Tag: Europe

Inching eastwards: The re-alignment of Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Inching eastwards: The re-alignment of Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain

“In fact, it started with Mikhail Gorbachev in the spring of 1990. To give some context, this was a time when Germany was in the process of reunifying. Gorbachev agreed to have a reunited Germany be a part of NATO. He was promised that there would not be any enlargement, “not one inch eastward” as U.S. Secretary of State James Baker told him in February of 1990. Now this was in the context of German reunification. Those remarks later became rather controversial, because the Russians said: ‘Well, you promised that there would be no enlargement and yet you then started pushing it’.

President Bill Clinton plays the saxophone presented to him by Russian President Boris Yeltsin at a private dinner hosted by President Yeltsin at Novoya Ogarova Dacha, Russia, 1994, photo: Bob McNeely/U.S. federal government, public domain

Let’s not allow Steve Bannon and ‘conservatives’ to legitimize extremism in Europe

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Let’s not allow Steve Bannon and ‘conservatives’ to legitimize extremism in Europe (opinion)

Steve Bannon, the former adviser to US President Donald Trump, recently won a legal battle with Italy’s culture ministry to set up a far-right Catholic political academy, a “school of gladiators” in his words, in an 800-year old monastery. Although the Italian ministry said it would appeal the decision, for now the academy is moving ahead. Benjamin Harnwell, founder of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, which will run this nationalist academy, suggested in a recent interview that their intention is to shape the worldview of future populist leaders.

This Academy for the Judeo-Christian West, which will provide courses on politics, philosophy and economics (initially online and with US-based teachers), represents an additional far-right challenge to liberal and progressive values. The idea is to influence conservative thinking in the church and to counter Pope Francis’ pro-migrant — as well as what some have deemed a “liberal”—approach, as Bannon told NBC. But Bannon’s aim, it seems, is mainly to legitimize nationalism and right-leaning xenophobia, bolstering them with a radical, far-right philosophy.

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Immigration and Islamophobia: Breitbart and the Trump Party

[2016] Varoufakis: The Anti-Russian Trojan Horse Exposed

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

VAROUFAKIS: THE ANTI-RUSSIAN TROJAN HORSE EXPOSED

Yanis Varoufakis became something of an alternative media “rock star” when he ditched Syriza after the bailout referendum and let Tsipras take the full blame for betraying the people’s will. Prior to this, the force of his personality and his earlier work in exposing the US’ international financial games as the “Global Minotaur” earned him much respect in many activist circles, yet suspicion still lingered around the man who some wisely thought was “too good to be true”. 

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Pompeo’s anti-China rally questioned by some Europeans

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Pompeo’s anti-China rally questioned by some Europeans

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New U.S. tariffs show again why it is an unreliable partner for Europe

After a breakdown in trade negotiations over a longstanding dispute pertaining to subsidies for the European aviation manufacturer Airbus, the Trump administration is now weighing new tariffs of 3.1 billion U.S. dollars on EU and British exports into the United States, coming on top of the levies imposed by the White House on Europe last summer. Exports which are set to be targeted include olives, coffee, chocolate, beer, gin, trucks and machinery.

Central banks have pumped money into the economy, but this is no substitute for democracy

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Central banks have pumped money into the economy, but this is no substitute for democracy

Since 2 March, the Fed’s total assets have leapt by more than half. Since 2008, its balance sheet has grown to 30% of the size of the US economy. Central bankers seem confident their actions will find public approval. “A firefighter has never been criticised for using too much water,” the governor of the Bank of Canada said.

This confidence is misplaced. Both left and right have reason to welcome the Fed’s emergency intervention, but new money flooded into private capital markets will inevitably flow into the deepest pockets. And without strengthening the democratic legitimacy of this policy, and using it for socially transformative ends, the reaction will strengthen those who are antagonistic to the practice of government – the populist right.