The original concept of supranational democracy for Europe brought long-lasting peace to the Continent. EU's founder Robert Schuman described democracy as being in the service of the people and acting in agreement with the people. What's going on today? See also www.schuman.info and http://democracy.blogactiv.eu .
What is behind President Donald Trump’s creation of a Space Force? Should Europe have a Space Force to defend its interests in space, its communications and its claim to the moon?
Russia, China and now the USA are already involved in the militarisation of space. Russia has its AeroSpace Forces, created in 2015. China formed the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force, PLASSF, in the same year.
to safeguard China’s security interests in outer space, electromagnetic space and cyberspace.
What are those security interests? As far back as 2007, China demonstrated its capability to destroy satellites in orbit. Far more issues than that are involved. China has a exploration probe on the far side of the moon. What is it examining and what is it planning to do there? China has become a powerful industrial power, thanks to deals with western globalists and the acquisition of high-tech patents in these deals.
What China is short of is strategic minerals. Its presence in Africa is ample evidence of this need or resources that are vital to keep its industrial machinery fed.
But would it be cheaper for China to take control of the far side of the moon and an area many times the size of Africa? Mining in gravity that is a fraction of the earth’s would make it an attractive commercial alternative. There would be no problem with the natives.
And who would know what was going on on the far side of the moon?
China says it wants peace with all nations. But it may be the type of peace that it has with countries of Africa and Sri Lanka where it calls the tune. It may want to ‘re-educate’ all dissidents and introduce its social control infotech systems as it expands its power.
Westerners may well be suspicious of an industrial power that says it will overtake the USA and is under one party control. What sort of world will it be if the Chinese Communist Party controls the planet’s destiny — and that of the moon?
Westerners have seen where the Soviet Union led to. It had engineering accomplishments but it had millions in slave labour in Gulag camps. Millions of kulaks died by order of the ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ and starvation.
Rocketing Interest
After WW2 the Soviet Union and USA both augmented their rocket programmes for use as delivery systems of A-bombs. It then became clear that the military high ground was space. Satellites could observe activities and control events on the ground.
Then on 4 October 1957, the USSR launched the world’s first satellite, PS-1, known as Sputnik. This showed USSR had gained a mastery of high-powered rockets and technological sophistication. The satellite could both be heard on radios at 20 and 40 MHz and seen in the skies at night.
On 2 January 1959 the USSR launched a probe Luna 1 (or Lunik) that reached out to the moon. It was designed as an impactor to deliver the Soviet coat of arms on to the moon’s surface. But a malfunction meant that it flew past at close range rather than placing the Hammer and Sickle on lunar surface.
That was a close call also for the USA. Major aerospace firms were asked to provide proposals and a plan of research. The military were in charge of the rockets and also saw strategic goals that could easily be won or lost.
The Sputnik and subsequent Soviet achievements showed they were way behind the path of technological advancement.
By March 1959, US military were proposing to have a military base on the Moon. Project Horizon foresaw
‘a manned military outpost on the moon.
The lunar outpost is required to develop and protect potential United States interests on the moon;
to develop techniques in moon-based surveillance of the earth and space, in communications relays, and operations on the surface of the moon;
to serve as a base for exploration of the moon,
for further explorations into space and for military operations on the surface of the moon if required; and
to support scientific investigation of the moon.’
The proposal, although clearly thought out strategically, hit a major problem. Budget. The sums required would be enormous. The US defence budget had recently been cut and pruned. There was no way a major investigation and preparation could be accommodated or kept disguised.
The project foresaw up to nearly a hundred flights to the moon per year being required to prepare and build accommodation for a permanent military staff of 12. A launch site in the equatorial region such as Brazil or Christmas Island was planned.
During the operational phase of the program, the launch site will have the capability of firing eight vehicles per month (96 per year),
How much would it cost? $6.052 Billion over less than a decade.
$6Bn in 1959 is equivalent to $5.35 Trillion today. (The GNP of USA is $19 Trillion).
Those figures were based on reports from America’s leading-edge, high technology rocket and missile firms and R&D outfits.
Moon struck
On 2 September 1959 a second Soviet probe, Luna-2 impacted the moon and just before it did so, scattered USSR pennants onto the surface. They marked the ground around Mare Imbrium and Mare Serenitatis.
What did that signify? It said that the USSR star had landed that month under the symbol of the Hammer and Sickle of ‘scientific communism’ of the atheist Communist party. Was it exporting atheism, communism or science?
The probe detected no radiation belts around the moon and found no evidence of a magnetic field.
Then on 4 October Luna 3 captured a vision that no human had seen before. it took a photograph of the far-side of the moon that is always hidden from earthlings. The shock was evident. It was quite different from the side that is seen from earth. How come?
Was there a secret about the origin of the moon that would make it of supreme importance, both for the knowledge of our origins and the potential riches for the future of mankind?
The stakes were getting higher for the USA. What was to be done?
On 25 March 1961 President John F Kennedy announced a civilian project — to put a man on the moon and return him safely before the end of the decade. This was to be undertaken by NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, established in 1958.
On 3 February 1966 the Soviet Luna 9 became the first man-made object to make a soft landing on the moon. It showed that such objects would not sink into the moon dust. It was able to send photos and some television. These were published in the West, even before the USSR did, because they were transmitted using the international radiofax coding commonly used in photojournalism.
In the Beginning
The Americans were the first to send human beings to view the moon close up. In December 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 were asked to say 'something appropriate' as they orbited the moon.
Not surprisingly, they did not quote from the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels:
'A spectre is haunting Europe-- the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre.'
They did not quote the later passage about the disproven materialist concept of history being due to purely economic causes identified as the class struggle.
Bill Anders1968: North up, Africa on right
What they did say as they reached lunar sunrise was a 'message for all the world':
'We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send you. 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters...'
In turn, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders read out the first ten verses of the King James Version of the Bible to the biggest audience worldwide.
Some later Apollo astronauts brought Bibles with them. One red cover paper copy brought by Apollo 15 commander David Scott still rests on the dashboard of the Lunar Roving Vehicle, LRV, on the moon. Another Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell flew 100 Bibles of 1245 pages to the moon. They were in microfiche format just 4 square cm in size.
With Hammers and Sickles of the Soviet and Chinese communists aiming at pre-empting the Bibles of the West, who will ultimately win the ideological struggle?
Strategic focus
Today, military focuses on several key features that were not well developed sixty years ago. For example computers and especially their miniaturisation meant that processing power was retained on earth. The Military talked about C3, command, control, communications.
or C4ISTAR with added Target Acquisition required by modern sophistication and precision.
Is the moon a target for acquisition by the power that wishes to control the world? What is at stake?
Today USA, India, Japan, China, Israel and Europe have also impacted the moon with their spacecraft. Who will lay claim to the moon? Who needs the moon? Any power who wishes to dominate Earth needs to control it. Will it lead to a struggle for supremacy of the earth-moon system? Will it be Communist or Democrat, Hindu or Jewish, Atheist or Theist?
‘World peace cannot be safeguarded without efforts commensurate with the dangers that face it.‘ The first lines of the Schuman Declaration, 9 May 1950 still apply today.
Vernon Bogdanor excels in his analysis of the UK Constitution. He draws incisive conclusions about the major changes of the Constitution that have arisen from more than four decades of membership to the European Communities. He traces the change of model from UK’s unwritten constitution where Parliament ruled to the slow but sure movement where European “officials” in the Commission apparently pre-empt all.
As he wrote, and it is more apparent after he wrote, the Referendum, as an instrument of governance, has become the predominant factor in Britain’s Constitution.
The Referendum represents the most important challenge not only to UK because of Brexit, but because, by the disrespect of the referendum by Brussels as the primary instrument of democracy, Europe is entering a prolonged crisis which will overturn decades-long corrupt policy by politicians.
Early constitutions
Historically Britain did have a written constitution briefly under Oliver Cromwell. Before that, before the Anglo-Saxons arrived, and indeed the Romans, ancient Britons were governed by wise principles called the State Triads, the basis for our present Common Law. One of these defines the three governance principles:
firstly, a referendum of all the people,
secondly a parliament of 300, and
thirdly a court where jurors or elders vote under its protection and privileges.
These ‘Laws of Wales’ were confirmed in the Magna Carta 1215.
The Referendum is now coming back to first place. It has changed how Britons think about their Constitution.
European Communities
Bogdanor does not dig so far back into history. But he is clear and detailed on the recent developments. He is right to draw attention to the fact that the original institution was the European Coal and Steel Community 1951 and not the “Common Market” 1957. His analysis of the supremacy of European law and the British lack of understanding of it is well worth a read.
The Continentals, however, have also failed to warn of the drift and resist the negative changes for all European citizens: the Democratic Deficit.
This is not something inherent in the Community system. In fact it was conceived as the most democratic system ever.
The two areas where his analysis is weak are the nature of European Democracy (as originally conceived and why it is ‘chloroformed’ under France’s autocratic president Charles de Gaulle) and the major change in the British constitution now that the Referendum is main instrument that outclasses even parliamentary decision-making. A more subtle and perhaps more important point is how to stop politicians cheating when a referendum is declared. This can be done when referendums do not have an adequate legal framework, for example, where the framework itself violates human rights.
Democracy is based on Human Rights
After the bloodiest of world wars and threatened by Soviet expansionism, the democrats who agreed on the Community idea, obviously wanted a democracy that would help west European democracies help themselves. They wanted to build together a better, freer world. The first step was the creation of a minimum standard for a country to be considered democratic. This was formulated in the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of the guardian organisation, the Council of Europe.
This body and this entrance ticket may be considered the Bill of Rights and its guarantor for the future safety of Europeans and their States.
All subsequent treaties such as the European Communities had to be examined for human rights adherence and agreed by this body. And so they were.
What happened? Western Europe experienced an economic miracle for three decades that were unprecedented in its previous history. But in the 1980s it ran out of steam. Europe’s democratic engine is based on a ratchet system: it can go forward but not back. But for a while it can be blocked from advancing.
Europe gained its first Single Markets in 1953. De Gaulle stopped the advancement to what had initially been agreed: a transparent, open Council of Ministers and elections to European bodies. After de Gaulle’s departure in 1969 was when the reform to the high standards of Schuman democracy should have been made.
Alas, politicians, Continental and British, Irish and Scandinavian, preferred the neo-Gaullist system. European elections to the Parliament should be based on a single statute and one election, not 28 national elections that are easily manipulated. The closed-door Councils of Ministers remained. Politicians could thus abrogate to themselves excessive powers without public supervision.
The inevitable crisis
Today we are entering Crisisland: Brexit comes after barely surviving Greece’s Grexit and the continuing euro crisis.
Is the original democratic vision broken? Democracy needs the rule of law to sustain it. Law needs democratic glue to make it viable long-term.
Robert Schuman, the French Statesman who originated the Community method, created a new system to provide a partial (step-by-step) democracy in sectors to link and pacify ancient States and peoples, continually at war amongst themselves.
As Bogdanor says in his Gresham Lectures, Schuman initiated a ‘scientific experiment’ in democracy (speech at Strasbourg, May 1949). Schuman also said that democracy cannot be improvised. Progress is not automatic, nor, because of human nature, always in the right direction.
The Cause
This is where Bogdanor could have applied more of his analytical skills. After the war, the Community experiment was based on solid principles of good governance. The first document signed by the founding States in 1951 was buried by Gaullists in French archives. It was not republished again for fifty years. It is what Schuman called the Charter of the Community.
It is simpler than Magna Carta. It has one key right, the right of people to freely choose their destiny. True democracy contrasted with the Soviet system where the people could only vote for the Party and party dictatorship of the proletariat.
Democracy goes hand in hand with the first institution of modern Europe. That was not the EU or the Community but the Council of Europe, formed in Strasbourg in 1949. Its Rules of Membership – the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms – defined European values, Magna Carta rights on a broad European scale.
States and free populations that recognise these values of a free society are those that can call themselves European with freedom of thought, assembly, the press, presumed innocence in Court, and so on.
The Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms now defines Europe more than geography.
Where did Europe and UK go wrong?
All the early treaties, 1951-57, were discussed at length in the Assembly of the Council of Europe to ensure they complied with human rights.
By the time UK joined NONE of the later ones were.
1957 European Economic Community, EEC: Spaak Report.
The Community was considered a guardian of fundamental rights because it was within the Council of Europe system. For example, Article 3 of the EDC specifies the fundamental rights of the individual and rights of States.
1957-69 De Gaulle seizes power in France, stops elections.
1973 UK joined 3 Communities, ECSC, EEC (Common Market) and Euratom. But no elections to European Parliament and Consultative Committees took place.
1986 Mrs Thatcher agreed to reinforcing the Single Market in the Single European Act (SEA). But the politicians added more institutions. They were unpopular and few citizens agreed to them. This constitution-changing operation was mounted against British, Danish and Greek objections, only one referendum (in Ireland). Only nine of the 12 Member States signed the SEA initially in February 1986.
The politicians, meeting in the still closed-door Council of Ministers, created these new institutions for internal and external affairs and a hierarchical control by a European Council of heads of Government, after the pattern of de Gaulle’s system.
Constitutional change requires affirmation in referendums. In the UK, where some saw to where such constitutional change without popular authorisation could lead, a Referendum Party was formed with the aim of correcting government policy to the innovations without popular legitimacy.
The first cheat was to call the SEA a revision and not a treaty. The second cheat was not to have it analysed for Human Rights abuse by the Council of Europe. By this time the Council of Europe, side-lined by de Gaulle in 1957, was not allowed to interfere in the process or to pronounce on the diminishing human rights of these political operations.
Human Rights by Force
The Community system had no institution called the European Council of Heads of State and Government. There was good reason. All European politics should be conducted in the Council of Europe and in Community bodies in open session.
The ‘Summit’ was an invention of Charles de Gaulle. He was the only Head of State allowed.
It provides fertile soil for an oligarchic control of European affairs without public supervision. In the Community system it was not even an institution, never mind a body with legal personality.
In the European Council, Heads of government could now meet in secret. Heads of government could decide what to do for their own advantage. They also had national majorities to pass them or force them through their parliaments. Later Treaties (Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice, Constitutional and Lisbon) were forced through parliaments in rapid succession.
Once they leaders were agreed it was easy. All government parties with their parliamentary majorities did not have to take minority or popular voices into account. Some treaties were passed in spite of referendums blackballing them. Human rights? Forget it!
No Human Rights ‘interference’ was allowed from the Council of Europe. A substitute for proper Human Rights was penned, called the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Another fraud as it confused ideology with natural law rights.
It was forced through parliaments, in spite of its having been rejected in several referendums!!
Some Human Rights!
Impact of Human Rights
So what would happen if real Human Rights were restored and enforced in the Strasbourg Court? Sections of the present treaties would be resiled. What is the most significant section today?
The Lisbon Treaty was rejected by three States—France and the Netherlands when it was called the Constitutional treaty, and once by Ireland when it was called the Lisbon treaty.
Given a chance, UK voters would have rejected it with a large majority according to all observers. They were not given a chance. Politicians in UK and several other countries withdrew their already announced referendums.
The Lisbon Treaty does not pass the Council of Europe test. Nor does it pass the referendum test of popular support for a constitutional change.
What would happen if the Lisbon Treaty were no longer valid?
Well, for a start, there would be no Article 50. And no valid referendum of 23 June 2016. The people would have a choice of treaty. It is clear that across Europe, Lisbon treaty was unacceptable because referendums were banned. The only State, Ireland, that voted on it, voted against it. And then, under financial duress, Brussels politicians told the Irish to vote again!
A written Constitution for the UK?
Bogdanor concludes that UK is heading for a written Constitution. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have such documents. These have been granted by the central Parliament in Westminster after referendums.
UK still has European Human Rights law that overrides even parliamentary Acts. So Westminster needs constitutional certainty.
Not so fast.
Much must be clarified first, primarily the voice of the people. This is the fundament of fundamentals. Neglected too long, the referendum is the most powerful, legitimising constitutional institution (with two others acting as helpers, parliament and the courts). Parliament is no longer seen as the main constitutional body that nothing can bind. The Supreme Court judgement in the Miller prorogation case shows that Government in Parliament is subject to judicial review and its decisions can be reversed and declared null and void.
(T)he Order in Council which, being founded on unlawful advice, was likewise unlawful, null and of no effect and should be quashed. This led to the actual prorogation, which was as if the Commissioners had walked into Parliament with a blank piece of paper. It too was unlawful, null and of no effect.
Back to Constitutional Basics
Democracies are States or entities of the people ruled by the people for the people. Not closed-door oligarchies.
While no one doubts the legitimacy of the 1975 European Community referendum with its decisive result, the same cannot be said for David Cameron’s 23 June 2016 Article 50 referendum.
Why? The legal framework is missing. The May government said it was basing its exit letter on Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. The 1975 vote did not base itself on a treaty but the free vote of the people.
The legality of the Lisbon Treaty is quite dubious. It is a palpable fraud. Both Labour and Conservatives promised a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. None came.
In reality referendums in France and the Netherlands had already rejected its articles. Later, six States, including the UK, were refused the possibility of a referendum. Why were they refused? Because the politicians knew and said at the time that these populations would reject the treaty!
Instead, in UK the treaty was passed off as agreed — without a referendum. But not only without one. It was passed off in direct opposition to the people. It was rejected in referendums in Ireland and in France and the Netherlands when it was called the Constitutional Treaty.
This sleight of hand must be rectified at first for future generations. A constitutional arrangement based on a fraud will not stand.
The people must agree to the Lisbon Treaty before it can be used. Only then can a problem free Article 50 be used as a basis for a referendum decision in Parliament.
The UK is in the midst of a constitutional revolution, comparable to the union of the United Kingdom. Now it is on the scale of the Continent of Europe (excluding only such States as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland etc who do not wish to join).
The Convention of Human Rights of Strasbourg supplies the baseline. The 1951 Great Charter of the Community defines the right of peoples to choose.
In the 21st Century the people in a referendum must agree every constitutional treaty.
An honest Europe cannot be built when politicians are allowed to fool the people in constitutional arrangements made in secret and without public assent.
The Old Guard departs. European Council President Donald Tusk leaves and is replaced by former Belgian PM Charles Michel. Jean-Claude Juncker leaves the European Commission and is replaced by former German Minister Ursula von der Leyen.
December 2019 brings new faces to the European Commission, Council, Parliament and Central Bank.
Old problems remain. Europe sleeps in a democratic stupor. Key problems have not been tackled seriously since the days when de Gaulle tried to block all democratic innovations by his empty chair policy.
Some problems have been made worse. European institutions are infested with lobbyists; the public does not know how legislation is made and for whom. Councils are closed to the press. Elections conducted on a fraudulent national basis that gives some electors ten or more votes instead of one voter, one vote.
The euro crisis, the Brexit crisis, the budget crisis are all festering blisters from one virus: lack of trust stemming from the Democratic Deficit.
Let us flag the descent into the depths of the Democratic Deficit.
On 1 December Ursula von der Leyen gave her first speech as President of the Commission. She said:
“Europe is not just a treasure we inherit. Europe is a promise. Europe is future. Europe is something that we all have to build – brick by brick, day by day.
“Ten years ago, our predecessors were still discussing whether Europe should have a flag or an anthem. But in these ten years, millions of people have taken to the streets waving the European flag, our flag. And millions have been inspired and moved by the Ode to Joy, our European anthem.”
She was meeting with Charles Michel, Catherine Lagarde and David Sassoli to celebrate the ten years of the Lisbon Treaty.
They are happy to congratulate themselves. They love to wrap themselves around the European flag. But as Frau von der Leyen reminded them, the flag was left out of the Lisbon Treaty. Why?
This is a curious fact. It would be advisable for the self-elected European leaders to ask themselves why.
impossible to have a solid European currency fit for the 21st century.
The flag and its origins have been covered over with deceit. Europe cannot be built with crumbling bricks or false foundations that don’t hold the structure together.
Unveiling the reasons why Europeans have this flag will be like peeling an onion of deception and fraud before the eyes of the public.
Do they know what this two-thousand year symbol means? Will they uphold its modern re-introduction and meaning? How, why and when did it become the symbol of Europe?
Follow the Flag to the problem
European flags in front of the Berlaymont
Why is there no flag in the Lisbon Treaty? Hint. The core issue is the choice between just and fair democracy and sneaky and dishonest politics. What course was chosen?
If the Brussels politicians were honest about the flag, they would be on track to solving the problem of the lack of public trust in the institutions as non-partisan, fair and representative.
Doesn’t it seem strange there should be such a controversy over the flag? Why did the new president Ursula von der Leyen admit that the public was enthusiastic about the flag but it was rejected when the Brussels fraudster folk imposed the Lisbon Treaty on the European peoples?
The Big Cheat
The Lisbon Treaty is a compilation of articles that are almost identical to the unpopular and anti-democratic Constitutional Treaty. Some articles are word-for word the same.
These misconceived and rejected articles were wrapped in the skin of a treaty and the skin changed like a chameleon. The articles stayed the same. The politicians presumed the public would be fooled by this prestidigitation.
First, the set of articles were called the Constitutional Treaty. That was rejected by France and the Netherlands in referendums. Six other countries were set to have referendums in 2005. Most if not all would have rejected the draft treaty.
The UK was on this referendum list thanks to a promise made by successive UK governments. But the referendum on the treaty was abandoned when everyone realised it would produce the biggest NO of them all. A decision was made in the closed-door European Council to stop the UK referendum. Instead, they decided to impose the articles, not only without public support but against it, under a new name.
The ‘Brexit referendum‘ of 23 June 2016 has nothing to do with the legitimacy of the Lisbon Treaty. It tried to fool the people that they have agreed to it when they never did! The Lisbon Treaty is illegitimate as it has already been rejected by the people in France and the Netherlands and free people elsewhere.
Sneaky, dishonest politicians decided in private to re-instate the repudiated articles with a new skin. Why? Because the rotten core of articles gave politicians more power, money and public acclaim as Europe’s leaders. Power to the politicians! Politicians deemed that the refusal of the public was incidental. They could fool all the people all the time.
At first the rotten articles was re-instated as the Reform Treaty. Then in 2007 it was called the Lisbon Treaty. All this cooked up behind closed doors. No public debate. And the treaty was basically the same rejected refuse that the people had already said NO to.
How would the British accept such a monstrosity that would easily be defeated in a referendum? Politicians were told to say that this treaty was not the same as the aborted Constitutional Treaty. Look, they told the British Prime Minister, we have left out the things the British object to. They don’t want a European Super-State. So we have left out the European flag. Someone in England had said a flag must be a symbol of a State!
Really? Are they serious?
And they added, once we package the old treaty in a new wrapper, we will stop UK having referendums … on treaties!
That signposts a dangerous road to tyranny by the Brussels Politburo.
European Anthem
The same trick went for the European Anthem, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. Surely only States have anthems and not clubs and associations? Actually no. That was equally dishonest. And if to prove how dishonest they all were, both the flag and the anthem were added as protocols to the Lisbon Treaty.
So everything was back to Constitutional square one. Hunky-dory.
So the two main causes of this fiasco are political dishonesty in Brussels and lily-livered politicians in UK who refuse to stand up for democracy. All are guilty in imposing a treaty they know cannot be acceptable to the public.
Conclusion: the Lisbon Treaty creates a system that is not of the people, made by the people, nor is it for the people. It is for a political clique, a politburo, against popular consent.
Rat out of the bag
It shows that Brussels was dishonest, manipulative and anti-democratic.
Valery Giscard d’Estaing, presiding author of the Lisbon Treaty, published an article letting the rat out of the official bag. The Lisbon Treaty was exactly the same as the rejected Constitutional Treaty. The Brussels politicians are “therefore imposing a return to the language that they master and to the procedures they favour, and in doing so alienate the citizens further,” he said.
No people’s voice. So now all things are fine and dandy. People fooled.
That is the political equivalent to a dishonest second-hand car dealer, painting over the rust to sell a lethal car.
Now we are in the car crash! Brexit, Budget, euro, ‘popularism‘ and so on. Trust is rock bottom. Half the population refuses to participate in so-called ‘European elections‘.
Theft of Flag
So why was the flag a hot topic? Firstly, theft.
The politicians of the EU actually ‘stole’ the flag from the Council of Europe, headquartered in Strasbourg. The flag of twelve stars on an azure field was introduced by the Council of Europe in 1955. Three decades later in 1985 the European leaders in Brussels adopted the flag of what they were calling the European Union.
The least that can be said is that the move was deceptive. Why couldn’t Brussels politicians have their own flag so that people could distinguish between Brussels politicians and Strasbourg, the guardian of human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law. Were the Brussels clique trying to muddy the waters on human rights when it comes to approval of treaties?
Who will stop politicians making a power grab in the EU, if the Council of Europe’s defence for human rights is sidelined and neutralised.? Is it being sidelined? Check the politicians’ record.
All the early treaties were discussed in detail in the Council of Europe’s Consultative Assembly to determine that people’s civil rights were respected. Robert Schuman spoke there and explained how the Community system could be the most democratic system ever.
None of the later treaties were, starting with the Single Act 1986 and the Maastricht Treaty, 1992. The latter was rejected by one Member State.
No appeal was made to Strasbourg about the violation of human and civic rights.
How do you strip a body of its identity? You strip it of its flag and try to replace its function with some other duplicate that is not independent and you can control.
Does anyone today recognise the flag as belonging to the Council of Europe? The Commission did recognise this once, but it said nothing when the fraud about the flag became the major political issue with the UK before the Lisbon Treaty draft was signed. Silence of the Commission as guardian of the treaties made it a co-conspirator.
Yes, the flag does represent all of democratic Europe. The Council of Europe is composed of nations and States. There is no weight to the argument that the flag represents a federal state. The whole idea of removing the article about the flag is a red herring. A few honest words would have resolved the argument of the alleged British opponents.
“This is the flag Britons adopted in the Council of Europe in 1955 to defend Magna Carta rights across the Continent. If you don’t want the flag, deal with the Council of Europe. It has nothing to do with Brussels politicians’ ownership of the symbols.”
Why the flag is important
It is significant that the flag became the separation theme of United Kingdom from Continental Europe. Why? Not because Britons were against what it represented. It was because many Continental powers had rejected and violated its symbolism and fair play. They cheated. They were dishonest.
UK did not have a de Gaulle who seized power and changed the Constitution to please himself. It was not taken over by a bunch of gangsters like the Nazis. It was not occupied by a foreign force that changed laws and customs. In Britain the Rule of Law was continuous. People expect honesty, while many Continentals believe all politicians lie.
The European flag represents all the democratic values and fundamental freedoms, accumulated over centuries, that Britain had stood up for when the parts of the Continent were ruled by tyrants and dictators. Other countries too. Among these are Habeus Corpus, the right of citizens not to be arrested at the whim of governments without a writ and a fair trial, the rule of law, freedom of thought, tolerance of religions, freedom of assembly and conscience.
How does the Flag identify European values?
The Council of Europe was initiated by government action, fired by popular support for democracy after WW2. The proposal came from Robert Schuman’s first government in 1948, itself under attack by insurrectional forces of Left and Right. Schuman was a student of democracy and especially the American and British experience.
A European Assembly and European rule of law was a revolutionary means to help Europeans live in democratic peace and prevent further wars. In July 1948 Schuman’s foreign minister, Georges Bidault, had proposed two institutions: a European Assembly and a Customs Union. The Assembly took form in the Council of Europe. Its statute was signed in London at St James’s Palace on 5 May 1949.
Signatory agreement to the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was the entrance condition to an association of free, democratic countries where their citizens enjoyed human rights (as compared with the Soviet zone of Europe). Natural law and human rights are clearly values beyond the powers of ideologues like Communist apparatchiks. They condemn tyranny by a supranational Rule of Law. Governments had to sign up to these values. Citizens could appeal to the Convention’s Court in Strasbourg if they were subject to government abuse.
No country in the Soviet zone signed up to the Convention. That would expose the fact that the so-called ‘Democratic Republics‘ or ‘Peoples’ Republics‘ were a sham. Everything was ultimately controlled by a Politburo. No real freedom existed. The Communist Party ruled. But they could not stop free thought.
Member States of the Council of Europe, with Robert Schuman for France, signed the Convention in Rome on 4 November 1950. Where? In the Palazzo Barberini in Rome. Remember the address!
How does the flag embody European values?
The Convention, after some initial reluctance of the British Labour government, was drafted by a British lawyer, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, and a French lawyer and ministerial colleague of Schuman, Pierre-Henri Teitgen, one of the cofounders of the newspaper Le Monde, and twice deputy prime minister. Maxwell-Fyfe had worked as a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trial of Nazis after the war. Teitgen had been a member of the French Resistance.
As Teitgen explained, the Convention was designed to stop unscrupulous politicians gradually seizing the democratic levers of power like the Nazi gangsters had.
Presenting the Human Rights Convention to the Consultative Assembly in 1949, Schuman’s colleague, Pierre-Henri Teitgen, said:
‘An honest man does not become a gangster in 24 hours. Infection takes time. In thought and in conscience, he has to let himself be drawn into temptation. He gets used to the fault before he commits it. He descends the stairwell step by step.
One day, he finds evil has beaten him and he has lost all scruples.
Democracies do not become Nazi countries overnight. Evil progresses in an underhand way, with a minority operating to seize what amounts to the levers of power. One by one, freedoms are suppressed, in one sphere then another.
Public opinion is smothered, the worldwide conscience is dulled and the national conscience asphyxiated.
And then, when everything fits in place, the Führer is installed and this evolution continues right on to the deadly gas ovens of the crematorium.
Intervention is needed before it becomes too late. A conscience must exist somewhere which will sound the alarm to the minds of a nation threatened by this spreading gangrene, to warn them of the peril and to show them that they are committing themselves to a crooked road leading far, sometimes even to Buchenwald or to Dachau. An international jurisdiction within the Council of Europe, a system of surveillance and guarantee, could be this conscience, of which other countries also maybe have special need.’
No doubt Teitgen was aware that Schuman, who believed it was wrong to tell a lie, especially in politics, had refused to compromise on truth when he was a prisoner of the Nazi SS, even at the threat to his life.
What is behind the symbols?
The flag is simple and effective. Why does it have a sky blue field? Why twelve stars?
Vice president of the Consultative Assembly, Robert Bichet, was the rapporteur on the flag. He proposed a design with 15 gold stars on a field of blue. Bichet was a constitutionalist, an activist for a free press, and had been an information minister for PM Georges Bidault in 1946. He had worked with Teitgen on the clandestine press under the Occupation and after the war attended the 1948 Congress of Europe.
The fifteen stars represented the Member States but this was objected to as it included the Saar.
This number was reduced to 12, because as Paul M G Levy the Belgian journalist put it to the Council’s Secretary General Leon Marchal,
‘Twelve represents fulness; there were twelve tables of law in ancient Rome, twelve apostles, twelve sons of Jacob, twelve months of the year, twelve hours in the day, twelve signs of the Zodiac representing the entire universe… Twelve should represent the whole of Europe, whether the Iberian peninsula (then under dictatorships) and those behind the Iron Curtain.’
Marchal told Levy: ‘We have rediscovered the crown of the Woman of the book of Revelation.‘ The reference is to chapter 12 of the biblical book of prophecy. Does this explain the sky blue backdrop?
‘Now a sign appeared in the heavens: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon at her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars.’
Levy records that Schuman supported this design.
Several years later in 1962 the same crown of twelve stars were to be seen shining from the ceiling fresco of the hall of the Palazzo Barberini, the site of the signature of the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in 1950.
The fresco, The Triumph of Divine Providence, was painted by Pietro da Cortona. It shows Providence surrounded by figures representing vices and virtues, good and evil. It includes Good Government banishing War and ensuring Peace.
Good government depends on honesty to the people — something that is lacking in the story of the Flag.
The Lisbon’s Treaty fake Convention of Human Rights.
The Lisbon Treaty further tried to undermine an independent Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Strasbourg. One part of the Lisbon Treaty has the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The very name gives it away as being a fake version of the original.
But this EU Charter is doubly a fake. It is identical to the Charter in the Constitutional Treaty and that was rejected in referendums in France and the Netherlands. So the Lisbon Treaty activists, the politburo, are trying to IMPOSE a Charter on Human Rights by FORCE, against the will of the people. Why? Because it adds a number of so-called rights that are pure political ideology. They are not in the Strasbourg original.
Theft of a name
And while we are talking of thefts, the original name for the Council of Europe was, believe it or not, European Union.
The British objected to this name. So it became the Council of Europe.
It holds the patrimony of Europe in the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. This defines ‘European values‘: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, governments subject to the people, fair trials and presumption of innocence.
Schuman said, the Convention and the willingness of States to adhere to the Convention defines Europe.
What is needed
All Member States of the EU are also members of Council of Europe. That is natural as the Council of Europe was set up by the Founding Fathers to be framework and Human Rights Guardian for the European Community system.
The Court of Human Rights is effective in responding to the appeals of citizens who are abused by national administrations. But is the Council of Europe effective in supervising what is going on Brussels? It has been deliberately sidelined from superintending the fraudulent manoeuvres of Brussels politicians.
What would the Human Rights Court say to someone or some State that complained that the Lisbon Treaty is a replica of the articles that were rejected by referendums of the people?
What would it say to complaints about the state of democracy and civic justice in Brussels? What would it say about the lack of open, transparent government as the bedrock of democracy?
The Founding Fathers such as Robert Schuman wrote that the ‘Councils, Committees and other bodies must be placed under the control of public opinion,‘ Pour l’Europe, p145. How can that happen when the Council, the European Council etc close their doors on the public, much like North Korea, and the Consultative Committees are not elected?
The von der Leyen Commission needs to introduce one thing that is sadly lacking in this woeful catalogue of the history of the flag:
HONESTY.
It will surprise everyone.
They should test the work of the EU’s Commission, the European Council, the Consultative Committees and the European Parliament. Where? Before the Council of Europe and its judges.
The EU Charter in the Lisbon Treaty proclaims:
This Charter reaffirms … the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, adopted by the Council of Europe and the case-law.. of the European Court of Human Rights. (Preamble)
Suggested first case: Can a Charter of Human Rights be imposed by political force, against the expressed will of the people?
Second case: Can the Lisbon Treaty be imposed also by political force, against the referendums of the People of France and the Netherlands, as well as the wishes of six other States, including the United Kingdom?
Mrs von der Leyen we await your support for the true meaning of the European flag!
Then on 4 October 1957, the USSR launched the world’s first satellite, PS-1, known as Sputnik. This showed USSR had gained a mastery of high-powered rockets and technological sophistication. The satellite could both be heard on radios at 20 and 40 MHz and seen in the skies at night.
On 2 January 1959 the USSR launched a probe Luna 1 (or Lunik) that reached out to the moon. It was designed as an impactor to deliver the Soviet coat of arms on to the moon’s surface. But a malfunction meant that it flew past at close range rather than placing the Hammer and Sickle on lunar surface.
That was a close call also for the USA. Major aerospace firms were asked to provide proposals and a plan of research. The military were in charge of the rockets and also saw strategic goals that could easily be won or lost.
On 2 September 1959 a second Soviet probe, Luna-2 impacted the moon and just before it did so, scattered USSR pennants onto the surface. They marked the ground around Mare Imbrium and Mare Serenitatis.
On 25 March 1961 President John F Kennedy announced a civilian project — to put a man on the moon and return him safely before the end of the decade. This was to be undertaken by NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, established in 1958.
Another Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell flew 100 Bibles of 1245 pages to the moon. They were in microfiche format just 4 square cm in size.
Another Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell flew 100 Bibles of 1245 pages to the moon. They were in microfiche format just 4 square cm in size.
