DamianTV
07-13-2012, 04:23 PM
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/13/250659/democracy-nonexistent-in-west/
There is a video version on the link...
American police forces have attacked and brutalized protesting 99-percenters and journalists during a rally near New York City's iconic Zuccotti Park.
Eyewitnesses say officers of the New York Police Department (NYPD) were waiting in ambush for Occupy Wall Street protesters returning from the so-called Occupy Guitarmy 99 Mile March in Philadelphia on Wednesday.
At least two protesters were arrested and a woman was injured during the NYPD crackdown on the peaceful demonstrators.
The march was to have concluded at landmark Zuccotti Park when NYPD officers pounced on demonstrators and independent media reporters.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Giulietto Chiesa, former member of European Parliament, to further talk over the issue. Below is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: We just watched that footage together coming out of New York, just coming in. It seems that more and more of these images are becoming a norm out of Europe, out of the United States. What exactly is happening that we are seeing more and more of a clash between the people in these countries and the establishment?
Chiesa: I believe that the United States like in Europe is at the end of a long period of happiness. It is the end of a social pact. In the United States and in Europe even more, we lived for 50 years in a very good condition and it has created a middle class to a very good level of life, wealth enough, a very high level of consumption and now we are in a completely new situation when all our trend of life is changing.
Press TV: It is over?
Chiesa: Yes, I believe it is finally over. To return to the past idea of growth is absolutely out of any reasonable idea. It is a very simple situation. We have been the dominators of the world for a long time, for two and a half centuries and now it is finished.
Now there is China; there is India, Brazil, Turkey, Iran, Indonesia. They are growing and they are powerful now. Not all of them but China for instance is the biggest dominator of the future; that means in 21st century, it will not be America.
Press TV: OK, so what does that mean? As you just said, you talked about many in the Western countries, for a couple of hundred years and of course in the United States less, but have been dominating the world and had a higher standard of living.
So what does that mean? Are they going to just check this line down and say, ‘OK, China is next; it is their turn’. Are we looking at many clashes between the establishment now and the people and struggles? How do you see the next few years then?
Chiesa: In the next few years, there will be a very big social crisis. It is the beginning of a social crisis. When you have millions of people losing their status, in fact you cannot believe that they will continue to act as before. Many of them had a big confidence in political parties.
Now these parties are losing completely their confidence and people do not know where to watch, who will defend us and I fully understand that. This is happening in Greece, in Italy, in Spain, everywhere, even in Germany.
That means that we have to build a new society. The old society is dying and telling the people of Europe, with 5 million people, that they cannot return to the previous status. It is impossible because we have one billion three hundred million people in China that want to live like us and we are in a finite, limited world who have no resources.
We have to understand for instance that at the beginning of the last century, the population of the world was 1.5 billion; now we are 7 billion and now we are not in a condition to dominate; I mean we, the West, are not in a condition to dominate the rest of the world. We have to divide resources.
Press TV: You said not in a condition and situation to dominate the world. Let’s look at that. If we look at especially to the last 10 to 12 years, let’s say starting at 9/11 and afterwards, we see that continued militarization and even cranking up more. How much did that have an effect on what we are seeing economically? How does that play a role in your perspective?
Chiesa: The question is that the United States is the biggest indebted country in the world and after the United States, there is England. The Anglo-Saxon world is in a condition where it cannot even more pay the debt. Everybody speaks of Greece but Greece is a very little problem, absolutely nothing important.
The big problem is that the West has produced a huge amount of debt; the West is producing debt and this is growing. The first bubble was in 2000; do not forget that in the United States; the second bubble was in 2007; the third bubble was in 2011. Now we are in 2012.
That means you see that there is a shortening of the crisis and it is due to the fact that we are producing a huge amount of debt; that is a huge amount of [loss of money]. The United States financed, in 2010, all the Western banks with 16 trillion dollars in a row of 6 months, why? They are producing money to produce new debt, to produce new verbal richness.
Now the overall growth of national world product is 15/16 times dimension of the real economy. That means we are living in a completely impossible, absurd world.
Press TV: So it is sort of façade right now because of the printing of the dollar and just trying to sustain things. In your perspective as far as the wars and how they have finance and encourage these wars and encourage it everywhere, do you think that that plays a role in any of this economically?
Chiesa: I believe so. Yes, according to my idea, the United States and the West have no solution for this problem. They should change their mentality; they should begin to think [about] the whole world in another way. They are not prepared for that.
They do not want that and that means that they will create a different chaotic situation. It is the war of the modern times and not wars to be won; [these] are wars to create chaos. The best system to compel one billion people in the West is to create fair, fair and war.
On the contrary, people will begin to fight in the streets against the power in the West. This is a new situation. Before, we thought that the enemy was Islam, something coming from outside or China or whatever you want.
Now the enemy is becoming internal. The people will revolt themselves against their powers. This is a new situation. This is a political crisis in the West.
Press TV: With what, as you say that now is a crisis in the West, it seems to be a greater militarization and going towards a police state in a lot of these countries. How do you see that?
Chiesa: There is an evident shortage of democracy. Democracy is finished in the West. Democracy is ceremonial, is a fiction. You can vote one time [every] 4 or 5 year but the power is not there. The power is in the hands of those people, for instance Paul Krugman [who is] named the master of universe.
In Wall Street, they say we are 99 percent. They are wrong. We are much more than 99 percent. They are less than one tenth of the one percent. That means there is a little number of people having in their hands all the power of the Western world. I underline: all the power of the Western world. They are not in any case the power of the world in their hands but they are trying to reconstruct the old situation.
This is a completely absurd situation, very dangerous because if you believe that you can come back to the past, that means that you believe that you can do by force. This is a preparation of the big clash with China. This, I believe, is the real problem.
Press TV: Obviously, there are people in all these countries who we would hope are specializing in economics and political affairs. Why aren’t they trying to push a different agenda instead of what we see this militaristic by force governments in all these countries? Why do we not see more of a transitioning to a different way if they realize that this is the end? So why aren’t we seeing a change in policy?
Chiesa: I understand you but I take a little example. For now the dollar is dominating the world, it continues to dominate. The American [empire] is finished. Dollar is the main money for all the world, OK? If they had to recognize the new situation, they should sit around the table with the Chinese, with the Japanese, with the Europeans.
The new money of the world will not be dollar but something of a package of different money: there will be Dollar, Yuan, Yen or Ruble maybe. But this means that the United States will officially lose the status of the only one power and this requires a completely new mentality, a completely new idea of the power.
They have to recognize that they have to discuss with the others and to distribute resources. I do not see, frankly speaking, in the political elite of the United States no one man able to understand this question and frankly speaking, I do not see even in Europe any political leader able to understand.
Press TV: But if they are losing the power anyway, if the power is waning, as you say, democracy really no longer exists and we see that every day people are taking to the streets and banks are closing and so many different economic problems. So it is like sometimes you have to deal with the reality to make, at least the reality a little bit better than if you don’t deal with it. So why haven’t they got into that point yet?
Chiesa: OK, but put yourself in the place of people who have a huge military power, a huge military power. The United States is so strong that they believe they can win any confrontation and the idea to resolve all this problem with war will be the most simple for them.
The simple way to go out is to make war and they believe that they will survive. I believe they will not survive. Now we are speaking only about a part of the crisis that is the financial crisis but we have energetic crisis; we have climate change, a huge amount of problem they will create.
We are building huge armies while the situation of the world is changing radically. In one word, I believe that the political elite of the West is not prepared for that and this is the biggest danger for our life.
Press TV: What, in your perspective, should people then be doing?
Chiesa: I believe that there are new generations of people who will not accept the situation. They will fight; they will fight as in Wall Street without any leadership; they are improvising; like in Egypt that they were improvising at the very beginning.
Everywhere, in Europe also, the Indignados in Spain; in Italy, there are big movements against the debt and the payment of the debt and so on, everywhere. I believe that we are in a transitional phase. Now there are no political parties able to gather these forces but the forces are existing and they are very strong and I believe that the most realistic way to prepare ourselves is to organize at this moment to be able to understand the new situation
Press TV: You said that we are in a transition; what are we transitioning towards?
Chiesa: We are to transit to another society. This society is absolutely unsustainable. It is not only political question; it is a physical question; it is a biological question. We are living in a finite and limited world, I would say. That means we have a social system which is growing.
If we have a definite system with a definite quantity of resources, we cannot survive in our limited growth. We are in the turning point of the history. This is the first time in the history of mankind and we cannot continue to live this way. You ask where we are transiting; where we are going. We are facing a phase of two or three decades of a very big trouble and I believe that this requires a growth of consciousness of the people.
For that reason, I am very glad that these young people fight because it is the beginning of a new thinking. Now we have not yet any idea of the future but the new society cannot be founded on competition. The new society can be found only about around solidarity, around comprehension, around tolerance. If we do not go there, we will not survive.
When they say Democracy, I assume they mean the Liberties and Freedoms afforded to us by a Republic form of Government.
There is a video version on the link...
American police forces have attacked and brutalized protesting 99-percenters and journalists during a rally near New York City's iconic Zuccotti Park.
Eyewitnesses say officers of the New York Police Department (NYPD) were waiting in ambush for Occupy Wall Street protesters returning from the so-called Occupy Guitarmy 99 Mile March in Philadelphia on Wednesday.
At least two protesters were arrested and a woman was injured during the NYPD crackdown on the peaceful demonstrators.
The march was to have concluded at landmark Zuccotti Park when NYPD officers pounced on demonstrators and independent media reporters.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Giulietto Chiesa, former member of European Parliament, to further talk over the issue. Below is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: We just watched that footage together coming out of New York, just coming in. It seems that more and more of these images are becoming a norm out of Europe, out of the United States. What exactly is happening that we are seeing more and more of a clash between the people in these countries and the establishment?
Chiesa: I believe that the United States like in Europe is at the end of a long period of happiness. It is the end of a social pact. In the United States and in Europe even more, we lived for 50 years in a very good condition and it has created a middle class to a very good level of life, wealth enough, a very high level of consumption and now we are in a completely new situation when all our trend of life is changing.
Press TV: It is over?
Chiesa: Yes, I believe it is finally over. To return to the past idea of growth is absolutely out of any reasonable idea. It is a very simple situation. We have been the dominators of the world for a long time, for two and a half centuries and now it is finished.
Now there is China; there is India, Brazil, Turkey, Iran, Indonesia. They are growing and they are powerful now. Not all of them but China for instance is the biggest dominator of the future; that means in 21st century, it will not be America.
Press TV: OK, so what does that mean? As you just said, you talked about many in the Western countries, for a couple of hundred years and of course in the United States less, but have been dominating the world and had a higher standard of living.
So what does that mean? Are they going to just check this line down and say, ‘OK, China is next; it is their turn’. Are we looking at many clashes between the establishment now and the people and struggles? How do you see the next few years then?
Chiesa: In the next few years, there will be a very big social crisis. It is the beginning of a social crisis. When you have millions of people losing their status, in fact you cannot believe that they will continue to act as before. Many of them had a big confidence in political parties.
Now these parties are losing completely their confidence and people do not know where to watch, who will defend us and I fully understand that. This is happening in Greece, in Italy, in Spain, everywhere, even in Germany.
That means that we have to build a new society. The old society is dying and telling the people of Europe, with 5 million people, that they cannot return to the previous status. It is impossible because we have one billion three hundred million people in China that want to live like us and we are in a finite, limited world who have no resources.
We have to understand for instance that at the beginning of the last century, the population of the world was 1.5 billion; now we are 7 billion and now we are not in a condition to dominate; I mean we, the West, are not in a condition to dominate the rest of the world. We have to divide resources.
Press TV: You said not in a condition and situation to dominate the world. Let’s look at that. If we look at especially to the last 10 to 12 years, let’s say starting at 9/11 and afterwards, we see that continued militarization and even cranking up more. How much did that have an effect on what we are seeing economically? How does that play a role in your perspective?
Chiesa: The question is that the United States is the biggest indebted country in the world and after the United States, there is England. The Anglo-Saxon world is in a condition where it cannot even more pay the debt. Everybody speaks of Greece but Greece is a very little problem, absolutely nothing important.
The big problem is that the West has produced a huge amount of debt; the West is producing debt and this is growing. The first bubble was in 2000; do not forget that in the United States; the second bubble was in 2007; the third bubble was in 2011. Now we are in 2012.
That means you see that there is a shortening of the crisis and it is due to the fact that we are producing a huge amount of debt; that is a huge amount of [loss of money]. The United States financed, in 2010, all the Western banks with 16 trillion dollars in a row of 6 months, why? They are producing money to produce new debt, to produce new verbal richness.
Now the overall growth of national world product is 15/16 times dimension of the real economy. That means we are living in a completely impossible, absurd world.
Press TV: So it is sort of façade right now because of the printing of the dollar and just trying to sustain things. In your perspective as far as the wars and how they have finance and encourage these wars and encourage it everywhere, do you think that that plays a role in any of this economically?
Chiesa: I believe so. Yes, according to my idea, the United States and the West have no solution for this problem. They should change their mentality; they should begin to think [about] the whole world in another way. They are not prepared for that.
They do not want that and that means that they will create a different chaotic situation. It is the war of the modern times and not wars to be won; [these] are wars to create chaos. The best system to compel one billion people in the West is to create fair, fair and war.
On the contrary, people will begin to fight in the streets against the power in the West. This is a new situation. Before, we thought that the enemy was Islam, something coming from outside or China or whatever you want.
Now the enemy is becoming internal. The people will revolt themselves against their powers. This is a new situation. This is a political crisis in the West.
Press TV: With what, as you say that now is a crisis in the West, it seems to be a greater militarization and going towards a police state in a lot of these countries. How do you see that?
Chiesa: There is an evident shortage of democracy. Democracy is finished in the West. Democracy is ceremonial, is a fiction. You can vote one time [every] 4 or 5 year but the power is not there. The power is in the hands of those people, for instance Paul Krugman [who is] named the master of universe.
In Wall Street, they say we are 99 percent. They are wrong. We are much more than 99 percent. They are less than one tenth of the one percent. That means there is a little number of people having in their hands all the power of the Western world. I underline: all the power of the Western world. They are not in any case the power of the world in their hands but they are trying to reconstruct the old situation.
This is a completely absurd situation, very dangerous because if you believe that you can come back to the past, that means that you believe that you can do by force. This is a preparation of the big clash with China. This, I believe, is the real problem.
Press TV: Obviously, there are people in all these countries who we would hope are specializing in economics and political affairs. Why aren’t they trying to push a different agenda instead of what we see this militaristic by force governments in all these countries? Why do we not see more of a transitioning to a different way if they realize that this is the end? So why aren’t we seeing a change in policy?
Chiesa: I understand you but I take a little example. For now the dollar is dominating the world, it continues to dominate. The American [empire] is finished. Dollar is the main money for all the world, OK? If they had to recognize the new situation, they should sit around the table with the Chinese, with the Japanese, with the Europeans.
The new money of the world will not be dollar but something of a package of different money: there will be Dollar, Yuan, Yen or Ruble maybe. But this means that the United States will officially lose the status of the only one power and this requires a completely new mentality, a completely new idea of the power.
They have to recognize that they have to discuss with the others and to distribute resources. I do not see, frankly speaking, in the political elite of the United States no one man able to understand this question and frankly speaking, I do not see even in Europe any political leader able to understand.
Press TV: But if they are losing the power anyway, if the power is waning, as you say, democracy really no longer exists and we see that every day people are taking to the streets and banks are closing and so many different economic problems. So it is like sometimes you have to deal with the reality to make, at least the reality a little bit better than if you don’t deal with it. So why haven’t they got into that point yet?
Chiesa: OK, but put yourself in the place of people who have a huge military power, a huge military power. The United States is so strong that they believe they can win any confrontation and the idea to resolve all this problem with war will be the most simple for them.
The simple way to go out is to make war and they believe that they will survive. I believe they will not survive. Now we are speaking only about a part of the crisis that is the financial crisis but we have energetic crisis; we have climate change, a huge amount of problem they will create.
We are building huge armies while the situation of the world is changing radically. In one word, I believe that the political elite of the West is not prepared for that and this is the biggest danger for our life.
Press TV: What, in your perspective, should people then be doing?
Chiesa: I believe that there are new generations of people who will not accept the situation. They will fight; they will fight as in Wall Street without any leadership; they are improvising; like in Egypt that they were improvising at the very beginning.
Everywhere, in Europe also, the Indignados in Spain; in Italy, there are big movements against the debt and the payment of the debt and so on, everywhere. I believe that we are in a transitional phase. Now there are no political parties able to gather these forces but the forces are existing and they are very strong and I believe that the most realistic way to prepare ourselves is to organize at this moment to be able to understand the new situation
Press TV: You said that we are in a transition; what are we transitioning towards?
Chiesa: We are to transit to another society. This society is absolutely unsustainable. It is not only political question; it is a physical question; it is a biological question. We are living in a finite and limited world, I would say. That means we have a social system which is growing.
If we have a definite system with a definite quantity of resources, we cannot survive in our limited growth. We are in the turning point of the history. This is the first time in the history of mankind and we cannot continue to live this way. You ask where we are transiting; where we are going. We are facing a phase of two or three decades of a very big trouble and I believe that this requires a growth of consciousness of the people.
For that reason, I am very glad that these young people fight because it is the beginning of a new thinking. Now we have not yet any idea of the future but the new society cannot be founded on competition. The new society can be found only about around solidarity, around comprehension, around tolerance. If we do not go there, we will not survive.
When they say Democracy, I assume they mean the Liberties and Freedoms afforded to us by a Republic form of Government.