Washington’s New European Concern

I am blessed, first to have the family that I do and the fact that I am probably one of the only men in Atlanta who does not have cable and who has never seen basketball house wives or whatever it is called. Meaning I have more time to read and think about issues that are often avoided in American mainstream media on either side of the isle.

Over the past few years, in particularly with the election of President Barack Obama and the growing European sovereign debt crisis, I have noticed some uneasy and troubling signings in world politics. I think the war on terror brought all to the surface and things have only continued to grow tenser.

For me it started in Finland, with the rise of the True Finns, the right-wing Populist Party who last April, won 19 percent of the vote in Finland. Also there was what happened in Austria when the far-right Freedom Party (FPO), was able to obtain 29 percent of the votes giving their leader; Heinz-Christian Strache (who has been campaigning for months to kick Greece out of the euro zone) is the second-strongest party in Austria and a hard-line neo-Nazi party that desires to legalize Nazi symbols and supports the open belief of scientific racism. Both are considered far right extremists whom politics focus on xenophobic and anti-Islam positions common to the right wing politics across Europe including the British Nationalist Party (BNP).

There are still other nations of concern. In Hungary, the Jobbik won nearly 17 percent of the 2010 vote, and is one of two leading opposition parties along with Fidesz, who won an overwhelming Parliamentary majority last year. The conservative Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban has passed laws restricting civil rights and basic freedoms that go against the country's EU membership. In Denmark, the Danish People's Party is the nation's third largest political organization, and has pushed Denmark to adopt some of Europe's strictest immigration laws. The British National Party has a policy that restricts membership to 'indigenous British people'.

As, Europe falls back into depression, the rise of authoritarianism, fascism, and the hard right wing will continue to grow and become a thorn in the side of US political concerns, in particular how we deal with the impact of these changes to our economy in a global market place. The economy of Europe is in dire straits with little if any growth occurring and extremely high rates of unemployment.

Now the wave is continuing across Europe in two of the hardest hit by the recent sovereign debt crisis – Greece and France. In Greece, the Independents (right-wing) and the far-right Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party will hold more than 50 seats in Parliament. This will be the first time in fifty years that the Golden Dawn party will enter parliament. Its leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos and the party campaigned hard against illegal immigration, and its supporters wear black shirts, and its emblems resemble Nazi insignia. Both Greek party’s reject its bailout commitments and write off its debt.

In Greece, the party with the most seats is given the first opportunity to build a coalition government. It continues down the line based on number of members in party until each party is able to accomplish this. If it is not accomplished, the inability to secure a political majority to meet the terms of the second Greek bailout would likely result in a Greek exit from the EU and more financial trouble across the globe. This means that Greece has to approve more than 11 billion Euros in additional budget cuts by the end of June in order to receive the next round of bailout money. Seeing this is the sixth year of the nation’s economic contraction and no one wants to hear the word austerity we may as well expect them to be gone by all accounts.

Add to this the election of Socialist Francois Hollande in France. Like Greece who suggests that the election results are a referendum against German austerity policies, France election seems to show the same thing. However, the German government on Monday ruled out reworking the European Union’s fiscal pact despite request for such by French president-elect Francois Hollande. Hollande also states that he wants the very rich to pay 75 percent in income taxes and “plans to hike taxes on companies that distribute profits to shareholders instead of investing in their business.” Although he campaigned on being strong on anti-immigration, he has gone on record saying that he would give residency to illegal immigrants on a case-by-case basis. Hollande will be France’s first socialist president since 1995. His proposed policies as a consequence could have major implications for all of Europe.

If history is any indication political turmoil will only grow. Germany’s obsession with austerity and hard money if we recall, is one factor that resulted in the conditions that gave rise to Hitler. We have seen what extremes can occur in the case of Anders Behring Breivik – the self-proclaimed ‘counter-jihadist’. Breivik’s conservatism focused on a xenophobic hatred of Islam and of those groups, notably political parties like the Labor and Socialist Left parties that supported immigration and asylum laws increasing the European Islamic presence.

Washington has a serious problem. Tax increases I concert with sever austerity programs I Europe have brought the far right to the front in politics. Obama needs to take heed giving that he is taking the advice of Robert Reich and Paul Krugman, who both favor a large tax increase for the United States. Obama supports their endorsed a 70 percent top marginal tax rate but doing nothing to prevent the $494 billion tax increase set to occur automatically on January 1, 2013, when the Bush-era tax rates expire under current law. Europe’s difficulties are diametric opposition to the response of Washington. The recently proposed Obama budget will send the United States more deeply into debt.

Washington needs to pay attention and stop ignoring the seriousness and likely impact of what is happening in European fascist political rise on the US economy. For the reality is that a default by Greece or any other country in the 16-nation Eurozone would be potentially deadly not only for Europe, but America as well.