Is this white enough for you?

While much can happen in a year, politics still seems to have moved at snail pace in The Netherlands between 2014 and 2015.

More than a year ago, yet fresh as yesterday, the anti-Islamic PVV leader on municipal election night incited his extreme right followers to chant live on t.v. their hate speech of  'No more Moroccans, no more Moroccans!' Drawing too much resemblance to 1940's Hitler's famous salute, it drew much disgust from society and Dutch politicians, plus raised eyebrows from some European Parliament officials who questioned the Dutch loyalty to peace in Europe. Justifiably, hundreds of police reports were filed, for countless young Moroccan children of immigrant parents were frightened, like Jews, imagining sudden deportation for no apparent reason other than being their ethnic selves. The initial judgement was that once again, a criminal investigation would follow Wilders, to determine where exactly the boundary of freedom of speech lies. (update) Since the verdict, the leader continually treads thin ice when using uneducated speech to point fingers at his colleagues but he has tamed his  stirring fanatic crowds into racial frenzy, cooling his incitement to hate antics. Probably also due to political pressure, as when PVV won seats for the European Parliament election, other EU right wing parties, including even Nigel Farage's British UKIP, refused to form a coalition in the EP with PVV.

But has this done anything to help European left wing politics? Seemingly not, as the recent British election results demonstrate. Even though British polls suggested a neck to neck race between Labour and Conservatives, Cameron flew to to an overwhelming majority in Parliamentary elections. Not only was Labour badly hurt by the rise of the Scottish National Party, but the poll forecast had been dismally incorrect.  Although I dislike the overall British election outcome, I think Cameron did well by previously allowing Scotland to vote for their independence, (or not). The Scottish have now made themselves a force to reckoned. Yet another new party to rise in fame leaving Labour stranded with casualties.  

Labour fared badly in the Dutch municipal and Senate elections too. Polls continue to show decimation of the party, with the electoral discontent blaming the current coalition with right wing Liberal VVD. Thus, despite government's move to bail out banks and cut on benefits this has not lead to mass left wing swings to the SP Social party. In fact in Britain and the Netherlands austerity seems to have had the opposite effect. The far right wing is stronger than ever and the left are left moping on the sideline. Where the left had made progress, for instance, France's socialist wing under Hollande, it made him more unpopular than ever. It's as if politicians generally, reach the top of the roller-coaster at election time and descend soon after. Especially the left wing who are detrimentally splintered amongst themselves while the right wing flies in tidy flocks, according to tune. It's not doing much to put an end to foodbanks though and discrimination against minorities is on the rise. It's as if we're going backward in time.

Perhaps January's 2015 events in Paris have been influential. The Charlie Hebdo slaughter was another horrific event in the political landscape. One is left wondering whether the pen really is mightier than the sword or whether the pen is only mighty because it has a sword to stir. Once more, the boundary of freedom of speech needs to be questioned.  The law is vague and humanity fills the gap in whatever way they see fit, without any moral inhibition. Cyber bullying is rampant and the older generation have give the youth new weapons. Words as bullets. However, let's be extremely clear here:  No words or drawings ever deserve such acts of senseless violence as in the Paris killings. How appalling humanity can be in their dogmatic beliefs, it's as if no-one learns from history.

I wonder if the recent rise of ISIS could have been avoided if Europe & US, had got its act together by closing the cash flow to Israel. Only then will Israel be forced to find a workable humane solution for Palestine. For let's face it, the root of the trouble lies in the Allied forces solutions after the second world war. Allocating and dividing territory, along cultural dividing lines has never resulted in peace, so Europe and the US have to be part of the solution in the middle east.  Only when there is peace there will the divide between east and west stop boiling.

West of the Atlantic Obama has been struggling left, right and centre to get any bill passed through the Senate. Not even kids shooting kids at school will allow Republican politicians to raise their integrity above ugly partisan politics, resulting in nothing but stalemates regarding gun control. In other matters, Republicans refuse to allow progress in diminishing inequality, halting it at every opportunity they get by promising more tax cuts to non-tax paying companies while homeless percentages rise and the food stamp queues lengthen. Needing weapons as a right to protect yourself, one just wonders what Freedom means on the other side of the pond.

How left-wing politicians manage to remain motivated when ideals turn to dust beats me. Democracy might be the majority, but if the majority is a two party system it can leave 49% of the population unheard. In multi-party systems such as the Netherlands, lobbying and excessive dialogue leads to postponement and eventually the ability to veto any innovative political progress. Visions become irrelevant and politicians continue their one-liner propaganda lines, trying to save face when bearing the brunt of past decisions. It really is a circus. Elected leaders become clowns, the opposition the whipping animal trainers and societal circus goers tire of the repetition, encouraging the circus to move on to the next town again.Not good for democracy as they tend to abstain from voting.

In the meanwhile, to entertain past circus goers, the media is full of corruption stories. White-collar crime, banks libor manipulation, fraudulent investment and insurance policies. Madoff, FIFA, tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance, the list is endless but as common as the latest consultancy buzz words 'agile scrum' and 'best practices.' I've come to appreciate investigative journalists' work, particularly the ICIJ, on international and domestic policies. If one is internationally well informed through media in other languages, one finds that domestic media is always biased, steering whoever owns the newspaper or television channel's opinion into mass propaganda, which more often than not present one-sided views.

Furthermore, so much is taken out of context it's a wonder that any citizen ever really stumbles upon the truth, unless of course you watch it live on television like we did with the Wilders' hate speech chant. The media preys upon the general population who rarely seem to understand or really know what they're voting for in terms of governmental policy and law. They are too caught up in the hype and populism fed like fodder from media, which fortunately, or unfortunately, is now also run on social media by anyone with internet access.

If one wants the truth in politics of our current world, it takes an investigative mind to find it as you sift through the infinite mass of information and contradictory opinion columns. One small example is the  Dutch media, who have managed to hide tax evasion and tax haven stories from domestic and local news broadcasts, whilst in other countries the Double Dutch Irish sandwich is common knowledge. How quiet too they've been on providing an unbiased view of the Greek situation. Finance Minister Varoufakis has at least the courtesy to inform his twitter followers of the truth, if the media mangles and twists concrete facts into illusory fake headlines that sell well.

Greece is the final topic of this blog. With their interest and loan payments bundled into a re-scheduled date on June 30, I hope that Europe, who has unskillfully and stubbornly ignored the inevitable, will be on the receiving end of a default. Greece was and is  bankrupt. To submit populations to more severe austerity when unemployment is at 25% and Greece is bearing the brunt of a crisis they did not cause, just how cruel and unforgiving can EU be? As Thomas Piketty points out in Capital in the 21st Century, "Germany recovered from its self induced devastation by write-offs," so why can't the EMU show solidarity to Greece?

Once again, right wing politicians, Merkel and Rutte in particular, don't want to lose face in losing money they loaned, which if paid back, will only go to banks who caused the crisis, leaving Greece as Varoufakis nicely explains, shivering like a junkie waiting for its next shot. We live in an age where Banks and Multi-nationals rule the world with politicians bowing to their every need. The middle and lower class are becoming more and more unemployable, unable to compete in the Technological revolution; governments will have to support them or embrace the crime; FIFA officials will continue to enrich themselves on bribes; football match-fixing will continue to fool the masses; countries will go bankrupt and....well. I think that Greece holds the key, at least for Europe, if it manages to hold course and maintain their left wing path against the right leaning Europe political arena.

Only a default and a bankrupt country will shift the EU politicians to change their tune, even if just slightly. Maybe the EU is stable enough to now survive a third crunch, after the 2011 double dip. That is, if Greece defaults and Spain, Portugal and Italy don't follow suit. The Dutch Central bank speaks of a current rise out of the crisis and government is announcing "time for less tax on citizens." The return to the old right wing advocating their political ideal:  'Spend and consume, this is the way to happiness.' Our western superficial illusion of the only reality. Yet all around, every day I hear and know of qualified people losing their jobs and their biggest security. They will all be on flexible contracts in the future, because while India and the BRICS offer cheaper labour, European workers have become too expensive. But the positive message is probably just a political ploy, properly timed ahead of the 2017 elections, where they promise five billion in tax relief and other expenses. So, whether the recovery is long lasting, that remains to be seen, especially in a demographically aging population, growing inequality and a society where some would have to work 150 years to ever earn the bonus of a modern day CEO.

In the capitalist growing India, whilst globalisation is improving the lives of many, 6 million still live without a basic toilet. Ghettos around the world like SA and Brazil still live in murderous poverty conditions, and seas grow in plastic. But the banks and shareholders are thriving and I suppose, that's all the politicians seem to worry about as they are feeders of the economy. Their loans and investments keep their populations employed. In the helicopter view, that matters. That we will also see, but how little they know about their real populations. How little they understand the distance between the haves and the have nots. The ones born into privilege who believe their successes are based alone on merit and not an initial roll of the birth dice. Inherited wealth is a fact that we are not all born equal.

I think of children being born in Syria, New Delhi, Johannesburg, Palestine or Sao Paulo. Growing up in a refugee camp, or ghetto, with no, little or poor education, traumatic events to emotionally process and wonder how many will have the strength, talent or opportunity to make it in this competitive society after the bad start they've been given to life. The right wing don't think about that. In their eyes, everyone is born equal and each decides themselves how far they will get on the economic scale in life. But in reality, it is collective humankind who decides. The collective creates the whole and when the few collective at the top can never reach the 'I have enough' in terms of wealth, the words of Ubuntu from Mandela fall upon deaf ears. "I am who I am because of who we all are."

Inequality in an aggressive capitalist world is not finished with its crises. Unsafe countries, refugees and immigrants, will continue to stream until the system of distribution improves globally. The economist, professor and author French Thomas Piketty provided a blue print, for small incremental progress, but he has been politely ignored by most politicians. Just as the first advocates of abolishing slavery, allowing females the vote and apartheid were ignored. Fortunately, in that sense, history will always reap results, yet due to politics moving at snail pace, it will be the generations after the generations who put bad policies in place who will bear the brunt.