On the Anti-Semitism of Karl Marx

Karl Marx - Highgate Cemetery

by Robert Edwards

ESA No 45

To be the perfect Marxist you would need to take on all of Karl Marx’s opinions and ideas ... and not simply The Communist Manifesto and the complete text of Das Kapital. For Marx was far more than the revolutionary economist and theorist. He was a man of his time and his own personal and family circumstances.

For example, he was not Karl Marx the Jew, as right wing reactionaries have dubbed him in an attempt at identifying him as part of a cosmopolitan international conspiracy. To Adolf Hitler, for example, he was “the Jew Karl Marx”.

His father had converted to Lutheranism before Karl Marx was born and so the future revolutionary theorist would have known nothing of the Jewish belief system until much later into his life and only then in complete opposition to it.

Marx was of Jewish extraction but he was not a Jew. This is a phenomenon that was more widespread than acknowledged. There is a long tradition of apostasy which continues today with men like Israel Shamir and Gilad Atzmon who have reacted aggressively to the Jewish mindset and set themselves the task of exposing its more contentious aspects. Israel Shamir has explained he had shed his Jewishness, like a snake sheds its skin, and then converted to Coptic Christianity, one of the earliest expressions of the first Christian churches. His apostasy is complete and cemented by his outspoken views on the Zionist state and all the trappings of Jewish supremacism that go with it. Gilad Atzmon started out as a fervent nationalistic Israeli Zionist and then turned on it with a ferocity so often associated with the convert. He now lives in London.

Karl Marx was none of these things. His father was the apostate and the son was born into a Lutheran upbringing, the Jewish background, or “heritage” as it is now called, being a mere detail of ancestry. So Karl Marx was never a Jew, in the sense that he did not possess the mindset of a Jew. He was baptised at six.

Political opponents at the time liked to make references to Marx’s perceived “Jewishness”. For example, the anarchist Bakunin, who had collaborated with him, wrote on Marx, “Himself a Jew, he attracts, whether in London or in France, but especially in Germany, a whole heap of Yids, more or less intelligent, intriguers, busybodies and speculators, as the Jews are likely to be, commercial and bank agents, writers ... correspondents ... who stand one foot in the world of finance and the other in socialism”.

As much as Marx denied being Jewish, the more his critics and opponents insisted he was a Jew, attributing Jewish traits to his ideas. According to Robert Weltsch, editor of Jüdische Rundschau from 1919-1938 and a prominent German Zionist who used the slogan in his paper, “wear it with pride - the yellow badge”, in response to the Nazi boycott of Jewish shops, “It can be said that his Jewish origin has been stressed more by those who regard him as a disaster for mankind than by those who see in him as one of the blessed pioneers of a new era of human existence”. There were exceptions to this rule.

The German Marxist, Otto Rühle, (1874-1943) held a different, less charitable, explanation with, “As soon as he began to come into contact with the Gentile world and was intelligent enough to make comparisons, it was inevitable that he should feel his Jewish origin to be a disadvantage, a shackle upon his aspirations ... declaring himself before all the world not to be a Jew ... but one who takes so much trouble to declare that he is not a Jew must have reason for being afraid of being regarded as a Jew”.

Marx’s Jewish origins were a matter of indifference to himself, however.

In 1843, a German historian and close friend of Marx, Bruno Bauer, published a book titled The Jewish Question ... or Die Judenfrage in German ... which proposed the abolition of religion, leading to the emancipation of Jews in Germany and Prussia in particular. He believed only a secular state could lead to this freedom, with all religion eradicated. Prussia was very much a Christian state, restricting the rights of Jews. Perhaps this ‘detail of history’ contributed largely to the abolition of Prussia after 1945 by the victors of war.

Marx responded immediately to Bauer with his On The Jewish Question (written in 1843 and published in 1844), containing some controversial opinions that would be deemed anti-Semitic today. Marx disliked Judaism as a secular religion and made that very clear. The concept of ‘anti-Semitism’ did not exist in those days, it should be understood, and antipathy towards Jews was more or less the norm, Marx being no exception in that respect.

In his response to Bauer he wrote, “Let us consider  the actual, worldly Jew - not the sabbath Jew, as Bauer does, but the everyday Jew.

Let us not look at the secret of the Jew in his religion but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew.

What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? *Huckstering, What is his worldly God? Money.

Very well then! Emancipation from huckstering and money, consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our time”.

Where Bauer calls for the abolition of all religion in a secular state as the way forward to the emancipation of the Jews, Marx called for the Jew to first emancipate himself, to rid himself of his nature as a Jew through his secular religion of Judaism.

Marx then went on to state, “We recognise in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time, an element which through historical development — to which in this harmful respect the Jews have zealously contributed — has been brought to its present high  level, at which it must necessarily begin to disintegrate. In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism”.

But Bauer in his The Jewish Question is no less an “anti-Semite” than Karl Marx.

Bauer writes on page 114, “The Jew, who in Vienna, for example, is only tolerated, determines the fate of the whole Empire by his financial power. The Jew, who may have no rights in the smallest German state, decides the fate of Europe”.

To which Marx responds, “This is no isolated fact. The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only because he has acquired financial power but also because, through him and also apart from him, money has become a world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the Christians have become Jews”.

Marx is a prophet of our Modern Age insofar that he recognises the origins of American capitalism, in particular. They are Jewish, he says.

He quotes a certain Captain Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton, a Founding Father and the 1st US Secretary of the Treasury): “The devout and politically free inhabitant of New England is a kind of Laocoön who makes not the least effort to escape from the serpents which are crushing him. Mammon is his idol which he adores not only with his lips but with the whole force of his body and mind. In his view, the world is no more than a Stock Exchange and he is convinced that he has no other destiny here below than to become richer than his neighbour ...”.

Was Marx simply using Bauer’s essay Die Judenfrage as an excuse for espousing his own particular brand of anti-Semitism because, in today’s terms, that is what it is. If you place the Jews in a bad light then you are an anti-Semite, by definition.

He is right in criticising Bauer’s mistaken claim that a secular state would abolish religion. It did nothing of the sort in the United States which has no state religion. In reality, religions flourished there more than anywhere else. The American religious Right, along with the Zionist Christians, in the United States exert enormous influence in this secular state.

Religions exist side by side more comfortably in a secular state. They did so in Syria under President Assad, before the West and Saudi Arabia supported a violent rebellion composed of mercenaries and terrorists. The Christian community, in particular, was protected by Assad, himself of a Shia sect. The rebels very soon set about desecrating the objects of other religions while the West turned a blind eye to their atrocities.

It was Marx’s view that the secular state is not a threat to the existence of religions. His answer to the “Jewish problem” was that, in the case of the Jews, emancipation must first come from within.

Marx had not achieved the completion of his now famous critiques of capitalism that subsequently made him widely known as an economist of some gravitas. It is said that the conclusions he arrived at within On The Jewish Question set the tone for his anti-capitalism and related theories on economic inequality.

If the foundations of Marxism are based firmly on his anti-Semitism in On The Jewish Question, discussed here, then surely all those who call themselves Marxists need to rethink their position. The same goes for the anti-Marxists who attack the “Jew Karl Marx” for simply being a Jew and the claim that Marxism is somehow Jewish. It is clearly not, based on the text of On The Jewish Question.

Towards the end of his essay he wrote, “Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other gods exist. Money degrades all the gods of man — and turns them into commodities. Money is the self-established value of all things. It has, therefore, robbed the whole world —  both the world of men and nature. The god of the Jews has become secularised and has become the god of the world. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusionary bill of exchange”.

copyright © Robert Edwards 2013

Indict This Jewish War Criminal

Binjamin Netanyahu, the butcher of Gaza

Palestine is the great humanitarian question that never seems to be taken seriously enough and thus goes on and on. The incredibly cruel suffering of the Palestinian people goes far beyond any other suffering in recent modern human history.

Dare I say, far worse than the Jewish Holocaust of the 20th century, eventually brought to a finality in 1945. The suffering of the Palestinian people which began in 1948 at the time of the Catastrophe, Al Nakba in Arabic, has gone on for nearly 65 years, for as long as I have lived, in fact.

It is the time scale of suffering that exceeds that of the Jewish tragedy that compels me to describe the persecution of the Palestinians as of greater significance and importance than the Jewish Holocaust, even with the iconic gas chambers left out of the equation.

There is a connection, however. It concerns the way the state of Israel was founded and planted upon an indigenous people, that of historic Palestine. Zionism as a political philosophy is an idea first hatched in the 19th century. It was based on a complete rejection of European society which these secular Jews decided was afflicted with an incurable disease called “anti-Semitism”, a disease being regarded as a pathological condition of the Gentiles. Of course, anti-Semitism is a modern false construct, a misnomer, since the term ‘Semitic’ refers to a family of languages and has nothing to do with either race or religion.

Thus was born the idea of a homeland for the Jews. But where and how? These early Zionists were largely secular Jews and were essentially political, not religious. However, they were not above exploiting religious myth for their own secular ends and the Book provided all that. Biblical prophesy became a weapon in their secular arsenal. They would say, “I may not believe in God but, nevertheless, He gave us the Promised Land”. Such chicanery and double-speak has characterised Zionism up to the present day. Remember, it was God that cast the Jews out of Israel for their transgressions against it and the Western governments put them back!

The Balfour Declaration offered the Jews a homeland in Palestine with the proviso that the rights of the Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim, be given due consideration and their rights preserved. The sites of the three Abrahamic religions were to be respected. But the Jewish Holocaust in Central Europe was to hand the Zionists the greatest gift in terms of an awful alibi in the theft of Palestinian land and the dreadful treatment of the occupants.

Zionist terror was absolute as a consequence of the emotional blackmail associated with the Jewish Holocaust. The Zionists believed they could act with impunity. They still do.

Under the British mandate, Zionist terror gangs waged war on the British soldiers not long after the war against Germany. Our soldiers were ironically labelled “Nazis”, to die at the hands of Jewish terrorist gangs. Some of our soldiers were kidnapped, tortured and then their bodies left hanging, booby-trapped with high explosives for their unwitting comrades.

Menachem Begin, a leader of the Stern Gang and, later, an Israeli Prime Minister, wrote in his autobiography, “The blowing up of the King David Hotel was the highlight of my career”.

The King David Hotel was the headquarters of the British Army at the time. Casualties included many innocent civilians.

This was how the State of Israel came into being, with the massacres in Arab villages and the torture of young British soldiers carrying out their duties under the British mandate. Behind it, of course, was a powerful Jewish lobby in the United States, the same lobby that pressurised President Truman to tell the British to get out at a time of uncertainty and turmoil. Then the Haganah (the Jewish paramilitary organisation that was the embryonic Israeli Defence Force) and the various Jewish terrorist groups had full rein to commit the vilest of atrocities resulting in the displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinians from their ancestral homes.

The Israelis could not have succeeded without two factors. The first was the support from the powerful and wealthy Jewish lobby in the United States, virtually pulling the strings of successive American presidents, as much as they do today. Secondly, the memory of the Jewish Holocaust, perhaps one of the most potent of modern-day episodes in human history that has become an icon of human suffering. If it were that alone, there would be much to be said for it. If it were recognised as one among many human tragedies then it would have its rightful place in our hearts.

This was not the case with Israel and world Zionism. The Zionists claimed it was unique in world history and, thus, other tragedies were not worth a glance over the shoulder. The plight of the Palestinians was a consequence of this mindset, giving the Israelis an impunity with the Holocaust as the backdrop to all its actions ... “Anyone who criticises us is an anti-Semite and a Nazi”. The Holocaust was to be used as a playing card in the game of international power politics and it served their purposes very effectively for many decades, now wearing a bit thin with its gloss considerably tarnished. It no longer serves as an alibi for so many human rights violations.

The irony is that it was the Zionists who, not only behaved like Nazis, but based their own world view on that of Jewish supremacism. The kind of supremacism that made the German Herrenvolk beliefs seem almost modest in terms of a national or racial pride.

Never mind the Menachem Begins or the Ariel Sharons (the butcher of the Palestinian camps in Lebanon), we have now become familiar with their worthy successor in the world of Israeli Jewish supremacism, Binjamin Netanyahu, perhaps one of the most hawkish and uncompromising exponents of Israeli expansionism ever to walk the stage of Israeli politics.

Netanyahu believes in the superiority of his people over all others. What you get today is not the wounded look of a Holocaust survivor who feigns victimhood in a seemingly friendless world full of “anti-Semitic”  perils. Oh, no. Netanyahu dispenses with all that tosh. What we see today is the final stage of Israeli Zionist evolution in political terms ... the totally self-confident Zionist expansionist who does not give a stuff what the rest of the world thinks of what he says or does.

The attacks upon Gaza with all the modern weaponry that the American tax dollar can buy are carried out ruthlessly. The blockade of Gaza serves no military objective with the only possible result that the poor people of Gaza, men, women and children, suffer hunger, the cold and bad health. It is inhuman and against international law.

Aid ships carrying nothing more than medical supplies and children’s books have been attacked by armed Israeli soldiers with the resultant deaths of unarmed civilians, with others arrested and imprisoned in Israeli gaols. Some have disappeared.

The man behind all of these actions is Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of a coalition consisting of the most extreme elements in Israeli politics. The Shas Party, for example, has called for the liquidation of the Arabs.

There is an enormous differential in terms of the lethal military power between the Israelis and that of the Palestinians. The Palestinians have no army, navy or air force, for a start. They are completely under an occupation that does not hesitate to use the mailed fist in an indiscriminate way, attacking children, hospitals and schools. They commit these atrocities knowing they have the protection of the United States through the political clout of the Jewish lobby in the form of the powerful AIPAC.

Recently, during the last Israeli offensive in Gaza, the Zionists killed two Palestinian journalists, their target being a media station, the al-Aqsa television facility. A two-year old boy across the street also died. All in all, more than 170 Palestinians died during these acts of aggression ... with six Israelis losing their lives in responsive rocket attacks.

Responding to criticism of the illegal building of Jewish settler homes within Palestinian territory, Binjamin Netanyahu said, “We live in a Jewish state and Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. The Western Wall is not occupied territory. We will build in Jerusalem because this is our right. What the UN says doesn’t interest me”.

Fourteen members of the UN Security Council had condemned Israel for the construction of new settler homes while the United States, uncharacteristically, accused the Zionists of “engaging in a pattern of provocative action”.

The continued building of Jewish settler homes is, of course, provocative but, more than that, it is a strategy that puts up very clear obstacles to peace. Even though the United States has pronounced these illegal actions to be “provocative”, the US State Department, in the person of Victoria Nuland, explained that the US Administration “would not support a proposal for a Security Council resolution being discussed in preliminary talks in response to the plan for Israeli settlements”.

She said, “I don’t think we think that is a helpful step at this point”. Which is diplomat-speak for “We support Israel whatever Netanyahu says or does”.

The Palestinians, under the direction of Mahoud Abbas, responded through Nabil Abu Rudeina, with the words, “The Palestinian Authority is to take important and necessary measures against Israel’s settlement building, including recourse to the UN Security Council, to prevent implementation of these decisions”.

Now the Palestinians have UN observer status, they are able to draw on the support of the United Nations directly, along with most countries which recognise the Jewish settlements as illegal, to voice the fact that the territories were captured by Israel in the 1967 war and are therefore subject to the Geneva Conventions ... which forbid construction on occupied territories. As a breach of the Geneva Conventions, Israel is guilty of war crimes. Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal. Under international law, every people under an occupation has a right to resist that occupation. Palestinian resistance is, therefore, perfectly legitimate and morally correct.

We have already revealed that Netanyahu is not interested in what the UN says and is ignoring opinion around the world. He is also in contravention of international law. The hundreds of Palestinian children in Israel’s jails are also cited as a war crime and the Palestinians are to take this to the UN.

Israel’s principal mentor, the United States, is equally contemptuous of international law, having attacked Iraq and Afghanistan, placing these two countries under occupation. Those who resist these illegal occupations are equally justified in their freedom struggle and are backed by international law up to the hilt. They are freedom fighters, as such. Under the Geneva Conventions, it is forbidden to construct on occupied territories, which makes war criminals of the Americans, too.      copyright©Robert Edwards 2013

This System Is Killing Us

by Robert Edwards

Published in ESA No 43

We continue to lurch towards further economic crises and there is no one in power with any idea of how to save us. The main political parties carry on the same old pantomime act of blaming each other for the nation’s continuing decline, with the excuse they ‘inherited’ all these problems from a previous government. A government that blames a previous government for over-borrowing now borrows more then ever. All governments have played a part in this slow, painful and agonising rot.  All of them are to blame. We can now add the Limp Democrats to this misbegotten bunch to whom the curse, be careful of what you wish for when you hunger for power at any price, applies so appropriately. No one gets let off the hook on that score.

What can you expect when we are ruled by spoilt-brat multi-millionaire toffs, most of whom have never done an honest day’s work in their lives? The worst of all are the old Etonians who were brought up in privileged circumstances and educated at schools for the very same privileged class where the curriculum included a doctrine of elitism drummed into them at a young age ... “You are born to rule and to rule over all others”.

I watched part of the Tory conference where the main clues were with the cameras panning the audience. If you are any good at reading faces, preferably at first sight as with physiognomy, then Toryism was expressed in the unfeeling arrogance and smugness on the faces that have long caricatured your average Tory delegate at conference. They are as much a social type as your average old school bellicose trade union leader ... albeit a different sort altogether. The hardened old faces of the polarised leaderships of the opposing social classes.

Before I am tempted to embark on a stormy voyage of class war polemic, I need to point out what I consider to be the worst and the best aspects of British politics. Here goes.

The worst is exemplified in the cold-blooded indifference to the suffering of others less fortunate, in the saying, “Because they failed so miserably at being as thrifty as we were”. Perhaps they were not given the opportunity to save on the poverty line. Struggling to survive does not offer the chance of acquiring such bourgeois virtues.

This reactionary treatment of the working class, now relegated to the position of an under class, is perhaps the biggest factor in dividing a nation. The British long ago made an art of it and it is little altered today. Class war is a two-sided coin, for sure, whether Left or Right.

The Tories are overwhelmingly concerned with ‘business’ and the workers regarded as secondary to this, merely attributed the role of serving business, which success is determined by the acceptance of the lowest wage possible. If the Englishman will not work for peanuts then they import foreigners who will ... the entire blame for this most ugly aspect of immigration being placed on the “lazy Englishman”. The import of cheap labour serves business and never the workers. Profits come first and the workers last.

No one attacks the bankers, who are entirely responsible for our continuing economic woes. The creation of money and its supply is entirely within the domain of private banking and the government is basically helpless there. Within the practice of lending with interest, the banks create money out of thin air, which is nothing more than phantom currency. Paid back, it disappears to nothing again. That’s right, it is a scam ... simply numbers on a computer’s database. A performing illusionist would understand the trick.

Yet the system is such that everything depends on the banks functioning as they do and we bail them out with taxpayers money while insisting the taxpayer lives in comparative poverty. Bankers can then award themselves massive bonuses without consulting anyone. At the same time, austerity is imposed upon the masses as a matter of government policy.

European Socialism is opposed to the money supply being exclusively under the control of private banking, which is a law unto itself. A private set-up that can withhold money from the system by simply ceasing to lend through alleged “lack of confidence” should not be tolerated in any country that calls itself democratic and ultimately answerable to the people.

Then there is the borrowing deficit and its urgent reduction, the beginning and end of Tory-led government policy. Cuts here and cuts there because the cartel of private banking, that rules over most economic systems in the world, says so. “Do what we say or you don’t get any more money”. So the millionaires that currently rule over us tighten the screws to please their banker chums. Everything becomes alarm and urgency when it comes to “reducing the deficit”. Why not simply underwrite the debt and start all over again? That would mean the end of debt slavery and the end of the rule of international banking and finance.

You have to ask yourselves what money is and what purpose it should serve. It is a means of exchange which the people should own. Its purpose should be to assist in the easy and secure exchange of goods.

Instead, it has been completely hi-jacked and used as a means of control. The result is that the greater part of the wealth in the world is in very few hands while the “prols”, the great majority, have very little. Is that morally right?

That, then, is the worst of British politics ... this total subservience to the Money Power. Banks love to loan to those who struggle to pay it back. Default on the loan and they will seize your goods and assets. This is all achieved by the act of borrowing on interest, the simple act that creates money out of thin air. They now do this to entire nations.

The best is yet to come. There is another kind of politics that is in revolt. Tightening the austerity screw in countries like Spain and Greece has  produced such a movement that identifies the International Monetary Fund as the tyranny that kills. Oh, yes ... pensioners in these countries are now committing suicide as a consequence of severe austerity measures imposed upon the people by the money-lenders. What a shame and disgrace.

They call it a “bail-out” as if it were some kind of altruistic service. It is nothing of the kind. It is, in reality, more of the same debt slavery with terms that can never be realised because austerity measures imposed destroy businesses and jobs, thereby preventing any form of meaningful growth. Italy had to sell off its state-owned companies on defaulting, Greece had to sell off all its unpopulated small islands on defaulting ... and so on. This scam is nothing more than highway robbery on a massive scale.

The movement in revolt is in preparation and appears on the streets of some countries suffering under severe debt slavery. It is a movement that is neither left nor right but cuts right across the political spectrum. Neither the far-left nor the far-right can lay claim to this movement in revolt because neither of these opposite polar political extremes have ever identified the real enemy in the terms of the new revolt. The enemy is the global economic order in the hands of a few. All the rest is a mere bagatelle. It deflects from the only real important issue which is the life and death struggle we all face today and being another reason that nationalism is part of the problem. Divide and rule ... the rulers being international finance.

So how do you get out of this situation and on to the road to recovery? Well, it will not be by remaining as small, isolated countries pulling up the drawbridge. They will simply pick you off one by one. A veteran British nationalist gave a talk to The London Forum recently, hosted by the affable Jez Turner, where he rambled on about the entire world being ‘bankrupt’. He blamed the Saudis and the Chinese for this. At the end of his ramble he offered his solution, which was to revive British industry, produce only what we need and not to live beyond our means. He called it ‘economic nationalism’. In other words, old fashioned autarky, ... meaning more austerity.

The problem with such a policy is that you end up surrounded by the rest of the world pulling in an opposite direction. You could never compete successfully on world markets to sell your goods, so tiny little Albion, a small set of islands out in the North Sea, is going to supply everything that a population of fifty-odd million requires. It would not work.

You need a large enough area with room for expansion and, of course, every foodstuff and raw material that we require for a good standard of life. “To do great things in a great way”, is an old Mosley maxim.

Oswald Mosley offered a solution to the rule of money in the 1960s. He said it could be achieved with existing European governments if they had the will. He said all they had to do in order to be rid of debt slavery was to agree to meet at an appointed hour. They had to do this in unison. All these heads of European governments would then declare their own system, united in common purpose, with complete control of the money supply out of private hands and under the control and direction of European government. All previous debt would be null and void. Our own banking system, under new guide lines, would then serve the European people in a constructive way without the curse of usury, which is lending at interest.

All politicians today are obsessed with the ‘debt crisis’. They live with debt and they think of little else. In other words, everything is subservient to meeting this ever-present borrowing deficit.

It has become a new religion, little different to pagan worship when the angry god must be placated with more human sacrifices. The World Bank and the IMF are the new pagan gods of global politics ... and they want to see more suffering before they are finished.

It is happening now with pensioners dying, not just in Greece in acts of suicide, but here, too, every Winter, as fuel prices rise beyond the means of ordinary old folk. That’s another issue, while privatised utility companies provide massive riches for the Fat Cats, our people struggle as never before. These essential utilities should all be back in public ownership with a fair deal for all. An end to this culture of privatisation and greed. It works for the rich but not for the poor.

Europe a Nation would be very different to the United States. The United States is based on greed. Kenneth Clark, in his BBC series Civilisation, when referring  to ‘heroic materialism’, he said, in relation to America, “It’s godless, it’s brutal, it’s violent”. America is the ‘spiritual’ home of a soulless materialism where big money rules. Watch Presidential elections.

Our Europe would have the steady foundations of social responsibility with real opportunity for all. It will be the essence of European Socialism. The Americans hate socialism, somehow equating it with communism, to the point they really do believe in the survival of the fittest, that if you can not afford medical care then you can damned well die in pain and agony. They do not care. They love their guns more than their fellow man.

Our National Health Service is a beacon of light amid so much darkness in the world. In a world without predatory banking and the grip of usury, we can organise a society where nothing can impede growth and ‘austerity’ was just a bad dream. Organising within a self-sufficient European system, with the lead of European government, science and labour will lift us up through their own efforts ... and money will simply be a means of exchange.

Why Europe Should Unite as a Super Power

Beyond the old ideas of nation-states within our fractured and divided Europe ... towards a new political and economic system for our Europe united and free

by Robert Edwards 

(ESA No 42 September/October 2012)

The  first thing we need to do, in relation to Europe, is clearly define our position regarding European identity. Why do we claim to be European above all other considerations and why do we feel justified in proclaiming complete European integration to be the only constructive way forward?

We begin from the premise that Europeans have so much in common in terms of cultural, artistic and scientific achievement, that we must come together in order to preserve our unique civilisation. We are also very similar in ethnic terms but we also rejoice in the great diversity of types that complement each other. From the Nordic to the Mediterranean, we share the same history of achievement and, on those broadest of terms, we find the basis for fraternal solidarity. We call it European brotherhood.

This European identity is further enforced and affirmed by the great tragedy of war and internecine conflict. What greater motive for coming together in common purpose than to push aside national differences that had, too often, led to massive slaughter on battle fields, most often in the pursuit of economic advantage. By coming together as Europeans we end, for all time, the possibilities of future wars between Europeans.

When the greatest European in modern history was released from detention during the last months of the Second World War, this was his first observation. He said the worst were ever united but the best were ever divided. The worst, of course, being the jackals of war that profited from the second European conflict in the Twentieth Century. They destroyed both Germany and the British Empire. Europe was carved up between East and West while America and Russia occupied our continent throughout the Cold War. The best were then more divided than they ever were.

There should be a lesson to be learned from that but still we have separate states with separate national agendas, each of them vying for an advantage over their neighbours. The phrase ‘European Union’ remains a misnomer rather than the reality it should be. Why do we have this situation? I am going to point the finger of accusation firmly in the direction of the United States, currently attempting to expand its imperialist agenda as the world’s only military super power (global cop?) joined at the hip to Israel, also armed to the teeth, mainly by the American taxpayer. The United States hates the idea of Europe as one, with its own government and its own foreign policy. Furthermore, it clings to that Cold War set-up, NATO, in order to lead Europeans by the nose in its illegal military incursions. They fear Europe having its own defence system independent of the United States. This would, of course, leave the United States considerably weakened with the potential of becoming isolated. Can you imagine a Hilary Clinton without an obedient William Hague, that droning, servile, monotone mouthpiece for Washington and Tel Aviv? David Cameron and Nick Clegg went off on holiday to Spain and left him in charge. It is who pulls Hague’s strings that should worry us most.

Hague’s recent attacks upon the European Union and Britain’s relation to it leave us in no doubt that he is firmly in the pay of Europe’s enemies.

It was under George W. Bush that the doctrine of ‘Old Europe and New Europe’ was first created. Rather than allow Europe to integrate as one, the Americans sought to undermine this by reaching out to the newly-emerged former communist states, bribing and placing pressure on them for the purpose of buying permanent bases in Russia’s backyard. They dubbed these economically weaker states ‘New Europe’, thus implying ‘Old Europe’ (Western Europe) could be treated differently and separately. How’s that for dirty tricks? Divide and rule by Pax Americana.

European Action says, there should be no American military presence anywhere in Europe and, this presence should, henceforth, be regarded as a subversion of European territory and, thus, an illegal act of invasion. We thought the Cold War had ended but the American imperialists are still here with new ‘Checkpoint Charleys’, all ready for a new Cold War with ‘enemies’ of their own making. The CIA mindset infects all discussion on who or what is a threat to “the American way of life” and “if you are not with us then you must be against us”. We do not buy this oversimplified blackmail. Let me make it even more simple: we oppose you. ... period.

Our European identity shall be defined by our opposition to American imperialism in all its forms. Above all, we should never permit the Americans to play their games within Europe, buying off corrupt leaders with large financial hand-outs and dividing us still further. European politics is a matter for Europeans only. Or so it should be.

Our European identity is also determined by the necessity to build a new economic order independent of the present global structures. By this, we mean an end to the system of international finance controlled and manipulated by cartels of private bankers. This was discussed in the previous issue of European Socialist Action (No 41), the publication of European Action, in the front page article, WE MUST END THIS BANKERS’ RACKET.

The need for a single European economy with a European government controlling our own money supply could not be more obvious and necessary. This means an exclusively European banking system in the service of Europeans. All banking should be nationalised for this purpose. This can only be achieved on a large scale within an area large enough to sustain such a policy ... and that area is Europe! As OM would say, “Little England could never work”.

Have you noticed how right wing nationalists in this country never discuss these issues? They want “out of Europe”. Are they going to hire some tug boats and pull us across the Atlantic towards what they deem to be their true allies fighting ‘the Muslim threat to the West’? They talk of ‘Western values’ as if we share so much with America. Right wing nationalists love America rather than Europe. They prefer to be the servile ‘partner’ to Uncle Sam and deceive themselves with nonsense about a special relationship. The Americanised patriot is alive and well in the BNP and the EDL.

Who was it who said, “We have nothing in common with America apart from a language ... but we have everything in common with Europeans apart from language”? The first part is only partially true as correct and proper English still remains our prerogative.

I picked up the phone recently to learn that someone wants to offer me a good deal with a privatised utility company. I suggested he should get a proper job producing wealth and that I am fine with my current provider. I was very polite. He tells me he served in Iraq and this is the only job he can get. We got a bit friendly and he opened up his heart on matters to do with the world situation. It was then that I was given a deep insight into how far our soldiers are brainwashed. He would not accept that Britain should not have coalesced in the illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, even with all the facts thrown at him. His most revealing statement, after asking why he was there, was, “We have to support our allies”. We did not do that in Vietnam so why should we be the all too-willing accomplices in the recent batch of war crimes? The Americans were never our allies ... it is America first and last with them. The naivety of some of our own people is astounding.

The Twentieth Century is the shameful century of slaughter on an unprecedented scale which nearly destroyed Europe on two occasions. The causes of the two major world wars are still being discussed by historians around the world and, as time marches on, we become less hidebound by the impact of the old war propaganda immediately post-1945. Having said that, it is perfectly reasonable to consider all the facts leading up to wars and not to simply accept the received standard version. Some people call it ‘historical revisionism’ but we shall use that old legal phrase, ‘taking into consideration all the facts’. That way we avoid association with those whose only interest is the rehabilitation of the Nazis. It seems clear that all sides in war commit atrocities, as they do so today.

We reject, totally, the right wing nationalist claim that their mythical ‘sovereignty’ is threatened by Europe and we equally reject notions of confederation, a half-way house and an obstacle to fully integrated unity. Smaller, separate nations have never had ‘sovereignty’ because they have always been dependent on more powerful external forces. The nationalists are like the blind leading the blind, oblivious to these facts, immersed in myths and legends of heroic deeds of yore but never aware of the realities of predatory international finance.

Most people were inspired by the daily events during the London Olympics. They were organised and arranged to invoke the maximum patriotic fervour, the crowds deafening in their deeply emotional response when a British participant won a medal. The Union flag became a fashion accessory, draped over the shoulders in a victory roll, for all to see. Government ministers were to claim these games would boost the economy and give ‘GB’ a good kick-start. We were given the feel-good factor as more and more people claimed they were so proud to be British as a result.

Well, the economy is still in a state of stagnation and the only change we have experienced is a number of Olympic participants from Third World countries not returning home but are actively seeking asylum. Surprise, surprise! Guess where they come from?

Bike sales will peak and then just as quickly decline to its pre-Olympics level. Patriotic fervour will simply peter out and flying the Union flag will again be regarded as ‘fascist’.

Patriotism is a sentiment used by both the best and the worst in equal measure but those who peddle this feeling for political aims or advantages have been seriously misleading people in Britain.

It is not ‘patriotic’ to claim Britain can go it alone and compete successfully on world markets. It is the most shameless nonsense . Equally, it is the most idiotic nonsense that an ‘independent’ Scotland would be so in the sense that the buffoon Alex Salmond would be the Prime Minister of a new state in complete control of its finances, including the money supply.

Nationalism is the tool of international finance. Why do I say this? Because international finance preys on the chaos of international trade between nations competing, each one attempting to sell more than it imports. A favourable balance of payments, in other words. Separate nations are in a life or death struggle in a situation whereby nations can not all succeed at the same time. Success under these conditions means others losing out. The winners are usually those countries that keep wages down in order to keep costs down. Those who try to do well by their workers do not stand a chance.

Europe should unite as a single political and economic unit, large enough and powerful enough to free itself from the international trading system. In other words, a self-sufficient European socialist state with its own government. Then, at last, the European people determine their own future.

We Must End This Bankers' Racket

Make the New Europe Now!

by Robert Edwards

ESA No 41

The Italian government hopes to raise 10 billion euros    (£8.1 billion; $12.6 billion) selling off state-owned companies in a bid to reduce its crippling debt mountain ... goes a recent press release. This is the consequence of being at the wrong end of a system we know to be nothing short of debt slavery.

All over Europe, we are witnessing rule by finance ... private banking dictating policies to government. The BBC is constantly pushing the idea that Greece exiting the euro would have terrible economic consequences throughout the rest of the world. So it is not an exclusive issue for the euro-zone. Our Chancellor, old pal of the Rothschilds, George Osborne, says Britain’s recovery difficulties are all down to turmoil within the euro-zone but the real problems are far wider and originated in the United States of America.

Let us make it clear: this financial crisis was caused by Wall Street’s mortgage-backed securities fraud, none of whose perpetrators have ever been brought to book and jailed.

$90 trillion in credit debt swaps were then sold by Wall Street against Europe’s debt which presents further problems if the cash  is not available to make good when they are due. The truth is, Wall Street does not have the cash.

If the anti-austerity Left had won in Greece, then a bill would be presented to Wall Street that, of course, it could not pay.

Iceland famously threw out their government and jailed their criminal bankers which means all debts created through fraud were written off and the country is slowly recovering. This, surely, is the way out but the news media and economic ‘experts’ are telling us all that austerity is the only way. It is not.

Completely against Greek electoral law, the BBC and US polls predicted a win for the pro-austerity party, even though such polls, within two weeks of election, are banned in Greece. The BBC serves as a major influence in deciding many countries’ election results, manipulating minds but, in Greece’s case, quite illegally. Interfering in the elections of other countries is nothing new. The rewards are more debt slavery and plunder.

It was the BBC that reported, on 9/11, the collapse of a World Trade Centre tower 26 minutes before it occurred. It gives you some indication of how cravenly immoral the Beeb actually is.

They want to keep Greece in the straitjacket of debt slavery because that would serve the interests of Wall Street. The Greek people would then be consigned to perpetual poverty to pay off debts, in reality, the results of fraud and criminal acts committed elsewhere.

Who are these financial gangsters that exert so much influence over governments and can decide which country is up and which country is down? What is this imposed system of debt slavery and why do we permit large-scale usury, a practice condemned and proscribed in two mainstream religions, Islam and Christianity?

The Rothschilds took over the Bank of England in 1815 and, ever since, continued to expand and encroach upon nations everywhere in the world where corrupt political leaders would accept the offer of massive loans at exorbitant interest rates ... loans which can never be paid. This is the secret of the Rothschilds’ ultimate control .... the iron grip of usury whereby the borrower is permanently in debt and must, in perpetuity, meet all the conditions of the money-lenders. Remember the story of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice who demanded his pound of flesh on the failure of debt repayment.

The central banks of various nations, involved in bail-outs with strings attached, are nearly all Rothschild-controlled private banks. A list of them would flow over the edge of this page. The list includes the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, Deutsche Bundesbank, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Central Bank of Russia, every central bank in Africa and in South America ... and much more. Include the IMF, the World Bank and the Bank of International Settlements and you get the full picture. They are all in debt to the Rothschild family. If anyone thinks that central banks are independent institutions serving their nations, do not be deceived. They are illegally created private banks owned solely by the Rothschilds, created over a period of more than 200 years.

If you want an explanation why we have had these successive wars over the last few decades then consider this: before the destruction of the World Trade Centre, there were seven central banks not under Rothschild control. These were Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan, Cuba, Iran and North Korea. Now there are only three, including the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

While NATO was fuelling civil war in Libya, the Rothschilds had set up their own bank in Benghazi ready for a take-over. They wanted Gaddafi out because he promoted the idea of a pan-African monetary union with the Gold Dinar as the reserve currency, independent of the globalist usurers and, of course, against the controlling interests of the Rothschild model of international banking.

They had previously operated in similar fashion in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you want to know what these wars were all about then look no further than the words on this page.

The war on Islam (erroneously termed the “war on terrorism”) is a proxy war declared by the Rothschilds upon the whole of Islam ... because Islam forbids usury, the system of charging interest on loans. Usury is also forbidden in the Holy Bible and was prohibited by the Christian churches until a few centuries ago, much to their eternal shame and disgrace.

The Rothschilds want to establish their own usury-based bank in Iran. The oil is secondary. With the enormous influence the super-wealthy Rothschilds exert over publishing and the media around the world, the power of press, television and so on, is brought to bear in order to tell us how evil and dangerous countries like Iran are, creating this false image as a prerequisite for future military conflict and take-over. They did it before and they’ll do it again.

This emphasis on Iran’s nuclear development and its alleged hostile intentions is also the relentless theme of Israel’s war-rattling propaganda. This, from a state that is armed to the teeth with over two hundred nuclear war heads, financed largely by the tax payers of the United States.

On the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, June 17, Peter Mandelson, close friend of Nat Rothschild, stated, “We are not masters of economic events in our own country”. The characteristic wry smile gave the game away. Mandelson was being uncommonly candid, a trait you do not often see in most of our politicians. Mandelson is fond of holidaying at Rothschild’s private Corfu resort and on his luxury yacht there, alongside our very own Chancellor, George Osborne, where deals were struck with Russian oligarchs and other shady activities. As an insider within the money power, Mandelson’s statement regarding us not being masters of our own economy can be taken as entirely authentic and factual.

This throws up the question of the validity of democracy and the entire party political system in thrall to the financial power of the Rothschilds. It throws up the question of the integrity of all governments who have misled the people into believing that government is the “master of economic events”, with each successive party in power serving the banking system above the interests of the broad masses of the people.

The way out is as we have always said. In order to break the chains of debt slavery and the system of global usury that keeps each nation bound to them, we must strive for the alternative that is Europe a Nation.

That alternative will be revolutionary in the truest sense. It will demand an entirely new way of thinking so that politics itself will be turned on its head. Not so much a method of government but an economic idea that liberates men and nations. Money must revert to its original purpose which is as a means of exchange, pure and simple, and not as a phantom currency created by private banks out of thin air through lending at exorbitant interest rates. The private banks thus controlling the money supply.

European Socialism can only come about through popular will when crisis becomes so deep and severe that the great masses of Europe see no other way out ... at critical mass! It could be done through the present governments of Europe if they had the will but the money power of the Rothschilds is so powerful and the first stirrings from one head of government would mean ordinary people suffering through IMF-directed austerity measures, more severe than the previous conditions.

As separate nations divided against each other, we are helpless and vulnerable. This is a concept completely lost on the reactionary right wing nationalists who oppose complete European unity. I have always said nationalism is the enemy of Europe.

End this rotten and corrupt international banking system by creating your own banking system within Europe, of Europe and for the European peoples alone. A European Central Bank, relieved of Rothschild control, would supply credit where it is really needed and the money supply would be firmly within the control of elected government.

Banking should serve the people and not the other way round.

We must also have a fiscal and monetary policy controlled by European government whereby the supply of money is such that it is neither too much nor too little for the development of an economy. Too much money in the system not matched by production would lead to inflation ... less money in the system would, of course, lead to deflation.

Today, bankers can move money in and out of countries, often having a detrimental effect upon those countries. It does this through operating within the international trading system, supplying the money for this competitive trade. They control us this way.

We say end this system of international trade whereby financiers supply money to it and can so easily withdraw it. The creation of a self-contained European economic system with political leadership would remove the power of international finance simply by our withdrawing from international trade and thus becoming insulated from world markets.

We could create our own banking system which would cease to be international finance. Creative finance would then serve the European people.

The Barbaric Americans

EDITORIAL - ESA No 39, March/April 2012

Our hearts went out to 65 year old Christopher Tappin after losing his two year battle against extradition to the United States for selling batteries to Iran.

Any trial there will prove unfair as Mr Tappin’s UK witnesses will not travel to the United States (due to the enormous travel and accommodation costs) and where video questioning is not permitted under US law. The prosecution counsel will have free reign with full government backing. This will be a political trial ... a political show trial, no less. As rigged as any Stalinist show trial of the 1930s Soviet Union.

This softly spoken gentle man has borne his predicament with dignity and charm. How will this Englishman cope in a land where good manners are unheard of and everything is determined by how many dollars you have in the bank?

Mr Tappin told the press, when leaving at Heathrow, that he felt David Cameron had let him down, which is a typical English understatement for downright betrayal, the betrayal of a mild-mannered businessman doing his job. This government betrayed us all by not keeping to a promise to review and amend the extradition arrangements with America. Mr Tappin was waiting for this patiently but nothing transpired.

The batteries were for missiles. If he had sold them to Israel, perhaps the most aggressive nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, all those respected members of the Conservative Friends of Israel would be nominating him for a position on the next Honours List. Our Foreign Secretary, William Hague, is a senior member of the Conservative Friends of Israel and it shows wherever he goes. He was there prompting and giving aid to the illegal opposition to Colonel Gaddafi and now he is clamouring for more support for the Israeli-backed opposition to President Assad of Syria. He is doing the bidding of Israel every minute of his waking life. It shows every time that flat monotone voice of his struggles to justify the position of the Foreign Office on its Middle East policy.

Now Christopher Tappin must be thrown to the wolves even though he has been caring for his wife who has Churg-Strauss Syndrome. This caring man is being torn away from a woman who is dependent on her husband. That alone should be grounds for preventing his extradition ... compassionate grounds that would otherwise enable an illegal immigrant to be granted full citizenship here with all the perks. The European Court of Human Rights would have had something to say about it all ... but this does not concern human rights at all. It concerns America’s interests and those interests alone.

A once great Britain has to bow down to the American barbarians and give up a human sacrifice on the bloody altar of America’s imperialistic war against the Muslim world. They want to show that they really do rule the world and will come down like a ton of bricks on any decent Englishman trying to earn a crust by selling a few batteries to America’s enemies.

We should end all extradition treaties with the United States followed by a disbanding of NATO. Certainly, we should cease to be part of any military coalition anywhere in the world. This country should concern itself with British and European laws, British and European economic interests and British and European global interests ... not doing the bidding of the world’s only super power in league with Israel which has nothing to do with Britain’s interests whatsoever.

You begin to wonder just how far Israel is involved in all the upheavals today, instigated by dark forces.

The United States is now saying they do not believe Iran is pursuing the development of nuclear weapons. George W. Bush tried to tell us Saddam Hussein (a former US ally) had weapons of mass destruction which turned out be entirely false. They want Israel to tone down all its clamouring for war against what were once upon a time, the Persians.

Religious Jews celebrate a festival called Purim every year which involves taking enormous pleasure from the historical massacre of a very large number of Persians ... men, women and children ... in the most appalling manner.

The Iranians are latter-day Persians and their Biblical foe. Bear that in mind when you try to fathom why the Israelis go on about bombing Iran.

Zionism is an essentially secular political creed but they are not above using religious myth in pursuit of Israeli expansionism. This is the hypocrisy of Zionism ... secularism  invoking the promises of a Jewish god. Yes, a god in which they do not believe. Only a certain kind of mindset can juggle with such contradictions.

Our position on Christopher Tappin is, therefore, quite clear. There should be no extradition treaties with the United States whereby our citizens, entitled to the protection of the British government, have their lives destroyed, along with those of their immediate families, in the pursuit of American foreign policy.

There are only British interests in this country. It is the business of British government to protect those interests and to protect all our citizens here in Britain.

To paraphrase the Book of Common Prayer, “the President of the United States hath no jurisdiction in this Realm”. In the original BCP, the reference is made to the Bishop of Rome (the Pope). It is still used in our English churches today.

That is what being British really means; protecting our civil liberties to the death. The barbaric ’Merkans have different ways which we do not like at all. Their prisons are some of the worst in the world where every kind of vice and corruption reigns. Christopher Tappin should never be in one. Instead, he deserves to be treated humanely and decently.

Stop the Badger Cull

The scapegoat

by Scott Ullah

(European Socialist Action No 38   Jan/Feb 2012)

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman wants badger culling trials to begin this year. She claims the evidence shows that the eradication of bovine TB depends on tackling the disease in badgers. “We can’t escape the fact that the evidence supports the case for the controlled reduction of the badger population in the areas affected by bovine TB”, she said.

Plans for a legal challenge have since been announced with the Mammal Society saying the government has based its culling on flawed science. Another animal welfare organisation, the Humane Society International UK, had its representative, Mark Jones, attacking the proposed culling trials by saying the scientific evidence demonstrates it will be ineffective and damaging to the local populations ... and cruel.

The Humane Society International UK also challenges the government proposals by claiming they breach an international convention on wildlife conservation.

So let us look at the scientific evidence.

The badgers are the victims in all this and not the cause of bovine TB spreading among the cattle population in Britain, scientists have confirmed.

After the savage losses of cattle to foot and mouth, farms were restocked with cattle with the old regulations relaxed; the cattle being moved around the country causing outbreaks of bovine TB where it previously did not exist.

Infection resulted from these movements and not from the badgers. It has been pointed out that cattle are free of the disease in Scotland with a healthy badger population thriving there, whereas on the Isle of Man bovine TB exists without a badger population.

In his book Badger Behaviour, Conservation and Rehabilitation: 70 Years of Getting to Know Badgers, George Pearce informs us that his family farm was bovine TB-free from 1950 to 2008 ... while enjoying the existence of badger setts on his land. He believes the current problem has more to do with cattle alone and nothing to do with the persecuted badgers.

This is what the experienced farmer, George Pearce, proposes:

Study the bloodlines of cattle and through blood tests test for susceptibility to bovine TB. The gene pool could be a contributory factor.

In the 1960s and 1970s, we were largely free of the disease but non-British breeds have been introduced that could be less resistant. Let the scientists get more involved and the politicians take a back seat.

Intensive breeding could be inducing stress, leading to increased stress-related susceptibility.

On one farm in Gloucestershire, hit by bovine TB, cattle were fed on maize, which lacks selenium, essential for maintaining a healthy immune system in cattle. Farmer, Dick Roper, then introduced selenium mineral licks for both cattle and badgers. The result? A complete cure. This successful treatment strongly suggests that outbreaks of bovine TB have a compromised immune system at the root of the problem.

There have been massive reductions in bovine TB cases in many parts of Wales due to cattle testing and movement controls without a single badger cull. But many rogue farmers are keeping infected cattle and sending healthy cattle to slaughter in their place.

David Williams of the Badger Trust says the guilty farmers are harbouring and spreading the disease, while the measures in place require effective movement control and accurate recordings. These measures have proved successful without killing a single badger.

The Independent Scientific Group monitored a pilot cull of badgers between 1997 and 2007. Inside the culling area bovine TB reduced only slightly while outside the area it increased dramatically. The conclusions of this trial were that culling can make “no meaningful contribution to the reduction of bovine TB”. The Independent Scientific Group has become involved once more in the latest government proposals. The members of the group have written a letter to The Times opposing them, including Lord Krebs, chairman of the House of Lords science and technology select committee, Professor John Bourne and Dr Chris Cheeseman, former chief scientist at DEFRA’s Gloucestershire study area. The Times letter stated there is “no empirical data  on the cost or effectiveness (or indeed humaneness or safety)  of controlling badgers by shooting, which has been illegal for decades”.

The government ignores scientific evidence. Why? Could it be they are after the farmers’ vote on this one, sacrificing our valuable wildlife in the process? If so, this is not only cruel but immoral and dishonest. To Caroline Spelman we can only echo the words of René Artois in BBC television’s ‘Allo ‘Allo! ... “You stupid woman!”                     copyright © Scott Ullah 2012