitalist crisis and the battles that will result we need to have as much room to manoeuver as possible.
Particularly to negotiate equitable agreements with the developing world.
The 3rd Reich was formed when Hitler was appointed Chancellor and changed the Laws.
Restrictive laws are already in place banning socialism and social ownership and intervention Trade Unionists, environmentalists, nationalists and democrats will bear the brunt of the attack.
However, like in the Italian and German Steel industries and European railways they have not yet been enforced.
If the EU and the US gets the state power to enforce them and TTIP we have a ready made European 4th Reich.
The documentation of the EU is deliberately misleading, listing; the bodies of the EU as;
The European Parliament
The European Council
The Council of the EU
The European Commissioner
The Court of Justice
The European Central Bank
The Court of Auditors
As if the Parliament was the highest body. In fact the Parliament has no effective powers except for the ability to sack the Commission as a whole which of course is then reappointed. This happened after fraud was uncovered in 1999.
In reality the EU is run by the Secretariat listed below working under the unelected Commission The Secretariat
OfficePostName
Office of the Secretary-GeneralSecretary-General of the European ParliamentKlaus Welle
Legal ServiceJurisconsult of the European ParliamentFreddy Drexler
Directorate-General for the PresidencyDirector-GeneralFrancesca R. Ratti
Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the UnionDirector-GeneralRiccardo Ribera d'Alcalà
Directorate-General for External Policies of the UnionDirector-GeneralLuis Marco Aguiriano NaldaDirectorate-General for CommunicationDirector-GeneralJuana Lahousse-Juárez
Directorate-General for PersonnelDirector-GeneralYves Quitin
Directorate-General for Infrastructure and LogisticsDirector-GeneralConstantin Stratigakis
Directorate-General for TranslationDirector-GeneralJanet Pitt
Directorate-General for Interpretation and ConferencesDirector-GeneralAgniezska Walter-Drop
Directorate-General for FinanceDirector-GeneralRoger Vanhaeren
Directorate-General for Security and SafetyDeputy Secretary-General of the European Parliament Director-General (acting)Francesca R. RATTI
Directorate-General for Innovation and Technological SupportDirector-GeneralGiancarlo Vilella SEE ALSO: http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/subordinating-nations-to-corporations.html
Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkish foreign minister, announced the arrival of Saudi planes in Incirlik in an interview with Anadolu, a semi-official news agency.
A Turkish official, who asked not to be named while discussing military matters, said the first stage involved two C-130 cargo planes, carrying Saudi special forces and equipment to prepare for at least four F-15 fighter jets to be deployed by the weekend.
Though multirole, the F-15 is particularly specialised in air-to-air combat. ( ISIL has no Airforce)
The Saudi deployment adds to US, German and British aircraft already using the Incirlik Air Base for sorties and is the first concrete sign of a commitment from Riyadh for a greater military role in Syria. Democracy and Class struggle says quite what the Saudi role is we will see in practice. but Saudi deployment will certainly increase tension just as ceasefire agreements seem to be working. See also : http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/turkey-and-saudi-arabia-get-serious.html
Thousands of students heroically resisted the iron feet of opression protesting the suicide of Rohit Velmula in Delhi.
It was reminiscent of the times of the 1960's and 1970's world over. It had echoes of the times of the Vietnam war with tyranny of Hindu communal fascism being the equivalent of the American enemy of that time.
Significantly the majority of participants were from the dalit caste,the most oppressed section in India today which for generations have been the victim of the oppressive caste system,which had it's origins in Hinduism.
Such a polarization has great political significance and reflects the building of dalit caste consciousness against the Brahmanic oppression.
The protest was so strong that the police could not prevent it which depicts the burning rage in the hearts of the participants.
Today in a similar protest in Mumbai in Victoria terminus activists were prohibited from staging a protest including the repression on Soni Sori.
It comprised largely of students from Tata Institute of Socials Sciences.
In the end for about twenty minutes the rally continued in Azad Maidan with participants condemning the branding of Umar k Khalid and Kanhaiya Laal .Such police prohibition depicts how the ruling govt is getting more repressive day by day.
The author was impressed with the spirited resistance of the students from T.I.S.S.We have to learn an abject lesson from the lawyers attack on students in Delhi and how the police gave it their blessings.
Cockily the 3 lawyers asserted they would again launch an attack as though they were implementing justice.Neverthless we must congratulate the student community around J.N.U and those of surrounding areas in India for defying the fascist forces and staging solidarity.
The anti -repression rally in Delhi some days ago was truly encouraging.The solidarity rally against arrest of Kanhaiya Lal and Umar Khalid is one of the most inspiring events of organized resistance and depicrs the progressive potential of the student community.
Setback in movement as led to ideological degeneration whereby youth can easily be inflame by Hindu comunal passions and not differentiate between true nationalism and communal fascism.Such a police assault is an abject lesson on how morally fascistic tour so called democracy is.
Even if one did not agree with them arresting the students for sedition is truly fascistic as it is dissent which is constitutionally allowed.
Today the campuses have become monopolized by the nationalistic jargon and pro-Hindu propaganda because of weakness of a genuine left movement.
Today the rally was infiltrated by ruling class forces like Congress and Aam Aadmi party but neverthless spread it's message like wildfire,illuminating the torch of resistance all over.
Protestors thronged from Hyderabad and Maharashtra in huge numbers.
The author is proud of the 1st February rally in Mumbai protesting against Rohit Velmula suicide which was the best protest of any kind held on the issue in his opinion.
It should be written in the annals of Indian revolutionary history.
Sadly sections of middle class have been greatly apathetic to the issue .
Broadcaster Arnab Goswami literally echoes the voices of the ruling classes on the TV debates morally intimidating the progressive voices.Camouflaging itself to be liberal the media is an instrument of the ruling classes to distort information.
In Mumbai it is heartening that although small in number democratic voices are raising themselves.
Alfred Toepfer Democracy and Class Struggle is investigating the European Union and its role in promoting ethnic nationalism through the Toepfer Foundation as well as the Federation of European Nationalities which is anti semitic and promotes German as well as other ethnic nationalisms which also reinforces the "indispensable"European Super State. Alfred Toepfer financially supported the anti semitic writer of the Auschwitz Lie Thies Christopherson The Federation of European Nationalities promotes a “law of ethnic groups” (in German, “Volksgruppenrecht”),
The use of ethnic and cultural nationalism to undermine genuine politically independent national movements for national and social liberation is an old game and one well practised by the European Union and before them by European Empires. This article The Green Nazi Tycoon Alfred Toepfer by Mark Musser unmasks the Model European.
Alfred Toepfer (1894-1993) was an extremely successful German tycoon, an avid environmentalist, and a key influential supporter for the development of the European Union.
Toepfer made his fortune in agri-business during the fateful years of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933). During the 1930s, Toepfer was also very loyal to the Nazi regime, even though he was never a card-carrying member.
Toepfer was particularly loyal to Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945)'s dreaded SS, the greenest faction of the Nazi Party. Hitler put Himmler in charge of exterminating the Jews in the Baltics, Poland, Belorussia, and the Ukraine.
Hitler called the SS his "pack of wolves." The Führer was fascinated with wolves and loved to be called "Uncle Wolf." He used to imagine himself howling like a wolf to the frenzied crowds of Germany.
In the late 1920s, Alfred Toepfer's brother, Ernst, was the secretary of a pro-Nazi organization in New York City called "Wehrwolf." Ernst was also working for his brother's international firm at the same time.
Alfred Toepfer was born near Luneburg Heath, a plain full of meadows, forests, peat bogs, and sand dunes in northern Germany, just southeast of Hamburg. Historically, the Luneberg Heath was a place of nationalistic pride where rugged old style farming practices harmonized with the natural surroundings.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the Luneburg Heath was symbolic of a strong German character patriotically rooted in the soil of the homeland.
Indeed, after Heinrich Himmler committed suicide, he was buried in the Luneburg Heath in an unmarked grave.
The heath was also where Nazi environmentalists gathered together at the end of the war to find some solace. Environmentalist Hans Klose, who never became a Nazi because he was married to a Jew, reorganized what was left of the German conservation movement.
He helped Nazi environmentalists graduate from the de-Nazification process with minimal difficulties.
In 1949, it was Hans Klose who said that the years 1936-1939 were the green heyday of the German conservation movement. Earlier, three landmark Nazi environmental laws were passed (1933-35). During the same time frame, the Nazis also implemented sustainable forestry practices called "dauerwald," which means "eternal forest."
During the postwar period, the Luneburg Heath was an environmental flashpoint between Germany and the Allies.
Not only did Nazi Germany surrender to the Allies on the heath, but the sacred ground was scarred up by British tanks, which used the southwestern portion of it for military maneuvers.
Toepfer strongly opposed the presence of the British military in the heath, but the Brits did not leave until 1994.
However, thanks largely to the efforts of Toepfer, the Luneburg Heath became the first national park of Germany in 1956.
In the early 1900s, the area was a natural sanctuary for what was called the "wandervogel"-- a German youth movement that sought a close contact with nature. Wandervogel literally means "wandering bird." The heath was known especially for its wild birds and recreational use. The "wandervogel" movement, which began about 1894, was also one of the first environmentally conscious movements in Germany.
The movement provided opportunities for the German youth to explore the great outdoors with a spirit of adventure and rugged self-discipline. German folklore, nationalism, patriotism, and an intense appreciation for nature were emphasized. Alfred Toepfer became actively involved in the wandervogel movement in 1913.
While the Hitler Youth later replaced the wandervogels during the Nazi regime, one could also easily argue that the SS itself was a "grown up" version of the wandervogel movement.
The SS strongly promoted a "back to the land" ideal throughout the 1920s and '30s.
They wanted to biologically rejuvenate Germany's health by returning people back to the natural German soil, and away from the artificial Jewified international cities that were allegedly corrupting Germany's blood.
The SS called its back to nature policy "blood and soil." SS leaders Heinrich Himmler, Richard Walther Darre, and Rudolf Hoess were all involved in a wandervogel group called the Artamanens, where much of their ideology was developed. Darre was Hitler's agricultural minister from 1933-42. Rudolf Hoess was the infamous commandant of Auschwitz.
Alfred Toepfer was also a "blood and soil" enthusiast.
Alfred Toepfer continued to be a nature-lover until the day of his death. He was the chairman of the Nature Park Society 1953-1985, where he helped develop many new nature parks for Germany from the North Sea to the Alps.
His efforts at the Nature Park Society were greatly expanded for all of Europe under the rise of the Europarc Federation, an association which Toepfer's foundation still supports.
In 1981, the Alfred Toepfer Academy for Nature Conservation (NNA) was established. It is a state institution that emphasizes sustainable development and environmentalism. Its main office is located at an old farmstead named Hof Mor in the Luneburg Health itself.
Even Toepfer's most prestigious academic prizes and scholarships that he financed are named after men foundational to the German green movement. The Hanseatic Goethe Prize, dedicated to outstanding European scholarship, is named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).
Goethe is considered by many to be the father of German Romanticism. Today, Romanticism is known as environmentalism. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in New York is named after naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859). Humboldt is the German father of a volkisch indigenous environmentalism.
The German word "volk" means "people" with certain racial connotations. Humboldt believed that the character of the volk is shaped by geography and climate so that man becomes indigenous to his own environment.
As the 1800s progressed, the racial element became more and more emphasized by many German thinkers along with a nationalistic view of the land itself. When this concoction mixed with evolutionary theory, an Aryan Social Darwinism was born, which later became the biological bread and butter of National Socialism. By the early 1900s, race, indigenous ethnicity, and a love for nature became very popular in German culture, especially among the wandervogels.
Toepfer's academic philanthropy paid handsome dividends over the years. Both British and German scholars have been reluctant to admit the full force of Toepfer's National Socialist past.
Yet it was precisely during the Nazi regime that Toepfer began funding academic awards to European foreign students with much help coming from the infamous Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893-1946), Hitler's foreign minister.
Toepfer's loyalty to the SS continued after the war. He later employed notorious Nazis like SS Brigadier Edmund Veesenmeyer, Kurt Haller and SS Major General Hans-Joachim Riecke, all of whom were responsible for hundreds of thousands of atrocities committed during the war.
Much is made of the fact that Toepfer was arrested by the Nazis in 1937 for foreign currency violations that were forbidden under the Aryanized National Socialist economy.
However, Toepfer was finally released thanks to his SS patronage together with the personal intervention of Hermann Goering (1893-1946), the second-most powerful man in Nazi Germany at the time.
Even Josef Goebbels (1897-1945), Hitler's propaganda minister, was very complimentary of Toepfer in 1936. So was German Nazi expert Hans Mommsen in 2007.
SPECIAL NOTE Nation and State and FUEV The Nation magazine and State was subtitled German Journal of the European minority problem and the publisher Braumüller published in Vienna. It is an organ of the European Congress of Nationalities considered. Its first issued in 1927 and was edited by representatives of German minorities from different European countries.These included Jacob Bleyer , Rudolf Brandsch , Paul Schiemann and Johannes Schmidt-Wodder . From April 1933 the editorship was at the Association of German ethnic groups in Europe . After the annexation of Austria to Germany in March 1938, the editorial staff was moved from Vienna to Berlin. Then was In October 1942 Werner Hasselblattsole publisher. The magazine was set in November 1944 after the release of the 17th vintage. Even before the annexation of Austria and even before the advent of Hitler were in the magazine Nazi and anti-Semitic articles published, among others, Norbert Gürke . "The people", was read in 1932, " by blood and culture unit." The Austrian "concept of nation is a necessary consequence of the intellectual world of democracy, mechanical Auszählens the many peers, of individualism and rejection of racial and ethnical division of humanity. All this serves the pursuit of Judaism for equality, exploitation and domination." As a continuation of nation and state Braumüller published in 1958 a special edition " Europe Ethnica . Journal of the Federal Union of European Nationalities(FUEV) ." Since 1961 the European Publishing Ethnica regular publication .
The Middle East’s largest ever war games are now underway and will boost military cooperation between the 20 Muslim nations taking part, host country Saudi Arabia said on Monday, as it seeks to check the growing influence of arch rival Iran.
The Northern Thunder exercises, which began on Feb. 14 and will run until March 10, involve more than 150,000 troops from the Gulf Arab nations, Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jordan, Sudan and Senegal.
“The council of ministers … expressed the hope that these exercises achieve what was defined as their goals in exchanging expertise and raising the level of military coordination,” Saudi Arabia’s cabinet said in a statement.
The statement also praised “the levels of preparedness and administrative and supply capabilities” shown by the nations participating in Northern Thunder exercises.
"Robert Parry writes a source close to Russian President Vladimir Putin told me that the Russians have warned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Moscow is prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons if necessary to save their troops in the face of a Turkish-Saudi onslaught. Since Turkey is a member of NATO, any such conflict could quickly escalate into a full-scale nuclear confrontation" SOURCE: https://consortiumnews.com/2016/02/18/risking-nuclear-war-for-al-qaeda/ Robert Parry is an award winning journalist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Parry_(journalist)
A REQUIEM FOR THE NATION IN DARK TIMES: AN APPEAL TO THE LEFT, DEMOCRATIC, STUDENTS, DALIT AND WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS WILL THERE WILL BE SINGING IN DARK TIMES YES, THERE WILL BE SINGING OF DARK TIMES BRECHT
Dear Friends and Comrades,
The Fascist Hindutva forces have struck badly at JNU this time after baying for blood in FTII, Pune; Banning Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle in IIT Madras.
Institutional murder of Rohith Vemula in HCU, Hyderabad, in their nefarious design of forcible saffronisation of Indian higher educational institutions.
For the past few days one is witnessing medieval witch hunt and naked white terror to advance the Hindu nationalist agenda of fascist Sangh Parivar in JNU.
The corporate media has been spewing venom against JNU painting it is as a den of anti-national activities.
In the name of imposing the Hindutva style of nationalism on JNU, there a frightening witch hunt is going on to arrest students who belong to different ideological persuasions.
It is not only the students of JNU and University of Hyderabad were protesting against the hanging of Afzal Guru and Yakub Memon, but a wide range of left, democratic and civil society groups are campaigning against death penalty.
The students of JNU and Hyderabad were just reflecting this general democratic demand. The students of JNU have every right to challenge and interrogate the concept of the Nation, forcibly imposed by the Hindu right.
The JNUSU president who is in record saying he didn’t criticise Indian nationalism and upholds the Indian constitution.
Even after this he was arrested and sent to police remand for three days. There has been raids of male police in girls’ hostel to arrest.
It should be noted that sedition law was enacted by the colonial authorities against the leaders of anti-colonial struggle leaders. It was used against Bhagat Singh.
The post-colonial Indian ruling classes have ruthlessly used the same colonial sedition law to clamp down on dissenting views and social movements who challenged the contemporary capitalist developmental trajectory.
The sedition charges against Dr. Binayak Sen, Kudankulam anti-nuclear plant activists are few glaring examples of misuse of sedition law, to stamp out any form of dissent that is unpalatable for the people controlling state power in India.
Any university is a space for free debate and a healthy debate between the contending ideologies. Using sedition to clamp down dissenting voice in JNU is naked state terror on the students who refused to endorse the Hindutva brand of Nationalism, the corporate media who was instrumental in building up a larger than life image of Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha election,it has now has gone into its most loyal display of servitude to the Sangh Parivar endorsing very jingoistic brand of macho-HIndutva nationalism on the student community who have the basic democratic right to interrogate the nationalism of ABVP.
If nation consists of Adivasis, Dalits, Women, religious minorities then the Sangh Parivar has been in forefront in committing atrocities on these communities so they have a right to interrogate the Sangh Parivar’s version of Fascist cultural nationalism where they forcibly dictates who will eat what.
The Dadri lynching has raised the question of intolerance towards the cultural diversities which showed the shocking limits and farce of democratic pretensions and the will of tolerance of the saffron forces.Off course, every civilisation has certain limit to tolerance.
Any civilised democratic society should not tolerate sexism, racism and casteism. It is here the lumpen brigade of the fascist Sangh Parivar has crossed the limits of civilised behaviour allowed by a state which calls itself the largest democracy in the world.
In the contending discourses of nationalism one can clearly see a pattern how the Indian state led by a fascist Hindu party and a PM whose palms are dripping with the blood of thousands of Muslims murdered in Gujrat.
He is using state power to forcibly impose the Hindutwa version of nationalism all over India. A C grade actor, Gajendra Chauhan was imposed on FTII, Pune students and Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle in IIT Madras was banned and later withdrawn after protests all over the country.
But there is interesting parallel between what happened in HCU and JNU in branding people as anti-national.
Ambedkar Student Association of HCU was branded anti-national for screening Muzzafar Nagar baaki hai and protesting death penalty given to Yakub Menon.
BJP MP from Secunderabad and union minister Bandaru Dattatreya wrote to MHRD minister Smriti Irani to take action against ASA students branding them anti-national. A witch hunts of Dalit student was pursued by HCU under the direction of MHRD, which resulted in the institutional murder of a Dalit student Rohith Vemula. Similar pattern was adopted by the fascist saffron forces to brand JNU students as anti-national.
Following the controversy of a cultural programme organised against the death penalty of Afzal Guru. Mahesh Giri, the BJP MP registered an FIR against JNU students branding them anti-national and demanding strict action against voices who don’t conform to Hindutva brand of nationalism. Delhi Police went overboard to appease its political masters unleashed a rain of terror in JNU campus in the name of a very arbitrary notion of the one dimensional Hindutva definition of nation. This controversy has led to a serious rethink about the very concept of the term Nation .
A Nation is just not a map in the atlas ruled by a political executive representing the interests of a minority propertied elite. If the nation means the majority of subaltern masses which includes workers , peasants, women, dalits, adivasis, sexual minorities, religious minorities, different ethnic and oppressed minorities then this arbitrary homogeneous notion of Hindu nationalism obliterates the really existing broad masses who are excluded in BJP’s scheme of nation.
If the Nation means we the people then it means the vast majority of india’s working people, who are mostly Dalits, OBC’s, Muslims and Woman.
The Sangh parivar makes a mockery of nationalism where it’s version of feminized nationalism in the image of the exalted Bharat Mata has no place for it’s own children. The students of JNU have every right to critique this version of neo-colonial dubious nationalism, where the BJP lead ruling dispension is selling this country into bits and pieces. The hindutva mascot Narendra Modi goes around the world inviting imperial capital to come and capture the natural resources of the country at throw away prices.
When the peasants and adivasis protest against these pro-imperialist policies, the Indian state comes down heavily on them and unleashes the most brutal kind of state repression on people who are struggling to save their land, water and forest. JNU students were protesting this kind of spurious nationalism where the BJP goes all out to sell this country’s livelihood and natural resources.
The Indian state has unleashed a barbaric war of elimination on adivasis in the name of operation green hunt because they were resisting to give away their land for the loot of national and international big business. Thousands of innocent muslim youth are behind bars in the name of equally fake war on terror designed by the imperialist forces. Sexual violence against woman and atrocities on dalits are the order of the day. Jails are packed with political prisoners.
This is a classic case of the nation devouring it’s own children. The students of JNU were protesting against this type of convulated nationalism. If one differentiates between nationalism and patriotism, if being a patriot means fighting for the true interests of the country, then the students of JNU are exemplary patriots, who have relentlessly fought against selling away the country in the name of globalization.
If the nation means the people of the country, then students of JNU have always steadfastly stood for the interests of workers, peasants, woman, dalits, adivasis, religious minorities, oppressed nationalities and sexual minorities, who form the core of the of the socalled nation in the image of hintuva brand of an arbitrary constuct of a super imposed nation.
The police raids in hostels reminds one of the midnight knocks of Nazi era in Germany. Old JNU students say this is similar to the raids during the dark days of emergency. The Indian state has imposed an undeclared emergency in JNU. Today the white terror in JNU resembles a frightening Panopticon. What we are witnessing in JNU is not the normal face of a democratic state, but state of exception.
Where the so called democratic state has declared a war on it’s own people. Fake encounters, torture, custodial deaths and thousands of Adivasis,muslim youths and political prisoners are languishing in jail,this is not an exception but normal state of affairs in the nation,is it not a pointer where the nation is in an unjust war on its own people?
vIndia indeed has become a country with out a post office, where the hapless citizens have no window to express their grievances, any form of dissent is ruthlessly stifled under the jackboot of police and paramilitary forces of a fascist pro imperialist state.
In their opinion on women the feudal brahmanical patriarchal rank and file activists of the Hindutva Brigade have absolutely crossed the limits of tolerance in any civilised society. Here vociferous demand has to be made to punish the culprits who passed obscene sexist remarks on women.
Jawahar Yadav, a sexist saffron stormtrooper, who is also the OSD to Haryana CM recently passed a ugly vulgar remark comparing JNU women students with prostitutes. Here they have crossed all limits of tolerance.
This is absolutely obscene, sexist, misogynist and outrageous. Using terms like prostitute degrades the entire women on the planet anyone who utters these terms should be punished.
The statement of Jawahar Yadav is an indignified, sexist attitude on sex-workers who are struggling for a dignified life and decriminalization, this statement demeans and degrades their struggle, so it should be condemned by all democratic forces.
The children of much extolled Bharat Mata, who constitute the nation were shocked and shamed by the hooliganism of the Sanghi goondas dressed as lawyers in the Patiala house courts on 15th February, Monday, when they ruthlessly assaulted the students an teachers of JNU, who had gone to meet Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of JNUSU, who was supposed to be produced on the same day. The saffron vandals made a mockery of the sanctified and mystified Bharat Mata, when they inappropriately manhandled the women teachers of JNU. Many women journalists were punched and shoved around.
Jawahar Yadav withdrew his remarks after an out pour of rage in the social media, but this does not absolve him of his crime. Jawahar Yadav’s statement on women students of JNU and sex-workers, the inappropriate manhandling of woman teachers in the Patiala house court is not only obscene, outrageous and sexist, but absolutely unacceptlable in a civilized democratic society. The left, democratic and woman’s movement should take cognizance of this unpardonable crime against woman and should demand stringent punishment of the culprits.
Finally, as an ex-student of JNU I am proud of the students of JNU, who have challenged the hegemonic hindutva notion of a dubious,hyperbolic macho,jingoistic, slapstick nationalism and stood up for the real constituents of the nation, women, Dalits, religious minorities, workers and peasants.
-Asit
Ex-student of JNU
