Richard Cottrell's blog

The grand jury of time is not yet ready to deliver its verdict whether Egypt 2011 equals Hungary 1956, or perhaps looms larger in the scale of world history. Cairo presents a striking comparison in many respects with Budapest 55 years ago, yet there is a strong flavor too of the French Revolution of 1789 and the hopes raised there, then dashed, of permanently upending the social order.

The eruption of popular discontent roiling the Middle East has naturally seized the world’s attention. Ferment of this kind and on such a grand scale is quite rare but actually not unprecedented in the Arab world, although a glance at simplistic mainstream media reporting is to imagine that it is. The great colonial struggles in North Africa and notably the Algerians freeing themselves from the French, the seemingly interminable struggles among the Lebanese, seem to have slipped from the vaults of memory.

The evidence is mounting that Silvio Berlusconi is indeed Italy's take on Zine El-Abidine, the recently deposed Tunisian dictator, in waiting. He's outlived his usefulness to powerful backers like the US, the EU and NATO (not excluding organized crime -- a fifth of GDP) thanks to the onset of advanced dottiness and some rather clear evidence that he may be short-circuiting upstairs, sparks flying literally like mad around the cranial lobes.

When Julius Caesar led his invasion force over a small brook in north eastern Italy in 140 BC, he set an historical precedent which rings a clarion echo to this day. Caesar had crossed the Rubicon. He was on his way to Rome to overthrow the Republic and declare himself dictator. In the long story of Italy another Rubicon has just been crossed.

On New Year's Day, a strange and disturbing event occurred in the small central European state of Hungary. A state promulgation came into effect which directly conjured forth the activities of the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's ever more prophetic 1984.

The so called terrorist explosion in Stockholm, Sweden, has taken an interesting turn with widespread reports in the Swedish media that it was actually the work of underground military agents. It was certainly an inept exercise at a time when public support for the Swedish imbroglio in Afghanistan is flagging, and the country is getting mega-dose coverage in the international media, thanks to its front seat in the Assange Circus.  An irresistable and timely opportunity for a little distraction. As so often with the best-laid plans, someone planted a large foot in this one.

The last thing I would want to see in Wal-Mart is Big Sister staring down from some Orwellian wall screen asking me to report any funny business I might spot in the car park. Does she mean a shifty figure eyeing an untended 4 x 4? Somebody loitering with an unspecified intent, like waiting for the wife to finish the boring chores of shopping? Littering maybe? Or was that a suicide bomber that you saw next to the fresh meat counter on your way in, fiddling with some nefarious wires in his trouser pocket to blow the entire mall to kingdom come?

Professor David Harvey’s rich fact-filled book The Enigma of Capital (2010) raises many interesting questions with his customary Marxist twist on the current global financial disorder. Not the least of these is a smoking gun which he implies points to some hidden hand directing events, rather than common or garden market turmoil  Specifically: when Lehman Brothers was allowed to collapse in 2008, was that a deliberate act by the US authorities to spread the contagion of financial collapse around the globe, like some toxic treacle? And if so, why?

WW2 began when a bunch of storm troopers dressed in Polish uniforms attacked the radio station in the German-dominated Danzig Free State. It was the classic example of the False Flag suggesting Poland had attacked Germany.

The Alliance for Peace and Progress has finally marched into a landscape that might have been dreamt up by Salvadore Dali matched by a script more bizarre than James Joyce's Ulysses. Every ten years NATO's war chiefs gather somewhere relaxing to cook up the 'road map' for the next ten. This year it was Lisbon's turn, offering a temporary distraction from the huge incoming typhoon that threats to blow away the entire Portuguese economy. Some distraction too. NATO declared war. But not, however, on anybody in particular.