Tsunamis in Global Politics

Posted on February 27, 2022 by davidsberry

“Those who do not learn from History are condemned to repeat it.”

—George Santayana

For all their earnest attempts at joint action to deter Putin, there appears to be a belief, however laudable, that international disapproval and economic sanctions can dissuade Putin from the course of action he has clearly been planning for years—the restoration of the Russian Empire.

The difficulty is that most Western leaders are enlightened human beings, brought up in peaceful democracy, where most people were generally happy with their lot and gently rising standards of living that made each generation more comfortable. Most people now pay only tangential attention to national politics and such interest as there is in international matters revolves mostly around holiday destinations.

Western leaders would be better equipped if they absorbed their own history. It seems that every century or so, some despot rises from obscurity on the shattered remains of a once-great country and embarks on a crusade to restore it to greatness, with uniformly disastrous consequences for all concerned. Vladimir Putin appears to be ou despot-of -he-century.

Look back in European history and it is not hard to find precedents. There have been minor figures who had their day in the sun—Charles XII of Sweden; Frederick the Great of Prussia; even Edward I of England—but none achieved continental, let alone global, scale impact. This was partly because their countries were too small, bit mainly because they were not surfing one of history’s great waves.

The wave in question is something of a political tsunami. It resembles the ocean phenomenon in several ways:

  1. It must occur in a large context—a major power, never in some minor state  —(a tsunami does not happen on a lake)
  2. It requires some major event to trigger it— the collapse of a major country (tsunamis are triggered by major shifts in the seabed)
  3. The first indication appears to be harmless—the country appears prostrate, (the sea recedes much further than a low tide and all is quiet)
  4. Combining widespread support with audacity, a despot sweeps all before him (as the tsunami sweeps over the shoreline and far inland)
  5. But, eventually, the despot over-reaches, accumulates too much resistance and falls (the tsumani recedes, leaving devastation)

So, like a tsunami, despots don’t just ‘happen’. Putin is a product of circumstance that was 20th century Russia, and will also be a victim of it.

Consider his two predecessors as global despots: Napoleon and Hitler. Born at another time or place, we may never have heard of any of them. Like Putin, they didn’t just spring from nowhere to invade Russia in 1812 or Poland in 1939. There opportunities were shaped decades beforehand.

In the case of Napoleon, it was the Bourbon kings running a decadent empire that dominated Europe being brought down in 1789 and the subsequent decade of chaos that led proud French people to despair of ever recovering the glory that had been the wellspring of that pride.

When an unknown general ran rings around the Austrians and brought Italy into a struggling France’s orbit, they feted him, made him First Consul and celebrated a decade of victories that had France dominating all of Europe, except Britain and Russia. Then, in 1812, he over-reached himself and straggled home with a tenth of the Grande Armée.

In Hitler’s case, Bismarck had helped the Kaiser build a German Empire that was ground into dust by WW1. After centuries of political chaos in Central Europe, the pride that had engendered was also crushed and the weak Weimar republic that followed as a sickly substitute as inflation and the Depression sapped what was left. Along comes Adolf—hypnotic, decisive, telling them “Deutschland Erwache!” (Germany, Wake up!) and sweeps up votes to become Chancellor.

He then thumbs his nose at the humiliation of Versailles, restores the army and navy, invents an air force and stands up to the “victors” by re-occupying the Rhineland, annexing Austria and facing down Chamberlain and Deladier at Munich to take over Czechoslovakia too. Then his armies took out Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France in less than a year, and with apparent ease. To most Germans, restored to their rightful place in the world, he could do no wrong.

Seen in this context, the story of Vladimir Putin seems almost familiar. Obscure a couple of decades before seizing the world’s attention, it was circumstance and timing that propelled each of them into that position. Putin’s advantage was that, as a KGB operative in East Germany, he knew how the Soviet system worked, including how it was used to deceive the West. The post-Berlin Wall hiatus in Russia appalled many once-proud citizens in the same way the French were in the 1790s and the Germans in the 1920s.

“Cometh the hour, cometh the man.”

—John 4:23

Once in power, he used KGB connections and methods to secure it. Keeping relatively amicable relations with the West through oil and gas contracts, he let the West preoccupy itself with Iraq and Afghanistan while he built links with backwaters like Syria and the new republics of Central Asia.

Having started rebuilding the rickety post-Soviet armed forces, he tested then out in increasing scale, starting in the Caucasus with Chechnya and Georgia. Noting that the West paid scant attention, he escalated, helping Assad crush his Syrian rebels and receiving a naval base in exchange.

But his real aim for a place in history was to restore, not the Soviet Union, but the Russian Empire, which had, a century ago, included Helsinki, Warsaw and Kishinev. The biggest piece missing from that puzzle? The rich, rolling farmland of Ukraine.

In 2014, Ukraine was like a well-meaning naïve adolescent. It had unilaterally given up a massive nuclear arsenal and was enthusiastically enjoying democratic development after centuries of Russian domination. But it also included Crimea, home to Sevastopol and the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The pretext to secure this base was too much for Putin, who took over all Crimea  to do so. And, for good measure, he infiltrated the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region with unbadged soldiers who posed as partisans against Ukrainian oppression. This tactic of a political running sore became the pretext to foment hostility towards Ukraine and provide cynical justification for the present invasion.

At each stage, like Napoleon and Hitler, Putin milked reawakening pride of a major people fallen from grace and tested the resolve of the rest of the world to stop them. And, at each stage, the world has generally been too preoccupied, too timid and/or too indifferent to react. Which, as in earlier ‘playbooks’, serves to encourage the despot in question to push his luck further.

And here’s the rub. Once on his treadmill, the despot cannot afford to get off. Like Napoleon and Hitler, who had to double down until they bit off more than they could chew. Disaster then follows—not just for the despot, but for the people their Pied Piper has led then to.

At this point, only three days into Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to (in his words) “de-militarise and de-nazify the drug-taking ulta-nationalists who are committing genocide of Russian” it is unlikely that this constitutes his come-uppance, however many of us may wish it. But, what is certain, that he will lead his country into disaster because such a regime cannot ever stop. And there will be some ironic continuity with history in this, as Russia is involved once again in the dénouement.

Just as you can’t pause a tsunami, you can only take comfort from the fact it always recedes. But, like a tsunami, global despots on Putin’s scale always leaves shocked survivors to clean up their mess.

#1009—1,232 words

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Alea Jacta Est

Posted on February 24, 2022 by davidsberry

This blog takes no pleasure in vindication of earlier posts that Putin was serious about engulfing Ukraine “heim ins Reich” (see: Na Zapad—Westward Ho!) or the limp attempts to curb the sewer of Russian kleptocrat money sloshing around London (see My Beautiful Laundrette-ski). The other show—or should we say jackboot—has dropped. The portion of humble pie we must eat is saying he would not do it during the current rasputitsa (mud) period.

Putin used Russia’s history of invasions from the West to achieves plausibility from Russian folk memory. But the man is not stupid; he knows there was no military threat from NATO and certainly none from Ukraine. His problem is socio-economic, the same problem that East Germany had with West Germany during the Cold War. The proximity of a nation enjoying the wealth and freedom of a western-style economy is what Ukraine aspired to become, whether it joined NATO or not. If it had succeeded in this, as it was doing, that in itself would undermine his Trump-esque “Russia is great!” propaganda and so destabilise his hold over the people.

Putin’s recognition of the Donetsk and Lugansk provinces as “independent” triggered a flurry of indignation in the West as they announced sanctions against Russia.

However, despite protestations that some had to be held in reserve unless the Russians went further, informed opinion was those announced would not deflect Putin from hiss plans. Continued aggressive Russian announcements and actions to back them up gave credence of this. The West believed Putin operates on western values and could be deflected by measures that would have caused any western democracy to desist.

Clearly, this was delusional.

What Putin understands is power and its application. The contempt he has shown to agreements in 2008 and 2014 means playing by rules plays into his hands. To date, he has given a master class in brinkmanship, using the military as threat. The West could have try all the reasonable diplomacy they liked. To win, they must beat him at his own game, applying serious gambits such as listed here.

1. A Wunch of Bankers

Sanctions against Putin’s Russia are not new. On the heels of his pantomime establishment of an “independent” Crimea that immediately asked for incorporation into Russia in 2014, several sanctions have been in place since. International payment systems Visa Inc. and MasterCard stopped service of credit cards issued by the Rossiya Bank. Non-cash transactions of SMP Bank and Sobinbank (subsidiary of Rossiya) were also frozen.

The UK sanctions are against three individuals (Gennady Timchenko, Boris Rotenberg and Igor Rotenberg) and five banks (Rossiya, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank and the Black Sea Bank), with restrictions on Russian use of UK financial services and UK business trade with the disputed provinces.

Sounds good, except it smacks of tinkering. This does NOT include the wealthiest banks in Russia: Sberbank (~£300bn), VTB Bank (~£160bn),  Gazprombank (~£76bn),  Alfa-Bank (~£42bn), Rosselkhozbank (~£35bn), Credit Bank of Moscow (~£29bn). To get Putin’s attention, you need to use a bigger cudgel—one he will notice

Such as cutting Russia off from SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication). This is the Gmail of global banking, delivering 42 million secure messages a day among 11,000 financial institutions and companies, in over 200 countries and territories. The messages make payments, trades and currency exchanges.

Cut off from Swift, Russia would suffer significant economic pain. This happened to Iran in 2012, when its banks lost access to Swift as part of sanctions targeting their nuclear program and its sources of finance. The West threatened Russia’s access to Swift in 2014, estimating it could reduce Russia’s gross domestic product by 5% in a year.

As there are no easy alternatives and Russia needs access to international finance as a major oil, gas and wheat exporter, this one could grab Putin where it hurts and make his and his kleptocrat buddies’ eyes water.

2. Putin in Dire Straits

The Russian people have been blessed with many advantages—a massive country, extensive natural resources, inbred toughness and strength of character from its bitter winters. But in one major geo-political factor, they are crippled; despite a coastline as long as the circumference of the earth, it is land-locked. Most of the coast is on the Arctic and frozen most of the year. Its only ice-free ports are on the Baltic and Black Seas.

Both seas have access to the open ocean only through two restricted channels, controlled by a NATO member: Turkey in the case of the Bosphorus and Denmark in the case of the Kattegat. Various treaties down the years have permitted unrestricted passage through either. But, if Putin is prepared to flout international laws and conventions, why must NATO be so punctillious?

In the case of the Bosphorus, the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits was agreed in 1936 giving Turkey control over the Bosporus regulating the transit of ships. The Convention has been a source of controversy over Russian military access to the Mediterranean

Historically, the Danish Straits linking the Kattegat with the Baltic Sea were internal waterways of Denmark. The Copenhagen Convention of 1857 made all the Danish straits an international waterway and Øresundstolden (shipping tolls) were abolished.

While the Freedom of the Seas is a principle in international law. It was promulgated by US President Woodrow Wilson, stressing freedom to navigate oceans. It is incorporated in the United Nations Convention on the Sea under Article 87(1). But this applies outside territorial waters, which both the Bosphorus and Danish Straits clearly are.

Since the Russians have prevented access of Ukrainian shipping to the Sea of Azov because they control a similarly narrow Kerch Strait between Crimea and Taman, there is ample justification for NATO to blockade and Russian shipping from using either the Bosphorus or Danish Straits. Since virtually all Russian trade passes through one or the other, this would but an ever more severe crimp in Putin’s style in a language he understands.

3. Upping the Ante

If the above two draconian measures still fail to drag Putin to negotiate seriously, there are other options that would bring him down politically, even if he survived economically, such as:

  1. Threaten to close tax havens down altogether if they do not decline Russian business and publish all Russian names with material interest in businesses registered there.
  2. Offer asylum, residency and employment in the West to any currently serving Russian serviceman
  3. Shut down all internet links in and out of Russia
  4. Embargo all trade in telecomm, computer, aerospace, semiconductor or military equipment or technology.
  5. Put the squeeze on the Kaliningrad encave. This former slice of East Prussia became Russian after WW2 but is now cut off  by Poland and Lithuania.
  6. Ban all direct flights to or from Russia
  7. Instigate a virulent, hacking program, such as Russia has directed at the West, with the intention of dislocating government, financial, conglomerate, oligarch and military establishments, especially those with close link to Putin.

Since Putin obviously enjoys playing hardball, let’s see how long he lasts if others use his dystopian set of rules.

#1008—1,190 words

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Where Now for the Scottish Independence Movement?

Posted on February 19, 2022 by davidsberry

This article by Stuart Crawford was first published in the Scottish Daily Express on February16th 2022. Reproduction here does not mean endorsement of all content; it appears in the interests of widening debate on the matter.

It is now quite clear to most objective commentators that the campaign for Scottish independence has stalled. The polls are stubbornly stuck on average around 48% for independence and 52% against, and until they reach a consistent 60% in favour, if they ever do, there is no chance of a second independence referendum being up for discussion – and that’s from the nationalist point of view. They are only too aware that losing the second referendum did for the Quebecois independence movement.

Why is it then that the “people of Scotland” for whom nationalist politicians claim they speak are so reluctant to vote for Scottish independence? There may be numerous reasons. We shouldn’t underestimate the impact that losing the 2014 independence referendum (in which I voted yes, if you happen to be wondering) had on the movement. Outside my polling station independence supporters were absolutely convinced they had won, and absolutely devastated when they found out they had not.

Plans and demands for a second referendum are stymied because there is no route currently available to obtain one. Despite First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s serial promises that the next one is just around the corner, she cannot hold a legally and constitutionally binding one without a Section 30 order from Westminster, and with the Conservative and Unionist party holding an 80 seat majority there is no reason for one to be granted.  The oft-mooted alternatives of a “consultatory” referendum or indeed UDI are just non-starters. The former would most likely be boycotted by unionists and therefore be meaningless, whilst the latter would bring widespread condemnation, sanctions, and eventually ruin.

So it has come to pass, in the fullness of time, that George Robertson’s oft quoted declaration that “devolution will kill nationalism stone dead” was entirely accurate, although perhaps not in the way he may have imagined at the time.

It doesn’t help the movement that the SNP has changed from being a campaigning organisation with an USP – independence – to become a managerial concern, sidetracked by the temptations of staying in power and by the day to day humdrum of being in government. In sacrificing the cause in favour of full-time, well-paid jobs and the opportunity to grandstand on the national, and occasionally international stage (forging relations with China and Ukraine being merely two of the more egregious examples), SNP politicians have prioritised process over purpose, and in doing so have lost their way.

Most important of all, perhaps, is the fact that the Scottish independence movement in general, and the SNP in particular, have failed to make an intellectually coherent argument for Scotland leaving the UK. The 2014 White Paper was long on rhetoric but short on detail, and since then no new clear thinking has emerged. Others better qualified than me have pointed out the fallacies of the it’ll-be-all-right-on-the-night economic arguments and the vagueness of plans for a currency option.

More recently we have the nonsense, nay disinformation, over state pension responsibilities. It’s quite clear that state pensions would be the responsibility of an independent Scottish government*, no matter how the “poor crofter” Ian Blackford huffs and puffs. Nor will the state pension double; to do so would take up three quarters of the entire national budget. It is the stuff of fantasy and hardly inspires confidence.

There is also the whiff of corruption. Rumours of financial mismanagement abound, with successive SNP National Treasurers resigning after being denied sight of full party accounts without explanation. The question of what has happened to the £600k contributed by the party faithful and supposedly ring-fenced to fund the next independence referendum campaign still has not been answered. The response that it was “woven into the accounts” smacks of obfuscation and smoke and mirrors. My bet is that it has been used to pay off the party’s overdraft accrued during the 2014 referendum and subsequent elections. Perhaps we will find out someday?

But it is not just about finance; there is more than a suspicion of moral and ethical corruption too, tainting many other aspects and activities. Others have pointed out the all too clear dangers of having a party leader and First Minister married to the chief executive of her party. This speaks loudly of less benign administrations in parts of the globe where corruption is rife. As Oscar Wilde once observed; “The truth is neither here nor there, it’s the look of the thing that matters”. Did none of their close colleagues point out the dangers here, and if not, why not?

It does not help, of course, that the SNP’s performance in government has been appallingly poor. Everywhere you look there is disaster; education standards have spiralled rapidly downwards, the NHS struggles despite its grossly bloated and overpaid management structure, and drug deaths are the highest in all of Europe. Its economic initiatives have been abject failures without exception – think Ferguson Marine and the ferries fiasco, Prestwick Airport, Bi-Fab and on and on. The list is endless. And on the positive side? Well, perhaps the infamous baby boxes, arguably, but even that idea was pinched from the Finns.

Against that sort of dismal background it’s hardly surprising that the Scottish independence movement has stuttered to a halt. It lacks the intellectual rigour, and indeed the intellectuals, to address the problems and guide the way forward. It is a truism that those who are most vociferous in their support for independence are those who have the least to lose, as a glance at the participants at any independence rally will confirm. Middle Scotland, however you might want to define it, is not convinced.

Only ten years ago I was informing my friends south of the Border that Scotland was likely to be independent by 2020. Now I doubt very much that we will be an independent country before 2050, if at all. The current position of independence campaigners is analogous to that of the MacDonalds on the right wing of the Jacobite army at Culloden. Too weak to break the Hanoverian lines yet too proud to retreat, they stood mere yards away from the Redcoats, snarling and throwing stones.

And, as we all know, they lost.

Stuart Crawford is a political commentator, retired Lt. Colonel and former SNP defence spokesman. He is now a member of the Liberal Democrat party and intends to stand for East Lothian Council in May’s elections.

  • See previous blog “Whau Peys Siller-Heids Their Siller?” for a counter-argument on pensions.

#1007—1,059 words

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Whau Peys Siller-Heids Their Siller?

Posted on February 16, 2022 by davidsberry

This month, an old debate over who would pay the pensions in an independent Scotland resurfaced. It had been part of the debate in the run-up to the referendum eight years ago, when, in what seemed a strange outbreak of consensus, the SNP appeared to agree with unionist parties that any new Scottish government would take over responsibility for pensions immediately. This was not supported by anyone who looled into this.

“Responsibility for existing pensions will transfer to the Scottish Government. It is for a Scottish Government to be responsible for the payment of pensions but the historic liabilities and assets around pensions, as around other things, will be a matter of negotiation at the point of independence.”

—Nicola Sturgeon, 2014

The first sentence seems to imply support for the unionist position that all pensions from DWP cease upon independence. But a proper reading of the latter part of the statement implies that residual obligations remain that can only be ended through negotiation. Like most things in life; it’s complicated.

Given that Westminster flatly refuses to grant permission, the likelihood of a new referendum is small, which leaves the pension question academic. But it did resurface this month, when Westminster leader Ian Blackford raised the matter, claiming the residual UK government would indeed have to pay existing obligations. He promptly received pelters from all quarters.

The idea that any residual UK (rUK or UK minus Scotland) could wash its hands of pension obligations to those who choose to become Scottish citizens seems both harsh and unfair. It is also technically illegal, and can be challenged, unless Westminster alters the legislation.

The UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) currently administers state pensions. Unlike private pensions, there is no central fund from which pensions are disbursed. Given the way tycoons like Robert Maxwell and Philip Green have raided their funds, perhaps it’s as well. The point is that pensions are paid out of tax revenues coming into HM Treasury.

The argument from unionists seems to be that pensions stop when Scots stop paying National Insurance Contributions (NICs). Westminster can indeed alter laws governing pensions as it likes. As an example he state pension age has been raised without those affected having any recourse. Some women have lost more than five years of pension as a result.

Barring a deliberate law to exclude Scots, unionists are missing the point. UK state pension is what is called a “contributory benefit”.  Unlike programmes such as Universal Credit (UC), which are based on present circumstances, the exact state pension received is calculated entirely on NICs made during your working life. While a Scottish Exchequer should immediately take over UC and similar benefits on the day of independence, state pension entitlement at that point should remain.

The situation of UK state pension being outside the UK is well established. The UK has social security agreements with many countries setting out how payments are calculated when people have made contributions in more than one country. As an example, the UK Government already pays pensions to those who retire abroad, providing they have made sufficient National Insurance contributions. This applies whether they are UK citizens or not—many EU nationals have made considerable NIC payments before returning home. They have access to pension entitlement, irrespective of nationality. This is not unique; US resident aliens who relinquish that status and return home are paid their SSA pension entitlement, although they are neither citizen nor resident.

It would be inconsistent to pay a pension to a French native living in France who had paid sufficient NICs while in the UK, yet refuse it to someone who had made similar contributions living in a newly independent Scotland.

Is the SNP ‘misleading’ voters over pensions in an independent Scotland?

#1006—616 words

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History Repeating Itself?

Posted on February 13, 2022 by davidsberry

For weeks now, Vladimir Putin and his spokespersons have been protesting that Russia has no intentions of invading Ukraine. Though it may just be grandstanding to get Western attention—and perhaps a few concession—by playing the only face card he has; a beefy military.

Reactions n the West have been generally nervous, but it is only in the last few days that the Americans have declared the window for a Russian invasion is now open.

Three weeks ago, our blog На Запад! (Westward Ho!) provided both a context for this and a prediction of likely action. A second blog a week later My Beautiful Landrette-ski suggested effective financial measures to restrain Putin and persuade him to back down. While most sensible people want de-escalation, there have been no signs of diplomacy making any headway in this.

UK leadership has lately supported NATO and the American line that invasion had become a real possibility. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’s comments that “Russia will get bogged down, as it did in Chechnya and Afghanistan” betrays a poor grasp of the different military and geographical factors that apply to Ukraine.

Now, Ben Wallace has waded into the debate and is receiving some stick for making an analogy with the situation that obtained pre-WW2 when German threats against Czechoslovakia were thought to have been solved by diplomacy at a conference in Munich in September, 1938.

“It may be that Putin just switches off his tanks and we all go home, but there is a whiff of Munich in the air from some in the West.”

—UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, The Times, February 12th 2022

But might he be right? Apologists have already stepped in to say this was intended to highlight the possibility that Putin my be no more sincere in his diplomatic smoke-screen than Hitler was. Any reader of Mein Kampf should not have been surprised at this. Similarly, anyone following Putin’s writings on Russians and Ukrainians  being “one people” should similarly not be surprised.

For the parallels in the two situations 84 years apart are more extensive than diplomatic bluff. Consider:

  1. Egotistical dictator whips up popularity by declaring he will reassert lost glory of an empire of which they had once been proud
  2. Dictator picks on adjacent, weaker country that is struggling to establish identity, having only existed as a sovereign state for a couple of decades
  3. Dictator protests that “lost” territories in the weaker state include many native-speakers who are being “repressed” by indigenous nationalists hostile to them
  4. Despite fielding a professional army that poses no threat to the dictator, the weaker state is militarily indefensible, being surrounded on three sides
  5. Dictators increase status in the world by rattling sabres. This means massing on the border, while decrying others as aggressors force this defensive posture.
  6. Slicing off a border area where most native-speakers live destabilises the weaker state and makes the rest even less defensible.
  7. Once you roll in, distant allies of the weaker state may protest but it’s a fait accompli they have no choice but to accept.

For “Soviet Union”, substitute “German Empire”; for “Ukraine” substitute”Czechoslovakia”; for “Russian minority” substitute “German minority”; for “Donbas/Lubyansk/Crimea” substitute “Sudetenland”.

Only point 7 has yet to occur. Hitler waited six months before taking over the rump Czechoslovakia in March 1939. It’s doubtful Putin has that kind of patience.

 “The Western democracies are worms; I saw them at Munich.” 

—Adolf Hitler, 1938
Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini & Ciano at Munich, September 1939

#1005—576 words

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The Road to Scindy V—Rebuilding Ambition

Posted on February 7, 2022 by davidsberry

“Don’t waste your time looking back; you are not going that way”

—Ragar Lothbrok

Though the heat of debate about Scottish independence has cooled somewhat over the last two years because of an understandable priority in dealing with Covid, what debate there has been has centred entirely on if/whether/when a referendum can be held. This is rather like debating what shoes to wear to go out in, without first deciding you’re going gardening, shopping, running or to the opera.

The vision of a future Scotland rarely gets beyond “a normal small country that is a member of the European community.” Not only does this lack clarity but it is woefully short on inspiration. Why would swithering business and the middle class—let alone the great and the good—risk status and wealth for something as vague. Why let go of nurse when uncertainty breeds a fear of something worse?

Two hundred and fifty years ago, 1 million people in 13 colonies had carved a society out of wilderness (pace native Americans who had lived in harmony with it prior). They had a sense of fierce pride and egalitarianism in all they had achieved. This made them question why their future rewards should be in the hands of stuffy autocracy three thousand miles away. Their pride, self-belief and energy gave us what is (for all its flaws) the greatest democracy the world has seen.

An independent Scotland would not become another America in either revolution or scale. But what set Americans—or Australians or Singaporeans—on the road to success that colonists never had was a clear sense of common purpose in exploiting what their resources, skills and geographic position offered. They saw priorities from their perspective, were better positioned and motivated than any distant colonial bureaucracy to grasp there future. London has always struggled to understand this.

Here, after 23 years of devolution there has been debate and legislation on social matters. Free prescriptions, free personal care, free tuition, free bus passes are all good and popular. But no heather, let alone revolutionary fervour like the Americans, has be set alight by such legislation. Debates on smoking or transgender issues may correct shortcoming, but they neither electrify ambition, nor boost revenues to fund more social policies.

These 23 years of material improvements: hospitals have been built; rail lines opened; bridges completed; major road improved. But advancement has been modest, given £1 trillion has passed through government hands in that time. And in that time, major companies like RBS, BoS,  Aggreko, SSE, Scottish Nuclear, Aberdeen Asset Management and a slew of companies in the oil & gas business have shifted headquarters elsewhere, with few companies of significance grown to take their place. The £600 million funding of Scottish Enterprise each year has not catalysed much enterprise od a scale to replace losses. They have yet to replace their “third-world manufacturing” strategy of two decades ago.

It is not that Scotland no longer makes things of which we can be proud—Weir Pumps; Edinburgh biotech; whisky—but a century ago, we were world leaders in heavy engineering, especially ships and locomotives. Without a captive empire as a market, achieving that level of dominance is history. But if the Swiss can corner the market in quality watches, if the Dutch can corner the ocean tug business, if the Danes can lead the world in wind turbine technology, finding a niche and making it ours should not be rocket science.

This will require focus on a plan that will take decades to achieve success. It will require a culture shift away from the current social-dependency culture to reignite the cocky pride that once made “Glasgow” and “gallus” interchangeable terms. Looking at what we have and where we are in this 21st century world suggests that laying down plans to become significant in three areas of international excellence are:

  1. Tourism, which includes food and drink
  2. Renewable energy, including wind, tidal, wave, heat sink and hydrogen
  3. Trans-shipment entrepot for Europe <—> Asia trade

Projects and infrastructure that clearly supports these main threads should be laid out in the plans and scheduled/costed on a basis that presumes a timetable for independence and of re-joining the EU, with a view to maintaining optimal links with England/rUK, while establishing Scotland as a worthwhile international trading partner.

While much work would need to be done to produce a viable, long-term plan that should include social engineering to inspire people to believe it’s their plan before any referendum takes place. This will require some short-term “low-hanging fruit” to start with that makes the longer-term seem feasible. The current passivity in both government and people must be overcome. The dynamism that created America did not come from complaining about the British. Here are some ideas, to be used as a smorgasbord to compile the real, inspirational plan.

Short-Term Suggestions

(launch during this parliament, and before any referendum)

  • Develop the plan by setting up a “wartime cabinet” along the lines of Churchill’s in 1940, making it cross-party, with non-political figures who can contribute.
  • Develop public transport use by introducing a unified “Oyster”-style travel card for all modes of transport. Introduce it by city-region “travel webs” common in Europe.
  • Restore services on existing rail lines: 1) Dunfermline-Culross-Kincardine-Alloa; 2) Thornton Junction-Leven; 3) Grangemouth-Falkirk
  • Empower councils by reversing the current 20%/80% split of their income between council tax and Revenue Support Grant.
  • Fully integrate NHS and Adult Care properly and abandon the ineffectual Joint Boards that are no more than talking shops.
  • Accelerate research into tidal, wave and hydrogen energy generation. Establish links with leading wind generator manufacturers in Europe.

Medium-Term Suggestions

 (during Independence preparations and the period after the event)

  • Revamp the Glasgow-Stirling-Perth-Aberdeen as a high-speed rail line to ECML standards and electrified, offering 30-minute frequency, taking no more than 2 hours for the journey end-to-end. This involves re-laying the Caledonian track bed between Kinclaven and Brechin, with stations and Coupar Angus, Forfar and Brechin. (for details, see blog at https://northneuk.com/2013/04/22/brechins-revenge-on-beeching/
  • Develop former Cockenzie power station site as a cruise liner and ferry port, using the existing branch off the ECML for passenger & freight access to a Europe ferry and cruise line passengers easy access to Edinburgh. (fpr details, see blog at: https://northneuk.com/2015/05/27/more-than-a-dormitory/
  • Re-lay ad re-open the Fraserburgh-Peterhead-Aberdeen rail line.
  • Reopen stations at Newburgh and Bridge of Earn on the Ladybanl-Perth line.
  • Complete two tidal energy projects: one generating 240NWH in the Kylesku narrows and another generating 500 MWH in the Pentland Firth.

Long-Term Suggestions

(once stability achieved post-indy, with currency issues ad EU membership  resolved)

  • Expand the Cockenzie ferry/cruise port by adding a marina, coastal boardwalk including shops and restaurants linking Musselburgh lagoons with Seton Sands and revitalising Prestonpans with a waterfront.
  • Redraw local government boundaries into six regions (Highland; Grampian; Tayside; Lothian; Strathclyde and Borders) Each will be responsible for Education, Health & Social Work, Transport. Waste, Water, Police, Fire. Culture. Resurrect approx. 200 burghs, responsible for Planning, Commerce & contracting services required (~5 councillors; ~25 staff?)
  • Complete a tidal energy project generating at least 1GWH at the Firth of Forth entrance
  • Develop Scapa Flow as a transhipment and container port to take advantage of melting Arctic ice cap that would permit polar trade routes halving the time between Europe and the Far East. (for details, see blog https://northneuk.com/2016/04/02/trans-arctic-convoys/

#1004—1,234 words

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Red Tape Iniquity

Posted on February 2, 2022 by davidsberry

Normally, aericles posted on this blog attempts to provide opinions that are, hopefully, informed, important and original. That last does not apply where others have already blazed a broad path, when the blog may include those thoughts. Only on rare occasions has it quoted wholesale, because there seemed scant chance of  improvement on the original observations.

Such a rare occasion occurred today, when George Monbiot strung a series of tweets together that deserve as wide a coverage as possible in the public interest. What follows are his tweets, verbatim. They make compelling reading, especially for those evaluating the morals of the present UK government.

—————————————————

As the final stage of the Grenfell Tower inquiry has begun this week, I’d like to remind you of what was happening in another part of London on the day of the disaster, to show what the Conservatives mean by “freedom”. I hope you’re sitting down.

On 14 June 2017, as the Tower burned, the government’s Red Tape Initiative team met to discuss building regulations. It was due to consider whether rules governing the fire resistance of cladding materials should be scrapped, for the sake of construction industry profits.

The Red Tape Initiative was established “to grasp the opportunities” Brexit offers to cut “red tape” (i.e. public protections). It was chaired by Sir Oliver Letwin MP, who had claimed that “the call to minimise risk is a call for a cowardly society.”

Sitting on its advisory panel were: – Charles Moore: formerly editor of the Daily Telegraph and chair of the Dark Money-funded lobby group Policy Exchange. He was best man at Oliver Letwin’s wedding. – Archie Norman, former chief executive of ASDA and founder of Policy Exchange.

Until he became Environment Secretary, another member of the panel was Michael Gove, Conservative MP and former chair of Policy Exchange, appointed by …. Archie Norman.

The Red Tape Initiative’s management board consisted of Oliver Letwin, Baroness Rock and Lord Marland. Baroness Rock was a childhood friend of George Osborne’s, married to the wealthy financier Caspar Rock. Lord Marland was a co-owner of SCL and Cambridge Analytica.

In other words, it was an entirely representative cross-section of the British public. In no sense was it a clique of old chums, insulated from hazard by their extreme wealth, whose role was to decide whether other people should be exposed to risk.

Letwin’s Initiative appointed a team to investigate housing regulations. It included representatives of trade unions and NGOs, though they were outnumbered by executives and lobbyists from the industry. And, surprise, surprise, one Richard Blakeway, from … Policy Exchange.

Their task on June 14 was to consider a report the Red Tape Initiative had commissioned from the lobbying firm Hanbury Strategy, identifying building rules that could be cut. It listed as “burdensome” the EU Construction Products Regulation, that sets fire standards for cladding.

What was the source of the report’s assertion that this regulation was unnecessary? A column in the Sunday Telegraph by Christopher Booker, perhaps the most mendacious journalist in the UK, who had produced, across the years, an astonishing string of outright lies.

During the meeting, as the Tower burned, the full scale of the disaster became clear. The panel decided that, on this occasion, it would not recommend that the regulation be removed. Very gracious of them, I’m sure.

But the bonfire of regulation and the deliberate confusion between “red tape” and public protection continues as if Grenfell had never happened. Why? Because our lives are worth less to this government than the profits of the disaster capitalists it favours.

So when this government says “freedom”, ask “whose freedoms do you mean?” When it says “red tape”, ask, “do you mean pointless paperwork, or the rules that protect us from predatory capital?” When it says “the people”, ask “do you mean us, or just the people who fund you?”

—George Monbiot, Febroary 2nd 2022

https://www.grenfelltowerinquiry.org.uk/

https://www.wikicorporates.org/wiki/Red_Tape_Initiative

#1003—626 words

Posted in Commerce, Community, Politics | 1 Comment

My Beautiful Laundrette-ski

Posted on January 30, 2022 by davidsberry

Britain’s current lining up with NATO allies in indignant criticism of Putin’s claim of defensive posture for Russia seems at odds with the cosy financial relationship that has grown up since well before the collapse of the Soviet Union and a steady stream of Russian oligarchs and their money heading for London. They have been made welcome, with the introduction  of the “Magnitsky” laws simply serving to slow the traffic down and drive much of it underground.

This accommodating approach goes back to the mid-20th century. After the second world war, Britain was all but bankrupt, the City of London was somnolent, and economic power had largely shifted to Wall Street. City bankers wanted to get back into business, but were frustrated by the weakness of the pound, and its unsuitability as a means to finance the world’s trade.

Their salvation came from an unlikely quarter: the Soviet Union, which didn’t want to keep its dollar reserves in US banks. Instead, it kept them in London, where British banks began lending them to each other in an entirely unregulated market – they became known as “Eurodollars” – thus giving birth to offshore finance, and providing the City with the start-up capital it needed to get back in business.

The practices of a bowler-hat-and-pin-stripe City created a demand for less stodgy financial handling, preferably with tax0free status. British Crown Dependencies, being outside HM Treasury control, had already developed a side-line in this trade, with the Chanel Islands and Isle of Man leading the way. However, other pink spots on the map —especially those with access to American markets—soon followed suit, including Bermuda, Bahamas and Cayman Islands.

The process was simplicity itself: transfer money to offshore financial institutions or businesses domiciled in such places and the money could enter the UK as domestic finance with few questions asked. It was not long before it struck wealthy individuals that funds processed this way were not only tax-free but “laundered” as to their origin. Examine documents exposed in the Panama Papers for an idea of the turnover that such “business” has achieved.

By the time Communism collapsed, Soviet institutions were routinely sending their money through Britain’s offshore territories, and the City was booming. The Central Bank in Moscow even had a shell company in Jersey, which it used to hide money from the government that it was supposedly a part of.

For decades, British politicians have welcomed Russian money to our shores. They have celebrated when oligarchs have bought our football clubs, cheered when they’ve listed their companies on our Stock Exchange. They have gladly accepted their political donations and patronised their charitable foundations.

According to Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service, Russian investors held financial assets in the UK worth a total of £2.6bn. That seems small indeed. The UK ONS (Office of National Statistics) provides a broader measure of Russian investment in the UK, and assessed it at £25.5bn. But that’s about what Finland has invested in the UK, so this figure still seems small.

These statistics are misleading. Russian money that moves through another jurisdiction before arriving in Britain is not counted as Russian. Since the overwhelming majority of money that enters and leaves Russia does so via tax havens such as Cyprus and the Bahamas, this means the official figures reflect only a small portion of Russian money reaching the UK.

At least £68 bn has flowed from Russia into Britain’s offshore satellites such as the British Virgin Islands, Cayman, Gibraltar, Jersey and Guernsey. And it’s not only the UK. At the same time, £94bn has poured out of Russia into Cyprus, £13bn into Switzerland, and £23bn into the Netherlands.

This wealth is not actually in these offshore centres— it is merely registered there, to obscure its origins. Russian officials, with wealth disproportionate to salary, use this anonymity to spend money in London without anyone catching on. More than half of Russians’ total wealth is held offshore—some £597bn.

This cash is diluted into the great tidal flows of liquid capital that pour in and out of the City of London every day, from every corner of the globe. The stashes created by Russian kleptocrats is, thanks to the skilled attentions of the tax havens’ best brains, indistinguishable from any ordinary investment.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank looked at discrepancies in the records of money that flows into and out of the UK, and concluded that since the early 1990s, £133bn had arrived without ever being publicly accounted for, with half likely to be Russian. And Deutsche Bank ought to know, as it was a significant culprit in spiriting money out of Russia without informing the authorities—£7.5bn in total.

Putin may be hiding money in the financial equivalent of sleeper cells, ready to buy influence. More importantly: no one steals money if they can’t keep it. By letting Putin’s allies launder their illicit fortunes and hide them in our country, we are drawing a line under their crimes, and rewarding them for actions a country with global financial standing should not condone.

Not all the money stays in the financial markets—oligarchs have taken over from Gulf sheiks in making outrageous purchases. They particularly like property, but at the top end of the market and preferably within 3 miles of Buckingham Palace. Since their arrival, property prices in Kensington have risen eight-fold, with Abramovitch’s fetching a cool £125m. Transparency International published a report which identified 160 properties in the UK, together worth £4.4bn, that had been bought by what it called “high-corruption-risk individuals”. Most of those properties were in London.

Oligarchs and their families come and enjoy such purchases courtesy of tier 1 investor visas, which provide successful applicants with residency in exchange for an investment of  £several million in government bonds. In one year, Russian citizens made up 764 of the 3,396 people who paid for these so-called “golden visas. This arrangement brought in around £800m of Russian investment.

The “Magnitsky Law” is named for a lawyer who died investigating £230 million of dirty money stolen from Russian companies of an investor called Browder. In pursuit of those responsible, Browder traced the money to 11 different countries. All, except Britain, have brought charges against those responsible.

Many British institutions have indeed accepted donations from wealthy Russian businesspeople: Sadiq Khan’s City Hall from Elena Baturina, whose husband was mayor of Moscow; the Conservative party from Lubov Chernukhin, whose husband was one of Putin’s ministers, and who paid £160,000 to play tennis with Boris Johnson and David Cameron in 2014.

Britain dos not make prosecution easy. In order to prosecute a foreign crook, you need to prove their money originated in a crime of some kind, and that requires evidence from overseas. Essentially, if you want to prosecute a Kremlin insider, you need evidence from the Kremlin, which it will not provide, and that stops investigations from progressing. Also, all wealthy Russians have political connections. If the UK does gain cooperation from Russian investigators in a prosecution, the defendant will invariably claim, often with good reason, that he is being politically persecuted, which allows his lawyers to discount the evidence being used against him. Then there is the brutal option: killing the witness is probably why Alexander Litvinenko died of Polonium poisoning.

The oligarchs now have the big accountancy firms advising them where best to stash the money, to conceal it, to disguise it, all kind of things. The brains of this pinstriped mafia are available to everyone. They’re for hire The introduction of unexplained wealth orders, which came into effect in February this year. Once a UWO has been issued, property is frozen, and its owner has to respond and justify why they own it. But that will only confiscate property; it won’t put anyone in jail.

In 2018, a Foreign Affairs Committee report demanded a more coherent government approach to the “assets stored and laundered in London (which) both directly and indirectly support President Putin’s campaign to subvert the international rules-based system, undermine our allies, and erode the mutually reinforcing international networks that support UK foreign policy.”

The present abrasively belligerent stance taken by Putin over Ukraine has been met by threats of “strong sanctions” by Britain and it’s NATO allies. But the history of Putin’s cabal of oligarchs who launder billions through Britain vie tax havens demands action on the provocations already evident. In cases where evidence emerges that someone is corrupt, that person should be prosecuted and/or kicked out of Britain. But this alone is insufficient; we need to find the dodgy money that is already here. Confiscating it and finding a way to return it to the Russian people would diminish those who mean us harm, while simultaneously helping those we wish to befriend.

“The time when we might have done something about this was 20 years ago, when it wasn’t particularly sophisticated, and the large sums of money were just arriving in the country,. By ignoring the provenance of dirty cash, and allowing it to be spent on property, British authorities have cleansed it of its taint: it is legitimate investment now. Unpicking all that is a real challenge.”

—Jon Benton, NCA

#1002—1,531 words

This blog uses material from the Guardian’s long read: How Britain let Russia hide its dirty money

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На Запад! (Westward Ho!)

Posted on January 22, 2022 by davidsberry

Squeezed between Boris Johnson gaffes and cost-of-living crises, finally UK media led with dignitaries meeting in Geneva to talk turkey over growing tension between Russia and Ukraine. This shows this matter might now receive the level of attention it merits. Until now, it appeared Britain has not moved from Chamberlain’s 1938 view of Czechoslovakia as “a faraway country, of which we know little”. Such insouciance resulted in WW2, the Cold War and the brink of nuclear annihilation.

We are far from a repetition, let alone WW3. However, as most Westerners think such paranoia dissolved thirty years ago—along with the Berlin Wall and Soviet tank armies on the Elbe—we are already suffering flashbacks. Within a decade, Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB apparatchik had taken charge, was kicking ass and taking names. The Russian bear was back, showing none of Pooh or Paddington’s cuddliness.

This Bear Has Form

Exactly 80 years ago, three million seasoned soldiers in a dozen armies of the Wehrmacht that had stormed across the frontier six months earlier, were taught a sharp lesson by the sharp claws of that bear. In deep snows before Moscow, two years of rapier blitzkrieg shattered against brilliant counter-strokes from winter-wise Siberian troops under a wily General Zhukov. It would take three more years of horrors and hardships on the “Eastern Front” to dig the Wehrmacht’s, and thereby Hitler’s, grave.

Nor was this unique. Ever since Peter the Great dragged Russia out of the Middle Ages, nobody has tangled with Russia and come off best. Far more astute warlords than Hitler—Charles XII and Napoleon among them—were sent homeward to think again. The Russian character that achieves such deeds is not one easily understood by the West. It is one of gritty resolution, of deep-seated passion, if unyielding stoicism bred from dealing with endless landscapes, brutal climate and fighting off tough invaders, starting with Vikings and Mongols.

An unabashedly macho Putin plays to this with a gusto that may seem comic to us. His crude, authoritarian rule is more popular than we can explain.  But that does not imply Russians are stupid or cowed. It means they like their leaders strong and regard the Merkels and Bidens of the world as “soft”. They have responded well to Putin’s slavic version of “Make America great again.”

Technically, the Soviet Union is history. But Putin is on a mission to piece it back together again. The latest jigsaw piece fell back into place earlier this month, when riots over fuel prices consumed oil-rich Kazakhstan so that President Tokayev called on Russian “peacekeepers” to restore order. This has been common in former Soviet republics, both in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Russian units of their Southern Military District are based in such non-Russian places as South Ossetia (693rd  Motorised Brigade) or Dagestan (136th Motorised Brigade).

A Faraway Country

The largest piece still missing from Putin’s jigsaw empire is home to the 41 million people of Ukraine. After independence in 1991, when Ukraine started looking to the West, even toying with the idea of joining that kryptonite of Soviet ambition—NATO. That set alarm bells ringing in the Kremlin, much as they rang in the White House in 1960 when Castro planted communism 90 miles from Florida. Both alarms had less to do with doctrine and more to do with suddenly finding cosy spheres of influence pricked by hostiles in your back yard. Soon after becoming President in, Putin set himself to correct such outrages.

The independence of Ukraine is largely recent and somewhat artificial. Originating as the Viking settlement of Kiev Rus, it was soon referred to as “Little Russia” and bound to Muscovy by culture and language. Its wide open spaces made it subject to Polish, Swedish, Lithuanian and Turkish rule at various points but its longest stint was as provinces of Imperial Russia. It was Stalin’s attempt to secure multiple votes at the UN that it was resurrected as the second-largest republic in the USSR.

By 2014, with Ukraine asserting more and more autonomy counter to Russia’s interest, Putin had both the power and the motivation to act. He engineered, first the “independence”, then the prompt absorption of Crimea into Russia after a “plebiscite”. At the same time, a revolt broke out “spontaneously” among ethnic Russians in the rich industrial region of the Donbas.

However brutal all this may seem, there are sound reasons for Russia to take control of Crimea. Their Black Sea Fleet is based at Sebastopol, globally more important now Russia has a warm-water base at Tartus in Syria. Together with Taman, Crimea’s Kerch peninsula, means Russia controls access to the Sea of Azov. The mineral wealth of the Donets region and its factories are now denied to Ukraine.

Путин: Mоя Борьба

The present Mexican stand-off should therefore be seen as the opening gambit of the next phase of Ukraine’s re-absorption back into Russia. Just as Mein Kampf laid out Hitler’s ambition to secure lebensraum in the East, Putin has been quite open about his ambitions for Ukraine and his reasoning behind it. The Financial Times has quite helpfully translated a 5,000-word article from him: On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.

“Ukraine’s ruling circles decided to justify their country’s independence through the denial of its past. They began to mythologize and rewrite history, edit out everything that united us.”

—Vladimir Putin

Despite several rounds of talks in Geneva between US Secretary of State Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Levrov, there has been no progress towards de-escalation. The Russians are being their usual unreasonable selves, wanting NATO to withdraw from Eastern Europe and permanently refuse membership to Ukraine.

That said, nobody in the West seems to have a grip on either the situation or where the Russians are coming from. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss recently warned Russia that “an invasion of Ukraine would be another Afghan quagmire“. Really? A Foreign Secretary worth their salt should appreciate the military difference between the Hindu Kush and the wide open plains of Ukraine.

For all the stern warnings form the West of serious sanctions, the West are collectively whistling in the wind. Ukraine would be problematic (to say the least) to defend. NATO has wisely said there would be no military intervention if Russia acted. A glance at a map of Ukraine tells you why: it is indefensible. It shares an ill-defined 1,500-mile border with Russia and the same length of coast, vulnerable to the Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine itself is a quarter-million square miles of prairie—ideal country for  mechanised operations—a playground for Russia’s 15,000 tanks (that’s 100 times more tanks than the British Army can deploy).

Were Ukrainian forces superior, or even comparable, to those of the Russians, that might be deterrent enough. But they can deploy 13 mechanised, two armoured and two mountain warfare brigades, plus supporting units as a field army. This represents perhaps 185,000 combat troops.

The Russians, on the other hand have 60 active tank, mechanised and special forces brigades, with a similar number of artillery, missile, air defence, ELINT, etc. brigades in support, totaling almost 1 million troops. Though not all units will be full strength and some must guard other borders, a superiority of five to one over the Ukrainians must be anticipated, quite apart from superior weaponry and air superiority. Any conflict would be one-sided and likely to be concluded in days.

B•gger-Thy-Neighbour

We must move fast; Russia is not prepared to let talks drag on indefinitely.

—Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Levtov, January 21st 2022

What news we get speaks of 100,000 Russian troops massing “on the Ukrainian border”. The Russians protest that this posture is defensive; that there are no plans to invade; that it is NATO that is the aggressor. Whether this be true or no, it is academic. The West dare do nothing more than observe events. And if  events include a Russian takeover of Ukraine, that will be a fait accompli. Ukraine once backed away from an approach to the West, following President Yanukovy’s attempt to be non-aligned, but now it seems too late for any such nuanced positioning to succeed.

Putin has little fear of sanctions. He and his oligarch friends live quite happily with those already in place because sanctions don’t interfere with money launderimg through the Caymans and Panama. And if Western Europe gets to shirty, supplying a third of their gas at already-outrageous prices allows a serious squeeze to be put on their economies—including Britain.

The die may not yet be cast; what Putin is doing may be pure sabre-rattling to eke a few concessions out of the West. It wouldn’t be the first time; the Russians have been hard negotiators since Bolshevik times.

But taking the above and Putin’s article together, the runes say wheels are turning for a takeover of the Ukraine by force is likely before the end of winter and a thaw that would prevent a sneak flanking attack from the Pripyat by Russian troops already  “on exercise” with their Byelorussian lackeys.

Вітаю Tовариші!

#1001—1,459 words

Posted in Military, Politics | 2 Comments

Meet the New Boss; Same as the Old Boss

Posted on January 18, 2022 by davidsberry

When President Franklin Roosevelt died in the closing months of WW2, his Vice-President of only 82 days Harry Truman assumed the office and went on to win another term in 1948. A Democrat from Missouri, Truman’s Southern origins made him ostensibly racist. But, by late 1946 he had come to embrace civil rights. This was no small achievement. The American South—broadly those states that had formed the Confederacy in 1861—were the same states that resisted implementation of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of 1870 that abolished slavery and the discrimination of anyone on the basis of race. Segregation remained standard and states were run by whites who voted solidly Democrat because they would not support Republicans, as thy were the party of Lincoln, who had defeated the Confederacy and freed the slaves. After Roosevelt’s progressive approach to racial issues, southern Democrats were pleased one of their own was now in charge.

In 1952, Truman made a speech in the predominately black borough of Harlem, New York, explaining what had changed his mind.

“Right after World War II, religious and racial intolerance began to show up just as it did in 1919, there were a good many incidents of violence and friction, but two of them in particular made a very deep impression on me. One was when a Negro veteran, still wearing this country’s uniform, was arrested, and beaten and blinded.”

“I hold it the duty of the State and local government to prevent such tragedies. The federal government must show the way. We need not only protection of the people against the Government, but protection of the people by the Government.”

As an example, he cited the case of Sergeant Isaac Woodard, who was heading home on a bus in 1946, when he told a bus driver he felt disrespecting him that “I’m a man, just like you.” The driver called the police, two of whom took Woodard off the bus and out of view up a back alley and beat him, before putting him in jail. There, the police chief himself continued the beating with a night stick (US truncheon), which permanently blinded Woodard. Thereupon, a local judge found Woodard guilty of disorderly conduct and fined him $50. The state declined to prosecute the police chief. When the federal government tried the police chief (who openly admitted he had blinded the sergeant), people attending the trial applauded when the jury acquitted him.

Truman also related how, in that same year, all-white primary elections were declared unconstitutional, and black people in Georgia prepared to vote in the primary there. Days before the election, a mob of white men halted a car in which two black couples were traveling on a back road, dragged them out, tied them to trees and shot all four.

Their murders were never solved because nobody was willing to talk to FBI agents that Truman sent to investigate . They reported: “the whites were extremely clannish, not well educated and highly sensitive to outside criticism, while the blacks were terrified that would be lynched if they talked.” They did, however, suspect a virulently racist candidate running in the primary had encouraged the murders, sure it would encourage voters to choose him. He even accused one of his opponents of being soft on racial issues and that, of white men took action against blacks, he would personally commit to getting them pardoned. He won.

When an old friend wrote to Truman to beg him to stop pushing a federal law to protect equal rights, Truman wrote back: “I know you haven’t thought this thing through and that you do not know the facts. I am happy, however, that you wrote me because it gives me a chance to tell you what the facts are.”

“When the mob gangs can take four people out and shoot them in the back, and everybody in the country is acquainted with who did the shooting and nothing is done about it, that country is in pretty bad fix from a law enforcement standpoint.”

Truman’s Damascene conversion to the cause of racial equality came early in the Civil Rights Movement. It had its roots in the Civil War, but its modern foundation came in the aftermath of WW2. Truman was part of that foundation. He recognised that a one-party, such as the white-only southern Democrats of his roots cannot reflect true democracy. It must not enable and legitimise abuse and force an entire segment of the population to live in fear. As he put it:

“The Constitutional guarantees of individual liberties and of equal protection under the laws clearly place on the Federal Government the duty to act when state or local authorities abridge or fail to protect these Constitutional rights.”

By the 1960’s, things were changing: Rosa Parks had refused to give up her seat to a white man; Martin Luther King had led the march on Selma; black, as well as white soldiers were coming home from Vietnam in body bags. It was a time of change that neither furtive remnants of the Ku Klux Klan, nor Governor Wallace of Alabama could halt. The 15th Amendment was being  adhered to in both law and spirit. It seemed the struggle was over when Colin Powell became Secretary of State and Barack Obama President.

Unfortunately, the clouds of discrimination are gathering again. The first gloom happened in 2013, when a Supreme Court with a majority of Republican appointees gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which had given federal oversight to ensure individual states could not pass election legislation that was discriminatory. This was a harbinger of what was to come. In 2016, Trump bought and bullied his way into the Republican nomination and used the resulting presidency to drive a coach and horses through convention, sided by a pliant and reactionary Republican majority in the Senate, led by Sen. Mitch McConnel.

Trump’s defeat in 2020 threw Republican-controlled states into a tizz, not least because Trump (and most of their colleagues) claimed the election had been stolen. The reaction in those states was a flurry of legislation—now permitted by the 2013 Supreme Court ruling that flouted the principle of the 1965 Act and made it hard for mostly Democratic voters to register and vote. This disproportionately affects non-whites. The devices include closing polling stations in poor districts, making voting registration difficult, restricting postal ballots and similar hurdles to overcome.

The irony, bordering on tragedy, is: the state governments undermining democracy are not Democratic heirs to their reactionary forebears of a century ago, but Republicans—from the same party that Abraham Lincoln led to victory after four years of bloody civil war to free black people from the dispossession of slavery in the first place.

As The Who sang in Won’t Get Fooled Again around the time Civil Rights were in full cry: “Meet the new boss: same as the old boss.”

#1000—1,153 words

Appendix

Those interested in background on the above are welcome to trawl a myriad of books on the subject of slavery and civil rights. But films, while neither scholarly nor analytical, do offer easier access and flavour for those unfamiliar with US southern states and their distinctive culture. Some suggestions, which also excellent films:

  • On slavery itself: Twelve Years a Slave (2013, Dir: Steve McQueen)
  • On FBI attempts to end racism: Mississippi Burning (1988, Dir: Alan Parker)
  • On small-town policing: In the Heat of the Night (1967, Dir: Norman Jewson)
  • On rural southern culture: Fried Green Tomatoes (1991, Dir: John Avnet)
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