Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (December 1, 2019)
The subject matter I’ve chosen for our December update is regrettable, but necessary. It has to do with the rise of the so-called extreme or far-right wing political movement, which has become as threatening today as it was in the very early 1930s – and this in numerous countries all over the world. The extreme or far-right ideology gave our world its bloodiest wars (World Wars One and Two) and a similar type of tribalism gave the world the so-called Middle or “Dark” Age after the fall of the old Western Roman Empire in the 5th Century A.D – 1000 years of near zero growth accompanied by drastic declines in living standards, health, affluence and urban development. One dangerous individual in the USA seeks to unite modern day extreme or far-right wing political parties into something that would be a neo-fascist international. His name is Steve Bannon. The parties he backs (or seeks to infiltrate with like-minded extreme or far-right wing individuals) share a common and very disturbing thread which includes nationalism, xenophobia, exclusion of certain groups of people based upon race, religion, national origin and more.
Where are these political parties located and what have they or some of their officials & supporters said in the recent past which is so disturbing?
These political parties include the likes of the National Rally of France (successor to the National Front which once claimed that Adolf Hitler did not “do enough”), Fidesz of Hungary (a formerly centrist party which has supporters who want to arm their fellow Hungarians against the long time Roma or Sinti minority – once called gypsies), the Northern League & Five Star Movement of Italy (who legally persecuted people when in power in Rome for assisting migrants and immigrants to Italy), the Alternative for Germany Party (whose tirades against minorities reminds one of Joseph Goebbels – the Minister of Propaganda under Adolf Hitler), the Law and Justice Party of Poland (whose supporters often seek to suppress the equal rights of minority groups such as ethnic Germans, Silesians, Masurians, Kashubians, Russians, Ukrainians, Jews and LGBTQ), the Sweden Democrats (yet more anti-minority tirades), the Party for Freedom of the Netherlands (extreme anti-Muslim), the Freedom Party of Austria (which recently had to resign from the government in Vienna due to a bribery scandal involving a Russian billionaire), the Swiss Peoples Party, the UK Independence Party of Great Britain (which seeks to pull the UK out of the European Union and whose leaders have made highly offensive remarks about certain ethnic groups), the Flemish Interest Party of Flanders in Belgium, the Peoples Party of Wallonia in Belgium, the Vox Party of Spain, the Finns Party of Finland, the Indentitarian Movement in the European Union, the Serb Nationalist Party of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil (whose supporters have already murdered Native Americans in the Amazon region), the Likud Party of Israel of Benjamin Netanyahu (whose supporters continue to suppress the equal political rights of 26 percent of Israel’s population who are Arab, Muslim and Druze), the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (a formerly centrist party now infiltrated by the far right), the BJP of India, the Peoples Front of Russia (the party of right wing nationalist Vladimir Putin), Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, AK PARTi of Turkey (led by Erdogan who seeks to re-establish the old Ottoman Empire), the GOP of the USA (the Trump Administration undertaking legal action such as prosecuting the State of California & 22 other states for allegedly enacting environmental legislation which is too strict – something the government in Sacramento has been doing since the 1970s), as well as current governing administrations in countries such as Egypt, the Philippines (the forces of President Duterte killing not merely drug dealers but drug addicts & users as well), South Korea, Australia & Indonesia (the 2 latter governments suppressing the equal rights of the Melanesian inhabitants of West Papua due to the huge gold deposits in the region and due to Canberra’s backtracking on environmental commitments related to the reduction of the use of polluting fossil fuel emissions).
The common thread here is intolerance towards groups of people perceived to be too “different” (and therefore undesirable) and reactionary politics with respect to the environment, the natural world and individual liberty. What is happening in numerous countries today is frighteningly close to what happened to the German Weimar Republic which fell to Hitler’s National Socialism (“Nazism”) in 1933. Challenging times have driven many once centrist voters to the political extremes of the far left and the far right, which makes governing a country difficult to impossible.
After World War 2, responsible political leaders in Germany and the rest of Europe sought to prevent such a disaster from happening ever again. They sought to suppress the tribal nationalism of their own individual countries and unite to form a democratic Europe. In Germany in particular the early post World War 2 governments monitored extreme political groups of both the far left and the far right in an effort to prevent what happened in between 1930 and 1933. All political groups which failed to respect democratic principles and the equal rights of all peoples were banned outright. Sad to say, but this type of vigilance has become very necessary in today’s world – and the lesson of the past is that we as a collective society must never let our guard down against the potential threat of extremism. By the 1970s and 1980s it almost seemed as if political extremism was dead, and none of the mainstream leaders of either the center-left or the center-right dared preach hatred or intolerance.
Political extremists can be accurately compared to schoolyard “bullies.” In other words, only a few extreme individuals are responsible for doing something very wrong. Another small group of people sit on the sidelines and cheer the bullies on. But the overwhelming majority of people do nothing at all, which by default enables the extremists to do wrong. This is exactly what happened in Germany from 1933 to 1945. Hitler’s party never even won an absolute majority in a free election. His party came to national power due to the fact that the old German monarchist party made the fatal mistake of agreeing to form a coalition government with him – with the intent that they (the monarchists) would control the German government. This of course did not happen (Hitler controlled the government instead) and the rest is tragic history.
The time has come for the people of the world to reject the extreme ideology of Steve Bannon and the political parties he seeks to unite into something of a global neo-fascist international – all political groups who preach such dangerous ideas need to be banned through legislative means. Our future as a world does not lie in hatred, exclusion, discrimination, racism, nationalism, tribalism, war or conflict. The only future we can dare to contemplate is a future based upon mutual respect, inclusion, diversity and cooperation in the one common home we call the planet earth.
