I came across this from the online version of the German magazine, Der Spiegel (hat tip, Tim Worstall):
The scoundrels in Brussels have sold the European people a lot of things: a single market, the euro, the lifting of many border controls and, most recently, a binding global climate policy. These have all been good things, and they have helped make Europe an eminently livable continent. Despite the many dull moments and emotions that have been negative at best, the end result has been laudable.
“All good things” – oh really? The euro has not been a great success. Sure, it is a strong currency relative to the dollar at the moment, largely because of the Fed’s policy of printing money like it had forgotten all that sage advice from a certain late Professor M. Friedman, but the one-size-fits-all interest rate of the euro zone has proven a burden on the likes of enfeebled Italy, has boosted the Irish economy to boiling point, and now of course Ireland is in trouble, suffering a sharply contracting property and stock market. I am not sure how that impresses the Spiegel editors. For them, the whole project is going splendidly. As for the “binding” climate policy, I guess it does all rather depend on whether one accepts the thesis that Man-Made global warming is either happening; is happening at the speed some people claim, or justifies imposing heavy costs on industrial nations to correct it in ways that might affect other, more urgent human needs.
But this paragraph is the beaut, the one to savour:
Most of these improvements would have been held up, if not outright prevented, by referendums. Democracy doesn’t mean having unlimited confidence in citizens. Sometimes the big picture is in better hands when politicians are running it, and a big picture takes time.
Jeez.
Surely a common market (without customs union, which currently binds us to tarrifing the rest of the world – not often mentioned by Eurocrats courting free marketeers), lifting of border controls and the climate change agreements could be reached through a simple intergovernmental treaty without the need for a huge federal government-style bureaucracy? Indeed, they have been in the past. If that’s all the EU does that is defensible, why have an EU at all.
This is pretty much the standard view in Germany. If that stuff gets you blood boiling, be happy if you can’t read the German version. Here(Link) is something more critical of the EU.
SpOn didn’t even bother to hire a proper translator. This is just wrong in so many twisted ways.
Currencies are neither ‘strong’ nor ‘weak’, they are either ‘overvalued’ or ‘undervalued’.
Does Godwins law still apply when, y’know it’s Germany, talking about big political projects and leaders needing to have the power to make decisions based on their opinions, because the people can’t be trusted and anyway, creation of a europe wide super state is the sort of thing that doesn’t need the consent of other countries? But is just A Good Thing?
Just wondering.
Prizes in a German quiz show…..1st. a week’s holiday in England…2nd, two weeks holiday in England.
There was a hurricane in East Germany a few years ago. It caused millions of Euro’s worth of improvements.
there you have it, Euro-suckers…
I don’t know about anyone else but I’m ready to forgo British sovereignty if it can be replaced with this sort of German clarity:
These have all been good things [the euro, the lifting of many border controls, a binding global climate policy etc.]
So it turns out politics is actually really simple. For years I thought it was about people with different interests and opinions forced to share the same planet, competing for power using argument, persuasion, compromise, bargaining, alliances, rhetoric, propaganda and countless other non-violent methods (thus distinguishing itself from war).
But in fact I’ve just been overcomplicating things. The way it works is, you got your Good Things, yeah, and on the other side you got your Bad Things. What you want to encourage, in the sense of having more of ’em, is your Good Things. Conversely, you want to discourage your Bad Things, in the sense that you want less of ’em.
If you can’t tell the difference you’re a Bad European. For the time being we’re going to simply ignore/patronize you. But in future you’d better be careful because we have a big picture in mind (a vision too big for a mere citizen to understand) and if you’re Bad enough, we may decide you ought not be a part of it. This is not a threat, just a friendly warning that if you don’t support us or if you don’t vote in a Good way there will be consequences.
Don’t forget it was a German, Clausewitz, who argued that “war is a continuation of politics by other means”.
You Europeans are so weak that this time the Germans are just using politics. That’s all they need. So very efficient. You should remember that the Romans considered the Belgii a very troublesome German tribe.
Third time lucky.
Oh well, they can hardly do a worse job than Labour, so I for one welcome your new Teutonic overlords.
It might be interesting to learn the age of the composer of these lyrics (i.e. Part 2)
There may be something “tongue-in-cheek” to this tune. Look at the closing paragraph:
“It’s just like with the Boa Constrictor. When its protracted digestive process is over, the snake is once again an active, powerful and beautiful creature.”
Therin lies the clue to the sardonicism of this Part 2.
Consider the imagery. What will the “snake” next consume and digest? What has it consumed?
This is a very clever piece. Fascinatiing how it triggered the standard reactions so swiftly, without analysis of all that was being said – and why.
“What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
As Blake suggests, it should instead direct thoughts to how this comes to pass.
Actually, low American dollar value is due primarily to relatively low interest rates. This in turn is partly due to the fact that so much investment capital is available. In short, investment money supply exceeds demand. Interest rates fall, currency investors pull out to invest elsewhere. Plus the boom econmy is going through a fallow period, as it does every few years.
This is causing, however, exports to shoot into the stratosphere. Which will probably eventually help build the dollar back up, etc. everything goes around and comes around again.
I encountered that admiring attitude for Eurocrats second-hand, via Bruce Bawer’s “While Europe Slept”
Political journalists in Europe are more inclined to view mainstream politicians as fellow members of an educated elite whose joint task is to keep their shared
social-democratic ideals alive and well. If American journalists have done a terrific job of painting our politicians as rascals and incompetents, European journalists have done an equally terrific job of painting mainstream European politicians as noble statesmen–or, in Tony Judt’s words, “a brilliant elite.”
“Democracy doesn’t mean having unlimited confidence in citizens.”
Well, there’s something with which we can all agree. I think H.L. Mencken had it about right: “Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.” So Der Speigel is ever so gradually bringing its readers around to a newspeak re-definition of “democracy” as sham elections disguising the truth that real policy is determined by the intellectual elites in Brussels. Which is probably what the hoi polloi deserve.
No mention of the vast tide of regulations (which control domestic civil interaction and trade with people outside the E.U. – as well as trade with people in other E.U. countries) in the D.S. article.
It is this tide of regulations (about 80% of all new regulations are the results of E.U. orders) that are opposed, yet the German publication does not even mention the issue.
Clearly suppression of any real debate (by suppression of the issue the debate would be about) is their idea of a “guided democracy”.
No mention of the vast tide of regulations (which control domestic civil interaction and trade with people outside the E.U. – as well as trade with people in other E.U. countries) in the D.S. article.
It is this tide of regulations (about 80% of all new regulations are the results of E.U. orders) that are opposed, yet the German publication does not even mention the issue.
Clearly suppression of any real debate (by suppression of the issue the debate would be about) is their idea of a “guided democracy”.