Bridge of Spies

I spent twenty four hours in Berlin in December 1989, one month after the Berlin Wall was opened. It was the most interesting twenty fours of my life. The sense of being at the end of WW2 (brilliantly captured in The Last Shot by Hugo Hamilton) permeated the city. I had a letter of introduction to a friend of a friend, who lived in East Berlin, so I crossed the border at Checkpoint Charlie. I rang the friend of a friend from East Berlin (I had tried to do so from West Berlin but was unable to get a connection). He told me to take the underground to a particular station where we met. I spent an interesting evening with him. He was a man of the left and took comfort from the fact that although the Wall had been breached the GDR still existed. I told him that I didn't think it would last for much longer. That was why I made the trip in December. I felt that by the following August - the month I normally went on holidays - the Wall or the GDR or both would be gone. The Wall was, as far as I remember.

I had to be back at Checkpoint Charlie by midnight or wait until the next morning to get back to West Berlin. I couldn't find my way back from the underground station but a local guy guided me through the narrow streets to the Wall. We were running like hell to make it. I felt like I was in The Spy Who Came In From the Cold or The Iprcess File. (A colleague in the office subsequently spread a story that the Russians had opened up on me. A few weeks earlier they would have!) I always regretted that I never even shook hands with my guide. I got back to Checkpoint Charlie at about 12.05 but there were a few other people there so they let us all through. On the West Berlin side, an Englishwoman, who said she was a dentist working in West Berlin (but in retrospect was probably a member of MI6), gave me a lift back to my hotel.

The next morning I headed straight for the Wall at the Old Reichstag near the Brandenburg Gate. (Presumably, the German Parliament is back there again.) I didn't know until then that the Wall was not the border, which extended for another six feet west of the Wall. This was to allow the GDR to police both sides of the Wall. (When an East Berlin policeman was patrolling on the western side of the Wall he was watched by an armed colleague.) I joined a large group of people who were chipping bits out of the Wall. (I got my piece mounted and still have it.) At some point during the morning, the East Berlin police emerged out of a gate and began to patrol the western side of the Wall. The chatting stopped, the tension mounted (not, however, to a dangerous level) and most people, including me, stepped back inside the barriers, which were placed there by the West Berlin police, I think, and marked the frontier between West and East Berlin. A few people, however, didn't stop and one woman lost her hammer to an East Berlin policeman. She had drawn back her right hand ready to hit the Wall (whatever it was made of it was not easy to knock bits out of) but he deftly took the hammer out of her hand and threw it over the Wall.  A few moments later, the East Berlin police reached the river (the Spee, I think), got into conversation with someone who looked like a notable of some sort, the tension dropped and we all went back to hacking on the Wall.

Steven Spielberg's film captures the atmosphere of Cold War Berlin very well, it seems to me, although I only experienced its dying embers. East Berlin was certainly a grim place, a complete contrast to the bright lights of West Berlin. Spielberg doesn't just capture the atmosphere of the city and the times but he also captures the absurdity of what was going on. He doesn't (?) set out to do this. He just tells the story of the swap of two spies but the Cold War, although dangerous and, at times, highly dangerous, was largely bogus (and mostly stable). The Cold War was largely driven by the military industrial complex of the West in pursuit of careers for generals and spooks, and profits for the arms manufacturers. I felt its bogus nature at the time, and it is even more obvious in retrospect just how fake it was. The MI Complex has no Cold War now so has had to resort to generating hot wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria to keep their profits up (which was the main purpose of the Vietnam War, the main hot conflict of the Cold War).

In some ways (and this too I felt at the time) there was an absurdity about the Cold War. Spielberg's film, again not consciously it seems to me, captures this very well. Vast amounts of treasure were wasted and not a few lives were lost (58,000 US troops in Vietnam alone but over a million Vietnamese citizens, guerrillas and soldiers) keeping the US MI Complex in profits. The great and the good of the West went along with it and the legal system was distorted by it. People's rights were trampled on, rights that Americans proclaimed then and now to be what the US was about but that its legislature, its court and its media ignored. It was ugly.

In the West, we were programmed to believe that the Russians cracked the whip and all of eastern Europe jumped. It was never that simple. The Russians dominated their alliance just as the US dominated NATO but other parties, like the GDR and indeed the Poles, also had skin in the game. They had their own agendas. Spielberg captures this very well, again without making a big deal of it. He lets the events tell the story. It would be interesting to see a good film maker (and Spielberg is the best there is; he will be considered by future generations as the Shakespeare of the 20th century) do a story on the tension between the West German State and the NATO powers that were "protecting" it.

Mark Rylance, who plays the Soviet spy being exchange for Gary Powers, gives one of the best film performances of the year. Despite the foolishness and absurdity of the Cold War (there is only one letter of a difference between "cold" and "cod"!), there were deeply committed people on both sides, although it has to be said that, in the West, most of the committed people were fools or knaves. There was no excuse for them not to see through what was going on. In a system as cruel and totalitarian as the USSR, and as lacking in the good things of life (compared to the West), those genuinely committed to it had to be people of high calibre. Rylance's performance captures that kind of integrity. Tom Hanks' performance is up to his usual excellent standard.

It is only twenty six years since the Wall was opened but it might as well have been 250 for all the relevance the Wall and the Cold War have to today's fast-changing world. In 1989, the US and the USSR dominated the world. Now the US is offering to "share" the world with China, which recognizes that kind of  pleading as a defeated opponent trying to stay in the game.

So, all has changed, changed utterly but you couldn't say that a terrible beauty has been born. I feel a certain nostalgia for the Cold War (but I haven't forgot its ugliness) and recommend Bridge of Spies to anyone who feels the same way.




Standards in public office, i.e. RTE

I never cease to be amazed by politicians who get caught in journalistic stings, about which I have reservations. That said, of the three cases highlighted, the Monaghan county councillor's behaviour was so outrageous that he might indeed have realized it was a sting. The other two were sailing close to the wind but I'm not sure if their actions could be said to constitute breaches of any code or something more serious. The Donegal county councillor is very young and certainly needs to grow up. No doubt he has grown up a lot since last night. 

People in this State are never happier than when they are unhappy about the state of ... well the State. The RTE programme last night threw up three cases of possible improper behaviour but RTE acted as if they had found 300 councillors with their hands in the till. It seems that the programme makers contacted a number of other councillors who refused to play ball - either because they didn't fall for the sting or for some other reason. RTE, however, didn't tell us how many councillors there are in the State, how many they had contacted and how many had refused to talk to them. Any serious and responsible programme maker would have provided that information at the beginning of the programme to allow the viewers to appreciate the scale of the alleged wrong doing uncovered. Perhaps RTE would have provided the information if the number of councillors falling for the sting had been more numerous. Three is a derisory number.

Listening to Fintan O'Toole on Prime Time afterwards, who should perhaps be styled the National Professor of Verbal Diarrhoe, you would think that wholesale corruption had been uncovered. There is only so much of O'Toole I can put up so I didn't watch the whole of the Prime Time programme afterwords. I don't know if either of the panelists or anyone in the audience questioned RTE about their failure to provide the public with the basic statistics referred to in the previous paragraph without which the programme was meaningless.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that having spent nearly a year (?) preparing the programme and having discovered very little RTE were determined to make the most of it and blew it out of all proportion. They should perhaps be more worried about their own standards than those of the local authorities.

The New Ireland Forum, the ESRI and Brexit

The recent ESRI publication on Brexit ("Scoping the Possible Economic Implications of Brexit on Ireland") does not appear to include any references, in relation to North/South issues, to the work of the New Ireland Forum of the 1980s. The bibliography indeed contains only six references to 20th century publications -

- A 1998 publication on how foreign direct investment (FDI) affects economic growth
- A 1997 publication on the growth of FDI in Europe
- A 1996 publication on market share and exchange rate pass-through in world automobile trade
- A 1989 publication about tariffs and exchange rates under imperfect competition, and
- Two publications by the (current but not at the time) Governor of the Central Bank from 1982 and
  1984 on unemployment in Ireland.

Many of the publications cited in the bibliography appear to be by authors from outside Ireland with a strong emphasis on FDI. We have put so many eggs in the FDI basket that it has distorted our capacity to make good policy decisions in other areas.

The following documents published by the New Ireland Forum would appear to be relevant to the North/South aspects of Brexit but don't appear to have been examined by the ESRI:

- The Economic Consequences of the Division of Ireland since 1920
- A Comparative Description of the Economic Structure and Situation, North and South
- Integrated Policy and Planning for Transport in a New Ireland
- Opportunities for North/South Co-Operation in Energy
- An Analysis of Agricultural Developments in the North and South of Ireland and of the Effects of
   Integrated Policy and Planning, and
- The Macroeconomic Consequences of Integrated Economic Policy, Planning and Co-ordination in
   Ireland.

A great deal of work went into the preparation of those reports for what was a major national initiative (that led to the Anglo Irish Agreement (1985) and subsequently to the Downing Street Declaration and the Good Friday Agreement (both 1990s)). It seems strange that New Ireland Forum documents were not consulted during the preparation of the ESRI document, which states that all its Research Series reports are peer reviewed prior to publication. The ESRI report has a chapter on energy so it is particularly odd that the Forum research on energy is not cited. The authors of the report appear to have had contact with the Department of Finance but they don't say if they had contact with any other Department.

In addition to the New Ireland Forum, the authors don't appear to have consulted "Border Crossings, Developing Ireland's Island Economy", edited by Michael D'Arcy and Tim Dickson (1995), which includes a chapter by a (then) research professor at the ESRI, or Alan Gray's book (also 1995) "The Economic Consequences of Peace in Ireland". Nor does it mention the seminal Opsahl Report ("A Citizens' Inquiry, The Opsahl Report on Northern Ireland") edited by Andy Pollak (1993), which contains an important piece on the economy.

I haven't found any reference to the work of the Nordic Council either. The Nordic Council contains states that are (a) in the EU and the Eurozone, (b) in the EU but not the Eurozone and (c) in neither. The work of the Nordic Council would surely provide some guidance to how relations between Britain and Ireland could be managed in a situation where Brexit occurs.



Addiction

Ruairi McKiernan's article in today's Irish Times, Natasha Eddery has shattered the national silence on alcoholism, explores some important issues to do with addiction, some of which are relevant to Irish society while others are relevant to societies in general. If Ireland is an addictive society, which it is, there are reasons particular to the Irish character that causes addiction. They include a lack of steadiness and a lack of self-discipline. The Irish character tends to be weak and, as a consequence, wild.

We tend to be sensitive about criticism of the Irish abroad in places like the UK, the US or Australia. We shouldn't, as the criticism is based on the lived experience of the people there. We tend to see a hint of racism in the criticism as the travelling people here do about the criticism of them by settled people. The plain reality is that there is an element of racism in the criticism but we have no one to blame but ourselves. Racism has now largely gone underground but certain events are likely to trigger racist comments. When OJ Simpson was on trial for the murder of his wife, Jay Leno, on the Tonight Show, used it as an excuse to make jokes that he would not otherwise have got away with. When the students were killed and injured in Berkeley some months ago (in an accident where the students were not at fault), the New York Times saw fit to make the kind of comments about the Irish that would have been ten a penny in the paper fifty years ago but that can't easily be expressed now. The paper was obviously dying to have a go at the Irish, something that is, I believe, always just below the surface in the NYT.

Angela's Ashes got rave reviews in the US as it was a way of good old-fashioned Irish-bashing. The author should have realized that. Perhaps he did but went along with it for commercial reasons. It was very obviously a gift to the NYT and others and they were not prepared to look a gift horse in the mouth. Literature is often used by the media and others outside Ireland as a way of indulging in good old-fashioned anti-Irish sentiment. We don't seem to be as aware of that as we should be.

The behavior of our emigrants in the past was generally very good and brought great credit on themselves and on this country. Their behaviour, courage, hard work and sticking by the old religion, often in the face of discrimination, generated a great deal of (admittedly often grudging) respect and countered the deep anti-Irish racism that was a natural part of the make-up of the establishments in the US and the British Empire. They were, after all, basically English states. There was, no doubt, wild behaviour by enough of our emigrants to keep the stereotypes alive but overall the majority of our emigrants, by their behaviour, successfully countered the stereotypes.

It is ironic or paradoxical or something that the first generations of better educated and reasonably well off Irish travelling abroad to work or to explore the world (including countries that were traditionally well disposed to Ireland) have rekindled the stereotypes of the Irish as wild and drunken. Watching the Irish abroad myself, it is clear that there is much truth in the criticisms of them. Many of the Irish abroad now are very unattractive in their behaviour. They are not aware of it because they are ignorant and the collapse of religious practice has removed a certain level of restraint and self-discipline that was a positive feature of the behaviour of most Irish abroad in the past. Lastly, many young Irish today (at home and abroad) have a diminished capacity to see themselves as others do. That seems to be a consequence of modern parenting, which appears to leave a lot to be desired. You frequently see the opposite to over confidence (bordering on boorishness) in youngsters who are working for solid organizations that have core values, including courtesy. The contrast between those who clearly are aware of the need for courtesy and those who are not (a contrast that did not exist fifty years ago) can at times be striking. It is sad to think that the hard work and struggle of millions of poor emigrants over two hundred years is in danger of being undone by the excesses of our time but that could be the case.

It is up to us to address the excess in our behaviour (at home and abroad) that generate criticism. That must begin not by talking about alcoholism (Natasha Eddery's article won't result in one less pint of beer being consumed in Ireland tonight) but by recognizing the deep flaws in the Irish character, which have always been there and explain much of our history. We blame the Normans/English/British for our miserable history. We should blame ourselves for being weak and for not evicting the intruders centuries ago.

The collapse of religious practice is a factor that needs to be mentioned in trying to grapple with the problem of excess that is the other side of the coin to a weak character. Religious practice imposes rules and teaches people self discipline, whether it is not to drink too much or not to cheat on a spouse. The rules have gone and have not yet been replaced by a new set of secular rules.

Ireland may be an island but we live in a globalized world. Our weak character and addictive nature are extreme but capitalism and the promotion of goods and services are contributing significantly to the destruction of Western societies everywhere. Tackling that problem would make climbing Mount Everest appear like a stroll up to Faery Castle from Tibradden!

The Refugee/Migrant Crisis

It would help if people writing about the refugee crisis put it into context. The Middle East is an unstable area, there have long been tensions between Shias and Sunnis to say nothing about the fact that the place is not exactly the home of democracy. In addition, however, the behaviour of Western powers in the area starting (well whenever you like but let’s say) with


  • the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and moving on to,
  • the carve up of the Ottoman Empire between Britain and France after WW1,
  • the understandable but utterly wrong decision to create a Western state out of Palestine in 1948 (Israel will probably survive as long as its predecessor, the Crusader state, did),
  • the appalling treatment of the Palestinians by Israel supported by the West since 1948,
  • the Western coup in Iran in 1953
  • the foolish decision to invade Afghanistan after “9/11”. Although that atrocity conferred no right on the US to invade anyone, if they had to pick a state it should have been the state where most of the bombers came from – Saudi Arabia
  • the savagery (and illegality) of the West’s actions in Iraq since 2003,
  • Britain and France’s decision to get rid of Gadaffi in the 00s probably to protect arms sales to what they (foolishly) thought might be a post Gadaffi democracy (the Russians and the Chinese will never fall for that one again; I was surprised that they fell for that stunt), and
  • whatever you’re having yourself!

has to be included in any meaningful writing about the tragedy of the refugees and the migrants. It would also help if the West acknowledged its mistakes and its crimes and furthermore admitted that the driving force behind its actions in the Middle East today (as with imperialism always), is money. In today’s circumstances, concerns about oil supplies and the need for arms manufacturers to keep making profits are the critical factors. Everyone recognizes the importance of the oil industry to our standard of living and the need for security of oil supplies but it is not necessary to engage in savage violence anywhere to secure oil supplies. What has changed, even since the 1960s/70s, is the extent to which the arms industry in the West has got out of control. President Eisenhower, himself a former soldier, recognized the need to curb the Military Industrial Complex, which I have always believed was behind the Kennedy assassination (and which is why no US President since then has dared to challenge it), and his words of warning have come home to roost.

Although views like mine could be construed as coming from the broad left (or at least the peace movement, which I have supported all my life), they are not really. The refugee/migrant crisis is not a left, right or centre issue or even a peace movement issue. It is a critical issue resulting from the fact that Western states have lost control of hugely powerful interests to which they gave birth (such as the arms industry – TTIP is another example). If Western states don’t regain control over those interests the consequences for the West itself will be huge (and, frankly, deserved).

The treatment of religious minorities in the Middle East should be evidence enough of the nature of the challenge we face and who the bad guys are. The arms industry couldn’t care less if their bombs are killing Christians, Moslems, Hindus or Presbyterian Buddhists! (Remember Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22?) The arms industry is completely amoral and its only interests are sales and profits. Most people in the West are not (that) amoral and if the media joined up the dots the people of the West would see the scale of the challenge we face to get these vested interests under control. Even if public opinion does turn against the arms industry, however, it won’t be plain sailing. The arms industry, the drugs trade and the sex industry (including, it has to be said Hollywood, the theatre and, up to a point, the mainstream media), supported by the banking industry (governments know that genuine efforts to curb the activities of drug traffickers, for example, would seriously damage the banking industry) represent the very depths to which humanity can sink. They are today’s equivalent of the people William Wilberforce tackled and defeated. The arms industry is legal, the sex industry is legal in part and the drugs industry is tolerated. The banks are also legal and are backed up by private and public sector regulators, many of whom, like the bankers and no doubt even some of the arms peddlers, are respectable, church going people. Respectable church-going people some of them may be but try taking them on! It will be a long hard slog. Wilberforce did it with the slave trade and another Wilberforce (Pope Francis?) is needed now.

So, it is not just a case of identifying illegality (the drugs trade) or the amorality of the arms trade. Western society has become deeply corrupted by much of what has gone on since WW2 and, in particular, since the Swinging Sixties, and is now very decadent. Unfortunately, however, because of the link between the activities of the arms (in particular) industry and our standard of living, not all commentators, in particularly conservative commentators, are prepared to say what has to be said. For conservatives (much more than for the left), class loyalties predominate. Pope Francis is possibly a key player in this. Will he call it as it needs to be called or will he play the game? I think he will play  the game. I think he is playing the game.

So, how do you get conservative leaders and opinion formers in the West to break their class loyalties and challenge the vested interests (with or without the help of the Pope)? Until that happens, calling for Christian enclaves in the Middle East (does that mean everyone else is fair game?) or saying we will only admit Christian refugees to the EU is neither here nor there. The problem is here, in our world, not in the Middle East or North Africa. The West is where the bad guys are and they are every bit as wicked as Hitler and the Nazis.

Merkel and the Refugee/Migrant Crisis

It is ironic to hear David Cameron saying that there is a need to tackle the cause of the conflict in Syria when he was gung-ho for bombing the Assad regime out of existence just two years ago - until he was stopped by Red Ed in a House of Commons vote, which in turn, stopped the Americans joining in. If Assad had been got rid of it would have made the Syrian situation infinitely worse with many more Christians either fleeing or having their throats cut. I see that Cameron is going to try again to bomb Syria - this time ISIS, I think. The man should make up his mind who his friends are and who his enemies are!

Cameron's weaknesses are being cruelly exposed but in fairness to him he is riding several tigers at the one time. Britain is more hostile to non-white immigration than many countries, partly because that is the way they are (it is the other side of the nature that resulted in the creation of a powerful empire) and partly because they are now experiencing the consequences of large-scale immigration of non-whites from their former empire. The bottom line is that every state must make its own decisions about immigration but a liberal democracy should be expected to do so in a liberal and humane way.

The British, however, are seeing their country and their society change before their eyes so their anger is hardly a surprise. Given the imperial roots of the problem, I don't have huge sympathy for the British but I do recognize a political problem when I see it. Cameron is also trying to keep the UK in the EU and the Scots in the UK. He shouldn't worry about the EU. It is slowly collapsing but the Scots' situation is deeply worrying as the recent vote there was only half time. So, I have some sympathy for him.

Derek Scally's information (Wednesday 26 August, IT) was interesting:

"German politicians rarely visit these areas [i.e. east German areas where there is high unemployment and where people feel threatened  by heavy immigration], nor do they have answers to German involvement in the causes of the refugee crisis. Such as how, in the first half of 2015 alone, Germany green-lighted arms exports worth €6.35 billion  - almost as much  as in the entire calendar year 2014. Arms exports to Arab states and northern Africa - from where millions of people are fleeing - more than doubled to €587 million...".

I'm surprised the editor of the IT permitted Scally's figures to be published but they have generated no traction nor will they, for the present. The public is upset by the sight of the dead child on the beach in Turkey (and rightly so) and is not, for the moment, interested in reading about the West's part in the Syrian tragedy or the tragedy of the wider Middle East going back to the foundation of the State of Israel. That will come but the timing will need to be right.

Likewise, if NATO had not bombed Libya's Gadaffi out of existence there would not now be emigrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from Libya. Gadaffi could easily have been induced to see to that. The media and commentators generally are not making that connection because they failed to say, at the time, that the overthrow of Gadaffi was a serious breach of international law. It was an act of outright NATO aggression, a throwback to 19th century imperialism. There is no doubt that Gadaffi would have slaughtered every man, woman and child in Benghazi, which is why the UN permitted NATO to stop him from doing so. NATO, however, was not empowered to overthrow Gadfaffi. Nor was it necessary for NATO plans to protect Benghazi. Arab League and/or African Union air forces  - or even the Russians and the Chinese air forces - could have done it. (The Russians and the Chinese should have insisted on that at the UN Security Council. I don't know why they didn't.) The fact that NATO overthrew Gadaffi, which was designed to protect British and French arms sales to the "democratic" government that Cameron and Sarko believed would replace Gadaffi in the Arab Spring, was a significant feature, I suspect, in Putin's decision to annex the Crimea. He saw NATO engaging in imperialism in Africa so he decided to do the same in his neighbourhood. The Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 followed the Suez fiasco. The media didn't make the connection then and they are not making it now.

Merkel has agreed to take 800,000 refugees/migrants because (as per Suzanne Lynch's article in the IT on Saturday ("Migrant issue poses a threat to EU unity")) if she didn't the crisis could break the EU apart. (It might anyway.) Merkel is getting the credit ("slate for 1939-45 wiped clean", etc.) from people who should know better. She is acting to protect Germany's very own imperial project. I note that she is beginning to get some flack from her Bavarian colleagues but no doubt public opinion in Germany will see her through that particular hiccup. It will take time and good journalism (!)  for people to realize that Merkel is acting in her own interests, not in the interests of the migrants (although no doubt she feels for them as the rest of us do).

I don't know if the migrants will stay in Germany or move around but Schengen should be abandoned. My guess is that if it will have to be, making the migrant issue the second major pressure point leading to a break-up of the EU. The third will be Russia.

Apparently, on a per capita basis (i.e. our share of the EU's population), we should take 10,000 refugees/migrants. We could take 5,000 without too much difficulty. As one of the editorials in the papers said yesterday (I think it was the SBP), it might mean postponing more money for the HSE or roads or whatever but we can do it. My guess is that within a few years the Exchequer would be benefiting from the 5,000. No one would expect us to take 40,000, the same proportion as Germany, because we are not trying to build a European empire, as is Germany. We could, however, take 5,000.

The Refugee/Migrant Crisis

Peter Hitchens had an article in the Mail on Sunday (We won't save refugees by destroying our own country, 6/9/15), which confuses an emergency with a PC-driven demand that people not be allowed to maintain their own cultures and their own societies. The EU (see Tom McGurk’s article in yesterday’s Sunday Business Post about the ECJ blocking the Scots from imposing minimum prices on alcohol in the name of free trade – the Scots should ignore the ruling, if it is finalized), globalization, TTIP, etc., etc. ad nauseam, have been stealthily (the key word) undermining the prerogatives of governments since the 1940s. I favour free trade and always have. If we don’t trade we don’t eat. States, however, must still make the rules, not MNCs. The time has come to say “stop”, particularly with regard to financial services. The movement of gazillons between countries every second is having a hugely damaging and destabilizing effect on the world’s financial system, the world economy and the lives of people.

Removing all authority from governments would be OK if those who have inherited it, the financial system, MNCs, etc., were answerable to the voters but they’re not. We have a ludicrous situation where governments have responsibilities but less and less power. We are also seeing the profession of  politics develop into a business like any other, which exists solely for its own purposes. Politicians nowadays run for office (as they have not yet been abolished although they fulfil no real function) to enjoy the benefits of office. Some political parties have come to understand this quicker and more completely than others. They have developed a language of hypocrisy and a ruthless determination to enjoy the fruits of office while pretending to do otherwise that, were Shakespeare still around (and if he actually wrote his plays!), would lead to him writing another Hamlet or Macbeth.

The crisis with the refugees and the migrants, however, is different. What Hitchens fails to understand is that if millions of people leave their homes and head somewhere else there is nothing that can be done about it. Trying to stop the refugees/migrants is like trying to hold back the tide. They are coming and that’s it. We have to absorb them in the short term. My guess is that most of them will be so grateful that they will settle down and become good citizens of whatever country they end up in. I have no worries about this tide of people. Obviously, if they start coming in their millions that will change our way of life and our standard of living (the protests are more about the effect on standard of living than culture) but the West has brought this flood – if flood it becomes – on itself. If we want to stop this tide before it becomes a flood we (the West) will have to stop engaging in non-stop criminal violence [war] against other parts of the world. Most people would not opt to walk from Syria to Munich if they weren’t desperate.

I’m glad this tide of humanity has begun to reach western and central Europe. Perhaps now, something will be done about its cause.

Air Shows Should be Banned

I hope the Shoreham air tragedy will result in a review of air shows globally but I doubt it. I have always been opposed to air shows on two grounds - they promote militarism and they are exceptionally dangerous.  The main reason they have not been banned throughout the world is because of the PR benefit for air forces and military-industrial complexes generally.

Britain is, in some respects, a highly militarized state. It does not have large armed forces (and, apart from its navy, never has had) but the British establishment, as evidenced by its ugly colonial past, has always been tough and brutal. It has never shied away from the use of force to promote state [establishment] objectives, and its control of the media allows it to paint a rosy picture of the military and to prevent criticism of Britain's military adventures. The agreement of the media, in the main, to go along with the promotion of militarism is inexcusable but is an established feature of British life and society. The use of air shows, which attract families, is an important element in painting a rosy picture of militarism in Britain.

If it were not for the overriding political objective to use air shows to promote militarism, they would have been banned around the world decades ago on safety grounds. They are incredibly dangerous as the events of last Saturday demonstrate. Sad to say (and it might appear to be contradictory as family groups make up many of the visitors to air shows), many of the people who go to air shows probably go because of the risk of something happening. I have always believed that to be the case. If I'm right and even if, as is likely, the British Government does not takes steps now to ban air shows, it is possible that the Shoreham tragedy will act as a wake-up call for the British public and the public generally throughout the world. I certainly hope so.

Air shows are becoming more popular in this country, mainly as part of the efforts by the Government to move this state away from its commitment to neutrality as a result of its commitment to the European "project". The Shoreham tragedy should be used by opponents of militarism in Ireland to put an end of air shows, which have no indigenous link with this society and would not take place in the absence of a political agenda,

Derry/Londonderry

The decision of Derry City and Strabane District Council to officially change the name of the city to Derry has been described as "sectarian" and "disgusting" by Unionists. Only in Ireland, where people get up early in the morning to be outraged, would people react in such a way. The name of the city has always been Derry or, to be precise, Doire, a name St Columcille would have recognized. There is, however, an alternative approach that takes account of the fact that N.Ireland is a divided society (and like the rest of Ireland, a society where people start every day at high doe): the city, the county, the city council and the county council (if there is one) could be named both Derry and Londonderry with both names on letter-headed paper, used in state papers, text books, O/S maps, etc., North and South. Road signs, North and South, should also be changed to Derry/Londonderry, for road safety reasons. Tourists crossing the border might wonder where the signs for Derry/Londonerry (depending on where they started) had gone and get confused.

It should not be necessary to have to suggest this.

Dail Reform

Talking about Dail reform without reducing the number of TDs by about 100 is just so much waffle. A Dail of about 40 TDs (one per county, four or five for the city of Dublin, two or three for Cork city, etc.) would be more than adequate. A Dail of about 40-50 TDs (and, essentially, one per constituency) would still ensure that TDs were answerable to the electorate but each seat would not be, as most are today, a marginal. TDs would have sufficient space in which to get the balance right between leading and listening. TDs are unable to get the balance right at the moment because there is not sufficient distance between them and their constituents, a fatal flaw that leads to disasters like the boom. Hopefully also, we will get rid of the Senate (like virtually all other similar-sized developed democracies) at the next time of asking. We don't need it. It's as simple as that.

The euro: It can't happen. It's a bad idea. It won't last.

The paper, written by two members of the staff of the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission (one of them an Irishman but I won't embarrass him by mentioning his name) and published in 2009, is critical of the views of some US economists on the euro experiment. It was meant to be an all-powerful riposte from the great European Commission. Talk about hubris!
 

I wonder what Bernard Connolly makes of the publication. His book, The Rotten Heart of Europe, The Dirty War for Europe's Money, which was published in 1995, warned of the disastrous nature of the euro experiment, Needless to say, The Rotten Heart, the most important publication on the EU project since 1957, it is not even mentioned in the bibliography of the hubris publication. 

You couldn’t make this kind of silliness up.

US/Iran Nuclear Deal

Press Statement 14 July 2015      

The US/Iran Nuclear Deal has been welcomed by the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA). PANA, which has campaigned actively on the Iran nuclear issue, strongly welcomes the US-Iran nuclear deal.

Roger Cole, Chair of PANA, and David Morrison, Research Officer of PANA said:

"PANA welcomes the nuclear deal that has been reached in Vienna between the US and Iran. It was made possible because in 2013 the US reversed its policy and accepted that Iran would continue to have uranium enrichment facilities on its own soil, which is its "inalienable right" under Article IV (1) of the [nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

For years, the US and its allies, including Ireland, attempted to coerce Iran into ceasing enrichment by applying ferocious economic sanctions on Iran in an attempt to force it to do so, damaging the well-being of millions of Iranian civilians in the process. Had the US accepted the right of Iran to enrichment, there would have been no dispute. Now, although the US has conceded the principle, it is insisting that for the next 10 to 15 years Iran must agree to severe restrictions under threat of
renewed and intensified sanctions. There is no justification for imposing such restrictions on a sovereign state. As a 'non-nuclear weapons' party to the NPT, Iran is forbidden to acquire nuclear weapons, but the NPT places no limits on civilian nuclear activity, providing it is under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervision.

Roger Cole, Chair of PANA TEL: + 353 (0)87-26 11 597.


David Morrison, Research Officer TEL: + 44(0) 7949 925 938.

Greece

Alexis Tsipras may be one of the few PMs in Europe who knows what he's doing and he is under far more pressure than most. Contemptible little creatures like Junker are blowing their top (and revealing their terror of the consequences of Grexit despite all the ballyhoo about ring fencing, which fools nobody) but Tsipras appears to be a remarkably calm character. He clearly has a Plan A and a Plan B.

I don't know if Grexit is Plan A or B but assuming the referendum goes ahead and is carried he will be able to keep Greece in the euro, if that is Plan A. If the vote is "no" he can pull Greece out of the euro. Syriza is very like Sinn Fein in that it is not prepared to compromise, which is why he can't do a deal with the troika or pull Greece out of the euro without a referendum. Syriza can, however, be outflanked and would be by a "yes" vote. A "no" vote would be even better and would silence the idiots in his party who won't let Tsipras do a deal but want to stay in the euro.

I suspect Tsipras has been working since his election to force a situation where if Syriza and the Greek people really want to stay in the euro the changes that they are going to have to make to their economy and society will require a referendum. The Greek Government will have to bring in experts wholesale from Germany and the like to restructure their public administration. Changing Greek culture will be much more difficult. Tsipras and his colleagues will have to focus on that. Tsipras must know that changing Greek society isn't on, which is one of the many reasons, I suspect, he privately favours Grexit.

Tsipras must be appalled having to deal with tenth raters like Junker and Kenny. It is fascinating to listen to them berating a PM who is attempting to pursue his country's national interests. They expected him to behave the way most EU PMs behave nowadays - they put the "project" before their national interests and responsibilities.

In addition to the collapse of leadership at PM level in the EU, there is the added problem of the decline of political parties. The reason political parties, particularly those of the "left" (as opposed to the left) like SF and Syriza, won't compromise is that modern government is driven largely by globalization. PMs have bought into that and political parties have too but they have to find a way to justify their continued existence. To do that, they have to give the appearance of fighting the good fight and to avoid been outflanked by other groupings, who likewise have little or no integrity and no wish to achieve anything in government. We have seen that sort of behaviour here with bin charges, the property tax and now water charges. All are reasonable elements of what will eventually be a new rates system or a local income tax system. Bin charges and the property tax have settled down (though only after Revenue was given the power to take the money out of people's bank accounts) and water charges will to, and for the same reason. The various "anti" campaigns have been useful for the parties of the "left" in keeping their votes up but have achieved nothing and are not consistent with what left wing parties believe anyway.

Labour remains the only party of the left here but they have (perhaps) permanently dirtied their bib by going into government with FG. In Greece, the Socialists are utterly compromised by cronyism and corruption. Hence, the arrival of the headbangers, here and there.

The Same Sex Marriage Referendum

It looks like the SSM referendum will be carried by about 55% to 45% although the margin could be wider.

We on the “no” side did our best but we didn't realize until way too late (or I didn't anyway) that the "yes" side were years ahead of everyone else in their preparation for this moment. Atlantic Philanthropies (AP) spent about $25 million dollars working for this result over the past ten years or so. The investment was hidden and only recently discovered (it was, in fact, hiding in plain sight on AP’s website). I gather that Amnesty Ireland got about $13 million. 
 
I made a comparison the other day between the way parents talk quietly about SSM when their children are around and the way parents kept their thoughts to themselves in Nazi Germany. I'm not saying that Enda Kenny and Joan Burton are going to organize book burnings in College Green but in a manner of speaking they already have. Certainly, children have been heavily indoctrinated. You could see the same excitement in the faces of the young people who flew into Dublin from abroad yesterday to vote as was the case with university students in Germany in the early 1930s. That generation died by the tens of thousands at Stalingrad and other places. The younger generation here will not face the same fate but they will become demoralized. When things start going wrong for them they won't have any frame of reference. The older generations will just put their heads down and get on with things as best they can. There will be a slow realization in the coming years that the degraded nature of Irish democracy has passed the point of no return. I suspect many people are close to a realization of that already.

I spent my working life as a public servant warning about policy mistakes that would lead to disaster. On the economic front, everything turned out as I thought it would except much worse! I was never involved with social policy but I never in my wildest dreams believed we would sink so far and so fast as a society. However, that is what happens when a society makes mistakes. One mistake begets another and it becomes harder and harder to find the necessary people who are capable of making or willing to make the right decisions. Up until we joined the euro, I thought that the degraded nature of Irish society was caused by partition but after almost a century of "independence" I now realize that degradation is its true nature. It is the reason we were a victim of our nearest neighbour for so long.

I found the campaign ghastly, mainly because I have been here before with the euro. I realized after we joined the euro that the Irish State could not survive. It collapsed in 2008 and was kept afloat by the troika. It will be kept afloat by the EU until that collapses. After that, the future is very uncertain. We can expect agencies of the State, some of which openly supported the "yes" side in this referendum, to become more identified with the "ruling" clique. The MD of IDA Ireland said that a "yes" vote would assist inward investment. It was an extraordinarily stupid and inappropriate thing for a public servant to say (and untrue – MNCs couldn’t give a hoot) but many MNCs will now see Ireland as a kind of Zimbabwe. 

People will have to be careful from now on as personal freedoms will come under pressure. Democracy is a farce here anyway between globalization, over reliance on MNCs (and therefore the US), the EU and the euro fiasco. Elections are no more relevant than the Eurovision Song Contest.

To return to the analogy with Germany in 1933, I expect to see a lot of people (people with young families and people who know that Ireland is no longer their home) quietly packing their bags and leaving. I expect to see schools quietly closing their doors and moving elsewhere (perhaps to the Isle of Person). Standards, such as they are, will continue to fall, whether it is the media, politics, the health service, whatever.

On the legal front, it will be fascinating to watch the chaos unfold. Lawyers could be in court as early as next week exploiting the gaps in family law that the vote will throw up. The gay and lesbian movement might wait until after the next election before moving on to their next objectives, which will include more controls in the education field and more censorship generally. The penetration of the education system by the gay and lesbian movement, with the connivance of the State, has been very serious (I had no idea until recently what has being going on) and has paid a huge dividend for the “yes” side.
 
Marriages might have to be postponed or people might have to get married in Newry. The postponement will be caused by religious solemnisers (priests) pulling out (they act as unpaid civil servants in about 70% of marriages in this State) because they might not be able to stand over the new wording that will follow the referendum. Instead of saying “do you take this woman to be your wife” and vice versa it might be “do you take this person to be your spouse”. That will certainly be the case at same-sex weddings but the new wording in the Constitution might oblige the clergy to use the same wording not just when asking the bride and groom to sign the book in the sacristy after the wedding but at the religious ceremony itself. Even if they can finesse that (with the help of the Courts) and have two wordings – one for men and women at a religious ceremony and the spouse-to-spouse wording in the sacristy - the religious solemnisers might refuse to be a party to the sacristy bit any longer. The State has 125 civil solemnisers compared to nearly 6,000 religious solemnisers so a church wedding next week might have to be postponed until one of the 125 civil solemnisers can link up with the bride and groom. Or the religious marriage might go ahead and the civil one a year later. Which is fine but what happens if the couple split up in the meantime or one of them, heaven forbid, dies. One of the senior members of the hierarchy will probably try to hold the line for the Government but most of his colleagues won’t, I suspect, have anything to do with spouse to spouse business. The Government was not even aware of the likely administrative problem until it was pointed out to them by the “no” side and continues to deny that there is a problem. It could be the first problem to be faced as a result of the “yes” vote.
 
Internationally, the gay lobby will be dashing into the US Supreme Court on Monday with the news. The Court is currently considering whether gay marriage is a right under the US Constitution. My guess is that the Supreme Court will dismiss the vote as an ignorant decision by the Paddies. Enda Kenny’s peers in the developed world will soon let him know what they think (he pushed this thing as part of his plan to restore Ireland’s international reputation but he - and we - will be a laughing stock) as every headbanger from Canada to Oz to Argentina to wherever will want the same thing.
 
Another typical week in Irish politics.
 

Greece

Statement by German trade union leaders on Greece after the Syriza election, with comment thereon
________

The German trade union statement below is the sort of piece written by people who will have to go out an earn a living after Grexit.

The article is quite right about respecting Greek democracy (I’m surprised, incidentally, that Syriza did not get an overall majority given the litany of disasters listed in the article),  but then it says the answer is more EU democracy, which can only be created at the expense of democracy in the member states.

Two sentences in the article brilliantly capture the humbug that typifies efforts by federalists to dress up German control of the European continent with democratic clothes:

"Democracy at EU level must be strengthened if the European project is to gain renewed credibility. The European project will not be furthered by austerity dictates but only by a bottom-up democratic initiative in favour of economic regeneration and greater social justice."

Consider the subtleties of the two sentences.

"Democracy at EU level must be strengthened" , means more power for Germany.

"If the European project is to gain renewed credibility"  . . .  The project is rapidly running out of credibility and of road and a small number of Euro-fanatics are going to be exposed as having caused Continental-wide mayhem. So what the phrase actually means is "If a small number of us are to hold on to our jobs, our pensions, our status and our gravy train." These fanatics need to be isolated and once isolated can be dealt with.

"The European project will not be furthered by austerity dictates", sounds very nice indeed but says nothing.

"But only by a bottom-up democratic initiative in favour of economic regeneration and greater social justice."  That is completely meaningless. Apart from anything else, growth sometimes (not always but sometimes) requires States and societies to make a choice between wealth creation and social justice.

In Greece’s case, funny enough, they go together. If the Greeks paid their taxes their position would rapidly improve. However, the Greeks don’t and won’t pay taxes, which is one of the many reasons they should be cut loose and let go their own way. They are used to a rickety, up-in-the-air kind of State and know how to cope with self-inflicted problems when they have their own currency to make the necessary periodic adjustments. Outsiders who invest in Greece know the risks. Sometimes they make a killing and sometimes they get burned. That is business. It was ever so and ever will be so.

The Greek crisis is the equivalent of Stalingrad for today’s Germany. The Germans need to control the Continent (most of it outside Russia’s space and outside “these islands” anyway) in order to assume the kind of great power status they have craved since the creation of the German Empire in 1870. They failed in arms twice and are about to fail a third time so the stakes could not be higher.

The objectives of powerful states don’t change. The methods are not always brutal like the Kaiser’s or savage like Hitler’s but Germany’s objectives remain the same as in 1870. Which links up the Greek crisis with the Ukraine.

 It is very clear that Germany wants the US out of Europe (Obama and Merkel recently issued a statement saying both states were agreed on NATO policy, which of course means the exact opposite) and to deal with the Russians without having to worry about the Americans, i.e. without having to fight on two fronts.

I’m very much with the Germans in wanting to get the Yanks out of Europe but not at the cost of Germany dominating the Continent. From the moment the Berlin Wall was breached the EU’s institutions were doomed, but it is a testament to the power of institutions that the EU is not giving up easily. When it does, Germany will not have the backing of the necessary satellites to make the kind of deals with Russia (without US interference) that it wishes to make.

That gives the US an opportunity, which is why you would expect them to favour Grexit. Alan Greenspan does, so somebody over there sees the bigger picture. At this point, however, Obama is probably more interested in the Blair-like opportunities for making money after he leaves the White House!

___________
STATEMENT ON GREECE BY LEADING GERMAN TRADE UNIONISTS AND OTHERS
__________

Greece after the election – not a threat but an opportunity for Europe

The political landslide in Greece is an opportunity, not only for that crisis-ridden country but also for a fundamental reassessment and revision of EU economic and social policy.

We highlight once again the criticism already voiced on many occasions in the past by the trade unions: right from the outset, the key conditions under which Greece receives financial assistance did not deserve the label ‘reform’. The billions of euros that have flowed into Greece have been used primarily to stabilise the financial sector. At the same time, the country has been driven into deep recession by brutal cutbacks in government spending that at the same time have made Greece the most heavily indebted country in the entire EU. The consequence is a social and humanitarian crisis without precedent in Europe. One third of the population is living in poverty, the welfare state has been hugely weakened, the minimum wage cut by 22% and the collective bargaining system and other protections for those still in work dismantled; at the same time the burden of taxation on the lower income groups has been increased. Unemployment now stands at 27%, while youth unemployment exceeds  50%. Many people do not have the means to pay for food, electricity, heating and accommodation. A large share of the population no longer has health insurance and can access medical care only in emergencies. The election result is a devastating verdict on this failed policy.

All this had nothing to do with reforms designed to address Greece’s actual problems. None of the country’s structural problems has been solved, but additional ones have certainly been created. This has been a policy of cutback and destruction, not rebuilding. Genuine structural reforms worthy of the name would have led to the emergence of new opportunities for economic development rather than driving a highly qualified generation of young people abroad. Genuine structural reforms would have included serious attempts to tackle tax evasion. Genuine structural reforms would have tackled clientelism and corruption in public procurement. The new Greek government is being challenged to draw up its own reconstruction and development plans, which have to become part of a ‘European Investment Plan’, as has long been demanded by the trade unions, and to create the conditions in which such plans can bear fruit.

Serious negotiations with the new Greek government must get under way, without any attempts at blackmail, in order to open up economic and social prospects for the country beyond the failed austerity policy. This applies in particular to the ruinous obligations agreed with the previous government, now voted out of office, that were the prerequisites for payment of the international loans. Europe must not persist in pursuing, at the expense of the Greek population, a policy that has been decisively rejected by the majority of Greek voters. Just carrying on regardless is no longer an option!

The rejection at the ballot box of those responsible for the previous policy in Greece is a democratic decision that must be respected at the European level. The new government must be given a fair chance. Anyone who now demands that the country simply continue along the previous, so-called ‘path to reform’ is in fact denying the Greek people the right to a democratically legitimised change of policy in their country. And if they add that such a change of policy is, at best, possible only if Greece leaves the European currency union, then that is tantamount to saying that the European institutions are incompatible with democratic decisions taken in the member states. Such statements will merely give a shot in the arm to the burgeoning nationalist movements across Europe.

The democratic deficit at European level, oft-lamented but still not yet overcome, must not be even more firmly entrenched by constraining democracy in the member states. Rather, as many of us emphasised in 2012 in a call for action entitled ‘Founding Europe Anew!’, democracy at EU level must be strengthened if the European project is to gain renewed credibility. The European project will not be furthered by austerity dictates but only by a bottom-up democratic initiative in favour of economic regeneration and greater social justice.

This initiative must be supported now in the interests of the Greek people. At the same time, it will help to kick-start the process of policy change across Europe as a whole. The political upheaval in Greece must be turned into an opportunity to establish a democratic and social Europe!

(translated by Andrew Wilson, Manchester)

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ERSTUNTERZEICHNENDE

Reiner Hoffmann, DGB
Frank Bsirske, ver.di
Robert Feiger, IG BAU
Alexander Kirchner, EVG
Michaela Rosenberger, NGG
Marlis Tepe, GEW
Michael Vassiliadis, IG BCE
Detlef Wetzel, IG Metall

Gewerkschaftsvorsitzende anderer Länder:

Erich Foglar, Vorsitzender des österreichischen Gewerkschaftsbundes ÖGB
Wolfgang Katzian, GPA-djp (Gewerkschaft der Privatangestellten, Druck, Journalismus und Papier), Österreich
Joan Carles Gallego, CCOO de Catalunya
Ulrich Eckelmann, Generalsekretär industriAll European Trade Union
Paul Rechsteiner, Vorsitzender des Schweizer Gewerkschaftsbundes SGB

Weitere Erstunterzeichnende"

Prof. Elmar Altvater,
Sozialwissenschaftler
Prof. Brigitte Aulenbacher, Sozialwissenschaftlerin
Klaus Barthel, MdB, SPD, AfA-Vorsitzender
Christiane Benner, IG Metall
Prof. Hans-Jürgen Bieling, Sozialwissenschaftler
Dr. Reinhard Bispinck, Sozialwissenschaftler
Prof. Gerhard Bosch, Sozialwissenschaftler
Prof. Ulrich Brand,
Sozialwissenschaftler
Prof. Christine Brückner, Erziehungswissenschaftlerin
Dr. Udo Bullmann, MdEP, SPD
Annelie Buntenbach, DGB
Prof. Dr. Frank Deppe, Sozialwissenschaftler
Prof. Klaus Dörre,
Sozialwissenschaftler
Prof. Trevor Evans, Wirtschaftswissenschaftler
Jens Geier, MdEP, SPD
Thomas Händel, MdEP, Die Linke
Elke Hannack, DGB
Prof. Arne Heise, Wirtschaftswissenschaftler
Prof. Rudolf Hickel, Wirtschaftswissenschaftler
Olivier Höbel, IG Metall
Jörg Hofmann, IG Metall
Institut Solidarische Moderne, Vorstand
Dr. Andreas Keller, GEW
Jürgen Kerner, IG Metall
Cansel Kiziltepe, MdB, SPD
Stefan Körzell, DGB
Dr. Steffen Lehndorff, Sozialwissenschaftler
Wolfgang Lemb, IG Metall
Prof. Birgit Mahnkopf, Sozialwissenschaftlerin
Lisa Paus, MdB, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen
Prof. Thomas Sauer, Wirtschaftswissenschaftler
Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, MdL Hessen, SPD, stv. Vorsitzender
Dr. Wolfgang Schäfer-Klug, Gesamtbetriebsrats-Vorsitzender
Armin Schild, IG Metall, Mitglied des SPD-Parteivorstands
Prof. Mechthild Schrooten, Wirtschaftswissenschaftlerin
Dr. Thorsten Schulten, Sozialwissenschaftler
Irene Schulz, IG Metall
Prof. Michael Schumann, Sozialwissenschaftler
Dr. Ralf Stegner, SPD, stellv. Vorsitzender, MdL in Schleswig-Holstein
Jutta Steinruck, MdEP, SPD
Prof. Olaf Struck,
Sozialwissenschaftler
Dr. Axel Troost, MdB, Die Linke
Dr. Hans Jürgen Urban, IG Metall
Prof. Frieder Otto Wolf, Philosoph
Prof. Karl Georg Zinn, Wirtschaftswissenschaftler
Roman Zitzelsberger, IG Metall

IMPRESSUM

The euro

It is difficult to know if the game of poker currently underway between Greece and the rest of the Eurozone (well Germany) is a game that both sides know is deadly or if one side is playing hard ball and the other the fool. The Greek state appears to operate in a kind of denial or does it believe that because Grexit means the end of the euro and the EU they can act as if they hold all the cards? It's a bit like July 1914: a deadly game was being played with the highest of stakes but many of the main players didn't realize how deadly the game was until it was too late. Signals sent were misinterpreted but then again were they meant to be? If the main players had realized in 1914 just what everyone's bottom line was war might have been avoided but the main players were not only unclear as to their bottom lines they didn't want to be clear. The same thing might be happening with Greece and the Eurozone.

Germany's stated position (according to Peter Casey in yesterday's Sunday Independent "Dig deep to find the real meaning of debt-forgiveness") is that its responsibility for two world wars requires it to maintain a commitment to the euro and the EU. Germany's actual position is that the euro and the EU are its ticket to European hegemony. (The different approaches to the Ukraine crisis between Germany and the US suggest a parting of the ways between the two on geopolitical issues.) Germany knows that Grexit means the end of the euro and that the end of the euro means the end of the EU. The end of the EU means an end to Germany's third attempt within a century to dominant the European continent. To suggest that Germany's responsibility for WW2 requires it to keep Greece (and others) in a currency that is crushing them is cynical indeed. Peter Casey puts it in a very understated way when he says that Merkel's decision to keep Greece in the Eurozone has hardly been executed with the generosity shown to Germany at the 1953 debt conference. Indeed.

It would help resolve the situation if Germany's actual position was clearly stated by commentators. One side of the equation, as it were, would be clear to all.

What of Greece? It is difficult to know whether the Greeks are playing the fool or really are fools. From my experience, I incline to the latter. They hold very strong cards for sure. If they refuse to bend the knee to Germany and are forced out of the Eurozone Germany will lose much more than Greece. Greece will suffer but they have been suffering anyway. Moreover, in the long run their suffering will ease. They will be able to revert to doing things their own way, which they are used to and which suits them. If, however, Greece believes it can secure a deal on its huge debt, remain in the Eurozone and go on permitting Greek society to treat the payment of taxes as optional they are in for a very rude awakening. (I don't believe Syriza's protestations about reform of Greek society. If they were serious about it, they would focus more on that and less, at this stage, on their Finance Minister traipsing around Europe.)

Given the stakes involved in this deadly game of poker, the Irish Government would do well to keep its own counsel, at least for the moment. The abrupt manner in which our rhetoric has changed from victim to outraged creditor would be remarkable under any circumstances (not least because we are as vulnerable as we were a few weeks ago) but to put our cards so baldly on the table at this moment is very unwise. Small states usually have the option of silence, which is usually the right option for small states.

I always refer to the Irish Times as the Iveagh House Bulletin because the IT tends to follow the Iveagh House line on the EU slavishly. Denis Staunton's article in the IT on Saturday (Europe's future hinges on the success of a Greek deal) - particularly the last sentence ("If the Taoiseach does not wish to help in finding ... a solution [to the problem posed by the different views of the sovereign Greek people on the one hand and their creditors on the other], he would be well advised to remain silent" - struck me as having been inspired by D/FA. Whoever inspired it, Staunton was right.



The euro

Reading about the state of the euro is becoming painful. Vast amounts of column inches are being devoted every day to ever more ingenious ways of saving the wretched experiment. Some of the leading commentators might soon qualify for fiction awards such are their increasingly imaginative flights of fancy.

This week, Marc Carney, Governor of the Bank of England chose Dublin to pronounce on how to solve the problems of the eurozone. His idea of a transfer union is fanciful. So, why did Carney say it? What is this urge on the part of commentators and high public officials to run away from the inevitable?

Philip Stephens said in the FT on 30th January that the euro has a future only if weak governments get the economics right. If they get the economics right they will abandon the experiment! What was Stephens thinking? Perhaps about Chancellor Merkel's well grounded fears, which he also referred to in the article, that the failure of the euro would put in doubt the entire postwar European order. It would not put the postwar order in doubt, it would demolish it and more or less instantly. Since Syriza won the election in Greece, we have been reading about the increasing confidence of the great and the good that the Greeks could be jettisoned from the eurozone without bringing it down. Don't believe that for a moment. The euro is a political project into which as much political as actual capital has been invested. Grexit will be followed by the exit of the rest of Club Med within twenty four hours and the euro will be history within seven days. The EU will follow the euro into history within a year. Such is the magnitude of the blunder, that no institution associated with the euro experiment will survive its demise. (That could include the IMF.)

Ireland could leave the eurozone without bringing it down. Our decision to join it was so utterly foolish that our decision to leave it would be welcomed by the beloved markets and would, without doubt, strengthen the currency (it would not save it though). Not to mention how we would benefit! Cyprus could, in theory, leave but in practice they could not because their exit would trigger a general Club Med exit. The Baltics could leave without anyone noticing except Putin and you wouldn't want that guy to be taking too much of an interest in your affairs. Ireland is probably the only eurozone state that could bail-out without immediately bringing the whole house of cards down. A good position to be in for the coming years if the inevitable doesn't happen before we come to our senses.

Peter Popham says in today's Irish Independent (It's time to think the unthinkable on Greek exit) - some people are up with the play - that everyone knows what needs to be done but doesn't want to suffer the consequences of being the first to do it. (Which is why Grexit will be followed by the rest of Club Med within twenty four hours.) The EU, as an institution, is riven with fear, particularly on the part of the smaller Member States. The larger Member States behave at a meeting in Brussels as they would have at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 or the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Except where the euro is concerned where fear and paralysis seem to affect everyone.

Of course the day and hour the euro folds the commentariat, national and international, will be in print and on the air saying that it was all inevitable and that they had said so many times. If the most influential commentators would actually say so now they could help end the agony and allow the economies of the eurozone to recover.