March 7—A general strike took place across France today. Police authorities estimate 1.3 million participants. The government’s attempt to grab back pensions initiated the protests, but governments in Europe are widely seen to have sacrificed their population’s welfare. A second round has been called by the CGT and other unions for this Saturday, March 11.
In Greece, mass rallies verging on a general strike are scheduled for Wednesday mid-day. The genuine anger over the austerity conditions and privatizations leading up to the horrible train tragedy of last week has grown into demands for more than an honest investigation of the accident. The public sector union has focused their mass rally in downtown Greece upon the privatization mania. They are joined by the Primary Teachers Federation and others.
The Schiller Institute’s Helga Zepp-LaRouche appeared yet again on China CGTN, making the connection between the West’s war drive and the financial cancer driving West to breaking down nation-states and looting. Meanwhile, China’s new Foreign Minister Qin Gang, in his anticipated maiden press conference, laid out a clear strategic perspective:
“The United States claims that it seeks to ‘out-compete’ China but does not seek conflict. Yet, in reality, its so-called ‘competition’ means to contain and suppress China in all respects and get the two countries locked in a zero-sum game. The United States talks a lot about following rules. But imagine two athletes competing in an Olympic race. If one athlete, instead of focusing on giving his best, always tries to trip or even injure the other, that is not fair competition, but malicious confrontation and a foul! Such competition is a reckless gamble with the stakes being the fundamental interests of the two peoples and even the future of humanity… If the United States has the ambition to make itself great again, it should also have a broad mind for the development of other countries. Containment and suppression will not make America great, and it will not stop the rejuvenation of China.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Zelensky has refused to save any of his forces in Bakhmut, calling for a last ditch fight to the death—apparently because of the fear of a political blowback from allowing even a tactical retreat. Zelensky muscled his commander-in-chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, into signing on to the military insanity, despite weeks of signals from Zaluzhny that it would be disastrous. And, in general, there’s a serious upsurge of the ‘pedal to the metal,’ Götterdämmerung neo-Nazi element in Kiev these days, exemplified by the “Kraken” paramilitary unit of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence invading Russia last week, in tandem with neo-Nazi Sergei Nikitin’s “Russian Volunteer Corps,” shooting Russian citizens and students in cars—all supposedly to inspire Russians to begin shooting their neighbors and trigger a violent coup in Russia.
Nikitin is also the prime suspect in the attempted car-bombing of Konstantin Malofeev, the CEO of Russia’s nationalist “Tsargard.” The modus operandi is the same as was carried out on August 20, 2022 against Russia’s Darya Dugina. And Nikitin’s sometimes colleague, Ilya Ponomarev, besides holding conferences in Europe on the breaking up of the Russian Federation into pieces, is the very same individual who claimed credit for the assassination of Dugina. The Kiev regime, if it ever had plans of standing up a regular army, is turning more and more to their neo-Nazi roots, employing terror and assassinations. President Zelensky vowed on his nightly show that retribution would be had, by legal means or otherwise.
In the United States, on Wednesday at 5:30 EST, it is expected that the Syrian War Powers resolution (H.Con.Res.21) of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) will be voted on. Gaetz began two weeks ago with the simple mission of forcing his colleagues to take a position and stand on it. It is now reported that the Congressional Progressive Caucus has finally come out urging all of its 100 members to support Gaetz’s resolution. It is just this refusal to be pigeon-holed into ‘left’ and ‘right’, small-minded identities—or worse, ‘identity’ politics—that holds the potential for breaking the mental and moral logjam in the country.
Then, with a possible outbreak of public sanity, what is to stop the United States from becoming great again? One step in the direction of becoming good again is a happy start.
