In this issue:

'Power of Nightmares': Brits Discover Role of Straussians

LYM Saxony Intervention Reflected in Opening of Parliament

GM-Opel Strikes May Spark Volkswagen Protests

'Shock Therapy' Being Prepared for France

EC Promotes 'Liberalization' of Water Supply

From Volume 3, Issue Number 43 of EIR Online, Published Oct. 26, 2004

Western European News Digest

'Power of Nightmares': Brits Discover Role of Straussians

The Oct. 15 London Guardian ran a preview of a three-part TV documentary, "The Power of Nightmares—The Rise of Politics of Fear," which began to air on Oct. 20. The series presents a detailed analysis of all the terror hype issued by the Blair government, since that November 2002 announcement by Home Secretary Blunkett that "terrorists" were threatening London with a "dirty nuclear bomb."

According to the preview, the documentary dissects the myth of al-Qaeda as an allegedly tightly organized international terror network with a clear common structure, disclosing it as total fantasy, not corresponding to reality.

The documentary also looks at the 664 "terrorist suspects" arrested in Britain after Sept. 11, 2001, showing that only 17 of them have proven to be involved in acts of terrorism, with two-thirds of these being members of the IRA and Sikh terrorist groups, and among the few Arabs arrested, there is not even one with a proven relationship to al-Qaeda.

Producer Adam Curtis told the Guardian that the more he researched the issue, the more he began to understand that the "politics of fear" goes back to ideology, namely to University of Chicago Prof. Leo Strauss, who wrote that the use of myths (what the Straussians call the "noble lie") is a decisive instrument of politics. Strauss does have disciples, like Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and there is a whole network of Straussians who played a decisive role during the Cold War period, Curtis said. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Straussians made their former allies, the Islamic fighters in the anti-Soviet Afghanistan war, their new "arch-enemy," and today, the Straussians are more influential than ever before, if one looks at the more recent evolution of this network, which has existed for 50 years.

Lyndon LaRouche's political movement, through publications like EIR, was the first to expose the role of the Straussians in shaping the policies of the current Bush Administration.

LYM Saxony Intervention Reflected in Opening of Parliament

The president of the Saxon State Parliament, 71-year-old Social Democrat Cornelius Weiss, began his speech to the Parliamentary session Oct. 19, with a quote from the Classic German poem "Thoughts are free" ("Die Gedanken sind frei"). He said that "Thoughts are free.... The free mind is stronger than all the anti-democrats." This was aimed against the 12 members of the right-wing radical NPD in the newly elected parliament of this eastern German state.

As Weiss spoke, the LaRouche Youth Movement, taking part in the anti-NPD protest rally outside the Parliament building, sang the very same poem in its musical version, which was prominently performed in the recently ended Saxon election campaign.

A very direct reflection of the impact of the LYM/BueSo (the Civil Rights Solidarity Movement party, led by Helga Zepp LaRouche) can be seen in Zwickau, where the local television station on its news program is running a film clip showing posters and scenes from the BueSo Saxony campaign, with the commentary that "the BueSo keeps continuing the Monday rallies"—initiated by the BueSo in July, and spreading to include hundreds of thousands of demonstrators across Germany and beyond.

GM-Opel Strikes May Spark Volkswagen Protests

Inspired by the GM-Opel workers in Bochum, Germany, Volkswagen workers may stage strikes soon. The ongoing talks between VW management and its labor union on a plan for brutal cost-cutting by 30% by 2011, and cuts in the range of 2 billion euros between now and 2011, are likely to fail.

The impact of the Opel strike on Volkswagen workers, who also had delegations taking part in the Bochum rally on Oct. 19, is that there is a certain red line that must not be crossed, in the talks. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the talks will fail on Oct. 28, which implies that warning strikes can start right away, and preparations for a strike vote can be made. Nor can it be ruled out that VW workers will stage wildcat strikes, following the Bochum example.

Volkswagen, the biggest car-maker in Europe, has six plants in Germany, with 103,000 workers. In recent months, the company has cancelled numerous contracts with supply firms, to drive down the prices for parts produced, as part of its plan to cut expenses by 2 billion euros over the next seven years.

In this context, it is also reported that a delegation of 35 Porsche workers who went to Bochum by bus for the rally Oct. 19, were remoralized for coming fights in defense of jobs and pay. The experience gained in the seven-day wildcat Bochum strike is "of immeasurable value," one of the Porsche workers is quoted as saying. Porsche managers have also announced cuts.

'Shock Therapy' Being Prepared for France

Several months ago, Nicolas Sarkozy, the newly named French Economics and Finance Minister, created a commission to determine the state of the French economy, and after naming former IMF head Michel Camdessus to lead it, gave him 100 days to issue a report. The report, just released, and excerpted in the French press, is a rehash of the demands made by IMF chief Rodrigo Rato, when he was in France in early July, to impose drastic austerity: that France has to get more people working, but at a lower minimum wage. Camdessus's report states that if things continue in the present direction, the French economy will decline to a growth level of 1.75 by the year 2015.

Camdessus does identify one of the main problems of the French economy, but without stating that this problem is the result of 30 years of neo-liberalism. The working part of the population has dwindled over the last 30 years—youth unemployment is 24%, and the unemployment of those age 50-60 is 36%!

In terms of financial policy, Camdessus proposes that budget surpluses be used for reducing national debt, and that the level of state spending be brought down from the present 56.3% to under 50%. State administrations must be reduced, by replacing only one out of two persons retiring. Among the possible savings proposed by this supranational bureaucrat, is that of "reducing the number of (administrative) echelons between the European Union and the communal level, starting by (eliminating) the state services!" The document also calls for reorienting toward an "economy of knowledge," with research and development at the center. Camdessus proposes privatization of higher learning, something unknown in France till now.

Finally, the document proposes an "internal stability pact," modelled on Europe's stability pact where "local communities and social organisms would collaborate, with Brussels, towards the financial stability pact." So far, three of the four main unions have rejected those policies strongly. The parts of the report which propose harsher sanctions against the unemployed have been inspired by a report authored by a certain Thierry Marimbert, who was inspired by Germany's Hartz IV austerity program.

EC Promotes 'Liberalization' of Water Supply

At the annual gathering of the German association of gas and water suppliers (BGW) in Berlin, a representative of the European Commission (EC), Alexander Gee, announced that the EC will soon issue a new report that will demand a further liberalization (i.e., privatization) of the European water supply, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported Oct. 9. One of the topics is to declare long-term contracts between industrial corporations and water suppliers illegal! Even more outrageous is the plan by the European Commission to force every municipality to compete for trade licenses for its water supply and waste water management. Such licenses would be handed out following open bids in which the municipality would no longer be allowed to prefer a public supplier firm.

Peter Rebohle, vice president of BGW, flatly rejected the new efforts by the EC as an expression of "liberalization fetishism."

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