[Majorityrights News] Trump will ‘arm Ukraine to the teeth’ if Putin won’t negotiate ceasefire Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 12 November 2024 16:20.
[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
Posted by DanielS on Monday, 16 January 2017 06:51.
While the profusion of churches throughout the world can be disconcerting, as they are devoted to a religion that is obfuscating and mis-directing the natural instincts of our EGI (ethnic genetic interests), there is a note of optimism in that some of these sublime structures and the artisanship that went into their making can be converted for religion aligned with our ethno-national interests.
For example, hope for return to proper, natural religious function piques through some of the Spanish missions in California - some were configured to illumination of the solstice:
The 2007 midwinter solstice illumination of the main altar tabernacle of Old Mission San Juan Bautista, California. Rubén G. Mendoza/Ancient Editions, CC BY-ND
Winter solstice illumination of the main altar tabernacle of the Spanish Royal Presidio Chapel, Santa Barbara, California. The author first documented this solar illumination of the altar in 2004. Rubén G. Mendoza, CC BY-ND
On another level, some of the very elements of worship contained are only thinly veiled pagan icons and arrangement:
Schematic of the four successive solar illuminations of the saints of the main altar screen of Mission San Miguel Arcángel, California. Note illumination begins at the left with the Oct. 4 illumination of Saint Francis on his Feast Day. The author first identified and documented this solar array in 2003. Rubén G. Mendoza, CC BY-ND
Posted by DanielS on Monday, 28 November 2016 05:01.
These ancient “guardians of the gates” of Nimrud, called “lamassu”, were rescued by William Henry Layard and preserved at The British National Museum. Similar ancient treasures remaining at Nimrud were destroyed by Isil.
NPR, “In Northern Iraq, ISIS Leaves Behind An Archaeological Treasure In Ruins”, 26 Nov 2016:
In northern Iraq, outside Mosulin 2014, The Islamic State captured the ancient site of Nimrud and destroyed many of its archaeological treasures that date back 3,000 years. Isil were recently driven out of Nimrud, allowing archaeologists and others to come back and survey the extensive damage.
....including what remained of the remnants of temples and roads to the ancient palace of Ashurnasirpal II.
The king of the Assyrian empire, he built his palace at Nimrud almost three millennia ago. Enough of the cuneiform inscriptions, carved stone friezes and sculptures were left that it had been reconstructed throughout the 20th century by Iraqi and international archaeologists, and later by the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, as a kind of on-site museum, where visitors could really imagine the stately building on a hill.
[There was] great pair of sculptures guarding the gate – the mythical beast called a lamassu with the face of a man, body of a bull and the wings of an eagle.
“It was very important to put them at the gates,” she explained recently, “to drive away evil spirits from the city.”
[...]
Then, in 2014, the Islamic State surged through Iraq, taking nearly a third of the country’s territory, along with several ancient sites, including Nimrud, which is about 20 miles southeast of Mosul. They smashed and blew up Ashurnasirpal II’s palace.
[...] attacking the masonry and sculptures, deeming them heretical.
Last week, the Iraqi army retook Nimrud from the extremists, part of a push by an assortment of Iraqi security forces to dislodge ISIS from Mosul and surrounding areas. So Salih returned to see the site for herself.
[...]
In front of the grand entrance to what archaeologists call the northwest palace, built with thick walls around a central courtyard, was a grim pile of chunks
[...]
Ancient tablets with cuneiform writing lie around in pieces. The entrance to the palace is blocked with rubble, with tiny pieces of ancient inscription mixed up in it. A climb to the top of the walls reveals a courtyard strewn with wreckage.
The pride of the palace used to be a stone frieze of the Assyrian figures known as winged genies.
[...]
Now they are all but destroyed.
And despite numerous international initiatives and conferences on emergency heritage management, despite regular statements by Iraqi officials about the importance of the country’s ancient heritage, no soldier is guarding the site. Not so much as a local tribesman.
[...]
Although the site is historically Assyrian, it is not just Iraq’s small, Assyrian minority that sees it as part of its history. Iraqis often cite Nimrud as a source of national pride, part of the long history of the land once known as Mesopotamia.
[...]
No one knows when that might start. The British Museum is leading a project to train Iraqi archaeologists in emergency management.
“All the area which has been under ISIS control will need to be inspected and assessed,” said John MacGinnis, the archaeologist who leads the project.
But MacGinnis said for that to begin, the area has to be secure. And at Nimrud, ISIS is still within mortar range. The sounds of fighting nearby echo every day around the ruins.
What is interesting, in a very creepy sense, is the exposure of how Soros acts to infiltrate and direct mass movements in activism against White solidarity.
In these Podesta emails, he is exposed attempting another permutation of what has been a historical pattern of Jewish infiltration into the Catholic Church:
(((George Soros and Sandy Newman))) promoted fake Catholic groups to try and “create a revolution” within the Catholic church -
From the John Podesta emails, here is a fascinating exchange between Podesta and (((Sandy Newman))).
From:john.podesta@gmail.com To: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) Date: 2012-02-11 11:45 Subject: Re: opening for a Catholic Spring? just musing . . . We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this. But I think it lacks the leadership to do so now. Likewise Catholics United. Like most Spring movements, I think this one will have to be bottom up. I’ll discuss with Tara. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is the other person to consult.
On 2/10/12, Sandy Newman wrote: > Hi, John,
> > This whole controversy with the bishops opposing contraceptive coverage even > though 98% of Catholic women (and their conjugal partners) have used > contraception has me thinking . . . There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in > which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and > the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the > Catholic church. Is contraceptive coverage an issue around which that could > happen. The Bishops will undoubtedly continue the fight. Does the Catholic > Hospital Association support of the Administration’s new policy, together > with “the 98%” create an opportunity? > > Of course, this idea may just reveal my total lack of understanding of the > Catholic church, the economic power it can bring to bear against nuns and > priests who count on it for their maintenance, etc. Even if the idea isn’t > crazy, I don’t qualify to be involved and I have not thought at all about > how one would “plant the seeds of the revolution,” or who would plant them. > Just wondering . . .
> > Hoping you’re well, and getting to focus your time in the ways you want. > > Sandy > > Sandy Newman, President > Voices for Progress > 202.669.8754 > voicesforprogress.org
Like a fury, he entered four churches in the historic center of Rome and destroyed ancient statues, crucifixes, candelabras. The damage is incalculable from an artistic point of view. In the end, when he was getting ready to make the fifth incursion, he was arrested by the police. The vandal is a 39-year-old citizen of Ghana with a criminal record, legally residing in Italy.
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 05 December 2015 16:44.
Note: This article has been re-posted in MR Central on 19 Dec. 2015. Any further comments are kindly directed there.
Refugee Resettlement Watch’s Ten Reasons For Moratorium On Immigration & Appeal To Congressman Virgil Goode.
Noticing the style of the “moratorium” logo and its coincidence with an appeal to Virgil Goode, I couldn’t help but find it reminiscent of Dietrich’s VoR design..
...and also that Virgil Goode represented a unique experience for me, to actually be talking with a Congressman as I produced the Stark interview with him. Congressman Goode stayed available on my Google chat and otherwise in communique with me for several months afterwards. That was funny for me, in a good way. Though it should be normal, how many Congressmen speak openly with our kind? It speaks well of him. Ann Corcoran has placed her appeal in the right direction.
The need for reduction in immigration both legal and illegal;
National sovereignty, NAFTA, and the North American Union;
Foreign policy and the Iraq war;
Energy independence.
Virgil Goode is the presidential nominee for the Constitution Party. He represented Virginia’s 5th Congressional District as a Republic from 1997-2009. He previously served in the Virginia State Senate as a Democrat.
Now that the mainstream media and the public are waking up to the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program and how it has been operating for the last 35 years, I thought it would be a good idea to re-post this testimony I gave to the US State Department (first in 2012 at its annual scoping meeting and repeated in 2013 and 2014).
I just mentioned it in my previous post on annual reports.
As far as we can tell, the US State Department did not hold a public scoping hearing in 2015 (for FY2016) because we never saw a notice for it this year. In these ‘scoping meetings/hearings’ they ostensibly seek public input on the size of the program for the upcoming year and they want to know what countries should be the focus of protection.
The ‘scoping’ meeting (like a hearing) was usually held in late spring/early summer of the preceding year. Prior to our attendance in 2012, these meetings/hearings were dominated by the resettlement contractors and their groupies.
One more thing, the State Department does not keep and publish a hearing record for this meeting. The only way we could ever learn what others were saying is to obtain the hard copy testimony by attending in person! There ought to be a law!
Here is my testimony in 2012 (repeated in 2013 and 2014):
Ten Reasons there should be no refugees resettled in the US in FY2013—instead a moratorium should be put in place until the program is reformed and the economy completely recovers.
1) There are no jobs. The program was never meant to be simply a way to import impoverished people to the US and place them on an already overtaxed welfare system.
2) The program has become a cash cow for various “religious” organizations and other contractors who very often appear to care more about the next group of refugees coming in (and the cash that comes with each one) than the group they resettled only a few months earlier. Stories of refugees suffering throughout the US are rampant.
3) Terrorist organizations (mostly Islamic) are using the program that still clearly has many failings in the security screening system. Indeed consideration should be given to halting the resettlement of Muslims altogether. Also, the UN should have no role in choosing refugees for the US.
4) The public is not confident that screenings for potential terrorists (#3) or the incidences of other types of fraudulent entry are being properly and thoroughly investigated and stopped. When fraud is uncovered—either fraud to enter the country or illegal activity once the refugee has been resettled—punishment should be immediate deportation.
5) The agencies, specifically the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), is in complete disarray as regards its legally mandated requirement to report to Congress every year on how refugees are doing and where the millions of tax dollars are going that run the program. The last (and most recent) annual report to be sent to Congress is the 2008 report—so they are out of compliance for fiscal years 2009, 2010 and 2011. A moratorium is necessary in order for the ORR to bring its records entirely up-to-date. Additionally, there needs to be an adequate tracking system designed to gather required data—frankly some of the numbers reported for such measures of dependence on welfare as food stamp usage, cash assistance and employment status are nothing more than guesses. (The lack of reports for recent years signals either bureaucratic incompetence and disregard for the law, or, causes one to wonder if there is something ORR is hiding.)
6) The State Department and the ORR have so far failed to adequately determine and report (and track once the refugee has been admitted) the myriad communicable and costly-to-treat diseases entering the country with the refugee population.
7) Congress needs to specifically disallow the use of the refugee program for other purposes of the US Government,especially using certain refugee populations to address unrelated foreign policy objectives—Uzbeks, Kosovars, Meshketians and Bhutanese (Nepalese) people come to mind.
8) Congress needs to investigate and specifically disallow any connection between this program and big businesseslooking for cheap and captive labor. The federal government should not be acting as head-hunter for corporations.
9) The Volag system should be completely abolished and the program should be run by state agencies with accountability to the public through their state legislatures. The system as presently constituted is surely unconstitutional. (One of many benefits of turning the program over to a state agency is to break up the government/contractor revolving door that is being demonstrated now at both the State Department and ORR.) The participating state agency’s job would be to find groups, churches, or individuals who would sponsor a refugee family completely for at least a year and monitor those sponsors. Their job would include making sure refugees are assimilating. A mechanism should be established that would allow a refugee to go home if he or she is unhappy or simply can’t make it in America. Short of a complete halt to resettlement-by-contractor, taxpayers should be protected by legally requiring financial audits of contractors and subcontractors on an annual basis.
10) As part of #9, there needs to be established a process for alerting communities to the impending arrival of refugees that includes reports from the federal government (with local input) about the social and economic impact a certain new group of refugees will have on a city or town. This report would be presented to the public through public hearings and the local government would have an opportunity to say ‘no.’
For these reasons and more, the Refugee admissions program should be placed on hold and a serious effort made by Congress to either scrap the whole thing or reform it during the moratorium. My recommendation for 2013 is to stop the program now. The Office of the President could indeed ask for hearings to review the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980-–three decades is time enough to see its failings and determine if reauthorization is feasible or whether a whole new law needs to be written.
Information on the three hearings we wrote about and attended are archived here, here and here. (Those files include posts in which we referenced the hearings/meetings as well.)
By the way, Richard revolved into the State Department from her contractor job at the International Rescue Committee. She had a previous stint at the State Dept. The revolving door is alive and well between contractor and federal agency involving refugee resettlement.
Did you see that even the NY Times wrote about the female Islamic terrorist, how there was no way to “vet” her or to “screen” her as she came to live among us. Any logical person can see that. There was no d*** data, no biographic or biometric information to tap! And, if asked about any terror connections in personal interviews she certainly didn’t tell the truth.
So, don’t you wonder why only TEN US Senators can see that and that 89 others are so willfully blind. See our post on Senator Paul’s failed attempt at a moratorium on issuing visas to those coming from jihad-producing countries.
And, here see Daniel Greenfield on the killers yesterday. If you read nothing else from Greenfield’s post, this is the line every one must grasp:
It’s a matter of simple math that as the population most likely to commit terrorist acts increases, so do the acts themselves.
I went back to our archives to see when I first heard anyone suggest a MORATORIUM on Muslim immigration and want to give a shout-out to former Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode who saw the San Bernardino slaughter coming 9 years ago! Learn about how the politically correct harpies at the Washington Post treated him then. His position, in support of a moratorium on legal (Muslim) immigration to America cost him his seat. We told you more about him here in 2010.
Political correctness is dead! Everyone of you must start saying the ‘M’ word! MORATORIUM! Moratorium on Muslim migration to America, NOW!
Thank you Mr. Goode! Goode is a Trump supporter in Virginia today!
Posted by DanielS on Monday, 16 November 2015 00:21.
* No peace sign executed by Kumiko
It is not time for peace, but for the comprehensive conceptualization of non-European peoples as other, their place overwhelmingly is not among Europeans, and their imposition upon European EGI an act of war that calls for war in response.
Further, this calls for the undoing of “anti-racism”, reversing it, to a legitimization of the comprehensive social classification of peoples, including full comprehension of non-Europeans, including their outliers (their “nice exceptions” to their pejorative patterns) as distinct others to be discriminated against in accordance of European interests.
Important and true though that statement is, it is necessary to capture the point in a pithy caption, that this is not a time for peace nor to be concerned for “the nice ones”, if “the nice ones” refuse our terms and/or will not go back to their native countries, from amidst our citizenship. We would more assuredly die through differential birthrates and interbreeding with “the nice ones” than we would through acts of terrorism.
So, let there be a contest to capture the nuance of our concerns: supply a caption for the image, something like “No peace for non-European imposition”... or “No peace for non-European invaders”, etc.
* Note: Kumiko and I had the same reaction (revulsion) to the peace sign in this context. When I saw it I was eager to make a statement to the effect of, no! it is not the time for that and this does not represent our stance. I wanted to put up the image with the typical street-sign type of cross-out (circle with one diagonal line through the center - in this case, over the peace sign). I discussed it with Kumiko and she was thinking something quite similar, but only much more emphatic - she was considering using an X scribbled with enraged thoroughness through the peace sign… but it was so thorough that you could barely see that there was a peace sign there. Still, I liked her idea of the hand written zeal of the strike through the peace sign, and suggested just one diagonal strike so that what was being crossed-out could still be seen; she agreed and we both had a try to see which of our renderings looked best. Interestingly, we both chose the same color, but hers looked better and there it is.
Despite our pugnacious enthusiasm, Ryan raises a hand of restraint, itemizing “peace as war” campaigns that had backfired. I wonder if that is not all the more reason to be explicit about who our enemies are. Kumiko is going to have some very interesting things to say about that in days to come in a discussion of the neo-cons.
And she might add her own evergreen post about the anti-peace sign.
In the meantime, I am importing the first few comments by way of responding to them in a first comment, and Kumiko’s first comment will be added here (though I will also leave the comments under the Paris attack thread).
1. Yes. When I saw all these people holding up these idiotic signs calling for peace, the first thing I wanted was to cross it out because now is not the time for some mawkish calls for ‘peace’. So that logo is one that will be used on Majorityrights so that we can express our fundamental disagreement with their idea of ‘peace’.
Posted by Kumiko Oumae on Monday, 28 September 2015 17:03.
When jokes threaten to become reality
A long time ago at the beginning of this ‘refugee crisis’, people used to make a joke and say, “If this keeps up, liberals might start asking for a bridge to be built so that no one would need to smuggle humans across water any more”. Who could have known that this joke would become a jinx?
Austria’s refugee coordinator Christian Konrad has called for the construction of a 200km long bridge from Al Huwariyah in Tunisia to Agrigento in Sicily. This is after Konrad had previously called for housing solutions to be constructed in Austria as hundreds of asylum seekers currently staying at the Traiskirchen reception centre in Lower Austria are sleeping in tents due to overcrowding there.
Education Minister Gabriele Heinisch-Hosek is tasked with devising proposals on how to integrate refugee into Austrian schools. This integration will likely be of the sort that parents of non-Muslim children will have no ability to veto. Integration of school systems never seems to come ‘organically’.
Social Minister Rudolf Hundstorfer will be looking for ways to ease the strictures of employment laws, so as to make it easier for big businesses to employ refugees, and for the purpose of lowering the standards that govern social bargaining at the enterprise and state level, the standards which Austria actually would have had to agree to have upheld upon joining the ERM back in March 1979. So now they have come full circle, and have ended up considering imposing a very ‘American’ form of social bargaining and employment laws, even though the European approach was supposed to have some significant differences.
Under the so-called emergency, the crisis that ‘demands’ compromise, one of the supposed prized qualities of the European labour market, will be dismantled for the benefit of a certain cross section of large companies which see it as being in their interest to use these migrants as a battering ram against any attempts to have any kind of organised labour movement in the continent. It is against this backdrop of the tendencies within the Austrian ruling class, that this bridge proposal is set.
Construction companies
The construction company STRABAG AG would get the contract for the bridge. STRABAG AG is a company that was created through the merger of ILBAU and STRABAG in the 1930s, both being founded by Anton Lerchbaumer. It acquired Deutsche Asphalt Group in 2002, Waltr Bau Group in 2005, it took on a majority stake in Ed Züblin in 2005, Adanti SpA, KIRCHNER Holding GmbH, F. Kirchhoff AG and Deutsche Telekom Immobilien und Service GmbH in 2008.
In 2013 the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic stated that it believed that one of the companies of the STRABAG Group participated in bid rigging cartel of construction companies in that country. Amongst the companies involved in that cartel, was a company called Doprastav a.s., which is part of Doprastav Group. The illegal conduct centred around the D1 Highway which was constructed from 2004 and continued to have work done on it and its surroundings up to at least 2010.
STRABAG is managed by CEO Thomas Birtel. The Chairman of the supervisory board at STRABAG is Alfred Gusenbauer. Alfred Gusenbauer is an Austrian politician who until 2008 had spent his entire professional life as an employee of the Social Democratic Party of Austria or as a parliamentary representative. He headed the Social Democratic Party of Austria from 2000 to 2008, and served as Chancellor of Austria from January 2007 to December 2008. Since then he has positioned himself as a consultant and lecturer, and as a member of supervisory boards of Austrian companies, STRABAG being one of these.
Gusenbauer is known for having exploited the occurrence of the BAWAG Scandal, in which BAWAG—the bank of the Austrian Trade Union Federation—engaged in failed bets using risky undocumented derivative instruments held off-balance-sheet. After the losses became unmanageable, Fritz Verzetnitsch resigned from the Austrian Trade Union Federation in disgrace, and Gusenbauer used this opportunity to exclude all of the Trade Union leaders from the ballot lists of the Social Democratic Party, an action which moved the party to the right structurally.
STRABAG’s Gusenbauer and Austria’s refugee coordinator Christian Konrad obviously are not strangers to each other, seeing as they come from the same party and travel in the same social circles. In the world of business and politics, it’s quite often about who you know and who you’ve worked with. Aside from the fact that STRABAG is one of the largest construction companies in Austria, there is also the political connection that would exist between persons within the state and within that company’s structure.
Russian-Jewish Mafia involvement
A notable stakeholder in STRABAG is Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska, a extremely wealthy Russian oligarch, who—when he is not exploiting the mineral and energy resources of impoverished Asians in Siberia—also has for some reason cultivated over the years a very amicable relationship with people who may or may not be associated with former Russian soldiers who had been veterans in Afghanistan who may be part of the presently existing heroin smuggling operations which have been occurring at an ever-heightening rate since the year 2005.
Additionally, Deripaska has a good relationship with the Russian-Israeli Mafia, which helped him with the purchase of Sayansk aluminium plant in Siberia when he was first starting up as a businessperson in the 1990s. He has a especially tight relationship with the Israeli business and crime figure known as Michael Cherney, who personally assessed Deripaska and pulled the necessary strings on his behalf. Deripaska has since operated in the debt of Cherney and the Russian-Israeli Mafia. Cherney also operates security think tank groups, which may or may not be actually just front groups which allow him and his criminal networks to plug into the stream of intelligence exchanges that go on in the War on Terror, so that he can smuggle contraband through conflict zones with less risk of detection. Cherney also publishes anti-fascist publications through the Michael Cherney Foundation which is registered as a ‘charitable foundation’.
Interfacing with activist groups
The proposal for this Africa-to-Europe 200km long bridge, whose construction contract sits at the centre of all of these groups and individuals, also is associated with a local Austrian ‘anti-racist’ activist group. That group is named Zentrum für Politische Schönheit, which in English is ‘Centre for Political Beauty’.
The Centre for Political Beauty refers to itself as a group that “makes art” for the purpose of encouraging the European peoples to adopt a more liberal-humanitarian outlook on the world. Much of what they do is done for the sake of “not rendering void of the legacy of the Holocaust”. One of their members, Massimo Sestini, is perhaps known to Majorityrights readers because he is one of the persons who has consistently been providing ‘humanistic’ photography of the migrants to various media outlets including the British Newspaper, the Guardian, since at least mid-2014. The power of images cannot be underestimated.
The Centre for Political Beauty takes its activism beyond simply creating static pieces of art, and in fact, merges art with political action while invoking shadows of past events which they believe hold immense sway over the European psyche.
Here are four relevant examples of them merging art with political action:
They have removed sections of the Berlin Wall monument, the sections that contain Christian cross logos with names on them. They have removed some of these because they have transferred those crosses to the outer border fences of the European Union, and affixed them there. In some images African migrants are posing with the crosses for photographs. This is a kind of art creation that is apparently supposed to symbolise the idea that the internal wall between the West Germany and East Germany that was removed after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is ontologically the same as the border between Europe and Africa which they believe would be removed after the fall of racially cohesive European identity.
They plan to actually cut holes into some segments of the EU border fences on 09 November 2015, during the commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. This would allow migrants to break through the fences at the precise timing of the celebrations, so that they can link the celebration of one thing, with the celebration of another thing that they plan to superimpose onto it.
Since the idea for the creation of a bridge between Africa and Europe is a project that would take them until the year 2030 to complete if it gets started on time and isn’t thwarted in some way, they want to call on Austria to supply state funding for 1,000 rescue platforms to be permanently installed into international waters between North Africa and Italy. The first one of these platforms will be unveiled in the water on 01 October 2015, in Licata Harbour. The press will be invited at 0630 on that day.
Dead African and Middle Eastern bodies will be exhumed and transported from the sea and into the capital city of Germany. The bodies will be displayed and placed into open shallow graves in plain view, so that persons running the media operation can then talk about the ongoing crisis in terms that have allusions to the narratives of the Jewish Holocaust.
They are absolutely serious. It would not be hyperbolic to say that the intention behind these actors who have come together to make these things happen, is that they would like to inflict extreme demographic damage onto the European Union.
The resources being allocated to these plans, and all such operations, stand in stark contrast to the fact that countries in the South of Europe have been placed under austerity policies so harsh that civil society in countries like Greece are breaking down, and money allocated to even basic state functions like national defence have been so low that the topic of whether enough counties are meeting the basic NATO obligations is often raised.
Yet, mysteriously, certain richer state governments of north-western and south-central Europe seem to be very capable of sourcing funds for extravagant migrant rescue operations and even funds for building a 200km long bridge. Where is it coming from? It’s coming from your bank account via taxation.
Kumiko Oumae works in the defence and security sector in the UK. Her opinions here are entirely her own.