Newsletter 11-04-2024
15 april 2024 | Forum for Democracy Intl
Dear Reader
Controlling the narrative has become the principal - indeed overriding - obsession of Western governments today. They seem to devote more time and money on virtuality than on reality. It is striking that one of the principal instruments used to silence dissenters is moral condemnation. On foreign policy, governments denounce dissidents as fifth columnists and traitors; on domestic policy as scandalous slanderers. In a fascinating recent exchange on the floor of the Second Chamber of the Dutch parliament between FVD MP, Gideon van Meijeren, and the State Secretary for Health, Maartan van Ooijen, the discussion at first turned on the desirability of free speech and on the dangers censorship poses for truth. The minister initially pretended that his proposed anti-disinformation measures would be voluntary and only informative. But when Van Meijeren claimed that a senior health official had been improperly influenced to give medical advice on Covid vaccines which turned out to be unjustified, and that this became known only because of free debate, the minister leapt onto his moral high horse and condemned the remarks as an unacceptable attack on a man’s reputation, instead of refuting the substantial claim. With the support of the Speaker, the debate was shut down at that point. Quod erat demonstrandum.
The denial of reality can be pushed very far indeed. When the Nord Stream gas pipelines were blown up, FVD International immediately said that the Americans did it. For a while, the West pretended the Russians were guilty. (Up until that point, they had claimed that the Russians were using the pipeline to obtain geopolitical leverage over Western Europe, but consistency was never their strong point.) A year and a half later, there can be little doubt that the Americans were responsible. The fact that everyone knows this but will not admit it was flushed out when FVD MP, Pepijn van Houwelingen, put down a motion saying that the state responsible should be considered a hostile actor. Every single political party except FVD voted against the motion. What possible explanation can there be for this, other than that they all know that the Americans did it but cannot bring themselves to concede that our closest ally is in fact our enemy? Humankind cannot bear too much reality.
Fewer projects in history have been accompanied by disinformation as much as the European Union. Brexit was a rare moment when, after decades of very intense political battles which cost several prime ministers their careers, a few key truths penetrated the fog of lies the establishment had told for so long. Naturally, the truth-tellers were then themselves attacked as liars, as they are still today, four years after Brexit was finally actioned. Thus, even in spite of the fact that the British voted not once but three times for Brexit – in the 2016 referendum, in the May 2019 European elections, and at the general election held in December 2019 – pro-EU forces are still trying to de-legitimise that decision and perhaps even reverse it. FVD International’s director, John Laughland, gave a long interview in French to J’suis pas content TV (a very French title!) in which he explains all this and more.
Watch John Laughland's Interview here
We discussed Russiagate this week on The Forum, our weekly X-Space. If you missed it, you can listen back by clicking below.
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John Laughland,
Director FVD International