A Crisis-Ridden Alliance Holds Crisis-Ridden Summit
- Pauline Easton -
The G7 which claims to represent "the world's
most influential and open societies and advanced economies," has
adopted the campaign slogan of the President of
the United States "Build Back Better." Essentially this means that the
countries meeting together at the G7 "leaders' Summit" think they can
impose their "shared values" and so-called
rules-based international order on the entire world. They say that
"might makes right" is something from the past but everything they do
is to find new ways to bring it into the present and
mold the future based on their pragmatic imperialist conception that
nothing succeeds like success. In other words, they make the rules and
then they use force to impose the rules against
those who do not submit. They do that all over the globe. They did that
when the Soviet Union fell and they adopted the Charter of Paris
which dictated the rules they subsequently
imposed onto the peoples of the world in the name of democracy,
human rights and prosperity. They decided the rules for the so-called
free movement of goods and capital,
multi-party election systems and human rights, none of which adhere to
the standards adopted by the United Nations which constitute the
international rule of law. Whosoever does not
abide by their own arbitrary rules faces sanctions and other forms of
death and destruction.
Their striving to be "great again" harkens back to a past which they
see as glorious even as the peoples of the entire world settle scores
with the legacies of genocide, slavery and
capitalist and imperialist relations of production and the
nation-states whose structures are designed to defend property rights
at the expense of human rights. They lord it over their
competitors, especially China and Russia and all countries which defend
their own path to development, by promoting the imperialist conception
that the U.S. is the "indispensable" nation.
In the words of the White House, the G7 Summit will serve to "advance
key U.S. policy priorities on public health, economic recovery, and
climate change, and demonstrate solidarity and
shared values among major democracies."
 Biden's message to the media on his departure for the G7 was "The
U.S. is Back" and "Democracies Are Standing Together." He said his aim
for the G7 is "Strengthening the alliance
and make it clear to Putin and to China that Europe and the United
States are tight, and the G7 is going to move." Seven countries and
assorted allies are spending millions of dollars to
attend and secure their meeting to declare what the remainder of the
193 nations which comprise the United Nations can or cannot do. Since
their deeds do not constitute the argument they
need so as to be convincing, all that remains is their firepower
through which they seek to defend their monopoly on the use of force.
It is a prescription for war which must not pass. The peoples of the
world are rising as one humanity engaged in one struggle to settle
scores with the colonial and imperialist legacies. It is their
struggles to advance the claims they are entitled to lay on societies
by virtue of being human that are decisive to stem the tide of
imperialist war for the redivision of the world's resources, zones of
cheap labour, areas for the export of capital and zones of influence.
The use of bravado to inspire confidence is never convincing. The
sigh of relief that with the presence of Biden in lieu of Trump,
"collegiality" will prevail and on this basis all the
problems can be tackled is both desperate and pathetic. For all his
collegiality, the civil war scenario in the United States looms as
large as ever. As for the dulcet tones of Canada's Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau to further the rights of women and girls, or Indigenous
peoples, or as concerns health and safety or the environment, his
allegiance to the Queen of England and all the prerogative powers
linked to the executive and judicial functions of the state makes him
duty bound to preserve the colonial legacy and power relations
which are enshrined in Canada's constitution. Political renewal is the
order of the day in every country to keep up with the demands of the
times while internationally, all peoples and
countries are duty-bound to uphold international rule of law which
guides relations between sovereign nations. The standards and content
of international rule of law is violated by the
so-called rules-based international order and this must be condemned
without letup.
There was a lot of fire power and behind the scenes deal-making in
favour of the global oligopolies and their cartels and coalitions under
the cover of the Trump presidency's bellicose
attitude towards U.S. partners in the so-called transatlantic alliance.
Biden's affirmation of "the United States' commitment to NATO,
Transatlantic security, and collective defence," while
also demanding, like Trump, that NATO countries increase the presence
and funding in NATO's war exercises reveals that this firepower and
deal-making remain constant behind Biden's
so-called collegial approach which is no less arrogant and even more
demanding. Brinkmanship in the Black Sea and South China Sea is
designed to test the strength of the armed forces of
rival powers. It is a very dangerous game whose only outcome is
inter-imperialist war.
Biden's open claims about the U.S. being the world's "indispensable
nation" and the transatlantic alliance being "tight" flies in the face
of the material conditions in the world today.
The old equation according to which whoever controlled Europe would
dominate Asia has no bearing on today's reality. Neither is the U.S.
succeeding in controlling Europe nor can it
dominate Asia whose productive powers far supercede those of the United
States and on the global scale, the scientific and technical revolution
has created productive powers which can be
described as a geological force beyond the control of any narrow
private interests. To settle scores with the imperialist warmongering
led by the U.S. and its aggressive NATO alliance, the
peoples have to advocate and find solutions on the basis of modern
proletarian internationalism, not old geo-political calculations based
on the superiority of those who make the rules and
get to interpret the rules of a so-called rules-based international
order.
 No peoples anywhere give a U.S. President, Canadian or British Prime
Minister or the likes of Germany, France and Japan the right to declare
that the "values" institutions like the G7
or NATO impose by economic, political and military force upon the world
are the best that humanity has produced and must be defended at all
costs. They present doing so as a given. It is
a matter not to be discussed or questioned. To do so is to be labelled
an extremist, a fringe element, a populist, an enemy agent or some
other epithet that puts one into a category deemed
unfit to be worthy of consideration. But what are these "values" and
who decided that they are "our values"? Everything is done to squelch
discussion on the so-called shared values the G7
and NATO push which are also said to be Canadian values, British values
and so on.
Because of the surge of refusal to accept the state of affairs on
the part of the peoples within the United States and the world, a
common response on the part of ruling elites is to
declare a "commitment" to do better. To realize that "commitment," war
preparations are raised to a fever pitch and the disinformation campaign
is directed to promoting Sinophobia and
Russophobia, blaming China and Russia for all the ills in the world. It
is done to undermine the people's movement against war, against the
racist legacy and for empowerment. A main
way they divert the movement is by setting the agenda and having
everyone to respond to their agenda in lieu of establishing their own
agenda and engaging in actions which further that
agenda. The fact remains that their creation of a frenzy of hatred will
never justify the anarchy, violence, deprivation and suffering in which
the great powers have plunged the world.
Sculpture entitled "Mount Recyclemore: The E7," created out of e-waste,
in the likeness of the G7 leaders and in the style of Mount Rushmore by
British artist Joe Rush on Sandy Acres Beach in Cornwall.
The G7 is a group in crisis which is why their own solutions are to
go back and try to maintain systems that have shown themselves to be
dysfunctional and unsustainable. Their
democracies, with their "shared values" of "free and fair elections"
and "multi-party systems" and "market economies" lurch from crisis to
crisis. They are controlled by corrupt elites who
have no arguments suitable for the present which address the problems
of the present. Their so-called rules-based international order where
the rules are opposite to what is recognized as
comprising international rule of law are defined by them on a
self-serving basis which no self-respecting country or people can
accept.
The G7 is a crisis-ridden alliance holding a crisis-ridden summit.
Indeed, the crises are such that even the rulers' own think tanks, like
the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations that claim
to bring the vying ruling factions together, are talking about
eliminating the G7 and post war institutions altogether in favour of a
"Concert of Powers." They propose this "Concert of
Powers" should include the U.S., China, the EU, India, Japan and Russia
to reach a consensus on how to sort out all the problems facing them
and humankind and thus avert war.
Of course, all the countries would have to submit to the U.S. demand
to be the "indispensable nation" and make the rules as it sees fit. It
merely underscores how pathetic they have become
and the very urgent need to save humanity from such condescending
saviours!
This article was published in
Volume 51 Number 13 - June 11, 2021
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2021/Articles/MS51132.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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