European Political News

Or ... emotional intelligence.

Cartoon: Gaping Void

If you are suffering from insomnia and in the mood to read a 128-page English version of a report, in pdf format, from the European Union, click here. This is the first annual report from the European Agency for Fundamental Rights, based in Vienna, and dedicated to the prosecution of the crime of discrimination. These are the fine folks who keep track of the accusations, litigation, trials, judgments and punishments meted out to those wretched souls who can't seem to straighten up and fly right in matters of diversity. Taking each of the 27 countries of the Union, the report admonishes their laxness, or praises their efforts.

 

The hard-working Yves Daoudal offers this synopsis:

In its first annual report, the European Agency for Fundamental Rights, based in Vienna with all its acronyms on display, thunders forth about the racist, anti-Semitic, or extreme-right-wing-generated acts of violence, and acts of discrimination, that are on the rise in the EU and that have not been adequately punished, EXCEPT in the United Kingdom... [my emphasis]
 
The Agency seems to be particularly interested in discriminatory hiring practices based on nationality, in other words, national preference, or what is left of it, a notion condemned above all others and that must be firmly abolished.
 
And so, the Agency is pleased that "the United Kingdom possesses the most efficient system of anti-discrimination legislation in all the EU," and that with "95 punishments in 2006 - 2007, it has meted out more punishments than all the member States put together." (This is not unrelated to the galoping dhimmitude we are witnessing in Britain.)
 
On the other hand, the Agency chokes with fury at what it finds in Ireland and Belgium: "discriminatory job offers declaring that foreigners need not apply."
 
And it is intolerable that in 12 countries of the EU no punishments have been applied, even though law suits have been initiated. These miserable countries are the Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia.
 
France is one of those countries that "has implemented a relatively efficient legislation," but where "convictions are still rare compared to the UK."

Here is an excerpt from the report itself about HALDE, the French government agency created under Jacques Chirac to track and punish discrimination:

In France, in 2006 and 2007, the High Authority against Discrimination and for Equality (HALDE) gained momentum, as can be seen by the number of complaints received. In 2006, the HALDE received 4,058 complaints: employment was the most important field of complaints (42.87%) and origin was the most important reason for being discriminated (35.04%). In 2007, the number of received complaints increased: the HALDE registered 6,222 complaints, i.e. an increase of 53%. [...] The HALDE has received 11,689 complaints since its creation in 2005. Moreover, an opinion poll conducted by CAS Institute shows that the French people are more and more concerned by the question of discrimination: this demonstrates that communication and information campaigns conducted by the HALDE had an impact on the French public. Indeed, the HALDE developed a strong strategy of communication and it is very visible in the public scene [...]

In other words, the more complaints HALDE receives, the happier the Agency is.
 
In another part of the report focusing on France, the case of Fanny Truchelut is cited as a case of discrimination. I reported several times on this case which involved a bed-and-breakfast owner who turned away Muslim women wearing headscarves on grounds of laïcité. She insisted she only forbade the headscarves in the public areas of the inn, not in the private quarters. The court ruled against her. The last I heard she was appealing the ruling.

A quote from the Christian-Democrat, pro-EU Yellow Stars Blog, 30 June 2008

The result of 25-plus years of this destructive and dehumanizing ideology [Conservatism] ruined America, dismantled social safety nets, demonized the poor, destroyed jobs and education funding – and turned American society to one that is unbearable for all except the rich and the well off. […]

[America] is the most criminalized society on Earth and more Americans are behind bars than in any other nation on Earth. There are people sleeping on the streets, including war veterans, in the richest nation on Earth. Children go to school hungry and often cannot afford school supplies. What was largely with brutal craft of Ronald Reagan may take Americans 25-plus years to repair and undo. What is most alarming is that this brutal and dehumanizing social economic system now seeking to infect European society and give it these same illnesses that have left America a human wasteland.

Europeans must identify this strain of virus called American conservativism – and inoculate itself against it…

A quote from a comment at the New English Review blog, 29 June 2008

[The Belgian politician Jean-Marie] Dedecker spends a suspiciously inordinate amount of time trying to morally equate the Jews and the Muslims. But of course Jews are not flying airplanes into the sides of skyscrapers, or blowing up pizzerias or buses or trains with bomb vests, or lobbing mortars at Muslim schools, and using quotes from the Torah to justify it. Zionism is the belief that Jews deserve to have a homeland where they can be relatively free from the threat of genocide; Islamism is the belief that Islam deserves to have the entire universe, and that it should be conquered with religiously sanctioned violence and genocide. Not only are these two concepts not similar, they are practically contradictory in every sense.

A quote from The Daily Mail, 30 June 2008

A teenager was stabbed to death as he desperately phoned a friend for help. Ben Kinsella, […], was the latest victim of Britain's sickening knife culture. Two 16-year-olds were arrested and have now been released on bail.

The 16-year-old was out with friends celebrating the end of his GCSEs when a row broke out with youths in a pub near his family's £2million home in Islington, North London. As the 2am argument spilled outside into a brawl involving up to 50 teenagers, Ben fled up the road chased by a gang of black youths. David Dugdale, the friend he called, said: 'He was running and he rang me and just said, "Help me, help me", then the phone went dead, and that was it.

 
A quote from Larry Auster at his blog, 30 June 2008

That 16 year olds were in a pub at 2 a.m. is treated by the Mail as normal and unexceptionable, and I guess in today's Britain it is. This reflects the underlying reality that along with the laxity toward blacks that has helped unleash black racial savagery in Britain, the British whites themselves (or, rather, simply the British) have a laxity, an Eloi-like unconsciousness and carelessness, that opens them to that savagery.

I picked up a consultation document about a "New GP-Lead Healthcare Centre" for Notinghamshire yesterday. The consultation period finishes today.

I'm not going to beat them up about not seeing the document earlier, as my GP and my address are just (half a mile) in Derbyshire. The NHS in each county are getting much more territorial though - I've been forced to stop using an optician in Nottinghamshire for my diabetic eye checks (where I went several years ago) because Derbyshire compel me to use their self-delivered service at the cost of an extra half-day off work every year.

However, I am going to have a go at the logic and quality of the programme and the consultation.

Is over at Suzanne Lamido's place - the "here come the girls" edition.

That headline will get the traffic, and the review deserves it. These girls aren't faking.

The roundup is a compendium of last week's outstanding posts in the British Blogosphere.

I forgot to post the audio of Britblog Roundup No. 175 last week (23-Jun-2008), it is hosted at Redemption Blues , so here's a bonus to have with your morning coffee.

Click through on the title for the audio.

How many UK political bloggers have heard of Joi Ito?

If not? Why not? In 2008 it matters.

Cartoon: Gaping Void

Yesterday, the Belgian establishment newspaper De Standaard published a double interview with the Dutch politician Geert Wilders and the Flemish politician Jean-Marie Dedecker. Mr Dedecker, a popular former judo coach, is a populist right-wing politician who was ousted by the governing Flemish Liberal Party in 2006 and founded his own party, the Lijst Dedecker (LDD) or Gezond Verstand Partij (Common Sense Party). He won 5.5% of the Flemish vote in the June 10, 2007, elections. It is generally assumed that he did so mainly at the expense of the Flemish-secessionist and anti-Islamist Vlaams Belang (VB, Flemish Interest) party. According to the latest polls Dedecker is currently at 12.4%, again mostly at the expense of the VB. Last November, Dedecker called the VB “fascistic” and boasted that he is single-handedly succeeding in what the Belgian establishment failed to do for 20 years: “smoking out the VB.”

Geert Wilders, who was ousted by the governing Dutch Liberal Party in 2004 and also founded his own party, the Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Freedom Party) won 5.9% of the Dutch vote in the November 22, 2006, elections with an anti-Islamist platform. Polls predict that his party will double in size if elections are held today. Wilders’ spectacular growth has, however, been stopped by Rita Verdonk, another former member of the Dutch Liberal Party (and a former Dutch Immigration minister), who was ousted in 2007 and also founded her own party, Trots op Nederland (TON, Proud to be Dutch). Verdonk is opposed to immigration but does not criticize Islam. In the polls she is doing better than Wilders.

 
Excerpts from the interview:
 
De Standaard: There are also large differences between the two of you. Mr Dedecker is opposed to prohibiting things, whereas you [Geert Wilders] want to prohibit all kinds of things, starting with the Koran. […]

Wilders: That I want to prohibit all sort of things is complete nonsense. I only want to prohibit things to defend our rule of law. I am still enough of a liberal to prohibit things only in the most extreme cases. I do not like to prohibit books at all. You will never hear me advocate prohibiting other books.

De Standaard: Do you also feel that our rule of law is threatened in this way, Mr Dedecker?

Dedecker: I feel threatened by the fact that the separation between church and state is diminishing. But I have no existential angst. There are two major phobias at present in our society: Islamophobia and climatophobia. Both are being promoted.

(To Wilders) You think that Eurabia is a danger. I disagree. Our enlightenment values are strong enough to withstand this. However, we have to wake up. What the politically correct Left has done to our society explains our [electoral] success.

Wilders: If you say that we must wake up, this means that the leftist political elite is sleeping at this moment. That is exactly the reason why our enlightenment ideas do not prevail. Because those leftist politicians, who have become ever more dependent on [the votes of] immigrant groups, will sleep on.

Dedecker: I think prohibiting the Koran is a form of overacting. We shouldn’t prohibit any books: neither Mein Kampf nor the Koran. The Bible, the Thora and the Koran are but fairy tale books. That is what you have to dare tell the people. If religion manifests itself as collective madness, then we must dare to oppose it and start the debate.

Wilders: The Koran is a diabolic book rather than a fairy tale book. It is also, unlike the other books which you refer to – and which I would not call fairy tale books, but it is your right to do so – a book from which people draw inspiration today to commit terrorist acts and exclude women and homosexuals from my community and execrate the separation of church and state. Fairy tale books do not do such things. Fairy tale books concern the Efteling or Walibi [Dutch and Belgian theme parks; equivalents of Disneyland]

Dedecker: I am opposed to the wearing of headscarfs by civil servants, I am opposed to separate swimming hours [for men and women] in swimming pools, but is this a reason to prohibit the Koran? On the contrary, I am one hundred percent behind our own values. And I am as much criticised for this as you. […]

[To Wilders] Up to a certain extent you are also a Zionist. I find that very strange of you.

Wilders: A Zionist? What next?

Dedecker: The way you always defend Israel – as a matter of fact this happens much more in the Netherlands than in Belgium. We both have visited Israel and the Palestinian territories. I consider Zionism and Islamism as similar phenomena. You constantly defend Israel although you know what is being inflicted there on the Palestinians. Do you do that perhaps because Zionism is the counterpart of Islamism?

Wilders: It is interesting that you say this. Zionist goes perhaps a bit far, but I am, indeed, a convinced defender of Israel. Because Israel is an oasis of democracy and Western values in the Middle East. I have also been in other countries in the region, from Syria via Iran to Afghanistan: all these countries are dictatorships. Israel is the only country where a majority in parliament can dismiss a minister – as members of parliament you and I should be able to appreciate that.

I am biased in favour of Israel. Is that so bad? No, I am even proud of it. You have to make up your own mind, but you, too, should be proud of every democracy in the world.

Dedecker: You are partly right. But that does not justify Israel’s apartheid policies – and that is exactly what I reject. I call Israel a kippah democracy.

Wilders: I have a different opinion. Palestinians who are living in Gaza and on the West Bank at this moment, could very well move to the other side of the Jordan – to Jordan or other areas. There is space and place enough there and many Palestinians already live there.

De Standaard: So you also favour ethnic cleansing?

Wilders: That is not ethnic cleansing. Israel can justly claim those regions. Moreover we do not have to harm anyone, but I see what happens today: Hamastan, governs Gaza.

Dedecker: Why should the Palestinians have to go to Jordan? The Palestinians are the outcasts of the Middle East: they are not welcome anywhere. These are people who were driven from their territory on the basis of an international treaty and pseudo property rights granted by the Thora or the Bible. Property rights on the basis of fairy tale books.

Wilders: For me the security of Israel as a democracy prevails on the rights of a group who is to a large extent guilty of terror and corruption. There is no democratic Palestinian authority – that is the sad truth. I am convinced that the attacks which Israel suffers from radical Islam are attacks aimed at us.

Dedecker: Isn't it the opposite? Research shows that three fourth of the suicide terrorists are motivated by the fate of the Palestinians. If we solve that situation, would it not lead to a safer world for all of us? Meanwhile we spend billions and billions on our security.

 

A storm has risen up over MPs having investments in Zimbabwe. Or, rather, as the facts actually are, in companies which have a presence in Zimbabwe. The Independent On Sunday proclaims that: Three of David Cameron’s frontbenchers are among six Conservatives – and one Liberal Democrat – with investments together worth more than £1m in firms trading [...]

I'm delighted to be able to announce that Robert Gabriel Mugabe may will have is bound to has won the Zimbabwe Election.

Here's a button so that anyone can announce the result on their blog:

What? The count isn't finished yet?

What on earth has the count to do with the result?

Silly people.

These are some links you can use to keep up to date:

• Sokwanele - Enough is Enough - Civic Action Support Group
• This is Zimbabwe - Sokwanele blog.
• The Bearded Man Blog / Podcast - Ex Zimbwbwe policeman based in UK
• Zimbabwe Democracy Now - Democracy campaign site

Back in February I wrote about the saga of the SPCK bookshop chain in a post about the need to maintain dialogue between critcial different religions and philosophies:

About a year ago the venerable SPCK chain of Christian Bookshops (one arm of the literature work of SPCK - the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, who also do things such as funding libraries in theological colleges) were transferred to a charity called St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust.

and noted the pressures on staff:

Since the transfer took place, a large number of staff (for example 70% of the bookshop managers) have left, and there have been some major management changes - including an attempt to make major changes (which were perceived as detrimental) to the staff contract.

Doug Caplin, who writes at MetaCatholic reports that this has turned to tragedy in Worcester with the apparent suicide of Steve Jeynes, the ex-SPCK branch manager, two weeks after he was made redundant.

A quote from Diana West’s blog, 28 June 2008

Well, I went to [the Brussels borough of] Molenbeek earlier this month and brought back this slide show of snaps. What you will see may call to mind something more like Little Marrakesh or Istanbultown than the so-called capital of Europe. To some, it will be possible to see in Molenbeek a fairly bustling display of non-indigenous culture certainly not unfamiliar to Americans who have both lived through and been a part of historic immigration waves. […] What is different here, of course […] is that what is going here is not a traditional process of assimilation to the host (European) culture, but a quietly revolutionary procedure best described as reverse colonization: Europe is being colonized by Islam.

We don't need you to annoy single people by telling them that we're hard working. Some of us aren't, but that's not a problem is it? Is it?

One by-election was just a month ago. Another held its vote yesterday. And the candidate list for one more has just closed. They think it’s all over - but it isn’t yet: A Labour MP is set to resign forcing another potentially embarrassing by-election for Gordon Brown in the wake of his fifth place humiliation in Henley. The [...]

If you can’t beat them, join them! This seems to be the new guiding philosophy of Spain’s opposition center-right Popular Party (PP), which has undergone an extreme makeover to the political center following its second consecutive election defeat to the ruling Socialist Workers Party (PSOE).
 
After losing the national elections on 9 March, most conservatives had expected the beleaguered opposition leader Mariano Rajoy to retire and quietly fade away. Instead, Rajoy, 53, has tenaciously held onto his position, insisting that he is the only individual who can unify the PP and unseat Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero at the next national poll, which is set for 2012. Rajoy has been the party’s leader since 2004, when he was hand-picked for the job by former PP Prime Minister José María Aznar.
 
Given the notoriously undemocratic nominating processes within Spanish political parties, no rival candidate has emerged to challenge Rajoy for his job. So at their annual national party congress, which was held in the Mediterranean city of Valencia on 20-22 June, PP regional delegates (also known as party ‘barons’ for their secretive backroom shenanigans) voted overwhelmingly to allow the unopposed Rajoy to continue as leader of the opposition.
 
But the cost to the party has been very high. Rajoy has subjected the PP to a political facelift so audacious that critics say there is now not much difference between it and the PSOE. Moreover, the PP has been left fractured between supporters of Rajoy who want to anchor the party in the political center, and conservatives who want to maintain a tough line on questions of public morality as well as the fight against ETA terrorists.
 
Pragmatism versus Principle
 
There are three main theories as to why Rajoy was unable to unseat Zapatero (who by almost anyone’s definition was a weak and politically vulnerable incumbent) in the recent elections. One hypothesis posits that the bearded and bespectacled Rajoy was a charisma-less candidate who failed to inspire voters. Another premise is that the PP, by clinging to its conservative values, alienated the majority of Spanish voters. A third theory, closely related to the second one, is that the PP, by insisting on Spanish national unity, pushed otherwise centrist voters in separatist regions like Catalonia and the Basque Country into the arms of the post-nationalist PSOE, which has been far more generous than the PP in its offers for increased provincial autonomy.
 
Rajoy, who like most politicians believes that everyone adores him, is a disciple of theories two and three. As such, he has concluded that in order for him to finally win the political lottery in 2012, he must steer the PP to the radical center so as to woo new voters. But by doing so, Rajoy has unleashed a bevy of existential soul-searching about the future of Spanish conservatism not seen since the death of General Francisco Franco in 1975.
 
Rajoy signaled just how far left he wants to take the PP when on 25 June he granted his first media interview since being re-elected as party chief to the leftwing Cadena Ser, a rabidly anti-PP radio station that is key part of the Spanish Socialist mass media propaganda apparatus. Rajoy told his listeners that his new political philosophy consists of four words: “centrism, women, dialogue and future.” Any observer of Spanish politics would immediately recognize these politically-correct buzzwords as coming straight out of Zapatero’s post-modern playbook.
 
Rajoy told the party congress in Valencia: “We need to widen our pool of votes. It’s possible. The PP wants to be the meeting place for the majority of Spanish society. We want an open party, not an exclusive club.”
 
Rajoy seems to be taking some of his ideological cues from the editor of the center-right El Mundo newspaper, Pedro J Ramírez, who has been leading a media push for the PP to abandon its relentless opposition to Zapatero’s liberal social reforms such as fast-track divorce and homosexual marriage. Ramírez, who is also opposed to Rajoy staying on as party leader, says the PP’s defense of its principles have given the party a hard-line image that hurts it at the polls.
 
In an editorial published before the March elections, Ramírez called for four fundamental changes to the PP platform: a) Stop opposing gay marriage; b) Start supporting human embryo research; c) Start supporting government-mandated civics classes; and d) Stop opposing Zapatero’s desire to negotiate with ETA, the Basque terrorist group.
 
Never mind that such an about-face would, in effect, endorse the social policies that marked Zapatero’s first four years in power. According to one analyst: “If the Popular Party fails to criticize the conversion of gay couples into marriages [a project designed to undermine the voice of religion in the public square]; if it accepts as inevitable research using human beings as guinea pigs; if it places the good of its children under state control and agrees to the substitution of Christianity with a civil religion; if it chooses to present its candidacy to the 2008 elections without supporting ETA’s victims and without condemning the pacts with terrorists reached by PSOE, it might be able to win the elections, as Ramírez indicates. Nevertheless, the party will not do it in name of [classical] liberalism [which in Spain is an ideological current of conservatism], nor will it be able to lay claim to liberalism as such.”
 
Critics have warned Rajoy to stay true to party principles. Party conservatives are especially worried about Rajoy’s new openness to dialogue with nationalists who run the Basque region. They are planning a referendum on Basque independence in October, which many observers say is a veiled step toward breaking away from Spain.
 
Indeed, Rajoy got an earful from Aznar, his political mentor, at the party congress in Valencia. After having had his own speaking slot moved back in order to minimize the chances of upstaging Rajoy, Aznar arrived two hours late, forcing the conference proceedings to be delayed as he basked in applause from supporters.
 
After warmly greeting a number of outgoing hardliners, Aznar addressed the 3,000 delegates: “I have never understood, and I still do not understand, this idea of the center as the final destination of an interminable journey. We need to create an alternative to the Socialist Party, not to ourselves,” he said, adding that the PP has “solid moral references which we must never lose.” He then decided not to stay for Rajoy’s speech.
 
Conservatism Equals Socialism?
 
But Rajoy views much of the talk about conservative moral values as bunk. He has, for example, appointed the career politician María Dolores de Cospedal to replace the conservative Ángel Acebes as the party’s deputy leader. The 42-year-old De Cospedal is the divorced mother of a child conceived through in-vitro fertilization and who supports the controversial fast-track divorce and gay marriage laws introduced by Zapatero. Rajoy’s choice of the left-leaning De Cospedal has roiled the conservative elements of the PP, as well as Spain’s Catholic Church.
 
Rajoy has also named 36-year-old Soraya Sáenz de Santamaria as the PP spokeswoman in parliament. Shortly after her appointment, Santamaria declared that the PP now stood for the “defence of public health and education and an indispensable social coverage.” To most observers, that formulation sounds a lot more like socialism than it does conservatism.
 
Another big surprise was the appointment of Madrid Mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón to the party’s executive committee. Rajoy, who has been an enthusiastic supporter of gay marriage, has said: “Today, I don’t know but in 2012, if we succeed in doing good work many PSOE voters will vote for the PP because the center is the only political space.”
 
It still remains to be seen if Rajoy will survive until 2012. Rajoy will be in big trouble if he does not lead the PP to victory in regional elections in the northern province of Galicia, a conservative bastion and his own birthplace, in 2009. The second major test will be at the national party convention in 2011, when the PP will choose a leader via a US-style primary election for the first time every, a major change in a country where candidates are hand-picked without regard to the rank-and-file.
 
Meanwhile, socialists will almost certainly interpret Rajoy’s de-ideologicalization of Spanish conservatism as a sign of weakness. Indeed, Rajoy’s belief that the PP must be “more open than ever to all of Spanish society…we must be the party that pleases the majority of Spaniards…” will probably prove to be far more beneficial to the socialist than to the conservative agenda.
 
And just in time for the latest innovation in Zapatero’s social policies. While Spanish Socialists have been busy reducing individual freedoms, disdaining life and attacking the family, the Spanish parliament on 25 June voted to extend human rights to apes. In yet another indication of the death of common sense in post-modern Spain, the new resolutions have cross-party majority support and are expected to become law within a year. The only remaining questions are: Will monkeys be allowed to vote in the 2012 general elections? And if so, will they vote for Zapatero or for Rajoy?

 
Soeren Kern is Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group

Threats of prosecution or fines for flying the England flag in England is not new, and perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that the English Democrats party – which uses the flag in its promotional material – is reporting that it has become a target of such intimidation. Yet it is different for one very significant reason: that there has been a longstanding, unspoken rule that political parties in Britain should not be harassed by the police, particularly when campaigning. We accustom such behavior with dictatorship, not democracy.
 
The incident occurred when candidate Derek Allpass and his team were out campaigning on June 21, for the Henley by-election (held June 26). They had set up a table with promotional material, and strung bunting sporting the red cross of St. George around it. However, the team was soon approached by the police and the Town Clerk, the latter of whom allegedly told Allpass, “we don't want that flag here in Henley.” Darren Riley, the Party's Kent Chairman, responded by pointing a church that was close by, and likewise flying the England flag (because it was under the denomination of the Church of England), and remarked, “if you don't want England's flag flying in Henley you had better take this up with the Vicar too.”
 
Nevertheless, the authorities claimed that the display of the flag by the English Democrats breached a by-law, and instructed them to remove both the table and bunting. The by-law in question has yet to be shown to the party, though as the town was also strewn with red, white, and blue bunting (signifying the United Kingdom, as opposed to England), one can only wonder how peculiarly specific it must be. There were several witnesses, and the party intends to issue the Town Clerk with a Section 65 Race Relations Act Questionnaire if the by-law does not state what was claimed.
 
The English Democrats team complied with the request – though not before taking photographs of the display – and continuing their campaigning. Henley is a Conservative safe seat, and was held by Boris Johnson until recently, who prompted the election when he resigned to concentrate on his position as London Mayor.

As promised last week I’ve ditched the classification into left & right and decided to break things down slightly differently into three sections - I’ll highlight any formal reports and publications issued, articles / briefings or blogposts from their own sites or in the MSM and finally public events or debates that might be of [...]

This week I have started using a Wordpress plugin called "Crawl rate Tracker".

The plugin draws a graph of how often your website has been visited by the indexing spiders from Google, Live Search (Microsoft), Yahoo and Technorati. This is important since this is an indicator of how much trust particular pages attract from a search engine.

The graph below is from the Wardman Wire for the few days since I installed the plugin. As you can see, the blog has had up to 1000+ search engine spider visits each day - which makes clear why it is important to filter "robots" out of your traffic statistics. Also, the front page is being indexed up to 13 times a day by Google.

A quote from RTL Austria:

Liberal Conspiracy and Comment is Free organised a "do" last night under the heading "Blog Nation". The reactions I have seen have prompted some thoughts on blogs as campaign tools, and how bloggers may work together - or not.

The aim of the evening was threefold:

"To discuss issues relating to political blogging on the left, learn about online activism already taking place, socialise and meet others you’ve been reading on the web. It is about bringing together the liberal-left blogging community."

I'm interested in how these coalitions can be built dynamically around each issue or campaign as we develop a view and a consensus, and the impact of a caucus on campaigns that require a broader base.

This is a slightly longer strip than usual from Hoby, but there is something there.

Cartoon: Hoby Cartoons

The EU's official watchdog against "racism" complains that native Europeans do not censor themselves enough. Notice that there is not a single word about the massive wave of racist violence facing white natives in Western Europe. We're just supposed to shut up while the Multiculturalists dismantle our nations and use them as dumping grounds for the excess population growth of Islamic countries:

This is from Associated Press (24 June): EU Rights Agency Warns Racist Violence Persists in Bloc

Racist violence and discrimination persist across the European Union, and most members of the 27-nation bloc aren't taking advantage of tough legislation to crack down on the scourge, the EU's rights agency warned. Britain and France lead a list of nine countries credited with actively fighting racism and xenophobia, but most other EU members aren't making the most of a tough EU-wide "racial equality directive," the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights said in its annual report. "Racism, discrimination, entrenched disadvantage, racist violence and harassment have remained a fact of life for many individuals in Europe," the agency warned. "Effective and dissuasive sanctions are crucial to fight ethnic and racial discrimination," it said. "Without these, discriminatory attitudes and behavioral patterns are unlikely to change and victims remain defenseless."
From 2006-2007, Britain punished 95 offenders with sanctions – more than all of the other 26 member states combined -- said the Vienna-based agency, which polices the EU in an effort to stamp out discrimination in employment, housing, education, health care and other key areas. It also singled out Bulgaria, France, Ireland, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Finland and Sweden for making good use of existing legal tools to fight discrimination. By contrast, a dozen EU member states -- the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia – issued no sanctions at all during the same period.

One of the organizations cooperating with the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency is the Swedish left-wing organization Expo, which most of my readers should be familiar with. One of the co-founders of Expo, Tobias Hübinette, wrote this in 1996:

To feel and even think that the white race is inferior in every conceivable way is natural with regards to its history and current actions. Let the Western countries of the white race perish in blood and suffering. Long live the multicultural, racially mixed and classless ecological society! Long live anarchy!

According to his CV, Tobias Hübinette worked for Expo until at least 1997. In other words, he continued doing research for this "anti-racist" organization after having advocated the extermination of whites and the violent destruction of an entire civilization. Hübinette has continued promoting "Multiculturalism," even received awards, and is currently working for the Multicultural Centre of Botkyrka, Sweden. To some, "Multiculturalism" apparently means "death to white people and their culture," nothing more and nothing less.
 
The founder and editor of Expo magazine from 1995 until his death in November 2004, Stieg Larsson, worked with Hübinette for years. Larsson left behind three unpublished thrillers which have become major bestsellers after his death, in Sweden and beyond. Apparently, working with a person calling for the genocide of the entire white race did not prevent Larsson and Expo from being treated as a credible source of information by the European Fundamental Rights Agency regarding "racist violence" in Sweden [pdf]. Not only is Expo linked to from the Agency's website, Expo has received hundreds of thousands of Euros – presumably sponsored by European taxpayers – in direct financial support from the Agency [pdf].
 
Antifascistisk Aktion (AFA), a group that supposedly fights against "racists," openly brags about numerous physical attacks against private citizens with their full name and address published on their website. Leading Expo member Charles Westin in October 2007 published the book Brunt! ("brown," as in "Fascist"), where he let members of AFA contribute some of their intelligence on "right-wing groups." In addition to Mr. Westin, the book was co-authored by Mats Deland, who is a journalist in the major national newspaper Aftonbladet. Why is it considered OK that a representative of one of Scandinavia's largest newspapers, with close ties to the country's largest political party, cooperates openly with an organization known for physically assaulting members of a legal opposition party critical of mass immigration, even in their private homes? And why does the EU support Expo when it has such extremist connections?
 
To my knowledge, Tobias Hübinette was not publicly denounced by Expo for his calls for genocide of whites in 1996, and he apparently continued working for this "anti-racist" organization afterwards. Yet the European Union's official "anti-racism agency" gives substantial financial support to this organization, whose co-founder called for mass murder of a particular race. Does the EU endorse the genocidal agenda of Expo's co-founder? His statements are publicly available, and have been so for years.

I have never seen, neither by Expo in Sweden nor by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights on a European level, a single study tracking the massive wave of racist violence, gang rapes, stabbings and murder directed against white indigenous Europeans in cities across the continent, at least the western half of it. Do the lives of whites simply not matter to the EU and its leaders? As the EU is deliberately breaking down existing nation states through mass immigration of alien and sometimes hostile peoples, the EU is directly responsible for triggering this wave of racist violence against the indigenous peoples of an entire continent. If the EU wants to fight against racism, it should start with abolishing itself.

A quote from Diana West’s syndicated column, 26 June 2008

[The Ardennes, where thousands of Americans soldiers were killed in 1944-45 is] Sacred soil, you might say. But not necessarily regarded as such in the same way by its native populations. Nearby Belgium and Holland, for example, didn't field armies after they were swiftly occupied by Nazi Germany. That means, as a very perceptive Flemish lady pointed out to me, for many Europeans on this Western front the war was more a civilian matter of personal survival than the military exercise in national sacrifice that the United States and Great Britain in particular underwent.

All these decades later, such basic experiential differences still play out in ways both obvious and subtle in the American and European disconnect on sundry issues and attitudes – the fissures Americans airily dismiss as anti-Americanism, or perhaps see as doctrinal differences (eroding but historical) over socialism and capitalism. Such differences have helped turn Europe into the European Union, a nation-destroying behemoth both driven and empowered by the infantilizing machinery of the welfare state. Indeed, so shockingly totalitarian is the orientation of the EU, it strikes me that President Bush's misguided effort to democratize the Islamic Middle East might well have been better aimed at liberating the hostage peoples of the Brussels-dominated supra-state.

Belgium is slowly unravelling, like a Yugoslavia in slow motion. The supranational country is in a situation of political limbo since the elections of June 10, 2007. Belgium, which is often described as a miniature version of the European Union with which it shares its capital, is made up of Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north and French-speaking Wallonia in the south. Politicians in Wallonia are preparing for the moment when Flanders secedes from Belgium. Some Flemings fear that French-speaking extremists are planning to take over the Flemish towns surrounding Brussels by force.
 
Since its conception in 1830-31 when Walloon and French revolutionaries tore the country away from the Netherlands, its French-speaking minority has dominated the Dutch-speaking majority, which was denied higher education in its own language until the 1930s. As a result the linguistic frontier gradually shifted northwards, as historically Dutch-speaking towns and villages, such as Waterloo, were annexed by Wallonia, and as Belgium’s capital, Brussels, originally a Dutch town, developed into a bilingual enclave within Flanders.
 
This process was exacerbated since the 1970s when the massive influx of North-African immigrants, from formerly French colonies, turned Brussels into a predominantly French-speaking city. The influx of immigrants in turn drove the French-speaking Brussels middle and upper classes out of the city and into the surrounding Flemish countryside, the Halle-Vilvoorde region, where the newcomers demanded that the “peasants” address them in French. The Belgian authorities introduced a special status – the “facility” regime – for a number of Flemish municipalities surrounding Brussels: To welcome the newcomers and make it easy (facile in French) for them to adapt to their new environment they were allowed to use the French language in their contacts with the local authorities. In fact, this meant that Brussels’ bilingual status was extended into Flanders.
 
The June 10, 2007 elections were a clear signal that the Flemings have had enough. They want newcomers, whether these be Walloons or immigrants, to respect the Dutch identity of Flanders. This demand for respect on the part of the Flemish as well as the refusal of the French-speaking Belgians to renounce their “acquired rights” have led to a political stalemate. For six months it was impossible to form a government, then an “interim government” was formed, and after that a “real” government which, however, quarrels on all issues and has not been able to agree on policies. The result is that legislative work in Belgium has come to an almost complete standstill. The stalemate has led to a hardening of the positions, with a majority of the Flemings declaring in opinion polls that they favour Flemish independence if Belgium proves to be no longer viable.
 
Both Flemings and Walloons are now preparing for the post-Belgium age . Since Brussels is geographically an enclave within Flanders, Walloon politicians are demanding a territorial corridor linking Brussels to Wallonia so as to ensure that, if Belgium falls apart, Brussels and Wallonia can form a connected “Wallobrux” union. The corridor, a piece of land 2.5 kms wide, stretches from Brussels to Waterloo.

The Flemings, on the other hand, demand that people who apply for social housing in Flemish towns such as Vilvoorde, have a command of the Dutch language – a demand which the authorities say is discriminatory and in violation of European Union laws.
  
Flemings living in the region around Brussels fear that the French-speakers are preparing to occupy parts of Flanders, i.e. the corridor linking Brussels to Wallonia and the municipalities with a “facility” regime, by force. Steven Erlanger, the biased pro-French Paris correspondent of the New York Times, recently wrote that the Flemish demand for respect towards the Dutch identity of Flanders is an example of “nonviolent fascism.” If there is going to be violence the aggressors will not be the so-called “fascists.” On Tuesday evening Bart De Valck, a teacher in Wemmel, a Flemish town to the north of Brussels with a “facility” regime, told a meeting of Flemish secessionists in Antwerp that he fears the split-up of Belgium “will not be peaceful like Czechoslovakia’s.” De Valck, who is the spokesman of the Taal Aktie Komitee (TAK), a group of young activists who defend the Flemish character of Flemish towns along the linguistic border, said that French-speaking extremists are planning attacks on Flemish leaders. “We receive threats all the time.”
 
Meanwhile, there are persistent rumours that the health of King Albert II, the 74-year old monarch of the Belgians, is deteriorating. The Belgian royal family has always allied itself with the French-speaking minority in the country. Albert’s likely successor, Crown Prince Philippe, however, is an even more outspoken enemy of Flemish independence than his father. In November 2004, during a visit to China, the Crown Prince told the Belgian press that people who are opposed to Belgium and favour Flemish independence “will have to deal with me. Make no mistake: if necessary I can be tough.”

The 19th arrondissement of Paris has become a war zone between Jews and North Africans. The most recent flare-up of violence occurred on Saturday June 21. A 17-year old Jewish boy suffered several broken ribs and skull fractures during a violent assault by Mulsim youths. The boy was hospitalized in an unconscious state at Cochin Hospital where he is currently being kept in an artificial coma.

The boy, who was wearing a kippa, was walking on Rue Petit, in the 19th, when he came upon a group of 30 young persons of African origin who insulted him before beating him. Five minors were arrested, said a police source, but they have not been identified by witnesses. According to the police, the assault must be put into the context of "brawls" between groups of young Jews and North Africans. One such brawl is said to have occurred just before the beating.

Yesterday, Le Figaro analyzed the situation in the Buttes-Chaumont (the Chaumont Hills) in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, where urban warfare has become commonplace. On Sunday, Roger Madec, the socialist mayor of the 19th arrondissement, requested supplementary police units to restore order. Le Figaro reports that in the pitched battles it is sometimes difficult to discern aggressors from aggressed. In mid-June, a car chase resulted in several young Jews being arrested, "but they were the victims," insists Sammy Ghozlan, of the Bureau of Vigilance against Anti-Semitism. "They felt compelled to stick together to protect themselves," he said though he agrees that certain Jewish gangs are also looking for a fight.

Le Figaro notes that “The Palestinian cause, so often evoked during the anti-Semitic attacks that resurged in 2000 in France, seems to be totally forgotten... contrary to anti-Jewish stereotypes.” This is an interesting comment. Even the French media perceive a worsening of the cancer that is spreading. Now they need to apply this reasoning to all the attacks and crimes in France committed by Muslim immigrants and Africans, and they will see that the motivation is basic anti-white European hatred, like basic anti-Semitism, and not some trumped up excuse like insufficient housing.

However the authorities will rush to turn this into part of their anti-racism/anti-Semitism campaign, where aggressions against Muslims and Jews are lumped together as equally bad, and aggressions against white Europeans are almost non-events.

Last Friday evening, between five and seven thousand high school seniors were assembled on the lawns of the Champ-de-Mars, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, to celebrate the end of the battery of exams they are required to take in order to receive the "bac" or "baccalauréat", the once-prestigious French high-school diploma. The police struggled to enforce the ban on consuming and selling alcohol around the Champ-de-Mars, when the trouble began. Young adults from the departments of Yvelines and Val-d'Oise arrived by Regional Rail, line C, their faces covered with hoods, scarves or helmets, their only goal to attack and rob the students.

Around 1:30 a.m., after multiple aggressions, the police gave the order to evacuate the site. If the students gave in, more or less, to police injunctions and to tear gas, the same cannot be said for 300 die-hards: for an hour they fought the police, two of whom sustained minor injuries from projectiles. Using rubber bullets the police arrested about 30 people, but some of the die-hards were pushed back towards the podium set up for a music festival near the Ecole Militaire (the Military Academy, situated at the opposite end of the park from the Eiffel Tower). From there they spilled out onto Rue du Commerce where they smashed store windows and destroyed shops. A deployment of two squadrons of gendarmes brought the fighting to a close.

The thousands of high school students were probably primarily, though not exclusively, white Europeans; the thugs who came in on the subway were largely North African or black, if we are to judge by previous riots. (This is of course conjecture; I could be wrong.)

Meanwhile, in Brussels, a young Belgian woman, 21, was raped by Muslims in the Midi train station on June 12. The girl’s father told the press:

My daughter was returning from Waterloo. it was 9:00 p.m. After getting off the train she headed for the Bancontact [an automatic banking machine]. A busy area. And yet that is where the crime took place. Right in the middle of the station. How is that possible? Two men reproached her for not wearing the veil. My daughter is pretty. She is blond with blue eyes. One of the assailants took out a knife. My daughter was pinned against the wall of the Bancontact. With a knife at her throat one of the guys raped her. The other looked on.

The French blog Le Conservateur comments:

It's the classic technique of Islamists, as related recently in a book by a young European woman who finally converted to Islam after several rapes. Women are slowly but surely abased to the level of an object for males. It begins in the street with dirty remarks, as we see on a daily basis in the streets of Paris, with stares from butchers and grocers, then there's a rape, repeated, that destroys the young woman by branding her body and soul with the idea that she is nothing but an object. Now, an object after being used is shelved and veiled. What happened to this young Belgian woman is not just an isolated crime, it is a message of intimidation to all European women, and to those who have abandoned them – European men, who prefer to turn away and make appeasing and cowardly remarks. This cowardice stains all of us. When we allow scum to make intolerable remarks to women in the street or in the bus, capitulation has begun...

On the topic of rapes of Western women and the silence or even consent of the feminists, read this recent article by Fjordman at the Gates of Vienna blog. And this on the highly-publicized gang-rapes in Sydney a few years ago.

  

Correction (26 June)

On the advice of a French reader, I have to make a change in the translation of the words of Le Conservateur. Originally, I took the words "boucher-charcutier" literally to mean "butcher, grocer..." (My translation was a bit loose anyway since "charcutier" is really a "pork-butcher.") But he points out that in French today a "boucher" or a "charcutier" refers to someone who glares at women as if they were pieces of meat. While I only saw a reference to sinister shop-keepers, it is really a reference to potential rapists and murderers. Apologies for my ignorance. But I'm glad to have learned the current nuance associated with the expression. And it fits in perfectly with the context of the story.

A quote from Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, in El Pais, 25 June 2008 (via EUobserver)

[The Lisbon treaty] cannot come into force. The EU cannot ignore its own rules. The Lisbon Treaty has been roundly and democratically rejected by Ireland, and it therefore cannot come into force. Any attempt to ignore this fact and make recourse to pressure and political manipulation to move the treaty forward would have disastrous consequences for Europe. […] Since the treaty must unanimously be ratified of all the member states of the EU and one of them has already rejected it, the final result of the ratification will be the same. With or without the Czech vote, the Treaty of Lisbon will not be ratified.

Sanddef made this comment on Liberal Conspiracy yesterday, in a conversation about blogs getting - or not getting - media attention in Wales:

At least news that spring from blogs get a mention in the English press; in the Welsh media this is not the case, despite the fact that political news and comment is pretty much run by and dependent on the blogosphere here.

A "Welsh Blog Roundup Radio Spot" would help fill that gap.