2013 - The big issues

The huge issue this year is in the area of international politics, the gem in the geo-political crown and one focal point which involves east and west, the Middle East, the Arab World and a new terrifying vector in international relations: NATO's use of terrorists as policymakers. In a year dominated by Mars, astrologists would forecast Armageddon.

Those who follow astrology and make prophecies based upon it would remind us of the qualities of Mars, the planet that dominates 2013: war, storms, drought, floods. Death - Mars is the enemy of peace. Those of us who follow astrology to the point of using it as an ice-breaker would not deny that in some cases, they get it right.

And in 2013, there is a hangover from 2012 threatening to blow up in our faces and create all the problems foreseen by the astrologers and broadcast by the astrologists. In a word, Syria.

Syria, the line in the sand

Syria, where the West got it wrong, where the FUKUS Axis (France, UK, US) once again got themselves involved with terrorists playing the same old moral high ground card about a dictator murdering his people (who is murdering his security services in their thousands? The government?) and the same hypocritical nonsense about freedom and democracy and so on.

Syria is all about an act of intrusion by FUKUS Axis powers who got themselves involved as soon as possible when they sensed incipient political unrest among certain sectors of Syrian society at a time when over seventy per cent of the people were fully in favour of President Assad and before the FUKUS Axis had launched hordes of terrorists into the fray, arming and training them and then unleashing them on Syrian society.

As the monster got out of control, the conflict became more bloody and as the west got more and more desperate, their terrorists became more and more violent, with western special forces active inside Syria working with the demonic scourge they have created. The result is that most of Syrian society is most certainly against the FSA.

But Syria is a line in the sand and a line that must not be crossed. A political settlement is the only way forward and this is as usual the stance of Moscow, while the FUKUS Axis' modus operandi is once again violence, terrorism and subversion. We saw it in Kosovo, we saw it in Iraq, we saw it in Libya and we are seeing it in Syria.

Syria is the big issue because a stable Syria following a political roadmap drawn up by Syrians for Syrians, and respecting and understanding this country's five-thousand-year-old culture, means a stable Middle East, it means a firm counterweight to the more sinister forces operating in Israel against the Two-State Solution and it means stability in an area of the world where massive natural resources are concentrated. And let us be honest, that is the question in a nutshell for the FUKUS Axis, is it not?

European Union or European Trading Association?

Another big issue for 2013 is the continuity of the European Union as it is and here, the Euro-skeptical United Kingdom has a word to say, its stance being the focal point around which the hearts and minds of the European people gather. And where the European people are at, is a very different place from the one their Euro-representatives inhabit, namely a cloud cuckoo land imposed top-down, in an exercise of anti-democratic policymaking going wholly against the will of the people.

Nobody asked for this Federal monster hastily stitched together by those who are desperate to create jobs for the boys and girls, sons and daughters, while everyone wants to do a fast rewind back before Lisbon, before Nice and before Maastricht. The Europeans want a loose, trading agreement in which countries are free to trade among themselves with a minimum of tariffs. Period. For once, the right wing of David Cameron's Conservative Party strikes a chord with Europe and for his own good he had better listen to it otherwise the political scenario in the UK will veer to the right, into the hands of UKIP, now the third force in British politics. If that happens, David Cameron will have done for the Tories what Nick Clegg appears to have done for the Liberal Democrats. What was that song about the Grand Old Duke of York?

BRIC and CSTO v. NATO and the FUKUS Axis

On a wider front, the success of the BRIC group into forming closer relations forming an organism rivalling the G8, bringing in nations with a similar political attitude (respect for debate, dialogue and discussion, the fundamentals of democracy, which are apparently not the foundations upon which the NATO bloc is based as we see by the behaviour of the FUKUS Axis) and the success of the CSTO into forming a powerful military alliance with bite, involving all of Central Asia, will create a counter-weight to the said Axis and put a stop to the neo-imperialistic warmongering of countries with a very dubious past and an even more dubious present.

Sensible financial policy v. social terrorism

The reaction to the economic and financial crisis of 2008/9, after all yet another of the endemic faults built into the monetarist-corporatist economic system which market-based capitalism soon morphed into, destroying the social model, destroying the welfare state and creating all the ills we see today, was in the west staggeringly and utterly idiotic. Instead of pumping money into the economies, already held down in many cases by wonderful European Union "convergence" measures, the western governments restricted the supply, imposing taxes, ceasing to lend, freezing salaries, cutting benefits and sending societies back into the dark ages before the social develop movements created our modern societies.

In one fell swoop, workers' rights were virtually destroyed. People now have to work longer, receive less money, see their timetables stretched, have less public services in return for their taxation contributions, it is easier to hire a worker with a temporary contract and easier to fire a worker without due cause.

When it comes to bailing out a bank, the governments collectively find trillions within a few hours of discussion. When it comes to providing services and guiding a society through a crisis, they say they do not have the funds. That works well, when public finances are virtually kept a secret and in-depth knowledge as to how things work is very difficult to find.

Basically, they got the model wrong, the checks and balances they desperately try to introduce into it do not work either and all the while the corporatist monsters were sweeping away the traders on the street corner who were the mainstay of the market-oriented capitalist system. The result is that these monsters have grown more powerful at the expense of these traders - the middle class - which has yet again disappeared. The result is social terrorism. The model does not provide enough jobs, it does not finance people to create them, it has turned higher education into a farcical financial scam (you pay, and therefore you get the degree) and its answer to its failures is to say "we're all in the same bed". Of whose making?

The analogy is a society which pays to see the clowns in the circus. Due to the incompetence of those who put up the tent, it collapses. Then they have to pay to get out.

The notion that there is no other way out is absurd. A one-per-cent tax on financial transactions would provide massive resources and, some say, would exonerate everyone from paying any additional taxes at all. The notion that you raise more money by raising tax brackets is equally nonsensical because doing so, you create the conditions for a parallel economy to appear, especially when you are reducing public services people are paying for. You want a consultation? With a receipt it is X+1; without, it is X-1. The difference, the fiscal authorities lose through their own ineptitude.

In fact, a "technically stupid" idea such as having one taxation bracket - 20 per cent - applying the 80/20 rule to society, in which people get used to the fact that they pay one fifth of what they earn to the kitty and keep four fifths for themselves, may just raise more revenue than the systems they are applying today.

The USA

If the USA is a major player on the world stage, then congratulations to generations of Americans and of course, the country is big enough to make a difference. It is, however, in free-fall. The point in being in economic free-fall is not that it hurts when you are falling but rather, when you reach the bottom of the pit.

And what is happening today is that both members of the political party divide are frantically digging the bottom deeper before the pit hits the fan. However, with every yard it falls, the nearer to the bottom it is. Printing money is a temporary measure to alleviate the symptoms but not to treat the cause.

The answer for the United States of America may be a very deep reflection as to what and where the country is and as to whether the current political model is the adequate one for the type of nation the USA has developed into. Most European countries had this reflection during their development, some of which were unfortunately violent.

Maybe the two-party system in the USA engenders more irresponsibility than responsibility, something the country needs to get its budget in order and let's be honest: what right does a country with enormous internal economic issues have to dictate to others how to behave?

Inclusion and development v. exclusion and deployment

In conclusion, we need an inclusive world which respects cultural differences, one in which if we want to make a difference and change things, we allow the change to come from within through non-intrusive development programmes, not deployment of terrorists, killing people, raping women and destroying peaceful communities.

We need societies in which all members are players, whatever their race, colour, creed or sexuality and we need to start implementing the round-table approach in our societies and our companies, where again, all players communicate their needs eye-to-eye and short-, medium- and long-term strategies can be formulated.

We need a multi-polar world to counter the greed of the corporations that today control the FUKUS Axis and if Mars, the war planet, is the one that wants to dominate 2013 then let us collectively shut him out and let in Venus, the planet of love.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru