The Americanisation of Central Europe

An economic colonisation process is under way in Central Europe, a region more prone to fall under the influence of Washington than the European Union.

While the European Union wades through a sea of red tape and bureaucracy before any measure is taken, the Americans are in there with the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), scouring the terrain for opportunities and making business and personal contacts to be followed up later.

After this come the scholarships to study at Universities in the USA, where more personal contacts are made, to be called on in later business or political life. Subsidiaries are set up in the pristine conditions of the fledgling economies, creating jobs and wealth.

At first sight, fine. No problem. However, upon closer inspection, the truth begins to dawn, but only after it is too late. The tens of NGOs operating in Slovakia, Prague and Budapest all follow the same directives.

First, the local economies are encouraged to deregulate as much as possible, in the name of freedom of operation, but at the same time rendering them more fragile when faced by an economic giant such as the United States. What happens next is that the former state-owned enterprises fall prey to the Mafia, who grab everything in the deregulation process.

Second comes the inevitable militarising process, the invitation to join NATO. The colonisation now complete, the process of political lobbying begins. Before the victim knows it, he has lost his identity, lost his sense of direction and lost his power to speak. He is paralysed from the neck down and totally impotent. Old values disappear, the social fabric begins to break apart, in comes the pornography, the sleaze, the perversion and the drugs.

All of this is done in such a way that the fledgling economy actually thinks it is being helped. When the effects of the love-potion wear off, it is too late. The victim has been raped.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru