G7, G-what?

By snubbing the most important imperial tool for governability (aside NATO but not really different from NATO), Donald Trump is throwing rocks at his own roof, because it's hard to see how would the USA project its power through the world without the G7. G7 is the backbone of NATO, all its members except Japan (the backbone of "Eastern NATO" on its own right) are major NATO powers and that's why the G7 exists and why it has been instrumental to establish US imperial hegemony over the world. Trump is destroying that, and I for one welcome it, even not without some vertigo, as all major changes should inspire. 

The pouting face of Merkel, the tears of British newspapers crying foul about Brexit and the non-existent "special relationship" (bootlicking vassallage I call it, because Britain gets nothing from its subservience to the USA) and then of course the stupid childish face of Trump himself, they are all very worth a sinking global system that was already sinking anyhow, so why to spare this old man the joys of laughing at this childish game of armchairs?

NATO was already cracking, notably because of the major difficulties that the Berlin-Washington relation undergoes as the USA and its most loyal puppets (France, Britain) have rampaged with no criterion across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, against Libya, Syria and Russia. Remember how Italy and Germany rejected to join the adventurerist toppling of Muamar el Gaddafi, mostly because it was an attack on Italian interests in favor of French and British ones? Most people don't grasp this well: they tend to think in terms of unilateral imperialism but imperialism is always multilateral, multipolar, and it always leads to conflict and wars (even if nukes seem to prevent major global wars, smaller localized wars and the ever growing "cold war" tension is certainly there); in the case of Libya, it was Italy the main loser (after Libya itself, of course) and Germany was already upset enough to align themselves with Rome rather than with the big boss in Washington D.C.

That's because Germany, as manufacturer-exporter power, has a very long history of searching for all kinds of markets and one of them used to be Iran. And who have therefore harmed US/EU sanctions against Iran? Germany among others. And it is exactly the same with the anti-Russia sanctions but I'd dare to say that even much more severe. Germany has been a good dog anyhow and bowed to what master commanded, albeit reluctantly, but this was only or mostly because the other markets it had access to compensated. But now? With all this Trumptard "nationalism" in form of tariffs, what will keep Germany in line? The military occupation? Well, it does not seem enough: if Germany says "US and NATO bases out" it's hard to see how NATO will be able not to comply. They'd move just a few steps away to Poland but that's another story.

But of course Germany does not want that because NATO and EU are extremely imbricated with each other, and Germany needs EU, which is its primary market and a major pillar of its imperialist policy, what Varoufakis called the "postmodern IV Reich". So basically Trumptard Washington is playing with fire and putting Germany between a rock and a hard place: threatening to blow up Germany's most prized market and subservient sphere of influence (EU, which will blow up anyhow on its own contradictions, sooner than later: watch Italy, remember Brexit, ponder Spain about to blow up in pieces, look at the massive strikes and related street fights in France) if Germany does not behave as a bootlicking slave of the USA. 

And Germany does but there will be a point where it won't anymore. When and how is that? Probably not very far away in time. I already explained how Trump wants to destroy the EU and make sure Europe becomes a colony of the US empire, at least to a much larger degree it has been so far (because of the cold war cum class war of the mid 20th century, and also the transition from a Europe-centered world to a US-centered one), and it is clear that the EU will blow up in pieces soonish (something that the US wants but while keeping NATO as intact as possible, what may not be possible). 

Another crack in NATO is Turkey. Turkey is under Erdogan almost identical to Nazi Germany in its arrogant warmongering and incontrollability (and Erdogan makes no secret of his admiration for the German genocider). All major powers love (and secretly hate) Erdogan because of that: the USA wants Turkey to remain in NATO and keep aiding them to de-stabilize the Middle East, Russia wants Turkey to leave NATO and especially to be "independent" enough to act as their ally, including in the infamous "Pipelinistan", which is another facet of imperialism. But the most coveted asset of Turkey are the straits (Bosphorus-Marmara-Dardanelles) that join the Aegean and Black seas, of critical importance to Russia since times immemorial.

So we have the following cocktail of instability:

1. The USA wanting to reform the Empire in favor of the metropolis even at rist of destroying the Empire itself.
2. Germany wanting to get their way in both exploiting the EU as a semi-colony and being allowed to have unrestricted business with Russia, Iran, etc., this last against the will of the Imperial master, now asserting itself as "iron fist" madman in charge and reminding everybody else they are nothing but minions.
3. Turkey playing to be the Muslim version of Nazi Germany and being flirted by a despaired former lover (USA) and an aspiring new lover (Russia).
4. Latin Europe exploding at slow motion but in ways that seem impossible to stop. This happens in different ways in each state but it happens all across the region (except for Portugal, where social-democracy with a green touch has made the country gain stability).
5. Poland playing to be Mussolini's Italy in Eastern Europe, with full backing of the USA but directly in contradiction since long ago with the interests of Germany (and of course, those of Russia). 
6. Britain drifting aimlessly between the Brexiter despair, the Corbynist hope and the nearly total indifference by all its "allies", including the USA.

And then of course in the background is China, whose local expression in Europe typically comes by the name of Russia. Mind you that Russia would prefer a more balanced independent role but that the USA has cornered it against the all-embracing arms of China. Remember that no long ago the G7 used to be called the G8... but then Russia was kicked out.

Probably the most crucial element in all this is the weakness of Germany as power: it is an economic powerhouse that cannot assert itself against its master and overlord the USA. Or can it? And, if so, how? Nobody, as far as I know, defends in Germany a more belligerant and independent stand... yet. But, on the other side, it seems like there is no alternative for Germany than actually becoming more belligerant. However becoming more belligerant, asserting itself as power by means other than economic and diplomatic would not just break taboos but actually would initially cause its global market share to shrink dramatically. And those are the marked cards Trump is playing with: you may pout all you want, Angela, but if you dare to do anything, you won't sell a single Volkswagen or Siemens thing in the USA, and your darling EU house of cards may easily fall down with a single but determined blow.

The question is: can the USA survive that kind of upheaval of its own imperial structure? My bet is that it cannot and that it's actually only doing that out of desperation because it's already riddled with holes and problems it can hardly overcome.

USA moves against Germany with an anti-Russian pretext - the EU is doomed

Remember what I said months ago about Europe being bound to become a US colony or worse? Well, it is happening right now. All that blah-blah about Trump siding with Russia was of course just a smokescreen: Trump has managed instead to lead a massive consensus in US politics for new Cuba-style sanctions against Russia. Why? Because that is the perfect opportunity to start a trade war against Germany and shatter the EU into pieces.

I won't cry for the EU but we will all cry for the conflicts that this IMPANSIONISM of the US Empire is about to trigger. 

Germany and its close ally Austria are clearly angry but I am not at all so sure as they claim to be about the EU standing united against the US intentions. Certainly Britain is out for good but also Bankster-President Macron of France has been actively and shamelessly courting Donald Trump, with greater success than Angela Merkel, no doubt, but unclear consequences as of now. 

Actively anti-Russian regimes in the EU are also Poland, Sweden and the three small Baltic states. Norway is probably also siding with the USA and the rest is all indecision. 

Anyway, what can Germany do? Well, first of all expel all US and other "ally" bases from its territory, a legacy of a long occupation that was formally ended in the 1990s. They could also choose to exit NATO's integrated military command, as De Gaulle (France) did in the 1950s, and they could once again demand from the USA the return of their gold reserves stored in Fort Knox (which the USA already declined to do a few years ago). But of course they'd be much more effective if they could rally the EU around them in a proper trade war against the USA, in which there is no clear winner other than China. The problem is that Germany's austericidal policies have already alienated any hope of internal solidarity within the EU. Basically Merkel's Germany has wasted its chance at leading the bloc in a way that is good for all, and not just for Germany, and now nobody will care too much if Germany suffers a bit or two. 

That does not mean I'm declaring Germany's position lost, just that it's much much weaker than they imagine (wishful thinking never solved anything). In any case Germany and whoever rallies around it is bound to clash with Washington: the interest they have in the Nord Stream pipeline is way too serious and they are already pissed off by the US and allies' troublemaking in Ukraine, including the first round of anti-Russian sanctions. Worse, the issues come from older times: anti-Iran sanctions also harmed Germany's economy and the intervention in Libya was shunned by Germany and Italy. To a large extent Germany is in the same difficult position as Russia was put into, just that, while Russia has a much larger degree of sovereignty, not just because of its huge and very effective military but also because of its extension and natural resources, Germany is much smaller in size, has a relatively weak military (and no nukes!) and, above all, it is extremely dependent on the EU trading bloc, which it has used and abused to further their own interests. 

What does the USA want? Forcing Germany to accept an even more marked subservient position, to reduce their exports (something that Trump has been outspoken about but would mean the collapse of the German economy) and in general establish a truly imperial rule on Europe by Washington. 

I can't say how this new major conflict will evolve but my best hunch is one of conflict inside Europe, the quite possible collapse of the EU as we know it, maybe of NATO too (the remnants would be recycled into a satellite US "province" with unmistakable US dominance) and I would definitely not discard wars and military coups. But what I do think is very clear is that Germany cannot afford the luxury to budge once again at Washington's demands, no matter how extended is the anti-Russian consensus which is used as a pretext, because it is transparent that the target is not so much Russia but Germany. 

I'm sure I will have to write more on this soon, because it is clear that this conflict is bound to become the epicenter of European and even global politics in the next months and years. Serious stuff, really!

Letter to a US-American: the very sad Obama legacy and the perilous new 'Trumpland' regime

This is a real letter (well, e-mail to be precise) that I wrote the other day to a friend in the United States and then thought maybe worth publishing. She was so kind as to even provide some corrections to my spontaneous and sometimes exotic English, some of which I'm adopting in this version (for the rest, I like to believe I'm just anticipating future English -- nothing remains static, everything changes and we should proudly accept the fact that we are agents of such change):

Obama looks like a human being: he has presence and charisma but he has lied at least as much as any other and he has been involved in as many wars, most of them very dirty and destructive, as the worst president you can imagine:

1. Libya: toppling an authoritarian regime with Islamist militias only to leave a chaos and redistribute oil concessions to the Anglo-Saxon companies. This happened under Hillary Clinton's direct and quite scandalous "leadership".

2. Yemen: systematic drone-bombing of alleged "terrorists" (often civilians in fact) and later support of Saudi-led absolutely terrorist intervention, still ongoing and unlikely to succeed.

3. Ukraine: artificially creating a "fake revolution" with the use of armed fascist militias, which ended in a full fledged coup, only to put brutal pressure on Russia (Ukraine is just some 800 km away from Moscow, closer to the Russian heartland than Cuba ever was to the US one). This resulted in the Russian-speaking Crimea autonomous republic declaring independence (with a perfectly democratic referendum) and requesting incorporation to Russia afterwards, which was swiftly granted, as the territory is not just historically Russian but also a key naval hub. Other Russian-speaking regions attempted to do the same with two succeeding, out of sheer determination and in spite of strict neutrality from Russia. Elsewhere it was terror by the fascist militias and political persecution for any dissident, from communists to independents, with many brutally murdered. All this was used as pretext for sanctions and war-mongering against Russia.

4. Syria: the USA and allies (European powers, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel) used Al Qaeda (the very same Al Qaeda which allegedly attacked the USA in 9/11/2001) to create a very artificial civil war in Syria. Maybe at the beginning there were some more or less legitimate groups but soon only the Kurdish communists remained as such, in unstable alliance with "the regime". "Regime" that was moving swiftly towards greater democratization and held widely respected elections in the midst of the war in which Assad was reelected by massive majority (also among the refugees who could vote, mostly in Lebanon, as Europe and Turkey forbade the elections in their territories). Even Qatari opinion polls agree that Assad has a massive backing inside Syria. Later a splinter group of Al Qaeda, the so-called Islamic State (DAESH) invaded Iraq in what many see as an attempt to weaken its pro-Iran and pro-China elected government (the very same government imposed by the USA, shit happens) and soon became infamous for their unprecedented acts of terror and slavery that could almost shame even the worst of talibans. DAESH is officially rejected by everyone but also effectively backed by everyone (Turkey beyond any doubt, Saudi Arabia has transported many of their cells to Yemen, the USA has definitely financed their equipment and Israel buys their dirty oil). The ceremony of confusion has gone many steps in the zone of total excess and probably farce with the attacks against civilians in France and Germany, probably in order to rally the masses around the banners of war and the police state, but the worse affected are definitely Arabs and Kurds (Turkey has used the "Syrian" jihadists as death squads in the genocidal repression in North Kurdistan, and also indirectly in the South).

5. Latin America: if under the Bush administration the focus was so exclusively in the Middle East that Latin American more or less "leftist" experiments could thrive rather unmolested, since Obama arrived it has been one indirect intervention after another. It began in Honduras in 2009, with the country being given to the "Libertarian" mafiosi (free trade nazis), continued with a coup in Paraguay and growing pressure against the Venezuelan "bolivarian" social-democracy, only to culminate this year with a "soft" coup in Brazil that is clearly a major blow to the BRICS and to Latin American sovereignty.

6. Persecution of dissidents and whistleblowers at home and abroad. The very fact that Snowden had to find refuge in Putin's Russia and that the presidential airplane of Bolivia was forced to undergo a search by European NATO allies (France and Spain notably) because of slight suspicion that Snowden could be traveling in it, says it all. The situation of Assange is not a bit better after five years besieged in Ecuador's embassy in London just because the USA wants him extradited on most unclear charges (the Swedish case is just an intermediate pretext: persecution for having consensual sex without condoms, go figure!) And then of course the Manning case, to whom Obama did not even given a full pardon but only a partial one.

7. The police state has been reinforced: not only do all the practices against privacy in communications remain untouched but Obama just signed a decree allowing the NSA surveillance to be shared with other intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, etc.) upon request. Guantanamo torture camp was never closed.

8. Monopolistic concentration of power in way too few hands has remained absolutely unchecked, affecting all sectors but most visibly the mainstream media, which has become today a mere propaganda mouthpiece of the imperial regime. All that power is of course being transferred to Trump or whoever holds the oval office throne, because they need those oligarchs as allies.

In brief: the USA under Obama has been extremely aggressive outside and inside. All he can claim as achievement is "Obamacare", and even that is so mild and oriented to private profit that those who criticize it have it very easy.

Yes, he has style, manners and charisma but that's not enough to make a statesman, much less to claim he has honored even slightly his "Change" campaign. Unlike him or Hillary, Sanders was really for some real change and he would have beaten Trump, no doubt, but the regime would not allow him to run, he never had a chance. And they are still doing it: with Sanderist personalities being pushed out of the Democratic Party apparatus as we speak, just for being serious about social-democracy and change, about social and civil rights.

I would even dare to forecast that the Democratic Party camp is going to head internally divided into the next Presiential elections because of this, with the "Sanderists" creating a new party even because it is obvious that the Dem apparatus will not give them any room whatsoever. And,  barring a surprise victory (everything can happen when the window of chaos is open but I feel it's a bit too early), that will allow Trump (or Pence if Trump gets removed) to get a second term, because of the winner-takes-all and voting restrictions system.

Furthermore, it can be even worse: it can be as Moore forecast in his documentary that there will be no more elections until a revolution topples the new "Trumpland" regime. But I doubt it will turn out that way: elections can be easily manipulated in the USA (electronic voting is totally opaque to begin with), so they can keep the pretense for the time being. This slow-motion coup is totally like what happened in the Roman Republic some 2000-plus years ago: the Empire was never officially inaugurated, just someone became way too powerful and the old institutions (more or less representative) were just gradually displaced, step by step.

However it is at the same time that transition from Republic to Empire and the late Empire's transition to feudalism (corporate post-industrial feudalism it is now, they call it "libertarianism"). So it is like repeating all Roman history packed in just a few decades or even years and in totally unrelated conditions of a highly educated and connected population with actual power to disrupt everything if they do ever get serious. It just cannot work: it is a mirage, it is just the last attempt ever to resurrect the Roman Empire and, as all the previous attempts, it will fail strenuously.

What does a Nazi make?

I was pondering this morning, you know: the kind of ideas that float in the mind after a good sleep, about what makes a Nazi. 

There is some people who argue that fascism is a very specific kind of state or political project, but I was just considering this guy I met at a job decades ago, who said he supported the Iraq War because that was good for oil prices (a fallacy probably but irrelevant anyhow if true or false, what matters is the reasoning itself). So basically this guy was arguing that, say, ten thousand dead Iraqis were worth his lesser saving of a few cents in the price of gasoline, a most selfish and brutal logic. 

In fact it is exactly the same way of thinking as that of Heinrich Himmler:

Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only in so far as we need them as slaves for our culture: otherwise it is of no interest to me. Whether ten thousand Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch interests me only in so far as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished.

So this is the same selfish and brutal logic that drove Nazism: for Hitler and his ilk, the deaths of thousands or millions "others" (Jews, Slavs, whatever) was irrelevant, as only the well-being and prosperity of ethnic Germans mattered. So basically I had to conclude in my morning blurr that this guy, whose name I don't recall and who may even vote "left" (unsure), was (is?, he's surely still alive) a Nazi. And he's just an example, there are many more people like him (or even worse), so we have a Nazi psycho-sociology in many people, just out of selfishness identified with the "nation" or similar.

Hence is Trump a Nazi? Sure, at least as I see it. But also was Obama, Bush (both), Clinton (both), etc. It's all Nazism with a thin varnish, as long as the motivation for war is not justice and the improvement of Humankind (this may be misleading and even a scam but at least the heart is in the right place), as long as it is to profit on others' suffering, it is Nazism. Not sure if it is "fascism" but it is definitely Nazism.

Macri's Argentina crosses the line into outright fascism

Which is the essence of fascism? Squads of thugs sowing terror with impunity. That's exactly the nature of Mussolini's fasci di combatimento, which eventually put him as Prime Minister of Italy without getting even a single vote.

And that is exactly what happened tonight in Buenos Aires, where a "patota" (squad of thugs) broke into the newspaper Tiempo Argentino, breaking everything under the protection of the police, which impeded workers and sympathizers from defending their workplace.

A Kristallnacht of sorts.

Ahora en Tiempo. Siguen rompiendo todo adentro. La Policía no hace nada. pic.twitter.com/0Y3BAcBs77

— Ariel Cristófalo (@acristofalo) July 4, 2016

Macri's Argentina is now formally a fascist regime. Down with fascism in America or anywhere else!

Related and suspiciously synchronous: the USA will install "cuasi-bases" in both Southern and Northern Argentina in order to control Drake's Passage and the largest underground aquifer on Earth. 

Let's not fall to the official deceit on Islamist terror, please

The DAESH attacks in Paris and Brussels should be a total political scandal, because it is obvious to those who dare to scratch the surface that they are under the command of those who rule NATO, EU and their member states. The exact details may be murky but overally it is clear that we are under attack by our own rulers. 

Sadly enough, almost nobody seems willing to hang the bell from the cat's neck but rather feel more comfortable ranting inside the official discourse, regardless of the exact details of their empty discourses. 

Let's get specific. For example, Toni Cartalucci explains at Global Research:

All of the suspects have been under the nose, on the radar, and in the prisons of Western security agencies on and off for years, yet were still able to carry out at least one high profile terrorist attack – possibly two, and with the vast majority of the suspects involved having traveled to Syria to fight alongside ISIS before inexplicably being allowed to re-enter Europe and rejoin society without consequence – as if inviting them to take their extremism to the next level.

Let's not forget that the supply lines of DAESH are controlled by NATO, specifically Turkey, whose Hitler-loving President Erdogan even dared to predict an attack in Brussels just a few days ago (astonishing "coincidence").

Even the official channels of DAESH in the Internet are apparently run by NATO and allies. Specifically the Twitter accounts of DAESH propaganda have been tracked via IP to the British Department of Work and Pensions. This ministry has rejected any responsibility claiming that they sold a large bloc of IP addresses to two Saudi firms, Saudi Telecom and Mobile Telecommunications Company, but it does not matter the least because Saudi Arabia is a very close ally of NATO (and of DAESH, Al Qaeda, etc.) and it is ridiculous to think that they would operate without Royal Saudi and NATO/Pentagon consent.

Another specific, already mentioned in this blog, is the implication of a French agent, former security chief of the fascist party National Front and akin to super-judge Marine Le Vert, Claude Hermant, in the sale of weapons to the DAESH cells that attacked Paris. Luckily for us Europeans, there are honest provincial judges who dare to investigate these matters, because all the anti-terrorist apparatus of Europe would not.

There are many more specifics but in many cases we would be going back to the origins of DAESH, a schism of Al Qaeda/Al Nusra, and its financing and even training by the USA and allies. But this is something they even dare to admit, as they do regarding the CIA training and equipment of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. They just pretend that the experiment went wrong at some point, that the Islamists have the tendency to bite the hand that feeds them. However nothing suggests, beyond mere words, that anything has changed at all. Obviously Turkey would not be supplying DAESH and buying their illegal oil if NATO was truly at war with DAESH, or, if they did, they would face the rage of the White House, which has the resources to put Turkey back in line easily. Nope. 

The reality is that DAESH, like Al Qaeda before, is nothing but a useful puppet, a convenient fake "enemy" under control in two ways: first, the direct operative control of the Western and allied secret services and, second, the effective control that prevents them from going rogue: that Islamism is a ghetto ideology that can never spread outside very specific cultural groups (unlike what may happen with Communism, a truly universal and genuinely antagonistic ideology) and that every single reactionary ideas recycled from the feudal period are expendable and can't last for long for intrinsic reasons of inviability. 

In fact this recycling of ideas from the Ancien Régime is typical of fascism and conservatism, but their practical function is only to serve as pretext to more practical goals: repression, imperialism and exploitation. In this case it is not even "Muslim" imperialism to what Islamism (at least the Sunni version of it, under tight Saudi control) serves to, it serves only to the imperialism of the West, largely against "Muslim" nations themselves. For example DAESH has been used to threaten key states like Indonesia or Nigeria against their drift towards more independent stances that may favor China and harm US/Western imperialism. 

But, beyond being a pretext for imperialist intervention or a tool in the Cold War II, islamo-fascist terrorism serves another key purpose inside the West: to sow fear that serves to justify repression and a drift towards a quasi-fascist political system, towards a totalitarian police state. Fortunately Europeans are showing to be less gullible in this aspect than their North American "friends" and attempts to enshrine a permanent state of emergency, as already happens in the USA, are being stopped. However that is the agenda of the NATO Empire and its key oligarchic shadow leaders: to consolidate itself as true formal and authoritarian empire, Roman style, and therefore it is likely that we will suffer more attacks until we either break free from NATO and Capitalism or we bow to the designs or the dark "masters of the universe", whose only real power is the control of token money (i.e. nothing too real, nothing that cannot be destroyed by democratic legislative action, because only law backs, or not, the dark magic of money).

I want to close this entry to an appeal to the real left: comrades, please, stop being so gullible and "good-ist", no real leftist, progressive, socialist alternative can be construed on the acceptation of the falsehoods of the official discourse. I know that it is not easy to challenge the mainstream discourse, built mostly by the bourgeois media at the service of their wealthy masters, but nothing is easy in the class war, so please, do your homework, document the many many inconsistencies in that official discourse and denounce them with all the loudspeaker power you can muster. What else?!

Nationalism. How to overcome it?

Often people talk about nationalism with generalizing negativeness. For many people: one word equals one simple meaning, or at least that's how they use it. However the simple meaning attempted to convey is as subjective as the speaker. Let's try to clarify.

Since the 1930s and 40s, the word nationalism has become negatively loaded in English, while its synonym patriotism is instead preferred, as it conveys more positive connotations. This seems to come from the use in English journalism of the word "nationalist" to refer to fascists, notably Franco's, when actually he and his followers hated that word, which they associated with Basque and Catalan independentism, calling themselves nacionales, that is: nationals, without the "-ism". In Spanish it is the other way around: it is the word patriotism and its root patria (fatherland), which is loaded with negative connotations, precisely because Franco and his mind-slaves used and abused it, while nationalism has for many positive connotations, precisely because democrats and socialists used it with preference. It's all very capriciously loaded on 20th century historical accidents.

The Basque language case is different: Spanish borrowings follow the Spanish cultural rule but Basque lacked originally for any word for nation, let alone fatherland, different than herri (people or country). So back in the late 19th century, when the Arana brothers reinvented Basque Nationalism in terms that have gone mainstream, they also invented many neologisms of their own, quite arbitrary, thought, one of them being aberri (fatherland, from Sumerian and/or Semitic aba = father, in funny amateurish linguistic exercise¹). The derived word abertzale, now fully consolidated, would then translate as patriot but, as this term is seen as negative in the Iberian Peninsula, it is translated as nationalist instead This may sound odd for native English speakers but that's how the subjectivity of meanings go, depending on cultural specifics. Specifics that have a very shallow history in any case.

In addition to that fatherland and patriot have clear patriarchal connotations (they directly appeal to the father and the father's line), while nation and nationalist do not (they appeal to the place and community of birth instead: natio = birth). This may also weight for some in their choice of words and one can well argue that they are indeed more neutral etymologically speaking.

All these arbitrary, subjective and slippery concepts associated with words are not useful for the analysis I intend to make here. I will therefore consider patriotism and nationalism as the synonyms they actually are, and just use nation and nationalism, avoiding hence the patriarchal load of the word patriot.

Two types of nations and two types of nationalism

What is a nation? For many it has become synonym of an established state. However that's not the original meaning and is only a forced recycling imposed by those so-called nation-states in concert, particularly those who fear their own minority nations' rightful claims to sovereignty, to self-rule.

As I said before, nation comes from a Latin word natio, meaning birth. Traditionally and often also in modern speech it refers to a distinctive ethnic community (Greek: ἔθνος = nation). As nation and state were often dissociated in ancient times, at no time this concept meant state (Lat. res publica = public thing, the word state does come from Lat. status but with a modern evolution in meaning) nor polity (Greek: πόλις = city). Only with the invention of modern nationalism, which is the idea that state and nation should be the same, either by giving a state to each existing nation or by forcing all people in each state to be assimilated into the core nation (or sometimes even exterminated or expelled, i.e. various forms of genocide). 

We see in the very definition of nationalism that it has two contradictory implications. In fact this means that there are two types of nationalism: defensive nationalism, that of stateless nations striving for self-rule, possibly in the form of a new nation-state, and aggressive nationalism, that of states and its core nations, trying to absorb everybody in their boundaries into the core nation or even expel/mass-murder them. 

I will argue here that the categories are therefore:

1. People-nationalism: a nation is formed naturally (historically, ethnogenetically) and it deserves its own self-rule, sovereignty, independence and possibly state. 
2. Imperial-nationalism: a nation is only those that control a state and everybody who falls out of the line must be punished. This one has two variants:
1. Roman style: the outlier nations must be assimilated.
2. Racist style: the outlier nations must be exterminated and/or expelled.

Imperial nationalism is intrinsically genocidal, either in the "soft" cultural way or in the "hard" murderous one. To some extent every single established nation-state falls into this category. It may be latent but it is there and sooner than later it will become a problem. Even nations that have not yet achieved independence and that are therefore victims of others' imperial-nationalism face this reactionary risk if they ever manage to succeed in their legitimate fight for freedom. 

Of course people-nationalism is invariably legitimate, as long as the people-nation historically holds a territory. By this I mean that, for example, it does not apply to Israel, which is an artificial colony on other people's territory, i.e. falls into a sui-generis variant of imperial-nationalism of the racist and genocidal type, the worst type of all. 

But it can perfectly happen and does happen that a successful people-nationalism turns petty imperial-nationalism once statehood is achieved. For example the very legitimate Norwegian or Finnish nationalism, turns out as problematically genocidal, at the very least in the cultural way, towards the Sámi nation; the very legitimate Dutch or Portuguese nationalism turned out imperialist against African, American and Asian nations. 

I guess that's why many people dislikes the very concept of nationalism. However this stand is utterly naive and, almost invariably, turns out as accomplice of imperial-nationalism. 

The naivety of anti-nationalism

Anti-nationalism cannot exist. It can be, I guess, subjectively imagined but it is an error of concept. Nations do exist naturally (historically) and often come into conflict with other nations. You cannot just erase them, just like you cannot erase history, customs, languages, etc. Doing so could only be done by assimilation, always unfair for the new arrivals, into a larger nation. 

For example we may imagine a single unified Humankind that only speaks English and holds not anymore any customs, even the calendar may be redesigned to be religion-neutral, proclaiming next year as "year one" of Human Unification. However this would indistinct from an overwhelming success of English imperial-nationalism. Same thing, mutatis mutandi, if the chosen language is Chinese, Arabic or Spanish. One can be passionately humanist but one cannot be naive. It is almost impossible that an artificial language like Esperanto could succeed but, even in such case, it would still be loaded (Esperanto is heavily Latin and other Indoeuropean-based, not neutral at all). 

Anti-nationalism is therefore, as such, heavily utopian in concept and camouflaged imperial-nationalism in practice. In fact most anti-nationalists I know are just Spanish-nationalists with a very poor pretext and/or a most worrisome confusion. 

Democratic Confederalism as only real solution

The concept of Democratic Confederalism is a quite new one by that name, one proposed very creatively and wisely by Kurdish nationalists aiming to overcome this profound problematic. How? Going beyond the concept and praxis of the state, proclaiming in theory and practice the states obsolete and illegitimate: only the self-given democratic institutions of each community have real legitimacy but none of them is legitimate to interfere into the internal affairs of any other democratically self-ruled community. Common affairs will be taken care of via freely established confederate institutions.

The concept by that name may be new but we do have a historical model for something very similar to such solution in Switzerland. A model that, in general terms, has withstood the test of time, with a record longevity of almost 800 years, something that no other democratic polity can claim. It is a system that is not only based on very radical decentralization, even in its current more centralist form, not just for the cantons (states) but also for the municipalities, but also on a democracy that is far more real than that of any other state I know: with referendums being a regular way of establishing or challenging laws, something that in nearly every other democratic (?) country is rejected as chaos and anarchy, populism and what not! 

Switzerland is not a nation-state but a multi-national federation, exactly what we need at larger scale, world-wide even. 

Of course our Kurdish comrades go a step or two further but the basic idea is the same one. This is the only way out of the nationalist quagmire: one that respects, on democratic and confederal basis, the differences as something that makes us better, not that attempts to suppress everything and everyone that is different and wants to remain so. 

The issue is not being not-nationalist or anti-nationalist, that's just a stupid ill-thought or outright hypocritical stand, the issue is going beyond the state. The problem is not in the nation but in the state, whose greater or lesser lack of democracy is nothing but tyranny.

____________

¹ It was then en vogue for every other language to claim relatedness to Sumerian and Basque was no exception. There are two basic words in Basque vocabulary that have an ab(a)- root: one is apaiz (priest), which clearly evolves from romance for abbot, having in turn a recent Semitic (Hebrew) root aba=father; the other is "abere" (domestic animal or livestock) much older and quite possibly related to Sumerian "ab", meaning cow, as well as some other words scattered in West Asian vocabulary. In this case it's probably a very old Neolithic term and has nothing to do with the idea of "father" or "parent".

Curfew imposed on Northern Kurdistan capital of Diyarbakir

Several districts of the effective capital of Northern Kurdistan, Diyarbakir (known as Amed to Kurds), have been put under total curfew by the occupant power, Turkey. People has been forced to leave the area, while those who remain can't go out even to recover the bodies of their dead children.

The situation of North Kurdistan is everyday more similar to that of Palestine: discrimination and genocide under massive military occupation.

Turkey: hands off Kurdistan now!

In related news, several Basque, Valencian and Castilian internationalists, as well as Kurdish exile, were arrested yesterday by Spanish police under the accusation of trying to join Kurdish forces fighting for democracy and socialism. Spain, as usual, joins forces with Turkey and the Islamists against the will of the peoples.

Update (Jan 30): Grand Inquisitor¹ Eloy Velasco has declared the small party Refundación Comunista (Communist Refoundation) illegal for the next year for allegedly aiding the PKK, forcibly closing their sees in Madrid and Valencia. Most of the arrested have been set free but two, including the Kurdish one, have been sent to prison, a bail of 10,000 and 6000 euros respectively are demanded.

¹ Naturally I mean judge of the political tribunal Audiencia Nacional, infamous for all kind of political persecutions and also for aiding the impunity of politicians.

Anatolia's Hitler keeps on murdering civilians in Kurdistan

In legal theory all Turkish citizens are equal and the Turkish state should protect them all. In reality if you're Kurdish that does not apply at all.

Video of the latest massacre in the martyr town of Cizre (North Kurdistan), where you can see civilians marching behind a white flag, with the intent of collecting corpses or injured, being shot indiscriminately by Turkish occupation forces. Some were seriously injured, very possibly killed:

The whole series of videos are available at Bilal Gezer's Twitter account and have been also made public by RT.

If you search for Cizre in YouTube, for instance, you will find a lot of other massacres and cold blooded murders by the occupation forces. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Turkey invades Syria

Yesterday I had to report that Turkey had invaded parts of Iraq, today that it has done the same in Syria, almost simultaneously, occupying and fortifying a position across the border, not far from the Islamist capital, Raqqa, with the effect of splitting the Kurdish-controlled area in two and guaranteeing the oil, arms and zombie trade between th Caliphate and the Turkish state. 

Together with the "sneakers on the ground" (actual but hidden US military presence in Northern Iraq, that has been going on for some time) and the apparent Turkish confirmation of installing a military base near Mosul, with apparent complicity of the contested pro-Washington regime in Southern Kurdistan (Iraq), the NATO intervention in (and against) these two beleaguered states is fait accomplí. 

Erdogan: the new Mussolini!

If someone still doubts the Basque Country is occupied...

... that one only has to look at what happened yesterday in Altsasu (Navarre).

Every year the Sovereign People of Altsasu attempts to celebrate a fiesta-protest known as "Ospa Eguna" (Go Away Day), demanding the evacuation of the Spanish Military Police (Guardia Civil) from the town and valley, and more in general from the whole Basque Country, because they are disruptive, abusive and unwanted occupation forces.

And every year the occupation forces try to demonstrate they are the ones in command and not the People. That's what I call a dictatorship.

This year it was painfully obvious:

The "logic" for the military aggression was that "we don't like it". Not even using and abusing the law and the judicial system, just absolute arbitrariness from those who know that they won't be ever challenged in their own legal and political system. 

Yes, Franco won the war and his ghost is still very much alive.

Erdogan's anti-IS attacks fake, pretext for big offensive against Kurds

Yesterday I was quite surprised reading in the news that the Turkish Islamist President had suddenly decided to take action against the so-called Islamic State (IS). After all Turkey has been its most adamant, even if covert, supporter after its invasion of Iraq and proclamation of the Caliphate appeared to have officially alienated other supporters like Saudi Arabia (big question mark) and their common Kafiri allies, the USA, Israel and your usual suspects in Europe (again all with huge flashing question marks). All these, as well as Turkey, still openly supported Al Qaeda and its array of satellites so-called "Free Syrian Army", magically turned into "moderates", of course.

But why would Turkey turn against the IS? It was obviously not because it had massacred 32 "Turkish" Kurds in a social center in Suruç. If there was any doubt the brutal repression of the subsequent protests in Istanbul and other cities underlined that the only interest Erdogan has on Kurds is to keep them under his boot. Not at all.

The 32 Kurdish comrades massacred by the Islamist-Fascists (source: BGD!)

But (oh, wait!) Erdogan did get an ethnic-Turkish pretext as well: an officer was killed yesterday in a shooting at a crossing point in the artificial border, so artificial that runs along the Istanbul-Baghdad railroad. Well, it was probably engineered somehow but it seems that just killing "Turkish citizens" is not enough for Erdogan if these are Kurds, even as a pretext. 

So what has he done so far?

Well, actually mostly attack Kurds inside three states: Turkey, Syria and Iraq. 

Inside Turkey they have made massive raids against suspects of sympathizing with the outlawed (but in a long-lasting unilateral truce) Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) and allegedly the IS as well. However not a single arrested (out of 590) is identified (as of yet) as IS member or sympathizer, most however are clearly labeled as sympathizers of the PKK, i.e. Kurdish Revolutionaries of any type, surely mostly civilians like you or me. 

Only one person, who was killed in alleged shooting, was identified as member of an illegal Turkish communist group, the DHKP-C.

Outside the Turkish official borders, nine positions of the PKK were bombed in lands under Iraqi formal sovereignty, while unspecified "Kurdish and Islamist" targets were also attacked in Syrian territory.

After these attacks, the PKK said that the truce with Turkey had "no meaning anymore". 

No-fly zone to protect the IS?

An intriguing development of this new stage is the agreement by the USA and Turkey to establish a no-fly zone in a very specific zone of the Aleppo province of Northern Syria. Of course this is a violation of Syrian sovereignty but the bullies of the World don't seem to care. 

The no-fly zone goes between the towns of Mare' and Jarabulus and 90 km south of the Turkish border. In other words: almost exactly the territory controlled by the Islamic State in the province of Aleppo.

Detail of control zones in Northern Syria. Credit: (CC: محک)
[yellow: Kurds, red: Syria, black: IS, green: Al Qaeda et al.]

The no-fly zone as described by Press TV (approx.) - based on the previous map

Naturally a question arises: does the IS or even the Kurdish militias have airplanes? Not at all. The only airplanes in the Syrian war, other than the occasional US incursion, are those of the Syrian state. So what's the point of establishing a no-fly zone over the lands controlled by the IS? Necessarily to protect them against the Syrian operations, and maybe those of their allies such as Iran. 

We must notice that in the last year the Kurdish control zone of the border region has been growing and I guess that the Turkish state is concerned that they might also manage to gain control of the remaining border strip, disconnecting the IS from its main provider: Turkey. 

Reigniting the Kurdish war to 'save Turkey'?

The Turkish Islamist regime must also be worried that the Kurdish backed all-Turkey party HDP made important gains in the last elections, not just in Kurdistan but also in many other provinces, denying the Islamists their much coveted absolute majority in the Turkish Parliament and weakening Erdogan's decade-long tight control of the state apparatus. 

It seems apparent to me that the actual goal of all this performance is no other than to declare the HDP illegal at risk of expanding the Kurdish armed struggle back to Turkey after several years of difficult but continued peace. 

These years, particularly the latest ones, saw the Kurdish population take a much more active presence in the all-Turkey politics hand-on-hand with ethnic Turks, not just via the HDP, but more importantly maybe in the many protests that shattered the bicontinental state in 2011. Surely Erdogan believes that by reopening the Kurdish front in terms military he can make political gains inside Turkey. I just hope he is wrong and that he will pay dearly for this criminal miscalculation.

We create the most heinous enemy, then we rally everyone to fight against them

Just got this from the news:

Former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said that George W. Bush was wrong to try and push democracy on Iraq and that NATO has become unfit to deal with modern threats and should be replaced by a more global alliance to fight Islamist extremism.

So many lies in one single bundle! The infamous Nixonian politician who was happily crying "dibs on Iraq" the very evening of the 9/11 false flag attacks, now blames his and Cheney's marionette Bush Jr. for it. But the really big lie is in the second part: the USA and allies have been organizing, financing and directing every single relevant Sunni Islamist extremist organization: Al Qaeda first of all but now also its offshoot the grotesque caricature called Islamic State. 

The purpose? To serve as pretext for military interventions here and there. First was Afghanistan, then Libya, then Mali and Central Africa and now they want to use their murderous sockpuppet organizations to orchestrate a new Imperial organization, one including such criminal tyrannies as Israel or Saudi Arabia. 

These may be lies in the form but not in the message that Rumsfeld is conveying: the Empire must be reorganized now that Europe is not anymore the main theater of the Cold War (version 2.0), now that the inter-imperialist confrontation has been moved to the neocolonial arena of Africa and the Near East.

Did Israel nuke Yemen?

An Israeli F-16, painted as Saudi, has quite apparently bombed the Yemeni capital with a nuclear bomb.

The brutal amount of energy released, the fungus-shaped explosion and the white pixelization of the film caused by radiation release is pretty much unmistakable.

It was not (not directly) Saudi Arabia because the Islamist state does not have F-16 airplanes nor, for all we know, nuclear weapons. So it was Israel or the USA (most opinions think that Israel). 

There's not much more to say other than it is dramatically necessary to stop the terrorist state of Israel and its allies: USA, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Islamic State. It is very late already but better late than never.

Fascist Ukraine gets Western support in its bankruptcy - compare with Greece

The Fascist regime in Ukraine has just passed a law allowing arbitrary moratorium on its foreign debt payments. The country has been actually brought to bankruptcy by the Fascist "Maidan" regime imposed by the USA and its allies, including early "evacuation" (robbery?) of its gold reserves to the USA and therefore this bankruptcy was very predictable. 

The interesting part is actually in the Western reaction to the news:

The international community, including the United States, European Union and international financial institutions are helping Ukraine in this difficult time, said the statement. The country expects a $17.5 billion bailout from the IMF in the next four years, as well as $7.2 billion that will be loaned to Ukraine other countries and international financial institutions.

In other words the USA and its puppets are helping the Fascist dictatorship of Kiev to have a non-catastrophic partial bankrupcty by means of perpetuating the debt dependency. It serves their purposes, which are to extend the anti-Russian and anti-Ukrainian regime for as long as possible (it won't last forever, that's clear when you get a mere 17% participation in the mock presidential elections, but meanwhile the looting continues). 

The siege of Greece

Meanwhile the extremely democratic socialist government of Greece, enjoying growing popular support by all accounts, a member of the European Union and NATO, is being forced to uncontrolled bankruptcy (and exit from the Eurozone) by those same powers. 

Not a single attempt at relief is being made even if Tsipras and his cabinet enjoy vast democratic support. Much like in Venezuela, what the Western Empire is doing, is to besiege the democratic socialist government in the hope that it will collapse and stops being a nuisance to their extremist capitalist policies.

A naive observer would think this is absurd, how can the self-proclaimed "guardians of democracy" promote fascism and attack democracy? Well, they are only the guardians of Capitalism. "Democracy" in their propaganda speech is just a code word for Capitalism at its worst, for vassalage to the global banker mafia. That way in their media Ukraine becomes a "democracy" and Venezuela a "tyranny". Of course nobody informed can believe that but not everyone is informed, many just watch TV. 

In fact today we see more and more how democracy opposes Capitalism and how Capitalism, after the period of concessions because of the Cold War I, when it had to compete against the Leninist version of socialism, is again, as in the 1920s and 30s supporting fascism everywhere. It never really stopped being that way (just consider the many fascist regimes under NATO protectorate in Mediterranean Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia, including Israel and Apartheid South Africa) but there was a time when the West appeared ashamed of such relationships. Not anymore now that the mass media is absolutely concentrated in a few oligarchic hands: now it is again as in the time of Mussolini and Hitler and it may indeed have the same dire consequences.

Saudi intervention in Yemen: a major step in the direction of total chaos

Religion in Arabia

Yemen is not Bahrain. Bahrain is a small urban island while Yemen is larger than Spain or Thailand, a largely rural and impoverished country with large mountainous areas. 

Conquering Yemen, as the Saudis and their North American allies seem to hope is pretty much impossible (much less for a mercenary army as the Saudi one, which lacks the ideological motivation and will be easily demoralized). So this attack is a very risky move that allows the troubles of Yemen to split across the border, particularly to 'Asir, which has a very large Shia population which is also ethnically akin to Yemenis.

As we can see in the map, Saudi Arabia is made up of two vast desertic areas in the North and South, plus three more populated areas, primarily the Southwest (largely Sunni but also Shia), then the central "oasis area" (stronghold of the fundamentalist Wahabbi ideology that shapes the theocracy) and finally the Eastern Shia region that used to be part of Bahrain. While an extension of the conflict to the central region can be surely discarded in the short run and the Eastern Shia uprising was quelled in blood (although it is still latent and tightly associated to the developments in Bahrain, where protests continue in spite of brutal repression), a Houti advance in Eastern Arabia, particularly into 'Asir but potentially even threatening Mecca should not be discarded at all. In fact I can't but foresee it as the more natural development of the Saudi invasion in the short run. 

The weakness of Saudi power

Another thing to consider is who rules Saudi Arabia and how solid is their power. The recently crowned King Salman, 79, is widely believed to suffer from Alzheimer disease or some other sort of incapacitating dementia so there is a shadowy junta actually ruling the state and clear fractures in the ruling family are known to exist in spite of the secrecy that governs the Islamist state.

In other words: Saudi power is, in spite of oil revenues, at its weakest point ever, suffering intestine dynastic disputes, facing major dissidence from that 50% of the population that are women (whose condition under Wahabbism is surely one of the worst on Earth) and from the majority of the population in the Eastern Province. Now add to all that a powerful and consolidated Shia militia spawning from Yemen. The only pillars of Saudi power are the more and more questioned totalitarian religious police and a mercenary army, with good equipment and salaries but without the "soul" of a really compromised force, as it lacks of nationalist or otherwise ideological motivation of any sort. 

We are talking after all of a mere feudal state: a pre-modern residue stagnated on oil wealth and international alliances, heavily relying on an immigrant workforce with slave-like conditions, and almost certainly unable to withstand any serious turmoil. 

What can we expect

Yemen conflict (from Al Yazeera)

I foresee short-term Pyrrhic victories of the invaders (high sustained cost, low gain) followed by backslash in both Yemen and SW Saudi territory. Backslash that might well threaten Mecca. The boundaries are artificial and the intervention just made them meaningless: now it's an all-Arabian conflict and not anymore one just circumscribed to Yemen.

I also foresee increased unrest in Saudi Arabia as such: both from the people, for which Wahabbi totalitarianism is not anymore a valid option in this globalized and secularized age, but also from important segments of the dominant elite which have been apparently excluded from power with the still fresh crowning putsch of Salman the Ailing. 

It is probable that the intervention in Yemen is seen by the current shadow junta as a way to reinforce their power: nothing like a glorious military campaign, right? But there is a major problem: the campaign won't succeed and it will be painful and dirty, spilling into Saudi territory, so eventually its promoters will gain only increased weakness and not increased strength from it.

Finally there is another and very serious danger that can't be understated: that the besieged Sunni Islamists in Yemen will join the Islamic State, as those in Libya and Nigeria have done, and roll over Saudia from both Iraq and Yemen with likely opportunist support (as in Iraq) from inside the military. They would offer the rotten Saudi elites the "best" (worst!) of both worlds: a continuation of totalitarian Sunni Islamism and a modernizing fascist regime apparently more capable than the rotten Saudi dynasty. 

No need to say that such a development would dramatically alter the geostrategy of the region and the whole World. I is not unlikely though.

What I wonder at this stage is how controlled does the Pentagon has the situation. Isn't the risk of the Islamic State (effectively supported by Turkey, the USA and Israel but apparently not by Saudi Arabia) going out of control getting too big? This seems more and more like a repetition of the Hitler experiment: we (the Anglo-Saxon Empire) put a dictator in power and a few years later we have no choice but to wage war against him because he's become too independent and is challenging the status quo beyond what we can put up with. 

Obviously the IS is not your usual military junta or old-fashioned fossilized monarchy: they literally know no bounds in their brutal religious madness and are extremely ambitious. They have also shown to be very efficient at taking over weakened states, at least large chunks of them. And Saudi Arabia is one of those.

I wonder if that is what the USA wants and, if so, why? How do they plan to retain hegemony in the middle of such chaos and consolidated state of war? Conquering it in some sort of WW3? Will they be able to rally the masses around such a major imperial campaign in the midst of the worst socio-economic crisis in the history of Capitalism? I don't think so. All this can only backfire, even if I feel unable to foresee the details of the near-future developments.


Update (Mar 29):

06:48 GMT: Houthi rebels are moving artillery units closer to the border with Saudi Arabia, RIA Novosti cited Al Jazeera as saying (from RT live updates blog on the crisis). What did I say about the war spilling to Saudia?

Other details from the same source:

• Yemeni forces (army or rebels) can hit Saudi targets up to 500 km away (Iranian source)
• Saudia has massed up 150,000 troops at the border with Yemen. It is unclear if they plan to invade or just defend the border. Analyst suggest that a land invasion would be a disaster, however it is unclear how can the operation succeed without ground occupation, more so when the Houtis are clearly redirecting their efforts against the Saudi aggressor.
• While Egypt has joined the Saudi-led coalition with 16 airplanes and one frigate, Pakistan has remained uncompromising.
• The official Yemeni President (with almost no support inside the country) seems to have left the country for Riyadh and then for Egypt to attend an Arab League summit. 

Update 2 (Mar 29): Israel may be an active partner in the coalition bombing Yemen, according to sources in Sanaa mentioned by Fars Agency.

Those warmongering russkies!

Hilarious but very real if you happen to have enough patience to put up with Minitrue's propaganda machinery (aka "free media").

Found at Global Research.

Catalonia calls independence referendum

Support for independentism in Catalonia per the 2012 elections

Yesterday at 10:30, Catalan President Artur Mas, backed by his cabinet and the parliamentary majority, solemnly signed the decree 129/2014, which calls for a referendum on Catalan independence on November 9th. 

After signing such a historical decree, Mas spoke to the press in Catalan, Spanish and English, emphasizing the broad majority that supports this decision and recalling the massive citizen mobilizations of the last years, which have gathered millions once and again, in support for the right of self-determination of Catalonia. 

Then he walked out to the street to personally greet members of the movements National Catalan Assembly (ANC) and Òmnium Cultural, which have been impelling the movement for self-determination at grassroots level in a non-partisan way. 

These organizations installed a giant urn and a counter, which yesterday marked 42 days and 12 hours until the referendum. 

Meanwhile in the offices, Vice-President Joana Ortega was approving the technical aspects of the vote: the census that will be used (the population registry of the Catalan Statistical Office, Idescat), printing the ballots, organizing the urns, etc. An informative campaign on the referendum was also initiated. 

Most of the parties supporting the referendum already have clear that they will call for a YES vote. These are Democratic Convergence (CDC), Republican Left (ERC) and the Popular Unity List (CUP). Two other parties are still debating: Democratic Union (UDC), minor partner of Mas' CDC, will decide their position on a meeting this Sunday, while Intiative for Catalonia - The Greens will do so via an internal vote. 

Meanwhile the Spanish Nationalist parties PSOE, PP and the racist far-right seedling Ciutadans, have all decided to ignore the referendum altogether, as they consider it illegal.

For reference, this is the representation that each party or coalition has in the Parliament of Catalonia:

1. Convergence and Union (CiU = CDC + UDC): 50 seats
2. Republican Left (ERC): 21 seats
3. PSC-PSOE: 20 seats
4. PP: 19 seats
5. Initiative for Catalonia - Greens: 13 seats
6. Ciutadans: 9 seats
7. People's Unity: 3 seats

Notice that in the European elections and opinion polls CiU has yielded much support to ERC, while the Spanish Nationalist parties have clearly lost support, among other reasons for their support and implementation of draconian EU pro-bankster anti-social policies but also because of the striking national awakening of the Catalan People. 

Madrid dead-set to veto democracy

With their usual imperialist arrogance and disrespect for democracy, the Spanish twin party PP-PSOE stands clearly determined to block the right of Catalans to decide on their own affairs. 

Today an emergency cabinet meeting will be held in Moncloa Palace, the see of the Spanish government. The cabinet will appeal the referendum to the Constitutional Court, which will meet on Tuesday. It is widely expected that the Spanish tribunal will veto the Catalan decree that very day. 

While this outcome is widely expected no matter what, as there is no real separation of powers in Spain nor effective judicial independence, from a purely legal viewpoint the reason seems to stand in favor of Catalonia. In this sense the preamble of the referendum decree clearly underlines that Catalonia has been transferred the right and management of popular consultations in order to gauge the opinion of the people. 

Technically the referendum is just consultative and the Catalan authorities have the power to promote Constitutional reforms and to ask Catalans on their opinion for this purpose. With the law on hand, the referendum is therefore absolutely legal. 

Even if the Spanish Constitutional Court vetoes the referendum, Mas has announced that he will keep the process rolling on the pretext that, if the decree is suspended and not directly declared null, this suspension can theoretically be removed at any moment, reason why the whole process must keep going. 

Source: Gara[es].

Spain on the eve of its dissolution

The very continuity of the State of Spain, as we have known it, presents every day more question marks. This is how Gara's cartoonist Tasio sees this critical moment:

... with the pen of the Catalan referendum decree being a torpedo that threatens to sink Ship Spain. 

No kidding: France, Spain and many other European and Mediterranean states built on the uniformist, assimilationist and hyper-centralist Jacobin (neo-Absolutist) model designed by the French bourgeoisie after the Revolution, have serious cohesion issues. 

The case of Spain is however paradigmatic: Catalonia, with 7.6 million inhabitants, makes up 16% of all the population of the state. Together with almost three million Basques, who are also fighting for our self-determination, that is more than 21% of the so-called "Spanish" population. In industrial and overall economic might, the share is even greater. And I haven't yet counted the other Catalan Countries or the other nations like Galicia where independentism is a strong force. Even in historical core areas like Andalusia or Aragon, nationalism, particularly left-wing nationalism with a strong social consciousness and revolutionary programs, is clearly growing as we speak.

Naturally not just Castile or "core Spain" will actively and even violently fight against the rights of the Catalan and Basque peoples to rule ourselves in democracy, but France particularly will do as well. By extension and design so will do all NATO. So shaking off the joke of Spanish and French occupation does not seem easy at all. 

But Spain is the weakest link in all this Western Imperial alliance bloc. It has been so historically and it is even more nowadays. Spain is economically and politically weak. Even in its recent apogee in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it could not manage to be accepted among the G7 powers, not even in the much wider G20, a clear sign of its dependency on other powers such as France, the USA, Germany and Britain. The weakness of its "economic miracle", based on real state speculation even more than in the USA or Britain, was revealed under the light of the global economic crisis that began in 2007 and shows no sign of abating.

It is of course very possible that Spain will, very provisionally, survive this ongoing process of self-determination in Catalonia and the Basque Country, thanks to its police and military might and its international alignment as vassal of the NATO Empire. But it is extremely clear that it is weakened to the marrow and that its chances of survival, in its current extension, in the mid term are very close to zero. Time and the will of the Peoples strongly work against this authoritarian monster created only by the power of military bullying. 

Today this military authoritarian only pillar of the Kingdom of Spain is clearly not anymore enough to keep the state together. We don't live anymore in the times of Absolutist nor Fascist tyrants: cohesion can't be produced only by military violence, the Peoples are not willing to swallow that anymore, the whole social paradigm has changed and, sooner than later, Democracy will prevail.

Imagine that there is a pro-occupation demo and nobody goes...

Go away!!

Yes, I'm paraphrasing the old war resisters' slogan "Imagine that there is a war and nobody goes". It's not that different in fact and that is exactly what happened.

Far right groups called for a demo in Pamplona in support of the Spanish occupation forces. Only some ten fanatics showed up and the demo was canceled right away by the organizers, admittedly because nobody had come.

It seems obvious that NOBODY supports the Spanish military and police occupation or Navarre or the Basque Country in general.

Source: Sare Antifaxista[es].



Update (Sep 24):

Image of the demo:

Satire of the failed demo:

Source: BGD!

Fundamentalist pincer against Kurdish civilians

The Western-armed "Islamic State" has attacked the Kurdish town of Kobanê (also known as Ayn al-Arab), causing the flight of some 70,000 civilians to Northern Kurdistan, under Turkish occupation. The Islamist government of Ankara, known to be the most unconditional supporter of Ibrahim's "Caliphate", has closed the artificial colonial border, which runs along the Istanbul-Baghdad railroad through this part of Kurdistan. 

Thousands of Northern Kurds have been pushing towards the barbed-wire occupation line with the intent of helping the refugees or even joining the struggle against the Islamists. As the Turkish occupation forces wouldn't let them move freely, clashes began near the checkpoint.

A large number of civilians remain trapped south of the occupation line (→ video) without food nor water after being forced to run for their lives as the Islamist forces advanced around Kobanê destroying everything.

As happens with the Yezidi refugees taken under the protection of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the Turkish state is not at all willing to help them even passively, regardless of the fact that the PKK and Ankara have been in a stable truce for a whole year now. The attitude of Ankara has been all the time to support the Islamic State and favor their war crimes. Thousands of Ibrahim's fanatic followers are Turkish, the Turkish Army has trained Islamic State's thugs in NATO's most important airbase in the region: Incirlik (what implies also US participation and blessing) and, while closing the occupation line to Kurds, has allowed the border to remain open for the Islamist terrorists. 

Much as in Ukraine or Palestine: NATO, the US Empire and its many puppets, means fascist dictatorship and terror for the civilians everywhere, whose lives become incidental to the power-mongering of the imperialist forces and totally expendable. Kurdistan is no exception and, especially considering that the Kurdish forces have one of the most advanced socio-political analysis in our West Eurasian region, they deserve all the solidarity we can muster: because they are the only good guys and girls in all the region, the only ones who seem to have clear priorities of equality, freedom and respect and not some fanatic fascist agenda that only serves the oligarchs of the World at the expense of the people.  

The Humanist ideals in West Asia are spelled "Kurdistan", let's give them all our support, let's smash those fascists!