LOL! Charles, YOU BLABBED IT OUT!!
Who ever talked of anti-NATO sentiments?? Did I gloss over pro- and anti-NATO issues? Nope: I've consistently focused on showing the fascistic nature of Milosevic's regime and the atrocities it's been responsible for throughout the former Yugoslavia. So, the key point was first to thwart the expansion of a brutal ethno-nationalism in the Balkans --whatever one might think of NATO and its American leadership.
Contrariwise, as you've unwittingly betrayed it, the opponents to NATO's intervention in the Balkans were primarily motivated by their rabid anti-Americanism, hence their systematic NATO-bashing --not to speak of their underlying racist agenda.
However, some EUROPEAN far-leftists and ecofreaks might be excusable since their genuine humanism and anti-war philosophy --unfortunately-- remain enshrouded in Europe's traditional anti-Americanism --but what of anti-NATO Yankees??
As far as the US-bred anti-NATO-creed goes, I think the links below highlight the real tenets of its followers:
(my messages #15078 and #15079 on this thread)
Message 11704085
Message 11704107
Whereas its European counterpart can be traced back to the blurry notion of European ecofascism (Gaia, etc.):
TOGETHER WITH THE NEW RIGHT AGAINST GLOBALISATION?
________________________________________________________
By Eric Krebbers
- October 1998 -
* * *
They speak of solidarity with the Indians and call for cultural diversity. They want to get rid of capitalism and globalisation. And they have read right-wing and left-wing political classics. The Dutch intellectual vanguard of the extreme right have joined their forces with the discussion magazine Studie, Opbouw en Strijd (Study, Organise and Struggle, SOS). They call themselves the New Right, after their comrades in France and Belgium. But how new are their ideas? An analysis of two articles written by the central ideologists Ruter and Veldman, published in the summer 1998 issue of SOS.
Now that most of the old extreme-right parties in Holland are falling apart, a discussion is being started in SOS on building a new right. The extreme-right think tank Voorpost and the Nederlandse Studenten Vereniging (Nationalist Student Organisation, NLSV) are also joining in on the discussion.
The New Right especially focuses on the weak spots of the "left liberal ideology", as they call it. They try to connect to all sorts of left-wing movements and search for possibilities to give the basic ideas of these movements an extreme-right twist. With sardonic pleasure Ruter and Veldman frequently quote "left-liberal" opinion leaders saying doubtful things, giving them an honorable place in their new-right nationalist ideology. In this way they use Tom Lemaire, Hans Koning, Albert Stol, Umberto Eco and Stella Braam to prove their own right-wing ideology right.
Ruter and Veldman present their political renewal project very eloquently, and with daring and bravery, effectively shedding the old-fashioned bigot image. But basically they still heavily rely on the traditional fascist Blut-und-Boden (blood-and-soil) ideology.
A CULTURAL REVOLUTION
New Right leader Ruter is a fan of the ideas of Gramsci, the communist who was buried alive for years in Mussolini's jails. According to Gramsci revolutions can only succeed when the culture of a country also fundamentally changes, when the "cultural hegemony" of the elite is broken. Therefore a "cultural revolution" is first needed, and that is precisely what Ruter wants. He wants to subvert the now fashionable "left-liberal consensus". According to Ruter, that consensus is forced upon us by "grand capital" and organised by the state. Ruter wants the societal organisation and our ways of thinking to become based on his new-right nationalism.
Ruter calls for an end to the "mondialisation" and sympathises with the struggle against the Multilateral Agreements on Investments (MAI). His readership is advised to get acquainted with the left-wing campaign against MAI. The nationalist students apparently liked it so much that they decided to link their homepage to that of the campaign.
Ruter quotes Marx saying that the will to "mondialise" is inherent in capital itself. And global capitalism also sells culture, Ruter writes. Capital "colonises the imagination", which leads to a global "uniformisation of the ways of life" and "an uprooting of collective identities and traditional cultures". Therefore Ruter wants to curb the power of "grand capital" and calls for a "participative" or "direct democracy", just like the anti-MAI activists do.
Ruter and Veldman especially dislike the thinking in terms of progress, which they say is hegemonic in the capitalist system. Veldman: "Nowadays the most fundamental political differences are not anymore between the left and the right, but between, on the one hand, the people arguing for unhindered economic growth and progress, to whom people are just consumers and the earth an object, and, on the other hand, those who, as Ruter says, "want to share the whole cosmic living space with the animals, plants and matter, and want to hand it over unharmed to the next generations." Veldman speaks of solidarity with "peoples that struggle to save their own identity and with all those offering resistance against the destruction of flora and fauna, against the limitless power and influence of multinational companies and against the international consumption society." [...]
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