Donald Hank
Soros mourns the passing of the EU
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By Donald Hank
May 30, 2014

    Open Society: a voluntary association of equal states that surrendered part of their sovereignty for the common good. George Soros, Founder, Open Society Foundation
Last week's EU elections make it clear that the richer EU member states no longer have the political will to stay with the sinking EU. There is now utter panic among the political class. Even Stratfor, which has always posed as politically neutral, is lamenting that the European "nationalists" are a threat to the stability of the EU, refusing to recognize that, on the contrary, the EU is a threat to national sovereignty everywhere.

After ignoring the populist complaints for decades, the elitist hue and cry is "we must do something!" Their solution is to "create jobs," the usual Keynesian non-solution to a disaster caused by Keynesianism.

Nor has a single one of them suggested curbing immigration, the centerpiece, for example, in the platform of the French sovereigntists (unjustly called the "far right") who walked away with the election last week.

Thus their only response is more of the same Fabian deception. "How can we continue to deceive them?" is what they are really saying.

It was in this vein that George Soros sat down with Fareed Zakarias on CNN Sunday evening and it was clear from Soros' grim words and demeanor that he does not hold much hope for the EU to survive.

Viewers who are unaware of last week's EU election results or not familiar with Soros' book may not have caught his drift.

Zakaria asks Soros toward the end of the interview if he thinks nationalism could break up the European Union. Soros says

"Yes, it's that and Europe needs to recognize it, and we [meaning the US] need to recognize it, actually."

Two years ago, Soros had already written The Tragedy of the European Union, a title suggesting what Soros had expected then. Soros pleads therein for one of two alternatives, namely, that Germany should either "lead or leave." Absurdly, he laments that Germany wants to set the terms of lending, as normal lenders have always done. Evoking His Holiness John Maynard Keynes, he maintains that creditor countries like Germany must give their debtors an equal say in the terms of debt and be a more "benevolent hegemon." Part of that policy would be to extend the exact same terms to the debtors, like Greece, the right to float bonds rated (dishonestly) as "risk-free," thereby allowing them low interest terms (this mirrors the no-doc, no-downpayment banking policies promoted by the US government and the central banks that caused the economic crisis of 2007-8, also extensions of Keynesianism). Soros reminds us that His Majesty Keynes had suggested there should be complete equality between debtor and creditor. He also reminds that, after all, Germany was the recipient of the generous Marshall Plan after the war and there were no strings attached. Why shouldn't Germany, therefore, follow the US's lead and give the Greeks easy terms? In so saying, he ignores at least 2 vital facts:
    1 – the Marshall Plan was not primarily a loan, it was essentially outright aid. It was in America's interest to make Germany a strong 'captive' trading partner because we had intact industries while theirs was a shambles, whereas today it is not in Germany's interest to prop up debt-addicted nations like Greece that are nothing but a thorn in its side and require perennial bailouts.

    2 – Germany has always had a culture of thrift, honesty and frugality in business, in contradistinction to most of Southern Europe. (Even tourist guide books warn travelers to be wary of shysters there). The US could therefore reasonably expect Germany to lift itself up economically, as it did.
But Soros, as a devout political globalist (i.e., a person who subscribes to the notion of global governance as a tenet of faith), denies the existence of cultural differences which ordinary people can easily see. When I was working as a salesman at the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, for example, German tourists who hesitated to buy from Italian salesman would often buy from me, taking me to be a German since I spoke their language. This was not due to prejudice toward the Italians. It was due to untoward experiences they had had with Italian sales people in contrast to their dealings with basically honest German merchants. This is cultural, not racial. (Merchants in Florence, like my boss, for example, routinely repaired broken chess pieces with wax – cera in Italian. Essentially this is just cosmetic, not functional, and is an ancient Roman practice whence we derive the word sincere – Latin: sine cera, without wax).

While the title of Soros' book also contains a reference to proposed solutions, his use of the word "tragedy" suggests that he is fearful his proposals will be rejected. He admits that Merkel had rejected the "benevolent hegemon" idea (she later acquiesced). One reason for his pessimism is that the German high court could reject EU bailouts of ailing countries as unconstitutional. Soros, whose Open Society Foundation goes around the world pushing "democracy," is never shy about meddling in the affairs of other countries, insisting that Germany must change its constitution to suit him. The people's will be damned.

If Soros had not seen the handwriting on the wall, it is doubtful he would have used the word "tragedy" to describe the EU's plight.

After all, if a friend or loved one is sick in the hospital but is expected to live, we do not call that a tragedy. It is merely an unfortunate setback. It is a tragedy only if the patient is dying.

But when Soros affirms, following the EU elections, that "nationalism" could break up the EU, that takes the narrative up a notch or two. If he had already feared the breakup of the EU in 2012, what must he think now that the "nationalists" have unleashed what many analysts are calling an "earthquake" in European politics?

Soros later added a report to the book that the European Central Bank (ECB) had since agreed to "do what it takes to preserve the euro as a stable currency," but Soros admitted that, while the future of the euro seemed assured, the future of the EU was up to "political decisions" to be made in the next few years. With Eurosceptic parties trending toward a takeover of their countries' legislature, there can be little doubt that Soros' "tragedy" is in the works and that he is fully aware of this.

Soros mourns the passing of the EU (Part II)

One sign that Soros is desperately flailing about is that he uses the old tried-and-failed tactic of smearing the anti-EU parties and their perceived allies the Russians.

Let's look at this part of the interview:
    SOROS: [...deletia...] The euro crisis is no longer a financial crisis. It's turning into political crisis and you're going to see in the elections and Putin –

    ZAKARIA: Explain what that means. It's going to be – you're going to see it in the elections because you're going to see the rise of nationalist anti-European forces?

    SOROS: Yes, and interestingly, they are supported by Russia and pro-Russian. So Russia has emerged as an alternative to the European Union. Putin has sort of come out of the closet in Ukraine. With their ideology that is nationalist, [garbled] be some ethic nationalism, you could call it Russism.
Here we see two subterfuges all in one short paragraph. Firstly, Soros says Russia has "come out of the closet" as a nationalist in Ukraine. This is not true. Putin always put his own people first. Our presidents also at least pretend to do this. (And as Pat Buchanan recently pointed out, what Russia did with Crimea is perfectly analogous to what the US did in Texas, militarily defeating a country to protect its citizens residing there and then annexing the part containing the ethnic Americans. Globalists don't do this. They have no allegiance to any "people").

Secondly, he makes it seem as if there is a new – ism in the world, Russism. How could a knowledgeable geopolitical analyst know so little about Russian history as to think Putin's motivation is something novel? As early as the 1800s there was a major political dichotomy in Russian politics and society, between the Russophiles (that's the word you were searching for, Mr. Soros) and the Europhiles. (This is evidenced in Turgenev's novella "Nest of Noble Folk" and Tolstoy's War and Peace (where Pierre, the protagonist, starts out as an admirer of Bonaparte but later, seeing the latter's cruelty to the Russians, plots to kill him). Now, while this dichotomy later became secondary to that of communism vs. conservatism, the Russophilic nature of Soviet leaders was always visible in their policies. (For example, non-traditional sexual lifestyles running counter to Christian orthodoxy, such as are promoted in the West today, were suppressed in the Soviet Union). A notable exception was the Western leaning (Europhilic) Gorbachev. Thus, the descriptor Russism is redundant.

Both Zakaria and Soros further smear the anti-EU parties by suggesting that they are fascist. After coining the redundant neologism "russism," Soros says: "It's a new word to describe it because I don't want to call it Nazi because it is very similar to what you had in the end of warfare and fascism, you know.." [my highlighting]

Let me first say that George Soros or anyone else who supports the EU has no moral authority to call anyone else a Nazi. The corporatism (crony capitalism) pervading Western economies is a salient feature of fascism.

The founding of the EU had its origins in Hitler's Germany. Walter Funk, Hitler's second Minister of the Economy, first coined the name European Community (Europäische Gemeinschaft), the name given to the third metamorphosis of the European Project, and outlined a plan for such a community. (These metamorphoses were: 1. European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), est. 1951 > 2. European Economic Community (EEC), est. 1957 > 3. European Community (translation of name coined by Funk) and 4. European Union, both est. simultaneously in 1993). Funk also outlined a plan for the configuration of such a community, which is strangely similar to that of today's EU.

Further, the corporate preparations for WW II were attributable mostly to IG Farben Industrie AG, one of the biggest financiers of Hitler's military adventures. A 1940 document issued by IG Farben outlines the plan for that agglomerate to take over European chemical manufacturing, a plan including a common currency and a European court.

Further, a large number of the EU's founders were "former" Nazis. Walter Hallstein was a law professor under Hitler who wrote the racist "Blood and Honor" law, which, among other things, prohibited marriage between Jews and German nationals. I am sure you'd expect this Jew baiting racist to have been sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials, right?

Not really. In 1958, this loathsome creature was chosen as the first president of the European Commission (part of the EEC), a body designed to rule Europe beyond democratic control. It exists unchanged in its undemocratic (unelected) structure under the EU. Europe had come full circle, as detailed in Rodney Atkinson's book Europe's Full Circle.

Perhaps it is not surprising then that Transparency International worries about a "corruption risk" in the EU, where bribery seems to be a problem.

The interview with Zakaria discloses not only Soros' expectations that the EU is on its way out but also another bombshell about Soros and his role in the Ukraine disturbances.

You see, Soros carries within himself the seeds of his own downfall, namely, an ebullient pride in his achievements, which are not particularly savory to those of us beneath the rank of multibillionaire. This propensity gives rise to gaffes, like his confession in a 60 Minutes interview that he helped the Nazis confiscate the possessions of Jews in Hungary, and the fact that he considered this one of the most exhilarating experiences of his life. I saw the interview video while it lasted, but unfortunately, it seems to have been scrubbed from the web. A billion dollars buys you a lot of scrubbing. Here is a scrap of it.

An e-cquaintance of mine, who knows Soros personally, reminded me that Soros doesn't really care about anything but making money so the failure of the EU is irrelevant to him. However, Soros' interview with Zakaria and his book clearly show that it is not money but rather power that fires Soros' imagination. The billions are just a vehicle. Indeed, in his book, he waxes rhapsodic about the EU as the "embodiment of an open society – a voluntary association of equal states that surrendered part of their sovereignty for the common good." The real tragedy of George Soros is that he fails to see the little guy at the bottom of the heap, dealing as he does only with the super rich and/or powerful. First of all, if he saw real people's viewpoint, he would understand that the EU is voluntary only for the powerful and well connected, so it is not democratic. In order for Prime Minister Ted Heath to persuade the UK to join the EU precursor EEC, for instance, he lied telling them the UK would not lose sovereignty. Today's Britons are increasingly aware that the people never surrendered their sovereignty. They were betrayed, a charge I hear over and over from my UK friends. Further, the states are not equal since only the core countries have to pay exorbitant taxes to the EU and must tolerate an intolerable immigration burden.

Soros, like all political globalists, is so intent upon seeing his dream succeed that he will use any tactic, including deceit, to achieve his goal.

But if the supranational elites need to use deceit to achieve it, then it is not democracy. It is an oligarchy. You might call it a "deceptocracy."

Soros mourns the passing of the EU (Part III)

Take a look at this exchange between Soros and Zakaria and keep in mind that the globalists and neocons are busy pinning all the troubles in Ukraine on the Russians.
    ZAKARIA: [...deletia...] ... during the revolutions of 1989 [you] funded a lot of dissident activities, civil society groups in eastern Europe and Poland, the Czech Republic. Are you doing similar things in Ukraine?

    SOROS: Well, I set up a foundation in Ukraine before Ukraine became independent of Russia. And the foundation has been functioning ever since and played an important part in events now. [my highlighting]
Yet later in the same interview, Soros absurdly asserts: "Putin will try to destabilize Ukraine .."

Did you catch that? Right after admitting that he himself had played a major role in destabilizing Ukraine to the extent of toppling an elected government, he accuses the Russians of plotting to destabilize Ukraine.

He then says: "...but the ... large majority of Ukrainians are determined to be independent of Russia..."

Excuse me, George. If the large majority are determined to be independent of Russia, why did it take a division of your NGOs and German NGOs working in tandem with officials from the EU, Germany and the US (to the tune of $5 billion for the US alone) to persuade them to declare their independence? And why are so many people in Eastern Ukraine willing to take up arms to defend their right to be Russian (they are ethnic Russians. You know, analogously to the ethnic Americans at the then-Mexican Alamo)?

But here's the main question: did your foundation warn the Ukrainians that the EU, the body you urged them to sign an association agreement with, was about to suffer economically "tragic" consequences – consequences you yourself were fully aware of in 2012? Why would you invest so much effort and energy in persuading the citizens of a country to stage a lethally violent coup to win the "right" to join an entity that you admitted was headed for a "tragedy"? Particularly when they had a stable relationship with an indulgent partner country that supplied them with fuel and was never in a hurry to collect payment for it?

Referring to President Putin's tightening of the media and internet, he says: "If you have freedom, free media and so on and a flourishing economy, that would make his regime unsustainable."

This could be true, in part. If Russia allows Western agents provocateurs free rein to spread anti-Russian propaganda, then of course, it might be possible to destabilize Russia, just as they destabilized Ukraine, Georgia, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, etc. After all, our own American agents provocateurs, for example, in Hollywood, the msm, "education," politics, academe and most professions, have destabilized the West to the point of virtual disintegration. They have discredited Judeo-Christian values, turning our country into a veritable brothel, spreading perversion in the schools in the name of 'justice,' charging the tax payer for abortions, forcing tax payers to pay for sex changes of prisoners while denying basic care to veterans, and have promoted Keynesianism, a variant of Marxism that has failed in the West just as miserably as communism failed in the East, leading to unsustainable debt and unfunded liabilities in both the US and Europe, a welfare system that pays almost half of Americans not to work, to the tune of about $1 trillion a year, creates division among races and between the sexes, leads us into war on a regular basis against countries that in most cases become our enemies only after we invade them (we call that aggression when other countries do it), and imports millions of immigrants, a disproportionate share of which are criminals, gang bangers, drug dealers, cartel enforcers and cold blooded killers, and much more. They have stolen not so much our personal freedom but our sovereignty.

Russia saw us get the freedom we wanted. Good and hard. Any wonder they aren't having any?

Finally, let me say a few words about the so-called "far right" parties in Europe that won the bulk of the EU Parliament seats last week in their respective countries.

Soros and his ilk would like to confuse the ovine masses by conflating true Neonazi parties like Greece's Golden Dawn with the anti-EU parties in the core countries to the north.

Nice try, but the relatively sophisticated voters there know better.

I have been subscribed for some time to the newsletters of Marine LePen's Front National and

Geert Wilders' PVV (Freedom Party) and I have listened to their speeches in their native languages. Marine is a cultured, highly intelligent and decent lady whose utterances are respectful of all races. Like any honest French person, however, she has seen her country ravaged by intolerant Muslim radicals and is not afraid to speak out. Some are shocked. Her father was accused of some untoward statements and that is unfortunate. But Marine herself is a person who can be trusted, and the French, who are skittery about racism and the "far right," have over the years, finally realized – despite the msm's accusations of the kind Soros makes in this interview – that she is simply a person who cares deeply about sovereignty and the French people and culture (I have explained here why I consider sovereignty in some ways more important than even individual freedom). Her love of sovereignty is altruistic, extending to sovereignty movements of other nations as well. She may be unique in that. It is a rare quality.

Soros mourns the passing of the EU (Part IV)

Geert Wilders, leader of the PVV (Partij Voor de Vrijhijd, or Freedom Party) is another very sincere leader who, though displaying a somewhat more blunt style than Marine, also cares deeply about his own country and is eager to restore its sovereignty. He too expresses concern over the Muslim invasion and has called for a halt to the EU-imposed immigration from Morocco due to the disproportionate number of crimes committed by that community. The majority of his countrymen seem to agree. He has received death threats and needs body guards to walk outside. The Dutch msm once hammered him mercilessly but are increasingly reserved now that PVV has become decidedly mainstream.

Both leaders care about lessening the impact of unbridled immigration and onerous taxation foisted upon them by the EU, thanks to their involuntary membership therein. This year for the first time, a tipping point has been reached and the people have seen that the EU is their enemy.

As for UKIP's Nigel Farage, many of you have heard his fiery speeches against the EU made in the EU's own parliament. While some of my UK correspondents would like to see him more committed to ending the unlimited immigration from Muslim countries that is devastating large swaths of the UK, he is an effective leader and has been able to garner more and more seats in the EU for his party, which is dedicated to pulling the UK out of the EU.

So now, my fellow Americans, where is our Front National, our Freedom Party, our UKIP? For decades, no US politician from any political party – including third parties – has applied the word "sovereignty" to the American people.

Our federal government has far overstepped its constitutional bounds in every way, stripping the states and local governments of their rights. This means that the states and local governments have lost their sovereignty. The consequences are the same here as they are across the pond: unbridled immigration and the attendant loss of our jobs, our culture and our safety; loss of constitutional freedoms and a growing tax burden, not only from the IRS but also from the Fed's insistence on inflation, which it falsely assesses at around 2% a year but which is in fact much higher in terms of staples and fuel. This problem is incorrectly viewed as a freedom issue when in fact it is primarily a sovereignty issue. Our inability to grasp the issue of sovereignty and the loss thereof is standing in the way of a rational solution. Put succinctly, sovereignty is in large part the right of a country to have and preserve its culture. Unbridled personal freedom is largely responsible for destroying that culture.

The Europeans are slowly experiencing a late awakening to this loss of sovereignty in their own countries and now for the first time since the war, they are rising up and taking their own destinies into their hands.

Will we do likewise?

Shall we?

That was supposed to be the end of my commentary.

However, the struggle between good and evil, between truth and deceit, is never over. It is eternal because it is spiritual.

This morning I received, from one of my UK friends, a link to a report titled "Anger as European Commission asks British taxpayers for an extra ₤500." This is the response of the unelected EU bosses to the millions of voices crying for an end to the tyranny. The reason given for the tax increase?

To aid the Ukrainians. Polls had shown that the Britons overwhelmingly rejected any involvement of the EU in Ukraine.

Do you hear us now? I'll take that as a 'no.'

I couldn't help but think of Kipling's Song of the Galley Slaves, a prophecy if there ever was one.

Song of the Galley-Slaves

By Rudyard Kipling

We pulled for you when the wind was against us and the sails were low.

Will you never let us go?

We ate bread and onions when you took towns, or ran aboard quickly when you were beaten back by the foe.

The Captains walked up and down the deck in fair weather singing songs, but we were below.

We fainted with our chins on the oars and you did not see that we were idle, for we still swung to and fro.

Will you never let us go?

The salt made the oar-handles like shark-skin; our knees were cut to the bone with salt-cracks; our hair was stuck to our foreheads; and our lips were cut to the gums, and you whipped us because we could not row.

Will you never let us go?

But, in a little time, we shall run out of the port-holes as the water runs along the oar-blade, and though you tell the others to row after us you will never catch us till you catch the oar-thresh and tie up the winds in the belly of the sail. Aho!

Will you never let us go?

Finally, I also received this commentary by Steve Baldwin, perfectly illustrating the difference between sovereignty and freedom.

© Donald Hank

 

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
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Donald Hank

Until July of 2009, Don Hank was operating a technical translation agency out of his home in Wrightsville, PA. He is now retired and residing in Panama with his wife and daughter.

A former language teacher, he holds an undergraduate degree in French and German from Millersville State University (PA), a Master's degree in Russian language and literature from Kutztown State College (also in PA), has studied Chinese for 3 years in Taiwan at the Mandarin Training Center, and is self-taught in other languages, having logged a total of 8 years abroad in total immersion situations.

He is also the founder of Lancaster-York Non-Custodial Parents, a volunteer organization that provides Christian counseling for non-custodial parents.

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