Energy: green fanaticism threatens to collapse the EU electricity grid
+ How controlled opposition works in France
Today I am providing again my English translation of 2 articles.
The first one is a short article, originally in Italian, published on Movisol.org on Saturday 21st December 2024. (All emphasis mine).
Energy: green fanaticism threatens to collapse the EU electricity grid
The last few weeks of autumn have brought the European energy grid close to collapse, due to the “black hole” created in Germany by so-called renewable energies. As any schoolboy could have foreseen, the prolonged absence of wind created what the Germans call a “Dunkelflaute” (a “dark hole”), generating a deficit in electricity supply that could only be compensated for by massive imports from France and Scandinavia. This caused electricity prices on the European electricity exchange EEX to skyrocket to a record price of 936 €/MWh, compared to a normal price of less than 100 €/MWh on 11th December [2024] (the prices quoted are for large customers, such as industrial companies, who buy electricity by the day).
Germany has an installed wind power capacity of over 66 GW and an even higher installed solar power capacity of 81.7 GW. However, at 5 PM on 11th December [2024], when electricity demand peaked at over 65 GW, solar panels provided zero power and wind farms less than 3 GW. According to Bloomberg, thanks to the activation of gas, oil and coal plants, the available reserve in the German grid - available capacity minus expected demand - fell to winter lows. To realise this disaster, Germany has spent around EUR 700 billion over the past 20 years (see https://eir.news/2024/08/news/study-shows-germany-has-wasted-700-billion-euro-in-green-transition/).
Dunkelflaute occurs often in Germany, but the country was less vulnerable in the past, when the proportion of intermittent sources in the energy mix was not so massive. This time the system has not collapsed, but nobody knows what the limit is. In January, for example, a more prolonged “dark lull” is expected and the temperature is likely to be lower, thus bringing the stress on the system to a higher level. There is a risk of a total blackout.
However, excess electricity is also a problem. The European grid must always transport the required amount of electricity. Supply must match demand. If either factor fails, the system collapses. When the wind blows, Germany produces an overcapacity of electricity and has to sell it to its neighbours. The latter have to switch off some of their plants and, to make the exchange worthwhile for their partners, Germany pays them. Electricity prices become negative and buyers are paid to buy electricity!
This absurd system, which would put the creations of cartoonist Rube Goldberg to shame, is beginning to anger the European partners. Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Bush tweeted on 11 December: “The rollercoaster of electricity prices is horrible. Tomorrow [the price, ed.] will be just over 8 SEK [per kWh, or 695 €/MWh, ed.] in southern Sweden between 5 and 6 p.m. At other times we have extremely low prices. This is the result of the decommissioned nuclear power. When there is no wind, electricity prices are high with this failed electricity system, as shown by the German electricity prices of around 10 SEK/kWh [868 €/MWh, ed.]. That is precisely why we are doing everything to rebuild the electricity system. The foundations for new nuclear power have already been laid and we are protecting hydropower”.
However, logic is not enough to change the minds of green ideologues. At a German-Ukrainian economic conference in Berlin a few days ago, German Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens, photo) stated that if Ukraine had more wind power plants, it would be less exposed to Russian air strikes than conventional power plants: “You would have to target 40 wind power plants 40 times, and they are not so easy to hit” (!). Should this advice also inform Germany's future military “resilience” against Russia?
The second article, by Xavier Azalbert, was first published in French on France-Soir on Friday 20th December 2024 and then in Italian on ComeDonChisciotte.org (CDC) today, Monday 23rd December 2024. (All formatting and footnotes original).
How controlled opposition works in France
How does controlled opposition work in France? It works as it does all over the world, but with some “very French” specificities.
These specificities are related to the fact that, by applying the principle that governs the matter (the manipulation of the masses), as the Inconnus’ sketch “Les publicitaires” (“You must never take people for fools, but you must not forget that they are”), you can make the French swallow almost anything.
But be careful! One must not attack them head-on. One must always present things to the French as being in their interest, but above all as if they had decided it, through the intermediary of the “representatives” they have elected. Yes. The famous “representative” democracy: the political system that allows elected dictators to quietly wreak havoc with the approval of the people, and thus without any risk of revolt.
Moreover, they have passed laws giving them functional immunity. A double dose of protection for elected representatives.
However, for this to work, the people must always be made to believe that the media-political arena in which politicians are supposed to “clash” is one in which they actually clash. That there are different political currents and that the people have nothing to fear: the day will soon come when a brave, honest and sincere politician will destroy the system from within and free France and the French people from the evils that are devouring them! The man of providence. That is to say, the ultimate bait. And it works. Oh yes it works!
In the play that takes place every day on the political and media stage, every puppet that participates in it plays the role that was assigned to it “in the dressing room” before entering the arena: opposition versus majority. Once on stage, all it has to do is play its part until the interval or the next performance.
As an example, let us recall those politicians who wore a mask only to go on television and who, as soon as the cameras were turned off, took it off. An example across all political colours!
From the extreme right to the extreme left, via the centre and the other parties labelled “republicans”, all the actors in this farce imposed on the French people are men and women chosen not by the French people who vote, but by the producers, scriptwriters and directors of this show called “politics”.
As in all other so-called “democracies”, the only political freedom that voters have in France consists in being able to choose whom to vote for, from among the political puppets that are chosen beyond their control to play the characters in this play that they stage for us on TV, radio, Internet and newspapers, over and over again.
Alas, yes: it is so. Without exception, all politicians appearing in the main stream media and on the Internet are puppets manufactured by the system and imposed by it.
And the advent of the Macron regime has added a further layer by pretending that there is an opening to civil society! It is a further trick to encourage and force the rentiers of the political system to convert to the cult of Macronism in order not to lose their rents. Macronism, an “imprecise and indefinite form of politics that does not connect properly with French society and is still not the right answer to the problems facing France”, is how Professor Chris Bickerton described it in an exclusive interview for France-Soir. History is proving him right.
And the same goes for those who support the roles assigned to politicians in this big show. In other words, the pseudo-journalists, presenters, columnists and other official political pundits who praise the “good guys” and denigrate the “bad guys”. All these public figures are zealous contributors to this carnival.
Whenever they need a hero, we create one for them.
And, in the recurring application of this other fundamental principle of mass manipulation, this is how the real holders of power proceed behind the scenes.
First, they present the chosen person everywhere in the media as having the human and intellectual qualities (courage, rectitude, probity, intelligence, combativeness, honesty, and so on) necessary in the eyes of the people to embody the hero in question.
Secondly, they help him/her create his political movement (financing it and providing it with resources, both logistical and human) and promote it as such.
Thirdly, they publish polls that “certify” that the French support the project, ensuring that there is opposition to it - opposition that they control, of course.
Fourth, they continue until the presidential elections and amplify the process during the elections.
And fifth, they work to make sure that the person who opposes this 100% made-up “hero” in the second round of the presidential election is a total loser. A total loser who will deliberately sabotage him/herself between the first and second rounds, especially during the televised debate between the two election rounds.
The masters of the CAC40 [the main stock index to which the country's largest companies refer, mostly multinationals, almost half of which are foreign-owned. In the CAC40 we find the hundred largest market capitalisations of the Paris Stock Exchange - CDC translator’s note] and the political powers are able to do this thanks to their control over the media and the Internet.
Television, state radio and the subsidised press are in the hands of the political power, which also controls the Internet.
The leaders of the CAC40 own all the private media. This gives them the power to raise or lower the reputation, the public profile of anyone they want, and in any proportion. Moreover, they are financially incentivised by the numerous state subsidies and grants that contribute to the construction of the narrators and the narrative. The good soldiers of the system keep their posts, progress and are decorated for serving the system, supposedly in the name of a qualified general interest.
The “opponents”, on the other hand, are quickly labelled and branded as toxic products whose terms of communication render their discourses incomprehensible. Candid ears that respect the system cannot listen to these alternative points of view, on pain of immediate punishment in the form of loss of their position in society. No matter what lies are used, it is the truth of the group that counts, what is acceptable to maintain one's position.
All this in addition to the fact that, as Laurent Fabius1, president of the Constitutional Council, quoted Joseph Stalin2, three days before the re-election of Emmanuel Macron:
“It is not the votes that count, but those who count the votes”.
In France, the most accomplished and glaring contemporary example of an ascent to supreme office achieved in this way is the Emmanuel Macron / Marine le Pen duo, with Jean-Luc Mélanchon acting as a disruptor of the system.
Without an opposition that is itself made of cardboard, a 100%-manufactured hero cannot be placed at the Elysée with the necessary legitimacy from the voters for the people to accept him as President.
That is why it is always someone with the right characteristics who is chosen to play the role of puppet opponent of the 100%-manufactured hero and who guarantees the latter's election as President: lack of charisma, an obvious intelligence that at key moments is challenged by his/her lack of relevance or realism, a bag of tricks, a fabulous propensity to change his/her mind, to say everything and its opposite on important topics, and above all the natural or worked ability to submit to ridicule at crucial moments (like Kamala Harris placed against Donald Trump).
The least one can say is that one must give credit to Marine Le Pen, whether she does it on purpose (to put all these parameters together) or not, it doesn't matter: she excels in embodying the figure of the cardboard opposition leader, who guarantees the election, re-election and retention in power of Emmanuel Macron, who will remain in power despite the mathematical impossibility of doing so, given the absence of a majority of Macronist deputies in the National Assembly in its current composition (a situation destined to last until June 2025, unless the President of the Republic resigns, given the one-year constitutional deadline for Emmanuel Macron to order the dissolution of the National Assembly).
And it is quite safe [that Macron will stay in power]! Marine Le Pen, who calls her opponents “tartufes”, is exactly like Gabriel Matzneff who called the other signatories of the 16th January 1977 article published in Le Monde and Libération (including Jack Lang and Bernard Kouchner) defending sexual relations between adults and children “paedophiles”.
That's right!
The latest example of Marine Le Pen's strategy to keep Emmanuel Macron in power is the announcement that RN [Rassemblement National, Le Pen’s far-right party] will challenge François Bayrou's next government only if the 2025 budget law, which he will present shortly, goes totally against the interests of those “11 million voters who have put their trust in us” (the poor), as she and her lieutenants are always repeating.
Yet Le Pen swiftly defends the purchasing power of the French people. So why not directly attack the special finance bill approved yesterday [19th December 2024] in the Senate, which allows the government to once again indebt France and the French people beyond what is acceptable and under punitive conditions for our children, beyond what is provided for in the Constitution (Article 47)? This is an organisation, a coalition of the constituent organs of the public authorities to voluntarily impose an unconstitutional tax. And she does not oppose this!
Yet Marine Le Pen continually accuses Emmanuel Macron of being responsible for all the evils of France and the French people, and of being responsible for the current institutional crisis, which is entirely true from a legal point of view, since it is Emmanuel Macron who is the signatory of all the official acts that have created or amplified these evils, and of the official acts that have led to this crisis. But Marine Le Pen refuses to force Emmanuel Macron to resign.
Worse still! She even rejects the idea that he can be forced to do so. This despite the fact that it would be easy for her to force Emmanuel Macron to resign.
How could she do this? By bringing down the next Bayrou government, as well as any other government that Emmanuel Macron will try to impose on the French people (after Barnier and Bayrou), against the results of the last elections, in order to continue pursuing the policies that Macron has been implementing for seven years, but that the French no longer want.
To bring down the Bayrou government and, if necessary, subsequent ones, immediately and without any justification other than to indicate that it is “duly” forcing Emmanuel Macron to resign. ‘‘Duly’’ meaning as essential, in this case, for the implementation of Article 2 of the Constitution:
“Government of the people, by the people and for the people”.
To this end, all the RN deputies have to do is to vote on the no-confidence motion that LFI has announced for this very purpose, i.e. as soon as the Bayrou government is formed. Ditto, of course, for the no-confidence motions to be presented against successive governments, until Emmanuel Macron is actually forced to resign.
At that point it will be appropriate to remind Emmanuel Macron of the remarks he himself made in this regard:
“The reality, if we go all the way to the bottom of logic, is that the President of the Republic should not be allowed to remain if he has a real disavowal in terms of majority. In any case, that is how I see it, and it is the only way in which he can assume the duties that come with it”.
Nor will she push Emmanuel Macron to call a referendum that would allow France to put an end once and for all to the political farce that has been going on for too long and that keeps them busy at the expense of the French people. So the curtain will not come down on these controlled oppositions, because they would have too much to lose!
On the same occasion, five days before the official results were announced, Laurent Fabius bet on the re-election of Emmanuel Macron with 58% of the vote against Marine le Pen's 42%.
Exact text of the original quote by Joseph Stalin:
“The people who vote decide nothing, it is those who count the votes who decide everything”.
thanks ismaele..
i have gotten into this simplistic habit of looking at types of conflicts in terms of class warfare, specifically the upper class against the lower class... prior to the absolution of slavery it was more obvious to see.. now in late stage capitalism it is becoming more clear again, as many folks in the middle are being squeezed economically... and that is certainly true of young people of today who can also see this more clearly, given the abysmal circumstances they face, unless they are getting some large inheritance...
green fanaticism is an unwillingness to acknowledge reality.. any attempt to maintain the same consumer habits while thinking that switching to electric vehicles for example, (as opposed to public transportation), is going allow everyone to continue to live in there individualistic bubble of happiness while the planet continues to be destroyed for profit, is bound to fail...people - specifically our leaders who serve the corporations interests, just haven't gotten round to acknowledging this yet... i am not sure when it happens, but acknowledging the class war between the rich and the poor would certainly speed up the change needed... until that happens, the 'for profit' ideology will continue to exploit and destroy the planet.. real leadership is needed and it is sorely missing..