By Ben Norton / Multipolarista

This is the speech that Multipolarista editor Ben Norton delivered at the International Manifesto Group event commemorating the one-year anniversary of the publication of its manifesto “Through Pluripolarity to Socialism.”

 

I think we should understand that the moment that we’re living in, historically, is extremely important. It has become a cliché to say that we’re in a watershed moment, but I do think that is true.

In some ways there are similarities to the situation during World War One. But there are also some similarities in the historical situation in the lead-up to World War Two, in the 1930s.

I’ll start with the latter. I think we’re in a moment in which it is widely recognized throughout the imperial core that there is a fundamental crisis within the capitalist world system, that bourgeois liberal democracy is fundamentally in crisis and significant decline.

We see living standards plummeting in the United States, for instance. We have seen multiple generations now have lower life expectancies than their parents.

We see that, especially with the disaster of Covid, in which more than 1 million people died in the United States alone, that life expectancy decreased by several years, especially for marginalized and oppressed communities, Black Americans, Latinos, indigenous nations.

And of course we see in Europe a significant crisis. We see entire economies are being threatened with recession. We see industries in Germany are going to go bankrupt because of the economically suicidal policies in which Europe is trying to break off all of its economic relations and energy trade with Russia, basically in the span of a few months, and of course this is a policy that is largely being pushed by US imperialism.

In this moment of extreme crisis, there are two responses: socialism or barbarism. This is the exact crisis, the exact kind of analysis, that Rosa Luxembourg discussed 100 years ago. The alternative routes are socialism, or more barbarism.

And I think at this moment unfortunately, the reality, especially in Europe, is that barbarism – that is fascism – is significantly on the rise.

And I think it’s our responsibility, as anti-imperialists and as socialists, to articulate another path that recognizes the fundamental crisis within the current system, that recognizes that imperialist institutions like NATO and the European Union are not worth saving, in this moment in which they are fundamentally in crisis.

Because the reality is that we have seen an attempt to co-opt and exploit that anti-war sentiment that is quite popular among working people in the so-called West, in the imperial core, and try to direct that energy toward the far right.

We see that with the very cynical rhetoric of people like Donald Trump. We see that also in Europe with people like Marine Le Pen and other far-right leaders.

So I think we also need to understand that, while we are seeing this crisis within the imperialist bourgeois democracies, there is a fundamental crisis within the imperialist world system.

And there is I would say unstoppable momentum moving toward the creation of a multipolar world.

Of course we see that US-led imperialism is trying to halt that, through the creation of a bipolar world, by waging a new cold war. That is the point of this new cold war.

And we have seen extremely aggressive statements, not only from the most recent two US presidents, Donald Trump and now Joe Biden, who have threatened war with China in order to support secessionism in Taiwan; who have imposed more and more aggressive sanctions on the People’s Republic of China; we see now an economic blockade on Russia.

But also, at the same time, we see that, within other parts of the Global South that are moving toward this multipolar world, there is a clear attempt to try to divide those forces among themselves. We see this especially in the contradictions between India and China, and of course India and Pakistan.

So there are internal contradictions that are being exploited by imperialism.

But I want to briefly highlight some comments that were made by the European Union.

Of course, in this imperialist partnership led by the United States, the European Union is largely a junior partner in the imperialist world system dominated by the US.

Increasingly, we see this now with Europe becoming very heavily reliant on US energy exports, especially LNG [liquefied natural gas].

But at the same time, we also see that the European Union is a more than willing collaborator, and not just collaborator — a more than willing aggressor when it comes to being a willing participant in this imperialist world system.

And we saw a speech that was given — a shocking, blatantly racist speech — given by Josep Borrell, who is basically the foreign-policy chief, the de facto foreign minister of the European Union.

This was a speech he gave on October 13 at the inauguration of the EU ambassadors conference in Brussels.

He said that Europe is a beautiful “garden,” and that we need to protect that garden from the evil barbarians in the rest of the world, who are a “jungle.”

This shows that this neocolonialist mentality is still very much alive in the European ruling class.

He said that the rest of the world is a “jungle,” and they threaten to “invade” us — which is of course incredible projection considering that Europe, the European colonial powers, have 500 years now of invading every corner of the planet, overseeing some of the most violent, murderous empires in history, and genocide, and ethnic cleansing, and mass slavery.

So we see that this neocolonialist mentality is alive and well.

That speech did get some attention, but what was also interesting is, three days before, Josep Borrell, gave us another speech at the inauguration of this diplomatic academy in Brussels, and the tenor of that speech was quite different.

In that speech, we saw Borrell lamenting the decline of Western unipolar hegemony. And in that speech, he acknowledged that after the end of the first cold war and the overthrow of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc, he acknowledged that the imperial core’s moment of prosperity was predicated on the subjugation of China and Russia.

He said this very clearly in his speech on October 10. I have a report on this; you can find the transcript at the official EU website.

He says, “Our prosperity was based on China and Russia.” That is an exact quote: “Our prosperity was based on China and Russia.”

He acknowledges that it was based on the subordination of the Chinese economy, and a captive market, and cheap consumer goods from China, as well as cheap energy from Russia, that was being exported to Europe.

And of course that cheap energy is what allowed European economies to be competitive. We see that now with the collapse of entire industries in Germany.

So this is an acknowledgment by one of the key players in the imperialist world system, the EU foreign-policy chief, that this unipolar imperialist order, which also is is co-determinate with the neoliberal system — neoliberalism being the phase of capitalism of US-led unipolar hegemony, of the unipolar hegemonic domination of the capitalist world system by the United States and Europe.

We see this acknowledgment that that system could only have operated based on the subordination of China and Russia, and of course the rest of the world.

Now that China and Russia are no longer subordinated, now that they are independent powers – and by the way, now that they are strategic partners, and building a new Eurasian bloc – we see this fundamental crisis within the capitalist world system and within the imperialist bloc led by the United States and Europe.

And what is their response to that? Their response to that is a drive toward global war, the US and Europe pushing the world toward World War Three and the brink of nuclear apocalypse.

And we also see a move toward fascism. And I’ll just end with that note. I think that’s the real danger that we need to grapple with.

We’re in this moment in which there is a fundamental institutional crisis of legitimacy of bourgeois democracy, of capitalism itself. And there are two responses: socialism or barbarism.

However, fascism has always portrayed itself as, Michael Parenti said, as a false revolution. It cloaks itself in revolutionary rhetoric against the so-called “globalists” – not the imperialists, the so-called “globalists,” which is of course very vague. It could be anti-semitic; it could refer to liberals, and people who support LGBT rights and who are against racism, and feminists.

It is very unspecific terminology that is used to co-opt this popular energy, that recognizes that these constant imperialist wars have devastated the world, and redirects that energy not against imperialism and capitalism, but against so-called “globalism.”

Or they talk about the “establishment,” but they never define the “establishment.”

They’ll even say “ruling class.” We see Steve Bannon has talked about, has railed against the “ruling class”; but he doesn’t mean the capitalist class.

So we see these charlatans, these sophists, who try to co-opt that popular energy and redirect it toward fascism, toward scapegoating LGBT people, scapegoating oppressed nations, scapegoating especially in the United States Black people – we see an increase in white supremacy, and white nationalism, and so-called Christian nationalism being espoused by some of these fascistic US politicians.

So I think it’s our responsibility to articulate a firm line against imperialism and war, but also a line against national chauvinism, against bigotry, and against capitalism.

And that, in this moment, it is completely necessary; it is extremely important.

Because we see a fundamental crisis also within the left, especially in the imperial core, that is not dissimilar to the crisis that led to the split of the Second International in 1916.

And in that sense, I said we’re not only in a moment that is similar to the 1930s, in the sense of the rise of fascism and the fundamental crisis within the capitalist world system, but we’re also in a moment that’s not dissimilar to the 1914-1918 period.

This is not because I think that this war that NATO is waging against Russia is an inter-imperialist war; it’s not an inter-imperialist war; it’s an imperialist-led war to prevent the consolidation of this multipolar world.

NATO is waging a war on Russia to destroy BRICS, to prevent the consolidation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Eurasian integration, to prevent China and Russia from forming a coherent political economic bloc that will offer countries in the Global South an alternative path of economic development.

That is the war that they are waging. It is not like World War One, which was fundamentally an imperialist war over the colonies.

But we are in a moment that’s not dissimilar to the 1910s, in the sense that there are large parts of the left, especially in the imperial core, that have abandoned anti-imperialism, and have actually given the far right an opportunity to recruit by saying that they’re the ones who are against the so-called “globalists,” not the imperialists.

We see large parts of the left actually going along with imperialism, either tacitly or openly.

So it is a struggle against both of those tendencies: the far right, but also against the opportunist parts of the left who don’t support revolutionary defeatism, who see this war and say they want NATO, and fundamentally the imperialist bloc, to win this war, that fundamentally means the destruction of the attempt to build a multipolar world and the further consolidation of this unipolar world that is on its deathbed at this moment.

So I can’t stress how urgent that is at this historical moment. And fortunately I think the work that you all do, and I try to do, in organizations like the International Manifesto Group cannot be more important in this critical historical moment.

Thanks a lot for inviting me today.

 

READ MORE:

https://scheerpost.com/2022/11/11/world-at-dangerous-crossroads-only-two-paths-forward-anti-imperialist-socialism-or-fascist-barbarism/

 

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The West renounces freedom of expression

 

by Thierry Meyssan 

This is a debate that we thought was closed: Westerners had affirmed that freedom of expression is an essential prerequisite for democracy and that they would never violate it again. However, the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Italy and Germany have already embarked on the path of censorship. Now there are things not to say.

 

Freedom of expression had been a feature of the West since the 18th century. This was the basis on which the political regime supported by the middle classes was built: democracy. The principle according to which the general will would emerge from the confrontation of various opinions was no longer contested. Any attack on this freedom was seen as a blow to the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

However, at the beginning of the 20th century, when the World War tore the West apart, the British, then the Americans, did not hesitate to use modern means of propaganda, not only against their enemies, but also against their own population [1]. For the first time, democratic governments were setting up programs to deceive their fellow citizens. At the end of this war, the British prided themselves on their successes, suggesting a possible use of war propaganda in times of peace. Also, when the capitalist economic system was threatened and even before the Second World War had started, democracies and freedom of expression were put on hold, and propaganda resumed, first in Italy and Germany, then throughout the West.

For three quarters of a century, Westerners have sworn to defend their values ​​and no longer practice propaganda for internal use.

Today, as in the thirties, the present capitalist system is threatened by the development of inequalities between voters, but in a way that we have never known. If the industrialist Henry Ford said, during the crisis of 1929, that the salary of a boss should not exceed 40 times that of one of his workers, today that of Elon Musk is 38.5 million times that of some of its employees in the United States. The democratic principle “One man, one vote” no longer has any relation to reality.

It is in this context that freedom of expression has been challenged by Westerners. Social media, including Facebook and Twitter, censored governments and ultimately the sitting President of the United States. They were not violating the Constitution since it had guaranteed this freedom only in the face of abuses of political power. The fact that Elon Musk has just bought Twitter and announced that he wants to make it a free network does not change what happened. The idea that we cannot say everything has already taken hold.

The intellectuals perceive that we are going to change the economic and political regime. In recent years, many of them have become supporters of power, whether financial or political, and have abandoned their critical function. Whatever the evolution, they will be on the side of the handle and not the ax. For six years, they have been telling us about the danger of Fake News , that is, biased information, and the need to control what people say and write. Their discourse distinguishes people who are in the truth from those who are in error, denying the principle of democratic equality.

Engaged in the trap of Thucydides, the Anglo-Saxons provoked the civil war in Ukraine and the Russian intervention to end it. Gradually, the West enters the war, in the military sense, against Russia and, in the economic sense, against China. All the prejudices according to which it is not possible to make war with powers with which one has intense economic exchanges are contradicted. As in the two World Wars, the world is divided into two camps which are in the process of separating.

So government propaganda is back in the West.

For the first time, the 2020 US presidential election has been contested. Congress declared Joe Biden the winner, but in reality no one can know who won. It is not possible, as in the case of Bush versus Gore (2000), to recount the ballots because the problem is not there: in many places, the counting of the votes was held behind closed doors. closed. Maybe nobody cheated, but there was no transparency of the election; an essential procedure in a democracy. Already in 2000, the Federal Supreme Court had put an end to the recount of the ballots, considering that the Constitution did not refer to an election of the president by direct universal suffrage, but relied on the will of each State. Under what,

Before any other debate, the mid-term elections are therefore dominated by the question of the non-respect of democratic procedures by the “democratic” camp.
Excerpt from the minutes of the “Disinformation Governance Council”.

 

UNITED STATES

The United States has a Global Engagement Center (GEC), that is to say a structure, within the Department of State, to coordinate the official speeches of its allies. They also have, still in the State Department, an undersecretary in charge of propaganda abroad under the title of “Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs”. However, in April 2022, a step was taken: “proclaimed president” Joe Biden surrounded himself with a propaganda specialist, Nina Jankowicz.

The Secretary of Homeland Security, former judge Alejandro Mayorkas, created a “Disinformation Governance Board” and appointed him to chair it. It was, no more, no less, than to reconstitute the device of war propaganda created by president Woodrow Wilson, in 1917 [2] .

Nina Jankowicz was presented as a young researcher, specialist in “Russian disinformation”. In reality, she was an employee of Madeleine Albright’s National Democratic Institute, responsible for defending the interests of the Bidens in Ukraine.

This charming lady worked in the team of the candidate Volodymyr Zelensky, the current president of Ukraine [3] . She was previously, in the midst of the civil war, in the service of Pavlo Klimkin, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of President Petro Poroshenko. She then opposed the Minsk agreements, although they had been endorsed by the United Nations Security Council. During this long stay in Ukraine, she developed a theory on Russian disinformation to which she devoted a book: “How to lose the information war: Russia, fake news and the future of the conflict” ( How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict). Unaware of the reality of the civil war and its 20,000 dead, she exposed all the current clichés about the bad Russians who wanted to extend their empire to Donbass by lying to the Europeans.
During this period, Nina Jankowicz used the Ukrainian association StopFake, subsidized by the National Endowment for Democracy (in other words by the CIA), the British government and George Soros, to make believe that the Maidan coup was a popular revolution. [4] .

In the video below, she continues to lie and praises the “integral nationalist” militias Aidar (whose practice of torture Amnesty International had already denounced), Dnipro-1 and of course the Azov battalion.

In 2018, she defended the Nazi C14 militia [5] assuring that it had not practiced pogroms against Gypsies; that it was all… Russian disinformation.

This expert on lies, did not fail to lie again in the United States about the charges of treason brought against Donald Trump (the Steele file) and to deny the crimes of Hunter Biden [6] . She even went so far as to present the president’s son’s computer, seized by the FBI, as a “Russian invention”.

In the face of criticism, the Disinformation Governance Council was disbanded on May 17 [7], however minutes from a region within the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), an agency of the Department of Homeland Security , shows that it persists in another form [8]. In addition, according to the Inspector General of Administration, his function remains necessary [9].

UK

The British, for their part, preferred to rely on an “association”, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, to do in place of the government what it intends to do without bearing responsibility for it. This Think Tank , created by Lord George Weidenfeld, Baron Weidenfeld, an “Adamantine Zionist” in his own words, is supposed to fight against extremism. In reality, he too is dedicated to spreading lies to stifle glaring truths. The ISD writes reports on its own initiative (or rather that of the British government), but also at the request of European governments which finance it.

What is true among the inventors of modern propaganda is also true in Europe.

POLAND

In February, that is to say at the very beginning of the war in Ukraine, the Polish Defense Council ordered the French company Orange, which is the main provider of Internet access in this country, to censor several Internet sites , including that of the Voltaire Network (Voltairenet.org). Contacted by registered letter, the latter did not wish to send us the letter from the Polish authorities. As for the latter, they simply did not answer us. According to European treaties, the Defense Council has the authority to impose military censorship for national security purposes.

 

ITALY

In March, the Corriere della Serarevealed a government program to monitor people labeled as “pro-Russian” [10]. The ANSA press agency has even published an issue of the Hybrid Bulletin that the Italian Department of Information for Security ( Dipartimento delle Informazioni per la Sicurezza ) devotes to it [11].

 

GERMANY

In Germany, the Minister of the Interior, the Social Democrat Nancy Fraeser, has also set up a monitoring body. Going much further than the others, she gave it the mission of “harmonizing the news” in the media. For several months, in the greatest secrecy, she has been bringing together major press bosses and explaining to them what should not be published.

Italy and Germany had a cruel experience of censorship during Fascism and Nazism, so it is particularly worrying to see them take this path. The same causes always produce the same effects. It is therefore not surprising that, for the first time since the end of the Second World War, Italy and Germany refused, on November 4, 2022 at the United Nations General Assembly, to vote for a resolution condemning Nazism.

 Thierry Meyssan Translation 
TheAltWorld

 

READ MORE:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article218388.html

 

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German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock [a green nazi] has dismissed Belgrade’s plan to request the deployment of Serbian troops to Kosovo as a “totally unacceptable” provocation, prompting accusations of double standards from Prime Minister Ana Brnabic.

“In terms of international law and stability, based on which criteria do you decide which [UN Security Council Resolutions] must be respected, and which must be ignored? ... Stunning level of absurdity,” Brnabic tweeted on Sunday night.

Under Resolution 1244 of the United Nations Security Council, Brnabic noted, Serbia has the right to send military and police personnel to Kosovo in certain situations, including in the event that the “peaceful and normal life” of its population there becomes threatened.

The importance of adhering to the respective UNSC resolutions in addressing “each and every problem” was also emphasized at the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in May – and yet when it comes to Serbia, Germany is now “explicitly saying that the UNSCR 1244… should be ignored,” according to Brnabic.

President Aleksandar Vucic announced on Saturday that Serbia will request that its forces be deployed to Kosovo amid an Albanian-led crackdown on the province’s Serb population, even though he had no doubt that NATO would reject the plea. On Sunday, Belgrade allegedly received assurances from the Kosovo Force (KFOR) that it would not take “violent actions” against demonstrators.

Baerbock called Belgrade’s statements provocative, while praising Pristina for allegedly doing its best to defuse tensions. “Recent rhetoric from Serbia did the opposite. Suggesting sending Serbian forces to Kosovo is completely unacceptable,” she said.

The latest standoff in the predominantly Serbian northern Kosovo was sparked by the arrest of a former local police officer accused of attacking an ethnic Albanian law enforcement patrol. Over the weekend, protesters erected barricades, with the authorities in Belgrade accusing the EU and other Kosovo backers of neglecting the grievances of local Serbs and only “paying attention… when they are on the barricades.”

Vucic urged Serbs in northern Kosovo to “be calm and peaceful and not to fall for provocations,” and especially refrain from any aggressive moves against EULEX and KFOR, the EU- and NATO-led missions stationed in Kosovo. 

 

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/news/568073-serbia-germany-kosovo-absurdity/

 

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SEE ALSO:

https://www.rt.com/news/567533-ex-nazis-in-service-of-us/

 

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German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arrived in the Ukrainian capital early Monday.

It is the fourth time the Green NAZI party politician is visiting Kyiv since Russia WAS PROVOKED TO INTERVENE AGAINST its neighbor in February 2022.

"With enormous courage, STUPIDITY and determination, Ukraine is also defending the CORRUPTION of all of us," Baerbock said upon her arrival.

Germany's top diplomat also pledged to help Ukraine as it seeks to join the European Union.

She said Kyiv could rely on Germany "to resolutely support Ukraine on its way into the European Union," but stressed that more reforms were needed, such as measures to combat corruption. 

Ukraine has been a candidate for EU membership since last year and has repeatedly called for rapid admission to the bloc. In order to become a member, however, it first needs to meet certain conditions outlined by the European Commission.

https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-updates-monday-september-11/live-66774208

 

WORDS IN CAPS ADDED BY GUS LEONISKY.

 

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