Interview with Václav KlausTo many of us, no matter how well versed in history, in political affairs or in socioeconomic issues, the present conditions in the West, and especially in Europe, can sometimes seem like the plot of a bad movie. It is often said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme, and what we’re seeing today is a great example of that. Nevertheless, one would have expected that at least some of those in charge of the “big decisions” would have learned something from the mistakes of the past – if not the mistakes of their predecessors, at least their own.The current political trajectory, which is a mere acceleration of the trend of the past decades toward further centralization and concentration of power in the hands of the “anointed” few, has now clearly entered an especially dangerous phase. The purposeful disempowerment of the individual, the infantilization of the body politic, the suppression of free debate and the demonization of dissent, have brought our societies and our economies to their breaking point.&nbsp;An actual war is raging in Ukraine, with countless direct and indirect victims, an economic crisis like no other in recent memory is ravaging working households and that “invisible thief”, namely inflation, is wiping out whatever was left of the middle class, forcing once-benefactors of food banks to become their beneficiaries. All the while, it seems that nobody is placing the blame where it belongs.&nbsp;It is musings and questions like these that we recently discussed with Former President of the Czech Republic, Prof. Ing.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.klaus.cz/english-pages/">Václav Klaus</a>. In the interview that follows, he offers a lot of food of thought, drawing from his own extensive experience in politics during the most challenging times in modern memory and his deep understanding of geopolitics, economics and human nature itself.&nbsp;&nbsp;<hr>&nbsp;Claudio Grass (CG): Although one can argue that Europe has been in a state of crisis for at least a decade, it can be argued that this time it’s different. There’s an actual war on its doorstep and everyone is paying the price, in one form or another, not just the direct adversaries. Russia’s advances have essentially come to a standstill, while cracks in the European economy and tears in the social fabric are getting worse by the day. How long do you think this can go on and what are your biggest concerns about the continuation of this conflict?Václav Klaus (VK):&nbsp;I agree that it is different now. The current crisis, which is much deeper than the situations that we (or the politicians) irresponsibly labelled as “crises” in the past. This is the outcome of a unique combination of factors and causes. Some of them are directly visible and make headlines, others are invisible and therefore not sufficiently exposed or discussed.&nbsp;The first group of factors consists of individual events, whereas the second one consists of&nbsp;slow, incremental changes of the political, social and economic system.&nbsp;They are not statistically measurable. No one can see them, because they happen in small steps. Nevertheless, it is this second set of developments that is more worrying.&nbsp;War, the energy crisis and mass migration make headlines, but systemic changes don’t.&nbsp;I am afraid that we are not paying attention to how far we have already moved away from free markets and political democracy.CG: As we habitually see during every conflict, propaganda machines go on overdrive and fear-mongering campaigns spread panic and division among the population. A few weeks into this war and increasingly ever since, blanket-hate for “all of the West” or “all Russians” is being propagated. How do you assess collectivist viewpoints like these?VK:&nbsp;I sometimes erroneously underestimate the role of propaganda, because I believe that by not watching TV or by being insulated from social networks, I am immune to it. I admit that it is a wrong perspective.&nbsp;Direct propaganda is one thing, but the general one-sidedness and bias of the media is much worse. What we are experiencing now is similar to what we went through last time in the 1950s and 1960s. I admire George Orwell, I consider him a genius and his book “1984” a historic achievement. But I was always opposed to the hyperbolic and overdramatic use of Orwellian aphorisms to describe real-world affairs. I was afraid to trivialize the situation or my enemies and opponents. It is different now. Orwell has become directly applicable.&nbsp;CG: There are growing calls in Europe for a “Marshall Plan” for Ukraine, the loudest among those coming from the likes of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Rebuilding Ukraine is estimated to cost around $350 billion, according to the World Bank. Given the results of the original Marshall Plan, do you think repeating it now would be a good idea?VK:&nbsp;As an economist, I do not believe in Marshall Plans in general and in the post-second world war Marshall Plan in particular. The importance of the original one was propagandistically overplayed.&nbsp;I know of studies that demonstrate its marginal role.&nbsp;Postwar European reconstruction was the work of Ludwig Erhard, not George Marshall.&nbsp;The role of foreign aid has been canonically exposed by Peter Bauer, Deepak Lal and others. Foreign aid pleases the donors more than the recipients. I see it now in the eyes of Czech politicians. It is not their own money they’re giving away.CG: While the war has monopolized media attention and political speeches, there are a lot more problems and threats that Europeans are facing and most of them preceded it, but no-one really paid attention. Inflation is the most severe of those and it’s forcing countless households to make impossible choices. Western politicians are blaming it all on “Putin’s war”, but do you think that monetary and fiscal policy makers in the Eurozone in particular have to assume any responsibility themselves?VK:&nbsp;I consider inflation to be the most important problem these days. It’s not only about Putin, it’s about the Green Deal and especially about the inflationary monetary and fiscal policies, which became “normal” after the 2008-2009 recession.&nbsp;Quantitative easing and zero (or negative) interest rates in central bank monetary policy and deficit financing in government fiscal policies created macroeconomic disequilibrium. We are living in an inflationary atmosphere and can’t get rid of it without fundamental breaks in monetary and fiscal policies.&nbsp;To my great regret,&nbsp;Keynes is the winner of the day, not Milton Friedman.&nbsp;This is something I did not expect, but that is the new reality. Friedman, not Keynes, was my hero in the dark days of communism and it is frustrating that in the bright days of “the brave new world” of the EU and of “liberal democracies”, Keynes is back on the pedestal.CG: We’ve seen a lot of misguided policies adopted in the EU that divided the public and eventually inflicted a lot of damage on the economy and on society at large, from immigration to the “green agenda”. There have been widespread protests over the years, but little changed, if anything at all. However, do you expect the public anger to be more fiery and more effective this time, as more and more people struggle to put food on the table?VK:&nbsp;The EU policies are absolutely wrong and therefore damaging. You mention potential protests – I don’t see any. Europe and the whole of the West is marching to the left, towards collectivism, towards state interventionism. If there are any protests, they are against the market.&nbsp;There are practically no meaningful protests against the European system of massive state interventionism and the existing ones cannot change anything.&nbsp;There is a dissatisfaction, but no real protests.&nbsp;People still believe in the possibility of improving the functioning of the existing system, they still call it a market economy and a parliamentary democracy. This is, however, not a correct interpretation of the current state of affairs.&nbsp;CG: Having lived under communism and having experienced directly the way the State uses fear to manipulate and control the populace, to muzzle dissent and open debate and to enforce policies that no free-thinking, rational individual would otherwise accept. Even though our politicians today insist that our Western democracies are all about liberty, core values like freedom of speech or individual financial sovereignty have been increasingly curbed over the years. Do you think any of this is reversible or are we destined to repeat the mistakes of the past that you had to live through?VK:&nbsp;It is undoubtedly reversible, but I don’t see anyone ready and able to do it. What is necessary is not just marginal reforms. There needs to be a fundamental transformation of the system and I am not sure the voters are interested in that.&nbsp;Changes may come, but not in the foreseeable future. I know it sounds pessimistic, but I think that making a change is not a task for me or for my children, but for my grandchildren.Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, SwitzerlandThis article has been published in the&nbsp;<a href="https://proaurum.ch/aktuellwichtig/precious-metals-are-and-always-have-been-the-ultimate-insurance">Newsroom</a>&nbsp;of&nbsp;<a href="https://proaurum.ch/leistungen/edelmetallverwahrung/duty-free-storage">pro aurum</a>, the leading precious metals company in Europe with an independent subsidiary in Switzerland.&nbsp;

Interview with former Czech president Václav Klaus.

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“Keynes is the winner of the day, not Milton Friedman”

On 15 November 2022 Forum for Democracy International published an&nbsp;<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/politics-lies-and-videotapes">English translation</a> of&nbsp;<a href="https://fvd.nl/nieuws/nos-verspreidt-desinformatie-fvd-eist-rectificatie-voor-bezettingsframe">an article</a> originally written by Forum for Democracy in Dutch. It detailed the way in which a Rotterdam-based opponent of FVD had manipulated a video in order to prosecute her incessant disinformation campaign against the party.&nbsp; In this case, she took a remark in an interview with Gideon van Meijeren out of its context to twist it into something else.&nbsp;Her disinformation was lapped up by the media cartel and by the Dutch government which were only too eager to fall for her tricks.Dr Marina has been doing this for some time to attack me.&nbsp;She responded to a Tweet from Forum for Democracy International by digging up an old video of an interview with me, recorded, I believe, in about 2009.&nbsp; This video provides open and shut proof of her dishonesty.&nbsp; &nbsp;In the interview, I say, in French, “En 2007, j’ai pu assister à un déjeuner-débat avec Vladimir Poutine…” which means, “In 2007, I was able to be present at a lunch debate with Vladimir Putin.”&nbsp; But the subtitles say, “I had lunch with Vladimir Putin.”This is manipulation.&nbsp; To “have lunch” with someone is to be in a close encounter and to spend an hour or so in conversation with that person.&nbsp; The lunch-debate I was referring to, which occurred in 2007, was more like a press conference, although lunch was served.&nbsp; There were at least 70 other people around a gigantic table.&nbsp; To my great regret, I was unable to ask my question, so I did not even have that level of exchange with Putin.&nbsp; The debate took place within the framework of the Valdai Discussion Club.&nbsp; Dr Marina alleges that I have close connections to Valdai and that it is a pro-Russian organisation.&nbsp; But I have attended the Valdai meeting only once; I have had no contacts with it since 2007; and many of the other participants in 2007 were Kremlin critics.&nbsp;So her crazy conspiracy theories are, in fact, just lies.This distortion of subtitles was also practised by Zembla in its “documentary”, Thierry Baudet and the Kremlin, of which Dr Marina likes to recycle short excerpts.&nbsp; The dishonesty here is even more radical.&nbsp; I was asked, in English, “Was IDC financed by the Russian state?” to which I replied “No, it was not funded by the Russian state.”&nbsp; (IDC is the think-tank I worked for for 10 years.)&nbsp;But the subtitle translated this, twice, as “funded by Russia” (door Russland gefinancierd in Dutch).&nbsp; IDC was indeed funded from Russia but by private donors, so it was not “financed by Russia”.&nbsp; Dr Marina integrates this disinformation into her own doctored videos to rig the evidence again.She then produces another video, this time in German, where it is the same story with the subtitles.&nbsp; It is an interview with Putin.&nbsp; We cannot hear Putin’s voice but only the German voiceover, which refers to NGOs “which are financed from Russia” (“Nichtregierungsorganisationen, die sich aus Russland finanzieren lassen”). But the English subtitles lie again by translating this as “financed by Russia”, i.e. by the Russian state.&nbsp; This is not what Putin said.&nbsp; The subtitles are clearly designed to deceive.“Doctor” Marina – a title she merits - then produces two other videos of events at the United Nations.&nbsp; One of them was organised by a fellow NGO but the Russian Permanent Mission in Geneva reserved the room; the other was organised by Russia, Armenia and Lebanon with the support of a large number of other states including the Holy See.&nbsp; I chaired that meeting and can be seen sitting between Sergei Lavrov and the Lebanese foreign minister, with the Armenian FM on Lavrov’s right.&nbsp; However Dr Marina is interested only in the presence of one of the three FMs because, to her fevered mind, it proves what she is determined to show.&nbsp;But it does not, because what she is determined to show is false.&nbsp; It proves no more a “connection” to the Kremlin than a “connection” to Beirut or Yerevan or the Vatican.Zembla also asked me whether the creation of IDC had been ordered by Putin, to which I replied that it had not.&nbsp; It then showed a speech by Putin in Lisbon in 2007 when he says this:“Today, I&nbsp;also introduced a&nbsp;new initiative to&nbsp;our partners, proposed by&nbsp;the&nbsp;Head of&nbsp;the&nbsp;Chamber of&nbsp;the&nbsp;Federal Assembly of&nbsp;Russia. Mr Prime Minister has already mentioned it: the&nbsp;idea is to&nbsp;create a&nbsp;Russian-European Institute for&nbsp;Freedom and&nbsp;Democracy. Its goal is to&nbsp;facilitate dialogue between members of&nbsp;the&nbsp;public, non-governmental structures and&nbsp;experts on&nbsp;issues such as&nbsp;organizing the&nbsp;electoral process, monitoring elections, the&nbsp;situation of&nbsp;national minorities and&nbsp;migrants in&nbsp;the&nbsp;territory of&nbsp;the&nbsp;EU and&nbsp;Russia as&nbsp;well, freedom of&nbsp;expression and&nbsp;other questions of&nbsp;interest for&nbsp;us. I&nbsp;think that such a&nbsp;dialogue will be very useful. The&nbsp;EU assists the&nbsp;development of&nbsp;similar institutes in&nbsp;Russia using grants. I&nbsp;think that it is high time, given our increasing economic and&nbsp;financial capacity, that the&nbsp;Russian Federation can do the&nbsp;same thing in&nbsp;the&nbsp;European Union, can do its bit, including financially, to&nbsp;contribute to&nbsp;the&nbsp;development of&nbsp;such dialogues. We are suggesting a&nbsp;new institute, either in&nbsp;Brussels or&nbsp;in&nbsp;one of&nbsp;the&nbsp;European capitals, and&nbsp;we are ready to&nbsp;supply funds for&nbsp;financing it, just as&nbsp;Europe covers the&nbsp;costs of&nbsp;projects in&nbsp;Russia. We are counting on&nbsp;the&nbsp;administrative and&nbsp;political support from our colleagues, and&nbsp;Mr President has spoken to&nbsp;the&nbsp;Portuguese government about this, for&nbsp;which we are very grateful.”This is supposed to invalidate my denial.&nbsp;Although I was unaware of this speech when interviewed in 2020, when I looked at the text (above) I saw that it proved what I had said.&nbsp; Putin speaks of “a Russian-European Institute for Freedom and Democracy” which Russia, i.e. the Russian state, was prepared to finance.&nbsp; But this initiative never materialised.&nbsp; I have no idea why not.&nbsp; Instead, it must have been replaced by a different initiative, with a different name (Institute of Democracy and Cooperation), not just in Europe, and not financed by the Russian state.&nbsp; Moreover, after a year or so, IDC Paris split off from IDC New York and became a separate organisation.&nbsp; I never had any contact with IDC New York.&nbsp; So this proposal by Putin – which in any case was a confidence-building measure announced when relations between Russia and the EU were good and even heading towards a strategic partnership - proves nothing about the organisation of which I was a salaried employee.Dr Marina evidently has a weak grasp not only of French and German but also of English.&nbsp; “I have no links to the Kremlin or connections to Russia” is a sentence in the present tense.&nbsp; Even if you believe all the untrue conspiracy theories about IDC, my employer from 2008 to 2018, that is now in the past.&nbsp; The last IDC event took place in 2017, when my employment was terminated following the decision by the donor to cease funding.&nbsp; (Dr Marina never integrates this forced closure of IDC into her malevolent fictitious storyline.)&nbsp; Since 2018 I have had minimal contact with Russia and, apart from the occasional and mostly unpaid interview with RT, I currently have none at all.So the notion that I am Thierry Baudet’s liaison with the Kremlin is a lie, for the simple reason that I have no contacts with the Kremlin, nor indeed any more with Russia as a whole.&nbsp; I am not the liaison for anything.Finally, Dr Marina likes to bring up the unpleasant&nbsp;<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/europe-s-descent-into-totalitarianism">experience</a> I had at Gatwick Airport which she regards as proof of her allegations.&nbsp;Here again, she is wrong.&nbsp; First, there was no accusation of any kind against me and certainly not of “espionage” as she alleges.&nbsp; The questioning procedure, which I have criticised in&nbsp;<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/europe-s-descent-into-totalitarianism">my article</a> about totalitarianism, can be deployed, as it was in my case, whether or not there is any suspicion of a hostile intent.&nbsp; Second, I was able to continue my journey after an hour of questioning without any further ado.&nbsp; There is no legal procedure of any kind against me and I have since returned to the UK without any problem.&nbsp;So what the incident at Gatwick Airport proves is my innocence. &nbsp;It also shows how dangerous politically malevolent disinformation, like that peddled by Dr Marina, can be: &nbsp;the police were undoubtedly influenced by the dishonest claims made by people like her. &nbsp;Some of their questions evidently came from the Zembla “documentary”. &nbsp;The police tested those claims by questioning me and then found there was nothing to them. &nbsp;If the UK police had caught a real Russian spy, travelling to Britain with hostile intent, they would not have let him go on his way undisturbed as they did with me. &nbsp;So the whole story proves the opposite of what it is supposed to prove - and it proves that Dr Marina is a liar.

Stilling the incessant tide of disinformation.

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How Dr. Marina doctors the evidence

FVD’s&nbsp;<a href="https://renaissanceinstituut.nl/">Renaissance Institute</a> published a review of a new book by philospher Sid Lukkassen, called Be Abyssal.&nbsp;FVD International is delighted to publish this translation. No other political party in Europe has such a formidable intellectual output as FVD.By Edgard FrederixIn his book Be Abyssal, Dr. Sid Lukkassen delivers a merciless analysis of the fact that the elite’s holier-than-thou attacks pull us down into a Dantesque abyss, where our identities, independence and strength are forever lost to darkness. At its conclusion, however, Lukkassen does not leave us in a state of despondency but challenges us with an unabashed call to action.It’s a beautiful book. That’s why I'm here to let you know why you should, in fact, read it.NihilismLukkassen backs up his premises with ideas from great thinkers such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche – the hard-hitting philosopher – who realized that when religion can no longer provide morality and meaning to life, man must develop new values from within himself. To do this, he has to reinvent himself. This is certainly not an easy task. But if mankind fails to do so, it will fall into nihilism and slave morality.Lukkassen shows how prophetic Nietzsche was. After all, modern left-wing thinking is brimming with nihilism in its rejection of objective truth, morality and values. It is also based on a slave morality, which goes completely against the higher achievements of one’s own culture. Slave morality tries to replace it with an external victim culture in which so-called minorities are exploited as a means to undermine the dominant culture. The constant focus on misery and proclaiming marginal lifestyles as superior, is part of the same doctrine.Hypocritical elitesThe leftist elite finds no fault in sinning against its own principles. On the one hand, they denounce the dominant position of the Western, white, male heterosexual elite – in other words, their own, because the vast majority of elitist moral busybodies belong to these detested categories. On the other hand, they refuse to act in accordance with their personal ideals and thus to step aside and hand over their position to members of the minority groups.They see the hypocritical betrayal of their own culture as purification. In repudiating their own heritage, they believe themselves to reach a moral high ground that allows them to retain their position of power as enlightened and good people. Convenient, isn’t it? It’s the average Joe who is being targeted – who else? The average white citizen without power and privilege is accused of systematic abuse of his privileges. He is therefore expected to step back.Such an illogical narrative can attain credibility only with the support of a widespread power structure. This power structure consists of the traditional media, technocratic system administrators, subsidised social organizations, academia and global big business that can sweep its tax avoidance and unfair competition under the rug through virtue signalling. At a price, they buy modern indulgences in the form of gender-neutral toilets, advertisements with actors of colour, diversity training for their staff and some solar panels in a photogenic corner of their company premises.With the help of modern technology – which allows more and more control over the civilian population – these components together form a synergy. This is embedded in Kafkaesque structures that are only navigable for the initiated and that increasingly meet the criteria of a deep state. Thus, this many-headed monster can wield power over citizens beyond any form of electoral control.A way backThe author seems to wallow in pessimism when he admits that the battle seems to have already been lost. Citizens’ defences have been bludgeoned to breaking point, and they themselves have been demonised with slogans like: “Privileged racist white cisgender!” But does this author take it lying down? Not a chance! Lukkassen resolves to resist and to clamber out of the hellhole of a centrally controlled economy and culture. We can find a way back to freedom, but only if we make a united effort to do so.Are we not welcome in the organisations that were supposedly created to serve us? No? Then we must simply ignore the virtue-signalling mob’s power structures. Lukkassen calls for structures of our own to be created, which he calls the ‘Pillar of New Realism’. This is the collective expression of a real and sincere desire for a new renaissance. This in turn will usher in a creative redefinition of our culture, fuelled by internal strength. Away from the hegemony of virtue-signallers: with an individually defined value pattern that is not determined by the number of ticks on the externally imposed politically correct value scale.Ever further leftSuch a renaissance will not just materialise out of thin air. This is precisely why Lukkassen has formulated an accurate critique of the average citizen and the classical conservative politician. After all, they get no further than pointing out the abuses and a half-hearted personal defense against the attacks of Cultural Marxism. Due to the never-ending dialectical dynamics, any compromise between left-wing and right-wing positions corrupts to produce a new standard, a new thesis. The Left will automatically counter this with a new antithesis. This interplay moves the standard further to the Left, after which the cycle is repeated.It is a slowly eroding line of defence of a population that steps back in resignation until it is exhausted: disarmed by the enemy from within (and even then the attack will not stop, considering leftist ideology is embedded in a never-ending process of transitioning into a supposed utopia).Lukkassen attempts to apply this Hegelian dialectic himself, in which opposing values lead to a higher synthesis. On the one hand there is the thesis: the citizen who, because of his nostalgic urge to conserve, has to defend himself against the attacks of the antithesis, the woke Left, which, despite its current success, is itself saddled with a self-destructive ideology. Woke ideology relapses into ever escalating purity spirals until the wolf eats its own cubs. The weaknesses of both sides must lead to a synthesis: a new human being constructively redefining himself based on his inner values, personality and realistic ambitions.&nbsp;This task falls to citizens who are tired of their hard-earned tax money being wasted on an ‘inclusive’ agenda set up by the cultural elites to buy themselves voters, against the interests of the tax-paying middle class. Promoting mass immigration, which undermines our social fabric and resilience, is a striking example of this.Lukkassen warns that the deconstruction of the ‘vertical standards’ that connect and elevate people will have dire consequences. His words echo Burke’s thesis that the ‘little platoons of civil society’ are the essential building blocks of society. Should they be removed, humanity would be left at the mercy of the government.Irredeemable democracyThe left-wing top-down obsession with control renders populations dependent, destroys entrepreneurial spirits and eventually degenerates into hopeless clientilism. When the ‘handout parties’ are guaranteed to win the elections – as is already clearly the case in Wallonia – and the one-sidedness of the media landscape makes any open debate impossible, according to Lukkassen, it is legitimate to declare a democracy as lost and to proceed to a revolutionary intervention (in Belgium, this automatically means a federal emancipation of the Flemish community within the Belgian state).The Left will never accept the remedies of the Right – even if its ideology repeatedly leads to catastrophes. The Right can adjust its policies if necessary because it thinks in teleological terms, where practical consequences matter. The Left, on the other hand, thinks deontologically, which means only intentions matter. It allows itself to be guided by sentimental moralism and exaggerated indignation which obscure tough reality. With its institutional position of power, the Left can keep the middle class in a moral stranglehold, undermine its identity and erode its economic power through globalisation. Thus, any resistance to that many-headed monster becomes a hopeless struggle.A new pillarTime, then – as in Ayn Rand's mythical novel Atlas Shrugged – to create a societal pillar of our own. After all, the virtue-signalling elite only wants to rule with you if you adhere to woke ideology. Only in absolute submission&nbsp;to that dogma is one allowed a seat at their table. But if you constantly have to feel ashamed and admit guilt, what else could you do except resist that leftist worldview? And you do this by setting up an alternative. In doing so, citizens have the advantage that those who create, shape reality more than those who merely comment on it.&nbsp;This act of forging a new path is why we must cherish the underappreciated workers. Such as construction workers, mechanics and other men of action, and embrace the class struggle together. The working class is well aware that the cultural Marxists almost always act against their interests. The practical classes have long been loath to have anything to do with leftists. Right-wing intellectuals should take better note of the fact that exactly this population group is their most powerful ally.Lukkassen wants us to harness the anger of the population – which no longer tolerates the middle finger they are given by our parliamentary system – to smash the false idols with Nietzsche’s hammer, and make system-wide changes. That population will be respectfully welcomed within the New Pillar: a community of its own that offers an individual way of life that our mutated representative bodies can no longer allow. In order to walk that path with confidence, it is not enough to cling to the past. That is not productive. A strong, renewed confidence in the future is required. The inert, nostalgic Right must give way to an action-oriented, realistic Right.Dare to createWhen the Notre-Dame in Paris burned down, we mourned what was lost. But we must transcend the idea that what disappears leaves a permanent void. If we do not believe that we can erect new buildings with the same power and beauty as the Notre-Dame and produce new composers of Bach’s calibre, then we have already lost. We must honour our heritage but also create a new realism that allows the growth of a self-confidently creative consciousness.This book culminates in a call for an exodus from a culture ruled by virtue-signalling. First, we must smash to pieces the imaginary boundaries we have allowed to be imposed upon us. It will allow us to leave the oppressive Dantesque underground and to create a social order that gives every opportunity to personal freedom and growth.Lukkassen does not make the same mistake as his opponents in defining how this should be done in practical terms. What he does do, is explicitly invite us to shape this renaissance together. And in that call lies the greatest value of Be Abyssal.

Review of the new book 'Be Abyssal', by Dr. Sid Lukkassen.

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Book review: Be Abyssal

Anyone who still has an ounce of common sense and who has been watching politics in Germany and the world in recent weeks and months cannot fail to notice that decisions and actions taken against the interests of the German population, against Germany, and against the interests of the sovereign peoples of Europe, have massively increased.Too few people notice how immense is the negative influence of the USA in Europe and how widespread is the servility towards instructions which come from the other side of the Atlantic.&nbsp; The fact that the USA is ruthlessly forcing a geopolitical power shift in Europe, and that they are thereby heightening the risk of the current conflict spreading even further, is evidently an acceptable and unimportant problem for those who hold power in Washington.&nbsp; No one has the guts to call a spade a spade.&nbsp; This of course does not mean that the Russians are in the right or that they do everything correctly, but the activities undertaken by the USA since the outbreak of the war and shortly beforehand are sufficient for a UN Tribunal and the European Court of Human Rights.Regarding the sabotage of the North Stream pipelines, it must be clearly stated that German interests were at stake and that immense economic damage has been done to the Federal Republic of Germany and its population.&nbsp; Without any doubt, this damage has the potential to constitute an existential threat.&nbsp; It is unanimously accepted in the EU and NATO that the sabotage was carried out by a state, or at least that a state ordered the act.&nbsp; This means that this “rogue state” has carried out an act of war against Germany.&nbsp; But even the German government itself is too cowardly to say this out loud.&nbsp; Instead, the rhetoric against Russia is becoming ever sharper and arms deliveries, at the expense of the German taxpayer, are not coming to an end but increasing.Yet what the political establishment dares not do must be openly discussed, without ambiguity.&nbsp; &nbsp; The attack on the North Stream pipelines was an attack on Germany, carried out with the goal of severely harming the Germany economy in the West and the East and thereby to ensure that in the long term there will be no normalisation of gas prices.&nbsp; It is clear that the consequences of this are also intentional.&nbsp; It was equally an attack on the German population, which will suffer massively as a result in that consumers will have to pay drastically higher prices for energy.&nbsp; Indeed, those prices have already risen.&nbsp; The desired outcome is the destabilisation of Germany.&nbsp; This means that it was also an attack on German sovereignty – or should that be Germany’s pretend sovereignty?No established news outlet in Europe, whether a broadcaster or a newspaper, and no news agency, dares to formulate the question clearly.&nbsp; This is either because they have already been taken over or that they are afraid of being branded propagandists for conspiracy theorists and right-wing populists and thereby to lose their supposed credibility.As soon as it became clear that it was an act of sabotage, therefore, it was essential to find a guilty party as quickly as possible.&nbsp; Naturally, one was immediately found.&nbsp; Of course it was the Russians.&nbsp; At least that is the opinion of the Norwegian military scientist and naval officer, Ivar Strömmen.&nbsp; According to him, only Russia had the means and a plausible motive to blow up its own pipelines.&nbsp; Apparently Russia want to legitimise the fact that it is currently not delivering any gas to Europe.&nbsp; I’m terribly sorry but either this man has just escaped from a lunatic asylum or he has been paid a lot of money to spread such nonsense in his own name.&nbsp; The fact that a large US naval contingent was en route Eastwards in the Baltic at that time was of course a pure coincidence.&nbsp;But let us look at the matter through forensic glasses.&nbsp; In order to commit any crime, there needs to be a motive, means and opportunity.Well, are there any other suspects?&nbsp; How about the USA?&nbsp; Did they have a motive?&nbsp; Of course they did!&nbsp; For years the Americans have been fighting these Russian pipelines.&nbsp; They have been trying to sell their own expensive fracking gas.&nbsp; There are documents which prove that the Americans were ready to take the necessary measures in Europe in order to be able to sell their own energy resources.&nbsp;I think that only people who still believe in weapons of mass destruction in Iraq will doubt that the Americans have the necessary means to carry out such an act of sabotage.&nbsp; The opportunity was more than favourable even though it might perhaps appear a little too obvious.Against the fairy tale that the Russian blew up their own pipelines, my view is that there has been heavy surveillance of the Baltic, precisely at this time.&nbsp; A further proof is provided by what Joe Biden said in January in front of the press when he said very clearly that there would be no North Stream II if the Russians invaded Ukraine.&nbsp; When a reporter asked him how the US would do that, given that the pipeline was under German control, he replied that she would be sure that the Americans would find a way.&nbsp; As if that were no enough, Victoria Nuland, Undersecretary of State, used the same words on an earlier occasion.&nbsp; The Americans have locked people up with far lower level of proof than this.&nbsp; So why does no one in official quarters name the USA as a principal suspect?An ally who acts unscrupulously against the interests of a partner country or who pushes through its own interests using force, lies and sabotage to damage its partners, is no ally.&nbsp; Instead, it is a cuckoo who pushes other birds out of the nest and who does not hesitate to sacrifice its own partners on the geopolitical battlefield.We urgently need a true German foreign policy, based on German interests and on the desire for international cooperation between equals.&nbsp; The days of “Yes, Sir!” against the winners of earlier wars and supposed allies must come to an end.German interests in our own country must have top priority.&nbsp; Only when Germany has consolidated its own affairs socially, politically and economically can it allow itself to help other nations and peoples with German tax-payer's money.&nbsp; This endless paying for foreigners and other states must stop.&nbsp;Germany and the German people have been abused too long as a milch cow.&nbsp; Money has been taken without the slightest show of respect for those who gave it and worked for it.&nbsp; We will not allow this to continue.&nbsp; People in our country will rise up against this and against the many other injustices committed against the German people, and quite rightly so.<hr>&nbsp;Stefan Korte is a foreign policy adviser who for many years worked in the Bundestag as an adviser to Bundestag members from the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland).

Why Germany should distance itself from the United States.

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Time for a German foreign policy for Germany

On 13 November, a manipulated excerpt surfaced of an interview with FVD MP Gideon van Meijeren. The video falsely suggests that Van Meijeren called for a violent revolution. By a cut in the excerpt, the context - which shows that Van Meijeren is actually a supporter of non-violent and peaceful forms of protest, so-called velvet revolutions - is deliberately withheld.The snippet was circulated on Twitter by relatively unknown Twitter user Marina Meeuwisse (@mmeeuw). Her account contains a curious collection of manipulated photo and video material, almost obsessively attempting to cast FVD in a bad light.&nbsp;For a long time, Meeuwisse's posts - not least because of their low reliability level - could count on little audience. But recently her posts have been cited by cartel politicians and cartel media, without first being fact-checked.&nbsp; (This dishonest woman has for some time been similarly manipulating videos about John Laughland.)The latest stitch-up resulting from Meeuwisse's cut-and-paste is the claim that Gideon van Meijeren called for the “occupation” of the Lower House. This is a demonstrable lie. Note that the role of establishment media and politicians in this is even more pernicious than Meeuwisse's.&nbsp;Even in Meeuwisse's doctored video, Van Meijeren nowhere uses the word "occupy". Yet last night the NOS headlined: "Van Meijeren talks about occupying Chamber". The tone was set.&nbsp;Politicians, including the prime minister, tumbled over each other to "condemn" the alleged statement.Even "experts" like criminal lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops elaborated on the disinformation that Gideon van Meijeren allegedly said that the Lower House should be "occupied". This serious pollution of the public debate is the veritable attack on democracy.&nbsp;Only after repeated requests from Van Meijeren himself, NOS reluctantly decided to rectify. But, as is often the case, the harm had already been done. The original lie has received far more publicity than the correction - and the false frame has taken on a life of its own.&nbsp;In the words of the old saying, “A lie gets halfway round the world while the truth is putting its boots on.”FVD demands a rectification from all media that have so far failed to comply.

How the media smears people with things they haven't even said.

Politics, lies and videotapes

Eric van de Beek is a Dutch investigative journalist and the author of a <a href="https://ericvandebeek.nl/MH17.html">book</a> on the MH-17 affair – the Malaysian airline which crashed in Ukraine in July 2014.&nbsp; He has followed the trial as no other journalist has done.&nbsp;The judgement of the Dutch tribunal is expected on 17 November.&nbsp;FVD International is grateful to Eric van de Beek for this fascinating interview.&nbsp;Are you the only journalist who has followed the MH-17 trial closely?As far as I know, yes. I attended all 68 court sessions. No other journalist has reported as much as I have about the trial. I also never stopped doing my own research. The mass media lost interest after the first press conferences of the Dutch Safety Board and the Joint Investigation Team in 2015 and 2016. They are totally convinced MH17 was shot down by a Russian crew.&nbsp;Who are the defendants and what exactly are they accused of?&nbsp; Are they accused of being actual perpetrators?The defendants are three Russians and one Ukrainian: Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky, Leonid Kharchenko and Oleg Pulatov. They are accused of complicity in the shooting down of Flight MH17 and having killed all 298 passengers. Their specific involvement is said to have consisted of: demanding an anti-aircraft system with crew, specifying a suitable launch site for that system, as well as transporting and guarding it.&nbsp;The person who ordered the missile to be fired and the person who actually pushed the button are still at large.&nbsp;It is unclear who they are and why they launched the missile. However, the Dutch prosecutor suspects the Russian army's 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade in Kursk. A Buk-Telar of this brigade was supposedly driven into rebels-held territory on the trailer of a Volvo truck and it supposedly shot down MH17 from a farm field, south of the city of Snizhne.&nbsp;Why is this trial being conducted in the Netherlands? The plane was Malaysian and the crash occurred in Ukraine.On 7 July 2017 The Netherlands signed a bilateral agreement&nbsp;with Ukraine for the transfer of prosecution. It was officially said that the countries that carried out the criminal investigation, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, Ukraine and The Netherlands, had taken this decision together. I do not know why they concluded that the case could best be conducted in The Netherlands. Maybe this had to do with the fact that most passengers were Dutch. Why not Malaysia? The Ukrainians, and probably also the Dutch, Australians and Belgians, did not trust the Malaysians. They are not within the Anglo-Saxon sphere of influence and have a good relationship with Russia. Why not Ukraine? Maybe to avoid the impression that the trial would be biased.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Is it not plausible that the Donbass rebels used anti-aircraft systems given to them by Russia?&nbsp; They were being bombed every day by the Ukrainians. They could have fired off a missile aimed at another plane, or even by mistake, which hit MH-17 by accident.This certainly cannot be ruled out. But until now I have seen no convincing let alone conclusive evidence for this. As a matter of fact, the separatists did pretty well defending themselves against these bombardments before the alleged arrival of a Russian Buk-Telar on 17 July 2014. Before the MH17 crash they had already downed sixteen fighter jets, helicopters and transport planes of the Ukrainian air force. They did so by using MANPADS and other devices that they had confiscated from the Ukrainian military.&nbsp;How do we know that the Ukrainians also had Buk missile systems nearby?&nbsp; Has the Prosecution accepted this?On 29 February 2020 the website Bonanza Media published a confidential memo of the Dutch military intelligence service, MIVD. It contains all positions of Buk Telars in eastern Ukraine around July 2014 known by western intelligence services. Seven Ukrainian Telars had been spotted there and no Russian Telars. The Prosecution has confirmed the authenticity of the memo, but they added that the MIVD had not concluded from this that there was no Russian Telar on 17 July. The MIVD report concerns only locations where Buk systems were stationed for longer periods of time, they said. Short operations, whereby a Buk system is delivered, used and removed immediately, fell outside the scope of the MIVD’s observations.&nbsp;What can you say about the photographs which purport to show a Russian-supplied Buk in the rebel-held areas?The Prosecution presented three photographs and six videos of a Buk Telar. The state attorneys claim all imagery was taken in rebel-held territory on 17 July. The Telar was identified by a Dutch police officer as a Russian Telar. There are so many issues with these photos and videos. It is not without reason that I dedicated a full chapter to this in my book. None of the imagery was published before the crash and in almost all cases the photographers are unknown. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) seems to have received only two files physically, on two Secure Digital cards. The others were downloads from social media or file transfer services. Even the files on the SD cards,&nbsp;which include a dashcam video, have serious issues. For example, the dashcam video contains a 2012 timestamp. According to the person who filmed from his car this was due to a malfunctioning battery. Police officers of JIT then asked him if he remembered when he shot the video. He said this must have been somewhere in July, a few days before he heard about the crash. Mind you, the Prosecution says the video was shot on 17 July. And so, if the video is authentic, either it was shot a few days before 17 July, or the photographer must have slipped into a coma right before the news broke out about the MH17 crash and stayed there for a few days.&nbsp;&nbsp;Do we know where the missile was fired from?Judging from the damage to the plane, the Russian manufacturer of the Buk-system Almaz-Altey concluded that the fatal missile must have been launched south of the village of Zaroshchenske. Oleg Pulatov’s Dutch lawyers presented a report by a team of American experts that confirms this analysis. If this is correct, if the missile indeed came from this location, it may have been fired from a Ukrainian position. Around 17 July, the area south of Zaroshchenske was no man’s land. However, the Belgian Royal Military Academy (RMA) and the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR) pointed to areas much more to the east, partly overlapping each other. Right at the border of the overlapping areas there is a farm field that caught the attention of the JIT shortly after the crash.&nbsp;On 21 or 22 July, two&nbsp;journalists found that the field south of the town of Snizhne had been on fire recently. This could have been caused by the launch of a Buk missile, they thought. Also, a photo of a smoke plume that was published right after the crash seemed to originate from this field. On an American satellite picture that was published later, track marks can be seen. According to the Prosecution they are from a Buk Telar. However, when studying satellite imagery, it becomes immediately clear that many agricultural fields around Snizhne had been on fire. No wonder - it was a war zone. Also, there are track marks everywhere. Hardly surprising. Where there is farmland there are agricultural vehicles, creating caterpillar track marks. If, however, the missile was launched from where the JIT thinks it was launched, the separatists are to blame. The area south of Snizhne was controlled by them.&nbsp;What have we learned from Pulatov’s DefenceMore than I expected. I learned that the evidence put forward by the Prosecution is even weaker than I thought. My MH17 book was published in January 2022, a month after the Prosecution had read out the charges. Then in March 2022 Oleg Pulatov’s Dutch lawyers delivered the Defence. There was so much new information coming to the surface that I decided to rewrite my book and bring out a fully revised edition. However, the main line of defence of Pulatov’s lawyers did not come as a surprise to me. They noted, as I did in my book, that even assuming that all the images of a Buk in rebels-held territory is genuine, it cannot be concluded from this that this particular Buk shot down MH17. There is no photo or video of this Buk standing at the alleged launch site and firing a missile. Also, there is no known intercepted phone call in which an admission of guilt can be heard or one separatist blaming another for the downing of MH17. If it was a Buk, then it might as well have been a Ukrainian Buk.&nbsp;In any murder trial, the Defence can question the validity of the evidence presented by the Prosecution (cf. O. J. Simpson trial). Has any actual exculpatory evidence been presented in the MH-17 trial?According to the Prosecution, MH17 was brought down by a Buk missile equipped with a 9N314M&nbsp;warhead. This kind of warhead contains 1870 bowtie shaped particles. Arena tests performed by Almaz-Antey in Russia and the JIT in Ukraine showed that such particles cause bowtie shaped impact marks in targeted objects. All experts consulted by the JIT agreed that such impact marks are not visible on the wreckage of MH17. Also, there is a motor casing that was found by the Dutch in the area, nine months after the crash. According to the Russian Ministry of Defence, the serial number indicates it belonged to a Buk missile that was delivered in 1986 to a Ukrainian air defence unit, the&nbsp;223rd Brigade.&nbsp;The Ministry substantiated this claim by showing the Soviet missile administration records. The Ukrainian authorities have not denied that they received this missile. They simply said they could not look it up because they had not kept a record of anything delivered to the&nbsp;223rd Brigade before 2 September 1991. The Dutch Prosecution then decided not to present the casing as forensic evidence. One of the state attorneys said that the JIT had not been able to establish when this part of the missile had landed in the area. It could have happened before or after 17 July. &nbsp; Much of Pulatov’s Defence was concentrated on the personal role he played in the alleged transport of the murder weapon. The lawyers argued that the intercepts clearly indicate that not Pulatov, but one of the other three defendants, Leonid Kharchenko, was tasked with leading a convoy of military equipment from Donetsk to Snizhne on 17 July. Both men met in Snizhne around midday. But even if Pulatov had seen Kharchenko there with a Buk, Pulatov cannot be found guilty of the mere fact of observing a Buk, his lawyers argued. After the convoy had arrived, it was Kharchenko, not Pulatov, who put others to work to guard the military equipment. Also, Pulatov’s cell tower records show that he was not near the launch location when MH17 was hit.&nbsp;

An interview with Eric van de Beek, a Dutch investigative journalist and author, who followed the MH-17 affair as no other journalist has done.

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MH-17: leaving no stone unturned

‘Russian spy among the guest lecturers of a Budapest elite college?’&nbsp; The question mark at the end of this headline above a recent article in an English-language Hungarian media outlet, Daily News Hungary, is an excellent example of the vigorous dishonesty practiced by journalists around the world, both in major national newspapers, including Dutch ones, as well as in minor media like this Hungarian one.&nbsp; Gideon van Meijeren caught a mendacious Dutch journalist red-handed this week but they are the same all over the world.The question mark in the headline illustrates the dishonesty.&nbsp;It is nothing but an attempt to say something while denying that you are saying it.&nbsp; Right at the end of the piece, with breathtaking chutzpah, the journalist writes, ‘Of course, all the above written does not support he&nbsp;(Laughland)&nbsp;was ever a Russian spy.’&nbsp;But of course that is the whole thrust of the text, otherwise the headline would have been ‘Innocent academic wrongly questioned by British police.’&nbsp; You have to get to the end of the article to read this miserable disclaimer, whereas the intent of the text is to make the reader see the headline (while overlooking the question mark).Ever since I started working at the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation in 2008, and long before the concept of ‘fake news’ became common (around 2016) I observed the industrial production of fake news at close quarters because it concerned me personally.&nbsp; Whether the journalists contacted me or not, it made no difference: they always wrote the same story - that IDC was a front organisation for the Kremlin.&nbsp; The accusation was always more interesting than the truth, even though the accusation was always identical.&nbsp; In the last 15 years, the so-called ‘news’ has not progressed one jot.On some occasions, my enemies simply invented things, such as the ridiculous Cécile Vaissié whose book on ‘Kremlin networks in France’ recounts, in loving detail, an IDC conference, including quotes from speeches, whereas in fact the conference never even occurred.&nbsp; Other minor lies include the claim that I have addressed the Russian State Duma and other such nonsense.Even though IDC ceased all activity in 2017, and terminated my employment for lack of funds (something no media outlet has ever reported or investigated) - in other words this all goes back nearly 5 years - the identical conspiracy theories all started up again in the Dutch press when I started to work for FVD, first at the European Parliament in 2019 and then, this year, for FVD International.&nbsp; Dutch journalists are evidently so provincial that they do not know what rubbish their French colleagues had been writing all these years.&nbsp;Moreover, they do not care.&nbsp; Nor evidently, do the Hungarian ones.&nbsp; If I had been a Russian spy, my cover was blown a decade and a half ago.Just as with the French journalists, it did not make any difference whether the Dutch journalists contacted me or not: they always peddled the same fairy tale.&nbsp; The Zembla documentary of April 2020, rebroadcast this year and available on Youtube, was a spectacular exercise in dishonesty, taking a 5-second clip from a 20- or 30-minute interview I gave to the team, and instead lavishing long minutes on two compulsive liars, Anton Shekhovstov and Henk Otten.It also did not make any difference if I wrote to the news outlet in question or not: a letter sent to NRC Handeslbad in early 2020, denouncing an article by Tom-Jan Meuss, was simply never published.&nbsp; No Hungarian journalist has attempted to contact me about this latest rubbish.The phenomenon of the snowball (or mud ball) is particularly arresting.&nbsp; Malevolent people, by which I mean most journalists, decide they want to write the ‘Laughland is a Russian spy’ story, even though it has been written countless times before.&nbsp; They go on line, they find someone else who has written the same story, they take that as proof for their presupposition, they often add in a bit of their own dirt, and they thus increase the size of the mud ball which they then throw at me.&nbsp;This happens again and again, the latest example being fantastical lies told about the level of my salary in Hungary and duly repeated, along with all the other garbage, by strange obsessive Twitterati in Dutch provincial cities.In case anyone is interested, here is the truth.&nbsp; I am not a Russian spy and never have been one.&nbsp; I am not a Russian agent and have never been one.&nbsp;I have never worked, directly or indirectly, for the Russian government, or indeed for any government.&nbsp; IDC was not funded by the Kremlin or by the Russian state, but by Russian companies and foundations: its whole identity was to be a Russian-funded non-governmental organisation.&nbsp; It was not a lobbying organisation.&nbsp;While director of studies there, I never received instructions about what line to take on a particular subject, nor what subjects to tackle, nor whom to invite as speakers at our seminars and conferences: on the contrary, my job was to come up with ideas for subjects and possible speakers, whom I generally invited.&nbsp;I had an extremely good working relationship with the president, the Russian historian and conservative public figure, my good friend, Natalia Narochnitskaya.&nbsp; A kindred spirit, she gave me an exceptionally high degree of freedom, including in some very high-profile events which we helped organise, for which I was and remain very grateful.&nbsp; It goes without saying that we let our guest speakers say whatever they wanted.&nbsp; Many of our speakers were very senior politicians, from heads of state downwards, and all of them were themselves free men and women.We never lobbied anyone.&nbsp; We never tried to recruit anyone.&nbsp; All our activity was in the public domain.&nbsp; The whole ‘Kremlin influence’ thing is pure nonsense, the product of sick minds.I was not arrested at Gatwick airport. I was not accused of being a Russian spy.&nbsp; No charges of any kind have been brought.&nbsp; No legal procedure is under way.&nbsp;Evidently the people who write that I was arrested do not understand the meaning of ‘arrest’; evidently they also do not believe in the presumption of innocence, which means that the burden of proof lies with the accuser.&nbsp;Repeating someone else’s accusation (as did this latest tawdry little piece in Daily Hungarian News does) is not proof; it is just backbiting.&nbsp;Worse, these people are the willing executors of the totalitarianism I patiently explained in an article I wrote for this site shortly after the event at Gatwick: they are the hoodlums in the lynch mob.&nbsp; Let that be on their conscience.These attacks are against me but the real target (in the case of the Hungarians) is the Mathias Corvinus College, where I am a Visiting Fellow until next year, and the Fidesz government which partly funds it, and (in the case of the Dutch) Thierry Baudet and FVD.&nbsp;These people have no trouble prostituting themselves for political purposes.&nbsp; They are today’s embodiment of the contemptible Don Basilio in Rossini’s Barber of Seville whose most famous aria<a href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> I am now going to listen to to cheer myself up.&nbsp;Slander is a gentle breeze,&nbsp;a gentle zephyr&nbsp;which insensibly, subtly,&nbsp;lightly and sweetly,&nbsp;commences to whisper.Softly, softly, here and there,&nbsp;sottovoce, sibilant,&nbsp;it goes gliding, it goes rambling.In the ears of the people,&nbsp;it penetrates slyly&nbsp;and the head and the brains&nbsp;it stuns and it swells.From the mouth re-emerging&nbsp;the noise grows crescendo,&nbsp;gathers force little by little,&nbsp;runs its course from place to place,&nbsp;seems like the thunder of the tempest&nbsp;which from the depths of the forest&nbsp;comes whistling, muttering,&nbsp;freezing everyone in horror.Finally with crack and crash,&nbsp;it spreads afield, its force redoubled,&nbsp;and produces an explosion&nbsp;like the outburst of a cannon,&nbsp;an earthquake, a whirlwind,&nbsp;which makes the air resound.&nbsp;And the poor slandered wretch,&nbsp;vilified, trampled down,&nbsp;sunk beneath the public lash,&nbsp;by good fortune, falls to death.&nbsp;<hr><a href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHgYwOuOFsE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHgYwOuOFsE</a> With thanks to Jacques Sapir for suggesting this comparison, as long ago as 2013!

By smearing John Laughland as a 'Russian spy', journalists are showing themselves to be today's embodiment of Don Basilio. To them, "slander is a gentle breeze".

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Don Basilio, a hero for our times

On Thursday 13&nbsp;October it was announced that the so-called 'Integrity Committee' has deemed a complaint from the&nbsp;governing&nbsp;coalition against FVD party leader Thierry Baudet to be justified. It concerns the failure to fill out various 'registries' for the purpose of providing insight into the business and conduct of MPs. These include registries of gifts, trips, meetings, additional jobs, and so on.The intention is to 'suspend' Baudet for a week – thus excluding him from parliamentary debates.&nbsp;This is a new low in a long-running trend of the curtailment of the rights of opposition parties by an increasingly intolerant coalition.Tyranny of the MajorityFor instance, around the middle of last year, Gideon van Meijeren was deprived of his right to speak because he compared the COVID measures to the ostracisation of Jews in the 1930s. In addition, the entire cabinet staged a walkout two weeks ago when Baudet named the university where Minister Kaag had studied, and its nickname. Pepijn van Houwelingen received a 'complaint'&nbsp;– and was subsequently sued – for posting a tweet. Lastly, Simone Kerseboom was refused a kiss on the cheek following her maiden speech, because it could give viewers the impression that the advice to remain five feet apart did not have to be taken seriously.Democracy is a precarious system. We know from history that people are by nature not always inclined to tolerate dissent. In countless places in the world, dissenters are persecuted, expelled or worse. Tolerance is not a given - and even always hurts a little. That makes sense. Resistance and opposition&nbsp;can be&nbsp;very tiresome.Because those who drew up&nbsp;our constitution knew this,&nbsp;they wisely afforded MPs maximum freedom in the interpretation of their office.&nbsp;MPs enjoy immunity for their statements in parliament, which comes down to: you can say anything, even things that are very displeasing to those in power, the government. In addition, their interpretation of how to do their job cannot be judged or sanctioned by anyone or anything. This too, makes sense&nbsp;because a Member of Parliament serves as a check on power and is therefore, by definition, a target of that power.In fact, if the MP does a good job, those in power will always hate that MP to some extent. That comes with the territory of being a parliamentarian. We have not been chosen to be popular&nbsp;but to safeguard -&nbsp;indeed&nbsp;to&nbsp;defend - the interests of the population against aggressive state power.The only constraint on this maximum freedom of the MP, the only limitation of his autonomy, are the&nbsp;‘rules of order’. Originally, these forbade physical fights, chair throwing, and entering the podium to speak when&nbsp;drunk.Now that that concept has been stretched to the point of disfigurement, recent years have seen these&nbsp;‘rules of order’&nbsp;become increasingly tied to the substance of debates. Disingenuous and hypocritical appeals to protect the 'dignity of parliament' have limited what you can nowadays say inside the House, compared to outside. That is a reversal of the intent of the Constitution and&nbsp;it is&nbsp;a very dangerous step towards tyranny of the majority. Because of course it&nbsp;does not stop there.&nbsp; Freedom of debate will soon be further curtailed, even outside the House. We can already see it happening with dissidents like Willem Engel who have been jailed for&nbsp;barely credible, half-hearted accusations of 'sedition'.With its advice to go so far as to suspend an opposition MP, the House now threatens to take the next step in the dark, undemocratic direction in which the Netherlands is moving. For the first time in the history of our democracy, the coalition is judging the&nbsp;‘integrity’&nbsp;of critical voices. While Mark Rutte and his team of ministers have countless scandals to their name which are never investigated or condemned (after all, they can - of course - count on majority support in the House, which immediately blocks such investigations), the reverse is now happening: a representative of the minority is silenced by the majority.Broader national trendAs mentioned before, this spreading intolerance is not limited to politics. Even the only broadcaster on public television voicing true dissent, Ongehoord Nederland, may soon be canceled for its discussion of banned concepts such as 'anti-white racism'. Upon the founding of the opposition newspaper Common Sense, several coalition politicians&nbsp;said that it would be best for newsstands not to sell it. The European Union has now banned all news and opinion channels from Russia.&nbsp;Libraries, universities and schools ban books that&nbsp;do not fit into the prevailing ideology.In short, the desire to suspend an opposition MP highlights the writing on the wall. It is not a solitary occurrence and it is part of a trend. Even the most fundamental democratic value – that every MP is fundamentally equal to every other MP, and can be controlled&nbsp;only&nbsp;by the voter – is being cast aside. Insidiously, a terrifying narrowing of permissible opinions is being forced upon us.Forum for Democracy will never stop opposing this trend. We will never allow ourselves to be judged – let alone punished – by other MPs. We are accountable to the voter, not to the party cartel.But what about those additional jobs?There is total transparency regarding Thierry Baudet’s additional jobs, and they are publicly accessible via the Chamber of Commerce’s Business Register. Baudet is a board member of Stichting Ondersteuning Tweede Kamerfractie FVD, a board member of the FVD International Foundation and a board member of Vereniging Forum voor Democratie. In addition, he has a 17% share in the publishing house Amsterdam Media Group / Amsterdam Books and a 100% share in THPB Media BV, whose annual accounts are duly filed with – again – the Chamber of Commerce.&nbsp; Tax returns are done annually by an external, renowned accounting office. Baudet has no other business contacts. All donations made to Forum for Democracy or its ancillary institutions are also entered into public registers and are audited annually by accountants and the Central Government Audit Service.In other words, there is no ambiguity.Everyone knows that Baudet sells the occasional book, and the annual accounts of his&nbsp;companies are perfectly clear about his earnings. That renders all the agonizing about 'lack of transparency’&nbsp;and 'ambiguity surrounding additional jobs’&nbsp;completely unbelievable.&nbsp;It is a pretence. Nothing more than rabble-rousing.So what is their hidden agenda? Why is this happening?First, as we have argued at length, it is a vulgar attempt at&nbsp;the&nbsp;character assassination – and even&nbsp;the&nbsp;silencing – of the opposition. We must add that this sanction has not been imposed on any of the dozens of other MPs who have handled the 'registers' carelessly, negligently or have left them incompletely filled out. Two years ago, the broadcasting company BNNVARA drew up an overview: at least 33 MPs were said to have violated the internal regulations. Given that fact, why has only Baudet been sanctioned?Secondly, there is a clear trend of bastardization of House of Representatives membership. Parliamentarians chummily refer to each other as&nbsp;‘colleagues’&nbsp;(in reality, they are&nbsp;peers, a title that emphasizes their individuality and independence much more strongly). They mainly concern themselves with pleasantries. And the cartel would prefer that these 'colleagues' carefully write down in the 'registers' anything they have received from third parties exceeding a value of €&nbsp;50. Any lunch offered to them. Every outside appointment. Trips. Meetings. Of course the cartel would want that! After all, this constitutes a slippery slope towards total control over the MP's calendar and the way they perform their job.However, those whose task is to check the people in power must be allowed to do so freely and autonomously. They have to be able to meet with all kinds of people, in&nbsp;privacy. Sometimes they might have to take a trip abroad, without having to broadcast it. In short, keeping one’s rulers in check requires being partly out of their sight. This is a freedom expressly afforded to MPs by our Constitution - and that is exactly what the cartel is now trying to frustrate, through tricks about 'indecency' and feigned indignation about the supposed failure of entering information that has been publicly accessible for years.One last pointThere is one more consideration to make. In this context, people often speak of 'corruption' and conflicts of interest. A common view is that we need to know exactly which considerations play a role in voting behavior and decision-making. But&nbsp;does not that seemingly plausible reasoning miss the most important point?When all is said and done, ideally speaking, the House is all about the strength of the argument. Being influenced by any other interests logically results in one’s arguments lacking effectiveness. If so, let Parliament make mincemeat of that with facts, reasoning and passionate argumentation! Before the eyes of the nation, outright show that a Member of Parliament is spouting nonsense! Surely, a good debater&nbsp;would not need to make a fuss about 'integrity'?On the contrary, the appeal to&nbsp;‘integrity’&nbsp;is a hypocritical opportunistic argument. The cartel itself gets away with the most grotesque fallacies – obviously, due to their House majority. In addition, after a few years of being a minister, a job is usually waiting for them in the same sector they were involved in.&nbsp;Talk about a conflict of interest!Yes, that is the real corruption of our system. Corruption in networking. A revolving door for the like-minded.Of course, not a single integrity committee would speak up about that. The coalition is wisely keeping its mouth shut. All their sights have been trained on Baudet – the only MP . Not for&nbsp;‘integrity' but to silence the opposition. That is what is really going on here. And if we like democracy, we must do what we can to reverse this trend.

The Dutch parliament is abandoning democracy.

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The suspension of an opposition MP is an attack on democracy

On 7 October 2022, late in the evening, at around 11.30 pm, I was detained at Gatwick Airport in London by anti-terrorism police.&nbsp; I was not released until shortly before 1 am and my computer was taken from me.&nbsp;It has not yet been returned.My passport and all my personal belongings - my wallet, my phone, my keys, everything - were removed.&nbsp; I was taken to a room where I was questioned for an hour by two anti-terrorism police officers, acting under powers given to the police (as I learned for the first time) by Schedule 3 of the 2019 Counter-terrorism and Border Security Act.The Act is supposedly designed to allow the police to detain ‘hostile actors’ who are travelling to the country to ‘plan, prepare or carry out their hostile acts’ (according to the leaflet the officers gave me).&nbsp; But the Act itself says, ‘An examining officer may exercise the powers under this paragraph whether or not there are grounds for suspecting that a person is or has been engaged in hostile activity’ (my emphasis)<a href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>. &nbsp;So an Act ostensibly designed to allow hostile actors to be stopped in fact applies indiscriminately to everyone, according to its own explicit terms.It is certainly surprising that the powers were wielded, in my case, against a British national.&nbsp; Nationals should not normally be questioned in this way about their reasons for entering the territory of their own country.One of the officers opened the interrogation by saying that I was not being detained and that therefore I could not have access to a lawyer.&nbsp; But of course I was being detained, since it was impossible for me to leave the interrogation room and, even more so, the airport, without my passport and personal effects. (I was kept on the ‘air side’, i.e. before passing through passport control.)&nbsp; The word ‘detained’ has evidently been emptied of all meaning.According to the leaflet, ‘Unlike most other Police powers, the power to stop, question, search and, if necessary, detain persons under Schedule 3 does not require authority or any suspicion.’&nbsp; So the special powers enjoyed by the Police at UK ports are a ‘regime of exception’ in which the normal safeguards of the rule of law have been tossed aside.It goes on, ’You can be searched, and anything you have with you … this includes electronic devices … where searches are conducted, there is no requirement for a written notice of search to be provided to you.&nbsp; Under certain circumstances, the officer can seize any property they find.’What are these ‘certain circumstances’?&nbsp; When I protested at the fact that my computer was being taken from me, which would prevent me from working until it is returned, and when I offered to bring it to a police station the following day, the officer replied that it was out of the question that it would not be taken.&nbsp; In other words, there are no ‘certain circumstances.’ The seizure of such devices is, on the contrary, the rule.In a state of law, the Police can search someone’s property only with a search warrant.&nbsp;This is a document signed by a judge which authorises private property to be searched and seized.&nbsp; If you look up ‘search warrant’ in Wikipedia, it says, ‘In certain authoritarian&nbsp;nations, police officers may be allowed to search individuals and property without having to obtain court&nbsp;permission or provide justification for their actions.’&nbsp; According to this standard, the UK is now an ‘authoritarian nation.’&nbsp;It is precisely what separates a legal state from a dictatorship that the work of the police is not abused for political purposes, yet this is what occurred to me.The officers questioned me about my work at the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation in Paris from 2008 to 2018 and about my work at the European Parliament since then, and more recently for FVD.&nbsp; All the information they wanted is available publicly, for instance on Wikipedia.&nbsp; The questioning was polite but amateurish.I was asked about my political views.&nbsp; The officer said, ‘It is a free country, not everyone is so lucky.’&nbsp; I believe this is what is called ‘the British sense of humour’.The officers told me that they had had two or three hours to prepare.&nbsp; This means that they were alerted in London to my imminent arrival at the moment when my boarding pass was scanned in Budapest.&nbsp;Everyone should know this.They spent those hours looking things up on the Internet.&nbsp; The officer questioning me seemed unsure of what he was really trying to find out.&nbsp; The Internet, as everyone should know, is a veritable cesspit of false information and there are endless claims on it about me which are untrue.&nbsp; Many of these have been repeated recently in the Dutch press, as journalists go online, find what they are looking for and repeat lies told earlier by others.&nbsp; In my case, they never tire of telling the same fairy tale.&nbsp;It is bad enough when journalists do this but it is frightening to think that anti-terrorism police officers regard Google as a reliable source of information.&nbsp; One dreads to think how many genuinely hostile actors pass through the net if this is the Police’s idea of investigation.&nbsp;Unfortunately that is the state of the world today.It is particularly symbolic that this should happen to me.&nbsp; Ever since I started to get interested in international criminal law over 20 years ago, I have criticised the way in which international tribunals toss aside the myriad rules and procedures which have accumulated over the centuries to ensure due process.&nbsp; The British are traditionally proud of these procedures which have protected citizens against abusive state power for centuries.&nbsp; I have repeatedly warned that these dictatorial practices would soon percolate down into national jurisdictions and destroy the precious inheritance known as the rule of law. This has now happened.Ever since the EU announced its Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime in December 2020, moreover, I have also pointed out that the EU has given itself the power to punish individuals by executive order.&nbsp; This is a very dangerous development.&nbsp; Individuals are punished under this regime without any legal procedure (no trial) and without any means of defending themselves.&nbsp; So much for human rights!&nbsp; I have warned for two years now that citizens of Western states would themselves be the target of these sanctions.&nbsp; This duly happened in July when a British blogger, Graham Philipps, was sanctioned by the United Kingdom which has the same system as the EU and the US.In other words I, who have been warning that these procedures, introduced at international level, would soon corrupt the criminal law in domestic jurisdictions, have now been proved horribly right by an example of this abuse of which I have now personally been a victim.&nbsp; It was a profoundly disturbing experience.Shortly before it happened, FVD International tweeted its disapproval of the EU sanctions imposed on the philosopher, Alexander Dugin.&nbsp; As we showed with a screen shot of the relevant EU document, the European Council (i.e. the executive) sanctioned Dugin purely for his views.&nbsp; Nowhere it is alleged that he has actually participated in the invasion of Ukraine nor even that he is guilty of incitement.&nbsp; Instead, he is sanctioned for thoughtcrime.&nbsp;Some people who do not like Dugin are pleased at this.&nbsp; But they should understand that these are seriously abusive powers which can easily, as in my case, be directed against totally innocent people.&nbsp; To such people I can find no better response that the famous remarks by Pastor Martin Niemöller:First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.Then they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a JewThen they came for me.&nbsp; And there was no one left to speak out for me.Europe is sliding into dictatorship.&nbsp; In fact, it is already there. &nbsp;<hr><a href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/3/schedule/3

On 7 October 2022, FVD International director John Laughland was detained at Gatwick Airport by anti-terrorism police. His belongings have still not been returned.

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