It seems as if there are a lot of warnings coming from Russia nowadays. Back in early Spring 2009, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made some comments regarding the failure of Communism and expressed a concern that the United states might be moving in that direction. That conference was in Davos Switzerland, according to Poll Gazette: “Interference of the State, the belief in the omnipotence of the State: that is a reaction to market failures,” Mr Putin said in his keynote address at the opening of the four-day meeting. “There is a temptation to expand direct interference of state in economy. In the Soviet Union that became an absolute. We paid a very dear price for that.”

Today, I was quite surprised to read this discussion of the similarity of the European Union to the former USSR. The author, Hans Vogel, pointed out that there is hardly any privacy and that it reminded him of the "Nazi slogan “Du bist nichts, dein Volk ist alles!” (You are nothing, your people is everything)."

The writes that there are certainly flowery statements concerning personal freedoms, but when "push comes to shove," it's just a sham. For example, it is a criminal offense to do any research into the number of Jews exterminated during the Holocaust, or to speak or write about this subject, because to do so would make you a Holocaust denier." Then there is a provision that disallows any commentary on Islam. This was the fight that Geert Wilders, Dutch Parliamentarian, had in Holland and, later in England, when he was denied entrance to that country to speak in the Britsh Parliament.

Last week, Obama signed a military bill, with the "Hate Crimes Bill" attached to it, in spite of the fact that there was an authorization for a fighter jet F-22 that he disliked. This "Hate Crime Bill" will have the same effect of dampening free speech, because, as the author pointed out, you can't have "free speech", if you constantly have to worry about what you might say.

Mr Vogel states that although the European people can vote, they only vote for a very weak Parliament, which has very little power. Additionally, even though the European constitution guarantees "equality of all citizens", the methods of the secret police from the former Soviet Union has been maintained by the Union, on the pretext of "fighting the terrorists."

Vladimir Bukovsky, a former Russian dissident, who spent 12 years in the Gulag, also warned that the EU would become a dictatorship (EUSSR). He said that the goal of Communism was to eradicate the nation-states. Bukovsky denied that the citizens of a country vote to join 'voluntarily". Apparently, they are pressured and blackmailed, until they finally vote the way they're "supposed to; "the European Union is what Americans would call a shotgun marriage", he said. He further explained that "the European Parliament is elected on the basis of proportional representation, which is not true representation. And what does it vote on? The percentage of fat in yogurt, that kind of thing. It is ridiculous. It is given the task of the Supreme Soviet. The average MP can speak for six minutes per year in the Chamber. That is not a real parliament." Vogel states that "power in the EU is firmly in the hands of the European Commission, which is set to obtain even more power under the Lisbon Treaty."

Now, supposedly the European Union was designed to protect the economic, social, legal and other rights of its' citizens. However none of the Constitutional laws can infringe on the "European Convention of Human Rights." Just yesterday, the Court delivered its decision to Italy that all Crucifixes must be removed from all the schools, because they offended the sensibilities of a Finnish student studying in Padua, according to John Charlton, Post & Email. This was their statement: "The presence of the Crucifix, which is impossible not to notice in the student’s classrooms, could easily be interpreted by students of all ages as a religious symbol. Such a display in an educational setting has the smack of religious instruction."

Italy is, obviously, predominantly Catholic and Italian representatives are moving to appeal the decision. Pope Benedict XVI issued a condemnation of the move. Berlusconi's party predicts that this will culminate in the inevitable failure of the EU, since it appears to be simply an attempt to impose a global Anti-Christ world government. This reminds me of the time that Obama spoke at Gaston Hall, Georgetown University, and requested that the IHS” monogram, a 3rd century abbreviation for the name of Jesus from Greek, be covered, according to Ann Shibler.