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EU Uber Alles? Neoliberal echoes of a darker, mid-century plan for continental unity

The unflinching support for the EU and its institutions is not about preventing European countries from becoming “Afghanistan.” Not about preventing collapse. Not about the inconvenience of long lines at passport control. It is about promoting an ideology, a specific worldview, a vision for the way the world should work.

by Michael Nevradakis

Part 1

It was way back in the ancient 1990s, when protesting crippling economic austerity measures, the economic imperialism of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and free trade deals such as NAFTA and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), was a mainstay of the progressive or left-wing political agenda and worldview.

Today, that same worldview apparently makes one a “nationalist” or a “fascist,” in the eyes of self-described leftists and progressives. Oh, the irony!

Opposition to free trade agreements or open borders is now a surefire way to be branded with the modern-day scarlet letter, that of being a “nationalist.” Opposing unchecked migration—and the war and conflict that spur mass waves of migration in the first place—apparently makes one a “xenophobe.” Standing up to the crippling austerity prescribed by the open-borders project known as the European Union towards some of its own member-states makes one a “fascist.” Independence and sovereignty are bad, open borders and unrestricted free trade benefiting certain industrial powerhouses and large multinational corporations are good.

In another irony, the anti-colonial independence movements of the 1950s and 1960s were by and large nationalist movements, and were supported by many progressive forces around the world. But at the time, the “n-word” (nationalism, of course) was not the dirty word that it is today.

Back in the distant 1990s, the United States was described by western commentators as the leader of the free world, the beacon of liberty and democracy. This worldview continued unabated up through the end of the term of President Barack Obama. The election of President Donald Trump in November on a populist platform — on the heels of the British referendum result in favor of Brexit, which also drew heavy support from populist political elements — put an end to this worldview.

In yet another irony of ironies, it is now the “iron lady” of one such industrial powerhouse, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who is widely viewed as the global beacon of liberal democracy and freedom. According to Politico, it is Merkel who is now the “leader of the free world,” anointed as “global savior.” Online feminist publication Jezebel has dubbed Merkel the “last pillar of liberal democracy in Europe.” And Kati Marton, wife of the late U.S. Ambassador and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, described Merkel as “the last real democratic leader standing” and “the most powerful woman in the world,” in a highly laudatory profile piece written for fashion and lifestyle magazine Vogue.

The aforementioned sources are quite varied in style and substance, but they all adhere to the same worldview: neoliberalism, or if you prefer, globalism. And it is “free” trade, “open borders,” and the dominance of supranational institutions such as the EU that are some of globalism’s basic tenets. In the eyes of Politico, Jezebel, Vogue and their ilk, leaders like Merkel — among the staunchest supporters of open borders, and of economic austerity for suffering EU member-states such as Greece, towards which the EU supposedly displays “solidarity” — epitomize the ideal global leader, in the mold of other globalist favorites such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

This tacit, blinding acceptance of institutions such as the EU, the World Bank, and the IMF and their policies and practices is a slap in the face to all those—whether they are in Greece, Mexico, Argentina, Tanzania, Indonesia, or elsewhere—that have suffered as a result of the economic doctrines that these institutions have imposed upon their countries. And no criticism or opposition shall be brooked by the purportedly tolerant supporters and backers of such institutions!

Case in point: Naomi Klein. The out-of-nowhere celebrity author and “activist” with a hazy biography first became widely known in the late 1990s for her anti-corporate globalization treatise No Logo, though the pinnacle of her anti-economic globalization work is her 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine. Following the election of the supposedly “radical leftist” SYRIZA in Greece on January 25, 2015, Klein could barely contain herself, gushing like a teenage schoolgirl over its victory in social media postings that now seem to have been scrubbed—although some evidence of Klein’s enthusiasm still remains. As SYRIZA and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras have sold Greece and its people down the river, overturning the July 5, 2015 referendum result and enacting a third (and since then, a fourth) memorandum agreement, Klein has remained conspicuously silent.

Instead, we are now told that any opposition to neoliberalism is racist, xenophobic and positively fascist, a product of the dreaded populism and “nationalism” that has been universally deemed by those whose opinion matters—such as Politico, Jezebel, and Vogue, not to mention CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post—as evil. We are supposed to believe that residents of Missouri counties, which had previously voted solidly for Obama, suddenly transformed into racists overnight in voting for Trump in the last election. And we are hysterically lectured that the dastardly act of choosing to leave an institution such as the EU puts human rights into peril, as with Brexit. “Millennials” — the generation that this author is unfortunately a part of, and who in countries such as the United Kingdom do not even remember life prior to the EU — have become instant experts on the horrors of life that await outside of the EU’s open borders.

To be clear, this is not an argument in favor of political figures such as Trump (more on this later). Instead, using the EU as a case study, neoliberal doctrine and the prevailing orthodoxy observed in the overwhelming majority of the world’s mainstream media outlets—and in such sectors as business and academia—will be deconstructed. By examining what a supranational institution such as the EU actually is, how it was created and how it operates today — as well as by analyzing why so many entities have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and how they attempt to discredit any opposition to it — readers will (I hope) come away with a clearer understanding of the purpose such institutions serve in the global order today, and why they are not quite what they seem.

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