WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #33-25 - Ban on dissent. The European Democracy Shield (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 On Wednesday, November 16, the European Commission presented the

European Democracy Shield and the European Union's strategy for civil
society. This is a series of concrete measures aimed at strengthening,
protecting, and promoting strong and resilient democracies across the
EU. The stated aim of the Shield is to counter foreign information
manipulation and interference (FIMI) within the Union.
The measures will focus on three main pillars: 1) safeguarding the
integrity of the information space; 2) strengthening institutions,
ensuring fair and free elections and free and independent media; 3)
strengthening the resilience of society and citizen engagement.

Aside from strengthening and coordinating existing practices, it is
worth noting the establishment of a European Center for Democratic
Resilience, which will coordinate existing networks and structures.
Among other things, a European network of fact-checkers will be
established. Furthermore, the new media resilience program will
strengthen support for journalism, which will align with the European
Commission's truths. Finally, the Commission intends to significantly
increase financial support for civil society organizations, with EUR9
billion earmarked for the AgoraEU program alone.

We are therefore faced with a significant financial commitment aimed at
propagating the European Commission's narrative through funding for the
media and friendly civil society organizations, and substantially
strengthening the Brussels bureaucracy.

The project reinforces the trend toward criminalizing dissent and
enhances the European Commission's role as a communications hub.

The context cited to justify these measures is the threat posed by
foreign actors, namely foreign powers; explicit reference is made to
Russia and China. An example of countering disinformation is the
accusations against those who oppose war and rearmament, or those who
oppose the EU's stance toward Israel and the genocide of the Palestinian
population: some are accused of being Putin's agents, others of Hamas.

In short, we are witnessing a clear process of delegitimizing anyone who
opposes the European Commission's policies.

The European shield thus adds to the European Commission's arsenal for
influencing political life within member states. In this regard, it is
worth remembering that the Commission is a body appointed by European
governments and is not subject to any real oversight, given the
fragmentation of the European Parliament and the fate of repeatedly
proposed votes of no confidence. Funding provided to the media and
associations aligned with the EU will allow the Commission to build a
clientele, providing it with a basis for consensus in civil society. The
Commission therefore behaves like a real government, providing financial
support to those who can provide it with political support.

The logic underlying the Commission's actions is extremely dangerous in
terms of information and, more generally, political culture. It assumes
that we live in the best of all possible worlds, meaning that any
criticism can only be the product of enemy manipulation. The
Commission's interpretation of the facts defines itself as true,
therefore any other interpretation is false. Thus, supporters of the
true interpretation engage in conflict with those who assert the
opposite, benefiting from the Union's financial support and the rules it
imposes on the space for debate. This is the path to the denial of
freedom of expression, because it's a short step from supporting the
right side to persecuting those who propagate error.

Only a comparison between equals would allow for a true verification of
the facts, but this is not possible in bourgeois society. On the one
hand, there are massive organizations with vast resources to influence
the public, and on the other, small groups with self-managed tools. The
debate will never be on an equal footing, and it will never be possible
to educate the masses of the exploited to acquire critical thinking
through information. This will only be possible to the extent that these
masses take action to improve their living conditions: revolutionary
action will enable the development of revolutionary consciousness.

Within this process, information plays an important role. However,
fact-checking risks being a trap. If the information galaxy is made up
of a series of news items that refer to facts, revolutionary critique
consists not only in verifying individual pieces of news, but above all
in reconstructing the social relations that determine the facts from
which the news arises: patriarchy and machismo, the military-economic
complex and militarism, the monopoly of the means of production and
capitalism are the keys to interpreting reality and show us the path to
transforming it. In this way, we can undermine the European Commission's
program of swindling.

Avis Everhard

https://umanitanova.org/divieto-di-dissenso-lo-scudo-europeo-per-la-democrazia/
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