Saturday 30th of March 2024

opposing democracies...

DS cover

Donald Trump has now been president of the United States for two weeks. It literally pains me to write about all that has happened in these first days. The president of the U.S. is a racist. He is attempting a coup from the top; he wants to establish an illiberal democracy, or worse; he wants to undermine the balance of power.

With his style of rule -- his decrees, his appointments and his firings -- he is dividing Washington and the rest of the country. Our cover story this week, which will be published in English on Monday, describes how Trump's inner circle works and how insecurity has grown among government officials. It sheds light on the role of Stephen Bannon, the former head of the right-wing news portal Breitbart News, who has become Trump's Faust, his chief ideologue and the man pulling the strings in the White House. Bannon is also a man who loves wars -- he sees them as being thoroughly advantageous.

During the course of his reporting on the cover story, SPIEGEL Washington correspondent Gordon Repinski met with government officials who spoke of their worries and their pangs of guilt. "They are considering whether the right thing to do would be to leave the government or to put up resistance from within," says Repinski. In London, my colleague Peter Müller spoke with Ted Malloch, who is considered Trump's favorite for the post of ambassador to the European Union -- a man who has praised Brexit and predicted the collapse of the euro.

The problem will not resolve itself. German business is the opponent of American trade policy, the German democracy is the ideological opponent of Donald Trump, but even here, in the middle of Germany, right-wing extremists are trying to give him a helping hand. It is high time that we stand up for what is important: democracy, freedom, the West and its alliances. Germany, of all countries, the economically and politically dominant democracy in Europe, will have to form the alliance against Trump, because it won't otherwise take shape. It is, however, absolutely necessary.

The image for this week's cover was created by the artist Edel Rodriguez. Edel was nine years old when, in 1980, he came to the U.S. with his mother -- two refugees, like so many others. "I remember it well, and I remember the feelings and how little kids feel when they are leaving their country," he told the Washington Post on Friday night. The newspaper wrote: "This DER SPIEGEL Trump cover is stunning." It wasn't the first time Edel has drawn Trump. He usually portrays him without eyes -- you just see his angry, gaping mouth and, of course, the hair. "I don't want to live in a dictatorship," he says. "If I wanted to live in a dictatorship, I'd live in Cuba, where it's much warmer."

Read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/spiegel-this-week-the-pain-of-...

meanwhile at the intended consequences...

Few would argue that in order to expand, justify and perpetuate its monolithic existence, there’s much to show for the investment of blood and treasure the “complex” has exacted. This to say little of the propaganda, lies, corruption, debasement of the public good, and ‘divide, conquer ‘n rule’ abuse of power and privilege that have long sustained it, or the environmental, social, cultural and economic destruction, geopolitical instability, abject futility and all too human suffering, tragedy and farce that’s been its hallmark.

As an exemplar for the Law of Unintended Consequences hard at work, this decision doesn’t simply tick all the boxes; seventy years later, the ‘gift’ just keeps on giving. The inescapable reality from this is that there are some extraordinarily powerful folks the like of which insist to this day this is the way it should be, with some doubtless seeing it very much how it was always meant to be. President Barack Obama’s tenure was ample evidence of this prevailing, depressing reality. They will resist by any and all means open to them, attempts by anyone to question or challenge the status quo, much less any serious efforts to reverse its course. Which is to say, no one should expect any divestment by the U.S. in the machinery of war after January 20.

Notwithstanding what president-elect Donald Trump said on the campaign trail about scaling back America’s commitment to foreign wars, defusing the tensions between Moscow and Washington, developing better relations with key international partners, and curbing the ‘coups and colour revolutions’ crowd, there is much to be concerned at how foreign and national security policy and military doctrine will play out under his administration. Regardless of what Trump does or says, such is the collective psychopathology of the Great American War Machine, it retains a relentless momentum all of its own that will move forward inexorably with or without his cooperation, and/or he and/or any of his team even knowing about it. We might even say, with or without him at all!

read more:

http://poxamerikana.com/2017/01/16/the-great-american-perpetual-motion-w...

he is dreaming of destroying europe...

Donald Trump's likely pick for ambassador to the European Union has suggested he wants to bring down the bloc.

On BBC Two's This Week, Ted Malloch was asked why he wanted to be US ambassador to the EU considering he is clearly not a fan of Brussels.

Mr Malloch replied: "I had in a previous career a diplomatic post where I helped bring down the Soviet Union. So maybe there's another union that needs a little taming."

The businessman and strident Brexiteer also referred to European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker as a "very adequate mayor of some city in Luxembourg."

Mr Juncker was prime minister of Luxembourg between 1995 and 2013.

read more:

 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/donald-trump-eu-ambassador-ted-malloch-tame-european-union-like-brought-down-soviet-union-russia-a7549696.html

 

I think Malloch is flaterring himself on the USSR Front. There were many other factors at play in this issue and all this has become an open book since the deal between Reagan and Gorbachev was dishonoured by the US. On this one the Russians can only be thankful for a little guy called Putin...

It has been my view that Europe has no choice but to tell the US to go and jump in the freezing Potomac, something they should have done long ago, including throw out the Brits who have been playing a double game in Europe. It's clear like the morning dew and the sooner the better.

about time...

Germany must stand up in opposition to the 45th president of the United States and his government. That's difficult enough already for two reasons: Because it is from the Americans that we obtained our liberal democracy in the first place; and because it is unclear how the brute and choleric man on the other side will react to diplomatic pressure. The fact that opposition to the American government can only succeed when mounted together with Asian and African partners -- and no doubt with our partners in Europe, with the EU -- doesn't make the situation any easier. 

So far, Germany has viewed its leadership role -- at least the leadership understanding of Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble -- as one that is by all means in opposition to the interests of other European countries. Whether Schäuble's austerity policies or Merkel's migration policies, it all happened without much co-coordination and with considerable force. It is thus somewhat ironical that it is Germany, the country that is politically and economically dominant in Europe, that will now have to fill in many of the gaps created by America's withdrawal from the old world order, the one referred to by former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer as "Pax Americana." At the same time, Germany must build an alliance against Donald Trump, because it otherwise won't take shape. It is, however, absolutely necessary.

Read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-1133177.html

 

The point here is not so much to oppose the Donald, but discretly reject what the US stands for: hubris and deceit wrapped in a greasy freedom newsprint. We can do better. We have to. To some extend the Trump reminds me of the mother of a friend who made life hell for him... Eventually he came good and created his own successful career. Here when the mother died, he realised he had been pushed to survive on his own steam by a really caring mother who was dying too young... See what I mean? The US is not dying but it's sick and has been sick for a long time, since 1770 something. The sickness has been hidden from most people. And the USA does not care about Europe, except as a vassal and a kitchen-hand, never as an equal. So the US will sabotage Europe's improvements in ways that are unseen by the media nor by the general public — especially on the economic front, discretly. The refugee problem in Europe is the result of bad US policies... that are convenient for the US BUT NOT FOR EUROPE.