MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘Italy’

Will Italy’s Election Foreshadow US Midterms?

Posted by M. C. on September 28, 2022

Hopefully

https://mailchi.mp/ronpaulinstitute/eusanctions-116273?e=4e0de347c8

Sept. 26 – Sunday was an historic election day for Italy. A conservative alliance with a populist flair absolutely trounced the technocrats who had been running the country into the ground for the past several years.

The previous prime minister, former Goldman Sachs banker Mario Draghi, implemented one of the most restrictive – and inhuman – Covid shutdowns, which, along with supporting economically suicidal sanctions against Russia, have left Italy an economic basket case.

Replacing the bland banker will likely be Giorgia Meloni from the right-wing Sons of Italy party. Meloni will be a first for Italy: the first female prime minister. But don’t expect the Left to celebrate it: her name cannot be mentioned in the mainstream media without reference to Mussolini.

Ironically, the democratic victory of Meloni and the rest of the Italian right likely owes a great deal of gratitude to one of Europe’s most undemocratic and anti-democratic leaders: European Union Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen.

On the eve of the Italian elections, the unelected von der Leyen warned Italians that if they voted for the “wrong” parties they would be punished. Asked about the surge of the political opposition in Italy on the eve of the elections, she warned Italian voters, “we will see the result of the vote in Italy. If things go in a difficult direction — and I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland — we have the tools.”

In other words, her message to Italian voters was “yes you can vote, but if you vote in a way I do not approve of, you will be punished.”

Italians rushed to vote in a way she did not approve of. It will be interesting to see what happens.

How does any of this relate to the United States as the US moves closer to the midterm elections? Americans have also been given warnings by the political elites that they dare not vote for the “wrong” candidates or parties.

On September 1st, President Biden issued a warning similar to that of Europe’s von der Leyen. In one of the most bizarre speeches in political history, Biden warned that Trump supporters “…are determined to take this country backwards — backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love. They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.”

He spoke on a frightening, red-lit stage with US Marines serving as props on either side of him. This was no “Checkers” speech with Nixon speaking wistfully about his cocker spaniel. No, it was a declaration of war against half of the country.

A few weeks ago Sweden threw its left-wing government out and Sunday the Italians did the same. While the political differences in Europe seem more cosmetic than substantive – for example Italy’s presumptive new prime minister supports weapons to Ukraine just like her predecessor – there is still a strong feeling of popular revolt against political elites in the air.

That doesn’t mean things will easily go our way, as there is no automatic libertarian surge. But we must study hard and take advantage of every single opportunity. People are sick of the elites? That means they are likely open to the concepts of non-interventionism and sound money. Let’s help educate them!



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Watch “Revolution in Italy? Voters ‘Threw The Bums Out!'” on YouTube

Posted by M. C. on September 27, 2022

A political tidal wave broke over Italy over the weekend, as voters by a large majority elected a right-wing government. European Union officials warned Italians not to vote the “wrong” way…but they did anyway. What is the bigger picture? Also today, a vote in Ukraine’s eastern provinces promises escalation. And…guess who’s got covid…again?

Pfizer CEO, that’s who – Second time in just a few weeks.

https://youtu.be/76sWIj9t-yg

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Italy’s Covid Despotism Just Got Worse | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on February 2, 2022

https://mises.org/wire/italys-covid-despotism-just-got-worse

Matteo Salonia

The news from Italy has started to sound like good incipits for a dystopian fantasy novel or like a déjà vu recalling the Soviet Union. A couple of weeks ago, a new decree of the Draghi government established yet more rules restricting the lives of people who have not been injected with the latest vaccine booster and who therefore cannot show the latest version of the Green Pass. These second-class citizens, who have already been stripped of their right to move, work, and participate in a great number of social activities, are now forbidden from entering post offices to withdraw their pension, and they are to be allowed access to supermarkets only to buy “goods of primary necessity.” In other words, the Italian government decides what kind of food and what other goods (if any) these people will be able to purchase. It is unclear how exactly the government intends to enforce this new decree: Will we see policemen putting their hands into shoppers’ bags? Will bread be considered a “primary” good while shaving foam and candies will be seized? There is no limit to the madness. And a recent note from the executive to clarify the situation only made things worse: the state now decrees that the unvaccinated can actually also buy nonprimary goods in the few shops they are allowed to enter. For the time being. In other words, Italy is now a society where your sphere of action goes only as far as the prime minister’s website explicitly and graciously allows. Heading out for a stroll at the park? You better check the latest blog post from Mario Draghi to see if he explicitly grants you this freedom!

How did it come to this?

See the rest here

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I thought Italy would be next to leave the EU; now I’m convinced it will be Hungary because it looks like Brexit all over again — RT Op-ed

Posted by M. C. on August 30, 2021

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/533124-hungary-leaves-eu-orban-huxit/

Paul A. Nuttall is a historian, author and a former politician. He was a Member of the European Parliament between 2009 and 2019 and was a prominent campaigner for Brexit. I believe Viktor Orban could be readying his country for ‘Huxit’. If he is not, then he is playing a high-stakes game of poker with the overlords in Brussels.

Earlier this week, Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet (Hungarian Nation) ran a headline saying, “it is time to talk about Huxit.” This is a huge development because the newspaper is considered to be the unofficial mouthpiece of Orban’s government.  

Last month, the newspaper announced that “the time has come, now in July 2021, to seriously consider the possibility of our withdrawal from a union of states with a thousand bleeding wounds, showing imperial symptoms, and treating the eastern and central European countries incredibly arrogantly.

The newspaper also stated that there is a culture clash between Western and Eastern European values, something I argued on RT.com last month. Similarly, Magyar Nemzetopined that “our paths have diverged as the West now consciously… breaks from Christian morality and values. Instead, they aim to build a cosmopolitan, faceless world society based on the unbridled self-enjoyment and self-destruction of the individual… we Hungarians, Poles and central and eastern European people hold on to our cultural and religious foundations.”

Reading this came like a welcome dose of déjà vu to an old Brexiteer like myself. All the way back in November 2010, the Daily Express, became the first mainstream British newspaper to come out in favour of the UK leaving the European Union.

The Daily Express announced that “from this day forth our energies will be directed to furthering the cause of those who believe Britain is Better Off Out.” And continued, “after far too many years as the victims of Brussels larceny, bullying, over-regulation and all-round interference, the time has come for the British people to win back their country and restore legitimacy and accountability to their political process.”

See the rest here

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Clash Between People and the Deep State in Italy – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on August 27, 2021

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/08/no_author/clash-between-people-and-deep-state-in-italy/

By Vicit Leo
VicitLeo.org

Some years ago Italy was chosen by the global powers-that-be to become a social laboratory where the Great Reset would be tested and fine-tuned before being fully unleashed upon the world.

In the words of Monsignor Carlo Maria Viganò“Italy is a testing ground for the experiments of social engineering that the globalist agenda intends to extend to all governments over the span of the next ten years.”

On 30th August the Italian Health Dictatorship Regime intends to make what it thinks is a check-mate move and impose its COVID-19 vaccination passport, called the Green Pass, upon the entire population of Italy.
This discriminatory and coercive ‘Green Pass’ is without doubt contrary to both international law and the laws of most domestic legal jurisdictions.
It is creating a world where the majority of people are tricked or bullied, and generally compelled, into receiving a series of experimental gene modification jabs or vaccines still under clinical trial.
It is creating a world where a rebelling minority will be cast out and refused access to social amenities and social recreation.

A movement which started on Good Friday in 2020 when just a dozen or so people tried to break the lockdown cordons and get to Mass at the Church of St Maria Maggiore in Rome, gradually built and expanded to the point that in July 2021 up to twenty-thousand fed-up and rebellious Romans gathered together at the Piazza del Popolo to really make and continue to build a heavyweight challenge against the Health Dictatorship and the Great Reset.

There are three main objectives:
1) To unite the people beyond the old, sterile, worn-out, and divisive, labels of Left and Right.
2) To draw together disparate groups and associations of un-skilled workers, tradesmen, restaurateurs and hoteliers, and medical and scientific professionals.
3) To stand united together and act as one until the Green Pass is defeated.
The movement grew rapidly throughout Italy uniting more than a million people in a city by city mobilization.

On the 28th August, two days before the introduction of the Green Pass, a massive demonstration is due to take place in Rome along with other big protests in towns and cities all over the country.
The Regime has long braced itself to meet, sometimes very violently, growing street protests but unexpectedly, and dangerously, for the Health Dictatorship something else has happened.
A lawyer, Avv. Nicola Trisciuoglio, representing 52 of his colleagues in the legal profession, filed criminal complaints against the Italian Prime Minister, Draghi, and other public figures, accusing them of very serious offences such as conspiracy, murder, and manslaughter.
The criminal accusations were filed with all 140 Public Prosecutors spread in all the Italian main cities of Italy.

In this way it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for the Regime to call in favours or intimidate all of the Public Prosecutor Offices to drop the criminal investigations.
Indeed, nearly 100 of the Public Prosecutors have already begun to pursue criminal investigations based upon the complaints.

It’s expected that at least one of the Prosecution Offices will ask the Constitutional Court to examine the legality of the ‘Green Pass’.

In the las few hours the Procura di Avellino has decided to send the Green Pass to the Constitutional Court to decide whether it complies or not with Italian and European law.
As part of this legal investigation the Public Prosecutors have also been requested to seize samples of the so-called vaccines so they can be independently analysed in neutral laboratories and the precise ‘ingredients’ established.
The complex action against the tyrannical regime, the criminal actions commited and the struggle against the Green Pass are finally giving results.

WHETHER YOU ARE AMERICAN, BRITISH, CANADIAN OR FROM ANY OTHER PART OF THE WORLD PLEASE HELP ITALY AND ITALIANS IN THIS STRUGGLE THAT WILL REFLECT ON LIVES OF PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD.

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Guess What Biden’s Virus Adviser Wants To Do – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on October 31, 2020

Gee, Dr. Emanuel, it looks like locking people in their houses only delays the inevitable — as everyone at the time tried to tell you.

Meanwhile, let’s check in with Sweden, which never locked down and where almost nobody wears masks.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/10/thomas-woods/guess-what-bidens-virus-adviser-wants-to-do/

By Tom Woods

From the Tom Woods Letter:

Remember that creep Dr. Zeke Emanuel?

I’ll refresh your memory:

“We cannot return to normal until there’s a vaccine. Conferences, concerts, sporting events, religious services, dinner in a restaurant, none of that will resume until we find a vaccine, a treatment, or a cure….

“We need to prepare ourselves for this to last 18 months or so and for the toll that it will take. We need to develop a long-term solution based on those facts. It has to account for what we are losing while this fight goes on, things like schooling and income and contact with our friends and extended family.”

He wanted you to go for 18 months without “schooling and income and contact with [your] friends and extended family.”

Dr. Emanuel is advising Joe Biden on the virus.

If you’re curious about what he would advise Joe to do, here’s what he said back when he thought Italy had “crushed the curve” (with thanks to Alex Berenson):

“One of the important things for all your readers to look at is Italy.

“Italy did a nationwide lockdown…. We’ve never gotten as low as Italy is today…. We needed that kind of process nationwide, and we did not have that.

“So that’s one thing: a nationwide lockdown that lasts 8 weeks until we have a number of new cases in the 2 to 3 per 100,000 level.”

He said this in September.

Italy just reported 217 deaths from the virus yesterday, which is the equivalent of 1200 deaths in the U.S.

Gee, Dr. Emanuel, it looks like locking people in their houses only delays the inevitable — as everyone at the time tried to tell you.

Meanwhile, let’s check in with Sweden, which never locked down and where almost nobody wears masks.

Here’s Sweden versus Illinois, which is going into another lockdown:

Here’s Sweden against several other European countries:

And here’s Sweden against still other countries:

Well, how about that!

So lockdowns don’t even work — except to suck the joy out of life; decimate people’s savings; ruin their livelihoods; delay necessary health procedures; disrupt supply chains, thereby threatening famine; cause 2 million excess deaths from TB, HIV, and malaria; and lead to depression and despair.

This should be excruciatingly obvious by now, and yet we have a shocking number of people who think this is what needs to be done.

More of what failed the first time!

The Best of Tom Woods Tom Woods [send him mail; visit his website] is the New York Times bestselling author of 12 books and host of the Tom Woods Show, which libertarians listen to every weekday. Get a free copy of Your Facebook Friends Are Wrong About the Lockdown: A Non-Hysteric’s Guide to COVID-19.

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The Things You CANNOT Say About Coronavirus

Posted by M. C. on April 6, 2020

This is a very bad situation but…

don’t take any statistics at face value. It will take months or maybe years before anything close to accuracy is available.

Consider that Italy is bankrupt and the EU periodically threatens to shut off the euros if Italy doesn’t do as is told.

The more casualties the more the euros and free stuff will flow.

Sad to say, there is money to be made…and not just in Italy.

and…if you don’t know many caught C and didn’t go to the doctor because of mild or no symptoms, you DO NOT KNOW rates.

https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/03/the-things-you-cannot-say-about-coronavirus/

James Corbett

…But there’s some problems with those numbers. As Prof Walter Ricciardi—scientific adviser to Italy’s minister of health—recently revealed, “The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.”

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Social Engineering - Lamar University

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Russia and China Assist European Nations – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on March 26, 2020

US/NATO bombs Serbia, EU ignores it, Russia and China save it.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/03/yvonne-lorenzo/russia-and-china-assist-european-nations/

By

Lew Rockwell recently in his powerful “War on China?” wrote that “People are understandably upset about the coronavirus epidemic, but if we’re not careful, an even greater danger lies ahead. Sinister forces in American political life are using the crisis to incite war with China and to stir up bad feelings towards the Chinese people. The Chinese people are in fact heroic. They are our friends, not our enemies. But the forces of evil want you to think otherwise.”

I don’t know if Washington would consider or China would be interested in providing medical protective gear and respirators to America, given recent statements by President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo. But even if the Chinese government is “authoritarian,” certainly, as I and others have written recently, America too has an authoritarian bent as well.

As is documented both on China’s CGTN channel on YouTube, and on RT, both nations are helping, especially in the case of Serbia whose request for EU aid was refused. Today, as I write these words, is the anniversary of the NATO bombing campaign on Serbia. From the article:

“Twenty-one years ago, NATO, without obtaining permission to intervene from the United Nations, launched armed aggression against Serbia, thus crudely violating the UN Declaration, the Helsinki Accords, a number of other international conventions and its own act on the creation of NATO of 1949,” the statement runs. “It has been and will remain a crime against peace and humanity. The act of aggression, committed in alliance with the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army, left an estimated 3,500-4,000 people dead and 12,500 others injured and caused tremendous economic damage. The use of depleted uranium rounds and other prohibited weapons was a long-term hazard to the people and the environment. NATO turned itself into an aggressive, interventionist alliance with an outspokenly expansionist policy targeting the East first and foremost.”

Therefore, I am not surprised that the EU refused Serbia’s request for assistance and China has been a major help, as these videos from CGTN show. This video posted on March 16th.

Serbia’s state of emergency: ‘China is the only country that can help’

This video also posted:

Serbian landmarks lit up red to salute China

“A number of landmarks in the Serbian capital were lit up in red on March 21 and 22 as a tribute to China. The local government used this gesture to thank the Chinese government for providing medical assistance and to pay tribute to the Chinese medical expert group.”

And this video was posted as well:

“Serbian president kisses Chinese national flag as support team arrives.”

“Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic greeted Chinese medics who arrived in Serbia on Saturday. He kissed the Chinese national flag in a show of gratitude for China’s timely support against the COVID-19 outbreak. Read the rest of this entry »

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Panic Pandemic – Why are people who should know better buying the Covid19 hype? – OffGuardian

Posted by M. C. on March 20, 2020

But what if from Day Two to Day Ten inclusive 198 more people get it and none of them die?

Well, according to the normal method of assessing CFR that would be 200 cases, one death, and a CFR of 0.5%

But with this brilliant new method, it would still be a CFR of 50% – because we are only allowed to count the cases who got sick on the same day as the fatality. And only two people got sick that day, of whom 50% died.

You see the corrupt genius of it?

https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/16/panic-pandemic-why-are-people-who-should-know-better-buying-the-covid19-hype/

Catte Black

The only certainty about the ‘novel’ virus is that a great deal of nonsense is being talked about it by people who really ought to know better, and a great deal of opportunism is being displayed.

From Netanyahu grabbing the chance to postpone his corruption trial to Hollywood starlets claiming they have ‘tested positive’ (surely not a sad and cynical attempt to up their profile), this bandwagon is seething and teeming with those trying to seize their moment of fame or get rich or stay out of jail or just join in the mayhem

It’s cool to be nCoV-positive now. Maybe that’s why such inordinate numbers of famous people are staking their claim to it.

ISIS are apparently a bit worried about nCoV also and is allegedly sending out travel advisories to its jihadists.

Yup, that’s a real thing, right there. Really happening. Definitely.

Meanwhile, the propaganda is relentless, and there’s a variety for all tastes.

If you like your fear porn vanilla you can read all the articles based on total speculation that tell you millions will die if we don’t demand martial law and vaccines. (Speaking of vaccines, the as-yet-untested Covid19 vaccine is going to mandatory in Denmark, and in the US the manufacturers will have legal immunity should it cause any ill-effects).

If you are of a more sceptical turn of mind well, how about nCoV as bio-weapon? Plenty of juicy stuff on that topic also.

And scientists and science journals are not immune. There’s no shortage of people with PhDs willing to talk nonsense with a sciencey spin in order to convince the more inquiring proles that the governments are correct to invoke emergency powers and get that untested vaccine cranking out asap.

Look at this beauty. Written by a team of MDs and other ‘experts’ and appearing in The Lancet, it is about the most naked example I have seen to date of pseudoscience being used to inflate the perception of nCoV as something other than what it is.

The purpose of the article is apparently to find some sort of barely rational reason for estimating the nCoV case fatality rate to be higher than it actually is by a factor of ten.

Here’s the ‘reasoning’ it offers:

However, these mortality rate estimates are based on the number of deaths relative to the number of confirmed cases of infection, which is not representative of the actual death rate; patients who die on any given day were infected much earlier, and thus the denominator of the mortality rate should be the total number of patients infected at the same time as those who died.

They actually suggest with a straight face (though they don’t say why) that in order to get a ‘real’ figure for case fatality we need to count deaths as a percentage only of those who became infected at the same time as those who died.

So, if on Day One of a hypothetical new disease, two people get it and one dies, this would be a 50% case fatality ratio.

Sure, no problem. Common sense and statistics agree with that.

But what if from Day Two to Day Ten inclusive 198 more people get it and none of them die?

Well, according to the normal method of assessing CFR that would be 200 cases, one death, and a CFR of 0.5%

But with this brilliant new method, it would still be a CFR of 50% – because we are only allowed to count the cases who got sick on the same day as the fatality. And only two people got sick that day, of whom 50% died.

You see the corrupt genius of it? It’s a statistical nonsense that crucially gives permission to any would-be stats compilers in the WHO or elsewhere to overestimate the CFR of this bug, or indeed any other subsequent alleged ‘killer’ virus.

If you doubt this is the point, then read the article. This is just what the authors do, having the total gall to claim the ‘real’ CFR for nCoV is anywhere up to 20%, based solely on this crazy new way of figuring out the stats.

Which will look great in future headlines, and help pave the way for public acceptance of a total fascist dictatorship.

If you ever doubted that corruption is now endemic and all our institutions – political, legal, medical – are stacked with yes-men and jobsworths or fools prepared to put their names to any junk proclamation that might get them a raise or save their professional skins, just think of this article. Written by alleged world-class ‘experts’, published in the Lancet, and nothing more than a word salad of contradictory nonsense and meaningless conclusions designed to promote a political and propagandist point.

It even at one point acknowledges the probability of many many subclinical or symptom-free carriers of this supposed virus. But while the authors satisfy some dormant scrap of conscience by alluding to it they don’t draw their readers’ attention to the concomitant fact this lowers the case fatality by quite a way. In fact they allow themselves to sort of imply the opposite, because that is the level on which such people work:

Notably, the full denominator remains unknown because asymptomatic cases or patients with very mild symptoms might not be tested and will not be identified.

This is just one example of the forest of disinformative, hysterical, fog-bound garbage being poured on our heads about this so-called pandemic. That this is part of a coordinated and massive attempt to instil worldwide fear and enact worldwide population-management methods is now undeniable.

What is nCoV19? I honestly do not know.

The more the fear porn ramps up, the less certain I become of any aspect of the narrative surrounding it. We are definitely all being discouraged from questioning its virulence, discouraged from referring to its official fatality and case numbers, which do not correlate with the level of fear we are being told is appropriate. There is certainly a massive and multifaceted attempt to fudge and inflate those numbers to bring them in line with the ‘response’.

This brings us back to our revelation that good old Wikipedia have been downgrading the CFR of the Spanish Flu. It’s hard not to see this as part of the same process.

The actual death rates just aren’t high enough. So talk them up, play pea and thimble games with the stats, and do some Memory-Holing so that the 1918 pandemic suddenly has a very similar CFR, allowing your tame media to make all the right comparisons in their op eds and editorials, pointing out how many millions died back then despite it only having a fatality ratio of 2.5%.

They seem aware of the discrepancy, and are making efforts to prevent people researching it. The WHO are warning people not to read “too much” about the disease in order to protect their mental health. In a write up on the reccomendations, the BBC says this:

There is a lot of misinformation swirling around – stay informed by sticking to trusted sources of information such as government and NHS websites

Whether this virus is as imaginary as some are saying, or entirely real, it’s being hyped to a point beyond any connection with reality, and not just in the media. It’s a multi-pronged assault on our minds right now. Allegedly reliable and authoritative medical professionals are just as likely to talk propaganda at you as some government minister or media halfwit.

Even in the alt-media, many have stopped thinking and gone full deer-in-the-headlights, devoting their websites to recycling government talking points and urging those same governments to lock down their citizens.

How bizarre is it that outlets who were – just weeks ago – warning against trusting anything that comes out of the mouths of our ‘masters’, are now prepared to surrender entirely to official narratives and official ‘safe-keeping’ – and for a virus which, even if totally real, has killed about 7,000 people – or around 7% of the numbers who have died over the same time period – of the current flu.

Yes, that is a real statistic. Check it out.

And no, don’t tell me it’s “not a fair comparison” because the flu is ‘always’ here and nCoV is new. All you do by that is display your unthinking foolishness. Flu viruses are RNA viruses that mutate all the time – which is why you can catch ‘the flu’ over and over again; You’re catching a different strain, a ‘new’ variant. Just like nCoV it needs to travel by infection routes. And just like nCov it has to start small.

But unlike nCov it has already managed to kill around 100,000 people since Jan 1 this year. So let go of that particular piece of nonsense, ok?

Do the alt-media types backing these extreme quarantine and self-isolation notions think the anti-assembly laws, mandatory vaccines and other special powers will all just vanish once this crisis has subsided (because all pandemics eventually do go away)? Do they think the de facto martial law will be temporary?

Do they think we can just ask nice and everything will go back to the way it was? (assuming, of course, the entire system hasn’t morphed into the Hunger Games due to global financial meltdown and mass poverty, because we all basically signed off on closing down what remains of our economy.

Are they thinking at all, or just reacting?

The panic is now seeding itself and doing the propaganda work for those who set it off, and an obvious and very very alarming agenda is being rolled out right behind it.

It’s never been more important to stay alert, sceptical and objective. We’ll keep trying to do that – and you should all do the same.

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Fbi Report Ends Nra Nonsense About "good Guys With Guns" | Page 14 | US Message Board ...

 

 

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Everything you know about Europe is wrong – UnHerd

Posted by M. C. on January 23, 2020

https://unherd.com/2020/01/both-brexiteers-and-remainers-know-nothing-about-europe/

BY

The apocryphal newspaper headline — “fog in the channel, continent isolated” — famously said something about the British mindset. It’s hardly surprising that we are insular — we are literally an island after all — but this insularity is something that curiously crosses all barriers in British social and political life, whether of Left or Right, middle or working class, and on almost every issue.

This is true even for British liberals who, reeling since the night of 23 June, 2016, have made the continent a sort of spiritual home as they’ve become alienated from their countrymen.

Right-thinking Britons see their country as an embarrassment sliding towards populism, a sad contrast to the moral superpower that is Germany and France under centrist leader Emmanuel Macron. Yet the Continent of the Anglo liberal imagination is as unreal as the supposed nostalgic Britain of yesteryear loved by Leavers.

 

Italy

Britain, many people fear, is moving away from the European dream and towards fascism. It’s such an established meme that even the most recent BBC Agatha Christie adaptation was a thinly-veiled analogy about 1930s fascism and Brexit.

Yet people keep on coming to this Nazi hellhole, with the fabled “Brexodus” of migrants leaving the country actually seeing an extra 212,000 people arriving last year, and with record numbers of foreign students, too.

The fascist Brexit Britain theory is held among a minority of Remainers because they’re measuring the country by a theoretical ideal rather than comparing it to other — real — countries. So while the hate crime “surge” following the referendum mostly involved very minor incidents, Italy saw a number of openly racist murders during the late 2010s.

Whether they’re connected or not, Italy has also had a populist Right-wing government in power for most of the past four years, and the Lega may well return — at around 33% in the polls, it is by some distance the most popular party. Italian politics has been, as long as anyone can remember, chaotic and unstable, which makes me wonder if Mary Beard’s Italian colleagues who make her feel “embarrassed” about Brexit have been paying attention to their own country.

 

France

A central theme of fascism is a love of violence against ideological opponents, and so a visitor from outer space with a vague understanding of our human political philosophy would probably conclude that there was only one fascist state in the EU — France, where the brutality of the police is on a scale that would be unfathomable in England.

Among the recent victims of the gleefully violent French police is a teenager who lost an eye in Strasbourg and an elderly woman in Marseilles who died from her injuries after being hit by a rubber bullet. Just this month prosecutors launched a probe after a video appeared to show a policeman firing point-blank at protestors with a riot control gun.

France is quite far down from Britain in the Freedom International rating, and treats minorities like Roma in a way that would do more than embarrass liberal Brits.

Right-wingers often complain that the horrific behaviour of the French police towards the gilets jaunes has received scant coverage in the BBC; certainly if Hungary or Poland treated their citizens like that, I’m pretty sure it would be on our news more. But then France has always been a politically violent country.

The last mass murder of protesters in England occurred in 1819, when 18 people were killed by authorities in Manchester; in France police in Paris killed up to three hundred unarmed protesters in 1961.

Had anything even vaguely comparable happened during the US Civil Rights era it would have been the subject of about 500 films and even my children in an English primary school would now be learning about it now. But then Anglo liberals are fascinated with the Anglo world; not so much by the continent.

France is different to England, in some ways far more traditional; for example, the same-sex marriage campaign there was opposed by enormous protests, while, like many continental countries, it has a 12-week limit for abortion, when even talk of a 20 weeks-limit would have the Anglo commentariat dressing up in those Handmaid’s Tale outfits.

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