Greetings Readers
Welcome to the May 2016 issue of the Navig8or newsletter. I hope you are well and thriving.
Before we get into this issue just let those of you in the UK who know me reasonably well that I lost my mobile phone on the 12th May so if you called me after this time there is a reason I have not responded. I have now got a replacement phone with my old number but have lost all of my 1000+ contacts so if you want me to have your number please send me a text with it.
In this issue:
1. www.blackfinancialfitness.com – Still looking for your feedback
2. Brexit – Why Britain should vote to leave the European Union (EU) and why it probably won’t matter even if it does!
You can listen to the two part podcast which lasts about 40 minutes in total here: http://www.houseofknowledge.org.uk/newsite/
- www.blackfinancialfitness.com – Still looking for your feedback.
I have encountered some hiccups in completing the website, however the work continues. I would really appreciate if you could take a look at it and give me some feedback via this short survey https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/GHM7PPX
Thanks to those of you who already have. I will be filming a short introductory video for the site which should address one of the feedback points. Once I have all the content in place and links activated I will get the affiliate programme details up on the site.
FAQs – I am going to create a Frequently Asked Questions section on the site so it would be really good, if when you complete the aforementioned survey, if you could identify any questions you think visitors to the site would like to have answered. You can do this in response to the final survey question where you can put in your comments.
Statistic for the day: 62% of Americans have less than $1000 in savings
Just one reason why www.blackfinancialfitness.com is needed!
- Brexit – Why Britain should vote to leave the European Union (EU) and why it probably won’t matter even if it does!
On June 23 2016 many of the UK population will go to the polls in a referendum on whether Britain should remain as a member of the EU.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron offered a referendum before the last general election to reduce the political threat posed by UKIP. He also did not expect to win the last election and thought that his putative coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, would block a referendum. He has now found himself in a hole.
All of the leaders of the three main political parties, the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats, are supporting the ‘Yes’ (stay in the EU) vote, although there are varying degrees of dissension within each party, ranging from very strong within the Conservative party, mild within the Labour Party, to minuscule amongst the Liberal Democrats. Most of the corporate media, including the BBC, are behind a Yes vote and the debate is therefore framed (in much of the media) in terms of open minded, forward thinking, progressives on the one hand vs Little Englander, narrow minded, xenophobes and racists on the other. The fact that the most Eurosceptic political party in the UK, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), is full of Little Englander, narrow minded, xenophobes and racists, only confirms this simplistic narrative.
The reality is that there are plenty of people, albeit a minority, from the ‘Left’ of the political spectrum who are against or sceptical of the EU and these include the Labour Party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who in the past has spoken out against the EU, but has had to perform a political volte-face in order to keep his party united, especially given that there are many on the ‘right’ of his party who have been plotting to oust him since his victory in the leadership election was confirmed. Similarly there are many on the ‘Right’ of the overall political spectrum who wholeheartedly favour Britain staying in the EU.
All of that to say that, as with so many political questions, you have to step back and ask yourself fundamental questions before deciding on which side of the debate you stand. The first thing you have to be clear about is that you should not be worried about being on the same side of a debate as people with whom you generally disagree on most political issues. It is perfectly possible and actually quite common for people to agree on an issue but for very different reasons. The reality is that there are unpleasant people on both sides of the EU debate in Britain so this should be inconsequential in your deliberations.
I have obviously nailed my colours to the mast with the title of this issue, however before I tell you why I will be voting for Britain to leave the EU, I will suggest some basic questions you need to be asking yourself when weighing up the pros and cons of this issue.
EU Questions in search of honest answers
- Why was the EU (European Economic Community) created?
- What are the main arguments used by either side and do they stand up to scrutiny?
- What is the level of accountability of the people who direct and lead the EU?
- What is the level of transparency in EU decision making?
- Is there any relationship between continental/regional institutions such as the EU, AU, NAFTA etc. and if so what does this tell you?
- On which side of the debate do most of the corporate powers and plutocrats sit?
- What’s in it for you?
- What’s in it for your community/nation?
I am not going to cover all of these arguments in this newsletter, as I am sure you can do this for yourself.
The media dice is loaded
The publicly funded British civil service is not allowed to assist ministers who support Britain exiting the EU, but they can assist government ministers who support the government line! The BBC is clearly in favour of a Yes vote. Their ‘journalists’ cannot come out and explicitly say so, however the nature of the coverage makes it clear where the BBC's loyalty lies and given that it is a state funded broadcaster and all of the main political parties support the Yes vote; this is not surprising. Just as with all of the rapacious wars conducted by the US, with support from the UK government, we see that the repeating of government propaganda as unquestioned facts means that the public is ill served by this outdated institution. You only have to go back to the BBC’s coverage of the Iraq war and issues such as Saddam’s fictional ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and the idea that Iraq could strike Britain militarily in 45 minutes, to realise that the BBC is little more than a more sophisticated version of the ex-Soviet Union’s Pravda news agency.
Leaders of the Yes vote campaign
The war criminals Tony Blair and David Cameron and virtually all of the Chief Execs of trans-national corporations operating in the UK support the Yes vote. Even President Barack Obama, another war criminal and corporate servant, has intervened in what is essentially a UK domestic matter to offer coded warnings of the dire consequences of the UK leaving the EU.
As mentioned, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is a hostage of his party. Most of them support the EU and in this case the leader has to toe the party line.
If you want to understand the reality and limitations of so-called ‘democracy’ in the UK and elsewhere then the comments of an unnamed British general, in September 2015, in the aftermath of Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour Party leader are instructive. We were told that:
“A senior serving general has reportedly warned that a Jeremy Corbyn government could face "a mutiny" from the Army if it tried to downgrade them.
The unnamed general said members of the armed forces would begin directly and publicly challenging the labour leader if he tried to scrap Trident, pull out of Nato or announce “any plans to emasculate and shrink the size of the armed forces.”
He told the Sunday Times: “The Army just wouldn’t stand for it. The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardise the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul to prevent that. You can’t put a maverick in charge of a country’s security.
“There would be mass resignations at all levels and you would face the very real prospect of an event which would effectively be a mutiny.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-army-could-stage-mutiny-under-corbyn-says-senior-serving-general-10509742.html
Caroline Mortimer, Sunday 20 September 2015
In effect this general was advocating and threatening treason, which still carries the death penalty in the UK, however there was remarkably little fuss about his comments from the BBC and the corporate TV and print media. The general’s comments were a shot across the bow for Corbyn, delivered through the Sunday Times newspaper which has for many decades had close ties with the UK security forces.
There is an Establishment consensus in the UK as well as many other countries which is maintained and supported by civil servants, the media and the armed forces irrespective of which political party is in power; and any politician who seriously challenges this agenda is in for a very rough ride. To be clear, the UK establishment is firmly behind Britain remaining in the EU.
Why was the EU (European Economic Community) created?
In my opinion the EU is part of an incremental march towards a globalised political order, encompassing trade deals such as TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) , TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) etc. global financial institutions (IMF, World Bank, BIS), a cashless society (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlVeXdq3cUs and http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500271520/Could-Sweden-become-the-first-cashless-society ) a globalised military under US leadership (NATO already perform this role) and global surveillance. This is the New World Order that President George HW Bush was talking about in the early 1990s. Now you need to be clear about what I am saying. There is no need for a world government located in Washington (or anywhere else) in order to control world politics. The aim of the plutocrats is to control events globally, not necessarily to have a singular global government. Control works better if it is hidden rather than if it is overt.
For example, anyone with any sense realises that NATO is the arrowhead and cover for US imperialism (please note that leading Eurosceptic Boris Johnson says that NATO provides the UK’s guarantee of peace!). It allows the US to do its dirty work under the cover of a coalition. It is important for propaganda purposes for the US’ foreign interventions not to be viewed as unilateral in nature. To supplement NATO the US will create ‘coalitions of the willing’ to support military action and outright wars in far flung places. So, we know that the US is often referred to as ‘the world’s policeman’. It has NATO as its cover institution and pulls other nations in to the military fold as and when needed. There is no need for a world army when you can invade nations around the world and overthrow their governments without one. The same can be said of institutions such as the IMF and World Bank which are notionally global but again are widely recognised as instruments of US governmental and corporate interests.
Under the envisaged globalised structure one will have regional federal super states such as the EU which will be mirrored in other parts of the world including Afrika (via the African Union). NAFTA is the proposed mechanism for North America and the other continental regions will follow suit. There will still be national governments, however they will have ceded significant power to the regional centre as we see with the EU.
These ideas start off with seemingly compelling logic; and so the EEC (as the EU originally was) was originally sold as a forum for political and economic co-operation on continental Europe; to prevent any possibility of a repeat of the horrors of the two European world wars. The idea of increasing co-operation amongst formerly warring states seemed eminently sensible. The EEC was to be an economic community as it was felt that nations that had close economic ties were less likely to want to engage in hostilities. It was meant to be about jobs not political union, or at least that was the line that was sold.
However from the very outset the people who crafted and shaped the formation of the EEC had a grander vision, with a federal political union as the ultimate aim. The BBC has a timeline of the EU which tells us that:
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Plans for a peaceful Europe
In the wake of World War II nationalism is out of favour in large parts of continental Europe and support for federalism is high. The European Union of Federalists organises a Congress at The Hague in 1948 in the hope of drawing up a European constitution. But the UK rejects the federal approach and the result is the Council of Europe a loose grouping that becomes a guardian of Europe's human rights. |
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3583801.stm
The former Prime Minister of Britain of Ted Heath was happy to agree to this proposed diminution of sovereignty when he brought Britain into the EEC in 1973 and of course some loss of sovereignty is an inevitable result of joining any political club.
Unfortunately, there a lot of people in the so-called alternative media who substantiate their opposition to structures such as the EU on dubious conspiratorial quotes such as the following which is attributed to Jean Monnet who was the first Deputy Secretary General of the interwar League of Nations, but who is now often cited as the key European superstate bogeyman. Monnet is alleged to have said:
“Europe’s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose but which will irreversibly lead to federation.”
Unfortunately there is no strong evidence that Monnet ever made this statement and its use simply discredits the many very sensible arguments against EU membership.
A quote which can be confidently attributed to Monnet was made in 1943 in which he sets out his statement of belief:
“There will be no peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty… The countries of Europe are too small to guarantee their peoples the necessary prosperity and social development. The European states must constitute themselves into a federation.”
Now this is a very different proposition, which can be conceived as more akin to the present EU, particularly the Eurozone, than a ‘superstate’. However one needs to remember that the Unites States is a federation of states under a federal government and so the same word can have different meanings to different people.
The purported economic case for the EU
One of things that really perplexes me is the idea that if Britain left the EU, suddenly all, or at least a significant percentage, of the jobs which are dependent upon trade with EU nations would just disappear. This is such a ridiculous idea that it is truly remarkable how often it is repeated without serious questioning. If Britain left the EU would the French stop buying Scotch whiskey and would the British stop buying French wine? Of course not. Most consumer buying decisions are based upon price and quality not the nationality of ownership or production. People buy Mercedes cars around the world not because they are produced by a ‘German’ corporation, but because Mercedes make high quality cars. People don’t care if Germany is in the EU or not when it comes to purchasing a Mercedes car. The only reason that Britain would suffer in terms of trade with EU nations upon exiting the EU is if some form of punishment mechanism (trade tariffs etc.) were enacted by those EU nations. Now this is not the basis of the economic argument being used by the Yes campaign. They are suggesting that there is something inherently beneficial to Britain’s economy from being in the EU. What that is they don’t specify. The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osbourne came out only last week proclaiming that if the UK exited the EU it would fall into another recession based upon unspecified 'Treasury figures'. It is also worth remembering that, as I noted in a recent newsletter, the US recently overtook France as Germany’s largest trading partner (for the first time since the 1960s) which demonstrates how baseless the economic argument is. The yes campaign also cannot explain why the people of nations such as Switzerland are not all living in poverty, sitting outside the EU as they do! We have not even spoken about the economic rape of Greece. The people of that nation are likes serfs voting for serfdom in their desperate desire to stay in the EU. There is the ex-Goldman Sachs executive Mario Draghi and the money printing ECB (European Central Bank). Then there is the stupidity of one currency and one interest rate for Eurozone countries with vastly different economies. The economic case is a red herring, the EU has always been about politics.
The political and cultural case for the EU
Now, the political and cultural argument for the EU actually makes more sense than the economic argument, particularly if you are a supporter of ‘Western Imperialism’ aka White Supremacy. The EU provides a ready made forum in which the leaders of Europe can debate and discuss how they will follow and support the US in maintaining ‘Western’ political and economic hegemony. Absolute monarchs around the world and throughout the ages have often justified their rulership with ideas of their ‘divine right to rule’ i.e. that they were chosen by their nation’s deity to rule because they come from a special bloodline. Europeans have used a broader civilisational version of this argument to justify their right to rule the Earth – and plunder its resources whilst they are at it. Ideas such Britain’s ‘Civilising Mission’, ‘the White Man’s burden’, Manifest Destiny, American Exceptionalism, the Monroe Doctrine, the Wolfowitz Doctrine et al. all come from the same ideological playbook. They are underpinned by the notion of a rigid racial hierarchy, but are rephrased for the contemporary age in more euphemistic terms. The EU works with the US government and they serve the interests of trans-national corporations and the super-rich and are supported by the media, foundations, think tanks etc. in a complex web of overlapping interests which as a minimum seek to maintain the economic and political status quo, but with the end goal of creating such a concentration of wealth and power that there becomes no possibility of meaningful change. Amos Wilson depicted this network of power diagrammatically in his seminal work ‘BluePrint for Black Power’ (which is still a must read, or listen to on Youtube), and things have only got worse since that time.
So, yes there is a strong argument that can be made for the EU from a European power perspective.
Why it probably won’t matter even if Britain leaves the EU.
In the last issue of this newsletter I mentioned the dangers of the TPP and TTIP as part of the ‘globalisation’ agenda and more specifically to give corporations’ economic interests precedent over a nation’s national sovereignty. I put a link up to an explanatory video by Dr Paul Craig Roberts in the last issue so you go back and check that out. The real point in relation to the EU is that if the UK signs up to TTIP or any other such agreement it will not matter if Britain leaves the EU or not as it will have effectively given up its national sovereignty in a way more fundamental than anything imposed by the EU.
So, I will vote No to the EU, but with a realistic understanding of what this means given that the leading figures in the No campaign are not talking about TTIP etc. My expectation is that the Yes campaign will win due to the fear campaign they will run; much in the way that the Scottish population lost their nerve in the face of a governmental, corporate and media onslaught during their UK referendum campaign. Once again it appears that fear is more powerful than hope.
Lessons regarding the AU
As you may know, I am not a great believer in the efficacy of the AU as a tool for the liberation of Afrikan people on the continent, or elsewhere. I have explained previously why I don’t believe in the Continentalist version of Pan-Afrikanism – which places more emphasis on uniting the people who live on the Afrikan continent, irrespective of whether they are Afrikan or not, rather than uniting Afrikan people irrespective of whether they live in Afrika or not. To briefly reprise my concerns, the AU is part funded by the European powers. Also, you cannot create a strong chain out of weak links so attempting to create one gigantic superstate out of a multitude of basket case countries makes absolutely no sense. And of course Afrika has never ever been one country and yet has been the home of many great civilisations, so why does it have to be a single country now in order for Afrikan people to be empowered? Again, as I have mentioned in previous newsletters, the EU is a more logical federation than the AU since it brings together nations with the same civilisation identity in contrast to the AU.
Conclusion
If you live in the UK and are going to vote in the EU referendum do your own research and make up your own mind. Irrespective of the outcome of the vote, the plutocrats will not let up their attempts to tighten their grip on the world’s people and resources.
Finally next month will be the 10 year anniversary edition of the Navig8or newsletter, so if you have any ideas about how to mark that milestone or reflections you want to share, please feel free to do so.
Until next time.
Ifayomi
‘It’s time to win’
www.blackfinancialfitness.com
www.houseofknowledge.org.uk/newsite
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/GHM7PPX
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