Discourse 114 – The battle with invisible worlds for a Europe on Christian foundations?

(The battle with invisible worlds for a Europe on Christian foundations? / Article, O. Schweitzer 00, 2012 – 09 – 01)

We all want "a Europe based on the foundation of God" (Michael Herwig) – the only question is, How do we get there? – And what should be the task of those who have this objective – us Christians?

The rationalism of the Enlightenment, which has penetrated our culture even to the point of affecting the way we believe, and the lack of unity overall (and especially in connection with this question of the battle in the invisible world), are the factors which have so far militated against Christians’ standing up together as an army of prayer on the European level. Then too, in the last few decades the citizens of Europe have been characterized by
– unawareness of the rising level of integration,
– then a growing sense of discomfort about "more and more legislation emanating from Brussels"
– and finally downright anger over increasing interference in national sovereignty.

The battle of defense then started with the financial crisis and the rescue schemes:
– The citizens of Europe roused themselves and organized resistance, and
– The Federal Constitutional Court formulated boundaries safeguarding national sovereignty in Germany.

And how did Christians react to this? They went along with the entire process unreflectingly. Unfortunately they failed to recognize the task incumbent on them, which should have emerged from their more comprehensive view of the other Kingdom. (…)

If we ask how the battle for a "Europe on Christian foundations" is shaping up in the invisible world, we have had unmistakably clear indications in the visible world, in the years 2002 to 2004, in the issue of the reference to God in the Preamble to the European Constitution being planned at that time. (…)

The people of God have not been either taught or organized, nor are they being taught or organized today, to join in the battle for Europe in the invisible world or to contribute to the struggle. 
Who among the children of God, then, weeps for Europe? Who weeps for the history of the grace of God towards the continent which is on the point of being lost? (…)

We have sinned before God and before human beings.
"Before God", because we have made God’s actions in politics so untransparent. Today’s generation and the previous generation have alike failed to hear God’s call to struggle for Europe and its spiritual path, nor have they honored God as their Lord with due thanks and repentance.
"Before human beings", because as a result of our secularized blindness, reinforced by our blasphemies over Europe, we have not been able to open the door to the Europe which God designed for us and would gladly have given us. (…)

Yes, God is grieved over Europe – over the congregation and the politicians, the banks and industry, the educational system and so on. But he has a good plan for Europe, because HE is God and a father who loves us and who would like to make us Europeans a blessing for the whole world, as in former times. God only waits for the prayer of his church for Europe! (…)

A spiritual battle for Europe has broken out, which could not be more radical. What is involved is the confrontation between Christianity as defined by its Judeo-Christian heritage, and as it has penetrated our entire culture, with old and new forces of a spiritual nature. (…)

The clear injunction to the congregation is to pray for governments. In this age of European unification, that also involves praying for European institutions: the European Council of "bosses" and Ministers, the Commission and the European Parliament. (…)

If we, as a congregation, are at one in all the countries of Europe, across all national and confessional boundaries, by praying in this way, then we will see changes in politics and society. And soon. God is only waiting to hear our prayers. So that HE can act.

(Ortwin Schweitzer, Ortwin.Schweitzer@t-online.de / Wächterruf – Gebetsnetz für Deutschland) [Call of the Watchmen – a Prayer Network for Germany]

Ortwin Schweitzer is the founder of the "Adoramus-Gemeinschaft" [Adoramus Community] (1990) and of the "Kirche im Aufbruch" [Church on the Move] association (1994). Since September 2000 he has been involved in "Beter in Aufbruch Deutschland" [Dynamics Prayer Ministry Germany] and is an enthusiastic advocate of ecumenism.

EU: a re-education camp for dissidents / Article by Christine Rütlisberger 01, KOPP-exklusiv 41/13

The EU is currently making it perfectly evident to all that it intends to restrict the basic freedoms of its citizens. It will then no longer be possible to voice one’s opinions in public, and no possibility of resistance will exist.

(…) In the name of tolerance
A document was published a few days ago on the official website of the European Parliament which augurs badly for the future of Europeans. It has been produced by the "European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation". Behind the anodyne title of this "tolerance paper" lurks a demand that the European Parliament take "concrete measures" in order to "eliminate racism, prejudice against skin color, ethnic discrimination, religious intolerance, totalitarian ideologies, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia and ‘anti-feminism’".  ;

With this aim in view, countries like Germany are to have their freedom of speech, freedom of artistic expression, academic freedom and freedom of the press curtailed. Instead, "compulsory tolerance" will be introduced, backed up by a new European super-authority responsible for enforcing appropriate measures. To spell out what this means – in future any critique of feminism, for example, could be banned within the EU. 

Likewise any criticism of political parties and movements – the Social Democrats, for instance, or the eco-movement – could be subject to penalties. People of democratic persuasion can only rub their eyes incredulously. But if you think it is a joke, you should read the paper ("A European Framework National Statute for the Promotion of Tolerance") very carefully. The paper recommends that the EU should in future introduce "compulsory tolerance", any breach of which will be brought to heel immediately with extremely stringent penalties. 

Part 9 of the 12 page working paper calls on all media to introduce a minimum percentage of programs dedicated to disseminating the "culture of tolerance". To quote: "The Government shall ensure that public broadcasting (television and radio) stations will devote a prescribed percentage of their programs to promoting a climate of tolerance." Children and young people are to be forced to attend "re-education programs" in the "culture of tolerance". Tolerance should become a mandatory subject in the daily teaching of elementary schools, and viewed as a higher priority than any other subject on the curriculum. 

Even more ridiculously, soldiers will not be allowed in future to harbor ill thoughts of the enemy. The EU wants to see courses whereby soldiers will be educated in the realization that the opposite number they are expected to fight is on a completely equal footing with themselves. To quote: "Similar courses will be incorporated in the training of those serving in the military." This EU working paper, which states that it shall be seen as "libel" and subject to legal penalties if anyone makes jokes about another group, is most definitely incompatible with the German Basic Law (the German federal constitution). So it is all the more surprising that not a murmur of protest has so far been heard (...)

KOPP-exklusiv 41/13 / www.kopp-exklusiv.de

Peter Scholl-Latour: We live in an age of mass dumbing down / KOPP-exklusiv 11/14

On 9 March 2014 the journalist und Islamic expert Peter Scholl-Latour celebrated his 90th birthday. He stated clearly on this occasion what he thinks of our media. He thinks the media plays us for suckers.


Europe is becoming increasingly irrelevant
The journalist Peter Scholl-Latour has given a remarkable interview, in which he stressed that "We live in an age of mass dumbing down, particularly dumbing down by the media." If you just take a look "at the one-sidedness with which the media in our country, from TAZ to Welt, report about the events in the Ukraine, you can really say it is a case of disinformation on a grand scale." The same thing is going on, in his view, in relation to Syria and other areas of crisis.

In response to a question from the publicist Ramon Schack (Heise) whether he thinks this development gives cause for concern, Scholl-Latour answered: "Yes, and above all for the EU. I ask myself what the EU hopes to gain from cozying up to the Ukraine. In Brussels they would do better to focus on concentration and consolidation, instead of this drive for expansion to the east. The takeover of Romania and Bulgaria has already been a step too far by the commissars in Brussels."

He went on to say that if now the Republic of Kiev – where the Tartars laid the foundations of today’s Russia and the first Christian conversions took place – were to be added to the EU, "then the grossly inflated territory of the fragile European Union would be extended by some three hundred kilometers to that battlefield which became famous under the name of Stalingrad. Have the Germans lost every sense of the tragedy of their own past?"

Scholl-Latour also referred in the interview to the way in which Europe is increasingly abdicating from the world stage. He spoke of the "retreat of the global political influence of Europe, which of course has been continuing to the present day," going on to say: "When I started working as a young journalist, the French or the British flag still waved over the greater part of the globe. That’s all over, though the retreat is still going on, under different conditions.

Europe, he says, is now becoming steadily weaker: "Europe today stands without any kind of religious awareness, in a world which is becoming more religious on all sides all the time – which is a weakness, in the face of this awakening of myth." Scholl-Latour, who was born in Bochum on 9 March 1924, lives in Berlin and Paris. The 90-year-old is currently planning yet another professional trip to Chad in Africa. In parallel to this, he is working on a new book. Scholl-Latour was the founder of the ARD Studio in Paris.

KOPP-exklusiv 11/14 / www.kopp-exklusiv.de

Cloud Cuckoo Land and the welfare state: how abuse of asylum works / Christine Rütlisberger, KOPP-exklusiv 12/14

In Switzerland an Iranian woman is currently causing a sensation, by explaining to many dumbstruck well intentioned Swiss citizens how asylum applicants can exploit the welfare state most effectively. Meanwhile it is coming to be common knowledge in German speaking countries that Turks do not have to pay tax on their pensions.

The subject of immigration is divisive. But even those who would like to see more immigration are dumbstruck when they find out about some aspects of the situation. In Austria, for example, there is growing resentment of the Germans, because the German tax department treats Turks very much better than Austrians.

How Turks get preferential treatment
The Vienna newspaper Die Presse carried a report about this under the headline "Austrians disadvantaged in tax terms compared with Turks", writing as follows: "Berlin gives Turkish migrant workers pensions of up to 10,000 euros free of tax. This is not the case for 150,000 pension claimants in Austria." On instructions from Berlin, something like 150,000 Austrians who have worked in Germany, and so can draw a pension, have to pay tax on their German pensions to the German fiscal authorities, with retrospective effect going back to 2005.

Austrians are outraged that former Turkish migrant workers in Germany can avail themselves of a special regulation whereby their pensions are exempt from tax up to a total of 10,000 euros a year. And Turks with pensions above that threshold only pay a bare ten percent in tax. On grounds of political correctness, Turks are being granted exemption from tax on pensions – when the same privilege should in principle be extended to all persons claiming German pensions and living abroad. This means that Austrians and other foreigners are being systematically discriminated against by pension law in comparison with the Turks.

Faced with these facts, even those in favor of more immigration are left gasping. But this is only the start of a story which would be decried as an April Fool at once if it were not a sad reality. For more than a decade there have been polyglot instructions published on various websites, telling you what to say to the European immigration authorities to be certain of being recognized as an asylum seeker, and so qualifying immediately for copious welfare and family assistance payments. This is all well known, but the authorities are obliged to ignore it for reasons of political correctness.

Now an Iranian woman is explaining in public just how best to exploit the welfare state. She had already disclosed to the authorities many months ago how immigrant gangs claim financial support to which they are not entitled, and so secure themselves a cushy life at the tax payer’s expense. Now it is not the asylum fraudsters, but the Iranian woman who is getting into trouble – because of the authorities’ blanket denial of what doesn’t fit the frame. The Iranian asylum seeker in question, Shekoofeh T., has shocked wide sectors of the Swiss population – by giving a lecture to an audience of hundreds at the Bärensaal hall in Langenthal, in which she described for the first time, from her own point of view, how frequently and effectively fake asylum seekers outwit the authorities. This is their ploy for getting asylum status and so qualifying for state support. To begin with, Shekoofeh T. said that according to the files of the Swiss Federal Immigration Department her mother and her brother were supposed to have been smuggled from Iran into Switzerland via Turkey, traveling on hazardous roads in a container truck.

Invented refugee odysseys
The woman told the astonished audience: "It was all lies. Actually we flew from Teheran via Rome to Geneva. With passports and visas. Then we took the train to Basel, and got a taxi to the reception station for refugees." The long and dangerous journey described in the official record was in fact very quickly over. "Before we boarded the plane in Teheran, I had time for a shower. When we got to the reception center in Basel, my hair was still wet!" Not long after that, they were given refugee status and have been living on state support ever since.

The Neue Oberaargauer Zeitung [New Upper Argovian Newspaper] reported on this sensational lecture in March 2014, under the headline "Lecture on asylum abuse attracts wide interest". The article describes the perceptible tension in the hall when Shekoofeh T. went on to give details about the efficient money transfer operations of the asylum fraudsters. Apparently her apartment in Berne was the intermediate depot for the funds. Up to 30,000 francs (24,628 euros) was stored there every month. The money was brought by various people of Afghan or Iranian origin from the Canton of Berne.

It was fetched, on each occasion, in a car driven by the leader of the money smuggling gang, a jobless refugee from Iran living in St. Gallen. The Neue Oberaargauer Zeitung writes: "A murmur went through the hall as the Iranian 18 year old said that to this day nothing has been done – seven months after she made a full statement to the chief of police in Berne. According to her, the Iranian gang has continued its operations in Switzerland. Based on pictures she has seen on Facebook, more and more people related to the clan are coming into Switzerland, likewise as refugees.

The Public Prosecutor’s office in Berne declined to open proceedings, she was told last December. So Shekoofeh T. decided to go public. "This kind of injustice should not be allowed," thinks the former Muslim woman, who since coming to Switzerland has converted to Christianity. This change of religion, she says, was one of the reasons why she gave information to the authorities: "I wouldn’t and couldn’t go on living with all this on my conscience."

KOPP-exklusiv 12/14 / www.kopp-exklusiv.de

(Brussels sees threat of war in Europe – training courses for priests / Article by Christine Rütlisberger and Marcello Faraggi 00, KOPP-exklusiv 11/13

)

Following the elections in Italy, EU leaders fear that member states may become ungovernable and are anticipating increasing nationalism and opposition to the EU. They are therefore taking steps to deal with future unrest. The EU has now given instructions for priests to be trained to cope with the civil war that is expected to ensue.


When in 2010 Professor Michael Hudson, chief advisor on economics to the Latvian government, became the first European officially to speak of the looming "Battle of European Debt", he was widely mocked in Brussels and beyond. Hudson had forecast, in quite sober terms, the foreseeable collapse of the eurozone and swift impoverishment of European peoples, and had suggested that they would be distracted by deliberately provoked wars. All this right in the heart of Europe – and not in the distant future, but just round the corner.

The system breaks down
The way things looked in 2010, Hudson was simply deranged – for he wasn’t just referring to problems in Greece or Spain, he was pointing to a suppositious worst case scenario which threatened the EU as well in the states of the former Eastern Bloc. These are states which were first allowed to join the EU, then loaded with euro credits – and are now unable to pay them back. Many hundreds of billions of euros paid out by German, Austrian and Swiss banks to former Eastern Bloc states will never be repaid. As a result, all the banks in western countries that claim to be essential to the system will once again have to be carried by the tax payer – it’s an endless spiral. On every side the system is breaking down. And the only way out, according to Professor Hudson, is a war. 

In May 2009 the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) – the German CIA – had likewise indicated in a confidential study that the economic crisis has the potential for unleashing a possible world war. At that time, it must be said, the consequences of the economic crisis were less dramatic than they have become since. This scenario was listed as just one among several possible outcomes. There was no information about it printed in any German newspaper of quality – the establishment press kept its mouth shut.

But now for the second time within a few weeks, at the end of January 2013, former Euro Group chief Jean-Claude Juncker has warned of the possibility of military confrontations in Europe. Juncker said: "Anyone who thinks that the eternal question of war and peace in Europe is no longer real could be way off the mark. The demons have not left the house, they have just been having a nap." He claims to see parallels with 1913, when many thought there could never be another European war. "It shocks me to see how very similar conditions in Europe in 2013 are to those that prevailed 100 years ago." So while politicians out there are busy asserting that the euro crisis is over, it seems that disasters are brewing which could issue in war – right in the middle of Europe.

In strict confidence, Brussels has set up a secret scheme whereby priests of all denominations and ecclesiastical office holders are to lend support to government decrees in situations of war. These Clergy Response Teams (CRTs) have been based on the model of the American FEMA program. In case of internal unrest, the expected outbreak of war in Europe in response to the euro debt crisis or some other emergency situation, priests are to be asked to lend religious support to government dictates and so break the resistance of the population to the implementation of unpopular measures. This could make it easier for governments to confiscate food supplies or conduct forced resettlements, depending on the needs of the situation.

European governments are evidently preparing themselves for this scenario right across the board. After repeated rioting in countries like Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria and Romania, and the acts of violence in British inner cities that went on for several days, leagues of people who oppose the EU and the euro are now being seen as a potential danger to the internal security of the European Union.

The above mentioned groups are already being infiltrated, and informers solicited to reveal information about planned campaigns on the part of the opposition wing – and now, in parallel to this, dossiers are being drawn up on persons thought to be suspect. These electronic dossiers classify EU critics in terms of a color code (red, yellow and green), based on the potential "threat" they represent and their capability of "subversive" activity. These "Conspiracy"-Files are made available to European police agencies, while the persons in question are quite unaware that they are in the frame.

Guidelines for police authorities
Based on determinations at EU level ("potential indicators of activities"), you will be classified as "yellow" if you openly stand up for data protection and the right to "privacy". You are automatically classed as "red" if you read politically inappropriate writings ("revolutionary literature"). The assertion of civic liberties is now rapidly turning the average citizen into a terror suspect.

In parallel to this, the European Union is also funding projects for the management of large scale political protests. The "EU-SEC" project, for instance, developed under the auspices of European security research, has drafted a set of guidelines for police command. They recommend meeting the expected social unrest at an early stage by exchanging data on ringleaders and likely subversives, imposing road blocks and fostering good relations with the press – this with a view to "maintaining the information high ground" in case of serious internal disturbances within the EU.

Public prosecutors will be instructed to find large numbers of people guilty, as a deterrent to European citizens. These "Guidelines for Police and Security Authorities" have been published by the European Council. They further call for progressive updates of the "perceived level of threat", for instance by reviewing "data on individuals or groups who are likely to attend demonstrations and may be seen as a potential threat to public order and/or security".

Planned restrictions on travel
The "travel options of such persons" are to be restricted "as far as possible". In this connection, Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office maintains a political database of "internationally active agitators", data being supplied to it from the different federal states. In case of a crisis, any data entry on this quite arbitrary police database will result not only in person’s being forbidden to travel, but also in a temporary order to desist from political activities, if the file index card in question is red or yellow. The operations currently being planned in secret under EU law are not designed to protect the citizen, but rather serve for the protection of politicians and governments. The idea is that those most deserving of protection are the ones who have been responsible for the present state of affairs.

Apart from economic crisis and resulting demonstrations and excesses, other triggers for military intervention within the EU may be imagined. If, for example, an energy shortage should make electricity and heating unaffordable for much of the population, with a resulting threat of insurrection, here again the planned "solidarity clause" of the EU could be applied. If a country’s own forces of order prove insufficient, police and even soldiers from neighboring countries will hasten to the assistance of the government.

Already today several European governments are using soldiers against their own population. This is how demonstrations were just recently put down in Greece. And in France a military presence makes its mark on many public spaces. Soldiers with machine guns are stationed on the concourse of the rail station in Lyon. Without needing to spell it out, they make it quite plain to travelers that they would mean business if they asked people to evacuate a certain area of the station.

The military presence in Strasbourg is no less aggressive. The French seem to have got used to it. France above all seems to be in a permanent state of emergency. French economics professor Brigitte Granville thinks it likely that masses of French people may soon take to the streets, if the EU and the Elysée impose further economies on the population in order to save the euro. "We have had a revolution before, after all," the petite lady remarked, without any trace of irony, speaking in Brussels at the end of 2009.

So far there has been a willingness to put up with a high rate of unemployment, especially among young people. But how long can it go on? The military is already lined up to crush any possible rising in the bud. France is thought to be too proud to ask for help from abroad. Really? At the NATO summit in Strasbourg in 2009, German water guns were deployed in the Alsatian capital. Since 2005 various national agreements have regulated the exchange of police and military forces, as stated by the German federal government in monolithic terms in its 17/4013 publication. German police abroad, and foreign police in Germany, have now become a perfectly regular occurrence.

Soldiers battle with EU citizens
When more than 5000 dock workers from all over the EU protested against the privatization of port services in 2006, the French police asked why they were the only ones having to stick their necks out and risk their lives. And it’s the same thing now with the annual protests of French farmers. EU-wide protests could in future lead to the EU-wide deployment of the police and the military, whatever national pride may say.

The conditions for this were set forth by the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, in a paper published at the end of 2012. The Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament warned that not only terrorist attacks but also "the threat of danger" must be seen as grounds for "solidarity" between EU states. And then it will be a case of soldiers fighting against citizens.

KOPP-exklusiv 11/13 / www.kopp-exklusiv.de

Discrimination against men / Article by Christine Rütlisberger 02, KOPP-exklusiv 42/13

All human beings are equal. Or that’s what it says in the Basic Law of Germany (the German constitution). And yet today women get preferential treatment from the state in comparison with men.


Article 3 of Germany’s Basic Law states: "Men and women have equal rights. The state promotes the actual implementation of equal rights for women and men (…). No one should be disadvantaged or preferred on grounds of his or her sex (…)." But the state is treading the Basic Law underfoot. Politicians at all events are not concerned with the constitution, but evidently think it is smart to give women preference over men.

How unthinkingly we accept the fact that women enter retirement earlier than men, although from a statistical point of view women live considerably longer. And of course we have an annual Women’s Health Report, brought out with the help of public funding. But although men are the victims of 95 percent of all accidents in the workplace and live some six years shorter lives than women, you would look in vain for a Men’s Health Report subsidized by the taxpayer. There are plenty of schemes and financial incentives for women wanting to resume professional life – but not a single one for men.

But discrimination goes quite a bit farther than this. We are now spending billions of euros to help women to a fixed quota of top jobs, if they give previous written assurance that they will become pregnant after being given the job. Around 1.5 billion euros of funding are now provided for the purpose. The gender media keep quiet about it, because it is a reductio ad absurdum of the entire craziness of gender ideology. To take just one example – have you heard of the Helmholtz Registered Association of German Research Centers? This is a German organization which encourages and finances research. Ninety percent of its funding comes from federal government, ten percent from the individual federal states. The Helmholtz Association, which received a cool 1.53 billion euros from us taxpayers in 2013, is thus a public institution, like the Max Planck Institute and the Fraunhofer Institute.

But we find the Association has rather peculiar criteria for its support. A post-doctorate program, for example, states as follows: "In order to encourage equality of opportunity, we endeavor to give at least 50 percent of the places per position advertised to female researchers." So support is not based on the criterion of how promising a research project is, but rather on the sex of the applicant. And the words "at least" also indicate that for the sake of an irrational ratio they aim to support more women than men. This is what the Helmholtz Association means by "equality of opportunity".

Top jobs for pregnancies
It is undoubtedly true that women were discriminated against in the past. And it’s a good thing that this kind of discrimination has now been brought to an end. But the Helmholtz Association, which funds female researchers with up to a million euros per head of taxpayers’ money (with its W2/W3 program), also gives preference to women who undertake to become pregnant in the course of their research project. No, you did not read that incorrectly. If a woman applies for a top position in a scientific field, she will not only be given preference in view of her sex – she will be given even more support if she signs a declaration that she is trying to become pregnant. The program calls this "Opportunities of reconciling work and the family".

The intended discrimination against men could hardly be put more clearly. What does the German Federation of Taxpayers have to say about this? After all, the Helmholtz Association is not just anybody – it is an organization that counts 18 independent scientific, technological, biological and medical research centers among its members, together having almost 34,000 employees and a budget that runs to billions.

What we have said above about women’s funding thus applies to the following member organizations of the Helmholtz Association: Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt C. V. (DLR, Cologne) [the German Aerospace Center], Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen e. V. (DZNE, Bonn) [the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases], Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH (FZJ, Jülich) [the Jülich Research Center], GEOMAR Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung (GEOMAR, Kiel) [the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research], GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH [the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research] in Darmstadt, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT, Karlsruhe) [the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology], Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik (IPP, Garching near Munich) [the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics], Stiftung Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung (AWl, Bremerhaven) [the Alfred Wegener Foundation and Institute for Polar and Marine Research], Stiftung Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ, Heidelberg) [the German Cancer Research Foundation and Center] and Stiftung Max-Delbrück-Centrum für Molekulare Medizin (MDC, Berlin-Buch) [the Max Delbrück Molecular Medicine Research Foundation and Center].

Men just a "side dish"
This deliberate discrimination against men is not restricted to Germany. Since 2010 the City of Vienna’s choice of contractor, for instance, has been dependent on the bidder’s promotion of equal opportunities. So if you give preference to women in employment over men, you have the best possible chance of landing a public contract, irrespective of any qualifications you may have. In all German speaking regions, headhunters now report that for months they have been encouraged to bring forward female candidates – not guys! – for top positions. "With a lot of job applications," joked management consultant Reinhard Sprenger recently, "men are just a side dish."

To spell it out – today you get a top position if you are a woman, because you are a woman. In other words, you get preferential treatment in view of your sex. The women’s quotas that politicians so often see as desirable are just a reverse form of discrimination.

KOPP-exklusiv 42/13 / www.kopp-exklusiv.de

Do-gooders and politically correct idealists: how the EU is being blackmailed / Article, Edgar Gärtner 00, KOPP-exklusiv 23/14

The EU is financing more and more organizations which then blackmail it. Not to put too fine a point on it, the EU is paying protection money.


In the eyes of most people, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) enjoy a higher degree of respectability than governmental authorities, let alone professional politicians. This applies not just to charitable NGOs like Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International, but also to international organizations like Greenpeace, and above all the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Greenpeace resorts to spectacular propaganda demonstrations, like climbing power plant smokestacks and cooling towers or blockading ships, and rakes in donations amounting to hundreds of millions. The WWF on the other hand, closely associated since its foundation with the political establishment (cf. the Bilderberg Group) and linked to the top management of major international corporations, has never hesitated to supplement the contributions of its supporters and friends (who do not enjoy a vote) by tapping the regular budgets of the EU and its member states. Since the year 2007, under the auspices of the "Transparency" initiative previously launched by EU Commissioner Slim Kallas, the EU has at least been publishing the funds it shells out to various NGOs. Thus we know that between 2007 and 2012 the WWF received almost 54 million euros for the "implementation" of various EU sustainability projects and for the cost of maintaining its office in Brussels. Just in the year 2010 alone, the WWF pocketed no less than 14,672,869 euros out of tax paid to the EU, this including 621,503 euros for its Brussels office.

But the WWF is by no means an isolated case. In a speech in Nottingham in 2005, Commissioner Kallas complained about the fact that the Commission pays out a total in excess of two billion euros to NGOs without any overview of the way in which the funds are appropriated. He pointed out that the declared objective of many of these organizations is to lobby the EU Commission. So the EU Commission is actually paying the NGOs to exercise pressure on itself! The Commissioner feared that this could only lead to an unhealthy symbiosis between the lobby organizations and the EU bureaucracy. Or to put it in plain terms, when they have to deal with expensive and unpopular decisions, the Brussels bureaucrats can mobilize the NGOs which they finance themselves, and then justify their proceedings as a response to the pressures of "civil society". The Commissioner’s warnings led to no result. At the end of July 2005, the FAI then published a list of NGOs in receipt of EU funds. It emerges from this that more than 50 percent of the financial base of some NGOs consists in funding from the EU.

KOPP-exklusiv 25/14 / www.kopp-exklusiv.de

Greenpeace involved in dodgy speculation deals – unprotected capital transactions / Article by taz.de

Greenpeace is put out by the loss of 3.8 million euros in foreign exchange transactions. But how was this possible at all? The answer is shocking.


BERLIN taz | "Action, not procrastination" is a slogan of the environmental organization Greenpeace. In the current financial scandal, involving the loss of 3.8 million euros by unfortunate foreign exchange transactions, this attitude was evidently the root of the problem. There had been "structural challenges in the finance division," said Greenpeace spokesman Mike Townsley in response to questions from taz. The irregularities had occurred "in connection with the mechanisms and execution of transactions and accounting procedures," now however everything has supposedly been rectified. As publicly stated.

Townsley thus confirmed a report in the British newspaper The Guardian, which concluded on the basis of internal Greenpeace documents that the asset management of the international environmental association has been "disorganized" for years, suffering from personnel problems and patently lacking in clearly defined procedures – and this has apparently led to "mistakes and poor results". According to the minutes of a meeting of the Greenpeace board from the spring of 2014, controllers were horrified at the loss, and were also "particularly concerned about the way in which it had happened – that is to say, about the lack of effective and coherent processes and controls which would prevent contracts being concluded without authorization."

70.9 million euros annual budget
As a result of currency agreements to back up the currency, speculating on a debilitated euro, the head of Greenpeace’s financial division had clocked up losses amounting to a total of 3.8 million euros since August 2013. The man, who according to Townsley had no authorization for these agreements, was fired in March. Such hedging attempts to guard against currency fluctuations are, as we know, more than just a matter of peanuts. Thus in 2012 the organization lost 0.6 million, after having gained 0.4 million just the year before. The Greenpeace spokesman pointed out that the finances of the global environmental organization are "investigated by external auditors every year, and have always been given a clean bill of health." The losses had already come to light at the start of 2014, but in view of the "14 different types of contract involved", the investigations had taken some time. An announcement of the lost millions was to be made in the new annual report of the organization, due to be published next month.

The new head of the Finance division, it appears, has already introduced "significant changes in procedures and new controls." Overall, according to Townsley, the organization will show losses amounting to 6.8 million euros for 2013 – this including the 3.8 million lost through the currency speculations. The other 3 million are said to be a "budgeted deficit", because Greenpeace is presently engaged in a restructuring process: responsibilities and jobs are being relocated from the head office in Amsterdam to the regional branches. The annual budget of Greenpeace International comes to a total of 70.9 million euros for2013. The 28 Greenpeace regional offices worldwide together earned something like 270 million in 2012, of which 90 million were then spent on fundraising. Among Greenpeace’s national offices, Germany is top of the league with an income of around 53 million. Out of this money the Germans paid out 21 million to Greenpeace International.

Picture: Reuters

taz.de / Greenpeace-verspekuliert-sich

A Ray of Light on the World of Angela Merkel

By Dr. Baron Norbert van Handel *)

04.05.2016

You can’t help admiring German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the rhetorical tour de force which she delivered in a recent talk show in Germany. First she insisted, with something like obstinacy, on her open doors policy. Then she criticized Austria and the Balkan countries for having introduced upper limits for the intake of refugees, with border controls to enforce them. Finally she reassured the Germans, because now in any case there will be fewer refugees coming in, and undoubtedly everything will be sorted at European level.

Machiavelli would have enjoyed it. So now there will be fewer asylum seekers coming to Germany. And credit for that goes to Austria – who we are blaming for the very same reason.

Angela Merkel (photo: Armin Linnartz/Wikimedia, CC 3.0)

The chaos in Greece was regretted by Ms. Merkel, though she did not propose any recognizable solution to the problem. When the Austrian Defense Minister made the excellent suggestion that Germany should directly absorb the asylum seekers wandering around on the Macedonian border, she did not express, so far as we know, any opinion.

Now, Ms. Merkel went on to say, the Turkish President (whose record on human rights is somewhat questionable) would contribute to relieving the refugee situation. She, Ms. Merkel, is firmly counting on it. That may be the case – but definitely only if Europe takes in hundreds of thousands more asylum seekers, and at the same time presses resolutely ahead with the negotiations for Turkey to join the EU.

There again Merkel could score points, as Turkey’s joining the EU, so it seems, would dovetail all too perfectly with the Merkel philosophy of a multicultural, multireligious and indeed almost unrecognizably transformed Germany and Europe.

The declining opinion poll standing of the CDU (which can hardly be distinguished any longer from the SPD), and the equally steady rise in popularity of the AfD do not seem to cause her concern – any more than the burning of asylum seekers’ hostels, thousands of cases of sexual violence and attacks on property and the increasing anxiety of citizens in face of what seems an irreversible islamization of Germany and Europe.

No question about it, we have a Christian obligation to take in refugees. But only in a balanced relation to all states of the EU – which balanced relation, as we know, has not come about and is unlikely to do so in future. Big catchment camps where refugees will be supplied with food, clothing and medical care are going to be required. Whether this can be organized in the vicinity of their countries of origin, or on the Schengen border, is more than doubtful.

Furthermore, a reform of the legislation on asylum seekers is urgently needed. As in the context of criminal law there is such a thing as a "state of emergency above the law", it cannot be expected that the right of asylum should be extended indefinitely to the point where the identity of the host country is dramatically changed.

Along with the refugee issue, the EU is facing other serious problems. If Great Britain leaves Europe, a complete reorganization and reform of the EU will be unavoidable. But the same thing will be the case even if the United Kingdom does not leave the EU. People do not want a superstate – they want a fatherland of fatherlands.

People get an allergic reaction when the EU interferes with every insignificant detail, and these interferences prove costly. People are unhappy when a bankrupt state, like Greece for instance, is supported to the tune of billions, either through inflationary money creation or from the taxes of individual countries – especially in view of the fact that the Maastricht criteria rule out transfer payments to countries in need, so the EU is actually breaking its own laws.

Europe, which was the archetypal futuristic project of the 20th century, and still is, will have to concentrate in future on its core competences if it is to avoid falling apart: peace in Europe, the defense of Europe, a constructive foreign policy (especially in relation to its big neighbor Russia), release from the leading strings of the USA and realization of the four freedoms: free movement of European citizens within Europe, and free exchanges of goods, services and capital. This is what the future EU must focus on.

But as for smaller states, like Austria and its neighbors, it is more than ever necessary for them to come together in a Central European Community similar to the Benelux countries (who have right from the start enjoyed an influence in the European Union that is out of all proportion), in order to be able to speak with one voice on the most important issues affecting Europe and so acquire an influence in keeping with their history and culture.

If none of this happens, if we persist, blindly and irresponsibly, in this course – against the wishes and interests of the European peoples – and the important idea of a Christian occidental community of free nations is destroyed, then our continent is substantially finished.

__________

*) Dr. Baron Norbert Freiherr van Handel is a doctor of law, a businessman and an authorized signatory of the European Order of St. George, an order of the House of Habsburg-Lothringen. The order is Christian and conservative in its values, is committed to a united and self-confident Europe, supports the traditional Austrian multinational idea of the state and believes in the increasing necessity for cooperation between the states of Central and Southeastern Europe.
See the website: europaeischer-sanct-georgs-orden.org [European order of sanct georg]

Source: UNSER MITTELEUTOPA [OUR CENTRAL EUROPE] -  With United Forces for a Europe of the Fatherlands