Subscribe
I was listening to one of the most important Spanish radio stations, Cadena COPE, on my way home a few days ago. Supposedly, a radio station with a Catholic editorial line – it is owned by the Spanish Episcopal Conference – and, in today’s world, it should therefore be more oriented towards the conservative or right-wing European movement. They were talking about sport. Spain is in the semi-finals of the European Football Championship. The basketball team won a place for the Olympics in the pre-Olympic tournament. Carlos Alcaraz made it through another round at Wimbledon and the Spanish drivers held their own over the weekend. All in all, normal.
Suddenly, the conversation of the journalists and talk-show hosts turned to the French elections; thus, without any need, in a forced way. It was a reminder that Mbappé had asked for a vote for the anti-Semitic Popular Front, with which Macron has acted in coalition this past week, between the first and second rounds. They were celebrating, on that famous sports programme, the “victory of democracy” over Rassemblement, while the streets of France were on fire – literally – for those who had won the election.
But even more. The next step was to comment on the statements made by the goalkeeper of the Spanish national team in which, after pressure from all the press, sporting or otherwise, and from social networks, he had been forced to practically retract some previous statements in which, from common sense, and asked about the statements of the French star, he had indicated that sportsmen should not get involved in partisan disputes. And so on. A football goalkeeper, an elite sportsman obliged to take sides to move public opinion. Dissent is not allowed. Opposing opinion is not allowed. No alternative opinion is allowed.
Victor Orbán, President of Hungary, travels to Kiev to meet with Zelensky. Not a single Spanish media publishes it. Not a single media outlet in the Brussels bubble draws attention to the fact that the current president of the Council of the Union is in Kiev showing his support and at the same time calling, in his own name, for a rapprochement between the parties in conflict (Russia and Ukraine) in order to test the possibility of a negotiated solution.
The following day, Orbán himself travelled to Moscow to meet with Putin and make exactly the same claims to him as he did to Zelensky. At that moment, the entire Spanish press accused Orbán of being a pro-Russian, extending this “stain” to anyone who one day saw Orbán, approached him, collaborated with him, supported him or understood him, even if these approaches, collaboration or support and understanding referred to issues as different as the containment of illegal immigration, projects to improve the competitiveness of European companies or the fight against “woke” thinking and the gender ideology widespread in schools and universities.
The manipulation of the establishment media, which Von der Leyen and his European Commission want to support and subsidise, has become unbearable. Why? Some have said, and I increasingly agree, that the reason is because they know they are losing.
The owners and managers of these media are part of the managerial elites who make decisions regardless of the outcome of the elections in the various countries of Europe. They are only interested in maintaining the status quo. This means that European societies are becoming weaker, less rooted, less structured.
Do parties that promote the defence of borders against illegal immigration get better results? They orchestrate a campaign with “human” reports on the lives of those who storm the borders. That there are elections in France or England? They organise another one to impose terror among elite footballers so that they adhere to the statements on behalf of Mbappé. It is insane. It is the end of individual freedom. It is the road to tyranny.