We have to vote to stop the fascists

The European elections are happening, e.g. this Thursday in The Netherlands, and we have to vote to stop the fascists.

This may sounds overly melodramatic and I wish it was. Fascist movements are rising at several places in the world and it is madness that we let it happen again. It is madness to be able to say it in this day that these movements are here again.

They are fueled in part by Russian misinformation. The propaganda tries to break up the western world, which is most easily done by getting the western societies to disintegrate themselves. Breaking up the EU is very much part of that plan.

The EU was founded to promote better relations among the European states in the hope we never need to have a war with each other again.

The extremist movements are also fueled by the growing sense that people should only look after themselves and not care about others. People nowadays don’t want to share their relative (!) luxury with people who have even less. They don’t want to provide a safe haven to people fleeing war. Somehow they think it is people’s own fault that they are ruled by a brutal dictator raging a war on his own people. They don’t want people coming in from other European countries providing cheaper and better labour, even though those are simple market forces. Fight for your market share by being cheaper or better and remember that it is unfair to argue that they have to live worse lives just because of where they are born.

In the EU we help each other out. Now there are refugees coming in from the south and people in north and west Europe resent having to help out sheltering them. But next time, when a stream of refugees comes across the North Sea, we of course demand the assistance of all these other countries. Next time our economy is down, we argue we should be able to work where there is demand. How could we not?

Hidden money streams of the ultra rich are fueling policies of hate. Ultra rich people that could solve poverty in a heart beat. But the economically downtrodden are fighting their fight, believing in populists’ slogans. How do these ultra rich sleep at night.

Somehow the idea has risen that it is unfair that fuel prices rise when it is running out and destroying the environment. That it is somehow unfair that governments increase the fuel prices to force people to change their ways, literally. That it is somehow left-wing politics to demand free use of resources that do not exist. No, that is right-wing politics: to not care what this does to others, including future generations.

We in The Netherlands are the ultimate example that we need the EU. We are simply too small to go it alone. On our own, any environmental politics will have no impact. You need to do that with the whole EU, and use the EU to get the world on board.

So let’s vote for pro-European parties this election. Let’s make sure the institutions are not crumbing from within by the machinations of dark forces. Let’s make sure this culture of me-me-me and us-before-them does not survive and that the principles of solidarity and shouldering the burdens together win. Let’s care, about others and about our future.