Roger Ver, a name familiar to many within the freedom movement, is facing nothing less than 109 years in prison. Who is this man, and why has he been pursued by the US government for decades?&nbsp; A Pioneer of freedom Roger Ver is known as the very first Bitcoin billionaire. He was one of the first people to recognize the potential of cryptocurrencies to end the power of governments over our money system. However, his beliefs quickly brought him into conflict with the US. In 2022, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison for selling fireworks without a licence - a political punishment designed to silence him.But Roger Ver did not allow himself to be broken. He continued to follow his ideals, both in the crypto world and beyond. He supported initiatives promoting individual freedom and decentralisation, such as WikiLeaks (by Julian Assange), the anti-lockdown movement and other campaigns against government coercion.&nbsp; Lawfare: a political weapon Today, Ver is facing new charges, this time around alleged ‘tax issues’. This is part of a broader trend: lawfare, or the use of legal means to silence political opponents. What we see here is a classic attempt by the powerful to silence a voice of freedom.The US government, which previously treated whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange in the same way, is now setting its sights on Roger Ver. The goal? To eliminate not only him, but everything he stands for: individual freedom, opposition to corruption, and a world without extensive state control.On Wednesday 20 November at 16:00, FVD will discuss Roger Ver, including John Laughland, Jerm Warfare and Ver's lawyer Tracy Thurman.&nbsp;The conversation can be watched live&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruCCD17e3QA">here</a>.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruCCD17e3QA">Watch the conversation (live)</a>Our call to action Forum for Democracy stands for sovereignty, freedom and the fight against oppression. We see the attack on Roger Ver not just as an attack on one man, but as an attack on everyone fighting for a better, freer world. This is why we continue to call for the protection of pioneers like Ver and an end to this kind of politically motivated persecution.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/support">Donate to FVD</a>, support our fight and let's work together for a world where people like Roger Ver can continue to fight for our freedoms. Get involved and make your voice heard. Together we will make a difference!<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/support">DONATE</a> &nbsp;

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A conversation about Roger Ver: the world's first crypto billionaire and WikiLeaks donor

FVD is international to its very core. If you liked Thierry Baudet’s&nbsp;<a href="https://email.email.fvd.nl/c/eJxEzLGOhCAQgOGngZLMMKBcQWFirK6_GgeI5lzdrAjZt99YbfUnf_FFjz0xy3QXOwTqrFx8NuB6Qp3n2SFRJkAE_ukdZ0ZDTq4-RkoxBqstaBeQnDMJUtC5i9baDMJArlHtm9z8UsrzFDQIPQk9tdbU-7jKNSfFx-M-ofAiaKqCxvY7jvzfhj8Y5MvXdee0F1WP8wtWrz8BAAD__2DLNlU">recent interview</a> in French, you are going to love Pepijn van Houwelingen’s interview in Japanese. Pepijn was discussing politics with Sohei Kamiya, the leader of the Sanseito (‘Do it yourself!’) party and a member of the upper house of the Japanese parliament. They agreed that the common point of their respective parties, Sanseito and FVD, is that they can appeal to voters on the left as well as on the right because anti-globalism attracts lefties, just as globalism attracts many righties, at least neo-liberal ones. And globalism often also seduces provincially-minded people who have little real knowledge of the wider world – unlike FVD.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a33fhRAffg0">Watch Pepijn’s interview here</a>&nbsp;<img src="https://lh7-qw.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeM_styNvJHMeMBpfuDmDQSzYJUbkDkdGWybaKuwHVplvPkv4Yiuoyij5njjPqM7TCX_sYrThcErXWpewsxu9ux-gOLWe1eIVaZPbd8DBfLPiVUdwg1yPAbvUPAzKj52gBYR-3A9g?key=BDBLJdH24uKUHrjYmonMXlTS">Liberalism is the key. The liberal ideal is predicated on a fiction, namely that individuals somehow exist in a state of nature and then conclude a social contract for their own protection. But humans are never in a state of nature: we are all born into societies and families we have not chosen and we are dependent on them for much of our lives. Moreover, society is not a choice or an option, but instead an integral part of what it means to be human. Man is a social animal.&nbsp; Dissolving societies is inhuman. Globalism is an advanced form of liberalism for it seeks to uproot existing societies and mix everyone up into a global miasma, in which they theoretically have maximum choice but where, in reality, their choices are limited precisely because the individual is weaker than the collective. Historian Robert Lemm explains in an article for FVD why liberalism is a sin.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/Liberalism-a-wrong-path-to-take">Read Robert Lemm’s article here</a><img src="https://lh7-qw.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf491hQe2JULVIj-O2bDUreNxvyIdbu2M4J067hVP6R9203TQJg-7tFhtpGomjw2njqXJt9XpYyc4x6K9snSxOnbRZbg8NRsGnz5RIB00n0NMNtWGeRGSDrHGj_o-uTV5Bub8eOUA?key=BDBLJdH24uKUHrjYmonMXlTS">The other big fiction of liberalism is that society can be created on a whim and, by extension, that reality can be structured by our will. The West has been very severely infected by this delusion – it is what gives us all the crazy narratives about transsexualism and other fads. Worse, it encourages us to think that reality can be structured (and should be read) through the lens of morality, moral condemnation being an expression of personal will. It is this virtue-signalling which has led the West into a very dangerous situation in Ukraine. What is the point of condemning your adversary if the danger is that he will kill you? Your condemnations are not much use if you end up dead.&nbsp; As Sid Lukkassen explains in a piece for FVD, the obsession with ideological purity, which dominates Western policy-making, is causing Europe to shoot itself in the foot.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/between-virtue-and-reality-europes-moral-crusade-and-natos-shadow">Read Sid Lukkassen’s article here</a><img src="https://lh7-qw.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeqz_Z0LfcxZPA6CaWMGEETQ9Z7x0Me8gUNNFZ9zMa6qUg6pkKwD4RoN2P7Sm3BpuAfz-QTnaYyeqbuHltpZP8m7bblD-z_HXGKKLPe1W_XokvQAgNJJXIpIvvWav4DZeZfCjXN?key=BDBLJdH24uKUHrjYmonMXlTS">Our guest on The Forum this week was Michael Bryant who argues that the post-World War I ‘Spanish flu’ is a myth. He claims that the huge numbers of deaths of young men which followed the end of the war is better explained by the diseases which were rife in the trenches and by the effects of gas and other chemical weapons. ‘Flu’ was a lazy label stuck onto these deaths which has been retrospectively used to justify big Pharma’s over-medicalised approach to health.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ156tVPtIU&amp;ab_channel=ForumvoorDemocratie">Watch the Forum &amp; Friends here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 14 November

<h3>If we think this way, it may not be long before the bad guys return.</h3>“If only it were all so simple!&nbsp; If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.&nbsp; But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.&nbsp; And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”– Alexander SolzhenitsynThe good guys won and the bad guys lost. Really? But last time, the bad guys won and the good guys lost. What is the difference?I hate to rain on the parade. It is all very well for Donald Trump and everyone else to exult in the moment of victory. By all means, let us savor the moment.But if we let it stop there, without understanding it — why it happened this time and not last time — it is not likely to happen again next time.Is it because God smiles on us? What did we do to make him smile? And what about when he does not smile? What did we do to bring that about?Is it because we are the good side, and goodness always triumphs in the end? But it does not. Hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — of people who would be alive are now dead — from public health hoaxes, unnecessary wars, and more. Others have been disfigured or impoverished and will lead lives of misery. Goodness did not triumph for them.Was it because a majority of Americans heeded the calls of our better commentators in the alternative media to “wake up” to the dangers? Then they rose up in righteous defiance of tyranny and voted the “right” way? Yes, they did, to some extent. But why were so many asleep in the first place? And how do we know that we are not still sleeping in some respects?(By the way, telling us how we are still asleep is the role of intellectuals — real ones, not the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U3rf89QY24">parlor intellectuals</a> who inhabit western universities and thinktanks. The kind, like Solzhenitsyn, that pay a price for their dissidence. But do not expect right-wing intellectuals to risk displeasing anyone now. They are too busy seeking jobs in the new administration.)Casting votes is admirable, but it hardly constitutes an uprising or a sustained revival. It costs little and requires no sacrifice. It is also a notoriously fickle way of understanding and exercising citizenship. It can quickly be reversed.Above all, it is vicarious. We are appointing others to govern us. It is only a short step from there to hiring still others to govern for us: bureaucrats, lawyers, pressure groups (“NGOs”), contractors, “consultants,” those who finance them —&nbsp;i.e., the “deep state”.Do we really think that the forces of evil cannot devise yet more innovative ways to take advantage of all this, as they did previously, in ways we do not expect or understand?As for the voices in the alternative media, we owe them a huge debt for speaking out and “waking” us up (as opposed to “woking” us up?). But they do not necessarily address everything; nor do they always get everything right.For one thing, there have been strikingly few attempts to explain why the bad guys won last time. This is partly because some of the good guys still have a stake in the system run by the bad guys. I tried to explain it in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.stephenbaskerville.com/copy-2-of-why-did-it-happen">my new book</a>, but one book cannot explain everything. We need an ongoing dialogue; otherwise we will not get it right this time around either. The United States has just been through perhaps the most devastating 4-5 years since the Civil War, into which it has dragged most of the western world, and we still do not know why. Nor do we show much interest in knowing. It involved forms of tyranny we have never seen before and still do not fully understand.When I say that we do not know why, I mean that we do not know in terms of what we all did to permit it and therefore how we could extricate ourselves from it fully and prevent it from happening again. The election has given us breathing space. But it is not clear that we have regained more than temporary control over our public life and political system.I am not just talking about Trump’s shortcomings and mistakes and those of his team. There are some, and there are bound to be more. (Some responsibility for the vaccine hoax and unnecessary wars does rest with the first Trump adminstration. Aside from rumors that Trump may appoint neo-cons to his cabinet, at the very least he will be subject to pressure and attempts at infiltration.)Trump is in some ways a truly&nbsp;<a href="https://arktos.com/product/esoteric-trumpism/">heroic figure</a>, whose obvious flaws are outweighed by his larger-than-life personality. But he is still one man, and the nature of the American presidency is such that we are all subject to his whims alone.The deeper problem is not with him but with us. Do we really understand what we did wrong? I see little evidence for that. Some say it was caused by “the Left” (I do myself), but many who say this do not even have a clear sense of precisely&nbsp;<a href="https://chroniclesmagazine.org/society-culture/the-marxism-narrative-has-gone-too-far/">what the Left is</a> or what it did to take power, and some even seem determined to&nbsp;<a href="https://stephenbaskerville.substack.com/p/the-cultural-marxism-narrative-has">misunderstand and obfuscate</a>&nbsp;what it is, because they too have a stake in allowing it to continue in some respects. Others suggest that it is not so much what the Left did as what the Right — and the rest of us — did not do (I say that too).Recently, I argued that the&nbsp;<a href="https://stephenbaskerville.substack.com/p/do-conservatives-do-anything-but">professional Right loses</a> all its battles. I am not sure that this election result disproves that. A majority of American voters did deal a strong blow to a well-organized, highly impersonal tyranny.&nbsp;But most of the organized Right did little to assist Trump’s victory. Before he won the Republican nomination, many were still actively thwarting him. Most deserve zero credit for this victory. Yet they are the people that inevitably will fill most of the positions in the new administration, regardless of Trump’s determination to avoid appointing obvious neocons to high visibility posts.The Democrats now scold Americans for having voted incorrectly. I for one cannot see any respects in which the Democrats’ gripes are valid. But I can see a few respects in which we, the ones who voted “correctly”, have neglected matters that still need addressing, or we could find yet another election result being undone or reversed. I do not advocate scolding, but perhaps some soul-searching is in order?It is too early to know where and how the next tyranny could arise. They tend to arise where no one expects them; that is&nbsp;why they arise. Trump and team clearly understand some dangers: the national security state, the bureaucratic “swamp”, the more bizarre manifestations of “Woke” ideology. But some deeper problems deserve not just their attention but ours, problems that have escaped us until now. The very fact that we neglect them may explain why they played a role in the recent tyranny but not much in this past election campaign:<ul><li>Our willingness to let the political professionals perform our citizenship for us.</li><li>Our willingness to allow the leftist political class to&nbsp;<a href="https://stephenbaskerville.substack.com/p/why-the-race-problem-bedevils-the">set the political agenda</a> and terms of debate.</li><li>Our continued reliance upon a right-wing political class that allows the Left to set the agenda and then tags along with them, building lucrative organizational empires pretending to oppose them but achieving almost nothing. (And most started tagging along with Trump in this election once they smelled jobs.)</li><li>Our continued tolerance for hideous injustices perpetrated by the criminal American judiciary (I do not mean the American criminal judiciary), especially at the lower levels which are almost invisible even in the alternative media. This is what enabled the “lawfare” operations and more. Lawfare against Trump did not open the way for injustices against ordinary Americans, as even some of MAGA’s less forthright&nbsp;<a href="https://stephenbaskerville.substack.com/p/the-power-to-prosecute-is-the-power">judicial politicians</a>&nbsp;pretend, but the reverse. Longstanding injustices against ordinary Americans came first, and they still operate with impunity. Administering justice is, along with defense against external attack, the most basic function of government, and yet ours not only fails but refuses.</li><li>The continued degradation of the African-American community, driven by the destruction of the&nbsp;<a href="https://stephenbaskerville.substack.com/p/why-the-race-problem-bedevils-the">black family and black male</a>, which partly sparked the crisis of 2020.</li><li>Government policies that exacerbate the ever-widening estrangement between men and women that was&nbsp;the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newenglishreview.org/articles/black-men-are-voting-for-trump-not-race-but-sex-now-drives-us-politics/">decisive feature of this election</a> and is by far the most serious consequence of Woke ideology. It is still&nbsp;<a href="https://stephenbaskerville.substack.com/p/black-men-are-voting-for-trump-sex">not properly understood</a> and intimidates and paralyzes all of us — especially men — from being fully functional citizens and even from understanding why.</li></ul>The refusal of the professional Right to understand and oppose these and a few other things and the willingness of the rest of us to tolerate their fecklessness is what will most likely permit the next tyranny.We have been rescued from the railroad tracks this time. But not only are the people who tied us to the tracks still out there; they are supported by tens of millions of Americans — voters whose numbers may be increasing — who think we should have been tied tighter, and they are furious that we were freed.<hr>If you want to read more analysis that will push you to think “outside the box,” you will find it in my new book,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Who-Lost-America-United-Communist-ebook/dp/B0D7SXKYS8/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=">Who Lost America? Why the United States Went "Communist” — and What to Do about It</a> — available from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Who-Lost-America-United-Communist-ebook/dp/B0D7SXKYS8/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=">Amazon</a>.<img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeILODZcHRxdAvSSooAirjwrSXFxO-c-1ofVR_32HHKNQIpEv_XrlqwKwgV8SadvQUlcbsOQvZYNfYUQZx5moi2xuSjXoWiKjOx0IWxLwuDoa7e-vbIclA2Al0y9oZ58iYbPpqVFQ?key=TzHOHAy5is66Txx2EzBkO9XJ">Stephen Baskerville is Professor of Politics at the Collegium Intermarium in Warsaw.&nbsp; His books and recent articles are available at&nbsp;<a href="http://www.stephenbaskerville.com/">www.StephenBaskerville.com</a>. &nbsp;

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So the Good Guys Won and the Bad Guys Lost?

The Trump victory is, according to Alex Jones, a second American revolution. As the country prepares to celebrate 250 years since 1776, Jones says that the USA has broken free of the globalist death cult. He is probably right. FVD can now hope – as it has said in a statement published immediately after the result was known – that whole swathes of policies it has been advocating for Europe and the Netherlands will now be adopted in the USA. We do not yet know whom Trump will appoint to his administration. Already some rumours claim that he will give key positions to neo-conservatives. If this happens, it will be a heavy blow.&nbsp; But whatever happens, the symbolism of his victory – in the teeth of opposition from the media, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, the State Department, the Pentagon and other agencies – is impossible to understate. The most direct result of his election, indeed, will be an increase in prestige of those political parties in Europe who supported him and his policies all along, FVD in first place.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/our-statement-on-trump">Read FVD’s Statement here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfMsqPuideQdPRsMfefevw02Ltyruc5utzST_jqZuQko2zChhILG9WlZ9rq7GBb_XuQ5LMdh5joLBaA1yMFDYCTNnCvc_CWQ7isBqaCvWDBzIi8YrXZKMmNZr4oyk5Tr6suto1rxQ?key=IyAJm1zEvvdYukeZ7jkX4dci">As Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute explains, this election of the 78 year-old Trump paradoxically reflects a generational shift. 52% of young Republicans support an arms embargo against Israel, an incredible figure when you consider the radically pro-Israel positions taken by the Republican and Democrat parties for generations. Daniel writes that Pat Buchanan’s legacy of patriotism and non-interventionism is enjoying a revival among a new generation of conservatives who are tired of the warfare state. “The old order changeth, yielding place to a new.”<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/pat-buchanan-was-righ-and-young-conservatives-agree">Read Daniel McAdams’ article here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeFvVfzE6KyQ0RBJKcYaOnly07UxwruFFlI6MKSrs1vx3Wuv9chVlAj7fIpskfM8SjvgbFZHiD2w7KwEnS7oC588yTlelbuSssPUOxVF4ue4zyXgmsDdWXzPnNy1A9vR--qmdcn5A?key=IyAJm1zEvvdYukeZ7jkX4dci">Mark Ivanyo of Republicans for National Renewal has kindly sent FVD a video message giving his reaction to the election of Trump. He says that Trump is a deal-maker who will promote peace and stability in Ukraine and the Middle East through diplomacy but will refrain from interventionism as in the past. “Strong families, secure borders…” what is there not to like?<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPFuyPzvs_Q&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Watch Mark Ivanyo’s video here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd1c2NTNWBoGoS7alSj41t2e3etXqlb4csetMoJjfpRWq4rRGvrfherXehEId0_u0_rFmpCRdk_YftL-9exAnxBS3Z6vRTUuzqv3or0pDE_5FjnrWVqfKhzCENWCuA7IN2yEyHF?key=IyAJm1zEvvdYukeZ7jkX4dci">On a much more modest level, FVD’s ally in Bulgaria, Revival (Vazrazhdane) consolidated its national position and came third in last month’s national elections, giving it 35 seats in the country’s 240 seat National Assembly. We are delighted to publish a statement by the party leader, Kostadin Kostadinov, who explains that Vazrazhdane’s priorities are energy policy, peace in Europe and the maintenance of the national currency, the lev. This is an example of the indirect symbolic effect of the Trump victory: little by little, the climate hoax, and the associated wasted billions, are surely going to start to fissure and crack until huge chunks of it crash in to the sea, just like the proverbial glacier.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/Electionresults-show-trust-in-vazrazhdane-is-growing">Read Kostadin Kostadinov’s message here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdQnBQFMuZIymsBcNtSu5oCFeEMRfDLJD3kZdvaS1iGd0KpgLz2JdRN7pRcz6OoRLeOKjBkHwkSnP7AEouR0BBsWEy3fzK8d5T2kPEyksMyMazw-6yvWvV9OkFBv36xAo67ZBDpLQ?key=IyAJm1zEvvdYukeZ7jkX4dci">We were delighted to have the Anglo-Italian Eurosceptic journalist, Thomas Fazi, as our guest on The Forum this week, to discuss the fallout of the election of Trump for Europe. If you missed it you can listen back by clicking below.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWQd7QRC44I">Watch the Forum &amp; Friends here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 8 November

The 47th President of the United States will be Donald J. TRUMP! It is a historic, overwhelming and crucial victory.&nbsp;What can we expect from the Trump administration over the next four years?FVD policy at the international levelThe positions which FVD advocates in the Netherlands can now be realised on the international stage: an end to the senseless Ukraine war; a stop to illegal immigration; tackling Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Finance and the military-industrial complex; the dismantling of the climate change mafia and the return of normal fuels; the revival of crypto and other financial markets; the release of classified documents on 9/11, Covid and the assassination of JFK.&nbsp;And beyond that?A pardon for Ulbricht, Ver, Snowden and Kim Dotcom. The wiping out of woke thinking and a reform and downsizing of the US government apparatus, which will also drastically reduce the tax burden. A halt to encroaching censorship. All fantastic prospects. It is as if FVD is now in the White House!Change aheadWe will follow all developments with enthusiasm in the coming period. Together with Trump, FVD remains committed to making the necessary change. Join the movement too, become a member of FVD!

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Our Statement on Trump

The original article was published on the <a href="https://ronpaulinstitute.org/pat-buchanan-was-right-and-young-conservatives-agree/">Ron Paul Institute</a> on 4 November 2024.As we arrive at today’s election, there is good news in the US conservative movement regardless of who wins. While the old guard – mostly “boomers” – who still cling to the levers of power continue to mouth the tired old shibboleths (“peace through strength,” “rules based order,” “<a href="https://x.com/RepDonBacon/status/1849964206549881139">our greatest ally</a>“), a new generation of young conservatives has emerged that is revitalizing the Old Right view that the focus of conservatism should be to conserve what is actually great about the United States.First and foremost is the idea, espoused by our first president George Washington, that the United States can only prosper if it is capable of jettisoning “passionate attachments” to any foreign country and embrace, as outlined by John Quincy Adams, the view that America……goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.&nbsp;To this point, the focus in the mainstream media and among “boomer” and Beltway neocon Republicans has been that the opposition to US backstopping the Israeli destruction of Gaza is made up of radical, Marxist, Hamas-loving dupes. As I decry&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/RonPaulInstitut/status/1841494029776629902">in my recent speech to the “Rage Against the War Machine” rally</a> at the Washington Memorial in DC, there has been a notable absence among my fellow “pro-life” and right wing Americans to speak out against the snuffing out of perhaps 200,000 innocent civilian lives – many of them Christian – in Gaza and Lebanon.I chalked some of that hesitation up to the fear of being labeled “anti-Jewish,” while at the same time I pointed out that a significant proportion of the US university campus protests against the Israeli slaughter in Palestine and Lebanon are led by Jewish students. Likewise, Jewish intellectuals in the US constitute a significant and powerful voice against the policies of the Israeli government and in opposition to the US “special relationship” with that country.Whatever the case, a younger generation on the Right is getting it. And they are threatening the establishment in ways that should warm all of our conservative hearts. Take for example a new poll by the progressive “Data for Progress” outlet. Among the usual fluff about progressive attitudes toward Kamala etc., a fascinating metric was reported:By a solid 52 percent majority, Republicans aged 18-24&nbsp;support a US arms embargo against Israel over their massive slaughter of civilians in Gaza and Lebanon. This is not an outlier, as many polls including this Pew survey from April show that only 28 percent of young Republicans “lean more with the Israeli people” in the current war in Gaza:<img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcGVMIHl4X6Ip-p4TALyTPuoHPprjd_Os3qzyx7hr_3YmEr1xLIeLyu2pjAxxgsY8XTtM5XCR-RwYgW33tmneChkOK6qMWjeI5CJS_bYFrsIsSoXRIN9GDLmAuwEZZxc7WrOy7IeA?key=6NMQVA6Aa9d41v3vORhz-inU">Young conservatives are actually conservative!This may seem radical in the post-Reagan era of neocon control over the Republican Party and what passed for conservative thought, however there is also a long tradition of Republican and conservative opposition to America joining itself to the hip of a small and insignificant country in the Middle East as the basis of its foreign policy. And the tide is turning back in its favor.On June 15, 1990, maverick Republican Patrick Buchanan bucked the neocon trend that had infected the Reagan White House in which he did some of his most important work as Communications Director and uttered the “emperor’s new clothes” phrase that rocked DC:“Capitol Hill is Israeli occupied territory.”For many already ensconced in Capitol Hill it was hardly a revolutionary statement. But as the institutions were being captured by pro-Israel neocons, it was the equivalent of exposing the man pulling the levers behind the carefully constructed Potemkin edifice of “modern” conservatism.Buchanan was to be drummed out of polite society. And of course the neocon gatekeeper (and CIA asset) William F. Buckley, Jr. did his best to destroy Buchanan (among others) in his Stalinesque, “<a href="https://archive.org/details/insearchofantise0000buck">In Search of Anti-Semitism</a>.”William “Stalin” Buckley, Jr. also&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080602094748/http://www.mecfilms.com/universe/articles/fired.htm">drummed out</a> another of the best right wing writers of the 20th century, Joseph Sobran, thus clearing the way for the total domination of the warmongering obsessive devotees of Israel in the conservative movement.Well not quite total. It turns out there was another writer who, like Buchanan and Sobran, was fiercely independent and came to embrace the conservatism of old – some call it paleo-conservatism but it should just be conservatism. I am referring to my former mentor, the late Robert Novak, whose half century career in media had come to define not only modern conservatism but the evolution of a young liberal “mugged by reality,” as neocon godfather Irving Kristol&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Kristol">put it</a>.Novak’s “reality mugging” was that spending a life in the journalistic limelight as a Jewish-born atheist left him feeling empty inside. He was inspired by his television partner Rowland Evans who in the Middle East wars of the 1970s onward had openly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-2_16_06_RN.html">sympathized with the Palestinians</a>. Eventually Bob Novak&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonian.com/2003/06/01/the-conversion-of-bob-novak/">converted to the Roman Catholic faith</a> in a ceremony that rocked Washington, DC. It was not a smart career move. What made it worse is that unlike many DC “Catholics,” he adopted an authentic&nbsp;<a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/19/bob_novak_rip__97946.html">traditional</a> Catholicism that rejected donor-driven neocon obsession with bowing to “our greatest ally” in the Middle East.In the early 2000s, Novak told a large assembled audience at a gala DC dinner honoring the new class of “Novak Journalism Fellows” (I was a 1998 Fellow) – and I paraphrase from memory: “unlike most conservatives, I do not support Israel.” You could have heard a pin drop in that neocon gathering that bore his name.It is too bad he could not be with us to witness that tide beginning to change.Indeed there is a new trend rising in conservative circles that is encouraging. We see it in the polls. We see it on TikTok. We see it in the bright young&nbsp;<a href="https://news.antiwar.com/author/dave_decamp/#gsc.tab=0">conservative intellectuals</a> in publications like Antiwar.com and elsewhere. We even see it in weird places like in the Trump interview on Rogan where he trashes pro-war, Israel-first neocon John Bolton as an “idiot.”Trump is not anywhere near embracing the camp of the young non-interventionist conservatives, but I believe he hears their footsteps behind him. He hears it to the point where he is even&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/CCrowley100/status/1850279695071543763">invoking Pat Buchanan’s name&nbsp;</a>– as a “good man.” Not even Miriam “Daddy Warbucks” Adelson’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/us/politics/miriam-adelson-trump-donors.html">$100 million</a> can stop an idea whose time has come.It is easy to feel despair in these times, but take heart: As Dylan once wrote, “something is happening and you don’t know what it is…”

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Pat Buchanan Was Right…And Young Conservatives Agree!

Sid Lukkassen – The Great Geopolitical TreatiseIn recent decades, policies in Europe have been dominated by the ‘Hegemony of Virtue Signaling’. This means that the ‘social construction’ of desirable narratives overshadows and suppresses the need to account for objective geopolitical realities. This process involves the ongoing ideological framing of events which oversimplifies complex international dynamics, often casting Russia as a monolithic antagonist and NATO as a benign force for democracy. This framing, deeply rooted in postmodern political theory, has led to a series of self-imposed rhetorical traps which obscure the strategic challenges facing Europe and its allies.The Metrosexual SuperpowerIn an article called ‘The Power of War: Why Europe Needs it’, written in 2008 for Clingendael, a Dutch geopolitical research center, Peter van Ham argued that Europe has become a “metrosexual superpower”. He writes about the “sissification” of European military doctrine. The article concluded that Europe considers itself a “postmodern, Kantian space”, where ideals such as tolerance, human rights and fighting poverty prevail over Realpolitik – humanitarian intentions trump geopolitical consequences. We wonder whether Van Ham would publish the same claims today, given that the established elites in Europe moved even further towards the radical left. Whoever wants to work as a military analyst at a think tank is required to embrace the rainbow-ideology of the establishment.&nbsp;Furthermore, whatever is left of Western European military power will soon collapse, given that the actual backbone of an effective military – made up of masculine men with conservative patriotic persuasions on a high-testosterone diet – collides with the woke-ideology of WEF-proscribed climate friendly bug powder and LGBTQ inclusivity. Hence, there are videos in circulation that contrast the Dutch and Russian militaries. While Dutch male soldiers are practicing with menstruation cramp simulators to gain an understanding of female soldiers, Russian recruitment videos depict soldiers getting shelled in trenches while drawing courage from Christian prayer cards.As becomes clear from the pressure put upon member states such as Hungary, the EU tends to simplify issues into binary moral imperatives. By framing European integration as an expression of shared liberal democratic values, the EU has created a situation where opposing viewpoints are de-legitimised as “populism” or “nationalism.” This moral framing deters member states from questioning EU expansion or NATO’s military interventions, even when these actions might not align with their national interests.Historically, the EU has adopted emotionally charged language to present itself as the primary custodian of liberal democracy. Terms such as an “ever-closer Union” and a “European way of life” dominate the discourse: this directly or indirectly marks dissenting positions as backward and hostile to Europe’s unity. By using these concepts to uphold the EU’s legitimacy, European leaders have maneuvered around domestic and international complexities, ensuring conformity through moral coercion. Those questioning the scope of NATO’s ambitions, for instance, are often shamed into silence, labeled as appeasers or framed as enablers of authoritarian regimes.&nbsp;NATO expands while Europe retreats from Strategic RationalityAfter the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Western leaders – including former U.S. President Bill Clinton – foresaw the risks of NATO expansion in re-dividing Europe. Clinton, along with intellectuals like George Kennan, cautioned that the inclusion of Eastern European states in NATO might revive Cold War tensions, positioning Russia as a perennial outsider in European affairs. Nevertheless, NATO’s expansion proceeded while Russia was too weakened by internal reorganizations to pose a significant threat.NATO’s expansion resulted in a re-balkanised Europe, particularly Ukraine, as a contested region that is now a combat zone. Ukraine’s movement toward NATO – despite limited public support for full membership as also the Dutch Ukraine Referendum signified – sparked the current conflict, highlighting the disconnect between moral rhetoric and on-the-ground realities. Yet Western narratives portray this expansion as a purely positive-sum integration effort, denying its security impact on Russia and misconstruing Russia’s reaction as an outdated&nbsp;realpolitik mentality. The war in Ukraine is basically an eschatological confrontation between Western cosmopolitan hypermorality and Eurasian autocratic cynicism which offers no chance for a diplomatic resolution unless, maybe, Trump gets elected as the new US President but we will have to find out.The war in Ukraine reveals the deeper ideological fixation within European political elites. Rational discourse – which would address the realistic outcomes of provoking a nuclear power like Russia – has given way to performative displays of moral superiority. Kicking empty beehives by making grandiose virtue signaling statements on LGBTQ+ acceptance and morality, until one day a beehive was kicked that turned out to contain actual bees and even Russian soldiers. European leaders are acting within an ideological echo chamber, reinforced by the media which they control through speech regulation codes. This makes it impossible to discuss pragmatic considerations instead of abstract utopian ideals.&nbsp;Sadly, the war only reinforces the echo chambering and speech censorship further, as EU citizens are now banned from accessing Russian media and hearing their take on the war. The progressive elites truly feel embattled by populists and that this entitles them to far-reaching speech restrictions. Those often do not even need to pass democratic scrutiny, as they come into being through backdoor deals with Big Tech CEOs. A democracy presupposes that a voter can hear media from different sides and is then able to make a balanced, reasonable judgment about which party and candidate best represent him or her in office. But at the same time, these ‘democrats’ seem to assume that citizens who access Russian media, are immediately turned into Kremlin-controlled trolls.It all coalesces into a reality where the West is ill-prepared for the emerging coalition of anti-Western powers. And how can we understand or come to a compromise with the powers that oppose us if our citizens are shielded from their perspectives? Russia’s alliance-building efforts with North Korea, China, and Iran are seen by some as symbolic rather than pragmatic; nevertheless, they also represent a modern-day revival of the coalition that once challenged the Western Roman Empire. It bears thinking about, what it means for the West to have&nbsp;<a href="https://tpo.nl/2016/03/18/begrijpen-wij-rusland/">driven Russia deeper into China’s arms</a>.&nbsp;A case could be made that the narrative of North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia could be a propaganda tool rather than a documented fact, given that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-north-korea-sending-100k-soldiers-fight-against-ukraine-1731723">similar claims</a> were made in 2022. While such alliances may not materialise in literal terms, the West’s response to them could generate self-fulfilling prophecies of increased militarization and polarised alliances. The paradox of reacting to hypothetical threats, as theorised by the philosopher Brian Massumi, brings an&nbsp;ontopower-effect into play: a situation where Western militaries prepare for imagined scenarios, inadvertently creating the very conditions they aim to prevent.The reliance on moralistic language has led Western political elites to reject traditional diplomatic efforts in favour of ‘moral clarity’. Diplomacy – once central to mitigating conflict – has become a tool for&nbsp;ideological instruction, where NATO and the EU view other nations as students to be socially moulded rather than treated as equal negotiating partners. This code of conduct, which envisions NATO and the EU as forces for progress and inclusivity without equal counterpart, kills any hope of mutual understanding and crisis de-escalation.This approach to diplomacy portrays neutrality as immoral, conflating non-alignment with tacit approval of authoritarianism. Thus, states that once provided neutral zones between NATO and Russia – crucial for stability – have been systematically diminished. Mark Rutte’s&nbsp;<a href="https://ongehoordnederland.tv/243221/tv-programmas/ongehoord-nieuws-191-rutte-begint-bij-navo-globalistisch-vn-pact-en-rechtse-zegen-oostenrijk/">first act as NATO Chair</a>, was saying that Ukraine should become a full-fledged member. Sweden and Finland’s recent membership bids underscore this movement, leaving fewer states positioned to mediate future European conflicts. The same could happen in Asia, with South Korea becoming more closely involved with NATO – these alliances eerily mimic the run-up to the First World War.Toward a Rational Policy RedirectionThe Western fixation on maintaining ideological purity has dire economic consequences. Europe’s commitment to sanctions on Russian energy, and moral obligations to uphold stringent climate goals, has led to industrial exodus and rising energy costs. The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines further exacerbates Europe’s reliance on energy imports from intermediaries, notably India, while eroding its industrial competitiveness. Also bear in mind that the oil is necessary to refine complex plastics, that the German industry needs, not only for consumer production but also for war production. Of course Russia was eager to accept the European money for its oil, yet even Putin commented that weakening German industrial production by cutting off Nord Stream is not in the long term interest of Ukraine.The only logical explanation for the destruction of Nord Stream is that the US wants a bipolar world order where Europe cannot develop economically as a force independent of the US – this is also the doctrine laid out by the influential geostrategist George Friedman, when speaking for Stratfor. He&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeLu_yyz3tc#t=1267">declared</a> that the American geopolitical interests are challenged once German capital and technology merge with Russian manpower and resources.&nbsp;Friedman even stated this would mean the US loses its global hegemony.Despite these events, cosmopolitan and left-liberal narratives around moral integrity continue to prevent a realistic assessment of practical reality. Europe’s path forward requires that we abandon the ideological rhetoric that clouds strategic thinking. Acknowledging NATO’s role in triggering the Ukraine crisis would be an important step toward a balanced foreign policy, prioritizing the continent’s long-term viability over transient ideological wins.&nbsp;Restoring Europe’s economic competitiveness and securing its strategic interests will require critically rethinking EU-policies. Unless we want a bipolar world order split between China and the US, where European states will be sacrificed as pawns whilst the conflict escalates, it is ultimately in our interest to reintegrate Russia as a European partner. However, it is questionable whether this is even possible, considering that the Russian so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ has already caused so many deep-seated grievances. Restoring Nord Stream is also easier said than done, while the cultural and political autonomy of West-Europe is meanwhile being penetrated by Islamic nations – a situation accelerated by demographic developments and the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. All things considered:&nbsp;Winter is coming, for the Europeans. Or – even more prophetically:&nbsp;Flee while you can!If the European political class remains entrenched in its current stance – which it probably will, given that this ideological in-group affiliation is the source of their access to status, wealth and potential partners who seek to rise socially and are susceptible to those advantages – the ‘end of history’ will be quite different than initially imagined. Europe must transcend its ideological echo chambers and reconsider Cold War-era frameworks if it hopes to maintain peace and prosperity in the nearby future. Whether European leaders have the political imagination and courage to pursue this path remains – putting it mildly – to be seen…&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://t.me/SidLukkassen">Follow Sid on Telegram</a> &gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidlukkassen/">Follow Sid on LinkedIn</a> &gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sidlukkassen.com/">Follow Sid’s Newsletter</a> &gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://sidlukkassen.backme.org/">Support Sid through BackMe</a>

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Between Virtue and Reality: Europe’s Moral Crusade and NATO’s Shadow

I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of liberalism in religion..&nbsp;. the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another..&nbsp;. It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion as true.&nbsp;It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion.St. John Henry NewmanNewmanThe above quote leaves nothing to be desired in terms of clarity. All religions are equal and subject to everyone's opinion. This is what liberalism, which is of British origin, teaches. John Henry Newman's transition from the Church of England to the Church of Rome in 1845 had as its trigger the increased liberalism within Anglicanism. Open questioning of the revealed truth of the Bible had taken root among professors at Oxford University, where Newman enjoyed a reputation as a guide with special concern for the University Church. In 1833, his assault on liberal error began through the Oxford Movement, in which his influence was decisive. In the so-called&nbsp;Tracts for the Times, Newman and his supporters published articles examining the extent to which the English Church could still be reconciled with the original church of the apostles. That investigation led to a break with Protestantism in 1841.The Anglican Church had gone its own, national way three hundred years earlier with King Henry VIII. By that ‘Brexit’, the British Isles had distanced themselves from the Catholic body on the European continent. During the first two centuries that followed, Newman writes, there had still been great Anglican theologians who hammered away at the purity of Christian doctrine, albeit outside Rome, but without exaggerating disputes with the Mother Church on points of fundamental truths of faith. But with the Romantic Movement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, liberalism came into vogue among poets who dreamed of freedom for peoples and sympathised with the French Revolution. Freemasonry, founded in London in the early eighteenth century, had already promoted liberalism among Crown ministers, top officials and figures in key positions. Newman had no objection to freedom of thought but there was also a false freedom of thought. From the German-speaking world, pietism had gained a foothold in high circles. This involved an undogmatic Christianity of mere feeling. For British freethinkers, the Bible passed for a mere form of literature, as Spinoza had proclaimed a century earlier. For them, Faith was incompatible with Reason. Science and religion belonged to separate paths.Newman considered the liberals' attack on the truths of Christianity disastrous. He reproached them for both their methodical doubtfulness, à la Descartes, and for their assimilation of all religions to one another. For him, there were only two options: either return to Catholicism or become atheist. Anything in between only created confusion. His books leave nothing to be desired in this regard, starting with an essay on the Development of Dogma. His famous works are the&nbsp;Apologia Pro Vita Sua - retranslated as&nbsp;The Story of My Life - and&nbsp;The&nbsp;Grammar of Assent, which advocates considering, agreeing with and then affirming the binding articles of faith. Newman's letters, sermons, poems, novels and plays are intended for reflective Christians. From his hand also appeared the blueprint for a Catholic university,&nbsp;The Idea Of A University, published in the same year 1864 in which liberalism was condemned as heresy in Pope Pius IX's&nbsp;Syllabus errorum. That list of aberrations naturally included freedom of speech.Newman believed that Catholic academics should master the classics. Besides the Bible and the Church Fathers, he recommended that students delve into Enlightenment philosophers to counter their arguments. To support this, he referred to the Counter-Enlightenment, to the work of reactionaries like Joseph de Maistre and François de Chateaubriand. He preferred Protestant English poets, such as John Milton (Paradise Lost) and John Bunyan (Pilgrim's Progress), to, for example, the writings of a then notorious French priest, Catholic admittedly, but who was indulgent towards liberalism and socialism. Reading, apology and the refutation of heterodox ideas had to foster resistance aginst the progressive Zeitgeist. People should not be intimidated by sages posing as scientists who undermined true religion. Newman had no problem with the pure natural sciences, since they excluded issues of theological nature.Newman also opposed the connection of Church and State in England because of the behaviour of clerical dignitaries. As conservatives, although they were allowed to challenge liberalism, and pass for allies on the basis of their doctrinal orthodoxy, Newman saw that within the Anglican High Church, enjoying their prestige among the church people - just like the high clergy in pre-Revolutionary France - they did not take the teachings of Christ very seriously on the moral and social level.The Idea of a University is, as mentioned, a draft. It consists of a number of speeches on theology and how other sciences are related to it; on knowledge in relation to learning, profession, religion and Church; on literature, philosophy, language, history; on physics in relation to Christianity; on free thought, medicine, the origins and development of universities through the ages. Starting with the latter, Newman's vision unfolds naturally.Older than the university are the liberal arts, practised by gentlemen who could free themselves from the cares of everyday existence. Those ‘arts’ - grammar, dialectics (logic), rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy - grew into what in time came to be called the humanities , or what today passes for ‘the humanities’. In medieval universities, all knowing revolved around theology, but from the seventeenth century onwards, the idea emerged that knowledge brings progress. Physical discoveries were the trigger. Knowledge of the physical universe increased steadily; but what happened in the meantime to the liberal arts, i.e. to literature, philosophy, history? For Newman, what we now call ‘humanities’ are not sciences in the pure sense. They are important, though. They shape the mind. Reading and studying the ‘classics’ - both pagan and Christian - help with thinking and writing. The arts belong in the university, alongside the study of law, medicine and anything belonging to the STEM department, or what is understood as ‘pure science’.In the seventeenth century, as a result of the ‘progress of knowing’ (Francis Bacon's&nbsp;The Advancement of Learning), philosophy (which belonged to the liberal arts) detached itself from theology (which for Newman is a science.) Knowledge which had been passed down concerning the ‘revealed God’ - for five hundred years pivotal to the university - gave way to a philosophy which postulated a new ‘concept of God’ based on progressive physical findings. The philosophers spoke of the ‘ordering principle’, the ‘real being’, the ‘supreme being’&nbsp;and other abstractions. They also spoke of the ‘god of Reason’, and the followers of that god were the ‘deists’. The eighteenth century, or Enlightenment, needed an ordered society and an orderly universe for the time being. The new thing was that the God of Revelation, Providence - who was responsible for order and clarity - henceforth no longer enjoyed primacy, but had to share his place with the god of Science. One could also say that the believer in the scientist and the scientist in the believer took order for granted and desirable, while scientists and believers henceforth began to operate separately from each other. A kind of schizophrenia, in other words.A century later, with the Romantic Movement, Reason came off its pedestal. Theology had already been dethroned; now philosophy was too.&nbsp; The former must tolerate that there are other and equally valuable religions or cultures besides Christianity; the latter must recognise that there is no order. Order exists at most in our minds, as an ideal, but not in reality. If there is no order, then there is no centre. The university which once revolved around theology, and later philosophy, hit a crisis. If the God of Revelation, or the primacy of Reason, is not the starting point for any branch of science, what is still the starting point? In other words, what connects different fields of knowledge to one another?Theology had not only been dethroned, but also placed outside Science, and the same thing was now happening to Philosophy, Literature and History. Where religion from now on was considered subjective, a similar fate awaited the Classics, Philosophy and History. Did they still belong at the university? After all, they were not ‘sciences’. And so what were the practitioners of the ‘humanities’ going to do? In the long run, to justify their academic status, they started imitating the methods of the natural sciences; they fitted themselves with a jargon, a theoretical apparatus, an abstract scaffolding in order to give the prestige of their field academic lustre, i.e. with a right to state support. That trend set in with positivism and continued through the 20th century. Newman did not experience the latter phase (theoretical literary science and similar constructions). His position - and that is the point here - is that ‘subjectivity’ regarding the&nbsp;artes liberales is no less valuable than ‘objectivity’ regarding the sciences. The&nbsp;artes are necessary for our mental growth and belong at the university. However, they should not want to apply the methods of the ‘beta disciplines’.Newman's observation that the university has no centre is fundamental. Without theology, the various disciplines start competing with each other for the central position. Curricula become increasingly sensitive to fashion, and there is a proliferation of chairs for details whose existence is questionable. New fields of knowledge overwhelm the place of ancient theology and later philosophy. Economics, for example, may start dictating from the centre what space the other disciplines will still be given. Furthermore, the applied sciences claim the throne by virtue of their social usefulness.What loses out anyway is general intellectual development, familiarity with the canon of classical authorities. The coherent and speculative take a back seat and are considered useless.&nbsp; They lose their raison d'être.

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Liberalism, a Wrong Path to Take

FVD continues to broaden its international reach. Its congress held in September, with guests from our new international alliance, the Europe of Sovereign Nations party, was the subject of an excellent and highly professional video report by Compact Magazin in Germany. Compact sent Armin-Paul Hampel to report – Paul is a former member of the Bundestag for AfD and a veteran journalist. The video, which is in German, contains interviews with Thierry Baudet, Pepijn van Houwelingen, Gideon van Meijeren, Eric Zemmour, Irmhild Bossdorf MEP, Stanislav Stoyanov MEP and FVD International’s director, John Laughland. You can practise your German comprehension by clicking below. Viel Spaß !<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxFD3_20c_Y&amp;ab_channel=COMPACTTV">Watch the Compact Report here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfdz4CS-dpSzc0kD8R7cFkcQ9x8aEt6fmVF1KulxDRosRrQbK9x0N1QDymRrqeHuH1pPexQmrcHRxMKCQlAflLp8IQWMGMMbJOg08_y9WRrPx6Hffpu8ta7qLacWKYxvj8NDC-CDB7nW3tQCmHb1V742aA?key=kGecqkvU3fQsF4XShoZPd2qf">FVD International’s Vincent Vos was also recently in the international media, this time speaking in English to a German outlet. He was asked about the prospects of a Trump victory for the international system: he replied that the liberal order would no doubt collapse if Harris loses. Vincent emphasized the multilateral nature of the current world conflict, which now includes Israel-Palestine-Lebanon as well as Ukraine, and that support was seeping away from Ukraine after two years of jingoism. “The liberal order is an order of broken promises,” is one of his good lines. Also: “Europeans should understand that their interests are not the same as those of the American empire.”<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/nukes-or-nato">Watch Vincent Vos’ interview here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdHpkMwmtbDON5NbKak47qf-6CHrxAzzqGWCHx9B6xh1A4oDxypYuXxBxSt-eP_UcIbMcDbUwF69vJQF5tWfOmeH8WDd-U-W3E2db2S5IP86pfpVs5E9kevOm2zVwfLdMFnLk77vf3q_U6KI_PaMTGHPtBx?key=kGecqkvU3fQsF4XShoZPd2qf">FVD International is again honoured to re-publish a speech given this week by the former Czech president, Václav Klaus. He is indefatigable. The older he gets, the better he is. In this speech, he says outright not only that sovereignty is the most important issue of our day but also wokeism and liberalism are worse than the Communism under which he grew up.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/nation-state-sovereignty-and-the-concept-of-a-europe-of-nations">Read Václav Klaus’ speech her</a>e<img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdanD8xMFIU6MTh0IMxzav9CmUCjyOlsVlYDY5Rsv92MZcW1khm9NUsHEG2GnOOBScb_21O32jlXGQGmFus1nsTbLHZXG9WmkKG8NtpBSf-VQgvZUEqAUgqWU4SEFuLDSwnh8pVNqP4C9ODMk_S-4VF9V4?key=kGecqkvU3fQsF4XShoZPd2qf">Ewen Stewart of Global Britain was our guest on The Forum this week. He demonstrated the economic collapse of the UK and the West in general, a collapse which is due to the doom loop of ever more managerialism, state spending and debt. Can we ever get out of it? Watch The Forum to find out by clicking below.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jElKeU7AzA4&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Watch the Forum &amp; Friends here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 1 November

Forum for Democracy International

Leader of FVD and Member of Parliament of the Netherlands

David Engels is a Belgian historian and is a research professor at the Instytut Zachodni in Poznan.

Director of Forum for Democracy International

Diana West is an award-winning journalist and author of Death of the Grown-Up.

Max Denken is a Polish-American former university lecturer and TV producer, and since his retirement author of over 100 articles and one book.

Václav Klaus is the former president of the Czech Republic.

Member of the Executive Board of the Vaclav Klaus Institute.

Member of the European Parliament for FVD.

Eric van de Beek is an independent journalist.

Stefan Korte is a foreign policy adviser who worked with Bundestag members from the AfD.

Authors