RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15913/europe-conservatives

Civilizationists’ top concern is not battling climate change, building the European Union, or staving off Russian and Chinese aggression; rather, they focus on preserving Europe’s historic civilization of the past two millennia. They worry about Europe becoming an extension of the Middle East or Africa.

That anxiety contains four elements: demography, immigration, multiculturalism, and Islamization (or DIMI, recalling the Arabic word dhimmi, the status of Jews and Christians who submit to the rule of Muslims).

Civilizationists… are already a powerful force, having advanced from a marginal position twenty years ago to a central role in many countries. They are the key opposition force in Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. They have been or are part of the government in Austria, Estonia, Italy, Norway, and Switzerland. They govern in a coalition in Poland and on their own in Hungary.

Does Europe have any conservatives? That is, believers in individual responsibility, national independence, free markets, a single law for all, the traditional family, and maximum freedom of speech and religion.

Seemingly not. Politicians called conservative — such as Angela Merkel of Germany, Jacques Chirac of France, and Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden — are often in reality mild leftists, as are their parties. One might conclude that conservatism is defunct in its homeland.

One would be wrong. A substantial conservative movement exists and is growing in Europe. It is hiding in plain sight, obscured by being tarred as populists, nationalists, extreme-right, or even neo-Nazis. I call this group by another name: civilizationists, acknowledging that (1) they focus on preserving Western civilization and (2) they forward some distinctly un-conservative policies (such as increased welfare and pension payments).

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/italy-is-fighting-covid-19-and-capitalism/?utm_source=recircdesktop&utm_medium=article&utm_

Alberto Mingardi is the director general of Istituto Bruno Leoni, Italy’s free-market think tank, and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.

A scheme ostensibly meant to deal with economic effects of the virus could well end up as a massive expansion of the state’s power to run business and finance.

In the 1920s, the three major Italian banks had a substantial stake in the largest Italian listed companies. Roughly two years after Wall Street’s crash, Italy also experienced a great crash, with stock valuations dropping an average of 30 percent. Those banks found themselves in dire straits: If they sold assets at market prices, their capital would be swept away.

For this reason, in 1933 the Italian Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (IRI) was established by the fascist regime. The government nationalized the banks and placed the shares of businesses it owned in a dedicated holding, to be managed by a few capable technocrats. Mussolini himself thought it was a “convalescent home” for Italian businesses, aimed at a quick recovery. IRI would later be held by Franklin Roosevelt as a model for his NRA. It was not until the 1990s that IRI was dismantled and its controlled companies privatized; the holding was liquidated in 2000. In other words, it took nearly 70 years for Italy to get its state-controlled businesses out of the convalescent home.

It is generally agreed that COVID-19 could be as serious a crisis as 1929. It is possible that this predicament will yield an even greater state ownership of formerly private companies. In most countries this would be an unintended consequence of prolonged lockdowns, but in Italy, it may well happen by design.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/bild_one_of_germanys_major_news_outlets_rakes_china_over_the_coals.html

China has been working overtime to deflect responsibility for the Wuhan virus’s leap from a Chines bio lab into a worldwide pandemic that’s caused death and economic destruction around the globe. While Democrats want to blame Trump more than China, in England, people know that China is at fault and, in Germany, one newspaper has directly challenged China. 

In America, a media in thrall to Trump Derangement Syndrome is promoting Chinese propaganda to derail Trump’s reelection campaign. (See, e.g., “CNN accused of ‘literally publishing Chinese propaganda.’”) This joint Chinese and mainstream media propaganda effort has worked, up to a point. According to a Rasmussen poll, 60% of Democrats believe that Trump is more responsible than China for the Wuhan virus in America. 

Outside of the Democrat swamp, though, people have taken note of the fact that the Wuhan virus is a Chinese phenomenon. They understand that, while China may not have released the virus deliberately, its subsequent cover-up and lies turned the virus into a devastating worldwide pandemic.

Thus, the same Rasmussen poll reveals that 69% of voters overall believe that China is at fault, a view held by 83% of Republicans and 65% of Independents.

In England, a Henry Jackson Society poll also revealed a real hardening in attitudes towards China:

74% of British adults believe “the Chinese Government is to blame for allowing COVID-19 to spread”. Just 19% believe it is not to blame;
71% of the public would support the British Government suing China in international court “if it became evident that the Chinese government breached international law in responding to the initial outbreak and spread of COVID-19”. Just 6% would oppose such action;
More British adults now oppose Huawei’s role in the UK’s 5G network than support it.
40% of British adults oppose allowing the firm to build the UK’s network, just 27% support it.
 The proportion who oppose allowing Huawei a role rises to 51% amongst Conservative voters in the 2019 election;
69% of the British public believe that the virus began in a wet market in Wuhan, China;
83% of the public believe that the British Government should demand an international inquiry into the response of the Chinese Government to the COVID-19 crisis;
45% of the public believe that the Chinese Government is mainly to blame for the damage caused in the UK by Coronavirus. 15% believe the UK government is mainly to blame and 31% believe that the UK and Chinese Government’s are equally to blame.

Meanwhile, in Germany, one major publication is attacking China directly for its responsibility vis-à-vis the Wuhan virus. Bild, a daily broadsheet with a circulation of over 2 million, wrote an article asking “whether China should pay for the massive economic damage the coronavirus is inflicting worldwide.” It held that China owed Germany almost $162 billion.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-coronavirus-hits-the-global-south-11587422555?mod=hp_opin_pos_3

The pandemic may have peaked in many countries, but for much of the world the worst is yet to come. Despite hopes that warmer temperatures would slow Covid-19’s spread in the Global South, the disease is spreading with relentless speed in countries like Kenya and Brazil. The strategies that have limited and slowed the virus in the Global North won’t work for the most part in the South. Without a vaccine or treatments, the people living there will be almost as powerless before the disease as humanity once was against smallpox.

Take the “lockdown” strategy. The purpose of this extremely costly policy is to “flatten the curve,” by shutting down much of the economy to ensure that health systems aren’t overwhelmed by waves of desperately ill patients.

In much of the world, this strategy is impossible. Only rich countries and rich peoples can afford lockdowns. In much of the Global South a substantial percentage of the population lives from hand to mouth. Many people make money selling things on the street or in crowded informal markets. They draw their water from communal taps; they use community latrines, if they have sanitation at all. Hundreds of millions do not have reliable access to clean water, much less to soap or hand sanitizer. After a few days without work, hunger will drive people back out onto the streets.

Even if lockdowns could be sustained, they would do little good. There are five ventilators in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one for about 20 million people. Ten African countries have no ventilators at all. Even if the disease’s spread could be slowed, medical capacity in the Global South is so lacking that there’s no chance it could be built up in time to help. The most stringent lockdown could not prevent a massive public-health crisis in many countries, and no such lockdown can endure.