US trade war with EU

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The recently announced punitive tariffs by the US President Donald Trump on imports of steel and other goods and products is primarily aimed, no doubt, at countries of the European Union, including Great Britain. Also the, though prior to Trump's watch, issues with Volkswagen and other German automobile manufacturers was the beginning of such a trade war considering that, aside from Japanese cars German ones are the most sold ones in the country.

What the POTUS does not seem to realize, and that is the very problem with Donald Trump in that he does not seem to realize much of what the real political world is like, is that a trade war has also other protagonists and also that the world stock markets might not like this idea. He seems to forget that running a country is different to running a company. Not that he has been very successful with many of them either.

Unlike his assertion that trade wars are good they are the opposite and the US may be shooting itself in the foot with such actions. It is quite easy for European and other countries to boycott American products in retaliation.

The best answer to the US' trade war against, primarily, the EU should be to get back together with the Russian Federation and literally give the US the middle finger, for the EU sanctions against Russia were, more or less, imposed on the EU by America. There are two sides who can play a game such as this.

Yes, the US has military stationed in EU countries but even Donald Trump would not be that stupid to use them should the EU retaliate in the trade ware department. Just saying.

© 2018

Europe drowning in plastic waste

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Now that China has closed its doors, from January 1, 2018, to (plastic) waste for recycling from Europe (and elsewhere) the countries of Europe are beginning to drown in (plastic) waste and many are now looking for other developing countries, such as Vietnam, to take this waste for recycling, Britain among them.

Instead of actually reducing waste, especially, though not restricted to, plastic waste, and secondly building our own facilities for recycling the countries are, yet again, looking for places with lower environmental standards to where to dump the waste rather than doing the other.

Obviously, considering the high environmental legislations in the home countries it would be too expensive for the capitalists to do it at home and hence other countries, with lower and fewer environmental laws and legilations have to be found where our waste can poison the unsuspecting workers. Couldn't possibly have those recycling plants properly operated in our own countries now, could we. But that is exactly what we should be doing.

Before even thinking about recycling we should, properly, work on reducing the amount of waste, plastic and otherwise, that we generate and that is where all, but for starters industry and legislators, come in.

Now that China declines to take any more of our garbage we should be doing our own recycling, after reducing as much as we can, of our waste and by doing so lead the way and we would also create jobs.

When, however, we talk about recycling then recycling it really should be rather than, as in the case of most glass recyclables, downcyling said glass into a road aggregate akin to sand. That is not recycling.

As far as single-use plastic is concerned this needs to be eliminated once and for all as it cannot, properly, be recycled, at least not into decent objects and while there is nothing, per se, wrong with good solid, for lack of a better word, plastic that will and can be in use for a long time, we should phase out plastic more and more over time till we are almost, once again, free of the stuff.

As far as other waste, including and especially E-waste is concerned, industry has to come into play and design to once again – yes, we were there once already – to make products that actually last not just for a year or three but for decades and more. Oh, yes, sorry, I forgot that that does not give huge profits to the capitalist shareholders.

Instead of solving the problem at home our respective governments are looking for other developing – we used to call those Third World – countries which we can contaminate, and their unsuspecting residents, with our waste, by having them recycle the stuff that we don't want to recycle at home, in bad conditions. The new colonialism.

We should be doing the recycling – after looking at all the other options of reuse and so on prior to recycling – at home, in good conditions for the workers and the environment, as dictated by law. This would also create jobs, from collecting, to sorting, to the actual recycling. But, alas, that cannot be as that would be expensive.

© 2018

European countries fall to Nazism

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

One European country after the other, especially EU member states, fall back towards fascism and Nazism. A worrying, but to some extent understandable, trend. Understandable because of the forced migration and the forced acceptance of migrants.

A while back more or less far left parties entered parliament in Poland and right-wing parties have been in power for a number of years already in Hungary. The two countries that make up the former Czechoslovakia also have far-right parties in parliament or in control.

In Germany in the 2017 election the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), a right-wing party has entered parliament and is, to some extent, “responsible” for the problems, still in December 2017, of a government proper being formed. The funny thing – though not of the hilarious kind – is that most who voted for the AfD were working class who, apparently, did not read the party's manifesto.

Now, in December 2017, in Austria we have seen a far-right party actually becoming the coalition partner of another conservative right-wing party, taking, in fact the three major posts in government, including the interior ministry.

In countries that were once part of the so-called Warsaw Pact the worrying trend is that those more or less openly fascist parties are singing from a 1930s hymn sheet, including the song about putting Gypsies into labor camps or, as in Bulgaria, talking openly, at least some politicians do, about euthanazing Gypsies.

In Poland at the end of November 2017 thousands of “nationalists” called openly for Jews to leave the country, a fact that was reported in some of the western media. What they may have suggested that they might like to do to the Gypsies in Poland was not mentioned and I dare not even ask nor think about it. I am sure than we can all imagine what it is they would want to do.

© 2018

US study proves: Euro-Zone close to collapse

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The Euro-Zone is, according to a study by US economists Kevin O’Rourke and Alan Taylor in the recent issue Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 27, Number 3—Summer 2013—Pages 167–192.

The reasoning behind this belief of the two top economists is that the current Euro-Zone is not a uniform currency and economic area. Locational factors and market cycles are marked by fundamental differences and without a synchronized development of the market cycles such large economic area such as the Euro-Zone is unable to function.

The monetary politic in this case faces a dilemma. While the southern states of the EU clamor for lower interest rates there is a definite need to for higher interest rates in central and northern Europe. This, however, is not allowed under the current policies of the European Federal Bank and thus the problems are going to get worse.

Officially inflation is not permitted in the countries worse hit by the crisis and therefore those countries are attempting, via salary reductions, to create a so-called “internal inflation” in the respective national economies.

During the years of economic growth until about 2007 wages grew disproportionally in those southern EU countries aided and abetted by low interest rates from the ECB. Now we are being confronted with a heap of shards which was the Euro.

Kevin O’Rourke and Alan Taylor can foresee the day of the total collapse of the Euro as Brussels is incapable to take the required steps that are necessary for a reform all the way to a partitioning of the Euro-Zone into a northern and a southern one.

The Euro and the EU itself are a failed experiment that the powers-that-be, hellbent on creating a federal Europe as envisioned already by Adolf Hitler, are trying to force on everyone and which they try to keep afloat despite the fact that the boat is filling up rapidly with water, and that with all means possible.

Even the UK government is trying to persuade the people, even though there is supposed to be, at some time, a referendum on whether or not the UK is to stay in the EU, that the European Union is necessary for our economy and that we would have serious problems if we would leave the union.

The truth, however, is that we do not need to be in the EU in order to trade with the EU and furthermore we should concentrate, in Britain, to, first of all, manufacture things at home again and that primarily for the domestic market before even thinking of export.

The most important thing is to cut ourselves loose from imports, whether from China or elsewhere, of goods that could easily (and they used to be) made here and for about the same retail price if the corporations would not be as greedy as they are.

Manufacturing at home, however, could be done by smaller companies who might, if we are lucky, not be as greedy as the current large corporations and they might actually even be prepared, as used to be the case, produce quality products that, when they break, can – perish the thought – be repaired and thus be made to last.

The European Union is not and never was a good idea. Envisaged already by Adolf Hitler under the same title that it took already almost in the beginning, the European Economic Community, it was intended as a fascist takeover of all of Europe and it is now coming to pass with Germany being in the driving seat. They may have lost the war but won the peace, so to speak, and will do their utmost to dominate as of Europe in a United States of Europe.

The Euro is, basically, the USE's “Dollar”, but as the EU is not a union – and that one is rather flawed as well – such as the United States of America, it cannot and will not ever work on its own.

It is time to abandon the experiment of the Euro as well as that of the EU and to return to the way things were, of individual nations trading with each other without some unelected fascist super body interfering. And, after return to normality, it then is time to also abandon the nation state for smaller entities such as tribes so that people can really participate in politics.

© 2013

Independence comes through making things

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Independence, true independence, comes about through making things, growing things and doing things for ourselves (and our community).

This is more than simple self-reliance and self-sufficiency. It is total self-empowerment and brings about independence.

The Mahatma said something along those self-same lines when he was leading his beloved India to home rule.

However, modern India has lost the course and is now making goods – as slaves almost – for the West rather than the way it should be, for its own people and is, once again, importing some consumer goods from elsewhere. But I digressed.

None of us are truly free and independent, as individuals and as people, if we do not have the chances and possibilities to make things, to grow things and to do things for ourselves (our community). We are but wage slaves and slaves to the system and to governments which lord it over us.

Often those that lord it over us are not even our own governments but unelected entities in foreign lands, as in the case of the European Union, the rising fascist European superstate, where unelected bureaucrats, who are accountable to no one, decide what we may or may not do, what crops we may or may not plant, etc.

Not that the USA and its people are any better off than those in Britain or elsewhere in the European Union when it comes to government meddling in what people are permitted to do for themselves.

The people can never be free and independent unless they can produce and grow what they want and to do things for themselves and able to, thus, participate in the market and run their own lives. Production must be local and primarily for the local community first and foremost and carried out by local people.

Even, or especially, in the majority the so-called free and democratic countries, and especially in Britain and the EU and in the USA, countries that claim to be the bulwark of freedom and democracy, people are not permitted to be free and independent as they need to be and should be.

While you may be able to make and produce a variety of things when it comes to selling craftspeople, etc., find restrictions and the need for government permits and licenses (and they cost money) and this even more so for smallholders and other growers. In addition to the the latter, now, since EU regulations put in place in late Spring 2013, can also no longer grow, and that even applies to home growers who only grow produce for home consumption, what they want and must use ONLY EU approved seeds and plant materials. Old varieties are are illegal to use and possess and the saving of seeds and the exchange between friends even also falls foul of those regulations. Tell me again how free we are!?!

this means that, to all intents and purposes, government controls what we may do, make and produce, grow and sell and even eat, and as regards to doing things for ourselves.

It is basically, in most EU countries at least, illegal to even consider using force to protect yourself, your family and your property and especially if you consider using any kind of weapon for this purpose. If you, for instance, are threatened by an assailant with a knife and you beat him with a stick (which you may have carried for defensive purposes) it will be you who ends up in court charged with a crime and not the punk you attacked you.

But, relying, as you are told to do, on the police to come to your aid – after he knifed you – is also not going to work as it is no longer officially, though the people were not told, the task of the police to protect (and serve) the public but to enforce the laws laid down (by the powers-that-be). Sorry, but would you ming mentioning again how free we are?

We need to change the system, not the government (in fact, the latter needs to be abolished) if we ever, as people, want to be free and independent and not slaves.

© 2013

Europe is committed to the criminalization of old varieties of seeds

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Despite the fact that they stated when everyone went up in arms against this new proposal that home growers would be, for the time being, exempt from this legislation about seed registration it would appear now that the recent confirmation by the European Court of Justice has changed the game again and the compulsory registration of all seeds in the Official catalog will also apply in that case.

A new law, called the “Plant reproductive materials law”, introduced by the European Commission, a body that has not been elected by anyone, remember, now makes it illegal to “grow, reproduce or trade” any seed of vegetables was not "tested, approved and accepted" by the new European “EU Plant Variety Agency”, and that includes giving seeds away for free or swapping.

The aims of the “Plant reproductive materials law” is to make all plants and seeds the virtual responsibility of government and only the real big companies can afford the thousands of Euro required to register each and every plant and varieties thereof.

Home gardeners, allotment holders and such like, who grow their own plants from seeds not listed would be considered criminals under the law. In fact, even collecting seeds from your own plants and using them is, under the legislation, as it stands, a crime.

According to Ben Gabel, the director of natural seed that grows heirloom vegetables, this legislation will put an end immediately to the professional development of vegetable varieties for home gardeners, organic farmers, and the small market gardeners. Home gardeners have really different needs – for example they are gardening by hand, do not have computers and are unable or unwilling to use chemical sprays. There is no way to save the varieties suitable for home use because they do not meet the strict criteria of the “EU Plant Variety Agency”, which deals only with the approval of the type of seed used by industrial farmers.

Virtually all plants, vegetables, seeds and gardeners will be finally registered by the governments and the European Union.

Pursuant to paragraph IV of the proposed EU law on the registration of varieties in national registries and the Union: Varieties in order to make them available on the market throughout the Union, will be included in a register or in the Union a national registry through a process of direct application by the EU Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO).

Gardeners and growers will also have to pay a registration fee to the EU bureaucracy to record their seeds, and those fees are in the thousands of Euro per individual variety.

According to the proposed legislation, the competent authorities and the CPVO would levy a fee for the processing applications, formal and technical examination, including audits, variety denomination and maintenance of varieties for each year for the duration of the recording. And the only ones that can afford such exorbitant costs are the big agri-businesses who have been lobbying the EU hard (cash in hand), such as Monsanto, Astra-Zeneca, Bayer, DuPont and a few others.

A bureaucracy gone crazy (but then again, nothing new here as far as the EU is concerned)

Everything that this new law does is to create a ton of civil servants in the EU paid to move mountains of paper all day while removing a supply of seeds to home gardeners and interfering with the rights of farmers to grow what they want.

It is also very annoying they have arrogated unto themselves the power to regulate and give permission in the future for all species of plants – not just agricultural plants, but grasses, turf, flowers, all – without anyone having a say or vote in this.

This idea is basically the "final solution" of Monsanto, DuPont and other seed corporations who have long admitted that their goal is to completely dominate all the seeds and crops in the world. By criminalizing the private cultivation of vegetables – transforming gardeners criminals – the EU bureaucrats can finally give full control of the food supply to those powerful corporations, who will also apply intellectual property to each and every individual seed variety thus making the retention and reuse of seeds, should they even be capable of reproduction, a crime. Food control is the name of the game.

Most heirloom seeds will become criminal

Most heirloom seeds, if not indeed all, will become criminal and that includes the possession of them.

This is to say that to save seeds from one generation to replant the following year – based on a sustainable way of doing things – is going to become a criminal act. In addition this law effectively kills off the use of seeds for home gardens in the EU.

This is of course the ultimate desire of all governments. Namely to criminalize any action of autonomy and make people completely dependent on corporate monopolies to survive.

And this is true in the EU as much as in the US. That's what governments do. They take control, one sector at a time, year after year, until people end up living as slaves in a global dictatorship. We are well on the way to this unless people will take action against this and I doubt that a change in government, in a ruling party, will make any difference there. If voting would change anything they would have made it illegal by now.

Seeds are on the verge of becoming a contraband product. Anyone grow their own food is about to be targeted as a criminal. World governments, conspiring with corporations like Monsanto, do not want a person to be able to grow their own food.

© 2013

The true aims of the European Union

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The outfit that today is called the European Union has had a few names before this one and started right after World War Two with some – shall we call them by their true color – fascist from France and Germany with the aim to create a European superstate controlled by powers in those two countries.

There is also in the minds of many people a confusion as to the various bodies that are linked to the EU, such as the Council of Europe (the real power house behind the scenes, to a degree), the European Parliament (a farce), the European Commission (the illegal legislature), which are always claimed, by those trying to keep the people in the dark as to the reality of things, as being entirely separate, which they are not.

The Council of Europe, the European Commission, and the EU and the European Parliament, are not separate entities despite of the EU's claim to the contrary.

The Council is as much an integral part of the EU as is the Commission even though the Council has more countries as members than does the EU.

As far as the Commission is concerned they are an unelected body who make the laws and thus are illegal. A legislature that is unelected is but a dictatorship and that is exactly what this outfit, which runs the EU, is.

Its true aims are the destruction of the nation states and the creation of a European state (forget the federal model) that is run from wherever the HQ is based) with a Europe-wise police and a European Army.

Being in the pay of big business in the same way as the NSDAP of Adolf Hitler was the EU and the Commission do the bidding of their masters, such as in the seed regulation affair which will make it illegal – in fact it has done so – to collect and share, even for free, any seeds, and this also applies to hobby gardeners, for they just have made a U-turn in secret, from any plant without the license of the EU to do so. This could spell the very end of out old varieties of flowers and especially vegetables and trees.

And who were the lobbying parties whose bidding the EU and the Commission are doing in this respect? The answer is obvious. The usual suspects, namely Monsanto, AstraZeneca, Bayer and a couple of others.

Despite the fact that the EU law makers in the Commission are unelected the laws are binding and enforceable, as is the seed law. How they are going to enforce the latter is another question but they will try.

This law follows hot on the heels of the so-called Monsanto Protection Act that is in one the legislation that was not so long ago passed in both the Houses of the US government.

The aims of the EU are becoming more self-evident almost daily and in this seed law alone we see that they are very much aiming to control the kind of food that people can have, even as far as growing their own is concerned. Food control is the ultimate people control and the wheels seem to be put very much in motion for that.

Someone somewhere some time ago coined the phrase “Germany lost the war but won the peace” and this is becoming very evident in the power that Germany (together with France) exerts over the rest of the European Union, and even outside of it through the Council.

The power lies in Berlin (and Paris), the rest are just pawns in the game, and any pretense of democracy is just that, a pretense, a smokescreen. The European Union is about as democratic as Stalin's USSR; probably less so even.

As a free trading block the EEC may have been a good idea but then again a free trading block alone never was the idea. It has always been to create a federal Europe, by hook or by crook. Thus the European Union is not good for any of the countries that are current members, bar the powerhouses of Germany and France, but also there not for the people, just the elite.

1984 is a cautionary tale and not policy guidance and still, it would appear, that the EU is trying to implement it, but by extreme stealth and by subversion. The aim is a European fascist superstate by any means possible.

© 2013

EU food control coming?

Crop diversity under threat

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The European Union minions in Brussels/Strasbourg are working on controlling what foods we can eat. No, I am not jesting.

They are aiming to ban, as in outlaw, all heirloom and non-hybrid seeds, even for personal garden use, as well as the growing of such plants, the retention of their seeds (and seeds also from hybrid seeds for future use) and the taking and passing on of cuttings.

This way they will regulate what kinds of vegetables we can buy and even grow ourselves, and those will all have to be approved hybrid varieties and thus all only and rare vegetables will no longer have a chance.

As the collection and keeping of seeds and passing on from one gardener to another will also be punishable by law it means that we will have to – annually – go to authorized seeds merchants and buy our seeds for our garden.

Agribusiness, especially the big plant breeders, such as Monsanto, have been lobbying the EU commissioners for the last five plus years to create law that will do this and thus make it impossible for the people to avoid buying seeds from that company and others.

They have been working out, one can but guess, that people were voting with their feet and decided to grow their own food and especially here gardeners were aiming to use non-hybrid seeds and also to keep seeds from the harvests back for future use and also to share with other gardeners.

Therefore the EU commissioners have been lobbied hard to outlaw this practice and if the revised proposed seed regulation becomes EU law then we will all be forced to, if we wish to grow our own food, to grow only what they permit and keeping seeds back from the harvest for use next year will be punishable by this law.

How they are going to enforce this is, obviously, a question but if heirloom varieties are no longer available and organic seeds – for it would appear that they also will fall foul of this proposed legislation – then policing will be hardly necessary anyway.

This proposed legislation from Brussels proves yet again that the European Union is far from being a good thing for the people of Europe; the opposite rather, and the sooner it is put to death the better.

While this issue is all over the news in Germany and some other continental EU countries not a single word is mentioned of this issue in the media in the UK or Eire.

Time for a serious change to our system is needed...

© 2013

Hungary has fallen!

Democracy in Hungary is dead and Fascism rules

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

As of April 2013, Hungary is no longer a democracy and if we all don't act now, things are about to get a lot worse, and not just in Hungary, of that I am sure. If no action from the European Union is being taken now Hungary could well become become another Third Reich!

Blink and you've missed it: Hungary is no longer a democracy.

Hungary's President János Áder has, in the beginning of April 2013, signed away the rights of all that was left of Hungary's opposition parties after years of gutting legislative powers, crippling the free press, and eliminating all mention of a "republic" in the country's constitution. To all intents and purposes Hungary has become the first official fascist state – I do say first – in the European Union and chances are that more could follow if the people do not wake up.

If this trend doesn't sound familiar, here's something to jog your memory: along with criminalization of the homeless and attacks on women and the LGBT community, Hungary's seen a horrific spike in state-sanctioned anti-Gypsyism (it was, once again, the Gypsies they can for first), antisemitism and racism, including the decoration of three men known for their connection to the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party.

We have seen the steps Áder's taken before. We know these signs. And while the European Union continues to stay silent, the situation for women, ethnic minorities and religious groups in Hungary becomes deadlier by the second. And if the world remains silent they commit the same acts of omission as they did when they allowed Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP come to power in Germany in the 1930s.

The poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller – here in the official form from the Martin-Niemöller-Foundation – “First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.” should be a good reminder to everyone as to what happens if we remain silent.

What Pastor Niemöller forgot to mention, however, is that before the Jews they came for the Gypsy, whether the other group wants that not to be the truth or not, and that was at about the same time when they came for communists and socialists.

While Article VII of the EU Treaty demands that the members of the EU act intervene to prevent any state from being robbed of its democratic freedoms, it would appear that they intend to remain silent and excuse their inaction with the excuse that they cannot interfere in the internal affairs of another member state. The same statement they used when Italy began putting Roma-Gypsies in concentration camps in all but name some years back.

We cannot afford to sit by while another European country represses state protections, targets minorities, and spreads antisemitism while eliminating free speech. Don't let Hungary go the way of Nazi Germany. We must demand that the EU act on Article VII to ensure Hungarians' rights and freedoms!

However, I am not about to hold my breath that they will regardless of how many people will join any petition to that effect that may be circulating. It may be time for the people to take up arms (again) against fascist tyranny.

Signs of fascism rising in the EU member states have been on the horizon for years, especially in the countries and areas that were once part of the Warsaw Pact, and in all cases they come first for the Gypsies again. Watch for the signs and you will know where it is going to happen next. Be prepared to act. The democratic process does no longer seem to work as the powers-that-be in the EU do not appear to be interested. It is down to the people.

© 2013

EU just cutting its nose off in-spite its face

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The EU has decided to give Cyprus a bank bailout package that will penalize banks' customers via a levy that everyone who has any money in a Cypriot bank is forced to pay and a run has begun on Cypriot banks with people withdrawing their money.

This savings tax, as it is being referred to, is automatically deducted from account holder's accounts without them having any say in the matter. This is the state stealing people's money by order of the European Union.

The fear is now that this could set a precedence for the banks in other countries such as Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal and it could just happen that investors are going to withdraw deposits from banks in those countries.

Chances are that such actions, should they happen could bring the Euro to its knees and with it, more than likely, the EU altogether.

Banks, apparently, will be closed until the moneys have been withdrawn to prevent people taking their money out of the banks and thus foiling the plot. Initially it was said that this closure of banks would be just until Tuesday, March 19, but this has now been extended until Thursday, March 21.

No wonder the powers-that-be want everyone too no longer use cash and, in the UK, any cash transaction above a certain amount, presently one thousand pound, will immediately be informed to the police. So, if you go into a store to buy an expensive PC or a plasma TV or a car in a car show room and come in with the money in cash the store will immediately call the police who will then come and ask a lot of questions.

© 2013

Greece and Spain are just the beginning

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Greece and Spain are just the beginning, the rest of the EU is going to follow sooner or later, including Germany

Anyone who thinks that the Euro crisis and the crisis in the European Union is going to stop with Greece and Spain better have a contingency plan and a good one at that.

All the austerity measures are not going to help one single bit and in the end they people will revolt and this will, by creeping incrementalism, affect the entire Euro zone.

The system is broken and no amount of austerity and tinkering around with it will fix it. Rather the opposite is the case. All the tinkering and the austerity measures forced upon the people of the countries concerned will, in the end, lead to revolts that will have to either be suppressed by force or will lead to the break up of this so-called Union.

When it was but a free trade area, called the European Economic Community things were fine and good and if it has remained as that then there would be no problems as we have them now.

However, the Germans and the French, ever since the very beginning, were looking to create a Greater Europe, which has always been the aim of the German imperialists (and those of the French) and this was the beginning of the undoing.

While there may be many of the governments of the EU member states that rather wish to create such a Federal Europe, not realizing that the ones who will be in control will be the Germans and, to some degree, the French, with all others playing second or even third fiddle, a great majority of the people in many of the member states want nothing more than to get out of the Euro and out of the EU. But, much like in the UK, they will not be given the free choice of a yes or no vote.

When we see the US administration wading in to the debate, in the UK, as to a referendum on maybe leaving the European Union and Obama and his aides stating that, on no account can that be accepted, we can also see that there is a much greater agenda there as to the EU than what we can see on the surface.

If the UK, or any other EU member state, would get involved in such a manner in the internal affairs of the US they would, and rightly so, be given short shrift by the American authorities but, it would appear, the US administration seems to believe that it has a right to dictate to those of us in Europe.

Unless a miracle happens, and many of us don't really want that to happen, here and in other countries, the Euro Zone and the EU are going to be history in the not so distant future and good riddance to both.

The EU is not the greatest thing that has ever happened to Europe but the opposite rather and the sooner everyone would realize that the better.

© 2013

Jobbik – First they came for the Gypsy and now they also are coming for the Jew

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Jobbik, the more-or-less legal Nazi militia and party in Hungary, an EU member state, is now aiming, after having the Romani People made their first target, also for the Jewish population of the country (and elsewhere).

In the beginning, it would appear, the Jews took very little notice of the antics of the Jobbik group, seeing that their target were the Gypsy People and not the Jewish community. They should have known better.

The adage of “first they did come for... and I did not speak out”, etc. should have been a well-known factor and it was obvious that those people, whose aim is to create a Hungary for Hungarians and other ethnicities have no place in that scheme.

The interesting, almost laughable, part is that Hungarians are, in the main, a mixed groups of people anyway considering the fact that once they were part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire and thus most Hungarians not pure Magyars.

The same, in fact, is also true for the Romani People and anyone claiming to be pure Romani better checks once again. However, that is not the issue here.

It will be obvious that Jobbik's targets will also include ethnic Romanians on the Hungarian territory sooner or later and they might also go as far as wishing to take the areas of Transylvania and such “back into the Hungarian realm, as that area has a large population of Hungarians and was once part of the empire. It would not surprise me.

How it is possible for such racist fascist groupings to exist and operate in EU member states where, supposedly, beats me and the EU is not just failing the Romani People in its midst; it is failing all ethnic minorities.

Romani settlements and villages have been attacked, in Hungary, by Jobbik and its thugs and with local and state police looking on and doing absolutely nothing except, in a couple of cases, arresting Gypsies who decided to defend themselves against the fascist thugs.

It would appear that, when it comes to the Romani, the Gypsy, then the EU laws and conventions are not worth the paper that they are written upon and fascist thugs like Jobbik et al, and not just in Hungary, can do as they like.

There could be another explanation to this inaction by the authorities, whether in Budapest or in Brussels, and that is that those groups of fascist thugs are being used as a tool to enact etnic cleansing by proxy.

I rest my case and suggest, though, that the Rom and the Jew get together in this matter in order to defeat this menace...

© 2012

Austerity bites hard in Europe

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

In many member states of European Union (and Euro) land austerity measures are biting and are hitting the poorest hardest.

While dumpster diving and the Freegan lifestyle is a good green option in many cities of the European Union all kinds of people are no forced to check the dumpsters outside the back of stores for food (and other items).

No one, bar Freegans, some other greens, and some of the welfare recipients, would have, until recently, thought about checking through the dumpsters outside stores for still edible foods for their dinner but it now is becoming a very common sight.

In the UK, on the other hand, with many store dumpsters, it is not a very good option as many stores are pouring bleach over the food that gets thrown into the dumpsters to prevent people from taking it.

Much of that food that stores throw out nightly is still perfectly safe to eat but they rather destroy it so that the poor, and those who wish to help reduce the waste of food, cannot make use of it. They claim that is is being done in order to prevent anyone picking up food that may be off and, more importantly, then turn round and try to sue the company.

The truth, however, is that they do not want to enable people who cannot even afford to buy their food to have it for free. It is greed; pure and simple, and I am sure that we could also find some other, stronger, words for that.

However, as said, in mainland Europe people are now scavenging in dumpsters of food stores (and stores in general) for anything usable out of necessity as the austerity measures of the governments are biting very hard indeed.

We have not seen this, in most countries of the European Union, especially not the old founding countries, ever since the end of the Second World War, and it falls, definitely, under the disgraceful category.

The governments have, in the good times, squandered money left, right and center, and many are involved in foreign conflicts where they have no business in being, and invested in ponzi schemes in often foreign banks, such as local governments in the UK, which then collapsed and they were left holding the baby. Now it is the poor that have to carry the can for the incompetence of their actions.

We need a new system, not a new government.

© 2012

Time is quickly running out for the global financial system

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Are we rapidly approaching a moment of reckoning for the global financial system? All the signs are the we are, but I add the probably bit. Like in Carslberg being the best lager, probably. It's Danish, you know. I am not.

August is likely to be a relatively slow month, as most of Europe is on vacation, and I mean literally. Most of the EU members states have a month of vacation with factories closing down and all that.

However after that we will be moving into a "danger zone" where just about anything could happen. Historically, a financial crisis has been more likely to happen in the autumn than during any other time, and this autumn is shaping up to be somewhat extraordinary.

Much of the focus of the financial world is on whether or not the Euro is going to break up, but even if the authorities in Europe are able to keep the Euro together we are still facing massive problems.

Countries such as Greece and Spain are already experiencing depression-like conditions, and much of the rest of the globe is sliding into recession. Unemployment has already risen to record levels in some parts of Europe, major banks all over Europe are teetering on the brink of insolvency, and the flow of credit is freezing up all over the planet. If things take a really bad turn, this crisis could become much worse than the financial crisis of 2008 very quickly.

The UK, despite what the government keeps telling us all, is in a double-dip recession and negative growth, people, means not just no growth but actually a shrinking of the economy. Let's get that understood once and for all. The terms is but spin by the government.

Let me put it like this. I am no economist and don't claim to be one but I can see the writing on the wall and unless the Euro zone countries really do something then the Euro is going to be history, and this could, actually, be a good thing. At least in the long run.

The idea of the Euro as a single European currency was a problem from the start. It can only function in a federal Europe and that is a bad idea for starters. However, let us remember that in the Europe before borders a common currency did exist and trade in the days of the Hanse was conducted by its means. It was gold and silver coins, all had the same value, as they all had the same weight, and all were acceptable by any trader across Europe, as it then was, regardless of the portrait or whatever that was on the face of the coin.

That Europe of old (and the Hanse traded much further than today's EU) was not one of national borders either. There were no passports and no border controls, etc. Despite the fact that there were different countries no one really cared. And it all worked well, bar the trade wars and piracy.

However, the idea of a federal Europe is not going to work, especially not as long as the organs of this organization are no elected entity and their members and officers are accountable to no one.

Forcing sovereign states into any kind of allegiance, especially one that the citizens of those states are not happy with, can only be enforced by some kind of coercion, by some kind of force, and with the EU bodies making comments that Germany can not continue to object to not bailing out the Greek and other economies and that, in fact, they will have to pay, will not go down well with the people.

Hence it is but a matter of time before the Euro and the -zone will disintegrate and we will, as a matter of course, see the old currencies coming back. This could be a good thing in the long run but definitely could cause lots of problems in the short term.

The global financial system is extremely complex and there are so many thousands of moving parts that it is always difficult to predict anything precisely as to the when. In fact, history is littered with economists that have ended up looking rather foolish by putting a particular date on a prediction, and, as I have said, I am no economist and am not claiming to be one. But we could be starting to see storm clouds gather for this autumn.

According to recent reports from Reuters September could be the decisive month as far as the Euro and the -zone is concerned for in that very month a German court makes a ruling that could neuter the new Euro zone rescue fund, the anti-bailout Dutch vote in elections just as Greece tries to renegotiate its financial lifeline, and decisions need to be made on whether taxpayers suffer huge losses on state loans to Athens. On top of that, the Euro zone has to figure out how to help its next wobbling dominoes, Spain and Italy – or what do if one or both were to topple.

The way things look at the moment, but they have looked iffy for the EU and associated issues before, things could go belly up. But, and that's why I said “they have looked iffy before”, we must not forget the the European Union bodies have a tendency to tell member states to have their people vote in the way that they, the powers that be in Brussels, decree. We saw that when the Irish rejected the Lisbon treaty and the government in Dublin was told to continue holding referendums until the Irish would vote yes. Remember, this is democracy a la Brussels.

© 2012

Credit rating agency downgrades nine Euro-zone countries

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

London,UK, January 2012 : Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's has downgraded the credit ratings of nine Euro-zone countries, stripping France and Austria of their coveted triple-A status. The status of EU paymaster Germany, however, remains untouched. This is a definite a Black Friday the 13th for the troubled single currency area.

S&P has cut the ratings of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus by two notches and the standings of France, Austria, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia by one notch each.

Greece already, if I am not mistaken, has a credit rating of “junk”and are things really not looking well for the Euro now. One can but wonder whether it is not time to take the patient off life-support and allow him to die peacefully.

In another potentially and possibly more ominous setback even the negotiations on a debt swap by private creditors seen as crucial to avert a Greek default that would rock Europe and the world economy broke up without agreement in Athens, although officials said more talks are likely next week.

The truth is that if Greece cannot persuade banks and insurers to accept voluntary losses on their bond holdings, a second international rescue package for the euro zone's most heavily indebted state will unravel, raising the prospect of bankruptcy in late March, when it has to redeem 14.4 billion euros in maturing debt.

The move by S&P has put highly indebted Italy on the same BBB+ level as Kazakhstan and pushes Portugal into junk status.

The credit rating agency has put 14 Euro-zone states on negative outlook for a possible further downgrade, including France, Austria, and still triple-A-rated Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Germany was the only Euro-country to emerge totally unscathed with its triple-A rating and a stable outlook.

The French finance minister downplayed the downgrade of Europe's second-biggest economy from AAA to AA+ for the first time since 1975 saying that it was far from a catastrophe and claiming that it is an excellent rating.

It would appear that it is business as usual in the make-believe department all over the Euro-zone and no one has the guts too admit that the single currency is in more than serious trouble.

But then, make-believe at this very time the favorite past-time of the governments as they are trying to have the people believe that everything is fine and rosy and that everything is going to be back to normal in a jiffy.

As I keep saying, I have bad news. It is not going to be all well in the end very soon. Far from it and the sooner people – the governments know and are in denial – realize it the better.

© 2012

The aims of the European Council

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The main aim of the Council of Europe, or European Council, the body that, very much behind the scenes, controls the European Union, is the total destruction of all European nations states.

Not only do they intend to destroy national identities for the sake of a united Europe; they want to create a Europe that no longer has separate national identities.

The EU passport was the beginning, though still issues by the individual member states. However, in one design and one color of cover. No longer the green German passport, the blue this, and the red that; one color of cover.

The aim is to have a total European state; not even a United States of Europe, but Europe, period, with all being brainwashed to be Europeans and no longer English or British, German, Dutch, French, etc.

Adolphine Merkel and Marshall Sarkozy are on the way to achieving just that, with the Germans being in the driving seat although, theoretically, the idea for a united Europe comes from the French. But then, Napoleon's ideas never went away either, I guess.

Germany has always been aiming to create a united Europe that would be run by them, together, maybe, with the French, and they are about to get their wish if others are not prepared to stop this.

While fascist Germany lost the way the supposed free democratic Germany is on the way of winning the peace and getting Hitler's wish of ruling Europe, from nearly the Urals to the Atlantic, unless others who love freedom and the rights of individual national states to exist put a stop top this.

The greatest problem is that the industrial people in the EU do not have much power to this and too many of the governments and their politicians are way too stupid and think of their own pockets rather than the good of their countries and people.

The best things that we can hope for is that some countries jump off the bandwagon and that the EU falls apart and with it, maybe, the EU on its own.

© 2011

European Commission to tackle eco impact of consumerism

The European Union executive is to tackle eco impact of consumerism

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The European Commission, the European Union's executive body, is going to launch a raft of proposals to reduce and curb the environmental impact of consumerism in the Union by supporting eco-friendly products and technology.

It would appear that they have nothing else to do. Then again, why should they worry about human rights violations in one of the EU founder nations, namely Italy, as that violation is ONLY against the rights of dirty Gypsies who no one wants anyway.

The plan comes as the European Union moves to cut energy consumption amid soaring fuel and power prices and as part of its ambitious mid-term goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by one fifth by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.

"This will mainly be targeted at products that use a lot of energy, such as computers, televisions, water heaters and industrial fans," a source at the Commission, the bloc's executive arm, said.

Faced with oil at record highs, and with years of investment needed to reach renewable energy goals, the European Union's main near-term response is to cut energy consumption.

French Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, whose country is EU president, said last week at a meeting of energy ministers in Paris that the bloc had reached a turning point with energy efficiency becoming the "keystone" in EU energy strategy.

The Commission's "action plan on sustainable industrial policy and on sustainable consumption and production" is part of that push.

"There will be proposals on green public procurement, as well as widening the scope of the existing directive on eco-design to help improve the energy efficiency of buildings, and the scope of rules on eco-labeling will be widened," the Commission source said.

Various policies in Europe already promote eco-friendly design, but these are limited to devices that use energy such as dishwashers and air-conditioning units, and do not yet fully cover such things as windows and home insulation.

Many EU local authorities already take account of energy consumption when placing bulk orders for products such as vehicles and office computers, but new common standards are seen as vital to cutting the bloc's energy consumption.

Eco-labeling schemes, which help consumers choose the most efficient products, will be extended to cover goods beyond the existing narrow range, which is mainly focused on electrical appliances.

It is a shame that the Commission cannot have an action plan to tackle Italy's violation of all that is decent as far as the Romani People are concerned.

© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008