Category: Politique

Cyprus Must Exit The Euro Now!

~ Mitch Guthman

It doesn’t matter much whether you hang yourself here or somewhere else, if you’re going to hang yourself anyway.

Georges Brassens, Je Me Suis Fait Tout Petit, 1957

On the whole, I have always agreed with Georges Brassens that if one must hang, the details are unimportant because the result is the same anyway. However, in the case of Cyprus, a country that will soon face the rope, there maybe nothing that will save that country from enduring terrible pain today but there are choices available that can make a big difference for the future of the Cypriot people.  In this case, I agree with Paul Krugman that since Cyprus will suffer anyway, they should leave the euro now.
 Regardless of whether an agreement is reached that staves off the immediate disaster, it seems inevitable that Cyprus is in for a long period of terrible suffering. In other words, Cyprus is screwed. This part of its fate is inevitable.

But if Cyprus chooses wisely it can severely limit this suffering and emerge from this crisis in a better position for the long-term growth of its economy and a better future for the people.
 The island will soon undergo the sort of economic collapse and all of the pain that is said to have made joining the euro an irrevocable decision. If Cyprus remains in the euro zone, it will suffer under a regime of murderous austerity for a period of several years, perhaps as long as several decades. We see the results of such austerity in Greece today, where the country’s historical heritage is being systematically looted and the people are being crucified on the cross of artificial gold called the euro.
 Greek families are being impoverished and destroyed. Entire communities devastated.

Today, there is hunger and abject poverty like that of the third world in a member state of the European Union, something we would have thought laughable only a few years ago. It will probably take decades for Greece to catch up to what it was before the crisis, perhaps it never will.
 This is not necessarily the fate of Cyprus. If Cyprus leaves the euro, Cypriots may be spared the worst. There may be positive short term effects, too.   For example, devaluation will surely make the country more attractive for tourism, which is its main industry anyway. Exports will become more competitive and the economic pain shared more widely and equitably in society.

Clearly, the immediate fate of Cyprus is already written. But if they will hang anyway, why not get something out of it? That is why I urge the Cypriot people to act now and act boldly for a better future for their country. Yes, today’s generation will be hanged by the bankers and the Troika, but they have a golden opportunity to lay the foundation for a renaissance of the Cypriot economy. Cyprus must leave the euro. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren of today’s Cypriots will thank them.

When the Jews sup with Le Pen they should bring a long spoon

~ Mitch Guthman

“I merely said that the gas chambers were
a detail of the history of World War II, which is an obvious “

Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the Front national

“Dedicated to the living memory of the 200,000 French deportees sleeping in the night and the fog,exterminated in the Nazi concentration camps”

Inscription on The Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation  located at the tip of the Ile de la Cité, Paris

France 24 and Le Point both relate that Marine Le Pen is actively seeking the support of Jews in her fight against the Muslims. I am amazed to see that she seems to receive some support from Jews in France and the United States and even Israel. Apparently on the theory that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This development is both surprising and shocking. How could a Jew make a covenant with the FN? It is a covenant with the devil.

These Jews do not know the slogan of the FN? No Jew should make common cause with someone whose motto is “work, family, country.” Where could a Jew have seen those words in years past? Ask the French Jews and the resistance fighters who died in the camps where they saw the slogan for the last time!  Ask them about Vichy!  There are those who are too young to know, those who have never known and now, apparently, there are some who have chosen to forget.

There is a reason why the FN kept slogan of Vichy. They have not changed. They will perhaps disguise themselves more skillfully but they will never change. That’s what they still believe. If you understand that they kept the old slogan because they also kept the old beliefs, then you understand everything that needs to be known on this subject.

And if you do not know the meaning of the slogan “Work, family, fatherland,” just go Paris, to the Ile de la Cité, where you’ll find the Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation, amonument in memory of the 200,000 people deported from France (especially Vichy) to the Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. Ask the ghosts who will welcome you in that place what this slogan means to them. They will tell you how they were taken from their families, their ordinary lives as Frenchmen, how they weredegraded and beaten and abused and then finally sent to the hell of the Nazi concentration camps where so many died. Yes, certainly, you have to ask ghosts to speak of the evil that was perpetrated on them. They will respond with the truth about the Front national, if only you will listen.

As the saying goes: Those who sup with the devil should have a long spoon. I hope that the Jews who take dinner with Le Pen have a very long spoon. They will need it.