All posts tagged: EU

NO LEAVE to REMAIN

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by W Stephen Gilbert Last Christmas, as you do, we received the usual batch of greetings cards from people we’re only in touch with at that time of year. Almost without exception, these cards included a message to the effect: “isn’t it terrible about Trump and Brexit?” As we are perceived as (ex-)metropolitan, enlightened, middle class professionals, we obviously must subscribe to all the views prescribed for that demographic. My partner can speak for himself. But I voted to leave. This is an outrage that many of my friends cannot understand and find difficult to forgive. They tolerate my intolerance of that ugly, specious, coined term that Theresa May likes to use twice in one mantra. But by my vote they think I’ve taken leave of my senses or become a class traitor or revealed myself as a closet fascist. Bracketing Trump and the 2016 referendum result is thought a legitimate summary of a year that was in many ways the most ghastly anyone can recall. It’s almost as though the leave campaign was implicated …

Hungary: Paradise for liberals

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by István Lovas Do you wonder what you are going to read in the mainstream press on Hungary tomorrow? I will tell you. The same as yesterday, and the same as in the past almost seven years since Hungary’s right-of-center Fidesz government, led by the Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, was elected. You will learn that Mr. Orbán is a populist, an autocratic ruler, a menace to Europe, and a politician not hesitating to use anti-Semitic language in order to win over voters of the far-right Jobbik, and cover up uncomfortable truths about whatever is on the agenda in Hungary on that day. He, of course, has muzzled the media, made the court system a handmaiden of the ruling elite, abolished checks and balances, while he is suffocating the voice of dissenters, creates inordinate fear, chases away half of the country beyond Hungary’s borders, and the rest of the stuff. Lately, Hungary has been called the safe haven of the European ultra-right. At the time when Hungary’s authorities have arrested and expelled two such figures, such …

Brexit Never Just Meant Brexit

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by Dan Mallon “Brexit means Brexit” is one of the many cryptic slogans that constantly emanated from Theresa May’s shambolic – soon to be defunct – Tory Government. What it means is anybody’s guess. Many have speculated it is Theresa May opting for a hard Brexit over a soft Brexit, however these are not tangible constructs, they are mental constructs. The idea of a hard/soft Brexit are nothing more than negotiating positions and seeing as no one has sat around a table yet, nobody can say for sure what the consistency of Brexit will be once it’s finally baked. Considering the European Union (EU) wants to make an example of Britain so as to dissuade other countries from following suit means heading into a negotiation taking a soft approach, will only end in tears. The idea that EU super-state ideologues like Guy Verhofstadt, will simply roll over and allow Britain have an amicable divorce from their pet project, is naivety to the extreme. One thing is for certain though: May’s Tories sure as hell don’t …

Social-Democracy and the Centre-Left: Decline and Fall?

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Viewed retrospectively, the significance of the Reagan-Thatcher counter-revolutionary offensive of the 1980s has been seen primarily as a political project aimed at the overturning of the post-WW2 political and social settlement; an undertaking in which it has largely succeeded. However, perhaps of equal importance was the political assimilation of centre-left, liberal class, into this emerging neo-liberal, neo-conservative movement.

2016: The year of Russia’s triumph

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by The Saker, via Unz Review Just like European maps place Europe in the center of the planet, so do most western commentators look at the past year from a US/Europe-centered perspective. Which is fair enough. Furthermore, the AngloZionist Empire has just suffered two major disasters, the Brexit and the election of Trump, so there is truly much interesting to focus on. Still, what I want to do today is to look at the year which is ending from a Russian perspective. The following were the major challenges Russia faced in 2016: 1. The Nazi regime in Kiev 2. The civil war in the Donbass 3. Ukrainian attempts to blockade Crimea 4. The rabid hostility of the US Administration 5. NATO’s policy of military confrontation in Europe 6. The united European front against Russia 7. Western sanctions, the subsequent drop in investments and credit and the low oil prices 8. The growing dissatisfaction of the Russian people with the economic polices of the government 9. The struggle against the “liberal” 5th column inside Russia 10. …

What is the European Union For?

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by Frank After all the initial eu(ro)phoria and hopes placed upon the original concept of a non-aligned, social-democratic Euro-bloc, the reality has turned out somewhat differently. In a pamphlet written in 2011 – Europe: The Unfinished Project – I wrote: At the present time the EU project seems to be stuck in no-man’s land, unable to press ahead with full political integration, or retreat back into a northern European protectionist Deutschmark zone, and leaving the peripheral member states to the tender mercies of unfettered, globalized capitalism. However there seems to be a sufficient residue of the original EU idealism in the present stage of development to persevere further with the political struggle taking place.” Ibid, page 19 I believe that this view, which seemed justifiable and plausible enough at the time of writing, has now become difficult to sustain. And the reason for this came in the next sentence, viz. One only has to consider the Anglo-American alternatives (to the Euro model) and globalization more generally to make this choice.” This statement was, however, based …

Why are these oligarchs so concerned about African “corruption”?

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Anton Du Plessis, of the ISS in South Africa, writes that “we” should no longer tolerate corruption in Africa undermining human rights.

Of course, when he says “we”, he doesn’t mean us. You and I – We don’t “tolerate” African corruption, for it is not in our power to do anything about such things. You know who does tolerate African corruption? Billionaires, oligarchs and corporate monopolies.

Reforming the EU – Waiting for Godot

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by Frank There is a human tendency to cling on to cherished beliefs even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. There was a time, during the heady days of Jacques Delors and the Social Chapter, when the EU appeared to represent a social-democratic and neutral geopolitical bloc; a third force between the USSR as it then was and the US/NATO – this, however, is no longer the case. The EU has long since transmuted into part of an aggressive neo-liberal and neo-conservative imperial alliance under US command. The liberal, centre-left remainers such as Yanis Varoufakis seem to think that it is possible reverse this development and get the EU back to its original prototype, presumably by dint of political will. In view of historical developments this view seems increasingly difficult to sustain. In particular since the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty of 2005 the EU Defence and Security Policy has been aligned with NATO. Indeed, EU membership has become a stalking horse for NATO membership and vice versa. NATO’s geopolitical drive to …

Turkey Between Two Fascisms

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by Jooneed Khan, via Global Research, July 19, 2016 [ President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, elected in 2014 and whose AKP party swept back to power with 52% of the votes last November, repeated through the crisis that he and his government represented democratic legitimacy and blamed the putschist “treason” on “a handful of military people” close to his Islamist rival Fethullah Gülen, living in self-exile in the US. In a country where the military sees itself as the guardian of Kemalist legitimacy and has often seized power by coups d’État in the past, the putsch leaders this time accused Erdogan and his team of violating the constitution, perverting democracy, expanding and deepening corruption, putting “internal and regional peace” at risk, and rushing towards authoritarianism. Restoring the Death Penalty Back in power in Ankara yesterday from his base in Istanbul, where he was mayor once and where he stayed throughout the crisis, Erdogan quickly told the coup participants, 2800 of whom were behind bars, that he would “make them pay dearly for their treason” – a …

NATO, Back in Business at the Old Stand

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by Patrick Armstrong, via Sic Semper Tyrannis Spare a thought for the travails of NATO drones over the past couple of decades.  About 25 years ago I was in competition for a job on the International Staff at NATO.  I’ve forgotten most of the details but it would have paid about US$100,000.  Tax free.  Plus benefits.  What would have been the equivalent salary, in the real world, to that, do you suppose?  In return, NATO started work sometime Monday afternoon and knocked off early on Friday and essentially took meetings the rest of the time.  And Brussels is a convenient base for travelling around Europe.  But I didn’t get the job. The Warsaw Pact imploded, followed by the USSR and NATO’s raison d’être disappeared.  A colleague who finally got a position on the Canadian delegation (no big IS salaries for them!) seriously wondered whether NATO would last through his time there. Well, it did.  Expansion (soon officially changed to the more anodyne “enlargement”) gave employment.  NATO, it piously said, cannot stop people from freely applying …

Obama and the Ukrainian Nazis – The reality no one wants to speak of

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by Clarity of Signal, via JackPineRadicals The US government is currently financing the training and supply of the Ukrainian military which is comprised of fascist, ring wing, pro Nazi battalions that worship WW2 Nazi collaborator Stephen Bandera who murderer of over 100,000 Poles and Jews during WW2. These battalions receive US funding and support and have done so for the past two years while the US media has covered it up and run with a false narrative about Russia and their president.  These videos below are from their own “Azov Battalion” You Tube channel.  In the first, they are indoctrinating children into fascist, right wing nationalism.  This is incredibly sad to watch and to know that the US is keeping it afloat and allowing it to be conducted.  Russia is not the enemy this time around.  The enemy is domestic.  The US government is intentionally lying to the American citizenry, who they are supposed to represent.  This intentional top down lying is taking place on a massive scale and the mainstream media in the United …

Threatened Forests: a new look at “green energy”

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Threatened forests’ explores some hidden realities behind “green energy” in the EU. Filmmaker Benoit Grimont made this documentary as a response to the development of a large scale biomass electricity installation in Gardanne, southern France. His film discovers that renewable energy – heavily supported by EU countries – may not be anything like as ‘green’ as we are led to believe.

Graun finally admits the sad truth about the ” 2nd referendum petition”

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Well, the Guardian has – finally – acknowledged the reality of the hapless and discredited “2nd referendum petition”, but only after an indecent interval, and when the Telegraph, HuffPo and other mainstream outlets already picked up the story. And regrettably, they are still doing their best to sell us the flagging narrative of a “grassroots” response. “Overall, close to 2.5m signatures had been garnered from within the UK by Sunday lunchtime, making up an overwhelming proportion of the whole,” reads their last para… ……although it’s difficult to tell how many of these were genuine…..” Hmmm. Sort of makes the first part of that sentence a bit redundant doesn’t it. Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, the entire media and establishment have united to try and remove Corbyn before an early election is called and there is even a remote chance of a genuine anti-austerity pro-humanity prime minister in No 10. More on that soon.

Guardian Watch: Insults fly in post-Brexit hysteria

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The world is still reeling from the referendum results – there is uncertainty in the air, real uncertainty, a rare creature in the modern era of controlled media consensus and carefully directed narrative. Again and again the thoughts are echoed: nobody expected this to happen. David Cameron was positive his side had won. Oliver Imhof wrote an article threatening to leave “Brexit Britain”, comfortable in the knowledge that “at no point did I think it could really happen.” You get the impression even Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage never expected to win.

The 2nd referendum “petition” is wide open to fraud

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The UK Parliament online petition for a second referendum, currently containing upwards of a million alleged signatures is open to almost unlimited fraud, and likely worthless. Although we might assume such a potentially significant petition would be subject to at least basic checks on identity to prevent fake identities and duplication, one of our own frequent researchers can confirm this is not true, and he has sent us the screen caps to prove it. The researcher, who does live in the UK, signed the petition twice today, within minutes, from the same computer, using fake names and email addresses designed for the purpose. The only test of his ID was a simple checkbox that asked if he was a UK citizen. He was not asked to provide a street address, or any proof of ID. He gave two different – and false – postcodes, one in Manchester and one in the West Country. This is a screen shot of the two confirmatory email he received after each of these attempts… He apparently made no attempt …

If at first the PTB don’t succeed….just have another referendum

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We know how the EU responds when referendums don’t go the way they’re supposed to. Yes, that’s right, they either ignore it, or insist on a second vote (and very often, as if by magic, this one yields the right result). Any idea that yesterday’s vote means the UK will now definitely leave the EU is certainly premature very possibly a pipe dream. So, we need to view the alleged “petition” that was started yesterday for a second Brexit referendum, very much in this light and with a great deal of cynicism. if it wasn’t made in Langley, well, that is still very much its spiritual home.

Well…

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The referendum was, after all, a genuine surprise. Even with all the “serious” mainstream media backing Remain, and even after all the fairly insensitive exploitation of the tragic death of Jo Cox, “Leave” have won. And David Cameron has apparently resigned. So, if the vote was indeed rigged, it either didn’t work, or for some reason the “shadow governments” want us to quit the EU 🙂

“the referendum will be rigged”?

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Do the PTB leave such crucial votes as the Brexit referendum to chance any more? OffG doesn’t necessarily endorse Jeff Nielson’s perspective here, but given what we know about the 2000 US election and the recent allegations of widespread fraud in the Democratic primaries, it is certainly a subject worthy of discussion, and one which is being given very little column space, even in the alt media. So, true to our remit of giving “airtime” to neglected opinions, here is a POV that suggests today’s referendum is little more than theatre

History as ghastly repetition – Anna Lindh & Jo Cox

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In 2003, just four days before the Swedish referendum on joining the Eurozone, a prominent pro-Euro MP, Anna Lindh, was stabbed to death in a public place. The man later convicted, claimed to have no idea why he had done it, and no political motive was ever suggested for the killing. Nevertheless many people predicted that the brutal death of a pro-Euro MP, so soon before the vote, would have a massive effect on the results. In the end it did not, and Sweden voted to stay out. In 2016, just seven days before the UK referendum on leaving the EU, a prominent pro-EU MP, Jo Cox, was shot to death in a public place. The man accused has been described by neighbours as “quiet, bit of a loner, keen gardener”, with no known political opinions, and, according to “records obtained by” the Southern Poverty Law Centre, as a white-supremacist Hitler-supporter with a houseful of Nazi regalia and other incriminating items. It is too soon to say whether the awful, violent death of Ms Cox …

Hillary Clinton’s Project For A New American Century

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by Dan Wright Here we go again. Earlier this year, some were surprised to see Project For The New American Century (PNAC) co-founder and longtime DC fixture Robert Kagan endorse former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president. They shouldn’t have been. As is now clear from a policy paper [PDF] published last month, the neoconservatives are going all-in on Hillary Clinton being the best vessel for American power in the years ahead. The paper, titled “Expanding American Power,” was published by the Center for a New American Security, a Democratic Party-friendly think tank co-founded and led by former Undersecretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy. Flournoy served in the Obama Administration under Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and is widely considered to be the frontrunner for the next secretary of defense, should Hillary Clinton become president. The introduction to Expanding American Power is written by the aforementioned Robert Kagan and former Clinton Administration State Department official James Rubin. The paper itself was prepared in consultation with various defense and national security intellectuals over the course of six dinners. …