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Since the status of calm in Europe preceded the existence of the EU and since you present no evidence that the EU has in any way contributed to calm in Europe, there is no justification for your recurring declaration that the EU has been instrumental in the maintenance of peace in Europe.
Anthony catering is best
Since the condition of peace in Europe preceeded the existence of the EU and since you present no evidence that the EU has in any way contributed to peace in Europe, there is no justification for your repeated statement that the EU has been instrumental in the maintenence of peace in Europe.
In evidence to the contrary, the peace of Europe, having been broken in the Balkans, was reestablished by NATO, not the EU. Further, the peace (and freedom) of Europe was preserved (and extended) during the Cold War by NATO, not the EU. Indeed, without NATO, Italy would have been overrun by refugees from Libya last year, regardless of how loud the EU screamed.
Additional evidence contrary to your statement is the fact that the EU's euro is creating tensions and strife as well as economic and financial havoc in Europe, and that the institutions of the EU are overrunning the democratic institutions of the member states, creating the preconditions for strife.
This proof that EU does not maintain peace in Europe makes your claim to being a professor of philosophy highly dubious since you can't understand or, worse, simply choose to ignore the logical progression I have explained.
I wouldn't be bragging any more around here about being affiliated with any institution of higher learning if I were you, since this poster will continue to expose your lack of professorial acuity and overweening self-important fatuity at every future opportunity. :)
But since you will probably ignore the Aristotelean reality with which I am confronting you and continue your Nobel-inspired insipidity, I will pre-empt your next lazy degenerate effort by simply telling you in advance to read this post again.
"Raccoons introduced by the Nazis have officially occupied Germany after experts admitted they are there to stay.
he German Hunting Federation say the animals, introduced by Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering, will never be ousted.
It follows a spate of complaints by householders of racoons breaking into houses in search of food and shelter in the cold weather.
Federation spokesman Danaiel Hoffman said: "The raccoon is firmly established in Germany, this has to be accepted."
And Magnus Wessel, head of conservation at Friends of the Earth Germany, agreed: "Limiting their numbers is pretty much all that can be done."
Raccoons, which German pest controllers say now number in the millions, often choose to live under houses as they feel safe from predators and can steal food from bins.
As the cold conditions hit, a couple arrived back from holiday to find one of the animals had climbed down the chimney and eaten all the food in their cupboards in Spessart, Hesse.
A raccoon chased off a cat after breaking in through its flap, eating a packet of biscuits and ripping up a cushion for a nest at a home in Kaiserslautern.
Goering ordered the release of a breeding pair of raccoons when he was the Third Reich's chief forester in 1934, to give hunters something to shoot.
More got out in 1945 when an Allied bomb hit a farm where they were being reared for their pelts."
hey the guess workers were so cute
Der Spiegel is preparing the german opinion for a intervention in Mali
Germans are "pacifists" now remember? That is the latest propaganda.
"Pacifists" who sell weapons. I must change my dictionary.
When is France going to send its next EU-puppet-beggar to New York on behalf of its globally despised "award"-winning "union"? Will it be the World Bank this time, or don't they do this sort of thing?
when you'll be ready to accompany her, so let me tell you, it's at the saint Glin Glin
It concerns your EZ - your own mess.
Berlin/Brussels can send whichever French clown they like for the world to laugh at.
your wish
hey the joker !
UKIP a serious party?
Electricity's back on after 7 days without. Boy that was rough!
Oh dear, it looks as though 'theomorph' has done a bunk, a stunt he pulled on us a few months ago when he popped up, blogged furiously 24/7 for about 10 days and then vanished.
I was so looking forward to his 'robust rebuttal' (Oct 25th, 9.49) of Maher's obvious truth that eurosceptism in Europe is now no longer mainstream, but this has proved beyond him. Was looking forward too to his explanation as to why only 25% Poles now support joining the euro, but it looks as though I'll have to go to bed hungry.
Poor theo, all mouth no trousers. Nice fellah, though.
"all mouth no trousers.é
apparently his girl friend doesn't think so
CORR; "..is now mainstream", NOT "is no longer mainstream".
useless 'edit' button!
"apparently his girl friend doesn't think so".
His 'girl-friend' is probably 7 years old. I'm sure he's like Jimmy Savile.
These Eurobots are all the same!
He is in good company with Cohn-Bendit.
You are just jealous because he blew all of you out of the water, used your arguments like a rolling wave which he surfed with grace and a powerful Germanz intellect.
Vorsprung durch Theo!
I am sure he will be back with a vengeance. Though not an economist, a pathetic profession of charlatans, of which Maher is the only specimen with true entertainment value, he will refute Maher's arguments with panache and blitzkrieg him into the docks of Dunkirk.
Theo, rub, rub …. appear :-)))
Saville was a BBC star
BTW, I watched a trilogy on Arte, about crimes and pedophily in Yorkshire, that have little to do with the continent, unless that regions mines were the common denominator with the "Affaire Dutroux"
BTW, I thought that the Brit Police was well educated, hey, they also brutalise people...
She's Italiano, and if I know my women, and believe when I say I do, it's time for another song: "Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine"...laughs
Morph, I too am a big fan of Philosophy, but Maher's an Economist, and after all, this is The Economist.
Just a couple of themes to consider here: The Illusion of Political Choice. The EU is a fledgling Union still in its infancy, blah, blah, blah, you get the drill.
Now remember, you're in training. So, no sex, women weaken legs. If you're married like me for 20 years, I'm sure that wont be a problem for you, but with that new Italian girlfriend and all, WE'RE DOOMED...laughs
Just kidding, don't listen to me. I'm just jealous is all. You got an outsider's chance of course, but you got to get Maher out of his depths. Make him enter the realm of philosophical thought, so the fight can be called on cuts. Get in there kid and make us all proud!
Pumper, Junior, Viva! Grab your popcorn. I found us a seat up front. This is going to be good!
You too Marie. You can sit next to me...laughs
"powerful Germanz intellect".
Ha, ha! He's no more German than I am. Didn't he flee Silesia or Pomerania when he was two and end up in Canada, after which he went to King's College Cambridge? His education is purely Anglo-Saxon with not a single German word in any of his postings.
You once addressed him in GERMANZ and he refused to reply.
Poor Pumpernickel! Tu es adorable!
Vorsprung durch load of bollocks.
@ Zorbas
"Morph, I too am a big fan of Philosophy, but Maher's an Economist, and after all, this is The Economist".
Ha, ha, ha!
ECONOMOST, you said it
If he was not Germanz what would be his purpose posting here as a Germanz and Euro supporter?
Even trying to think around three corners I don't get it. If he is part of you lot, MI6, he is blowing the wrong horn. Next time he is on I shall again address him in Germanz and he will respond instantly or I will have to apply deeper psychology. Appeal to germanambassador perhaps for help. He is from Königsberg where Immanuel hails from, das Ding an Sich!
Vorsprung durch Theo!
Theo, my throat is better thanks to Kamillentee. This morning we are singing at a Baptism.
"Vorsprung durch load of bollocks."
I don't know about all this whiffy "Germanz" facebooking nonsense.
There are a couple of eurobot catholicz on this blog from North America boring us regularly about their claims to "German inheritance" on account one parent coming from Germany, which hardly makes them unique or unusual in the history of migration to that continent.
One has to ask oneself what quirk of eurobot personality they may share that impels them to concentrate so boorishly on this aspect of their inheritance: as catholics from N.America, one can assume that the other parent could have been Polish, Italian, Irish etc. so doesn't it seem strange that these euro-desperados who come to Europe to work only concentrate on the "German" aspect of their origins only and never forget to remind us that they are catholic ?
What about those of the euro-realists who happen to be genuinely of German descent (or German nationals for that matter) who do not see fit to bore the blog daily about it?
Whatever it may be, it certainly takes up a lot of blogspace.
Given the eurobot predilection for daily tedious irrelevant facebookery and the state of the eurobot project, you'd think they are an insult to their alleged German inheritance.
Didn't the good A J Maher tell us that he was educated by Jesuits?
That must put a few eurobotz noses severely out of joint.
Ha, ha, ha!
Maher's got it down pat. When Maher speaks, I just nod my head. Have a BA in economics from University myself. Can't remember half of the crap they taught me, but when Maher speaks, the lingo all comes rushing back.
Europe screwed the pooch here. No bout a doubt it. Or perhaps Germany actually knew what she was doing, and pocketed some money. Clever girl. Accidents are so seldom accidents. More like profit taking.
What do the Cretans say: "Your death is my life"...laughs
Time for a drastic change in the course of action here.
Translation: Cut back on the profit taking. They pushed it as far as it could go. Any further and the the whole of the global economy would have fallen apart.
Who gets it? Why the Greeks of course. We were taught to think this way: "He slipped and fell I tells you! Shh, don't tell the doctor what really happened"...laughs
No go Zorbas, she prefers it gaucho-style .... laughed
"Or perhaps Germany actually knew what she was doing, and pocketed some money."
Sort of , but wasn't it the federastic moonshiners instigated by the French (Trichet etc.) who insisted that they could take a "German" currency - you know, the one that Marie loves?
At worst, you could say that opportunity knocked for Germany with the "euro" abortion in the Cretan sense you mention.
oh the frustrated man, hey, aren't you from Yorkshire?
Yep, a whole lot of lip service is all. Rake in the money, offer your sympathy, but above all, keep them on the hook for those loans, whilst all the while clinging tightly to Germany's apron strings.
THE BUILDING'S ON FIRE: Stoke the fire and run for the EXITS!!! Knock over the little old lady, step on the dwarfs head, swat the children aside, and then tell us all you did to help others.
A regular Creme Roule, or as the Greeks like to say: risogalo malakia (Creme Roule Goucho style)...laughs
According to the latest news on the "Troikas's" medicine for Athens it is looking even worse for the "EU" as a whole, not only Greece - a horror scenario:
"A draft version of the Troika report obtained by SPIEGEL magazine said EMU governments and the European Central Bank must accept their share of losses in order to bring Greece's public debt back to 120pc of GDP by 2020, deemed the sustainable level.
Greece must carry out a further 150 reforms, some involving a drastic loss of sovereignty. Troika payments will be held frozen in a special account under creditor control.
The Troika will have power to raise taxes automatically. There must be new laws to make it easier to fire workers and adjust the minumum wage....
Public sector losses are politically explosive in Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel has told her own people that bail-out loans to southern Europe entail no risk, and have been profitable to date.
She would have to account for any losses to the Bundestag. This would poison debate on further loans for Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, or Slovenia.
*The fast-growing eurosceptic camp in Germany would claim vindication*. "
If this is dished out to Greece, the "EU" will serve Spain, Portugal, Italy and France similarly. Drastic losses of sovereignty -> bigger riots in the South and furious taxpayers - everywhere.
It looks as if the funeral pyre of the euro/EU is being ignited sooner than many thought:)
Well done Greece. Respect. Nice job.
Now give them back their drachma.
IT is following me around in the DT. How to shake it, Marie?
Where art thou?
"According to the latest news on the "Troikas's" medicine for Athens it is looking even worse for the "EU" as a whole, not only Greece - a horror scenario:"
Yep, Athens is a war zone.
"A draft version of the Troika report obtained by SPIEGEL magazine said EMU governments and the European Central Bank must accept their share of losses in order to bring Greece's public debt back to 120pc of GDP by 2020, deemed the sustainable level."
Yep, more debt restructuring is in order here. When yous kill the GDP with austerity, obviously the Debt to GDP ratio suffers as a result, and you have to erase more of the debt. Recommend the Troika take a MACRO 101 course next time. After all, this is The Economist. Granted there is some wiggle room for ideology, but the math speaks for itself.
"Greece must carry out a further 150 reforms, some involving a drastic loss of sovereignty. Troika payments will be held frozen in a special account under creditor control."
Politically untenable, Samaras' coalition government is held together by a thread. Syriza will not support this, although Tsipras has agreed not to call for a no confidence vote, and new elections, YET!!! He is obviously just waiting for an even stronger majority, which will not be difficult to secure, given the conditions on the ground. Greek's patience is wearing thin.
"Now give them back their drachma."
Yes, becasue you cannot manufacture and sell the Volkswagen Jetta in America for under $17,000, with the same currency Greek mom and pop tourist businesses need to attract customers. Austerity is a money saving farce. No such thing as internal deflation.
Your death is my life, until your death becomes my death, and then I got to rethink it. Put a band-aid on it Greece and walk it off...laughs
@ Marie
Are you there?
Have you heard that Merkel is offering to give France a helping hand in the forthcoming intervention in Mali? I'm not sure if it is she or the journalist who describes this as a 'peace-keeping operation' (the article is not clear) but it would be anything but 'peace-keeping'. Is this to "make up for Libya"?
I saw an interesting programme on Mali on 'Zone Interdite'. The whole of northern Mali is now occupied not just by Mali islamists but Arabs and Pakistanis too. An intervention would invite thousands of nut-jobs to flock there to do combat with the infidels. It would match Afghanistan as a quagmire.
( Mediapart: "Allemagne: Merkel veut développer encore les ventes d'Armes": See especially under the sub-heading " "Prête à soutenir une intervention au Mali")
Promises, promises, zorbas ... hail brother
When are you going to do something about this intolerable situation? Vote the present government out, default on the lot and leave the Euro? Make Greece affordable again for the average Joe here? Make us love the Greeks again as the fantastic hosts they are?
I bet, when the chips are down, you will vote them carpetbaggers in again. What a tragedy.
Here's a philosophical question for you Birt: Why do fools quote the laws they wrote, even when all hell's about to break loose, if they continue to do nothing.
No viable options Pumper. Both parties belong to the system. You know that. Germany's too. But, I will bet you dollars to donuts, that even if Tsipras is elected, Germany will work with him too. What choice does she have? After all, she wants at least part of that money back. The questions are how much, and who can afford to pay the difference? Not the Greeks. Laws are already being enacted to protect our own. The banks should have been bailed out directly, like the Americans did it. The Greeks of course know this, but they will continue to dutifully nod their heads in agreement until our problem become yours.
PS - Well, maybe not yours, holders of Gold should continue to profit. Now, what's all this YOU stuff? I thought we were all this together? Remember, EUROPEANS!!! I guess the bloom is off the rose, eh...laughs
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Lookit wrongroadnik Pumpkreepnov try solidarnojsk with revanchnik Vichyfaskistnikovy grozny franzakova !!!
A-hohohohoh !!!
yes, I read that, but it will not be boots on the ground, just training a local army, like the French and the Americans, Algeria wouldn't want that a "neocolonial army" intervens at its border. Also why Hollande is trying to mend the franco-algerian relations, in order to get its help.
See especially under the sub-heading " "Prête à soutenir une intervention au Mali"
Next step: Berlin/Brussels to make la patrie's entire foreign policy. Serves Marie right:)
Better take The Old Patagonian Express after all?
I read your link. Westerwelle obviously doesn't have a clue what he's up against.
Westerwelle made the show for the UN
we don't care if he has a clue or not, suffices that he participates to the finances of the operation
"TheMorph done a bunk?"
I confess that his reams were about as successful in holding my attention as @sanmartinian's.
I gather he wanted to tell us about his hobbies, profession, hairstyle and the type of spex he favoured.
What will the bots come up with for their cause next?
I noticed he signed off to let the world know he was in love ... to show us what a self-awarded "prize" can do for an eurobot?
Spring time for TheMorph.
When he realized his eurobot propaganda of Europe is superior to America wasn't working he ran off. He was obsessed with the Gini coefficient of USA vs Europe and wrote pages and pages of it, till Maher demolished his theories so artfully that he was left speechless.
Probably as the euro goes from crisis to crisis the Eurobots have been told to divert the topic to Gini in America and pretend as if the euro crisis doesn't exist.
"I noticed he signed off to let the world know he was in love ... "
It seems that that is one of your lack and regret
Confess your sins my brother! What did you fib about this time? Not to worry, Zorbas will absolve you of all your mortal sins. Just be sure to pay your taxes though. You know the drill, death and taxes. Even God cannot help you with the taxes part. We will all soon see about the death part...laughs
Lots of damage to the house, part of the roof came off. No electricity for 7 days. Business will be up and running again first thing Monday morning. Good thing too, don't think the homeowners policy covers loss of income.
The good news is they are waving the Hurricane deductible. Would have come to $15,000, which of course exceeds the cost of a new roof.
PS - You don't know the half of it brother. Come to America, and I will teach you who the real liars are. If honesty were indeed the best policy, I would be a CEO, and the CEOs would be workers like me. You can bank on that.
Rich workers like me. Save your money...laughs
@ Leaveittoviva (without black friends)*:
Didn't you say you were in the tank for Willard "The Mitten" Romney? It must have eluded you that one of the main planks of his platform is fiscal conservatism à la Germany.
You know, balanced budgets and all that stuff.
The US is heading for a fiscal cliff, and it's about time somebody hits the brakes before we get there. Federal revenues are entirely eaten up by expenses for three prgrams only (social security, medicare, medicaid) and debt service. Everything else, including military spending, goes on the credit card - that's a whopping 1 trillion of new debt each year.
With debt at 100 % of GDP, and an average 7 % deficit for the past five years, balancing the budget is imperative. Unfortunately, even the "ambitious" Ryan plan only calls for a balanced budget in ... 2040.
By comparison, Germany is a fiscal conservative's heaven: 0 % deficit in 2012, debt at 82 % of GDP and set to decrease from next year, and a constitutional deficit limit in place outlawing deficits in excess of 0.35 % of GDP as of 2014.
Exposure to Southern European crisis economies (Greece! Italy! LOL) is a concern, but the liability is limited to a grand total of around 10% of GDP at the moment.
So it's easy to see which country is financially healthier.
* What's the deal with you and blacks? One of the biggest regrets of my life is not to have courted beautiful black M. a bit more courageously when in bording school in Dixie. All things considered, that was an unforgiveable mistake.
... boarding school ... (second-to-last line)
bording school in Dixie?
Even with the correct spelling (boarding school), boarding schools are quite unknown in the south. Don't mess up again. Next time do your research before spinning your tales about "Dixie".
"Boarding school is simply not woven into the educational fabric of most families in the American South.
Public schools dominate the educational landscape. The South- until recently- had little generational wealth. Growing up in the South, the only ways that one might learn about boarding schools were through books like A Catcher in the Rye."
I know how "boarding school" is spelled (click on my monicker, and you'll see that I corrected myself long before you started to harp on and on about it) - after all, I've attended one. Sorry you made it only to boring school.
The concept of boarding schools is familiar in the South: I know what I'm talking about since I attended one for 4 long years.
And no, I didn't meet Obama or Romney. But the Clintons, both of them. Too bad there are term limits. Bubba dwarfs them all.
List of Southern Boarding Schools:
Mine is even on the list.
Depending on how narrowly you define "Dixie", that should limit the choice even for a non-Southerner like yourself.
The unpayable debts of Greece, Spain and Italy, will simply be absorbed by the ECB, so why worry? The ECB will pick up the tab.
Yet who is the ECB? Why, the members of the EZ of course.
But the insolvent EZ members certainly can't make ECB debt good, they're responsible for it in the first place.
So who might be one of the solvent ECB members, Josh? Germany perhaps?
So it is Germany on the hook for the debts of Greece, Spain and Italy after all. Are the Germans aware of this? What happens when the Germans discover they are bankrolling the lifestyles of the socialist heaven of the peripheral nations of the EU?
How far will that vaunted sense of guilt of the German's support- for support it they will- the weight of Europe's Club Med?
Yet the contradiction, whereby the seemingly powerful German financial position is undercut by the gigantic and growing ECB balance sheet, the prestidigitation designed to fool the unsuspecting nations of Europe in order to subvert the democratic order of Europe, is not supposed to be noticed until it is an accomplished fact.
The obedient EU enthusiast rants against the UK or US when this deceit becomes even remotely an issue. Distract and ignore. Those are the watchwords of the good EU enthusiast.
But ignorance and distraction have a price. And the social and financial health of Europe will pay that price because the good EU enthusiast, harking back to Europe's heritage, has- again- chosen ideology over reality.
I've forgiven you. I just had to call you that and it's goone! Can't even remember it any longer... wait what was it again? Completely slipped my mind!!
Boarding school really? I went to boarding school. My father believed in would build character but it didn't. at all.
Regarding Münchau here a slightly satirical article about him you might enjoy:
ach about Gold?
"What happens when the Germans discover they are bankrolling the lifestyles of the socialist heaven of the peripheral nations of the EU?"
Yes, the Greeks will be sitting pretty in their socialist paradise alright. I can hear them now. "More free hay for my donkey! Maria, turn on the thermostat for 5 minutes, I want to wash my feet in the sink."...laughs
Don't worry Viva, everybody will be able to borrow to finance their own debt once again, and European debt will be just like American debt, a whole lot of meaningless big numbers.
Of course every once in a while, someone will come up with that age old idea to reduce the debt, possibly get himself elected, and add even more to it.
"Rolling, rolling, rolling, keep that debt ah rolling, Raw Hide!"
Riddle for you: How do you make a German have a nervous breakdown?
Take away his organization.
One more: How do you make a Greek have a nervous breakdown?
Tell him to be on time...laughs
Gold Louis
Hilarious! That's how I wake up usually, with Bobonne making the Gold clinking wake me up :-)
Germany might be getting richer, but the average German is getting poorer.
woah woah woah
there's water in UKIP gas, Grand Mamamouchi Farage isn't idol
(I knew I would find the missing link)
ça alors, Nicki undemocratic ?
Do you know who "junius" is? An EU-employed troll and standing joke in the mainstream blogosphere.
Here are some fresh EU-trolling horrors (they're getting beyond desperate). I hope you have digested your breakfast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sora5Nq17G8&feature=player_embedded telling us how the "EU" among other things "tore down the Berlin Wall"
If that hasn't got you to the sick bucket there always this sickly abomination by the Young European Federalists from Berlaymont.
Enjoy ;)
It seems that Theomorph and the retired eurocrat in Düsseldorf are wilfully indifferent to this succinct summary of the "EU's" lack of mandate in the EZ, posted by A J Maher in reply to theomorph Oct 24th, 14:54, but instead continue to trot out archaic scapegoating anti "anglo-saxon" cliché presumably as a reaction to the lampooning of this Nobel "award".
Here it is again with the kind permission of honourable moderators:
"@ Theomorph:
"In continental Europe, Euroskepticism is a politically marginal position, openly advocated only by far-Left or far-Right wing parties, but never by mainstream parties."
Europe's parties have certainly colluded to impose euro integration on their reluctant public. On Lisbon over 90% of the TD's (representatives) in the Dail Eireann supported the treaty. Over 53% of the Irish public voted against it. When Germany approved Maastricht only 6% of the representatives in the Bundestag opposed the treaty whilst public opposition to Maastricht was consistently polling at over 62% . In '05 The French assembly ratified the constitution by a majority of 90%. The French people rejected it by 55%. If the decision had been left to the Dutch Parliament the constitution would have been ratified by 85% - the Dutch people however rejected it by 62%. The same yawning gap is evident in Denmark, Czech, Poland, Sweden and so on and on.
Euro enthusiasm in Europe is therefore not "mainstream" at all Theo. The euro agenda has advanced by means of a process of open political rape in which the no of millions of voters has been persistently overruled by the collusive yes of a clutch of insiders and operators – prime beneficiaries of the new transnational oligarchy.
[I happened to have been in Paris when "Maastricht" was railroaded through, and the mood was ugly. Why had the French abandoned the best of their "take to the streets" tradition? The "faire l' Europe" brainwashing must have taken its toll, but now they may wake up to what a soulless France as an "EU"-region of the Mitterands, Chiracs, Sapins, Sarkozies and Hollandes it has brought on them. Strange.]
Of course like all other ludicrous projects to abolish history this one has done nothing but wreak catastrophe and destruction. [And here we are!]
A new chapter has already opened on this story Theo. In just a few short years parties long entrenched in government have been reduced to a whimpering rump (Fianna Fail & Pasok) whilst others have moved from nowhere into the mainstream (True Finns Smytrga etc.).
The fact is that the euro is a policy so massively destructive of the public welfare that it will have to be abandoned. Whether this outcome is achieved by mainstream parties or by their new replacements is the only remaining question.
@Theomorph: "The UK is different not just because the British public is statistically so much more Europhobic. The UK is also different because Europhobes are so thoroughly entrenched in Britain's mainstream party system."
Indeed - which is why British mainstream politics has not been able to ignore the views of the British public – Democracy in action!"
They are not programmed to answer this, and despite this posting will woodenly insist, despite increasing unrest on the continent, that their "project" is popular and has a democratic mandate.
Sabbatical is over, working again, and also very much in love. So time for blogging is limited.
Even so, have been preparing something that, I trust, will meet your need to see a robust reply to Maher.
@ Birtnick
Your posting shows us one of the main problems on this thread.
theomorph tells us that eurosceptism is marginal in Continenantal Europe, which of course is not true, to which Maher replies with data and statistics pointing out that on the contrary it is widespread.
Pumpernickel then intervenes to tell Maher that the UK has dire economic problems.
It's a shame and predictably repetitive, I know.
The various "blocs" set out their pieces, then one side throws theirs away without even attempting to attain that acme of civilised debate by agreeing to disagree, but instead simply send the whole caboose a-circling the ceramic of irrelevance by scapegoating, facebooking, petty nationalism or name-calling.
Yes for some strange reason, the eurobots never respond to Maher's rebuttals. I suppose his artful demolishment of the eurobot's dubious pet theories, leaves them speechless.
Was highly amused to see that Maher's demolishing of the eurobot's favorite topic Gini co-effecient did not get a response either. No suprise there.
Maher wrote:
"The other points you have made on Gini co-effecients in the US vs. Europe are fine as far as they go but that isn't as far as you wish to take them.
Inequality is greater in the US than in Europe but a sensible critique would account for the fact that someone statistically poor in the US (60% below the medium household income) would not be statistically poor in Europe simply because the US median is so much higher than the median in Europe (even Germany).
So the Gini comparisons show that it is possible for inequalities to be lower in a society with higher levels of real poverty (Europe) than in a richer society (the US). The same is true of Tanzania but it is not generally a matter of celebration for that destitution nation."
Even EU officials admit eurosceptism is a continent wide problem because the EU's own polls show barely 40% of Europeans have a favorable opinion of the EU. See cut & paste of link below.
But die hard eurobots continue living in a delusional world.
"But opinion surveys in the 27 member countries show support for the union eroding.
European Parliament President Martin Schulz did find succor in a Eurobarometer survey, released in September, that showed 40% of respondents in favor of the E.U., vs. just 31% in 2011.
Schulz called that result "encouraging" — not the most apt response to evidence that substantially less than half of the E.U.'s citizens are happy about it, a decline of 12 points since 2007."
check what the young French rather do these days
which position do you have in UKIP organisation?
for those that can read French, a article, on "when CIA financed the European Union building" from a french Historian
at the beginning it was ment to contain the "communist" expension, also financed by Stalin on the continental western Europe
"which position do you have in UKIP organisation?"
Well, if Birtnick is a member of UKIP, is that any different from your own position in France as a champion of French sovereignty, independence and as a supporter of Jean-Pierre Chevènement and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, both 'Europhobes'?
I don't have a membership card, actually today I would prefer a Vals
If there was a "FIP" in France, you would be one of its militants.
Ho, ho!
what thaaaaaaaaaaaat?
I must say, I remember when I kept posting a study sponsored by several official NATO-sponsored European institutions, claiming that Germany was less eurosceptic than, say Spain, or Italy, and everyone just kept ignoring it..
Remember that, Junoir? When the likes of Birdcage and Maherzinho were trying to pit the Germans against 'Southern Europe'.
Oh, how quickly tables turn..
hey, your American friends, it's the "grand Amoooooooooooooour"
@ Pedro
I'm delighted that you and Josh have decided to be friends again as I was greatly distressed to see two Europeans not on speaking terms. After all, isn't that what the EU is all about, learning to love one another?
We have to put aside these minor details about Josh being a northern supremacist and you a donkey and consider the big picture – EUROPE! "the best place on earth to live", as Forlana has wisely told us. We have to work together "so we can see eyeball to eyeball with the US and China", create a union of solidarity and tolerance where Europeans will proudly hold up their heads as European citizens, donkeys, supremacists, scroungers, isolationists, anti-Americans, New Dawn vigilantes all "having drinks together", as you once told us, and getting to know one another.
This is what it's all about, isn't it, Pedro?
EUROPE! "the best place on earth to live" as progressiv Forlana pull korrekt line !!
This true path dialektik same Franzaki and PIGIS while subsidiarinojsk keeping korrekt shape !!!!!
Plitplov have keen eyes and ear on street in Lisbon, Milan, Madrid !!
So Plitplov must kut to chase smoke guff away for sum up Forlana dialektik ->
"My €SSR mean fattest subsidiarinojsk or it mean NOTHING !!!!"
"the likes of Birdcage and Maherzinho were trying to pit the Germans against 'Southern Europe'"
Now why would these characters want to do that when the "EU" has done the job with such thoroughness?
The "euro" has been a dazzling success at pitting North vs South *as well as* South vs North, don't you think?
"Maherzinho" and others have warned this forum for as long as I have read it against the wreckage this uncommon currency would unleash on Europe. And is this how you thank them?
So I don't think Birdcage and Maherzinho would even get a look in: it was your very own "EU"-inside job that has poisoned the waters for Europe, which no amount of taxpayers' moneys can decontaminate now.
@ Pedro
"the likes of Birdcage and Maherzinho were trying to pit the Germans against 'Southern Europe'"
How about trying a bit of honesty?
What about the Finn, 'Markhutt' with whom you quarreled because he wanted an 'übereuro' for his country?
What about the Dutchman (whose monicker I forget) who felt much the same way and who sent you into fitsn of rage?
What about 'Enlisted' and Josh who thought Portugal should not be sharing a currency with Germany, at least not for a while? As far as I know, you are still not 'talking' to 'Enlisted'.
What about Joe who says Germans are barbarians with 'Nazis working at the Bundesbank'?
Very selective, aren't you, Pedro? especially in the case of 'Birdcage' who has contributed practically nothing to the north/south debate.
I wonder WHY you are selective. ( Actually, I don't wonder at all. I know, but we'll keep it just between you and me)
the US comedians who poke fun:
"Mitt, you do know that most of America thinks Mali is one of Obama's daughters, right?" Obama's eldest daughter is named Malia."
And how many Europeans think Mali is Obama's daughter? LOL
NAFTA is very similar to the Australian/New Zealand bilateral agreements and by most measures NAFTA has been a resounding success.
Free movement of goods, services & skills without any of the complications of a common currency or poltical & fiscal union.
Mexico is fast becoming a middle class country thanks to NAFTA.
A February survey of Mexicans by the independent pollster Jorge Buendia reports that 65 percent of respondents consider themselves in the middle class.
And it is the Mexico where NAFTA dreams came true, where billions in foreign investment have fostered a flourishing aircraft-manufacturing industry anchored by companies such as Bombardier Aerospace, General Electric and Siemens.
It is the Mexico where the top 50 names for newborns include a lot of American-sounding names such as Vanessa and Jonathan
It is in sunny Queretaro where you can clearly see the new Mexico of 60-hour workweeks, Costco box stores and private English-language academies churning out bilingual 14-year-olds."
@ emmafinney:
"'Finally, I would like to point out that Scandinavia and Germany has balanced budgets.'
I don't know about Scandinavia but Germany's deficits is over 2.7 trillion euros and in fact Germany's debt to GDP ratio is higher than Spain."
Even high-school dropouts should be able to distinguish DEFICIT and DEBT - especially when they are past their 1000th post on the topic in an online blog.
DEBT is the grand total, DEFICIT is what is added each year. Let me explain the difference by using a simple example:
US: 100% of GDP
GERMANY: 82 % of GDP
US: 7% of GDP
GERMANY: 0 % of GDP
Got it, finally? Great.
The US could only wish it was as financially healthy as Germany. If Romney was serious about deficit reduction, he'd have my vote.
Probably not getting it.... Emmasherry might be "cognitively deaf". Or, as Marie-Claude suggested, perhaps suffers Tourette syndrome -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourette_syndrome .
Even so, valiant effort Josh; much to be applauded.
Perhaps you could also explain to "Emma-migliaia-di-messaggi" why it is not a lie to claim that the EU has proven instrumental in securing the peace in Europe (in partnership with NATO, Viva!); where said peace is to be understood as lasting accord between France, Germany, and Italy – peace between so-called "Great Powers" who once fought internecine wars.
I really, honestly, and truly tried to explain this exceedingly obvious interpretation of the Nobel prize citation. But was subsequently accused by "Emma-mille-messages" of casuistical reasoning and double-speak. Why, you might ask? Well, because France fought wars in Indochina, Africa, etc. throughout its EU membership.....
Yeah, I know, a total non-sequitur: the issue at hand is peace in Europe, between Great Powers who once fought each other.
No matter. Let's just say "IT WAS NOT GOT."
Here's hoping that you are a better man than me, Gunga Din....:)
All best wishes,
Since the condition of peace in Europe preceeded the existence of the EU and since you present no evidence that the EU has in any way contributed to peace in Europe, there is no justification for your repeated statement that the EU has been instrumental in the maintenence of peace in Europe.
In evidence to the contrary, the peace of Europe, having been broken in the Balkans, was reestablished by NATO, not the EU. Further, the peace (and freedom) of Europe was preserved (and extended) during the Cold War by NATO, not the EU. Indeed, without NATO, Italy would have been overrun by refugees from Libya last year, regardless of how loud the EU screamed.
Additional evidence contrary to your statement is the fact that the EU's euro is creating tensions and strife as well as economic and financial havoc in Europe, and that the institutions of the EU are overrunning the democratic institutions of the member states, creating the preconditions for strife.
This proof that EU does not maintain peace in Europe makes your claim to being a professor of philosophy highly dubious since you can't understand or, worse, simply choose to ignore the logical progression I have explained.
I wouldn't be bragging any more around here about being affiliated with any institution of higher learning if I were you, since this poster will continue to expose your lack of professorial acuity and overweening self-important fatuity at every future opportunity. :)
But since you will probably ignore the Aristotelean reality with which I am confronting you and continue your Nobel-inspired insipidity, I will pre-empt your next lazy degenerate effort by simply telling you in advance to read this post again.
Josher the Clown
How are things back at the circus? Glad you had a few moments away from all the nose honking and watering can pranks to add your profound erudition to our little blog.
Germany cannot possibly be more economically healthy than the sole issuer of the world's reserve currency, when it is joined at the hip with nations that are afire, adrift and sinking.
If instead of glorying in its quarter trillion surplus, milked from the sweat of its drones and the tears of its euro subjects, Germany chose to defer the debts owed to her banks, the delinquincy of which are tearing the EU apart, she might have a claim to superiority over the US financial position (strange you never want to compare Germany to China, eh Ludwig?).
Instead she has decided to delay, delay, delay to the last, reasoning that her strengthening position gives her greater power at the bargaining table. But Germany should know that what she is doing is alienating all the improvident nations of Europe whose only mistake was accepting German products and German loans.
Those people have long memories, much longer than whatever quarterly earnings report Germany has to crow about today.
What does this augur for the future of Germany? Lamentably for us all, every indication is that she shall reap the whirlwind.
Ignore the pshychiatric case. He needs theraphy.
Never having encountered self hatred before it took me a long time to figure it out.
But it appears my hunch was right - see link below. Only 18%? The entire country needs therapy.
In the 2003–04 World Values Survey
74 percent of Americans felt strongly that they'd "rather be a citizen of my country than any other."
This surpassed any other nationality. Comparable responses were 58 percent for Canadians
37 percent for South Koreans
18 percent for Germans.
Sometimes it seems that your penchant for rhetoric clouds your ability to think clearly, accurately, and in a nuanced way.
Yes, of course NATO was responsible for keeping the Soviet Union in check during the Cold War, and of course NATO has been the EU's primary military institution. In effect, the EU has not had anything equivalent to its own autonomous Pentagon, or Joint Chiefs of Staff. Instead, it has had/has NATO, which incorporates a number of non-EU countries like Turkey, the United States, etc.
But peace between countries is not fostered or preserved by guns alone. The central idea behind the ECSC – the European Coal and Steel Community that immediately preceded the EEC – was to integrate French and German industry so deeply, that the two countries would be materially incapable of going to war ever again.
The EU could then be viewed as a radical expansion of this idea: create an integrated economic block in Europe so massively intertwined, that no European country can for even one moment imagine itself economically "autarkic". Fund exchange programs between twinned cities so generously, that not even economically modest workers in Germany will be able to think of Italians (for instance) as distant "others". Instead, German workers will fondly remember trips to twinned Italian cities where they made friends with Carlo and his wife Maria, Alessandra and her husband Marco. Or create ERASMUS, an institutional and financial framework that makes it very easy for EU students attending university in one country, to spend a year studying in another, so that later in life they will remember fondly their year (or years) studying abroad. And so on.
The list of EU initiatives of this sort is incredibly long, and the work necessary to put these initiatives in place has not been insignificant. For instance, European universities most recently engaged in an enormous undertaking called the "Bologna Process", by means of which they have sought to standardize university degrees and course-structures across to continent, thereby enabling diplomas in various discipline to become universally recognizable. This matters, of course, because only if a young person's degree is "portable", can they actually move around and seek jobs in their chosen discipline in other EU countries.
Viva, you do not live or work in Europe, so again, to put matters very bluntly (as Pumpernickel has a well), you are simply blind to such detail.
I have already made it clear that I know perfectly well that, at an exclusively military level, NATO has been primarily responsible for peace in Europe. But the kinds of initiatives that I very briefly sketched above are also important, especially from a more long-term perspective. They are the heart and soul of "European integration", if you will, and go way beyond a merely commercial agreement to conduct free-trade, or the EU Commission's production of continent-wide commercial law.
When Fritz meets and falls in love with Francesca on an EU-sponsored apprenticeship-trainee program during a year abroad, and a few years later they marry and have children, do you honestly want to claim that their union will do nothing whatsoever to promote peace and harmony between EU nations?
All best wishes,
'The central idea behind the ECSC – the European Coal and Steel Community that immediately preceded the EEC – was to integrate French and German industry so deeply, that the two countries would be materially incapable of going to war ever again'.
At last you have acknowledged my point: Peace, unbreakable if want to speculate, but peace existed before the EU. And if it was as you claim unbreakable BEFORE the EU, why did Europe require the EU, which to use you expression is radical?
Now you have only to take the final step and recognize the elements of destruction that the EU have introduced into the bloodstream of Europe, using the euro as a trojan horse.
Democracy is threatened in nations that only a generation ago were dictatorships. Economies are collapsing. Medicine and food is in short supply. Retirements are drying up. Political extremism is rising.
How far does it have to go before you recognize that the leaders of the EU, and indeed the political leaders of the member nations of the EU, for one reason or another cannot or will not reverse course. The voices of the people must be heard.
Look at the status of Greece, Spain and Italy. Listen to their peoples' cries of distress and heed the worsening situation. People can only stand so much. And it is spreading.
No nation is safe. The world hangs in the balance.
Lean down from your ivory tower and see and hear. Then acknowledge the reality and depth of the suffering. Then turn your powers of persuasion on those that have influence to reverse the course of this monstrosity that is the EU.
That is the true role of the philosopher.
Hi Viva,
Sorry to get so explicit and technical, but above I suggested that the ECSC could be interpreted in TWO possible ways:
1) As a non-EU organization that has no relationship whatsoever with the EU, and that preceded the EU
2) As a proto-EEC organization; and the EEC in turn (the European Economic Community) could be interpreted as a proto-EU organization
The first interpretation is preposterous. It is quite historically obvious that the ECSC "morphed" into the EEC, which in turn "morphed" into the EU.
Better to acknowledge that the "EU", very broadly conceived, existed at least in protean form from 1951 onwards. And better to say, as well, that as the EU has evolved, at some point it took a wrong turn somewhere (on your view). So that now, instead of being an institution contributing to peace and stability in Europe, the EU might be doing the opposite. Personally, I think that this is the argument that you might probably want to make.
Or better, perhaps, to say something like,
"The EU should return to its earlier incarnation as the EEC, when it was really just a glorified customs union".
This is in effect the argument that Marie-Claude has made.
And again, as per a previous post in another thread, one could call this the "soft" Euroskeptic position. It's the view that some aspects of the EU have been good, but currency union was a step too far, and some EU developments now need to be reversed.
Whereas the "hard" Euroskeptic position proposes to scrap the EU altogether, not returning to anything: not the EEC, and not the ECSC.
If you ask them directly enough, a number of the more militant Europhobic bloggers -- like Birtnick, of instance -- will admit that they are "hard" Euroskeptics, who want to see the whole thing just scrapped, period. The UKIP in Britain, for instance, wants Britain to unilaterally secede from the EU.
Interestingly enough, it has now become apparent that Junior is probably not a "hard Euroskeptic" of this sort. Junior's position seems to straddle the borderline between "hard" and "soft" Euroskepticism. Will be interesting to see where Junior eventually locates himself, as the debate clarifies further.
I will be posting my response to Maher this evening. But let me just note in advance that when the topic is "Euroskepticism", the term is bandied about with insufficient discrimination. A significant proportion of Britain's population – probably about 50 % – are indeed "hard" Euroskeptics, who would vote tomorrow to secede from EU if they were asked. To then claim that there is similar Euroskepticism on the continent, is obviously completely inaccurate. Sure, many continentals like Marie-Claude would like to rescind the second phase of post-Maastrictht European integration. Or they would like to abandon the single currency. But this is a position substantially different from wanting to scrap the EU and all of its institutions completely.
Can you appreciate the differences? There are different kinds and degrees of Euroskepticism, and only a fool would argue that there is a huge, 50 % contingent of secessionists on the continent, as there most definitely is in the UK.
Yes, there most definitely are Euroskeptical parties, and Euroskeptical people on the continent. But saying this, is very, very different from saying that continentals are every bit as profoundly anti-EU as the British, both in quantitative and qualitative terms.
More tonight, when I plague Maher et al with abundant links and statistics.
All best wishes,
@ theomorph
Do you REALLY wish to know what alternative I think there is to the EU? Will it do any good if I tell you? First, my objections:
- Uniformity of thinking: the imposition by a Commission (that meets in secret) of laws on countries as different as Cyprus and Finland. This leads to the present widespread non-respect for the law, which is a prelude to anarchy.
- The huge democratic deficit: this is so overwhelming with so many examples that have been brought up regularly here that I shan't bother to mention them. However, I am dismayed that people like yourself are completely happy with this situation (since it doesn't seemt to offend you in any way) which makes me genuinely question the motives for your support.
- The Common Agricultural Policy: a source of wicked wasre with the over-production of food, much of which is dumped on the African market, driving local farmers out of business. This question is never discussed. Is it just one more of those unimportant details?
- the lies, distortion and propaganda, the brain-washing and the re-writing of history. "The EU kept the peace in Europe for 60 years", the hammer and sickle included in the new EU badge, the millions of € of taxpayers' money spent to promote the EU, millions of glossy magazines distributed free and hundreds of EU websites available, the dismissal of opponents of the EU as 'cranks' (do you remember the way the USSR used to send 'cranks' for psychiatric treatment for questioning the regime) …..Now we are even told that "the EU tore down the Berlin Wall".
- lessons from history: no European attempt to achieve the unity of Europe, by whatever means, has ever succeeded, for one very simple reason. A person is loyal to his family, his friends, his community and his country in that order. No-one would lay down his life for the European Commission, and as it perversely increases its control over our daily lives, the backlash from what you call "Europhobes" can only grow.
- the Euro: an attempt to foist a common currency on countries with such disparate economies, causing the strains and suffering we are witnessing today.
- a serious and indisputable decline in the quality of relations between EU countries. Witness Merkel's reception in Athens the other day, which even the 'Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung' described as worse than that extended to Adenauer in 1954.
Didn't you say you were in the tank for Willard "The Mitten" Romney? It must have eluded you that one of the main planks of his platform is fiscal conservatism à la Germany.
You know, balanced budgets and all that stuff.
The US is heading for a fiscal cliff, and it's about time somebody hits the brakes before we get there. Federal revenues are entirely eaten up by expenses for three prgrams only (social security, medicare, medicaid) and debt service. Everything else, including military spending, goes on the credit card - that's a whopping 1 trillion of new debt each year.
With debt at 100 % of GDP, and an average 7 % deficit for the past five years, balancing the budget is imperative. Unfortunately, even the "ambitious" Ryan plan only calls for a balanced budget in ... 2040.
By comparison, Germany is a fiscal conservative's heaven: 0 % deficit in 2012, debt at 82 % of GDP and set to decrease from next year, and a constitutional deficit limit in place outlawing deficits in excess of 0.35 % of GDP as of 2014.
Exposure to Southern European crisis economies (Greece! Italy! LOL) is a concern, but the liability is limited to a grand total of around 10% of GDP at the moment.
So it's easy to see which country is financially healthier.
Finally, you have noticed that nobody ever mentions Sweden and Denmark, two countries whose popuations said NO to the € and seem to be in no hury to join the EZ. Why?
Also, Iceland has abandoned the idea while Central Europe seems no longer to be in any hurry to join.
Danmark is pegged on the euro, it has some difficulties too, not all because of this pegging, but because of the environment recession
very unbalanced and biased article AGAIN? The economist used to provide poeple with articles that make much more sense and from balanced view. Little disappointed with its recent articles,
Looks like the ECONOMIST is now
. in favour of Mr Romney over Mr Obama
. no matter what, China is wrong
(cannot you just send a simple congrats to China's 1st Nobal prize winner? According to that journalist, the winner's pen name - mo yan means "silence (or talk nothing)". However, the TRUTH is the pen name "mo yan" is a dividens of the winner's first name 谟 in Chinese. What a lack of research)
. unbalanced view regarding scottish independence (did not include opinion from both sides)
. now it comes to question the Nobal Prize
The EU may be a imperfect body in many ways and facing a lot of challenge now, but it still well deserved to win the Nobal award. The EU is what made and maintained European peace development a reality.It also largely contribute to the development in many developing countries.
A couple of Obamaisms from the debate on international affairs last night: "... we have aircraft carriers that planes land on and we have ships that go under the water, nuclear submarines..."
Makes you glad to be a murkin.
You won't remember and don't care because he's a Dummycrap. But, man, is he stupid.
Want to know what America is really like?
I only said the Economist seems to favour Mr Romey over Mr Obama, even if you donot agree, you donot have to be rude.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz - usual distraction from the eurodesperado: *Pumpernickel to Theomorph in the early hours of this day* –
"Junior can enter into the spirit (eh? Does your dreary "pub" have such a thing as "spirit"?) but for some reason gets annoyed when I rub it in about the dire condition of the UK ".
No 'pumpernickel', you misread Junior entirely as you do most others:
Junior clearly does NOT get "annoyed when you rub it in about the dire condition of the UK", but wonders as do many others why you NEVER even attempt to answer criticism of the disastrous effects that your "EU" has had on this continent by invariably bringing in Britain or the USA as a distraction from the topic.
For the umpteenth time - what relevance do either of those nations have to the failure and extreme unpopularity of your precious "EU" ?
No wonder you are known as an anglophobic bore here. It is plain to anyone that the British "crime", in your dictatorial eyes, is that it has so little interest in your dictatorship and wants no part in it. You find this *intolerable*, simple as that. You expose your nature.
TRY to deal with the topic – most other posters do, but you seem to be programmed not to do so and to prefer gossip and insult. If you will not address topics, then you will continue to be referred to as a eurofascist propagandist and drone – and nothing more.
Is ANYONE interested in visiting a "pub" in which a boring, unpopular, and deadly ignorant retired German eurocrat (you certainly behave like one), an anglophobe with an inferiority complex, holds forth daily with his dreary gossip and contributes nothing whatsoever to a topic except his hatred for those who disagree with the primitive dictatorship that he still serves and trolls for – without giving any satisfactory reasons for it?
A visit to a "pub" to meet a sickly, repetitive, crashing bore busting a gut trying to be "humorous", whose only company are the unloved representatives of Europe's sickness and recipients of subsidies from this stricken and ever-more desperate dictatorship that has to give itself awards for being so unpopular, and who talk to themselves?
This eurobot is aware of his unpopularity and had become incessantly bitchy claws about Maher and Junior who repeatedly expose his inanities. Judging by the time of posting the sad desperado must even be losing sleep over this.
Desperate, just like his self-"awarding" "Nobel"-laureated organisation.
With your kind permission, Nicole? :-)
Here are some of the hard and selfish reasons why a "Eurozone" makes sense to its members:
a) It allows the people to use the same currency across 17+ countries, saving on cost and time and irritation.
b) It allows companies to trade freely without the need of currency hedging and no loss from currency conversion.
The above two reasons by themselves are reason enough for the "selfish" but then there is more, far more:
c) It allows the ECB to print money with impunity, when needed, just like the USA, on the strength of one market power.
d) any inflation caused by such activities will depress the currency, which will make exported goods and services cheaper (this is of special benefit for the GIPS countries, not so much for Germany) but the currency will be prevented from going down too far as the USA and BRIC countries have to support it in order to protect their own markets. We may, therefore, speak happily about a "Perpetuum Mobile" effect.
e) The Eurozone is in the process to ring fence against speculative attacks from outside by introducing a Financial Transaction Tax which will curb hyper fast computer trading, whilst shifting the burden of bailing out failing banks in future from the tax payer to the punters.
f) Some form of European Glass-Steagall will be found and introduced as soon as possible to prevent banks gambling with tax payers monies and when losing being bailed out by tax payers.
g) If, after proper regulations and safety devices have been introduced, any country in future still experiences financial difficulties however caused, it can continue to count on the solidarity of its peers, AS THERE IS STRENGTH IN NUMBERS.
I could go on ad nauseam giving reasons why FOR PURELY SELFISH REASONS it makes sense to belong to the Euro Club without straining my imagination too much but let the above suffice.
Saw most of the debate and, boy, did Obamarama wipe the floor with the Mormon. It was a joy to behold, viva.
No chance for Romney to win it, methinks.
Sorry, viva, you will have to live with Obama four more years and it will do you and your cross burning friends some good. Make you more humble. Make you learn to appreciate the achievements of civilization brought to Gods Own Country compliments of the Democrats under Obama.
Your move, vivadonkeyhottey.
and let's not forget
h) For the GIPS countries: It gives them a rock solid currency. One they trust and save in, unlike their drachma, punt, escudo, peseta. One that keeps its value. One that is backed by the accumulated gold reserves of 17+ countries. One that is a Deutschmark inside, a drachma outside. Best of both worlds.
Nicole, this viva is a devilish deviant character from what we Americans call the swampland. You'd better watch out. The only thing worse is that slimey kraut pooperscooper.
But you're most welcome here. Do tell us what you think.
A recommend from me for discernment, Like u were saying.
Yes, Nicole. Most welcome. Any fiend of viva is my friend.
I will protect you from the little guy playing rambo around here to compensate for being henpecked at home. Don't let him impress you :-)
Caught a cold or something singing at the weekend with Meeresluft floating about. Throat is hurting and staying in bed. What is your remedy for such like?
And Nicole, this here "poopynickle" is the pooperscooper I was talking about, a smelly two-bit clown with loose orifice. This character is definitely the mostest foulest around here, but you don't need to worry - a three-year old can smell him out from a mile away.
Viva horseshoe from the swamp, that's the character you need to be weary of.
and one more thing, Nicole, viva is so fond of himself that he has created "Like I was saying" as his own side kick, so beware.
Yup, it is some crazy blog around here but what it needs is ladies. There was one lovely American lady, apolitica, once but she was so disgusted with the pimpled fat one here, the Zulu, that she quit, leaving us with the tramps. Hope you have more backbone and, if you are Mrcan, a special welcome to you.
I am not an anglophobic. I am living and studying in England, I love the people here and love everything here (while maybe just not the weather where I live).
The only reason I say "unbalanced opinion" is because I heard people talking about independency when I traveled to scotland, since now England and Scotland have agreed on a vote in 2014 to decide(in peace) whether or not scotland will go independent. However, TE articles on this topic seems only say what trouble the scotish will face IF the voting result turn out to be yes. May be I did not make it clear,but all I want to know is how do English people feel and ALSO how do scotish people feel regarding this matter.
I only used a shot sentences say TE did not include opinion from both side (one line and one word),
and I never said "british 'crime'----as accused by you " , I never even think it that way before you write the word.
you then judge me "an anglophobic", don't you think that is too extreme also ridiculous? Do you have Victim paranoia?
But I do agree with you about one thing,I digressed from the topic. I should not mention irrelevent topics here(I was reading other articles but write my opinion here).
So A Sorry for that.
So get rid of the irrlevance and back to the topic.
The EU may be imperfect body in may ways still and facing chanllenges nowadays. But EU's remarkable contribution in maintaining European peace and economic development cannot be simply removed. When face change as well as chellange, people should not gaveup easily. EU works, and it will keep working,chellange will only makes EU stronger if it can keep refine itself.
I read your earlier post about potential danger cause by
Sorry Nicole.L6
Sorry to disappoint you. Not one word of my comment was addressed to you this morning. Most impolite of me to butt in like that. To be honest I had not even READ your comment.
I use Firefox and had switched on my computer after breakfart, and a tab opens automatically somewhere near where you were when you shut down windows the previous day or whatever, as you perhaps know. In the intervening hours other comments had been added and it the tab opened on the nauseatigly obesequious comment that had been dropped by authoritarian eurosheep 'pumpernickel' (on Oct 24th, 04:58), presumed retired eurodork and German bore from Düsseldorf. It was addressed entirely to him (as I thought was clear at the top of the message), but I planted it it at the top because I could not be bothered to scroll down and dump it where it belonged.
PS We refer to him as Pooperscooper/Poopdeckchute/ for all his *rselicking.
And no Desperate Poop, I did not recommend myself. Only a creep eurobot would do that.
Sorry Nicole, I will now read your comments.
Ah, Nicole - to your posting!
1. Obama vs Romney.
Hope Obama loses - but only because all the wrong types of Europeans want him to win. A lot of these eurobots are people with massive guilt-complexes about race (even if they are closet racists like Poopdeckchute). V. popular with the German eurdork establishment, so therefore Obama is bad news. Nothing personal against the man, and certainly not his race.
The eurozombies would back any candidate that would appear to weaken America.
2. The EU "still well deserved to win the Nobal award".
It did not "win" it.
It awarded itself this Nobel prize for "peace".
It has done nothing to keep the peace but has caused the current instability that has divided the continent against itself.
The more the "EU" meddles in Europe the more violent this instability will manifest itself.
You will see for yourself.
You hit it on the nail.
Self hate can be smelled immediately even by a small kid.
Never realized how ugly it was till now but than again hate of any nature is a very ugly emotion.
The fight over who gets to accept the nobel prize on behalf of the EU will be hugely entertaining.
Already sparks are beginning to fly.
Merkel wanted all the European leaders to go to Olso. However this provoked a pained silence as other EU leaders visualized images of Greeks protesting with nazi signs of Merkel in Olso, beamed to the world in this day & age of the globalized media.
While the continentals live in world spectacularly disconnected with reality, trust the British to realize that the medal ceremony is going to be marked by ugly protests so Cameron came up with the brilliant idea of sending a kid from every european country. Well the protestors aren't go to greet kids with nazi signs and pelt them with eggs so this seems like a good idea.
Ok, since you missend the post.
and to your later posting regarding EU
I was on a field trip with my university to visit the European Commission in May earlier this year. I got to know a little bit of EU's history and how things works there (We spend one day there for sessions , presentations all that). I would say I am impressed by their achievement.
We had been given a small book Written by Professor Pascal Fontaine(former assistant to Jean Monnet and Professor at the institut d'Etudes Politiques, Paris), It is called"Europe in 12 lessons"----------it tells a lot about EU's history and value
and to my personal experience (been traveled around there for pleasure on before), Euro (currency)made trade and travel so much easier (therefore, I assume it will boost domestic and international tourism for the locals).
Birtnick, as I only been there a short time(other than the UK), I do not know it comprehensively. I am with open mind to accept some of your idea, will do more research. hope you can check out the book "Europe in the 12 lessons" as well.
Terrific laundry list of attractive features of a single currency! Nice summary and return to empirical reality – Dirtlick's demand, except when reality demonstrates directions he does not desire.... A laundry list so good that you even got an endorsement from Viva, in another thread.
Cold remedies? Inhale vitamin C, and lots of liquids. If it's the flu, take Tammiflu, but you have to take the medicine within 48 hours of the first symptoms. Tammiflu is not an antibiotic, but rather, an enzyme blocker, that prevents replication of the virus, and allows your immune system time to adapt, and defeat the virus before it rages out of control.
It's interesting, in a way, that Anglophones simply cannot understand or fathom that such a wide spectrum of the continental European public is pro-EU and pro-Euro, for reasons of pure "enlightened self-interest". I think the main reason Anglophones can't get their heads around this idea, is because it's quite possible that the EU is not in Britain's specific enlightened self-interest – or, at least, not in the enlightened self-interest of Britain's financialized economy, and financialized capitalist elite. I posted something to this effect two threads down.
So the average Brit simply does not "believe" that Europe's bourgeoisie and professional classes form the very core of EU support. They like to imagine that the EU is just one huge con game foisted upon the unsuspecting continental bourgeoisie by egotistical, parasitical politicians. Whereas all the empirical evidence unequivocally proves the opposite.
Of course, far-Left and far-Right parties, which represent respectively working-class labor, and lower-middle-class, small-scale shop-keepers (Hitler's core demographic), will claim that the EU was foisted upon the "little man" by middle and upper-middle-class business owners, i.e. what the French call the "haute bourgeoisie", in alliance with the professional classes. This analysis is quite different – not a theory of conspiracy by politicians, but rather, a theory of class hegemony, or a collusion of class hegemonies producing a policy, EU integration. And this latter analysis is most probably true.
I'll let the debate in the other thread (two threads down) develop a bit, and will then post some links to articles and stats on the standard continental demographic correlates of pro and anti-EU sentiment.
Get well soon,
Why don't you have this condition seen into by a shrink, Dirtlick. It is getting chronic. This passion for me is eating you up knowing that it will remain unfulfilled.
I am concerned for you :*)
Pathetic and sick.
It would not surprise me if YOU are already under psychiatric observation for your self-hatred and cloying obsequiousness.
Contribute to the topic which concerns your organisation which saw fit to award itself a "Nobel prize for peace" or dry up.
I am not the least concerned for you. I just wish you would post your sickly, repetitive propaganda and kitchen sink facebookery elsewhere, where you may find your fellow self-hating supporters of a "union" that nobody in Europe wants with your kind.
You self-hatred spreads hatred.
tell us more of your pimp experiences
Yes, you got it right.
These blogs are infested with the aroma of self hatred.
In fact self hatred reeks from almost every sentence "they" utter. The smell never goes away.
Whereas non-German supporters of the EU like Pedro, Joe Solaris, Dominique etc don't have this ugly emotion of self-hatred .
Whatever is causing this self hatred, they should go for therapy instead of using these blogs as an outlet to vent their self hatred.
Cameron himself is not even going apparently. He may have some backbone after all.
It is rather saddening to see how young, polite posters like Nicole are being brainwashed - "hope you can check out the book "Europe in the 12 lessons" as well" to show me "how the EU works", and in all sincerity. She had not even noticed that the "EU" awarded itself this Nobel prize. I haven't the heart to reply.
She'll get over it soon I am sure, once the "nazi signs" and "pelted eggs" start working their way northwards from Iberia.
@ theomorph
I'm glad you like laundry lists. So do I. Though they can be boring, they can get their point across. Here's on for you.
1988: harmonisation of administrative procedures for quarantine in the two countries.
1990: remaining tariffs and quantative restrictions on bilateral trade abolished.
1995: double taxation agreed between the two countries.
1996: agreement to harmonise customs procedures and practices in the two countries.
1996: agreement on food inspection measures.
1998: food that may be legally sold in one country may be sold in the other.
1999: Biosecurity cooperation established
2000: 'open skies' agreement, committed to the enjoyment of all freedoms of the air..etc Joint aviation and safety 'common market'
2000: coordination on business law
2001: social security agreement between the two countries;
2002: joint food standards code
Plus, sporting, educational and cultural exchanges, free travel between the two countries etc, etc,etc
What two countries are these? Yes, Australia and New Zealand which have set up ALL the bilateral agreements that you list below as "achievements" by the EU, with the sole exception of the single currency.
So what actual purpose does the EU serve?
Let me answer! Let me answer!
The EU promotes peace.
Not even NATO could prevent Europeans from exterminating each other if it wasn't for the EU.
"What two countries are these? Yes, Australia and New Zealand "
do you mean that sheep are allowed to interbreed there?
"Whereas non-German supporters of the EU like Pedro, Joe Solaris, Dominique etc don't have this ugly emotion of self-hatred."
This had not occurred to me until you pointed it out earlier (today I think). But I was well aware, as indeed are many Germans, that the self-hatred of the latter and their compulsion to sublimate themselves into this "EU" identity is a major driving force of the dictatorship in Brussels.
Your comparison has drawn my attention to a manipulative aspect to this which you'll see daily on this blog which I had not noticed: they cultivate these "non-German supporters of the EU like Pedro, Forlana, MC, Joe Solaris (not sure about JS - one weird monkey in his own right), Dominique etc who don't have this ugly emotion of self-hatred" as potential allies or cannonfodder for their desperate cause.
I noticed TheoMorph was checking out Marie as potential cannonfodder (probably simply because her name was not "angloshperic") until his sponsor presumably warned him off:)
hey, sorry but Theo is a nice looking guy, while you? come to mind, prince charles!
"they cultivate these "non-German supporters of the EU."
Yes, it is so transparent.
Their usual method is flattery which they have employed towards Junior many times but alas it has always failed miserably in his case.
However those whose vanity far exceeds their intelligence seem to have succumbed to it.
The newbies like Nicole & Femi seem have to fallen for it hook line and sinker. Marie who should know better after witnessing their manipulative tactics has surprisingly fallen for it too.
if you think that I would chose you
Marie is a free sniper, any BSh*tter gets its lot of bullets
One doesn't need an EU style organization to move freely between countries.
Globalization has made the EU redundant. People all over the world are travelling, studying and living in foreign countries.
People who bring up this up as an exclusive EU achievment are living in a hopelessly outdated 1970's world. It appears they haven't lived/studied/vacationed outside of Europe for decades
The world outside of Europe has changed so much it is unrecognisable from the world of the 1970's. Of course navel gazing Eurobots never realize that.
Yes, I noticed TheoMorph's sponsor had instructed him to suck up to Junior, but TM still has not noticed how hilarious the result was apparently.
"However those whose vanity far exceeds their intelligence seem to have succumbed to it. " We know who you mean ... shush!
I wonder how long it will take the Tomas Marnys and Forlanas to bite back as viciously as Milovan Solaris? You'll see the same old "all that lovely subs so we all jolly Europaiskis comrade" cant going down on Eastern Approaches that you used to hear from Iberia ... until the balloon went up:)
I suppose the litmus test is whether they are eurocrats by extension or actually work for a living (Joe does - give him credit.)
Come on, you can do better than this!
Do you honestly want to claim that the ease with which two Anglophonic former British colonies hammered out bilateral agreements – colonies in the middle of nowhere, with no other "natural" friends anywhere in sight, and the Commonwealth dead and buried except as a Sports organization – that this pair should serve as a shining example of how easy it might prove for any set of countries to co-ordinate policy on difficult matters?? Countries far more linguistically, ethnically, religiously, and culturally distinct than your South Pacific duo?
And are you honestly trying to suggest that – not only could such bilateral accords have been hammered out very easily, say, between Germany and France – but just as easily within a group of 10, 15, or 27 distinct European nations, without the architecture of the EU?
Junior, this simply beggars belief. You cannot honestly be suggesting this.
However, many thanks for the response, because it clarifies the difference in our positions with exactitude. Pumpernickel thought I had hit the nail on the head, when I suggested that yours is the naïve belief that the European single market can more or less spontaneously manage itself, without any need for the EU's architecture. The comment you just posted confirms that you really do believe this.
All I can say is, wow…..
Best wishes,
PS -- But again, if I am misinterpreting your position, please do correct me. In fact, I really do hope that I am misinterpreting your position!
Thanks for the good advice on my health, Theo.
I have,m however, ignored it and am heavy into williamsbirne.
Very glad to have you around doing with style what I normally only manage in a ham fisted way (to use a Dirtlick expression.
Vorsprung durch Theo ;-)
Welcome aboard! Get in there and mix it up kid. Them scales they are a tipping. Now, ask Pumper how many cigars he smoked at that shin dig of his.
Didn't we say we were going to to quit. Quit smoking for 10 days myself, but started again of course. Guess I just needed to prove to myself that I could do it. I ask, is there anything more life affirming then flirting with death...laughs
Now, back to that Macedonia site! I'm fighting wars for Greece you know, from the safety of my comfy chair. A call to arms I tell you! Fighting side by side with my Greek brothers. Even spotted Ellin. He seems very subdued though, even resigned.
Where's Viva? Viva it's been too long since I joined you in our praise of the America.
And Oshin, where did our Oshin go? I asked about her feet, and off she ran. We Greeks are Devils you know, Devils with the Midas touch.
It's the cigars isn't Pumper? I know, you cannot hide our human frailties from Zorbas. It's what we Greeks do. Weigh and size people up. Then we get old, and nag the crap out of our kids, the doctors, the repairman, you name it.
Look at this now? They're chomping at the bit to lend us more money. We wore them out. Somebody took the Troika out to a Greek dinner, and got them all drunk as a skunk on Ouzo, then we spring the terms on them!
Troika: Here, take the money.
Greeks: No, we don't want it.
Troika: Come on, take it now! You're embarrassing us.
Greeks: Well alright...laughs
Troika: You're going to do what we agreed upon right?
Greeks: Sure, sure, right away boss, but first another drink to celebrate!
You see, the Troika spent to much time in Greece, and it is the climate that corrupts.
à theomorph
"colonies in the middle of nowhere"
Australia and New Zealand are not 'colonies' but have been independent for over 100 years. The fact that they were 'former colonies' is hardly worth mentioning. So why do you?
"in the middle of nowhere"
Sorry, I don't follow you there. This is the 21st Century. Sydney is a world class city. In fact your observation actually betrays the geographical narrowness of Euro-think.
"no other "natural" friends anywhere in sight".
Not true. Of course, distances are greater in the Pacific, but so what? A and NZ have thriving relations with the whole of the Pacific basin and neither of these countries has know an economic crisis.
"and the Commonwealth dead and buried except as a Sports organization".
Once again, not only has this nothing to do with A/NZ cooperation, but it isn't even true. Non-Anglophone Mozambique and Rwanda recently joined, and others are on a waiting list. Did you know that?
Now to the main point. I'm not saying that the agreements between EU countries could have been set up as easily as those between A and NZ.. Obviously not. There would have had to be considerable bureaucracy, but nobody will ever convince me that the present horror which is the EU, with its thousands of pen-pushers, secret meetings, a parliament with no opposition...etc, was the way to set up the present agreements.
One final point. You often mention the 'Murdoch press' as being influential in forming public opinion in the UK and you will no doubt say it again. However, it is in the US and AUSTRALIA that the Murdoch press is predominant. In the UK, Murdoch owns only 'The Times', 'The Sunday Times' and 'The Sun'. There are about 12 other national newspapers which have nothing to do with Murdoch
Murdoch owns only Fox news & Wall street Journal.
Even then only Fox news practises Murdoch style journalism. The WSJ has kept its editorial integrity intact and is repected worldwide as a credible financial newspaper.
There are numerous major news outlets such as CNN,ABC,NBC,CBC, not to mention numerous major newspapers such as the New York times, Washington Post, San Francisco chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Seattle times ...that are NOT owned by Murdoch.
The eurobot's manipulative tactic of wildly exaggerating the importance of Murdoch in the USA is really amusing and even more amusing when one considers their mass circulation tabloids like Bild.
Are we to take it that German public opinion is formed by Bild?
Those that come from Bild country are in no postion to have a holier than thou attitude towards the Murdoch press.
Have you realised how often people keep 'hitting it on the nail' to you?
You abuse this expression. Leave it be.
Junoir old friend,
Mozambique joined the commonwealth much in the same way Cape Verde joined la Francophonie. They're just surrounded by English or French speaking African nations, and they benifit from joining these clubs. Mozambique has very little connection with the Anglophone world I'm afraid. Perhaps near the border(s).
But the reverse has never happened.
Commonwealth countries joining la Francophonie. Why is that?
zorbas, brother of a different mother
You are spooking me now. How on earth can you possibly know that yes, I broke my unintoxication of several months and last Saturday smoked a 15 cm Churchill format real Havanna which cost me 12 € in celebration of a really good gospel concert we gave in the concert hall of a resort at the coast in the north.
Smoked it with relish and slowly on the terrace of our hotel during 2 hours chatting with the other smokers of our choir, one of them with a cold sitting next to me but between Havanna and Williamsbirne I thought myself adequately protected. The combination of sea air and cigar smoke must have done it. You are a seer of the old kind. You scare me so.
Bobonne prepares a lot of very spicy chicken soup with somen noodles, my favourite and it feels better already this morning. Will do it again around Xmas and New Year when the Mrcans and Brits will be joining us for two weeks, the whole tribe, three grandsons and all. Looking forward to it.
Isn't Theomorph a Godsent? Here I was fighting the lone fight like Leonidas against the barbarian hordes pushing in on the Euro position with the Morlocks in tow. Hanging in there by the skin of my teeth. In comes Theo, a Germanz philosophy professor and without even needing to shout, just talking serenely, employing grace and charm, calms the waters and sinks the Anglo Pirates fleet with the Greek fire of his philosophical argumentation. Not even Cicero, another Germanz, comes even near. Even junior, the only Anglo deserving some respect around here, is on the run. Awesome stuff.
@pumpernickel @like I was saying
sorry for the late reply ,Just see your post for me, yesterday the internet at home is playing up, only show some post or jumped.
Thanks for the support very much!
Hi Junior,
Yes, of course Australia and NZ are politically independent countries – in the post I wrote "former colonies", and then next wrote "colonies", so it's a typo. I should have repeated "former colonies". My apologies.
But of course, both Australia and NZ have remained cultural colonies of Britain to an extent that is no longer true of Canada, and that has not been true of the United States since the 19th century.
Yes, I do know that Australia and NZ are in effect local "regional powers" in the South Pacific, and have enjoyed friendly relations with most island-sized Pacific "states". But Junior, you are smart enough to recognize the implicit subtext of my comment: Australia and NZ fear invasion -- organized or otherwise -- from the mega-sized Asian states to the north.
Thanks for acknowledging that hammering out agreements between 10 or more European countries – countries that are ethnically, linguistically, culturally, and religiously diverse – has always required something a bit more robust than NAFTA. We now seem to be getting somewhere, and our differences are becoming less binary, less either/or, and more qualitative, and more matters of degree.
You acknowledge that something more than NAFTA was necessary to bring about the European single market. So the question then becomes, how much more?
Here I suppose everyone's judgment will be different, from EU-philic Eurofederalists at one end of the spectrum, to "soft" Euroskeptics at the other end – "soft" Euroskeptics who object to so much of what the the EU is and does, that they might just as well declare themselves to be "hard" Euroskeptics after all. Junior, you strike me as probably locating at this end of the spectrum. It seems that you do want to endorse a minimal customs union, and internal free-market. But you want to put an absolute brake on everything else. You want to insist that an internal free-market could have been had with much less "EU".
Would this be an accurate description of your position?
On the question of the EU's supposed "democratic" deficit, please see my reply to Viva in another thread, and please see my exchange with Maher last May, in which Maher more or less agreed that – to the extent that there is a democratic deficit in the EU – its member states are primarily responsible for that deficit. If member states in the past had really wanted to empower the European Parliament – if they had really wanted to transform the EU from an inter-governmental international organization, into a full-blown, democratically transparent additional layer of government – then they could have. But in the past all member states have stopped well short of this, and deliberately so.
As such, expecting the EU to function like a national parliament, and holding it up to the same standard, is incredibly naive and historically blind analysis. Maher agreed with me on this basic point of analysis last May. So I will leave it to you and Viva to search for the relevant posts – posts in which I (as usual) provided multiple links to articles on the general topic of the EU's supposed "democratic deficit".....
All best wishes,
Mozambique has always had close relations with her most important neighbour, South Africa, since migrant workers from there used to go and work in S.A. mines. Also the country provided a base for Mugabe's Anglophone freedom fighters for many years, so M's familiarity with English is greater than you think.
Like much of Africa, M's economy is booming and they have a huge English language programme under way, much as in Rwanda.
"They benefit from joining these clubs". Of course. Like Francophonie, the Commonwealth can only be seen as a positive 'club'. It cannot be viewed in a negative light.
@theomorph: "please see my exchange with Maher last May, in which Maher more or less agreed that – to the extent that there is a democratic deficit in the EU – its member states are primarily responsible for that deficit."
Member state governments are certainly the primary beneficiaries of that deficit and therefore its prime defenders – how could they not be? The exercise of power outside the constraints of democratic scrutiny has an eternal appeal for politicians and bureaucrats regardless of the notional claims of nationality (or ideology).
But the primary reason that the EU is undemocratic is because it couldn't exist at all if it weren't.
There is no popular basis for a transnational level of government in Europe. It is a proto state without even a proto constituency. The fact that it operates as an undemocratic cartel certainly suits the various opportunists in our national governments but that does not mean that it can be transformed into a democratically accountable entity. It has to have a demos before it can be democratic.
The British philosopher John Gray has recently stated that the nation state is the upper limit for democratic accountability and the truth of his observation is everywhere evident to any with eyes to see. It is also a useful reminder that not all philosophers are merely useful idiots in service to the degenerate project of replacing some of the world's most effective democracies with an operating Pan European oligarchy.
The EU can only survive if democracy dies.
'But the primary reason that the EU is undemocratic is because it couldn't exist at all if it weren't.'
There is no popular basis for a transnational level of government in Europe.'
Your empirical clarity edifies and ennobles this blog.
Good to hear from you. I share Pumper's sentiments: it would be great to have you around more!
Here we are, sitting in Europub, trying to get drunk and enjoy bonhomie and solidarity, but the Sherriff keeps comin' round, telling us Europub ain't no good for no-one, and we gotta skedaddle, and he's gonna close the filthy place down, because the other day –he tells us – he had a dream of a woman clad in slinky black leather [the Sherriff lingers, wistfully, for a second], preceded by a pair of buck-naked men crawling on all fours, straining on leashes, as she whips them and they shout "Wee wee"! "Oui oui!" "Wee wee!" "Oui Oui!"
The poor Sheriff was so shocked by his vision that he s**t his pants, and woke up in a cold sweat, with one hand still gripping last night's bottle of Jack Daniels, the other clutching his wife's arm. He's clutching his wife's arm so tight that she wakes up, and threatens to kill him if he does not let go, and let her (for once!) get some rest.
The Sherriff tells us his sad story, trying to engage our sense of pity and compassion for his plight –
"Don't you see, Europub has gotta close down, because I'm losing my mind!"
Pumper just laughs it off, and insults the poor Sherriff to his face. Strange thing, the Sherrif has no weapons to his name, no gun, just words, so the Sherriff insults Pumper back.
Marie flings the occasional scathing quip in the Sherrif's direction, but she's French, and the Sherrif (as evidenced by his hallucinatory dream) has a special place in his heart for abusive French women. He's instantly paralyzed by Marie's hard-love-talk and feminine gallic dominance, and he goes mute. Pedro laughs, while you suggest that the poor Sherrif come over and join us for a drink or two…..
Me? I'm a philosopher, so quite stupidly I try to engage the Sherriff at the level of argument and evidence, making a case for Europub. This man doesn't need philosophy, he needs good friends.
We wait patiently, as the Sherriff ponders whether he should accept your offer of a drink….
All best wishes,
yes, and the invers is also true, many South-Africans found a haven in Mozza because there's no such thing as race hate accross the border, at least not to the levels ZA can achieve. Many buy properties on the Southern part of Mozza, I've met one or two couples (one of the was half-Porto half-Brit, their children are friends with my sister and I) and another childhood friend there who started working for an NGO and is now married to a Mozambican. What can I say . Topping it up there you have hordes of unemployed Portuguese unboarding their planes as we speak so they start life anew. Mozza is a fine country. It is hardly defined by the 'Commonwealth' although I do appreciate what the Commonwealth is doing for them. They are and shall always be (since the 16th century is it?) close friends with 'ureno' - the kingdom (= O Reino in Portugal). That is the Kingdom of Portugal of course. Good look with your 'English Programmes' do they involve drinking tea and playing croquet?
How are you Morph? Good to be young and in love. I remember embarking on that journey not to long ago myself. It ends in death you know, which makes it all the more important to share the ride with someone.
As for the Euro, it will all work itself out in the end. If it hasn't worked itself out, why, that just means we haven't reached the end yet...laughs
Pure democracy is dangerous stuff you know. The Athenian' tried it, and it lasted the whole of 50 years. No nation dares to allow its citizens to practice it anymore. The bankers and the corporations took hold of it, and no one has heard from it since.
Some even argue that that the Athenian democratic process was flawed, becasue only male citizens were allowed to participate in the democratic process, and the Athenians held slaves, tisk, tisk...laughs
To these purists I would say, under the current system of globalization, we are all slaves to the bankers and corporations. Of course, if you're born rich, or you're smart, work hard and save your money, you can escape the banker's wrath.
However, for those foolish Americans who buy into the system, and cannot stave off the urge to consume beyond their means, there is always, divorce, life in a cubicle, and/or life out on the streets.
Just a man, his worldly possessions, and of course his shopping cart...laughs
Yes, croquet, tea and cucumber sandwiches. We also tell them that all Englishmen are gentlemen with impeccable manners and "it's always foggy in London".
They've been told this from an early age anyway, so why disabuse them, especially as none of them will ever go near the place? This is known as "don't-need-to-know-teaching".
I find it erroneous to say that only NATO or EU were the contributor of peace in the past 60 years. Both organizations, combined, were responsible for the peace and if you removed one organization the other organization would have failed.
NATO existed before the EU. NATO was a prerequisite to the EU. Their is neither historical nor logical basis for saying NATO could not exist without the EU.
On the other hand there is rich evidence that supports the notion that the EU could not exist without NATO. What would the EU have done without NATO to oppose Soviet tanks and Serbian militias? And how would EU have stopped the flood of Libyan refugees that would have inundated Italy had NATO not halted Kadaffy?
EU is a hot house flower that only survives through the care of its NATO gardener.
The strolling lutist professes to love the ideal of Europe. Provided we disregard the poisonous ideologies that destroyed half the continent in the last century, we can all agree on that.
But the idea of the EU is a reprise, slightly watered down, of those very ideologies. The Europe we all love was the product of contending nations and their artists, thinkers and builders. The rise of the vernacular languages and the abandonment of Latin marked the end of any ghost of a chance of a unitary Europe.
But it is indisputable that the Europe of about 1960-2000 cooperated in all essentials. Its foreign policy was linked to NATO, its commerce flowed freely. Every undertaking was the product of nations working together. Why couldn't Europe leave well enough alone?
The EU, while its treaties did improve the intercourse of the nations, also presented Europe with the insoluble problem of the euro, as well as a self-perpetuating and self-serving bureaucracy, whose end is all too clear.
Love Europe. Cast aside the EU. There is something better. Less is more.
You need to work a bit on your reading comprehension I never said that NATO could never existed without the EU, I simply said NATO in combination with the EU contributed to the peace in Europe. Without one the other would have failed (at maintaining peace in Europe)
The thing about NATO is that it doesn't democratize countries, at all because being democracy is not a requirement of being a member of NATO. Indeed one of the founding members was a fascist country (Portugal) later members were under a military junta (Greece and Turkey) and democratization is one of the biggest reasons why there is peace in Europe.
Your second paragraph begs the obvious question:
why therefore does the "EU" dedicate itself to the hollowing out of the democracies that had existed within its constituent states?
As one Foreign Secretary puts it "the public sees the EU as a one-way process, as "a great machine that sucks up decision-making from national parliaments to the European level until everything is decided by the EU" .... That needs to change. If we cannot show that decision-making can flow back to national parliaments then the system will become democratically unsustainable."
It already has, long ago.
The "EU" is deliberately deaf to the charge of democratic deficit. It was never intended to be democratic.
The "EU" has had a profoundly regressive effect on democracy in Europe.
In other words nobody, no matter how much Ashton or Borossa travel the world at our expense to lecture it on 'democratic values', buys the "EU" conceit of a fig-leaf apology for democracy embodied in institutions like the European Parliament.
The citizens are not represented by the EU. Unaccountable, unelected Commissars who cannot be held to account, continue to make law and direct policy, to say nothing of the accounting of funds contributed to the apparatus that no auditor can sign off.
Not much improvement on the USSR.
AEP has a splendid piece today on Britain's repudiation of pillar three of the EU assimiliation process. He also explains how Berlin, the capital of a robust democracy, has tentacles of the EU embedded in it which threaten that democracy. Also a very interesting expose of how the EU promises of a law that would require the extradition of terrorists degenerated into a law that required the handing over of xenophobes and traffic offenders.
The EU of the past didn't dedicate itself to the hollowing out of the democracies that's something that recently happened.
I think you will find that this has been its surreptitious long term aim as early as the Treaty of Rome, although I would agree that the tempo accelerated by 1992 with the Treaty of Maastricht by which time the antidemocratic "cat" was well and truly "out of the bag".
Its cold reception was reflected in referendum results, which in the case of France were believed to be falsified in its favour.
I disagree with it being a long term aim, planning that far ahead is nothing more than fantasy for silly conspiracy theorists indeed if they were masterplanners they would have avoided the empty chair crisis or the Eurosclerosis...
Yes, I read that article too. Did you notice that Britain's opt out from Pillar 3 is no more than what Germany does regularly by simply ignoring the law?
I had a long discussion with La V and Josh last month when we were waiting for that 'momentous' decision from the German Constitutional
Court, my contention being that Germany has granted itself the right (this is why she was so late signing the Lisbon treaty) to have the GCC as the final arbiter in matters affecting Germany. Britain , on the other hand, is bound by EU law.
La V and Josh shrugged this off as unimportant.
Amazing what EU supporters consider 'unimportant'.
Yes, I noticed that Germany seems to have the power to disregard any EU rules that it chooses. Do others do the same as well I wonder?
The strength of British integrity, that well-known and well-regarded aversion of the UK to disregard the rules which it has undertaken, even to its detriment, would seem to not be quite as developed in Germany.
check what Marie France Garaud means by "forfaiture" referring to the fiscal pact voted against the will of the people
@ Marie
I've always admired Marie-France Garaud. Such a brain, and eurosceptic for many years. As she is not English, it would be interesting to see how our friend theomorph would classify her.
Watched 'Mots Croisés' on Monday, which dealt with French competitivity. As usual, they (Michel Sapin, NKM) started telling us how we should be more like the Germans, the same 78' gramophone record we've been listening to for 40 years.
I switched it off after 20 minutes.
Very, very interesting qualification of your previous position. You now seem to be suggesting that the EU, circa 1960 - 2000 was "good", and perhaps even necessary; perhaps necessary for the commonsensical reason that the common market cannot just manage itself spontaneously....? And you now seem to be saying that the EU only became "bad" after 2000, with the introduction of the Euro?
For what it's worth, this strikes me – at the very least – as an eminently "defensible" position. I do not agree with it, of course, but at least this position has some semblance of cogency, rationality, realism, etc. etc.
Notice, however, that your new statement of "qualified Euroskepticism" is miles removed from the "absolute Euroskepticism" of most of the Euro-cranks on the blog. For true-blue Europhobes, the EU was always a bad, bad, bad idea, and has never done any good for anyone. Not in 1960, not in 1980, and not in 2000.
Do you still count "absolute Euroskeptics" as allies? Or, more to the point, will they still count you as an ally, now that you have turned apostate, and permitted yourself the luxury of a more qualified, nuanced, and very intelligent sort of Euroskeptic position?
Your last sentence was cryptic – could you elucidate further?
"Love Europe" – Yes, clear enough. Junior, you, I, Pumpernickel, and many others on this blog can all at least agree that we love Europe-the-civilization.
"Cast aside the EU" – But why? Is this really what you intended to say? Surely you meant "cast aside the Euro currency"? If the architecture of the EU (the European Union) was beneficial and necessary from 1960 to 2000, then surely it will still prove necessary in future?
"There is something better" – Gosh, what is it!! This line especially left me hanging on the very edge of my seat, wondering what that could possibly be!
"Less is more" – Here you are quoting the Germanz minimalistic-modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, whose career peaked in the 1950's – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Mies_van_der_Rohe .
You do know the architecturally postmodern riposte, circa 1975?
"Less is a bore".
Still, very much liked this post, and everything that it implies.
All best wishes,
PS – When and where did I acquire a flute?? I've always wanted to own a flute, so could you please tell me where it is?
Granted, I very much wanted to play the flute as a kid, but was forced to endure piano lessons instead. Not complaining, because "strolling lutist" has a nice ring to it. But honestly, I am not that musical.
Should also address the line in the previous thread: "sunning your golden locks in your ivory tower." Again, a rather flattering, romantic image that. But way off the mark.
Yes, I did go through a hippie phase as a kid, and once sported long blond hair tied with a bow at the back.... But for at least 10 years now, have been progressively balding. So I took the plunge, and now sport a Euro-bowling-bald-and-tanned look, the whole testa clean-shaven. Add a pair of rimless photochromic spectacles that turn black in the sun, carried by an ultra-thin, indestructible titanium frame, and I look the very part of "hipster intellectual", with no hair.
Just thought I should give you a precise, accurate visual image to focus your ire, next time the muse strikes.....
Europe cooperated very well without the EU. You have conflated the EU with Europe. The EU began in 1957. But that was years before the bureaucracy of the EU began to meaningfully impose regulations on the member nations.
Why can't you imagine a Europe of nations acting in concert without superimposing a layer of authority whose ultimate aim is the destruction of the independent democratic nation-state?
Europe has strugged for many centuries to attain the level of self-determination its nations currently enjoy.
Why flush it all away in one orgy of bureaucratic despotism whose end, if history is any guide, is war?
Come on, Viva, I know the difference between the EU and Europe. I am not Emma-mille-messages.
"Europe cooperated very will without the EU".
Really? I guess it all depends on whether you consider the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) that preceded the EEC, to be either a "proto-EU' organization, or something wholly different. The ECSC was formed in 1951, not 1957 – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Community . So one could argue (as the Noble prize citation implicitly does) that post-war Europe has been co-operating via the ECSC→ EEC→ EU, from 1951 onwards. As such, there is no such thing as a history of "co-operation prior to the EU", because prior to 1951 we only have allied occupation and reconstruction, and before that, WW2.
Junior just posted Australia/New Zealand as a shining example of bilateral co-operation, and no doubt they are. But it is easy for them to co-operate, because they are Anglophonic former British colonies who are surrounded by lots of ocean, and beyond that, no Anglophonic or even European "friends" to speak of, for thousands of kilometers.
Emma is on slightly better ground with NAFTA (see two threads above), because NAFTA includes Mexico, which is culturally, religiously, and ethnically quite distinct from Canada and the United States. But again, with NAFTA we are talking about just 3 countries, not 27.
In short, for most of its life, the architecture of the EU has been nothing more – and nothing less – than a multilateral inter-governmental apparatus to facilitate the very complicated business of hammering out agreements between lots of countries, not just 2 or 3.
That's why there is something profoundly misleading about the "democratic deficit" argument. Maher gets this point, Dirtlick does not. The EU has always been more than just another international organization. But so too, the EU has never been a full-blown state, nor even an additional level of government in its own right. Rather, the EU has always been "betwixt and between" these two ideal types. Which is why it is so difficult for most people to even conceptualize the EU.
Further, the EU is so horribly complicated precisely because that's what the governments who constructed want it to be: an institution that combines a pan-European civil service and "bureaucratic" element (the Commission), with an elected element (the EU Parliament), with an inter-governmental element (the Council of Ministers). If the governments who constructed the EU wanted it to function more like the parliament of a classical nation-state, they could change things tomorrow, granting the EU Parliament genuine power. But they do not want to do that. So any "democratic deficit" in the EU (if there is indeed one) is ultimately the "fault" of the member states who constructed it.
You have to be fairly politically sophisticated, and fairly apprised of the nature of EU institutions, to understand the argument that I just made in the previous paragraphs. Maher fits this description; but most Euroskeptics do not. You might recall that I posted a much more detailed version of this argument, with lots of links, back in May. I definitely do not have time to go down that road again. If you like, you could just click on my moniker, "Theomorph", to get all the pages with my past comments, and find the relevant posts yourself. They are definitely there.
So the bottom line is that I simply do not agree with those who paint the EU as some kind of huge, democracy-destroying black hole. And last May I gave clear, good reasons why. And, for what it's worth, last May at least, Maher agreed with me.
This probably will not satisfy you. But I do not have time right now to search and find all that previous work. And to be honest, I am not that inclined to either, given that we have already been over this territory once before, back in May.
All best wishes,
Hi Viva,
I was going over some old collected material on Euroskepticism, and just thought I should add that European studies, following Taggart (1998), now makes standard distinctions between:
(a) "Hard" Euroskepticism, versus "Soft" Euroskepticism. Quoting from Chris Gifford's book:
"Hard Euroscepticism can be defined as fundamental opposition to the idea of political and economic integration and expresses itself as 'a principled objection to the current form of integration in the European Union on the grounds that it offends deeply held values, or more likely, is the embodiment of negative values' (Taggart and Szczerbiak 2004: 3). In contrast, soft Euroscepticism 'involves contingent or qualified opposition to European integration' and may express itself in terms of opposition to the specific policies or in terms of the defence of national interest (ibid, 4)."
In effect, in your post above you seemed to be moving from a "Hard", militantly anti-EU perspective, to a "softer", more qualified and nuanced position.
(b) European studies also draws a distinction between the "first wave" and "second wave" of European integration. The "second wave" begins with the negotiations leading up to the Maastricht treaty (1992).
So in your comment, you were in effect declaring yourself a "soft" instead of a "hard" Euroskeptic, who favors the "first wave" of European integration, but not the second.
All best wishes,
You suggest that if EU member nations wanted a more democratic EU they could make it. The premise of that statement is that the EU member nations are able to divine the consequences of the democratic deficit and want to do something about it.
I think it is safe to say that, based on the disasterous consequences of the euro that the EU member nations are not able to see into the future very clearly.
And we all know that the treaties that cobble together the EU are unalterable because of popular dissent and the differences of opinion of the governments of the various EU member nations.
Indeed, as has been pointed out to you numerous times, the EU lacks adequate popular support to survive a referendum in any member nation except perhaps Germany.
You acknowledge that the raison d'etre of the EU has been the promotion of peace. Is it possible that is has outlived its purpose? Or at least that its continued expansion in the spirit of its dubious exhortation toward an 'ever closer union' is just a call for despotism.
The elements of despotism are already in place. The socialist mania that has driven the EU into the arms of the euro demon threatens to drag all of Europe and the world into the abyss of financial and economic ruin. Fewer and fewer are being deceived by the lies coming out of the regularly scheduled monthly EZ 'emergency meetings'. The day of reckoning is nearing.
Dear Pumpernickel,
By now I think you have figured out where all the posts on "Inequality in America" are residing. Again, they are all under the post begun by zorbas989, on October 17th, at 12:45, titled "GREECE AID TALKS BREAK DOWN AFTER ATHENS REJECTS FURTHER CUTS". My first post is the 4th one down, and my entries on inequality in America begin at the 14th post down.
Perhaps the most interesting thing – at least for me – to emerge from that thread, is the question whether or not America should be "allowed" to disaggregate its black population (about 6.4 %) from various statistical measures, including the GINI coefficient. As Emma pointed out, if you disaggregate the black population, not just America's GINI, but so too any number of other measures compare favorably with continental Europe's. The proposal to so disaggregate comes from a superb book written by the economist Peter Baldwin, titled, "The Narcissism of Minor Differences: How America and Europe Are Alike". See the following:
Although I have some reservations about Baldwin's methodology – see my comments in the "Zorbas" thread – Baldwin's book just is awfully well-written, and he is a master prose stylist.
My own view is that if America is allowed to disaggregate its black population, then even more so, France and Germany should be allowed to disaggregate Muslims. And indeed, if America can disaggregate, then all European countries should be allowed to disaggregate any ethnically, racially, or religiously identifiable minorities that seem to commit a disproportionate number of crimes, that tend to be poor, that have higher child mortality rates, etc…… If anything, because the marginalization of America's black population is such a long-standing historical problem, the United States is actually more responsible, not less. France actually has more of a right to disaggregate Muslims from official statistics, than America has a right to disaggregate blacks.
Here I can imagine that Europeans will tend to agree, whereas Americans will squirm, and try to think of other reasons why America should be given a "pass" from embarrassing measures – like the GINI coefficient – that relegate it to the bottom of the pile…..
Actually, my own settled vie is that no country has a right to disaggregate any population, neither the United States, France, Germany, nor India……
Also, once again, I should mention that in a very recent issue The Economist ran a terrific "Special Report" on Inequality, a Report that is very in-depth (no less than 12 articles in total). The lead article is "For Richer For Poorer", at http://www.economist.com/node/21564414 , and the summary article at the end is "True Progressivism", at http://www.economist.com/node/21564410 . I have contributed comments to three of the articles: the one on Sweden, at http://www.economist.com/node/21564412 and http://www.economist.com/node/21564412/comments#comments ; the one on the United States, at http://www.economist.com/node/21564418 and http://www.economist.com/node/21564418/comments?token=d8ebb30ba934001ee8... ; and the one titled "Inequality and the World Economy", at http://www.economist.com/node/21564556/comments#comments and http://www.economist.com/node/21564556?spc=scode&spv=xm&ah=9d7f7ab945510... .
All best wishes,
Should read "infant mortality", and not "child mortality"
Should read "view", instead of "vie"
The editing program on this blog is an absolute pill to use, and once reposted all the formatting tends to disappear. So thought it best to just note the above corrections instead.
I don't seem to follow your argument in respect of the dis-aggregation of a population and what that would achieve given that , in any case , the populations you speak about are within the same international geographic boarders. I am rather uncomfortable with this idea and even though you seem to argue the need for a better intellectual understanding of the thrust of development and growth , if I understand you correctly , never-the-less apart from perhaps a better understanding it does appear to me somewhat sinister - could you possibly comment.
@ theomorph
Your posting below( Oct 22nd, 23.46)
Just to deal with a few vital questions first.
Yes, there are a few wolves in the Massif Central, in the Monts du Cantal to be precise, though nobody seems to be sure how they got there. I share their appreciation of this outstanding part of France where one is as close to God as it is possible to be. No 'nouveaux riches' Russian sheep who congregate in St Tropez paying 15€ for a bottle of water, and not a discothèque in sight.
Never mind about the 'Battle of Hernani'. It was just to point out how slow on the uptake the French can be at times, in this case slavishly following Aristotlean rules about 'genres' in literature, which greatly hampered creativity. No sixteen year waiting period, as in 'A Winter's Tale', while Perdita grows up, would be tolerated in French theatre, that is until Victor Hugo took the plunge. I read his 'Les Misérables', in English, when I was about 12, and was somehow attracted to France from then onwards. 'LM' includes the best, completely objective account of the battle of Waterloo that I have ever read.
Btw I don't live in Provence, which is for Peter Mayle, Russian oligarchs and Pumpernickel who live, respectively, on author's royalties, money-laundering activities and Brussels Eurobot cheques.
Now that I've got THAT out of the way? the main difference between you and me is we discuss on completely different planes, which makes agreement next to impossible. You talk of the EU as you hope it will be one day, while my gripe is what the EU IS. Here's an example.
Theomorph: "If the EU eventually does become a government, and not just a very powerful international organization, then it deserves all the scrutiny and criticism that responsible citizens in democracies apply to their governments".
Noble sentiments. Unfortunately, the EU has never shown any willingness to be scrutinised or reformed. Why should citizens suddenly wake up now and say 'hey, these guys want to become a government, better start scrutinising. Ordinary Europeans have no idea how the EU works and couldn't care less. It is because EU power is unchecked and not 'scutinised' that it cannot succeed in the long run. How can you expect it to be otherwise?
Theomorph: " the EU will never and can never be legitimate for you, because it does not engage or express your "will" as a citizen, in the broadest sense of citizenship, i.e. going beyond the political, to cultural citizenship, historical citizenship, philosophical citizenship, etc.?
This is vague in the extreme. There is no such thing as a 'European citizen'. What's more, even the most ardent Europhile will concede there never will be. People will be citizens of one or more countries and even be familiar with others, but they will never be 'European citizens'. Ask MC if she would like to give up French nationality to become a "European citizen".
Theomorph: "The EU really is a continental project, and not an Anglospheric project"
And you believe this is a reason I object to it?
Theomorph: (Junoir says) "It (the EU) is not my country, and I do not want any part of it".
Firstly the EU is not a country and secondly the way it is developing, then NO, I don't want any part of it (as a 'country') which doesn't make me any less 'European' than you or anyone else.
Theomoroph: "Whereas for me, I truly honestly "feel" that Europe is my country, my project, my natural home, something that engages my will, a civilization whose philosophic, artistic, literary, geographic, historical, and political legacy informs my whole being. I do not feel this about any one particular European country, probably because I have travelled around too much. But I do feel it about continental Europe as a whole".
Much the same sentiments as mine. However, wasn't the discussion about the EU?
"Whereas for me, I truly honestly "feel" that Europe is my country, my project, my natural home"
Well I do hope you find your home Theomorph, because the "EU" has neither the ability to form nor the intention of creating this country called "Europe" for you.
Whether or not "the EU really is a continental project, and not an Anglospheric project" is entirely irrelevant.
Not sure how this 'Anglosphere' comes into the business of creating this country called "Europe" or makes a difference to your quest either way. Let us suppose this "anglosphere" did not exist - your quandary would remain unchanged. The "EU" is not going to provide an answer for you. There first would need to be a people, a demos for such a country, and there simply isn't one.
No amount of coercion or treaties will alter this.
Why do you choose to disaggregate nations based on political lines? Wouldn't it be more logical to base statistical analyses of conditions based on geography?
For instance, shouldn't we combine Poland and Byelorus? Shouldn't Denmark be combined with Sweden and not Italy?
As for the US, why pay attention to that line between Canada and the US? For that matter, why not combine all nations in North America in order to analyse their characteristics?
Let's combine all Eurasia into a single datum. And throw in Africa for good measure.
Why not just call all the nations on Earth Earth and combine the measures of everyone's lifestyles and give a description of that.
It can't be any more meaningless and arbitrary than what the geniuses that run things now are doing.
Chicago has more to do with Homs or Mogadishu than with Long Beach, California.
The only way this country called Europe will ever be formed is through a dictatorship because the peoples of Europe have never expressed a desire for it.
They have expressed a desire for free movements of goods, services & peoples acrosss Europe but thats about all.
What is becoming increasingly obvious is that those who are in favor of this utopia, don't mind a dictatorship to get their dream of a country called Europe.
The end justifies the means is their motto. Fanaticism does this to people.
Theomorph has a different european mental geography than us, first because his family was displaced from where it used to live at the end of the war, second because Germany had never experienced a durable space since it existed, therefore the Germans have some difficulties to forge themselve a mental geography of their identity, like we did as French (even the Brits for Britain), our space is about the same since more a millenarium. So, that is why they think that being in the middle of Europe, they have to melt with the European space, that's also why they pushed the european agenda more than the French, since the beginning of the EU, remember, France has always restrained any further melting with EU, the project of the EU army was first rejected in 1954, then when Kohl pressed for more EU integration with the euro, we voted no...
this mental geography of our limits is well explained by Michel Foucher
the vid is interesting
Hernani isn't consered as Victor Hugo's master pieces, nor it can be compared with the classical theater of the 17/18 th centuries
BTW did you know that Victor Hugo admired Napoleon?
Yup, people like Pumpernickel would love "a dictatorship to get their dream of a country called Europe" judging by his rants against those who inconvenience his ilk with their lack of enthusiasm for it. It has visited this continent rather too often for folk to really get the hots for it.
This is what always happens when you try to create a country without a "demos", but certain contributors here nonetheless still find this wheeze rather 'cool'.
The major difference between Pumpy/Themorph and you & Junior is that they have a bad case of self-hate which needs an outlet.
They have chosen the EU as an outlet for their self hate. Their Anglophobia is another manifestion of their self-hate.
Very often their remarks about the UK/USA reek of self-hate redirected at the Anglos.
One never finds this aroma of self-hate among non-German supporters of the EU like Pedro, Joe, etc.
Don't be too hard on Pumpy. He is woefully ignorant of even the basics of democracy.
The man has no clue what democracy is all about. Not only that democracy scares the hell out of his authoritarian mindset.
He is also a secret admirer of Ayn Rand, hence is bizarre obsession with her philosophy and his constant mentions of her. He loves to discuss her books.
However knowing that it is politically incorrect to be an admirer of her in Europe, he projects his pathologies onto Americans, wildlly exaggerating her importance and influence in the USA where she is a tiny fringe movement.
The vast majority of Americans have never heard of her and don't give a damn about her. She is probably more well known and has a greater secret following among Pumpy's countrymen who practise the Ayn Rand philosophy in real life vis via the Greeks making them suffer decades of austerity to save German banks, making Brazil and India contribute billions for never ending IMF eurozone bailouts while millions live in poverty in those countries.
Given the fact that the bailout for Greece is in effect a bailout for German banks, one understands Pumpy's strange facination with Ayn Rand.
Fascinating, and quite possibly true.
Come to think of it, I could go one further, and argue that ze Germanz have always been a migratory people. After all, the barbarian invasions off the Roman Empire were really invasions of successive waves of Germanz. Whose express purpose was -- they hoped -- to "melt" into pre-existing Roman society, and romanize. Which they were not terribly good at. Or is this true? It's controversial. Late Roman society was a very weird mixture, with barbarians prominent in the Army, and not merely as auxiliaries.
In any case, the Germanz have moved around quite a lot, and with the Teutonic knights were also pushing eastward. So perhaps one could say that the Germanz have been trying to "melt" (great word!) into a larger European space, for at least 2000 years....
What an odd thesis. But again, quite possibly true.
Many thanks,
In answer to your question, best to read the full thread that I referenced above, "......begun by zorbas989, on October 17th, at 12:45, titled "GREECE AID TALKS BREAK DOWN AFTER ATHENS REJECTS FURTHER CUTS". My first post is the 4th one down, and my entries on inequality in America begin at the 14th post down."
The question of whether blacks should or should not be disaggregated from American statistics, came up in that thread. It's good that you are uncomfortable with the idea of disaggregating America's black population from American statistics. For all sorts of reasons that I cannot go into here right now, I am also uncomfortable with the idea!
It was Emma's proposal to disaggregate blacks. And then in that thread just referenced, I came up with a few reasons why this might be an illegitimate move, or at the very least a move that seems awfully suspicious. My list of reasons for opposing this move – after having talked to a friend who is a sociologist – is now much, much longer. But again, I do not have time to go into detail here.
At this point, the only thing I can say is that disaggregating to exclude blacks from American statistics, or aggregating to include larger sets of countries (eg. America + Canada), or regions that cross borders (as Viva proposed in a post further below), smells awfully evasive. It's as if those who do not like how their country comes out in the GINI ranking, want to statistically "dissolve" GINI away: dissolving either downwards, by breaking their country apart (i.e. excluding blacks from statistics); or dissolving upwards, by melting their country into larger groupings of countries, in which its poor GINI coefficient will no longer prove so pronounced, evident, and embarrassing.
I hope that helps. But again, probably best to read the thread, and see how the question regarding the legitimacy (or not) of disaggregating American blacks emerged.
All best,
Excellent reply, Junior.
But first, essential matters. Your location: do you live in the Massif Centrale? You wax poetic about the wolves in the Massif, and being close to God in the Massif, so one might naturally conclude.....?
Wolves are wonderful creatures, aren't they? "Nobody knows how they got there" -- how dimwitted of those French! Wolves are dogs, and have you ever seen how far a dog can wander, in just a few days? Or rather, dogs are wolves, 99.9 % genetically identical (or something like that). Dogs are wolves that we humans domesticated about 15,000 years ago (or something like that).
I love dogs; do you, Junior? Or are you more of a cat person? Your enthusiasm for wolves seems to suggest the former.
A very interesting thing, to reflect on just how well wolves (aka dogs) have inserted themselves into human families, and human social structure. Suggesting that human social structure is, perhaps, very wolf-like?
Dogs constantly compete for dominance, which one dog usually establishes, while the other dogs every now and again "test" said dominance, to see if it still sticks. So at one level, dogs are constantly giving each other agro. But if one dog in a group dies, or disappears, the other dogs become genuinely depressed. In short, dogs/wolves are profoundly social animals, who constantly compete and fight, but who also desperately need each others' company, approval, and dare we say it, love. A bit like Homo Sapiens, I am afraid.....
And yes, I love both creatures for it.
Well, now descending from sublime reflections on man's best (and perhaps only true) friend, to banal questions of an EU nature.
Your points, once again, were excellent, and made me think. We share a profound love for European civilization writ large (I am a Hugo fan, too), so perhaps the divide comes over our sense of what might be institutionally necessary to preserve that civilization?
In your vision -- if I understand it correctly -- the civilization would do just fine with only a minimal common market, no European parliament, no common currency, no EU commission, and only NATO as security umbrella. In your vision, the civilization would still enjoy internal peace, even despite competitive currency devaluations (for instance), or social dumping, or economic promotion of favored national champions over "foreign" competitors. For you, no additional internal architecture (of the sort that the EU has provided) is necessary, in order for the common market to function fairly and effectively. It just spontaneously will. No need to hammer out a very large body of common EU law, most of it applying to commercial matters; no need for tax harmonization; no need for airspace harmonization (which has occurred, giving us cheap flights on RyanAir); and no need for rail freight harmonization (still a work in progress). Also no need for strong, cross-border institutions that might suppress smuggling, the drug trade, traffic in persons, and crime of all types. Again, cross-border co-operation of a more ersatz, case-by-case, intergovernmental type will prove adequate. And so on.....
But quite honestly, absent the EU, how are such things to be managed? How could common, continent-wide, shared commercial law ever get hammered out, for instance? Or disputes over "fair" competition adjudicated? Your position seems to be that all such matters would just resolve themselves quite naturally, and spontaneously.
Would you agree that this is more or less your position? If it's not, once again please do correct what I have just written.
I might then argue that it is yours truly who is in fact the sociological, political, and economic realist, not you. I might argue that the EU has emerged to fulfill many real needs, and perform many real functions: needs and functions that you might not be fully aware of, Junior, perhaps because you are not so thoroughly steeped in the social sciences? Here I am just guessing.
I will close with a series of questions. Has the EU always bothered you, from inception? Or was it the post-Maastricht EU that came to bother you? Would you favor, institutionally speaking, a more pared down EU? But pared down exactly how much? Was it merely currency EU that pushed things too far for you? Or were you a Euroskeptic much earlier than that? Do you think the EU does not perform any useful functions whatsoever? Is the EU, for you, a thoroughly dispensable institution? And if not, what parts cannot be dispensed with, and why?
All best wishes,
You are wondering about what makes "Charlemagne" so different or, shall we say, special?
Forlana coined the best analogy when she compared the column to "our Pub". Why do we go to the Pub? Well, first of all for the beer, of course, but then not to drink it alone but in company, in good company, if possible. Now here's the rub. What makes "good company" in a pub? Sanmartinian, for sure but he is too much of a good thing.
There are the ones we regard as our friends but they are not really providing the stimulation we seek, as there is not much to discuss about, since we agree on most things, ergo do we seek out those with whom we do not agree and, and this is IMPORTANT, who we consider as being sincere in expressing their opinion, in which case we welcome their opinion being different from ours. If they bring to the discussion also an element of hilarity then we have the ingredients to create an atmosphere, which is titillating. There are not many.
Forlana, who has a fine scent for just that feeling will not enter our Pub unless the right atmosphere is created which, however, is difficult, as there are always the Morlocks, Satan's brood, who must be whipped and nailed to the floor by their tails, or they will create havoc, glasses and chairs will fly unless they are controlled. The best way to control the Morlocks is to ignore them, of course, which is easy, since they do not contribute anything genuine to the discussion and not to read them is easy. But then there are some who by their good nature are lured into acknowledging them, feed them trolls, so to speak, and then one simply cannot get rid of them. Turn your back on them and they will walk round to try to talk to you. Pour your glass of beer over their head and you will have wasted a good beer. What to do with the Morlocks? Call them names? Water off a duck's back. They are sticky, pests, like Egyptian flies. Obnoxious.
One could always go to another blog to discuss earnestly but do we really want that? Discuss earnestly we can do at home. This is not what we go to the Pub for. Do you follow me, Theo?
Some will chide me for my being here only for the beer. Junior, for example, who is doing his best to extract from me information of what makes the average German tick? I haven't got a clue, since I am not an average German. To find answers to this riddle we have to turn to one of our Americans, the one with the loud voice who, never having lived on the Continent and not having the slightest idea as to what it is all about will, nevertheless, give us his uncalled for advice from morning till night in his bible thumping way like the donkeyhottey he is, as sikko so aptly named him. But that's alright with me. He has great entertainment value and that's what counts in a Pub.
It is no place for the earnest ones. LV, for example, is never really comfortable or Maher, whose Nemesis he is. They want the real stuff, the pro and anti Germanz stuff, and want to rehash it at their leisure together with MC providing the links for the Maherites. They want to discuss the battles back to Kadesh and will swear that the Hittites spoke Germanz and could or couldn't be trusted, as the case may be.
Josh is more into the Pub thing if not distracted by what he thinks are exotic underage black Barbie dolls which in reality, as germanambassador will tell us, are spectacle wearing pimpled fatties. Josh, one of the brightest but also can be silliest of the regulars! A treat to have around.
Junior can enter into the spirit but for some reason gets annoyed when I rub it in about the dire condition of the UK in reaction to an equally provocative rant against the Eurozone from not him but his unwashed. He will not flinch from associating with the resident creeps on this blog, the Morlocks, when it furthers his case for Britannia, ruthless chinless wonder that he is.
My favourites, of course, are, besides Maher, zorbas and sikko and pedro in a certain mood. They are the real salt of this blog, although of quite different persuasions (pedro hates sikko, of course, who is a racist), the life and soul of the Pub, when germanambassador is not around.
Are you getting a feel for it now, Theo?
Just read your latest and you might be describing junoir's position exactly. Let's wait what he has to add or detract.
My take on the matter is that we need Brussels but not the Brussels we have today. We need to curb it by first of all curbing the remunerations of the MEPs by 60% in order to attract the ones who go there out of conviction and not in order to put their snouts in the gravy troughs.
Then we need to gradually replace the present muppets with politicians of quality, not the old ones put out to grass but younger hungry ones who want to make Europe happen BUT in the original purist sense of a Europe of Nations of Adenauer and de Gaulle, adhering to the subsidiarity and No-Bailout principles. A Europe with the balls to kick out the corrupt basket cases, if they prove unreformable, never mind what damage that might do to the banks. They deserve it.
My take on it also is that it will work only if it is to everybody's advantage and if the one's who think it is not to their advantage remove themselves and if the ones seen as scroungers are kicked out unceremonially.
Europe as a lofty idea has no substance. Self-interest rules and
there is enough "meat" there for anybody who is willing to genuinely cooperate and make it happen to be quite sober and pragmatic about it. That's why I believe the Eurozone will succeed and will eventually bring everybody inside the currency. You know it makes sense!
you aren't a typical German, but rather a citizen of the world.
anyways, I wasn't referring to the german tribes excursions into the roman Empire, but to the late two centuries modifications of Germany's borders, since Bismack started the reunification of the german lands to Preussia, and the following wars that Germany made on her neighbours, german borders kept on moving.
a few articles that might help you to grasp the geopolitical effect of the german reunification for the european project
Since Merkel right-wing government we assist at the Germanisation of Europe, not quite at a melting of Germany into Europe, whereas Germany will use Europe for her agendas, like we already, unfortunately, have some bad souvenirs of the German Europe last century. This is going to fail, because there's no equal treatment within the European nations. Merkel government is centering all the EU powers in Berlin, helped by the EU burocraty. I don't think that the German people wanted that, nor any european population.
It would be wise to unravel this Eurozone before it becomes the object of civil wars
Wolfgang Münchau is a joke, one of those German creeps who is suffering from Stockholm syndrom. He will say anything to get attention catering to a certain kind of Germanz who are riddled with guilt and will spend their life atoning for the German past.
Ein reguläres Arschloch.
oh then there are many Arschlors like him these days, not necessarily Germans
You bet but then there is a special quality about German Arschlochs. They are the best.
Yes, agreed, the blog should ideally be thought of as a "pub". But my sense is that most others do not take such a light-hearted approach!
Not just Mather and co, but so too Viva, for instance. Agreed, when Viva's proze gets crazzy, he's hilarious, and that's the Viva I enjoy too. But at other times Viva is completely sincere in his anti-socialist, anti-EU rants and warmongering. Or Emma: she's definitely NOT here for the beer! Zorbas, Pedro, and a few others share your approach, but I suspect that the Euro-cranks and anti-European Americans are a good deal more serious in their intent.
They enter the Europub, and they see you, Pedro, Sanmartinian, Marie-Claude, and Zorbas drinking good European beer, enjoying your ample European leisure time (or early retirement), singing songs in unison, and splitting the check 5 ways at the end, evenly, not caring who drank exactly how much.....
How dare you sing songs in unison! You goddamn authoritarian Eurofascists.
How dare you split the check evenly! No split checks! Thou shalt pay only and exactly what thou personally ate-est, or drankest! You goddamn Eurocommies.
How dare you enjoy yourselves so much! You goddamn licentious pigs.
How dare you share joyful bohommie! It's simply horrible to see the Germanz' natural state of depression, or the Greek's indigenously tragic disposition, giving way to Portuguese sunniness and French optimism! You goddamn frenchified fools.
One of you stumbles as you leave the pub, and the others immediately help him up. You goddamn compassionate Eurosocialists.
The Sherrif will show you Eurofascist godless commie socialist frenchified authoritarian licentious pigs, a thing or two……
This here Europub ain't good for the local planetary town, what with all yer high-falutin' philosophizing, drinkin', and whoring! We gotta shut you down, Europub! Ain't no need for yer pub anyway. Folks best be drinking in privacy, in their own countries, buying their own liquor, and not splitting checks evenly like a bunch of goddamn commies. Yeah, we gotta shut you down, Europub, 'cause you're poisoning this here town, Earth-the-Anglo-centered. Soon nobody gonna give a damn about good, old-time, neo-liberal gospel-preachin' in Anglo-churches; instead, they'd just be looking for a good time in Europub!
We gotta shut you down, Europub…..
All best wishes,
Theomorph , thank-you for taking the trouble to respond to my earlier remark and question. As a black person living in Europe you will understand my concern in regard to the dis-aggregation of minority populations of any stripe in socio-economic studies where the intentions of so doing are not clear , and the purpose of so doing aren't explicit. For example , the history of Jewish people in Europe over hundreds of years raises great concern to me. Jewish people have been in Europe for about 2,000 years and theirs has been a sorry tale even though by and large they assimilated as best they could into the societies in which they found themselves. As everyone knows one of the most egregious examples of the horrors they have suffered was the holocaust in the 1930's and 1940's which accelerated the formation of the modern state of Israel. Black people are in general far more visible than Jews but have the disadvantage that they tend to have less economic or social clout than Jews had , and continue to have , today. This of course makes black people far more vulnerable in the long term than Jews or indeed most other ethnic minorities - with respect to everyone. These are the calculations I had in mind when I raised the question with you.
Ordinarily one would not mind various socio-economic measures and studies being made if the intention behind these studies and calculations do not have any ulterior motives and were guaranteed not to be sinister , however , despite in the last century huge leaps being made to protect ethnic and racial minorities , including the establishment of fundamental rights enshrined in various international conventions and public laws , the sad truth is that we can equally well point to serious violations of these rights and conventions which , to make matters worse , seem to have been carried out with impunity. Almost on a daily basis one sees these violations which despite the best efforts of international organisations and state law enforcement apparatus continue to take place. In short , there are still a sufficient number of people and groups who have malicious intent towards people who they believe are different from them and who they are prepared to do harm if given any chance. Members of minority ethnic and racial groups aware of this therefore owe it as a duty to themselves to be vigilant in identifying methods that could in one way or another be employed to their disadvantage no matter how benign these methods might at first appear.
It is reassuring to note that there are people like yourself who have concerns and are vigilant about the uses/abuses to which some studies in the wrong hands could be put.
Kind regards ,
Come to think of it, the previous exercise in satire suggests a standard, swift, ironic riposte, applicable to almost all of the anti-EU ranting of Eurocranks and Europhobes:
"We gotta shut you down, Europub, 'cause yer enjoying life way, way too much."
In effect, this is the gist of everything that Euro-cranks and Europhobes write. This is their basic thesis, the core of all their criticisms.
All best,
Very much agreed that much (or even most) EU construction has been motivated by the enlightened self-interest of the states doing the constructing. This is a very basic, fundamental point that most Euro-cranks and Europhobes simply do not "get". They mistakenly imagine that the EU has been constructed by wild-eyed idealists of the far Left, or authoritarian fascists of the far Right. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, continental European far-Left and far-Right parties have always been trenchantly critical of the EU project.
Rather, the EU has been constructed by the very moderate center-Right, that likes the idea of a continent-wide free market for goods and services comprising half a billion people, and the very moderate center-Left, that likes this idea too, but wants a social charter in place continent-wide, so that labor is protected, and the prosperity from a consolidated market really is shared by all. Britain's Labor party has been more or less pro-EU for decades, for roughly the same reasons as continental center-Left moderate socialists. For decades now, the Left in Britain has been pro-EU because it sees the European Union as advancing worker protection and welfare more reliably than the British government (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/26/britain- proud-home-euroscepticism ).
In short, almost all British Europhobes are politically Right-wing. The big political "outlier" within the EU, if you will, is the British conservative capitalist class.
Here the explanation seems to be that Britain's capitalist class does not see continental unification as necessarily conducing to its own best self-interest, because it has always operated globally. The British capitalist class has always made its money via a global capitalism not yet bound by the restrictions that a global government would impose: restrictions on the more "exploitative" kinds of rent-seeking capitalist activity, namely, finance. The ideal state of the globe for Britain's heavily-financialized capitalist class, is one of semi-controlled chaos, or moderate disorder: chaos or disorder from which they can then extract a profit. Whereas the order and financial stability that continental European manufacturers want and demand, is precisely what the British capitalist class does not want.
This argument is not original to me. Rather, I first encountered this argument in a book-length, extraordinarily deep and sophisticated, recent analysis of the political-economic origins of British Euroskepticism – an analysis that goes beyond the clichés, and that only a policy wonk would love – see Chris Gifford's highly recommended THE MAKING OF EUROSKEPTIC BRITAIN: IDENTITY AND ECONOMY IN THE POST-IMPERIAL STATE, available online at http://www.cui-zy.cn/Recommended/Nature&glabolization/UKEUEmpire.pdf . Gifford's central argument is that Britain's traditionally Imperial – and now neo- Imperial – location within global capitalism has continued to suggest to British elites that their political-economic interests diverge substantially from those of the continental bourgeoisie.
For a somewhat similar, but much shorter argument, see Charles Grant's excellent (albeit pre-Eurozone- crisis) article at http://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/attachments/pdf/2... rosceptic_19dec08-1345.pdf and http://www.cer.org.uk/personnel/charles-grant ).
All best wishes,
PS – Parenthetically, it is worth noting that the term "Euro-skeptic" is recent coinage. British media and political circles only began deploying the term "Euro- skeptic" following Margaret Thatcher's Bruges speech in 1988 (see http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107332 ), and scholarly books on Euro- skepticism first appeared only in the late 1990's. For an excellent, recent (2011) summary of the history of Euro-skepticism, see http://www.uaces.org/pdf/papers/1101/usherwood.pdf , and for two brief histories of British Euro-skepticism in particular, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/26/britain-proud-home-euroscept... and http://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/attachments/pdf/2... rosceptic_19dec08-1345.pdf .
Pumper, just a bit more:
The UK is different not just because the British public is statistically so much more Europhobic. The UK is also different because Europhobes are so thoroughly entrenched in Britain's mainstream party system.
In continental Europe, Euroskepticism is a politically marginal position, openly advocated only by far-Left or far-Right wing parties, but never by mainstream parties. Whereas in in the UK, the center-Right, "moderate" conservative political party – the Tories – contains a very strong, anti-EU, Europhobe element. In the pan- European political landscape, it is Britain's center-Right Tory party that is politically marginal and most unusual indeed.
It is common knowledge, for instance, that in the European Parliament, Britain's Tory MEP's have found it difficult to align with the "European People's Party" (EPP). The EPP is the politically mainstream, moderate, center-right bloc in the EU parliament that (as it happens) is also pro-EU, and that includes representatives from the CDU in Germany (Angela Merkel's party), and the UMP in France (Sarkozy's party) – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_People's_Party . Britain's Tory MEP's withdrew from the EPP in 2009, and seriously explored affiliating instead with the "Union for a Europe of Nations" (UEN) group, a now defunct bloc that once included representatives of European neo-fascist parties – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_for_Europe_of_the_Nations and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe_of_Freedom_and_Democracy .
Eventually British Tory MEP's decided against jointing the UEN, and formed a new, "soft Euroskeptic", anti-Federalist party called "European Conservatives and Reformists" (ECR), half of whose MEPs are British, and the other half either Polish or Czech. So conservative "spin" notwithstanding, the ECR is most definitely not a truly pan-European political party – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Conservatives_and_Reformists and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_of_European_Conservatives_and_Refo... . As one might expect, the ECR sits to the Right of the more moderate German and French "EPP" conservatives in the European parliament.
British anti-EU sentiment is further entrenched via Europhobic non-party groups and think-tanks, of which Britain has about 30, or 10 times more than the per-country tally of Euroskeptic non-party groups in continental Europe – see http://www.uaces.org/pdf/papers/1101/usherwood.pdf .
For quick descriptions of the range of official political parties in the EU Parliament, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/guides/newsid_8214000/8214446.stm , and for the results of the 2009 EU election, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/elections/euro/09/flash/html/eu.stm . For a short, excellent guide to the EU Parliament, courtesy of the BBC, see vhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/guides/newsid_8119000/8119605.stm , http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/guides/newsid_8142000/8142171.stm , http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/guides/newsid_8140000/8140862.stm , http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/guides/newsid_8126000/8126903.stm , http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/europe/newsid_8645000/8645915.stm , http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/guides/newsid_8140000/8140453.stm , http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/guides/newsid_8120000/8120710.stm ; and watch the videos at http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/guides/newsid_8119000/8119605.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/guides/newsid_8214000/8214446.stm .
Finally, note that,even though Britain's conservative Prime-Minister, David Cameron, has described Britain's militantly Europhobic party, the UKIP, as "fruit cakes and loonies and closet racists", these racists do constitute a large percentage of Britain's population. And indeed, they constitute a large percentage of the MPs and MEP's in Cameron's own party, many of whom might defect to the UKIP – see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-are-closet-racists-says- cameron-472769.html , http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/21/david-cameron-eurosc... , http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2130149/Are-swivel-eyed-cranks- fruitcakes-revenge-The-Cameroon-abuse-UKIP-dangerous-game.html , http://www.matthewjgoodwin.com/2012/04/with-all-this-talk-about-ukip.html , http://www.scribd.com/doc/89024367/Study-of-the-UKIP-Electorate , http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2012/01/31/sketch-eurosceptic... cameron-like-a-foul-smell , and http://www.economist.com/node/21534783 .
Thanks for the compliment, but I am not so sure that I am atypical of contemporary Germans. Younger, educated Germans nowadays tend to be very well-traveled, very cosmopolitan, and very "progressive" in outlook. Things have changed a lot in Germany, after 6 decades of stable democracy and stable economic prosperity.
Thanks for the qualification that it is Merkel's conservatives who perhaps want to "Germanize" Europe. My own view is that Germany's Social Democrats are different, and tend to be much more "open", if you will, to proposals and perspectives coming from France, and from the Med.
All best wishes,
You look at Europe as if everyone were like you, sunning your golden locks in your ivory tower, hurling down disdain like thunderbolts at those that ridicule your pat formulations and childish self-regard.
Let me tell you, most Europeans are drudges, working stiffs that have lived in the same area for generations. Their field of experience is narrow. It is the same everywhere. Even the vaunted mobility of the American is more the tale of a large minority than that of a nation. Those days are gone.
So when you imagine a Europub where they are all singing in harmony and splitting the bill, you betray that ivory tower existence and your- willful- ignorance of the vast majority of its denizens.
You don't all jet around sealing deals, by far most of you are factory workers, florists, waiters, hoteliers and pastry makers.
I don't have to go to Greece to know that resentment and poverty are stalking the land. It is the small people that get stepped on in this crisis and there are many more of them than there are of those like you. Needless to say the few that don't share that fate of the small people are overrepresented here as are the ivory tower cloud dwellers such as yourself and so those opinions preponderate.
If you want to pass for a serious person you need to get up to speed on the eurofiasco- a highly technical but also highly intimate element in everyday life in Europe. Your sinecure may be a measure of your braininess but in no way qualifies you to comment on the financial convulsions in Spain or how it is threatening their way of life.
All my knowledge of Europe is second or third hand but it is clear that bad things are happening in Europe and worse is to come. Perhaps your press is to blame? The efforts of the bureaucrats and the deluded to continue to project a sense of normalcy plays into the human desire for continuity, but for someone with your smarts to simply ignore the overwhelming evidence of the tottering nature of the structure you profess to admire is unacceptable in an intelligent man.
I agree with your list of desirable attributes that the euro possesses.
But like a heroine in a horror movie the euro has a dark secret. It murders its suitors one by one in their sleep.
Greece, then Spain, next Italy, then Belgium and who knows- perhaps the next knock on the door will be the Germans, offering their nest eggs in futile supplication to the ravenous deity you love so much.
Dear femi,
Thanks, but if anything I am a bit embarrassed that I did not immediately see the problems and insidious consequences of Baldwin's argument: his argument in favor of disaggregating America's black population from statistics like the GINI coefficient. I am a philosopher by inclination and training, which means that I am willing to entertain just about any novel idea – any idea that I have not encountered before – for at least a little while……
In hindsight, of course, disaggregating American blacks statistically would basically amount to America evading responsibility for the continuing underclass status of much of its black population. White Americans will talk euphemistically about the "terrible legacy of slavery": as if the injustice perpetrated is long past, but American blacks are now trapped in a "subculture" of self-crippling resentment that – for whatever perverse masochistic reason – they are unwilling to let go of, or leave behind. So the victims once again get blamed.
This then absolves privileged white Americans of any responsibility to look to the cultural and political prison of American society more widely conceived, where socialism (for instance) is a dirty word, and no socialist tradition to speak of exists. Could it not be at least possible that the absence of any socialist tradition in the United States now explains the ongoing underperformance of blacks, and no longer "the terrible legacy of slavery"? Even the conservative columnist George Will once remarked that, given all the progressive policies and laws developed over the past 40 years to combat racism in the United States, the problem of contemporary American blacks is no longer one of race, but rather, a problem of class. And only socialist political theory speaks to the problem of class.
But this is a conceptual road that a huge proportion of privileged white Americans will militantly resist going down – including many who post on this blog. So perhaps, in fact, it is THEIR attitudes and political convictions that are actually the root cause of the problem, and not the black subculture? Which, of course, is the very, very last thing that they will ever admit…..
All best wishes,
Hi Viva,
Just like everyone else, I am most definitely bound to some extent by my class-perspective. Point well-taken. However, one of the more interesting aspects of this crisis is that, despite economic austerity and pain, substantial majorities in both Greece and Spain still very much want to remain part of the EU. If anything, they want more EU integration, not less. I'll find the links to the newspaper stories if you need them, but you read widely enough that I will just assume that you know that this is true.
Are such tenaciously Europhilic Spaniards and Greeks deluded masochists? Are they mere brainwashed victims of pro-EU continental media? Are they continental-European inverse dopple-gangers of Britain's Euroskeptic public, which is instead brainwashed by the Europhobic Murdoch press? Perhaps.
But if you if you were to actually live in Europe for a few years, Viva, instead of just reading about with American spectacles on, you would pick up almost by "osmosis" important details such as the following. Portugal, Spain, and Greece all experienced dictatorship within living memory. So for Spanish, Greek, and Portuguese socialists and liberals, joining the EU amounts to nothing less than securing "protection" against the fascist, right-wing elements in their own countries. That's a very powerful motivator, and not to be underestimated, because thousands of socialists and liberals in these countries did actually suffer imprisonment, torture, and "re-education" under those dictatorships.
This is just one detail, but an important one that perhaps you had not considered?
Viva, I don't know why you think your intuitions, as an American, will automatically "track" those of the "common man" in Spain or Greece. Or why you think that my intuitions, as someone who lives in Europe, but who is unfortunately employed as an academic, are a-priori misguided and off-base? Do you just generally assume, as a matter of policy, that most intellectuals are out-to-lunch, except for conservative American intellectuals who provide support for your convictions? If this is just a general epistemological policy of yours -- the discounting of most academics, as "out to lunch" -- then fair enough, and I won't take it personally.
But isn't it at least possible -- despite my unfortunate class-location as an academic -- that as someone who lives, works, and breathes the air in Europe, my own intuitions are every bit as "on track" as yours? Or, perhaps, that my intuitions are even more on track? At least with regard to continental European politics and sentiment?
All best wishes,
Theomorph ,
Once again thank-you for your time . I am really impressed by you frank and candid analysis of the socio-economic and political landscape of contemporary America. Just before I read your last paragraph I was going to respond in the words with which you concluded your riposte . Indeed a majority of privileged white Americans would fiercely defend the status quo , and , I dare say , for purely irrational reasons , even less privileged white Americas , who might well benefit from changes which could make America a more egalitarian society from that which it is today.
It would appear that people like you would be labeled a 'lefty ' , at least here in the UK that is probably be the description you would be given by those who support and endorse similar policies to the GOP in the USA. Here in the UK they are called Tories or the Conservatives. I would have liked to have had the time to explore this topic with you further , however there is neither the time nor the space to do that right now , and certainly not on these pages , as the discussion would increasingly take on the form of a private discussion. In any event it is gratifying to know that there are people like you , even in the US , who are honest enough to recognise the serious flaws in the socio-political machinery of the US which effectively excludes huge numbers of people being able to fully participate in society , the majority of whom wind up on the margins of political and economic activity , often resorting to crime and causing further disruptions as they stumble along.
Again , thank-you for your time and ,
Kind regards,
@ Theomorph: "In continental Europe, Euroskepticism is a politically marginal position, openly advocated only by far-Left or far-Right wing parties, but never by mainstream parties."
Europe's parties have certainly colluded to impose euro integration on their reluctant public. On Lisbon over 90% of the TD's (representatives) in the Dail Eireann supported the treaty. Over 53% of the Irish public voted against it. When Germany approved Maastricht only 6% of the representatives in the Bundestag opposed the treaty whilst public opposition to Maastricht was consistently polling at over 62% . In '05 The French assembly ratified the constitution by a majority of 90%. The French people rejected it by 55%. If the decision had been left to the Dutch Parliament the constitution would have been ratified by 85% - the Dutch people however rejected it by 62%. The same yawning gap is evident in Denmark, Czech, Poland, Sweden and so on and on.
Euro enthusiasm in Europe is therefore not "mainstream" at all Theo. The euro agenda has advanced by means of a process of open political rape in which the no of millions of voters has been persistently overruled by the collusive yes of a clutch of insiders and operators – prime beneficiaries of the new transnational oligarchy.
Of course like all other ludicrous projects to abolish history this one has done nothing but wreak catastrophe and destruction.
A new chapter has already opened on this story Theo. In just a few short years parties long entrenched in government have been reduced to a whimpering rump (Fianna Fail & Pasok) whilst others have moved from nowhere into the mainstream (True Finns Smytrga etc.).
The fact is that the euro is a policy so massively destructive of the public welfare that it will have to be abandoned. Whether this outcome is achieved by mainstream parties or by their new replacements is the only remaining question.
@Theomorph: "The UK is different not just because the British public is statistically so much more Europhobic. The UK is also different because Europhobes are so thoroughly entrenched in Britain's mainstream party system."
Indeed - which is why British mainstream politics has not been able to ignore the views of the British public – Democracy in action!
I am offended and disgusted by your racist assault on 'white' Americans.
It so happens that they- we- pay huge amounts to support the lifestyle of self-destruction and fecklessness that characterizes vast swathes of American society today, both black and white.
That our generous and benign gesture is thrown back into our face with accusations of past injustices is a commonplace of public discourse in the US.
Your failure to mention even tangentially the role personal responsibility plays in the failure of groups and individuals to grasp the universally opportunities of education in America mark you for the socialist tool you are.
I am fascinated that you and morph seem to resort to America bashing whenever the ticklish subject of European treatment of minorities arises. What's wrong, trouble in paradise?
You open yourself to riducule by reflexively laying the aberrant behaviors of groups and individuals on 'white' Americans, revealing only your own unacceptable racist preconceptions of a culture you clearly know little.
'...political rape...'
Well said.
The recipients of the sinecures of Europe's current regimes, those that benefit inordinately from the false prosperity wrought by the eurosclerosis as well as those that ignorantly and blindly stumble about in the graveyard of broken idols where the EU faithful perversely persist in worshipping; all have to answer for the conflagration that grows every day in the cities of Greece, Spain and Italy.
These individuals, insulated by location, affluence or unwillingness to acknowledge reality will have to explain why the contagion is eating the vitals of EU mainstay France and Belgium and fascism is rising in Hungary and Greece, and separatism threatens Spain.
Ultimately all will fall to the demon currency that enriches some while it destroys others. Ultimately the enriched will have to pay for the results of their unjust and unsustainable good fortune. None is exempt.
Funny that you'd say that. I read one of his alarmist comments on DER SPIEGEL, and decided to ignore him from then on.
Muenchau is writer for the Financial Times and its "fatherlandish" (to use Marie "Clear's" diction) branch, Financial Times Deutschland. In other words: the guy's 100% in the tank for big investment.
It's a bit surprising that a center-left publication as DER SPIEGEL is giving the guy so much room, but it's probably because his doomsday scenarios generate lots of clicks.
As a black person living in Europe you must be wondering why there is no European Obama.
After all immigrants from Africa, Turkey, Middle-east & Asia are now in their 4th or 3rd generation in Europe.
The USA has had affirmative action policies for decades which has pushed a considerable portion of the black population to the middle-class (over 60%). Considering the legacy of 3 centuries of slavery it is astonishing that over 60% of blacks are now middle-class.
Europe does not to deal with the legacy of slavery among its non-white citizens yet the suburbs of Paris burned every summer a few short years ago.
Unfortunately there is no sign of an European Obama yet and for a good reason as one magazine noted.
"in a society where it's quite conceivable that Barack Obama, were he a football player rather than the President of the United States, would be targeted by racist taunts.":
@ Viva:
"'...political rape...'"
Are you refering to GOP senatorial candidate TODD AKIN (Missouri) who told women there was such a thing as "legitimate rape"? LOL
I can't wait for the day when the GOP will be purged of the social-conservative Neanderthalers and assorted jerks, so they become electable again.
"After all immigrants from Africa, Turkey, Middle-east & Asia are now in their 4th or 3rd generation in Europe."
And now let's all pause for a second and consider how "3rd and 4th generation" African Americans were treated back in the day.
Here's a hint:
It's so sad that you even don't know your own history.
Maybe you should check out how big mama in chief aka Michelle Obama remembers her own family's history in South Carolina. It's a sad story, so much is for certain: slavery, rape, abject poverty.
It would be amusing to watch the Europhiles flop around trying to explain how their socialistic fantasy, manifested in the euro, is benefiting Europe, if the flames of burning cities, the collapse of crumbling economies and the dismay of disintegrating societies were not so dire.
It would be a source of levity and derision that the europhiles can repeat over and over the mantra that the EU promotes peace in light of these undeniable horrid results, that they can say the people of Europe desire more EU despite the polls you cite and that the euroskeptics are merely cranks or jealous or worse; if the clearly foreseeable and historically rhyming events didn't louder and louder portend the fall of the West.
We are left helpless, able only to marvel at the tragic beauty of the all-consuming conflagation, fascinated as it moves from nation to nation, in ever-growing intensity, its explosive violence so strangely contrasting with the slow motion sleepwalking of the EU's leaders and the obliviousness of the sheep grazing placidly about their feet as the earth slowly gives way all aroud them.
Well the Jews are not the only minority group to suffer centuries of racism in Europe.
As you know the Roma are another despised minority group in Europe. Over 10 million Roma today in Europe today and most live in third world like poverty and squalor. So much for "socialist" Europe.
In this day and age of the globalized media the unofficial apartheid practised against the Roma is well known in the rest of the world.
I was watching a Canadian TV documentary about the racism against Roma in eastern European countries like Romania, Hungary & Czech republic and the hatred and violence against the Roma was truly shocking.
These countries are members of the EU but apparently they behave like apartheid era South Africa towards their Roma population . So much for the EU "civilizing" member states.
A pity you half-baked efforts to make an impression didn't include reading Maher's comment on which mine was based, as was clearly indicated.
Your sophomoric buffoonery was noticed in its absence.
Nice to see you back. You are always good for a laugh.
Hi femi,
Actually, I am not American at all, but rather, dual-passported German + Canadian, and I live in Italy, where I teach philosophy. I only know so much about the United States because I spent vacations there as a boy, and spent almost 10 years studying in the United States at the university level. And also, perhaps because Anglophone Canaada is not all that different from the United States, and Canadian media is dominated by American programming.
Politically speaking, my perspective on the United States is probably not even standard in Democratic circles, because I am so keenly interested in the inter-generational links between equality of result or condition, and equality of opportunity. Even Democrats in the United States are often embarrassed to espouse equality of result or condition, because it sounds like sour grapes, or envy, or resentment of those who are more "successful".
What's really missing in the United State is not so much socialism, as an awareness of the LTV, or "Labor Theory of Value" -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value . The average American has a somewhat mystical or mystified understanding of how wealth is generated, and how the rich actually get rich. Whereas in France, way back in the 19th century Proudhon realized that the Capitalist gets rich by in effect holding back a certain portion of wages for labor that, strictly speaking, should be the worker's, and then calls it "profit". Ergo, reasoned Proudhon, "Profit is Theft": a withholding from the worker of proper full renumeration for their contribution to the process of production.
After all, if the Capitalist could not employ workers, the process of production in his/her firm would not be "adding value", and there would be no sociological reason why anyone would buy his/her products or services. To be sure, the Capitalist also makes a significant contribution as manager and entrepreneur, but how significant? How much labor-value is he/she truly entitled to hold back, and count as profit? To what extent should he/she be able to pay himself/herself a much higher income, or accumulate significant personal assets based on such with-holding of labor-value?
These questions are still asked of employers by unions in Germany and France. And in Germany, union representatives sit on corporate boards, where they have a say in the answers to such questions. The contemporary term for this is "codetermination". Whereas in the Anglosphere, most workers are willing to passively accept as individuals whatever wage is offered them, and they naively buy into the alternative neo-liberal "subjective theory of value": the value of anyone's labor is merely what "the market" is willing to pay for it – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_Theory_of_Value .
There are exceptions to this generalization, of course. Wall-Street banksters most definitely subscribe to "MOLTV" -- "My Own Labor Theory of Value". Banksters are keenly aware of the numbers, and how much their bank or hedge fund is making from their efforts. So for decades they have demanded a share of the profit, in the form of bonuses. As such, one does have to admit that not all Americans are completely naive about the nature of wealth, and how it depends on the extraction of the labor of others....
But in continental Europe, almost all workers seem to have some degree of sociological insight into the wealth-extraction process. So socialism in continental Europe and high taxes on the rich are more likely to be understood by the public as the government taking back the congealed labor-value that the rich "stole" (according to Proudhon) from workers in the first place, as profit. High taxes on the rich are not viewed as "sour grapes", only rooted in emotional resentment of the rich, but rather, as justified given that actual nature of the collective production process.
Continentals will not call for communist revolution as a consequence of such analysis. But they will feel perfectly entitled to demand that the rich to pay more, and they will demand a more just and equitable society. Because, after all, everyone's labor is necessary to get modern advanced industrial economies to work: the janitor's labor as well as the banker's.
So again, on my own view, the core difference between the United States and Europe seems to be that in the latter there exists a kind of culturally diffuse awareness of LTV.
My simply suggesting as much, indicates that I could not possibly be an American…..
All best wishes,
"It would be amusing to watch the Europhiles flop around trying to explain how their socialistic fantasy"
The Roma in Europe can tell us how good European "socialism" is.
"consider how "3rd and 4th generation" African Americans were treated back in the day."
Comparing the 1860's to 2012?
Do you compare events that happened during the 1860's in Europe to 2012?
Don't they teach critical thinking skills in German schools? Obviously not.
Indeed there are feckless people of all races and I agree with you that such people should take responsibility for their lives to a large extent.However I am not moved by the perceived offence you think I have caused you to the extent that I suffer racism on a daily basis. Are you seriously asking me to keep mute in order to please and pacify you ? I went to university in America so I think I know to some extent what I am talking about. To me it is glaring that black people both in America and in Europe continue to be discriminated against , which despite affirmative action needs to be highlighted. Both my wife and I are lawyers , and yet we still have to face discrimination , perhaps not as severely as many other black people endure , but discrimination non-the-less. It is certainly worse in Europe than in America , but that is a problem that Europe would have to deal with in due course. A few years ago The Economist ran an article acknowledging that at least among black people of African origin there is a significantly higher rate of university graduates compared to the indigenous white people in America. Curiously enough this is not translated into better jobs for people who have equivalent qualifications but who come from different races.
My wife's family is African American , I have very close family in America and indeed as I mentioned I went to Syracuse University in upstate New York and the SUNY in Buffalo NY in the 1970's , I have lived in various parts of the world and now live in England where I was born. I would not have had the privileges I have enjoyed , but for the fact that both my parents were professional people , my father an architect and my mother a professor of pediatrics. I may not be typical of many black people , but it is clear from my experience that black people suffer disproportionately both in Europe and in America , not because of any innate fecklessness , as you choose to describe it , but because of enormous pressures built into a system designed to crush them. And then surprise, surprise , we turn around to blame the victim !
If you say you are offended, I am supremely offended , indeed I am hopping mad and irate. Don't lecture me about fecklessness, it does not lie in your mouth.
JOSHER's funny story for the day:
"After all immigrants from Africa, Turkey, Middle-east & Asia are now in their 4th or 3rd generation in Europe." (citing ef)
And now let's all pause for a second and consider how "3rd and 4th generation" African Americans were treated back in the day.
VZ: Why should we do that? Is this blog about the US? Is Europe exempt from criticism in a blog about Europe? Or are you unable to defend the European society on its own merits?
JOSHER: Here's a hint:
VZ: Bravo! But why stop with quoting a work of fiction as fact? Why not go back to your favorite source for your buffoonish world view, Adolph Hitler: 'If you tell a big enough lie long enough and often enough people will believe it.' NOW we can all recognize you for what you are, a neo-nazi clown that wants to pull down the shades on the wife-beating in his own house by screaming about the dysfunctional family that lived in the neighborhood when he was a child.
JOSHER: It's so sad that you even don't know your own history.
Maybe you should check out how big mama in chief aka Michelle Obama remembers her own family's history in South Carolina. It's a sad story, so much is for certain: slavery, rape, abject poverty.
VZ: I would looooove to see the citation for that one. Much of her self-narrative has been shown to be a lie. She lived a life of privilege as a child. But we are happy enough if all we can get from you are your pathetic broken ends of hearsay and fantasy to construct your derelict castle of distraction and falsehood. Deutscheland uber alles!
You would certainly risk facing a lynching if you lived in America.
Your grab for victim status leaves me cold. Plenty of whites would love to be sitting where you are. And I presume that you obtained your status purely on your merits, no money from the white man ever aided you. Yet here you are educated, housed and fed- how did all that inhuman white prejudice allow such a thing to happen?
And do you imagine that blacks are the only ones to suffer racism? I have been the subject of numerous black on white assaults and they are daily fare on the local news. White on black crimes are rare. Of course you only want to talk about how whitey keeps blackie down. No dice. Blacks murder whites at a rate ten times that of the reverse. This form of racism is rarely mentioned because it doesn't allow you to inflate yourself with the rage which the leftists encourage and abet, assuming it is the standard behavior of blacks. How does that make you feel? You are a victim of your own victimhood.
I know plenty of blacks that have made it to the top, many godly and wise individuals. I helped elect my black representative to the House and I voted for our Indian-American governor. People- PEOPLE- of all colors live in my neighborhood. In peace.
My father and mother grew up in dire poverty in South Carolina, my grandfather was a sharecropper, I have seen the utter depths of poverty with my own eyes and I know- I KNOW- you are as far removed from that as the east is from the west- as am I.
So what are you enraged about? That assholes and fools exist? Sorry, but they'll always be around.
I am angry because our socialistically-inspired society is enabling your race primarily but mine as well to wallow in drugs, fornication and self-pity, all for the sake of political advantage, and it is being financed in large measure with borrowed money, that someone will have to pay back some day. You and me. Doesn't it burn you up that the ones that are taking your money are giving it to our brothers so that they can live a sordid and self-destructive existence?
Be angry. Just know who your real enemies are.
@ theomorph
If the Brits are 'Europhobes', which you keep repeating, why do they have more other EU nationals living and working on their territory than any other member state? It may be second to Germany, but with 75% of Germany's population, my point still stands.
Answer: because they, more than any other EU country, have applied the rules regarding freedom to settle and work in other member states. In order to do this they have given other nationals the same opportunities as Brits when applying for a job.
(See "Poles return to Britain despite ailing economy", Daily Telegraph)
If the Brits are 'Europhobes' why are so many companies run by 'foreigners' in the UK?
Answer: because the Brits, unlike other Europeans, don't distinguish between their own nationals and 'foreigners'.
On this point, let me make a remark. It is often pointed out that Britain has 'allowed its manufacturing to be taken over by foreigners'. 'Foreigners'? If Britain is applying EU regulations under the Single Market ruling, then logically there is no such thing as a 'foreigner', no difference between us. Some discrepancy there, don't you think?
You say you love Italians. Well, yes, don't we all? However, why do they refuse to have foreign car manufactuerers on their territory? Why do non-Italians not go to Italy to find jobs? Well, you don't need the answer to that, do you? How many non Italians could land a job in completion with local nationals?
Don't hold your breath.
So, I repeat, how are the Brits 'Europhobes'. Ah, they don't like the EU. That's what you mean, isn't it?
Have you visited the suburbs of Paris?
They can teach you the real meaning of the word "bunker".
no less than the Toronto's
I did not suggest that Jewish people are the only minority that have suffered for centuries or continue to suffer racism in Europe. However , as I black person can I make the point that I am more visible than either Jewish or Romany people. It is much easier for a Jewish or Roma person to 'disappear ' into the general European indigenous population than for a black person to do so. As such black people are perhaps the most vulnerable of any group in Europe today.
For those who say it will never happen , or a holocaust is unlikely in Europe ever again, let me remind you of former Yugoslavia only a few years ago and horrors of a similar nature since world war 2 in various parts of the world , which demonstrate ever afresh what human beings are capable of doing to others. These days when more and more people are becoming secular , the rise of far right parties in many parts of Europe , the existence of these parties at all in practically every country in Europe ,all this does not bode well at all.
Consider that at the time of the holocaust in Germany , Germany had produced the likes of JS Bach - Germany had reached by far the height of European civilization. For such a country to descend to such brutality really does not give me much hope or sense of optimism. Indeed I think people are becoming coarser than they ever were. It remains to be seen what the outcome of all this would be , but one thing is for sure , every minority group in Europe should be vigilant and not assume it is safe , simply because in the last sixty odd years things have indeed be so. Every minority at any moment should be poised to defend itself and protect its interest. After almost 2000 years in Europe it was this consideration that drove Jews to demand a homeland - modern day Israel, which they defend to the very last with the very last drop of their blood.
oh I was sure that your family was in Erskine Cadwell novels
Hail Maher,
How nice of you to show up. I was wondering what happened to you. Pedro and I are always pining for you, missing your war cries like: "The fact is that the euro is a policy so massively destructive of the public welfare that it will have to be abandoned."
How reassuring that we can then fall back on our national currencies, if we are forced to abandon the Euro. What will the UK fall back on, it the pound collapses one of these days. You think I am joking, right? Not so.
Did you know that the UK will have to borrow a massive £120bn during the current financial year with the outstanding stock of government debt set to triple between 2008 and 2015/16.
To quote Liam Halligan: "Between 2009/10 and 2016/17, government spending is set to increase from £661bn to £709bn, according to official figures cited by Crafts, with annual social security payments rising 22pc to £199bn. Debt interest costs are set to soar by a staggering 107pc to £64bn a year – and that's on benign interest rate assumptions, assuming credit markets don't revolt." Did you know this, Maher?
Do you know, Maher, that the UK fundamentals are as bad as Greece's, probably worse?
Your public sector debt may be 'only' 70% of GDP but that is because the government doesn't include off balance sheet liabilities like public sector pensions, state pensions and PFI.
Adding them to the official figure, as one must, adds around 2.5 trillion to the debt, so that your true total indebtedness is closer to 250% of GDP. Higher than Greece's and you must add to this the £120bn annual deficit the government is running.
So, Maher, no crocodile tears for the Eurozone. Shed your tears where they are due, for the UK.
I've met your type before , the Archie Bunker , some of my best friends are black ' type, who deep down are truly the most vile racist. The type who shopped their Jewish neighbours in Germany to the Nazi's in order to have their flat maybe, or perhaps their job. Frankly I have no truck with racist of any type , and I make no apology. I will not descend to abuse which is totally unnecessary , and besides all comments will simply be taken down by TE - they are very good at that. Therefore , if for nothing else , lets keep this discussion civil. However if we were to meet in a pub where all gloves were off , I would certainly deliver as well as you dare to give - and more.
The crime figures you suggest are entirely bogus - give me credible links if you want to affirm them. Even today black people in America constitute just over six percent of the population and therefore cannot possibly make up the majority of people committing crimes and being incarcerated. Of course racist believe otherwise and would like others to believe likewise.
One thing I would like to point out to you though which I still find shocking and which is an endorsement for 'socialistically-inspired society ' is this. Visit Germany , France , UK or indeed any western European country and you will never find the kind of miserable poverty and deprivation as you would find in America. To me this is a huge indictment on the moral fabric of America. There is something terribly rotten about America , which by the way is why I would never live there . There is clearly something rotten in a country that allows such extremes of poverty to exist beside such wealth. Many Americans think it is normal, but there is a link between the high levels of violent crime resulting from a lack of social cohesion and such extremes of poverty as exist in America , and which exist in no other part of the world except in some of the worst third world countries.
Perhaps you are one of those who are deluded into believing that you can go it alone and by dint of your own hard work,ambition and imagination , you could achieve the American dream. Tell that to my ( younger ) first cousin a former professor of medicine at UCLA who developed cancer in her late thirties and has since found herself struggling to deal with the aftermath of her illness. For example if she had been in the UK she would have had her entire treatment free. In Europe there is a sense of shared experience which does not exist in the dog-eat-dog culture of the US which some of us consider uncivilized and barbaric. I know full well who my real enemies are , that hasn't yet dawned on you.
Simply because they were white, a friend of mine barely escaped lynching at the hands of a black mob, my mother was humiliated and discriminated against by a bunch of blacks, I suffered assaults in high school and college by blacks- I could go on.
Racism exists on both sides. But one side seems to deny it. Yet it was the black activist-for-hire Jesse Jackson, Jr. who professed to fear meeting a black man on the street at night.
Why are black run, primarily democrat controlled, majority black cities in the US suffering the highest rates of murder, drug abuse, welfare dependency and every other social ill yu can name?
Not supposed to talk about that are we? I find this disturbing.
There are certain places where you can go and can't go if you're white and the same is doubtless true for blacks.
I admit it. I am a racist. I only note the existence of the phenomenon, I don't practice the craft. You only kid yourself when you pretend you're not a racist, you have eloquently admitted as much.
I also found it hugely entertaining when you told morph you thought it was 'sinister' to disaggregate blacks when compiling social data. Yet the US Census does it on a regular basis. Is that sinister? Even when the president of the US is a black man and one third of all Federal jobs are held by blacks while comprising only 12% of the population. Disaggregate that.
Yes, gigantically entertaining when morph came back apologetically, subserviantly, cringingly with 'Oh, my goodness, I am so soooory, please forgive me, how could I ever have made such a siiiinister moral blunder. I didn't mean to disagre- disagre- sniff sniff disaggregate you!!!! OH OH OH, boo hoo hoo hoo, wwaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!' wawawawawwawaaaaaaa!!!!'
hahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa ahahahahahahahah!!!!!!
isn't it funny, both of you would agree to scapegoating the French !
Why lie? I never said I had any black friends. I don't have to like you to appreciate your ethics and achievements. That's all I ever said.
That single slip of yours, putting a cliche in my mouth, speaks volumes and confirms all I have said. You are a tortured pile of cliches. Archie Bunker died forty years ago. About the time Barack Obama was getting his first lessons in the mosque in Indonesia. Funny how you latch on to the fictitious and ignore reality. It goes along with the socialistic mindset you display.
As for your contention that poverty is so bad in the US, riddle me this: How much money do you have to give to a drug addict in order for him to not be poor? Answer: He will spend it until the drugs kill him, no amount get him out of poverty.
Poverty in the US? What a farcical notion. We give over a trillion a year to raise people out of poverty, but get this: food stamps are not counted as income when computing poverty. I can't believe it either. I saw a man in the doctor's office yesterday who was so fat he could barely walk. Poor fellow.
Get this: your individual behavior has more to do with your success or failure in the US than racism or access to social programs.
Sorry about your cousin. Truly. But what that has to do with racial discrimination, you don't say. You are lapsing back into the socialistic talking points you are so fond of. Another subject.
Then you call me a nazi and in the same breath say let's keep the discussion civil. Your double standard is showing.
The crime figure I cited is available on the FBI site. Do your own homework. Blacks are twelve percent of the population and fifty percent of the prison population. Again, FBI.
I am particularly indebted to you for bringing up the spurious connection between poverty and crime. There was less crime during the Great Depression than there is today, despite the deprivation. Sources? Do your own homework, I am not google. People today have subsidized housing and food and, to our everlasting shame, enough money to go out and buy drugs which, along with alcohol, account in large measure for most of the crimes people are arrested for today. Do your homework and get your head out of Archie Bunker's ass.
Then you threaten violence. Bravely spoken. But a dog has courage. Defend your rotten, outdated socialistic ideas if you can. That's the test you have before you here. So far you are getting bitch slapped.
Get your facts straight first.
The black population in the USA is NOT 6%. It is about 13% of the total population of which about 6% are in the underclass.
I don't see any Colin Powells, Condi Rices on the European political scene, never mind an European Obama.
Do you know how many members of the US congress are black?
Do you know how many members of the French parliament is non-white, well it looks lily white to me.
The reasons for the black underclass are too complicated for simple minds to understand. One needs to understand the the legacy of slavery and the breakdown of family life.
Still the fact that affirmative action policies has created a majority black population speaks well of the US's aim to correct past wrongs. Over 60% of black Americans are of middle-class background - did you know that?
Now tell us what percentage of non-whites in Europe are of middle class background?
What percentage of the Roma in Europe are of middle class background?
"UCLA who developed cancer in her late thirties and has since found herself struggling to deal with the aftermath of her illness."
Did you know the USA has better cancer survival rates than Europe?
If Femi is so concerned with racism I wonder if he has ever stood up for the Roma in Europe.
Living in Europe and not doing nothing to help the Roma overcome the fight against racism?
Oh my bad.
Glad the discussion moved to life in the USA, where you, viva, are at home and, therefore, should know what you are talking about rather than highlighting conditions in countries you know only from the press, by your own admission and, since you do not speak French, German or Spanish, from the English and American press.
Perhaps we should all stick to our own turf in future. Only talk about places we intimately know and speak the language of, shall we?
How many gears does a French tank have?
Six- five forward and one reverse.
Why do the French plant trees along their roads?
So the Germans can march in the shade.
How many surrender monkeys does it take to eat a banana?
They are too scared of someone saying 'boo' to eat.
For sale: one French rifle, never used, dropped only once.
Which reminds me of my trip to Paris last April: this severely drunk fellow came walking out of a bistro on the Rive Gauche, not far from the Notre Dame, carrying a bottle and a chair, with his pants down around his ankles and shit running down his legs all over the pavement. We stepped well away, aghast. A woman dressed in black studded leather came out a moment later with two nude men on leashes crawling before her on all fours. They were whining as she whipped them and yanked viciously on the leashes. 'CD!' she shouted in distinct English, apparently at the shitty drunk, 'CD, bring back that chair or I shall tell my Francois to kick you in the head and kill you, you dirty bastard.' Needless to say we didn't eat at that bistro. I don't know what happened to CD.
I believe Theo is referring to the British attitude towards the Eurozone, not to their treatment of Continentals in the UK.
If not for the Poles, who would repair British showers cash in hand? Pity about the swans though.
How many gears does a French tank have?
Six- one forward and six reverse, viva
Concentrate on your punch lines
Pumpernickel's ode to joy:
"Glad the discussion moved to life in the USA, where you, viva, are at home and, therefore, should know what you are talking about rather than highlighting conditions in countries you know only from the press, by your own admission and, since you do not speak French, German or Spanish, from the English and American press.
"Perhaps we should all stick to our own turf in future. Only talk about places we intimately know and speak the language of, shall we?"
Pumpernickel, is this a quotation of Adolph Hitler responding to a query in 1940 about rumors of death camps in German-occupied Poland? Or is this your idea of a joke? By your standards how does one speak of life in ancient China or the atmosphere of Mars? Yet people do.
Why should I read the European press, since I am, after all, me? Their fantasies are well documented on these pages and English speaking foreign correspondents bring home the bacon every day. (Though I have on occasion listened through my own meager talents and that American innovation, google translator, to the nattering of your alien tongues. Really, how small you seem when you attempt to seem large in your cul-de-sac.)
I am starting to agree with Birtnick that you are only here in an attempt to subvert this English-language bulwark of dissent against the EU, through the insertion of endless irrelevancies and the grooming of useful idiots to promote your efforts.
So rage in your cage, there's a good chappy, my knightraumish littelErupeonsocialist. We got your number.
uh not bad for a cotton club boy
how's the american dream today !
I think that one shatters one eurobot propagandist's pair of rose-tinted spectacles with a sublime deftness, A J Maher.
Glad you outed yourself thoroughly on these pages both as the bigot and racist we always knew you were but were too embarrassed to throw in your face, except in jest, and the loudmouthed ignoramus concerning countries you really know nothing about.
Why not open your mind to the suggestion Theo very reasonable and kindly made to you and reflect about it and not dismiss out of hand:
"Viva, I don't know why you think your intuitions, as an American, will automatically "track" those of the "common man" in Spain or Greece. Or why you think that my intuitions, as someone who lives in Europe, but who is unfortunately employed as an academic, are a-priori misguided and off-base? Do you just generally assume, as a matter of policy, that most intellectuals are out-to-lunch, except for conservative American intellectuals who provide support for your convictions? If this is just a general epistemological policy of yours -- the discounting of most academics, as "out to lunch" -- then fair enough, and I won't take it personally.
But isn't it at least possible -- despite my unfortunate class-location as an academic -- that as someone who lives, works, and breathes the air in Europe, my own intuitions are every bit as "on track" as yours? Or, perhaps, that my intuitions are even more on track? At least with regard to continental European politics and sentiment?"
As to your association with Dirtlick (if I remember correctly, that is the name you gave to him in one of your rare lucid moments) a German proverb comes to mind: Pack schlägt sich, Pack verträgt sich.
Nichts für ungut, viva.
I wish I had the time to respond to all the drivel you spout. In any event I would much rather live in Europe than in America. As I have live on both continents I am in a position to make ( a ) judgement on what is in my interest and that of my children. Europe ( by and large ) , which ever way you choose make an assessment , is - with respect , a much more civil place than America. Black people have only been in Europe for about fifty years in any significant number. All the apparent progress and achievement which America boasts of today in respect of race relations and equality are really puisne. Given the time that black people have been in America , frankly but the one would have expected more.
Charity begins at home. I notice you point out that I did not for example address discrimination which Roma people have suffered for centuries in Europe. That is not correct. In any event I firmly believe that people should look after themselves before they start attending to the plight of others. Jesus Christ's admonition still rings true ; 'And why beholdest thou the mote in thy brothers eye , but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye ? ' I shall attend first to the problems of black people and when these have been resolved I might then direct my energy to assisting the Roma , or any other group that currently faces discrimination or persecution.
Now I've spent enough time here , much as I would have liked to have addressed you more fully , I have to go. Have a good day.
Of course, I would not presume to pontificate about the situation in the US of A not living there and not having a feel of it, despite being able to read the American press on a daily basis and having read most of what is good of American literature, which gives me a marked advantage over you as I doubt that you have read much German literature except Kafka in translation, you once mentioned. Kafka translated is not Kafka. The German language is an essential ingredient to his prose. In it lies the message.
I, therefore, would have more justification to make statements about the American way if I were so inclined. My information is second hand through people I trust, family and friends, and their angle is the Democratic one, conservative liberal upper middle class and, of course, the many visits I paid the country, my favourites being New York and Las Vegas (visiting the Electronics Show mainly) and I do have an impression, which I sometimes voiced but never an ongoing commentary like your daily dose on the Eurozone and EU from a British Europhobic angle, as a self-declared "expert" on the area.
It is embarrassing to read your drivel against the background acclaims of the two Morlocks with their combined IQ of perhaps 120.
So give us a break and shut yourself up and concentrate on playing chess for a while.
Your move, viva.
I strongly suspected that Paris must have been traumatic for you. But quite honestly, you seem to have s*** for luck!
I lived for a year in Paris, and not once did I ever witness a scene of the sort you just described, defecation and all.
By way of contrast, I lived for a year in New York when I was much younger, and witnessed scenes of this sort a number of times – and worse – living in the Village during my bohemian phase. But never in Paris. Indeed, when I lived in Paris, I was almost disappointed because the city felt so – well – utterly respectable and "middle class". Paris seemed like a really nice place to raise children, for instance, because Paris is packed with well-kept, clean, and safe small neighborhood parks, complete with jungle-gyms, slides, etc. During that year I was always "waiting", if you will, for an experience of Parisian debauchery at its very best. But my wish was never granted. True enough, I was spending most of my time in Parisian libraries in any case....
And yet there you are, on your very first-ever trip to blessed France, and the gods grant you a miraculous encounter within days of arrival!
I jest, of course. But it just goes to show how idiosyncratic personal experience can be.
I can only imagine the effect that this scene of "defecation and the Dominatrix" must have had on your subconscious, Viva, and your view of France and Europe more generally. Next time, perhaps better to "play it safe", and take a house-boat cruise through the French country-side, or go hiking in the Alps….?
All best wishes,
Here is one to share with you, Theo and other francophones which I find hilarious:
Chapeau Monsieur !.
> > > > > > Et après on dira que les bonnes manières se perdent !
> > > > > > Quelquefois les filles, il vaut mieux savoir se taire, la preuve.....
> > > > > > Un homme décide de se faire griller au soleil tout nu sur une plage.
> > > > > > Par respect et pour ne pas attraper un coup de soleil, il avait couvert son sexe avec son chapeau.
> > > > > > Une dame se promène sur la plage le long de l'eau.
> > > > > > Arrivée devant le dormeur nu, elle s'exclame, avec un sourire en coin:
> > > > > > "Si vous étiez un gentleman, vous soulèveriez votre chapeau devant une dame".....
> > > > > > L'homme ouvre un oeil et répond:
> > > > > > "Madame, si vous en valiez la peine, il se soulèverait tout seul !..."
> > > > >
The Labour theory of value? Really?
Poor Marx's labour theory of value was defenestrated by Ian Steedman in 1977 – has word of this seminal mugging not yet reached the groves of Tuscany?
Marx's claim was that Labour is the only source of value, that value is the only source of profits and that value determines price. But the LTV was demonstrated to have no mathematical foundation when his supporting tables were deconstructed by Steedman and his "scientific basis" was demonstrated to be founded on a simple mathematical redundancy. This moved the labour theory of value from out of the economics departments and into the schools of generalisation, waffle and armwaving where you appear to have carelessly picked it up.
The other points you have made on Gini co-effecients in the US vs. Europe are fine as far as they go but that isn't as far as you wish to take them. Inequality is greater in the US than in Europe but a sensible critique would account for the fact that someone statistically poor in the US (60% below the medium household income) would not be statistically poor in Europe simply because the US median is so much higher than the median in Europe (even Germany). So the Gini comparisons show that it is possible for inequalities to be lower in a society with higher levels of real poverty (Europe) than in a richer society (the US). The same is true of Tanzania but it is not generally a matter of celebration for that destitution nation.
Mobility is also a key to assessing the significance of Gini's. The US imports a million or so poor people a year. These immediately take their place in the lowest quintile of the Gini table. Given this constant replenishment of poverty from outside the US the lowest quintile should have grown dramatically. But it hasn't. Impoverished immigrants to the US are now doing what they have always done – quickly moved up the income bracket.
However the stagnation in the fortunes of middle class America is certainly true and, in that lucky land, unprecedented. This does point to something structurally wrong in the US economy. I agree that this structural defect is intimately connected to the exponential rise in the share of growth siphoned off by the top quintile. Rent seekers have captured far too much of the American pie. Taxes need to correct this vast and unwarranted social subsidy.
But in Europe there are more urgent concerns. How does the fact that in just three years 40% of Greeks have been moved into poverty not register on your concerns dial? The same melancholy march to destitution is now underway in Spain and Italy and all this to save a feckless bondholders cartel and a mad currency fetish.
What would Marx have said?
"I can only imagine the effect that this scene of "defecation and the Dominatrix" must have had on your subconscious, Viva, and your view of France and Europe more generally."
As you probably know, Theo, what viva told us is invented but "where there is smoke there is fire" and we may, therefore, conclude that viva, not unlike Dirtlick, his best friend, has inclinations in this direction, unhealthy inclinations not unknown to harbour in the crevices of many an Anglo subconscious for from repression comes overcompensation and we have witnessed it here in our very own Pub and may count us lucky for having witnessed viva unfolding his most fervent desires before our astounded blue eyes. Ay, que dolor!
What a scream to watch the two-headed humorless teuton (P and, yes, you, Morph!) sniff around the obscene graffito I etched about Paris in order to enrage Marie (who incidentally had a laugh about it, much to my deep gratification.).
You two-headed vultures have just demonstrated yet again your inability to successfully joust on the field of ideas, and your penchant for seeking consolation by hunching down behind the stadium with the varlets to badmouth your betters, when you should be redoubling your efforts, if for no other apparent reason than to give us all another act in the farce of your participation in this blog.
Maher has just buried your foolish brandishing of the genie, Morph. Your reckless swagger into the realm of economic theory should teach you something. Refer to the name of the magazine to which you are submitting your nonsense. But it doesn't matter. You are so hardheaded I think it's safe to say you will continue to amuse us with your asinine conceits. Thank you and try again.
Pumpernookie, why don't you at least exploit the virtues of your craven cunning and rotten disposition and let us have it in the teeth instead of using all those stunted and simulated affects you think so clever? BTW, did you read Kafka's 'Amerika'? Not very good, flat and banal, completely without spirit, he should have destroyed it for the sake of his reputation. But I for one am pleased to have it as a reminder of European benightedness, arrogance and provincialism. Keep smiling!
Really, we can take it. Be a man.
Of course, I read Kafka's "Amerika", two, maybe three times. It is one of the great German classics. Its prose, however, cannot be translated without losing 80% of what makes it so great. It only can unfold itself in the German language.
I consider it one of his best. I do understand what ires you about it. Kafka never had been to Amerika yet he manages intuitively to sketch the America of 100 years ago in a way that made me "recognize" it when visiting it first 60 years or so later, as a hard and cold place, appealing to me only as a risk taker, adventurer but making me wonder what it would be like to a more vulnerable person falling on hard times there. I think Theo is referring to this when he says he prefers to live in "socialist" Europe. But that is not the point.
Kafka's genius lies in his prose and the associations it brings up in the reader but this, I imagine, can hardly happen in any of the translations, as a certain "queerness" of the German tongue and character which only can be cherished when it is one's mother tongue and being intimately familiar with the German culture and psyche, both good and bad, and, in addition, sharing a sense of the absurd and a subtle humour which is all Kafka's, makes the book such a mesmerizing read.
Karl, like all the other K. characters of Kafka seems permanently out of place, taken advantage of by the street wise. In fact, curiously, some of this "odd feeling of not belonging yet being at the centre of attraction" is portrayed in Chaplin films. Difficult to explain. However, I don't blame you for not "getting" it. I think Theo might probably explain it better if he tried?
Yet you did say one time that you liked Kafka's books or did I misread you? You are a fickle one, as Theo also noticed, therefore I would like to know more about your take on Kafka. It will help us to place you like your description of your experience in Paris already did, not to your advantage, let me add. Explain yourself in plain language, leaving out all those words I might need to google for, so we can decide if you are or are not a) sincere b) an intellectual lightweight c) a decent fellow d) a fraud.
Your move, viva :-)
Almost all Democrat Presidents before Obama declared war against a country. So they had to give him the Nobel Peace Prize so soon, at the start of his presidency, just in case he was like all the others...
The Nobel Peace Prize 2012 was awarded to European Union" for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe".
Despite I dont think it was the best choice, I guess at least people will know in the future what is (was ?) the "European Union".
That is not the case of some recent Nobel Peace Prizes like the following ones, which we all have to Google/Wikipedia about:
Martti Ahtisaari, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee, Tawakkol Karman, Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank, among many other obscure ones that will be remembered(Hmmmm) in the future more by the fact of being laureates than for the reasons why they won their Nobel Prizes.
Mr Hare,
How are you? Hope everything's going well.
You couldn't be more right, I guess. Thanks for the eye-opener. I really did not know who those people were.
I do wonder though. Isn't the Nobel prize for Peace overrated anyway? They shouldn't politicise it, although I agree that's not easy. They tend to do the same with the one for Literature. I, for instance, believe Lobo Antunes deserves the Nobel Prize. Pessoa certainly deserved the Nobel, with hinsight. With the same hindsight, it doesn't seem to make any sense at all! . Just some easy Portuguese examples off the top of my head. But so you get the gist. Portuguese is perhaps one of the most literarily proficuous languages around. Where are the Nobels? And please please please don't give it to Paulo Coelho. It would make me want to vomit.
Hi Peter :)
No doubt Fernando Pessoa certainly deserved the Literature Nobel.
I dare to say he deserved a Nobel Prize for any of his pseudonyms.
Amazing that he is still unknown for many poetry lovers.
Just 2 links for the more curious ones:
See you around :)
Yes, Francis. :-)
But somehow I think it suits him that he didn't. Sa Carneiro a contemporary was also of Nobel stock.. I see these days they try to give it a political meaning. Which is bad. Take Lobo Antunes. He is probably the best author to speak of pre and post 25th April Portugal. Fado Alexandrino is a true masterpiece.
The last two or three nobels in literature have been cryptic to me. It is as if the committee wants to make a political stance rather than award the most brilliant.
"The Nobel Peace Prize 2012 was awarded to European Union" for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe".
EU member states like France were actively waging war in Algeria, Vietnam, and other French colonies. The French bombed Egypt during the Suez Canal crisis.
So how can the EU claim to be an instrument of peace when its member states like France was waging war outside of Europe?
Agree fully about Paulo Coelho. A Schickimicki Poet for the Sylt and Mallorca crowd, just like Umberto Eco. Yuk.
On another tag: Obama won the third debate hands down. That settles it.
you should digg into this :
Tourette syndrome
Lance Amstrong sacred the biggest cheater of the planet
Quit stalking around here looking for fresh victims.
Dracula hungers.
I wonder what the next Charlemagne article will be about?
Pumpernickel_ in reply to Chaokoh Oct 22nd, 17:10
"So let your hair down and come here for the beer only, like me."
The "beer" of this "EU" fanatic must be a mighty hallucinogenic, strange brew:
he must really believe that readers are interested in his empty gossip about his "doings" and "facebookings", which he uses to avoid any obligation to defend his universally despised "EU", but whenever exposed to a position of having to defend it, he thinks he "lets his hair down" by slagging off Britain irrelevantly, or making an ass of himself with his cromagnon abuse of realists, just as an earlier poster observed of his fellow "EU" Flat Earther and protégé, TheMorph with his surf-lute, who also threw a red-faced rant against "infidels", as yet another poster noted.
The Poopdecker ought to take note of Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, an "EU"realist whom he loves to hate. Evans-Pritchard also happens to be British which must be 'icing on the cake' for a monomaniac with twisted personal reasons (about which we really do not wish to know) for his ill-disguised obsessive hatred of Britain.
Evans-Pritchard makes an appropriate observation about Iceland's progress against the dearest wishes to see it fail of all such insecure eurosheep dictatorship dogma-drones and naysayers :
"The older you get, the more suspicious you become of all ideology and all forms of deduction from airy premises. Let empiricism rule."
(They probably hang garlic on the portals of the Brussels bunkers against that empiricism stuff – there where they're more into airy-fairy Nietzsche, Hegel and Marx, while these useless, unaccountable and extremely unpopular mobsters scrounge off the increasingly furious taxpayer without scruple.)
High time you acted your age, Poopdecker. Grow up and away from the empty flatus of your Perpetuum Mobiles etc. and take urgent inventory of where all this has landed Europe today, just as it has in the PAST, and all the make-and-break-rules-as-we-go-players like Trichet, Juncker, Merkel and Schäuble to whom history is unlikely to be kind, and little fanatics such as yourself as a laughing stock troll of English language blogs.
Meanwhile a heads up for events in the real (non-eurobot) world:
cash-strapped Cyprus, member of "euro" zone and current holder of "EU" presidency, plots Russian exit from austerity, with Chinese pouring in behind them to exploit the multiple fresh cracks in Festung EU-ropa :-)
"The Russians, quite correctly, view Cyprus as a convenient backdoor to the European Union – and they are not alone. The Chinese have also started arriving, encouraged by what they regard as an incredibly low bar to immigration. Forget all those tricky visa forms, for anyone prepared to spend €300,000 on a property in Cyprus there is the bonus of eligibility for permanent residency. Once this is achieved, the owner is entitled to move anywhere within the EU. For the price of a shoebox in Shanghai, Cyprus is offering a gold-card travel pass and much more besides."
So much for Europeans "needing the EU" to protect themselves against the marauding Chinese and Russians – the "euro" has handed them the entire continent on a plate.
Does it get another Nobel for economics?
A – hoh – hoh – hoh – hoh – hoh – hoh !!!
" Surely NATO and the presence of American forces has been an equally, if not more important factor in keeping the peace in Europe through the decades of the cold war."
I think you underestimate the importance of goodwill among European nations that has been fostered by the European project. American military involvement plays a big part in favouring peace, it did in Europe, but is not sufficient. Witness the instability and sectarian strife in Iraq during and after the American intervention.
Here is another of "theo" gems:
"But beyond that, certain bloggers just are awfully nasty and ill-behaved. If I do post here again in future, I think the solution just will have to be to systematically ignore and refuse to respond to the posts of such characters. After all, the Cleaver is a pretty vicious, warmongering, bipolar, and very very ugly American. And the sidekick -- as La V once put things -- is a dimwitted liar. So neither one actually merits a response."
Out goes the pompous drivel and in comes this red-faced rant, complaining of how the others are being rude while indulging in name calling in the very next sentence.
Guess somebody's gone done shook'em up real good, wiped the smug smirk right off his face. :-)
Hey, theo, now's not the time to scurry back into your hole with the tail between your legs, you hear?
But now I step aside for a musical number by our very own, zorba the magnificent. Hit it Zorba!
Whop Whop Whop Whop
Whop-ass Crete Style!
I seem to have missed a lot of truly entertaining stuff. Could you or some other kind soul first tell me who the Cleaver is and then post some of his/her gems.
And who is the swine who has all this removed?
Tunx in advance you who do not deserve Theo.
Of course, they do not merit a response unless it is to kick **s, of course. One does not argue with Morlocks. One nails them to their own tail.
And now I must finish for the day. Work beckons.
"You may not have noticed it yet but the Euro war is more or less over and guess who has won it?"
(Try taking a holiday on the Med or Iberia and telling them that, Plumpern:)
Looks like Plumpernknicker is trying to outdo Optimist_R and Morph for the Nobel joke prize of the thread, but he spoils a goodu'un in the making by going completely bonkers in defence of it (ranting about the Greeks among others as if anything but his "EU" were to blame):
"the wrong kind of socialism is responsible for breeding such parasites. The only way to overcome this is to change the system, step by step, as the divine Angela with the Rolling Wolf on her side, are trying to instigate against the virulent opposition of the British (eh?) and French arch socialists..."
... but with the "right" kind of eu-socialism no doubt.
No wonder the euroloonies were desperate to airbrush the National Socialist Swastika out of European history with yet another silly new flag "EUROPE4ALL"
The political approach which brought about the inclusion of the Eastern bloc nations into the EU was made possible, preceeded, facilitated and is currently secured by the active presence of NATO in Europe since 1949.
What actions or series of actions by the EU which brought the Eastern bloc nations into the EU would have been practical, possible or even conceivable without the presence and actions of NATO?
If NATO disappeared tomorrow Europe would have to reinvent its security apparatus, discover its woeful inadequacies and begin the long and contentious process of discovering the status of relationships that have been moderated by NATO presence.
If the EU disappeared on the other hand, monetary and fiscal distortions would immediately be addressed by the constituent members and the concert of Europe would continue unabated. To suggest otherwise is to ignore reality.
Your inability to coherently view European history without resorting to socialistic cant, a defect manifested by your willful ignorance of the central role that NATO has played in forging the freedom, peace and current prosperous condition of Europe, is the product of the socialistic brainwashing to which you have been subjected.
I strongly recommend you desist from your willful and perverse ignorance if you want to be taken seriously by those that understand the forces that have shaped the world we live in today.
Due to the stupid reply tail function I only now discovered your further comments in one of the tails further down addressed to me. I also saw that some of your posts I thought had been swallowed are still there. Good.
My favourite hangout is, in fact, the Daily Telegraphs Ambrose Evans Pritchard column, hereinafter called AEP, when he writes his anti German bile, although nowadays much softer toned so as not to annoy me ;-) He is the most entertaining of the lot if not the most sincere, which is Liam Halligan also in the DT.
Ambrose gives the Brits their daily Ambrosia, which is indispensable with the Full English Breakfast with Tea, even I enjoy reading him when having an English Breakfast when in Blighty, which makes me an odd ball, right?
Could use some help especially against one jonlivesey, who is a cyber bore dishing out potted wisdoms ex cathedra.
Both of them could do with a bit of Jesuitical dressing down of the superior Yale kind which would flatten them, provided you kept it short.
The rest of the Europhobes there are of no great import. Needless to say Dirtlick here is present under several Monikers, mostly as Eurobot, giving out details about me being from Düsseldorf, a Brit hater, ham fisted and what have you. He has an unhealthy obsession with me, poor chap. And who can blame him :-)
Vivadonkeyhottey is indeed a strange one. Not sure if bipolarity can be described as psychosis, as it is a chemical imbalance easily controlled with Prosac and what have you. I regard him as a treat in Hyde mode. In Jekyll mode he can be a bit of a bore. I could never be cross with him when in Hyde mode but did take offence, the other day, when in Jekyll mode he called me a racist for lovingly calling Ochinchin the one "with a really round face". She has a lovely round face, just like I have but viva considered this a racial slur. Should I be offended? Lot's of Germans have really round faces. Anyway, I stopped playing chess with him, abandoned a game, let him win it which, on the other hand, balances our books as he once abandoned a game due to going AWOL. No matter. That's our viva. What would the blog be without him?
So let your hair down and come here for the beer only, like me.
Besides, DT blog software is a bit more intelligent than the one used here, although, sadly, also originating from the US. When will they ever learn that to get a decent software they will have to buy Germanz?
Hit it on the nail. LOL
You exposed his hypocrisy so mark my words, you will be insulted too.
The only way eurobots can cling onto their myths is with propaganda. When their lies and propaganda tactics are exposed they became very insulting and unwittingly expose their authoritarian mentality.
Never fails, just tweak them and out comes the uber authoritarian mentality.
"You may not have noticed it yet but the Euro war is more or less over and guess who has won it?"
Pumpy's remarks about the euro are sounding more and more like Goebbels victory speeches while Soviet tanks were entering Berlin.
Quite amusing. I too would like to say something appropriate to the strolling lute player but the beans I ate for lunch haven't had a chance to find their voice yet.
Thanks for the reference, and the encouragement.
As near as I can tell, since I returned none of my posts have yet been swallowed. Oh well, I will just have to try harder….:)
The "Beaver Cleever" reference is to an American family-comedy television series that was popular in the 1950's, called "Leave it to Beaver" -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver , http://www.leaveittobeaver.org/ , http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050032/ , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Cleaver , and http://www.google.com/search?q=Beaver+Cleaver&hl=en&biw=1872&bih=1083&pr... . The central protagonist of the show, Theodore "The Beaver" Cleaver, is an American middle-class "everyboy".
What, precisely, is being "left" to Beaver, however, is never made quite clear….
But of course I am joking. The expression "Leave it to...x" translates roughly as, "If we leave it to x, he will really, really screw things up". As in, "Leave it to Beaver to butcher the English language with malapropisms".
But alternatively, the expression can be used to celebrate all-American individualistic vigilantism, as in "Leave it to Rambo" to conclusively demonstrate that genuine justice flows from the barrel of machine gun, spraying thousands of rounds indiscriminately across a wide field of fire. A bit like....? Or "Leave it to the lone-wolf Sheriff" to finally make the hard choices, stand up to evil alone and friendless, and save this here town.
My sense is that Viva intends the latter usage, as in "Leave-it-to-Viva" to show those Eurofascist godless commie socialist frenchified authoritarian licentious pigs, a thing or two…..
In short, "Cleever" is Theodor's ("The Beaver's") last name, while "Beaver" is the character's nickname. It's easy enough to change "Cleever" to "Cleaver", suggesting indiscriminate double-bladed axe butchery. And speaking of doublings, agreed that bipolar is probably not psychotic.
So maybe instead "Viva-the-bipolar-Cleaver"?
To be sure, quite distant from the aw-shucks, honest-naïve, babe-in-the-woods, everyboy connotation that Viva intended with his new moniker. But when Viva looks in the mirror, does he really, truly see "The Beave" grinning boyishly back?
In any case, I hope this little walk down nostalgia lane, into the very heart of Americana, has entertained you, Pumpernickel.
Marie-Claude (I cannot think of her any other way), advised me that the trick is to take none of the abuse seriously, because most bloggers have very different personalities off-line. So too, she suggested that it might make things easier if I were to get in touch with my inner masochist, and learn to just love the blog, pain and all.
I'll check out Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on the Telegraph, and perhaps will see you there....
All best,
except for Emma the jelly tarte
Yes, I did attach to one of Emma's jam confections, that then got munched.
But I'd saved both hers and mine, so simply reposted both together, and the Moderator did not seem to mind. I really don't understand what algorithm they are smoking....
You truly do live out of synch with reality! I don't know whether to put this bluntly to you like this as I've done before or just ignore you!
'Try take a holiday in the Med or Iberia'.
Yes please do! The more tourists the better!
I think some 'pseudo-strategists' here liked the EU until, and they say it themselves, it became 'too powerful'. I don't know whether viva is simply playing devil's advocate, but the US can clearly benifit with a fully grown, and powerful, EU. Perhaps not this one, but there have been many versions. All of them have meant more integration and some of it was made far too hastily. But a lot of the evil that is blamed on the EU came or at least that is my belief from other sources. Insidious ones, with no consideration whatsoever for 'peace' or 'stability'.
Just like Nick here (you've noticed how he hates everyone who is 'European'), but worse, because they actually have some power.
Don't take Nick and/or other 'pseudo-Brits' on the blog too seriously. As optimist put it 'quite embarrassing really'. Let them have their say who cares ? Britain is so much more than that. I would agree with you if you said they've got massive problems with a controlled media, and their love of personal freedoms is nowadays confused, at least in the City, with 'the right to being a crook'.
Some even try to give a trendy flavour to it as if working in such an industry was elevating in any possible way. They're now realising it and changing it. Bankers, w**nk*rs. They say it themselves!
"Bankers-wankers" -- that's a good one I'd not heard before. (Notice how I left the second word well-spelt, just testing to see what happens. I really do want a small whiff of whatever algorithm the Moderators have been smoking....)
Never made it to Portugal, but did get close, surfing in Galicia. Northern Spain is astonishingly beautiful, and much more my kind of coast, than the southern alternative. You've no doubt been across the Basque country, Asturias, Galicia, etc., right?
I was also particularly floored by the beauty of San Sebastian, with both Opera and surf so close to hand. Most great surf spots are quite distant from "culture", so as a surfer who's also a philosopher, gallery-goer, and opera buff, I'm usually torn -- see http://matadornetwork.com/trips/northern-spain-a-mix-of-surf-and-culture/. But in San Sebastian I could have it all....
Nick hasn't been at me yet. Instead, exchanging Napalm and other toxic substances with Viva.
Good to see that you're still around!
All best,
Theo, I can't help. I've never surfed in my life. My childhood was spent alone reading American comic books, my father's encyclopaedia, and writing poetry to my muse Ana Margarida. I wasn't one for sports although mum did force me to spend a summer kayaking in the ria de aveiro which I took to liking as it allowed me to be alone in faraway places. I was also good at swimming but I never wanted to compete.
In brief, my brother sailed, body-boarded and surfed ,as any average Portuguese boy his age would do. I think it's got the best waves in Europe or so they say.
I have been to Spain, and the Basque country. And Galicia of course, as it was just around the corner from Porto where I was raised. I prefer Galicia. :-) perhaps because it says more to me, as a northerner. The Basque country is nice, but I was there mainly because I wanted to go to France. My parents didn't like Spain much perhaps. My father especially believed Castilian cities such as Burgos were an Iberian version of hell. Which is true come to think that he drove us (me, my sister, my brother, and the wife, my mother) there on a Renault 5 (my father hates German and American and Japanese cars) . So tehre we were a crazy portugese familiy of 5 traversing Europe. Stopping for wees and being taught the entire second world war by your dad. Fascinating. Especially when you're crossing the Pyrenees. His main interest had always been to get to his favourite spot, normandie. Father's a WWII afficionado see?
In case you'd wonder , after the colonial war my father refused to fly. He finally opened an exception for his grandchildren when there was no other way if seeing them. The prole .. That's what they do to you.
I was brought up in a house with many books. My fathers collection is quite modestly impressive. I honestly couldn't care less whether there was a world outside. I just wanted to know how the world worked. Big fail.
I appreciate your eloquent reply on the anti-Americanism posted few pages back. However, you misunderstand Viva, what you read in his posts is just a tease, he becomes depressed if he is unable to provoke someone into obscenities – he enjoys that very much. I agree with Junoir on his characterization. He is Martin Luther of EU and European politics – good for Charlemagne.
"My sense is that Viva intends the latter usage, as in "Leave-it-to-Viva" to show those Eurofascist godless commie socialist frenchified authoritarian licentious pigs, a thing or two….."
That's viva to a Tee. Wonderful, entertaining stuff. "You got it, buddy" is what viva meant. A compliment.
Viva does his Rambo online. In real life he is a shy, small, withdrawn individual with round glasses and a Trotsky goaty chasing butterflies and crying when pinning them down. In Pareeh such one does not really cut it with the waiters who will put his face right into the soup if he gives them the lip, as happened to viva, thus his dislike of Pareeh.
Tell us more about Ana Margarida. Is she the same that studied in Yale together with Theomorph, with a really round face?
no no she was worthy of a Petrarchan sonnet! Hair of gold
What a shame somebody saw fit to have your postings removed, which I foresaw and, therefore, copied to browse at leisure after my return from my trip.
The EU is indeed the issue and the reason Europhobes are now talking about Pol Pot and Mao and how or not they were inspired by Robespierre and their posting NOT being removed as Off Topic (and shouldn't either, as they are informative) whilst yours much closer to the issue was removed is an indication of the hypocrisy we both love to hate. But step by step.
When you say: "Americans think everyone should be given a "chance", but they also think some should "win" and others "lose", and that the consequent large divergences in income and/or assets are morally justifiable, if the "losers" were in fact given a "fair" chance."
I actually also share this American view despite your excellent follow up refutations, perhaps as a result of having been given "a fair chance" and made something of it whilst seeing so many around me having been given often far better chances and not made much of it.
Therefore, I do share the view that the only significant determinants of life-chances and outcomes are (a) a person's individual character, and (b) his or her educational opportunities. I would add to this as the most important third ingredient c) "adversity of circumstances" in early life, as most Germans growing up after the war experienced bringing out "the best" in people with the character to accept and deal with the challenge, which in every people is a minority who then become the movers and shakers whilst the next in league settle for the more secure administrative and bureaucratic professions essential for the educating and running of a society.
This does not mean that I disagree entirely with what you say here about the Europeans:
"They do not naively dream statistically improbable dreams, i.e. that they too might "strike it rich" as individuals, American-style. Instead, they focus their energies and efforts on building social-democratically just, middle-class economies and societies that are good for everyone, not just the tiny 1 % elite at the top. It's a simple statistical fact that all advanced industrialized European countries have much better Gini coefficients than the United States, and enjoy more equality of result or condition as well as more equality of opportunity."
Here again this may have something to do with the basic psychological make up of people who left the Old Continent often in disgust, mostly full of hope and always prepared to take the risk/plunge, whilst the more earth bound, perhaps the already happier settled, the ones with something to lose, the conservative stayed put.
The "adventurers" would then following their nature build more risk taking societies, replace like the Vandals and Goths the old gone tired and corrupt Roman world, eventually liberate the Old Continent gone corrupt with its "isms" from themselves only to fall victim three generations onward to their own corruption sponsored by the hubris of the Conquerors as happened to the Vandals in North Africa and now seems to happen to the Americans.
Of course, this analogy is not fitting but perhaps it describes the drift of my argument which, summing it up, says: The risk takers, in Ayn Rand's words "the creators", move things forward whilst the rest are followers, necessary for the running of societies and in the worst case "looters" and it looks like the looters are gaining ground in many parts of the world. For "looters" say "Investment Bankers" and corrupt politicians of any ism.
More later. The sun is out on a glorious Autumn morning.
The rooster believes his crow makes the sun rise.
Similarly the EU enthusiasts thinks that the EU 'promotes' peace.
But how does one promote a pervasive condition that he did not create and with the maintenence of which he has nothing to do?
For the EU does not maintain peace, it is a hot house flower that blooms in the security provided by NATO.
Remove NATO and Europe will reveal its true nature. It will break down into various blocs whose members move back and forth according to the exigencies of the moment.
This instability, coupled with whatever external or internal pressures acti upon the various nations, produces friction.
The sad little creature that says war is unacceptable may choose to lie down and be destroyed if a bayonet were ever thrust in her face. That is one side of human nature, that of the coward and the defeatist, the moralist that pretends to understand the human condition but would break down into a babbling idiot if ever confronted with the stark choice of fight or die, fight or kneel.
The other side of human nature loves home and hearth, kith and kin as ardently as any other, is as compassionate as any other, and will avoid war at almost any price. Almost. But when his or his brother's freedom is challenged, he becomes an implacable warrior.
The sick spectacle of the 'peace-loving' European is the product of a creature that, being overly protected, has failed to properly mature in its cocoon, emerging with an appetite and a false ideology, that of socialism. This creature bears in its bones the seeds of its own destruction.
This sad excuse for a thinking person creates fantasies like the EU to explain a of lack willingness to defend their own selves, which is really nothing more than a display of ignorance and lack of self respect.
The EU 'promotes' peace. Cock a doodle doooooo!
The 'little European' is a self absorbed myopic being whose sole-reason for existence is the propagation of his own narrow existence.
He has no greater thought than how to acquire and graciously consume as much of the earth as he can get into his hands with the least amount of effort, preferrably at the expense of another.
The little European is not alone. The disease that fosters this attitude of entitlement and willful ignorance of the forces that shape human destiny has swept America as well.
An entire class thrives under the impression that food comes from the grocery store through the medium of a government-issued credit card. They take it as the most manifest truth that they deserve all the fruits of the earth for simply breathing.
But the little European has elaborated further nuances to the socialistic disease, having come to the conclusion that war is unnecessary, in deed has even been eradicated from certain portions of the globe. This fantasy is reinforced by the well meaning but misguided efforts of certain stronger nations, which secure the globe for their own benefit and in the process give the socialistic sclerosis a breeding ground.
But the fingers of history are long. Their strength is unimpaired. Sooner or later they will stretch in the direction of the nest harboring the socialistic swarm. Then all the fond assumptions of peace and entitlement will be tested, perhaps swept away yet again.
And all because good intentions were misunderstood.
Must you conclude that I do not cherish NATO and want it replaced by a European army?
Not so. I always maintained that US and Europe, side by side, and united in NATO are needed to respond to the challenges coming mainly from China.
Not Taiwan, where your kin lives but which, one day soon, will be integrated peacefully and of its own volition into a China, should it take the high road to more democracy rather than turning into the biggest threat of the next 30 years and beyond, perhaps, in which case I hope that, mercifully, it will collapse under its own pollution and social unrest as a result of "resourcing" labour to the USA + Europe.
EU will have to divert more money to defense and buying some good quality tanks and submarines from yours truly :-) Might as well go for the very best rather than second rate stuff from the second raters ;-)
Stop spouting about "socialism". You read Rand, this decidedly second rate illusionist, and believe that you understand everything about socialism.
Sure we have an underclass who expects to get something for nothing, witness Greece. Sure the wrong kind of socialism is responsible for breeding such parasites. The only way to overcome this is to change the system, step by step, as the divine Angela with the Rolling Wolf on her side, are trying to instigate against the virulent opposition of the British and French arch socialists.
You may not have noticed it yet but the Euro war is more or less over and guess who has won it?
So you reckon might trumps right when it comes to maintaining the peace. But history has showed us military solutions can at best maintain an unsastifactory status quo (Korean peninsula, Cuba, Palestine, ...) whereas political approaches and institution-building open the way to lasting peace and democracy (Latin America, ASEAN -formerly an anti-communist club, today brings together Vietnam and Singapore- , inclusion of former Eastern bloc countries into the EU, ...)
See further down the stinging and irrefutable response of Beaver Cleaver (aka leaveittoviva) to the strolling surf boarder.
YOUR position vis a vis NATO is clear and respected. Taiwan seems to be a nation that mainland Chinese wish to emulate but are fettered by the despots in power over their lives.
I am glad you stopped pouting about my overly harsh remonstrance. But you really were going too far. Leave it there or leaveittoviva.
I never read Rand and never will. I don't need another door stop. I get the jist of the thing but really can't be bothered when reality is so much more fascinating.
There is a place for compassion, but socialism is like its cancerous version.
Your infelicitous sentences betray a confused state of mind.
The fact that the modern world has witnessed military stalemates is evidence of moderation and restraint, not the inefficacy of power. Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, Palestine, to name only those you suggest, could have been unqualified victories for American arms if the will to use them had been present.
We have the record of ancient nations as well that solved their disputes through diplomacy, who says otherwise? But history also records the failures of diplomacy. Will anyone be foolish enough to say history is over?
Of course political approaches work, but in any serious international contest, without the presence of credible military force, diplomacy is nothing more than fond wishes. Diplomacy is part of the gradient of power, just as is military application. One cannot properly function without the other.
The sad little fantasy you are attempting to cocoon in, that good intentions and clever formulations suffice to settle all human conflicts, is all well and good- until its not.
One has only to recognize the element of human perversity, the ineradicable element in our nature that causes some of us to resort to crime and violence despite receiving every benefit society has to offer, to understand that there will always need to be cops and soldiers.
I can't allow your remark to stand.
The political approach which brought about the inclusion of the Eastern bloc nations into the EU was made possible, preceeded, facilitated and is currently secured by the active presence of NATO in Europe since 1949.
What actions or series of actions by the EU which brought the Eastern bloc nations into the EU would have been possible or even conceivable without the presence and actions of NATO?
Your inability to coherently view European history without resorting to socialistic cant, a defect mainfested by your willful ignorance of the central role that NATO has played in forging the freedom, peace and current prosperous condition of Europe, is the product of the socialistic brainwashing to which you have been subjected.
I strongly recommend you desist from your willful and perverse ignorance if you want to be taken seriously by those that understand the forces that have shaped the world we live in today.
I can't allow your remark to stand.
The political approach which brought about the inclusion of the Eastern bloc nations into the EU was made possible, preceeded, facilitated and is currently secured by the active presence of NATO in Europe since 1949.
What actions or series of actions by the EU which brought the Eastern bloc nations into the EU would have been possible or even conceivable without the presence and actions of NATO?
Your inability to coherently view European history without resorting to socialistic cant, a defect mainfested by your willful ignorance of the central role that NATO has played in forging the freedom, peace and current prosperous condition of Europe, is the product of the socialistic brainwashing to which you have been subjected.
I strongly recommend you desist from your willful and perverse ignorance if you want to be taken seriously by those that understand the forces that have shaped the world we live in today.
"An interview with Evva Pryror, a social worker and consultant to Miss Rand's law firm of Ernst, Cane, Gitlin and Winick verified that on Miss Rand's behalf she secured Rand's Social Security and Medicare payments which Ayn received under the name of Ann O'Connor (husband Frank O'Connor).
As Pryor said, "Doctors cost a lot more money than books earn and she could be totally wiped out" without the aid of these two government programs. Ayn took the bail out even though Ayn "despised government interference and felt that people should and could live independently... She didn't feel that an individual should take help."
But alas she did and said it was wrong for everyone else to do so."
That really surprises me. Her books were bestsellers. She was probably a millionairess. Didn't bother to research deeper, although enjoyed one of her books, The Fountain Head and about half of Atlas Shrugged. Then it became increasingly silly and unreadable. If she really cheated despite being stinking rich, she simply was greedy.
"The ONLY morality was her own happiness. I assume money made her happy..."
I couldn't fathom to read a line of her doctrine, even as novels
she bored the hell with her pretention of being a philosophical thinker.
I wrote sometimes ago:
"I appears that this "philosophical Dame" is the muse of the capitalist elite. "
what a American replied me:
"Nah... Ayn Rand is more of a schoolchild thing, the kind of thing some kids in college take very seriously - like Marcuse albeit less violent.
The 'capitalist elite' is too busy lobbying the government to gain special contracts and advantages over their competitors, and also fooling their boards into giving them more pay to bother about 'absolute' self-reliance. 'Self-reliance' is good for the workers they fire - that is all."
That does not do justice to her. She brings to American literature something "Russian", some elements of Dostojewski and her plots are, if perhaps a bit simplistic, at least quite entertaining, as if written with Hollywood in mind but she does go on a bit making her point about "the creators" and "the looters", which is valid even today.
The UK is a country where "the looters" have chased off "the creators", who all seem to have been brain drained away and replaced my Continentals and Asians, which is a great tragedy for the country. It is different in the US, where the motivation to move jobs to China are pure greed but these moves can be reversed easily, as the Entrepreneurs remain American, the Family Silver has not been sold. I am not so sure about the UK though. Its only future seems to lie as an integral part of Europe, although they do not seem to have understood this.
hmm even Hollywood didn't want to make movies on her stories, besides, no "Capitalists" wanted to finance them
your illustration of the "creators" and the "looters", Podzdam Informations buro?
I know that The Fountain Head was filmed with big name stars. Don't know about Atlas though but in the present climate of the US I wouldn't be surprised if the Koch Brothers might not finance such an endeavour. Simplicity sells, especially the pseudo intellectual kind.
The EU does deserve the prize. It has done much to help consolidate democracy. It is a shame that has been awarded in recognition that this progress is now imperilled.
I wonder why TE choose to include the comments of a bunch of British Euro-cranks. I understand British scepticism about the EU, but many on the right seem to have a pathological need to pour scorn on it. It embarrasses us really.
No Optimist_R, it is YOU who deserve TWO prizes.
One for the best one-liner - "it ('EU') has done much to help consolidate democracy", - and one for choosing such an apt moniker.
The "EU" has been remarkably efficient in hollowing democracy out of Europe and accruing decision-making and law-making to unaccountable bodies: it has successfuly reversed several decades of democratic progress in Europe. Ask the struggling Greeks, Italians and Iberians who are barred by the "euro" membership from taking the obvious economic measures to restore their democratic sovereignty, condemning millions to poverty and another bloody phase in Europe.
Great sense of humour though, Optimist - I would have given you a recommend but you spoiled it by repeating your joke thrice - bad taste, you know.
As one of my friends put it to me recently in an Email:
"The sense of defeat among Euro bashers is such that The Economist doesn't write a line about EU on the day EU decides on two of the most important recent European policies: unified banking supervision and budget veto.
Even Charlemagne manages to write about that pressing matter: changes in railway systems within the EU....(knowing a bit about railways it is far worse in the USA, India, South Africa or China; inevitable in very long networks built over almost two hundred years.)
To compensate anti Euro posters are over-busy writing posts and recommending themselves with wisely, practically no replies from Europhiles....
As Emmafinney would say "pathetic"...
I don't remember seeing such a profound sense of defeat for decades. Not even Scotland is mentioned any longer."
Hear, hear!
This sums it up nicely:
"I don't remember seeing such a profound sense of defeat for decades."
What can reflect a more profound and desperate sense of defeat than the "EU" awarding itself a prize for "peace"?
Yes, the Norwegian holds a senior position in the "Council of Europe" - the "EU" in all but name.
"practically no replies from Europhiles...."
As Theomorph and yourself amply demonstrate: you have no reply to justify the anarchy descending on Europe in the name of the "EU", apart from the increasingly strident but standard abuse towards Euro-realists.
You then go on saying how nowadays "equal opportunity", this essential part of the American dream, no longer exists to the same extent as it exists in Europe, for children wanting to go to one of the top universities. I know this as being a fact, as my daughter would have to fork out a small fortune should my grandson not be able to get a grant as one of the top in his class.
Here universities in Continental Europe are more about "equality of opportunity" even for children from poor families. Families, however, are the key, as you also point out and educators simply cannot replace their influence on a child's development and here lie the seeds for the great inequality increasingly experienced in the US of A in comparison with Continental European countries where one does not have the same level of an increasingly dysfunctional "underclass" as witnessed in the USA and, to a lesser extent, the UK.
In your own words sadly removed:
"Americans have this crazy belief that schools and universities can and should bear the burden of rectifying the defects of ultra-liberal, winner-take-all, screw-the-poor capitalism. This is quite insane, if you think about it. A teacher is not a parent, and a school is not a family. No matter how good the school, if the parent and the family are poor, a child just will grow up with diminished life chances and opportunities."
I am sure junoir would agree to this.
In the Latin countries the family concept is very strong also in the poorer strata of society and children are brought up with a greater feeling of security and purpose in life. In the Northern European countries family bonds are perhaps not so strong as the state is there more as a "provider" but here peer pressure exists to do good and make something out of one's life in the mostly middle classes which are the main support of these countries.
Later you talk about the strata of society in the USA and seem to suggest that most American Republicans have no problem with the inequality present and even may welcome it as a necessary conditions to the exploitation which is an ingredient of raw capitalism and on which fortunes are made by those who know how to exploit such opportunities. You are, however, also concluding:
"However, again, my intuitive sense is that most American Republicans would think it better if the United States were more of a middle-class society, not less."
You also mention, correctly, that the widening income gap was apparent over the last decades in not only the USA but, to a lesser degree, all industrialized countries. This is certainly the case in Germany.
You say: "Political ideas have consequences, and it is not hard to argue that the Republican attack on the welfare state is at least in part responsible for America's steadily rising Gini coefficient. As Warren Buffet quipped, "Yes, we do have class warfare in the United States, and my class [i.e. the super-rich] has won." Warren, who donates a lot of money to the poor, probably was being sarcastic.
You also say: "Now to be sure, Europe's generous welfare states are demographic time-bombs, and Europe's "social-market" model of capitalism does have problems. But economic justice is not one of them. It is figures and data like those cited above that have always made me think that the Anglosphere has somehow "lost the plot", and has fundamentally forgotten what prosperity is actually for. Anyone raised in a socialist democracy – i.e. anyone raised in an advanced industrialized country other than the United States – will immediately "feel" just how different the United States is, after spending a few months living there. And indeed, I already intuitively felt the difference when I attended Yale in the early 1980's, and came across homeless beggars on the streets of New Haven as I walked between classes. Back then I knew nothing about Gini coefficients or sociology, but already back then I felt very uncomfortable living in the United States. The feeling never went away, and it persisted even when I lived in a more egalitarian and progressive states like Oregon, or northern California."
I personally would not include the UK in the above cited "Anglosphere", as its benefits to its down and outs are more generous than here in Germany, perhaps even more generous than in France and which it cannot afford and must rectify before the whole thing collapses.
You say: "But I know lots of Canadians and Europeans who do think it is a big deal; who tried living in the United States for a while; but who eventually left, because they found it too weird and creepy."
You must have got a lot of stick from crammerboy and vivadonkeyhotte, which I would have loved to read but, alas, all withdrawn for the wrong reasons on the instigation of … who is the swine who is such an irritant here?
I do get the same creepy feeling only visiting. A feeling of a hard and cold country, notwithstanding the niceness and warmth and hospitality of ordinary Americans and I often wondered, would they be there in a crisis for you or is it all on the surface?
Perhaps people who live there could for a moment forget to clobber me and try to correct the hopefully wrong impression of this here blinkered PRESUMED Americaphobe.
And then you say: "So too, I love Italians as a "people", whereas I only "like" the British."
I am not in sync with you here. I also love the British as a "people" with the obvious exceptions, some of which writing here, junior being an exception to these exceptions, of course, no matter how contrary he is. One should not be too influenced by some of the creeps around these blogs who probably are not even British by blood. Acolytes with a chip on their shoulders, more likely. You know, of course, to whom I refer.
An anomaly from the world traveller:
You say you like the hospitality of the ordinary American but wonder if he would be there for you in a crisis.
Examine the evidence:
The Berlin Air Lift. We supported the prostrate German nation through an existential crisis. Our forces kept the Soviets at bay for decades. If you say it was solely for our own benefit, then there is no way to show empathy between nations, so I give up.
I have cited the gifting of AIDS treatments to Africa and disaster relief assistance before, but I guess that only counts if it comes from a Swede.
Like a cop on a beat we get tired of the abuse and irrational world views predisposed to fault us for everything that goes wrong and grow cynical. Like a child at the playground you find it easy to be upbeat- no one expects anything of you and you demand nothing of yourself.
If you refer to a personal crisis, like you fall down bleeding, yeah, we will clean up the mess, complete with simulated sympathy and a bill when you leave the emergency room.
If you mean will we jump into a burning car in an attempt to drag you clear... some will, some won't. Any different where you live?
To be honest it matters not one whit to me whether morph comes back to the US or feels weird here. I just couldn't care less. We are satisfied without him and his anti-American ilk. Our friends know us and appreciate for who we are. The rest know where they can go and what they can do when they get there and what they can do it with.
Ignore the musings of the manipulative propagandists like Pumpy who is well known for projecting German pathologies onto Americans.
It is Germans who have a reputation for being hard, cold and selfish by their neighbors. And as they say your neighbors know you best.
Here are some FACTS about charitable donations and generosity. I gave these links on another blog and it drove La Vytriy nuts.
"Americans gave nearly $300 billion to charitable causes
About 65% of households with incomes less than $100,000 give to charity, the report showed.
It tells you something about American culture that is unlike any other country," said Claire Gaudiani, a professor .
Gaudiani said Americans give twice as much as the next most charitable country.
In philanthropic giving as a percentage of gross domestic product.
the U.S. ranked first at 1.7%.
No. 2 Britain gave 0.73%
while France, with a 0.14% rate, trailed such countries as South Africa, Singapore, Turkey and Germany."
"The foundation's World Giving Index 2011 (pdf) measures the generosity of 153 countries according to three criteria: giving money as a percentage of income; volunteering time; and helping strangers."
The top 10 most generous countries are:
1. United States
2. Ireland
3. Australia
4. New Zealand
5. United Kingdom
6. Netherlands
7. Canada
8. Sri Lanka
9. Thailand
10. Laos
hmm not per Gross National Income
This is about the generosity of the people, not official aid from governments.
Go easy on mc. Her dirigiste worship can't tell the difference between an individual and the government.
"not official aid from governments"
easier when they can print from thin air though
hey, bad loser?
Good point.lol
Anyways, just ignore eurobot trolls Pumpy and his side-kick.
They need their anti-American fix every day to get them through the day.
With their deity the EU unraveling every day, they have stayed true to the malicious scapegoating culture that they were born and raised in .
If they go for a day without telling lies about America, they get withdrawal symptoms.
Thanks for the re-quotes, but as near as I can tell you've now figured out where the original thread is? It's now on page 2, in the thread begun by zorbas989, on October 17th, at 12:45, titled "GREECE AID TALKS BREAK DOWN AFTER ATHENS REJECTS FURTHER CUTS". My first post is the 4th one down, and my entries on inequality in America begin at the 14th post down.
As near as I can tell, absolutely nothing has been deleted.
As for only "liking" the Brits, but loving the Italians, in my case it's probably Catholicism that biases me in a southerly direction.
For what it's worth, I also like Latin women. I am blonde myself, but for some reason I have never been physically attracted to blondes in turn. Quite the opposite: the blonde-haired German "Heidi" type sort of repulses me. No, I haven't tried to figure this one out, as it would probably require too much expensive couch-time with a Freudian.
Instead I prefer to go with the flow, and I've accepted my lot as a lover of black hair, olive skin, and Latin personality.
All best wishes,
The EU does deserve the prize. It has done much to help consolidate democracy. It is a shame that has been awarded in recognition that this progress is now imperilled.
I wonder why TE choose to include the comments of a bunch of British Euro-cranks. I understand British scepticism about the EU, but many on the right seem to have a pathological need to pour scorn on it. It embarrasses us really.
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