To understand 2021, watch a KGB defector's mid-1980s interview - Andrea Widburg

 

​ by Andrea Widburg

The Soviet Union intended to destroy America from within by infiltrating the education system, three generations of young people to hate this country and each other and then watching them go forth and plant the seeds of self-loathing throughout the nation.

On Thursday, Dan Bongino urged his audience to watch or just listen to a video of Yuri Bezmenov, a KGB defector to Canada, who came to love America and tried to warn Americans about the KGB's plans.  Listening to him is eerie because he spelled out in detail exactly what the Soviet Union was doing — it wasn't planning to take America down through the military.  Instead, it intended to destroy America from within by infiltrating the education system, three generations of young people to hate this country and each other and then watching them go forth and plant the seeds of self-loathing throughout the nation.

When it came to understanding how the Soviet Union operated, Bezmenov was the real deal.  His father was a high-ranking army officer, so Bezmenov was raised inside the system.  He went to KGB schools and worked for the KGB for a decade until he defected to the West, eventually landing in Canada.

In the 1980s, Bezmenov was able to move to Los Angeles, where he lived for five years.  It was in L.A., in 1984 or 1985, that he gave an interview to G. Edward Griffin, a conservative writer and thinker.  During the interview, Bezmenov explained that the Soviet Union was not interested in fighting America.  It was interested, instead, in co-opting it through psychological warfare.  It is that interview that you'll see below.

 

 (If you don't want to watch the video, the transcript is here.) An organized thinker, Bezmenov stated the core principles of his talk in the open minute of the video:  

But in reality, the main emphasis of the KGB is not in the area of intelligence at all. According to my opinion and the opinion of many defectors of my caliber, only about fifteen percent of time, money and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other eighty-five percent is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion or active measures, or psychological warfare. What it basically means is, to change the perception of reality, of every American, to such an extent that despite an abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their family, their community and their country.

It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages. The first one being demoralization. It takes from fifteen to twenty years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate on generation of students in the country of your enemy, exposed to the ideology of the enemy. In other words, Marxism, Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students, without being challenged or contra-balanced by the basic values of Americanism, American patriotism.

That's it in a nutshell.  Bezmenov talks about other things such as the fact that, once the Soviets gained control of a country (e.g., South Vietnam), they'd execute the most pro-Soviet activists.  Why?

Because they know too much. Simply because, you see, the useful idiots, the leftists who are idealistically believing in the beauty of Soviet socialist or Communist or whatever system, when they get disillusioned they become the worst enemies. That's why my KGB instructors specifically made a point, never bother with leftists. Forget about [these] political prostitutes. Aim higher. 

The big question is whether it's still possible to mount a cultural counterattack and turn the Democrats' triumph into a Pyrrhic victory.  I'm actually a little bit optimistic because the Democrats have mistaken a very narrow victory (assuming, for the sake of argument, that they actually received all the votes they claim) for an overwhelming mandate.  The reality is that, while their base loves them, most Americans aren't thrilled with open borders, the COVID police state, the destruction of biological norms, the attempt to legislate voter fraud, a $2-trillion spending bill, the sudden love affair with Iran, or any of the other damaging policies the Democrats are advancing.

Bezmenov, were he alive, would not be so optimistic — and note that he describes 2021 to perfection:

Most of the people who (reeducated) in the sixties, drop outs or half-baked intellectuals are now occupying the positions of power in the Government, civil service, business, mass media, educational system. You are stuck with them. You cannot get rid of them. They are contaminated, They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern. You cannot change their mind even if you expose them to authentic information, even if you prove that white is white and black is black you still cannot change the basic perception and illogical behavior. In other words, these people, the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To get rid society of these people you need another twenty or fifteen years to educate a new generation of patriotically-minded and commonsense people who would be acting in favor and in the interests of the United States society.

Image: Yuri Bezmenov.  YouTube screen grab.

You can find this post on MeWe here.

 

Andrea Widburg

 
Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/04/to_understand_2021_watch_a_kgb_defectors_mid1980s_interview.html

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Biden Administration and Iran: Secret Deals and Appeasement Back on the Table? - Majid Rafizadeh

 

​ by Majid Rafizadeh

"If the Biden administration is involved in transferring funds to Iran, Congress and the American people must be informed. Biden administration officials continue to deflect and refuse to answer questions from members of Congress regarding this issue." — Congressman Bryan Steil

• "The Biden administration appears to be using loopholes when dealing with the Iranian regime. I am again asking direct, yes or no questions on the United States' involvement in facilitating a South Korean ransom payment to Iran. If the Biden administration is involved in transferring funds to Iran, Congress and the American people must be informed. Biden administration officials continue to deflect and refuse to answer questions from members of Congress regarding this issue." — Congressman Bryan Steil (R-WI), letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, March 25, 2021.

• When President Biden was vice president during the Obama administration, the administration was all too eager to grant concessions to the Iranian regime and, it turns out, made multiple secret deals with the mullahs..... These secret deals meant that when sanctions against Iranian banks were lifted and permission given to the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to resume conducting business, there was no longer any mechanism to check or stop Iran's illegal activities such as advancing its ballistic missile program.

• The Obama administration also helped swiftly to lift all four rounds of UN sanctions against Iran -- sanctions it had taken decades to put in place. Iran's military sites also were exempted from inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency; other inspections were only to be at the times and places of Iran's choosing -- if ever.

• Another concession, usually overlooked, is that Iran never even signed the JCPOA deal -- what sort of deal, then, is that?

• Appeasement policies, secret deals and generous concessions to predatory regimes do not work, as history has repeatedly shown. They only empower and embolden leaders whose record reveals that they have no intention of honoring whatever they agreed to in the first place, and for whom commitments have been mainly a means of buying time to accomplish the goals they really want.

The Biden administration is ratcheting up its appeasement policies towards the Iranian regime in an apparent effort to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. Appeasement policies, secret deals and generous concessions to predatory regimes do not work, as history has repeatedly shown. Pictured: Then US Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Vienna, Austria, on July 14, 2014, during negotiations that led to the drafting of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). (Image source: US State Department)

The Biden administration is ratcheting up its appeasement policies towards the Iranian regime in an apparent effort to revive the 2015 nuclear deal -- which by the way, Iran never signed.

US President Joe Biden made his intention to return to the nuclear deal public before he took office; after, he appointed as Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman -- a key negotiator in the talks which led to the nuclear deal in 2015 during the Obama administration. Biden actually publicized Sherman's professed accomplishment:

"She has successfully rallied the world to strengthen democracy and confront some of the biggest national security challenges of our time, including leading the U.S. negotiating team for the Iran Deal".

The administration proceeded to revoke the designation of the Houthis, an Iran-backed terror group, as an officially-designated terrorist organization.

Republican foreign policy leaders in Congress are now requesting from the Secretary of State Antony Blinken answers to questions about the secret talks held with South Korea that resulted in South Korea giving the Iranian regime $1 billion in ransom money. The letter was "led" by Congressman Bryan Steil (WI), Congressman Greg Steube (FL) and Republican Study Committee (RSC) Chairman Jim Banks (IN). Steil pointed out:

"The Biden administration appears to be using loopholes when dealing with the Iranian regime. I am again asking direct, yes or no questions on the United States' involvement in facilitating a South Korean ransom payment to Iran. If the Biden administration is involved in transferring funds to Iran, Congress and the American people must be informed. Biden administration officials continue to deflect and refuse to answer questions from members of Congress regarding this issue. I want answers. Congress must be informed of the administration's actions".

In January, the Iranian regime, apparently as part of an extortion maneuver, had seized a South Korean ship in the Gulf and demanded ransom for its release. Congressman Banks stated:

"The Biden administration has to stop stonewalling and must come clean regarding whether they facilitated sanctions relief for the thugs in Tehran. I'm glad to co-lead this letter with my colleagues Rep. Bryan Steil and Rep. Greg Steube. The RSC will continue to investigate until we get to the bottom of what is going on".

Secret talks to appease the Iranian regime should not come as surprise. When President Biden was vice president during the Obama administration, the administration was all too eager to grant concessions to the Iranian regime and, it turns out, made multiple secret deals with the mullahs. One of the secret deals consisted of allowing the Iranian regime to have access to US dollars by sidestepping sanctions. "The Obama administration misled the American people and Congress because they were desperate to get a deal with Iran", said Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), who chaired the Senate panel conducting the investigation at the time.

The Obama administration also secretly agreed to remove sanctions on several Iranian banks, including Bank Sepah and Sepah International. These banks had long been sanctioned by the United Nations due to their illegal activities in financing missile development and skirting UN Security Council resolutions regarding the arms embargo. These secret deals meant that when sanctions against Iranian banks were lifted and permission given to the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to resume conducting business, there was no longer any mechanism to check or stop Iran's illegal activities such as advancing its ballistic missile program.

When, in return for Iran releasing hostages, the Obama administration released Iranian-born prisoners, some of whom were threats to the US national security, it shocked many and infuriated some of the officials at the Justice Department -- as did shipping $400 million in cash to Tehran as ostensibly a "not quid-pro-quo" ransom for the hostages. In addition, according to a report by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, the Obama administration agreed "'in secret' to allow Iran to evade some restrictions" in the last year of the nuclear agreement. David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector, stated that "The exemptions or loopholes are happening in secret, and it appears that they favor Iran." These are only few examples of the secret deals conducted with the Iranian regime to appease it.

In addition to the secret deals, Iran also received dangerous and unprecedented concessions from the Obama administration for the Islamic Republic's 2015 "nuclear deal," the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The major concession was that the deal paved the way for Iran legally to become a full-blown nuclear state. The sunset clauses, which enshrined that commitment, had set a firm expiration date for restricting Iran's nuclear program, after which the country's leaders would be free to have, legitimately, as many nuclear weapons as they like. The Obama administration also helped swiftly to lift all four rounds of UN sanctions against Iran -- sanctions it had taken decades to put in place. Iran's military sites also were exempted from inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency; other inspections were only to be at the times and places of Iran's choosing -- if ever. Iran then rejoined the global financial system with full legitimacy -- plus billions of dollars flowing into the treasury of the IRGC and its expanding militias across the Middle East.

Another concession, usually overlooked, is that Iran never even signed the JCPOA deal -- what sort of deal, then, is that?

Appeasement policies, secret deals and generous concessions to predatory regimes do not work, as history has repeatedly shown. They only empower and embolden leaders whose record reveals that they have no intention of honoring whatever they agreed to in the first place, and for whom commitments have been mainly a means of buying time to accomplish the goals they really want.

• Follow Majid Rafizadeh on Twitter

 

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
 

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17228/biden-iran-secret-deals

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Does a Third Lebanon-Israel War Lie Ahead? - Steve Emerson

​ by Steve Emerson

Hezbollah vs Israel: Worst-Case Scenarios

 

 

Middle East Forum Webinar - March 26, 2021

Despite a collapsing Lebanese economy and considerable political turmoil, Hezbollah continues to threaten Israel. These threats must be taken seriously, given the Iranian-backed proxy army's Hezbollah incredible stockpile of long-range, medium range and short-range missiles that can reach every square inch of Israel.

I spoke last Friday with the Middle East Forum about the worst-case scenarios for a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The possibilities include a surprise attack by Hezbollah, an Israeli pre-emptive strike, an unplanned escalation and a multi-front war against Israel.

The situation is a powder keg, and one false move, can set any of these scenarios in motion. Israelis understood the surprise attack possibility in 2019, when they discovered several well-built tunnels that started more than a half mile inside of Lebanon, but crossed into Israel. Hezbollah could have used them to attack northern Israeli communities, trying to kill as well as take many Israeli civilians hostage. This kind of terrorist attack would have sparked a full-blown war.

Israel already lives under constant threat from Hezbollah's missile arsenal, much of which has been smuggled into Lebanon and retrofitted with advanced GPS guidance systems.

A multi-front war against Israel appears more possible now that Iraqi militias can use Iranian-supplied missiles which can strike inside Israel. From the south, Yemeni Houthis now have projectiles capable of reaching Israel's port city of Eilat along the Red Sea. In Syria, Hezbollah has battle-tested forces capable of attacking, and there are Iranian and Russian weapon systems ready to strike. Finally, Gaza is home to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, terrorist groups that have been firing rockets at Israeli civilian communities for years. If they all acted together, a five-prong multi-front war against Israel is the worst-case scenario.

In 2019, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, went on Hezbollah's Al Manar television with his list of Israeli strategic targets that he wants destroyed during the next war with Israel. These strategic targets include Ben Gurion International airport near Tel Aviv, power plants, water desalination plants, nuclear sites, seaports, gas production facilities and the natural gas rig in the Mediterranean, petro-chemical production facilities near Haifa, Israel Defense Force's Headquarters/Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, air bases, naval bases, army bases, military industries, and important financial and commercial centers.

Source: https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/missile-arsenal-heart-israeli-iranian-rivalry

Source: https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/missile-arsenal-heart-israeli-iranian-rivalry

The 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah was started after Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli reservists and killed three others in an unprovoked cross-border raid Hezbollah. This is a perfect example of a war that neither side wanted, but still took place. During the 34-day war, Hezbollah launched more than 100 rockets per day – for a total of about 4,000 of its estimated 10,000 total rockets and missiles at the time. In the next war, Hezbollah could launch a minimum of 2,000 rockets a day from its 150,000 estimated inventory, a senior IDF official told a Jerusalem conference March 15. Hezbollah's arsenal is believed to include 130,000 short range rockets that can travel less than 70 km, about 500 medium range rockets (greater than 70 km and less than 250 km), and about 100 long range rockets (greater than 250 km) missiles. According to a 2018 report from the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), "Hezbollah now possesses more firepower than 95 percent of the world's conventional militaries, and more rockets and missiles than all European NATO members combined."

Analysts believe that Hezbollah has between 500-1,000 precision guided munitions outfitted with enhanced GPS guidance systems that can hit every square inch of Israel with devastating accuracy. With long range advanced GPS Scud B warheads carrying as much as 2200 pounds of high grade explosives, these missiles could easily destroy top strategic targets in Israel such as the Dimona nuclear power plant, Ben Gurion Airport, the Kirya, Israeli power plants, Israeli military bases, and massive civilian carnage—all targets that Nasrallah has personally threatened to attack in the next war with Israel in an interview he gave in 2019. (For comparative damage assessments, the unguided Qassam rockets launched by Hamas carry a payload of only 12 pounds of explosives.) Additionally, Hezbollah reportedly has several dozen anti-ship missiles, such as the three C-802 anti-ship missiles that they fired, at the Israeli Navy ship Hanit during the 2006 war, killing four Israeli sailors.

Source: https://jinsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Israels-Next-Northern-War_Operational-and-Legal-Challenges_web.pdf

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In response to the Hezbollah threat, Israel has a three-tiered system to protect its citizens and its strategic assets. These three tiers include: missile defense, bombing by Israeli Air Force (IAF) fighter aircraft and civilian bomb shelters. The missile defense tier is a multi-layered missile defense system that includes missile intercept systems like Iron Dome, PATRIOT, David's Sling, Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 (see graphic for estimated numbers, ranges, type of warhead, targets, range and the date when the system became operational). The second tier is the IAF's fighter jets that during a conflict would attack Hezbollah missile launch and storage sites. The IAF has more than 425 fighter aircraft, that including almost 50 new F-35s, 50 F-15s and 25 F-15Es, and 300 F-16s. If war does break out, Israel believes it can hit 3,000 Hezbollah targets per day. Finally, the third layer of Israeli defense would be the civilian bunkers that are in many Israeli homes or part of the local city and village infrastructure.

In addition to the massive Hezbollah rocket and missile threat, the Gaza-based terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad also could attack Israel with their estimated 15,000-20,000 rockets and missiles.

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Source: https://aipacorg.app.box.com/s/u1oih9tblawwhzsu1ak6vs83znpu0hky

The map showing ranges and flight times from Lebanon and from Gaza provide an idea of how much time someone in Tel Aviv has to reach shelter once the alarm system detects an incoming rocket. For example, a rocket launched by Hezbollah in Lebanon takes about 75 seconds to hit Tel Aviv, whereas a rocket fired from Gaza takes only 30 seconds. People living close to the northern border of Israel and near the Gaza Strip have only 10-15 seconds to react during a rocket attack.

In response, Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system would target those rockets heading toward population centers and strategic targets. David's Sling, with hundreds of interceptors, would target the longer-range rockets and missiles. But despite their sophistication, those systems would be overwhelmed in a war in which 2,000 missiles were launched into Israel each day. In May 2019, Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched around 690 rockets and mortars at Israel with Iron Dome shooting down approximately 240 projectiles. This means that unguided munitions launched from Gaza were about a third on target or happened to be on target.

Using the same percentages, and assuming the same capabilities, 2,000 Hezbollah rockets per day launched from Lebanon would require about 660 Iron Dome interceptors and an unknown number of David's Sling interceptors. In the meantime, the IAF would be destroying launchers and missile storage and assembly locations throughout Lebanon. Therefore, the rate of Hezbollah rocket and missile fire would probably decrease over time, especially those with longer ranges. This would force Hezbollah to fire more of its shorter-range rockets with less effect on strategic targets.

With approximately one-third of all Israelis having bomb shelters in their homes or apartments, the rest would go to local city bomb shelters or to their neighbors' shelters. In 2006, Israel did not have a missile defense system that would intercept short and medium range missiles and rockets.

The fact that the IAF can strike 3,000 targets per day offers a strong deterrent message to Hezbollah about what a preemptive attack by the IAF could do.

If Hezbollah tried to launch a surprise attack against Israel, in addition to rocket and missile fire, the Iranian-terror proxy could attempt a ground attack to kill or capture Israelis living along the border with Lebanon. Most estimates put the number of active Hezbollah combatants rising from 14,000 in 2006 to 25,000 with a reserve force of 20,000-30,000.

Nasrallah has said that he is not interested in a war with Israel at this time. He said that he would not have instigated the 2006 war if he [A1] knew the tremendous damage that would be done to Lebanon's infrastructure. However, Iran could have different plans for Hezbollah.

Beyond missiles and rockets, Hezbollah's capabilities have increased since 2006. Its fighters helped the Syrian army fight against ISIS for almost a decade, growing more proficient in combat. The question is whether the new Israeli tank active protection system (called Trophy), that the U.S. Army is purchasing, are able to protect them against the Hezbollah arsenal of a variety of approximately a thousand Russian anti-tank systems (AT-3,4, 5, 13, and 14).

Any escalating conflict would cause significant casualties and a lot of destruction on both sides. The damage from a 34-day war in 2006, when Hezbollah had a fraction of the firepower it can unleash today, makes this reality clear. The Associated Press tallied some of the damage in that conflict:

Israel: Total deaths 157 (118 soldiers and 39 civilians). Wounded: 860. Number of buildings destroyed: no official figures, but tax authorities report more than 6,000 claims for damaged buildings. Number of strikes into Israel: 3,970 Hezbollah rockets, 901 of them inside cities. Number of displaced people: 300,000 (~5% of population). Total damage: $3 billion.

Lebanon: 845 total deaths (743 civilians, 34 soldiers and 68 Hezbollah. Israel says it killed about 530 Hezbollah fighters). Wounded: 4,051. Number of buildings destroyed: More than 15,000 homes, about 900 commercial structures. Number of strikes: Lebanese officials reported, unofficially, more than 4,500 Israeli bombing raids on Lebanon. Number of displaced people: 916,000, or about one-fourth of the population. Total damage: at least $3.5 billion to infrastructure; $9.4 billion overall.

There is reason for skepticism that deterrence can work with actors like Nasrallah or Hamas. As for Hezbollah's ultimate goal, Hezbollah's stated goal is the same as Iran's – the destruction of the Zionist state. The only thing stopping Hezbollah right now is the fact that the Israelis have a more powerful military and can inflict more damage against the Lebanese infrastructure, for which Hezbollah will be blamed. Today, Lebanon is suffering the worst economic debacle in its history. Lebanese currency has been devalued by up to 90 percent in just the last year. Hezbollah is being blamed by much of the Lebanese population for the massive corruption that has led to this unprecedented economic crisis.

Copyright © 2021. Investigative Project on Terrorism. All rights reserved.

Steve Emerson
 

Source: https://www.investigativeproject.org/8786/does-a-third-lebanon-israel-war-lie-ahead

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Why Kristi Noem's Transgender Turn Is Good for the Pro-Family Movement - Robert Pscar Lopez

 

​ by Robert Pscar Lopez

I can understand why everyone is outraged. But I am not outraged. I would like to explain why this is good.

South Dakota governor Kristi Noem transitioned — at sprinting speed — from Miss Thing to Miss Nothing.  On March 8, Gov. Noem expressed joy over a bill passed by the South Dakota Legislature, which would have banned males from women's sports.

Then, on March 19, she "returned" the text to the Legislature requesting changes that undid the basic purpose of the bill.  Her office issued a Shakespearean press release (except far less interesting than Hamlet's soliloquies), doddering to explain her veto.

Life is short, and word limits are tight, so let's not scan the infamous press release.  However it's couched, she sank a key bill opposing the imposition of transgenderism on people whom it could harm.

And the conservative world finally erupted.

The homeschooled right cried out, "Et tu, Regina Dakotae Meridianae?  You on whom we hung all our hopes for a Trumpian comeback?"

As a pro-family activist who has gotten mobbed and run out of multiple jobs for defending functional heterosexuality against its many detractors, I can understand why everyone is outraged.  But I am not outraged.  I would like to explain why this is good.

An overdue wakeup call

Whether you want to call it "pro-family" or "socially conservative policy," there exist political positions based on preserving the family unit of mother, father, and child.  In earlier decades, the main threats to family were abortion, divorce, and unwed parenthood, so pro-family conservatives focused on respect for life and marriage.  Now the main things threatening the mother-father-child unit deal with sexual orientation and biological sex.

Pro-life warriors have faced a backlash.  But anti-abortion activism is easier than dealing with your trans "niece" who just had a baby by surrogacy with his "wife."  Abortions could be relegated to the "do not discuss at Thanksgiving" list, but you can't simply pussyfoot around the existence of people loved by everyone you love.  The LGBT movement teaches millions of people that gayness or transgenderism is not only the central part of their identity, but also the whole basis of their "existence."  They see criticism, no matter how thoughtful and correct, as a denial of their being, like a death threat.  Simple discussions turn, therefore, into life-or-death battles that nobody prepared for.

The bravest flee before the gayest

Shockingly, people who risk their lives in combat surrender rapidly to LGBT pressure.  Celebrated politician Dan Crenshaw wrote to the Republican Party of Texas pressuring them to endorse the Log Cabin Republicans and give them a booth at the party convention, implicitly telling Republicans to dump traditional sexuality from their platform entirely.  Kurt Schlichter, who delights in online machismo and swaggers about his military service, recently wrote a column telling Republicans to accept homosexuality for the sake of unity.

Both men now try to claim they will stand up to trans politics.  This weakens the movement by sowing confusion.  They showed themselves entirely unwilling to stand up to homosexuality, which jeopardizes heterosexual procreation as much as transgenderism does (possibly more, since there are "trans men" in technically heterosexual marriages to "trans women").

Christians must acknowledge that Bible verses condemning sodomy and promoting heterosexuality are more numerous than verses condemning cross-sex behavior, which are nonetheless also found in the Old and New Testaments.  Not all pro-family advocates are Christian, but most are.  Leaders who want Christian support while denying these biblical imperatives have to engage in soul-endangering trickery.  Play too many games with religious voters, and at some point, you'll trip.

How can someone give up an eye for America, but not be able to tell the Log Cabin Republicans that the anus is not a sexual organ and every child has a mom and a dad?

That's what we're dealing with.  "Courage" gets cheaper the more discussion veers into sexuality.  I've seen that happen many times.

The job nobody on the right is willing to do

Every right-winger wishes someone else would deal with the LGBT stuff.  "Someone, somewhere, must be taking care of that," popular activists think.  "I'll touch on it here and there, but if that becomes the thing I'm known for, I won't have a career."  Nobody wants to become the Westboro Baptist Church.

I've become cynical.  I admit it.  Every time a new conservative face comes around — a Madison Cawthorn, Kim Klacik, etc. — I assume that his "bold, new, fresh" approach to the movement will be the "lame, old, stale" libertarianism pulled out of the freezer and reheated.  I assume we will be told that a bright future and election victories await us if we ride the rainbow slide and define "conservatism" purely as opposition to socialism and Black Lives Matter.  All of this, we have heard before, from the olden days, when the topic was repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, to our present tense, wherein the president of the Southern Baptist Convention tells us we have to use trans pronouns for sake of "hospitality" and Presbyterian ladies write books telling us that to share the gospel, we have to give men who call themselves women our house keys, allowing them access to the places where our daughters sleep and shower.

"Trust us this time" sounds less compelling after you have heard it enough times.  Instead of that bright future, these compromises usually just move us farther into insanity, from "let gays adopt kids in the foster care system" to "let lesbians conceive sons through sperm banking and then make them girls through puberty-blockers."

Those of us who have become known for conservative positions on sexuality hear many of the same refrains from our peers in the movement.  "God bless you, you are so brave," folks will say privately.  But nobody will hire you.  Heck, they don't even want to be seen talking to you.  There's always something they need to protect: their donors, their grantors, their friends, their kids, etc.  At the core of it, they are protecting themselves by not fighting something they know is wrong.

Just ask Denise McAllister.  Just ask Peter LaBarbera.  Just ask Linda Harvey.  Ask anyone who took a stand against LGBT, armed with the best arguments, solid research, and a perseverance in the face of opposition.  When you are that person, thrust into a scorching spotlight, you learn things nobody else can learn.  You figure out that 98% of famous conservatives will sell out on the LGBT issue.  The knowledge of the movement's deep phoniness haunts you like a Fury.

A popular influencer might make a video mocking the canceling of Mr. Potato Head, but see what happens if you ask that person to stand up to gay adoption.  If you'll notice, the bans on conversion therapy ("stay gay laws") have gained ground whether leaders are Republicans or Democrats.  The movement against conversion therapy is perhaps one of the most ridiculous initiatives in our country's history; it is literally based on the notion that nobody, even someone who's been molested, can ever discuss ways to avoid sodomy.  Conservatives do not want to stand up for ex-gay counseling because it's harder to challenge the myth that people are born gay than it is to complain about a character from Toy Story.

Noem was the unlucky one holding the bag

While I can denounce Noem's duplicity, I have to celebrate the fact that the bluff no longer works.

"Courage" against the LGBT movement has been a mirage for a long time.  Like so many bluffs, it couldn't work forever.  Sooner or later the masses were going to find out that this issue had been sacrificed even by those who claimed most vigorously to be fighting over it.

The conservative public has usually accepted any rationalization in order to preserve their frail trust in cultural authorities.

They did not want to believe that Chick-fil-A was actually discriminating against pro-family Christians while projecting an image of wholesome bravery.

Nor did they want to believe that the president of a Baptist seminary was undermining pro-family advocates behind the scenes as a favor to pro-gay benefactors, regardless of any grandstanding about the definition of marriage.

They didn't want to believe that Mike Pence had actually sold out the pro-family movement as governor of Indiana, back when the most daring thing such leaders were being asked to do was to protect a handful of pâtissiers from being forced to make cakes for ceremonies that gay people wanted them to call weddings.  While the LGBT movement pushed to legalize prostitution, globalize grooming as part of school curricula, and lower the age of consent, we listened to years of debate about wedding cakes.  As part of the narrow legal argument, our side even said these Christian bakers didn't have a problem with homosexuality as long as they would not have to cook for a same-sex "wedding."  But even that was too much for Mike Pence, who was supposedly our "staunch" pro-family option.

They didn't want to believe that Jan Brewer, the fierce proponent of immigration standards in Arizona, was the totally un-fierce governor who vetoed a similar religious rights bill in 2014.

Having seen groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council trumpet family values in the past, average conservatives don't want to hear about the backdoor deals, the phone calls placed, and the secret horse trades that so often involve getting rid of the troubling "fanatics" in favor of controlled opposition.

Conservatives didn't "know" how bad the pro-family movement had gotten, for the simple reason that they didn't want to hear about any of that.  They were happy to reward leaders for telling them what they did want to hear.

Until now.

This is finally getting interesting

Noem's veto is good.  People got a chance to pull back the curtain and see why the conservative leadership they have funded and supported all these years wasn't resisting the march of LGBT ideology at all, but rather enabling it wholesale.

People might gain something by claiming to stand up to LGBT ideology, especially if they can package it in something as innocent-sounding as simply "defining marriage as between a man and a woman," "defending religious liberty," or "standing by the word of God."  So don't get me wrong.  I am not claiming that you can't name a bunch of conservative pundits who have taken a public stand against LGBT.  But social conservatism has been abandoned by the entirety of the right wing.  Not just the libertarians or Paul Ryan types.  Not just the Guilfoylesque and Kushnerian MAGA friends of Dave Rubin and Brandon Straka, whom we made peace with during the Trump years for the simple reason that we had no other choice.

Even many pro-family groups that shout the loudest have been part of the big betrayal.  That includes a lot of the public figures currently tut-tutting about Noem's veto as if they haven't taken the infamous "phone call" from wealthy pro-gay bigwigs and fired pro-family advocates in their own separate fiefdoms — under the cover of darkness, of course.

The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh tweeted a scathing reaction to Kristi Noem's veto.  The Alliance Defending Freedom issued a strongly worded press release about it.  The Federalist ran several pieces on it.  So did PJ Media.

Two years ago, all these groups canceled Denise McAllister for coming out too strong against the LGBTs.  You can learn more in the chapter I contributed to Church and State.  It took a village to fail the American family.

I don't want war with any of these conservatives who contributed to the collapse of pro-family advocacy; I just want us all to be honest about what's happened.  And change for the better.  Many are still fighting this tooth and nail, so it's not too late to pitch in.

Don't accept Noem's excuses, but go easy on her.  She was just the one stuck holding the bag.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

You can find the MeWe post for this article here.

 

Robert Pscar Lopez
 

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/04/why_kristi_noems_transgender_turn_is_good_for_the_profamily_movement.html

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The Threats American Jewry Refuses to Face - Caroline Glick

 

​ by Caroline Glick

[E]ven the joy of Passover couldn’t dispel the twin storm clouds rising around the largest Jewish diaspora

 

After being forced by Covid-19 restrictions to celebrate Passover alone last year, like their Israeli brethren, American Jews were by and large able to celebrate the Passover seder with their friends and families this year. And as in Israel, American Jewish families reveled in their deliverance from loneliness on the Jewish festival of deliverance.

But even the joy of Passover couldn’t dispel the twin storm clouds rising around the largest Jewish diaspora.

The first threat is growing Jew-hatred. American Jewish groups are good at fighting white supremacism. Unfortunately, the most dangerous external threat to Jewish life in America doesn’t come from neo-Nazis. It comes from their home base.

Along with Hindus, Jewish Americans are the most highly educated religious group in America. American Jews have long assumed that the primary source of anti-Semitism in America is ignorance and that as education levels rise, levels of anti-Semitism would decrease. Given the prevalence of anti-Semitism on university campuses, researchers at the University of Arkansas decided to check this assumption.

Publishing their findings this week in Tablet magazine, they demonstrated just how wrong this assumption has become. Contrary to what Jewish organizations have long claimed, it turns out that the more educated Americans are, the more anti-Semitic they are.

College graduates are five percent more likely to apply anti-Semitic double standards to Jews than Americans who haven’t gone to college. Holders of advanced degrees used double standards against Jews 15% more often than respondents without higher educations.

The implications are dire. Academia, American Jewry’s home turf for a century and the key to their entry into the American elite – is now hostile territory.

Then there is the media. In the mid-20^th century, American Jews were pioneers of the US mass media, entertainment and music industries. Increasingly, however, today they are their punching bag.

Last month, Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update segment included a “news brief” on Israel’s Covid-19 vaccination effort. The punchline had Israel only vaccinating its Jewish citizens. This lie didn’t come from nowhere. It was born in the slander that the only liberal democracy in the Middle East is a racist state. SNL’s employment of the slur was an expression of its general acceptance in progressive circles today.

A few days later, NBC‘s drama series “Nurses” depicted Orthodox Jews as rabid racists. Resonating Nazi propaganda, a scene in the show depicted an Orthodox Jewish patient and his family rejecting his doctor’s recommendation that he receive an organ transplant because the organ may come from a “non-Jew.”

Obviously, the show’s writers, producers and directors wouldn’t have incorporated this rank anti-Semitism into their script if they didn’t believe it or feared they wouldn’t get away with it.

And so far, they have gotten away with it.

A week and a half ago, CNN host Don Lemon appeared on ABC‘s The View to discuss remedies for America’s supposed “structural racism.”

Lemon said a first step to purging Americans of racism was for them to replace their pictures of Jesus which portray him as “a hippy from Sweden or Norway” with new ones that show “what Jesus looked like.”

And what did Jesus really look like?

“Either a black Jesus or a brown Jesus because we know Jesus looked more like a Muslim,” Lemon declaimed, knowingly.

Like SNL’s anti-Semitic joke, and “Nurse’s” anti-Semitic drama, Lemon’s failure to mention that Jesus was a Jew from Bethlehem didn’t come from nowhere. It came from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Today the preacher who admires Hitler is viewed as an “authentic” woke religious leader by millions of woke revolutionaries. His celebrity arguably makes him the most powerful Jew-hater in American history. Lemon’s statement echoed Farrakhan’s assertion that Jews are “fake Jews,” and that the “real Jews” are blacks and Muslims.

The Grammy Awards ceremony last month made clear that woke anti-Semitism isn’t a bar for entry into the top echelons of American celebrity culture. It may even be an asset. Black activist Tamika Mallory, who referred to Farrakhan as “the GOAT” (i.e., the greatest of all time) gave a speech about racial justice. And singer Dua Lipa, who has attacked Israelis as “fake Jews” and claimed Hamas is an Israeli invention performed at the event.

Then there is the Democrat Party – the political home of 65-75% of American Jews. It isn’t simply that anti-Semitic politicians like Rashida Tlaib, Betty McCollum and Ilhan Omar are now ascendant, or that pro-Israel politicians like Elliot Engel and Dan Lipinski have been booted out of power.

It isn’t even simply that senior politicians like New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill Deblasio use anti-Semitism to rally their supporters or that President Joe Biden has appointed open Israel haters and BDS activists to senior positions in his administration.

Last week Biden held a Passover seder at the White House which erased the Jews and God from the story of their deliverance from Egypt. The White House invited the progressive, anti-Israel rabbi Sharon Brous to officiate at the event that rewrote and de-Judaized every aspect of the Jewish festival of Jewish freedom.

Disastrously, these assaults on all aspects of Jewish life and identity by the woke left are happening as many American Jews are abandoning their Judaism because they see little reason to remain actively Jewish. More than 70% of non-Orthodox Jews who get married, marry non-Jews. Even more startling, only half of non-Orthodox American Jews of marriage age (25-54) are married at all. Of those who are married, only 15% are raising children as Jews. Non-Orthodox Jewish women have the lowest fertility rates in the US.

Given the data, it makes sense that 65-75% of American Jews remain in a political and ideological home that is hostile to Jews. It’s a matter of priorities. It also explains why much of the communal response to both rising anti-Semitism and rising assimilation has been ineffective and even counterproductive.

Take the Anti-Defamation League, for instance. With an annual budget of around $100 million, the ADL is supposed to be the community’s first line of defense against anti-Semitism. But with leadership comprised of dedicated foot soldiers of the progressive revolution, who rather than fight the TV networks proliferating anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and libels, or the BDS brownshirts on campuses terrorizing Jewish students, the ADL has devoted its resources to fighting “white supremacy.” To be sure, as the Pittsburgh and San Diego synagogue shootings made clear, white supremacists are a threat. But unlike the progressive Jew-haters, white supremacists have no foothold in the mass media, in politics, in academia or in popular culture.

In January, a group of powerful leftist Jewish groups with strong ties to the Biden administration including J Street, Americans for Peace Now and the New Israel Fund began lobbying the administration to cancel the Trump administration’s decision to adopt the definition of anti-Semitism produced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The IHRA definition asserts that rejecting Israel’s right to exist and applying a double standard when judging it are forms of anti-Semitism.

These determinations make IHRA a problem for progressive anti-Semites who routinely reject Israel’s right to exist and apply a double standard to delegitimize it.

Last month, a consortium of far-left Jewish activists produced a new definition of anti-Semitism that specifically argued that rejection of Israel’s right to exist is not a form of anti-Semitism. In other words, rather than fight progressive anti-Semitism, powerful progressive Jewish groups and key activists are actively enabling anti-Semitic assaults on their fellow Jews by their fellow progressives.

As for the crisis of assimilation, rather than give American Jews a reason to live full Jewish lives, powerful Jewish institutions are denying there is a problem. This week, researchers at Brandeis published a new survey of the American Jewish population which determined that the Jewish population in America is growing, not shrinking. According to the study, there are 7.6 million Jews in America. This number is a striking departure from demographer Sergio Della Pergola’s 2019 study which concluded the community has shrunk to 5.7 million.

The Brandeis researchers “discovered” an additional 1.9 million Jews by counting Americans who describe themselves as “Jews with no religion” and “partial” Jews. They also included 1.2 million children growing up in homes with at least one Jewish parent being “raised as a Jew in any way,” which as American Jewish writer Jonathan Tobin notes is a “requirement so loosely defined as to be meaningless.”

Tobin noted that by expanding the number of Jews to include those with only the most attenuated relationship with Judaism, the Brandeis study provides a rationale for Jewish organizations to devote a larger portion of the (rapidly shrinking) communal resources to people with little attachment or interest in Judaism, and to do so at the expense of American Jews committed to living Jewish lives.

A growing number of committed American Jews are already finding themselves on the outs with their communities. Over the past five years, stories have abounded of members of Reform and Conservative congregations who have been ostracized or forced to leave their communities due to their conservative political beliefs. The most frequently affected have been Jews who openly supported then-president Trump.

Fighting assimilation trends has also gotten many Jews into hot water. American Jewish historian Jack Wertheimer has reported that Reform and Conservative rabbis who refuse to perform intermarriages have been sanctioned and even fired from their pulpits. He noted as well that Reform rabbis who simply encouraged their synagogue members to date other Jews have faced negative repercussions from their congregants. Intermarried couples, he reported, increasingly expect their rabbis to perform services celebrating Jewish and Christian holidays to make their non-Jewish spouses feel welcome.

Jewish organizations that seek to act on behalf of communal interests by fighting progressive anti-Semitism are also coming under attack. Perhaps the most prominent example is Boston’s Jewish Community Relations Council decision to consider a petition by progressive groups to expel the conservative Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) from its ranks.

The progressive groups demanded ZOA’s expulsion because ZOA President Mort Klein spoke out publicly against Black Lives Matter’s vicious anti-Semitism. The progressives also objected to Klein’s support for Trump.

While the JCRC rightly recognized that “expulsion [of the ZOA] at this time would not serve the interests of the JCRC or of the broader Jewish community in Boston,” it didn’t question the legitimacy of the petition to expel the ZOA.

Former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro recently attacked as “racists” and “bigots” Jews who voiced opposition to Biden’s appointment of Arab Americans with open records of hostility towards Israel and support for Palestinian terrorism. Shapiro argued that their Arab identity gives them a pass for advocating on behalf of Israel’s destruction.

The silver lining in the gloomy picture is that between 25% and 40% of American Jews remain deeply committed to their Judaism and to preserving, defending and passing on their identity to the next generation. This group includes both Orthodox Jews, Zionist Jews of varying levels of religious observance and politically conservative Jews. As the progressive Jewish American establishment focuses on reaching out to assimilated Jews and appeasing progressive Jew-haters, Israel can and must support this committed minority. Such assistance will no doubt increase their numbers and empower them to stand up for themselves and their rights as Jews.

Such assistance will ensure that that American Jews will continue to join their Israeli counterparts in singing “Next Year in Jerusalem” for generations to come – and many will do so in Jerusalem with their grandchildren.

Originally published in Israel Hayom.

 

Caroline Glick
 

Source: https://carolineglick.com/the-threats-american-jewry-refuses-to-face/

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The European Union: From a Single Market to a Tragic Farce - Drieu Godefridi

 

​ by Drieu Godefridi

EU elites are weak, cowardly and pusillanimous because they know they do not represent anyone, in the true democratic sense of the word

• Five hundred years from now, when historians look back on the COVID era, they will say that America's "Operation Warp Speed," under President Donald J. Trump, was a triumph of science and logistics.

• Many liberals have a short memory, but the EU has not always been the big, remote machine it has become.

• The principle of equality of states and the principle of equality of citizens cannot be reconciled in the current EU setting of institutions, says Germany's Federal Constitutional Court.

• Of course, EU institutions are dressed up with flowery language — such as "making the EU more democratic" — aimed at making people believe that EU institutions... are increasingly democratic and only waiting to become fully democratic.

• This evolution consisted, first of all, in subverting European institutions to make them accomplish, in addition to their economic aims, missions that were foreign to them, such as a "common foreign policy" that was never anything than words. How could you have a foreign policy common to the UK, Austria and Portugal?

• EU elites are weak, cowardly and pusillanimous because they know they do not represent anyone, in the true democratic sense of the word – they are not democratically elected, they are not transparent and they are not accountable to anyone. They are ultimately the playthings of governments that never agree with each other – but that do have the legitimacy of being truly democratic: elected, transparent, and accountable. There is also no mechanism for citizens to unelect anyone, should they wish to do so.

The European Union's vaccine management is a metonym for the EU: a tragic farce in the hands of ideologues as obtuse as they are inefficient. Pictured: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at a press conference, following a meeting about draft legislation on a common EU Covid-19 vaccination certificate, in Brussels on March 17, 2021. (Photo by John Thys/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Concerning the European Union, opinions are divided between those who consider it useless and costly, and those who believe it to be the future of Europe and a model for the human race.

What is the reality?

Before today's EU emerged, the construction of a European union was, at first, a tremendous success.

Many liberals have a short memory, but the EU has not always been the big, remote machine it has become. In the era of the more modestly named "European Communities" – entailing, for example, cooperation amongst multiple countries' economies; or within their coal, steel and nuclear industries – Europe achieved four freedoms of movement: those of people, capital, services and goods. Despite its flaws, shortcomings and innumerable imperfections (nothing human is perfect), this common – or single – market made a massive and substantial contribution to the freedom and prosperity of Europeans.

It is impossible not to consider as progress that a French citizen can move freely in Italy or that a Spanish entrepreneur has the right freely to offer services to citizens of the Netherlands. The original European common market was in every way in line with Jean Monnet's constructive concept of "peace through prosperity."

The problem was that the ideologues of all creeds could not be satisfied with this Europe as a mere tool, one that was essentially economic in nature. No, it was necessary to add a political Europe, a social Europe, a Europe of defense, a European foreign policy, an ecological Europe and even a geopolitical Europe.

This evolution consisted, first of all, in subverting European institutions to make them accomplish, in addition to their economic aims, missions that were foreign to them, such as a "common foreign policy" that was never anything than words. How could you have a foreign policy common to the UK, Austria and Portugal?

Next, the institutions and procedures were, and continue to be, constantly adapted, renovated and revolutionized to serve extra-economic ends — such as "peace", "combat social exclusion", "promote scientific and technological progress", "security and justice" — even at the expense of economic ones.

Today, the economic purpose of the European construction has been officially reduced — through treaties – to the bare essentials, aiming at "a sustainable development based on balanced economic growth and price stability" and given over to the demands of political, social and environmentalist Europe. Such demands begin, for example, with the European Green Deal that aims to turn Europe into the first "climate-neutral" continent by reducing Europe's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to "net zero" by 2050, even if the economic consequences to Europeans are unsustainable. According to IndustriAll, the federation of European industrial trade unions, there is a great risk that the European Green Deal will put entire industrial sectors on their knees, slashing millions of jobs in energy-intensive industries, without any assurances that workers in affected industries will have a future.

Thus, the EU, which in the past offered a counterbalance to the anti-economic fury of its member states, is now the permanent amplification of this fury.

No resolution concerning gender or environmentalism adopted by the German or French parliaments can compete with the increasingly extreme proclamations adopted on these subjects, as on others, by EU institutions. For example, the mainstreaming of the most extreme version of the gender theory — the idea that "male" and "female" are cultural, not biological, concepts — is now the official policy of the EU.

What allows these European institutions to go further and further down the path of ideology is that they escape democratic sanction, since the EU remains first and foremost an intergovernmental organization. Germany's Federal Constitutional Court diagnosed a "structural democratic deficit" in the construction of the European Union, in that the decision-making processes in the EU remain largely those of an international organization. The decision-making is based on the principle of the equality of member-states. The principle of equality of states and the principle of equality of citizens cannot be reconciled in the EU's current set of institutions, the Court said. Of course, EU institutions are dressed up with flowery language — such as "making the EU more democratic" according the Lisbon Treaty — aimed at making people believe that EU institutions, although imperfect, are increasingly democratic and only waiting to become fully democratic.

Nothing could be further from the truth; as an intergovernmental organization, the EU is not, never has been and never will be a democracy. An international organization is a compact between governments; to add an elected "European Parliament" to the scheme, with very limited capabilities, does not alter the intergovernmental preoccupations of such an organization.

What percentage of European citizens is capable of naming even one Member of European Parliament, European Commissioner or European Court of Justice judge? Americans feel American before being from Wyoming or Arkansas; while Italians, Spaniards, Swedes, Poles and Slovenes identify with their country before feeling European (in the generic sense of the word, not referring to the EU).

For historic reasons, Germany abides as much and often as possible by the EU rules and institutions. As was noted by Ulrich Speck:

"The country has built its political identity and its political system on the concept of being the opposite of the Nazi state. Germans today see the Nazi regime, among other things, as a radicalized form of classical power politics—something that they consider themselves lucky to have left behind."

In other words, many Germans see the EU as the ultimate antidote to the hegemonic tendencies of their past. While they managed the first part — the mitigation — of the recent pandemic relatively well, they decided to rely on the EU for vaccine management. There is logic in this approach: first, we are stronger together in negotiating with "Big Pharma," and, also, isn't this an opportunity to prove to Europeans that this EU that they do not like is at least useful?

Not content with being useless and costly, as in the case of vaccinations against COVID-19, the EU has shown itself to be horribly, comically and tragically ineffective. AstraZeneca, for instance, simply "informed" the bloc that it would not be able to supply the number of vaccines the EU had hoped — and paid for —by the end of March. EU leaders were "furious" that the company appears to be fulfilling its deliveries for the UK market and not theirs. The result of the EU's inability to uphold the commitments made to it by vaccine manufacturers is without appeal or recourse:

(Source: Our World in Data)

Five hundred years from now, when historians look back on the COVID era, they will say that America's "Operation Warp Speed," under President Donald J. Trump, was a triumph of science and logistics.

While it took five years to develop a vaccine against Ebola — the previous world record — it took less than a year in the West to develop several vaccines against COVID, mainly under pressure and with funding from United States taxpayers. Soon the U.S. government realized that the challenge was also logistical; it is all well and good to develop a vaccine, but it also has to be produced in large quantities and then distributed.

At the request of the US government, entire factories were built in a matter of months to produce the vaccine (which had not yet been developed at the time), in an effort whose breadth and scale were not unlike the U.S. industrial war effort of 1941. When it came time to distribute the vaccine, the U.S. government used the best tool at its disposal: the U.S. military. In the end, the U.S. mass vaccination program is being carried out in an unprecedented time frame; President Biden said at the beginning of March that the U.S. will have enough vaccines to inoculate every American by the end of May — two months earlier than previously expected.

Compared to the United States, the EU's failure is total. While in Europe, the challenge was only to produce and distribute the vaccine, the EU failed miserably on both counts. The European vaccination program now lags far behind the U.S. program and even farther behind those of Israel and post-Brexit Britain.

According to current data, the return to normal in Europe will be one year behind that of America and the United Kingdom. This year represents a cruel multitude of deficits, bankruptcies and personal disasters. It portends, in relative terms, a massive economic regression awaiting the EU, compared to the rest of the world.

The EU's vaccine management is a metonym for the EU: a tragic farce in the hands of ideologues as obtuse as they are inefficient. EU elites are weak, cowardly and pusillanimous because they know they do not represent anyone, in the true democratic sense of the word – they are not democratically elected, they are not transparent and they are not accountable to anyone. They are ultimately the playthings of governments that never agree with each other – but that do have the legitimacy of being truly democratic: elected, transparent, and accountable. There is also no mechanism for citizens to unelect anyone, should they wish to do so.

Common wisdom would dictate reducing the EU back to a single market, one territory without any internal borders or other regulatory obstacles to the free movement of goods and services. The ideological hubris that animates European institutions and their ideological sponsors will push them in the opposite direction – that of ever-greater centralization – at the expense of the European people and their vital interests.

 

Drieu Godefridi, a classical-liberal Belgian author, is the founder of the l'Institut Hayek in Brussels. He has a PhD in Philosophy from the Sorbonne in Paris and also heads investments in European companies.
 

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17193/european-union-tragic-farce

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