Well, it was the price the French wanted us to pay for reunification, so maybe technically it was wrong, but politically still the right thing to do. Easy for the English to say 'I told you so'. When was the last time your country was split up? The main problem I have is that the way it is all handled right now is undermining democracy. I am sure if we would really want to we would come up with a solution that is both more democratic than the EU is set up right now, a solution that makes corruption and populism much harder, and a solution that puts the citizens in the center, not the well-being of politicians or banks. But we do not have enough politicians that want to constructively work in that direction, which is a real shame.
Nah, they couldn't do it because of Rupert Murdoch's and Paul Dacre's rabid anti-Europeanism. What's most amusing is the reaction now from the 'little Englanders' crowing about the Euro's problem and blaming THEM for our problems when we, (and you fellas ), actually created the problems in the first place Of course, the problems started years before with Reagan's and Thatcher's lunatic ideas about deregulation which fuzzy Blair, (tory-lite as I call him), and Clinton continued.
As an American citizen 1865. As a Mexican citizen I guess 1921 (last few battles of the Mexican civil war). Well maybe the EU congress should get more power from the National governments, but I do not think many citizens in different countries want that. The whole European constitution is dead right now right? The Dutch rejected that I believe. The English are not going to pass it for sure. I am not sure what the next step should be, just keep going as they are now or split up into 2 or more blocks (North EU and South EU)
And now look at the history of France, England, or any European country for that matter. The only ones that come close are all the Eastern European nations, which just emerged in the 19th or 20th century, and Italy, which was unified in the mid-19th century. There is no way for Americans or Western Europeans to understand the position the Germans were in in 1989-90 (which was when the Euro was basically sealed). The problem is that the national governments are the ones calling all the shots in Europe (if you consider the commission as an extended arm of the national governments, which it is only partially to be fair), but then they use that legitimization to push things through without really having to fear their national parliaments anymore, which goes against the European tradition of parliamentarism that emerged after WW2 in the west. Yep, the French did, too. The main problem is that it was 'either vote for this kind of Europe us politicians put together or no Europe at all', which did not go very well since it did not allow civil society to really discuss on what we want Europe to be. While that might make sense economically, it does absolutely not make sense politically. Nobody really can present a vision of what Europe should be like, all we hear is that the markets demand this and the markets demand that, and that the banks, who helped starting the whole mess, require this and that. So the logical thing for me would to hear how most Europeans want banks to work like, how accountable they want the European institutions to be, and work from there. I am sure that if we had an actual debate on those things we'd be a hell of a lot closer to solving the issues at hand. But all the politicians do is socialize the debt the banks put up, curbing democratic rights and what most Europeans consider the basic social services a country should do for its citizens like not letting ppl starve and providing education.
Soros is one of the most outspoken left wing partisan millionaire financiers in the US. One of his missions is to increase taxes on millionaires. Yes he is campaigning to raise taxes on himself.
I'm not going to pretend I'm versed in these issues at all, but I follow Madrid-based English football journo Sid Lowe on Twitter, and he just linked to this video from last night's protests. The cops went in pretty heavy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2012/10/01/strage-di-santanna-inchiesta_n_1928859.html?utm_hp_ref=italy What a farce.
Yeah the Spanish riot/federal police is full of thugs, football fans have known this to be true for years. The municipal police is okay. New laws curbing on the right to demonstrate, basically taking the rule of law away from demonstrations, and branding every demonstrator basically a terrorist don't exactly help, either.
Excellent news: http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/news-brief/2809601-erasmus-going-bankrupt One of the main pillars of the 'Europeanist' ideology is in great danger. Governments don't have the money nor the political will to keep funding the project.
Yeah, awesome, young people can't travel anymore but will be kept in our nationalistic castles, and soon we can defend the bank's and '1%'s wealth again by waging war against each other! /sarcasm How can anybody say this is a good thing?
That's exactly what the EU was built for and also what is currently happening. Working class protesters are being brutally repressed everywhere by puppet governments kept on a tight leash by anti-democratic capitalistic institutions (aka the '1%') and silly nationalism and ethnic prejudice (entire countries are being compared to swine) is rampant. The only way to preserve peace is dismantling the European Union, its monetary/financial foundations and, more importantly, all its ideological super-structrures. Sinking the Erasmus project is a good start. Besides, I (and governments as well) would rather cut funds to international study programs (completely useless, at least in Italy...professors hate foreigners who can't speak Italian - I've never met an Erasmus student who could - and either give them free rides or make it impossible for them to actually get credits) than to hospitals or asylums. Serves those muppets who still say with a straight face that senseless austerity is good 'cuz it unifies Europe more' right.
Your cognitive dissonance is astonishing. What good does it anybody if we have less contact between citizens of the different countries?
lol Helps getting rid of the pro-EU ideology (which is reducing millions of proletarians to poverty and slavery all across the continent), as I said. The Erasmus project, at least in Italy, is one huge trojan horse for Europeanism. Besides, the money is better spent somewhere else. We can't shut down hospitals and cancel welfare programs and at the same time prop up a bunch of middle-class/rich students and their study-abroad plans. Couldn't care less if it helps 'integration'.
http://www.ilmessaggero.it/primopia...zema_napolitano_germania/notizie/223613.shtml Italian president Giorgio Napolitano expresses his outrage and astonishment at the BDR's political-judicial apparatus (apparently Stuttgart has a long and proud history of Nazi affiliations and cover-ups...starting from local capobastone Hans Filbinger) for fully clearing dozens of Nazi officials of their responsibilities (which are proven beyond doubt) in the Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre, which saw hundreds of innocent elders, women and children viciously massacred by Holocaust-enforcing occupying German troops frustrated by their constant defeats at the hands of the glorious Italian anti-fascist Resistance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sant'Anna_di_Stazzema_massacre Too bad that, when it comes to economic and financial policies, he's taking orders from the same exact people who actively protect these Nazis (and he also has huge responsibilities in perpetrating the anti-Slavic, pro-fascist 'fojbe' myth)...the Italian elite's hipocrisy is disgusting.
I was enrolled (an American) as a pseudo Erasmus student when I studied in Italy last year. I have to say that I agree with this sentiment based on my experiences. You don't even want to know how many nonsensical conversations I had about the EU with those other students, it was like a religion or something. I can remember asking them why they wanted to stay in the EU considering the crisis, and all they could ever tell me was some type of vague idea, that was eerily similar to forms of nationalism. Oh, and you are correct about none of them speaking Italian. Quite frankly it's disgusting that hospital funding was cut before this "semester vacation" program was.
What do you mean with nationalism? Did they think their country would get more out of the EU than it put in or did they talk about something like Pan-Europeanism? I have not problem with the second thing. People have to have and share some common European identity if the whole project should work. The whole reason why modern nation states work is that the people in it identify with it. Heck, the US fought a bloody civil war because of exactly that feeling (well, the North did, the South fought for slavery).
I bring up nationalism because I feel that the program perpetuates nationalist tendencies, that is, the students liked the idea of Europe more than their own country which is part of the reason governments are getting away with the asinine austerity measure. It gives people the irrational idea that they have to work towards the idea of "Europe" instead of themselves. Like you will here a lot of people say that government spending caused the crisis in Spain, while in a certain sense German banks are the ones responsible for their housing bubble and the subsequent crash. Now Germany seeks to impose austerity on them, at the expense of the working class. I brought up my experience because like I said earlier, the students loved the idea of Europe but really had no idea why. When they explained why the crisis happened it all seemed to undermine the idea that the EU works, so why do they want to stay in? If I were European, I would take my chances alone than with austerity any day of the week.
Read McCormick's Europeanism and Fligstein's Euroclash and then maybe we will get somewhere with this conversation. Most Erasmus students would never think that a European identity replaces their national one (in fact for the vast majority it exists side by side). And the austerity measures have not much to do with a European identity (no surprise given the majority of Europeans did not go to a university, leave alone a student exchange).
Problem is there is absolutely no common European identity to speak of and you can't just artificially forge one.
Just because you don't see a European identity or a common European heritage, doesn't mean other people agree. It doesn't even matter if there really is one, people only have to believe in one. The question of a European identity also isn't in conflict with your nationality because the counterparts are non-Europeans, not Europeans of a different nationality. In this comparison (European vs non-European) the European states/cultures/people are very similar and have indeed a lot in common. You don't have to forge an identity. It develops on its own by the interaction of Europeans with one another and in contrast to the rest of the world. How do you think national identities came by? God given? Finding common grounds to deal with common problems, usually as a reaction to outward pressure.
It doesn't work that way (as history clearly taught us) and, more importantly, there is absolutely no need to forge said artifical identity. Especially since it only suits the needs of people who openly want to dismantle the political, social and cultural progress that my country achieved in the past few decades. a) It is in direct conflict. The violent construction of a common European state is being carried out through the destruction of many of my country's constituent values and is being tailored on the needs of places and social classes that are completely alien to me, my class and my culture. b) Italy has a lot more in common with a non-European country such as Argentina than a European country such as Germany. Same goes for most European countries. Germany surely has a lot more in common with the USA than with Italy. These alleged similarities don't exist in real life. An Italian has nothing more in common with a Finn than he does with a Japanese. c) I have absolutely no issues against non-Europeans and for the life of me can't see why I should unite with other Europeans against them and shape my cultural identity in contrast to non-Europeans. This is overt imperialism and also reeks of eugenetics and racial suprematism. Which all belong to history's trash bin, as far as I'm concerned. Common language, culture, history, heritage...none of which exists in today's Europe. And never did at any point in history. Peoples of Europe have been interacting with each other for millennia and no common culture developed. Ever.