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FTR#1302 How Many Lies Before You Belong to the Lies, Part 24

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FTR#1302 This pro­gram was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment.

Finnish Air Force Swasti­ka 1918–1945
Pho­to Cred­it: Wikipedia

Intro­duc­tion: The pro­gram begins with dis­cus­sion of Bohdan Dasza­k’s work on behalf of the Ger­mans in a World War II con­cen­tra­tion camp. After high­light­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion in a sum­ma­tion of Bogan Dasza­k’s ser­vice, we note that the Daszak fam­i­ly was from the Lvov, in Ukraine. That is the area in which the noto­ri­ous Janows­ka con­cen­tra­tion camp was locat­ed. Alle­ga­tions that “Dad­dy Daszak” worked at Janows­ka may very well be true.

After high­light­ing the Plast orga­ni­za­tion, a glob­al Ukrain­ian equiv­a­lent of the Hitler Youth and spec­u­lat­ing about the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the senior Daszak may have grown up with ser­vice in Plast, we note the sig­nif­i­cant roles of both Fin­land and Swe­den in col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Nazis, a his­to­ry which adds omi­nous depth to the recent admis­sion of both nations to NATO.

Next, the broad­cast details the renam­ing of a street in Kiev for Ulas Sam­chuk, a noto­ri­ous anti-Semi­te and Nazi/OUN‑B col­lab­o­ra­tor. His work is required read­ing in Ukrain­ian schools!

The pro­gram con­cludes with a look at the New York Times’ white­wash­ing of the Nazi man­i­fes­ta­tion in Ukraine. 

The Bone Crush­ing Machine at Janows­ka. Did Bohdan Daszak work there?
Pho­to Cred­it: Wikipedia

1. Gift­ed Lives: What Hap­pens when Gift­ed Chil­dren Grow Up by Joan Free­man; Google Books.

“ . . . . Bog­dan Daszak had lived a life of extra­or­di­nary brav­ery and deter­mi­na­tion. He had man­aged the extra­or­di­nary feat of reach­ing Eng­land from the Ukraine in World War II. When he was about 16, in March 1944, the Ger­mans had occu­pied his coun­try. They cap­tured him by going round the vil­lages and threat­en­ing to shoot the fam­i­lies unless the sons joined the Ger­man army. At that time, the boys hat­ed the Rus­sians even more, and so were half-will­ing to join the Ger­mans who were fight­ing the Rus­sians. But since the Rus­sians had become Allies of the British, the boys became ene­mies of the British. Many who had been bad­ly treat­ed, ran off and escaped. Bog­dan, though, was an edu­cat­ed town boy, not a peas­ant like the oth­ers, so he was used for paper­work in a camp.

One day, he too escaped dur­ing a hail of heavy fight­ing, flee­ing into near­by moun­tains. . . .”

2. Peter Daszak on Twit­ter

 3. “Chrys­tia Freeland’s Nazi Prob­lem” by Scott Rit­ter; scottritterextra.com; 11/14/2022.

. . . . On the sur­face, mem­ber­ship in Plast seems like a harm­less enough activity—it is a main­stream scout­ing orga­ni­za­tion. Indeed, in June 2019 the Ukrain­ian Verk­hov­na Rada (Par­lia­ment) adopt­ed a law—“On State Recog­ni­tion and Sup­port of Plast.”

Plast is the Nation­al Scout Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukraine.

While there were oth­er Scout-like orga­ni­za­tions in Ukraine, the new law made Plast the only one autho­rized to oper­ate through­out Ukraine. “The pur­pose of the state recog­ni­tion of Plast is the insti­tu­tion­al sup­port of Plast so that Plast becomes acces­si­ble to every child and young per­son in Ukraine, while the Plast move­ment is acces­si­ble to all chil­dren and young­sters who per­ma­nent­ly reside out­side of Ukraine.”

Plast branch­es were ordered to be formed in every city, town and vil­lage in Ukraine, and oblig­es all “local self-gov­ern­ment bod­ies” to incor­po­rate Plast into “pro­grams of local sig­nif­i­cance regard­ing chil­dren and young peo­ple.”

The Ukrain­ian Plast orga­ni­za­tion was estab­lished in Lvov in 1911–1912. Its pur­pose was to pre­pare its membership—children—for war, main­ly through com­bat train­ing and weapons han­dling.

Both Stepan Ban­dera and Roman Shukhevych, two noto­ri­ous Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists who fought along­side Nazi Ger­many, came up through the ranks of Plast.

Ban­dera and Shukhevych drew upon Plast to recruit the man­pow­er they used to fill the ranks of the Roland and Nightin­gale bat­tal­ions, which in 1939 swept into Poland under the oper­a­tional con­trol of Nazi Ger­many where they car­ried out the sys­temic rape, tor­ture, and mur­der of tens of thou­sands of Jews and Poles.

Plast vet­er­ans filled the ranks of the legion of Ukrain­ian youth who flocked to the Nazi cause through­out World War Two and were respon­si­ble for some of the most hor­rif­ic war crimes imag­in­able, includ­ing the mur­der in 1941 of tens of thou­sands of Jews at Babi Yar, in Ukraine, and more than 100,000 poles in Vol­hy­nia, Poland, in 1943.

Plast ven­er­ates both Ban­dera and Shukhevych as Ukrain­ian nation­al heroes. To Plast mem­bers, the red and black col­ors on the scarf Free­land held in Toron­to hold a spe­cial mean­ing: “Ukrain­ian red blood spilled on Ukrain­ian black earth.”

Plast is to Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists like the Hitler Youth was to Ger­man Nazis.

It is an orga­ni­za­tion designed to brain­wash the future gen­er­a­tions of Ukrain­ian youth, whether in Ukraine or dias­po­ra, on the white suprema­cist ultra-nation­al­is­tic dog­ma orig­i­nat­ed by its heroes, Stepan Ban­dera and Roman Shukhevych.

This mod­ern-day Hitler Youth-like move­ment is now main­streamed, by law, in Ukrain­ian soci­ety. . . .

Finnish Air Force Insignia
Pho­to Cred­it: Wikipedia

4. “Nazi Skele­tons in Fin­land and Sweden’s Clos­ets” by Matthew Ehret; substack.com; 4/5/2023.

Fin­land’s offi­cial induc­tion into NATO has been cel­e­brat­ed across the trans Atlantic tech­noc­ra­cy-sphere as a vic­to­ry for democ­ra­cy and free­dom. Jens Stoltenberg gushed to his Finnish coun­ter­parts at the inau­gur­al cer­e­mo­ny that: “Fin­land is safer and NATO is stronger with Fin­land as an Ally. Your forces are sub­stan­tial and high­ly capa­ble, your resilience is sec­ond to none and for many years troops from Fin­land and NATO coun­tries have worked side-by-side as part­ners. From today, we stand togeth­er as Allies.”

But how true are these state­ments?

While Fin­land likes to cel­e­brate the fact that their 1941–1944 war with Rus­sia had noth­ing to do with WWII, but was sim­ply a defen­sive alliance with Ger­many against the evil Sovi­et Union, and while Swe­den likes to cel­e­brate the fact that it remained neu­tral dur­ing WWII, the facts tell a very dif­fer­ent sto­ry.

Not only did both nations play aggres­sive roles in the war against the Sovi­et Union dur­ing Oper­a­tion Bar­barossa and beyond, but both nations also pro­vid­ed vast loans and oth­er eco­nom­ic sup­port from 1940 until 1945.

On a pure­ly mil­i­tary lev­el, “neu­tral” Swe­den led by King Gus­tav V and Social Demo­c­rat Prime Min­is­ter Per Albin Hann­son ensured that their ter­ri­to­ries were made avail­able to the Nazis dur­ing the Bat­tle of Narvik in 1940 that result­ed in the fall of Nor­way. When Oper­a­tion Bar­barossa was launched a year lat­er, Ger­many was per­mit­ted to use Swedish ter­ri­to­ry, rail and com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­works to invade the Sovi­et Union via Fin­land. Ger­man sol­diers and bat­tle equip­ment were car­ried from Oslo to Haparan­da in North­ern Swe­den in prepa­ra­tion for assaults on Rus­sia.

On the eco­nom­ic front, 37% of Swedish exports through­out the war went to Ger­many which includ­ed 10 mil­lion tons of iron ore per year, as well as the largest pro­duc­tion of ball bear­ings vital for the Nazi war machine which were export­ed via har­bors in Nazi-occu­pied Nor­way. The pro-fas­cist von Rosen fam­i­ly played one of the most instru­men­tal roles in pro­mot­ing Nazi ide­ol­o­gy in Swe­den with Eric von Rosen co-found­ing the Nation­al Social­ist Par­ty of Swe­den and pro­vid­ing access to the upper crust of Swedish nobil­i­ty to the Ger­man high com­mand dur­ing the 1920s-1930s.

Addi­tion­al­ly, Count Hugo von Rosen act­ed as direc­tor of the U.S. branch of the Swedish Enskil­da Bank and SKF Bear­ing which man­aged the flow of funds and ball bear­ings (made in Philadel­phia) to the Wehrma­cht through­out the war.

His­to­ri­an Dou­glas Mac­don­ald wrote: “SKF’s ball bear­ings were absolute­ly essen­tial to the Nazis. The Luft­waffe could not fly with­out ball bear­ings, and tanks and armored cars could not roll with­out them. Nazi guns, bomb­sights, gen­er­a­tors and engines, ven­ti­lat­ing sys­tems, U‑boats, rail­roads, min­ing machin­ery and com­mu­ni­ca­tions devices could not work with­out ball bear­ings. In fact, the Nazis could not have fought the Sec­ond World War if Wallenberg’s SKF had not sup­plied them with all the ball bear­ings that they need­ed”.

Hugo was Goering’s sec­ond cousin by mar­riage and his cousin Eric will play an impor­tant role in this sto­ry short­ly.

Finland’s Nazi Her­itage Reviewed

Unlike Swe­den, Fin­land nev­er tried to feign neu­tral­i­ty, and in that sense can at least be applaud­ed for avoid­ing the hypocrisy of their Swedish cousins. Shar­ing a 1340 km bor­der with Rus­sia which includes an area with­in 40 km of strik­ing dis­tance from today’s St Peters­burg, Fin­land was a high val­ue piece of real estate for the Nazis.

Dur­ing the war, 8000 Finnish sol­diers fought direct­ly along­side the Nazis against the Rus­sians, with many serv­ing in Nazi SS Panz­er divi­sions between 1941–1943. A scan­dalous 248 page report pub­lished by the Finnish gov­ern­ment in 2019 revealed that no less than 1408 Finnish vol­un­teers served direct­ly in SS Panz­er divi­sion car­ry­ing out mass atroc­i­ties includ­ing the exter­mi­na­tion of Jews and oth­er war crimes.

The cause of Finland’s alliance with the Nazis dur­ing the war is also much dark­er than san­i­tized his­to­ry books let on.

Sovi­et lead­ers had been watch­ing the buildup of the Nazi war machine head­ing towards Rus­sia like a slow-motion train col­li­sion from the moment the 1938 Munich Agree­ment was reached that saw the destruc­tion of Czecho­slo­va­kia and the growth of a Franken­stein Mon­ster in the heart of Europe.

In his bril­liant ‘The Shock­ing Truth About the 1938 Munich Agree­ment’, Alex Krain­er demon­strates that British secret diplo­ma­cy ensured that from Hitler’s takeover of Aus­tria to the inva­sion of Poland in Sep­tem­ber 1939, Britain’s appease­ment pol­i­cy mere­ly feigned oppo­si­tion to Nazism while actu­al­ly facil­i­tat­ing its unre­lent­ing growth as a Franken­stein mon­ster in the heart of Europe.

The Race to Secure the Heart­land and Finland’s Nazi Turn

Know­ing that an assault was inevitable, Rus­sia signed the Molo­tov-Ribben­trop Pact in August 1939 to bide time while attempt­ing to estab­lish a buffer zone between the expan­sion­ist Nazi regime and her­self.

Dur­ing this small win­dow, a race was on to con­sol­i­date spheres of inter­est with Rus­sia act­ing defen­sive­ly to secure her soft under­bel­ly before the inevitable hot war was launched. Ger­many mean­while raced to bring on the heat with mil­i­tary oper­a­tions that spread the Reich across Europe.

Rus­sia won sev­er­al impor­tant strate­gic diplo­mat­ic vic­to­ries by sign­ing mutu­al assis­tance pacts with Latvia, Lithua­nia and Esto­nia. How­ev­er, Fin­land, under the con­trol of Field Mar­shal Carl Gustaf Man­ner­heim and Prime Min­is­ter Ris­to Ryti reject­ed Russia’s offer.

In the abort­ed Rus­sia-Finnish Mutu­al Secu­ri­ty Treaty, Rus­sia offered to cede South Kare­lia in the north in exchange for the Sovi­et bor­der mov­ing west­ward on the Kare­lian Isth­mus and per­mis­sion to sta­tion Russ­ian bases in Fin­land. The pro-Ger­man gov­ern­ment of Ryti and Man­ner­heim had pub­licly been cozy­ing up to the Ger­mans dur­ing the 1930s and much of Finland’s aris­toc­ra­cy had enter­tained delu­sion­al visions of expan­sion­ism along with their Swedish pro-Nazi coun­ter­parts believ­ing that a major part of north­west­ern Rus­sia called East Kare­lia appar­ent­ly con­tained a “pure” Nordic peo­ple untaint­ed by both Slav­ic and Scan­di­na­vian blood.

Finland’s rejec­tion of the coop­er­a­tion agree­ment result­ed in Russia’s Novem­ber 1939 deci­sion to invade result­ing in the loss of 20,000 Finnish sol­diers, 11% of her ter­ri­to­ry rep­re­sent­ing 1/3 of her eco­nom­ic poten­tial and a burnt ego. This four month “Win­ter War” end­ed by March 1940 with a reduced and humil­i­at­ed Fin­land aching for revenge.

Field Mar­shall Man­ner­heim and PM Ryti were devout believ­ers in the ‘greater Fin­land’ myth with Man­ner­heim pro­claim­ing loud­ly to his sol­diers on the eve of Finland’s agree­ment to join hands with the Nazis that “in 1918 dur­ing the war of lib­er­a­tion [against Rus­sia], I stat­ed to the Finnish and Vien­na Kare­lians that I would not set my sword in my scab­bard before Fin­land and East Kare­lia would be free”. This speech made it dif­fi­cult to main­tain the notion that Finland’s alliance with the Nazis was sim­ply ‘defen­sive’.

Although it is com­mon­ly claimed by revi­sion­ist his­to­ri­ans that Her­man Gor­ing sent a per­son­al mes­sen­ger to Helsin­ki ask­ing for per­mis­sion to use Finland’s ter­ri­to­ry in exchange for weapons and sup­port in August 1940, the 1945 depo­si­tion of SS Colonel Horst Kitschmann – who was privy to these exchanges, tes­ti­fied that it was Man­ner­heim him­self who was the first to con­tact Gor­ing sug­gest­ing this arrange­ment be made.

Doc­u­ment­ed in Hen­rik Lunde’s ‘Finland’s War of Choice’ Kitschmann tes­ti­fied: “In the course of these con­ver­sa­tions von Albe­dill [Ger­man major on the attaché staff who briefed Kitschmann] told me that as ear­ly as Sep­tem­ber, 1940, Major Gen­er­al Roess­ing, act­ing on an order of Hitler and of the Ger­man Gen­er­al Staff, had arranged the vis­it of Major Gen­er­al Tal­wel, the Plenipo­ten­tiary of Mar­shal Man­ner­heim, to the Führer’s head­quar­ters in Berlin. Dur­ing this vis­it an agree­ment was reached between the Ger­man and Finnish Gen­er­al Staffs for joint prepa­ra­tions for a war of aggres­sion, and its exe­cu­tion, against the Sovi­et Union. In this con­nec­tion Gen­er­al Tal­wel told me, dur­ing a con­fer­ence at his staff head­quar­ters in Aunosa in Novem­ber, 1941, that he, act­ing on Mar­shal Mannerheim’s per­son­al orders, had as far back as Sep­tem­ber, 1940—been one of the first to con­tact the Ger­man High Com­mand with a view to joint prepa­ra­tion for a Ger­man and Finnish attack on the Sovi­et Union.”

In Sep­tem­ber 1940, a secret Finnish-Ger­man tran­sit treaty was approved and the train­wreck that was Bar­barossa was put into motion.

On June 16, 1941 Man­ner­heim called upon 16% of the Finnish pop­u­la­tion to fight along­side the Wehrma­cht in prepa­ra­tion for this onslaught.

When Bar­barossa was offi­cial­ly launched on June 22, 1941, there were 400,000 Finnish and Ger­man troops in Fin­land, as Finnish air­fields were giv­en over to Nazi bombers. Mannerheim’s pact with the dev­il result­ed in ear­ly wins as his dream of a “Greater Fin­land” had final­ly come alive with vast ter­ri­to­ries from Mur­man­sk to Lake One­gia falling to Finnish occu­pa­tion through­out 1941–1944. Dur­ing this time eth­nic Rus­sians and Jews in Fin­land were sent to forced labor camps where many were exter­mi­nat­ed.

The 2019 Finnish report stat­ed: “The sub­units and men of SS divi­sion Wik­ing engaged dur­ing the march into the Sovi­et Union and the dri­ve through Ukraine and the Cau­ca­sus were involved in numer­ous atroc­i­ties… The diaries and rec­ol­lec­tions by the Finnish vol­un­teers show that prac­ti­cal­ly every­one among them must, from the very begin­ning have been aware of the atroc­i­ties and mas­sacres”.

As the Finnish SS Wik­ing Divi­sion advanced via west Ukraine between July-August 1941, over 10,000 civil­ians were killed in Lviv and Zhy­to­myr and over 600,000 more were killed in the region from the start of Bar­barossa until March 1942.

The Strange Case of Finland’s Endur­ing Swasti­ka

A word must now be said about Finland’s pecu­liar offi­cial air force logo cre­at­ed in 1919, and which last­ed until 2020 when the logo was retired from planes, flags and uni­forms (although still main­tained on the walls of the air force acad­e­my).

Here, I am refer­ring of course to the strange swasti­ka that a post-1945 Fin­land did not think wise to remove from its mil­i­tary planes or uni­forms despite the down­fall of their Nazi allies.

San­i­tized his­to­ry books are quick to dis­pel this anom­alous cen­tu­ry-long fetish with the swasti­ka as a total coin­ci­dence hav­ing noth­ing to do with the Nazis due to the fact that the Nazi par­ty adopt­ed the sym­bol a full year after the Finnish gov­ern­ment. How­ev­er, as most of our offi­cial his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tives, this one also crum­bles to pieces upon the slight­est appli­ca­tion of pres­sure.

As the sto­ry goes, Sweden’s Count Eric von Rosen of Swe­den bequeathed to Finland’s White Army the gift of a Thulin Type D air­craft dec­o­rat­ed with swastikas in 1918 which estab­lished the Finnish air force with the swasti­ka becom­ing its offi­cial logo. Since von Rosen had already been using the swasti­ka as his per­son­al emblem since first see­ing it on ancient runes while in high school, it is con­clud­ed that the Finnish mil­i­tary swastikas and their Nazi coun­ter­parts could have no con­nec­tion what-so-ever.

This claim com­plete­ly ignores the fact that both von Rosen broth­ers Eric and Clarence were lead­ing nobles who proud­ly cham­pi­oned the Nazi cause, spon­sored Swedish eugen­ics via the Swedish Insti­tute of Racial biol­o­gy at Upp­sala Uni­ver­si­ty (c. 1922), lob­bied for ster­il­iza­tion laws, and intro­duced Hitler to the upper crust of Sweden’s elite. In 1933, Eric von Rosen became a found­ing mem­ber of the Nation­al­so­cial­is­tiska Block­et (aka: “The Nation­al Social­ist Par­ty of Swe­den”).

The vig­or­ous sup­port for the Nazis (which includ­ed the von Rosen’s influ­ence over Sweden’s Enskil­da Bank and SKF) also changes how we must inter­pret the close rela­tion­ship which both Clarence, Eric and Hugo von Rosen enjoyed with their broth­er-in-law Her­mann Gor­ing who had worked as per­son­al pilot for Eric von Rosen after WWI.

It was dur­ing an extend­ed stay at von Rosen’s Rock­el­stad Cas­tle in 1920 that Gor­ing was first intro­duced to 1) von Rosen’s swastikas which dec­o­rat­ed the cas­tle and adja­cent hunt­ing lodge, 2) von Rosen’s pas­sion for nature con­ser­va­tion which Gor­ing shared, lat­er becom­ing the first Nazi Reich min­is­ter of forestry and con­ser­va­tion­ism in the 1930s and 3) Eric von Rosen’s sis­ter-in-law Carin von Kant­zow who soon became Goring’s wife and dubbed by Hitler “First Lady of the Nazi Par­ty”.

Eric and Clarence von Rosen had been fol­low­ers of an occult sect called Ariosophism, led by a mys­tic rune-obsessed poet named Gui­do von List who sim­ply took Madame Blavatsky’s theos­o­phy and infused an Aryan racial supe­ri­or­i­ty twist with a height­ened focus on Wotan myths. In this sect, the swasti­ka and oth­er rune sym­bols like the Oth­a­la rune, Ehlaz/life rune, Sig runs (lat­er used by SS), and wolf­san­gle were treat­ed as sacred images endowed with mag­ic pow­er.

Gui­do von List had orga­nized his sect into an inner and out­er core with the “elect” learn­ing a secret inter­pre­ta­tion of the runes under an elite occult soci­ety called the High Arma­nen Order where von List him­self served as Grand Mas­ter.

This racist occult Aryanism with its Theo­soph­i­cal aim to infuse Hin­du and Bud­dhist mys­ti­cism into a new post-Chris­t­ian age became an extreme­ly pop­u­lar phe­nom­e­non among the noble fam­i­lies of Europe dur­ing this peri­od. The aim was to use a per­verse inter­pre­ta­tion of east­ern spir­i­tu­al­ism devoid of sub­stance and cre­ate a new order premised on an “Age of Aquar­ius” which would super­sede the obso­lete “Age of Pisces” that rep­re­sent­ed the obso­lete of rea­son exem­pli­fied by the likes of Socrates, Pla­to and Christ.

Out of the High Arma­nen Order soon grew anoth­er secret occult orga­ni­za­tion called the Thule Soci­ety which saw Rudolf Hess, Hans Frank, Her­mann Gor­ing, Karl Haushofer and Hitler’s coach Diet­rich Eckart as lead­ing mem­bers.

An Uncom­fort­able Fact Must Now be Con­front­ed

It is an uncom­fort­able fact of his­to­ry that those same pow­ers that gave rise to fas­cism were nev­er pun­ished at the Nurem­burg Tri­als. Those Wall Street indus­tri­al­ists and financiers that sup­plied Ger­many with fund­ing and sup­plies before and dur­ing the war were not pun­ished… nor were the British financiers at the Bank of Eng­land who ensured that Nazi cof­fers would be replete with con­fis­cat­ed loot from Aus­tria, Czecho­slo­va­kia or Poland.

The post-war age not only saw a vast re-orga­ni­za­tion of fas­cist killers in the form of the CIA/NATO man­aged Oper­a­tion Glad­io and we know that Allan Dulles direct­ly over­saw the re-acti­va­tion of Hitler’s intel­li­gence chief Rein­hard Gehlen into the com­mand struc­ture of West Ger­man Intel­li­gence along with his entire net­work. Ukrain­ian Nazis like Ste­fan Ban­dera and Miko­la Lebed were prompt­ly absorbed into this same appa­ra­tus with Ban­dera work­ing with Gehlen from 1956 to his death in 1958 while Lebed was absorbed into Amer­i­can intel­li­gence run­ning a CIA front orga­ni­za­tion called Pro­log.

As Cyn­thia Chung recent­ly out­lined in her Sleep­walk­ing into Fas­cism that no less than ten high lev­el for­mer Nazis enjoyed vast pow­er with­in NATO’s com­mand struc­ture dur­ing the dark years of Oper­a­tion Glad­io. Cyn­thia writes: “From 1957 to 1983, NATO had at least one if not sev­er­al high rank­ing “for­mer” Nazis in full com­mand of mul­ti­ple depart­ments with­in NATO… The posi­tion of NATO Com­man­der and Chief of Allied Forces Cen­tral Europe (CINCENT Com­man­der in Chief, Allied Forces Cen­tral Europe – AFCENT) was a posi­tion that was filled SOLELY by “for­mer” Nazis for 16 YEARS STRAIGHT, from 1967–1983.”

Dur­ing these years, not only did Glad­io ‘stay behinds’ arrange a stream of ter­ror­ism against the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion of Europe using nom­i­nal­ly ‘Marx­ist’ front groups or car­ry­ing out hits of high val­ue tar­gets like Dag Ham­marskjold, Enri­co Mat­tei, Aldo Moro or Alfred Her­rhausen when need­ed. States­men who did not play by the rules of the Great Game were sad­ly not long for this world.

NATO’s self-pro­fessed image as a har­bin­ger of the ‘lib­er­al rules based inter­na­tion­al order’ is more than a lit­tle super­fi­cial when con­sid­er­ing the Nazi-rid­dled alliances which many NATO-philes at the Atlantic Coun­cil may wish be for­got­ten. This his­to­ry also should cause us to re-eval­u­ate the true caus­es for the 1949 cre­ation of NATO in the first place which served as a nail in the cof­fin for Franklin Roosevelt’s vision of a U.S.-Russia-China alliance which he hoped would shape the post-WW2 age.

NATO’s growth around Russia’s perime­ter since 1998, and the NATO-led mass atroc­i­ties of bomb­ings in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Libya should also be re-eval­u­at­ed with this Nazi pedi­gree in mind.

Why did NATO post images of a Ukrain­ian sol­dier clear­ly bran­dish­ing a Thule-soci­ety black sun of the occult on her uni­form in hon­or of ‘Women’s’ Day’ this year? Why are active Ukrain­ian Nazis serv­ing in Azov, and Aidar bat­tal­ions sys­tem­i­cal­ly glossed over by NATO pro­pa­gan­da out­lets or main­stream media despite the proven cas­es of mass atroc­i­ties in East Don­bass since 2014? Why are Nazi move­ments see­ing a vast revival across East Euro­pean space- espe­cial­ly with­in coun­tries that have come under the influ­ence of NATO since the Sovi­et Union’s col­lapse?

Is it pos­si­ble that the war we thought the allies won in 1945 was mere­ly a bat­tle with­in a larg­er war for civ­i­liza­tion whose out­come yet remains to be seen? Cer­tain­ly patri­ots of Fin­land and Swe­den should think very deeply about the dark tra­di­tions which risk being revived as they join into a new Oper­a­tion Bar­barossa in the 21st cen­tu­ry.

6. “The Nazi Streets of Ukraine” by Mark Sle­bo­da; The Real Pol­i­tick with Mark Sle­bo­da; 5/12/2023.

. . . . In the lat­est round of eras­ing and recon­sti­tut­ing Ukraine’s his­to­ry and iden­ti­tythe Kiev city coun­cil has now renamed Stolyeto­va  Street in Kiev, Ulas Sam­chuk Street in hon­or of Ulas Sem­chuk a rabid ide­o­log­i­cal anti-Semi­te and fas­cist , and Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tor.

Dur­ing 1941–1942, Ulas Sam­chuk worked for the Nazis, with­in the Reich­skom­mis­sari­at Ukraine, as chief edi­tor of the pro-Nazi news­pa­per Volyn in Rovno in West Ukraine.

Volyn was pub­lished in thou­sands of copies and was wide­ly dis­trib­uted.  In his arti­cles, Sam­chuk lied, incit­ed, jus­ti­fied the mur­ders and called for the exter­mi­na­tion of Jews Poles, Left­ists, Rus­sians, and oth­er “under­sire­ables” in Ukraine.

Sam­chuk wrote his anti-Jew­ish arti­cles calm­ly cheer­lead­ing the mas­sacre of 25,000 Jews in Rovno, includ­ing 6,000 chil­dren that it inspired. Inci­den­tal­ly a stat­ue of Ulas Sam­chuk has also now been erect­ed in Rovno

Some of Ulas Samchuk’s best pub­lished quotes,

“Where the Ukrain­ian state will be built, there will be no Jews there”

 Sam­chuk wrote of the mass mur­der of Jews in Kyiv at Babi Yar, “Today is a great day for Kyiv.”
and
“The ele­ment that set­tled our cities, whether it is Jews or Poles who were brought here from out­side Ukraine, must dis­ap­pear com­plete­ly from our cities. The Jew­ish prob­lem is already in the process of being solved.”
and
“All ele­ments that reside in our land, whether they are Jews or Poles, must be erad­i­cat­ed. We are at this very moment resolv­ing the Jew­ish ques­tion, and this res­o­lu­tion is part of the plan for the Reich’s total reor­ga­ni­za­tion of Europe. The emp­ty space that will be cre­at­ed, must imme­di­ate­ly and irrev­o­ca­ble be filled by the real own­ers and mas­ters of this land, the Ukrain­ian peo­ple”

 Sam­chuk also wrote arti­cles lion­iz­ing his per­son­al idol — “Adolf Hitler.”

In Ukraine today, Ulas Sam­chuk is pro­mot­ed by the West-backed Kiev Putsch regime as a hero and great fig­ure of Ukrain­ian lit­er­a­ture and cul­ture, taught and required read­ing in schools.

Fig­ures such as Sam­chuk glo­ri­fied by the Kiev regime are air­brushed away with apol­o­gism by the West­ern MSM as “con­tro­ver­sial his­tor­i­cal fig­ures”. Con­tro­ver­sial?!? There is noth­ing “con­tro­ver­sial” about them. THAT is his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism of the most obscene kind.
They are Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors and fas­cists. That is not excused away and exon­er­at­ed by the fact that they hat­ed Rus­sians & left­ists too.

This is not just “Holo­caust denial.” It is “Holo­caust Cel­e­bra­tion”.

7a. “The Eyes of the World Are Upon Ukraine’s Armed Forces” by Paul Krug­man; The New York Times; 6/6/2023; p. A22 [West­ern Print Edi­tion].

7b. “Kiev Walks Fine Line As Fight­ers Embrace Use of Nazi Sym­bols” by Thomas Gib­bons-Neff; The New York Times; 6/6/2023; p. A. 6 [West­ern Print Edi­tion].

7c. “Far-Right Russ­ian Mili­tia Aid­ing Kiev’s Army Makes for Wor­ri­some Ally” by Valerie Hop­kins; The New York Times; 5/27/2023; p. A. 10 [West­ern Print Edi­tion].

. . . . It was the rhetoric of a dis­si­dent free­dom fight­er, but there was a dis­cor­dant note that emerged as clear­ly as the neo-Nazi Black Sun patch on the uni­form of one of the sol­diers: Mr. Kasputin and promi­nent mem­bers of the armed group he leads, the Russ­ian Vol­un­teer Corps, open­ly espouse far-right views. In fact, Ger­man offi­cials and human­i­tar­i­an groups, includ­ing the Anti-Defama­tion League, have iden­ti­fied Mr. Kas­pustin as a neo-Nazi. . . .

Discussion

2 comments for “FTR#1302 How Many Lies Before You Belong to the Lies, Part 24”

  1. The down­play­ing and nor­mal­iz­ing of Ban­derite Nazis is about as dark as it gets. But the attempt to sub­lim­i­nal­ly link the Nazis in Ukraine to some kind of rogue ‘Russ­ian Vol­un­teer’ corp is par­tic­u­lar­ly devi­ous.

    The big dif­fer­ence between the Nazis today and those of yes­ter­day is that Hitler and his gang did­n’t long hold sway over west­ern media the way these Ukraini­ans have. If only he’d bet­ter seed­ed the press, acad­e­mia, and gov­ern­ment of the US and UK for a few decades pre­vi­ous­ly, Adolf might have had bet­ter luck.

    We learn from our heroes at Gray Zone that the FBI and Ukraine’s SBU have been work­ing togeth­er to take down Twit­ter accounts that con­front the nar­ra­tive. Plus, the head of the FBI side of this con­ver­sa­tion hap­pens to be named Alek­san­dr Kobzanets. I mean, come on.

    https://thegrayzone.com/2023/06/07/fbi-ukraine-twitter-users-including-journalists/

    We also learn that Crowd­Strike, the pri­vate firm entrust­ed to inves­ti­gate Clin­ton’s ‘hacked’ email serv­er and which stonewalled every attempt by the FBI to get access to the actu­al serv­er, is owned and run by... an anti-Russ­ian Ukrain­ian. I’m shocked, *shocked*, to find games of chance on these premis­es.

    The list of Ukraine-Ban­derist apol­o­gist ‘jour­nal­ists’ always seems to revolve around that Gib­bons-Neff mock­ing­bird, but
    the clown com­pe­ti­tion sees a new bar raised from Mr. Julian Barnes. When he isn’t redefin­ing the word ‘suc­cess’ in regard to the Spring-Sum­mer-Fall coun­terof­fen­sive he is telling us that– guess what?– it was­n’t Rus­sia that blew up the pipeline after all. No sil­ly, it turns out US intel­li­gence knew [the con­ve­nient­ly dis­ap­peared] Zalun­zh­ny was plan­ning to do it and they warned him not to con­duct such a nefar­i­ous act. Which dead Ukie will they even­tu­al­ly blame for the Khark­hov­ka Dam explosion/ecological dis­as­ter?

    Even worse are the sto­ries with two or three authors. One is usu­al­ly an ‑enko or ‑iuk or ‑ovskyi or some such sur­name, indi­cat­ing the sat­u­ra­tion of even more Ban­derists in big medi­a’s pay­roll.

    When the bat­tle on the plane of real­i­ty is over and final­ly catch­es up with these cretins, that’s when the real chal­lenge starts. The Ukraini­ans have been feed­ing their kids Ban­derist revi­sion for three decades straight, all at the behest and with the gen­er­ous finan­cial sup­port of all the usu­al NGOs and Soros/Amid­yar/­Gates-relat­ed orga­ni­za­tions.

    The Ger­mans only had about twelve years of hard Naz­i­fi­ca­tion to over­come. We see how effec­tive that was. Even if Rus­sia takes Ukraine off the map and cedes zero kilo­me­ters to any of its west­ern neigh­bors, there are still at least two gen­er­a­tions of peo­ple need­ing seri­ous reed­u­ca­tion.

    Posted by Hugh | June 17, 2023, 1:46 pm
  2. It’s some­times easy to for­get how Fin­land has a Nazi ally in WWII. But that’s going to become a lot hard to for­get now that Fin­land has sworn in the most right-wing gov­ern­ment since WWII. Espe­cial­ly now that Jus­si Hal­la-aho — a for­mer leader of the neo-Nazi Finns Par­ty (aka, the “True Finns Par­ty” — has been sworn in as the new Speak­er of the Par­lia­ment. And that’s just one of a num­ber of Finns Par­ty neo-Nazis who are now assum­ing var­i­ous high-lev­el gov­ern­ment posi­tions now that a new coali­tion gov­ern­ment has been formed fol­low­ing elec­tions back in April that saw the Finns Par­ty come in sec­ond place with 46 seats, nar­row­ly behind the 48 seats won by con­ser­v­a­tive Nation­al Coali­tion Par­ty and just ahead of the 43 seats won by the then-rul­ing Social Democ­rats. Yes, the neo-Nazi Finns Par­ty almost won the most seats in April’s elec­tions. And as a result, they are one of the two lead­ing part­ners in the new­ly formed coali­tion gov­ern­ment, with Finns mem­bers now lead­ing the min­istries of finance, eco­nom­ics, inte­ri­or, and jus­tice.

    That’s the polit­i­cal earth­quake that just shook Fin­land. A new neo-Nazi coali­tion gov­ern­ment. Imme­di­ate­ly after join­ing NATO:

    Asso­ci­at­ed Press

    New NATO mem­ber Fin­land swears in gov­ern­ment regard­ed as country’s most right-wing in decades

    By JARI TANNER
    June 20, 2023

    HELSINKI (AP) — Fin­land, which recent­ly became NATO’s 31st mem­ber, swore in a new coali­tion gov­ern­ment Tues­day that is con­sid­ered the most right-wing one in the Nordic country’s mod­ern his­to­ry.

    Pres­i­dent Sauli Niin­istö appoint­ed the 19-mem­ber Cab­i­net of Prime Min­is­ter Pet­teri Orpo, the leader of the con­ser­v­a­tive Nation­al Coali­tion Par­ty, after Finnish law­mak­ers approved the line­up of min­is­ters.

    The Nation­al Coali­tion Par­ty won the most seats in an April 2 par­lia­men­tary elec­tion. Fol­low­ing sev­en weeks of coali­tion talks, the par­ty announced a deal to form a gov­ern­ment with three oth­er par­ties, includ­ing the far-right, euroskep­tic Finns Par­ty.

    The two junior part­ners in the coali­tion are the Chris­t­ian Democ­rats and the Swedish People’s Par­ty of Fin­land. Due to the dom­i­nance of the two senior part­ner par­ties, Finnish media described Orpo’s gov­ern­ment as “nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive” in nature.

    The four par­ties hold a major­i­ty of 108 seats in the 200-mem­ber Par­lia­ment. Polit­i­cal ana­lysts said the new Cab­i­net was Finland’s most right-wing gov­ern­ment since World War II.

    Finland’s econ­o­my was the cen­tral issue in April’s elec­tion. While cam­paign­ing, con­ser­v­a­tive can­di­dates accused the cen­ter-left Cab­i­net of for­mer Prime Min­is­ter San­na Marin of exces­sive spend­ing, con­tribut­ing to ris­ing state debt and oth­er eco­nom­ic prob­lems.

    Despite Marin’s per­son­al pop­u­lar­i­ty and high inter­na­tion­al pro­file, vot­ers shift­ed their alle­giances away from her Social Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and to par­ties on the polit­i­cal right. The Social Democ­rats fin­ished third in the elec­tion, after the Nation­al Coali­tion Par­ty and the Finns Par­ty.

    Orpo, a 53-year-old vet­er­an politi­cian, is a for­mer finance and inte­ri­or min­is­ter and has head­ed the NCP, Finland’s main con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty, since 2016.

    The party’s oth­er key Cab­i­net posts include For­eign Min­is­ter Eli­na Val­to­nen and Defense Min­is­ter Antti Häkkä­nen, who is the NCP’s vice chair.

    ...

    Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine prompt­ed Fin­land to aban­don decades of mil­i­tary non-align­ment and to seek NATO mem­ber­ship togeth­er with Swe­den in May 2022. Under Marin’s lead­er­ship, Fin­land was one of Ukraine’s most vocal and active Euro­pean sup­port­ers in terms of mil­i­tary and civil­ian aid.

    Häkkä­nen offered assur­ances that the new gov­ern­ment would not change Finland’s posi­tion toward Ukraine.

    “Finland’s sup­port to Ukraine will con­tin­ue to be very strong. There will be no changes to this pol­i­cy,” he told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press on the side­lines of the new Cabinet’s first news con­fer­ence.

    The pop­ulist Finns Par­ty, which fol­lows a large­ly nation­al­ist and anti-immi­gra­tion agen­da, received sev­er­al impor­tant Cab­i­net posts. Par­ty leader Riik­ka Purra was made finance min­is­ter in the new gov­ern­ment, and oth­er par­ty mem­bers were named to lead Finland’s inte­ri­or and jus­tice min­istries.

    ...

    ————

    “New NATO mem­ber Fin­land swears in gov­ern­ment regard­ed as country’s most right-wing in decades” By JARI TANNER; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 06/20/2023

    “The four par­ties hold a major­i­ty of 108 seats in the 200-mem­ber Par­lia­ment. Polit­i­cal ana­lysts said the new Cab­i­net was Finland’s most right-wing gov­ern­ment since World War II.

    The most con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment since WWII with the euroscep­tic Finns Par­ty as one of major coali­tion part­ners. That’s the gov­ern­ment now lead­ing one of NATO’s newest mem­bers. Finns Par­ty mem­bers are now lead­ing the finance, inte­ri­or, and jus­tice min­istries:

    ...
    The Nation­al Coali­tion Par­ty won the most seats in an April 2 par­lia­men­tary elec­tion. Fol­low­ing sev­en weeks of coali­tion talks, the par­ty announced a deal to form a gov­ern­ment with three oth­er par­ties, includ­ing the far-right, euroskep­tic Finns Par­ty.

    The two junior part­ners in the coali­tion are the Chris­t­ian Democ­rats and the Swedish People’s Par­ty of Fin­land. Due to the dom­i­nance of the two senior part­ner par­ties, Finnish media described Orpo’s gov­ern­ment as “nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive” in nature.

    ...

    The pop­ulist Finns Par­ty, which fol­lows a large­ly nation­al­ist and anti-immi­gra­tion agen­da, received sev­er­al impor­tant Cab­i­net posts. Par­ty leader Riik­ka Purra was made finance min­is­ter in the new gov­ern­ment, and oth­er par­ty mem­bers were named to lead Finland’s inte­ri­or and jus­tice min­istries.
    ...

    Also note that this dra­mat­ic ide­o­log­i­cal shift in Fin­land’s gov­ern­ing coali­tion hap­pened despite the fact that the cen­ter-left for­mer Prime Min­is­ter San­na Marin was per­son­al­ly pop­u­lar with vot­ers. Eco­nom­ic issues dom­i­nat­ed the elec­tion:

    ...
    Finland’s econ­o­my was the cen­tral issue in April’s elec­tion. While cam­paign­ing, con­ser­v­a­tive can­di­dates accused the cen­ter-left Cab­i­net of for­mer Prime Min­is­ter San­na Marin of exces­sive spend­ing, con­tribut­ing to ris­ing state debt and oth­er eco­nom­ic prob­lems.

    Despite Marin’s per­son­al pop­u­lar­i­ty and high inter­na­tion­al pro­file, vot­ers shift­ed their alle­giances away from her Social Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and to par­ties on the polit­i­cal right. The Social Democ­rats fin­ished third in the elec­tion, after the Nation­al Coali­tion Par­ty and the Finns Par­ty.
    ...

    And while we aren’t see­ing ref­er­ences to the eco­nom­ic impact of the war in Ukraine and result­ing sanc­tions in that arti­cle, it’s pret­ty obvi­ous that the war has had a pro­found neg­a­tive impact on Fin­land’s econ­o­my. With pre­dictable polit­i­cal results.

    Although it was­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly pre­dictable that the new Speak­er of Par­lia­ment would have a decades-long track record of writ­ing deeply racist and xeno­pho­bic online posts and a his­to­ry of advo­cat­ing polit­i­cal vio­lence. But that’s the sit­u­a­tion Fin­land find itself in, with the for­mer Finns Par­ty leader Jus­si Hal­la-aho now the Speak­er of the Par­lia­ment. Also, it turns out the new Min­is­ter of Eco­nom­ic Affairs, Vil­helm Jun­ni­la, was the fea­tured speak­er as a 2019 ral­ly cel­e­brat­ing a neo-Nazi ter­ror­ist attack. The ral­ly audi­ence was described a “who’s who of neo-Nazis in Fin­land.” :

    Euronews

    Racism and rape fan­tasies: The PR headache fac­ing Fin­land’s new right-wing gov­ern­ment
    The chair­man of the Finns Par­ty and par­lia­men­tary can­di­date Jus­si Hal­la-aho votes in the par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, in Helsin­ki, Fin­land Sun­day, April 14, 2019.

    By David Mac Dougall
    Updat­ed: 22/06/2023 — 11:04

    The incom­ing econ­o­my min­is­ter has addressed a ral­ly organ­ised by neo-Nazis, while the Speak­er of Par­lia­ment has a decades-long track record of race-relat­ed court con­vic­tions and deeply dis­turb­ing blog post­ings.

    As Fin­land’s new coali­tion gov­ern­ment is sworn into office on Tues­day, incom­ing Prime Min­is­ter Pet­teri Orpo is fac­ing a pub­lic rela­tions headache over the Speak­er of Par­lia­ment and the Min­is­ter for Eco­nom­ic Affairs, both posi­tions filled by the far-right Finns Par­ty.

    In Fin­land, it’s no secret that Jus­si Hal­la-aho, a pre­vi­ous leader of the Finns Par­ty, a for­mer MEP and now in a senior role as Speak­er of the House, has a decades-long track record of racist com­ments, and deeply trou­bling writ­ings.

    The blog posts, writ­ten years before he was in the pub­lic eye, con­tain dis­turb­ing insights into the world­view which has shaped his pol­i­tics, and even brought him con­vic­tions for ‘dis­turb­ing reli­gious wor­ship’ and ‘eth­nic agi­ta­tion’ for which he was fined by the Finnish Supreme Court.

    Among hun­dreds of blog posts over the years, Hal­la-aho wrote in June 2006 that Islam is a “reli­gion of pedophiles,” and the Prophet Mohammed “was a pedophile.”

    He said that “rob­bing passers-by” was a “genet­ic trait” of Soma­lis.

    In 2006 he implied he would be “exclu­sive­ly hap­py if a ‘gang of immi­grants’ raped” a Green par­ty MP.

    “I still and will con­tin­ue to sin­cere­ly and whole­heart­ed­ly believe that if a woman who oppos­es the depor­ta­tion of immi­grant rapists is raped by an immi­grant rapist, it is a hap­py thing,” he lat­er wrote.

    Hal­la-aho has also tar­get­ed Fin­land’s LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty.

    “Vio­lence is an under­rat­ed prob­lem-solv­ing tool today,” he wrote in Novem­ber 2008, dur­ing a dis­cus­sion on whether to shoot a gay man in a Helsin­ki park.

    A Finnish court ordered some of the most egre­gious com­ments to be delet­ed, while oth­ers were scrubbed by the author, but many more can still be found online.

    Hal­la-aho has nev­er apol­o­gised for his ear­li­er writ­ing.

    “Their whole mode of oper­a­tion is always attack, nev­er defend, nev­er ask for for­give­ness,” Oula Sil­ven­noinen, an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsin­ki, tells Euronews.

    For sev­er­al years, Hal­la-aho was open­ly a mem­ber of a nation­al­ist organ­i­sa­tion called Suomen Sisu, which is opposed to immi­gra­tion and mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, and takes an anti-EU stance A num­ber of senior Finns Par­ty politi­cians have also been Suomen Sisu mem­bers.

    Can some­one with a con­vic­tion in Fin­land still run for par­lia­ment?

    There’s no law in Fin­land that says some­one with con­vic­tions against them can’t serve as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, or indeed Speak­er.

    ...

    In response to a request for com­ment, the Finns Par­ty tells Euronews Hal­la-aho “is one of the most esteemed politi­cians in Fin­land.”

    How­ev­er, Par­ty Sec­re­tary Arto Luukka­nen says “your infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing Finnish pol­i­tics is not apt and does not cor­re­spond to real­i­ties of life. To rely on biased sources is a typ­i­cal ‘rook­ies-mis­take’ (sic), both in jour­nal­ism and in his­to­ri­og­ra­phy (sic)” he added.

    Hal­la-aho’s court con­vic­tions are a mat­ter of pub­lic record in Fin­land, hun­dreds of his old blog posts are still online and can be ver­i­fied, and the issues have been thor­ough­ly doc­u­ment­ed in Finnish media over the years.

    When asked by Finnish jour­nal­ists about his writ­ings, Hal­la-aho’s usu­al response is to say they are old, and he does­n’t bring them up, it’s the medi­a’s choice to keep going back and rehash­ing old texts.
    Min­is­ter spoke at ral­ly organ­ised by neo-Nazis

    Anoth­er headache fac­ing the incom­ing Finnish gov­ern­ment is Min­is­ter of Eco­nom­ic Affairs Vil­helm Jun­ni­la, who takes the posi­tion for the first two years, then swaps with anoth­er Finns Par­ty col­league.

    In 2019, Jun­ni­la was the fea­tured speak­er at an event in the west­ern city of Turku which osten­si­bly was sup­posed to com­mem­o­rate a ter­ror­ist attack two years pre­vi­ous­ly.

    How­ev­er, the ral­ly was arranged by an organ­i­sa­tion called the Coali­tion of Nation­al­ists, an umbrel­la group formed in 2017 for those on the far-right includ­ing the Finns Par­ty, the now-banned Nordic Resis­tance Move­ment, and the Sol­diers of Odin vig­i­lante move­ment.

    Already in spring that same year, the Coali­tion of Nation­al­ists had hit the head­lines in Fin­land after they were exposed for organ­is­ing shoot­ing train­ing at a camp in the for­est, where the tar­gets were faces of Finnish gov­ern­ment min­is­ters.

    The event where Jun­ni­la spoke was a “who’s who of neo-Nazis in Fin­land”, accord­ing to one researcher, and mem­bers of these var­i­ous shad­owy extreme right-wing organ­i­sa­tions can be seen in pho­tographs stand­ing behind Jun­ni­la while he gave a short speech, albeit on the oppo­site river­bank.

    Jun­ni­la was “the offi­cial, pre-adver­tised speak­er” at the event, writes Panu Raatikainen, Pro­fes­sor of Phi­los­o­phy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tam­pere.

    ...

    ———–

    “Racism and rape fan­tasies: The PR headache fac­ing Fin­land’s new right-wing gov­ern­ment” By David Mac Dougall; Euronews; 06/22/2023

    “As Fin­land’s new coali­tion gov­ern­ment is sworn into office on Tues­day, incom­ing Prime Min­is­ter Pet­teri Orpo is fac­ing a pub­lic rela­tions headache over the Speak­er of Par­lia­ment and the Min­is­ter for Eco­nom­ic Affairs, both posi­tions filled by the far-right Finns Par­ty.

    It’s being described as a “pub­lic rela­tions” headache for the incom­ing coali­tion gov­ern­ment. And while that’s undoubt­ed­ly true, there’s pre­sum­ably going to be a few oth­er headaches cre­at­ed by the ele­va­tion of neo-Nazis to high office beyond just strained pub­lic rela­tions. Bad pol­i­cy has con­se­quences beyond just bad pub­lic rela­tions. At the same time, when we see the kinds of neo-Nazi writ­ings of Jus­si Hal­la-aho, the new Speak­er of the Par­lia­ment, it’s also pret­ty obvi­ous that a lot of the upcom­ing bad poli­cies we can expect from this gov­ern­ment are, them­selves, going to be almost designed to cre­ate even more pub­lic rela­tions headaches for Fin­land. Because the cru­el­ty is the point for a politi­cian like Jus­si Hal­la-aho. Unapolo­getic cru­el­ty and trolling:

    ...
    In Fin­land, it’s no secret that Jus­si Hal­la-aho, a pre­vi­ous leader of the Finns Par­ty, a for­mer MEP and now in a senior role as Speak­er of the House, has a decades-long track record of racist com­ments, and deeply trou­bling writ­ings.

    The blog posts, writ­ten years before he was in the pub­lic eye, con­tain dis­turb­ing insights into the world­view which has shaped his pol­i­tics, and even brought him con­vic­tions for ‘dis­turb­ing reli­gious wor­ship’ and ‘eth­nic agi­ta­tion’ for which he was fined by the Finnish Supreme Court.

    ...

    Hal­la-aho has also tar­get­ed Fin­land’s LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty.

    “Vio­lence is an under­rat­ed prob­lem-solv­ing tool today,” he wrote in Novem­ber 2008, dur­ing a dis­cus­sion on whether to shoot a gay man in a Helsin­ki park.

    A Finnish court ordered some of the most egre­gious com­ments to be delet­ed, while oth­ers were scrubbed by the author, but many more can still be found online.

    Hal­la-aho has nev­er apol­o­gised for his ear­li­er writ­ing.

    ...

    In response to a request for com­ment, the Finns Par­ty tells Euronews Hal­la-aho “is one of the most esteemed politi­cians in Fin­land.”
    ...

    And then there’s the new Min­is­ter of Eco­nom­ic Affairs, Vil­helm Jun­ni­la, who was the fea­tured speak­er at a 2019 neo-Nazi ral­ly cel­e­brat­ing a neo-Nazi ter­ror attack. It real­ly is a gov­ern­ment of vio­lent crim­i­nals at this point. It’s not great from a pub­lic rela­tions stand­point. Or, pre­sum­ably, an eco­nom­ic han­dling stand­point. Again, bad pol­i­cy has con­se­quences beyond just the bad pub­lic rela­tions:

    ...
    Anoth­er headache fac­ing the incom­ing Finnish gov­ern­ment is Min­is­ter of Eco­nom­ic Affairs Vil­helm Jun­ni­la, who takes the posi­tion for the first two years, then swaps with anoth­er Finns Par­ty col­league.

    In 2019, Jun­ni­la was the fea­tured speak­er at an event in the west­ern city of Turku which osten­si­bly was sup­posed to com­mem­o­rate a ter­ror­ist attack two years pre­vi­ous­ly.

    How­ev­er, the ral­ly was arranged by an organ­i­sa­tion called the Coali­tion of Nation­al­ists, an umbrel­la group formed in 2017 for those on the far-right includ­ing the Finns Par­ty, the now-banned Nordic Resis­tance Move­ment, and the Sol­diers of Odin vig­i­lante move­ment.

    Already in spring that same year, the Coali­tion of Nation­al­ists had hit the head­lines in Fin­land after they were exposed for organ­is­ing shoot­ing train­ing at a camp in the for­est, where the tar­gets were faces of Finnish gov­ern­ment min­is­ters.

    The event where Jun­ni­la spoke was a “who’s who of neo-Nazis in Fin­land”, accord­ing to one researcher, and mem­bers of these var­i­ous shad­owy extreme right-wing organ­i­sa­tions can be seen in pho­tographs stand­ing behind Jun­ni­la while he gave a short speech, albeit on the oppo­site river­bank.

    Jun­ni­la was “the offi­cial, pre-adver­tised speak­er” at the event, writes Panu Raatikainen, Pro­fes­sor of Phi­los­o­phy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tam­pere.
    ...

    Keep in mind that we’re real­ly just hear­ing about the high­est-lev­el gov­ern­ment posi­tions that are now staffed by neo-Nazis. There’s pre­sum­ably going to be a flood of Finns Par­ty mem­bers enter­ing into gov­ern­ment at low­er pro­file posi­tions too where they’ll have all sort of influ­ence of poli­cies. Or at least low­er pro­file for now. The pub­lic rela­tions headaches cre­at­ed by Nazis tend to grow after they’re offi­cial­ly hand­ed the reigns of pow­er, after all.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | June 22, 2023, 4:53 pm

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