Decline and Fall of Western Civilization

Evaggelos Vallianatos

I have argued for decades that Western civilization has been an invisible worldwide blessing. Democracy, science-based decisions, courts and laws, widespread schooling and respect for the natural world are good things that make civilization possible.

I am pleased and proud that my Hellenic ancestors’ science, technology, philosophy, and culture sparked these blessings all over the world, especially to Western European societies, helping their metamorphosis from feudalism to enlightened democracies.

Historical decline of the West

I noticed, however, that these Western societies, including that of America, have been shedding their Greek origins and reverting to their tyrannical roots.

The industrialization of the nineteenth century was the first blow against the science and humanism Western societies discovered in the Greek-inspired Renaissance of the fifteenth century. Then came the two World Wars of the twentieth century and the atomic bomb. The West almost drowned in medieval barbarism.

America survived the holocaust of WWII. In fact, it thrived. The smashing of Nazi Germany and the American victory over imperial and aggressive Japan boosted American power the world over. America was the new Rome.

Russia and China

The only resistance to America came out of nuclear weapons-armed Soviet Union

(Russia) and, eventually, in late twentieth century, China, also armed with nukes. Russia discarded its 70-year communist government for capitalism in the 1990s. China did not abandon communism. Instead, it created a hybrid communist-capitalist political economy and government.

Russia has always been closer to the West. It is a Christian country that received its Christianity in the ninth century from medieval Greece. China, however, was never a Christian country. In the early twenty-first century, it retains its communist-capitalist government but, as civilization, it is returning to its Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist traditions.

Both Russia and China did not participate in the Renaissance of the fifteenth century, though they have been borrowing heavily from the West. China in particular has been borrowing so much from the United States that it is an almost American clone.

Western occupation of Greece

A strong sign that the West has been in deep trouble emerged from its recent encounters with Greece. In fact, the treatment of Greece by the financial center of the West – the European Union and America’s International Monetary Fund, strongly suggest decline and fall of Western civilization.

Debt precipitated the violent confrontation between Greece and the West. Greece borrowed money from French, German and American banks.

The American financial tsunami of 2008 triggered forces of violence covered up by the polite shine of civilization. The American-European condominium of the West abandoned any pretense of cooperation even among the countries of the European “Union,” which include Greece.

The bankers of Germany and France, imitating their big American Wall Street brothers, were almost bankrupt and needed immediate state support. But EU law prohibits states from bailing out their banks.

As if by divine intervention, Greece owned money to those banks. Working closely with America’s IMF, the EU leadership proceeded to treat Greece like a lab animal in order to save its banks and to send a strong undemocratic message to other countries about the absolute rule of money.

IMF sent to Athens a Greek employee to take over the Greek statistical service. This man, Andreas Georgiou, was a statistics guru. The Greek Supreme Court accused him of harming the Greek national interest. He was said to have increased the 2009 budget deficit figure, thus triggering the recent debt tragedy of his own country at the hands of IMF. The 2015 Truth Commission / committee of the Greek parliament put it more diplomatically, and correctly connected the crime to the October 4, 2009 election of George Papandreou who deceived the Greeks with fake socialist promises of ending the austerity and fixing the economy.

The parliamentary report of the Truth Commission said Papandreou assured the Greeks their country had money, promising increased employment and more redistribution of wealth. However, the report says, “ just a few weeks after the [2009] elections, a series of substantial revisions of statistical data took place. As a result, the political climate changed sharply.”

No doubt about that. The revised statistics had dire consequences for Greece.

According to the Greek economics professor, Zoe Georganta, Georgiou probably massaged the Greek budget and debt statistics. Georganta says the man was arbitrary and authoritarian, not allowing transparency or staff discussion of the integrity of statistics. He was doing the bidding of Papandreou and IMF. She should know. She worked at the Greek statistical service under the direction of Georgiou.

In addition to IMF, Georganta says, the other primary actors responsible for the West’s aggression against Greece include the European Commission and the European Statistical Service. She says the EU bureaucracy and, indeed, the EU countries are rife with corruption. They, including Germany, fiddled with their deficit and debt statistics in order to satisfy the EU requirements for forming the EU.

Georganta did not limit her criticism to the European-American political class. She expressed the same contempt for the Greek elite. She said Greek politicians for the most part are traitors, reigning over parties that are by no means patriotic.

Illegal, illegitimate, odious, and unsustainable debt

In 2015, the president of the Greek parliament, Zoe Konstantopoulou, empowered a special audit committee to investigate the debt. The committee declared the debt “illegal, illegitimate, odious, and unsustainable.”

In her speech to the United Nations in New York, September 3, 2015, Konstantopoulou assured the world parliamentarians that the

Greek sovereign debt was “illegal, illegitimate, odious and unsustainable.” The procedures used for figuring out the amount of the debt (meaning the statistical manipulation of the deficit and debt figures) grossly violated constitutional law, parliamentary procedures, and  human rights and freedoms guaranteed by international law.

The debt owned to IMF, the Truth Commission concluded, was illegal. It contradicted the statues of IMF. But more importantly, it violated the Greek Constitution as well as international customary law and treaties signed by Greece. The Greek debt to IMF was also illegitimate because the IMF demands to Greece for debt repayment infringed on the obligations of Greece to respect and protect human rights.

Furthermore, the audit parliamentary committee said, the debt to IMF was “odious” because everything IMF did to collect its loans was undemocratic, with harmful consequences on the ecological and public health and wellbeing of the Greek people.

The parliamentary report added that states under the political stress of sovereign debt, and especially when the debt is illegal, illegitimate, odious and unsustainable, can repudiate it without violating norms of international law.

In the case of Greece, the committee said, repudiating the debt was easy. Creditors and the EU-IMF were tainted by hostility towards the country. Besides, the creditors’ bad faith forced Greece to violate its own laws and its international human rights obligations. In addition, creditors and the EU-IMF had exercised coercion against a sovereign nation, their unfair requirements, the committee said,  “flagrantly violating Greek sovereignty and violating the Constitution.”

The parliamentary committee emphasized that international law gives the right of self-defense to states threatened by illegal, illegitimate, odious and unsustainable debt. This means an indebted country can declare itself insolvent without liability. In other words, a state has the legal right to “invoke necessity in exceptional situations in order to safeguard those essential interests threatened by a grave and imminent [debt] peril.”

Konstantopoulou appealed in vain to the world parliamentarians and the United Nations to reject and oppose the EU-IMF violence against Greece.

The eclipse of the West

At that moment, from 2009 to 2015, when IMF and EU took over Greece, Western civilization eclipsed by the giant rising star of multinational banking oligarchy. The European and American bureaucrats and politicians used the loans to Greece to help their banks, starving the Greek economy to near paralysis and dissolution. Such illegal acts essentially abolished the Greek Constitution and international law, both crimes against humanity.

The violence of the pre-Renaissance days became the new West. This outrageous subversion of democracy climaxed in the United States with the administration of Donald Trump, 2017-2021. This president intensified America’s class war. He chose billionaires for his cabinet, and embraced billionaires; he refused to admit the flaming danger of climate change, and, simultaneously, all but he wiped out America’s environmental regulations and protection. The election of Joe Biden to the presidency triggered Trump’s revenge by inciting the US Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021. Trump was the first “legal” tyrant in America who tried to subvert the American Constitution and take over the government.

The IMF-EU “memoranda” to Greece from Washington, DC, Brussels and Berlin were Trump-like tyrannical orders, empowering foreigners to do as they pleased to prostrate Greece. Greek “prime ministers” and “parliament” became a façade and the whip of foreign occupiers.

The results of this onslaught on Greece “saved” the EU-American banks. The starvation diet EU-IMF imposed on the very country that gave the West civilization and the Europeans their name, will not be forgotten or forgiven.

No less important, the ferocious attack against Greece shows the collapse of capitalism. The money oligarchs have no love for their country, unless they control its wheels of power. They imposed austerity to the people of the West, too. America’s central bank, the Fed, pumped billions primarily into the pockets of the very rich during the pandemic year of 2020. The excuse was to “stabilize and boost” the shut-down economy, but the winners were bankers and billionaires.

Westerners, including Americans, like the Greeks, are struggling to find better alternatives to the unethical banking oligarchy managing the world.

What to do

The Greeks need a new patriotic government to set their house in order. Abolish the corrupt political parties and return to the classical Athenian model of direct democracy. Abandon industrialized farming for small-scale ecological agriculture, carbon neutral, and sufficient to raise nutritious and pesticides-free food for all, including tourists. Turn to the Sun (Helios) for fueling the country’s electricity needs, transportation, and industry. Revive traditional crafts and appropriate, but not polluting, industries for the production of necessities like defensive weapons, pharmaceuticals, clothes, shoes, bicycles, electric cars and electric bullet trains and trams.

At the same time, Greeks must wake up to the danger from the new money oligarchy of the West. Georganta says Greeks must resist foreign and domestic agendas designed for their disappearance. She is not saying this lightly.

Greeks need to stand up and be counted. Expel all EU-IMF representatives from the country and restore national sovereignty and authority of the Constitution and international law. Take back the national property “sold” to foreigners. Stop paying the illegal, illegitimate, odious, and unsustainable debt. And if the EU-IMF threaten to cut off euros to Greece, the country should return to its own currency, the drachma.

Use the international and Greek system of laws to collect the huge debt Germany owns Greece. If Germany continues to deny its debt, confiscate any German property in Greece and cease importing German goods. Maria Negroponti-Delivanis, emeritus professor of economics at the University of Macedonia, has calculated the costs of WWII German occupation of Greece to equal about 1 (one) trillion euros.

The Germans in Greece, 1941-1944, were ferocious bordering on barbarism. They nearly starved the country to death. They killed the domesticated animals of the peasants; they cut off cities from the countryside, and wiped out dozens of villages. They looted the country’s archaeological treasures and destroyed Greek infrastructure. They also took a forced loan from the occupied Greek government.

America knows this history, but for Cold War reasons it supports Germany. Greek Americans can lobby American politicians to the justice of the Greek cause for German reparations. Israel and the Jewish American lobby are excellent models for enlisting the American government for forcing the Germans to pay up for their crimes.

America also supports Turkey, which remains the nearly unspoken factor behind the efforts of the West to diminish Greece, and worse: dismember the country as they did in the aftermath of the fourth crusade of 1204. Several Greek academics and intellectuals see Turkey as a mortal enemy on whose behalf the West (EU-IMF) has been undermining Greece.

Nevertheless, Greece must stand up to this danger. Stop the illegal Turkish export of Moslem migrants to the islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos. Close the Greek sea border to Turkey and repatriate all illegal migrants in Greece.

Draft all young Greeks to military service for two to three years — and strengthen the Greek armed forces. Again, Israel is the model.

This agenda demands that Greeks are working together, not against each other. Merchants funded the Greek Revolution of 1821. They (in Greece and America and Europe) can do it again for the remaking of Greece into Hellas: a self-reliant, democratic, green, strong, and free country, once again, at the center of Hellenic civilization.

Finally, the government must revive education, immersing the young into ancient Greek, Latin, Hellenic history, as well as the knowledge and achievements of their ancient ancestors. This will make it possible for the flourishing of young people who have the ideas, intelligence, courage and love to make the country the best it can become.

Sri Lanka’s Falling Economy And Failing Good Governance

Thambu Kanagasabai

President Gotabaya acclaimed as un uncrowned king of Sri Lanka after defeating the Liberation of Tigers in the genocidal war with the assistance of 22 countries particularly from India, Pakistan and China as confirmed by his brother Mahinda Rajapakshae [Gotabaya’s brother] while he was on a visit to India in May 2009 is now facing an unpalatable deafening voices of protests emanating from every corners of Sri Lanka.

His Government crowned in 2019 is now sliding fast to be labelled as a failed state. His failures are accumulating in all fronts, economy, political management, human rights, rule of law, international relations and foreign policy. Though he inherited a mismanaged legacy from a lame Government run by then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe and the then President Maithiripala Sirisena, his Government has also failed to take any meaningful steps to reverse and change the course with a better management of economy, efficient political management and administrative machinery. Covid-19 pandemic has also played its part in adding to the woes of the economy, particularly hitting the tourism industry, a major source of earnings and local employment sharing 5% of the GDP.

Some statistics of the current state of the economy are: for year 2021 out of 3.9 billions of dollars repayment only 1.3 billions has been paid leaving a balance of 2.6 billions to be settled before the end of 2021. Foreign reserves stand at 4.9 billions which is enough to pay for three months imports while foreign outstanding debts is 7.1 billions. Sri Lanka in order to settle the above debts has secured 400 millions from India, 1.5 billion from China and 250 million from the poor Bangladesh. The above outstanding indebtedness has led to the downgrading of Sri Lanka by Finch to CCC grade which confirms the real possibilities of default in repayment. To worsen this situation is the looming cancellation of the GSP+ concession by European Union when it meets at its next session. Also Sri Lanka is maintaining a deadly silence as to the implementation of 27 UN Conventions as referred by European Union which is the other condition of European Union to restore the GSP+ concession. Besides, European Union has also demanded the repealing of the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act [PTA] and replacing it with acceptable international provisions. It is far from certain that Sri Lanka will fully comply with these demands risking its political fortunes and future.

Sri Lanka is now scrambling for damage control exercises by initiating palliative and eye washing steps like promising to bring amendments to the dreaded draconian PTA without repealing as demanded by European Union. It is unlikely that this mollification will cut any ice with European Union as Sri Lanka’s past promises have always been just occasional to meet the facing exigencies.

In the political front, the Government also has failed totally to meet the expectations of Tamils, Muslims and even the victims of state oppression. It is to be noted that the draconian PTA is defended by the Government and let loosely against its political opponents and groups like the recent arbitrary arrests and detention of Richard Baduideen MP, and his brother.

The simmering 72 years old ethnic problem is left untouched and remains intact growing for a blow up situation while paving way for the total isolation of Tamils and Muslims to search for alternative means. The much expected constitution is nowhere in sight and the hopes of Tamils that it would incorporate acceptable political settlement proposals appears to be like the dream of a dumb

The current Covid-19 pandemic has slowed down the agenda of Sinhalisisation and Buddhisisation but as a blessing in disguise for the Government, it has opened an unchecked and undeterred militarization in the state administrative machinery  with military officials taking control of the civil administration positions and messy handling them with unquestionable inefficiency due to nil experience in administration and without proper interactions with ordinary citizens. Even Covid-19 vaccination program has been shifted to Army compounds and Army Barracks, discarding the health officials’  participation.

The President is also exercising his powers of appointments and promotions at his will and absolute discretion like pardoning convicted criminals and sending some of his dislikings to jails. In this respect, the statement of British Commonwealth & Developments Office in its Human Rights and Democracy Report is worth quoting:-

“The continued appointments of controversial military figures of war crimes to Government roles while civilian functions such as Secretariat of NGO’s were brought under the control of the Military of Defence. PTA has been disproportionately used against Tamils and Muslims. The Report described the actions recently taken by Gotabaya’s Government “As leading to democracy decay” like the passing of the 20th Amendment which extended judicial powers and powers over independent institutions to the President. Though this Report confirms the “Continuing deterioration of human rights in Sri Lanka”, the British Government has so far not acted on this Report, not even censured Sri Lanka.

ITJP has published the names of six Rajapakshas holding ministerial posts and controlling 16 Government Departments and three Presidential Task Forces controlling the wealth and their management aided by a muted, meek and disunited nervous Opposition Leader and parties. President Rajapaksha’s high handed actions are let off with unconcern like the pardon and release of Duminda de Silva, a convicted murder criminal discarding the prescribed procedures and appointing him as Chairman of National Housing Authority is an act of gross insult to all norms of justice, rule of law and good governance. After all, like the birds of the same feather flock together, all alleged war criminals aligning and assisting another criminal is not a surprise.

Gotabaya’s under mentioned acts of arresting and keeping in isolation the protesting Ceylon Teachers Union’s Secretary Joseph Stalin is simply an act of pure arbitrariness and naked usurpation of fundamental rights. With plummeting popularity and dwindling support of the general population, a lurking danger is a consolidation and concentration of powers and entrenching the family group on the legislative, judicial and executive functions.

Consequently the fabric of democratic functioning is being eroded and shredded with the following evils of good governance which are slowly and steadily enveloping the island:-

1. Dictatorial actions and moves
2. Nepotism, family control and rule
3. Bribery and corruption
4. Impunity
5. Racial policies
6. Discarding accountability, justice and rule of law
7. Break down of international relationship
8. Disregarding UN and UNHRC and their Resolutions.

Another impending scenario is the slow and steady erosion and slicing of sovereignty of Sri Lanka by China which has already planted its feet in the South, West and North netting Sri Lanka under an irredeemable debt trap. With a trade deficit of 10 billion Dollars, Sri Lanka’s crumbling economy has to be saved and China has taken the role of Saviour, a Frankenstein monster which is coolly expanding its dominance in South Asia mostly playing the role of a Messiah.

To sum up, Rajapakshas and Company Unlimited is facing bankruptcy in politics and economy and a full redemption is like an oasis in the desert due to its mauling by six Rajapakahas.

However, there is no iota of doubt that the Covid-19 pandemic has come as a blessing and has provided a golden opportunity for the Government of Rajapaksha’s to lock down the country militarily and politically allowing it to unleash unilateral and unquestionable dictatorial actions opening the passage for dictatorial governance.

In short, it is a Rajapaksha and Brothers Company ruling with unlimited liabilities while enjoying exemptions from all liabilities to the victims of all alleged crimes.

The Strange Math of Corruption

Bharat Dogra

If Rs. 50 crore  ( 500 million)  is allocated for spending on an irrigation project and Rs. 10 crore is snatched up by corruption at various levels, then what is the amount that remains for actual development work?

The most obvious answer would be Rs. 40 crore, but more often than not this is likely to be wrong. The reason is that the powerful persons including key decision makers involved are likely to be so involved in siphoning off the corruption money that the quality of the construction work gets much less importance. As long as the official is getting his money, he may be much less caring for the quality of the work. Regardless of  the proper location of the work, both the contractor and the officials may be interested in pushing it towards a place of less visibility. They are likely to avoid all efforts at improving transparency and participation of people, and thereby the most important way of ensuring good quality and cost effectiveness is avoided. The official may be in a hurry to avoid a completion certificate to the contractor so that both can quickly collect their booty, and for this reason important aspects of proper work completion may be missed. Hence due to all these factors, the actual public loss is much greater than the commission or corruption money taken by the official.

Now let us take another example of a much bigger project that costs Rs. 20000 crore or Rs. 200 billlion. Assuming that corruption of around 20 per cent is also involved here, Rs. 4000 crore will go directly this but will Rs. 16000 crore will be spent for the benefit of people? Very unlikely, as all that was stated earlier is valid here also . Additionally, as in such a case the amounts involved are much bigger and are shared at much higher levels a situation is created by powerful persons that this project must go on, come what may. If it is revealed in studies, or on the basis of the experience of some very well-informed persons, that this project may turn out to be harmful, then this possibility is simply  brushed aside and such voices are silenced in various ways. In this way undesirable and unsafe projects also come up. So in such a case the strange math of corruption may say that Rs. 200 billion minus Rs. 40 billion is not Rs. 160 billion at all; in fact it may even turn out to be a negative figure as the project turns out to be harmful to people. Hence the strange math of corruption may say, for example, that Rs. 160 billion minus Rs. 40 billion ( in the case of such a project) equals minus Rs 100 billion!

Now consider another situation in which most farmers already have access to some irrigation and all that is needed is to allocate the available budget is to divide this equally among all farmers so that they cam take up some repair work as well as water  conservation work on their farmland. But this option has least room for corruption so the official ignores this best option and anyway decides to use the entire budget for a new project not really needed . Again the real benefit may be extreme low or a minus figure.

Or take an example where an official has enough money for improving paths of 100 villages by equally dividing budget among them. But the corruption possibility is either very low , or too many people are involved which may also lead to exposure. So he devotes this entire money to the widening of a big city road which is not really needed. Widening leads to  cutting many big trees which creates opportunities of more earnings for him. Again there may be minus benefit and the village paths remain in bad shape.

Let us take a situation where several schools have satisfactory buildings but there is need for devoting more attention at several levels for improving education. However there is no money to be made in this. So an official somehow finds a justification to build a new hall in all schools which actually reduced the playing space for children, while the real educational work also suffers.

Due to high impact of corruption a situation can arise where those aspects of development which involve payment of commission are prioritized and speeded up, while those very important aspects which have no room for this get neglected.

Progress or War: On Islamophobia and Europe’s Demographic Shifts

Ramzy Baroud

Europe’s identity crisis is not confined to the ceaseless squabbles by Europeans over the EU, Brexit or football. It goes much deeper, reaching sensitive and dangerous territory, including that of culture and religion. Once more, Muslims stand at the heart of the continent’s identity debate.

Of course, anti-Muslim sentiments are rarely framed to appear anti-Muslim. While Europe’s right-wing parties remain committed to the ridiculous notion that Muslims, immigrants and refugees pose a threat to Europe’s overall security and unique secular identities, the left is not entirely immune from such chauvinistic notions.

The right’s political discourse is familiar and is often condemned for its repugnantly ultra-nationalistic, if not outright racist, tone and rhetoric. The left, on the other hand, is a different story. The European left, notably in countries like France and Belgium, frame their ‘problem’ with Islam as fundamental to their supposed dedication to the secular values of the State.

“A problem arises when, in the name of religion, some want to separate themselves from the Republic and therefore not respect its laws,” Macron said during a speech in October 2020.

Leftist politicians and intellectuals were just as eager as the right to prevent Ihsane Haouach, a Belgian government representative, from serving as a commissioner at the Institute for the Equality of Women and Men (IEFH). Again, both sides joined forces, although without an official declaration of unity, to ensure Haouach had no place in the country’s democratic process.

It was a repeat of a similar scenario in France last May when Sara Zemmahi was removed from the ruling party’s candidates list for seemingly violating France’s valeurs de la République – the values of the Republic.

These are but mere examples, and are hardly restricted to French-speaking countries. There are many such disquieting events pointing to a deep-seated problem that remains unresolved. In Britain, Rakhia Ismail, who was celebrated as the country’s first hijab-wearing mayor in May 2019, resigned from her post less than a year and a half later, citing racism and marginalization.

While the Belgian, French, and British media elaborated on these stories as if unique to each specific country, in truth, they are all related. Indeed, they are all the outcome of an overriding phenomenon of anti-Muslim prejudice, coupled with a wave of racism that has plagued Europe for many years, especially in the last decade.

Though Europe’s official institutions, mainstream media, sports clubs and so on, continue to pay lip service to the need for diversity and inclusion, the reality on the ground is entirely different. A recent example was the horrific outcome of England’s defeat in the EURO2020 final against Italy. Gangs of white English, mostly males, attacked people of color, especially black people, whether on the street or online. The extent of cyber-bullying, in particular, targeting dark-skinned athletes is almost unprecedented in the country’s recent history.

Various British officials, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, condemned the widespread racism. Interestingly, many of these officials have said or done very little to combat anti-Muslim hate and violence in the past, which often targeted Muslim women for their head or face covering.

Strikingly, Johnson, purportedly now leading the anti-racist charge, was one of the most disparaging officials who spoke demeaningly of Muslim women in the past. “Muslim women wearing burka look like letter boxes,” he said, according to the BBC.

Of course, Islamophobia must be seen within the larger context of the toxic anti-refugee and anti-immigrant sentiments, now defining factors in shaping modern European politics. It is this hate and racism that served as the fuel for rising political parties like Le Front National in France, Vlaams Belang in Belgium, The Freedom Party in Austria and the Lega in Italy. In fact, there is a whole intellectual discourse, complete with brand new theories that are used to channel yet more hate, violence and racism against immigrants.

And where is the left in all of this? With a few exceptions, much of the left is still trapped in its own intellectual hubris, adding yet more fuel to the fire while veiling their criticism of Islam as if genuine concern for secularism.

Oddly, in Europe, as in much of the West, crosses and Stars of David as necklaces, or the Catholic nuns’ head covering, velo delle suore, let alone the kippahs, the religious tattoos and many other such symbols are all part of Europe’s everyday culture. Why do we never hear of such controversy of a Jewish man being tossed out of a public building because of his kippah or a white French woman being expelled from university for wearing a cross? The matter has less to do with religious symbols, in general, than of the religious symbols of races and peoples who are simply unwanted in Europe.

Also, limiting the discussion to refugees and immigrants may give the impression that the debate is mostly concerned with the non-European ‘others’ who are ‘invading’ Europe’s shores, determined to ‘replace’ Europe’s original, white, Christian inhabitants. This is hardly the case, since a sizable percentage of Belgians and French, for example, are themselves Muslims, estimated at 6 percent and 5% respectively. Namely, these Muslims are European citizens.

Haouach, Zemmahi and Ismail actually wanted to be a part of – not break apart from – these societies by honoring their country’s most cherished political traditions, yet without erasing their own cultural heritage and religious identities in the process. Alas, they were all vehemently rejected, as if Europe has made a collective decision to ensure that Muslims subsist in the margins forever. And when Muslim communities try to fight back, using Europe’s own judicial systems as their supposed saviors, they are, once again, rejected. The latest of such spurns was in June, when Belgium’s constitutional court resolved that prohibiting the wearing of hijab does not constitute a violation of freedom of religion or the right to education.

It is time for European countries to understand that their demographics are fundamentally changing, and that such change can, in fact, be beneficial to the health of these nations. Without true diversity and meaningful inclusion, there can be no real progress in any society, anywhere.

But while demographic shifts can offer an opportunity for growth, it can also inspire fear, racism and, predictably, violence as well.

Europe, which has fought two horrendous wars in the last century, should know better.

Trade unions and Syriza collude in Greek herd immunity policy

John Vasilopoulos

A total of 3,565 new COVID-19 cases were recorded in Greece on Tuesday. This is the highest number of cases recorded this month—surpassing last week’s peak of 3,109—when more than 2,500 new cases were recorded each day. Just under a third of cases occurred in Attica, the country’s most populous region which includes the capital Athens. Cases have been rising exponentially since the beginning of July, with over 26,000 new cases recorded in the first 15 days.

While deaths are relatively low at present, averaging around 10 a day since the beginning of the month, these will also begin to rise, given that there is typically a two to eight week lag between a rise of new cases and an increase in new deaths. According to an analysis of official data published by medical news site iatronet.gr on Monday, daily COVID-19 hospitalisations increased by 247.3 percent since the start of July, while according to the government’s own figures just over 28 percent of COVID-19 beds are currently occupied.

Local residents wait for their second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 outside a vaccination center on the Aegean island of Iraklia, Greece, Thursday, May 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Like in the rest of Europe the rise in cases is a direct result of the homicidal policy of “herd immunity”, with the economy opened up just as the new more contagious and more deadly Delta variant is spreading all over the continent. Speaking to Skai TV July 16, Greek epidemiologist Gkikas Magiorkinis stated that “the Delta variant is currently 60 percent prevalent in Greece and it is unlikely that it won’t become the dominant strain.”

Greece began to gradually lift its restrictions at the start of May even though daily cases were still hitting an average of 2,000. On May 13, to great fanfare, New Democracy Minister for Tourism Haris Theoharis announced to the world in front of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion outside Athens, 'We are opening our tourist industry to the world.' According to the rules unveiled by the government, tourists could travel to Greece from May 14 onwards provided they proof that they had either been vaccinated, recently recovered from the virus, or had a negative test result. The rules were a precursor to the European Union-wide digital vaccine certificate launched at start of this month to facilitate freedom of movement throughout the continent.

Even as the Delta variant was spreading throughout the rest of Europe, and despite less than half of adults over 18 having been fully vaccinated, the government pressed ahead with its plans to open everything up. At the beginning of this month, bars and night clubs were opened while the guest limit for weddings, christenings and other catered events was raised to 300 people.

Like in the rest of Europe and internationally, the government’s response has been to allow the virus to spread unabated to safeguard the profit interests of the ruling elite while presenting the vaccine as a one-stop solution to the pandemic. The chief response by the government to the surge in cases has been to require proof of vaccination or recovery from COVID-19 for people to enter indoor restaurants, bars and cafes. The same applies for bars and nightclubs, which in addition require patrons to be seated.

That the virus can still spread among the vaccinated is highlighted by the case of the island of Mykonos. The total number of active recorded cases quadrupled on Mykonos last week, despite most of its population being vaccinated as part of the government’s drive to vaccinate all adults in the Greek islands by the end of June before the peak of the tourist season.

The digital monitoring checks in place are also reportedly in shambles, with many infected tourists slipping through the cracks. Mykonos’ Deputy Mayor Alexandros Koukas admitted in an interview with state broadcaster ERT that “we were caught slightly off guard.”

According to the latest figures Mykonos now has 365 recorded cases per 100,000 of population, the highest such concentration of cases in the country. Other hotspots are the island of Santorini with 307 cases per 100,000 of population and the island of Paros with 227 cases per 100,000 of population.

Allowing the virus to spread places at risk a large proportion of the population, while raising the possibility of new vaccine-resistant variants developing. But in an interview to Antenna TV on July 16, Development and Investment Minister Adonis Georgiadis made clear that any limit on economic activity is considered a step too far. “If it was winter we would have had a 15 day lockdown. However, we are in the middle of the tourist season and without tourism there is no money while at the same time we could not morally implement [a lockdown] since half of the citizens have been vaccinated.”

“This summer we will live with a virus upsurge,” he declared.

The government is only able to act with impunity because the trade union bureaucracy supports the policy of herd immunity. Private sector trade union confederation GSEE has refused to mobilise its membership of hundreds of thousands to demand the implementation of adequate public health measures to safeguard the population and halt the spread of the virus until enough people have been vaccinated. Instead in a press statement published July 13 it pointlessly called for “information initiatives in order to reach the desired vaccination levels of our fellow citizens in order to achieve the ‘wall of protection’,” as if the majority of the population needed convincing of the necessity of being vaccinated!

No less pernicious a role is played by the pseudo-left parties, with Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left–Progressive Alliance) in mid-April presenting its own proposals for opening-up the economy. Such is the pro-business character of the party that Greek daily Ta Nea recently commented on the absence of the party’s previous left posturing:

“Ordinarily after such a deep crisis in the global economy as a result of the public health measures as well as after such a traumatic experience like that of the pandemic, one would have expected that a supposedly radical left party would have moved to multi-faceted programmatic and ideological counter-attack, speaking of the limits of the market, promoting the centrality of state intervention, underlying the explosion of inequalities, and demanding a radical reorientation of policy. However, Syriza has not moved in this direction. It acquiesced to the core of the pandemic’s handling and has only recently started to differentiate its message.”

Any such “differentiation” is of a purely tactical and face-saving character, as underscored by Syriza’s critique of the government’s plans to re-open the economy in May expressing “concern for the lack of a plan to kick-start the economy and a roadmap from the part of the government.”

Study finds close to 185,000 unrecognized COVID-related deaths in the United States

Benjamin Mateus

A study published in the Lancet last week found that the number of unrecognized COVID-related deaths in the US is an astronomical 185,000.

The scale of death the coronavirus pandemic has wrought in the United States since last year has been unprecedented in its modern history. COVID-19 and the social mayhem the pandemic has perpetuated, with drug overdoses, rising homicides, worsening chronic diseases, has cut down the population’s lifespan by an astounding 1.5 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The last such decline occurred in 1943 at the height of World War II.

However, the actual COVID-19 death toll remains elusive and may take several years to make a thorough accounting. Nonetheless, future pandemic prevention efforts need to know how these deaths occurred. It has been noted that declines in overall life expectancy directly correlate to the population’s well-being and prosperity.

The disruption of social and health services, delayed treatments for chronic diseases, the stress caused by isolation, compounded by the tens of millions of the population infected with COVID-19, have contributed to the grim figure of over 625,000 reported deaths thus far. As the Delta variant continues to spread unchecked, these numbers will continue their upward trajectory.

Recently, a team of experts from the COVID-19 Emergency Response at the US CDC published their findings on the estimate of unrecognized COVID-19 deaths across the country from March 2020 to May 2021, 15 months. They estimated that the total COVID-19 deaths in the US at 766,611, with 184,477 (24 percent) not documented on death certificates.

Figure: Death certificate reported and unrecognized COVID-19 deaths from March 8, 2020, to May 29, 2021. Lancet Study.

The study was published in the Lancet just last week, but there has been barely a whisper in any media outlet. The scale of this death in the US from COVID-19 is unprecedented, placing it even above the death toll from the 1918 Influenza pandemic that killed 675,000 Americans. The silence is deliberate.

Deaths caused by COVID-19 are nationally notifiable in the United States. States and territories utilize the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (NNDSS) to report the number of cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections and deaths to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

As of May 29, 2021, the ending date for data collection in the Lancet study, the CDC COVID Data Tracker had reported 589,526 COVID-19 deaths. On the same date, the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) had aggregated a slightly lower figure of 582,135 COVID-19 deaths, accounting for some lag time with filing death certificates.

Estimates of excess deaths allow assessment of the “burden of mortality potentially related to the COVID-19 pandemic,” either directly from COVID-19 or with the disease as a contributing factor. It is typically calculated by calculating the difference between the observed number of deaths in a specific time and the expected number of deaths for the same period compared to recent historical trends.

However, as the authors of the study note, excess deaths cannot distinguish COVID-19 deaths that were “misclassified” from deaths that occurred because of avoiding emergency care due to fear of accessing health care systems, hospital overcrowding, interruption, and disruption of treatments, or even from a drug overdose, for that matter.

When deaths are reported to the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), a death certificate is issued, providing information on the deceased’s demographics, place and date of death, events leading to the individual’s death from which a single underlying cause of death is selected. If additional contributing factors are deemed pertinent, these may be included if due diligence is taken.

However, to classify these cause-specific deaths based on standardized codes can take several weeks, if not months. Additionally, many COVID-19 related deaths may be underestimated because infected individuals may not have sought medical care. Or when they did, the virus was no longer detectable. Other factors include lack of testing availability or improper specimen collections that may have led to a missed diagnosis of COVID-19 related fatality.

Even if a patient is diagnosed with COVID-19 and is hospitalized, often they linger for weeks before they succumb, leading to an incorrect attribution “to a cause other than COVID-19 because of the time between identification and death.” In many cases, SARS-CoV-2 infections can exacerbate chronic medical conditions or cause massive infections, heart or kidney failure, and the death certificate incorrectly omits COVID-19 as a causative factor. Ultimately what is or is not written on the death certificate is final.

In conducting their study, the authors explained, “To better quantify and estimate the number of excess deaths [due to COVID-19] that were not captured as COVID-19 deaths or unrecognized on death certificates, we developed a regression model, using 2020-2021 all-cause mortality data reported to NVSS and SARS-CoV-2 viral surveillance data for six age groups across 50 states, New York City, and the District of Columbia.”

To estimate “COVID-19-attributable unrecognized deaths” among all the excess deaths that did not have COVID-19 listed as a cause of death, all death certificates that annotated COVID-19 as contributing to or causing death were subtracted from the excess deaths before conducting their regression analysis. This avoids double counting and reducing the potential underestimation.

Their analysis found 184,477 unrecognized deaths between March 8, 2020, and May 29, 2021, a period of almost 15 months, with a range estimate between 172,810 to 196,035 deaths. When these figures are then added back to the COVID-19 deaths reported through death certificates, the authors estimated the actual death toll from COVID-19 through the end of May 2021 at 766,611, with a range of 754,944 to 778,170. In simple terms, more than three-quarters of a million people who did not have to die.

More unrecognized deaths had occurred early in the pandemic. Not surprisingly, April 2020 had the most significant figure with 36,850 deaths (20 percent) when the first wave of infections crashed into the United States, establishing the country as the epicenter of the pandemic for almost an entire year. December 2020 and January 2021 were the next highest, with the devastating winter surge coinciding with the holidays. Also, 151,592 deaths (82 percent) occurred in individuals 65 years and older. Though people over 65 make up only 18 percent of the population, they represent more than 80 percent of all deaths from COVID-19.

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) divides the country into ten regions. Region Four includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and had the most significant number of unrecognized deaths, with just over 44,000 accounting for almost 24 percent of all such deaths. Regions Five and Six secured second and third place, which includes the upper Midwest and South/Southwest. However, the most considerable per capita rate of unrecognized deaths fell on Region Seven, which includes Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska.

The study also analyzed the data according to reported COVID-19 deaths and total COVID-19 attributable deaths, and the reader is encouraged to review these data. What it demonstrates concretely is the massive loss of life that the ruling elite have allowed to befall the population in the hopes of staving off any economic repercussions. The enormous rise in the Wall Street financial indices and the accumulation of obscene wealth in the hands of the financial aristocrats correspond to the misery and death that has befallen the population.

Every means to stave off a human catastrophe from the ravages of the virus exists on a social scale. In no uncertain terms, given the advancement in technology, in medical expertise, in resources, and capacity to distribute them to the population, that the pandemic has been allowed to create the singularly most deadly event in the United States’ modern history is a damning indictment of the capitalist system.

Extreme wildfires along the US West Coast generating their own weather

August Quill

In the wake of the hottest days on record with temperatures reaching far into the triple digits this month, California and the western United States are in the throes of a worsening fire season.

Firefighters battle the Tamarack Fire in the Markleeville community of Alpine County, Calif., on Saturday, July 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Extreme heat throughout the region as well as in western Canada, has sparked a growing wave of wildfires and tens of thousands of evacuations. The National Interagency Fire Center reports that, as of Wednesday, 78 large fires are burning in 13 states and have so far destroyed 1,346,736 acres.

The growing wildfires are just one expression of the intensifying effects of climate change around the world. Many areas of the country and beyond, including in Siberia, are suffering from record heat and raging fires. Meanwhile, historic flooding has overwhelmed Detroit, Michigan and much of Louisiana, displaced more than 1 million people in central China, and washed away entire towns in Southern Germany where the official death toll is approaching 200 and some 700 are still missing.

The Dixie Fire continues to rage north of California’s state capital Sacramento. The fire broke out on July 14, only 10 miles east of the town of Paradise in Butte County, California. Paradise was threatened by the North Complex Fire last year after it had been destroyed during the 2018 Camp Fire only two years prior. The Camp Fire has been called the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, having claimed 153,336 acres, 18,804 buildings and 85 lives, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The Dixie Fire in comparison has scorched 59,984 acres and has led to no loss of life and no major destruction of property at the time of this writing. The formation of a pyrocumulonimbus cloud generating high winds and lightning combined with the fact that the fire is only 15 percent contained is a worrying sign, however. Pyrocumulonimbus clouds are formed when heat forces air to rapidly rise to high altitudes, where any moisture evaporated by the inferno quickly cools and condenses creating thunderstorms.

“It’s very crazy” Cory Mueller, a National Weather Service meteorologist with the Sacramento Region, told CNN. “You don’t want to see lightning strikes coming off a fire—it’s obviously dangerous for anyone fighting the fire, but when you see it, it means you’re likely having very intense fire growth.”

Both the 2018 Camp Fire and the currently raging Dixie Fire are believed to have been caused by the poorly maintained equipment of the Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E). During the containment process in 2018, investigators discovered that above-ground power transmission lines owned by PG&E had been knocked over by high winds causing many of the initial conflagrations. Disaster could have been mitigated or averted entirely had PG&E shut off electricity in grids likely to have downed lines in the wake of high winds, but company policy drafted in the aftermath of a wave of customer complaints over unplanned outages during the 2017 North Bay Fires precluded such action.

The Los Angeles Times noted that regarding the currently blazing Dixie Fire, “Pacific Gas & Electric said its utility equipment may have sparked the fire after an electric worker found two blown fuses and a tree leaning onto a power line conductor in the area near the ignition point of the blaze.” That PG&E was not only allowed to continue operating even after pleading guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in 2019, but was then allowed to cease filing a bankruptcy claim in 2020 in order to qualify for access to a fraction of the 21 billion dollars offered up by the California Wildfire Insurance Fund is beyond criminal in light of the Dixie Fire’s developments.

However, PG&E’s greed-driven neglect of infrastructure maintenance is only partially responsible for California’s much broader trend of wildfires and other extreme weather events, which in the final analysis are brought on and exacerbated by manmade climate change.

Three other large fires raging throughout the state are believed to be the result of naturally occurring lightning strikes: the Lava Fire in Siskiyou County, the Beckwourth Complex Fire in Plumas County and the Tamarack Fire in Alpine County. These fires, which began on June 25, July 3 and July 4 respectively, have consumed a grand total of 170,709 acres and 163 structures and have led to the evacuation of over 70 communities in northern California.

The unusually early start to this year’s fire season, combined with a near statewide drought have made fighting these fires harder than in previous years. Six of the seven firefighters injured this season have been hurt fighting the Lava Fire. Even with 117 Fire Engines, 29 hand crews, 17 helicopters, 24 dozers, 22 water tenders and over 1,420 personnel on scene it has taken Cal Fire over three weeks to reach 77 percent containment of the Lava Fire. The lengthy process is largely due to limited road access and few nearby sources of water.

Without frequent air drops of water, firefighters have had to turn to using hand tools, clearing away dry vegetation and digging firebreaks under backbreaking mountainous conditions in daytime temperatures that have averaged 91 degrees Fahrenheit (33 degrees Celsius) over the past month. Due to the annual nature of the fires—and their intensification in recent years—it is criminal that nothing has been done to establish access to water sources in fire prone areas.

To the north of the Golden State, in Oregon the Bootleg Fire, which has been burning in the Fremont-Winema National Forest since July 6, is the largest fire currently raging in the United States and is the third largest in the state’s history. It has consumed 388,350 acres and destroyed 67 homes along with 117 minor structures and has led to the evacuation of over 2,000 people from their homes in Klamath County. The Bootleg has, like the Dixie Fire, created a pyrocumulonimbus cloud. This is the second consecutive year major pyrocumulonimbus clouds have generated on the North American continent, with the Creek Fire which burned from September through December last year near Shaver Lake, California, having formed one.

In addition to the Dixie and Bootleg, there was an earlier pyrocumulonimbus storm in Canada around the northwestern border between Alberta and British Columbia. A total of 710,117 lightning strikes were observed by the North American Lightning Detection Network in the 15 hours between 3 p.m. June 30 and 6 a.m. July 1, and at least two individuals died when a burning utility pole fell on them as they were taking shelter in a pit near their home in Lytton, British Columbia according to the Vancouver Sun.

Man-made climate change was first theorized in 1896 by the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius. A Canadian steam engineer and amateur climatologist, Guy Stewart Callendar, would go on to expand on Arrhenius’s theories, inadvertently proving in 1938 that the Earth’s average land temperature had risen steadily over the course of the previous five decades. Spurred on by Callendar’s discoveries, another Canadian scientist, Gilbert Plass, developed computer models aimed at exploring how infrared radiation and increased atmospheric carbon dioxide would affect global temperatures before presenting his discoveries to Time in 1953.

In 1959, at a symposium held to commemorate the centennial of the American oil industry by the American Petroleum Institute and the Columbia Graduate School of Business, Edward Teller, whose work as a theoretical physicist on the Manhattan Project made him something of an expert on global catastrophes, shared his concern that the increased greenhouse effect created by the unmitigated use of fossil fuels would lead to the melting of the polar ice caps and subsequent flooding of coastal cities across the country. In short, scientists have been sounding alarm bells for years, alarm bells which the capitalist governments of the world have been unwilling and unable to heed.

More than six decades after Teller gave his speech in New York City, twenty-seven years after the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change went into effect, sixteen years after the Kyoto Protocol expanded on the former, six years after the Paris Climate Agreement was signed to replace its “unfair” predecessor and the only historically significant decline in global pollution was the result, not of a deliberate, rational plan by any government to phase out fossil fuels in favor of clean renewables, but of a pandemic that has claimed millions of lives the world over and temporarily impacted the output of major corporations and global polluters.

Mass abstention in Bulgarian elections

Markus Salzmann

The July 11 parliamentary elections in Bulgaria highlighted the deep political crisis in the eastern European Union state. Slavi Trifonov’s protest party ITN (“There Is Such a People”), which emerged victorious, is supported by fewer than one in 10 eligible voters.

A pedestrian walks by political adds in the Bulgarian city of Kyustendil (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)

This result exemplifies the political situation in Eastern Europe, where the majority of the population harbors deep mistrust of the entire political elite.

Overall voter turnout was only 42 percent. Even in the capital Sofia, not even half of those eligible to vote went to the polls.

In the Kardzhali region turnout was only 28 percent. With 24.1 percent of the ballots, the ITN achieved a razor-thin lead over the right-wing conservative GERB of former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, which received 23.5 percent of the vote.

The Coalition for Bulgaria, an amalgamation of several “left-wing” parties around the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP), lost votes once again, garnering only about 13 percent. Also represented in parliament are the Democratic Party (DB), the Turkish minority Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DSP), and the anti-corruption party ISMV.

This was the second parliamentary election this year. Already in April, voter turnout reached a historic low of 47.5 percent. At that time, Borisov’s GERB came in first by a narrow margin. However, the deeply discredited party was unable to find a coalition partner. The former coalition partner of GERB failed to retain representation in parliament, and other potential partner parties refused to cooperate.

Despite this, Trifonov turned down the mandate to form a government after the April elections. Observers assume he was speculating that his party would emerge strongest from new elections. As a result, President Rumen Radev installed Stefan Yanev as interim prime minister.

The results of the new elections are a slap in the face for Bulgaria’s entire political establishment. Borisov, who had ruled almost continuously for nine years, is hated by a large part of the population, as had already become apparent after the 2017 election.

To achieve a tiny parliamentary majority, GERB entered into a coalition with the fascist United Patriots (OP) party alliance. The alliance included the National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria (NFSB), the Bulgarian National Movement (IMRO), and the far-right party Attack.

For two months last year, thousands of people demonstrated almost daily against the prime minister and the government. They demanded their resignation, new elections and fundamental reforms in the state apparatus.

Borisov, who began his career in the Stalinist BCP, is seen as the embodiment of a system marked by corruption and the intertwining of oligarchy, politics and the state. Although the protests were organized by equally discredited figures, they expressed widespread opposition to the political and social conditions in the country. According to Transparency International, the country has the highest level of bribery in the EU.

In the EU, Borisov was valued as a reliable partner despite his numerous scandals. His party, which openly formed coalitions with fascist forces, remains a member of the European People’s Party (EPP). In European capitals, Borisov was praised primarily for his pro-European orientation and distance from the Kremlin.

The recklessness of his government’s policy was particularly evident in the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus has claimed over 18,100 lives in Bulgaria since the pandemic began. In addition, there have been mass layoffs and a dramatic reduction in wages in many industries.

But like the other parties, Trifonov’s ITN is in no way an alternative to GERB. The 54-year-old Trifonov has been known in Bulgaria for decades as a singer and entertainer. He only recently founded the ITN, in February 2020.

Similar to a number of other prominent and wealthy individuals in other countries, Trifonov has been able to capitalize on anger toward the established parties. Despite touting his hostility toward the “elite,” he is well connected with the country’s political and economic bigwigs.

His understanding of democracy was expressed in a Facebook post he made immediately after the election. Despite a record abstention, he spoke of a “good day for Bulgarian democracy.”

ITN’s election program consists of little more than vague statements against corruption and for greater prosperity. In foreign policy, Trifonov stands for a continuation of the pro-European course and strives for rapid entry into the euro zone, a policy attended by massive social attacks against the population in recent years.

After the election, the ITN initially announced that it would establish a minority government and name a cabinet. This was expressly intended to exclude coalition negotiations with other parties. The planned cabinet of mostly unknown economic and financial experts was to be headed by Nikolay Vassilev. Vassilev was a minister several times between 2001 and 2009 and belonged to the right-wing National Movement for Stability and Progress (NDSV).

In the face of fierce opposition on social media to the announcement that such a discredited politician without any democratic legitimacy would become prime minister, Trifonov withdrew his announcement three days later.

Now ITN wants to enter coalition talks with two unspecified parties, according to an announcement by Vice-Chairman Toshko Yordanov. Negotiations are likely with the DB and the ISMV, which likewise focused its election campaign solely on corruption. ITN representatives have announced that new proposals for a cabinet will be made soon.

Political experts in Sofia assume that attempts to form a government could again fail. “Just like after the April election, I expect a highly fragmented parliament with no single party able to form a cabinet,” said Genoveva Petrova of Alpha Research.

Ruzha Smilova, who teaches political science at Sofia University, expressed a similar view. “Even if ITN were to join forces with the protest parties, they would not have a majority in parliament,” Smilova said. “Trifonov would have to seek support for certain policies from the traditional parties, with which he has so far refused to cooperate.”

To prevent the ruling class from once again cobbling together a right-wing, anti-working class government, workers in Bulgaria and throughout Eastern Europe must draw the lessons from the experience since the restoration of capitalism 30 years ago. It was not socialism that failed then, but Stalinism.