Bluemerle

I just found the following on in My Documents. It was from an old UK Independence News, but it still makes great reading.

One of the most revealing (and little reported) remarks of modern times came at a dinner hosted in the mid nineties by Tory party grandees, and attended by the last leader of the Soviet Union, Michail Gorbachev. The most puzzling development in politics during the last decade he said, was the apparent determination of Western European leaders to re-create the Soviet Union in Western Europe.

So what was it that Gorbachev saw?

1. The centralisation of all European political power, and its concentration in the hands of a self-selected political elite; a specific caste of people who govern largely through unaccountable central institutions (the European Commission, the Council of Ministers, the European Central Bank, the European Court).

2. The outward adherence to democratic forms and procedures (such as the European 'parliament'), which give the public the appearance of democracy, whilst denying them any real say in how they are governed.

3. Strict adherence at all official levels , to a utopian ideology, that of creating a uniform state within which all national and economic differences, inequalities and 'disharmony' are banished forever.

4. A deep seated belief in big government; that the answer to all problems is an ever greater level of government interference in citizens lives.

5. The creation of a bloated, bureaucratic class of officials (the nomenklatura in Soviet terms) to run the system; people who are rewarded by the system with small, but significant privileges which set them apart from the masses (Euro-officials in Brussels have their own special shop with greatly reduced prices. Soviet officials had similar 'Berioshka' shops.)

6. The stark contrast between the reality of institutionalised corruption which pervades all levels of the government apparatus, and the fictitious utopian dreamworld presented by its spokesmen.

7. A paranoid fear of genuinely free-markets and of genuinely pluralistic democracy, and an insular 'fortress' mindset that denies reality. Nothing illustrates this better than a recent remark by a member of the EU commission to the effect that it does not matter what the value of the Euro is in the outside world, it is only its value "within Europe" that counts. The Soviet rouble was always a stable currency within the USSR but beyond the fantasy land of the communist economies it was worthless.

8. An intense ideological hostility towards any form of nationalism, and the deliberate skewing of administrative structures and funding to frustrate any attempts at national self-government. (As events in Eastern Europe in 1989-91 showed, national democracy is a powerful antidote to tyranny).

9. A fetish for titles, anti-national symbolism, anthems, awards, summits; anything which involves pomp and ceremony, and gives the participants the chance to indulge in orgies of public posturing and mutual ego massaging.

10. The systematic use of state propaganda, disseminated through state education and the state media. We haven't yet seen stuff to compare with 'Comrade Stalin invented the first internal combustion engine', but we have seen 'The EU has been responsible for keeping Europe at peace'.

11. Elevation of the legal 'rights' of the state above those of the citizen. The Maastricht Treaty contained sinister echoes of Article 58(1) of the Soviet Constitution, on which the whole apparatus of Communist terror was based: "It is every citizens duty to uphold the Union". "Corpus Juris" and the Human Rights Act are the tip of a very nasty iceberg which should thoroughly alarm anyone who cares about the future of civil liberty in Europe.

12. A totalitarian mindset amongst its officials and functionaries: an inability and /or unwillingness to think freely and openly, to consider, or even admit to the existence of ideas or facts which might contradict the official line. The obsessive and institutionalised secrecy found within the organs of the EU by the Parliamentary Commission is symptomatic, and it is strikingly similar to the culture of state secrecy which shrouded the apparatus of government throughout the former USSR.

13. The cumulative 'ratcheting' of political power; power that once gained is never to be given up "Acquis Communautaire" is simply a latter day version of the Brezhnev Doctrine of "What we have we hold".

14. Ritual denunciation of all those ho do not tow the official line, by means of extreme and inflammatory rhetoric: eg. "Anti-European xenophobia", or in the USSR "anti-Soviet activity". The systematic 'rubbishing' (including the suggestion that they are suffering from mental illness) of those few brave Commission officials who have had the courage to reveal the truth about the system, has disturbing echoes of the use of penal psychiatry against dissidents in the former USSR.

15. The application of political power through 'front' organisations; bodies which sound superficially benign, but are in reality vehicles for accelerating the cancerous growth of the Euro-bureaucracy. Examples are seen n the rising numbers of regional and sub-regional 'Quangos'; bodies which have considerable powers and finances, but are not subject o any form of democratic control, and are usually filled by nominees who are often under the direct patronage of the EU.

One could go on, but I think the main point is made. A disturbingly strong similarity exists in Big State Ideology between the EU and the old USSR. As a direct result of this, the very foundations of popular democracy are now at risk on the self-same continent where democracy first saw the light of day.