“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking-GlassWhen Russia invaded Ukraine, Vladimir Putin&nbsp;<a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/28/putin-calls-west-empire-of-lies-as-sanctions-slam-russian-economy-a76652">attacked</a> the West as “an empire of lies.”&nbsp; This reminded me both of Ronald Reagan’s attack on the USSR as “the evil empire” but also of what Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote in his 1973 Letter to the Soviet Leaders&nbsp;:&nbsp;“This Ideology (communism) does nothing now but sap our strength and bind us. It clogs up the whole life of society - minds, tongues, radio and press - with lies, lies, lies. For how else can something dead pretend that it is living except by erecting a scaffolding of lies? …&nbsp;This universal, obligatory force-feeding with lies is now the most agonizing aspect of existence in our country--worse than all our material miseries, worse than any lack of civil liberties.”The ICC is an illustration of this.&nbsp; It has issued an indictment against the Russian president in spite of the fact that neither Russia nor Ukraine is a State Party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.&nbsp; In principle, therefore, the ICC should have no jurisdiction over either country.&nbsp; (According to&nbsp;<a href="https://justiceinconflict.org/2022/03/14/after-all-this-time-why-has-ukraine-not-ratified-the-rome-statute-of-the-international-criminal-court/">one commentator</a>, Ukraine is not a State Party because it does not want to pay the membership fee.)&nbsp; Ukraine has, however, in a simple letter sent to the Registrar of the ICC in 2015, accepted the jurisdiction of the Court – but only for crimes committed by Russians.&nbsp; No war crimes committed by Ukrainians can be adjudicated, according to the explicit text of the Resolution of the Ukrainian parliament appended to the ministerial&nbsp;<a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/iccdocs/other/Ukraine_Art_12-3_declaration_08092015.pdf#search=ukraine">letter</a>.&nbsp; So none of the shelling of Donetsk or Lugansk by the Ukrainian armed forces can be investigated or prosecuted because Ukraine chooses not to hand those matters over to the ICC.The fact that the ICC has no jurisdiction in Russia means that the indictment of Putin and a Russian official is make-believe.&nbsp; Does the ICC pretend that it has police who can march into the Kremlin and take Vladimir Putin away in handcuffs?&nbsp; Under what other circumstances does it think this arrest warrant can be carried out?&nbsp; When in 2015 the then Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, visited South Africa, a State Party to the ICC Statute, South Africa refused to arrest him even though he had been indicted for genocide in 2007.&nbsp; <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/the-real-problem-behind-south-africas-refusal-to-arrest-al-bashir">Nothing happened</a> to South Africa as a result.&nbsp; The obligation on State Parties to carry out arrest warrants against ICC indictees is therefore a dead letter.&nbsp; Putin expects to visit South Africa later this year (South Africa is a member of the important BRICS alliance) and he will surely receive the same courteous treatment as Bashir did.&nbsp; The indictment is therefore just a gesture.Putin is now the sixth head of state to be indicted by the ICC.&nbsp; Omar al-Bashir has never been sent to The Hague, even though he was overthrown in a coup in 2019.&nbsp; Muammar Gaddafi was indicted but murdered in October 2011, so he never came to trial : his son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, was indicted at the same time but he remains a free man and may well run for election to succeed his father.&nbsp;Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast spent ten years in prison in The Hague until the ICC acquitted him in 2019 – even before he had started his Defence, so weak was the Prosecution case.&nbsp; The charges against William Ruto, the current president of Kenya, and Uhuru Kenyatta, the previous president, were dropped in 2016 in a case which&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35974172">severely humiliated</a> the Court.&nbsp; Why does the ICC think it will succeed in arresting the president of the most highly-armed nuclear power in the world, a permanent member of the Security Council, when it cannot even convict leaders of African states?Second, the ICC is supposed to operate on the principle of complementarity.&nbsp;This principle is outlined in Article 17 of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf">Rome Statute</a>.&nbsp; It means that the ICC exercises jurisdiction only when a state is unwilling or unable to carry out the investigation or prosecution.&nbsp; But why would Ukraine be unwilling to investigate Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine?&nbsp; Obviously Ukraine is neither unwilling nor unable : on the contrary.&nbsp; Instead, the decision by the ICC to claim jurisdiction in this case, against the terms of its own Statute, is a political gesture designed to up the ante on the international level and to give the impression that the ICC is stepping up to the plate on the most important political issue of the day.But it is difficult to see how it expects to give that impression.&nbsp; The arrest warrant is based on the alleged “deportation” of Ukrainian children to Russia.&nbsp; Deportation and hostage-taking are indeed mentioned in the Rome Statute (Article 8.2 a vii – viii).&nbsp; But it is obvious that any children being taken to Russia proper are not being “deported” or taken hostage, but instead transported there for their safety.&nbsp; Having orphans put into foster homes or adopted is not abduction.&nbsp; If you read&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/19/we-hugged-for-a-long-time-how-ukrainian-father-went-to-moscow-to-reclaim-his-children">this Guardian article</a> carefully you will see that, although the text repeats the war propaganda vocabulary of the ICC by referring to children being “deported”, in reality the children in this story were immediately reunited with their father on the initiative of the Russian authorities.&nbsp; How can the ICC Prosecutor possibly hope to demonstrate in a court of law that these children were abducted?&nbsp;Finally, the ICC indictment is fascinating for what it does not say.&nbsp; It does not accuse Russia of aggression against Ukraine (Article 5) even though the US and the EU repeatedly accuse it of “<a href="https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/eu-statement-regarding-russia’s-unprovoked-and-unjustified-military-aggression-against-ukraine_en">unprovoked aggression</a>”.&nbsp; The ICC Prosecutor does not accuse Russia of killing prisoners of war, even though Ukraine has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/7/ukraine-urges-icc-probe-over-alleged-prisoner-of-war-killing">alleged</a> that Russia does this.&nbsp; The ICC Prosecutor does not accuse Russia of bombing civilian targets, even though the UN Human Rights Commissioner&nbsp;<a href="https://operationalsupport.un.org/en/russian-attacks-civilian-targets-ukraine-could-be-war-crime-un-rights-office">has said</a> this could be a war crime.&nbsp; We have been told for a year that Russia has been committing all these war crimes - but there is not a word about all this in the indictment.&nbsp; Instead, the Prosecutor concentrates exclusively on something which he has surely misinterpreted.&nbsp; Does this mean that these larger war crimes have not, in fact, been committed, in spite of what Western propaganda has been saying all along?In reality, this absurd indictment is an embarrassing illustration of the last gasp of Western hegemony over the international system.&nbsp; That hegemony has been wielded, inter alia, through international organisations like NATO, the EU, the IMF and the World Bank, some parts of the UN and now the ICC.&nbsp; By showing itself once more – after the disgraceful Libyan fiasco, when the ICC indicted the Libyan leader as NATO bombs were dropping on that country in a regime-change operation – the ICC and its British Prosecutor have shown themselves, once again, to be not an organ of independent justice but instead nothing but a contemptible puppet.

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ICC in Wonderland

After our intensive campaign, the results of the Provincial Council elections 2023 were somewhat disappointing for us - we honestly admit that. Based on the exit polls, we see only modest gains for FVD compared to our position now. After all, converted to our current number of seats in the Lower House (5), we did slightly better with (presumably) 3 seats in the Upper House - but not as well as we thought we could conclude from the millions of views and likes on our socials, the thousands of people at our events, the more than 60,000 members.This does surprise us a little. Perhaps many of our supporters did not turn out to vote. Or maybe there is a much larger contingent of voters who rely on public broadcasting, where we have not been welcome for three years and are systematically demonised (an undemocratic practice we deeply regret).In any case, congratulations are in order for the obvious winner, the Farmers’ and Citizens’ Movement, BBB. With plenty of support from the press, Caroline van der Plas has the wind in her sails and secured an improbable number of seats.This is impressive - but also worrying. For her party supports the cartel's line on all the essential points. After all, BBB favours energy transition, it supports the buyout of farmers, it supports the EU, the war in Ukraine and the woke rainbow agreements.Despite the much-heard interpretation of this election result - that the population has opted for change – it appears that the big winner simply endorses the foundations and underlying assumptions of the current policy.A truly different policy can therefore never come about - quite apart from the fact that, on balance, even the cartel parties naturally retain a solid number of seats. &nbsp;VVD, PvdA, GroenLinks, D66, PvdD, CDA have certainly not been wiped out and together they remain as strong as ever in the Senate and the provinces.If voters had a strong desire for change, it will not come about with this result. In the coming years, we will get more climate policies - more windmills, more solar farms and the cost of living will continue to rise. We are going to see MORE escalation politics towards Russia. More transgender propaganda towards children. The displacement of farmers will continue (perhaps a bit slower, or with a better buy-out, but the direction of the policy remains the same). The hopeless euro project will also continue, pensions will continue to evaporate, the creeping transfer of power to Brussels will continue.It is incredibly unfortunate that the necessary changes are apparently not taking place more smoothly. Apparently, it all takes much longer. Apparently, the truth needs more time to sink in.Indeed, it appears that our country needs to be battered even more, and to endure even more, before we can start rebuilding.So that is how things are. &nbsp; We are long-termists. We continue with our building project - our app, our community - and we continue to reach out to all Dutch people, all of whom remain welcome to join us to improve our lot together.We consider ourselves lucky that when all the votes are counted, we will probably be represented in ALL provinces. We go into the Senate with a close and strong team. We express deep and sincere thanks to all our voters, our volunteers, our campaign staff and our members. And we maintain full courage!See you very soon! Thierry Baudet &nbsp;

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Explaining the 2023 election results

The Netherlands' role in the war against Russia is growing. &nbsp;We are now functioning as a transit country for tanks, sending weapons and money. Soon, F-16s will be added, thanks to the warmongering politics of the Dutch socialists and others. Escalation is not shunned. Instead of aiming for peace, sitting down and sparing human lives, the cartel is pushing us ever further into a war that is not ours.This gives us every cause to worry, according to FVD party leader Thierry Baudet. After all, the heavy losses on the Ukrainian side mean that not only equipment, but possibly also troops will be deployed from NATO. Baudet has said that it could therefore be that Dutch soldiers will be sent to Ukraine. Combined with the emerging demand for a return to conscription, this is a very frightening development.Baudet therefore tabled a motion to rule out that Dutch conscripts will be sent to Ukraine. The House voted overwhelmingly AGAINST it. SP, Denk, D66, CDA, GroenLinks, Partij voor de Dieren, VVD, Volt, SGP and the Omtzigt, Den Haan and Gundogan groups do not want to rule out the possibility that Dutch youngsters - your sons, daughters, brothers or sisters - will be forced to fight against Russia.The provincial elections on 15 March are also indirect elections to the Upper House of the Dutch parliament. That is where the decision-making power lies. Voters should remember this motion well when they walk into the voting booth. These elections are about war or peace - about life or death!

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The looming danger of war

Back in 2021, we had the revelation of emails from the German Interior Ministry which showed that it enlisted scientists to scare the population.Last year it, was revealed that the Covid statistics had been falsified by Dutch Health Minister Hugo de Jonge by inflating the numbers.And now we have the revelation of over 100,000 Whatsapp messages from former British Health Minister, Matt Hancock. The British “Daily Telegraph” has put them online as "The&nbsp; Lockdown Files.&nbsp;From all these revelations, it has been shown time and again that the coronavirus was no more deadly than other cold and flu viruses. As we know from flu and colds, these can be fatal to vulnerable, very old people. For anyone under 80, these viruses are almost never fatal. So it was with Covid-19. It was a common cold virus.Minister Matt Hancock had a discussion with then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, via Whatsapp about this low mortality rate. He wrote that this was a problem because it meant that vaccination targets would not be met.The Lockdown Files also show that in addition to the vaccines, other Covid measures were mainly intended to instil fear of the virus into the population.The revelations in Germany, the Netherlands and now especially in the United Kingdom show that the same Covid policy was deliberately followed in all these countries – policy which had nothing to do with the nature of the coronavirus. The Lockdown Files show that no special measures were needed, given the low mortality of the virus. The British government switched from publishing mortality rates to publishing the number of infections. The entire EU then switched and reported on Covid in the same way.Pushing through the vaccines and introducing the corresponding digital Covid pass was the real goal. For this, no means were shunned.Unvaccinated people were not simply portrayed as irresponsible but as anti-social, dangerous enemies of the state. There were threats of incarceration and forced vaccination. Unvaccinated people were fired. People were locked in their homes via curfews. Hospitals and nursing homes prohibited partners and children from visiting their sick spouses or parents, even when they were dying.From the beginning, there were medical experts who scientifically argued that the imposed measures were futile and warned against the vaccinations.Doctors who protested were silenced on social media. Doctors who prescribed effective drugs were punished with heavy fines and the revocation of their licence.The Lockdown Files show that the unvaccinated and Covid-critical doctors were right – and that there was absolutely nothing right about government policy.&nbsp;What also emerges from the Lockdown Files is the involvement of Bill Gates.&nbsp; Matt Hancock literally messages about Bill Gates, "He owes me one." In other words, Bill Gates owes me one because Hancock had millions of his vaccines injected.&nbsp;This so-called philanthropist bought shares in Big Pharma for $50 million and after the Covid hype was over sold those same shares for $500 million.The contracts with huge sums of money signed by governments with the pharmaceutical multinationals are still not public. The correspondence between Pfizer and EU President Ursula von der Leyen is still secret. The messages between Dutch minister Hugo de Jonge and Prime Minister Mark Rutte about Covid have supposedly been erased.It looks like the European Commission and the governments of EU member states were as aware of Covid’s low mortality as the British government. Their policies were almost identical, the flawed PCR test was accepted EU-wide, the Digital Covid pass became an international travel document, even the wording was almost identical. Several countries started using the same phrases at the same time: “from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, from house to house, from arm to arm.”The measures lacked any reasonable ground yet they violated basic human rights and fundamental freedoms. Physical and mental integrity were violated without justification.There must be government accountability for this in every state. As a Member of the European Parliament, I demand that the European Commission come to Parliament to account for this.Therefore, I ask the President of the European Parliament urgently to put on the agenda for the next Strasbourg session a debate on the Lockdown Files with Ursula von der Leyen.&nbsp;We will see whether the European Parliament wants to take up its controlling task or whether it is complicit in the biggest scandal of the century.

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Demanding accountability for the Covid scam

The Netherlands is being sucked into a war. Together with other Western countries, the Rutte government is implementing increasingly tough sanctions against Russia and sending increasingly heavy weapons to Ukraine. For example, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark are sending 100 battle tanks to the East in the coming months. There is even talk of supplying F-16s. Who can rule out that soon Dutch soldiers and conscripts will be sent to the Ukrainian front?Expensive and highly riskyThe deliveries saddle the Netherlands with huge costs and risks. In less than a year, more than €1 billion has already been spent on military support. By comparison, in the same year the defence budget was € 12 billion. So almost 10 per cent of this went on arms for Ukraine. According to Minister Ollongren there is no limit to the cost of these deliveries. The cabinet is now preparing for long-term deliveries, and in doing so cannot guarantee that this will not have an adverse effect on the capacities of the Dutch army itself. &nbsp;This is lethal.No agreementsMoreover, the equipment is being delivered without it being clear what conditions are attached. We do not know whether Ukraine is receiving the weapons on loan or as a gift. We do not know whether the weapons can be misused (through illegal resale, for example) and what the risks of this are for our own safety. Nor do we know how it will be ensured that Ukraine will stick to agreements made on these deliveries.The German opposition party Alternative für Deutschland has asked the German government questions about this. It turns out that the German government is giving Ukraine the weapons as a gift, without any quid pro quo, and cannot give a clear guarantee about their final destination. Very worrying - and reason for FVD to ask questions about the situation in the Netherlands. Group chairman Thierry Baudet and MP Ralf Dekker demanded clarification from ministers Kajsa Ollongren (Defence) and Wopke Hoekstra (Foreign Affairs).You can read the parliamentary questions below. FVD will continue to work for de-escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. No warmongering, but peace.Questions by Baudet and Dekker to the Minister of Defence and Foreign Affairs on military aid to UkraineCould you provide an overview of executed, intended and/or requested deliveries of military support to Ukraine? Can you indicate for each individual delivery the procedures, conditions and amounts involved? Is this support donated, sold, lent or made available in another way?&nbsp;What considerations underlie these deliveries of military support and who initiated them? Could you please explain your answer and answer for each delivery?For each separately implemented, planned and/or requested delivery of military support to Ukraine, could you please indicate whether there have been (possible) illegalities, such as violations of the law of war, illegal re-sale and non-performance (such as failure to return equipment)? If there are irregularities, can you explain what these irregularities consist of, what amounts and entities are involved and what steps have been taken in response?Can you guarantee that Ukraine will honour the agreements made regarding the delivery of military support? If so, why? If not, how do you assess this and how will you ensure that you can give this guarantee?Can you rule out that the deployment of Dutch soldiers or conscripts will also be covered by military support to Ukraine in the future? Can you explain this?Can you, in accordance with Article 68 of the Constitution, provide access to all data and correspondence related to the implemented, intended and/or requested provision of military support to Ukraine? If not, why not?In answering these questions, can you include all military aid intended in any way for Ukraine and thus include resupply through third parties? If not, why not?Can you answer these questions in full, separately, and as soon as possible?

FVD puts down questions to the Dutch government about arms shipments to Ukraine.

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Weapons to Ukraine? FVD asks questions.

The provincial elections in the Netherlands are coming up and the polls show that the anti-establishment vote will once again grow larger. A new party “Farmers' Citizens' Movement (BBB)” might soon become a major player in the political landscape. The main issue BBB campaigns on is the farmers.&nbsp; It owes its success to the huge farmers' protests here in the Netherlands.&nbsp;However, while the Netherlands is teeming with new "right-wing" parties in politics, there is a big difference in how fundamentally these parties oppose the current political order. So the question is: “To what extent can we talk about anti-establishment parties?”In Thierry Baudet's new book, Gideon’s Men, he distinguishes between two different forms of opposition: policy-opposition and system-opposition. Policy opposition is conducted by parties which differ from the status quo on some issues but which go along with the generally accepted narrative on others. Therefore, there is little or no overarching vision among these parties which constitutes a critique of the entire current power structure. The criticism of power by these parties is therefore mainly that the current power is going too far with its agenda. For instance, the opposition party JA21 is against mass immigration when it comes to "low-skilled labour”, but, according to them, there should be even more immigration of "high-skilled labour". The point being made, then, is not a fundamental position against immigration but against the type of immigration. This position fits perfectly with the globalist narrative of the status quo. They are working within the narrative of the status quo.BBB is doing the same with the farmer narrative. The government's line is that farmers must eventually be expropriated to meet fictitiously set nitrogen targets. While BBB claims to be against forced expropriation, it adopts the government's narrative that there is a nitrogen problem. What parties like BBB and JA21 seem unwilling to grasp is that all political issues are related; they are part of a larger metapolitical narrative.&nbsp;For instance, it is impossible simultaneously to stand up for farmers' interests, to be in favor of mass immigration and to want to incorporate Ukraine into the European Union. These things are incompatible with each other.&nbsp; The hidden governmental meta-narrative here is that farmers have to leave their land to facilitate the mass immigration required by transnational corporations.&nbsp; When Ukraine is completely absorbed into the Western sphere, Dutch farmers will no longer be able to compete with the huge industrial farms in Ukraine. This internal connection is dismissed by these parties as a conspiracy theory, whereas it is perfectly logical when the bigger picture is seen. These parties are incapable of seeing the larger narrative. Worse, the bigger picture matters little to these parties. BBB is for example proud that its group chairwoman, Caroline van der Plas, states that she has no ideology. What she does not seem to understand is that everyone has an ideology.&nbsp; In the modern world, where the mass media has got a grip over all of us, politics and thus ideology have penetrated our society everywhere.The bearers of the current dominant ideology are well aware of this fact.&nbsp; They use all their opportunities to force their views on society through the metapolitics of their institutions. While policy-opposition-parties often think that the primacy of power still lies in the Lower House of our Parliament, the opposite is true. The real power lies within a unified political order comprising international organisations, the media, Hollywood, NGOs, the banks, transnational corporations, judges and civil servants. These people in positions of power all think fundamentally the same about where we should go with the world.&nbsp;The concept of&nbsp; "controlled opposition" is often used to describe weak opposition. The suggestion is often made that controlled opposition is consciously, against its better judgement, playing a role. While of course the sincerity of some parties can certainly be doubted, it can also be the case that they are effectively controlled because they cannot think outside the box. Policy-opposition is always controlled by the dominant superstructure because it operates within the frameworks of the status quo and has based its entire perception of the world on that. Increasingly, we find parties taking a certain position from a kind of ignorance because they do not understand how things are connected. Every time a new issue arises on the news, which parties have to state something about, policy-opposition-parties will instinctively adhere to the government narrative. We have seen this with the attitude of policy-opposition-parties on both COVID and the situation in Ukraine.This can be understood by the fact that policy-opposition parties do not fundamentally understand politics. Politics are downstream from culture and culture is mainly formed by cultural institutions - are currently Hollywood and (social) media. This is because people only know what is presented to them: their frame of reference is based on what media they consume. When you have control over these institutions you have control over politics. This is why progressive-globalist policies will constantly win in the end. The progressive-left has been so successful in gaining dominance over society because it understood very well how this process of media-conditioning works. It uses metapolitics to shape the political order in its way. The key insight that these policy opposition parties do not have is that the system is inherently rigged. Thus, the progressive-globalist state system will always lead to even more progressive-globalism, since it was shaped in that way.If the anti-establishment Right wants to make real change, it will have to view politics from a metapolitical perspective and oppose the whole political order. Only then can progress be made to form an alternative to it.Forum for Democracy (FVD) is the only movement that does not just oppose the current political parties; FVD opposes the entire political order. This includes the realisation that politics does not only involve what is said and done in our Lower and Upper House. To change politics we need to oppose the whole political order. We must oppose the ideology of international institutions, of Hollywood, of the media, of the big banks and of transnational corporations: we need system-opposition.FVD is the only party that sees this bigger picture. The West is rapidly collapsing due to a combination of spiritual emptiness, hyper-individualism, universalism, consumerism and hyper-materialism. To resist the major international forces pushing these tendencies and capturing our system, a clear alternative ideological vision is needed. Only FVD contemplates these sorts of metapolitical questions. Only FVD stands for real change.

Policy-opposition versus System-opposition.

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Politics versus Metapolitics

Jelena Postuma is an economist, writer, columnist and politician in the Almere City Council. On Friday 17 February, she gave a lecture at the Renaissance Institute in Amsterdam on the dangers of Central Bank Digital Currencies. She was interviewed beforehand.This week, it became clear that the government is ushering us into a digital identity via the EU, without the approval of the Lower House of the Dutch Parliament. But it has not actually been a big news story at all. CBDCs are a similar development, but they never get much attention in the national press either. Why do you think that is?It is a tried-and-tested method of the EU to implement major developments, which logically can be expected to attract a lot of criticism, as silently as possible, until a point of no return is reached. If people were aware of how far the European Central Bank has already gone with the development of CBDCs, and what it will mean for them in the future, there would be much more resistance to these developments - which is why little attention is paid to them.&nbsp;Besides, complex issues like the digital passport and the CBDC are seen by many people as too complicated and boring.&nbsp; They seem remote.&nbsp; Since the mainstream media aims to attract as many viewers and readers as possible, they are more likely to focus on more manageable, concrete topics. Ultimately, this is to the detriment of readers, who, when the CBDC is actually introduced, will be overwhelmed by its consequences.&nbsp;Therefore, it is important to gather as much information on the subject oneself, either through alternative media or directly through ECB reports, and share it with as many people as possible. This is the first step in preparing for and arming yourself against the coming of the CBDC.&nbsp;Why do you think people often go along with these kinds of technological developments so easily?&nbsp;Many people value convenience. They especially find it "easy" when they can pay anywhere with their smartphone and QR code, or when all their data is "easily" combined with a digital passport. The convenience is immediately visible to many people, while the dangers, such as the loss of privacy and eventually even freedom, are even more abstract and less visible.&nbsp;Another factor in this is that, from the government and mainstream media, these kinds of developments are above all highlighted in a positive light.&nbsp; Much-needed critical voices are immediately dismissed as "conspiracy thinkers". A large part of the population still tends to trust the authorities and therefore thinks that the dangers are not that serious.&nbsp;&nbsp;Do you see any way out if CBDCs do get imposed soon, through the banks or through the government?At the moment, there are still ways out, but the further the roll-out of the CBDC progresses, the harder it will become to get out of it. To minimise the impact of the CBDC on your life, it is important to take action now to increase your own independence.&nbsp;Two aspects of this are important: finding an alternative means of payment which is separate from the government, and connecting with like-minded people and businesses in your area that you know you can trust when needed.&nbsp;To ensure that in the coming years, when the CBDC is implemented, you can continue to support yourself without depending on the terms of the CBDC, it is important to set up a parallel, local economy now. Currently, it is still relatively easy to set something like this up, but the further the CBDC and digital identity will become intertwined in everyday life, the more difficult it will become.

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The danger of CBDC's

Numerous articles in the European press, Dutch and French in particular, have claimed that Brexit has hurt Britain and that the country’s current woes are the consequence of its decision to leave the EU.These claims are the same as those made before the 2016 referendum and during the four-year political fight to the death to achieve Brexit in the period 2016-2020.&nbsp; They are made by the same people and for the same purpose – to argue for a de facto or even de iure reversal of Brexit.These people will never take No for an answer.&nbsp;The British voted for Brexit not once but three times – in the 2016 referendum, in the May 2019 European elections and in the December 2019 general election.&nbsp; In all three polls, Brexit was the issue and the result was the same.&nbsp;The anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats did badly, their leader losing her seat in the end.&nbsp; In the 2017 general election, all major parties said they were in favour of Brexit.Yet “the blob” (or the deep state, or the establishment) refuses to accept that Brexit is anything other than a disaster.&nbsp;Although Rishi Sunak claims to have been in favour of Brexit, he never actually spoke in favour of it and is now embracing an uber-globalism which appears to aim at dissolving Britain even faster than would have happened in the EU.The truth is that, while the British economy has weaknesses, these are no greater than in other major European economies.&nbsp; On the contrary, on employment Britain is doing better than most European economies and it continues to attract some 1 million immigrants a year.&nbsp; Net immigration into the UK in 2022 was over 500,000.&nbsp; I am against such levels of immigration but they show that the British economy draws people in from around the world while the unemployment figures remain low.The fact is that Brexit has had a negligeable effect on the British economy.&nbsp; Far greater damage has been done by Covid lockdowns and the associated reckless spending (£450 billion was blown on Covid by Rishi Sunak as Chancellor); by the Ukraine war and the blowback from sanctions; and of course by the monetary creation which comes from zero interest rates, which all Western countries pursued and which has led to the current high levels of inflation.&nbsp; Brexit is not the cause of either low growth or high inflation.Trade with the EU has recovered to levels similar to those before 2020, while trade with the rest of the world has increased.&nbsp; The City of London has not seen substantial losses and has, on the contrary, continued to maintain itself as the dominant financial centre of Europe and indeed the world.&nbsp; Emmanuel Macron personally opened a new J P Morgan trading room in Paris with 800 new employees and this was supposed to show how the City is haemorrhaging jobs.&nbsp; But J P Morgan employs 19,000 people in the UK.It is very convenient for the blob to blame Brexit because the blob wanted lockdown.&nbsp; But lockdown did far more damage.&nbsp; In addition to wasting titanic sums of money, lockdown produced a health crisis (other diseases went untreated) and a work crisis: people still refuse to come in to the office, two years on.&nbsp;Ukraine sanctions have similarly disastrous effect, both on inflation (energy prices) and on public finances (handouts of public money to cap energy prices).&nbsp; High inflation is caused by: 1. Covid, 2. Ukraine and 3. Net zero.&nbsp; It is not caused by Brexit.The sad fact is that Brexit has been betrayed.&nbsp;Brexit Britain should have cut taxes, de-regulated by abolishing EU legislation and cut immigration.&nbsp; It has raised taxes, allowed immigration to rise and has not abolished a single EU law.&nbsp; With thousands of people crossing the Channel in rubber boats every week, not a single plane has taken asylum seekers to be processed in Rwanda because of the European Court of Human Rights whose jurisdiction remains in force in Britain.&nbsp;Rishi Sunak is a child of Davos who promised to ‘re-wire’ the global financial system to achieve net zero.&nbsp; His Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is the very quintessence of the blob.&nbsp;Brexit has not even been really implemented and yet it is blamed for things which the blob’s beloved policies in fact caused.&nbsp;The dishonesty is obvious and shameless.

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Don't blame Brexit

Marie-Thérèse ter Haar is a lecturer, author, Russia expert and the founder of the Russia &amp; Eastern Europe Academy. On Friday 10 February, she gave a lecture at the Renaissance Institute in Amsterdam on the differences and relations between Russia and the West. She was interviewed beforehand.Why Russia? Where does the interest come from?At 18, I did not know what I wanted to do after high school. I thought I might study a language or music. Stories about the tsars, sleighs through the snow or the balls at the Hermitage, as described in Russian literature, had always attracted me. Then I suddenly thought, “I want to be able to read those letters by Tolstoy.”&nbsp; So in my first year of university, I got credits to spend three months in “scary, communist Russia” to learn the language.I ended up staying for longer, getting to know the people, I fell in love, I visited every corner of the great country with all its nationalities and I enjoyed the warmth and cordiality of the people. It fascinated me even then, that the world in which I found myself was very different from the world I had been led to expect from Dutch books and the Dutch news. That does not mean that I did not see the nasty aspects of communism, but I did notice that I was incredibly biased against the Russian people. In my mind, Russians lived in total unfreedom, behind bars, as it were. They could not possibly be happy, could they? And that is where the scales did fall from my eyes - you can be happy with the theatre, with a Chekhov or a Tchaikovsky. How you can be happy with a Lada or mental wealth! That is where a psychological fascination began, which continues to this day.I entered Russia totally biased and indoctrinated, and came out, so to speak, with a deep understanding of the other side of the story. And then I see what is happening in our society right now when it comes to Russia. Every day, it fascinates me how the Dutch have become totally indoctrinated about that country, perhaps even more violently now than in the days of the Iron Curtain.&nbsp;Speaking of indoctrination, what do you think is the biggest misconception that people from the West have about Russia?I think many Westerners are convinced that people in Russia are oppressed because they are ruled autocratically, that they are terrified of being arrested or that people of the older generation are completely intoxicated by state propaganda. They have always been oppressed, haven't they? They have always suffered and always had a dictatorial regime. Those Russians, they can't be happy, can they?For a lot of Dutch people, this happens unconsciously, because the propaganda machine has been running like this for 30 years (and even longer). KGB, Pussy Riot, Navalny, pipelines, Russia as an expansionist power, the troll factory, camps in Siberia like under Stalin - a lot of Dutch people are unaware how much that kind of propaganda affects their thinking. So I have a lot of understanding for that ignorance among many compatriots and for the effect which the repetition of fear words, continuously pumped into our Western brains, can have.But then you have another section of Westerners who are arrogant or convinced that only one system is best: our Western free market and democracy. We have had the opportunity to accompany some of them at the Russia &amp; Eastern Europe Academy. They have an absolute conviction that people can only be happy within our Western system. For them, happiness is non-existent without our 'freedoms', without our relatively recently developed ideas about politics, law and governance. I really cannot get my head around that. I have done education at political parties, from the Green Left to the Christian Democrats. All friendly people, but their blind arrogance towards any other culture spills out. Our interpreter work in business and at universities has also provided examples galore. In general, people are convinced that Russia should follow the West.&nbsp;This arrogance is completely misplaced. Russians are a developed people with their own identity. A strong aspect of that identity - which you also recognise in some other Eastern European countries - is, for instance, a high level of culture. Even in Communist times, it was quite common to go to the theatre wearing traditional costume, stylishly and civilised. And that was not once every six months. No, it was part of your upbringing - once a month. That high culture, drama, opera, literature, they know all about that. Here in the West, you have to have a very specific interest; you do not just get it as part of your education. How many Western politicians can quote from Shakespeare? Would the public even understand such a quotation? This is a crucial difference with Russia. When a Russian politician raises a quote from a great writer, the average Russian thinks it normal.&nbsp;Culture is very deeply embedded.&nbsp;&nbsp;Why do you think the West understands Russia so poorly?As a Western woman, I was still allowed to experience the Soviet Union. I saw the system slowly collapse. I lived among ordinary people, heard their side of the story and how they thought about things. But the well-known Russia correspondents, people of my generation like Laura Starink or Hubert Smeets, they mainly travelled up and down from Russia to the Netherlands, mingling in the circles of the opposition, the dissidents. I often said to them, “Go and visit other people, normal people and write about that too.” But no, the only group they were interested in were the dissidents. A very small group of intellectuals, anti-communist and very pro-Europe. The old generation are figures like Sakharov, and now you have people like Navalny. This small group is the only one that one reads about in the Dutch papers. It has been like that for almost 40 years.Of course I have also been partly involved with this group; you have to know about its existence. And I also learned a lot from the people in the Navalny protest march 10 years ago, because I wanted to know what inspired my friends. I am quite well disposed towards those people, but they are only a small elite , rebellious group. And unfortunately they have no good plan B yet.&nbsp;The rest of the country is mostly denigrated in the media as old-fashioned, docile Russian patriots, but that is the 80-90% Russians who currently say, “We support our government.” There are very ordinary, decent people among them. These are not just Putin-lovers or oligarchs: they are directors of big theatres, musicians, businessmen, entrepreneurs, technicians, scientists or workers. And we hear almost nothing about that vast majority in the Netherlands. Why are we not curious about them? Why don't we ask ourselves the big 'why' questions?It has genuinely amazed me what a shift has taken place. Very normal people who were only pro-Western for the past 30 years have now taken a deeply patriotic stance. They have read up, done their homework, and now really know what they are talking about geopolitically. That was less the case a year ago. Their country is under threat from NATO/America and genuine patriotism has been cultivated.&nbsp;Let us in the West at least delve into the 'why' questions: “Why are so many Russians disappointed in us?” The only way to get past the grim state of this war is to at least understand why Russia acted the way it did. The West also is very hypocritical but the media and politicians will not readily acknowledge that. Still, we must try to engage in dialogue. It is the only way to prevent this drama from escalating further.

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"Russians could not possibly be happy, could they?"

Forum for Democracy International

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