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The American century was yesterday
"The people can always be made, with or without the right to vote,
to follow the orders of the leaders. It is very simple. One need
nothing to do but to tell the people that they are being attacked, and to reproach the pacifists of their lack of patriotism and claim that they are putting the country in danger. This method works in every country." (Hermann Goering said this when in prison in 1946)
to follow the orders of the leaders. It is very simple. One need
nothing to do but to tell the people that they are being attacked, and to reproach the pacifists of their lack of patriotism and claim that they are putting the country in danger. This method works in every country." (Hermann Goering said this when in prison in 1946)
The American century was yesterday
The Americans had their day - now it's time for Europeans to emancipate themselves, finds Oskar Lafontaine in his new book. A review.
by Roberto J. De Lapuente
[This article posted on 12/2/2022 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/das-amerikanische-jahrhundert-war-gestern.]
Quo vadis, Europe? The continent is made up of vassals of a hegemon whose best days are already numbered. Instead of the European vassals taking advantage of the geopolitical moment and throwing off their U.S. shackles, they remain in the now internalized relationship of subjects. This has self-destructive consequences. For Washington is not willing to accept that the hour has struck for the empire of the 20th century. And so the American hegemon is preparing to embroil Europe in a suicidal economic war with Russia. The goal is to prevent Russia and Europe from coming together to form a significant counterweight to the United States. In his new book "Ami, it's time to go: Plädoyer für die Selbstbehauptung Europas" (Ami, it's time to go: Plea for Europe's self-assertion), Oskar Lafontaine makes the case for an emancipation of Europe.
For months, we have been talking about the "Ukraine war," but the term is no longer useful. This conflict has long since become something much bigger - a war by proxy. And if we are going to be honest about it, we should also come clean about it: The Federal Republic is a vassal of the United States. It - and Europe in its entirety.
As a vassal of the agonizing overseas world power, the continent is running to its doom. There is only one possibility: to free Europe from this dependence. It must realize that the days of the superpower are over. The Americans had their time in Europe. But they should finally be a thing of the past. For our own sake.
Thou shalt have no other world powers beside me
Hence the title of Oskar Lafontaine's new book: "Ami, it's time to go! A Plea for the Self-Assertion of Europe" is its title. The Americans had their time. But today, as a superpower, they seem to have fallen out of time. They are concerned with securing their position of world power. And they are doing so even though they have become a fragile nation that hardly promises anything positive.
As early as 20 years ago, the French historian Emmanuel Todd wrote a swan song for the supposed world policeman. Its title was "World Power USA: An Obituary. In it, he outlined the aggressive foreign policy of the Americans as the last gasp of a superstate that is more dependent on the world than the world is on it.
Lafontaine also cultivates this insight: He argues that we do not need the Americans. At least not in the way the Americans understand the international order. They stage trouble spots in order to present themselves as indispensable.
The U.S. administration knows that a wedge driven between Europe and Russia consolidates the global influence of its moribund world power. It also knows that its own country is weak, torn and in decline. But if you outmaneuver the global competition, you stay on top.
The American century is over. The unipolar world order is coming to an end. That the "policeman" of this world order would not simply withdraw silently was to be expected: And indeed, the Americans already pursued a clear goal after the end of the Soviet Union, which was: Thou shalt have no other world powers beside me.
This unfounded anti-Americanism again?
We now see daily in the news what the consequences of such a unique position madness are. We are at war. Even if everything is done to describe this realization euphemistically. Even the German president repeats on a regular basis that we are not a nation at war.
Along the way, we accept deindustrialization and impoverishment as collateral damage. The madness determines the events, radical forces demand more and more commitment, more weapons, more money, more commitment to Ukraine.
Because of the freedom of Ukrainians? No, because the U.S. wants to be the only world power and resists a world order in which it must sit at the same table with other nations.
Lafontaine himself builds on this in his book: He seems to realize that he will now be accused of anti-Americanism. So he makes it clear that he certainly appreciates America. Just not the foreign policy of the U.S. administration. This is somewhat reminiscent of a now rather old act by the cabaret artist Hagen Rether. During the Bush era, one often read in the German press that such "unfounded anti-Americanism" was now spreading again. Rether defended himself against this, saying that he was not an unfounded anti-Americanist. His anti-Americanism is much more well-founded.
Oskar Lafontaine's theses are also well founded. And they are not presented to the reader in a pompous manner, but rather as one is accustomed to from him: without false shyness. Saying what is: That is Lafontaine's specialty. And he certainly doesn't hold back. That this federal government not only makes bad policies, but "is the stupidest one we've had since the Federal Republic came into existence": Who dares to say such a thing so bluntly today?
Capitalism as a warmonger?
By the way, "to say out loud what is": This saying goes back to Ferdinand Lasalle, the founder of the original Social Democracy in Germany. For him, this was the "most revolutionary deed." In this sense, Oskar Lafontaine is of course a revolutionary. And if we take a closer look, he cultivates the values of a social democracy that no longer exists today: At least not where it says social democracy.
Whether capitalism should be regarded as the causal driver of war, as Lafontaine does in his book, is at least debatable. The cause, one could say with a view to history, is actually man. After all, there were wars long before capitalism - and it will probably be no different after it.
Lafontaine, by the way, not only does not mince words with those who are whipping this country into madness: He also makes a commitment. "It is absolutely necessary that we take our cue from Willy Brandt," he says: "We must once again become a nation of good neighbors." This is not a Sunday phrase, but the seed of peace. And that is only conceivable with Russia - with or without Putin, it makes no difference: The Russians will remain our neighbors. Unless, of course, one follows the crude logic of the agitators from the Green camp, who want to ruin Russia once and for all.
Meanwhile, Lafontaine recommends that the Greens rename their foundation, which is named after the writer Heinrich Böll. After all, Böll was a war veteran and pacifist. He suggests changing it to a Madeleine Albright Foundation or a Carl von Clausewitz Foundation. Petra Kelly would probably agree.
Oskar Lafontaine "Yank, it's time to go: plea for Europe to assert itself"
Roberto J. De Lapuente, born in 1978, is a trained industrial mechanic and ran the blog ad sinistram for eight years. Since 2017, he has been co-editor of the blog neulandrebellen. In 2012, he became a columnist for Neues Deutschland, and since 2018 he has written regularly for Makroskop. De Lapuente has a daughter and lives with his partner in Frankfurt am Main. In March 2018, his book "Right Wins Because Left Fails" was published.
Read more
The Prince of Hell
After Volodymyr Zelenskyy directly accused the Russians of bombing Poland, doubts about the Ukrainian administration are growing in the West.
11/30/2022 by Roberto J. De Lapuente
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"It is always only a vanishing minority that wants war" (Oskar Lafontaine)
by Florian Rötzer
[This article posted on 12/1/2022 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://overton-magazin.de/top-story/oskar-lafontaine-es-ist-immer-nur-eine-verschwindende-minderheit-die-den-krieg-will/.]
The pamphlet "Ami it's time to go!" by Oskar Lafontaine has just been published. In an interview, Lafontaine explains why Germany and Europe should break away from the U.S. as a world power, that the goal must be to end the bloodshed in Ukraine, and why a "fascistoid way of thinking" has also taken hold among representatives of the German government.
You've just published a new book with the very provocative title "Ami it's time to go!" That, of course, hearkens back to the days of the 1970s, when that became a slogan in the context of the Vietnam War. Aren't you afraid that this will now immediately be put on the track that Lafontaine is anti-American, putting your thoughts to one side?
Oskar Lafontaine: Yes, that's the normal reflex. Nevertheless, we must always try to have a debate about sensible security policy in Germany. I hold the core thesis that a world power that wants to remain the only world power and therefore wages trade wars, covert wars, drone wars and bomb wars can never lead a defense alliance. That is why I say we need a NATO without the U.S., an independent European defense. Where the U.S. is leading us can be seen in the Ukraine war, which is really a dispute between the U.S. and Russia, which is known to all who have not yet been completely poisoned and misled by false narratives.
If we leave out the back story of the Ukraine war, many governments say that now you see the danger coming from Russia. Russia would also go further to increase its zones of influence. That's why the protective power of the U.S. is all the more important now, they say, to fend that off.
Oskar Lafontaine: This is the classic case where the truth is turned upside down. The U.S., against the advice of many U.S. politicians, has pushed NATO to Russia's border. Now German and U.S. troops are on the Russian border. This could not have been imagined some time ago. In addition, there are missile bases near the Russian border and soon to be on the Russian border whose missiles have a flight time of five minutes or less to Moscow. Missiles without warning times are the knife on the opponent's neck. Those who put the knife to their adversary's neck are not pursuing a peace policy. I would like this to get around in Germany and for people to think about the mistakes that Germany is also making.
Lafontaine's pamphlet "Ami it's time to go!" has been published by Westend Verlag.
The German government has announced that Germany should also become a leading military power. So, with Scholz's big thump, it is also going into armaments policy and trying to increase the size of the Bundeswehr. But it is apparently not quite clear how far integration into NATO should go or whether a European defense alliance should emerge. If I understand correctly, you are arguing for a European defense alliance that breaks away from NATO.
Oskar Lafontaine: Better from the U.S., because it's misleading to talk about NATO here. Many people believe that NATO guarantees our security. But you have to know that NATO is the USA or the USA is NATO. And if NATO wants to do anything, it needs the approval of the USA. The U.S. has the say and decides alone what happens, to the extent that it does not ask the allies at all about important things. They even go so far as to blow up a central supply pipeline in Europe without any consideration for their allies - keyword Nord Stream 2. That was the U.S. or they gave the order for it or at least said do it, we agree. That shows what a devastating state NATO is in.
You say that a peace solution is needed and that this war in Ukraine must be interrupted. How do you envision that? Russia is certainly not going to stop the war right now. And with Ukraine, Selensky has also put himself in a situation that he can't get out of. How should or could a peace solution work?
Oskar Lafontaine: Selensky may be a decisive piece on the chessboard in the opinion of many, but he is not. In the end, he has nothing to say, to put it bluntly. What happens in Ukraine is also decided by the USA, no one else. Therefore, there can only be a peace negotiated by the U.S. and Russia. The USA is financing the war in Ukraine for the most part. They have been supplying weapons for many years, they are financing the system. If the U.S. says this is the direction it is going, then the Ukrainians have to follow, whether they want to or not. Of course, there are always attempts to break out, as we have seen now when a so-called defensive missile landed in Poland and some have even expressed the suspicion that the Ukrainians deliberately launched these missiles into Poland to draw NATO into the war. Such aspirations exist among Selensky and his entourage as the FAZ also recently noted. But the decision lies with the USA, there is no question about that.
Istanbul has shown that there were efforts to find peace. This is being discussed, also in the United States. But then Boris Johnson, on behalf of the U.S., said, Selensky, you can't make peace because the U.S. administration thinks there should be fighting until Russia is down and can't make war. This is what the U.S. Secretary of War, mistakenly called the Secretary of Defense, has said. With this attitude, of course, there can be no peace. But it is also incredibly cynical, because it forgets that people are dying every day on the battlefields of Ukraine. Ukrainians are dying and Russians are dying. You have to see both. And if you want to save human lives, you have to start the ceasefire tomorrow.
"Listening to some now, it sounds like nuclear war is a video game".
You say this is a proxy war. Could it be that for the U.S., which has long located the great enemy in China, this war with Russia over Ukraine is an intermediate step to the other confrontation that NATO will be drawn into. Would you see it that way, too?
Oskar Lafontaine: That is in the logic and has also been said in many U.S. papers. I recently found a quote from Kissinger in his book "Diplomacy" - "The Reason of Nations" is the German title. He wrote: "We must prevent the emergence on the Eurasian continent, that is, in Europe and Asia, of a power that is a match for us. You have to make sure that Europe is weaker, and of course that Russia remains weak. And when you talk about Eurasia, of course, you have to make sure that China stays weak. This has been the goal of U.S. policy since the end of World War II.
The dangerous thing for the protectees of the U.S., that is, the Europeans, is that they are drawn into these wars. You can see that in Germany. I'll just take the drone warfare that's being conducted over Ramstein. It is a war that is illegal under international law, in which innocent people are also killed almost every day. In this respect, Germany is a party to the war, whether we like it or not. And we have to get out of it. We cannot support such a policy, especially since it always carries with it the risk of nuclear conflict, i.e. madness beyond people's imagination.
If you listen now to some in Russia or in the West, that is, in the U.S. first and foremost, but also in the Federal Republic, it sounds as if nuclear war is a video game. This is a terrible development. The awareness that existed in the peace movement of the 1980s, that nuclear war is an unimaginable madness, no longer exists. Mrs. Merkel said something about this in the last Spiegel, which also plays a role. She said that the memory of the horror disappears with the contemporary witnesses, which means that the spirit of reconciliation also disappears. There she saw something right. If you listen in on the discussions now, it's hard to bear.
There is some hope that the Pentagon will say, this can't go on, we can't advise escalating further, we have to come to a cease-fire and a negotiated peace. That's what Chief of Staff Mark Milley had said publicly. It is an interesting phenomenon that in the U.S. the military advises reason, while the entourage around Biden, i.e. Secretary of State Blinken and above all this unspeakable Nuland, who is already responsible for the coup in Ukraine, keep pushing for escalation. One can only hope that the U.S. military will prevail.
We always talk about the U.S. or now the Biden administration, but who is behind this long-term policy to contain Russia. Is it the politicians, is it the parties, is it a certain industry or interests of a certain group. After all, it's not the U.S. as such.
Oskar Lafontaine: Sure, it's primarily the people who make a living from it. The fact is that people don't want war. That has always been the case. It is always only a vanishing minority that wants war. That's why you have to stir people up through the media. In the U.S., it's the military-industrial complex. Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of the U.S. presidents, said many years ago in his farewell speech that one must not give the military-industrial complex too much power or too much leeway, because that is highly dangerous. Today, the arms industry dominates Congress because virtually all elected officials there are more or less financed by it. That's why there is also the insane arms budget, or rather war budget, of the United States, which, at more than $800 billion, is beyond all measure. The military-industrial complex is complemented by the financial industry and other forces that determine U.S. policy.
You are now talking about a "plea for European self-assertion." And you suggest that Germany and France can become the nucleus of the Europe that breaks away from the United States. But if we look at Europe, the ties between the eastern states, i.e. the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, etc., and the U.S. are much stronger than in western Europe. Do you see any chance at all of keeping the EU together if such a thing were to be pursued?
Oskar Lafontaine: It is correctly observed what you express in your question. That's why I also say that France and Germany must take matters into their own hands. The Baltic states, for example, because of their special history and situation, are right at the forefront when it comes to reinforcing the image of the enemy and inciting war. I have to say this so clearly. The Poles, too, because of their history, are always ready to see Russia as an enemy image. But that leads nowhere. We do have a successful experiment. That was Willy Brandt's policy of détente. During that time, there was no war in Europe. When one stopped, there was the Yugoslav war and now the Ukraine war. Now we don't have a policy of détente, but a policy of tension. People are betting on escalation.
"We are now living in a madhouse as far as the debate is concerned."
You probably also know that a demonstration organized by right-wing circles took place in Leipzig over the weekend, with Compact in the background, using your motto "Ami go home" as a slogan. Compact talks about the USA being the "main enemy of Germany" and an "occupying regime". Would you then welcome the proximity to these right-wing nationalist circles? There, Sahra Wagenknecht is also becoming a figurehead for the new chancellor. So they're trying to find a connection to your positions. How do you see that?
Oskar Lafontaine: I can only remind you of Enzensberger, who has just died and once said: "Fear of applause from the wrong side is a characteristic of totalitarian thinking." So that means you can't depend on what any right-wing groups or magazines write. And to that extent, one must be able to think about the role of the United States without considering articles in right-wing magazines. The slogan "Yank go home" comes from the movement against the Vietnam War, and that was not a right-wing movement. There is an idiotic logic in the media. If the AfD says we need good relations with Russia, then whoever says that is right-wing. According to this logic, which has unfortunately spread to politics, Willy Brandt would be a right-winger today. We are now living in a madhouse as far as the debate is concerned.
How can you tell the difference for yourself? Just carry on or take a stand on it?
Oskar Lafontaine: No, you shouldn't make the right-wingers the judge of what is right or wrong. Then you would have to try every day to distinguish yourself in some way. I think the eager journalists and politicians who always talk about being close to the AfD are the AfD's best propagandists. By constantly talking about AfD proximity, they enhance it, whether they want to or not. That is, they are involuntary helpers of the AfD. No, you have to represent your own thoughts. And here I'll invoke Enzensberger once again: one must not fall into totalitarian thinking by shying away from applause from the wrong side.
I still don't quite understand how you would try to politically detach Germany and France from the United States. Could you be more specific about that?
Oskar Lafontaine: In France, we have the tradition of Gaullism .De Gaulle said again and again that a country must decide for itself about war and peace. That's why, for example, he would not have tolerated the Ramstein airbase on French soil, because as a general he knew that it would involve him in any U.S. operation. He didn't want that. And a man like Macron is also in this tradition. He has tried again and again to get an independent policy off the ground. He has also said that NATO is brain dead and has repeatedly demanded that Europeans strengthen their own defense. In Germany, unfortunately, he has no one to talk to.
At the moment, things are quite bad. If the press reports are correct, it is the case that there is disgruntlement between Germany and France on a whole range of issues. From what I can read or take note of, the fault lies with the Germans because they are playing the Americans' poodle too much instead of coordinating with France and developing a common policy.
If it is not possible to organize a joining of forces with Germany and France, as, for example - and I say this quite deliberately - Gerhard Schröder tried to do when he refused the Iraq war and acted together with Chirac, if it is not possible to develop this axis, then I see no way out of the fatal dependence on the United States.
At that time, there was already a split between the "new" and the "old" Europe. The new Europe saw itself on the rise and joined the Iraq war. The Iraq war started a split that was, of course, desired by the U.S., but which would deepen as France and Germany joined forces.
Oskar Lafontaine: Sure, but you can't be guided by that. We cannot find security in Europe without a reasonable relationship with Russia. Russia is a nuclear power, we must never forget that. But many people forget that. When I hear the speeches, I have the impression that they don't know what a nuclear power is, what its capabilities are. Of course, this leads to complete misconceptions, even among the Eastern European states. When you see how they keep igniting and are ready to escalate, then they rely on the fact that nothing will happen.
But we have known since the discussions of the 1980s that this reliance on nothing will happen is a game whose outcome no one can know. We have been close to nuclear war many times. I gave the well-known examples in my argument, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, where a Soviet officer prevented a torpedo from being fired from a submarine that was cruising near Cuba. Or in Okinawa, where a U.S. officer disobeyed an order to fire nuclear torpedoes because it could not be true, since targets in China were also listed. The most famous case is Colonel Petrov, who in 1984 saw intercontinental ballistic missiles on approach but did not press the red button because he thought it was a computer error.
"How can we overcome the thinking that is expressed in the phrase, 'We must keep supplying weapons because weapons save lives'?"
Of course, that can always happen. Some say that this war mood that prevails in certain circles, among the Greens, on the government side as a whole, but also in the U.S., is borne of the belief that it is finally a just, good war against an absolutely evil enemy. You can leave all the other wars behind, and even forget about Nazi Germany, because you're finally going to a new, just, good war. Do you see that as a background as well?
Oskar Lafontaine: You can see it that way, but of course I wonder what happened there, because for me that is fascist thinking. If, for example, Mrs. Baerbock says that Russia must be ruined, then that is fascist thinking. This kind of thinking is characterized by the fact that people are left out of the equation. This is what we are seeing in the current debate in Germany. The people who die every day are rarely mentioned in the sense that a cease-fire must now be achieved. No, they talk about a victorious peace. Crimea must be reconquered, and we must supply more and more weapons.
The German foreign minister has even stooped to the assertion - she probably doesn't even know that she has thus adopted the slogan of the U.S. weapons fools - that weapons save lives. How guns save lives in the U.S. is something you can see over and over again. This is an aberration that I call fascistoid. That's why all those who want peace must join forces and say: When we talk about a community of values, we must not talk in terms that hardly anyone can imagine anymore, but we must simply admit that we see people as our sisters and brothers and that we will do everything to prevent them from losing their lives. That is the primary thing, not to take back Crimea or to keep the Russians down.
Where does this fascistoid mood come from, as you call it?
Oskar Lafontaine: It's hard to say. One reason, as I said, interestingly enough, was mentioned by Mrs. Merkel in Der Spiegel: Awareness of the horror of war is disappearing with the contemporary witnesses, and with it the willingness to reconcile is also disappearing. That may be one reason why people no longer really know what happened back then, or why they no longer develop the feelings that are necessary to say: We want to do everything we can to ensure that something like this never happens again.
I think there is another reason, and that is the disappearance of the religious. This may sound strange coming from me, but Dostoevsky already wrote: When God is dead, everything is permitted. Other writers have also commented on this. Malraux, for example, once said: This century will be religious or it will not be. By this he did not mean that everyone must adhere to a faith, but that the values that religions have imparted, charity in the Christian West, for example, that is, compassion for others, are the basis of a peaceful world. If this is gone, and this can be seen in the intention to ruin Russia, then the willingness or the basis for peace is no longer there.
But that can't mean that it's now absolutely necessary to build new churches again.
Oskar Lafontaine: No, the question is, how can the thinking be overcome that is expressed in the sentence: "We must always supply weapons because weapons save lives" or in the sentence: "We must ruin Russia"? This can be overcome only by humanism, if one wants to take this term. It is based on seeing one's fellow human being as a sister or brother. Cultural exchange, for example, can bring people together and can awaken love for each other's culture. That's why it is so fatal that Russian artists are now also being disinvited. That is a step toward barbarism.
Oskar Lafontaine was born in Saarlouis on September 16, 1943. Two years later he lost his father, who died as a soldier at the age of 29. In the course of his political life, he was mayor of Saarbrücken, prime minister of Saarland, chairman of the SPD, candidate for chancellor and federal finance minister. In March 1999, he resigned from all his previous political posts in the SPD in criticism of Gerhard Schröder's government course. He was founding chairman of the DIE LINKE party, which was formed on his initiative from the PDS and Wahlalternative Arbeit & soziale Gerechtigkeit (WASG), chairman of the Left Party parliamentary group in the German Bundestag and top candidate in the Saarland state parliamentary election campaigns in 2009, 2012 and 2017. He led the Left Party parliamentary group in the Saarland state parliament from 2009 until his party resignation in March 2022.
blu_frisbee says:
December 1, 2022 at 9:50 am
It is bourgeois ideology to always ask only for might and right, never for property.
Capitalism carries war like the cloud carries rain.
War does not come from the delusions of evil men.
Capitalism is unrestrained money multiplication as an end in itself.
Corruption is nothing external or foreign to an otherwise flawless capitalism,
but capitalism itself is the flaw and corruption as it prevails.
LaFontaine believes if one exorcises the evil delusion paradise breaks out.
His worldview and diagnosis are wrong.
What remains is the ravings of a madman on the Titanic against the madness of the captain....
Marxists no longer appear in the discussion at all.
Since when is it anti-American to ask an uninvited "guest" to go home? We don't want anything from the Yanks, the Yanks want something from us and if we object it doesn't mean we are against the US, we just want to be masters in our own house, which is covered by international law.
Wolfgang Koethe says:
December 1, 2022 at 2:47 pm
In the "Brothers Karamazov" there is a chapter that also appears as a small single volume: "The Grand Inquisitor." In it, Dostoevsky tells how Jesus appears in Seville, where the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition is doing his mischief. He immediately has Jesus arrested and wants to burn him at the stake.
This means here the idea (Jesus), which stands in the way of the system (Inquisition, church), "disturbs the order" although Jesus (the idea) founded the church.
When Dostoevsky read the legend of the Grand Inquisitor to students at St. Petersburg University in December 1879, he wrote an introduction which says: "When faith in Christ is falsified and mixed with the objectives of this world, the meaning of Christianity is also lost. The mind falls prey to unbelief, and instead of the great ideal of Christ, only a new Tower of Babel will be erected. While Christianity has a high conception of the individual human being, mankind will be regarded only as a great mass. Under the guise of social love, nothing but manifest contempt for mankind will flourish."
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government ...
Russian Hacker says:
December 1, 2022 at 4:04 pm.
From a Russian perspective, Oskar is absolutely right. In Russia, people would agree with him.
Peace in Europe can be guaranteed only with Russia and not against Russia. It is not USA what can guarantee peace in Europe, USA can threaten peace in Europe only because it is in its interest. The USA does not care about the fate of Europeans. Europe is not an ally for USA, but first of all a potentially dangerous competitor. For the USA, it can at best be used as a sales market and cannon fodder against its direct competitors Russia and China.
Only in one thing I would disagree with Oskar.
A guarantee of peace in Europe cannot exist exclusively among Europeans, but only together with Russia. Neither Russians nor Europeans can be interested in another big war in Europe. Europe without USA (and Great Britain) does not need to be afraid of Russia at all. Europe and Russia could become best friends, and benefit from close cooperation, there are no ideological, cultural, religious or other fundamentally insurmountable hurdles. What is needed to secure peace in Europe in the long term would be at least the sovereignty of Europe excluding the influence of the Anglo-Saxons (USA + GB) and at least a rapprochement with Russia at eye level. The recognition of Russian security interests. Russia has nothing against the Europeans in principle and does not need their lands or resources. It also has no claim to world domination and does not seek global dominance and hegemony like USA. All Russia wants is to be left alone and to develop peacefully and undisturbed and to profit from trade and cooperation with other countries. Russia would also like to cooperate with USA and GB, it is the Anglo-Saxons who cannot imagine this and would prefer to wipe Russia off the map. Also not only since yesterday, for Great Britain and later also USA Russia had always been the final opponent. For many centuries they have been fighting Russia as they can. They see in Russia and since newest time also in China a potential competitor, which could question their world domination claim (!). The hostilities are a one-way street. Only in the Second World War there was a short-lived alliance of convenience between Anglo-Saxons and Russians. However, that was purely pragmatic, as Hitler was out of control and threatening GB. As soon as Hitler was defeated (and the Russians carried the biggest burden), the alliance was over and the Russians became the number one enemy again.
The current conflict is also due to the fact that Russia simply can't keep plugging away and backing down. As Oskar correctly noted, the Anglo-Saxons are putting a knife to Russia's neck. Russia simply cannot tolerate that, it has gone way too far. Russia has never wanted war in Ukraine and has tried to avoid it for as long as it could. Much too long, actually. This war could have started in 2014 and would have been much easier for Russia at that time. Russia did everything to avoid it, while the Anglo-Saxons and their European poodles did everything to set Russia and Ukraine against each other. They helped nationalists in Ukraine to take power, who immediately started terrorizing Russians living in Ukraine. There is hardly anything more effective to provoke Russia than that. And then they prepared Ukraine for war with Russia. Militarily pumped up to one of the most powerful armies in Europe. At the same time Ukraine remained the poorest country in Europe, its fate is completely indifferent to the USA, they need it exclusively as cannon fodder and battering ram against Russia. Russia could no longer stand idly by and watch all this. The absolutely anti-Russian brown Ukraine, driven by hatred against everything Russian and equipped with the most powerful army in Europe and territorial claims, finally with the claim to become a nuclear power and the prospect of being accepted into NATO, Russia's patience and appeasement policy had been brought to its limit. It could not go on like this, it reminded the Russians too much of the rise of the Third Reich, which was not only tolerated but also supported by the Anglo-Saxons at that time and was built up for the war against the then ideological opponent, the Soviet Union. GB and USA allowed Hitler very much and helped him to make the Third Reich the biggest military power in Europe in the shortest time. They threw one country after another into Hitler's throat. They allowed him to annex Austria and crush Czechoslovakia without firing a single shot. They even recognized it in the Munich Conference of 1938. They cleared the way to the East for him. However, they miscalculated with Poland in the process. They wanted Hitler to march across the Balkans toward the Soviet Union and steer clear of their ally Poland. If Hitler had gone through Czechoslovakia and the Balkans and left Poland alone, they would have remained neutral without any doubt, if not appeared at his side when he got into trouble.
But this time, too, they miscalculated and enormously underestimated Russia. The plan to ruin Russia, or at least to bring about a regime change, has not worked. It is time to realize it. It is completely hopeless. Despite all efforts, Russia will not be brought down without a direct confrontation, without a Third World War. But the Third World War is not an option for the West either, because Russia is not just a nuclear power, it is the strongest nuclear power in the world with the most nuclear warheads and hypersonic technology. A direct confrontation between the USA and Russia would undoubtedly set in motion a spiral of escalation that would be unstoppable and would lead to mutual nuclear strikes in the shortest possible time. Without understatement, this would be the end not only of Russian and Western civilization, it would be the end of the world. If Russia and USA would use even a fraction of their nuclear weapons, it would cause a global climate catastrophe. Because of the enormous amount of ash ejected into the nuclear sphere, the light of the sun would be obscured for years, if not decades. The average temperature would drop by a dozen degrees. All plants on earth would perish and with them all animals and, of course, people. The earth would change first into an ice planet with glaciers which reached almost to the equator and finally into a desert planet on which there is hardly any life. Maybe in very remote places some people would survive, but they would have to start from scratch in a hostile and radioactively contaminated world.
Reply
wrmfr says:
December 2, 2022 at 8:37 am
To the article of Oskar Lafontaine and the comment of 'Russian Hacker' I want to add a publication of Scott Ritter that is already a few days old:
Analyst Scott Ritter: "German politicians' position is stupid"
Analyst Scott Ritter: "The position of German politicians is stupid"
Unlocked on 11/21/2022 at 15:26 by Sanjo Babić
(Image: Screenshot RT DE / Own work)
In an interview, military analyst Scott Ritter expressed that Germans are deluded about their own strength. He said that the German people should wake up, otherwise there is a threat of nuclear war in Europe. This is reported by the magazine "RT DE".
RT DE further reports: "In an interview, U.S. strategic analyst Scott Ritter clears up numerous ideas Germans have about their country, their politics, and above all their military and economic strength.
Germany's policies are firebrand and oblivious to history, Ritter says. Germans should wake up, he said, because German politicians' current policies would lead Germany and Europe into a nuclear war that would destroy Europe, perhaps even the world.
Ritter vented his anger at German politics. In his view, Germany has become deluded. Ritter asked when the Germans would finally start learning from their history. Germany had tried to fight Russia several times before, and it had never turned out well for Germany. Why is Germany so eager to be drawn into war, the analyst wonders.
The German military could not win a conventional war against Russia. The Bundeswehr, he says, is not to be taken seriously. It lacks capacity, equipment, everything. To believe that you can keep getting involved in the war in Ukraine because you have NATO behind you is naive and extremely dangerous, he says. A confrontation between NATO and Russia would inevitably lead to nuclear war, he said:
"A conflict between NATO and Russia ends only one way: with the nuclear annihilation of Europe, including Germany."
In view of this obvious connection, he said, German policy is insane.
The claimed German strength, he said, is an illusion. Germany is a weak country, he said. Its economic success, he said, is based on the availability of cheap Russian energy. The idea of being able to isolate Russia completely misses the reality and the factual circumstances.
Ritter takes the meeting of the G20 as an example: If one subtracts the G7 from the G20, BRICS would remain. Ritter thus illustrates that strong alliances have meanwhile emerged outside the collective West, which are increasingly questioning the significance of the West. Rhetorically, Ritter asks the Germans how their heating and energy costs are. All EU countries have the problem of dwindling purchasing power and rising production costs due to the Western sanctions regime, Ritter points out. The situation is different, however, for countries like India and China. The countries in the new alliances benefit from cooperation with Russia. Those who want to isolate Russia are sending their own economies into the basement, Ritter makes clear.
The interview is an urgent appeal and at the same time a warning from an expert to abandon the confrontational course toward Russia. If Germany maintains this course, it can only lose. "
Source: RT EN
Analyst Scott Ritter: "German politicians' position is stupid" - Extremnews - The Somewhat Different News
https://www.extremnews.com/lifestyle/internet/a47518dee166425
Reply
zdago says:
December 2, 2022 at 11:11 am
Hermann Goering once said...
...the following while in prison at Nuremberg in 1946:
"Well, of course, the people do not want war. Why should also
poor farm laborer want to risk his life in war, if the best
if the best he can get out of it is that he comes back with his bones intact?
with his bones intact? Of course, the common people do not want war.
war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany.
in Germany. That is clear.
But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always easy to convince the people.
and it is always easy to get the people to participate, whether it is a
whether it is a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, a parliament or a
dictatorship, a parliament or a communist dictatorship.
(...)
The people can always be made, with or without the right to vote,
to follow the orders of the leaders. It is very simple. One need
nothing to do but to tell the people that they are being attacked, and to reproach the
pacifists of their lack of patriotism and claim that they are putting the
that they are putting the country in danger. This method works in every
country."
Too bad that this is not common knowledge !
Possibly this knowledge would put politics in a somewhat different light !
Recent article
The botched energy transition
Stop the war!
The Americans had their day - now it's time for Europeans to emancipate themselves, finds Oskar Lafontaine in his new book. A review.
by Roberto J. De Lapuente
[This article posted on 12/2/2022 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/das-amerikanische-jahrhundert-war-gestern.]
Quo vadis, Europe? The continent is made up of vassals of a hegemon whose best days are already numbered. Instead of the European vassals taking advantage of the geopolitical moment and throwing off their U.S. shackles, they remain in the now internalized relationship of subjects. This has self-destructive consequences. For Washington is not willing to accept that the hour has struck for the empire of the 20th century. And so the American hegemon is preparing to embroil Europe in a suicidal economic war with Russia. The goal is to prevent Russia and Europe from coming together to form a significant counterweight to the United States. In his new book "Ami, it's time to go: Plädoyer für die Selbstbehauptung Europas" (Ami, it's time to go: Plea for Europe's self-assertion), Oskar Lafontaine makes the case for an emancipation of Europe.
For months, we have been talking about the "Ukraine war," but the term is no longer useful. This conflict has long since become something much bigger - a war by proxy. And if we are going to be honest about it, we should also come clean about it: The Federal Republic is a vassal of the United States. It - and Europe in its entirety.
As a vassal of the agonizing overseas world power, the continent is running to its doom. There is only one possibility: to free Europe from this dependence. It must realize that the days of the superpower are over. The Americans had their time in Europe. But they should finally be a thing of the past. For our own sake.
Thou shalt have no other world powers beside me
Hence the title of Oskar Lafontaine's new book: "Ami, it's time to go! A Plea for the Self-Assertion of Europe" is its title. The Americans had their time. But today, as a superpower, they seem to have fallen out of time. They are concerned with securing their position of world power. And they are doing so even though they have become a fragile nation that hardly promises anything positive.
As early as 20 years ago, the French historian Emmanuel Todd wrote a swan song for the supposed world policeman. Its title was "World Power USA: An Obituary. In it, he outlined the aggressive foreign policy of the Americans as the last gasp of a superstate that is more dependent on the world than the world is on it.
Lafontaine also cultivates this insight: He argues that we do not need the Americans. At least not in the way the Americans understand the international order. They stage trouble spots in order to present themselves as indispensable.
The U.S. administration knows that a wedge driven between Europe and Russia consolidates the global influence of its moribund world power. It also knows that its own country is weak, torn and in decline. But if you outmaneuver the global competition, you stay on top.
The American century is over. The unipolar world order is coming to an end. That the "policeman" of this world order would not simply withdraw silently was to be expected: And indeed, the Americans already pursued a clear goal after the end of the Soviet Union, which was: Thou shalt have no other world powers beside me.
This unfounded anti-Americanism again?
We now see daily in the news what the consequences of such a unique position madness are. We are at war. Even if everything is done to describe this realization euphemistically. Even the German president repeats on a regular basis that we are not a nation at war.
Along the way, we accept deindustrialization and impoverishment as collateral damage. The madness determines the events, radical forces demand more and more commitment, more weapons, more money, more commitment to Ukraine.
Because of the freedom of Ukrainians? No, because the U.S. wants to be the only world power and resists a world order in which it must sit at the same table with other nations.
Lafontaine himself builds on this in his book: He seems to realize that he will now be accused of anti-Americanism. So he makes it clear that he certainly appreciates America. Just not the foreign policy of the U.S. administration. This is somewhat reminiscent of a now rather old act by the cabaret artist Hagen Rether. During the Bush era, one often read in the German press that such "unfounded anti-Americanism" was now spreading again. Rether defended himself against this, saying that he was not an unfounded anti-Americanist. His anti-Americanism is much more well-founded.
Oskar Lafontaine's theses are also well founded. And they are not presented to the reader in a pompous manner, but rather as one is accustomed to from him: without false shyness. Saying what is: That is Lafontaine's specialty. And he certainly doesn't hold back. That this federal government not only makes bad policies, but "is the stupidest one we've had since the Federal Republic came into existence": Who dares to say such a thing so bluntly today?
Capitalism as a warmonger?
By the way, "to say out loud what is": This saying goes back to Ferdinand Lasalle, the founder of the original Social Democracy in Germany. For him, this was the "most revolutionary deed." In this sense, Oskar Lafontaine is of course a revolutionary. And if we take a closer look, he cultivates the values of a social democracy that no longer exists today: At least not where it says social democracy.
Whether capitalism should be regarded as the causal driver of war, as Lafontaine does in his book, is at least debatable. The cause, one could say with a view to history, is actually man. After all, there were wars long before capitalism - and it will probably be no different after it.
Lafontaine, by the way, not only does not mince words with those who are whipping this country into madness: He also makes a commitment. "It is absolutely necessary that we take our cue from Willy Brandt," he says: "We must once again become a nation of good neighbors." This is not a Sunday phrase, but the seed of peace. And that is only conceivable with Russia - with or without Putin, it makes no difference: The Russians will remain our neighbors. Unless, of course, one follows the crude logic of the agitators from the Green camp, who want to ruin Russia once and for all.
Meanwhile, Lafontaine recommends that the Greens rename their foundation, which is named after the writer Heinrich Böll. After all, Böll was a war veteran and pacifist. He suggests changing it to a Madeleine Albright Foundation or a Carl von Clausewitz Foundation. Petra Kelly would probably agree.
Oskar Lafontaine "Yank, it's time to go: plea for Europe to assert itself"
Roberto J. De Lapuente, born in 1978, is a trained industrial mechanic and ran the blog ad sinistram for eight years. Since 2017, he has been co-editor of the blog neulandrebellen. In 2012, he became a columnist for Neues Deutschland, and since 2018 he has written regularly for Makroskop. De Lapuente has a daughter and lives with his partner in Frankfurt am Main. In March 2018, his book "Right Wins Because Left Fails" was published.
Read more
The Prince of Hell
After Volodymyr Zelenskyy directly accused the Russians of bombing Poland, doubts about the Ukrainian administration are growing in the West.
11/30/2022 by Roberto J. De Lapuente
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"It is always only a vanishing minority that wants war" (Oskar Lafontaine)
by Florian Rötzer
[This article posted on 12/1/2022 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://overton-magazin.de/top-story/oskar-lafontaine-es-ist-immer-nur-eine-verschwindende-minderheit-die-den-krieg-will/.]
The pamphlet "Ami it's time to go!" by Oskar Lafontaine has just been published. In an interview, Lafontaine explains why Germany and Europe should break away from the U.S. as a world power, that the goal must be to end the bloodshed in Ukraine, and why a "fascistoid way of thinking" has also taken hold among representatives of the German government.
You've just published a new book with the very provocative title "Ami it's time to go!" That, of course, hearkens back to the days of the 1970s, when that became a slogan in the context of the Vietnam War. Aren't you afraid that this will now immediately be put on the track that Lafontaine is anti-American, putting your thoughts to one side?
Oskar Lafontaine: Yes, that's the normal reflex. Nevertheless, we must always try to have a debate about sensible security policy in Germany. I hold the core thesis that a world power that wants to remain the only world power and therefore wages trade wars, covert wars, drone wars and bomb wars can never lead a defense alliance. That is why I say we need a NATO without the U.S., an independent European defense. Where the U.S. is leading us can be seen in the Ukraine war, which is really a dispute between the U.S. and Russia, which is known to all who have not yet been completely poisoned and misled by false narratives.
If we leave out the back story of the Ukraine war, many governments say that now you see the danger coming from Russia. Russia would also go further to increase its zones of influence. That's why the protective power of the U.S. is all the more important now, they say, to fend that off.
Oskar Lafontaine: This is the classic case where the truth is turned upside down. The U.S., against the advice of many U.S. politicians, has pushed NATO to Russia's border. Now German and U.S. troops are on the Russian border. This could not have been imagined some time ago. In addition, there are missile bases near the Russian border and soon to be on the Russian border whose missiles have a flight time of five minutes or less to Moscow. Missiles without warning times are the knife on the opponent's neck. Those who put the knife to their adversary's neck are not pursuing a peace policy. I would like this to get around in Germany and for people to think about the mistakes that Germany is also making.
Lafontaine's pamphlet "Ami it's time to go!" has been published by Westend Verlag.
The German government has announced that Germany should also become a leading military power. So, with Scholz's big thump, it is also going into armaments policy and trying to increase the size of the Bundeswehr. But it is apparently not quite clear how far integration into NATO should go or whether a European defense alliance should emerge. If I understand correctly, you are arguing for a European defense alliance that breaks away from NATO.
Oskar Lafontaine: Better from the U.S., because it's misleading to talk about NATO here. Many people believe that NATO guarantees our security. But you have to know that NATO is the USA or the USA is NATO. And if NATO wants to do anything, it needs the approval of the USA. The U.S. has the say and decides alone what happens, to the extent that it does not ask the allies at all about important things. They even go so far as to blow up a central supply pipeline in Europe without any consideration for their allies - keyword Nord Stream 2. That was the U.S. or they gave the order for it or at least said do it, we agree. That shows what a devastating state NATO is in.
You say that a peace solution is needed and that this war in Ukraine must be interrupted. How do you envision that? Russia is certainly not going to stop the war right now. And with Ukraine, Selensky has also put himself in a situation that he can't get out of. How should or could a peace solution work?
Oskar Lafontaine: Selensky may be a decisive piece on the chessboard in the opinion of many, but he is not. In the end, he has nothing to say, to put it bluntly. What happens in Ukraine is also decided by the USA, no one else. Therefore, there can only be a peace negotiated by the U.S. and Russia. The USA is financing the war in Ukraine for the most part. They have been supplying weapons for many years, they are financing the system. If the U.S. says this is the direction it is going, then the Ukrainians have to follow, whether they want to or not. Of course, there are always attempts to break out, as we have seen now when a so-called defensive missile landed in Poland and some have even expressed the suspicion that the Ukrainians deliberately launched these missiles into Poland to draw NATO into the war. Such aspirations exist among Selensky and his entourage as the FAZ also recently noted. But the decision lies with the USA, there is no question about that.
Istanbul has shown that there were efforts to find peace. This is being discussed, also in the United States. But then Boris Johnson, on behalf of the U.S., said, Selensky, you can't make peace because the U.S. administration thinks there should be fighting until Russia is down and can't make war. This is what the U.S. Secretary of War, mistakenly called the Secretary of Defense, has said. With this attitude, of course, there can be no peace. But it is also incredibly cynical, because it forgets that people are dying every day on the battlefields of Ukraine. Ukrainians are dying and Russians are dying. You have to see both. And if you want to save human lives, you have to start the ceasefire tomorrow.
"Listening to some now, it sounds like nuclear war is a video game".
You say this is a proxy war. Could it be that for the U.S., which has long located the great enemy in China, this war with Russia over Ukraine is an intermediate step to the other confrontation that NATO will be drawn into. Would you see it that way, too?
Oskar Lafontaine: That is in the logic and has also been said in many U.S. papers. I recently found a quote from Kissinger in his book "Diplomacy" - "The Reason of Nations" is the German title. He wrote: "We must prevent the emergence on the Eurasian continent, that is, in Europe and Asia, of a power that is a match for us. You have to make sure that Europe is weaker, and of course that Russia remains weak. And when you talk about Eurasia, of course, you have to make sure that China stays weak. This has been the goal of U.S. policy since the end of World War II.
The dangerous thing for the protectees of the U.S., that is, the Europeans, is that they are drawn into these wars. You can see that in Germany. I'll just take the drone warfare that's being conducted over Ramstein. It is a war that is illegal under international law, in which innocent people are also killed almost every day. In this respect, Germany is a party to the war, whether we like it or not. And we have to get out of it. We cannot support such a policy, especially since it always carries with it the risk of nuclear conflict, i.e. madness beyond people's imagination.
If you listen now to some in Russia or in the West, that is, in the U.S. first and foremost, but also in the Federal Republic, it sounds as if nuclear war is a video game. This is a terrible development. The awareness that existed in the peace movement of the 1980s, that nuclear war is an unimaginable madness, no longer exists. Mrs. Merkel said something about this in the last Spiegel, which also plays a role. She said that the memory of the horror disappears with the contemporary witnesses, which means that the spirit of reconciliation also disappears. There she saw something right. If you listen in on the discussions now, it's hard to bear.
There is some hope that the Pentagon will say, this can't go on, we can't advise escalating further, we have to come to a cease-fire and a negotiated peace. That's what Chief of Staff Mark Milley had said publicly. It is an interesting phenomenon that in the U.S. the military advises reason, while the entourage around Biden, i.e. Secretary of State Blinken and above all this unspeakable Nuland, who is already responsible for the coup in Ukraine, keep pushing for escalation. One can only hope that the U.S. military will prevail.
We always talk about the U.S. or now the Biden administration, but who is behind this long-term policy to contain Russia. Is it the politicians, is it the parties, is it a certain industry or interests of a certain group. After all, it's not the U.S. as such.
Oskar Lafontaine: Sure, it's primarily the people who make a living from it. The fact is that people don't want war. That has always been the case. It is always only a vanishing minority that wants war. That's why you have to stir people up through the media. In the U.S., it's the military-industrial complex. Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of the U.S. presidents, said many years ago in his farewell speech that one must not give the military-industrial complex too much power or too much leeway, because that is highly dangerous. Today, the arms industry dominates Congress because virtually all elected officials there are more or less financed by it. That's why there is also the insane arms budget, or rather war budget, of the United States, which, at more than $800 billion, is beyond all measure. The military-industrial complex is complemented by the financial industry and other forces that determine U.S. policy.
You are now talking about a "plea for European self-assertion." And you suggest that Germany and France can become the nucleus of the Europe that breaks away from the United States. But if we look at Europe, the ties between the eastern states, i.e. the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, etc., and the U.S. are much stronger than in western Europe. Do you see any chance at all of keeping the EU together if such a thing were to be pursued?
Oskar Lafontaine: It is correctly observed what you express in your question. That's why I also say that France and Germany must take matters into their own hands. The Baltic states, for example, because of their special history and situation, are right at the forefront when it comes to reinforcing the image of the enemy and inciting war. I have to say this so clearly. The Poles, too, because of their history, are always ready to see Russia as an enemy image. But that leads nowhere. We do have a successful experiment. That was Willy Brandt's policy of détente. During that time, there was no war in Europe. When one stopped, there was the Yugoslav war and now the Ukraine war. Now we don't have a policy of détente, but a policy of tension. People are betting on escalation.
"We are now living in a madhouse as far as the debate is concerned."
You probably also know that a demonstration organized by right-wing circles took place in Leipzig over the weekend, with Compact in the background, using your motto "Ami go home" as a slogan. Compact talks about the USA being the "main enemy of Germany" and an "occupying regime". Would you then welcome the proximity to these right-wing nationalist circles? There, Sahra Wagenknecht is also becoming a figurehead for the new chancellor. So they're trying to find a connection to your positions. How do you see that?
Oskar Lafontaine: I can only remind you of Enzensberger, who has just died and once said: "Fear of applause from the wrong side is a characteristic of totalitarian thinking." So that means you can't depend on what any right-wing groups or magazines write. And to that extent, one must be able to think about the role of the United States without considering articles in right-wing magazines. The slogan "Yank go home" comes from the movement against the Vietnam War, and that was not a right-wing movement. There is an idiotic logic in the media. If the AfD says we need good relations with Russia, then whoever says that is right-wing. According to this logic, which has unfortunately spread to politics, Willy Brandt would be a right-winger today. We are now living in a madhouse as far as the debate is concerned.
How can you tell the difference for yourself? Just carry on or take a stand on it?
Oskar Lafontaine: No, you shouldn't make the right-wingers the judge of what is right or wrong. Then you would have to try every day to distinguish yourself in some way. I think the eager journalists and politicians who always talk about being close to the AfD are the AfD's best propagandists. By constantly talking about AfD proximity, they enhance it, whether they want to or not. That is, they are involuntary helpers of the AfD. No, you have to represent your own thoughts. And here I'll invoke Enzensberger once again: one must not fall into totalitarian thinking by shying away from applause from the wrong side.
I still don't quite understand how you would try to politically detach Germany and France from the United States. Could you be more specific about that?
Oskar Lafontaine: In France, we have the tradition of Gaullism .De Gaulle said again and again that a country must decide for itself about war and peace. That's why, for example, he would not have tolerated the Ramstein airbase on French soil, because as a general he knew that it would involve him in any U.S. operation. He didn't want that. And a man like Macron is also in this tradition. He has tried again and again to get an independent policy off the ground. He has also said that NATO is brain dead and has repeatedly demanded that Europeans strengthen their own defense. In Germany, unfortunately, he has no one to talk to.
At the moment, things are quite bad. If the press reports are correct, it is the case that there is disgruntlement between Germany and France on a whole range of issues. From what I can read or take note of, the fault lies with the Germans because they are playing the Americans' poodle too much instead of coordinating with France and developing a common policy.
If it is not possible to organize a joining of forces with Germany and France, as, for example - and I say this quite deliberately - Gerhard Schröder tried to do when he refused the Iraq war and acted together with Chirac, if it is not possible to develop this axis, then I see no way out of the fatal dependence on the United States.
At that time, there was already a split between the "new" and the "old" Europe. The new Europe saw itself on the rise and joined the Iraq war. The Iraq war started a split that was, of course, desired by the U.S., but which would deepen as France and Germany joined forces.
Oskar Lafontaine: Sure, but you can't be guided by that. We cannot find security in Europe without a reasonable relationship with Russia. Russia is a nuclear power, we must never forget that. But many people forget that. When I hear the speeches, I have the impression that they don't know what a nuclear power is, what its capabilities are. Of course, this leads to complete misconceptions, even among the Eastern European states. When you see how they keep igniting and are ready to escalate, then they rely on the fact that nothing will happen.
But we have known since the discussions of the 1980s that this reliance on nothing will happen is a game whose outcome no one can know. We have been close to nuclear war many times. I gave the well-known examples in my argument, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, where a Soviet officer prevented a torpedo from being fired from a submarine that was cruising near Cuba. Or in Okinawa, where a U.S. officer disobeyed an order to fire nuclear torpedoes because it could not be true, since targets in China were also listed. The most famous case is Colonel Petrov, who in 1984 saw intercontinental ballistic missiles on approach but did not press the red button because he thought it was a computer error.
"How can we overcome the thinking that is expressed in the phrase, 'We must keep supplying weapons because weapons save lives'?"
Of course, that can always happen. Some say that this war mood that prevails in certain circles, among the Greens, on the government side as a whole, but also in the U.S., is borne of the belief that it is finally a just, good war against an absolutely evil enemy. You can leave all the other wars behind, and even forget about Nazi Germany, because you're finally going to a new, just, good war. Do you see that as a background as well?
Oskar Lafontaine: You can see it that way, but of course I wonder what happened there, because for me that is fascist thinking. If, for example, Mrs. Baerbock says that Russia must be ruined, then that is fascist thinking. This kind of thinking is characterized by the fact that people are left out of the equation. This is what we are seeing in the current debate in Germany. The people who die every day are rarely mentioned in the sense that a cease-fire must now be achieved. No, they talk about a victorious peace. Crimea must be reconquered, and we must supply more and more weapons.
The German foreign minister has even stooped to the assertion - she probably doesn't even know that she has thus adopted the slogan of the U.S. weapons fools - that weapons save lives. How guns save lives in the U.S. is something you can see over and over again. This is an aberration that I call fascistoid. That's why all those who want peace must join forces and say: When we talk about a community of values, we must not talk in terms that hardly anyone can imagine anymore, but we must simply admit that we see people as our sisters and brothers and that we will do everything to prevent them from losing their lives. That is the primary thing, not to take back Crimea or to keep the Russians down.
Where does this fascistoid mood come from, as you call it?
Oskar Lafontaine: It's hard to say. One reason, as I said, interestingly enough, was mentioned by Mrs. Merkel in Der Spiegel: Awareness of the horror of war is disappearing with the contemporary witnesses, and with it the willingness to reconcile is also disappearing. That may be one reason why people no longer really know what happened back then, or why they no longer develop the feelings that are necessary to say: We want to do everything we can to ensure that something like this never happens again.
I think there is another reason, and that is the disappearance of the religious. This may sound strange coming from me, but Dostoevsky already wrote: When God is dead, everything is permitted. Other writers have also commented on this. Malraux, for example, once said: This century will be religious or it will not be. By this he did not mean that everyone must adhere to a faith, but that the values that religions have imparted, charity in the Christian West, for example, that is, compassion for others, are the basis of a peaceful world. If this is gone, and this can be seen in the intention to ruin Russia, then the willingness or the basis for peace is no longer there.
But that can't mean that it's now absolutely necessary to build new churches again.
Oskar Lafontaine: No, the question is, how can the thinking be overcome that is expressed in the sentence: "We must always supply weapons because weapons save lives" or in the sentence: "We must ruin Russia"? This can be overcome only by humanism, if one wants to take this term. It is based on seeing one's fellow human being as a sister or brother. Cultural exchange, for example, can bring people together and can awaken love for each other's culture. That's why it is so fatal that Russian artists are now also being disinvited. That is a step toward barbarism.
Oskar Lafontaine was born in Saarlouis on September 16, 1943. Two years later he lost his father, who died as a soldier at the age of 29. In the course of his political life, he was mayor of Saarbrücken, prime minister of Saarland, chairman of the SPD, candidate for chancellor and federal finance minister. In March 1999, he resigned from all his previous political posts in the SPD in criticism of Gerhard Schröder's government course. He was founding chairman of the DIE LINKE party, which was formed on his initiative from the PDS and Wahlalternative Arbeit & soziale Gerechtigkeit (WASG), chairman of the Left Party parliamentary group in the German Bundestag and top candidate in the Saarland state parliamentary election campaigns in 2009, 2012 and 2017. He led the Left Party parliamentary group in the Saarland state parliament from 2009 until his party resignation in March 2022.
blu_frisbee says:
December 1, 2022 at 9:50 am
It is bourgeois ideology to always ask only for might and right, never for property.
Capitalism carries war like the cloud carries rain.
War does not come from the delusions of evil men.
Capitalism is unrestrained money multiplication as an end in itself.
Corruption is nothing external or foreign to an otherwise flawless capitalism,
but capitalism itself is the flaw and corruption as it prevails.
LaFontaine believes if one exorcises the evil delusion paradise breaks out.
His worldview and diagnosis are wrong.
What remains is the ravings of a madman on the Titanic against the madness of the captain....
Marxists no longer appear in the discussion at all.
Since when is it anti-American to ask an uninvited "guest" to go home? We don't want anything from the Yanks, the Yanks want something from us and if we object it doesn't mean we are against the US, we just want to be masters in our own house, which is covered by international law.
Wolfgang Koethe says:
December 1, 2022 at 2:47 pm
In the "Brothers Karamazov" there is a chapter that also appears as a small single volume: "The Grand Inquisitor." In it, Dostoevsky tells how Jesus appears in Seville, where the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition is doing his mischief. He immediately has Jesus arrested and wants to burn him at the stake.
This means here the idea (Jesus), which stands in the way of the system (Inquisition, church), "disturbs the order" although Jesus (the idea) founded the church.
When Dostoevsky read the legend of the Grand Inquisitor to students at St. Petersburg University in December 1879, he wrote an introduction which says: "When faith in Christ is falsified and mixed with the objectives of this world, the meaning of Christianity is also lost. The mind falls prey to unbelief, and instead of the great ideal of Christ, only a new Tower of Babel will be erected. While Christianity has a high conception of the individual human being, mankind will be regarded only as a great mass. Under the guise of social love, nothing but manifest contempt for mankind will flourish."
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government ...
Russian Hacker says:
December 1, 2022 at 4:04 pm.
From a Russian perspective, Oskar is absolutely right. In Russia, people would agree with him.
Peace in Europe can be guaranteed only with Russia and not against Russia. It is not USA what can guarantee peace in Europe, USA can threaten peace in Europe only because it is in its interest. The USA does not care about the fate of Europeans. Europe is not an ally for USA, but first of all a potentially dangerous competitor. For the USA, it can at best be used as a sales market and cannon fodder against its direct competitors Russia and China.
Only in one thing I would disagree with Oskar.
A guarantee of peace in Europe cannot exist exclusively among Europeans, but only together with Russia. Neither Russians nor Europeans can be interested in another big war in Europe. Europe without USA (and Great Britain) does not need to be afraid of Russia at all. Europe and Russia could become best friends, and benefit from close cooperation, there are no ideological, cultural, religious or other fundamentally insurmountable hurdles. What is needed to secure peace in Europe in the long term would be at least the sovereignty of Europe excluding the influence of the Anglo-Saxons (USA + GB) and at least a rapprochement with Russia at eye level. The recognition of Russian security interests. Russia has nothing against the Europeans in principle and does not need their lands or resources. It also has no claim to world domination and does not seek global dominance and hegemony like USA. All Russia wants is to be left alone and to develop peacefully and undisturbed and to profit from trade and cooperation with other countries. Russia would also like to cooperate with USA and GB, it is the Anglo-Saxons who cannot imagine this and would prefer to wipe Russia off the map. Also not only since yesterday, for Great Britain and later also USA Russia had always been the final opponent. For many centuries they have been fighting Russia as they can. They see in Russia and since newest time also in China a potential competitor, which could question their world domination claim (!). The hostilities are a one-way street. Only in the Second World War there was a short-lived alliance of convenience between Anglo-Saxons and Russians. However, that was purely pragmatic, as Hitler was out of control and threatening GB. As soon as Hitler was defeated (and the Russians carried the biggest burden), the alliance was over and the Russians became the number one enemy again.
The current conflict is also due to the fact that Russia simply can't keep plugging away and backing down. As Oskar correctly noted, the Anglo-Saxons are putting a knife to Russia's neck. Russia simply cannot tolerate that, it has gone way too far. Russia has never wanted war in Ukraine and has tried to avoid it for as long as it could. Much too long, actually. This war could have started in 2014 and would have been much easier for Russia at that time. Russia did everything to avoid it, while the Anglo-Saxons and their European poodles did everything to set Russia and Ukraine against each other. They helped nationalists in Ukraine to take power, who immediately started terrorizing Russians living in Ukraine. There is hardly anything more effective to provoke Russia than that. And then they prepared Ukraine for war with Russia. Militarily pumped up to one of the most powerful armies in Europe. At the same time Ukraine remained the poorest country in Europe, its fate is completely indifferent to the USA, they need it exclusively as cannon fodder and battering ram against Russia. Russia could no longer stand idly by and watch all this. The absolutely anti-Russian brown Ukraine, driven by hatred against everything Russian and equipped with the most powerful army in Europe and territorial claims, finally with the claim to become a nuclear power and the prospect of being accepted into NATO, Russia's patience and appeasement policy had been brought to its limit. It could not go on like this, it reminded the Russians too much of the rise of the Third Reich, which was not only tolerated but also supported by the Anglo-Saxons at that time and was built up for the war against the then ideological opponent, the Soviet Union. GB and USA allowed Hitler very much and helped him to make the Third Reich the biggest military power in Europe in the shortest time. They threw one country after another into Hitler's throat. They allowed him to annex Austria and crush Czechoslovakia without firing a single shot. They even recognized it in the Munich Conference of 1938. They cleared the way to the East for him. However, they miscalculated with Poland in the process. They wanted Hitler to march across the Balkans toward the Soviet Union and steer clear of their ally Poland. If Hitler had gone through Czechoslovakia and the Balkans and left Poland alone, they would have remained neutral without any doubt, if not appeared at his side when he got into trouble.
But this time, too, they miscalculated and enormously underestimated Russia. The plan to ruin Russia, or at least to bring about a regime change, has not worked. It is time to realize it. It is completely hopeless. Despite all efforts, Russia will not be brought down without a direct confrontation, without a Third World War. But the Third World War is not an option for the West either, because Russia is not just a nuclear power, it is the strongest nuclear power in the world with the most nuclear warheads and hypersonic technology. A direct confrontation between the USA and Russia would undoubtedly set in motion a spiral of escalation that would be unstoppable and would lead to mutual nuclear strikes in the shortest possible time. Without understatement, this would be the end not only of Russian and Western civilization, it would be the end of the world. If Russia and USA would use even a fraction of their nuclear weapons, it would cause a global climate catastrophe. Because of the enormous amount of ash ejected into the nuclear sphere, the light of the sun would be obscured for years, if not decades. The average temperature would drop by a dozen degrees. All plants on earth would perish and with them all animals and, of course, people. The earth would change first into an ice planet with glaciers which reached almost to the equator and finally into a desert planet on which there is hardly any life. Maybe in very remote places some people would survive, but they would have to start from scratch in a hostile and radioactively contaminated world.
Reply
wrmfr says:
December 2, 2022 at 8:37 am
To the article of Oskar Lafontaine and the comment of 'Russian Hacker' I want to add a publication of Scott Ritter that is already a few days old:
Analyst Scott Ritter: "German politicians' position is stupid"
Analyst Scott Ritter: "The position of German politicians is stupid"
Unlocked on 11/21/2022 at 15:26 by Sanjo Babić
(Image: Screenshot RT DE / Own work)
In an interview, military analyst Scott Ritter expressed that Germans are deluded about their own strength. He said that the German people should wake up, otherwise there is a threat of nuclear war in Europe. This is reported by the magazine "RT DE".
RT DE further reports: "In an interview, U.S. strategic analyst Scott Ritter clears up numerous ideas Germans have about their country, their politics, and above all their military and economic strength.
Germany's policies are firebrand and oblivious to history, Ritter says. Germans should wake up, he said, because German politicians' current policies would lead Germany and Europe into a nuclear war that would destroy Europe, perhaps even the world.
Ritter vented his anger at German politics. In his view, Germany has become deluded. Ritter asked when the Germans would finally start learning from their history. Germany had tried to fight Russia several times before, and it had never turned out well for Germany. Why is Germany so eager to be drawn into war, the analyst wonders.
The German military could not win a conventional war against Russia. The Bundeswehr, he says, is not to be taken seriously. It lacks capacity, equipment, everything. To believe that you can keep getting involved in the war in Ukraine because you have NATO behind you is naive and extremely dangerous, he says. A confrontation between NATO and Russia would inevitably lead to nuclear war, he said:
"A conflict between NATO and Russia ends only one way: with the nuclear annihilation of Europe, including Germany."
In view of this obvious connection, he said, German policy is insane.
The claimed German strength, he said, is an illusion. Germany is a weak country, he said. Its economic success, he said, is based on the availability of cheap Russian energy. The idea of being able to isolate Russia completely misses the reality and the factual circumstances.
Ritter takes the meeting of the G20 as an example: If one subtracts the G7 from the G20, BRICS would remain. Ritter thus illustrates that strong alliances have meanwhile emerged outside the collective West, which are increasingly questioning the significance of the West. Rhetorically, Ritter asks the Germans how their heating and energy costs are. All EU countries have the problem of dwindling purchasing power and rising production costs due to the Western sanctions regime, Ritter points out. The situation is different, however, for countries like India and China. The countries in the new alliances benefit from cooperation with Russia. Those who want to isolate Russia are sending their own economies into the basement, Ritter makes clear.
The interview is an urgent appeal and at the same time a warning from an expert to abandon the confrontational course toward Russia. If Germany maintains this course, it can only lose. "
Source: RT EN
Analyst Scott Ritter: "German politicians' position is stupid" - Extremnews - The Somewhat Different News
https://www.extremnews.com/lifestyle/internet/a47518dee166425
Reply
zdago says:
December 2, 2022 at 11:11 am
Hermann Goering once said...
...the following while in prison at Nuremberg in 1946:
"Well, of course, the people do not want war. Why should also
poor farm laborer want to risk his life in war, if the best
if the best he can get out of it is that he comes back with his bones intact?
with his bones intact? Of course, the common people do not want war.
war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany.
in Germany. That is clear.
But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always easy to convince the people.
and it is always easy to get the people to participate, whether it is a
whether it is a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, a parliament or a
dictatorship, a parliament or a communist dictatorship.
(...)
The people can always be made, with or without the right to vote,
to follow the orders of the leaders. It is very simple. One need
nothing to do but to tell the people that they are being attacked, and to reproach the
pacifists of their lack of patriotism and claim that they are putting the
that they are putting the country in danger. This method works in every
country."
Too bad that this is not common knowledge !
Possibly this knowledge would put politics in a somewhat different light !
Recent article
The botched energy transition
Stop the war!
For more information:
http://www.freembtranslations.net
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