THE WORLD BANK

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development

Like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) was created in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference held in the United States at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The WB is an international lending institution consisting of approximately 177 member states for which it guarantees credit or to whom it makes loans from a portfolio of approximately $220 billion. Like the IMF, the WB is concerned with economic restructuring according to the neoliberal model and with major infrastructure projects intended to enhance economic efficiency. Although the WB does lend money to rescue defaulting economies (the IMF is more proficient at this), its primary focus is funding economic development, environmental sustainability, health projects, infrasructure etc. In any one year, the bank’s total loan portfolio ranges from approximately $5 up to $30 billion US dollars spread out among member states.

The WB, headquartered in Washington, DC, exists to promote and facilitate foreign investment and international commerce. WB loans, like IMF loans include “Structural Adjustment Programs” (SAPs) intended to nudge borrowing countries toward structural reforms in a market oriented direction. Loans also include policy requirements that reflect a neoliberal economic bias stipulating such things as:

Social Austerity (reductions in social spending on such things as health and welfare)
Reduction of Subsidies (on basics such as food and energy)
Deregulation
Reduction of Trade Barriers (such as taxes on imports that often compete with domestic supply
Promotion of Foreign Ownership of Businesses
Conversion of Agricultural Yield from Food to Cash Crops for Export
Privatization

Current concerns of the WB include deforestation, depletion of the ozone and other ecological concerns, AIDS, and vaccinations for communicable diseases.  The WB has set goals to help realize United Nations Millennium Development Goals set in 2000[1]. In this regard, the G8 (a group of eight industrialized nations—United States, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, Russia and Canada, —that promote global consensus on international security, economic growth, terrorism and  energy, and crsis situations, 2005) guaranteed up to $55 billion dollars to the WB, IMF and African Development Bank to cancel the debt of heavily indebted poor nations.

The WB consists of two entities:

(1) The International Development Association (IDA) and
(2) The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).

International Development Association

The IDA was established in 1960 and is headquartered in Washington, DC. It consists of 173 member countries and offers both grants and loans to over 80 member states with the highest credit risk – over half of these countries are in Africa. Receiving countries are evaluated according to per capita income (below $1200 per year) and their record of implementing policy requirements aimed at economic and social reform and poverty reduction. The IDA is considered the friendly or soft lending arm of the World Bank: It provides loans for up to 40 years, with built in grace periods often up to ten years, and low interest rates 1-3 %. Often loans are provided at no interest to regular client states. Like the IMF, loans come with neoliberal assumptions about economic growth that must be met to continue in good standing.

In the new millennium, the WB has financed numerous projects including access to clean water for over one hundred million people, for the training of over three million teachers, and for the vaccination of over three hundred million young people.  It has also made hundreds of millions of dollars in loans available to small businesses and has funded extensive bridge and road repair.

WB funds come through contributions of member states and from occasional supplementary funds from the IBRD and the International Finance Corporation (IFC)[2]. Funds are replenished according to a three year cycle.  Almost 60% of all funding originates in the United States with another 30% coming from France and England. In 2014, the fund was replenished with almost $50 billion US dollars from contributing states. Refunding does not occur without extensive discussion and amendment of goals and policies due to prevailing political concerns brought by contributing members.

Interested primarily in health care, education, infrastructure and clean water in the neediest states, over half of IDA’s capital is issued to fund projects in thirty African states. Recent special, interests include agriculture, electricity, education, and roadways.

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) is considered the “robust arm” of the WB. As such, it makes loans available to middle income nations. The IBRD provides financial services including grants, risk guarantees, and loans; like its sisters bank the IDA, the IBRD is headquartered in Washington DC. The IBRD was established in 1944 with the goal of providing financial assistance for the recovery of Europe following World War II. It is governed by a board of governors with a governor from each of its 187 member states.

Like the IDA, the IBRD receives funding from its member states, but unlike the IDA it receives most of its funding by borrowing from private investors on the international investment market by selling bonds – the IBRD funds only sovereign states and projects backed by such states. On average, the IBRD raises in a range form $20-$30 billion dollars in bond sales annually of which approximately 90% is used for financing projects; it has a debt portfolio[3] of approximately $100 billion.

The Bank offers a number of financial services and products, including flexible loans, grants, risk guarantees, financial derivatives, and catastrophic risk financing. It reported lending commitments of $26.7 billion made to 132 projects in 2011.

ANALYSIS:

Although World Bank policies have, in fact, generated wealth, newly created wealth tends to concentrate in small pockets of financial institutions, political patrons, and those with strong ties to the developed North.  It is becoming increasingly difficult for third world governments to convince their people that short-term austerity will result in long term prosperity when after thirty years all it has done is increase glaring disparity. Increasing disparity is increasingly associated with increasingly autocratic governments, which are necessary to implement and enforce World Bank SAPs that have worked to polarize society and essentially harm the people in whose name they are introduced.

Structural Adjustment have exacerbated poverty,

“Since the 1980s adjustment has helped create a net outflow of wealth from the developing world, which has paid out five times as much capital to the industrialized countries of the North as it has received.”[4]

Since Third World leaders and their staff are often educated at business schools in the North America (along with World Bank staff financers and economists educated in neoliberal theory) and, as a result, become advocates of the liberal market economy, when markets fail, they are, more often than not, perplexed and unsure where to turn for answers. Following a decade of imposed neoliberal polices that brought economic depression to Columbia, Columbian President Galviria stated,

“I have to confess that the evolution of the country after my government has left me perplexed, like many other Columbians” (President Galviria of Columbia). [5]

Columbia and other nations habituated to the Word Bank structural model have experienced ever mounting debt such that the “debt of the developing world equals about one-half their combined GNP and nearly twice their total export earnings”. This is the result of SAPs that orient these economies “toward generating foreign exchange…designed to ensure that debtor countries continue to make debt payments.[6] Although exports are high, they fail to meet social needs because domestic companies are often privatized and end up in the hands of foreign investors who are able to repatriate profits to Northern bank accounts.

Moreover, since exports tend to increasingly consist of cash crops, farmers are often not producing enough food crops to feed their own people. Exports are intended to pay salaries of workers who in turn are able to buy imported food; however, because the market is unregulated, food prices tend to rise making it increasingly difficult to meet basic nutritional needs, which were once provided by indigenous third world farmers themselves.

This is not the only way that World Bank loans limit the creative ability of local peoples to help themselves. Rather than being able to spend the money efficiently looking for cost-effective materials and contracting experts from the home country, World Bank loans are notorious for including agreements that bind third world parties to purchase not only products and materials from developed countries but expert advice as well.

While SAPS help countries to service their debts and help enrich a small class of political opportunists, financial officers, and corporate executives, workers continue to live in poverty exacerbated by decreased social services and rising food prices. Moreover, they are alienated from economic and political decision making that affects their lives and their livelihood, and by turning them into individual competitors estranges them socially and culturally from each other. Interestingly, as much as the IMF, World Bank and industrialized nations of the North laud free markets, the leading nations of the North have all been assisted by government spending, trade tariffs, subsidies, and generous social welfare programs denied to the developing nations.

Because of its social costs, this model of development is not likely to succeed. New development models are being developed that are more congruent with social needs and the human dignity of workers that are involved in micro finance and economic development rather than top down macro and structural approaches. Rather than placing all the burden on the state thereby depriving its citizens of initiatives, new approaches are operating closer to the people and include intermediate social group such as trade unions, human rights advocates, farmer cooperatives, fraternal and self-help organizations that are more focused on family needs, health care, increasing earnings, cultural development, social organization and broad communal consensus.

A vanguard of Christian philosophers and social scientists foresaw the negative consequences of overemphasis on macro development, unregulated capitalism, statism and free market cronyism.  Their ideas found their way into Catholic Social teaching, which has over the course of a century and a half, developed a well thought out approach to human social-economic-political development congruent with the kind of micro-development that is organically developing throughout the third world.

_____________________________________

FOOTNOTES

[1] The Millennium Summit of the United Nations gathered in 2000 to articulate eight goals necessary to enhance international development. All member states and over twenty international organizations agreed to work toward achieving the following goals by 2015.

1. Eradication of extreme poverty
2. Achievement of global primary education
3. Promotion of gender equality
4. Reduction of child mortality
5. Improvement of maternal health
6. Combating HIV/AIDS
7. Ensuring environmental sustainability
8. Developing a global partnership for development

[2] The IFC, headquartered in Washington DC, was created in 1956 to stimulate economic development by using its funds to invest in private sector for profit ventures aimed at reducing poverty. It is particularly concerned with agriculture, health, microfinance, and education. Currently, it invests approximately $18-20 billion annually in such projects .

[3] A group of investments in debt owned by a bank or company intended to earn interest.  The portfolio includes such things as debtor’s names, amounts of debts, balance due on debts etc.

[4] Global Exchange: http://www.globalexchange.org/resources/wbimf/faq

[5] Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM); http://cadtm.org/spip.php?page=imprimer&id_article=668

[6] Global Exchange: http://www.globalexchange.org/resources/wbimf/faq

FRANCE MIGHT BE THE OLDEST DAUGHTER of the Church, but she is also the birthplace of the so-called “Enlightenment” an esoteric term connoting Gnosticism – the false light of wisdom promised Eve in Eden, which stealthily crept out of the  Masonic Salons of Paris hidden in the amphibologies (double entendre) of the Encyclopedists[1] . These duplicitous agents of the New Age prepared the way for the French Revolution, the rise of modern liberalism, and the subsequent attack on Christendom (on the Catholic clergy, Catholic aristocracy and Catholic monarchy) that Napoleon Bonaparte spread across Europe all the way to the gates of Moscow under the banner of revolutionary banner of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity”.

It is possible to grasp something of the double meaning intended by such words as liberty, equality, and fraternity (they mean one thing to adepts and another to the uninitiated or conditioned commoners) by recourse to the writings of François-Marie Arouet (known by his nom de plume as Voltaire), especially by recourse to his Dictionary of Philosophy. Voltaire was a major contributor to the Encyclopedia, a patriarch of the Enlightenment and a Masonic adept initiated into Freemasonry in 1778 at the Lodge of Nine Sisters.

Though Voltaire and the men involved in the cabal with him called themselves “Philosophes”, they were an affront to philosophy, the type of men Paul was referring to when he stated:

“For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” (Romans 1:22).

Paul indicated that there would be Christian philosophers according to Christ and deluded philosophers full of deceit allied with the world against Christ:

“Beware lest any man cheat you by philosophy, and vain deceit; according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8).

May of the Catholic aristocracy, the “Old Guard”, were educated in  the Thomistic and Augustinian philosophy of Christ.  They knew the voice of Christ and the voice of His adversary (John 10:27). Theerfore, though a minority, they valiantly resisted while it was prudent to do so. However, in the long run, they had to surrender the field and capitulate under a tidal wave of liberalism that covered all of Europe by the end of the 19th century.

Since then, France has oscillated back and forth among several political alternatives; nonetheless, most of the proposed alternatives have contained some facet of liberalism and France has remained in the liberal camp as a supposed avant-garde force propelling Europe, and the world, into a new global order under the sway of liberalism.

However, in France, as elsewhere, the liberal ideologues have grown so arrogant and accustomed to easy victory that they have too hastily put forward an agenda so indecent that the supposed “morons” whom they have socially engineered, and whom they abhor, are no longer acting so gullible. They are beginning to question events and even to demand change. Things have gone too far and there is a noticeable counter-current welling up from the reservoirs of France’s deep cultural and spiritual patrimony coalescing  into a political current that is swiftly moving in the opposite direction.

Emergence of Marine Le Pen and the National Front

Although the National Front (FN) was launched on October 5, 1972, it is part of a conservative tradition that opposed the French Revolution of 1789. Consequently, the FN rejects both the revolution and its liberal legacy. Sensing the weakness of France’s various conservative constituencies, constituencies that represent its cultural patrimony, its historic national ethos, its spiritual traditions and its ancient moral precepts rooted in Christian faith and reason, leaders of the FN realized the importance of forming a national front, an umbrella party that united the conserving elements of France under one political banner.

Then on January 15, 2011, Marine Le Pen unexpectedly became the leader of the FN and since then has catapulted a municipal party into a national political power. The FN received nearly 5 million votes in the 2014 parliamentary elections and gained 25% of all the seats in parliament. Then in 2015 in the first round of regional elections, it placed first in half  of the 13 newly reapportioned regions ahead of every party in France. In Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, little Le Pen won 41% of the vote. News like this sent shock waves throughout Europe (as similar events were happening in the Balkans and Central Europe, but no one foresaw such an event in modern France, the Mother of Liberalism.

The FN, much to the chagrin of EU leaders and the political elite of France, has rejected both liberalism and neoliberalism and is researching innovative economic policies that are more popular and serve the broader common good. Although they remain open to leaving certain vital industries such as transportation, health care and energy in the hands of the government, they are rejecting globalism and unfavorable EU mandates and policies in favor of national identity and cultural legacy.

Thus, the FN  has referred to the EU as:

“…the last stage on the road to world government” and a  “puppet of the New World Order.”

Le Pen does not represent the ultimate solution for the French people, but she is an astute political barometer measuring change in the political atmosphere indicating widespread discontent with worn-out liberal rhetoric and indicative of a growing movement favoring social and political solutions that respect French tradition and its cultural and spiritual legacy as well as the Christian identity of Europe. Consequently,

Le Pen admires Vladimir Putin and refers to him as a “defender of the Christian heritage of European civilization.”

Marine Le Pen believes that

“Russia is unfairly ‘demonized.’ She has claimed that the campaign against the Russian leadership is being conducted at the highest levels of the European Union with support from the United States.”

French National Values

As a leader deeply interested in protecting the national patrimony, Le Pen is a sharp critic of continued immigration of Islamic fundamentalists who refuse to adopt the traditions and values of their host country but continue to oppose and ridicule them while receiving protection for doing so from the EU. Tolerance does not mean permitting a guest to dictate to you what you must believe in your own house while persecuting a person if he or she dared do such a thing in their own house. For example, Christian refugees in Kelkheinm, Germany are being persecuted by Muslims in a Christian country and getting away with it.

In a Report put out out by “Open Doors” a Christian Alliance operating in Germany 743 attacks against Christians in German refugee camps have been documented in this year alone. The Report states that:

“It must be assumed that there is a high number of unreported cases….Effective measures for the protection of religious minorities have yet to be implemented.” In Spain for example,

 

“Christian refugees thrown overboard and drowned 84 In Spain, a migrant from Cameroon has been indicted of having murdered six Christian refugees. The accused and captain of a boat supposedly blamed a Catholic priest for the rough sea during the passage. He beat the priest with a sharp piece of wood and threw him overboard. Subsequently he and another refugee searched all other boat passengers for any items identifying them as Christians and subsequently dumped another five Christians into the sea. The state prosecutor has charged him of premeditated murder.

In France, Open Doors Reports:

“In January 2016, the public learned about violent incidents directed against Christian refugees at Grande-Synthe, a camp in Northern France. Regarding the general situation of the Iranian-Christian minority, labour union leader David Michaux confirmed that there was a real problem between Muslims and non-Muslims. “The Muslims are trying to drive the Christians out from the camp.”

Numerous Christian migrants have filed complaints but have not received any help. This statement by an Iranian Christian is typical,

“I reported the death threats I received to the Info point several times in Persian but they did not react. I reported it two to three times.”

A Lutheran Pastor Gottfried Martens, verified the neglect of Christian refugees under attack by Islamic refugees in Germany.

“There is not a single case in which Christian refugees in my church had been attacked and injured in their accommodation where the investigation was not dismissed in the end,” he said. “In every case the attacked Christians word stood against the word of the attackers, who were always in the large majority. … In the end, each of the criminal charges only leads to further humiliation of the victims and a loss of confidence in the constitutional state.”

Marine Le Pen understands what is happening to Christians abroad and even in European refugee camps and wants to put a stop to it.

“The war against the Islamic fundamentalism (she says) has not begun yet, now it is necessary to urgently declare it,”

Since it is the European Union that is imposing these foreign ideologies on France, it is the right of France to leave the EU. Recalling BREXIT, she proposes a FREXIT:

“The Brits have chosen their destiny and decided to leave the European Union. They made the choice of independence… I will hold a referendum (if elected president)  on France’s EU membership because you have the right to speak out… Yes, my friends, it is possible to change things.”

Trump or Clinton?

Regarding presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, CNN reported that Le Pen favors Trump because Clinton means entrenched interests, therefore globalism and more war to protect entrenched interests. Comparing herself to Trump she stated:

“We are similar because we are not part of the establishment, we are not part of the system, and we do not depend on anybody and we don’t take orders from anyone,” she said.

“For France, anything is better than Hillary Clinton. Anything but Hillary Clinton. Because I think Hillary Clinton means war. Hillary Clinton means devastation. It means world instability.”

ARTICLE BEING COMPLETED

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NOTES

[1]The group of French philosophers who worked together to produce renowned Encyclopedie. The work was overseen by Denis Diderot, and promoted as a Dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts, et des métiers (Dictionary of arts, sciences and letters). The writers intended to provide a comprehensive overview of the entire field of human knowledge from the perspective of the “Enlightenment”

POLISH DEMOCRACY HAS UNDERGONE a series of changes from the time of its modern inception during the exciting days of Solidarnosc back in 1989. Since then it has moved from a nascent democracy, birthed under Lech Walesa, to an unforeseen reversion back to socialism, followed by a decisive move toward secular neoliberalism backed by significant Western dollars for military, cultural and economic purposes. For a while it looked as though Poland’s Catholic identity was in jeopardy as the country adopted more and more liberal tenets from the West. It was as if the words of Primate Cardinal Glemp in 1989 were coming true:

“We have withstood the onslaught of atheistic materialism, Marxism is dead.  However, I am not so sure that we can withstand the onslaught of Western (hedonistic) materialism.”

All three tenets of liberalism: economic, political and moral were being unpacked in Poland. First came profuse promises of financial assistance followed by the schooling of political leaders in civics and liberal democracy taught  by legions of libertarian ideologues representing think tanks supported by the State Department. Next, the painful Western neoliberal prescription for austerity and economic restructuring was swallowed along with a toxic sugar-coated pill of foreign investment that made it appear palatable. This was followed by foreign purchase and then control of corporate businesses and by interference in politics at all levels. After establishing a beachhead in the NGOs and multinational corporations along with control of a significant percentage of financial institutions and garnering political sway in Warsaw, the liberal cultural agenda was introduced propped up by broad scale advertisement and countless Western dollars with strings attached to ideological items such as the family, sexuality, liberal toleration of the LGBT agenda, and related issues that are all part of the liberal paradigm for freedom, freedom, that is, without a place for Christianity in the public forum. Following decades of this liberal “shock treatment”, it seemed as if Poland would collapse under the onslaught of Western materialism as foreseen by Cardinal Glemp.

The Poles, however, are a resilient people, a people with a thousand years of rich cultural history steeped in the legacy of Roman Catholicism. Poland’s cultural,  spiritual, and intellectual roots run very deep, too deep, in fact, for even such an insidious program as neoliberalism nurtured by profuse capital infusion.  The liberalizing of Poland is a top priority of the US State Department, and of the EU. Consequently, Poland “has been the largest beneficiary of subsidies from the EU”.  Poland has been infused with Western capital because it is externally important geopolitically, and because it is a show case for liberal democracy. Consequently, those who call for the toleration of anything but fell threatened by Christian developments in Poland are threatening to stop the cash flow as the ultimate “trump card” necessary to avert what they perceive as the ultimate disaster – Poland returning to its Catholic identity:

“Brussels can start to take another look at the funds that over the years have contributed so much to the Polish economic miracle (they amount to more than the entire Marshall Plan for postwar Europe in today’s dollars).”

Like other peoples around the globe, the Poles are becoming painfully aware of liberalism’s shallow promises and are beginning to see through its friendly propaganda. Poles are an intellectual people well accustomed to secularism and broad programs of propaganda that were imposed upon them by an all controlling communist regime that strained to falsely appear in favor of human rights and dignity; they are awakening to the fact that a similar program is being fed them by liberal ideologues who have taken up key positions throughout the country in a war to stealthily impose neoliberalism upon them contrary to their traditional values, contrary to their Catholic heritage. The fruits of twenty years of liberal rule are now readily apparent and people are reeling back from their negative experiences.  Communism worked against man and society, so too does liberalism. Consequently, sober Poles have quickly awoken to this reality; as they led the world against communism, they are leading the rally for a renewed Christian Europe cognizant of their reputation as the “Rampart of Europe”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLJcJi3qPpM

FATIMA and DIVINE MERCY

At Fatima Our Lady promised and Era of Peace and in a series of approved apparitions that took place in Poland and that have the highest approbation of the Catholic Church, Jesus Christ revealed to Saint Faustina that a change was coming and that the impetus for the change was to be the nation of Poland:

“I bear a special love for Poland (he said), and if she will be obedient to My will, I will exalt her in might and holiness. From her will come forth the spark that will prepare the world for My final coming” (Diary, 1732).

It is not surprising then, that after 20 years of liberalism the Polish people have given a political mandate to the Law and Justice Party (PiS), which has strong ties to the Catholic Church. Party leaders recently endorsed a total ban on abortion with support from the Church. Jarolaw Kaczyński, Chairman of PiS told reporters that

“In these (moral) matters, as a Catholic, I follow the teachings of the bishops.”

Under Kaczynski’s leadership, PiS not only won the presidency, it also has solid control of the parliament (SEJM), which lacks any viable liberal component for the first time in decades.

The Prime Minister of Poland, Beata Szydło,  is also the Vice Charman of PiS; she also also supports the anti-abortion legislation. As does the new Polish President, a devout Catholic Andrzej Duda.

In the United States and Argentina nuns and laity who publicly ridicule bishops, disrupt Mass, challenge priests during their homilies and desecrate sacred objects are considered heroes. These tactics are therefore adopted to ridicule the church and win public support.

In Poland, however, such acts are considered profanations, profanations which if carried out by trols, conditioned masses, or paid subversives would actually help rather than hinder the church. Thus covert actions such as these that work elsewhere are backfiring in Poland. According to Polish political scientist Marek Migalski  reaction to disruptions at Mass in Poland are similar “to the outrage in Russia when punk rockers Pussy Riot staged a 2012 protest in a Moscow cathedral, which left many ordinary Russians aghast and actually boosted support for Vladimir Putin.”

“If the face of the opposition is aggressive feminists yelling in church, then it helps PiS,” he said

The following two quotes are examples of the vitriol coming from liberal ideologues manifesting their biased anti-Christian sentiments and also manifesting the growing unity among Slavic nations, a unity which is an increasing challenge to the liberals that is not going away:

“Both Poland and Hungary now offer a toxic ideological brew that is reminiscent of interwar Europe: anti-communism and anti-capitalism can be combined and justified in the name of a highly intolerant nationalism based on Christian values that conclusively define who is a true Hungarian or true Pole.

Liberal ideologues and pundits are coming undone as they watch these developments.  Because they are unable to stop or avert them by their usual methods, they are predicting a gloomy picture for themselves as other Slavic countries of Eastern Europe join Poland, Hungary and Slovakia in the march toward Christian social renewal:

“Today we witness the emergence of a new Authoritarian International in the region, with Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and possibly Croatia as potential future members alongside Hungary and Poland.“

Hungary’s largest political party is Fidesz and its third largest political party is Jobbik; are both proponents of Christian social renewal and both cooperate with PiS and other Polish patriotic movements.  Their cooperation “is rooted in a shared vision of Europe, Márton Gyöngyösi, a leader of Jobbik responsible for foreign policy, told POLITICO.”

“As opposed to liberal values based on individualism, secularism, consumerism and multiculturalism, we support the defense of the nation state, its traditions, ethnic composition and Christian values.”

Having a comprehensive view of the political landscape in front of him and and a prudential vision of what is possible in the current climate, a senior advisor to President Duda recently indicated that he thinks the time has come for change:

“Now begins the process of reconquering the country, and it may be brutal.”

As stated above, “Law and Justice (PiS) swept the table of Polish politics this year, first unexpectedly winning the presidency in May and then in October taking an outright majority in the parliament. The party now wields more clout over Poland than any government since the end of communist rule a quarter century ago” (http://www.politico.eu/article/poland-pis-politics-kaczynski-tusk/).

Poland is certainly a country to watch and to emulate.  From her will “come the spark” that will prepare the world for the final coming of Jesus Christ. She certainly seems to be living up to her destiny among nations.

IN AN ABSOLUTELY SURPRISING MOVE REVERBERATING around the globe, Rodrigo Duterte recently elected president of the Philippines (May 9, 2016), and a leader who has an unusually high 85% approval rating, has announced his rejection of liberalism and his intention to newly align his country with China and Russia. On October 19, 2016 Duterte openly declared

1. “I will break up with America,” adding that he would rather “go to Russia and to China.”
2. “America has lost” and maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to Putin.” To tell him:
3. “There are three of us against the world, China, the Philippines and Russia.”
4. “In this venue, I announce my separation from the United States both in the military… but economics also.”

https://youtu.be/pObOVG2MPgc

Referring to the United States Duterte stated:

“Your stay in my country was for your own benefit” … “So time to say goodbye, my friend.”

“I will not go to America anymore. I will just be insulted there.”

Like other world leaders in Nigeria, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, China and Russia et al, Duterte slammed the United States for the arrogance with which it imposes its unwanted liberal policies on sovereign nations around the globe as if it were the world’s moral police force.

Jonathan Kwitny authored a book entitled “Endless Enemies” in which he described the Philippines as “the Zaire of Asia,” a country in which the United States engaged in covert political activity to manipulate politics and the economy in its favor.

“Every anti-guerrilla campaign has been victorious, and every election, real or rigged, has produced the winner the US government desired.”

Manipulation such as this helps the outside observer to understand why Duterte recently told President Obama to “go to hell” and refereed to him as a “son of a whore”. In September 2016 Duterte stated that he was “about to cross the Rubicon” with the United States and announced his intention to distance himself from Washington and to turn the country toward China and Russia.

Despite all his rhetoric, Duterte plans to maintain relations with the West to benefit his country as much as possible.  According to Duterte’s Finance Secretary, Carlos Dominguez, and his Socioeconomic Planning Secretary, Ernesto Pernia:

“We will maintain relations with the West”…but we desire stronger integration with our neighbors. We share the culture and a better understanding with our region.”

Dominguez and Pernia indicated that the move is about improved business relationships and a desire for regional growth and integration. The Filipinos are also interested in Chinese capital investment and access to a regional  market of 1.8 billion people.The National Economic and Development Authority referred to Duterte’s actions as a move toward “economic regional re-balancing.”

Dominguez further explained that Duterte is not altering the country’s foreign policy but “recalibrating” it to open the country to Asian markets.

“The President has indicated to us that he’d like to strengthen and exploit opportunities…in countries other than our traditional trading partners.”

So after all the bluster and bravado, the statements by Duterte seem calculated to increase good relations with China in hopes of profiting the Philippines. During the state visit Dominguez signed several significant agreements with his new Chinese partners: two are Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) on Financing Cooperation, and an Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation.

According to the ‘Manila Bulletin“, The first MOU, is with the Export-Import Bank of China (EXIM), which will permit EXIM to fund Filipino infrastructure, energy and agricultural projects.

The second MOU, was signed with Gao Hucheng, the Chinese Commerce Minister.  This MOU provides financial support to conduct feasibility studies for major infrastructure, agriculture and rural development projects. Dominguez and Gao also signed an Agreement for Economic and Technical Cooperation. According to this agreement, China will grant approximately $700 million for anti-drug efforts underway in the Philippines and to strengthen law enforcement and security cooperation between the two countries. In all, the Chinese government has made $6 billion dollars in development assistance available to the Philippines and another $3 billion dollars in credits from the Bank of China to boost infrastructure projects in the Philippines.

Interview with Phillipine Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez

These business deals, seem to support Duterte’s political rhetoric. A warning flag has been raised that could point to significant changes in Filipino foreign policy. Duterte is in favor of new partnerships contrary to American wishes and also in favor of a new tranche of investments, which will presumably involve the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) rather than continue relationships with worn out international institutions such as the IMF and World Bank who have left a bad taste in the mouths of Third World political leaders.

Moreover, four days prior to his departure for Beijing, Duterte had an interview with Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television during which he iterated his openness to joint military exercises with Russia and China and reiterated his intent to end war games with the United States.

Asked specifically  if he would consider joint military drills with China or Russia instead of the United States, Duterte stated:

“Yes, I will. I have given enough time for the Americans to play with the Filipino soldiers.”

Then, referring to joint military exercises with the US he stated:

“This will be the last. It has been programmed. I do not want my soldiers to be humiliated.”

Moreover, The Philippine leader has also manifested a keen interest in purchasing Russian weapons. According to the Washington Post, on October 5 Duterte addressed the White House and US State Department on the matter:

“Although it may sound shit to you, it is my sacred duty to keep the integrity of this republic and the people healthy…. “If you don’t want to sell arms, I’ll go to Russia. I sent the generals to Russia and Russia said ‘do not worry, we have everything you need, we’ll give it to you.’ And as for China, they said ‘just come over and sign and everything will be delivered’,” Duterte previously stated that he wanted “cheaper weapons with no strings attached.”

All this comes at a time when Japan is openly planning a Peace Treaty with Russia.  On Dec 3, Japanese Prime Minister Abe will meet with President Putin. According to STRATFOR (October 20, 2016):

“Both leaders see opportunity in cooperation; Russia, rich with energy but starved of foreign investment, is an ideal partner for Japan, hungry as it is for energy with money to burn. Trade between the two countries has quadrupled since 2006, reaching a record-high $34.8 billion in 2013.

 

“Russia has completed the infrastructure needed to handle 2.1 million barrels per day — nearly half of Russia’s overall oil export level of 4.8 million barrels per day. Of the 716,000 barrels per day that Russia exported in 2012, only 141,000 went to Japan — though now Russia has the capacity to send much more.

Russia is also looking to export natural gas to Asia as well.

Russian natural gas company Gazprom has announced it will build a 2,500-kilometer (1,553-mile) pipeline to the Pacific for the new natural gas supplies that it says will be online by 2016. Russia is now considering a liquefied natural gas facility at Vladivostok to handle part of the 25 billion-50 billion cubic meters that Gazprom plans to produce out of East Siberia. East Asia already receives small amounts of natural gas from Russia’s Sakhalin-2 project. Japan has increased its intake of Sakhalin-2 liquefied natural gas in recent years to 10 billion cubic meters annually compared to the 3 billion cubic meters it received before the Fukushima disaster.

The United States is not happy about these developments nor is it happy about the meeting between Putin and Abe that took place earlier this year in May.

“The (Japanese) prime minister has been bucking Washington’s pressure over Russia all year. U.S. President Barack Obama warned Abe not to visit Russia for a summit with Putin in May, but he did anyway” (STRATFOR October 20, 2016).

It seems that more and more people are bucking Washington these days. Deals such as these spell the political and economic death of liberalism in the South Pacific and Asia.

Our Lady promised an Era of Peace and She is keeping Her word. Liberalism, in the name of peace, is the world’s largest promoter of violence and war – so it has to become a thing of the past. Consequently we are witnessing its death around the globe in places such as the Philippines, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Nigeria while simultaneously witnessing the promised conversion of Russia.

HUNGARY, LIKE POLAND AND SLOVAKIA et al has recently, amid scathing criticism, began a movement opposed to the moral, economic, and political program of neoliberalism promoted by leading Western nations. Along these lines, Hungary like its Slavic counterparts, is resisting the EU proposal to relocate Islamic refugees. Of three million one hundred thousand Hungarians who cast a vote in a nationwide referendum, 98 percent were opposed to the EU migrant quota plan.

According to Prime Minister Viktor Orban .

“Brussels can’t impose its will on Hungary (that is, its refugee policy or any objectionable neo-liberal policy). The choice was between Brussels (capitol of the European Union) and Budapest (capitol of Hungary), and people chose Budapest” (Britain First).

FOREIGN POLICY VIS A VIS RUSSIA

In addition, amid harsh criticism from the West, Hungary, like an increasing array of other nations, maintains a different foreign policy vis a vis Russia than the EU would like to see.

​In February 2015, Orban stated that,

‘We think that without cooperation with Russia, we cannot achieve our goals.” (Business Insider)

POLITICAL PLATFORM AND CHRISTIAN VALUES

Hungary’s leading Fidesz Party led by Prime Minister Orban has much in common with the newly elected Law and Justice Party of Poland (Pis). Both favor a strong sense of patriotism and are increasingly skeptical of EU economic, political and social initiatives; they both favor limits on immigration, oppose liberal moral values and liberal control of the media while promoting national and traditional moral values. They both are staunch supporters of Christianity and Catholic social teaching regrading distributive justice in service of the broad common good. Both Fidesz and Pis favor progressive Catholic social ideas of private property hallowed by charity and justice with a communitarian dimension in favor of broad distribution that provides a social safety net to poverty and a strong element of human dignity. Both Poland and Hungary have moved to place moral  limits on the media amid loud outcry from the EU, which in the name of tolerance views any such restrictions as a violation of human rights rather than a guarantor of human dignity and therefore a boon for human rights.

Along this moral contour, Hungary is in the vanguard with Russia regarding the protection of Christians around the globe. Orban has clearly indicated that Hungary will work in tandem with the Pope Francis and the Catholic Church to aid persecuted Christians.  In fact, he regards Catholics as:

“the most vulnerable Christians in the world” (Vatican Radio).

Surprisingly, it is not the United States or the United Kingdom that has vowed to protect Christians around the globe, but Russia and Hungary. Like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban has made it clear that predominantly Catholic and Christian Hungary will defend persecuted Christians in the Middle East.  Orban has, moreover, backed his words with action; he has created an executive department to aid persecuted Christians and has endowed it with an initial operating budget of $3.35 million.

SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE AND OF HUMAN LIFE – ABORTION RESTRICTIONS

As in Poland and Russia, the Prime Minister of Hungary has moved to protect unborn children and to promote the sanctity of life by amending the Hungarian Constitution to articulate the principle that  life begins at conception and that marriage consists of a perpetual union of one man and one woman.

Orban is a sure proponent of democracy and human dignity, but he is opposed to what he refers to as “liberal democracy” (democracy with a neoliberal tinge) in favor of “illiberal democracy“, that is democracy without liberalism.  In short, Hungary under Orban has moved toward its Christian heritage in favor of traditional Christian values; it is increasingly opposed to EU liberalism in favor of a Christian commonwealth

In addition to Fidiez, Jobbik (Hungary’s third largest political party) shares many of its ideas along the Christian spectrum. Jobbik defines itself as

 “A principled, conservative and radically patriotic Christian party“, whose “fundamental purpose” is the protection of “Hungarian values and interests.”

As a result of the parliamentary elections of 2014, Jobbik received over a million votes thereby garnering 21% of the seats in parliament becoming the third largest party in the National Assembly.

OPPOSITION TO NEOLIBERALISM AND ZIONISM

As in Russia and to a lesser extent among Pis leaders in Poland, Jobbik is opposed to the spread of neoliberalism or global capitalism and the international institutions that support and perpetuate it. As a result, it advocates Hungary for Hungarians and closely monitors foreign investment within its borders. Like the others, Jobbik is characterized by a strong distrust of Zionism and international finance, perhaps the most contentious political, social, and cultural issue in play today. As a result, Jobbik directly opposes Jewish (read Zionist) investments in Hungary.

Party Chairman Gabor Vona  has been quoted as saying:

“The Israeli conquerors, these investors, should look for another country in the world for themselves because Hungary is not for sale.”

ALLIANCE WITH POLAND: THE SUPREME COURT AND PARLIAMENT

As a final display of its defiance for liberalism, the European Union has threatened sanctions on Poland for its  recent move to place moral limits on the foreign press and the implied protection of Christian values via the appointment of “midnight judges” to the national tribunal (supreme court). According to Politico, PiS has an alliance with the Roman Catholic Church, and will resist liberalism imported from Western Europe. As such, the new Minister of Culture, Piotr Gliński, has stated that in accord with Christian social values:

“Single-sex marriage, abortion, gender ideology — these are red lines for us”

After years of experiencing ideological dominance by the supreme court, similar to the ideological dominance exercised by the United States Supreme Court that resulted in abortion rights (Roe v Wade), Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the founder of PiS, referred to the tribunal as

“The bastion of everything in Poland that is bad.”

Consequently, it is not surprising to see such rancor over supreme court appointments, over justices that can rule on the constitutionality of laws passed by parliament. Law and Justice (PiS) however, not only won the presidency; it also gained an outright majority in the parliament. PiS now governs by popular mandate and wields more power than any government since the collapse of communism in 1989. Consequently, any attempt by the EU to impose sanctions on Poland for something that is well within its sovereign rights to oppose are highly unlikely. Hungary, moreover, has indicated, it will veto any such sanctions should they be imposed.

Poland is on a similar path as Hungary, its geographical, historical, and political cousin: One of the first steps taken by Orban in Hungary was placing limits on that nation’s constitutional court because that court was loaded with liberal and neoliberal ideologues opposed to Christian renewal.

Orban has clearly stated his preference for Christianity and opposition to worn out liberalism. One of his primary goals is to build an

“illiberal new state based on national foundations” 

There was a visible Hungarian presence at the annual nationalist march in Warsaw on Polish Independence Day, November 11. “Friendship today, alliance tomorrow,” read a bilingual banner carried by youths with Jobbik flags.

According  to a Polish priest nestled in the crowd:

“Nowhere in the world is there such a tie between nations.”

Hungary’s cooperation with the Polish National Movement is rooted in a shared vision of Europe; Márton Gyöngyösi, a leader of Jobbik responsible for foreign policy, told POLITICO.

“As opposed to liberal values based on individualism, secularism, consumerism and multiculturalism, we support the defense of the nation state, its traditions, ethnic composition and Christian values,”