The covers and editorials from leading weeklies of the Left and Right for the work-week ending Friday, 6 December
Mladina: Macron is right, NATO is brain dead
STA, 6 December 2019 - In its latest commentary, Mladina agrees with French President Emmanuel Macron's assessment that NATO is brain dead, as it has been proven by the acts of Turkey and the US. The weekly says this could actually be good news for those who already think that Slovenia has no business being a NATO member state.
"Of course Macron is right. What will be the next thing that NATO members, including Slovenia, will have to swallow," Grega Repovž, the editor-in-chief of the left-leaning weekly, wonders under the headline Of Course NATO is Dead!.
He notes that Slovenia, as a NATO member state, has apparently not been informed that "another member state will carry out ethnic cleansing of Kurds on the Syrian side of the Turkey-Syria border", adding that consulting other members is an obligation written down in the North Atlantic Treaty.
If no one but Macron is protesting, it is our obligation to conclude that NATO member states, including Slovenia, had been informed about Turkey's intentions and that they had decided to tolerate them. "Can we conclude that the US consulted other members when it decided to exit the international nuclear deal with Iran?".
Repovž argues that neither Turkey nor the US cared what other NATO members thought. "Why? Because they don't take it seriously. For the US and Turkey, NATO has been clinically dead long ago - and they don't care if they violated the alliance's rules."
This is why Macron's words should be taken seriously by those who actually believe in NATO and in its mission. It is about those, in fear of Trump's America and Erdogan's Turkey, are being "calculated in tolerating the usurping of international law and rules, and destroying any credibility in the long run".
Repovž also wonders how it will be possible for NATO members to point a finger at Russia for violating democratic standards or criticise China if they tolerate grave violations of these standards by their allies.
"NATO is brain dead - Turkey and the US have shown this with their actions, and Macron with words. Which could be good news for all those who already think that Slovenia has no business being in this organisation," concludes the commentary.
Demokracija: Govt cares more for state apparatus than citizens
STA, 5 December 2019 - Demokracija says in its latest commentary that the government of Marjan Šarec does not only have the pathological desire for full control and for suffocating the free business initiative with regulation, but that it, first and foremost, cares more for the state apparatus than citizens.
"Just take a look at the budget: nine tenths will go for wages, material costs, welfare and other transfers, and only a tenth for investments," says Jože Biščak, the editor-in-chief of the right-leaning weekly.
Investments are something all citizens not only certain groups of people benefit from, which should be the purpose of public financing, he adds under the headline Doors Without a Lock.
"But the government says that citizens have obligations towards it. Of course, this is not true. In modern societies, governments have obligations towards citizen, and they as executive bodies have the power to decide only in rare cases."
These are defence of the population (military), maintaining order and peace (police) and making unbiased rulings in disputes (judiciary). "Everything else is abuse of authority, as the government must serve to citizens and not vice versa."
According to Biščak, Šarec and "his comrades", which make up by far the worst government in independent Slovenia, have "brought their authoritarian perversions to the point where they actually threaten democracy and freedom."
Their measures are ranking from "fully subordinating" the National Security Council and the intelligence agency SOVA, to heavily fining "free gathering of people into village guards" and persecuting media and opposition leaders.
If stricter forms of punishment were used in socialism, more sophisticated measures are available in the digital era, which force an individual to lose any desire for freedom and let themselves be controlled by the state.
"It is not socialism as such anymore, but a perfidious form of progressive democracy, which calls itself democratic socialism, where the deep state has the desire to control literally everything with help from a mass of loyal bureaucrats."
According to Demokracija, citizens are becoming prisoners of modern-day government despots. "When you are terrorised and exploited by the government, which uses the most detestable methods in the process, you have nowhere to go. But then you know what you have to do."
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