Ever mindful of what happened during the first half of the 20th century, for the last six decades Europe has mounted a vigil against any rebirth of totalitarian ideology.
For the first four of those six decades Soviet-led Communism stood as the model of totalitarianism to be avoided. Like its brother socialist ideologies, Nazism and Fascism, Communism exerted its political control through military force, mass imprisonment and execution of dissidents, and brutal state repression. The three totalitarian socialisms provided the template for what was to be prevented. Europe was — and remains — determined to avoid the return of the jackboot.
However, while the sentinels of Social Democracy peered tirelessly over the parapets, guarding against the return of the storm troopers, another form of totalitarianism tiptoed in behind the walls and settled stealthily into place within European democratic structures.
Full-blown free market capitalism never really developed in postwar Europe, but under the umbrella of the American military, state capitalism and various forms of syndicalism allowed the creation of great wealth. At a consistently high rate of taxation, much of that wealth ended up in the hands of the State, enabling the formation of an all-pervasive welfare system. By controlling the material well-being of its citizens, the State could achieve a greater degree of political control than the Nazis or Communists had ever dreamed of.
The difference between the “Left” and the “Right” in modern European parliamentary democracies is laughable. Should the VAT be raised to 20% or 21%? Should we import 100,000 or 120,000 Muslim immigrants per annum? Should we cut the military budget to 1% of GDP, or would 0.5% be more appropriate to our peace-loving democracies?
Any political opinion that is truly different, that would address fundamental questions about state policy — or indeed question the size and nature of the State itself — is considered beyond the pale. Despite pervasive multicultural indoctrination, there are still people who believe that the European Union is an oppressive hegemon, that sovereign independent nations are the best political structures, and that the mass importation of totally alien peoples into Europe is a dangerous mistake. Those who hold such opinions are placed outside the bounds of polite society. They are labeled “right-wing extremists”, “racists”, “fascists”, and “neo-Nazis”. The thoughts they think are simply not permitted.
There is no need for the jackboot or the firing squad or the gulag to suppress dissent and enforce the doctrines of the new EUSSR. State-controlled media and academic consensus stand in absolute solidarity against heterodoxy. Social pressure and professional ostracism make an outcast of anyone who holds deviant opinions, and if such soft measures are not enough to discourage him, his employer — often an agency or affiliate of the State itself — can be relied upon to let him go. His access to state social benefits may also be curtailed.
So it’s easier just to go along with the program. Enjoy your short working hours and early retirement. Relish your six or eight weeks of paid vacation every year. Be glad that you don’t have to pay for your medical care. Be content with your subsidized apartment and state-sanctioned entertainment channels on TV.
Let the wonks in Brussels take care of all those complicated political questions! Why should you bother? Going against their program will only bring trouble and heartache upon you.
It’s not your father’s totalitarianism. It’s a kinder, gentler jackboot. Call it the velvet jackboot — that’s what Europeans are forced to live under.
There is no more exquisite velvet jackboot than the spike-heeled rainbow version that now rests upon the neck of Modern Multicultural Sweden. As I mentioned yesterday, Sweden has perfected the social suppression of political dissent. There may be no nation on Earth that is more effective at the silencing of forbidden opinions without the use of armed force.
Anders Bruun Laursen, who runs the Euro-Med site, tried to leave a comment on yesterday’s post, but the Blogger system would not permit him to log in. He sent us his comment by email instead, and here’s what he had to say:
Sweden is presumably the most fanatic EU country with the politically most standardized population in Europe. Sweden has been able to subdue a free debate on the Muslim immigration by means of simple words like “racism”, “conspiracy theory”, “immigration is good and necessary,” “nationalism is bad”, and has brainwashed their population with them — in spite of big cities like Gothenburg and Malmö having seen large scale Muslim violence time and again — and even an angry Swede going about shooting at Muslims.
Germany was relieved from this hypocritical attitude a year ago by the politician Thilo Sarrazin. He asserted that the immigration was killing Germany and lowering the intelligence in the population. What shocked politicians was that most Germans agreed! Even the big papers and magazines began seeing Sarrazin as a much needed lightning rod — much like the Danish People’s Party. Such factors can make the electorate believe that the political system is doing something, thus calming down an angry population. The fact is that Sarrazin and the Danish People’s Party are part of the EU political system: They talk, but do absolutely nothing. The Danish People’s Party could have threatened to bring down Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s government if it went back on its word to give the critical Danes a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. The DP had said they would do so — but also went back on their word.
Today there are so many EU immigration-critical blogs with so many readers that even the President of the EU Commission, José Barroso, knows he had better leave them alone. For more and more of the blog readers are becoming impatient and aggressive. Strikes — even general strikes are no longer unrealistic — have been seen due to austerity measures in Southern Europe.
The EU knows the anger among Europeans is growing because of its austerity dictates impoverishing the Europeans: This is the only mechanism that will allow the unnatural, political project, the Euro, an economically hopeless project, to survive — after the poor states have been robbed of value by the EU allies, the big Bank corporations — especially Goldman Sachs. Their natural regulations, the raising of interest rates and devaluation, were taken away from them, when they joined the Euro. The Euro will now only survive as long as the Germans are willing to pay for it. German blog readers know that, too, and write more and more about revolution.
The EU has expanded its economic governance in secrecy this spring. The European Semester commands all 27 EU member states to have their national budgets approved by the EU before presenting them to their national parliaments! Moreover, the Euro Competitiveness Pact was passed, requiring that the heads of state and government of all 27 EU members accept without discussion whatever economic measures the EU’s unelected government, the EU Commission, dictates (consensus rule). Of course, the renegade Danish government and opposition unanimously and immediately rushed to Brussels to join the Euro-stability pact, thus giving up the last remnant of Danish sovereignty, even though the Danes voted no to the Euro!
12 comments:
They couldn't have been TOO vigilant against the return of totalitarian ideologies if they permitted an encroachment by is-slum, now could they? Hmmmm?
This is just SAD! :( However, do you think there is a slight chance that the EU might dissolve? I dont see any other way to put an end to all this nonsense, except a total meltdown...
I might need one of your visuals, Baron, to help me see those velvet jackboots. But I have no doubt that the velvet jackboots would match nicely with Obama's troubadour hat from Dymphna's operetta.
Sooner or later the lid will blow off the pressure cooker in one of the EU states, and when it does it will start an explosive chain reaction among its neighbors.
The countries last to explode will get all the jihadist fallout from the ones further up the chain.
In fact, they may never get the chance to explode, because they will be swamped by Eurabian jihadists in an overnight blitzkrieg invasion.
Wait until Turkey joins EU, then all hell will break loose. In 2020, the GOV header may read as "At the siege of Vienna in 2020 Islam seemed poised again to overrun Christian Europe. We are in a final phase of a very old war, the one that Europe is about to loose".
The whole idea behind the Euro was infected with political correctness from the start. It might have made sense for a group of countries with similar political and economic policies to have a common currency.
But Greece in particular was known to hopelessly corrupt. Yet, this fact was denied, and they were permitted to join the currency union.
Now they are much worse off than if they had never joined! If they had never joined, if the Euro was the currency of the wealthy northern countries only, it (the Euro) would appreciate relative to the Greek currency. Soon people from the wealthy north would decide Greece was the place for a bargain vacation, thus bringing in tourists and their money.
Instead, we have frustrated taxi drivers going on strike and undermining what is left of the ability to attract tourists. It is insane!
Meanwhile, German businesses that do a lot of exporting outside the Eurozone benefit from the drag on the Euro exerted by all these problems. If it were the rich countries alone on the Euro, it would appreciate, to compensate.
The function of borders and sovereignty is to protect the existence of ethnic groups. The last I heard, taking steps that result in the extinction of ethnic groups is called genocide.
@sgt.red.blue.red:
Like we have been so careful ourselves? How come I'm seeing all those signs in Spanish? What happened to the idea of making English the official language? Instead, when you call an 800#, commercial or govt, you get an offer to "Press #2"...
Ain't none of us without his or her burden of carelessness, of settling back to read a book, or watch TV instead of figuring out what specific action WE could do to turn the country around.
I don't mean anything spectacular. Just making our neighborhoods more liveable. Talking to others about ways to do that. Volunteering at schools so you can undermine, I mean, improve the program.
Somewhere, in each state, or the county in each state, there could be a clearing house (as in website) to leave ideas, to share creative ways to make things better.
No one in Europe besides the oligarchs wanted that &*^%* treaty. But it got crammed down everyone's throat the same way Obama stuffed us with his gargantuan legislation, his creepy Executive Orders, his malignant and growing Dept of Homeland Bureaucrats, his czars.
We're all in this together. It is going to take a thousand little bandaids, applied by us to prevent the planned death by a thousand cuts...
What happened to "Let's Roll!"??
@ trencherbone--
Think about it: one flaw in Islam is the constant jostling for position. They don't play well together. Even in the short term, I don't think they do. So a blitzkreig isn't likely without the plan being discovered.
That's not to say there couldn't be a WHOLE LOT of damage done in one-off missions. London's 7/7 certainly proved that.
Anne--
The taxi-drivers here, the Muslim ones, have had to be brought to heel for refusing to carry blind passengers w/seeing eye dogs, women who aren't dressed properly, etc. There was one case where a driver killed his infidel passenger in a rage. Ummm...clash of the civilized and the tribes.
Sounds kinda like Rome's last days, doesn't it. I don't know enough early history to make a comparison but iirc, what killed them off was their taxes and bureaucracy. And the ennervated elitists...
...but it was a long, slow death so we or our children or their children probably won't see it. Maybe it all depends on how 'globalization' skews the usual time curve in civilizational collapse.
"Full-blown free market capitalism never really developed in postwar Europe,"- that is correct, but if it ever existed in America its certainly gone now. Crony-capitalism is not free enterprise.
There are few places in the world where you can still make a great fortune when you do the right thing, Hong Kong used to be one of those places and it probably still is, but the clock is ticking.
All other places are either unsafe, dictatorships or both. I hate the fact that my Europe is turning into EUrabia, and I certainly hope that they will somehow get their act together and revolt. But I won't be holding my breath.
Perhaps Australia has a bit more staying power. We need a solid, conservative government urgently, but the opposition here is piss-weak, we have, in effect, a one-party government.
One could despair....
Before some commenters might fall back to a cherished belief that somehow the US is exempt from all this soft totalitarianism, let's rewrite a core passage:
"The difference between the “Left” and the “Right” in the US is laughable. [..]
Any political opinion that is truly different, that would address fundamental questions about state policy — or indeed question the size and nature of the State itself — is considered beyond the pale. Despite pervasive multicultural indoctrination, there are still people who believe that [..] the mass importation of totally alien peoples into the US is a dangerous mistake. Those who hold such opinions are placed outside the bounds of polite society."
We're in this together.
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
Sag,
My comments on just what you are talking about ...[you said]
..."there are still people who believe that [..] the mass importation of totally alien peoples into the US is a dangerous mistake."
This guy, whoever he is, at 4:19, demonstrates like all unapologetic liberals, his wish to be all-inclusive to mos-slums, which is exactly the problem. If they follow their "creed" you have intolerance. Christians, if you follow their teachings, generates good will. Christians may not always live up to expectations, that is human shortcoming, but their intent is a worthy goal. mos-slums, to the extent they pay no attention to their teachings, may be the only ones that MAY 'tolerable'.
Acts 17 Enters the Dearborn Arab Festival (PART ONE)
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