Michael Brenner: A Brutal Suppression of Speech

 

Denial of civil liberties, accompanied by punishment for anybody who exposes those violations, has become commonplace in contemporary America.

Yet, nothing that the nation has experienced — and that the more discerning protest — prepared us for the grotesque spectacle on display in the brutal suppression of free speech on university campuses. 

What we witness is the iron fist of autocracy employed to intimidate, to hurt, to deter those who would question — however peaceably — the right of the powers-that-be to impose their confected version of the truth on the public. Moreover, it is grounded on an arbitrary assumption of power having no basis in law or customary practice.

Two singular features of this situation focus our attention. First, there is the stunning near unanimity of agreement by all segments of society’s elites on the rightness of the ruling narrative — and on the actions they take to enforce it. 

That is to say:

1) casting the issue as the dangerous radicalization of students by nefarious forces;

2) smearing demonstrators as “anti-Semites” — despite the large numbers of Jewish participants;

3) blanking out any reference to the cause and motivations of the protest: Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians; and

4) the need to crack down hard on these seditious students — physically by rioting police, and administratively by summary expulsions and suspensions without a semblance of due process.

These assertions emanate from the mouths of elected officials, police commissioners, media personalities, pundits and — most distressing — university presidents as well as boards of regents and trustees. 

Faculty Backing Students

The single exception to this phalanx of elite solidarity is the untypical readiness of professors to side with their students — standing against higher university authorities at the manifest risk of retaliation. 

This is a break from what has become habitual deference to presidents, provosts and board members. It is also a departure from the previous abstention from addressing the most serious and consequential issues — be it serial futile wars of choice, or mass surveillance by federal and local authorities, or the takeover of the national economy by rent extracting predatory finance. 

There is plausible reason to believe that the readiness of those who run today’s university to act autocratically owes to the latitude they thereby have been accorded. The superego rooted in a sense of academic community has dissolved along with a sense of accountability. Hence, they are emboldened to act arbitrarily without regard to traditional academic norms.

Among members of Congress, we see raucous petitions of condemnation and fiery calls for severe punishment against demonstrators, their sympathizers and anyone else who might voice opposition to Israel’s actions (e.g. justices of the International Criminal Court in The Hague). 

Only one senator, Bernie Sanders, has had the courage and conviction to denounce this rabid assault on American democracy and civil liberties — however belatedly. 

The number of vocal critics in the House of Representatives can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Second is the absence of any overt, tangible national interest at stake. This is not Vietnam that could be rationalized in terms of the Cold War. Nothing happening in Palestine/Israel poses the slightest threat to the security of the United States. There is no cherished principle that U.S. leaders feel obligated to uphold; quite the opposite, the United States itself is an accomplice to gross crimes against humanity.

Notably, President Joe Biden has paved the way for both the protests and the savage crackdown, for which he is acting as cheerleader, by failing to offer any reasonable excuse for making America a party to genocide and by slandering critics with a string of outlandish lies. 

The crude vilification of students coming from all quarters calls out for explanation. So, too, the relishing of their physical abuses. These are not normal behaviors – in both senses of the word. This phenomenon is all the more stunning for the lack of a reasonable justification.

The protestors invariably were peaceful, there was no damage to property, no threats to persons, to obstruction to the normal workings of the universities. 

The couple of exceptions that involved flare upswere prompted by the authorities’ quick resort to severe penalties. Moreover, the students have been acting in accordance with the vaunted principles of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. In a cause of humanistic concern for others, free of any self-interest.

Part of the explanation lies in those acts of moral conscience themselves. For both selflessness and empathy with distant victims of abuse are traits foreign to most of the nation’s power holders. The juxtaposition exposes the crassness of ruling elites and infuriates them. Infuriates because there lingers just enough feelings rooted in a vague sense of common humanity to prick repressed conscience and to abrade their self-esteem.

Autocratic Impulses 

An even more important element is the growing attraction to holders of high office of autocratic attitudes and methods. Not just the trappings of power but its arbitrary exercise. 

That impulse is companion to, and requisite for controlling whomever or whatever might challenge that presumption. The increasingly common resort to diktats by authorities is a notable feature of contemporary American society — in all spheres.  

It is so commonplace as to be widely accepted as the norm. We experience it in organizations public and private — ranging from the Oval Office through state governments down to elite universities, charitable NGOs and foundations. 

Of course, this attitude and conduct has long been standard across the business world. In this era of impunity, accountability is a pale, sometimes thing. A general condition of social nihilism entices and emboldens the willful who crave arbitrary power for its own sake — and/or, those who exploit the opportunity to use illicit means to reach predefined objectives.

In the case that we are examining, a variety of actors moved swiftly to turn the student demonstrations to their advantage. 

Foremost among them were the avowed Zionists. That heteroclite grouping was galvanized by the mission to support Israel’s onslaught against the Palestinians in the cause of creating a Greater Israel “between the Sea and the Jordan” as is proclaimed in the charter of the Likud Party. 

At the very top were Biden along with senior officials such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken; Congress members who either strongly identified with the Jewish state or were long indebted to AIPAC for campaign funding; owners, publishers and editors in the key media outlets; and leaders of evangelical churches that see in the return of the Jews to the Holy Land a sure sign that the Day of Judgment was on the horizon. 

Together, since Oct. 7, they had constructed a narrative that cast Israel as the unalloyed “good guy” who was the victim of Hamas’ unprovoked terrorist crimes. 

It became pervasive and iron clad. Deviations from that line were stigmatized as anti-Semitic and repressed. Hence, the upwelling of student protesters was slotted into the narrative as representing an intolerable rejection of that script by Israel’s enemies. Harsh measures naturally followed.

The endorsement of harsh measures was at once implicit and explicit. Rhetoric from the White House set the tone. 

It enabled MAGA Republicans in Congress to drive their own campaign to denigrate the Democrats by slinging the electoral albatross of “woke” activism across their shoulders as part of their plan to channel the emotions of the pro-Israel forces to favor themselves as Israel’s true defenders — “holier than the Pope.” 

Furthermore, the ensuing maelstrom created by contenders for the role of exorcist-in-chief of the youthful heresy prompted sociopaths of multiple stripes to jump into the fray.

There we find the militarized riot policy playing out their fantasies of cracking heads in Fallujah or  Kandahar (a fair number of whom were in fact veterans of those locales); the End-of-Times fanatics in tense expectation of Armageddon in the Holy Land; the militant agitators for Cold War II who fused a cartoon image of an innocent democratic Israel with a brave Ukraine heroically resisting the Axis of Evil II represented by Iran, Russia and China.    

The most telling incident occurred at UCLA. There, a masked gang of Hebrew jihadis armed with clubs assaulted an encampment of peaceful students under cover of night. Fifteen of the victims were hospitalized. The pogrom went on for three hours. 

Campus police and LAPD cops were present; their only response was to slip into the shadows and to take in the show. None of the gang has been identified or apprehended.  No police commander has been penalized or reprimanded.

Careerists & Conformists 

This abbreviated taxonomy of the forces arrayed against the student protesters leaves out the many others in positions of influence who have participated in the psychodrama — persons who had neither passionate views about the protagonists “over there,” nor an evident drive to gather power and (ab)use it. 

Their complicity can be understood by reference to two cardinal elements in their make-up and that of their institutions. 

Foremost is careerism — broadly conceived. Advancing upwards in status, monetary award and power is the paramount consideration among professionals in every sphere of life.  Accordingly, avoidance of rocking boats or being seen as anything but a team player is imperative.

Conformism is the watchword. Those who fail to observe those admonitions tend to get weeded out early on. The ensuing behavior pattern of “go along to get ahead” is pronounced, and readily observable, among journalists cum media personalities; aspiring think tankers; academics and, of course, the vast majority of politicos.

The second salient element is the instilled disposition to tolerate aberrant, self-interested behavior that circumvents rules, norms, conventions — and even laws. In short, they have been acculturated to the strong nihilistic/narcissistic tendencies of contemporary society. 

Let’s enumerate some of the events they have witnessed — and which inescapably shape attitudes as to what is permissible.

No 1) A succession of U.S. presidents who have employed systematic deceit to embroil the country in failed, futile wars. None of whom have been held accountable or even moved to say “sorry.”

No. 2) Systematic surveillance of American citizens without warrant in overt violation of the Fourth Amendment.

No. 3) The granting to the commander-In-chief the authority to assassinate Americans abroad if they are judged to be threats to national security.

No. 4) Institutionalized torture of “enemy combatants” in violation of both international and national law.

No. 5) The multiple criminal acts committed by Donald Trump — the most prominent of which would be pretty much “open-and-shut-cases” were the alleged perpetrator not a vindictive former president.

No. 6) The unprecedented actions of federal courts (and some state courts) to hamstring judicial proceedings on the flimsiest and most spurious grounds.

No. 7) The attorney general of the United States shirking his sworn responsibility to enforce the laws against criminality without regard to position, status or standing.

No. 8) Private companies who own social media sites mandated to censor persons and content (as guided by agencies of the federal government) in overt violation of the First Amendment.

Should we be surprised these realities undermine the sense of civic responsibility and commitment to upholding institutional integrity among our elites across the span of American institutions?   

Moreover, we should bear in mind that our present twisted civic culture has crystallized over a period of 30 years or more. Thus, what we experience in post-constitutional/post-rules and norms America has come to appear natural.

Fewer and fewer people have more than a dim awareness of anything different. For most, what they observe is taken as given – absent other reference points.  This is not a matter of an old system of norms being replaced by a new set; rather, we are entering a world where there are NO norms.

Fawn, Wolf & Headless Chicken 

Let’s examine how this has played out among university officials. Academic authorities include presidents, regents, trustees and state or local officeholders. 

One can discern three patterns of behavior: the fawn, the wolf, the headless chicken. Fawns are vulnerable, defensive, low in self-confidence and instinctively run and hide rather than fight. When targeted, they freeze; when ordered they respond obediently. The prime examples are the leaders of Harvard, Penn and MIT before the Star Chamber proceedings of the House Committee on Education. 

Savaged by belligerent demagogues who use the term “Ivy League” as an epithet, they melted. Figuratively speaking, they looked down at their feet, twisted their peasant caps in their hands and spoke with subdued deference. 

Absurd charges of anti-Semitism, of appeasing Hamas sympathizers, of failing to preserve order were flung at the trio. Neither civil Republicans nor Committee Democrats offered any succor. 

Not one of the presidents confronted their accusers; none spoke forcefully about the ethos of a university; none had the pride expected of those who represent prestigious institutions. Instead, they fell back on the feeble talking points provided them by university lawyers who themselves gave primacy to accommodation of the inquisitors. 

So, the presidents fumbled and stumbled and promised to do better. The reaction to their performance was all accusatory and negative. They were indicted for not following the Zionist line as defined by the American government. Apologies followed. Harvard and Penn fired two of them.

The abject written apologies were not enough. Harvard’s Board of Governors and Penn’s Board of Trustees forced the two sacrificial lambs to walk the plank. The blades in their backs were pressed by AIPAC apparatus and a couple of billionaire donors. 

In each instance, one particular individual sallied forth to become the public face of outraged donors. The Harvard donor was Bill Ackman who relished his moment in the limelight to leverage his $40 million gift to extract a string of concessions from the university administration — themselves pressed by the governors.

Quite a performance in the light of Harvard’s $50 billion endowment that grows by about $4 billion annually — 10 times that given by the donor who, along with other donors, successfully held the university to ransom.

Together, the aforementioned individuals and institutions formed the wolf pack. Imposing, quick to strike and secure in their status as apex predators of the academic realm, they felt no compunction at eliminating anyone who they thought tarnished the reputation of their university or, even more intolerable, questioned by word or deed their authority. 

A similar spectacle has been on view on campuses across the country – with some small variations in the modalities. 

A sobering datum is that not a single university president, not a single board, has forthrightly defended the integrity of their institutions, the principle of free speech that is at their core, or dared to condemn the police riots at Emory, at Columbia, at UCLA.   

The one university president who did stand out was Columbia’s Minouche Shafik.  She thrust herself forward as the ruthless Iron Lady able and willing to crush the subverters of good order — mental as well as physical. 

Her response was a torrent of ad hominem accusations directed at the protestors, a total ignoring of the multiform harassment of both demonstrators and Muslim students generally (including physical attacks by former IDF exchange students), immediate summary expulsions, and a summons to New York Mayor Eric Adams (himself a jackal posturing as a “wolf”) to send 1,000 cops to cleanse the campus. Columbia University, as of today, is shuttered under what amounts to martial law.

[This use of the term “wolf” is a libel of actual wolves. They are not mean-spirited in the sense connotated here. They hunt/fight only as required to survive. Strikingly, they show a keen sense of communal well-being.

The pack “establishment” knows that caring for the welfare of all its members — especially its young — is a requisite for avoiding extinction. In this respect, wolves demonstrate superior functional intelligence to humans.]

Shafik has an unusual provenance for a university president. She is a British-Egyptian baroness who built her career at the Bank of England, World Bank and International Monetary Fund. 

The daughter of very wealthy landholders on the Nile, Shafik seems to view the student demonstrations as a sort of peasant revolt. She reacted accordingly — unhesitatingly using force in the form of the New York Police Department, who, in riot gear and with guns drawn, ruthlessly broke up the students’ encampment, and beat and arrested over 100 of them. 

They were charged with “criminal trespassing” on their own campus. 

In Chris Hedges words, 

“These administrators demand…..total obedience. Dissent. Freedom of expression. Critical thought. Moral outrage. These have no place in our corporate-indentured universities.”

The baroness was not finished — there was yet another veil to drop for her full character to be exposed. As The New York Post reported on May 11, citing a student journalist:

“Columbia University president Minouche Shafik will skip the biggest ceremony for graduating seniors on campus next week ….

A note that went out to student at Columbia College — which is attended by more than half of the university’s undergraduate students — indicated that Shafik would not appear at ‘Class Day.’ The Class Day celebrations typically feature student and keynote speakers, and are a chance for graduates to walk across the stage and shake hands with the dean and university president before they are formally conferred their degrees. Class Day is also a major opportunity for friends and family members to celebrate the completion of studies at the $90,000-per-year university.”

Shafik’s absence at the May 14 event was quietly announced via an addendum to a Class Day information email that was sent to students.

The large majority of university authorities are not clear cut fawns or wolves — their moral DNA reveals mutated lineages from both. They are headless chickens. 

Their characteristic reaction was shock and fear at being confronted with a situation wherein they had neither the aptitude nor the experience nor the personality to understand what was going on — much less manage it. 

Initial paralysis quickly gave way to sporadic, impulse actions.  Their leadership manuals admonished them to do something — whether or not it was part of a considered plan or strategy. Their standard action has been to call in the cops.

That, at least, would clear the campus for graduation ceremonies, give the impression of a semblance of order returning, and made for better visuals once the debris and blood had been cleared from the encampments.

Talk to the protesting students? Out of the question for university leaders who had no idea what to say to moral idealists standing up for a bunch of Arabs. They had no specific demands — like deeper discounts on football tickets — that one could get a handle on. (What motivates these student protesters?

I can’t figure out what’s in it for them. These people are like total aliens. Then, how could I expose myself to attacks accusing me of coddling terrorist lovers, anti-Semites, thugs? That could jeopardize my job and throw me back into the classroom and my stuffy, tiny department office.)

The emblematic headless chicken is the president of University of Southern California. She staked out her claim to notoriety even before the protests began. The school’s graduating valedictorian was slated to be a young Muslim American woman, Asna Tabassum, who majored in bio-medical engineering. 

When it was disclosed that her Twitter page included remarks spotlighting Palestinian grievances and condemning Israeli apartheid, a flurry of denunciation by the usual suspects was directed at the university. 

They demanded that Tabassum be barred from speaking as scheduled. President Carol Folt caved in by removing her from the program — along with other scheduled outside speakers. Thus purified, the ceremony went ahead.

Her public letter to Tabassum stressed that USC had nothing against her personally, reiterated the school’s commitment to free speech and expressed confidence of her professional success in her future endeavors. 

Unfortunately, free speech had to take a sabbatical in the interests of public safety, i.e. troublemakers might interrupt the proceedings and cause turmoil. Later protest demonstrations were dealt with in the same feckless manner.

Folt was censured, and asked to resign, by the faculty Senate. The mention of Asna Tabassum’s name during the graduation ceremony prompted loud applause.

So what? It is doubtful that she lost any sleep over these rebukes. After all, when you hold high office in a large institution you have a responsibility to make hard decisions that force you to place its welfare ahead of everyday morality — isn’t that what President Barack Obama told us in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech?

To get perspective on these headless chickens, one must bear in mind that today’s university presidents — along with the boards that appoint them — have little engagement with broad educational issues. 

On national issues beyond the confines of the university they are a non-presence. The bulk of their time is spent raising money, buttering up alumni, pacifying hostile state legislatures and oiling the gears of the ever-expanding bureaucratic machine that has overshadowed the groves of academe. 

Admittedly, there are occasional crises: a scandal in the athletic department, battles over transgender bathrooms and the like. That’s about it.  

A sense of common humanity and the instinct to defend those vulnerable to willful abuse — however distant they may be — has reemerged. The spontaneous youth demonstrations of moral witness shows that the seed of political virtue somehow survived the 25-year ethical drought we have experienced. 

These green shoots are fragile, though. The campaign to weed them out will not relent. Indeed, efforts to sterilize the soil will be redoubled.

The wielders of arbitrary power are skillfully riding a wave of autocracy which has transformed American civic life. Formidable obstacles manned by hard, self-righteous people stand in the way of a rebirth of collective conscience. Unless they can be overcome, we may well see the further retreat from enlightened principles as governance of the people, by the people, for the people fades into the national memory book. 

 

https://scheerpost.com/2024/05/24/michael-brenner-a-brutal-suppression-of-speech/

 

 

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“Democracy”, European Union version

by Thierry Meyssan

The European Union presents the election of MEPs and the President of the Commission as demonstrations of its democratic character. Yet all this is a shadow play. Most of it has already been discussed elsewhere, and no one has even heard of it. This staging will be enough to make people believe that the play, already written, is only the fruit of the popular will.

 

As the European Union prepares to transform itself into a single state, its political evolution is taking an authoritarian step.

 

THE ELECTION OF MEPS AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE COMMISSION IS ALREADY A DONE DEAL

The election of MEPs promises to be deliberately confused. There are still no political parties at European level, despite the fact that they have been talked about for fifty years and enshrined in the treaties, but only European coalitions of national parties, which is not at all the same thing. These coalitions each present a Spitzenkandidat, literally a "head of list", who is not, however, a candidate for Parliament, nor does he or she appear on any of their national lists. Five of them will be debating their plans to preside over the European Commission in Eurovision. They are :

 Walter Baier, European Left ;
 Sandro Gozi, Renewing Europe Now;
 Ursula von der Leyen, European People’s Party;
 Terry Reintke, European Greens;
 Nicolas Schmit, Party of European Socialists.

The "Identity and Democracy" group was not invited to this show. This is because the five previous groups have a particular conception of democracy. They consider that Identity and Democracy doesn’t play the game they do, and therefore refuse to debate with it.

This debate will not take place in the studio, but in the hemicycle of the Parliament; a setting that imposes itself. The President of Parliament, Roberta Metsola, took advantage of the fact that the elected representatives were in the middle of an election campaign to grant the producers this set, without informing the parliamentarians. Many would have had their say.

It will take place in English. This is another of the Union’s subtleties: each member state has the right to request that all official documents be translated into a language of its choice. The Union therefore has 23 official languages for 27 member states, i.e. 552 possible language combinations. However, no state has requested that English be one of the languages of the Union. Malta, for example, which has made English one of its two official languages, has preferred Maltese to be used in Brussels. Yet, de facto, English has become the 24th language of the Union, and the only one common to all. This, of course, has nothing to do with the fact that the EU is not a European project, but an Anglo-Saxon one.

Incidentally, this strange debate is of little importance, since everyone knows that the Commission President will probably be chosen from outside this cenacle: it is likely to be banker Mario Draghi [1]. This is not impossible, since in 2019, Ursula von der Leyen did not take part in this debate and yet became President of the Commission.

Don’t get me wrong: Mario Draghi may be 76 years old, but he’s the former governor of the European Central Bank. In this role, he did everything to make the euro irreversible. He managed, "Whatever it takes", to save it from the sovereign debt crisis of the 2010s. It hasn’t solved any problems, and has exacerbated the gulf separating the economies of the member states. From the point of view of the member states, he’s an incompetent, but not from that of the investment bankers, a caste that has always been his (he was Goldman Sachs’ number 2 for Europe).

Confirmation of the Belgian (Brussels), German (Mönchengladbach) and European corruption investigations into Ursula von der Leyen leaves no room for doubt [2]. The institutions urgently need to get rid of her. Similarly, parliamentarians caught red-handed have been discreetly sidelined, including Vice-President Eva Kaili. The impression must be given that the Union’s administration is honest and at the service of its "citizens" (sic); an impression, because in reality, there are neither European people nor citizens, as evidenced by the absence of European parties.

THE EU’S CHOICES ARE ALREADY MADE

The Union, which is a political structure that goes far beyond the original "common market", faces a number of external challenges: 
It has signed several free-trade agreements with states or blocs that do not respect its internal rules. The balance of competition, which was established via a complex system of subsidies, is therefore no longer assured, given that there is no comparable financial system on a global scale [3].

Instead of linking the fact of trading with a third party to its compliance with the Union’s internal rules, it has linked it to its respect for human rights. Yet two of the EU’s trading partners are posing very serious problems, without the EU reacting.

 For 76 years, Israel has not complied with any of the United Nations resolutions concerning it. Moreover, it has just begun an ethnic cleansing of Palestine, massacring some 50,000 civilians and wounding around 100,000 others.

 Ukraine, whose constitution is explicitly racist, has carried out two successive coups d’état (2004 and 2014). It has since elected a president, but his term of office ends today, May 21, 2024. No elections have been called and eleven opposition political parties have been banned.

In recent weeks, the EU has not moved one iota in the face of the free trade agreements it has signed in violation of its internal rules. In its view, all we have to do is wait for the problem to disappear: within a few years, the affected agricultural sectors will have disappeared.

On the other hand, the EU has announced its support for a solution for Palestine, while continuing its aid to Volodymyr Zelensky’s undemocratic regime.

 On the first point, the EU seems eager to recognize Palestine as a full member of the United Nations. It points out that it does not support the plan of the UN’s special envoy, Count Folke Bernadotte (assassinated in 1949), but refers to the plan of the Colonial Commission chaired by William Peel: there should be two separate states, and certainly not a bi-national state where Jews and Arabs would have equal rights.

 With regard to Ukraine, the EU persists in ignoring the Minsk agreements, endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2202, and the responsibility to protect that derives from them. Not only does it fail to congratulate Russia on ending the massacre of Russian speakers in the Donbass region, but it persists in accusing it of invading its neighbour.

When it comes to defense and foreign policy, the EU’s positions are exactly those of the G7, in which it participates. There is not a single case in which it differs from them, or even simply expresses a nuance. The EU is therefore building up an arms manufacturing industry and coordinating each country so that it continuously supplies the Kiev government. Until 2022 (the Russian army’s special operation in Ukraine), the EU had no involvement in defense issues. Indeed, the European Treaties stipulate that this is not its responsibility. The defense of the Union’s territory does not depend on its member states, but on NATO, whether or not they are members.

However, on a permanent basis, the Atlantic Alliance defined interoperability standards between its members, which it passed on to the European Commission, which in turn had them adopted by the European Parliament. These were then transcribed into national law by each of the 27 member states. These standards ranged from the composition of chocolate (there’s a chocolate bar in the rations of Alliance soldiers) to the width of main roads (so that US tanks could use them).

The Commission had no difficulty in taking up arms issues. It had already done so for drugs during the Covid epidemic. It’s worth noting that the generalization of these drugs has not proved its usefulness in the face of Covid-19. But that’s not the point. This was not a devastating epidemic, but a pretext for a mobilization exercise in which each power showed what it could achieve. From this point of view, the Commission proved that it could take on an issue that was not within its remit, and that it could even conclude gigantic contracts on behalf of its members without revealing the secrets of its negotiations.

When the EU becomes a single state, the Commission should demonstrate the same dexterity and more, since its action will no longer be hampered by the 27 member states. They will have disappeared. After the merger, banker Mario Draghi is expected to achieve "economies of scale". For example, there’s no need to waste money on embassies for each member state, as a single network will suffice for the single state. While we’re at it, the privileges of some will be put at the service of all. For example, the French permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council will revert to the Union. Or the French atomic bomb will be handed over to the Union’s Defense Department. Neutral states, such as Austria, will have disappeared anyway.

What’s true in politics is also true in economics. Mario Draghi has long been advocating a reorganization of the EU economy along Soviet lines: each region with its own specificity. In fact, it was with this in mind that the EU concluded the free trade agreements to which I referred at the beginning of this article. While livestock farming will remain a particularity of Poland, the Netherlands has taken the lead by authoritatively putting its farmers out of work, and it won’t be long before France devotes its talents to other tasks.

ELIMINATING OBSTACLES

The real obstacle to the creation of a single state can only come from those member states that refuse to disappear. It lies in the Council of Heads of State and Government.
Two diametrically opposed and irreconcilable points of view face each other. The two extremes are in the former Czechoslovakia: for just over a year now, the Czech Republic has been governed by General Petr Pavel, former Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee. His agenda is that of the G7 (affirmation of a world governed by rules [4], containment of Russia, support for Ukrainian fundamentalist nationalists, preparation for confrontation with China). Robert Fico, on the other hand, has governed Slovakia, for six months. The alliance on which he relies certainly includes a few nostalgic supporters of Father Jozef Tiso, who established a national Catholic regime under Nazi protection during the Second World War. More seriously, it is founded on supporters of independence from the USSR, who did not recognize themselves in the figure of Václav Havel, the CIA agent who took power during a colourful revolution, the "Velvet Revolution". A former Communist, Robert Fico distinguishes Russia from the USSR. He defends a world organized around International Law (and not G7 "rules"). He supported Security Council Resolution 2202 and consequently approved Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. He is the one and only EU leader to have held this position (Viktor Orbán’s Hungary avoids broaching the subject).

A few days ago, the problem was solved: on May 15, 2024, an individual fired five shots at him at point-blank range. Robert Fico was immediately evacuated (photo). He has already undergone two operations and his life is no longer in danger. The debate he was leading in the Council was interrupted. It is not expected to resume.

The history of the EU is already written. The wonderful thing about this project is that, as it unfolds, we discover why Brussels has imposed rules and facts that made no sense when they were first decided, but now make sense.

The grotesque Spitzenkandidaten debate, in English and in a grandiose setting, but with nothing at stake, will have played its role: occupying the crowds while the people who count decide their future in the shadows.

 

Thierry Meyssan

Translation
Roger Lagassé

 

https://www.voltairenet.org/article220906.html

 

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Ukrainian corruption: Putin’s 5th column?

 

by André Belobor

 

Ukrainians are in limbo, awaiting the surrender of Kharkiv – the country's second largest city, located just 25 km from the border with the Russian Federation. On social networks there is only talk about the fact that the impregnable defense line around this city turned out to be a bluff. The fortifications under Kharkiv, kyiv first proudly named them in the French style – “new Maginot line" (named after the French general André Maginot, who in the 30s of the last century built a complex of fortifications on the border with Germany). However, no one in kyiv asked a simple question from the 7th grade history textbook: what then happened to the “Maginot Line”? French military strategists considered the Maginot Line impregnable, but history decided otherwise, and today in Europe this term has a rather humiliating character. But this line – from Belfort to Longuyon – had at least been physically built. The Ukrainian “Maginot Line”, meanwhile, existed only on paper.

It is well known that the United States has granted hundreds of millions of dollars to kyiv, including for the defense of Kharkiv, a city bordering Russia. It mainly involved the construction of multi-kilometer high-density minefields, as well as underground and surface reinforced concrete structures. However, the Russian army managed to overcome all these obstacles, and now the Ukrainians find themselves facing a painful choice to answer a simple question: why? Two options are available to them:

The Russian army is strong.
The Ukrainian “Maginot Line” is a fiction.

Ultimately, the Ukrainians settled on the second answer, because the facts of banal corruption within the organs of power, especially in the Kharkiv region, are proven. For example, the Ukrainian national anti-corruption portal “Antikor” writing : "The “dragon’s teeth” (reinforced concrete pyramids. – Author's note) just hang out on the outskirts of Liptsy in the Kharkiv region. According to the fighters, these obstacles have been unused since the summer of 2023. We will not draw conclusions, we leave this to the commission which will examine the good faith of the contractors who built the fortifications and those responsible who were to ensure control.».

The famous Ukrainian Telegram channel “Resident” with more than a million subscribers, writes openly about corruption: “In the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian armed forces are suffering monstrous losses due to widespread theft and corruption in the construction of defense works. The average percentage of what was stolen from fortifications is around 60%, and on some projects the money is almost entirely gone. “Defense rings” existed only on paper and in Zelensky's videos».

On the Internet, it is possible to find copies of documents relating to the work carried out. For example, a contract reports that the state administration of the Kharkiv region received about 4,5 million hryvnias (more than 100,000 euros) from the company “Grets Industrie” for the construction of fortifications. A few days ago, the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Alexander Dubinsky, accused the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleg Sinegubov, of being personally involved in the embezzlement of funds intended for the construction of the fortifications. “Sinegubov awarded multi-million contracts for the construction of fortifications to "ghost" companies that had never won public contracts before. The extreme cynicism of these diversions lies in the fact that they were carried out directly in the border area", declared the MP on his Telegram channel.

The American Press Agency Associated Press reports, quoting a Ukrainian armed forces officer fighting near Kharkiv: “Rear defense lines, meant to provide cover, practically do not exist". Chain BBC News showed the useless fortifications under Kharkiv with this comment: "Kharkiv was fortified, but these defense works were built far from the border. Too far to be significant".

British magazine The Economist, sums up the doubts of Ukrainians: “Many soldiers in Kharkiv are unhappy that Russia was able to advance so far and so quickly. Some of them criticize delays in Western aid, which they say have encouraged Russian aggression and weakened Ukraine's defense. Others suspect incompetence or even betrayal played a larger role". An observer of The Economist, even suggested that "politicians in kyiv or Washington could sell off the Kharkiv region in anticipation of a disastrous peace deal".

Today, the city of Kharkiv is practically deserted. Here is a video from a blogger from this city: we see deserted streets in the center, practically no pedestrians on the sidewalks and rare cars on the road. “So, here it is 10 a.m. on May 18th. There is nobody. And it’s a city of a million people! A three-car traffic jam. Four, sorry. Ah, the traffic jam is gone", Comments the blogger with irony. It is obvious that the emptiness in the streets of Kharkiv is linked to the total mobilization decreed by Zelensky. People are leaving the city, understanding that the Ukrainian armed forces do not intend to fight for it, and they do not want to become “cannon fodder”.

The details described above about the state of the front in the northeast of Ukraine testify to one thing: Vladimir Putin's statement on the creation of a sanitary zone is coming true, so that the Ukrainian army physically cannot reach Belgorod in Russia with missiles. And the corrupt Ukrainians contribute perfectly to this, in fact acting as Putin's proxies.

 

 

https://en.reseauinternational.net/corruption-ukrainienne-la-5eme-colonne-de-poutine/

 

 

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

 

 

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

TRANSNISTRIA WILL BE PART OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

 

EASY.

 

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

 

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