Why do Europe’s leaders want to turn our beautiful lands into a giant military camp cum prison colony, administered by printing press bankers? The trade is almost as bad as the one the Lenape made, trading the island of Manhattan for glass beads.

Giorgia Meloni and Elon Musk together in New York on Monday night.
FILIPPO ATTILI/US PALAZZO CHIGI PRESS OFFICE HANDOUT

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni was feted recently at a swanky event in New York City held by the Atlantic Council.

I couldn’t get the lingering smell of rotting fish out of my nostrils for a few days after that. The Atlantic Council is the “NGO” par excellence when it comes to US foreign policy. According to the US Library of Congress, the Atlantic Council is:

> “…..a think tank in the field of international affairs. Founded in 1961, it provides a forum for international political, business, and intellectual leaders. It manages ten regional centers and functional programs related to international security and global economic prosperity. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is a member of the Atlantic Treaty Association.”

It’s a very serious operation, and its funders read like a who’s who of very powerful global interests. Here is a small sample of their donors:

• British Foreign and Commonwealth Office
• Embassy of the United Arab Emirates
• Facebook
• Goldman Sachs & Co.
• The Rockefeller Foundation
• Abu Dhabi National Oil Company
• Airbus
• Chevron Corporation
• Google
• HSBC Holdings P.L.C.
• JPMorgan Chase Foundation
• Palantir
• Raytheon Company (now, Raytheon Technologies)
• US State Department
• Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs
• Army Future Studies Group
• Blackstone
• Burisma
• Embassy of Bahrain to the United States
• Embassy of Japan to the United States
• Eni SpA
• Lockheed Martin Corporation
• NATO Public Diplomacy Division
• NATO StratCom Center of Excellence
• Open Society Foundations
• etc.

Big Oil, Big Finance, Big Tech, weapons manufacturers, various governments and various government entities….they are all represented in this so-called “non-governmental organization” that is devoted to Atlanticism (read: continued US global hegemony).

Some of you may be thinking “so what? Italy is firmly within the Atlanticist orbit, and Meloni, as Premier of Italy, needs to represent her country at these events”.

Fair enough. On the other hand, many of you will recall that the Atlantic Council played a central role in the censorship regime forced onto/aided by Big Tech in the run up to the 2020 US Presidential Election, effectively tipping the scale in favour of Joe Biden’s candidacy. In 2018, the Atlantic Council partnered up with Facebook’s parent company Meta to create what is known as the Digital Forensic Research Lab. All of you here are aware that the US Government during Joe Biden’s administration funded efforts that resulted in government-backed calls for social media bans for certain American citizens, with many of the requests succeeding. You also already know the role that the USGov played in shaping the narratives around COVID-19, efforts that were assisted by the Digital Forensic Research Lab.

All of you should be aware that this outfit worked on behalf of government to monitor and censor online speech:

> The SIO’s role in monitoring and censoring online speech has garnered widespread political and legal scrutiny for stifling protected speech in conjunction with the federal government. The SIO-led so-called Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), composed of the University of Washington, Graphika Inc., and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), silenced anti-mainstream narratives at the height of the 2020 presidential race in blatant disregard of the First Amendment. > > Emails from the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reveal that the federal agency secretly collaborated with the EIP to censor vast amounts of speech deemed “threatening” and “dangerous” to its agenda. Journalist Matt Taibbi’s reporting detailed Stanford’s abandonment of free expression, open discourse, and intellectual diversity as it aided CISA in an unprecedented crackdown against political topics damaging to Democrats and the pro-lockdown left.

By now, some of you may be wondering why X owner Elon Musk would attend an event hosted by an organization that runs counter to his stated principles at X. I don’t have an answer to this, as Musk’s motivations are his own, and super billionaires reside in a different universe than us mere mortals. In my opinion, it’s not a good look….but my opinion does not appear on Elon’s radar.

My concerns here are focused on Giorgia Meloni, a populist who heads a party founded by neo-fascists, but who is now being celebrated by the powers-that-be, including those who seek to censor information on subjects such as mass migration, an issue where Meloni is supposed to be at complete odds with Atlanticism. What exactly is she trying to achieve here? Her flirtations with Brussels (the EU is firmly aligned with the Atlantic Council) resulted in her being spurned and publicly humiliated. So what gives?****

Thomas Fazi

**approaches the subject from the view of economics and Italy’s dissipating national sovereignty**:

> Taken together, then, you get the sense that Meloni gambled her political survival on shedding her populist image and rushing in the opposite direction, becoming more pro-European and more pro-American than your average European centrist. Now, however, the liberal media is aflame once more. Chatter about Meloni’s political journey started in September, when she was presented with a “Global Citizen Award” at the Atlantic Council in New York. Beyond the think tank’s Atlanticist flavour, what really got politicos talking was who gave Meloni her prize: one Elon Musk. This has fuelled speculation about a potential political (re)alignment with Trump on Meloni’s part. Given the mercurial South African’s financial and political support for Trump’s presidential run — and the (denied) allegations of a burgeoning romance between the businessman and the Prime Minister — these claims don’t feel completely fanciful.

Okay, no big deal so far. Not playing favourites in a foreign election is common sense.

Here’s where Fazi gets to his core argument:

> So could Meloni’s recent moves be signalling a return to her radical roots? I think not. At its core, rather, this story is less about policy — and more about cold hard cash, both in Italy itself and further afield. That’s clear enough if you put aside the trees, Meloni and Musk, and instead focus on the woods: the Atlantic Council that offered Meloni her prize. The think tank euphemistically describes itself as a nonpartisan organisation that “galvanises” US global leadership and encourages engagement with its friends and allies. In plain English, that means that the Atlantic Council exists to promote the interests of US corporations — and American imperial interests more generally. Founded in the Sixties, to boost political support for Nato, today it remains active on transatlantic security issues. 

The meat:

> Nor is Musk the only US investor ingratiating himself with Meloni. After returning from her bash in New York, she also met with Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment company. With assets worth $10 trillion, the firm boasts the equivalent of Germany and Japan’s combined GDP. In Italy itself, BlackRock is comfortably the largest foreign institutional investor on the Milan Stock Exchange, owning substantial stakes in some of the country’s largest listed companies. The firm is bolstering its Italian presence elsewhere too. Earlier this year, for instance, Meloni oversaw the sale of Tim’s entire fixed-line network to KKR, a US fund that boasts BlackRock among its main institutional investors.  > > Beyond the fact that the network represents a strategic national asset, with its sensitive user data now effectively under foreign control, these varied moves represent the culmination of a long sequence of privatisations and selling-off of Italian public and private assets beginning back in the Nineties. Once you dovetail that with BlackRock’s future plans — among other things, it hopes to snatch up Italy’s highway and railway networks, currently under public or semi-public control — the country looks set to become little more than an outpost of American capital, losing what little is left of its economic sovereignty. 

Fazi makes the point that by Meloni selling off Italy’s economic crown jewels to US corporate, security, and financial interests, she is reducing her own country to the state of an economic dependency of the USA. Smart Europeans are worried about the continent’s economic decline, and there are strong calls for a strategy to create “European giants” in all economic sectors. By selling off such assets to the Americans, these efforts are instantly handicapped.

Italy as the USA’s “economic Trojan Horse”:

> That this should be happening under a nominally “sovereigntist” prime minister is remarkable enough — but what really matters is the way US investors, notably BlackRock, are using Italy as a Trojan horse to expand their influence right across Europe. Consider the example of Germany. Unlike other countries, companies in Munich or Hamburg largely remain in the hands of the families that founded them. Local investors have substantial influence too, as does KFW, the public bank dedicated to supporting the Federal Republic’s industrial development. > > In practice, that means the penetration of BlackRock and other US mega-funds in the German economy remains relatively marginal. That’s an anomaly that US capital now seems intent on fixing, using Italy as its battering ram. Last month, for instance, Milan’s UniCredit bank announced a surprise hostile takeover of Commerzbank, effectively becoming the Frankfurt outfit’s largest shareholder. Though this caused some patriotic fervour among Italian commentators — an Italian bank taking over a German rival! — the reality is that the move was likely spearheaded by BlackRock itself, which executed the move with the help of other Anglo-American funds, all to consolidate its control of Germany’s financial system. No wonder Larry Fink welcomed the move. “Europe,” he said, “needs a stronger capital markets system and a more unified banking system.” 

For obvious reasons, I don’t find the following quote by Todd to be entirely correct, but the gist of it certainly holds true:

> What we are witnessing, in short, is the economic cannibalisation of Europe by US capital. Not that we should be surprised. As Emmanuel Todd, a French historian, writes in his latest book: “As its power diminishes worldwide, the American system ultimately ends up burdening its protectorates more and more, as they remain the last bases of its power.” With European industry crucial to US interests, Todd continues, we should expect more “systemic exploitation” of Rome and Berlin from the imperial centre in Washington. The fact that this is happening under the auspices of a self-described “patriot” like Meloni only highlights the grotesque weakness of European politics.

No matter who moves into the White House in January of next year, Europe is going to be negatively affected by policies emanating from the ravenous US of A.

At Bloomberg a curious article has been published: The West is getting in too deep in Ukraine. PANKAJ MISHRA asks the obvious question. Who has thought through what it means to rearm Germany and Japan?

There are too many signs that the search for allies in what is effectively now the West’s war against Russia is affecting political and moral judgment. Thus, India is routinely presented in the West as a counterweight to Chinese and Russian autocrats even as its Hindu supremacist government intensifies its assault on democracy and the country ramps up its purchases of Russian oil. A bizarre forgetfulness about two world wars prevails as, to wide cheers in the West, Germany rearms and dispatches military hardware to its old killing fields.

Among the simple historical lessons being neglected is that governments everywhere are prone to grow more reckless as military escalation begins to seem the only route to peace. The leaders of Japan, another militarist terror of the 20th century, are rearming their country on a dramatic scale even at the cost of inflating its already extraordinary fiscal deficit.

Needless to add, the Japanese government has not offered a detailed account of the risks involved in this militarization (from China and Russia, two countries with which it has fought wars), let alone explained how a country with an acute shortage of young people will fill the ranks of a bigger and more sophisticated military.

Such signs of irresponsibility are equally apparent among Western political establishments, who are trying to expand their military footprint abroad even as they struggle against economic crises at home.

It seems most sensible people realise that stoking a world conflict will bring neither health nor happiness to the world. Summoning old demons, Japanese and German militarism from their crypt will inevitably trigger long term consequences. The Afghan War against the Soviets launched Al-Queda, and started decades of conflict with Islam and Muslim.

Here’s what the Japanese did in Nanking in 1938 and how they felt about it.

To the invading army, the Rape of Nanking was sometimes even a game. Japanese magazines bragged about a contest between two soldiers, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda, who had challenged one another in a race to see who could slaughter 100 people with their swords first.

Worse yet, the people these two men cut open weren’t enemy combatants killed on the battlefield while fighting for their lives. By the men’s own admission, the victims were unarmed, defenseless people. Noda admitted, after the war ended: “We’d line them up and cut them down, from one end of the line to the other.”

What’s more, this admission wasn’t an apology. Just seconds before, Noda had scoffed at his victims for letting him kill them, saying, “The Chinese soldiers were so stupid.” He also added, “Afterward, I was often asked whether it was a big deal, and I said it was no big deal.”

The Japanese military murdered three hundred thousand people within a few weeks. The massacre’s name, the Rape of Nanking was not just metaphoric. Add thousands of rapes per day.

A Japanese soldier beheading a Chinese man in the middle of a crowded street in 1938.

What makes the United States leadership believe it will be able to control a rampant Germany and Japan? What horrors will the re-arming of Germany and Japan inflict upon Europe and upon East Asia? Or is the goal, really, never-ending war everywhere?

Top photo from the Rape of Nanking. Japanese officers entering Nanking on horseback. Other photographs are too horrific to add, please see links above.

It is clear here that this attack was carried out by the US. Just the day before, the streets of German cities were full of protesters who were speaking out against their government’s policy, the policy of strangling Germany. With industry shutting down, energy prices skyrocketing and a long and cold winter ahead. And the citizens of Germany said: “Stop this nonsense! Turn on Nord Stream 2.”

These rallies would go on and one of two things would happen. Either the German government would have turned on Nord Stream 2, or it would have been overthrown and replaced by people who would have turned on the pipeline. And from an American point of view, this is very dangerous. Germany is a key ally in exercising American hegemony. The US has chosen to abandon gas pipelines. And whatever the Germans want, it is no longer going to happen. That was the purpose of this operation.

Basically the US was in a last chance position. The pipelines were primed to be turned back on in exchange for:

1. an end to arms shipments to the Ukraine
2. return of stolen/sanctioned assets,
3. end of most sanctions

Germany may have either bought the Gazprom assets it seized or returned them. Russia might have sold Germany the rest of it stake in Nordstream 1 and 2 as there is no longer an environment where it makes sense for Russia to hold any energy assets outside of Europe.

Now Germany has no strategic options. The USA together with German vice-chancellor and Economics Minister Robert Habeck have backed Germany into a corner where they are without enough energy for their industry or their households or perhaps both. There’s no short or medium-term solution for these issues.²

In his speeches, Habeck blames Germans for ever buying Russian gas. With what he intends to power the German economy is unclear. Habeck is as much against nuclear power as he is against Russia, Germany has no other cost-efficient options. Windmills won’t get the job done, and Germany has insufficient hydro resources (maximum of 3% of daily demand, already fully exploited).

The insinuation in Habeck’s speeches about energy suggest that Russian energy must become German or European. Habeck is secretly attempting to turn anger at US and EU energy policies into a new drang nach Ost. Germany will mobilise and defeat Russia on the battlefield finally and take the energy resources which should belong to the world generally and the EU more specifically and especially Germany as the economic engine of Europe.

The Polish interest of course is to please its master, in this case by pleasing itself. Polish government feels like Masters of the Universe with their new pipeline and new übercitizen status in the Ukraine – both with full rights of a Ukrainian citizen and with full rights of European citizen.

On the same day, Poland has a working gas pipeline and Germany doesn’t. It’s the start of a Polish century for these deluded hetmans of a lost and failed state (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth).

The greater danger here is that Germany and Poland will fall on one another first. The Poles are demanding a $1.6 trillion downpayment on World War II reparations to finance their military expansion and their wartime economy. Poles have already proclaimed their intention to field the largest and best equipped army in Europe. Germany’s response was to offer to foot the bill but in exchange would expect to return to pre-World War II eastern borders. Germany also intends to radically rearm.

The remaining gas pipelines from Russia to Germany pass through Poland and Ukraine: Yamal with 33 billion cubic meter per annum and Soyuz with 40 billion cubic meters per annum. The Ukrainian pipelines are in an active war zone and would be a tough nut to crack. On the other hand, Germany could simply tell Poland to be quiet and open up the pipes with a minimal transit fee.

Poland should be worried, not triumphant.

The only country who benefits from this unrest is the USA. The UK does not particularly benefit as wars among its export markets will not improve its own shaky economic position. Perhaps the UK hopes that the Polish and German shock troops can be used to attrite the Russian army to the point the UK can waltz in and seize Russian resources with their Special Forces and an army of British accountants:

One for you and two for me, one for you and three for me, one for you and four for me.

With friends like this, Germany, who needs enemies? Winter brings a ruined economy, a cold and frozen populace, a huge alienated economic migrant population. These are the conditions for war. I would have thought two world wars in a single century would have taught Europeans that the cost of war if far higher than its value.

Image: Battle of the Bzura: Polish cavalry in Sochaczew in 1939. Unknown photographer.

Berlin needle from Gendarmenmarkt

Berlin is also very flat, like Holland so it’s an ideal place to cycle. If you come to Berlin be sure to rent a bicycle immediately as the U-bahn is somewhat expensive (€2.80) and dark and smelly. Much less joyful than gliding along beside Berlin’s canals or through its huge parks on your way to your destination.

Remnants of Wars Lost

The main reason Berlin has so much more concrete than say Vienna or Paris – equivalent nineteenth century capitals – is of course the second world war. Vienna and particularly Paris were spared. Berlin was not. Between punishing air raids and Russian artillery there was little left of the incredibly rich architecture of Berlin. You find partial facades left as both a memory and a reminder. The Allies (American and British) enjoyed the destruction. Berlin stands as a permanent monument to consequences of defying London and Washington and federal reserve banking. Tripoli recently experienced more of the same. Moscow, Teheran and Beijing should take careful note and guard their alliances carefully. Washington and London along with the puppet governments of Australia, Canada, Germany and France would like nothing better than an opportunity to wreak the same havoc on those metropoles.

Berlin Weight of the World

If Berlin is any gauge, it takes a hundred years to rebuild a destroyed imperial capital to even a shadow of its former self.

Carthage must fall, declaimed the Senator.

And visiting Berlin in some ways is like treading the stones of Caesar’s partially rebuilt Carthage. Like Phoenicia, Germany may never be whole again. Huge parts are lost in Poland. Germany has only partial sovereignty since the Second World War with no final settlement of peace. The German government is captive to Washington and the secrets which the American alphabet soup have ferreted out concerning current leadership. Strange to see such a proud and capable people captives of a civilisation, historically in many ways its inferior.

There are still remnants of earlier grandeur like the dome at the Gendarmenmarkt.

Berlin-Gendarmenmarkt-dome

So much of Berlin is highly geometric, like even the quiet Besselstraße.

Geometric Berlin

While Berlin is a cycling and hipster city, there are traces of Germany’s dominant car culture even here, with majestic top of the line engineering marvels from BMW and Mercedes parked on almost every street.

See top of the line German engineering on almost every street

What I liked very much is the aesthetic of the advertising. It’s remains functionalist all these decades later unlike French advertising which is all based on emotion. The appeal to functionality and clarity appeals deeply to me.

A Shoe Shop Window in Besselstraße

The facade of this entire building at Potzdamer Platz was under renovation and covered with painted canvas. Cleverly on top of the canvas there is a photographic ad of models on a beach in swimwear. The only real part of this facade are the lights which illuminate the ad! True you could see something like this in Paris but the execution wouldn’t be as flawless with a perfect visual match between the real lamps and the painted facade.

Painted Facade at Potzdamer Platz

The other side of the building does the same thing but a red iPhone 7 is not nearly as arresting as these ladies.

Going deeper into Potzdamerplatz there’s lots more concrete and glass.

Bahnhof Potzdamer Platz in motio

Whether at the Ritz Carlton.

Berlin Ritz Carlton

Or even underground:

Potzdamer Platz Bahnhof Platform

Potzdamer Platz Bahnhof Escalator

Potzdamer Platz Bahnhof Concrete Passage

Potzdamer Platz Bahnhof Exit

Potzdamer Platz Bahnhof Glass Ceilings

If the photos above seem futuristic and somewhat alienating, then I’ve achieved my aim. But Berlin is not all about caging humans with concrete and glass. There is a lot of green mixed in with the concrete and glass.

Sunset in Berlin

While Berlin impressed me with both its architecture and design in Berlin, sartorially Berlin underwhelms. People are as a whole horribly attired, as if they lived in some post-apocalyptic future where there are only tired leather jackets, denim jackets, dirty hoodies and every kind of nineties post-Soviet stone-washed jeans.

Men’s hair is dirty and uncombed, most of them wear neck beards on their three to twelve day stubble. Most of the women’s hair is not in much better shape, half combed out and flyaway. There’s probably not a place in Europe with a harsher no makeup policy. Perhaps even less than Toronto. This works well for a minority but leaves the majority defenceless in front of nature.

If you are wondering where they photos of badly dressed and worse groomed men are, neither taking nor posting photos of people looking their worst would be unkind. Despite the catastrophe on the clothing front, I don’t mean to sound too negative about Berlin. There are beautiful women, if on the surface their demeanour is a bit austere. Native Berliners like Karoline Herfurth are clever, engaged and passionate.

Karoline Herfurth as Dani Wirth in Passion

As an actress, Herfurth is excellent in In Winter Ein Jahr (2008) while she brings depth and glamour to Wir Sind Die Nacht (2010; a guilty vampire pleasure of mine) and Das Wunder von Berlin(2008). In the English speaking world, you may remember Herfurth from her supporting role as Dani Wirth in Brian de Palma’s otherwise forgettable Passion (2012). Sadly her best known film is the very vulgar and modestly amusing Fack ju Göthe (2013). Shamefully Herfurth signed up for chapter two but happily had the good sense to refuse a third outing for the lowbrow franchise.

In addition to her work as a performer, Herfurth has already written and directed a well received full length dramatic feature SMS für Dich (2016). This is all by the age of thirty two. If you can stand strong opinions in your women, Berlin is a great place to go for a fascinating argument with an intelligent and talented member of the fairer sex.

All photos apart from the portrait of Karoline Herfurth by the author. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC.