“CrossTalk” Ukraine’s Destinies AND the Netherlands current referendum

[BabaRa]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EfJGabk8E0

[Aianawa]

Cheers, b9okmarking

[BabaRa]

Cheers, b9okmarking

Thanks Aianawa - this is an important referendum, especially for those of you leaving in the EU. If one wants change, one must pay attention, as this is how they slip things through and then we wake up one morning in shackles and wonder how it happened.

[Aragorn]

[...] If one wants change, one must pay attention, as this is how they slip things through and then we wake up one morning in shackles and wonder how it happened.

That is exactly how they always do it here in Belgium. First of all, a referendum is not legally binding here — while it is legally binding in the Netherlands and most other European countries — which means that even if the government decides to organize a referendum, then they always have the legal right to ignore its outcome. Secondly, I have never known there to be an official government referendum here during my adult life. I do remember that there was a referendum in the late 1990s, but this was a referendum organized by the political party known today as Open VLD — which is a private entity — so that was not an official referendum held by the federal or regional governments.

When it came to the ratification by the individual EU member states of the official European Constitution, what you describe is exactly what the Belgian government did. Whereas other countries — the Netherlands, France, Ireland, et al — held a referendum among their people, and after the draft for said European Constitution had as such been rejected by the people of some of these EU member states, the Belgian government decided not to hold a referendum and quickly push the ratification through the federal and regional parliaments, officially out of a concern that the Flemish right-wing extremist party Vlaams Belang ("Flemish Interest") would have sabotaged the referendum out of said party's objections to the EU's invitation of Turkey to become an official EU member state.

(There actually were many legitimate objections against Turkey's EU membership — such as the fact that the Turkish government neither honors nor respects human rights — but being a right-wing extremist party, Vlaams Belang's objections were based upon their claim that Turkey is geographically not part of Europe and that the Turkish people can therefore not ethnically be European.)

At that point in time, the Belgian Federal Prime Minister was Guy Verhofstadt, and the Flemish Regional Minister-President was Patrick Dewael. Both are members of the very pro-EU Open VLD party, which is a Keynesian liberal (ie. pro-capitalism and pro-corporatism) party. And like most of their party members, Verhofstadt and Dewael are both also Freemasons and career politicians — Verhofstadt to a higher degree even, and he has for quite a while already been a member of the European Parliament.

[bsbray]

For a government to say "We're not going to put a vote to the people because we're afraid of how some of them might vote" is as blatantly fascist and totalitarian in its end result as whatever they are pretending to defend against. Classic Orwellian double-speak. Not much different than the Bush administration basically saying "The terrorists hate us for our freedoms so we're going to curtail those freedoms to defeat them."

[Myst]

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[BabaRa]

It's very sad to witness what is happening in Ukraine, especially in comparison to how much better it could be.


I really don't understand how this could be allowed to happen. I asked my Ukrainian wife if she understood why. Her answer was that her people were just not ready for the responsibility of independence. ore it is too late. These people have already suffered enough.

These people have suffered enough. . . . and I agree with your wife's explanation, however, IMO that is only a small part of the problem. .

The larger picture is: The neocons in the US always have to have an enemy. . and Russia is their current designated enemy. It's easy to convince the US public of this, since we have been suffering from Russia-phobia since the 50's. Unfortunately for the Ukrainian people, their country just happened to meet all requirements to start (or try to start) a meltdown between the US and Russia. If NATO could put in a puppet regime, it could move weapons right up to Russia's border. It could also take over the pipeline from Russia to Europe, thereby hurting Russia economically. Monsanto could move in and take over the huge farming area of Ukraine, etc, etc, etc.

Russia didn't bite (thank goodness) and move their army in to help the Ukrainians. This was good for the rest of us, thereby avoiding a proxy war between Russia and NATO, but unfortunately it was fatal for the Ukrainians. Another sad situation in the world due to Western interference. Iraq, Libya, Syria, just to mention a few. . . .