Terrorists Claim Rights under the Loose Garments of Human Rights Lawyers

With the terrorist attack in Boston and the capture of one terrorist, human rights lawyers are readying themselves to render to the captured terrorist the Miranda enactment that gives him the right not to talk to the police. It is for this reason that I'm republishing this article written in 2009.

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Supreme Court judge Bernard Bongiorno, who is presiding over the biggest terror trial in Australia of the twelve radical Muslims (The “Dirty Dozen” bombers) who were allegedly preparing themselves to be holy martyrs in their jihad against Australia by killing innocent civilians, has been persuaded by SC (Senior Counsel) of the defendants, Jim Kennan and Mark Taft, that the alleged terrorists are being treated inhumanely by the authorities and are in a state of mental collapse.

Before we go into the ruling of the judge I think it would be appropriate to know few things about the two SC of the accused,. Jim Kennan, and MarkTaft. The former was a minister in the Kane and Kirner Labor governments in Victoria who held the portfolios of Attorney General and Transport in the mid-eighties. Melbournians will remember the Tramways Union strike in 1989 when trams had blockaded the metropolitan streets of Melbourne for more than a month preventing commuters coming into the city and threatening many small shops with bankruptcy. The strike lasted that long only as a result of Kennan being a weak minister as well as of the incompetence and languid state of his advisors. One example which I remember vividly, was his press secretary watching the Commonwealth Games with his feet on his desk whilst John Halfpenny ( the then Secretary of The Trades Union Council), who was leading the strike, was besieging with his goons the minister and threatening the livelihood of many small shop keepers. At the end of the strike, Jim Kennan was removed from the Ministry of Transport and was placed back to his Attorney General’s position. And Bernard Bongiorno was appointed to the Bench of the Supreme Court by the Brack's Labor government in 2000. ( Birds of a feather flock together.)

The other SC Mark Taft was a member of the Communist Party following the footsteps of his father Bernie Taft, who, as the Victorian Secretary of the Party dissolved it in 1991 in the wake of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. But he dissolved the Communist Party not for the purpose of expressing his political mea culpa for the millions of peoples who were slaughtered by the Leninists doctrinaires Stalin and Mao, but for the purpose of conceiving its bastard sibling the Socialist Forum hoping that its members would become an influential part of the left of The Labor Party. In the latter goal the older Taft succeeded completely, while the younger Taft as a member of the executive of the Socialist Forum and as one of its foremost ideologues, second only to his father, was ideologically grooming many members of the left of the Labor party, among whom were the present Minister of Finance, Lindsay Tanner, and the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, of the Rudd Labor Government. Now that both SC Jim Kennan and Mark Taft have abandoned the heavy burdens of the public sector, which for both of them were a total failure, and have chosen to be lured by the entrepreneurial temptations of the private sector and gratify themselves with its rich tastes, they decided to open their appetite for the latter with the “aperitif” of being the defenders of the “Dirty Dozen”, in Australia’s biggest terrorism trial. But enough of this minuscule biographical diversion of our two attorneys of defense, and let us now deal with the “unprecedented “ruling of the presiding judge of the trial.

Justice Bongiorno being a practical judge and not an ivory tower one, was not satisfied of being convinced merely by the “theoretical” pleadings of the two SC that the defendants were treated inhumanely by the authorities, especially when they were shackled hand and foot while they were transported from prison to the Court locked in the steel compartments of the prison vans, and wanted to test this allegation in a practical way. So when he visited Barwon prison where the twelve were being held he had himself locked up in “the small steel compartment…in one of the prison vans… to get a better understanding of their treatment”. Convinced now “beyond a reasonable doubt” by his own “travailed” experience during his own “transportation” to Barwon prison that the alleged would-be terrorists were treated by the authorities brutally and inhumanely he issued his ukase to the latter that unless they stopped this “intolerable” treatment of the prisoners his honor would “suspend the hearing indefinitely and consider releasing the men on bail”.

Victoria’s Department of Corrections under this hovering threat expeditiously responded positively to the Jupiterian ruling of Justice Bongiorno and implemented most of his directions. In doing so it negated the possibility that some of the twelve defendants would jump bail and break away from the “forceps” of Australian justice and disappearing in a Muslim country. But it did so paradoxically at the expense of the Judge. As it deprived his Honor of the honorific that Muslims, moderate and radical alike, at least in Australia, would have bestowed on the Justice as an indelible sign of their gratitude for this service, i.e., giving the opportunity to their co-believers to escape from the unjust Australian terrorist laws, by replacing their traditional greeting of Salam with Bongiorno, for ever after.

What was most interesting and amusing moreover, was the forensic evidence of the psychiatrists whose painstaking analysis had found the defendants to be psychologically and mentally disturbed—as if people who were prepared to kill hundreds if not thousands of innocent people for their messianic goals and in chase of the seventy-two virgins were not already incurable cases of mental disturbance–and “believed that their condition would deteriorate as the trial progressed”. Needless to say Justice Bongiorno was deeply influenced by this forensic evidence extracted from the “psychiatrist’s couch” and was a decisive element in his “extraordinary”, to quote him, ruling.

Thus we will be told as an entertaining and jovial story, that the twelve bearded fanatics who were “toying” with ideas how to blow up Australians, now that they are standing before the bar accused of planning this atrocity they have metastasized themselves into mere “naughty boys” playing among the skirts of the “libertine” legal profession and claiming from the loose garments of the latter their human rights.

Bongiorno Australia:Have a nice day

I rest on my oars: Your turn now.

Don't Overplay the Fiddle of Legal Process when Civilization is Threatened wit Burning

By Con George-Kotzabasis

A brief reply to: This Time We Were Lucky. This Time…by William Rees-Mogg in The TimesOnline July 2, 2007

Luck is a scarce visitor in the affairs of mankind and in the Age of Terror one scarcely would expect it to come the second time around. Sir William argues in his article, in the aftermath of the failed attempts of the terrorists in London and Glasgow, that “the danger will become greater” and therefore we need new laws to protect ourselves. He also contends, that there are serious flaws in our culture that hinder us from fighting effectively this external and internal foe.

As always Sir William pens his thoughts with wisdom and one would be a fool not to take them seriously. If the danger is going to be greater in the future, as he correctly points out, then the present “gaps” in our legal system must be closed. That means that the old regime of laws which are completely inadequate against religiously inspired terror must be overthrown and replaced with a new regime of laws that will apprehend and convict terrorists not on “solid evidence”, as he argues, which in the murky and shadowy world of terror is a will-o’-the-wisp search, but on reasonable suspicion.

Furthermore, our culture is flawed because of our mutual respect for other cultures, for our tolerance, generosity, care, and kindness that we continue to exercise ceaselessly in these most unkind of times generated by the atrocious actions of the terrorists. It’s therefore necessary that we harden some of the soft features of our culture that prevent us up till now to take on this great and long challenge posed by global terror. By a set of stronger measures and imaginative concepts that will have a chance quickly and decisively to subdue this portentous danger that arises from an irreconcilable and undeterred enemy, who having been bred in the madrassas and Mosques has been anointed with his suicidal fanaticism. Western governments therefore will have to counter-generate the moral fortitude that in the legislation of these new laws the latter will make the most “unkind of cuts”, that is, deny suspects of home-grown terror of a spate of legal processes that normally apply in peaceful times but should never apply in times of war.

This is more urgent than ever because of the logic of this war. If unarguably the latter is going to be a long war with a remorseless, immoral, evil enemy who is not open to negotiation or to political or economic rewards and whose goal is the accomplishment of his godly mission, one does not have to be a prophet to foresee that with the inevitable further development in technology and its easier accessibility by people, the holy warriors of Islam will soon be armed with weapons of mass destruction, and indeed, with nuclear ones. And boosted by their religious fervor will unhesitatingly use them against the infidels of the West. Hence, these jihadists in civilian clothes with their deadly belts around their bi-gender, and indeed, childrens' midriffs, will open the door to Armageddon.

Politically and strategically it’s always prudent to defeat such an enemy, by using against him both overt and covert overwhelming force, while he is still weak and before he becomes stronger. The question however is, whether the political leaders of the West will have the wisdom and mettle to use “uncivilized” means and methods to defeat such a mortal foe, and will not overplay the fiddle of legal process when civilization is threatened with burning.

Union power: The Wings of an Eagle Attached to a Pigeon head

In view of the debilitating strikes that are continuously surging in Greece at this critical moment that the Samaras Government is attempting to pull Greece out of the crisis and put an end to the great sufferings of the people, I'm republishing this essay that was written twelve years ago.

By Con George-Kotzabasis 

The following article was written on April 2000. It’s republished here on this blog as I think it’s still relevant as unions continue to have a strong grip on the Labor Party. And with a possible impending recession in the US that would inevitably effect the Australian economy, a Rudd victory in the coming election will bring the unions exercising their pernicious behind the times influence on the front benches of a Labor government. And hence exacerbate the peril of the economy of the country in conditions of recession. Lest we forget, it was in the UK in the mid-sixties under Labor governments that ‘trade-union-led “wage push” was the driving force behind inflation and subsequent breakdown of Keynesian policy’. Richard Kahn, one of the closest disciples of Keynes, when he was asked about this breakdown of Keynesian policy, he answered, ‘we never thought the leaders of the trade unions could behave so stupidly’. This stupidity was coined at the time in the term of stagflation, the proud creation of the unions. And this doltishness of the unions is alive and well in our times as it’s still fuelled by the false Marxist doctrine of class struggle. This is the danger that trade unions could inflict to the Australian economy under a Rudd government. As for Rudd’s “education revolution” by providing students with laptops, the mountain has brought forth a mouse. Australia is already among the top nations that provides computers to its students. But on the quintessence of education revolution which has to deal with its human capital, i.e., its teachers, who have to be selected on merit and ability and on their teaching methods, two burning issues on which the education unions will not budge, Rudd remains silent. He also claims that his government will be a government of “fresh ideas and new leadership”. But after his lustful embrace of me tooism of some major liberal policies during the electoral campaign, Rudd pellucidly reveals that his government will not be a government of “new leadership” but a government of mimicry. For John Howard there is still a good chance that the minders of Kevin Rudd, couple days before the real poll, will be telling him that the only bad news is that there is no good news. 

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The ascendancy of the Labor Party to the treasury benches in Victoria, has churned in its wake a billow of waves of industrial action by an amalgam of union power that threatens to shipwreck the economic vibrancy of the state. The outcome of such fatuous action by the unions will be to induce a flight of investment capital from Victoria to other states, as current and would-be employers of this state would feel too insecure to invest in an environment of industrial turmoil. This is especially so when the Labor government and its leader Steve Bracks are perceived to be irresolute and too weak-kneed to control and rein in this outdated aggression and belligerence of the unions against employers.

The excessive and irrational demands of the unions for a thirty-six hour working week and a 24 percent increase in wages, which if they were successful in obtaining initially in the construction industry and their inevitable flow into some other industries, would have the ineluctable result of throwing thousands of workers among the ranks of the unemployed. This would be a tragic repetition of what happened in the metal industry in the late 80s as a result of excessive union claims, under the then Federal Secretary of the Metal Trades Union, George Campbell—a political stallion of the Left and presently a Labor Senator who is going to be replaced by another stalwart left-winger Doug Cameron who has indisputable credentials of being in the past a real "communist under the bed”—whom the Treasurer Paul Keating accused of having a necklace of 100,000 dismissed metal workers around his neck.

It’s obvious that the unions are afflicted by an innate inability to learn from their past sloppy errors. And like a recurring malady they are bound to contaminate the economy of the country with the calamitous mistakes of the past. The consequences of a repeated mistake, however, are more tragic than the consequences of an initial one and therefore carry a greater responsibility. An action that is performed for the first time is experimental in regard to its consequences, as no one, without the gifts of Tiresias, can predict or foresee whether its results will be benign or malign.  (Not that the unions could be excused for their first error. There was ample evidence of a global scale at the time, and enough forewarnings by eminent economists, that excessive union claims within the confines of global competition would inexorably lead to the flight of capital from regions these claims were impacting upon, and hence to unemployment.) But an action that is repeated deliberately and wantonly in spite of knowledge of its harmful effects in the past is intellectually malevolent and morally culpable.

Whose Culpability is Greater the Union’s or the Government’s?

Two questions therefore arise. Is the intelligence of unions commensurate with their powers? Or is it the case that union power is more like the wings of an eagle attached to a pigeon head? If the answer to the second question is affirmative, then one further question is posed, i.e., why then was the political wing of the Labor Party, which is now in government and having the expertise of knowing better about the dire economic effects of industrial unrest to the country nonetheless was unwilling to intervene promptly and decisively to block the irrational and pernicious claims of its industrial wing, which as a government of all Victorians—Premier Brack’s slogan—was committed in doing? Furthermore, why was the government’s immediate reaction to blame the Federal government’s industrial legislation for the ongoing industrial unrest instead of doing something that would have stifled the industrial dispute in its initial stages, for which it had prior knowledge, and using the subterfuge of an excuse that it was constrained by the legislation and could do nothing effective toward its resolution? Both the deputy leader of the government John Twaites and the Minister of Industrial Relations Monica Gould, used this feeble argument, when in fact with the return of the Premier from Davos  the latter forced the union involved in the dispute of the Yallourn power station to return back to work by imposing hefty fines upon its members, hence demonstrating that the government had the power to do something effective to resolve the dispute? Wasn’t it rather, the attempt to shift the blame to the federal legislation, a poor ruse, indeed, a camouflage, to cover its lack of will to intervene timely and decisively and derail the union from its “crashing” course? Yet, the belated action was effective, even if it was done halfheartedly. But what other alternative the government had, at the end of its honeymoon with the electorate, other than to send the stalled fire engines out to extinguish the full blown fire, if it was not to be seen, and impugned, in the electorates eyes, as politically effete and incompetent?

This is a basic characteristic, however, and an irreversible syndrome of Labor governments. To intervene in industrial disputes only when political necessity dictates, i.e., only when these disputes have reached a high point with the potential of harming the economy, and hence would be politically damaging. For organizational and ideological reasons Labor governments are not prone to intervene in the wrangles of their comrade-in-arms with employers, but do so only as a last resort.

This general inaction of Labor governments in industrial disputes is a result first, of a common ideology shared with the unions whose core emanates from the principles of socialism, and secondly, from its constitutional organizational structures that tie the political and industrial wings of the Party into a powerful body and into a compact of consensus that determines the functions of each wing. In conference after conference of the Party, the common and often repeated refrain is that Labor occupies the treasury benches only for the purpose of implementing policies which are discussed and ratified in state and federal conferences in whose conception the unions and its sundry representatives, mainly academics, have a major input. The union’s dominance is illustrated not only in the generation and formation of policies (Its architects generally are academics from the Left, whose intellectual frustration is at a boiling point because their ideas and policies cannot pass muster among other academic luminaries, but who do find a paradisiacal outlet for their “time-stopped” ideas, as well as an adulatory audience among their comrades in the unions, who normally cannot separate the wheat from the chaff of these ideas), but also on the conference floor as sixty percent of its delegates must be union representatives according to the Party’s constitution.

The larger and, especially, the more militant unions have such a firm grip in the election of delegates to Party forums, that even ministers and would-be premiers often cannot be elected to these meetings. Many ministers , therefore, who are unable to be elected to conferences on their own authority, resort to “begging” less militant unions to be placed in their delegations as constitutionally the unions have the authority to do so. Hence only as supplicants to the unions are ministers able to participate in conferences. For example, Jim Kennan, the Attorney General in the Cain Government, for many years was a delegate of the Clothing Trades Union. Likewise too, Steven Bracks, the current premier, was a delegate of the same union, who had taken Kennan’s place with the latter’s departure from politics. Other ministers who are not as fortunate to be union delegates attend conferences as visitors and observers without the right to move, or vote for, resolutions of the conference. Hence, ministers and many of their advisers are left out from the formulation and ratification of the Party’s policies. Such is the power and influence of unions in the organizational procedures of the Party, that often they cal “lock-out” important ministers who are not close to their ideological positions, from the highest policymaking bodies of the Party.

Moreover, the grip of the unions is extended to the pre-selection procedures of the candidates of the Party as well as in the choosing and changes of the parliamentary leadership, both in the state and federal domains. Who can forget for instance the telephone call that Paul Keating made, during his challenge of Bob Hawke, to Wally Curren, secretary of the Meat Workers Union asking him for his support in the coming challenge to Hawke for the leadership of the government? And Curren obliging, by forcing those MP’s from Victoria who owed their position in parliament to his patronage, to vote for Keating? This irritated Bob Hawke so much asking who Wally Curren was pretending thus ironically that he himself who had ousted and replaced Bill Hayden with union support was not cognizant of the influence trade union leaders have in pre-selections. As for the branches of the Party they play a superficial role in the pre-selection of candidates as they too in turn are influenced in their decisions by the organizational power of the unions.

Labor Politicians at the Mercy of Unions

Being therefore at the mercy of unions for their parliamentary positions and for the buttering of their bread, labor politicians, with some exceptions, are cast as toadies of the unions. Only the Federal Executive of the Party can intervene can intervene and save a ministerial or a backbencher’s scalp from the tomahawk of the unions. This occurred when John Halpenny, the Secretary of the Trades Hall Council in Victoria. were placed in the number one position on the senate ticket, with massive union support, in the 1988 federal election, relegating the leader of the Senate, John Button, to the second position. And in the election following the one in 1988, some of the left-wing unions were deliberating whether or not to place Gareth Evans, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the second position on the senate ticket. Only some sober heads at the last moment saved the glitterati Minister from the rusty and blood-stained tomahawk of the unions and from posthumous obloquy. (But the power of the Federal Executive is limited, as is illustrated in the present coming election of 2007 in the seat of Coreo, where the current seating member, Gavin O’Connor, is replaced by an assistant secretary of the ACTU (Australian Council of Trade Unions), against the wishes of the Executive.)

It’s for all the above reasons, this congeniality of interests between Labor governments and unions that prevents the former from acting timely and decisively in industrial disputes. And even when they do as a last resort they cannot be impartial in their involvement. The Brack government being captive to the unions has to cater to the latter’s voracious appetite on a number of issues: On the restoration of common law damages for injured workers, which has already being done by passing the relevant legislation in parliament, on the restitution of industrial policy back to the State Government, so the latter can abolish the industrial contracts of the Federal Government, whose aim is to eliminate union dominance in industry negotiations, and to replace them with collective bargaining, hence restoring union coercion and thuggery during negotiations with employers. On these issues and on many others, the Labor government is hamstrung by union power. Whether the former will be able to deliver on these issues will depend on the political climate of the day and on the degree of resonance such a delivery will have upon the electorate.

Steve Brack’s therefore, like a trapeze artist, has to walk on a tight rope whose one end is held by the unions and the other by the community, and perform his balancing act. While gratifying the union claims, with potentially destructive consequences to the economy of the State, at the same time he has to keep its economic robustness, inherited from his liberal predecessor, Jeff Kennet, intact, hence erasing any fears or consternations the community might have about the new industrial course of his government.

It’s with this purpose in mind to win the confidence of Victorians and of some naïve employers that Steve Bracks lately set up a new stage with an old play. His government lacking any originality or lateral thinking in policymaking ransacked the ram shackled spider web storehouse of past Labor policies to bring out the nostrums of “old age”. The summit of “Growing Victoria Together”, chaired by that scion of Labor power, Bob Hawke, was such a nostrum. Imbibing a strong dose of self-deception, Bracks was hopeful that by attracting some old and new celebrities from the industrial club and from business to the summit the public would be hoodwinked and believe that something substantial would come from the coupling of these celebrities. What in fact happened, was that each spokesperson of this divided house of unions and employers, voiced plaintively their complaints and grievances against each other with the result that they were not able to reach an agreement as to how and by what prudent set of actions, they would carry out the growth of Victoria. The rhetorical statement at the end of the summit, spun by the golden threads of the cerebral and literary qualities of Bob Hawke and his wife, respectively, could hardly hide the practical hollowness of the summit. What the latter did was to set up a number of committees to look at a number of issues.  Such as education and training, investment in training, industrial relations, health and wellbeing indicators to measure performance in meeting social goals, infrastructure, the impact of payroll tax on job and wealth creation , and the audit of government services in country communities. It also set up an advisory body to strengthen community input, oblivious of the fact, that while the latter is important it is not a substitute for political leadership. Forgetful also of the fact that the achievement of this laudable “prospectus”, is absolutely dependent on calm industrial relations. And therefore cannot be achieved while the agitated firebrand steam of the unions continues unabated.

Hence, the mountain (the summit) has brought forth a mouse which is at the mercy of the cat’s paws, the unions. Furthermore, as so many of the issues are to be shoved to committees, whose members are deeply divided on the central issue of industrial relations, they are inevitably going to be dealt with in a banal hackneyed manner, since their members will be unable to reach a mutual agreement on the key issue of industrial relations. Hence the summit’s “debris-deliberations” will be proven to be a barren exercise.

The Bracks’ government by its farcical and enervating stand toward the unions and by its populist stand toward the public threatens to throw Victoria into the doldrums as well as empty the coffers of the treasury. This is not a government of substance but a government of images—the images of a dead past. But funeral rites for dead images can be very expensive to the general community, both in terms of tax increases and unemployment.

I rest on my oars: your turn now

The Breaking up of European Union a Blessing in Disguise

By Con George-Kotzabasis

The legal order rests on a decision not on a norm…The exception could not be subsumed under legal concepts and all order was based on the sovereign’s decision. Norms only applied in a normal situation. Carl Schmitt

The ancient Greeks had an aphorism: uthen kakon amiyes kalon, there is nothing bad without some good in it. The possible breaking up of the European Union (EU), its Balkanization, in the aftermath of its ominous economic crisis and the questionable future existence of its common currency, the euro, may be a blessing in disguise: it might bring in its wake the ‘defeat’ of its implacable internal enemy who in the form of a Trojan horse is threatening Europe not only with suicide bombers but also, most portentously, with Islamization.

The economic historian Niall Ferguson cogently argues that “the sovereign debt crisis that is unfolding…is a fiscal crisis of the western world.” Banks and financial institutions are exposed to the sovereign-debt of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain and to a cascade of government deficits, 14.3 per cent of GDP in Ireland, 12.6 per cent in the UK, 11.2 per cent in Spain, and 9.4 per cent in Portugal, respectively. And all this ill-advised government spending in the past is punching the euro against the ropes. Moreover, concern about the solvency of European nations could lead to an implosion of the euro. And the EU indebtedness could be similar to the sub prime mortgage crisis of the U.S. that almost led to the financial collapse of the latter. Also, the two speed economies on the belt ways of Europe have contracted employment in Greece and Spain while increasing it in France and Germany. European governments therefore are seeking different solutions to this problematic economic crisis that is gravely threatening the downgrading of their peoples standard of living and their general well being.

Germany, the powerhouse of the EU, is seeking a “deeper political and economic integration,” in its enamored quest to build a European super state. But Great Britain—which never abandoned its own national currency, the pound sterling—will vehemently oppose the transfer of any new fiscal powers to the inamorata of Germany, the EU headquarters in Brussels. That alone could trigger a severe split within the EU encouraging other countries to revert to national currencies than give up even more sovereignty to the Brussels bureaucracy. In Italy, Berlusconi’s anti-European coalition partners are considering a contingency plan to pull out of the Euro zone and re-establish their own currency, the lira. “Nor would it be a real solution for the EU to amend its basic treaties to create a permanent stabilization mechanism for sovereign-debt crisis. It would be a self-fulfilling prophesy, virtually guaranteeing that it will be used repeatedly,” to quote John Bolton, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. The economic imbalances within Europe have become too great, particularly regarding productivity differences. In order to correct them, including the scourge of over-indebtedness, some countries would need to devalue their own currencies.

But such solution is not available for countries that substituted their own currency with the euro; therefore these countries will be overcast by the bleak clouds of economic austerity imposed by the savants of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the only feasible solution to drag these countries out of their economic woes. But as we have seen in Greece, Ireland, and Spain these clouds will bring a torrent fraught with danger, demonstrations that will not only exacerbate the economic crisis but will also foster political instability that could seriously fracture the democratic structure of these countries and bring to the political proscenium of Europe ‘uber-nationalist’ authoritarian governments. And paradoxically, the democratic ethos of the demonstrators that led them to the streets to defend their living standards and freedom from the embrace of the gaunt figure of austerity could give birth to the unwanted child of authoritarian government. European cosmopolitanism or rather multiculturalism will be forcefully replaced with virulent nationalism, since this is the corollary, and indeed the unconscious desire, of the mass demonstrations and the unseen force that could change dramatically the political landscape of Europe.

The first incipient signs of such change on the political configuration of Europe are already becoming visible. In France, President Sarkozy is forcefully expelling the gypsies and is calling Muslim prayers “in the street unacceptable,” following his predecessor Chirac who banned the burka from public places; while support for Marine Le Pen of the National Front has risen to 33 per cent in recent weeks reflecting a trend all over Europe of anti-migrant sentiments and economic fears. In Germany, Chancellor Merkel has called multiculturalism kaput, and politicians of the right are calling for a stop to migration particularly from Muslim countries. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi is sharing power with the anti-migrant Northern League. And in the Netherlands, anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders popularity is sky rocketing and whichever parties end up in government will have no choice but to adapt their policies to those of Wilders or risk losing voters.


The Danger of Europe’s Islamization

All the above indicates that the European masses under the economic pressure of the fiscal crisis are circling the wagons not only to defend their standard of living but also their national heritage from the incursions of intransigent Muslim migrants to change the culture and mores of their countries. And it is not the first time in history that an economic calamity has given birth to extreme nationalism. What is unique in the present situation in Europe is that it is actually threatened both economically and nationally by a twin menace of austerity and sharia law. So there is no need of contriving an imaginary enemy, a scapegoat, as the Nazis did with the Jews. Thus, the economic doldrums have a great potential to give rise to the drum beats of belligerence against European Muslims who will be seen more and more as the internal implacable enemy, especially when its holy warriors in the wild chase of the seventy-two virgins will continue their serial murdering activity of detonating bombs in the cities of the Western ‘infidel’ world.

That this Muslim inundation of Europe is empirically-grounded and not fictional is exemplified by the demographics of individual countries of the European continent. In Germany, Britain, Greece, and Switzerland 5 per cent of their population are Muslim; in Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and in Sweden, is 10 per cent; in Denmark, Luxemburg, Norway, Serbia, Slovenia, and Spain, is 4 per cent; and in Italy, 2 per cent. With a Muslim birthrate that is almost thrice as large as that of indigenous Europeans and with a total number of Muslims in the European Union in 2007 of 16 million, it is estimated that by 2015 this number will double.

This is the ‘unassimilated bomb’ that harebrained and un- imaginative politicians by their past immigration policies have planted under the foundations of European culture and civilization that cannot and will not be defused presently by conventional political nostrums contrived by ordinary politicians. (Only Enoch Powel, the British politician par excellence, had the insight to cast his eloquent thunderbolts many years ago against governments that had espoused these totally wrong policies of immigration and would predict Cassandra like, as he did in his “rivers of blood” speech in 1968, the consequences of these fallacious policies.) The call is for extraordinary nationalist politicians of the caliber of Bismarck and Cavour to tap this coming nationalist fervor of Europeans and unite it against the internal Muslim foe.

There are no easy solutions to the problem as most European Muslims are citizens of the countries they are living in. It cannot be solved, because of the economic crisis, by monetary blandishments, i.e., by paying Muslim families a sum of money to return permanently to the countries of their origin. Nor can it be solved by legislative measures of expulsion under the present respective Democratic constitutions of European countries since Muslims are citizens of the latter and Democratic nations cannot expel their own citizens. It can be partially resolved by a stringent legislative enactment that applies to the social security payments of families; by restricting child endowment remittances up to the limit of four children and hence bring the birthrate of Muslims to that of indigenous Europeans. Families or ‘apparently’ single mothers who break that limit will lose their right to claim remuneration for children above that number. I say ‘apparently’, guardedly, because many Muslim men who are polygamous are using fraudulently the ‘single mother’ as a technique to enlarge their social security payments. Such enactment will be a levy on polygamy and will affect mainly Muslims who use a religious precept to ‘pickpocket’ the pockets of taxpayers. Thus, European governments by putting a hefty ‘price tag’ on cum while not resolving the problem they might lessen it.


The Necessity of Hard Policies to Prevent Europe’s Islamization

It must be obvious to all governments with welfare services by now, especially Europe’s, that Muslim migrants who comprise a major part of the unemployed of their countries and are economically and socially dependent on welfare payments deliberately employ child bearing as a means to increase the amount of money they receive from the public treasury. Thus child bearing has become for them a ‘surrogate’ for real employment and an income by other means. In such a situation government policies that seek to get people off welfare dependency are bound to fail since the incentive of finding employment and increasing their income has become inutile as already the ‘lucrative production’ of babies has already fulfilled this goal of higher income for the unemployed Muslims. Hence, the first generation of Muslim migrants have accomplished by Allah’s will to live in relative comfort in comparison to their original domicile not by the sweat of labor but by the sweat of the seraglio. No wonder that Muslims feel superior as a result of their religion toward kafirs since they were able to transfigure the European infidels into milking cows, whose hard work and taxes keep many Muslims off the production lines and ‘on’ their kept Muslimas.

European governments perforce have to put an end to this ‘stipend of Allah’ for libidinous and profligate procreation that is given to Muslims, which not only disincentivizes them from finding employment, but also holds them back from assimilating into their new habitat and to European mores. Governments therefore have to place the Muslim birthrate onto a Procrustean bed and cut it to the size and contemporary norm of Europe’s native population. Moreover they have to suspend permanently all government grants for the building and maintenance of Mosques and Islamic schools unless the latter have a clear and absolute secular curriculum for their pupils. They also have to make illegal forced marriages and make it a criminal act for parents who carry it out and hence thwart this imported primitive and barbaric practice of honor killing in civilized Europe. Also, they have to banish the wearing of the burka and the hijab in all public places which not only discriminate between the chastity of European and Muslim women, as the symbolic value of wearing them is that Muslim women are purportedly sexually purer than indigenous European women, but which also could be used as a cover by suicide bombers in their murderous attacks on European cities. Lastly, and this doesn’t exclude other measures, Muslims who are citizens of European nations would forfeit their citizenship if they hold dual citizenship or if they were involved even lightly, either in deed or ideologically, in promoting and funding jihad against the ‘infidels’, and which in effect in both cases would make them liable for deportation.

The above harsh measures will make a lot of Muslims most unhappy to continue living in European countries since they will feel rejected and unwelcome by the majority of the respective populations of those countries, and by being no longer able to practice some of their reverent traditions and ideological beliefs, these two factors might induce some of them to repatriate back to their own countries. However, the implementation of these harsh policies will entail a radical transformation of the ‘praxiology’ of European governments and a new ‘virtu’, to use Machiavelli’s term, for their politicians. In such critical conditions of jus vitae ac necis, a verdict on life and death for Europe, politicians in power will have to govern by the rules of Carl Schmitt’s “state of exception.” They will have to rule by decision based on the desires of the majority of the electorate that will be explicitly expressed through a plebiscite. It will thus be government by plebiscite and rule by decree exercised by authoritarian regimes. In such an emergency state inevitably certain venerable democratic principles will be suspended, as it happened in the American Civil War when President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. And as Carl Schmitt impeccably argued, “Every norm presupposes a normal situation, and no norm can be entirely valid in an abnormal situation.” And for internal peace the state “is compelled in critical situations to decide also upon the domestic enemy.” These most wise quotes encapsulate the tragic events that issued from the disintegration of the Weimar Republic when its mediocre and timorous politicians refused to take the harsh measures that could have saved it. And it would be most imprudent for contemporary European politicians who face a formidable, duplicitous, faceless internal and external enemy not to become wise by the dangers suffered by others, to paraphrase Niccolo Machiavelli.

Thus the denouement of the economic crisis in the European Union threatening it with dismemberment may give rise to a savior who will salvage it from its ultimate catastrophe, the Islamization of Europe.

I rest on my oars: your turn now

Professor Varoufakis' "Invincible Summer" in the Midst of Difficulties of the Cold Winter of Last Year

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Professor Varoufakis, let us hope that the New Year is a year of corrections of past mistakes,  mea culpas and success. With the more than possible policy success of the Samaras Government in 2013, it seems to me that your “invincible summer,” policy wise, is a will-o-’the-wisp and will turn out to be your ineffable “winter of discontent” as a result of the political and economic triumph of Antonis Samaras in pulling Greece out of the crisis, and your dire predictions of the hopelessness of Greece, as the present government continues, according to you,  to implement, without creative revision, the dead end policies of the European Union and the IMF, which have been so destructive to Greece.

A reply to a criticizer who lambasted me for the above comment on Professor Varoufakis.

It’s not in my character to insult anyone and least of all our morally and mentally robust Professor Varoufakis. You are confusing “no quarter will be given” criticism with insults; the typical confusion of an effete person delving in critical matters or in intellectual discourse. As to the rest of your comment, it’s wise to take the advice of Wittgenstein and stay silent. The same applies to all other comments to my riposte to Professor Varoufakis.

In the Thunderous Sky of Greece a Lightning Bolt is about to Strike the Country

The most respectable German newspaper Handelsblatt, proclaimed Antonis Samaras as the greatest European politician for the year 2012. At the same time the illustrious former Foreign Minister of Germany Hans-Dietrich Genscher, also praised Samaras in glowing terms as the politician, who after admitting his own mistakes and the disastrous economic policies of Greece that brought the latter to the brink of insolvency, brought the country with remarkable celerity and unsurpassable decisiveness on the right course that would rekindle the economy and lead the country toward economic development. Goldman Sachs is predicting that in the next 10 years Greek GDP will increase by 30%. The rating agency Moody's increased the financial status of Greece by six points.

It’s for this reason that I’m republishing the following essay which was written on April 27, 2012, for the readers of this blog.


By Con George-Kotzabasis April 27, 2012

History has shown that at critical moments, in countries of advanced and high culture, men of stupendous ability, imagination, foresight, and fortitude, sprang, like phoenixes from the ashes, to salvage their countries from mortal threats. Themistocles at the battle of Salamis that saved Greece from the barbarian Persian invasion, is one example, the other is Charles Martel, who at the battle of Poitiers stopped the barbarian Muslim invasion from conquering Europe. In our modern contemporaneous times, Greece, on the verge of being devoured and crashed by the ‘hungry fangs’ of default and economic poverty, is just as promptly to be saved by a modern-day Periclean statesman, Antonis Samaras.

In the early 1980’s, with the advent of Andreas Papandreou’s socialist government in power, which proved to be the destructive force that brought Greece to its present catastrophe, that immediately started implementing the serial economic crime of a policy of deficits, the country entered the vicious circle of government spending without economic development. By the early 90’s it was glaringly clear that the debt of the country was reaching astronomical heights that would lead it to the precipice of default and bankruptcy. In 1994, Constantinos Mitsotakis, the former prime minister of Greece, in a prophetic speech in Parliament, predicted that the economically crass and thoughtless policies of Pasok would send Greece as a mendicant to the International Monetary Fund to spare it from pauperism. Andreas Papandreou himself was shocked when at a sober moment glanced at the unfathomable debt that the country was in, as a result of his dirigisme economic policies. It was in his presence when his minister of finance Kostas Simitis remarked, in an accusatory and pungent phrase, that this was “the revenge of the economy.”

The false prosperity that had engulfed Greece turned a sizable part of its population to indulge in the charms and seductions of dolce vita at the expense of government largesse. A whole generation of Greeks had been spoiled and became kaloperasakides (the easy life of prodigally good-timers) under the perpetual munificence of the State. In such a social situation the New Democracy party, though imbued with the precepts of The Austrian School of economics versus Keynesianism, and realising, as its leader Constantinos Mitsotakis did, that the country was approaching in a rapid pace the edge of insolvency, had its hands politically manacled and could not implement decisively and with celerity, and with the necessary degree required, policies of economic restraint that would have prevented the transformation of Greece into a mendicant status, since there did not exist even a small constituency on the political landscape of Greece that would contemplate, least of all accept, policies of austerity. The Greeks had been ‘pathologically’ conditioned to the ‘benefits’ accruing from big government, introduced by Andreas Papandreou, and any attempt to small government by any party in power or any opposition propagating such an idea, could neither hold or win government. Who would give up the ‘free tans’ in sunny Greece that so profusely and generously the State was providing? And who would give up the cushy and loafing jobs in the public sector that the party boys and girls of Pasok and New Democracy were enjoying and relishing? This is the point from which the economic tragedy of Greece had started and would continue to its tragic end.

Thirty years of frivolous public spending brought debt-to-GDP ratio of 120%. Since October 2009 when the son of Andreas Papandreou, George, became prime minister and implemented measures of severe austerity as directed from Brussels in the first memorandum, debt reached 168% of GDP. With the continued recession of the country for the fifth year, Greece lost 16%--18% of its GDP since 2009.

From early 2010 the Opposition leader, Antonis Samaras, few months after his election as leader of the New Democracy party, was warning the Papandreou government of the danger that the austerity measures without economic recovery would lead the country into recession. But his was a lone voice in the wilderness. And for his bold and insightful decision to oppose and vote against the first memorandum replete with the leaden heaviness of austerity that would sink the Greek economy as it did, he was vehemently reprimanded both from within and outside the country. The Economist magazine severely criticised him for his stand against the memorandum but only to lament its critique two years later and concede that Samaras was right. Likewise, Chancellor Merkel and many European ministers with whom Samaras had quarrelled and pointed out to them that austerity measures without rekindling the economy would not resolve Greece’s problem but would make it more abstruse and harder to crack. It took two years for the top brains of Europe to realize that the austerity pills that they were forcing into Greece’s mouth to remedy its ills would have the effect of poisoning its body. (In two years of the severe austerity of the Memorandum, as we indicated above, Greece increased its debt to GDP by a great amount and lost a substantial part of its Gross Domestic Product as enterprises closed and unemployment ravaged the country.) And in turn, like The Economist, admitting that Samaras had won the argument, as all Europeans now are calling for economic recovery and development, supplemented by austerity measures that are necessary, as the way to restore a country’s economic strength.

The May 6 Elections of Greece Crucial for the Future of the Country

The impending election that has been called by the interim government of Lucas Papademos for May 6 is of momentous significance for the future course of the country. Greeks will be called to be partisans of the hard climb to the peak of Mt Olympus from where the sun of hope will rise once again over Greece or be partisans to a free fall in a long twilight of despair. The first is the thunderous call of the New Democracy Party under the Gulliverian and imaginative political leadership of Antonis Samaras, and the second is the deathlike mute call of a congeries of small parties from the left and the right led by Lilliputian politicians. These politically ‘pigmy’ parties, among which is the Communist Party, have no policies of rescuing Greece from its woes, except policies that would lead to the exiting from the European Union and return to the drachma that would lead in turn to the absolute poverty of the country, deliberately drop the curtain on all hope on Greece as their sole aim is to sordidly profit politically by their investment in hopelessness.

The socialist party, Pasok, the main opponent of New Democracy, although on the side of hope, even under the new leadership of Evangelos Venizelos, is totally discredited, as it has been the party that led Greece to its present catastrophe by a bout of unbelievable and unprecedented economic and political mistakes, that Venizelos himself was involved in and responsible, during the last two years that was in government. Moreover, the latest decision of the High Court of Greece to apprehend and charge a former luminary of Pasok and right-hand man of Andreas Papandreou, the founding father of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, Akes Tsohatzopoulos, his wife and daughter, and some of his relatives, with bribery and corruption and with being the receiver and beneficiary of millions of dollars as paid commissions, during his tenure as minister of defence, from German and Russian companies to which he had authorized major assignments and projects of his department, has indelibly marked Pasok as venally corrupt; particularly when its present leader Venizelos, at the initial investigations of Tsohatzopoulos, with the stentorian voice of the lawyer, that he is, was defending and exculpating from any knave dealings, and with the usual catch-all alibi of the typical politician, that the “accusation against Tsohatzopoulos was politically motivated.” Hence, inconceivable political incompetence and culpability, and unfathomable corruption on the part of Pasok, will be two major themes that will dominate the elections and which will ineluctably lead to new lows in the polls for the socialists.

In this critical economic and political setting that the country is in and the looming threat of the breaking of social cohesion, Samaras is asking the Greek people to give New Democracy the “auto-dynamism,” by a majority of votes in the elections, so he can have his hands untied to govern the country with decisiveness and clear uncompromised policies that would put Greece on the trajectory of economic recovery and development. He argues cogently, that in the present political situation of Greece when consensus about the necessary economic policies among parties of how to regenerate the economy of the country is absent, a coalition government--which is the designated position of Pasok and according to the polls at this moment the desire of a majority of the electorate--will be politically impracticable, and more importantly, would not drag out the country from its peril but would further engulf it into profounder depths; as one could not govern effectively a country in a crisis and gradually bring it out of it by being compelled to make compromises to one’s political partners, but only by a well-defined plan and decisive and prompt action to implement it without compromises, by a leader who has a strong mandate from the electorate.

Samaras believes, and reasonably hopes with the confidence of a statesman, that during the electoral period and closer to election date, there will be a dramatic shift of voters toward polarized positions, once the crucial issues of the country are spelled out clearly and without lies to the people by New Democracy and by foreshadowing the practical economic policies backed by real numbers that would put Greece on the track of economic recovery, there is a great chance that the majority of Greeks will give New Democracy a strong mandate to govern on its own for the benefit of all Greeks and for the salvation of the country.

Samaras contended long ago, that only through a clear strong authorization given to him by a majority of the people he would be able to radically change Greece. For real economic development entails not only good policies and incentives but a transformation in the views and customs of people toward such development. He puts great emphasis on the value of human capital and entrepreneurship as the prerequisites for the economic recovery of the country. That is why he has promised to re-legitimize private enterprise and effort that for many years now has been delegitimized in the country by communist-led unions, to whom profit has been, as always, the devil-incarnate of the capitalist free market.

The present high unemployment of more than 20% Samaras contends, will not be reduced by mere lower labour costs which already have been decreased by 15% in the private sector while the tax burden on the latter has increased by 50% and energy costs by 450%. Even if Greeks worked for free no one would hire them with such high taxes and energy costs. Samaras in his Zappeio III speech few days ago declared that he would cut corporate tax to a flat rate of 15%, sharply cut pay-roll tax, lower personal income-tax to 32% maximum, and reduce taxes substantially on fuel and tourism. This would make harder rampant tax evasion and would unleash the creativity of the private sector and hence commence the gradual reduction in unemployment. He also announced, that he would increase the lowest pensions to 700 euros per month--that were reduced drastically by the second Memorandum under the austerity measures--and would increase the endowment of families with many children which would not only correct an injustice inflicted upon these two weak sections of society but would also have favourable economic consequence as they would increase consumer demand, which is so important in rekindling the economy, as both recipients of this government assistance spend their money in consumer goods. He would do these two things without increasing public expenditure and hence worsening the deficit, but by cutting government wastage that is so massive and profligate in the State’s spending. Further, he will provide incentives to private enterprise in areas where Greece has almost unchallengeable comparative advantage, i.e., in the merchant marine sector, ship building, and tourism; and in the production and merchandise of olive oil and other agricultural goods by the local producers themselves, not by foreign ones as is the case presently, whose development in all the above sectors will vitally affect the resurgence of the economy. He also proposes to provide incentives to entrepreneurs to exploit the rich mineral resources of the country and to give priority to find and tap the vast natural gas deposits under the Aegean Sea, by declaring the Greek AOZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) that could transform the export dynamic of Greece. He intends further, to reverse the present dryness of liquidity in the country by proffering amnesty from any legal penalties to those who withdrew their cash holdings from Greek banks during the height of the crisis and deposited them overseas once they bring them back to the country; and also by immediately paying back the 6.5 billion euros that the government owes to domestic enterprises; these two measures would increase the liquidity of the banks and hence their ability to provide loans to the private sector, especially to small businesses, that are the backbone of the country’s economy. Moreover, the re-capitalization of the banks, Samaras argues, will enable them to borrow funds at low interest rates from the European Central Bank, that were set up by it last December, which would be used to put Greece on the track of recovery and economic development.

It is by this method of supply-side economics, as that wunderkind Alders Borg the Swedish Finance Minister illustrated for his own country that Greece’s economy will rise again. The necessary austerity measures stipulated in the new Memorandum that Greece has to implement must be accompanied by the rejuvenated “animal spirits” of private enterprise. Samaras, consistently has been saying for the last two years that “we need a recovery to jump-start the economy,” and in conditions of recession austerity measures cannot stimulate the economy but on the contrary sink it deeper into stagnation.

The vision and plan of Samaras is to plant radical changes on the whole landscape of Greece. In his Zappeio speech he adumbrates constitutional changes that would separate the three branches of government the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary and thus prevent a member of parliament from being a minister, which has been in the past a malignant link of political corruption and has bestowed ‘asylum’ to members of parliament for their malfeasances. He pledges to bring changes to educational institutions that would reclaim the proud heritage of Greece that tragically has been eroded by the cultural relativists of a left coterie of pseudo-intellectuals and led to the disconnection of many young Greeks from their great cultural origins. He also promises to take drastic measures against illegal migrants, whom he calls “unarmed invaders” of Greece that under the soft immigration policies of Pasok they have occupied the main centres of cities, and remove them to provincial hostels until their eventual expulsion. Another important commitment of Samaras is to transform the bon vivant ethos of many Greeks, which up till now its tab has been picked up by the government, into a creatively productive one. On the new green tree planted by New Democracy, the singing cicadas will be replaced by fecund working bees. As Samaras is fully aware that sustainable economic development cannot be accomplished without transformative changes in the thinking and the mores of the people, especially of the younger generation.

Samaras is “framed in the prodigality of nature,” to quote Shakespeare. He is endowed charismatically both with a high intellect and remarkable moral strength along with the will and determination—all the stuff out of which statesmen are made--to change all things in Greece. But whether this lightning bolt of creative destruction will strike Greece or not depends on the strong mandate that he needs from the people. If Greeks do not fail, at this critical juncture, from fulfilling their historical duty to render to New Democracy a majority of seats in Parliament, then Antonis Samaras, in turn, will consummate the cultural political and economic Renaissance of Greece.

Hic Rhodus hic Salta

It is Time America Realizes that it Cannot Negotiate with God

I'm republishing the following piece that was written on September 2008 in view of the continued intransigence of the Iranian theocracy not to stop its development of a nuclear bomb.

By Con George-Kotzabasis

In the latest talks between Iranian representatives and the five permanent UN Security Council (SC) members plus Germany last Saturday in Geneva, the chief negotiator of Iran reading from a written text rejected the package that was offered to Iran by Javier Solama, the special envoy of the European Union. Already less than an hour of the talks, Keyvan Imani, a member of the Iranian delegation, casted his doubt over the talks saying, “suspension- there is no chance for that,” in reference to the SC demand that Iran suspends its uranium enrichment. He also downplayed the presence of William Burns in these talks, –which the international media overplayed as being a “bend” in Bush’s diplomacy toward the Iranians in its up till now refusal to participate in any direct talks with the latter—saying that “he is just a member of the delegation.”

Meanwhile, Saeed Jalili, the chief negotiator of Iran, evading the issue of suspension and tongue in cheek indulged himself in literary allusions using a simile to describe diplomacy’s glacial motion as being like a beautiful Persian carpet that moves slowly as it is made and ending with a beautiful result. It’s beyond doubt that the six superpower delegates wouldn’t mind treading and romping on that beautiful Persian carpet, but some of them might be more concerned about the ugly things slowly but surely are clawing on that carpet, such as nuclear weapons, than its ‘aesthetic’ beautiful pattern.

The Iranian delegation also attempted to outsmart their Western and Chinese counterparts in the ‘photogenic stakes.’ They suggested a photo in which Saeed Jalili and Javier Solama will be in front shaking hands and the six superpower delegates standing behind them providing the background. The five Security Council members plus the German one gave this suggestion of the Iranians the short shrift it deserved.

It’s time for America and its allies to realize that they are dealing with an unappeasable, irreconcilable, and duplicitous enemy. Moreover an enemy who unshakably and truly believes that he is implementing the non-negotiable agenda of God. In such situation only a war premised diplomacy threatening Iran’s theocratic and military leadership with obliteration has a chance to create a fissure within the regime, at least among its more moderate elements, ousting the Mullahcracy and replacing it with a regime that would accept the demands of the international community. Only when America places its lethal armaments on the carpet of Iran with the threat that they are going to be used if the latter persists in its intransigency, will the deadlock of conventional diplomacy end. In the event that the theocratic regime continues to walk and talk the path of ‘martyrdom,’ then America and its staunch allies will have no other option but to adopt Cato’s strategy. Delenda est Carthago.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now