Svet

[teacher]

Francuska  -_-

zato se i ugasila  

[borris_]

Ali je i posejala po evropi (Spanija, Svedska, valjda ima jos neki)

 

Kao i svapska uostalom.

[teacher]

Ali je i posejala po evropi (Spanija, Svedska, valjda ima jos neki)

 

 

zato nam tako i ide  

[Roger Sanchez]

Francuska -_-

Burboni nisu Vrancuzi kolko ja znam To je hispanska narodna dinastija

[borris_]

Slabo znas 

 

Edited November 17, 2014 by borris_

[Roger Sanchez]

Sramoto jedna nadri-galska, pa ti nisi ni Reine Margot gledo...

 

Telefonika Lakonika

[reginald]

 

NATO: Danger to World Peace

The official mythology is that between 1945 (or 1946) and 1989 (or 1991), the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR) confronted each other continuously – politically, militarily, and above all ideologically. This was called the “cold war.” If it was a war, the word to underline is “cold” since the two powers never engaged in any direct military action against each other throughout the entire period.

There were however several institutional reflections of this cold war, in each of which it was the United States, and not the USSR, that took the first step. In 1949, the three western countries occupying Germany combined their zones to create the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) as a state. The Soviet Union responded by restyling its zone as the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

In 1949, NATO was established by twelve nations. On May 5, 1955, the three western powers officially ended their occupation of the FRG, recognizing it as an independent state. Four days later, the FRG was admitted to membership in NATO. In response to this, the USSR established the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) and included the GDR as one of its members.

The treaty establishing NATO was supposed to apply only within Europe. One reason was that the western European countries still had colonies outside of Europe and did not wish to allow any agency to have the authority to interfere directly in their political decisions concerning these colonies. The moments of seemingly tense confrontation between the two sides – the Berlin blockade, the Cuban missile crisis – all ended with a status quo ante outcome. The most important invocation of the treaties to engage in military action was that of the USSR to act within its own zone against developments they deemed dangerous to the USSR – Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, Poland in 1981. The United States intervened politically under similar circumstances, such as the potential entry of the Italian Communist Party into the Italian government.

This brief account points to the real objective of the cold war. The cold war was not meant to transform the political realities of the other side (except in some moment very far into the future). The cold war was a mechanism for each side to keep its satellites under control, while maintaining the de facto agreement of the two powers for their long-term partition of the globe into two spheres, one-third to the USSR and two-thirds to the United States. Priority was given by each side to the guarantee on the non-utilization of military force (especially nuclear weapons) against each other. This came to be known as the guarantee against “mutually assured destruction.”

The collapse of the USSR in two stages – the withdrawal from eastern Europe in 1989 and the formal dissolution of the USSR in 1991 – should have meant in theory the end of any function for NATO. Indeed, it is well known that, when President Mikhail Gorbachev of the USSR agreed to the incorporation of the GDR into the FRG, he was given the promise that there would be no inclusion of the WTO states into NATO. This promise was violated. Instead, NATO took on a new role entirely.

After 1991, NATO bestowed on itself a role of world policeman for whatever it considered appropriate political solutions to world problems. The first major effort of this type occurred in the Kosovo/Serbia conflict, in which the U.S. government threw its weight behind the establishment of a Kosovo state and a change in regime in Serbia. This was followed by other such efforts – in Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the Taliban, in Iraq in 2003 to change regime in Baghdad, in 2014 to fight the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, and in 2013-2014 to support so-called pro-Western forces in Ukraine.

In point of fact, using NATO itself turned out to be difficult for the U.S. For one thing, there were various kinds of reluctances of NATO member states about the actions undertaken. For another thing, when NATO was formally involved, as in Kosovo, the U.S. military felt constrained by the slow political decision-making about military action.

So, why then the expansion of NATO instead of its dissolution? This had once again to do with intra-European politics, and the desire of the U.S. to control its presumed allies. It was in the Bush regime that the then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld talked of an “old” and a “new” Europe. By old Europe, he was referring especially to the French and German reluctance to agree with U.S. strategies. He saw the western European countries as moving away from their ties to the United States. His perception was in fact correct. In response, the U.S. hoped to clip the wings of the western Europeans by introducing eastern European states into NATO, which the U.S. considered more reliable allies.

The conflict over Ukraine illuminates the danger of NATO. The U.S. has sought to create new military structures, obviously aimed at Russia, under the guise that these were meant to counter a hypothetical Iranian threat. As the Ukrainian conflict played on, the language of the cold war was revived. The U.S. uses NATO to press western European countries to agree with anti-Russian actions. And within the U.S., President Barack Obama is under heavy pressure to move “forcefully” against the Russian so-called threat to the Ukraine. This combines with the large hostility in the U.S. Congress to any accord with the Iranians over nuclear development.

The forces in the United States and in western Europe who are seeking to avoid military folly risk being overtaken by what can only be called a war party. NATO and what it symbolizes today represents a severe danger because it represents the claim of western countries to interfere everywhere in the name of western interpretations of geopolitical realities. This can only lead to further, highly dangerous, conflict. Renouncing NATO as a structure would be a first step towards sanity and the world’s survival.

 

http://www.iwallerstein.com/nato-danger-to-world-peace/

[reginald]

 

Left Victory in Brazil: World Consequences

On Oct. 26, Pres. Dilma Rousseff of Brazil of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers Party, PT) won re-election in the second round of voting by a narrow margin against Aécio Neves of the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (Brazilian Social Democratic Party, PSDB). Despite the name of the PSDB, this was a clear left-right struggle, in which voters generally voted their class position, even though the programs of the two parties were on many fronts more centrist than left or right.

To understand what this means, we must analyze the somewhat special politics of Brazil. Brazil’s politics are in many ways closer to those of western Europe and North America than almost any other country in the global South. Like countries in the global North, the electoral struggles in the end come down to a struggle between a left-of-center and a right-of-center party. Elections are regular and the voters tend to vote their class interests despite the centrist policies of the two main parties, who usually rotate in power. The result is constant dissatisfaction by the voters with “their” party, and constant attempts by the real left and the real right to push policies in their direction.

How these left and right groups pursue their efforts depends a little on the formal structure of elections. Many countries have a de facto two-round system. This permits the left and the right to run their own candidates in the first round and then rejoin the main party vote in the second round. The major exception to this two-round system is the United States, which forces left and right forces to enter into the main parties and struggle from within.

Brazil has one exceptional feature. While in all these countries politicians change parties from time to time, in most countries this is a tiny group. In Brazil, such party-switching is virtually an everyday occurrence in the national legislature, where neither main party normally has more than a small plurality of votes. This forces the main parties to spend enormous energy on constantly reconstructing alliances, and accounts for somewhat more visible corruption, although probably no greater actual corruption than elsewhere.

In this election, the PT was suffering from the growing disillusionment of its voters. A third-party candidate, Marina Silva, tried to offer a via media. She was known for three qualities: as environmentalist, evangelical, and a non-White of very poor origins. At first she seemed to take off. But as she began to propose a very neoliberal program, her popularity collapsed and voters turned back to Neves, a more traditional rightist.

The disillusionments with the PT centered around its failure to break structurally with economic orthodoxy, plus a failure to carry out its promises concerning agrarian reform, environmental concerns, and the defense of the rights of indigenous peoples. It also repressed popular demonstrations of left movements, most notably in June 2013. Despite this, the social movements of the left joined forces, and very strongly, with the PT in the second round.

Why? Because of the strong positives of the 12 years of PT government. First of all, there was the greatly expanded Bolsa familial, which paid a monthly allowance to the poorest fourth of Brazil’s population and significantly improved their daily life. Secondly, and scarcely mentioned in the western press, there was Brazil’s highly successful foreign policy – its major role in the construction of South American and Latin American institutions that held at bay the power of the United States in the region. The left was sure that Neves would reduce the social welfare thrust of the PT and ally Brazil once again globally with the United States. The Brazilian left voted for these two positives despite all the negatives.

That same weekend, there were three other major elections – Uruguay, Ukraine, and Tunisia. The election in Uruguay was rather similar to Brazil’s. It was the first round of the presidential elections. The governing party since 2004 had been the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) and its candidate was Tabaré Vázquez. The Frente Amplio was truly broad – from center-left to Communists and ex-guerillas. Vázquez faced a classically right candidate, Luis Lacalle Pou of the Partido Nacional, but also a candidate, Pedro Bordaberry, of one of two parties – Partido Colorado (Red Party) – that had ruled Uruguay repressively for over a half-century.

On the first round, Vázquez got 46.5% of the vote over circa 31% for Lacalle, not enough to avoid a second round. Bordaberry, with about 13%, has now thrown his support to Lacalle, but it seems likely that Vázquez will win, and more or less for the same reasons as Rousseff has won. In addition, unlike Brazil, his party will control the legislature. So, Uruguay too will reaffirm the effort to build an autonomous geopolitical structure in Latin America.

Ukraine was totally different. Far from being constructed around a left-right class struggle with two centrist parties trying to secure votes, Ukraine’s politics are now constructed around a regional ethno-linguistic divide. In these elections, the west-oriented government held elections in which the dice were loaded in favor of excluding any real role for the so-called separatist movements in eastern Ukraine. The latter therefore boycotted the elections and announced they would hold their own for regional offices. In the Kiev-ordained elections, it seems that those who now govern – President Petro Poroshenko in alliance with his rival, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of another party – will maintain themselves in tandem in power, excluding the truly ultra-nationalist Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) party from any role.

Finally, Tunisia is also quite different. Tunisia has been seen as the launcher of the so-called Arab Spring, and today seems to be its only survivor. Ennahda, the Islamic party that won the first elections, lost considerable strength by pursuing a too rapid program of Islamization of Tunisian politics. It was forced some months ago to yield place to a technocratic interim government, and lost large number of votes (even of Islamists) in this second election.

The winner was Nadaa Tunis (Tunisia’s Call). Its politics are in one sense clear. It is a secular party. Its leader is a venerable 88-year-old politician, Beji Caid Essebsi, who served in the so-called Destourian governments that had led the country after independence until he became a major dissident. His problem is to hold together a very split coalition of many secularist forces – primarily both the young people who led the uprising against President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali in 2011 and various leading members of that very government who have now re-entered the political arena.

In any case, though Nadaa Tunis had a plurality of 85 seats out of 217 and Ennahda reduced to 69, the others are scattered among several smaller parties. There will have to be a coalition government, possibly even an all-party coalition. So, while the Tunisian young revolutionaries of 2011 are celebrating their victory against Ennahda, no one is sure where this will lead.

I say, hurrah for Brazil, where the most important of these four elections was held. But there as elsewhere, the game is not over. Not at all!

 

 

http://www.iwallerstein.com/left-victory-in-brazil-world-consequences/

[Roger Sanchez]

Očito, ako se bezbroj puta ponovi da je Iraq 2003 NATOva operacija, na kraju to postane istina™. Jacquesov veto postaje izbljedjela fusnota u programatskoj istoriji.

 

Laconica Telefonica

[Roger Sanchez]

Five Thai students who flashed a salute inspired by Hollywood film series The Hunger Games at Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha have been detained.

The three-fingered salute was widely used by protesters against Thailand's military coup in May.

The military had threatened in June to arrest anyone who refused to stop doing it when challenged.

Gen Prayuth led the coup, which came after months of political deadlock and unrest, and became PM in August.

On Wednesday, he was speaking at an event in the north-eastern province of Khon Kaen when five students from a local university sitting near the podium stood up.

They removed their shirts to reveal T-shirts underneath with a Thai slogan reading "No Coup", and flashed the three-fingered salute.

Police officers and soldiers immediately took the five away.

'Anyone else?'

The three-finger gesture is used by characters in the dystopian Hunger Games film and book trilogy as a sign of silent dissent against a brutal authoritarian state.

It became so popular after the Thai coup that the authorities warned they would arrest anyone in a large group who gave the salute and refused to lower their arm when ordered.

Life imitates art™.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Roger Sanchez

[Guest]

Panika medju politicarima u Spaniji. Stranka Podemos po najnovijim anketama prva, sa cetiri puta vise glasova nego na izborima za Evropski parlament. Sledece godine izbori. Mislim da ni ovi iz Podemos nisu racunali na ovako nesto.

[Budja]

Cekaj, otkud PP drugi?

 

Pre par nedelja je neka anketa stavljala PSOE na drugo mesto, iza Podemos.

[Guest]

Cekaj, otkud PP drugi?

 

Pre par nedelja je neka anketa stavljala PSOE na drugo mesto, iza Podemos.

Ne vidim da je taj podatak uopste bitan, koliko je iznenadjujuci skok Podemos i uopste maltene svakodnevni rast popularnosti uz svu medijsku hajku i prozivanjem da su komunisti, chavezisti, anarhisti i pitajbogastavec.

Podemos je prava one-man stranka u liku Pabla Iglesiasa i zaista je interesantno gledati sa strane kako se idejno konsoliduju i uopste organizuju u hodu, s obzirom na meteorski uspon popularnosti. Izvesno je stranka nece izaci na lokalne izbore, kako zbog (ne)organizovanosti, tako i zbog broj clanova, sto je mnogo bolje, nego da se popunjava prebeglim clanovima drugih stranaka.

Btw, Pablo Iglesias je vrlo inteligentan, obrazovan i harizmatican tip, koji govori narodskim jezikom, zna da bude premazan kad treba i vesto izbegava da se jasno izjasni o svim bolnim temama spanske svakodnevnice. Koliko ce to uspevati i dalje, vreme, novinari i suparnici ce pokazati.  

[Budja]

Ne vidim da je taj podatak uopste bitan, koliko je iznenadjujuci skok Podemos i uopste maltene svakodnevni rast popularnosti uz svu medijsku hajku i prozivanjem da su komunisti, chavezisti, anarhisti i pitajbogastavec.

Podemos je prava one-man stranka u liku Pabla Iglesiasa i zaista je interesantno gledati sa strane kako se idejno konsoliduju i uopste organizuju u hodu, s obzirom na meteorski uspon popularnosti. Izvesno je stranka nece izaci na lokalne izbore, kako zbog (ne)organizovanosti, tako i zbog broj clanova, sto je mnogo bolje, nego da se popunjava prebeglim clanovima drugih stranaka.

Btw, Pablo Iglesias je vrlo inteligentan, obrazovan i harizmatican tip, koji govori narodskim jezikom, zna da bude premazan kad treba i vesto izbegava da se jasno izjasni o svim bolnim temama spanske svakodnevnice. Koliko ce to uspevati i dalje, vreme, novinari i suparnici ce pokazati.  

 

Dakle, ipak populista?

[Guest]

Dakle, ipak populista?

Meni je to daleko manji problem, mislim ko nije populista danas, od toga sto su one-man stranka.