McCarthyism in Europe Today 

Photo from United States Senate | CC BY 2.0

Big Brother [speaking in English – of course – with an American accent]: “Are you or have you ever been sympathetic to the old communist experience in Eastern Europe?”

Yanis Varoufakis: “No! Never!”

Big Brother: “And what about Russia today?”

Yanis Varoufakis: “It’s a sinister and good for nothing place!”

What are Europeans allowed to think today? What are the parameters of current European thought? What magic words aid careerism and media exposure in Europe? And what thoughts in the European landscape are simply verboten?

The razor sharp mind of the former Greek finance minister and the founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), Yanis Varoufakis, is a good indicator of contemporary European thinking. And it’s corrupt shallowness.

Varoufakis declares himself to be a “Europeanist”. Indeed going by his latest book Adults in the Room that’s all he thinks about: Europe. Or to be more precise: the European Union and how to prevent it from falling apart. “Democracy, pluralism and unwavering Europeanism” is his solution to the EU’s problems. That and anti-communism.

When face to face with the EU’s most hawkish decision maker – German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble – this is how Varoufakis defines and defends himself and the “radical left” in Greece.

 ‘Are you comparing me with a well-meaning DDR [East German Communist] minister….?’ I asked. ‘Let me reassure…

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