Here in Holland there's a lot of conspiracy theorizing about the WEF precisely for the reasons you mention in your piece; apparently a very large contingent of our pols have flown to Davos, along with (yawn) Queen Máxima, for what it's worth. So naturally Dutch Twitter is lighting up. The biggest issue is that people seem to think Klaus Schwab is exerting direct control, that he literally has the entire Dutch Cabinet, the "Schawbinet", on speed-dial. I'm sure he gets off projecting that kinda power, with his boastful talk of "penetrating" governments and all, but in some ways I think it is actually worse. Direct control would be bad enough, but at least it can be identified; worse is the pernicious influence of all these dreadful ideas that permeate entire bureaucracies, generating a kind of herd response to everything. Onkel Klaus isn't calling Mark Rutte and telling him to go after the farmers; it is, as I see it, the result of plans hatched years ago that slowly percolate downward through the highly insular EU and national bureaucracies and are never subject to genuine free and open public scrutiny. They really do think they know better. To put it in slightly different terms, Putin could fire a Kinzal at Davos and take the whole crowd out, but it wouldn't change one bit the anti-democratic, technocratic, neoliberal mentality that permeates the Hague and other national governments. This isn't to diminish in any way the malign influence of the WEF and whatever creepy agendas that gang may be pursuing. Great article!
Here in Holland there's a lot of conspiracy theorizing about the WEF precisely for the reasons you mention in your piece; apparently a very large contingent of our pols have flown to Davos, along with (yawn) Queen Máxima, for what it's worth. So naturally Dutch Twitter is lighting up. The biggest issue is that people seem to think Klaus Schwab is exerting direct control, that he literally has the entire Dutch Cabinet, the "Schawbinet", on speed-dial. I'm sure he gets off projecting that kinda power, with his boastful talk of "penetrating" governments and all, but in some ways I think it is actually worse. Direct control would be bad enough, but at least it can be identified; worse is the pernicious influence of all these dreadful ideas that permeate entire bureaucracies, generating a kind of herd response to everything. Onkel Klaus isn't calling Mark Rutte and telling him to go after the farmers; it is, as I see it, the result of plans hatched years ago that slowly percolate downward through the highly insular EU and national bureaucracies and are never subject to genuine free and open public scrutiny. They really do think they know better. To put it in slightly different terms, Putin could fire a Kinzal at Davos and take the whole crowd out, but it wouldn't change one bit the anti-democratic, technocratic, neoliberal mentality that permeates the Hague and other national governments. This isn't to diminish in any way the malign influence of the WEF and whatever creepy agendas that gang may be pursuing. Great article!