The Futility and Fibbing in Munich

by Vaska

In only a couple of days hence, the political elite of the G8 group minus Russia will start their meeting in Munich, judged meaningless by 30% of the German population in advance of the event which will cost them $130 million euros and entail the engagement of 19,000 German police to secure the venue and keep German and international civil-society protesters – i.e. members of the electorate itself, political commoners like you and me – from getting anywhere near the politicians.

In a lead-up to what is now a G7 meeting once again, the Sunday edition of the Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung carried yesterday an item which essentially echoes the profound skepticism of the German electorate, calls into question the viability of any international forum from which Russia is absent, but also repeats as meaningful the wistful hope that, this time, Angela Merkel will get from the Obama administration the promise to respect the laws of the land on German own territory and end NSA surveillance of German citizens. Given the well-known record of broken U.S. promises to countries around the globe – including promises given to a nuclear power such as Russia itself – why the Swiss newspaper or any citizen of Germany would view an American expression of commitment to Angela Merkel as any more reliable and trustworthy than the other false promises Washington is by now notorious for must remain something of a mystery.

In a tediously obligatory deference to the “most powerful woman in the world,” as the Neue Zürcher Zeitung author reminds us Merkel has been named several times since first assuming the position of Chancellor, the Swiss paper dutifully echoes her finger-wagging admonitions at Putin and Russia, whom she has once again accused of annexing Crimea and violating international law in what Merkel, the obedient servant of Washington, makes sure to call a “crime” every now and again.

The current US+EU political elites (the generation of not only Merkel herself but also that of politicians younger than her set of European and North American “leaders”) — and their subservient media and journalists – are now at such a disconnect from reality, so cocooned inside their world of privilege, self-serving deceptions, fabrications and fantasies, that Angela Merkel quite possibly feels a pleasant thrill of self-righteousness as she repeatedly honks out the standard-NATO-propaganda-line about the “annexation of Crimea” and a “crime” whose exact nature and extent is helping Crimeans NOT be overrun by Kiev Nazis and letting them, in a transparent plebiscite process overseen by delegates from some 26 other countries around the world, including a number brave and independent-minded EU MPs, decide exactly which political arrangement they want.

That apart, what strikes me on reviewing the MSM reporting on these G7/G8 meetings is

[1] the conspicuous absence of any calls for India (whose GDP of $4.72 trillion is ranked 3rd in the world and is 3 times more than Italy’s, at $1.81 trillion) and China, set to surpass the U.S.A. as the leading economic giant of the day, to be included among the world’s most advanced economies; and

[2] the absence of any (let alone a sustained) critique of the very existence of such groups, a political phenomenon that clearly constitutes a continuation of a colonial, elitist and imperialist mind-set and just as obviously undermines the United Nations as the world’s main forum on matters of international concern.

That our mass media and journalists remain essentially silent on these two points – blatantly obvious and undeniable though they are – tells us how far we are from having a press that functions in the service of democracy, international peace, and the public good.

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