NO COMMENTS APART 3 MEANINGS / PEACE- CONSUMPTION upon basics -DENIAL OF COOPERATION/
The European Monetary Crisis: No Exit in EU
Peter Praet, Chief Economist of the European
Central Bank, defended the ECB’s policies at
Levy Institute’s annual Minsky meeting at the Ford Foundation this past week in
New York. In his remarks, he retreaded the EU’s wheels with the same rhetoric of
inflation fighting and fiscal tightening that drove the EU off the road and into
the ditch to begin with. The effect of his pronouncements of EU intentions was
to only further reveal the growing gap between reality and ECB ideology over
their inability to successfully address the euro crisis.
Europe risks
becoming a real lived version of Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit in which its constituent countries are locked into a
dysfunctional currency union for an eternity. Euro entry has been a Faustian
bargain. There is presently no exit clause once joining except exiting the European Union itself. Entry promised membership into a rich club of nations in which
Europe’s southern periphery and former Soviet bloc areas to the east would
converge with Europe’s richest nations. The devil of membership, however, is in
the details. Euro rules preclude a wholesale list of policies historically
demonstrated to develop nations.
In short, the answer to the question of
whether Europe’s periphery is merely in purgatory or eternal damnation rests
with whether Europe is willing to undertake a revision of the rules guiding the
relationships among its constituent members. The European Central Bank
understood the currency union would be complex, but their assumptions regarding
rules that create economic development and stability have proven erroneous and
mitigate against convergence and growth across Europe.
Among the faulty
assumptions is that markets are the best arbiters of risk and worthy
investments. This is enshrined in article 123 of Treaty on the Functioning of
the European Union. At best, the rule was predicated on the idea that past
monetary imprudence (think Zimbabwe or Weimar Germany) of some nations meant
governments can’t be trusted with monetary and fiscal independence. Not every
country, however, is Zimbabwe with a dictator serving several decades, or a
Weimar Germany saddled with inflation generating war reparation payments. By
contrast, nations in the past, from Europe’s richest, to East Asia Tigers, to
the US have used domestic credit creation to fund infrastructure that enabled
wealth creation beyond the costs of expenditure on that
infrastructure.
The ideology and group think resident among central
bankers, however, says “halt, you can still develop infrastructure, but you must
be disciplined by the ‘Father Knows Best’ wisdom of the markets.” This is
highly problematic. First, it suggests there is something intrinsic to markets
that always makes for better decisions than public sector managers. In effect,
we are told that we must pay a fee (de facto tax) to private banks in the form
of the higher prices they charge for credit over what states can as the price
for the private sector’s ‘superior’ capacities of decision making on
investments.
Second, it ignores the evidence from recent decades
revealing that private credit has become remarkably inefficient. Private
finance is supposed to be a service enabling greater growth in the real economy
of production and services. This argument made more sense in the Bretton Woods
era following WW II until the 1970s when economic growth was strong and
financial institutions comprised some 15% of corporate profits in the US. Yet,
since the liberalization of finance from the 1970s, economic growth has
continued to diminish in the West, meanwhile in the most liberalized ‘finance
gone wild’ economies, like the US, finance now comprises some 40% of corporate
profits. The bottom line is that deregulated capital markets in recent decades
have taken an ever-increasing share of our economy, while producing less
economic growth. Finance no longer enables economic growth by providing a
needed service, but instead impose a massive rent seeking tax on the
economy.
Lastly, it ignores the different metrics by which markets and
states measure investment success. Private markets prefer a quick kill, with
profits coming fast and furious. By contrast, states genuinely interested in
development need to make infrastructural investments where the benefits accrue
to the whole economy. Thus, the benefit, or profit, is harder to capture by a
specific interest. Moreover, the time horizon on state investments may be
unacceptably long for private investors.
In short, European Central Bank
assumptions and European Union rules on monetary have locked Spain, Italy,
Greece, Portugal, Ireland, the Baltics and former Soviet bloc countries into a
kind of Sartrian “No Exit.” Only a change in the rules that permit historically
successful strategies for development will instead make this current crisis
merely a painful purgatory stage rather than eternal economic damnation as a
cost for being part of a European Union.
Jeffrey
Sommers, Associate professor of political economy in Africology at the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and visiting faculty at the Stockholm School
of Economics in Riga.
The European Stabilization Mechanism, Or How Goldman Sachs Captured Europe
The Goldman Sachs coup that failed in
America has nearly succeeded in Europe—a permanent, irrevocable, unchallengeable
bailout for the banks underwritten by the taxpayers.
In September 2008, Henry Paulson, former CEO of
Goldman Sachs, managed to extort a $700 billion bank bailout from Congress. But
to pull it off, he had to fall on his knees and threaten the collapse of the
entire global financial system and the imposition of martial law; and the
bailout was a one-time affair. Paulson’s plea for a
permanent
bailout fund—the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP—was opposed by
Congress and ultimately rejected.
By December 2011, European Central Bank president
Mario Draghi, former vice president of Goldman Sachs Europe, was able to approve
a
500
billion Euro bailout for European banks without asking anyone’s permission.
And in January 2012, a permanent rescue funding program called the European
Stability Mechanism (ESM) was
passed
in the dead of night with barely even a mention in the press. The ESM
imposes an open-ended debt on EU member governments, putting taxpayers on the
hook for whatever the ESM’s Eurocrat overseers demand.
Read more »Labels: GOVERNANCE
THE OLIGARCHIES ARE PROCEEDING TO IMPLEMENTING THEIR ARISTOCRATIC PLANS,AGAINST DEMOCRACIES
(CLICKING ON THE TITLED LINK WE CAN READ LEMONDE'S ARTICLE reveillez-vous-la-democratie-recule )
CITIZENS CHAIRESTHAI(=BE HAPPY),
IT IS STUDIED AND OBSERVED DURING OUR RESEARCH WORK THAT THE GLOBAL OLIGARCHY AND ITS BASE AT N.Y. CONTINUES TO STRIVE AGAINST CIVIL LIBERTIES ,BECAUSE THEIR REPRESENTATIVES UNDERSTAND THAT THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM WHICH WAS CREATED BY THEM AT THE BEGINNING OF 20TH CENTURY, EITHER CAPITALISTIC OR COMMUNISTIC(ANY FORMS OF DICTATORSHIPS ARE USED AS MEDIUM EQUILIBRIUM PROCESSES ) ,IT IS REVEALED.
THEY ARE AFRAID THAT ALL THE FRAUDS AND FAKE SYNERGIES WILL BE PRESENTED TO THE PUBLIC,AS LATELY IT IS PARTIALLY HAPPENING AND BY THIS THEIR INJUSTICE GOVERNANCE ,TO WHICH ALMOST ALL THE NOMENCLATURE PARTY MEMBERS FOR THE MAJOR GLOBAL NATIONAL PARLIAMENTS ARE BEING INVOLVED ,WILL BE UNCOVERED,WITH THE LEGAL CONSEQUENCES,WHICH WILL FOLLOW.
THE COMMUNISTIC REGIMES WHICH COLLAPSED SOME YEARS AGO,WERE ONE PART OF THE WHOLE SYSTEM'S DESTABILIZATION,DUE TO ITS WEAK POINTS .
NOW THE OTHER PART OF IT ,WITHOUT ITS NATURAL OPPONENT AND BALANCING POLE ,IT IS COLLAPSING TOO.
THOSE POWERS WHICH PREPARED AND ORGANIZED THE FUNCTIONS OF THESE TWO SYSTEMS AS IT IS WRITTEN TO THE ECOUMENICAL ESSAY OF OURS AND NOT ONLY ,DURING 18-19th AD ,ARE TAKING SEVERE AUSTERITY MEASURES IN ORDER TO CONTROL THEIR HUGE INHUMAN MISTAKES.DEMOCRACY AS AN INSTITUTION IT IS ENDANGERED AND COVERED DICTATORSHIP ACTIVITIES, ACTIONS ARE TAKING PLACE ALMOST EVERYWHERE,BUT MAINLY IN EUROPE THE MOTHERLAND OF DEMOCRACY.
THESE ACTIONS CANNOT BE HIDDEN ANY MORE,AS THE PURPOSES OF THE ARISTOCRATIC-OLIGARCHIC CYCLES ARE KNOWN TO THE SOCIETIES.
THE AUSTERE CONTROL OF THE POPULATION BY DIMINISHING THE CITIZENS RIGHTS INSIDE THEIR REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM,WON'T OFFER ANY POSITIVE RESULTS .ON THE CONTRARY PROCEEDING TO THE DIRECT DEMOCRATIC WITH SORTING PROCEDURES IMPLEMENTATION WILL AUGMENT CITIZENS PARTICIPATION SO THAT THE ECONOMIC LIFE WILL TAKE A BREATH AND WILL REBIRTH.
THE BELOW PUBLISHED ARTICLES ARE INDICATING,COMBINED WITH RELEVANT PREVIOUS POSTS,THE MENTIONED HERE POINTS.
WE HAVE ADVISED DURING SEVERAL EUROPEAN SCIENTIFIC SUMMITS ,AT VARIOUS FIELDS,THE NEED FOR THE CREATION OF A COMMON SECURITY AND DEFENCE STRATEGY,INSTEAD ON TAKING ONLY MONOLITHIC ECONOMICAL MEASURES,AGAINST THE WEAK AND POOR.
IT ISN'T ACCEPTABLE THAT THE EUROPEAN CITIZENS DATA ,FOR ANY REASON SHOULD BE SHARED WITH OTHER NATIONS AND STATES DIRECTLY,INSTEAD FROM A BALANCED AND EQUAL TRANSNATIONAL COOPERATION BETWEEN
GOVERNMENTAL SECURITY BODIES,ONLY FOR SPECIAL SENSITIVE CASES,WHICH ARE VOTED BY THE CITIZENS TO BE SO (AS AN EXAMPLE IT MIGHT BE TAKEN THE LATEST TAX AGREEMENT BETWEEN AUSTRIA-HELVETIA WHICH NEEDS THE APPROVAL OF SWISS CITIZENS LOCAL ASSEMBLIES,IN ORDER TO BE EFFECTIVE).
IT IS BELIEVED THAT WE THE EUROPEAN CITIZENS WE TRUST OUR DATA ,FOR BEING HANDLED BY OUR SECURITY INSTITUTIONS,BUT NOT BY THE FOREIGNERS.
THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION AND SUPPORT
A.C.
Passenger data-sharing deal to be approved
MEPs to back controversial deal with the US.
The European Parliament is expected to approve next week a controversial agreement with the United States on the transfer of airline passengers' data.The agreement will be put to a vote of the plenary on 19 April, after a debate that morning.
A vote in the Parliament's committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs on 27 March suggested that of the five major political groups, only the Liberals and the Greens are firm in their opposition to the deal. The centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group, the second-largest in Parliament, is divided, while the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), the Parliament's largest, and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) are in favour. The committee voted 31 to 23 in favour of the passenger name record (PNR) agreement, with one abstention.
Serious crimes
The PNR agreement gives the US authorities access to names, addresses, credit card numbers and similar information from European airline passengers. Under the new agreement, which is to replace a deal from 2007 that is currently in provisional application, this information can be used only in investigations of terrorist or other serious crimes. The agreement provides a range of safeguards, for example the requirement to render the data anonymous after six months.
The Obama administration has made it clear that it is not prepared to re-negotiate the agreement. A ‘No' vote by MEPs would therefore mean a return to legal uncertainty, since the US would still demand PNR from airlines, and airlines would feel compelled to oblige.
Many MEPs appeared convinced by the argument put forward by Cecilia Malmström, the European commissioner for home affairs, that the new agreement is the best available option.
By Toby Vogel
SOURCE
http://www.europeanvoice.com
Britain set for sweeping Internet, phone monitoring
Britain is to allow one of its intelligence agencies to monitor all phone calls, texts, emails and online activities in the country to help tackle crime and militant attacks, the Interior Ministry said on Sunday.
"It is vital that police and security services are able to obtain communications data in certain circumstances to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public," a Home Office spokesman said.
The proposed law already has drawn strong criticism, from within the ruling Conservative Party's own ranks, as an invasion of privacy and personal rights.
"What the government hasn't explained is precisely why they intend to eavesdrop on all of us without even going to a judge for a warrant, which is what always used to happen," Member of Parliament David Davis told BBC News.
"It is an unnecessary extension of the ability of the state to snoop on ordinary people," he said.
New legislation is expected to be announced in the legislative agenda-setting speech given by the queen in May.
Currently, British agencies can monitor calls and e-mails of specific individuals who may be under investigation after obtaining ministerial approval, but expanding that to all citizens is certain to enrage civil liberties campaigners.
Internet companies would be required to install hardware which would allow the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), referred to as Britain's electronic 'listening' agency, to gain real-time access to communications data.
The new law would not allow GCHQ to access the content of emails, calls or messages without a warrant, but it would allow it to trace who an individual or group was in contact with, how frequently they communicated and for how long.
The Sunday Times newspaper, which first reported the story, said some details of the proposals were given to members of the Britain's Internet Service Providers' Association last month.
"As set out in the Strategic Defence and Security Review we will legislate as soon as parliamentary time allows to ensure that the use of communications data is compatible with the government's approach to civil liberties," the Home Office spokesman said.
Any proposed legislation changes are likely to face stiff opposition in both houses of the British Parliament.
A similar proposal was considered by the then-ruling Labour party in 2006 but was abandoned in the face of fierce opposition by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, who are junior partners in the ruling coalition.
The proposed legislation could reflect the U.S. Patriot Act, controversially introduced six weeks after September 11 in 2001, to expand the government's authority to monitor the communications activity of its citizens.
(Reporting by Stephen Mangan; Editing by Michael Roddy)
SOURCE
http://www.reuters.com
The Large Families that rule the world
Some people have started realizing that there are large financial groups that dominate the world. Forget the political intrigues, conflicts, revolutions and wars. It is not pure chance. Everything has been planned for a long time.
Some call it “conspiracy theories” or New World Order. Anyway, the key to understanding the current political and economic events is a restricted core of families who have accumulated more wealth and power.
We are speaking of 6, 8 or maybe 12 families who truly dominate the world. Know that it is a mystery difficult to unravel.
We will not be far from the truth by citing Goldman Sachs, Rockefellers, Loebs Kuh and Lehmans in New York, the Rothschilds of Paris and London, the Warburgs of Hamburg, Paris and Lazards Israel Moses Seifs Rome.
Many people have heard of the Bilderberg Group, Illuminati or the Trilateral Commission. But what are the names of the families who run the world and have control of states and international organizations like the UN, NATO or the IMF?
To try to answer this question, we can start with the easiest: inventory, the world’s largest banks, and see who the shareholders are and who make the decisions.
The world’s largest companies are now: Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.Let us now review who their shareholders are.
Bank of America:
State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock, FMR (Fidelity), Paulson, JP Morgan, T. Rowe, Capital World Investors, AXA, Bank of NY, Mellon.
JP Morgan:
State Street Corp., Vanguard Group, FMR, BlackRock, T. Rowe, AXA, Capital World Investor, Capital Research Global
Investor, Northern Trust Corp. and Bank of Mellon.
Citigroup:
State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock, Paulson, FMR, Capital World Investor, JP Morgan, Northern Trust Corporation, Fairhome Capital Mgmt and Bank of NY Mellon.
Wells Fargo:
Berkshire Hathaway, FMR, State Street, Vanguard Group, Capital World Investors, BlackRock, Wellington Mgmt, AXA, T. Rowe and Davis Selected Advisers.
We can see that now there appears to be a nucleus present in all banks:
State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock and FMR (Fidelity). To avoid repeating them, we will now call them the
“big four”
Goldman Sachs:
“The big four,” Wellington, Capital World Investors, AXA, Massachusetts Financial Service and T. Rowe.
Morgan Stanley:
“The big four,” Mitsubishi UFJ, Franklin Resources, AXA, T. Rowe, Bank of NY Mellon e Jennison Associates. Rowe, Bank of NY Mellon and Jennison Associates.
We can just about always verify the names of major shareholders. To go further, we can now try to find out the shareholders of these companies and shareholders of major banks worldwide.
Bank of NY Mellon:
Davis Selected, Massachusetts Financial Services, Capital Research Global Investor, Dodge, Cox, Southeatern Asset Mgmt. and … “The big four.”
State Street Corporation (one of the “big four”):
Massachusetts Financial Services, Capital Research Global Investor, Barrow Hanley, GE, Putnam Investment and … The “big four” (shareholders themselves!).
BlackRock (another of the “big four”):
PNC, Barclays e CIC.
Who is behind the PNC? FMR (Fidelity), BlackRock, State Street, etc.
And behind Barclays? BlackRock
And we could go on for hours, passing by tax havens in the Cayman Islands, Monaco or the legal domicile of Shell companies in Liechtenstein. A network where companies are always the same, but never a name of a family.
In short: the eight largest U.S. financial companies (JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, U.S. Bancorp, Bank of New York Mellon and Morgan Stanley) are 100% controlled by ten shareholders and we have four companies always present in all decisions:
BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard and Fidelity.
In addition, the Federal Reserve is comprised of 12 banks, represented by a board of seven people, which comprises
representatives of the “big four,” which in turn are present in all other entities.
In short, the Federal Reserve is controlled by four large private companies: BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard and Fidelity. These companies control U.S. monetary policy (and world) without any control or “democratic” choice. These companies launched and participated in the current worldwide economic crisis and managed to become even more enriched.
To finish, a look at some of the companies controlled by this “big four” group
- Alcoa Inc.
- Altria Group Inc.
- American International Group Inc.
- AT&T Inc.
- Boeing Co.
- Caterpillar Inc.
- Coca-Cola Co.
- DuPont & Co.
- Exxon Mobil Corp.
- General Electric Co.
- General Motors Corporation
- Hewlett-Packard Co.
- Home Depot Inc.
- Honeywell International Inc.
- Intel Corp.
- International Business Machines Corp
- Johnson & Johnson
- JP Morgan Chase & Co.
- McDonald’s Corp.
- Merck & Co. Inc.
- Microsoft Corp.
- 3M Co.
- Pfizer Inc.
- Procter & Gamble Co.
- United Technologies Corp.
- Verizon Communications Inc.
- Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
- Time Warner
- Walt Disney
- Viacom
- Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.,
- CBS Corporation
- NBC Universal
The same “big four” control the vast majority of European companies counted on the stock exchange.
In addition, all these people run the large financial institutions, such as the IMF, the European Central Bank or the World Bank, and were “trained” and remain “employees” of the “big four” that formed them.
The names of the families that control the “big four”, never appear.
Translated from the Portuguese version by:
Lisa Karpova
Pravda.Ru
Labels: CYBERNETICS
Link
THE NATIONS WHICH FORGET THEIR HISTORY,THEY ARE CONDEMNED TO LIVE IT AGAIN
The Balfour Declaration - The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
This is the best that academic political history gets. More than simply the dates and the ‘facts’, Jonathan Schneer is able to give some personality to the characters involved, including the all too human factors of lying, deceit, and manipulation that many political histories miss. The title, given to the letter that carried the name, The Balfour Declaration covers all the actors in the scene from the European empires, the Ottoman empire, the European Zionists, and the Arab politicians of the Middle East. Lord Balfour himself certainly played a large part in the affairs of the world during that epoch, but the declaration itself owes its existence to these many other players and their machinations within the destructive chaos of World War I.
History
The cynicism, manipulation, and backstabbing is clear throughout the history. Before the Arabs joined in hostilities directed at the Turks, Egyptian High Commissioner Henry McMahon stated, “we have to…tempt the Arab people into the right path, detach them form the enemy and bring them on to our side. This on our part is at present largely a matter of words…we must use persuasive terms and abstain from academic haggling over conditions.” In a later comment in the work, Schneer says these “telegrams…inadvertently revealed the hopes, contradictions, tensions, guile, and prejudices now at work in shaping British and Allied wartime policy toward both the Jews and Arabs.”
The history rests on these manipulations and “nebulous” proposals. The British wanted the Arabs on their side; they also wanted control of Palestine and Mesopotamia (Basra, Baghdad, Mosul). The French also wanted a share of the same region (mostly Syria, a largely undefined region at the time), and Britain wanted to limit their influence. The Arabs of course wanted their own governance out from under the Ottoman Turkish rule; they were willing to allow a very limited British and French presence, at the same time knowing they needed their military assistance to get rid of the Turkish military. There were early signs “of the incomprehension with which some important Britons initially pursued two mutually exclusive policies,” from which as is generally the case, no one is satisfied.
The Jewish people were divided significantly between “assimilationists” - those thinking that assimilation and remaining as a Britain who is a Jew as compared to a Jew who happens to be in Britain - and the “nationalists” - Zionists who worked for their own national state in Palestine. The British and the French overestimated the power of Jewish political influence and played this misguided feature (as did the Jews) to help in their victory over Germany, the Turks, and for Jewish support at home.
Familiar patterns
Throughout the history the parallels with later and more contemporary ideas concerning Israel and Palestine are obvious - at least for those familiar with the more contemporary scene.
The first idea is demographics, always a concern for the Jewish population in Palestine/Israel. The many comments of later Zionists about needing a majority in the land (which contradicts any claims of a land without people) was understood by the very early Zionists. Already looking to the future, the Earl of Crewe (Asquith’s secretary in India) noted from the British side, “when in the course of time the Jewish colonists in Palestine grow strong enough to cope with the Arab population they may be allowed to take the management of the internal affairs of Palestine…into their own hands.” As Schneer commented, “Weizmann could have asked for little more.”
Another concept carried forward and still emphasized today is that of Jewish superiority over the Arabs in all aspects. Asher Ginzberg noted, “We are used to thinking of the Arabs as primitive men of the desert, as a donkey-like nature that neither sees nor understands what is going on around it,” and ends with a warning, “But that is a great error.” He further warned against the “ ‘repressive cruelty’ employed by Zionists in their dealings with Arabs,” in 1891, well before events of WW I and the current repression in Palestine.
Judaism
Judaism is seen as being divided into halve and then into quarters. As noted above, there were (and are) assimilationist and nationalist Jews, and within the latter, the home of the Zionists, there exists “cultural” Zionists, and “political” Zionists.
In Judaism in general there is the struggle between existing as a diaspora, working with the “liberal tolerant creed of Judaism,” and against “the necessity and eternity of war.” Cultural Judaism (and cultural Zionism) look on Judaism as “an ethos and approach to life,” rather than a dispersed nation state. The political Zionists emphasize the need for military strength within a nation state - this latter viewpoint gained huge currency after World War II and has become one of the main fallback arguments as to the reason why the current state of Israel is acting the way it is.
The nationalist Zionists won the argument, not necessarily by force of logic or emotion, but through the political manipulations within Britain and France, remaining ignorant by design of the promises made between Britain and France and Britain and the Arabs concerning the Middle East and Palestine.
Palestine and the Balfour Declaration
Another factor that comes through by implication and repetition is that the concept of Palestine as a separate Arab state is not a new idea, not an idea that came into being after the nakba of 1948, not an invented idea. It is a concept, a stated reality within the negotiations taking place throughout this period of time.
One of the more disconcerting features of the Balfour Declaration is its apparent acceptance as legal entitlement for the state of Israel. There is no validity to it being considered an internationally legal document supporting Israel. In political reality, it was essentially a statement, a “declaration” that Britain supported and would assist with the establishment of a Jewish home in the region. Even then, it was according to Schneer almost overcome by other then current negotiations with the French and the Arabs in the region, negotiations kept hidden from the Zionists, including the lead protagonist in the story, Chaim Weizmann.
Aftermath
Schneer presents the many arguments concerning the wording and intent of the Declaration, essentially indicating that it was a political statement to gain favour with Jews and pre-empt any such statement of a Jewish homeland coming from the U.S. or Germany. Edwin Montagu argued at the time that “Palestine will become the world’s Ghetto,” perhaps more correct than he anticipated in regards to the Palestinians themselves.
The conclusion reached by Schneer, stated twice,
Because it was unpredictable and characterized by contradictions, deceptions, misinterpretations, and wishful thinking, the lead-up to the Balfour Declaration sowed dragon’s teeth.. It produced a murderous harvest, and we go on harvesting even today.”
His final summation is,
During World War I…Britain and her allies slew the Ottoman dragon in the Middle East. By their policies they sowed dragon’s teeth, Armed men rose up from the ground. They are rising still.
More reading
This is an excellent historical work, but it is dealing with a complex time and a complex issue with many undercurrents and counter currents to the mainstream of history that is usually understood for the First World War, its causes and its consequences.
To gain a strong view of the events before during and after WW I, other reading material will give a broader more detailed outline and make The Balfour Declaration by Schneer easier to follow. To gain a good overview, Barbara Tuchman’s Guns of August (Random House, 1994) provides an excellent history of events before the war, and how the same features of deception and guile, of patriotic beliefs in empire, created a situation only needing a spark to set it off. For the period immediately after the war, when grand sounding rhetoric turned out to be the same old imperialist hype, Margaret MacMillan’s Paris 1919 (Random House 2003) is an excellent work. The events of the war itself are generally well covered by many historical works, although often without the insight that Tuchman or MacMillan provide into the underlying human errors and ignorance that breeds war. For more background on the current situation in Palestine/Israel, one of the best works covering the post Second World War period is Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, (Oneworld Publications, 2007).
These four works combined will give the reader an excellent understanding of the roots of the current situation in Palestine/Israel. They reveal much that is not written in the standard history texts, of the standard military autobiographies written for the grandeur of the winning more powerful side.
Review of Jonathan Schneer's book
BY Jim Miles ,
He is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle. Miles' work is also presented globally through other alternative websites and news.
SOURCE
http://www.globalresearch.ca
Labels: geopolicy
