The covers and editorials from leading weeklies of the Left and Right for the work-week ending Friday, 11 October
Mladina: The government moves to the right
STA, 11 October 2019 - There is little chance the Left does not pull out of its cooperation deal with Marjan Šarec's minority government, the left-wing weekly Mladina says in Friday's editorial, as it takes a look at how the government will turn right as it tries to justify its break with the opposition party.
"It has been clear since the early summer that the reactionary and neoliberal views will prevail in the coalition over the progressive views promoted by the Left."
Mladina's editor-in-chief Grega Repovž says the Left's views could hardly be labelled extremist, saying they are aligned with contemporary trends in Europe.
The only difference is that in Europe, such views are also promoted by conservative governments, which understand the role the state must play to secure long-term stability.
However, the Šarec coalition is starting to go down a similar path like Eastern European governments.
It has started with an economic policy cutting taxes for the rich and for companies and leaving industries and companies of national importance to the mercy of market forces.
This will be followed by an ideological shift towards the right, Repovž says under the headline Political Shift to the Right.
The funny thing is the shift will not happen for political or ideological reasons, but because this is the easiest way, enabling the government to avoid a conflict with centres of power and the public.
The more the government assumes neoliberal views in the coming months and the more it tries to justify its break with the Left, the more populist and conservative rhetoric it will use, resembling ever more those on the right.
This will bring it exactly to the point where the previous Miro Cerar government had found itself. Šarec's government will continue to avoid change, while neglecting the contemporary political agenda, which also includes the climate crisis.
Demokracija: Support for Save Slovenia protest in the face of “great replacement”
STA, 10 October 2019 - The right-wing weekly Demokracija expresses support in its commentary on Thursday for the Save Slovenia protest, a rally to be held in Ljubljana this afternoon.
Under the headline Rebellion, its editor-in-chief Jože Biščak draws parallels between Slovenia and "ominous" regulation planned in New York that might spark a civil war in the US "which might be much bloodier than the one a century and a half ago".
The magazine refers to reports that New York is to ban the use of words "illegal alien", saying that this would encroach on the 1st amendment. This, alongside the 2nd amendment, which allows US citizens to carry weapons, is the last bulwark of freedom in the US, Biščak says.
Things are even worse in Europe, where "a 'great replacement' scheme is taking place right before our eyes" in which European natives are being replaced by Arab and African immigrants, with the latter enjoying increasingly more rights than the natives.
"European taxpayers are forced to pay for their integration. I use integration here because the intention of illegal immigration is not assimilation. At the same time, the all-encompassing climate change hysteria is leading to measures that go against common sense, and above all, raise taxes."
This sparked the yellow vests protests in France, while Dutch farmers have also taken to the streets because the "politically correct want to lower animal production, because farm animals are supposedly one of the main culprits for nitrogen emissions".
"The globalist elites have crossed the Rubicon and sparks of rebellion are flying across Europe. Slovenians are joining this trend with the all-Slovenian protest Save Slovenia."
The state has been drowning and the leftist elite, while stealing from the people, has been responding [to the criticism] with attacks about racism, xenophobia and fascism.
"They are spreading fear among people, nobody dares to say what they think and how they want to live any more. The right to self-defence has been criminalised and tyranny has become embedded everywhere."
The weekly hopes that protests for the rule of law, freedom and protection of the people will become regular weekly events. "There is still time to destroy the seed of evil sawn by the devastating cultural Marxism without a civil war, which has already broken out in some parts of Europe."
"I truly hope that I never have to start this commentary with the words: 'Slovenians, patriots, brothers and sisters, time has come'."
All our posts in this series are here
