Mediaboss Marketing

As described by Christopher Caldwell in Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, the European Union (EU) from its inception had as a central purpose of getting rid of inefficient economic nationalism, but over time it evolved into a project for getting rid of nationalism altogether. Nationalism, however, proved too vague a concept for the Brussels bureaucrats to root out but what they could root out was national sovereignty, and this they have done incrementally over the past 30 years.

This is relevant to the United States because the Biden administration, in its brief tenure, has launched an unparalleled assault on American sovereignty that is breathtaking in its scope and potential consequences. A partial list of the initiatives aggressively promoted by the Democratic Partys left wing would include the proposed global minimum corporate tax; the waiving of intellectual property rights of U.S. COVID-19 vaccine producers; the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline; the banning of offshore drilling, which torpedoes Americans hard-won energy independence; and, most egregiously, the abandonment of serious border control and tacit encouragement of the waves of migrants now engulfing our southern border.

To understand the genesis of these policies and how they relate to the EU, we need look not to President Obama, nor as far back as President Carter, but most specifically to the widely misrepresented but retrospectively transformational trade policies that became law during the Clinton administration: the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and normalization of trade with China.

The impact of these laws is skillfully illuminated and given context in a recent book that explores 20th century economic history and is a biography of one of the most influential economists of modern times: The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, by Zachary D. Carter.

Carter asserts that the Clinton administration pursued a unified economic vision on every policy front that relentlessly transferred power from the government to financial markets, believing the latter to be much more efficient agents of change than the cumbersome processes of democracy, particularly the awkward requirement of often risky elections. Furthermore, it was well understood that the Clinton trade project amounted to a specific form of international political organization a rearrangement of the rights and powers between global elites and national democracies.

Ironically, this project involved a total rejection of Keynes, who consistently held that governments with all their imperfections were better instruments of the common good than financial markets, which always entailed the potential for dangerous instability unchecked by any trustworthy system of accountability.

At the same time the Clinton administration was building its new world economic order and supercharging the growing forces of globalization, people of a similar mindset across the Atlantic were creating the European Union, which they portrayed as a natural evolution of the successful European Economic Community but now aspiring to be a supra-national political entity built around the guiding principle of ever closer union proclaimed in the founding Maastricht Treaty of 1993.

In order to transform the EU into a true union and legitimize the European Parliament sitting in Strasbourg, a vote of the peoples of the member states would be required. But this ended disastrously in 2005, when the French people decisively rejected the new constitution, as shortly after did the Dutch by a 2-to-1 margin, leading to cancellation of the other scheduled elections.

Then, and subsequently, the peoples of Europe made clear that they were open to economic cooperation but not to forfeiting their national identities. The final death knell for EU grandiosity came with Brexit, when the sovereign British people chose the maintenance of their centuries-old democratic traditions over what world elites said was good for them.

Soon after the EUs 2005 electoral disaster, President Clintons project of swapping the wisdom of democracy for that of financial markets came to grief on an even grander scale with the economic crisis and Great Recession of 2007-2008. Fortunately for Clinton, he was out of office when these worldwide economic miseries occurred. Thus it would be Republicans, not Democrats, who would pay the political price for his deeply flawed economic vision.

Sadly, however, that vision has found new life in the Biden administration, where the ascendent progressives still see great virtue and political benefit in the dismantling of national sovereignty. Left unchecked, it is hard to see how this direction bodes well for the American people, or for the future of American democracy itself.

William Moloney is a Fellow in Conservative Thought at Colorado Christian Universitys Centennial Institute who studied at Oxford and the University of London and received his doctorate from Harvard University. He is a former Colorado commissioner of education.

See the article here:
Biden's assault on American sovereignty emulates worst flaws of European Union | TheHill - The Hill

*Image Credit: David Sassolis twitter[/caption]

It has been forty years since Greece joined theEuropean Union (EU)in 1981, named at the time European Economic Community.

To celebrate, an event was held at Zappeion Hall in Athens on Thursday, which was attended by a number of European leaders.

Greece and Europe helped shape each other, and just as we cannot exist without you, you have chosen not to exist without Europe, Charles Michel said.

Michels address focused around the words democracy and liberty, which lay at the foundations of the European Union.

Greeces membership in the EC was a return to their roots for Greeks, but Europeans also felt it was a return to their roots, as Europe was born in Greece, he said.

Michel also referred to the unique role classical Greece played in his personal education and identity and in creating Europes collective consciousness. A drawing on his desk depicting Socrates, he said, reminds him that Greece is the cradle of thought, liberty and democracy.

Forty years ago, Greece joined the European family, launching a new era for Europe by welcoming to its fold the historical cradle of democracy, said David Sassoli.

Highlighting Greeces contribution to the European Union, the successor to the EC, Sassoli emphasised that it had placed the idea of democracy at Europes heart, paving the way to a democratic renaissance of the continent and adding to its stabilisation.

He also made a special reference to Greeces contribution to culture: We cannot forget Greeces contribution to the progress of culture, and the fact that the concepts of democracy, freedom, truth, aesthetics, which run through the centuries with their transcendental dimension, led to Greeces current form and created Europes profile.

Greece influenced the European venture rather profoundly, he underlined, adding that looking at these 40 years since Greeces accession, we see the history of the European venture itself.

?y warmest thanks to @EP_President David Sassoli for participating in the celebration of the 40th anniversary of ??’s accession to the ?? Communities. During our meeting I highlighted @Europarl_EN's major contribution to reaching a compromise on the EU digital COVID certificate. pic.twitter.com/IxnLZcYKLn

— President GR (@PresidencyGR) May 27, 2021

Today we celebrate a great day for our country, Katerina Sakellaropoulou underlined.

Hellas could not be absent from this historic collective effort for the future of Europe, she said, quoting the late Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis, who was instrumental in the membership process.

Sakellaropoulou then pointed out that Greece has changed quite substantially over the last 40 years, and she underlined that the decades following the fall of the countrys military dictatorship in 1974 was the most peaceful and progressive time in modern Greek history, and coincided with the golden age of European unification.

She also noted that Greeces economy owes much to European resources.

Europe is not turning back, she asserted. Just as its forefathers envisioned and inspired an open society and a free market, its leaders today are called upon to place a similar emphasis on security and protection of its peoples.

Since January 1, 1981, Greece is rediscovering its place in Europe with which it is historically and culturally connected, having common interests and goals. With these words, Constantine Karamanlis 40 years ago welcomed the accession of Greece to the then European Economic Communities, as its 10th member, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.

Greeces membership is a non-negotiable aspect of the countrys identity, he underlined.

Today, Greece is a protagonist with credibility and power.Its economy is constantly improving, while its moves on the international chessboard bring results: in the defence of European borders but also in the humanitarian contribution to tackle the immigration problem and in the peace initiatives being developed in the Mediterranean of Europe.

Addressing the citizens of Europe, Mitsotakis emphasised that everyone can positively respond to the challenge of our generation: The next years are in our hands to become the years of recovery.With greater geopolitical influence of our Union.More cohesion in our societies.And by highlighting our common identity, which combines European with national pride.This is the bet we have to win.And we will win it.

Greece is moving fast in the third decade of the 21st century, celebrating the 200 years of its freedom and the 40 years of its European Union journey. And she remembers that always on this turbulent and turbulent journey, always in difficulties, she turned her gaze to Europe. And Europe has always been there for Greece, just as Greece was and is here for Europe, the Greek PM concluded.

Read the original post:
40th anniversary of Greece's accession to the European Union - Greek City Times - GreekCityTimes.com

In a square in front of a Communist Party memorial hall at Xibaipo in northern China, row upon row of party members stood, raised their fists and chanted the party oath in unison.

"I will never betray the party," they called out, facing statues of the People's Republic of China founder Mao Zedong and other revolutionary leaders before moving on, to be quickly replaced by another group.

Xibaipo was an important Communist Party base during China's civil war, which ended in 1949 with the victorious communists sweeping to power.

Earlier this month, it was a stop on a four-day government-organised media tour to some of the party's most important historical sites to mark the 100th anniversary of its founding on July 1.

Thirteen delegates, including Mao, attended the first congress in Shanghai in 1921 to set up the party.

Party researchers and officials told Reuters the large numbers of visitors at Xibaipo reflects a national push to get people, especially party members and cadres, to get involved with the upcoming anniversary.

Schools are also taking part. At Xibaipo, in Hebei province, a large group of students was lined up, given small national flags and told to recite their Communist Youth League oaths, just as the senior party members were doing.

"I feel I'm taking on a responsibility to strive for the realisation of communism," said Mao Weijia, 17, a high school pupil from Hebei. "As a young person entering adulthood, I carry the future of our motherland."

The idea of the motherland also featured in Yanan, the city in northwest China mythologised in party history as the birthplace of the revolution where Mao cemented his authority as party leader. Students were seen being asked to recite the patriotic song "Ode to the Motherland" by a tour guide.

The guide, who only gave his last name as Gao, said students are brought to such sites so they understand at an early age "our proletarian forefathers' spirit of hard work and struggle".

Among the adult visitors, many, such as Zhang Zhaoyang from Hunan province, said they were in Yanan as part of a "red tourism" or party-building trip organised by their party unit or employer.

Visitors are seen in front of a giant emblem of the Communist Party of China, ahead of the 100th founding anniversary of the party, during a government-organised tour at Nanniwan, a former revolutionary base of the party, in Yanan, Shaanxi province, China May 11, 2021. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang

Read More

"We take party-building activities very seriously. It is the leadership of the Communist Party that gives us happiness," Zhang, 50, said.

'UNMATCHED CORE'

The push to study the party's history this year is a boon to tourism in red tourist hot spots like Yanan and Xibaipo, say officials. But the trend is not new.

Before the pandemic, tourism in Yanan grew consistently, officials said, from 40.25 million visitors in 2016 to 73.08 million in 2019.

Nationwide, the drive to step up patriotic sentiment in part through party study has been a theme since Xi Jinping became China's leader nearly a decade ago, said Xu Jia, a researcher at the CPC Central Committee's Institute of Party History and Literature.

The push is aimed "to increase cohesion in the country", at a time when China faces challenges such as the recent trade war with the United States, Xu said.

At Yanan's China Executive Leadership Academy, one of several across the country where senior officials study the party and its history, academy Vice Director Li Guoxi explained the chief aim of their courses.

"In our cadres' education and training, we emphasise loyalty, honesty, and responsibility, but loyalty is the No.1 requirement, the priority," Li said.

Many here expressed confidence for the future of the party, which includes roughly 90 million members among China's population of 1.4 billion.

"For the next 100 years, I don't believe the Chinese people will change to another party," said Feng Jianmei, who teaches at the academy.

"It won't happen because the Chinese Communist Party has proven to the world and especially the Chinese people with 100 years of magnificent achievements that it provides an unmatched core of leadership."

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Read this article:
Chinese visit 'red' sites ahead of 100th Communist Party anniversary - Reuters

Dubbed a polyphonic novel, Secondhand Time by Belarusian Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich is a literary monument to post-war and post-Soviet history. Critical yet warm, the book consists of in-depth interviews with the Russian winners and losers of the transition to capitalism, ranging from gulag survivors and persecuted enemies of the state, to Stalin apologists and Communist Party officials.

I am a great fan of all of Alexievichs works, but Im particularly attached to Secondhand Time. It enabled me to see elements from the backdrop of my childhood in the 90s, such as the ubiquitous second-hand shops in my home city of Chiinu; symbols of the Western dreams and disappointingly low budgets that defined the transition to capitalism for so many people in Eastern Europe. As one of the interviewees aptly says, the discovery of money hit us like an atom bomb.

As a Moldovan, the book also helped me understand but not justify the Russian imperialism that continued decades after the dissolution of the USSR. Why didnt anyone ask us? wonders one older woman in the book, contemplating the economic collapse that followed the USSRs dissolution. It is a question I empathise with, especially in the context of the wild privatisations that benefited a small elite of profiteers throughout the 90s. When the same interviewee says she spent her life building a great nation, I get what she is saying, but still feel somewhat sick: I wish governments across the world and Russian politicians in particular focused on creating states that truly serve their citizens, rather than selling megalomaniac, messianic delusions of grandeur.

This article is part of Calvert Reads, a new series revisiting great works of literature across the ages.

View original post here:
Svetlana Alexievich's Second Hand Time X-rays the transition from communism to capitalism | Calvert Reads - The Calvert Journal

Before you laugh and say what a crazy story this is, consider this quote from the late founder of the Soviet Union a.k.a. Lenin.

"Socialism leads to Communism."

So when you look at what happened last year with lockdowns, big tech censorship, Covid cover-ups, and now the complete loss of a working media, communism may not be as far off as you think.

Was 2020 actually a preview of Communism here in the U.S.?

In a piece for PJ Media, Kevin Downey Jr. gave 5 reasons to believe that Communism might be coming to America. They are, 1) Agree or be silenced, 2) Violence for we, but not for thee, 3) Papers, please, 4) Guns, and 5) It's already begun.

Basically, what starts out as a guise of justice, turns into the eventual loss of individual rights, liberty, and freedom.

Marion Smith, President of the Common Sense Society told KTRH, "The end goal of socialism is communism, and that would be in keeping with Marxist thinking. It is a system with a proven track record of failure, death, and destruction."

Smith also pointed out how democracy and socialism cannot co-exist, and he credits our founding fathers for looking at human nature, and developing a form of government that fits human nature, rather than re-make man to fit an ideology. And if you really want to cut to the chase? An ideology without God. The government plays god, and makes man in it's image. It's really that simple.

So how would communism look today in America in 2021? We mentioned the lockdowns, censorship, propaganda instead of media, lack of truth.

Another example would be the BLM movement which Smith says "the organization itself has espoused Marxist ideology, and that should cause some concern."

It also completely contradicts and goes against the beliefs and teachings of the late Martin Luther King Jr. "He did consider whether or not Marxist ideas were the best platform for him to base his civil rights ideas on" Smith said, "he considered it and then ultimately he rejected it, and he appealed to the American declaration, and our Constitution."

Smith concludes that in communist systems, individual rights are not a principle, collective justice is the priority. The party comes first.

Sound familiar?

The rest is here:
The Five Reasons To Believe Communism Is Coming To America | NewsRadio 740 KTRH - NewsRadio 740 KTRH