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PROMISED YOU AMERICA

During the 1980s there was a song called "Promised You A Miracle" but I always heard it as "Promised You America." And that is where my blog received its title from.  In the previous century, after the Second World War, many Europeans sought to immigrate to the United States. America was the promised land. It was a beautiful, safe country. And a free country, there was no welfare state. The immigrants that came to America had to work to survive, there was no alternative.  My father was one such immigrant after leaving Holland after the Second World War. He worked many odd jobs until he became his own salesperson, first selling Dutch chocolate from his VW van to supermarkets in the US, and thereafter, eventually by hard work, becoming a successful fine art dealer.  One of my first jobs after arriving in America in 1983 was that of a busboy at the Bankers Club Carnelian Room. Some people might look down on that but I was looking down upon them as the restaurant was on

Pim Fortuyn: The Man Queen Beatrix Feared the Most

Pim Fortuyn: The Man Queen Beatrix Feared the Most

 Had Pim Fortuyn lived 9 more days he would have become the next prime minister of the Netherlands. Question: Who gained the most from his death?

 Many years after his assassination it was reported that Queen Beatrix had told former Prime Minister, Ruud Lubbers, that she didn’t lie awake at night over the death of Pim Fortuyn.
Pim Fortuyn: The Man Queen Beatrix Feared the Most

The truth is that Queen Beatrix hated Pim Fortuyn. And the question is whether she was influential in preventing him from receiving secret service protection, knowing the death threats against him.

It was Minister Klaas de Vries, as the Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, who denied Pim Fortuyn secret service protection. But was Minister Klaas de Vries acting on his own in the Kingdom of the Netherlands? Or was he following orders from his boss Prime Minister Kok who climbed the palace stairs at least once a week to bow down to Queen Beatrix? 
 
By not granting Pim Fortuyn secret service protection the government allowed his life to be in jeopardy. But why would they do this? One reason may have been that Queen Beatrix had never forgiven Fortuyn for the things he had written about the monarchy and her son.

Before Fortuyn became a politician, he was a philosophy professor and had written numerous articles and books. In a newspaper article in 1994, Fortuyn’s criticism of Queen Beatrix became mainstream news. He had accused her of interfering with the elected Dutch government, and moreover, had written that the royal palaces should be made accessible to the public. In essence, Fortuyn had turned the whole Dutch political paradigm on its head: instead of the Dutch people being servants of the monarchy, Fortuyn suggested that it were the taxpayers who made the monarchy possible; and as such, the monarchy should serve the public.

And what made it personal for Queen Beatrix was that Fortuyn had referred to her son, then Prince Willem-Alexander (now King Willem-Alexander), as being an empty head with a boorish lust for power:

Koningin Beatrix “bemoeit zich teveel met staatszaken” en haar mogelijke opvolger Willem-Alexander “is een leeghoofd met een ouderwetse hang naar de krijgsmacht”.
Queen Beatrix knew that a Prime Minister Pim Fortuyn would never allow her to co-govern the Dutch government, and she also knew that her investments in many of the Dutch multinational companies could be scrutinized, as well as her connections to foreign governments. A Prime Minister Pim Fortuyn would never allow the monarchy to control it's Foreign Service and foreign trade missions, as has been the case for so long. 

 A Prime Minister Fortuyn would have certainly limited the political powers of the Dutch monarchy by reducing its annual funding and eliminating all the royal titles from government departments and government positions. There was even a chance that a Prime Minister Fortuyn could have advocated returning the Netherlands back to being a republic. Fortuyn was after all a republican. 

 After the murder of Pim Fortuyn it was learned that the royal secret service had spied on him: his house had been bugged and his phones had been tapped. Moreover they followed him into gay bars, hoping to get dirt on him. When Minister Klaas de Vries was confronted about this, he at first denied it, then said he had no personal knowledge of it; and in the end, admitted to it but blamed the illegal spying activities on rogue agents.

So what was the reason that the Dutch royal secret service was spying on Pim Fortuyn? It was rumored that Fortuyn was fond of younger men of Moroccan backgrounds. As an advocate against Islamic immigration this "leaked" information could have been used to undermine Fortuyn's credibility and popularity. With a Prime Minister Fortuyn, Queen Beatrix could have used this information against him.  

 Queen Beatrix reigned the Netherlands from 1980 to 2013, seeing 5 prime ministers coming and going. And during this time she turned the Dutch government away from serving the people and more into serving the the Dutch monarchy. The official title of the Netherlands is the "Kingdom of the Netherlands." This isn't just symbolism, it is reality. No matter who the prime minister is, he seems to answer to the monarchy.   

Minister Klaas de Vries refused to grant Pim Fortuyn protection


Kabinet Kok II, Queen Beatrix in the middle because it is "her" government, Minister Klaas de Vries is the second to her right

"Queen Beatrix didn't lay awake at night about the murder of Pim Fortuyn."








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Location: The Hague, Netherlands

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