- A quote from Hans Vogel in Pravda, 4 November 2009:
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- Now that the Czech Republic has announced it will ratify
the Lisbon Treaty, the EU will be even closer yet to becoming a unified
monster state, with more than half a billion inhabitants. Inhabitants is
the correct term, since "citizens" would indicate a set of political
rights. The people living in the EU should rather be called "subjects,"
since they have no influence whatsoever on the constitution of the centralized
European government, the "European Commission." [...]
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- Article 8 [of the Lisbon Treaty] is also very interesting.
It would seem to state that one's personal data are safe. But are they?
Under current EU regulations, member states are required to keep records
of all e-mail traffic and all telephone conversations. In fact it is as
if the government would be reading all your letters. Many EU member states,
the government can enter your computer at will and change data and records
on your computer without your knowing it. All this snooping and spying
is, of course, in the interest of state security, to "fight terrorism!"
It all looks as if the Nazi slogan "Du bist nichts, dein Volk ist
alles!" (You are nothing, your people is everything) were put into
effect in today's EU.
-
- Ah, and then there is, of course, freedom of expression.
Article 11 establishes this unequivocally. Currently, all 27 EU member
states have such a provision in their constitutions. Yet on at least two
issues, EU citizens do not enjoy this freedom of speech. In a number of
member states (Germany, Belgium, Austria, France, the Czech Republic) it
is a criminal offense to publicly wonder whether six million Jews were
killed by the Nazis during World War II. [] Nor is it allowed in some states
to make any sort of remark criticizing islam. This will immediately cause
you to be prosecuted for what in the US is called "hate speech."
This is happening to Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who will be put on
trial next January for making allegedly disparaging remarks about islam,
whereas what he really did was assemble a movie using available footage,
to demonstrate the violent nature of islamic teachings.
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- Free speech, or freedom of expression is really a very
simple issue, a clear-cut case. Either you have free speech, in which case
you may say ANYTHING at all, or you have no free speech. It is like being
pregnant: either you are, or you aren't. It is impossible to be a "little
bit pregnant," just as it is impossible to have "some free speech."
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- Thus in the EU today, there is NO free speech. Nor will
there be any when the Lisbon Treaty takes effect. The EU crackdown on "illegal"
downloads, threatening anyone caught downloading copyrighted items more
than three times with lifelong exclusion from internet access, can be interpreted
as an indication that a major offensive against one of the few remaining
vestiges of freedom is underway.
-
- I am afraid the EU "constitution" (rejected
by European voters wherever it was subjected to an honest, fair referendum)
in its warmed over version called "Lisbon Treaty" is no more
than a useless piece of paper. It is about as meaningful as the old Soviet
and East German (GDR) constitutions which, come to think of it, are surprisingly
similar to the Lisbon Treaty.
-
- Article 50 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution granted all
citizens freedom of speech. But whoever dared voice criticism of the system
in any coherent, vocal way, was severely punished. Punishments included
loss of job, domestic exile (nuclear scientist Andrei Sakharov), and assignment
to a mental hospital. There was no free speech in the old Soviet Union,
like there is no free speech in Europe today.
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- Similarities between the Lisbon Treaty and its communist
predecessors are quite remarkable, for instance in the clauses on equality
before the law.
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- Article 34 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution proclaimed
full legal equality for all: "citizens of the USSR are equal before
the law, without distinction of origin, social or property status, race
or nationality, sex, education, language, attitude to religion, type and
nature of occupation, domicile, or other status." The East German
Constitution echoes this. Article 20:1 reads: Independently of his nationality,
race, religious ideas, social background and position, every citizen of
the German Democratic Republic enjoys the same rights and duties. Freedom
of religion and belief are guaranteed. All citizens are equal before the
law." Coincidentally, the Lisbon Treaty is strikingly similar: "
Everyone is equal before the law " (article 20), and " Any discrimination
based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin,
genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other
opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability,
age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited" (article 21). []
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- As recently as 2006, a most eloquent and insightful warning
against the EU and the Lisbon Treaty's precursor, the ill-fated "constitution",
was given by former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky. Traumatized by
the experience of living in the Soviet Union, Bukovsky noted the deeply
disturbing similarities between the old Soviet Union and the blueprints
for the EU super state. The European Commission, he noted, was the exact
equivalent of the old Soviet Politbureau, in terms of the secretive way
power was exercised, the recruitment and personalities of its members and
the scope and reach of its decisions. The "European Parliament"
today (and under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty) is a mere rubber stamp
institution, just like the "Supreme Soviet" of the old USSR.
-
- As a matter of fact, there are so many similarities between
the old Soviet Union and the EU that mere coincidence is unlikely. Bukovsky
argues the EU was designed to be like the old USSR. The architects of the
EU? Mostly social democrats, whom Stalin quite aptly called "Social
Fascists."
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- Most Europeans have not yet understood this. Most are
still indifferent, but their indifference will soon vanish when the full
weight of repressive EU policies and EU taxation doing its destructive
work will be felt.
-
- Sooner than anybody now thinks, the only way to vent
criticism of the EU will be in the form of jokes. No doubt many of the
characteristic old Soviet jokes will be dusted off and given an anti-European
Commission twist.
-
- By that time, all Europeans except for the privileged
class of "eurocrats" will be prisoners in the EU. However, they
will certainly have a wonderful Constitution.
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