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Notes from below sea level…
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Notes from below sea level…
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“It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks” Acts 9: 5-6 The prick in biblical times was the wooden spike used to goad the oxen to plough the field. If the ox resisted, the spike would be applied a little harder. More resistance, more pain. This remarkable cabinet formation process has now reached the point where everything hinges on the outlook of the Christian Democrats. The upcoming party congress will effectively decide whether the leadership’s decision to work with the PVV – even if they are not actually together in government – can go ahead. One can be cynical - party congresses, heavily manipulated and passaged, rarely overturn decisions already taken, especially if power is in the offing. But the divisions within the party for and against are very real. The enforced silence surrounding the cabinet talks, preventing any hint of what concessions Wilders may be forced to make, only heighten the tension and further emphasise the issue as one of principle not policy. The party has not had to delve this deep into its soul since its first period in government (1977-81), when seven CDA ‘loyalists’ professed their aim to support the VVD-CDA cabinet so long as it stayed true to the christian principles of their party. Unusually, international politics were central in this, concerning the use of nuclear weapons and their place in Dutch (Western) security policy. Will there be CDA ‘loyalists’ in 2010? It is quite possible. A VVD-CDA minority cabinet (54 seats) with support from the PVV (24 seats) reaches a parliamentary majority of one, slim enough to collapse on matters of principle. But there is more than principle at stake here, despite the claims of the original loyalists interviewed in Trouw yesterday, and despite the CDA petitioners who associate cooperation with the PVV with undermining constitutional rights, such as the freedom of religion. The 1970s loyalists were determined not to split the party, and played their principled game always with that in mind. The current situation is much more unstable. Wilders has been very successful in taking voters away from the CDA, as the election results in Limburg – Verhagen’s backyard – fully demonstrated. And the CDA’s success in attracting support from cultural minorities is now threatened by its apparent preparedness to sell their rights down the river. When Fortuyn came on the scene in 2002 he took votes from the VVD and the PvdA, with CDA as the safe haven for the undecided voter wanting stability. Now the CDA has lost that vote-winning haven. An optimist would say the VVD has temporarily become the safe bet, which CDA will regain in time. Playing the constitutional card will wake up the sensitive citizen and they will ‘do the right thing’ next time around. A pessimist on the other hand would speculate that Dutch voting behaviour has become so volatile that the whole notion of ’safe havens’ is no longer relevant. (needless to say, the notion of safe havens and Dutch politics is an uncomfortable combination at present, as the recent decision by the state prosecutor to investigate the Dutch military’s association with the Serb destruction of Srebrenica and Goradze painfully brought home).
[From World Elections] The CDA is therefore caught in a vice. Following its own regent-like identity and choosing for government means risking introducing painful public spending cuts and potentially losing more ground to a ‘blameless’ PVV. Rejecting this option means occupying the opposition benches with a rowdy PVV out to score points at any opportunity. The only way ahead, the gamble of Verhagen, is that this whole cabinet formation process will force the normalisation of the PVV, reforming its agenda, and reducing its support as a protest movement. A chance meeting with a PVV-voting acquaintance a couple of days ago offered an opportunity to delve a little into this scenario. (for your information – being still on holiday, I did not want to talk politics. He brought it up, knowing full well we occupied different standpoints). The person in question, a former dyed-in-the-wool VVD’er turned Fortuynist, brough a whole new and rather scabrous meaning to the idea of kicking against the pricks. Two issues dominated the discussion. One was the lack of democracy within the PVV itself. My point that the party only contains two members, and that this control-freakery would surely complicate things should Wilders have to tolerate a PVV minister other than himself, was brushed aside as an irrelevant detail. Lack of members wouldn’t affect how they govern, and anyway ‘Wilders had a list of ministers in his back pocket already on 10 June’ was the answer (so we were told was my silent reply). The second issue was the intriguing nature of the PVV’s left + right agenda: Anti-immigration and defence of the health system. If the PVV wins out on some of its rightist demands, won’t it lose support from the lower incomes if in return it caves in to the VVD’s heavy public spending cutbacks? Isn’t the Verhagen strategy correct? The answer to this was the clincher. Oh, does Wilders demand fewer cutbacks? My PVV-supporting acquaintance claimed to lack the figures and didn’t know. It was late by then and a couple of glasses of wine led me to utter the word ‘bollocks’, realising quickly it was time for bed. But the cat was already out of the bag. Wilders’ appeal may indeed come from parts of his agenda. But it comes above all from his prime-time media-orientated ability to raise mayhem at every turn. So the PVV agenda is contradictory? So a lack of party members means Wilders has to search for funding abroad? So the PVV has no members in the First Chamber of parliament? You can go on and its always missing the point. He may well be ex-VVD, a member of parliament since 1997, a Hague insider, but he’s staked his entire identity on ripping it all up. Why else would support for the PVV go up after he abandoned his stance on defending the pension age at 65? Because pensions are irrelevant. What counts is calling the bluff of his political enemies who think he leads a ‘normal’ party with a ‘normal’ support base. Giving the finger to the CDA and the PvdA counts more for GW supporters than running a coherent programme. Dutch parliamentary expert Henk te Velde may think there’s no tradition of populism in the Netherlands, but I beg to differ. There has always been an undercurrent of resistance within a (generally) well-run country of regents and monarchs, and this occasionally bursts out into the open. Since WW II the Provos would be a fine example, as would the squatter movement in the 70s and 80s. Ok, I’m stretching things to link anarchic social movements with an anti-establishment ’party’ on the verge of government (probably been reading too much Greil Marcus), but I think there could be something to it. Its not similarity of agenda, its similarity of disdain for established authority. Wilders is turning this into a political art form, and it looks like a big section of the Dutch electorate will follow him whichever way he turns as a result.
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Posted on 13:06, August 21st, 2010 by 
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Anyone who voted for the PVV and Wilders votes against his own country, the Netherlands. They vote against their own democracy and free society. What are PVV voters really thinking?
Ask your friend how ethnic registrations, headscarf taxes, banning the Koran, closing Muslim schools – and, of course, changing the country’s constitution to effectively make Muslims second-class citizens would be received by the rest of the world, in the international community. Ask your friend if he is aware of the programs used by the Nazi Party against German Jews.
Finally – ask you friend if he knows that the “islamisering van Nederland” is really a myth and is something that is simply not happening by demographic and social scientific evidence (which Wilders is never asked to prove). I have collected evidence that not only disproves Geert Wilders lunatic claims of “islamisering,” but even shows that the so-called “Dutch model” of integration is actually working.
Given the support that Wilders and the PVV gets from foreign funding – the PVV can be said to not be an actual Dutch party, but a foreign political party. The PVV is actually an American neoconservative political party.
The same ilk funding the destruction of Dutch democracy is here in the US stirring up all kinds of trouble over the Islamic community center in New York – and people are learning just what frauds and crackpots – as well as hate-mongers – they are. There has been escalating violence against Muslim Americans, which is well covered in the media – and Americans now see the hate and violence being promoted by Geert Wilders’ supports and contributors. Pamela Geller is being exposed as the crackpot blogger that she is. When it was learned by GOP leaders (some with presidential aspirations) that were going to be at an anti-mosque protest that Geert Wilders was going to show up – the canceled their appearances.
I am putting together a paper on the funding and support being given to Geert Wilders by American neocon and radical right sourses. I know that this funding also includes Robert Spencer, David Horowitz, as well as Pamela Geller.
The reality is that your PVV voting friend needs to understand is that Geert Wilders policies would place the Netherlands outside of the norms and standards from Western democracies that respect the rule of law, equality and human rights. The Netherlands will become a rogue nation, like Milosevic’s Yugoslavia.
The day Geert Wilders gets his manic hands on the prime minster’s office will be the end of Dutch democracy.
I will be sending this paper about to various government officials, as well as my own senators, one of whom is a ranking member of the Foreign Affairs committee. I have also been researching US law with regard to this type of foreign subversive activity against a long-time US friend and ally. What Geller, Pipes, Spencer and their organizations are doing is attempting to bring about an anti-democratic regime, perhaps a dictatorship, in the Netherlands – and this activity is against US national interests and security, as well as a serious threat to European security.
I would love to talk – and you may write me in Dutch.
Ik wil andere mensen praten – en je mag in het Nederlands taal me schreven. Ik kan Nederlands lezen.
Let’s start with the miyth of democracy, rule of law. And try to keep in mind the iron law of oligarchy.These two very facts of political no doubt help me lighten my thinking of daily politics’ conflicts between parties. Until the humanity manages to “discover” the best way we have only the second best of handling nation-wide politics which is of course is democray. Democracy (opium for people?) has been the substitute of freedom of human being and every political action is justified for the name of democracy. The practioners of democracy, for the sake of the article I consider them as super humans namely politicians who consider themselves above all others so that they are different kind of human speicies,all over the worls have one thing in common; they abstract themselves from the rest of the society. This is a real endemic in daily politics. Only one example, I think, explains what I mean. The former PvdA leadr Mr. Bos, just before deciding to quiet political arena and return to home to have more time with his childern (which is I highly appriciated for his sincerity) had sad that he would spend more time in the streets to understand the PEOPLE. What a noble decision for a prominent social democrat! What my limited knowledge on Dutch politics has taught me is that even Dutch politicals are not so different from my countr’s “super humans”. When the time of election approaches these selected one suddenly recall their sacred commitments to the PEOPLE: they once again come up with the unredeemed which was said previous election. Becuase they do not seek the truth, in fact their merely aim is to get the power whatever it costs. The ultimate cost is, for the sake of obtaining power, is loosing the credibility as person and the meaningless truth which is as flat as pancake. This is especially “true” when you consider of -in Dutch politics- some migrated politicians who have been for some years presented by media as a “role modele” for integration. While PvdA has considered itself champion of integration even in the party’s elite circle there is a lack of what they mean about integration (even there is a confusion what kind of criteria can be applied to successful integration). I think there should be only one: those who put his name in to the political arena and claim that his/her capacity is well enough to reveal the Truth s/he then could be titled as worrier for democracy and rule of law regardless which political port/organizaition s/he affiliated to. May be then why Mr. Bos decided so suddenly to turn his peacefull home instead of being a part of “big circle” Den Haag, stucking in the blind fights of politics. As Geroge Berkley says, Truth is the cry for all, but the game of the few.
I fully agree about the US-Israeli funding of the PVV and the impact this has on its direction as a ‘party’. I am surprised that this has not come out more in the past couple of months as Wilders has been a part of the cabinet discussions. It is not a good sign if he is allowed to assume some form of democratic power and responsibility if his own political base is allowed to continue as a completely undemocratic one-man operation.
There were some rather interesting news appeared in Dutch media during last general election campaign: the first was the Dutch security servic warned PVV about a ceatain name on the party’s MP candidate list and the second was the specific article questioning some politicinas’ un-ethical relationships and an serious allegation about a minister which was puplished on Telegraaf on May 18th of 2010.And notorious relationship of Mr. Wilder’s with Israel can be traced in media back to 2007. But I must empahasize the fact that Mr. Wilder’s allegations about the sucsess of integration anyhow should be considered seriously.
wilders is a disaster for humans of all kinds.
he is spoiled , child, narcistic, messias of evil.
no brains at all.
give him power,
and you see what happens: TOTAL ANARGY.
The ussual hot-headed comments again whenever the subject of Geert Wilders raises its head.