Interesting Analysis of Possible Changes In Europe

[Annie]

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040703-093219-9315r.htm

Europe's fading anti-Americans


By Martin Walker
UPI Editor


Paris, France, Jul. 5 (UPI) -- Walker's World for July 5.


Whoever wins the American presidential election this November (and polls, economic prospects and the unknown dangers of terrorism and Iraq make it too close to even think of calling), will have to deal with the fact that there has already been a fundamental changing of the guard in Europe.

The usual players of Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, France's President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder remain in place, but the political dynamics of the European Union have shifted. Romano Prodi, the former Italian premier who has been president of the European Commission for the past five years is being replaced by Portugal's center-right and pro-American premier Jose Manuel Barroso.

Prodi was a center-left critic of the Iraq war, always ready to give discreet backing to the French sniping at President George W. Bush. His departure, and the dramatic failure of the French and Germans to replace him with the even more outspokenly anti-American Belgian premier Guy Verhofstadt, is good news for all friends of the Atlantic alliance.

Verhofstadt was vetoed by Tony Blair, with the steady support of the Poles, Italians, Danes and others. This was a decisive rebuff to the Franco-German axis that has for so long dominated EU affairs. Verhofstadt's call for the EU to be "emancipated" from American influence sank his candidacy...

...In his first interviews since becoming the agreed candidate to run the EU Commission, Portugal's Barroso has been crystal clear in his rejection of this French "counterweight" theory, even when Paris dresses it up as simply an inevitable process of an emerging multi-polar world in which American dominance will be eroded by the coming new great powers of China and India.

"It is stupid to see Europe as a counterweight," Barroso insists. "In some European countries, there is the idea we'll be independent if we are a counterweight. This is silly. It is a counterpart, not a counterweight."

"What is strategically intelligent in building an identity against the United States?" Barroso asks. Or responsible...."

 

[dilloduck]

"What is strategically intelligent in building an identity against the United States?" Barroso asks.

today YOU win finding "the understatment of the day" award !

 

[Annie]

Originally posted by dilloduck
"What is strategically intelligent in building an identity against the United States?" Barroso asks.

today YOU win finding "the understatment of the day" award !

Yup, whole article is worth reading. Good rationale.

 

[007]

Yup... every once and awhile there's a breath of hope emerge.

 

[NATO AIR]

that is really good news, let's just hope blair stays afloat politically in britain and shchroder continues to fade.

 

[Comrade]

The EU isn't directly accountable to the people it represents. There's no electable members, legal jurusdiction, or enforcabiliy.

It's every bid as flawed as the UN as a moral authority, being entirely unaccountable to the will of the people who it represents, but rather the whims of pure beauracracy

A genuine EU supra-government based on the current system is rather more like a Soviet Empire than America's Federation of states.

European extremist tendancies to the left run free, and even reasonable voices from the right that were not outlawed by hate speech and a ban on several parties are otherwise condemned as a form of creeping fascism in European society.

France and Germany dominate EU politics because it's the natural extension of socialist society.

The EU constitution is the antithesis of a free charter. The rights of individuals are not enumerated as limitations of the government's power. Rather, these rights are placed into the protection by government.

#1 is the right to human dignity. Not freedom, but dignity. So no making prisoners wear ladies underwear! That's undignified! But simple dignity is no secret ... free housing, health care, work training... that's what they mean. In otherwords, government programs are a right.

European's version of dignity is clarified in the #2 article, the prohibition of the Death Penalty. This also extends to it's foreign policy, which we've seen already in the EU reaction against a possible Saddam death penalty. It's all about respect for human life, LOL.

If dignity is now ensured for killers on death row to instead get food, housing, and equal health care until a natural death, what about the families of those who were murdered and the rest of taxpayers forced to pay his bils and even train him for work given Europes inevitable release. Few murderers serve more than 10 years.

With respect to indignity we also have underwear on the heads of US prisoners, oppression of Palestinians, and anything else an EU government will chose to criminalize.

By article 14 the charter guarantees the "right to education and to have access to vocational and continuing training . . . [including] the possibility to receive free compulsory education."

Truly frightening. Make no misunderstanding about this last part. The right to have a free education in the US is a choice, never compulsory. Once can home school or send your kids to private schools. Remove "compulsory" and you have our law. Otherwise it means what it says, the state's "free" education can be made compulsary to all children.

What the fuck is wrong with Europe?!?


Some other good reading on the EU is here:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-murray062303.asp


Anyway, I guess my point is that even if the EU swerves to the right it's nothing better than Fascism or Communist had to offer. It doesn't seem at bad to Europeans yet because it has no power. They've been living under a US umbrella long enough to forget how free they truly are. And EU could work eventually but not with it's constitution now. It's totalitarianism dressed up in a clown suit.

 

[NATO AIR]

the people and even some of the governments have been up in arms over the flawed constiutions that have been proposed so far... i'd still give them time, after all, it took us 13 years to really figure it all out, they've got a much worse history and antagonistic parties than we did at the time so it may take them longer

the people will hopefully eventually get the greater say, and then i think the constitution that finally does pass muster and stand the test of time will be a good one for most involved.

 

[fuzzykitten99]

I love how they call us Americans Lazy, yet we take FAR fewer vacation days, we work longer hours, and actually, longer work weeks, as they just implemented the 4-day work week. They have a higher unemployment rate (Germany was around 11 something %, and France was around 9 something %-these numbers were as of October 2003, so i will se if i can find more current numbers)

And they have the balls to call US lazy?

Then there's the thing where they call us stupid. Ok, we are so stupid that we have invented nearly all the latest medical advances, people come from all over the world to study at our Universities, and in less than 300 years, we have become the dominant country of the world as far as population and economy, the SUPPORTING half the world because, lets face it, with out the US supporting most of Europe and some of Asia with welfare checks every month, they would be in the red, and getting redder every year. yet all we get in return is insults and ungrateful people who like to attack the very had that feeds them. France owes us more than just money. If it weren't for us, they would be speaking German.

Wow, we must be the dumbest people on earth.