Scattered Notes from the Front: Trying to See Clearly Through the Fog

Says the author: "That's what's happening to Germany's Social Democrats, following similar developments in France, Holland, Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe. They don’t have much energy left to fight since they sold their working-class souls and went along with social cuts and other dictates of the "Finance Markets" in the name of "competition", thus beginning a slow plunge into a major identity crisis..."

Merkel: Anti-Russian and conservative, she has proven (as have other pseudo leaders of European democracies) a reliable shill for the American empire. When will Europe get rid of this disgraceful witting collaborators in the greatest crimes of the modern era?

CJ Hopkins) and Hillary Clinton.

Headline from an article by the fine Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn, just last fall: “The Massacre of Mosul: More Than 40,000 Civilians Feared Dead”.

“More than 40,000 civilians were killed in the devastating battle to retake Mosul from Isis, according to intelligence reports revealed exclusively to The Independent”

So the current battle in Syria is a "massacre"? How much did you hear from the same sources last year about THIS, carried out by the US and its allies? Could there by ANY chance be politics involved in this coverage?

22 February 2018, THE PROPAGANDA WAR: In Germany's national public radio network Deutschlandfunk this morning, practically non-stop coverage of the "massacre" (Angela Merkel) of civilians in Ghouta, Syria, with all the blame directed at Assad and Russia -- exactly the same as in Aleppo last year. Never a word blaming the Al-Qaeda-associated islamist fighters holed up there among the civilian population and backed by the US and allies, who were considered almost wiped out, until recently they were apparently supplied once again with money and weapons to keep going. But when the US and Iraq and others killed thousands of civilians bombing ISIS out of Mosul a few months ago, there were no such stories. Also no mention of the latest atrocities by the Turkish army against Kurds nearby as Turkey's (equally) illegal invasion of Syria continues: Turkey released a German journalist from prison last week and we don't want to irritate the highly-sensitive Erdogan again (PS, We have always been at war with Eastasia).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has rarely used the word "massacre", perhaps never. Not about Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Not about Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Not about the hundreds of persons killed by her ally the USA in Syria a week or two ago. Not about the millions killed in Southeast Asia by her friend Kissinger. Not about the many thousands of civilians killed in Mosul by the US and its allies in bombing raids last year. Not about the terror bombings in Kabul, Afghanistan, where she is sending planeloads of rejected asylum seekers back into a war zone. But today she referred to the current battle in Syria as a "massacre". And still, Germany calls Syria a "civil war".

But while Merkel accused Syria's Assad of a "massacre”, she has been very hesitant to mention the many thousands of deaths caused by VW, Mercedes and other German auto manufacturers around the world through trick software for diesel motors they invented to deceive emissions-testing machines. After all, they are the backbone of the booming German economy -- and here in Germany those automobile manufacturers are refusing to convert their engines to put a stop to the damage and the exported death.

VW is refusing to modify diesel motors with the trick software which produces false legal emissions results. They say it's too expensive, although VW’s corporate profits actually doubled in 2017. Nor have they been subjected to 11 billion dollars of fines here in Germany, as they were in America (and the government is hoping everyone will forget soon). Meanwhile, Mercedes and BMW have admitted they did the same thing. So much for the environmental record of Germany, the country once considered a world environmental leader.

In the USA, most citizens are hardly bothered at all about the thousands of civilians in the Middle East who have been killed in bombing raids and terrorist attacks since Trump took office: they are more concerned that their own children might be shot death at their schools. Trump’s solution is to fill those schools and communities with even more guns, specifically in the hands of schoolteachers. Many American students have now discovered that gun control might be a good idea after all and not a communist plot. My friend Missy Comley Beattie, writing in Counterpunch, has a message for these young gun control advocates:  "I want them to think of the Other. I want them to look at their counterparts in every single area of the globe where US troops are deployed, committing acts of terror. I want them to know that their feelings are the same as those terrorized by state-sanctioned violence. The fear is the same. I want them to imagine the sounds they heard on Valentine’s Day 2018, the gunfire, the screams, the clamor, and the smells -- of blood, of gunpowder, of death, understand the 24-hour-a-day presence of gunfire, the buzz of a drone, the explosions, the smells, the deaths, and know to the bone what it means to live in a war zone."

Not getting much attention in the world media, but plenty here in Germany (where we have a tortured relationship with Turkey based partly on the fact that many Turkish expatriates live here, but continue to support the increasingly fascist behavior of their government, although they would prefer not to live there): the deteriorating situation in Turkey, a NATO member which has now invaded Syria to kill Kurds with German weapons, and which has increasingly tense relations with just about every other nation. HEADLINE in Germany’s foreign-language service Deutsche Welle on its website:

“Dutch parliament recognizes 1915 Armenian 'genocide' | News | DW | 22.02.2018”

“The Dutch parliament has voted to recognize the deaths of Armenians during World War I as genocide. The decision is likely to enrage Turkey…”

The Netherlands joins Germany and other EU nations on Turkey's shit-list: when the German Bundestag (Parliament) did this last year, it precipitated yet another screaming temper tantrum and diplomatic kerfuffle from Turkish President Erdogan, who called Germany "fascist" while he was simultaneously arresting 50,000 teachers, journalists, and public officials on charges of "supporting terrorism" -- most of whom are still behind bars. Of course, such genocide 100 years in the past is a welcome chance to ascend the Moral High Horse for nations supporting ethnic cleansing in Palestine, Yemen, and elsewhere.

Five months after its national parliamentary election at the end of September, German Chancellor Merkel has still not managed to form a governing coalition. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) is her current prospective coalition partner, and the coalition contract is now being voted upon by the entire membership of the SPD (a process not necessary in Merkel’s own CDU). If the SPD membership approves the coalition, Germany will finally have a new government after nearly a half-year of confusion brought about by the growth of the upstart far-right Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD), which got 13% of the vote and in doing so seriously weakened both the CDU and the SPD with its anti-immigrant polemic. In a poll a few days ago, the SPD – Germany’s oldest political party -- had fallen to 15%, with the AfD passing them to reach 16%.

That's what's happening to Germany's Social Democrats, following similar developments in France, Holland, Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe. They don’t have much energy left to fight since they sold their working-class souls and went along with social cuts and other dictates of the "Finance Markets" in the name of "competition", thus beginning a slow plunge into a major identity crisis.

There must be some good news out there somewhere.