BC stands for NEO’s Banned Classic. This article was originally published by our journal on 27.11.14 For some reason, this article is missing from Google search results. Since this article remains pretty relevant to those geopolitical events that are taking place on the geopolitical stage today, we deem it possible to present it to our readers once again. Should it go missing again, you may be confident that you will see it republished by NEO once more, should it still remain relevant by that time.
Is the Western elite’s brainchild – the European Union – disintegrating? Due to persistent economic problems, the rise of “popular resentment” across the continent, the political fallout after the illegal coup in Ukraine and the subsequent unpopular economic war on Russia, the EU is on the verge of crumbling.
In an interview with France 24, the hedge fund manager, billionaire and founder of the Open Society Foundation, George Soros, reveals that the European Union has failed to achieve the desires of the elite and many within Europe now see “Russia as a role model”:
“We have to recognise that the [European] Union itself, which is a noble, well-intended experiment in international governance, has failed, and has not delivered what it promised, and there is such a degree of disappointment that even Russia can offer an alternative.” (3.21 into the interview)
Soros then asserts that many in Europe – including the UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage, Front National President Marine Le Pen in France, as well as “a lot of people in Germany” – find the idea of “closer cooperation with Russia rather attractive”.
Europe has been in crisis for years now and the outcome of this latest flare up with Russia could determine the future of the EU itself. In an article featured in The New York Review this month titled: Wake Up, Europe, Soros notes that since the financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent austerity policies imposed by the nefarious troika, “popular resentment” and support for anti-European parties has risen:
“The European Union in general and the eurozone in particular lost their way after the financial crisis of 2008.The fiscal rules that currently prevail in Europe have aroused a lot of popular resentment. Anti-Europe parties captured nearly 30 percent of the seats in the latest elections for the European Parliament but they had no realistic alternative to the EU to point to until recently. Now Russia is presenting an alternative that poses a fundamental challenge to the values and principles on which the European Union was originally founded…. It is also high time for the European Union to take a critical look at itself… The bureaucracy of the EU no longer has a monopoly of power and it has little to be proud of.”
The elite have become increasingly fearful of popular uprisings across the West which they seek to “co-opt and channel”, as Paul Joseph Watson reported for Infowars in September. As anger continues to mount in the West at the ineptitude and immorality of government, the elite will attempt to “co-opt” organic movements and even create artificial political movements to guide and neutralize “popular passions”.
The EU: An extension of the Anglo-American Elite
The EU is the brainchild of an international elite who have been in the process of building an empire for over a century, with the EU serving as “a bold experiment in international governance and the rule of law, aimed at replacing nationalism and the use of force”. The EU is an experiment in replacing national countries with a union which is to be amalgamated with emerging sovereignty-usurping unions across the planet, including the North American Union and a possible Middle Eastern Union, into a global empire. The executive body of the EU – the European Commission – is a corporate partner of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), the parallel British government which strives for global conquest.
Étienne Davignon, a former European Commissioner and an influential architect of European integration, revealed that the annual Anglo-American conference – the Bilderberg group – “helped create the Euro in the 1990’s.” Soros himself is hugely entrenched within the shadow world empire, as he heads up the European Council on Foreign Relations in addition to being heavily involved with the Council on Foreign Relations in the U.S.
Blowback from Economic Warfare on Russia
Europe has been the home of protests by irate farmers who have been hit hardest by the nonsensical political decision to impose sanctions on Russia following the illegal Western coup in Kiev. In response to Western sanctions, Russia imposed a ban on food imports in August from countries backing the sanctionsresulting in lower food prices in Europe as produce floods the market yet demand has dropped from a major importer in the East. This ban would never have been applied if the West did not overthrow the government in Kiev, and then further antagonise Moscow by implementing sanctions on the country. The loss of trade due to lower food exports is set to cost the EU an estimated $6.6 billion a year, yet the social blowback from the agricultural sector in an already sensitive and potentially volatile continent could be unquantifiable.
France has been gripped by numerous protests over the past few months as living standards continue to fall and the prohibition of exporting certain foods to Russia takes effect. Farmers in Brittany torched tax offices in addition to dumping cauliflower, artichokes and manure outside government offices during a protest in mid September, due to frustration with government policies. An estimated 36,000 people participated in a nation-wide protest in France earlier this month where they again dumped manure and rotten vegetablesoutside local government buildings, partly due to being unable to export food to Russia.
Spain has also seen protests by the farming sector over Russian sanctions, as agricultural unions dumped surplus potatoes outside the French multinational retailer Carrefour in Granada. The unions were protesting against the price Carrefour pays for their crops as well as the European Commission’s Emergency Fund not covering the loss potato farmers are experiencing due to reduced food exports. The fund purchases surplus stock from certain products produced to compensate farmers unable to export food to Russia, but it does not cover superfluous potato stocks.
Dissent and opposition to the policies of the EU is much broader than just the blowback from imposing sanctions on Russia however, as “it could be argued that the majority of citizens are opposed to the current conditions” on the continent. Austerity has decimated Southern Europe and anti-austerity rallies have become a fixture of life for many Europeans. In October, Naples witnessed thousands of people taking to the streets outside a European Central Bank (ECB) meeting held in Italy, where protestors demanded an end to austerity and high unemployment.
Unemployment and contempt towards the political class has soared across the European continent since the financial crisis of 2008, and this could trigger a revolution in Europe in the coming years. There is no question that the elite will do everything in their power to prop up the EU and attempt to “co-opt” any movement challenging the established order, but this may prove ineffective at containing the imminent uprising…
Steven MacMillan is an independent writer, researcher, geopolitical analyst and editor of The Analyst Report, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.