On this website (17th February) we predicted that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French Premier Hollande had merely papered over the cracks when they met with Russia’s President Putin and claimed to have bargained a truce in the Ukraine. That truce lasted 4 hours and Putin is now moving his forces and Ukrainian allies to occupy more territory.
In the same article we wrote about Merkel’s face-off with Greek’s new Prime Minister Tsipras and his Finance Minister Varoufakis. She appeared to be talking tough to the Greek Far Left representatives about the Greek responsibility to cut its welfare State in order to receive an extension of its loan from the EU. The deadline for welfare reforms was supposed to be late February. Tsipras is not only refusing to honor the welfare reform deal that underpinned the original loan but is extending Greece’s welfare commitments to its citizens. Greece needed the late February extension of time and another installment of the loan to avoid the collapse of its banking system. Merkel, whose German taxpayers have loaned more money to Greece than any other EU Nation, was warning him that the loan would not be extended without reforms.
As we predicted, Merkel blinked. The deadline has been extended for another 3 months, and Tsipras is beginning to look like a hero, not only to those who voted for him, but to the majority of Greeks who did not. He has made no concessions and the Greek’s continue to live easily on German money. Merkel and Hollande, the ‘Big Two of the EU’ (the rhyme is unintended!) are unwilling to risk the consequences of a Greek exit from the Euro and maybe the EU. In 3 months time there will be either another round of phony brinkmanship or a form of words will have been found to pretend that Greece is about to cut its public spending. In 3 months time, Merkel will be just as fearful of triggering a domino effect amongst the borrowers of the EU Nations.
Western stock markets, including America’s, breathed a sigh of relief and rose a little more, safe in the knowledge that reckless money-printing would continue. In modern parlance, the can was again kicked down the road and almost everyone was happy- everyone that is except the German people and other saver/lenders. An old expression needs updating. “Better a borrower than a lender be!” Americans should not sneer at Germany for Obama has created an America that borrows in order to lend and spend and almost absentmindedly kicks its own can down the same road.
The real point of the foregoing paragraphs is not however to pontificate about the craziness of current financial policy but to comment on the qualities –or lack of them- of Western leaders. Merkel, Hollande, Cameron and Obama are the leaders of the West’s most powerful Nations at a time when the West is drowning in debt, recklessly extending its financial commitments, facing a rebirth of Russian and Chinese expansionism, and filling itself up with Muslim Fifth Columnists.
We have to go back to the mid 1930’s and late 1940’s/early 1950’s to find periods when the Western Nations faced so many external dangers whilst being divided within. The greatest danger in those periods was aggressive, imperialist Socialism. Today it is an Islamic Imperialism that becomes more extreme, more assertive, more blood-thirsty and more confident with every passing day. Back in the 1930’s the West had Neville Chamberlain, weak French Governments and American isolationism until Churchill emerged at one minute to twelve as a defender of civilized values. Fortunately in the post-war crisis the West was led by two Socialists (Truman and Atlee) who had no illusions about Marxist Socialism and who loved their respective countries. Later Thatcher and Regan emerged, each having backbone and a grasp of foreign dangers.
As the West dithers before Islam’s gathering armies and opens its doors to Islam’s Fifth column, it is ‘led’ by European pygmy money-changers and an American President who, when he is not enjoying the fruits of office and legitimizing sexual perversion , is indulging his resentment of White and Asian citizens. On this website we have no hesitation in proclaiming that Obama, his wife, all his close associates, his sponsors and his comrades in the Democrat leadership, have no love for their country, its Christian underpinning and its Constitution. By their deeds shall ye know them and actions speak louder than words.
There is no hope in sight for the UK, where at least one third of the population is alien and hostile and near two thirds is Media-fodder. Here in the USA we must hope that the Republicans find a Churchill in time for the Presidential primaries, that he will emerge from them quickly and overwhelmingly and immediately provide leadership for the Nation.
Obama’s recent speech on terrorism, in which he doubled down on his white-washing of Islam’s paternity of terrorism and Muslim Imperialism, and equated contemporary head-sawing with the Crusades, was outrageous in its absence of intellectual integrity. Interestingly and informatively, his Media masters and his Leftist comrades never distance themselves from such extremism and no McCain-like Quislings emerge to back-stab. Instead the MSM and the Leftists immediately move further to the Left so that his shocking statements are made to look moderate. The Boston Globe on February 20th published an editorial that was even more breathtaking in its dishonesty.
“ISIS and Al Qaeda are undoubtedly a serious threat but many American communities are more at risk from gang violence, white supremacist groups or militia movements…..less than 6% of domestic terror attacks are carried out by Muslims”.
Gang violence (incidentally almost all of it by Blacks and Latinos and which the Globe avoids reporting) is a criminal matter and quite disconnected from terrorism, though it might be argued that the Obama/Holder regime has given birth to Black terrorism of Whites and Asians.
The 6% Muslim terrorism (figures from a Holder FBI report) is of incidents not of casualties and does not count the many thwarted Muslim conspiracies. 9/11 casualties dwarf all other attacks that might be deemed ‘terrorism’. These include attacks by animal rights groups and ecology fanatics. We have to go back to the murky April 1995 Oklahoma bombing to dig up a possible ’right-wing’ terrorist attack. I know of no Christian terrorist attacks or victims of militia actions.
Global Warming Watch
In the UK it is winter–as-usual weather. Here in the USA, the North East is experiencing a long spell of record-breaking cold and snow. The West Coast continues to be dry. Our theory is that extreme low pressure and precipitation on the Atlantic coast is balanced by high pressure over the Pacific coast and has nothing to do with Global Warming.
Music Choice
I have never cared much for the piano playing of Oscar Peterson. He was of course a superb technician but his playing mostly lacked passion, this being concealed by virtuosity. He was at his best when accompanying vocalists. In 1961 he and his trio members (Ray Brown on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums) recorded with vibraphone master Milt Jackson. Jackson never lacked passion and always spoke the language of blues-rooted jazz and maybe he brought out the best in Peterson. I recommend the Jackson/Peterson recording of the Adderley classic composition ‘Work Song’. Peterson’s solo, simple and John Lewis-like in its economy and Blues tinge, leaves me wishing he and Jackson had teamed up more frequently. Enjoy!
According to reports I’ve seen, the Germans got more of what they wanted than Greece. The EU has been using the last four years of chaos to build a wall between themselves and Greece, such that they apparently are now ready to go to the matte with the Hellenes. It would not surprise me if Greece decided to leave under pressure. Right now, the EU is far more concerned with Italy, and if compromises are made, that’s where they will be made. I could, of course, be wrong.