The trials of Catherine Ashton
For anyone it would be a big ask. But for someone with little or no experience of foreign affairs to be tasked with setting up a diplomatic service and to expound foreign policy on behalf of 500 million people the hurdle is immense. Welcome to the world of Catherine Ashton.
She did not seek the job of EU foreign minister and she was not first choice. She emerged from the chrysalis of a euro-compromise and so became one of Britain's most influential women. She has just about completed her first 100 days. Some of the reviews have been harsh, with even a little lash of cruelty to them. She is dismissed as out of her depth and yet paid more than President Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Today she looked into the faces of MEPs at the European Parliament knowing that out there lurked rows of doubters.
"Europe is going through a phase of building something new," she told them. "Doing so is messy and complicated."
That is undoubtedly true. So what are the charges against her? They began early. She didn't travel to Haiti immediately after its destructive earthquake. She waited and only visited there last week. I have covered disasters; the tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake, Katrina to name a few. In my experience visiting officials are tolerated more than welcomed. Catherine Ashton said she didn't do "disaster tourism" but some held it against her.
Then there was the case of the meeting she missed. She was a no-show at the European defence ministers' meeting. Some of the ministers were open in their criticism. One said she was "noticeable by her absence". She was actually in Ukraine, a strategically important country for the EU.
There was, too, the case of the EU's new ambassador to Washington. He turned out to be EU Commission President Barroso's chief of staff. Questions were asked as to who was actually running the EU's foreign policy.
One of Catherine Ashton's main tasks is to build a diplomatic service or what the EU calls its External Action Service. What it would entail was left surprisingly vague by the Lisbon Treaty and Catherine Ashton has to set out her plans at the beginning of April. In the meantime she is operating without a proper staff. But creating what is in effect a new institution has exposed her to some of Brussels's nasty turf wars. As one diplomat put it, "Brussels is a town that feasts on ill will".
One of the purposes of this diplomatic service is to bring some clarity and cohesion to the EU's foreign representation. Up until now the Commission had people abroad, so did the European Council.
There was duplication and the structure was baffling to outsiders. Catherine Ashton is, in effect, turning three jobs into one. She has taken over some of the Commission's turf - like development aid - and they don't like it. They are not used to ceding ground. Some of the bureaucrats are fighting back, determined to keep their hands on the budget and key appointments.
In the Parliament today there was some criticism. One MEP, referring to the turf battles, told her: "You mustn't be intimated by internal rules. Be a protagonist." Another called for strong leadership. It was all pretty mild.
What Catherine Ashton has going for her is that both MEPs and most of Europe's leaders have a vested interest in making her job work. The consequence of failure is not just humiliation for Catherine Ashton but recognition that the long years of arguing have failed to deliver a stronger voice for Europe on the world stage. Few want to see that. One senior official said to me "she can't match up to some of the foreign policy heavyweights" but she is skilful at finding consensus and has already developed good relations with Hillary Clinton and Russia's Sergei Lavrov.
The harder question to answer relates less to Catherine Ashton and more to the need for a diplomatic service. For even as she was fighting off her critics President Sarkozy was hosting a summit with the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. An arms deal was pulled off, with the Russians getting helicopter-carriers, and there were discussions on muscular issues like Iran. France, like Germany, inclines towards a special relationship with Moscow. It was an old, familiar story of two powerful nations talking and finding common interest. Europe's nation states are most unlikely to agree to taking second place to a common European foreign policy.
I'm 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~40~RS~)
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Looks like Ashton has taken a page out of Cool Cal Coolidge's book when he said he wouldn't run for re-election as President of the United States. (Some think he saw the great depression coming and didn't want to be there when it arrived.) He said; "If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve." Well Ashton did not run but was elected. Now she will not serve possibly because she does't know how to serve...or whom to serve...or what to serve. As the EU is not a country, does not have a single foreign policy, what is she exactly supposed to do? A bureaucrat without a bureau, without a mandate, without a direction, without an anything except a title...and someone who seems weak and directionless as a matter of her personality style. So here's another ineffectual European EU institution that completely disappionts. How will Europe solve its massive and complex financial crisis if it can't even do this? With a financial Commissioner who "doesn't do bailouts?"
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Baroness Ashton was and remains a complete nonentity.
The EU 'Foreign Affairs' dept she represents was non-existent and continues in the same manner.
The Baroness' role will become more pertinent as and when she realises and begins to work for and on behalf of the policies of Paris-Berlin.
An EU of 27 Member States, run by the axis-of-ill-intent, Paris-Berlin, will never function as one 'international' voice anymore than it has ever managed to do so at an 'internal' level in Brussels.
It will function at an international level only when and if the other EU25 are prepared to subjugate their interests, views etc. to those of Paris-Berlin.
Ultimately, the EU25 States will have to get to grips with whether it is their intention for at least the next 2 decades to be tied into:
A EUropean Union Economy & Judiciary controlled by Paris-Berlin?
A EUropean Defence Force led & utilised for the purposes of Paris-Berlin?
A EUropean Currency giving Fiscal control of each Nation to Paris-Berlin?
A EUropean Monetary Fund whose use only Paris-Berlin will determine?
A EUropean Foreign Ministry with international policy initiatives exclusively the preserve of Paris-Berlin?
And, all managed from the wholly unrepresentative, totally unresponsive subterfuge of a Brussels (political) & Luxembourg (judicial) network of EUrocrats!
Within 15 to 18 months the EUropean Court of Justice will be called upon to make a deliberate encroachment in some of its Judgements into areas traditionally the preserve of the 'political' decision-making at National representative level.
Whatever the issue the ECJ will inevitably find in favour of the EU-Brussels.
Thus the stage will have been reached whereby the National Citizens' Right & Responsibility to determine the policies on which they elect their National Government will have been replaced/negated by a Legal agency of Brussels serving the interests of Paris-Berlin.
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There has been criticism of Mrs. Ashton for building up a department of the foreign office ... in London, and the fear is that EU gets Blair policy through the backdoor [to use the passive voice Mr. Hewitt is fond of ;-) ].
However, it is too early to make evaluations of Mrs. Ashton’s efforts with her prime task, namely to build up the organisation. As the article mentions there will be an evaluation in April and that will be a moment to make a more fundamental evaluation. Important is that Mrs. Ashton as well as her personal advisers know about this fear, so that her organisation can be build up as a part of EU instead of any national government.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
having watched a good bit of Lady Ashton's session, I was more impressed than depressed. However, she clearly has work to do.
Gavin: I don't see the relevance of your remarks re Sarkozy meeting Medvedev. Yes, there may be a question of "special relationship" but the fact is, President Sarkozy makes a regular habit of meeting foreign presidents in order to win contracts for French companies. All heads of republics do the same. And I suppose HM QEII still does the same for the UK?
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I think I could write most of the responses out here myself, they mostly start like there about to discuss the posts issue. But then promptly end up turning into the usual rhetoric.
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Like most people I know very little about Baroness Ashton. However, entity or non-entity she needs to be allowed to get on with her job without noises off.
The EU has made a decision and needs to get on with implementing it for better or for worse. Those in the Commission who want to criticise should remember that the second word in their title is the European UNION.
Give the woman a break. The last thing we want these days is some idiot posing in a loin cloth. We have had enough of that sort in recent years.
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"Europe's nation states are most unlikely to agree to taking second place to a common European foreign policy."
You got that right Gavin! I do not expect much of Ms Ashton or the nascent External service. They will be allowed to do their jobs so long as it doesn't conflict with the powerful nation-states. Perhaps one day the roles will be reversed, but not in my lifetime.
Re the photo above: just curious - does anyone know - does Ms Ashton make her own clothes? Or is she a druid?
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OP "What Catherine Ashton has going for her is that both MEPs and most of Europe's leaders have a vested interest in making her job work"
Too bad the people of Europe aren't part of this vested interest group.
Election would be a fine thing, then again The Noble Lady Ashton of Upholland wasn't elected to her job of getting the Lisbon Treaty ratified without a referendum in the UK parliament's upper chamber.
The requirement for positive approval of the electorate is so nineteen-seventies. Welcome to the brave new world of the EU.
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A politician must not only do well, but be seen doing well. She's not the head of SIS. It's her job to be visible. Europe needs leaders, not technocrats.
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Organizations without structure and clear lines of authority suffer when trying to implement policies. This is best seen as a muddle through process with everyone hoping that things will work out in the end. This is mainly a banking and business organization and will have very little effect on what nations do or don't do. Governments don't manage nations all that well so on a larger stage the inabilities are magnified. Nations still have national interest and relationships and those are likely to remain. The art of compromise has turned into a process whereby both or most parties are unsatisfied with the results. The idea that associations can mange a global economy where banks hide and misinform can only result in decisions that have a negative impact on a greater number of people. Moving accountability further away from the people provides greater opportunities for misdeeds and misrepresentation. A more skilled or expereinced person would fair no better, that is why none of those wanted the job. If she is successful she will be booted out and some politically connected (approved by the bankers) will take the spot once all the heavy lifting has been done. The EU is like a chart provided by an economist...it tends to minimize the downside....blinders keep the horse from being distracted but also makes it unaware of dangers from the side.
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Poor creature, she looks like a good feed would knock her over and she is so pale and dowdy ? I note that she was picked out of a crowd but as the Belgian guy is a nonentity who can be manipulated I fear she is a similar creature.
Lastly, has she forgotton her dentures ? or is that recessive chin a result of too long on a Baby's comforter as a child ?
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Go Lady Ashton..she NEEDS to be friends with Hillary Clinton..
before Ms. Clinton gives "Las Malvinas" to Argentina ..without remembering that the UK has an interest in this affair.
She, whom I THOUGHT was very good, so far--Ms. Clinton--could maybe learn one thing or three from Ms. Ashton..
i.e. diplomacy AND she could try to remember that Ms. Ashton's UK is our only actual ally in this new world...and that China is NOT an ally nor a friend..and nor conceivably Ever. They did so very unselfishly lend us a large amount of money to keep us going during OUR own fin. meltdown, But,
..oh I see what you mean,
Mr. Benefactor,
but, could you actually write all our posts AND work, as well? Because you contribute here about as often as I do, I am assuming you have a job, as I do, too:)
BFF (best friends forever),
David
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We (the humble citizens of European states) weren't asked whether we wanted an EU 'foreign minister', an EU 'diplomatic service' or even a stronger voice for 'Europe'.
If as you suggest, Mr Hewitt, this is irrelevant, because Nation States will still act and speak unilaterally, you should be asking how Baroness Ashton has acquired democratic legitimacy even more loudly.
We already knew that the EU was bloated and undemocratic; it's increasingly obvious that it's also ineffectual. We should have a referendum on our continued membership as soon as possible.
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I am the captain and this is my shrine
Lord of the manor, see what I leave behind
forever in flames, cities on fire
yes I'm already trapped in the wire
Hydrogen fuel, it burns so clean
lost in the flames of my loving machine
she is my wife, my mechanical wine
c6nstantly burning til death do us part
now our glorious war draws to a close
and the yellow winds blow and
I have to know
What ever will become of me?
soon the cruel rains will start
is it true we must part company?
Joined at the end between hunger and dying
we leave our gift to the world
meet the phosphorous sky
A labor of love is the truest of all
now will I be forsaken after the fall?
now our glorious war draws to a close
the yellow winds blow and Id like to know
What have I ever done?
Where will I go now?
What ever will become of me?
industry, charity, faith, hope
:)
David
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Ghost of a Szechuan Chicken;
"The idea that associations can mange a global economy where banks hide and misinform can only result in decisions that have a negative impact on a greater number of people. Moving accountability further away from the people provides greater opportunities for misdeeds and misrepresentation."
The location of Switzerland in the middle of the EU but not part of the EU strikes me as no accident. An MEP or council member can quickly be in Zurich from Brussels, Paris, Berlin, or whereever in a few hours, make a quick trip to his bank, and be off on the next flight to South America or Southeast Asia for a quick escape when needed. Zurich is the no tell, no smell, motel for large quantities of money you don't want other people to know about.
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@ 14,
Probably not, not only the job thing. But imitating other posters is against the House rules and when I tried to do it before it was removed (and it was a bit over the top to be fair.)
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I was never asked if I wanted Jack Straw representing me in the Home Office, or Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, get over it. The people of Europe (who cared anyway) voted for the current centre-right EP and it has approved Lady Ashton (who was put forward by the Council, made up of elected Heads of State.)
What she can get done remains to be seen, butthe EU has a number of areas where it has the final say:
* the customs union
* competition rules for the functioning of the internal market
* monetary policy for the Member States whose currency is the euro
* the conservation of marine biological resources
* common commercial (trade) policy
* the internal market
* social policy, for the aspects defined in Lisbon
* economic, social and territorial cohesion
* environment
* consumer protection
* transport
* trans-European networks
* energy
* the area of freedom, security and justice
* common safety concerns in public health matters, for the aspects defined in Lisbon
(Although member states still retain veto on number of those areas, so some of them are somewhat moot.) Essentially she can use the EU's economic power as clout should the need arise.
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Gavin: '"She is dismissed as out of her depth and yet paid more than President Obama and Hillary Clinton."
Combined? Separately? And just how did the Brussles's legislator come to this conclusion, I wonder? Doesn't she actually need to do something to deserve that pay? Prove herself before earning it? Most people don't start out in a top brass job; they have to work for it.
In my humble opinion, Europe needs to stop seaking an international position of symbolic grandeur, and start seaking one of substantive grandeur. To think, European leaders know full well that our two continents hold these diametricly aposing philosophical views, and yet they still act astounded and offended when we aren't exactly thrilled with the amount of troops they commit to Afghanistan after pledging such strong support at various summits or don't attend one of our biannual EU-US summits because we fear, as has happened many times before, that the only thing of substance that will come out of it is a photo op and no real fruitful decisions and actions? What did they expect would happen? In order to have a friend you have to be a friend. And Brussles' view of the US-EU relationship is too much '"What Have You Done For Me Lately?" and not enough '"We're All In This Together."
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As my friend Silvio would say, she is more beautiful than capable for the job.
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Gavin: '"There was, too, the case of the EU's new ambassador to Washington. He turned out to be EU Commission President Barroso's chief of staff. Questions were asked as to who was actually running the EU's foreign policy."
How is that? The ambassador represents the EU to the United States, whereas Ashdon represents the EU to the rest of the world. I would have thought the question of who is in charge of the EU's foreign policy would be pretty clear. What exact questions were asked?
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I feel bad for this woman. How on Earth does she provide 'foreign affairs' guidance for a polity that already has 27 different 'foreign policies' and have no intention of surrendering that capability? How exactly can she do this; as it showed with an 'EU Ambassador' (and what the hell is that when they speak for no country?) to the USA whom is not part of her 'service' and a group of countries that not only have differing foreign policy goals but frequently contraindicated goals? I wish her luck and whatever she is getting paid is so not worth the headaches and derision she is inescapably facing.
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Re: 1. At 5:01pm on 10 Mar 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote: et5c.
EUprisoner: Markus, that is just damn good! Well said! We do not have a government or an "EU" that represents us. On this occasion, at least, I am confident that you represent hundreds of millions of prisoners of the "EU"-Dictatorship. And if THEY, the enemy want to dispute that then they should give us a series of referenda and find out!
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"In the Parliament today there was some criticism"
EUprisoner: So please could we be told what UKIP and the BNP said? If they told the truth, they would be thrown out.
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"to expound foreign policy on behalf of 500 million people "
EUprisoner: She does not do it on behalf of 500 million people. She does it on behalf of a despicable anti-democratic clique who have grabbed power in the "EU".
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@Nik
"ROFLMAO"
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8. At 5:51pm on 10 Mar 2010, stanilic wrote:
" ... Baroness Ashton. ... she needs to be allowed to get on with her job without noises off."
EUprisoner: NO!
" ... Those in the Commission who want to criticise should remember that the second word in their title is the European UNION."
EUprisoner: The word UNION is a joke. Soon be April 1.
"Give the woman a break."
EUpris: Does she give us a break from unwanted "EU" dictatorship, arrogance, waste and megalomania?
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I think the lady does just fine!
Catherine Ashton walked into a messy job with a messier duplication of structure & function.
Catherine Ashton will not fail; it's not in her nature.
Catherine Ashton knows that delivering a stronger, more-united voice for Europe is salvation for the European way of life. Europe's nation states will learn they have much more to gain through consultation with the EU and thereby promoting unity of action than making decisions on their own.
Today, Catherine Ashton set out her vision for the future of European foreign policy.
She emphasized the importance of the EU coming together or facing the playing of second fiddle to alternative powers – most notably the Asian block
She said: "In the last 60 years, our share of global GDP has shrunk from 28 percent to 21 percent. The economies of China, India and others are racing ahead at 10 percent per year. Economic weight is translating into political clout and self-confidence. If we pull together we can safeguard our interests. If not, others will make decisions for us."
She talked about “ international credibility” and this credibility resting on whether the EU gets its neighborhood straight.
She explained that the diplomatic service was “nascent” and acknowledged the difficulty of her task, which often times seems to pit
- the commission,
- member states and
- the EU Council Secretariat
against one another.
Her delivery and her willing response to questions sounded assured, more self-confident than ever before. Catherine Ashton urged member states to remember "why European leaders negotiated the Treaty in the first place," and reprimanded the union for its tendency to yap-yap about foreign policy rather than to act.
The proof of character for Ashton is that post-speech, most of the MEPs pledged their support.
German centre-right MEP Elmar Brok: "We are looking forward to working with you."
Socialist MEP Proinsias de Rossa: Her speech had substance and promise.
British Liberal MEP Andrew Duff spoke about potential "breakdown of trust" between the commission and member states, saying the rift should not be accepted.
MEP Duff is right
- divide and be conquered or
- act as ONE & safeguard the European way of life.
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@ EUPrisoner... sigh
Nick Griffin and everything he gets up to is here:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/public/geoSearch/view.do?country=GB&partNumber=1&zone=North+West&language=EN&id=96751
Nigel Farage and everything he gets up to is here:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/public/geoSearch/view.do?country=GB&partNumber=1&zone=South+East&language=EN&id=4525
Nothing is being kept secret... did you even try looking?
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@ 27 EUpris: "Does she give us a break from unwanted "EU" dictatorship, arrogance, waste and megalomania?"
If the EU is a dictatorship, who exactly is the dictator? The man (or woman) at the top?
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29. At 11:44pm on 10 Mar 2010, Benefactor wrote: etc.
EUprisoner: My point is that the BBC should be reporting it rather than deliberately ignoring the BNP. I am not a BNP supporter.
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Not to be too pedantic, but accuracy counts for something. Regarding comment #1, it was American Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman who said he would not run if nominated, and not serve if elected -- not Calvin Coolidge. Sherman's comment was later echoed by Lyndon Johnson.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Charlie Rose's interview with George Papandreou is available for viewing and what a masterpiece it is, quintessential Charlie Rose;
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10900
Notice how Rose hits all of the hardest topics yet there is not one single harsh word between them. The interview is completely serene, that's the only word to describe it. Papandreou reveals he was born in Minnesota. He has hardly the slightest trace of a foreign accent, nothing really worth noting. He plays the American audience like a harp. He knows exactly what notes to strike. A very studied well rehearsed and practiced attitude combining contrition for past corruption and optimism about the future. "Greece is a case study not a crisis." "This situation is an opportunity." No fear, no harsh words, no recriminations even for his predecessors. He even finessed the subject of President Bush very cleverly.
Oh how he would have loved to have asked Obama for money and in normal times he wouldn't have hesitated a second. But he knew the answer would be no. Obama would have loved go have been able to give it to him or at least a loan or a guarantee but Obama knows that would be instant political suicide for him. So the best Papandreou could ask for was help with preventing currency speculation, he's afraid the sharks will rip Greece to shreds. And he is right to worry. They probably will. They know blood when they smell it. Papandreou probably knows there isn't much Obama can do about it. The currency speculators have far more than a trillion dollars a day to play with, far more than all of the central banks in the world put together can muster to defend any one currency. And why should the US care about defending the Euro? In fact putting together a bill that would regulate the currency speculators could take a year or more even after international negotiations. It won't happen. Not in any time frame useful in this crisis.
So does Papandreou really see the world through rose colored glasses? Is it all wishful thinking on his part? Will the Germans, the EU, the IMF really come to Greece's rescue? What about his statement that Spain's economy is basically sound? Is that for real? The whole thing smacks of self delusion to me. Where does Lady Ashton fit into all of this international negotiation about regulations? Does she even know which way is up? Probably hopeless, we'll see.
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Grotius, you are correct. Sherman said it. I think I associated it with Cooledge because he refused to run for a seoond term. Very unusual for a sitting President. Lyndon Johnson didn't want one either. Between the assassination and Vietnam, he'd had enough.
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Gavin:
# 2 is on the road of the reported good things that, whom the new Foreign Services of the European Union will be regulated....
(D)
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Gavin, first of all congratulations for the quick response to what happened yesterday in Brussels (I mean the speech of Lady Ashton).
Your saying: "Europe's nation states are most unlikely to agree to take second place to a common European foreign policy."
Gavin, if you have in mind the UK, the Baltic States, and say, Sweden & Romania, I would assume that all of them fear an eventual further intimacy between the EU and Russia.
One of the possible answers of the US/UK would be to accelerate (through the NATO institutions) the installation of an anti-missile shield in Romania & Bulgaria. One should be too naive to believe that the said shield is a response to the Iranian missile/nuclear programmes.
Here in Bulgaria, both the foreign minister Mr.Mladenoff and the Atlantic Club president, Mr.Solomon Passi are trying to convince us how important is for our security the presence of the elements of that shield. Do you think that we are so narrow minded and blind to believe in those fairytales? Second, do you really believe that the “remaining nation states” would enjoy a further freezing of the EU/Russian relations (like that following the Georgian/Russian war of 2008)?
Regards
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@ 20 Nik
Take it easy friend. Lady Ashton will not meet both of us in Paris, or say, around a table by the Aegean Sea (smelling Tzipura & Lavrak fish, well dressed with lemon juice, sipping ouzo and listening to the lovely cirthakhi tune). She’s not paid to be there…
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Surely, the reaction of any "citizens of the EU" with any money ought to be to try to get it out of the "EU" and find legal ways of avoiding paying taxes in the "EU" as a way of protesting at the waste of money called the "EU" and in particular the waste of money which is Catherine Ashton's salary and the apparatus surrounding her.
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Surely, any non-"EU citizen" with any money, looking at the "EU" from the outside should realise that there is bound to be trouble and that they should keep their money outside the "EU" and out of Euros.
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http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100029444/the-eu-is-in-no-position-to-lecture-belarus-about-democracy/
"The EU is in no position to lecture Belarus about democracy "
"Once again, the European Parliament huffs and puffs about democracy in nearby lands, while simultaneously demanding that inconvenient referendum results be set aside within the EU." etc.
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Well, she hasn't had the privilege of an elite private education. She didn't go to Oxbridge. She doesn’t come from a wealthy background . She's not related to royalty, she's not married to any of the political elite. She's not a pop star, actress, sports personality or supermodel.. But she has got potentially one of the most powerful jobs in Europe, while all of us are sitting at our keyboards complaining. She's clearly got something that the rest of us haven't. Is it just possible that she's actually quite good at what she does?
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Wonthillian:
"She's clearly got something that the rest of us haven't. Is it just possible that she's actually quite good at what she does?"
Yes, of course. She has party membership and she is evidently a first class party political operator. She has risen through the ranks of the party, avoiding any public scrutiny and rejecting the trials of the voters.
In that sense, she has all the same qualities as Joseph Stalin. Whilst people sit at their keyboards complaining, the party faithful are wielding power obtained by virtue of their loyalty to the party. In Ashton's case, her links to the soviet communist party are curious indeed.
As for the claims that Ashton is not married to the political elite, she did marry an Oxbridge journalist.
There can be no argument that Ashton is a cunning and able politician. The issue is what sort of political system she excels at mastering.
She has never been elected by anybody and yet she has risen to the very highest ranks of political power.
No doubt she would claim to be a glorious democrat. Just like Joseph Stalin, and the leaders the Democratic People's Republik of North Korea, and the Democratic Republik of East Germany.
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What appears from this article is the irrelevance of the post that Mrs. Ashton was so suprisingly appointed to. Thankfully, no-one knew who she was, so she can't suffer any personal embarrassment when she fades once again into obscurity.
What is happening now in the Eurozone and Brussels generally, is that the German Chancellor and the President of France are taking the lead in the affairs that matter to the EU and appear to be more in control of European policy and direction than any of the recently appointed 'Lisbon' posts.
It also appears that in the future both France and Germany (together with their old EU partners) will go their own way and require the rest of the EU member states to follow their lead.
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@42 Wonthillian
I totally agree with you. Of course, enough water will flow under the bridges before we realise whether she was good for the post or not (I mean for the shaping of a pro-EU foreign policy which is the most difficult thing for the moment if we take into account the fact that we are at the mere beginning of a quite long process of shaping a pro-European mentality. The Euro parliament is just the summit of the iceberg we are accustomed to name “United Europe”. Lady Ashton, along with Conrad Adenauer, Jean Monet and the other founding fathers is condemned to be canonized if she succeeds in her job!).
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Just a quick note here, Gavin.
If any of these 'Lisbon' appointees had applied through the normal channels for these jobs (recruitment companies, H.R. departments, job adds, job-center etc.) how far do you think they would have got?
Experience: none
Qualifications for post: none
Past career development: none
Proven ability for job: none
Friends in high-places: 100%
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#42
"she's not married to any of the political elite"
Peter Kellner is a VERY important a member of the political elite, and very close to New Labour. He's never been elected, of course, but neither has Baroness Ashton...
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The problem is with the office and not its holder. The treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon would never have been approved by the British electorate and all the Brussels offices and powers created by those treaties lack democratic legitimacy in the UK. Those who criticise Ashton in Brussels are doing so because they feel she lacks sufficient zeal for personal and institutional self-aggrandizement. That is a pox that has infected too many in the EU institutions already and which is one of the main causes of the Brussels image problem. Those who are criticizing Ashton are the ones who should be culled.
That said, Ashton cannot be supported. She is a party apparatchik who drove Lisbon through the House of Lords, and was sent to Brussels simply because she was already unelected and her departure saved Gordon Brown the embarrassment of losing a by-election, which would have been the result if a member of the House of Commons had replaced Peter Mandelson. She has contributed to the general discrediting of the political system in this country, and is only being attacked now by other appartchiks in Brussels who wish her to assist them to bring it into even lower regard in future. She and they will have go if a representative political system is to be restored.
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@44
What a pity that the EU-band has got only one first fiddle partition which is performed by two musicians. As far as I understand London wouldn’t accept another desk of the orchestra. This is what Tony Blair said ten years ago… Maybe, he would have been the better conductor…than, say, Mr. Herman Van Rompuy.
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~43
Rightly or wrongly, the job of the High Representative has very little power since she is tied to what is agreed by Member States in Council, so her real challenge would be in trying to achieve consensus. Don't somehow think the comparison with Joseph Stalin is appropriate here. Was Joseph Stalin a consensus politician? Maybe we should ask Alice what she thinks.
~47
Not sure how being married to a journalist is likely to help you in a political career. It' s more likely to make your colleagues distrust you .
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@48 Freeborn John
“She has contributed to the general discrediting of the political system in this country, and is only being attacked now by other appartchiks in Brussels who wish her to assist them to bring it into even lower regard in future…”
Maybe some apparatchiks do welcome her appointment as being a Labour Party highly ranked official /the left wing parliamentary group is the second large group in Brussels/, but that fact does not necessarily mean that she will so easily give way to them, being a Foreign secretary of the EU. Second, the Lisbon Treaty is limiting, in a way, the sovereignty of all the member states which is the inevitable result of the whole thread, of the whole irreversible process of uniting them under the same banner & anthem… At the same time, the Lisbon Treaty gave the ordinary people /some 500 millions of them/ more freedom to move freely across the EU-space in search of better professional and other opportunities. Mind that I would prefer to use ‘member states’ instead of ‘nation states’ which is a pure British expression and interpretation of the UK/England’ commitment to the EU-idea. If something does not suit, say many Brits here, that fact does not necessarily mean that it does not suit the crushing majority of the mainlanders. You see the point?
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FreebornJohn
Re #48
Absolutely agree that there is a major issue over "..Brussels offices and powers..": A complete lack of plausible evidence of any Citizen Mandate in any of the EU27 for the ongoing encroachment into National 'legislative' authority being at the centre of concern.
However, whilst agreeing there is real doubt about the legitimacy of every EU Treaty since the 1992 Maastricht deal I do not think we can go so far as to claim none of them would have been 'approved by the British electorate.'
I'm with you, my preference would have been for a 'No' vote on each of these invidious supra-National initiatives, however, whether a UK Majority would have agreed with us is simply unproven.
That said, of course, as there was no consultation of Public Opinion via the Ballot box on any of the EU 'ever closer union' measures they are of themselves entirely without merit and should be treated with the utmost contempt. This is made even more evident by the only time a significant portion of the EU Citizen Electorate were consulted by Referendum, i.e. the defunct 'Constitution', which was roundly rejected by 2 EU founding Nations' populace, would in all probability suffered the same fate by the UK Citizens, and had only late-comers Spain in its camp.
It took 2 Eire Referendum to have Lisbon ratified and that only after 3 additional Protocols granted by the same Brussels' EUrotocracy which had duplicitously claimed Lisbon did not affect and was not a 'constitutional' measure!
Nothing the EU claims as basis and reason for its authority or power stands scrutiny in the spotlight of Citizen approval: The decline in EU Parliament Electoral Voter turnout coinciding as it does with each increase in Brussels' power drawn from these Treaties is yet more evidence of how little value, respect and support ordinary EU Citizens place in the EU.
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20. Nik wrote: As my friend Silvio would say, she is more beautiful than capable for the job.
Wow, in that case Europe is in deep trouble...
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The "scepticians" are wielding their little knives as usual, blunt as always. Some might think "in all ways".
Democracy deficencies we hear time and time again from the British shores, they mean Brussels. Now Brussels has risen to the challenge and recruited someone from a "true British" democratic institution, the House of Lords.
There is a difference, no doubt. Looking at the picture above, the dress code comes to mind.
I wonder whether she mothballed her little fur or merely returned it to Moss Bros? After all, she has just started a new tradition.
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@52 CBW
Nah, the decline in turnout blatantly means most people are happy with the status quo.
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54. jablko
"...Now Brussels has risen to the challenge and recruited someone from a "true British" democratic institution, the House of Lords..."
Cynicism I presume? You may or may not be aware that our Labour Government held a vote that was to give us a fully elected second chamber.
Somehow, like the Constitutional Treaty referendum, this commitment vaporised. There was a new proposal this morning that place men (and women) should lose their peerage on termination of the job they were appointed to. Thus The Noble Baroness Ashton of Upholland would become plain Cathy on taking up her post in Brussels/Strasbourg or other exotic lair.
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55. Benefactor
"...blatantly means most people are happy with the status quo..."
The was something this morning on R4 Today about 'No Party' 'voters' - a contradiction in terms or a sign of contentment?
What do you reckon, all you mind readers out there?
Seriously this this how the EU operates, our minds are read, a puff of white smoke and there standing before us are HV Rumpoy and TNLAoU (sorry I'm too 'happy' to type the Noble Lady's full title) perfectly formed representatives of us. And aren't we proud of them.
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Benefactor
Re #55
"..Nah.." Maybe your interpretation of 'happy people' non-voting, but as that sort of logic does not apply to almost any other situation WHY would it apply to EUropean Parliament Elections except as the typical deceit of the 'pro-EU' !?
E.g.:
If people strike, refuse to attend classes, club membership falls, church attendance drops etc. it is generally taken as an indicator of lack of interest/support for that particular function.
Apparently you are one of those who fantasises a fall from 68+% Voter Turnout in 1979 to 43% in 2009 is a wonderful example of heartfelt joy with the EUropean 'Political' Project!
Msr President of the EU Council Barroso will no doubt commend you for such blind statistical loyalty.
On that basis the drop off in Sunday Service attendance from 4.7 million in 1929 to 1.4 million in 2009 must make the Archbishop of Canterbury a Cleric in a heightened state of ecstatic persona!
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55. At 5:50pm on 11 Mar 2010, Benefactor wrote:
"@52 CBW
Nah, the decline in turnout blatantly means most people are happy with the status quo. "
EUpris: Hardly likely when 82% of Brits wanted a referendum they were promised and yet denied.
Especially since 70% wanted to vote NO.
And then there are the 77% of Germans who wanted a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty but did not get one.
And lets not forget the Austrians. I forget the figures but the Austrians despise the "EU" in roughly the same measure as do the Brits. My reading of Austrian websites seems to confirm this.
Then there is the Dutch referendum, which got ignored, and the very good performance in the recent elections of the party which objects to a European Superstate.
Then of course there was the French NO to the "Constitution".
And then there is the first Irish vote. A Czech PM who supported the Lisbon Treaty subsequently said that he was against it. He said that small countries like the Czech republic could not be the ones to bring it down. My guess is that the Irish felt the same and that that is why they voted Yes the second time.
And the there is the word on the street in the UK. People have said to me that they will not vote in the "EU" elections because they do not recognise it. I don't recognise its right to exist. I do recognise the fact that it does exist and that is why I vote in its elections. I vote so that some of the money wee pay to this crock of nasty should go to people like Nigel Farage.
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I just wonder where Alice of St.Petersburg is? It seems that one rare spice is missing for seasoning the stew.. .
The discussion turned around Lady Ashton’s nomination without any ‘other lady’s’ assessment. Gentlemen, it could be that we were just too capricious...and unfair.
Generalissimo
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60. At 8:37pm on 11 Mar 2010, generalissimo wrote:
" ... Gentlemen ..."
EUprisoner: In general, I feel obliged to be a gentleman and try to be and sometimes succeed and sometimes fail. The "EU" is a special case. The "EU" has abused the tendency of the British people to be moderate. I do not feel obliged to be a gentleman when it comes to the "EU" or its glove-puppets, apparatchiks, writing-desk criminals etc.
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60. At 8:37pm on 11 Mar 2010, generalissimo wrote:
'I just wonder where Alice of St.Petersburg is? It seems that one rare spice is missing for seasoning the stew.. .
The discussion turned around Lady Ashton’s nomination without any ‘other lady’s’ assessment. Gentlemen, it could be that we were just too capricious...and unfair.
Generalissimo '
EUprisoner: I certainly think that there should have been no discussion about Ashton's clothing or attractiveness. It is irrelevant.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8563084.stm
" ... the US state department says in its latest annual human rights report. ...
And it said Cuba - a country the Obama administration has tried to engage with - continued to deny its citizens' basic human rights, including the right to change their government."
EUprisoner: In this report of a report there is no mention of any US criticism of the "EU" for its continuing denial of the Human Rights of the citizens of the UK. I mean the right to have the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty that we were promised.
Please would the USA stop collaborating with the "EU"-Dictatorship and star telling it to give us the referendum we were promised and to which we have a right.
Please help to free us from this pan-European Guantanamo. We haven't done anything wrong!
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55. At 5:50pm on 11 Mar 2010, Benefactor wrote:
"@52 CBW
Nah, the decline in turnout blatantly means most people are happy with the status quo. "
EUprisoner: PROVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GIVE US THE REFERENDUM WE WERE PROMISED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I wondering what is Ashton's position exactly. Foreign minister. Ok, I am not expecting this position to be what the title says, but it would really have some meaning if EU countries had at least some basic understanding of each other in relation to external-to-EU affairs.
A classical example, is the way EU countries positioned towards too relatively similar cases, of Serbia and Georgia in relation to breakaway regions of Kosovo, Abkhazia & Ossetia. The likes of Germany and Britain rushed to recognise the blatantly illegal unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo while others like Spain and Greece refuse vertically to do so. And for Georgia the likes of Germany and Britain while Spain and Greece half-heartedly said "yeah, ok whatever, they should not be indepedent" in the sense as telling the first "since YOU messed it up with Kosovo, that is what arrives next and good thing it does...". What kind of external politics when 1/3 of EU countries support non-EU Turkey in its illegal & aggressive demands over EU Greece's waters while most of them recognise the blatantly outrageous territorial demands by an insignificant country that never existed before, FYROM against Greece. I gave the usual most blatant example but then what about Northern Ireland where 2 EU people were up to recently fighting, and how about Cyprus were EU people (mainly British) go and illegally buy the properties of ethnically cleansed by now EU Greeks of Cyprus.
Are we crazing? The only thing after a president whose name we cannot recall without remembering "the man" (Nigel! what else!) we missed was a foreign minister. To do what? Speak on behalf of all these inter-fighting EU countries? And what he will do? Recognise half of Kosovo and half of Abkhazia and Ossetia? Or send the French support the EU Greeks and the British support the non-EU Turks in an eventual heated military conflict? Absolutely ridiculous.
EU has to pass first from the point of calling this position EU external affairs referee (i.e. to solve the grave differences in viewpoints among EU countries). Having passed from that point first, and only after 15-20 years and with the Gallileo up, and with at least the 5% of each members' military force & budget to form a 20-30,000 mobile task force that could be send around the world to play the bad boy (cos our friends Americans are getting tired of being called the bad guys all the time, it should be someone elses turn...), only then such a position would be justified.
So for the time being the discussion can stay to Ashtons cloths and how much attractive Silvio could find her.
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65. At 10:18pm on 11 Mar 2010, Nik wrote:
"I wondering what is Ashton's position exactly ..."
EUpris: I don't wonder what it is. She has little to do with me. I didn't vote her in. The people of the UK weren't given a chance to vote her in or out. So she can get lost.
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"I wondering what is Ashton's position exactly."
Although she looks lost and helpless, I'll bet she has no problem finding here way to the finest hotels and restaurants in Brussels when she's in town. And I'll bet she has no problem navigating the wine list either. Garcon, a bottle of the 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild.
She may not know much about the world yet but she'll learn. I'd bet within five years she'll know the finest restaurants in most of the cpaitals of the world and which five star hotels have the softest beds.
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@65 Nik
“EU has to pass first from the point of calling this position EU external affairs referee (i.e. to solve the grave differences in viewpoints among EU countries). Having passed from that point first, and only after 15-20 years and with the Gallileo up, and with at least the 5% of each members' military force & budget to form a 20-30,000 mobile task force that could be send around the world to play the bad boy (cos our friends Americans are getting tired of being called the bad guys all the time, it should be someone elses turn...), only then such a position would be justified.”
I totally agree with you, Nike. The EDF has no alternative. If all of the pro-EU politics were enough wise to consider this case, say in 1990, now Lady Ashton would have been the most important lady of the planet (with nearly a 2 million army & a 50000 task force behind). And our neighbors, the Greeks would have no trouble to exercise their sovereignty over the Greece/EU territorial waters in the Eastern Mediterranean. And the American guys will be relieved /at least in Europe/ much to the satisfaction of MarcusAureliusII.
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@62 EUprisoner
“EUprisoner: I certainly think that there should have been no discussion about Ashton's clothing or attractiveness. It is irrelevant.”
I am almost sure that we were not discussing /with a few exceptions maybe/ clothing and garments. We were meditating over the feasibility of an independent and working EU-foreign service.
Well, as I said before, Lady Ashton shall be canonized if she ever succeeds in her job /just like Conrad Adenauer, Jean Monet, Robert Schuman and others who are already canonized as the “founding fathers” of our Community/. The fact that Catherine Ashton is subject of Her Majesty is of insignificant importance provided she has got the knowledge, the enlightenment and the skills to succeed. It’s high time.
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I'm wondering if Alice is upset about her cat,
Generalissimo
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I see no-one understands humour or sarcasm, no matter, apparently few of you understand that the EU and Lisbon and referendums are all different things.
People can be happy with the EU and unhappy with the lack of referendum, the EU has above 50% approval in almost every member state, with most states being much higher than that.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Turnout is falling in pretty much every election in the Western World, its no damning indictement of the EU...
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@70 David
David, the plagiarism along with the abuse of other physical/legal persons’ names/nicknames/signatures/etc., is liable to legal prosecution, at least in the EU- member states. Be careful friend…
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@16 David
Maybe the place and the moment are not of the best appropriate, but I should express my thanks for the pleasure of reading your expressive verse, a verse that honors you.
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56, rg
Thank you for filling me in.
There was'nt any cynicism intended, just a little fun, political satire if you like. It is to do with my bent for languages.
On a more serious note I should like to point out that I heartily welcome another capable women at the top in the EU. The political right has one in Angela Merkel. So Cathy or Lady Ashton is an overdue addition to the EU political fray. Maybe she will help us to forget that other Lady, that Lady "Grocer's daughter" from Grantsham.
I am glad to hear that you also listen to the Today programme, I missed this morning's though.
EUprisoner is quoting the former Czech prime minister correctly with regard to the Lisbon Treaty. Interpreting however what he, Mirek Topolanek, said is of course another matter. To get the Lisbon Treaty approved here in the Czech Republic was nonetheless due to his hard work.
The Czech citizens are overwhelmingly for the EU. To understand what goes on here I quote you Mirek Topolanek from a few days ago. He said something like: the problem is the police, the prosecutors and the courts in this country... !
When the man is right, he is right!
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@ 67 MA
“And I'll bet she has no problem navigating the wine list either. Garcon, a bottle of the 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild…”
Mark, being a humble (Christian) subject of the EUSSR, I am very proud that our foreign secretary (Lady Ashton) is well acquainted with the diplomatic protocol. What a pity that one of your last presidents /guess who/ felt better among the cows of his ranch than in the company of his European colleagues…
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64, EUprisoner
Referendum, Referenda, da di da di da.
There have been decisions taken in history that have been and are painful to this day. British soldiers are dying because of it now. Was it not a British Empire civil servant that drew a line on a map right through a nation? Putting one part into Pakistan and the other into Afganistan?
How about a referendum on that one?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
CBW (52): British attitudes towards ratification of the treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon was all subject to extensive polling. There was never a single poll showing majority support in the UK for any of these treaties. These polls on indeed showed solid majorities against British ratification of all four of these treaties. The last European treaty that could claim majority support in the UK was the Single European Act in the mid-1980s.
Therefore i fell justified in saying, as in post 48, that the treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon would never have been approved by the British electorate and all the Brussels offices and powers created by those treaties lack democratic legitimacy in the UK.
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Nik;
"The problem with EU citizens is that they do not realise the importance of the role of EU "
Of course they do. They know that the role of the EU is to rob from the poor and give to the idle. For example, some of the taxes paid by hard working people in Britain will go to pay for non functional civil servants in Greece. And some of it will go to pay for the luxurious lifestyle of the MEPs and other non functionaries in Brussels.
The Trials of Catherine Ashton are;
I'll try the 1961 Chateau Margaux, and the 1982 Chateau Petrus, and the 1989 Chateau Haut Brion. Now who would not relish sharing in such trials?
Why do you suppose David Cameron taunted the British public with the hint of a referendum upon which would not commit to because he would never deliver? Because he is looking down the road to one day enduring the same trials as Catherine Ashton. The British Government is as corrupt as any in the world. Why shouldn't anyone expect they wouldn't be? Where are the harsh penalties for getting caught at it?
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Nik;
"Does he feel threatened if EU lifts up 32 satelites to make its own GPS (Galileo)?"
Yes. If an enemy such as Iran used the US system for guidance of an ICBM targeting the US, America could turn the system off immediately or reprogram it to redirect the missle to a useless unpopulated target. It would have no such control over a European owned and operated system. As a result, Galileo would be a direct threat to American security. The US government has warned that if it is deployed, the US military will shoot it out of the sky. I and I'll bet most of my fellow Americans fully support that policy. You get to use GPS for free. It is adequate for anything you need. Accept it or be prepared to throw your money out the window and give Americans one more good reason to detest Europe.
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generalissimo;
"What a pity that one of your last presidents /guess who/ felt better among the cows of his ranch than in the company of his European colleagues…"
What a pity that his European "colleagues" were so inferior that he was entirely justified feeling that way. The last one I can remember worthy of respect was Margaret Thatcher. You remember her, the one Britain detested and threw out. Had Britain listened to her instead, they might not be in the hot water up to their eyeballs they are in today. Europe's welfare nanny state is bankrupt, finished, ended. Nothing and nobody can save it or its European counterparts. America's trip down that same dangerous path if it continues will come to the same end.
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Both Freeborn John (78) and CBW (52) confuse democratic legitimacy and popular support. The treaties of Lisbon, Maastricht etc. might not be popular (although since most people have no real idea what they contain, it is unclear what "unpopular" means in such a context). However, they were approved in accordance with the relevant rules in force in 27 democratic states and are therefore democratically legitimate. The confusion surrounding Mrs Ashton's role and powers is simply a reflection of the larger confusion which surrounds all the institutions of a European Union which has become something more than a traditional organisation of states but is not, and has no immediate prospect of becoming, the union of people which was the ambition of Monnet and is the only basis on which democratic European institutions can be created.
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EU started as a security measure since France wanted to control the production of steel in Germany, and EU and its predecessors have all the time been a part of security political structure.
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Nik
Re #77
Some of your broad, sweeping generalisations and indiscriminate accusations were so farcical it was difficult to believe it was the same contributor who had made good debating points in some previous comments!
This #77 was a gross distortion of Europeans in general and of Britons in particular: Your, '..no Europeans care..' and, "..we don't care about languages.." or about this, that and the other is just your view - - since when could you speak for 500 million across 27 Nations, never mind the British, Austrian, Portuguese populations etc. - - as for "..in today's world, either you are US or..", well, says who? You? Don't be so foolish.
It was at its worst in the assessment-accusations against the UK:
E.g. "..true, every EU citizen could live in any EU country without feeling he faces cultural problems apart the usual cultural baffles which we face with humour and good-natured irony. And nowadays even violent extra-right-wing groups rarely attack EU nationals (apart in Britain where they do still - I have witnessed that when I was a student when especially European (not Asian) students were particularly targetted.. funny as it maybe, a sign of the times."
Which EUropean continent are you living in!?
Have you not seen on tv, read in newspapers, heard on radio about Le Pen's extra-right-wing? Germany's 'neo-nazis', Italy's 'fascists'? Oh, they only attack Asians/Africans, do they?
You are either seriously deluded or attempting to denigrate the British in a manner that is wholly unjustified and frankly a disgrace! So what if you saw right-wing Britons attack Europeans - - where do you get the colossal nerve to write it only happens in the UK - - where else were you not a 'Student' and therefore have apparently no idea at all about what was/is happening between fellow Europeans!?
I will not list the hardcore right-wing groupings of practically every East EUropean Nation who regularly assault any foreigner from anywhere in the World according to their own National media!
Tried reading any UNO Reports on the relative growth of anti-semitism etc. in EUrope: That's EUropean Jews being attacked by... 'extra-right-wing' EUropeans, or, was that too difficult for you to work out!?
Oh no! No, the only Nation where Europeans speaking another language/having a different culture get attacked is Britain!
Funny that: Some 2 million EU Citizens currently residing in the UK must have all rung you up to tell you of their hardship!?
Get real!
You know, there were portions of your previous contributions that made sense and had me pausing for thought about the plight of your Nation and just maybe the UK should do more in this crisis.
Having read that utter load of bilge I can assure you the plank in both your eyes has done you and your country an enormous disservice.
Really the final encapsulation of your entire #77 views is summed up by your closing remarks using MAII as the qualifying factor for all you had written!
In all sincerity - - what could you have been thinking of!?
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72, Nik
On the matter of defence.
The US, like it or not, has taken on a lot of responsibility in the last century. Winston Churchill worked hard and long to get the Americans envolved. Pity they did'nt come over here a little earlier. The Antlantic Pact came into being, Germany (WEST) was to join it later. To have a defence system in Europe that included Germany would have been politically impossible. So we have the best of both worlds, a 27 state EU and a defence that is even greater. The transatlantic defence strategy should never be given up. The EU countries may in time become a more even partner, Lady Ashton will surely play a part in this. Let's wish her well. It is in all our interest.
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81. MarcusAureliusII
"...the one Britain detested and threw out..."
Is it worse when a leader is decapitated by their own and not the electorate?
Is this as bad as a leader being elected by his fellow MPs excluding party and country?
So much for the recent history of democracy in the UK. And that's without mentioning the Constitutional Treaty referendum or the EU Presidential election.
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79. MarcusAureliusII
"...David Cameron taunted the British public with the hint of a referendum upon which would not commit to because he would never deliver?.."
Good analysis. I can only hope Cameron gets his just rewards from the electorate come May.
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76. At 12:29pm on 12 Mar 2010, jablko wrote:
64, EUprisoner
"Referendum, Referenda, da di da di da.
There have been decisions taken in history that have been and are painful to this day. British soldiers are dying because of it now. Was it not a British Empire civil servant that drew a line on a map right through a nation? Putting one part into Pakistan and the other into Afganistan?
How about a referendum on that one? "
That is now a matter for the Afghans and the Pakistanis. I believe there should have been more referenda in the past.
I demand the referendum we were promised and to which we are entitled.
DEMAND!
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#80
"The US government has warned that if it is deployed, the US military will shoot it out of the sky"
Where is the evidence for that?
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74. At 11:58am on 12 Mar 2010, jablko wrote:
" ... .
The Czech citizens are overwhelmingly for the EU"
Being for the "EU" is not the same as being pro-Lisbon. You could be in favour of the pre-Lisbon "EU".
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74. At 11:58am on 12 Mar 2010, jablko wrote:
" ...
EUprisoner is quoting the former Czech prime minister correctly with regard to the Lisbon Treaty. Interpreting however what he, Mirek Topolanek, said is of course another matter. To get the Lisbon Treaty approved here in the Czech Republic was nonetheless due to his hard work. "
EUpris: Is he the Czech politician who was filmed in Berlusconi's villa stark naked, with an erection, chasing scantily clad young girls?
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Marcus, thanx for the replies. I did not mean to be ironic (maybe was a bit, but in a good manner), I just prompted you to reply, I am glad you got it. No matter what you read from me, I am not any anti-American or pro-Russe but I am neither any pro-American or suffer from any particular Russophobia. Down to the basics, I talk pure business:
re mes79: Common Marcus, I have lived in the UK 5 excellent student years. I travelled everywhere from Brighton to the Scottish highlands. I have seen the uptowns and downtowns. And what was the verdict? That Britain is one of the most socially divided EU countries, so much that the poor are eternally condamned to poverty and the rich are eternally condamned to staying rich. Even their accents change no matter if being from the same place! The politician, most working class they ever voted was Tony (I remember a legendary documentary called "Tony's people", showing the place he came from), yet even himself was from an artistocratic family too. Absolutely no social mobility. And the plight of the Britihs working class (you have to see to understrand), has absolutely nothing to do with EU - and British people know it. Its the upper classes mainly that are against EU, obviously afraid that their "value" will be dilluted inside a large construction like the EU. However the British industrialists are rather pro-EU and British lower classes are only accepting the configuration that will promise them a better future. There is absolutely nothing on the horizon that promises them a better future with England a largely non-producing nation that makes money mainly through money games to which common people have no access.
That said, I will be the last to claim that the EU is any saint in that matter - indeed it has on some sectors brough things upside down. But it was not the case for Britain, not at all. The working class of Britain was detroyed internally up to the late 70s... from there on the chaos.
Your accusations of Britain (and other supposedly more healthy nations) paying Greek civil servants are partly unfair. Yes, it is true that in a semi-developed economy people dreamt of securing the future of their kids by abiding blindly to the political party that would employ them in some (at most cases random and irrelevant to their kids' skills) civil service. Apart the rare private cases, the public sector had been the only sector in Greece providing real working security (but note that salaries were never impressive, up to 1990s you could win more in the private for the same position, the problem is that there were less "same positions" in the private as they are few big companies!)
Nontheless, the problem was always relatively contained and up to 1980, the number of civil servants was just a bit more than what was needed in the by then modernised market. It was in the 1980-2000 period that the problem became serious since the anti-US secretly US-serving PASOK party and Yorgos Papandreou's father Andreas Papandreou hired armies of his "green" (party colour) guardians often to a rate of 3 people for the job of 1. Yes you had the ridiculous "National industry of sugar" (absolutely ridiculous). You had Olympic Airways hiring people with extraordinary wages and a horrible management (still their services were simply superb - apart when they were on strike, usually the bridged-weekends!). Yet all was not black. The National Telecommunications Company (OTE), was one of the best organised of its kind on a global level and one of the first European companies to set up full optical fibre network cables long before the internet imposed that just because smart directors forsaw the need - directors paid a little bit more than an average civil clerk (when their equivalents in big private corporations would take at least 5 times their salary). The services OTE offered were quite good and at ridiculous prices covering the most difficult to connect country in all Europe (70% impenetrable mountains and 3000 islands with around 200 habitated). Same thing with DEI, the State Electricity Company. Good services at extraordinary prices and most importantly everywhere, even on the last rock (go tell a private company to feed a 200 people inhabited island).
Why do I mention them? Cos, both OTE and DEI with their supposed overpopulation were hugely profitable companies to the extend that the state was using the huge profits to fund other areas, thus the citizens received decent and up to excellent services at extremely cheap prices while a large part of the money - no matter the whatever endemic corruption - ended up again in their service and not in any Cayman islands account! British people would not pay a penny for them but on the contrary would profit during their holidays of the good cheap services!
Instead when EU (and that is exactly the blatantly wrong doing of EU, there you are correct), imposed Greece among others to privitise such public companies, new players came in without any potential to break even, prices went up, services went down, directors and managers started getting astronomical salaries while mid-management got paid less and the overall management deteriorated, private investors in full secrecy were dragging the companies to make risky investments in random countries in and out of Europe, and the people started paying not for telephone or electricity but for the losses of investment-wizards' mumbo-jumbo. At the end, people's money ended up in Cayman islands...
On the other hand, just for your information, among all EU working people, the most hardworking are by far the Greeks (who top working hours and get minimum holidays), against all appearences - and all that while being the worst paid (apart perhaps some recent EU entries). It is not me saying this but an EU survey. If anything, no European or American ever complained on the 1000s of Greek working people that man every imaginable private business around the world, so why would that be the case in Greece? Greeks - contrary to common belief - have also the highest percentage top of self-employed people. That is of course due to the fact that in a country of little options, they have to be imaginative to do something to live through it, but it shows that people are not expecting someone to drop money on them - the negative effect is that of course these "companies" of 1 or 2 physical persons are so small that cannot maintain proper books, that prompt people to go in the black, and be paid in cash for their services and thus a whole market gets out of the system. Normally it should not be a problem as Greece lived with it having a fairly OK eocnomy from the 1950s to the 1980s without EU-aids and with minimal (and for a period zero) loans, it was after the EU entry that things got out of touch and that was in full knowledge of EU partners, nothing secret about it - it was the EU partnership that funded the corruption in Greece (as well as elsewhere, lts not hide it).
Why Greece enterred then? I told you 1000 times. For geopolitical protection - the country is under constant and very serious military threat - not for improving its economy.
BUT, this is not what is EU is about. EU is as bad as EU leaders make it. The basic idea is there and it is good, the application up to now is failing, exactly because as I said above, it started by the wrong end. But the good idea is there, there is a basis and tables can turn anytime - that is exactly what US is afraid of (and Galileo is a very nice example of how things can turn).
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From Open Europe:
Similarly, a leader article in German daily FT Deutschland on Tuesday (9 March) carried the headline, "Nightmare Lisbon Treaty":
" Europe has its celebrated Lisbon Treaty, its new constitution. However the Union has not become simpler for outsiders. What an anticlimax. The Member States fought long and hard for the treaty. So many thought that it would allow Europe to reach decisions faster, become more democratic and appear more united to the rest of the world. However, three months after the agreement came into force, the euphoria has evaporated." (FT Deutschland, 9 March)
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@80 Marcus
"Yes. If an enemy such as Iran used the US system for guidance of an ICBM targeting the US, America could turn the system off immediately or reprogram it to redirect the missle to a useless unpopulated target. It would have no such control over a European owned and operated system. As a result, Galileo would be a direct threat to American security. The US government has warned that if it is deployed, the US military will shoot it out of the sky. I and I'll bet most of my fellow Americans fully support that policy. You get to use GPS for free. It is adequate for anything you need. Accept it or be prepared to throw your money out the window and give Americans one more good reason to detest Europe."
What's the point... *sigh* anyway, so you don't want the USA to "carry" Europe, but when it develops its own systems you get all upset about it? (nur nur, it's better than yours as well)
You know what Marcus, it won't be used against you anyway and you won't shoot it out of the sky.
I mean, you are aware that it would pretty much be an act of war?
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Benefactor
Re #71
"Turnout is falling in pretty much every election in the western world.."
Not so! That is one of the typical 'pro-EU' sleight of statistics to boost their failing EUropean project.
Try to stick to the facts - - whilst the trend of National Voting figures are down in some areas of the 'western' World it is not the case in all - - the most recent example being the USA Presidential race and a year earlier the French Presidency also attracted higher voter participation.
Only the EUropean Union has suffered such an appalling fall-off in Citizen Election participation and only the EU has recorded this uninterrupted downward spiral for 30 years.
"..its (falling Voter turnout at EU Parliament elections) no damning indictment of the EU."
From near 70% to 43% between 1979 and 2009: One wonders what constitutes a problem in your eyes!?
Despite a near DOUBLING of eligible EU Citizen Voters in the same 30 years participation fell by '27' points! Or, if you prefer, there has been a near 40% drop-off in voter participation despite approximately 100,000,000 more Voters being on the register in 2009!
Do tell us all: Which 'western'/'European' Nation has experienced anywhere near a similar set of figures?
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Re mes.80: Well Marcus, see what we talk about? You simply come out and say to Europeans "stay at bay or we bomb". Well thank you very much, but isn't that a good reason to revise our relationship with the US as a whole? And I will not even get to the US-Greece special relationship where we are 60 years allies and saw only continuous political, financial, geopolitical and even direct military attacks (US attacked militarily along with ally Britain - i.e. NATO forces joint other NATO forces attacking another NATO force...) - that kind of protection we talk.
Well we Europeans saw what is the kind of US protection: its all about creating the Mujjadehins all over the world, train them, arm them, and spread them around the world in US-backed groups to create the justification for the US to intervene freely everywhere. I am I right? So far so good?
GPS = complete military, geopolitical and financial insecurity.
It goes withoutsaying that as US has GPS, Russia has GLONAS, China is building its own one, that EU has to speed up with its Galileo. It is a matter of security of the EU and if anything a rather small financial sacrifice now for huge financial gains tomorrow when all businesses will be dependent. Otherwise there is always GPS that comes with programmes like Echelon (that came out even before the Internet...), and with the US army working for private US companies, the EU companies will be always POWs. It will always be the usual: EU company Airbus losing to 1 class inferior and outdated Boeing just because the US preaches outside capitalism and inside forces almost communist-style protectionism.
Well no thanks, even if I do not have money I will give for Galileo.
PS: I will give 8-10 lines to commend the absolutely ridiculous threat you mentioned and it is already wasted time... the muslim terrorists hijacking Galileo and US being incapable of reacting ... ohhh... why do you try to hide your elefant behind a street lamp pole... the only "danger" for US is that EU will not hang from the US anymore and will have the full capacity to deploy its businesses and armies with the same (if not better, since the system will be more modern) accuracy. Mind you, muslims are not so famed for their technological skills, anythign they learn they learn it from you not to mention that the same applies to anything they do. I hope the answer covers you.
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@81 MA
Mark, Lady Thatcher did restore the respect the British government needed so much by her monetary policy and her victory over the Argentinean military junta during the Falkland war.
The US president I referred to, started two /everlasting/ wars, involved almost all NATO allies in those conflicts /including Bulgaria/ and now he can look after his cows enjoying the fresh air of his Texas ranch. Compared to his belligerent performances, the EU- foreign policy /presided over by Lady Ashton/ may really look inferior.
Thanks to your continuous brilliant assessment of the “irrational EU- existence”, I, being a humble mainlander, already feel obliged to thank you for your /free of charge/ enlightenment…
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Nik
" And nowadays even violent extra-right-wing groups rarely attack EU nationals (apart in Britain where they do still "
Prove it, go on, prove that Britain is the only EU country that has right wing nationals that attack immigrants and students. I dont know why I am bothering but I would love to see the evidence but I wager that the exact opposite it true, which is how i feel about most of MA's posts too funnily enough. Are you related?
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#81
Britain didnt throw out Maggie Thatcher, the Conservative Party did. She didnt give into to spurious Argentinian claims on British territory either.
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88. EUprisoner209456731
"...I demand the referendum we were promised and to which we are entitled..."
I agree we are entitled to a referendum on what became the Lisbon Treaty.
We won't get one of course because the three main parties have reached a consensus. This being that they'll all take any heat for reneging on their 2005 manifestos knowing perfectly well that for most of the electorate there is no credible alternative government to vote for.
For me the interest in the 2010 election is not the result, it is the turnout. Will fewer than 2/3 vote like in 2005?
Given that 1/3 of the 'popular' vote can win 100% of the power, what does this say about democracy?
And over in the EU parliamentary what was the 2009 UK turnout? 1/3!
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98. At 6:57pm on 12 Mar 2010, commonsense_expressway wrote:
'Nik
" And nowadays even violent extra-right-wing groups rarely attack EU nationals (apart in Britain where they do still " '
I do know that some British nasties attack "EU" nationals. What I have heard is that British nationals have been attacked in what used to be called East Germany. About fifteen years ago I was teaching maths and German to some British construction students. Some of them had already worked in construction. They had lots of stories about British construction workers being attacked in Ex-East Germany. In Germany I haver heard stories about dark skinned German nationals from the West being attacked in the East.
None of the East German stuff excuses the behaviour of British thugs. Too little is done about it.
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Malefactor, the resolution of the US GPS system as it is available to the general public was increased to address the objections of Europeans which was their stated reason for wanting their own system. The resolution available to the US military and other US government functions is much higher. So far the EU doesn't have a system. If it is as successful as their Mars mission or their Hadron collider the US may not have much to worry about for a long time as European technology does not exactly enjoy a reputation for being advanced or reliable, at least not among people I know.
Nik;
Were I in the White House sitting in the Oval Office and Papandreou were to ask me for a loan or a guarantee, it would be my personal pleasure to turn him down flat. I don't see Greece or any of Europe as America's ally anymore. I don't think it ever really was. Anyway, the US may have other strategies to neutralize competing GPS systems in an emergency that don't rely on the physical destruction of the satelites themselves, methods just as effective and fast enough. America is also the world leader in electronic warfare.
I can hardly wait to see how the Obama administraton deals with the Malvinas as the conflict between Britain and Argentina escalates. I think he might do best to just stay out of it. America doesn't have a dog in this fight. The release of Megrahi over American objections was humiliating for him and I don't think he will forget it. If he supports Argentina, that could be a factor.
EUpris;
Even the much ballyhooed Lisbon Treaty has turned out to be more hyperbole than substance evidently. It was supposed to improve "governance" within the EU. That was one important reason why the Constitution was said to be so urgently needed. So govern yourself Europe. Fix up the mess in Greece while the rest of the PIIGS are still on the back burner. Soon they too will be on the front burner as well and you'll have to deal with all of the chickens coming home to roost at the same time. Don't say I didn't warn you. Angela, get that checkbook ready. Time for Germany to pay up for being a superstate. Don't forget to add the right number of zeros, there are a lot of them.
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On Yahoo I read:
"Cameron seeks to reassure France over EU ties"
...
Conservative leader David Cameron told French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday he would be an "active and energetic" participant in the European Union if he became prime minister after a forthcoming election. "
EUpris: Did not Cameron say about the Lisbon Treaty that he would not let the matter rest? But that is exactly what he is doing. I see loads of Conservative posters in my home area. I have not seen one mentioning the "EU".
The Conservatives did well at the "EU" elections. But they did well because of their "EU"-critical comments. Those comments appear to have been largely a ploy and a sham. That does not apply to Daniel Hannan and maybe some others. On the whole they are not morally entitled to the seats they occupy in the "EU"-parliament.
Nether the British First Past The Post system nor the continental list system which is used at British "EU" elections works properly.
I believe we need a Single Transferable Vote System.
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The trade war between the United States and the EU is heating up.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8563581.stm
So called alliances go out the window when times are difficult. Politicians who do not protect their own run grave risks. Magnanimity in more prosperous times is political suicide in times like these. The 35 billion dollar contract for the air to air refueling tankers is the tip of the iceberg. There are issues over everything from agriculture, climate change, banking regulation just to name a few.
Speaking about political suicide, the Obama administration would be well advised to distance itself from the Arab Israeli conflict. There will be no headway and the only thing Obama can do is crash and burn on this rock just as so many others have. Hasn't his administration got enough headaches with other issues like health care reform already? Stick to Afghanistan Mr. President, you are much safer there.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8563581.stm
At best the Democrats can further split their already fractured party and further alienate themselves from much of the country which supports Israel just about 100%. At worst by making Israel feel more isolated, it can lower the threshold of perceived threat at which all out war with Iran will begin with a pre-emptive Israeli first strike on Teheran.
The world is becoming more fractured. All of the conferences won't do anything to change it. The forces have been lining up against each other for a long time. Now they are starting to play themselves out more overtly. Those who get in the way will be badly hurt.
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#104
The US demanding the opening of foreign markets for exports whilst shutting down key industries,like steel/aerospace/defence to foreign competitors is hardly a new phenomenon.
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offramp;
Europe's free one way ride at the expense of American taxpayers and workers is over. Get used to it, you will see more of it, lots more of it. President Obama will be under enormous pressure to create jobs in the US. To do that, all of that open trade, the so called free trade will give way to fair trade. Call it protectionism if you like. President Obama's constituency includes American labor unions, it does not include foreign workers or corporations. He's already shut down a longstanding policy where profits by American corporations on investments abroad would have their taxes deferred until the profits were repatriated which in effect meant never. Now they will be taxed on it in the year in which it is earned which will make foreign investment less attractive compared to domestic investment.
I see the State of California is already sueing Toyota over accidents resultng from their defective cars. Expect a lot more lawsuits and fines bleeding Toyota of hundreds of millions to the benefit of Ford and GM not to mention US taxpayers. China is a different case. Much of the profits made in China are repatriated to the US as America is the biggest foreign investor there. Look at the GNI vs GDP charts I keep posting. Only 15 cents of profits earned in China stay in China. We send them the kind of jobs we mostly don't want done here anyway.
The US is starting to use its economic dominance over the world to its advantage. IMO it is long overdue. As its effectiveness becomes more evident, it may yet be used as a political weapon too. A most effective one that can bring down governments and throw entire societies into chaos without firing a single shot.
What a flop Tesco was in its first store in California. Some reports compared it to the third world. Carrefour had the same experience on Long Island a couple of decades ago. One day I might buy a wedge of Stilton cheese...if the price gets cut in half.
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#106
"Europe's free one way ride at the expense of American taxpayers and workers is "
I stopped reading at that point...
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To EUprisoner
Please forgive me if I don't match your standard of reproducing a comment made and adding an answer.
At 103 you talk about voting systems, ending up with "I believe we need a Single Transferable Vote System" (referring to Britain of course).
May I be so brave and recommend you to think as much about referenda? Study the subject perhaps? Look clinically at the famous Irish referendum perhaps, or look at Switzerland where they have practiced them since the year dot? The Swiss actually used it very effectivly to deny democracy to their wives, the first Swiss women gained the vote in 1972 (man had been on the moon by then!), the last were to get it only 20 years later. Of course the Swiss continue to deny democracy to their neighbors, refusing by means of a referendum citizenship to them. This demonstrates that referenda can be and are highjacked by those that are not well intentioned, not even towards their nearest and dearest.
Sort of William Haig like with the non dom issue over Lord Ashcroft. Democracy, what democracy? Let's have the money instead. I am glad to know that there are decent people that refuse to sit in that House of Lords of yours. The SNP, the Scottish National Party, for those that don't know, are refusing to go there. Now there is a referendum looming on the horizon in Scotland: To be or not to be... part of the UK. Scots Gaelic (language) was accepted at EU level on 7.10.2009 by the way.
There are of course other nations that under the EU umbrella could one day detach themselves from the setup they were forced to be part of without having had a propper choice in their day.
Now to another comment of yours, sorry I forget the number. You are quoting from an article from the FTD, one of the best papers in Germany of course, no doubt about that. The state Brussels is in is beautifully discribed and the last sentence puts it in the right context: Things in Berlin are rather worse..., or words to that effect.
Since you follow things German it may not have escaped your notice that they have finally realised that their voting system (national elections) is actually illegal! So much for German efficiency.
Your were teaching in East Germany in the nineties, you mentioned somewhere above. My personal experience of that period in those parts tells me that you were teaching the wrong people in the wrong place. Teaching the West Germans would have been much more appropiate. Simply too few of them understood the challenge. I should really use stronger words. They, the Germans, came also to this country in the nineties and again they behaved very badly. We are feeling the scars to this day.
If I were asked to give a single reason why there should be the EU, than it would be to control Germans and their hubris.
Here is one example:
Edmund Steuber, who lost very narrowly the general election a few years ago when trying to become Chancellor was also for many years the head of the federal state of Baveria. Croatian TV has recently made available a recording from a few years earlier showing Steuber on Croation TV behaving like a Stadthalter (the Nazis had those all over the place in occupied countries). Steuber is seen to be threatening the Croations about their aspirations to join the EU. The Croations gave way. It was about the purchase of a bank that the Bavarian State was interested in and the Croation National Bank had a say in the matter being a part owner of an Austrian Bank that in turn was the megalomanian Steuber's aspiration to purchase. "He" got the bank and it flopped, it cost the Bavarian taxpayer several billions. It is back in Austrian hands now, who had no choice but to take it back for one Euro and a lot of liabilities. They are of course hopping mad.
The prosecutor is looking into the matter.
Part of the reason of my mentioning this is to demonstrate that referring to Nazi Germany is unhelpful since it distracts from what goes on in present day Germany.
So let's have lots of Lady Ashton, if she turns out to be as good as the FT in Germany we shall all benefit.
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Personally I think that the real argument against Baroness Ashton is that she has never stood for election inspite of being given important roles. Her promotion poses serious questions for the process of democracy in the UK and the EU
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offramp;
"I stopped reading at that point..."
I understand your problem, many of the words do have more than two syllables. Sorry I can't edit them so that they are all shorter. Take a remedial reading course and come back when you are more skillful at English. Having lived in a country where English was not the language spoken, I know the frustration reading in a foreign language. Keep trying, eventually you'll get it.
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MarcusAureliusII
It is very kind of you to grace us with your presence on this particular thread. But could it be just possible that you erred and meant to be somewhere altogether different? Mark Mardell, my dear fellow, does the American cousin bit these days with his blog on things American. So why don't you do the decent thing and toddle off. Mark Mardell is talking about guns there. Now isn't that the sort of subject a gangho fellow like you cherrishes? Or is it that the blogsheriffs have you in their sight and are waiting to pounce should you turn up again. You have blotted your copy book there, have'nt you? Gone a bit over the top, sort of Bushlike, whatnot? We over here don't mind to make mistakes with the English language, taking part is more important than winning or being perfect. Not the American way I suppose, but then we leave America to you. We can't be fairer than that, can we? But thanks nonetheless for all the help your elders have given us. So if ever there is anything we can do for you, just give us a shout.
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Marucs @ 110.
I believe he stopped reading because it was the amongst one of the most stupid things I have ever read. If you think the US taxpayer is funding European welfare your an idiot.
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"Malefactor, the resolution of the US GPS system as it is available to the general public was increased to address the objections of Europeans which was their stated reason for wanting their own system. The resolution available to the US military and other US government functions is much higher. So far the EU doesn't have a system. If it is as successful as their Mars mission or their Hadron collider the US may not have much to worry about for a long time as European technology does not exactly enjoy a reputation for being advanced or reliable, at least not among people I know."
Mars Mission... you know 2/3rds of missions to Mars fail, NASA has a long-standing in-joke about "The Great Galactic Ghoul" that eats their probes.
The LHC is the worlds largest and more powerful particle accelerator, it was bound to have teething problems, even established American technologies have problems. Remember the Shuttle? What are you replacing that with now? I hope you don't mind your new position politely asking Russia for a lift into space...
If we are going on hearsay and conjecture, the amount of people that slag off American products is astounding.
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EUprisoner, what I mentioned about my student days is true but does not characterises the whole country. But I have 3-4 stories to tell, but that is not for here of course!
Marcus, I am wondering if you really wanted any French-style Language Academy to patrol out there for the case of English too. So take it easy with people, relax. While I know it is important to respect the language (any language) and use it in a proper manner, for good or for bad most people here even if they master the use of English write so fast that inherently do a lot of errors. Myself, I can write much better, but to achieve a certain volume passing down my thoughts in a relatively short time (I type blindly and faster than I can write by pen) I inherently do a lot of mistakes. The comment window also is small so we do not see our full sentence sometimes. It is a problem, not only for English but for every language written on the net.
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Nok
Re #114
What you said of your 'student' experience in G.B. may well be "..true..", but you also tried to infer it did 'characterise' and was endemic to British Citizens & you clearly stated nowhere else in EUrope did such things occur.
You can try all you like to weasel out of it now, but your contributions stink!
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Here's a view from the sewer;
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/220828
There's about two minutes of silence near the beginning, a technical glitch.
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114. At 5:50pm on 13 Mar 2010, Nik wrote:
" ... . The comment window also is small so we do not see our full sentence sometimes. ... "
EUpris: Why not write it in your word processing program, check it, then cut and paste into the window?
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# 108. At 11:03am on 13 Mar 2010, jablko wrote:
"May I be so brave and recommend you to think as much about referenda? .. The Swiss actually used it very effectivly to deny democracy to their wives,"
EUpris: The British used the First Past The Post System (FPTPS) to deny women the vote. British women staged a sort of uprising, the Suffragette Movement, in which some of them got killed. Swiss women should have been stroppier. I don't believe any of them needed to die. I believe they should have picked up the phone and rung the offices of officialdom repeatedly demanding they be given the vote. I believe we in the UK could do something similar to the "EU".
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109. At 1:59pm on 13 Mar 2010, Francesca Jones wrote:
"Personally I think that the real argument against Baroness Ashton is that she has never stood for election inspite of being given important roles. Her promotion poses serious questions for the process of democracy in the UK and the EU"
EUpris: True!! But it is not the first time such problems have been evident. It is just another example of how disgraceful the "EU" is.
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108. At 11:03am on 13 Mar 2010, jablko wrote:
"To EUprisoner ....
Your were teaching in East Germany in the nineties, you mentioned somewhere above."
EUpris: I think not. I hope not. I was teaching in West Germany for most of the seventies. I taught mainly maths in the UK in the nineties. For a while I taught maths and German to "adult" construction students.
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108. At 11:03am on 13 Mar 2010, jablko wrote:
" ...
So let's have lots of Lady Ashton, if she turns out to be as good as the FT in Germany we shall all benefit. "
EUpris: She won't.
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Marcus Honey,
Its St. Patricks day festival here in Savannah Ga. Why do not you drag your incredibly optimistic self down here and celebrate the week with us!!!!
You need a break from the computer.....and bring the equally cheery EUpris with you....The more, the merrier!!!
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IHOP;
I enjoyed my visit to Savanah in 1989 very much. It is a very beautiful city. Fortunately I didn't accidentally touch the live oak. If I were headed down that way again, I'd prefer to see Charleston SC which I've never been to. The year I visited Savanah, I was supposed to go there too but hurricaine Hugo had other ideas. Went to Colonial Williamsburg instead. It was part of a 10 day cruise of Bermuda and the colonial South on the Cunard Sagafijord. Funny, the Trump Princess was docked just down the way from my ship in front of the Hilton Hotel on the riverfront. Compared even to the relatively small (as cruise ships go) Sagafijord, only about 25,000 tons, the Trump Princess looked like a toy boat. I can't imagine preferring to be out in the middle of the ocean on such a small craft as Trump Princess no matter how luxurious it is. The ocean is a very dangerous place.
Thanks for the invite. We can have corned beef, cabbage, boiled potatoes and beer right here. I've got a freezer full of corned beef. No I don't drink Guinness and I don't put green vegetable dye in my Sam Adams.
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I wonder why Homer Simpson hates Europe (and seemingly the rest of the world) so much? He mentioned once that his grandparetns left Europe to start a new life in the good ol' US of A. Which staetl did they come from?
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Dare I say ...where is the anti and the pro posts concerning Lady Ms. Ashton's actual ability?
And Nik, could you please provide SOME sources/links for your "historical" based comments?
Are they in your conspiracy scrapbook?
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And Nik,
I apologize to you for my last two posts,
My mood is of my OWN making...
why take it out on you??:((
Cause, ...only God knows--Good luck and again ty for your posts.:)
David
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And I miss Alice, as do you, and as does Gen. *ranco, and Marcus II.
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The comments about Swiss women receiving the right to vote are absolutely misguided.
If Swiss women did receive the right to vote 30 years ago, then women in the UK, USA and Europe have NEVER received the right to vote.
Compare like to like. 30 years ago Swiss women received the right to vote on law. They received the right to petition for referenda, and the right to vote for or against the legislation which governs their lives.
They did not receive the token "right" to vote for one of a handful of professional politicians who have been hand picked and vetted by bankers and aristocrats. Nor did they receive the right to vote for party members who have been selected by the Soviet communist party.
There is a profoundly idiotic mistake in comparing the Swiss voting experience to the western voting experience. The two processes are chalk and cheese. The British may find it hard to stomach, but the fact is that they simply do not know what it is like to live under the laws they have voted upon. All they know is that they have chosen one of the chosen. Nobody elected Brown. Nobody ever voted for Ashton. The Queen was born to reign over them.
When it comes to voting on the laws under which they live, they simply would not know. Many think they know, because British culture teaches that to be British is to know better than all others on all matters, but even so it is a verifiable fact that they cannot know.
The reason Swiss women did not clamour for the vote was because Switzerland has a very, very strong family culture. Even today, women can go to the bank and withdraw their husbands money. Wives can make contracts which the husband must honour. Men are expected to work and support their wives, and women expect to be professional mothers and carers for children. Family law is and was extremely supportive of women's financial rights. Men who neglect their families lose their jobs, they lose their property and they lose any respect they might have had in their local community.
And if you think about what that means, in a society where the male goes to the town hall to vote on local laws and regional laws and federal laws, you may begin to understand that women in Switzerland had more power over their government without the vote than women in representative systems have with their token vote.
A Swiss hausfrau 40 years ago could make her feelings known and could argue for legislative change far, far more effectively than any British or European woman.
Anyway, it is a waste of time talking about it to people who would not know the difference between real democracy and sham representation, and yet who think they know.
To judge a system without having lived under it is futile and extremely arrogant. I have lived under both real democracy and representation, and my in laws lived under soviet communism, itself another sham system of representation.
There is representation and there is democracy, and there is no middle ground. Until you have lived under both, this fundamental truth seems impossible to grasp.
That is why East Germany and the Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea can tell their people they exist under democracy. Because people who wouldn't know simply wouldn't know. But they talk and talk, and they love their state, and they like to do as they are told.
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#128
Your post has more holes than Swiss cheese.
"because British culture teaches that to be British is to know better than all others on all matters"-
??? dont be silly.
"To judge a system without having lived under it is futile and extremely arrogant."
Absolutely - prove you have lived and voted in Britain and you might be taken seriously
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democracythreat 128
Thank you very much for telling us a little more about Switzerland. Living there and knowing about that country does help I am sure. I did live there long ago but would not claim to know enough. The people were absolutely marvellous with me, so no complaints there. At the time there were 5 million Swiss and 1 million foreigners living there. Only a minority therefore had the vote as we know it. You must know, I am sure, that the Swiss made it very difficult for those foreigners, without whom the Swiss economy could'nt function, to become Swiss citizens. It is of course not only a Swiss fenomenen that a fair number economically active citizens have no right to vote. The Netherlands being one of three exceptions in Europe.
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EUprisoner
Nik pointed out the problem of having to work in this little space provided. Thank you for letting him and me by extension, into your little secret of "cut and paste".
Of course you did'nt say that you had been teaching in East Germany. I got it wrong. I made an assumption, for not having your text under my nose when writing. I apologize!
Since you don't expect Lady (Cathy) Ashton to do that well you must be fairly happy with her appointment in a round about sort of way. Should'nt you tell us how skillfully she managed to sheppard the Lisbon Treaty through that other place, the Lords? Mathematical precision demands it! Sorry about that one.
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EUprisoner 108
I do concur with you. We do need a bit more stroppiness a bit more vigour about the place to defend or indeed regain lost ground democratically speaking. In my reckoning Britain has been short of Mathematicians for a very long while. The result being that politicians never seemed to be able to tot up the figures (economic data) correctly. The inability to control inflation ended up in not really wanting to control it resulting in the "birth" of "fair value accounting" in the eighties. This seemed reasonable in that sort of environment but it can be looked upon as the catapult for our present crisis.
Mathematicians should indeed have been more stroppy. More power to your elbow I should say.
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dt
"because British culture teaches that to be British is to know better than all others on all matters"
That's what makes it so much fun to point out and prove to them that they are wrong most of the time. Most of the time? Yes they can't even be consistent in that. It's the law of averages that works against therm, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Example, they were right to invade Iraq with the US but they botched it up by insisting on waiting six months to get one more useless UN resolution which they never got and didn't need. Had the invasion proceeded in the fall of 2002 as the Americans wanted instead of March 2003, if Saddam Hussein had WMDs we would have found them. The delay gave him time to hide or get rid of them, possibly sending them to Syria.
This fact about British culture is of greater value than merely creating sport at their expense. You can usually watch the British and know what to invest in by doing exactly the opposite of what they do, they are a very reliable negative indicator for financiaol investments. For instance, George Soros reportedly took the Bank of England for one billion dollars in one night because he bet that they would reverse their course and realign themselves with the ERM. He was right of course. Can you think of even one other example in history where a government was so easily taken for so much money so quickly?
offramp;
""To judge a system without having lived under it is futile and extremely arrogant.""
Good point. You didn't have to live in Nazi Germany or the USSR to judge it. You could draw conclusions about them by the consistent stories of refugees who fled for their lives and by the size of the piles of dead bodies. I however did wait until I lived in Europe to get first hand experience of the feel of the place before I put all of the pieces together. When you see an unmistakable consistent pattern that forms a tapestry it is hard to ignore what is plainly in front of you.
jabber;
"In my reckoning Britain has been short of Mathematicians for a very long while. The result being that politicians never seemed to be able to tot up the figures (economic data) correctly."
That is why America perfected electronic calculators and high speed eletronic computers. All you have to do is enter the correct addends and you will get the right total quickly every time. These are not alas thinking machines. When the outgo is far greater than the income, it won't tell you that you can't keep getting away with it forever. You need a working brain to come to the conclusion that your nanny welfare state is in the long run unsustainable. When that flies in the face of the political dogma that you have emotionally clung to relentlessly and tenaciously all of your life, then you get the result the computers predict, bankruptcy.
what does "stroppy" mean? In American english, a strop is a long leather strap used to hone a safety razor. I'm not familiar with this Britishism.
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David, who's Alice? I seem to remember someone once posted here with a name something like that.
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commonsense_expressway wrote:
"#128
Your post has more holes than Swiss cheese.
"because British culture teaches that to be British is to know better than all others on all matters"-
??? dont be silly."
Irony is not your strong suit. You've responded to a claim that the British culture indoctrinates Brits to be aloof and superior by passing an offhand insult, speaking to me as if I'm a child and failing to mention any serious point made in the debate.
You see, it is the complete lack of awareness of any possible irony that makes me so dismissive of modern English culture. To be perfectly frank, you don't seem very bright, and yet you speak down to me from a very great height.
I don't understand where that baseless superiority comes from. No other culture has ever treated me in that way. Only in Britain do I meet dim people with no education who honestly think they are intelligent folks by birthright.
That is not a slur against all british people. No way. I know a lot of intelligent brits, and I'm sure there are many more as well. Perhaps Britain even has a superior ratio of learned and intelligent people per capita of population. I don't know, it is entirely possible.
But what I do know, from considerable experience, is that Britain has an abundance of people who are not educated and not intelligent who honestly think they are so. It is as if the accent renders a person intelligent, as if being born on the Island makes a person wise.
To give a concrete example, I recently went to a tribunal hearing in London, and a 24 year old chap kept interrupting my client and myself, to correct us and to lecture us about English law. It happened again and again and again. The English chap was beginning to get on my nerves, because his arrogance and interruptions were so devoid of merit, and I began to wonder where on earth he could possibly have obtained his law degree. Wherever it was, it must have been a dreadful school, and he must have been one of the worst students.
Eventually I aksed him where he obtained his legal training. He immediately told me he had none, except from high school. He was just a clerk in a government position. And then he said a most curious thing. He told me that all English students learn about the law in classes at school.
Now, this could never happen in America, Germany, Russia, Australia, China or anywhere else. Nowhere else does a person ten years younger than you, with absolutely no tertiary qualifications whatsoever, interrupt and lecture and correct lawyers twelve years their senior with idiotic waffle because they were taught something at high school.
I'm not black. I'm white and my name is 100% british. This chap was second generation ethnic, and spoke with a broad east end accent. No university education, no qualifications, no seniority. But an absolutely unshakable belief in his own superior intellect for absolutely no reason except that he went to high school in England.
And he was an idiot. Not an idiot in the sense that I didn't like him. I mean only that he was foolish. A person of very little knowledge who spoke far too much with too little to say.
And that, I'm genuinely sorry to say, is not the first time this has happened. I avoid British folks like the plague in Europe, because they embarrass themselves dreadfully with their weird superiority complex. They always have to speak loudly and give the final word, regardless of whether they know anything worth saying. They always seem to think it was Britain who won the second world war.
And finally, they think they live under democracy whilst they sing a national anthem that contains the words "Born to reign over us."
I don't hate the British, but I do understand why they are unpopular as a culture. If you took away the accent, they'd be no better than americans without the goodwill or the power. And yet they somehow think they invented the very concept of intelligence. Strange, strange culture.
At least the french can cook and the germans make cars properly. What does Britain do well? In the last hundred years, I mean?
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MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"To judge a system without having lived under it is futile and extremely arrogant.""
Good point. You didn't have to live in Nazi Germany or the USSR to judge it. You could draw conclusions about them by the consistent stories of refugees who fled for their lives and by the size of the piles of dead bodies. "
Well, one could say exactly the same about the UK in the same period. After all, the piles of dead bodies in france after the first world war made british society look like the most bloodthirsty butchers who ever lived. Of course, if you believe the state propaganda which says all those people were heros who died loving their state, despite the fact of their forced conscription, then I suppose there can be no comparison to NAZI germany or the soviet union.
I think you do need to live in a place to understand how the propaganda shapes the public perception of the outside world. The "consistent stories of refugees" is not good enough. For a start, those tend to be solicited and rewarded by folks with a vested interest in promoting nationalistic pride.
The reason i claim that representation is never democracy is because I have been lectured and disliked for making the observation that soviet elections were a sham, and also that UK, European and US elections are a sham.
I make the same arguments in the same places, and the same sorts of folks dislikes me for the same reasons. That is that their nation is the best in the world, and that people in other nations have a terrible time and take part in faked elections that always suit the rich and powerful people behind the scenes.
And it is always the people who have never travelled anywhere, or who own considerable property at home, who are sure their own nation is the best in the world. And party members are always the first to tell you that representation is real democracy. You can bet your fur on that being consistent wherever you travel.
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jablko wrote:
" At the time there were 5 million Swiss and 1 million foreigners living there. Only a minority therefore had the vote as we know it. You must know, I am sure, that the Swiss made it very difficult for those foreigners, without whom the Swiss economy could'nt function, to become Swiss citizens. "
Yes, you make a very good point. Switzerland has a curious human rights position. It is essentially the judges against the rest of the population. The judges understand that fundamental human rights are just that: they cannot be denied on the basis of government paperwork such as a passport. Otherwise you get the absurd and detestable situation where fascists claim to be upholding human rights for the right humans: those they give the right paperwork to. The others, well they don't count because the government doesn't give them permission to exercise their fundamental human rights.
So I would put Nazi germany, Switzerland and Latvia in that category of weird states where people do not "get" human rights. In these countries you get educated, patriotic folks who think not having the correct government permissions makes you subhuman.
Now I generally take a nice easy line with the Swiss, because I'm a guest here and I like the people and the political system. But the human rights situation is bad, and deteriorating. I am actually putting together a legal case against the Swiss government, based upon my own fundamental human rights to participate in civic life.
My argument is that by allowing the government and far right parties to accept guest workers without issuing full human rights to those workers, the Swiss courts facilitate the inevitable degradation and corruption of all Swiss law.
My reasoning is that ANY degradation of human rights sets a precedent for fascists and nazis to exploit, and human nature being what it is the exploitation must inevitably happen. It is the crack in the glass theory. By turning a blind eye to political rights being denied, the courts allow a whole range of human rights to be ignored. Police think they can treat non citizens how they wish, and government officials behave rudely to non citizens, and as if they are superior human beings. This result is precisely the opposite of what the Swiss political system is proud to achieve, and hence the legal absurdity.
My whole case is that human rights are not divisible. Either you allow the whole human inside your country, or you deny the whole human. You can't accept the bit that works and leave out the bit that votes. You can't draw and quarter human rights separately to the human being holding the rights.
I don't need their passport, and I am slowly developing a firm enough footing here to directly challenge the law. So at some stage I will take the government on in the courts, regarding political rights. I think I will win. The courts seem pretty reasonable here. It is the party members and the government drones who don't know the law who make life hard for foreigners. I've not met a Swiss judge I didn't like as a person. And for that reason, I'm hesitant to make a big fuss in a Swiss court.
But the law is the law, and we all have a duty to the law. I'm more than willing to fight the Swiss fascists for the right to define the law in this land. It's a duty, in the proper sense.
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Ignore this message and get on with the discussion.
-------------------
Re 118: Cool, as I said that such things do not characterise the whole of the British society which is quite tolerant and liberal but then there is indeed some notion of treating specially other europeans by some parts of the society - a notion that does not exist, at least not in that way, in other countries. Of course technically to say that the % of racial attacks in Britain against other EU-members is larger, one must do compararative studies. I cannot do that, I have only my own student experience. Down to the basics, this study cannot be done as there much more EU students in Britain than EU students in any other country, so I could not compare say Britain with Austria. France is the second in terms of EU students studying there. I live in France and I am in contract with EU students. I have never heard of stories I lived myself and heard in Britain, not even in Bulgaria where my brother studies, a country that had been an enemy country to Greece in the recent past, where people in the first years of post-communism struggled while Greek students cruised enjoying high-society life (a sharp contrast back) - in Sofia I had not heard as much attacks of Bulgarians against Greeks (apart burglaries, understandable at those hard times...) as from the sizeable Palestinian community (usual reason: women). But in Britain they have attacked me with a pint for simply sitting next to a German during a match of the German team (and none of us was shouting or cheering, absolutely nothing like that - the guy had only heard the accent of my friend but attacked me rather). 1 taxi driver called other 5 to beat blue my Austrian flatmate and his German and Swedish friends probably for having commented on the easyness of some random British girl they knew - in the police they were refused to file a racist attack on the basis that they were European and that was not possible. A Greek guy was attacked outside the gates of the Uni by 3 drunk guys armed with steel bars and knifes; he managed to beat them down but the guys went to the police and filed for "unprovoked attack by a mad "mediterranean-looking" student" as if the student would go around holding 2 steel bars and 1 knife (the arms of the attack) to attack 3 guys at once". Yet he had a bit of a trouble in the process to prove his innocence which was not proven directly - rather "dismissed on having doubts".... Amazing!!!!
Well the stories I have are quite indicative. They do not characterise the whole British society but refusing that there is not a particular attitude towards other Europeans that DOES NOT exist in other EU countries is out of question. There is is, I have seen it.
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Back to the discussion, it took some interesting turn towards human rights. Well I have to say that the whole discussion is void. Human rights are just another political inventin that can be interpreted in any way one wants. Usually it is applied in the sense the powerful want to give.
I do not even to search an example. Remember Yugoslav wars? Bosnians and Albanians had human rights, Serbians who suffered equally (if not more) had not at all. In Georgia, Ossetians and Abkhazians in a situation almost identical to Kossovo they had no human rights according to US and they had to be fought off by the Georgian Saakasvili semi-dictatoric regime that had forbidden their language, their participation in society, their legal rights - which only backfired as people kept their Russian passports thus Russia was 100% entitled to intervene and protect its citizens from the Georgian offensive.
What are human rights if not a random collection of papers? Is is anything new? We have been hearing such flowery words since the times christians ceasing power in their hands promised a world of love and happyness where every human being would be respected. Well no. Human rights do not exist. It is a thing to refer to as a justification for political or military intervention.
Everyday in life there are millions of people who are oppressed and whose "human rights" if we stick to the term, are thrown in the garbage. Somehow people that talk about human rights they pay attention ONLY there where there is some political interest completely ignoring and even stubbornly refusing to even listen to other cases elsewhere where politics are against them.
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dt;
"Well, one could say exactly the same about the UK in the same period. After all, the piles of dead bodies in france after the first world war made british society look like the most bloodthirsty butchers who ever lived."
I think one could reasonably come to that conclusion even when put up against the worst of the rest. When you take the history of the British empire as a whole into account and look at how many people both British born and those around the world died or led lives as virtual slaves of it, when you count up all those bodies, I think they were among the worst if not the worst. Keep in mind that Britain's history is that of a piratical nation. It did not gain its wealth through the enterprise of its own people but through military conquest and exploitation of others. Those British soldiers who died in France were not defending Britain from attack or likely attack, they were engaged as tools in a byzantine policy of European intrigues and alliances made and executed by those who never came anywhere near a military battlefield. This is what President Washington warned all future American presidents to stay away from and they heeded his warning until a fool named Woodrow Wilson was elected President. That was the start of America's troubles with Europe during the 20th and now 21st century. When will we elect someone smart enough to know it is in America's best interest to get out of "all entangling alliances" with any nation in Europe?
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@127 David @133 MA
"David, who's Alice? I seem to remember someone once posted here with a name something like that."
David,
Alice is the rare spice for seasoning this BBC stew in orfder to make it more delicious. Marcus is just the other omnipresent spice...
You see friend, we humble EUSSR folks still need both spices ... at least until the establishment of the EDF. The said spices make an integral part of our kitchen stock ever since WW1. Cheers!
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Nik
Re #138 & #139
Quote, "..There it is. I have seen it."
Well, that's a decisive clincher, isn't it? Nik saw it, so it must be!
Yet more sweeping generalisations that are entirely unsubstantiated!
So, there is the British "..particular attitude towards EUropeans.." that you have seen:
Did those people include the 2 million EUropean Citizens residing in G.B? Or, what about the 8 million British Citizens whose parent's first language is not English? How about the Scottish, Welsh, Irish?
Tell us all Nik, in your obviously vast experience of all things British, which 'particular' British are you referring to: The Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Nigerian, South African, Kenyan, Egyptian, Turkish, Channel Islander, West Indian, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, Chinese... British, or, another indigenous goup from Cornwall, Humberside, Cheshire, Tyneside, London... ? Do you even have any idea where those places are Nik, never mind the millions that inhabit them!?
When I visit my mother's Belgium I meet Fleming and Walloon: They appear to have a 'particular attitude' toward each other! What about the 'east' & 'west' Germans, or even Prussians and Austrians!? As for Hungary, Poland, the Baltic States, Italy, France with their similar mini multi-cultural mixes that from time to time display remarkable 'particular attitudes' when referring to each other... !?
It is not a British 'particularity' you are describing Nik, it is the way of the world, but you clearly have a very sheltered view of it!
You see Nik, what you claim to have "..seen.." in Britain, and you insist "..DOES NOT exist in other EU countries.." is just your interpretation of your fleeting, skimmed trivia and based on your anecdotal account of a violent incident that can and does happen across the entire World, never mind Britain or EUrope!
Czechs beat up Czechs, Dutch beat up Dutch, Swedes beat Swedes etc. in rows about what was "..said.." about a 'girl' or 'boy', 'friend', 'homeland', 'football team', 'faith', 'pop singer', fashion accessory'... No one has to be 'foreign' for them to become involved in something unsavoury, but it happens - -
You know in a tragic incident a Brit girl's 3 murderers have just been sentenced in Italy: 1 was american, another italian and 1 african! So, is that all america, italy and africa - - of course it isn't - - and what is more it is not an expression of any 'attitude', except that People being Human make small, medium and big mistakes in their lives!
You have made a relatively small assertion about the British, but in your 'attitude' to the British you make a large personal error of judgement.
Nik, have you ever noticed the World turning just outside your door in your own country!?
As for your views on Human Rights: It would seem you have chosen to pronounce on how that is for everyone else, as well!
With as much evidence and sophistication as you displayed in your assessment of the British relaionship to Europe, i.e. almost no understanding at all!
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DemocThreat
Re #135
What does Britain do?
Well, clearly it gives You, MAII, Nik and some others equally & decidedly narrow-minded the opportunity to obsess on all the faults of the English!
That these jaundiced views of Brits, or more precisely 'English' (which itself exposes a dubious knowledge-base of the British Isles' population) are almost invariably grounded in some puerile anecdotes combined with loose, not to say, antiquated lessons from a supposed World Historical experience of the 'English' leaves one breathless at the stereotyping which ironically is also usually a main charge made against the Brits!
A '24' year old talked down to the esteemed, mature, Legal representative from Switzerland!
That's the 'English' You all know and have common experience of when visiting Britain and across continental EUrope!?
An irate American tennis-player at Wimbledon, p###ed off with 'superior' Wimbledon Line-judges exclaimed several times, "You cannot be serious!"
MacEnroe was brilliant and totally right in 8 out 10 calls on the line, but as to his estimation of what constitutes a matter of importance!
"..Avoid like the plague..": Does this not tell us an immense about Your personal opinion of your worth compared to others!? Do You grace the Germans, French, Spanish with Your presence - - oh how lucky for them - - dammit, just what are the English missing out on!?
I shan't sleep nights for the anxst!
Let's see now: Ah yes, according to the most recent surveys there were an estimated 59.4 million registered Britons & another guesstimated 1.8 unregistered residents of various sorts in the Islands. On reflection I know at an intimate, family setting about 20 of those (not all English, you understand, but residing in G.B.), on a personal level approximately another 20 to 25 and there are some 75 to 100 acquaintances; then there's my beloved Spurs FC 'Fan' club which gives me another 45,000! Amongst them I have to admit I have met the most obnoxious, rascists and the most humbug of Clerics and, dare I say, much of Human persona in between.
Now resident in Finland it is my general experience that there are some Finns who hate Russians, others who don't give Russians a thought and some who think Russians are really lovely: It was fairly much the same when I was 11 years in the Armed Forces - - Americans who hated Canucks, ignored them or loved them, and so it was with Hong Kong, West Germany (as then was), and as I've mentioned before my Belge family is full of contradictory relationships being French and Flemish - - now weddings & funerals there are really entertaining!!!
As for asserting my 'knowing' what any Nationality is like?
I would never dream of implying any idea at all about such a matter: To my mind people that attempt such a thing always smack of a dullness of wit and reveal a tendency for quick-fix versions of Humanity that any educated mind has surely progressed beyond!
Of course, all the above is only my opinion and is entirely subjective having been arrived at from a few contributions on some Blog sites I frequent; as such I think my mind is always open to other perspectives on any Humans on the planet Earth. Though I am bound to say anyone who tries to argue Switzerland, Nepal, Zimbabwhe, Britain, Sudan, Seychelles etc. are very much different in general human relations is unlikely to find favour with me!
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cbw;
"Well, clearly it gives You, MAII, Nik and some others equally & decidedly narrow-minded the opportunity to obsess on all the faults of the English!"
Then let me correct that misconception immediately at least as it is in regard to me so there is no doubt, I think the rest of Europe is just as complicit. It is not a difference of attitude or guilt but only of degree IMO. The Spaniards, French, Dutch, Belgians, etc were every bit as ruthless in their imperial empires as the British. I wouldn't want anyone to think I'd given them a free pass. BTW, my criticism of Britain's faults is hardly so narrow as to include these alone, there are many others which haven't come up in this topic that are every bit the equal of this one.
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133. At 1:38pm on 14 Mar 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"...America perfected electronic calculators and high speed eletronic computers. All you have to do is enter the correct addends and you will get the right total quickly every time. These are not alas thinking machines. When the outgo is far greater than the income, it won't tell you that you can't keep getting away with it forever...."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM#Business_relations_with_Nazi_Germany
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democracythreat
Thank you vry much for sharing your insight into matters Swiss as they stand today. You obviously have the knowledge and determination to take them on. Are there not some organisations that could stand by you? There must be people that have the same concerns, I suppose? Acting as a group might get you more attention. It also helps along the way to cope better with frustations. This reflect a bit my experience here in Prague.
Now, another little thing, if you don't mind. Do'nt use the term Nazi, you might start a trend which will end up making the real Nazis look better than they were.
You made a comment about some bad experience with British people, well of course there are some annoying characters there. Just put that down to the rich tapestry of life in Britain and a bit of bad luck on your part.
Just think of Cathy Ashton, she is a real lady!
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#135
Shameful post, another factless diatribe, total abuse of the privilege of anonymous free speech. Be careful Marcus, I think this guy is a genuine challenger to your throne.
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MAII
Re #144
Yes, and your perception of EUrope is as in poor taste, inadequately sourced and irremediably inappropriate as anything else you have written.
Just to repeat as you need all the help there is on offer:
The clear fool is foolishly clear!
That said, it does caue a bout of giggles to know such high-brows as DemocThreat & irrationals as Nik etc. are in the same 'anti-English' company as You!
How very, very droll.
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MarkusAureliusII 133
@110 you became rather "stroppy" with someone you called offramp, actually saying to "come back when you are more skillful at English".
Now you are asking for help with the English language at the same time getting "uppety" about PC's and America in general. Maybe I should have been a touch more "agressive" in my put down at 111 of your goodself.
At 133 you are describing American prowess re computers....correct addends....right total quickly every time.
You must have been referring to Lehmann Brothers, I suppose?
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DemocThreat
Re #135
I will add at this juncture (not wishing to make any claim to their being typical or otherwise) that in my extremely limited experience of anyone Swiss - - I believe it was actually 1984 or '85 - - the Swiss Family (French speaking) holidaying in the Ardennes villa beside ours went to great lengths over a delightful evening meal to explain that they neither understood nor agreed in any way with the idea of adult Swiss Females not being able to vote.
They spoke of a Switzerland riddled with old-fashioned, traditionalist patriarchial attitudes that even the emerging modern generation of Swiss were finding hard to breakdown.
They never once alluded to Swiss females having peculiarly strong influence - - on the contrary - - they attributed much of Switzerland's inherent social difficulties to a lack of female voice in politics.
But hey, that's one family - - I can't claim to have come across legions of Swiss unlike you in your dealings with those 'English' - - so, my impression is only that, an impression gained from 2 adults & a teenage boy and girl.
You 'knowing' so many more 'swiss' & 'english' obviously have the advantage in this debate!
Oh, by the way, in our conversation back then, I was astounded to learn the age of legal responsibility for Children in civilised Switzerland was '5'!
I assume a Referendum or some such has long since raised that to at least the '10' of that English society you so despise?
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@democracythreat, or dt as MA2 calls you,
I'm an observer as you are... After all of the above comments, I feel that I must share the reason than I'm pro-EU. Propaganda is always there. EU for me, just dissolves part of the argument.
Yes, people with money trade their alliance with people with power. I do not care if the people with power are based in Athens or Brussels. What I really care about is that people in Athens stop blaming people in London for their troubles and vice versa.
The only thing that can accomplish that, is a few generations under Brussels's rule.
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135. At 3:08pm on 14 Mar 2010, democracythreat wrote:
" ...
Only in Britain do I meet dim people with no education who honestly think they are intelligent folks by birthright. ..."
EUpris: I have certainly met people like that in the UK. I have met them in other countries too.
Do you speak any other languages?
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135. At 3:08pm on 14 Mar 2010, democracythreat wrote:
" ...
Now, this could never happen in America, Germany, Russia, Australia, China or anywhere else. Nowhere else does a person ten years younger than you, with absolutely no tertiary qualifications whatsoever, interrupt and lecture and correct lawyers twelve years their senior with idiotic waffle because they were taught something at high school."
EUprisoner: That just is not true.
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135. At 3:08pm on 14 Mar 2010, democracythreat wrote:
" ...
At least the french can cook and the germans make cars properly. What does Britain do well? In the last hundred years, I mean?"
EUpris: Fight fascism and megalomania when the Americans have not yet gotten off their (gluteus maximus)x2.
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135. At 3:08pm on 14 Mar 2010, democracythreat wrote:
" ...
At least the french can cook and the germans make cars properly. "
The Germans can cook bloody well! My experience suggests that in the real world, the Germans eat better than the French.
And German cooks wash their hands when they have been to the toilet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Austrian Radio website reports Ashton on Middle East Tour as foreign representative of the "EU" .
She does not represent the people in the "EU" and she does not represent the British people.
She represents an arrogant clique who have grabbed power in the "EU".
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Re 142. Cool. I have travelled in many countries but lived mostly in Britain, France and Belgium. I am sorry I have not lived 100 years in each of the EU countries to have a full opinion. As I said that is my overall view - and that includes also the collective feedback from other people of quite different nations.
It goes without saying that a fight can start among Germans and Italians given a situation like a football match or anything like that. Two men of different nationalities are more prone to fight over a woman or any other stupid reason than 2 men of the same.
BUT the examples I gave you have nothing to do with that. The taxi driver was understandably offended by 3 drunk Germanoids speaking about an English girls in irritatingly demeaning way, but had he not been himself aggressively positioned against them he could simply stop and tell them to get down. Instead he called 5 (f i v e) cabbies (all English) and they all gathered to beat "the Krauts" ... you understand that even if that happened in France (excluded 1st and 2nd generation immigrants for known reasons) the cabbie would not had found instantly 5 other cabbies unless he lied on the reason for the attack but then seeing the guys it would be obvious to anyone that there was no such case. This something that would not have easily happened. BUT the most amazing - and there is the problem - is that the police becomes even worse when they refuse to file a racist attack claiming they are Europeans!
The guy that attacked me on my back with his pint while I had done absolutely nothing else than sitting next to a German not even speaking over the match, did it so only because he heard some German accent. The incident did not happen in any dirty pub but in the Student's Union. Minor attack maybe BUT what for? And whatever you say I cannot imagine ANY configuration of nations apart the Jugoslav nations among themselves (there understandable, there was proper war with 300,000 dead) that this could happen. I repeat this, I have never heard of such attitude in any other country, I have seen it only in Britain.
I again say that this does not characterises the whole country but it is well there, no need to refuse it. At the end it is much better to eat a pint in the face than be attacked by a mob of 10-15 men beating you to death as it often happens in another "European" country...
I am sorry but that is exactly cospopolitanism. It is not moving from cocktail party to cocktail party and smiling to everyone about how nice it is everything. It is understanding real life around you. Contrary to your belief, I still like Britain, I had 5 excellent years, I left back many friends and I remember fondly these years. Do not want to say but it is rather 3-4 points here that reminded me of these stupid events.
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Nik
Re #157
Now, you are writing: "..better to eat a pint in the face... than be attacked by a mob of 10-15 men beating you to death as it often happens in another "EUropean" country.."
Are you for real!?
What are you talking about!?
That accusation about a 'EUropean' country is as ridiculous as your stuff on Britons!
People get attacked in ALL countries - - sometimes it is because they are foreign - - but, People also enjoy themselves in all countries and that can be as a 'foreigner'.
You don't make any sense at all! Taxi drivers across EUrope just like THEIR CUSTOMERS have good & bad experiences, are honest & crooks, behave responsibly & are stupid, & are good & bad drivers as well!
Infact in many EUropean Nations a lot of 'taxi drivers' are themselves of 'foreign' origin - - it is the same in G.B. As taxi drivers, surprise, surprise, they often get to meet more 'foreign' People than most ordinary people because that is the job they do - - therefore the likelihood of interesting, diverting, sometimes charming 6 sometimes violent experience is higher!
That is NO reason to characterise entire Peoples - - the British who were YOUR/ARE FRIENDS of you also represent the UK - - Your original slur on the British was a disgrace and nothing you have written since has alleviated it because you keep trying to justify it even as you admit it was an irrational over-simplification/stereotyping of all Britons.
Basically, there is NOTHING that is/was accurate about your attempt to besmirch Britain and the British as somehow being more 'anti-EUropean-foreigner' than any other Nation.
From my view I am quite sure there are more Britons who ARE 'anti-EU' than in most EUropean Nations, but that does not make them or me anti-EUropean Citizens!
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#157
Nik, theres an old saying..."when in a hole, stop digging".
#158
Good post, but i think its time that all of us stopped feeding the trolls on this board, myself included
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Re159: I know how you mean it, when you refer to the whole and digging but then you just don't realise that that is exactly what I am doing... digging to get to below the surface.
Re158: The fact that have left friends back in Britain does not mean I will avoid to speak about such.
And stop all that farse about "hurt nations and such". There is no doubt that there are nations that are ocnsiderably more violent than others, absolutely no doubt about that (and I am not referring to Britain here).
The more you avoid to accept the reality the better.
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... to refuse the reality... anyway!
PS: An enemy pinpoints those weaknesses of yours that will win him a point over you. A friend tells your weaknesses independent of his interests, so you understand yourself better. Personally I can cope with a pint on the face (I kicked the drunk student on the floor while his equally drunk mates were laughing), I have something to joke so really I do not care much about it as long as it does not lead to deaths (and it does not). My point is not to win a point over you.
Here I have read messages downgrading my own country for all shorts of right and wrong reasons. I did not protest even over some of the blatantly wrong reasons (or downright lies). You can see by my messages that I mostly tried to go underneath the surface and emphasise of the deeper reasons.
Back to the main issue, that is all what I say:
Keep in mind:
East-west commerce, energy trade routes, Russian gaz, Chinese ports, Russian nuclear missiles still being a level above the US ones, US effort to counteract by establishing a nuclear shield in Eastern Europe around Russia, Iraq, Afganistan, Pakistan, the EU's dubious approach and the approach to Russia etc. etc. etc.
It is all one. Everything you hear about little countries like Greece will be inherently linked to the above. If not, then you will simply hear nothing at all. Whoever gets it gets it.
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It is indeed very difficult to find what Mrs Ashton IS bringing to the table ...if she shows up .
I think she is in way over her head,completely overrated and nothing but a glorified aristocrat trying to play big politics.
She should get out while she can , before she gets torn up by the "lobby-wolves 'in Bruxelles
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send her home . she does not have what it takes .i can see it ! who else ?
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I am very surprised i didn't get any fire for this last comment.
in general,i just want to know ,how many incompetent people do we have to assemble in Bruxelles ?
Are they even on our side? It sure does not look like it.
Let's take away their book of -great mistakes- the one that they are following so closely.
Europe had something going for a very short time .
Now ,...they lost it ,or gave it up in order to make nice with the USA and whoever calls for djihad just because we are allowed to speak freely.
European leadership has completely lost their connection not only to their people but also to reality.
Mrs Ashton is just one in a million ...
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EU Foreign Minister, Catherine Ashton, may not have been the first choice but, there again, neither was Winston Churchill throughout most of his career.
A job needs different skills in its creation phase than it needs in its post-development, 'routine' phase.
It may be that the powers that be in the EU, in their (infinite) wisdom, realized that the most desirable attributes in the first incumbent would need to be the ability to understand the present position, to perceive an achievable and desired future state of being for the EU within which Foreign Affairs operated as a coherent entity, and to have the quiet skills of diplomacy to “herd the cats” that we call the European politicians into a structure where the rest of the powers of the world know with whom to deal, within what structure and with what authority it might speak.
My guess is that Catherine Ashton has been brought in with this remit
Arguably, an incumbent would only be acceptable from a constituent country considered to be a weaker player in the Great European Game – and we have seen how a gentle female can play the greater game and win – viz Mary Robinson.
What we seek now, after these first 100 days, is the honest, supportive and enthusiastic evidence from third-parties of all persuasions within the EU corridors of power that just such developmental thinking, negotiations and power-plays leading to new and better politico/administrative structures are underway.
Constituent states will always vie with the federation structures - the trick will be to create the best of all possible balances and, in this, the task is not Ashton's alone.
This lady will need to display skills never possessed by The Iron Lady; Catherine Ashton’s task is potentially much greater and is certainly much more intractable than “just saying No”.
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@165 GeoffWord
“Constituent states will always vie with the federation structures - the trick will be to create the best of all possible balances and, in this, the task is not Ashton's alone.
This lady will need to display skills never possessed by The Iron Lady; Catherine Ashton’s task is potentially much greater and is certainly much more intractable than “just saying No”.
I must congratulate you for your brilliant analysis. I should say, it’s much better and deeper than that of Gavin Hewitt.
Given the new appointments in what was deemed to resemble to an EU- government and EU- presidency, I assume that a chance is given to old Britain to be more actively presented within the Brussels’ institutions, a fact that many observers have duly noticed and appreciated. It may be a new beginning. Besides, the recent nomination of Lady Ashton’s deputies, /all of them coming from Eastern European countries, namely from the Check rep., Latvia and Bulgaria/ is just another significant choice, aimed to counterbalance the trio Paris-Berlin-Brussels which is still believed to play the first fiddle partition of the EU- band.
What I would allow myself to comment /just as a confirmation of your vision about the difficulties of the service Lady Ashton is in charge of/ is that she seems to be much better prepared than anyone else to assume the service for the simple reason that the UK is built on the confederation principle. I mean that, in a way, the future political entity /called EU/ will resemble more to a /Switzerland type/ confederation than to a USA-type state construction. Then, I do hope, the Brits will adopt maybe the /mainland/ idiom “member states” instead of the preferred by them expression “nation states”…. if God permits.
Regards and thank you again for your brilliant contribution,
Sofia, Marsh 17th 2010
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Message for
David.
Generalissimo.
and "come over it"
____
Battled, lost, wounded.
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@167 AliceInWonderLand
“Battled, lost, wounded”?
Alice, dear friend, you are not at all battled, nor lost. You are just a little bit wounded in a result of some unlucky, casual accident. Not at all! You are still our little St.Petersburger princess, living in the best quarters of the Winter Palace which windows open on the Neva…
I assume that you feel unhappy now, and I would like just to tell you that many of us /your fellow bloggers here/ have had similar bitter moments of grief and loneliness that would usually follow the lost of a close relative or some decease or accident…
Well, what I could assure you is that I highly appreciate your artistic presence here, and, I do hope that Nik, Jukka of Finland, MarcusAureliusII, David, Mathiasen, Dr.Eiffel, Cool_brush_work, Jean Luc and the other guys will follow…
“Obnimayu krepko, krepko” (russ. I embrace you with all the strength I have)
Sofia, Marsh 18th 2010
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DEAREST ALICE, PLEASE GO TO THE LAST THREAD, NAMED "GERMANY GETS TOUGH OVER EURO". I GUESS THE COMPANY IS THERE, JUST WAITING FOR YOU.
REGARDS, YOUR COMRADE IN ARMS OF 1877- 1878
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Alice, I do hope that you are not suffering too much.I know the feeling and whilst it doesn't go, it becomes not so much of a burden with the passage of time. I wish you well and hope to see you back with us.
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To WebAliceinwonderland (167):
As long as there is life, there is hope.
Hope your okey.
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wow,what a way with the language,all for nothing....but that does not change the fact ,that Ashton is still " bush-league " and an embarassement for Europe.
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