We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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Although he is not the first to comment on the large (and growing) rift between the USA and Europe, James Bennett delivers up a superb analysis of the role of Tony Blair in trying to act as a bridge between them and why he may well end up as political hamburger as a result:
“As always, the biggest problem is the inherent structural one implied in Blair’s strategy: the assumption that by integrating more completely into the European Union, Britain is also serving America’s interests by being a bridge between the two continents. This is not an eccentric position; it has been the standard assumption of the American foreign policy establishment from the end of the Second World War. It is, however, wrong. Where it fails is the assumption that Europe as a whole and America are sufficiently alike that their interests will naturally be aligned.
Jim is spot on. For all his blather about ‘modernisation’, Blair has both feet firmly planted in the past, seemingly unaware of his inability to bridge the gulf between the two civilisations and equally oblivious to the harsh fact that the gulf may not be bridgeable at all. This is not just about the Middle East or Iraq; they are merely symptoms of a divergence that is economic, political, cultural and even spiritual.
In some senses, the EU and Radical Islam have more in common. Their respective visions are, for sure, not the same, but they do share the quality of being a settled view about the way the world should be and neither can really brook any meaningful alternatives, lest their own visions be undermined. For Radical Islam, the answer is endless Jihad; for the EU the answer is the Kyoto Protocol, the ICC and global regulation. In both cases, the message to America is the same: submit.
For the EU elite, America is like a rebellious teenager that they simply don’t understand. How can they insist on sovereignty when it obstructs ‘progress’? How can they insist on the right of self-defence when we know that true security comes only through concessions and negotiation? How dare they cherish Western values when we know that all values are equal? For the Eurocrats, America is not just mystifying, it’s offensive.
But there is also a deeper, darker cause of Europe’s mistrust. The political classes of Europe may disagree on many things but of on one issue there is no dissent: the European Union and the overriding importance of creating a country called ‘Europe’. Everything else, all policy, all laws and all effort must be focussed on melding together a continent’s worth of fractious nations into one monolithic political and social entity with one government, one flag, one currency, one voice etc. They can’t do it and they know in their hearts that they can’t do it. So instead of having an identity, they are creating an anti-identity and that anti-identity is anti-America. It is how the EU will define itself, being unable to define itself by any other totems.
Regardless of the fate of the Iraqi regime, America will most likely get more American and, Europe, with the cancer of post-modernism coded into its DNA, will get more anti-American. Cold War it may not be, but it will be cold. Freezing, in fact.
The British public deserves a high quality news network which ruggedly pursues the virtues of impartiality, integrity and honesty. Alas, it doesn’t have one. Instead it has the BBC. And this is not just my jaundiced opinion anymore. Now it’s official.
BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, has just signed a major development deal with the European Investment Bank (the bribery wing of the EU) worth £25 million (about $40 million) and which will enable them to produce news, education programmes and children’s programmes guaranteed to be ‘objective’.
The cynical among you might imagine that such munificence rarely comes without strings attached but you’d be wrong. In this case, it comes with bloody great mooring ropes i.e. it is an implicit condition of all EIB funding that lucky recipients must not play host to any criticism of the EU. Nice little deal, eh?
So next time you surf onto their website of link to one of their stories or hear one of their broadcasts, remember: the BBC is a whore, bought and paid for.
Lest I appear puritanical about all of this, I must stress that I have no objection to people selling or buying sexual services but it does seem so unfair that the Eurocrats get all the pleasure while the British public get screwed.
To compare Chris Patten with Marshal Petain is a disgraceful slur.
In the first place there were German troops marching through the streets of Paris and 13 million French civilian refugees trying to escape a war zone when he agreed to the Armistice. What’s Patten’s excuse?
Second, I don’t know how Patten would have coped with defending Verdun in 1916, and glad I am too…
Third, Petain , and I only discovered this recently to my great surprise, wasn’t anti-American and pro-euro-union.
Fourth, Petain only shook hands with Hitler, he didn’t kiss his …
Ah yes, we must all be thankful for those liberty-loving dudes over in Brussels for saving us from the predations of the British State, according to Antoine.
Well, he’s partly right; the British State is predatory but to look to the EU or the Human Rights Act for salvation is to jump out of the British frying pan and into the European fire. If Antoine cared to trawl through the archives of this blog alone, he would find himself confronted with ample evidence of the lunacy and petty tyranny that has been imposed on us since joining this wretched Reich. This is a trivial, but sadly typical, example
There is no paradox here except that perhaps the British State could afford to be marginally less predatory if it wasn’t for the £1.8 million per day that they must collect from the British taxpayer in order to contribute to the Euro-coffers (and thereafter distributed to Hamas among others). Now that is a f*cking paradox! Besides, we all know that it is only a matter of time before all taxes get harmonised across the EU and nothing ever, ever, ever gets harmonised downwards.
I cannot wait for Antoine’s next mind-boggling invocation: support Chinese Maoists because at least they put an end to foot-binding?
Now that we have a European ‘single market’, trade is much easier between companies across EU national borders right? Well, not necessarily.
In today’s Sunday Telegraph, the nightmares experienced by a British fireworks company trying to do its lawful business across Europe highlights the reality of Europe’s so-called single market.
It is a rare treat when you get to see the seeds of destruction actually being germinated so please take note of this latest pronouncement of Romano Prodi
“According to the Financial Times, Mr Prodi and other EU commissioners have discussed the possibility of having direct elections in order to give the future president a massive democratic mandate. However, they have concluded that it is almost impossible to run a meaningful election campaign all across the EU.”
So Mr.Prodi thinks that future EU Presidents should be appointed by horse-trading and deal-broking (in smoke-free rooms, of course). No, that is not what he actually says but that is what he means.
For all the high-minded ideals and blather about human rights and democracy from the apparatchicks of Brussels, there is no consensus in Europe, no demos in Europe, there is no ‘Europe’ and if there is one eternal truism of politics that is beyond argument it is that no system of government can rule without the consent of the majority of the governed. A government of and by a ruling elite will always fall. Always.
…Bono 
And not for nothing either, as he has taken it upon himself to act as a tool for the Holy Belgian Empire and give the Irish people a sound telling-off for voting ‘No’ to the Nice Treaty.
“For god sake, if we miss this chance, what are we then?”
Well, obviously, a bunch of unilateralist simplisme Irish cowboys, that’s what.
“When I participate in meetings with politicians in Europe then they always bring this up…”
‘Louis, Sven, Dirk, come quickly, it’s a famous rock star. At last, we can enjoin a profound discussion on the socio-political consequences of Eastward expansion of the existing regulatory framework’.
“They cannot understand that Ireland did what it did with the Nice-treaty. I noted that a lot of politicians became very angry. I think that a ‘No’ will put Ireland in a selfish light…”
Did you hear that, you scruffy lot in Dublin? If you keep exercising your constitutional right to choose, then the Brussels politicians are going to get very, very, very angry with you. I mean, really angry. They’re going to hold an Angry Conference and share their anger. Then they are going to pass at least a few thousand more regulations in pure anger. And then strike primitive, aggressive postures and denounce you, angrily. So just watch your step.
Bono? Is that a proper name? It can’t be his real name, surely? Perhaps it stands for something. Somebody once told me that it is Gaelic for ‘dickhead’.
The recent brouhaha over the ‘Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein €uro’ ad by anti-€uro activists, showing British comedian Rik Mayhall as Hitler, does make one wonder if the same people were protesting in front of shows by Mel Brooks when he used Hitler (in three movies, no less) as a source of humour.
The following advert, which features the well known red triangle trade mark of that bastion of macho virtues, Bass Breweries Ltd. would presumably have had the likes of pro-euro ‘comedian’ Eddy Izard howling about ‘homophobia’ in much the same way he has protested against the use of the Hitler image on grounds of ‘taste’ by his political enemies (never mind he himself has done a well know ‘Hitler skit’).
By comparison I was first shown this Bass Breweries advert by a floridly homosexual libertarian with whom I am acquainted… and he thought it was hilarious. Is there something about being a statist that makes a person not just morally comfortable with using the threat of violence to reorder free social interactions on a massive scale but also intrinsically humourless?
That is in effect what President of the Convention on the Future of Europe, Giscard d’Estaing said last Tuesday when discussing the implications of another refusal of the Irish voters to sanction the enlargement of the EU:
“I do not want to go into the details. I am not a foreign minister and that is not my role. However, the question is: If there is a goal, you cannot ignore it. Enlargement is necessary. Then we have to take initiatives to make the legal basis for enlargement,” Mr Giscard said in Denmark.
The advocates of corporate statism are determined to have their way and piffle about ‘democracy’ is only used when it suits them. If Ireland vote ‘No’ again, regardless of Romano Prodi’s claim ‘there is no Plan B’, it is clear that the mere wishes of the Irish people will not be allowed to stand in the way of Europe’s ‘Manifest Destiny’. 
And I love this even more.
“Campaigners against the European single currency were accused on Tuesday of insulting the memories of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust by likening euro supporters to Adolf Hitler.
My, my how touchy these people are! I rather think the point of the advertising campaign is to illustrate (quite correctly) that the dream of a United Europe was among Hitler’s visions. Now I am always wary of reductio ad Hitlerum as a base emotional tool but, as it happens, this one is merited.
“The Commission was unreseved in its criticism of the campaign. Jean-Christophe Filori, acting commission spokesman, said on Wednesday that it was in “appalling bad taste” and “beneath contempt.” He added that such an act only pandered to “base xenophobic instincts.”
Since when has an aversion to Hitler consitituted ‘xenophobia’? Oh yes, silly me, ever since ‘xenophobia’ became another base, emotional tool.
“Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Euro”
Anti-euro campaigners have co-opted Adolf Hitler into their latest advertising campaign. Ageing rocker Sir Bob Geldof and restaurateur Gordon Ramsey are also among the celebrities, businessmen and politicians who feature in the advert to be shown in cinemas for three months from July 12. Campaigners said in the film they had tried to get across the idea that the euro is undemocratic and not inevitable.
Responding to the “No” campaign’s advert, Simon Buckby of the pro-euro “Britain in Europe” lobby said:
“We always knew the anti-Europeans were a joke and now they’ve turned into a bunch of comedians.”
Oh dear…
This is in essence what the ‘Visigrad Four’ (Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic) are telling the EU as they loudly protest at the prospect of not having their inefficient antiquated agricultural sectors subsidised by other sectors of the greater European economy when (if) they join the John Maynard Keynes Fan Club European Union in 2004.
Quite why anyone thinks farmer are entitled to protected status compared to, say, construction or pharmaceuticals or software or little plastic widget manufacture always seems to avoid coherent discussion, but I assume the logic is that if they are going to join the Swine Society, then they must be given a full place at the trough.
Actually if the poor fools are indeed successful at getting into the EU I hope they get their way, thus vastly increasing the strain on the monstrous Common Agricultural Policy and bringing the day of financial implosion of the entire EU a giant step closer.
Of course the preposterous Prince Charles could not care less if working people have to pay inflated prices for their food. No doubt next he will demand the EU and State put an end to the ‘obsession’ of common working people with cheap holidays and cheap motor transport… oh… I forgot, they already did that by taxing the hell out of petrol (75 percent of the cost in the UK) and propping up inefficient airlines with anti-competitive practices.
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