italy
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">alt rt liga</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">intercept coming for you</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/12/07/italy-giorgia-meloni-journalists/">https://theintercept.com/2022/12/07/italy-giorgia-meloni-journalists/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/will-italys-coronavirus-epidemic-fuel-the-far-right/"><font size="4" color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/will-italys-coronavirus-epidemic-fuel-the-far-right/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[pix ferari blk stallion red hat?]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">italy is staring down the barrel of the worst recession since World War II, which could bolster the far-right and damage the country’s love affair with the European Union, analysts say.Much will depend on how Rome handles the easing of the national lockdown, how quickly it manages to get liquidity to suffering businesses, and how much solidarity it is seen to get from the EU at a key meeting next week.The coronavirus emergency in Italy has fuelled not only national pride but also eurosceptic and populist narratives. That brew could play right into the hands of Matteo Salvini, whose…<span id="more-1144867" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="nordot-read-more nordot-modal" href="https://this.kiji.is/624125865032090721?c=592532205600719969" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">Read More</font></a></p></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/disaster-capitalism-this-is-the-glaring-culprit-behind-italys-covid-19-catastrophe/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/disaster-capitalism-this-is-the-glaring-culprit-behind-italys-covid-19-catastrophe/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Disaster capitalism: This is the glaring culprit behind Italy’s Covid-19 catastrophe</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by John Buell / Common Dreams March 18, 2020</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein worries that the Coronavirus pandemic will provide another opportunity for neoliberal elites to impose more of their right wing agenda on a citizenry scared and confused by this mysterious and dangerous disease. Klein of course is expanding on her award winning Shock Doctrine Naomi The Shock Doctrine. Klein showed how corporate elites worldwide have repeatedly and brutally used “the public’s disorientation following a collective shock — wars, coups, terrorist attacks, market crashes or natural disasters — to push through radical pro-corporate measures.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Klein is surely correct to be concerned. President Trump proposed temporary cuts in the payroll tax as afiscal stimulus. This act would in effect partially defund Social Security, forcing Democrats to choose between a tax increase or reductions in or means testing the program. Turning Social Security into a means tested program would undermine its popularity and probably destroy it, a long time goal of conservative epublicans and neolibereal Democrats. Fortunately enough politicians smelled the rat and this idea does not seem to have gone far. If elites do not always get what they want, it is also the case that crisis does provide opportunities for progressive activism. Social Security itself was born out of the economic and political turmoil of the thirties. In the context of the Covid19 epidemic Medicare for All has become more widely discussed than at any point in its development. Articulating the positive contribution to everyone’s health and fending off some of its more devious opponents is especially important now.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">America’s patchwork, profit oriented healthcare has already played a destructive role in the unfolding of this crisis. One of the most important factors in limiting the spread of the disease is knowledge of who is being infected and where they are infected. When patients can’t come to the doctor they can’t be treated; they are more likely to spread the disease; and the physician is deprived of valuable information about the spread of the disease, information that improves possible interventions.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although we do not yet know the full story of the CDC’s botched rollout of the Covid19 test kits, the Washington Post, never a fan of Senator Sanders or single payer, reported:”Unlike the United States… the single-payer countries have been especially nimble at making free, or low-cost, virus screening widely available for patients with coughs and fevers.” The benefits go beyond speed. Where public programs are well respected and well funded, that respect can also be reflected in the quality of the men and women who staff them. Jorgen Kurtzhals, the head of the University of Copenhagen medical school, told the Post that the strength of Denmark’s single-payer system is that it has “a lot of really highly educated and well-trained staff, and given some quite un-detailed instructions, they can actually develop plans for an extremely rapid response.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No one claims that any of the single payer systems is perfect. Most importantly a system that is humane, egalitarian, and efficient cannot work as well if it is underfunded. Common Dreams notes: “Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), following years of austerity imposed by Conservative governments, is facing staff and supply shortages as hospitals are being overwhelmed with patients. Canada, like the U.K., is struggling with a shortage of ventilators.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" face="Times New Roman">In Italy Giacomo Gabbuti and Lorenzo Zamponi report: “The problem isn’t that this system is public and universal, but that it should be more so. Sadly, over time we have allowed the various Italian equivalents of Donald Trump and Joe Biden to make it a bit more like the American system.”(Jacobin)</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is part of the political dilemma single payer advocates face. Their systems are widely popular. Italy’s health system is so well regarded that even parties of the right and far right would not dare call for its elimination. But conservatives understand that if fiscal constraints—real or imagined–necessitate cuts in funding, the system will not perform as well. Its inadequacies can then be cited in defense of privatization and eventual dismantling of the entire system.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Italians have the fifth longest longevity in the world (the United States is a distant 35th) and their public healthcare makes a great contribution to that end. If one is looking for a culprit to blame for continuing deficiencies, start by looking at the Eurozone’s fiscal iron cage—to borrow former Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis’s perfect phrase– limiting what democracies can spend on behalf of their people.</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><p><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span></p><p><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/talkies-june-19-2019/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://kpfa.org/episode/talkies-june-19-2019/</font></a></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the brink new doc</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">italy, france orban</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><strong style="text-align: -webkit-center; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://act.pfaw.org/go/70199?t=11&akid=9743%2E2556770%2Eycb07C"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Marine Le Pen Has a Plan to Make France Great Again—and Steve Bannon Helped</font></a></strong></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Marine Le Pen Has a Plan to Make France Great Again—and Steve Bannon Helped</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Adele M. Stan | May 31, 2019 1:45 pm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Rassemblement National party, greets supporters after a rally on May 25, 2019, days before the election for the European Union parliamentary elections. (Photo by A.M. Stan for Right Wing Watch)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two days before the European Union parliamentary elections, an auditorium in a scruffy coal town in the north of France filled with admirers of <b>Marine Le Pen, friend of Vladimir Putin and Steve Bannon, and leader of France’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party. </b>Her fortunes appeared to be running just about even with those of President Emmanuel Macron’s La République en Marche party. At least half of the crowd of 500 or so at the rally in Hénin-Beaumont, Le Pen’s home constituency, appeared to be well over the age of 50. A very loud band playing covers of American classic-rock songs rather poorly (their version of “Purple Rain” was particularly painful, if not flat-out ironic) signaled the baby-boomer character of Le Pen’s base, as did the massive coal pile visible from nearly every point in town. Hénin-Beaumont looks a bit like those hurting Pennsylvania towns that Trumplandia is said to comprise.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A coal pile in Pas de Calais, France, visible from Marine Le Pen’s home constituency in Hénin-Beaumont. (Photo by A.M. Stan for Right Wing Watch)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The band notwithstanding, the RN’s presentation was polished and forward-looking in terms of party-building. The two speakers who preceded Le Pen at the podium were young men; one of them, the 23-year-old Jordan Bardella, was tapped by Le Pen to top the list of candidates RN was putting forward for seats in the European Union parliament, from which she had favored France’s departure until the Brexit mess refused to end.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But now Le Pen had the opportunity to use her party’s long-standing fear-mongering tactics over the changing ethnic make-up of France to not only wound the neo-liberal Macron, but the whole of the multi-lateral European project and the reputation of regular, old liberal values themselves.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To the right of the stage, playing during the warm-up to the main event, was a large, high-definition screen displaying a seemingly endless loop of pictures of the photogenic Le Pen in various settings—with children and with local RN leaders. But then the loop stopped, along with the band, and the video panel filled with a series of animated text-and-graphics messages, accompanied by its own booming score.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As white and red text dropped onto the blue background, a graphic of the globe, turned so as to make Africa dominate and bring South America into the field of vision, appeared. The globe was marked with red arrows, meant to imply a horde of black and brown people breaching the cultural fortress of Europe.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We believe that home for these migrants is in their home countries,” the text read.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From a slide presentation shown at Marine Le Pen’s final rally before the 2019 European Union parliamentary elections in northern France. It is part of a series that reads: “We believe that home for these migrants is in their home countries.” (Photo by A.M. Stan for Right Wing Watch)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>There was no mistaking the relentless anti-migrant messaging of RN,</b> or of the way in which Le Pen, with some success, painted Macron as the very symbol of an impending cultural death of all things French. Several days earlier, she told the audience at a rally in Burgundy that Macron “mustn’t come in first or he will abuse it to methodically deconstruct France,” as translated and reported by the Irish Times.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Moving from wine- to coal-country, Le Pen told her fans in Hénin-Beaumont that they were part of something big—an international uprising of the little people against the global elites</span>. There, to the cheers of those assembled, Le Pen defined the May 26 vote as an existential battle for France, Europe, and civilization as a whole, and that the way to save the nation, the continent and civilization itself was to vote for RN candidates as a way of “saying ‘no’ to Macron’s destructive vision for Europe.” There were more cheers, as rally-goers waved French flags.“ Speaking of the far-right parties of other EU member states, Le Pen invoked a catch-phrase frequently heard on the right: that of “a Europe of nations,” which is defined in opposition to the very notion of an EU with the power to issue regulations on all the member states. “With our European allies who also embody the awakening of peoples, for the first time in 60 years, we have the opportunity to initiate … the construction of a Europe of nations, and to end this European Union.” In other words, start dismantling the bureaucracy from within or, at the very least, seat enough far-right members of the European parliament to gum up the works.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That part about the “awakening of peoples”? That’s Le Pen’s reference to the rise of far-right parties in countries throughout Europe, from Italy to the U.K., and from Hungary to Spain. And if that phrase “a Europe of nations” is beginning to sound familiar to you, it’s because none other than Steve Bannon, the self-appointed guru to, and gatherer of, far-right figures across the globe, has taken it up. As the election campaign entered its last week, Bannon stories flooded the media as the banished one-time White House operative received a steady stream of reporters at a suite in the Hotel Bristol, a five-star property in Paris where Bannon was said to have paid $6,000 a night for his digs.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As election results began to come in on Sunday night, it was clear that Le Pen’s party bested Macron’s by a couple of seats—winning nearly 24 percent of France’s total vote. Although those results are not much different than what Le Pen’s party (then called the Front National) gleaned in the 2014 EU elections, the symbolic defeat of Macron was huge, cast as a clash of worldviews.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Supporters of France’s far-right Rassemblement National party wave flags at a party rally on May 24, 2019, during the campaign for European Union parliamentary seats. (Photo by A.M. Stan for Right Wing Watch)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Nonetheless, the road to that victory was a bit bumpy. Le Pen’s ties to Putin returned to the spotlight, especially a mysterious loan her party received in 2014 from a Russian bank that then went under</span>. Then there was that irksome selfie she posed for with Ruuben Kaalep, a member of Estonia’s parliament who has links to neo-Nazis. Kaalep photographed the two making a “white power” sign with their hands—a gesture that mimics an “OK” sign that was once used as a way to troll liberals, but after enough repetition was adopted at face value by some far-right types as a kind of not-so-secret handshake.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The selfie, posted by Kaalep to his Facebook page, caused enough of a stir that even The New York Times ran a story about the photo and the blowback the French leader received for it. Le Pen pleaded ignorance of the gesture’s meaning, saying that Kaalep asked her to make it, and she complied. However, there has been ample news coverage of Kaalep’s white supremacist leanings, and there she was, hanging out with him.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Facebook post by Ruuben Kaalep of Estonia’s far-right Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE) showing him in a selfie with Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right Rassemblement National party, making a gesture that’s come to be known as the “white power” sign. (Screenshot via Twitter from @VahurKoorits)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" face="Times New Roman">It seems that a lot of far-right types in Europe are hanging out with each other these days. It was Bannon’s dream to bring them all together so that they might form a voting bloc within the EU Parliament that could gum up the works. And while Bannon’s scheme, dubbed The Movement, never really got off the ground as a Bannon-branded project, <b>Italy’s Matteo Salvini, that country’s interior minister and leader of the far-right La Liga party, stepped in to convene a multi-national, multi-party far-right rally in Milan. That placed some of the most bigoted and reactionary political figures in all of Europe on one stage—and drew thousands of supporters to the plaza where the event took place.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" face="Times New Roman">Salvini, however, wasn’t able to wrangle all of Europe’s far-right authoritarians. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose far-right Fidesz party ultimately won a landslide in the EU elections, apparently couldn’t see fit to hang with the small-fry whose parties have yet to rise to ruling status. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who leads Poland’s ruling far-right Law and Justice Party, has issues with the many Russia-facing right-wing leaders in Salvini’s coalition and was not present. And Nigel Farage was too busy selling his insta-party (just add money and stir up the populace), simply called the Brexit party, to the electorate to show up. Since the elections, Salvini has so far failed to woo Orbán, who just declined the Italian leader’s invitation to join the bloc of far-right parties he is building within the European Union.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" face="Times New Roman">The photos from Salvini’s May 19 Milan gathering show a cheerful Le Pen, who was about to confront another problem<b>. Her pal, Steve Bannon, air-dropped himself onto her turf just days ahead of the election to promote himself as the Man with the Plan</b> at just the moment when it was not to a nationalist leader’s advantage to have an American materialize presenting himself in a way that suggested he’d had something to do with her success—which he very may well have had.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>One thing’s for certain, Europe’s far right seems to have a lot of money to spend, and nobody seems to be able to say where it’s coming from</b>. Le Pen herself has said she turns to Bannon for fundraising advice. When she rebranded her party a year ago under its new name (in order to distance it, at least in public view, from the anti-Semitism and Holocaust denialism that its earlier Front National was known for), Bannon was on hand for the roll-out at the party’s national convention, where he told party members to wear the term “racist” like “a badge of honor.” But when the guru of the dark forces turned up in the City of Lights as the EU election campaign was reaching its peak, Le Pen insisted Bannon had “no role” in her party’s campaign, even though two of her deputies made a pilgrimage to the Bristol to pay a call on the big guy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Bristol Hotel in Paris, where Steve Bannon set up shop during the 2019 campaign for the European Union parliamentary elections, receiving reporters and officials of Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National party. (Photo by A.M. Stan for Right Wing Watch)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" face="Times New Roman">Pro-democracy observers of the EU’s parliamentary elections found bright spots to tout: Turnout overall is up significantly, and even as the right grabbed its biggest slice of the multinational legislative body yet, so did the Greens. But that sort of analysis ignores the fact that the right is on the rise, and that in three major EU countries—U.K., France, and Italy—far-right parties are emerging as their nation’s largest parties, at least in terms of their presence in the EU, an organization they would love to kill.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Cas Mudde wrote at The Guardian:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rather than a victory for democracy, the European elections, and the responses to the results, show how much populism in general, and the populist radical right in particular, has become mainstreamed and normalised. We find it normal that a neo-Nazi party is the third biggest party in a member state, that a populist radical right wins more than half of the vote in non-democratic elections, and that the populist radical right is the biggest party in several EU member states. We celebrate that “the majority has voted for pro-European parties”. We ignore that turnout in one in five member states was (well) below one-third of eligible voters.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed, one of the most troubling aspects of Le Pen’s rally in Hénin-Beaumont was just how perfectly normal it all seemed. Nowhere did one feel the kind of ready-to-explode energy of a Trump rally, or a gathering of Germany’s far-right Alternatives für Deutschland party. Just nice, middle-class people expressing their contempt for people who don’t look like them—and then charmingly singing the Marseillaise in unison before calling the event to a close.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the rally concluded, a white-haired attendee in a pink skirt-suit was seen walking to her car. Emblazoned on the back of her jacket in black letters were the words, “LOVE ROCKS.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A fan of Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right Rassemblement National party, exits a party rally for the 2019 European Union parliamentary elections. (Photo by A.M. Stan for Right Wing Watch)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adele M. Stan explored the European Union parliamentary elections as a guest of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, an independent foundation affiliated with Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tags: Marine Le Pen Steve Bannon Europe Immigration</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">actright</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Your Phone Is Leaking Information</strong></font>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>ActRight’s Darian Rafie</b> is an experienced political consultant in the United States who has played key roles in a number of <a href="https://www.corporationwiki.com/Illinois/Barrington/25-Little-Bend-Rd-Barrington-IL-60010-a49659104.aspx">companies</a> that have worked for <a href="https://sxtxstate.com/2010/03/taking-the-grand-old-party-into-the-twenty-first-century/">the Republican National Committee</a> and the Republican Party <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160312010427///bepinc.com/">in Ohio and Michigan</a>; <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/expends/vendor.php?year=2016&vendor=Shirazcorp.Com">received payments</a> from a super PAC supporting Texas Republican Ted Cruz (as did <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y34x9yze">ActRight</a> in 2015); and worked with <a href="https://www.breitbartunmasked.com/2014/03/26/a-case-study-in-wingnut-welfare-think-freely-media/">the Tea Party group Think Freely Media</a>.</font></span></p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Speaking to openDemocracy’s undercover reporter, Rafie said he “did a
lot of fundraising politically with Trump</b>,” mostly through political
action committees (PACs) but also “directly with the campaign… [and]
directly with the party” and that he <b>expects one of his companies to be
working “in the majority of states” in the 2020 presidential election
campaigns.</b></font></span>
<b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There is a lot of stuff to be done with mobile phones and
geo-fencing areas,” he told the reporter. “Say there’s a rally
somewhere, one of these big Trump campaign rallies. What we’ll do is
we’ll draw a polygon around that event and then we’ll register all the
phones that were there… Then we follow those phones home, then we know
who they are, and what they do, and now I know what your Netflix unique
ID is, and I’ve got your Facebook unique ID, so then I can communicate
with you through a whole variety of ways.”</font></span></b></p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rafie said, “you can do that in Europe” too, though “it’s a little
more limited… because the privacy laws are better [there], for the
consumer.”</font></span></p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He said: “It’s actually really scary, when you peek beneath the
covers, and realize that this phone that you’re carrying around with you
is leaking everywhere all of your information,” which can be correlated
with personal data “very quickly.” In the United States, he explained,
“all of the data is routinely collated and correlated and available for
sale.”</font></span></p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Over email, Rafie clarified to openDemocracy that this company uses
“ad networks” as do “many political campaigns and businesses in the
United States…. to delineate an area and identify unique device IDs and
their associated advertising profiles.”</font></span></p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We should all be frightened by the amount of data routinely
collected, collated and sold by ad networks (such as Google and
Facebook),” he added.</font></span>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Friends Across Europe’s Far Right</strong></font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On stage at the World Congress of Families meeting in Verona, Italy,
in late March, CitizenGo’s Arsuaga urged European and other
international ultra-conservatives to pursue an indirect, “less
understood, practiced path to power” that he summarized as: “By
controlling [politicians’] environment… you also control them.”</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Speaking to openDemocracy’s undercover reporter at this event,
Arsuaga revealed that CitizenGo also has “a lot of contact” with the
Fidesz and Lega far-right parties in Hungary and Italy, respectively,
along with “some contact” with the far-right AfD in Germany.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Asked if he discussed his group’s campaign strategies with these
parties, Arsuaga told the undercover reporter, “yeah, yeah… we inform
them about what we are going to do.”</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He also offered to introduce openDemocracy to Lega party senator
Simone Pillon and an AfD official believed to be Maximilian Krah, who
was photographed <a href="https://twitter.com/KrahMax/status/1112032313968418817">with Salvini</a> at the Verona event.</font>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Germany, CitizenGo’s events have attracted <a href="https://www.mittelbayerische.de/region/regensburg-stadt-nachrichten/fuerstin-unterstuetzt-kontroverse-demo-21179-art1688877.html">Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis</a>—another
World Congress of Families speaker, patron of conservative Christian
causes and a friend of Steve Bannon—along with the AfD’s <a href="https://www.mittelbayerische.de/region/regensburg-stadt-nachrichten/fuerstin-unterstuetzt-kontroverse-demo-21179-art1688877.html">Benjamin Nolte</a>.</font></span>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Italy, CitizenGo was one of the <a href="https://wcfverona.org/it/">organizers of the WCF event in Verona</a> along with the ProVita anti-abortion campaign that has <a href="https://www.corriere.it/extra-per-voi/2017/07/06/tutti-legami-pro-vita-forza-nuova-0f71ba70-6254-11e7-84bc-daac3beed6c1.shtml">ties to the neo-fascist</a> party Forza Nuova.</font>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CitizenGo has also been involved in <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/12/19/american-anti-lgbt-movement-goes-italy">training Italian activists</a> including via a four-day <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y6sfwrgl">workshop</a> in 2018 with the Leadership Institute—a U.S. conservative group that counts Vice President Mike Pence <a href="https://omny.fm/shows/mornings-on-the-mall/wmal-intervie-w-morton-blackwell-03-04-19">among the alumni</a> of its trainings in America.</font></span>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OpenDemocracy contacted the Lega, AfD and Fidesz parties, but they
did not respond to requests for comment on their relationships with
CitizenGo.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>‘A Loud and Clear Wake-Up Call’</strong></font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lawmakers from across Europe have expressed alarm at openDemocracy’s findings about CitizenGo and its international networks.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...
</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p class="p2" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Training Europeans, on the ‘front lines of the Culture War’</font></b></span></p><div class="p50_68" style="text-align: center; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p class="p2" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A number of groups spending smaller amounts of money appear to have increased their activities in Europe in recent years.</font></span></p><div class="p51_68" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p class="p2" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty,</b> which combines a conservative Christian worldview with free-market economics, has received <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-deniers/front-groups/acton-institute-study-religion-liberty/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">hundreds of thousands of dollars</span></a> from the Koch family foundations.</font></span></p><div class="p52_68" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p class="p2" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This group spent more than $1.7 million in Europe since 2008, with its spending in the region rising in recent years (from around $166,000 in 2008 to almost $240,000 in 2017).</font></span></p><div class="p53_68" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p class="p2" style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In Italy, it has collaborated with the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://tinyurl.com/y3gz9obw" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Dignitatis Humanae Institute</span></a>—of which Steve Bannon is a trustee</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">—that has locally controversial plans to use a monastery outside Rome as a </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?destination=%252fworld%252feurope%252fwith-support-from-steve-bannon-a-medieval-monastery-could-become-a-populist-training-ground%252f2018%252f12%252f25%252f86dac38a-d3c4-11e8-a4db-184311d27129_story.html%253f" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“gladiator school for culture warriors.”</span></a></font></span></p><div class="p54_68" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p class="p2" style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also on the list is the U.S. branch of the Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), an ultra-conservative transnational Catholic movement that <a href="https://www.tfp.org/the-counter-revolution/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">says it’s</span></a> “on the front lines of the Culture War, peacefully defending the values of tradition, family and private ownership.”</font></span></p><div class="p55_68" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p class="p2" style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This group said it spent about $100,000 in Europe since 2010. Its filings don’t detail where this money went, but the TFP has been linked to <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/ultra-conservative-institute-has-infiltrated-polish-state-to-ban-abortion/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">a controversial think tank</span></a> in Poland that has helped develop policies for far-right Law and Justice (PiS) politicians.</font></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">The elections of </span><a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2018/07/new-illiberal-international" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">illiberal leaders in Italy</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">, </span><a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/hungary/2018-04-16/eastern-europes-illiberal-revolution" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> are clear danger signs. Viktor Orban’s hand has been strengthened in Hungary by the </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/30/world/europe/angela-merkel-european-union.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">waning influence of Angela Merkel in Germany</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> and the election of Donald Trump in the U.S.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div>