Clare Daly on “the European Chips Act” The bravado about the vibrant European industry, the Chips Act actually is just another example of Europe’s scrambling to respond to unilateral US moves to protect its interests – something the US always does with zero care for the consequences of anybody else.
And the irony, of course, is that of all of those US-dominated multilateral institutions – the WTO, the World Bank and so on – is that even dominance is not enough for them. They want everybody else to submit their rules while they do whatever they like, thanks very much. It’s their world and we’re just lucky to live in it. That’s the rules-based international order.
They break the rules, and what are we going to do about it? Well, in Europe’s case, we don’t even pretend to try and do anything about it anymore. We sheepishly submit to ‘his master’s voice’, lob a few billion subsidies at European capitalists to keep them quiet, and hope that the public money does not run out before the US ends and stops its mad quest to shove China into a box and lock it there. Because that is not going to happen.
And it’s about time Europe got itself out from under the coat-tails of our misnamed like-minded partner. Clare Daly on “the political disqualifications in Venezuela” Why is it that every irregularity in Venezuela, real or imagined, gets a debate and a resolution in here? But when the same thing actually happens in other countries, it barely registers. Two weeks ago, there was an election in Guatemala. The government had been shutting down newspapers, forcing judges into exile.
Our own EU observation mission documented that opposition parties were arbitrarily blocked, bogus legal challenges from registering candidates limiting the field. Despite all of that, the people went to the polls and shock horror: they made sure that a social democrat got to the second round. So what happened? The old parties run to the supreme court, shout about anomalies, anomalies they didn’t happen to see on election day.
This is a blatant derailment of an electoral process in a country with a long and bloody history of same. Why is it not on our agenda? Do the Guatemalans matter less than the Venezuelans? Or is the real agenda here, as in Venezuela, protecting all money and vested interests? I condemn the attacks on Guatemalan democracy. The next round on 20 August better proceed.