Dec 142015
 
 December 14, 2015  Posted by at 3:43 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,


Dorothea Lange White Angel Breadline San Francisco 1933

Many people are cheering now that yesterday Marine Le Pen and her Front National (FN) party didn’t get to take over government in any regions in the France regional elections. They should think again. FN did get a lot more votes than the last time around, and, though she will be a little disappointed after last weekend’s results, it’s exactly as Le Pen herself said: “Nothing can stop us”.

And instead of bemoaning this, or even not believing it, it might be much better to try and understand why she’s right. And that has little to do with any comparisons to Donald Trump. Or perhaps it does, in that in the same way that Trump profits from -people’s perception of- the systemic failures of Washington, Le Pen is being helped into the saddle by Brussels.

The only -remaining- politicians in Europe who are critical of the EU are on the -extreme- right wing. The entire spectrum of politics other than them don’t even question Brussels anymore. Which is at least a little strange, because support for the EU on the street is not nearly as strong as among politicians, as referendum after referendum keeps on showing.

Some of which have rejected (more power to) the EU outright, like the one in Denmark last week, while others do it indirectly, by voting for anti-EU parties -see France this and last weekend-. There’s a long list of these votes going back through the years, with for instance both France and Holland saying No to the EU constitution in 2005, which led to many countries to postpone their own votes on the topic.

Brussels had an answer, though: by 2007, the Constitution proposal was converted into a Treaty (of Lisbon), which said basically the same but in a different order, and only through amendments to existing treaties. It was still rejected again in an Irish referendum, but in a second vote in 2009 accepted.

Importantly, the switch from Constitution to Treaty meant unanimity among EU nations was no longer needed; a majority was good enough. And so the whole thing was pushed through regardless of what people thought -and voted .

The overall picture is clear: Europeans in general are fine with the EU, but when it tries to grab more sovereign powers, they say NO, time and again. Only to be overruled by their own domestic politicians as well as Brussels. Their worries, frictions and arguments have only one way to go: the far right. All other political currents are united in unwavering support for the EU, basically no matter what.

But people see what’s happening in Greece, and with refugees, they see the way the Union treats the Russia and Ukraine issue, they see the new-fangled unholy plans with the EU border force, and they don’t want Brussels to tread on their respective nation’s sovereignty anymore than it already has.

They find no resonance for their worries at home, however, other than with people like Le Pen, Nigel Farage and similar ‘political outcasts’. And therefore that’s where they will turn. All Le Pen has to do is wait for the economy to get worse, and it will, and she can reap what the EU has sown.

As soon as Brussels threatens to turn into an authoritarian body, something it has already very evidently done, people will resist it.

The European Union could have been a very useful and appreciated organization, with many obvious advantages for the people of Europe. But as soon as it oversteps its boundaries, it is destined to self-implode. This process and outcome has become inevitable, because the Union has de facto appointed itself the arbiter of these boundaries.

The unelected high lords of Brussels have become too greedy, and too unaccountable, and they will end up achieving the exact opposite of what they claim the EU stands for: they will lead the continent into conflict, armed and otherwise.

The new border force concept is the perfect example for what is going wrong in Europe. A group of the largest, and therefore most powerful EU nations, have agreed on a rainy Monday afternoon that they’re going to set up some sort of military police force that will ‘protect’ the borders of member nations even if these nations don’t ask for such protection and/or outright resist it.

This is obviously directed mostly at Greece for now, and the EU thinks it can do with Greece as it pleases. But ask any German, French or British citizen if they want entrance to their countries controlled and decided by a para-military bunch of foreigners, and they’ll think you’ve lost it. But that’s the idea behind the border force: take away nations’ sovereignty. Start with the smaller and weaker and work your way up.

That this has some interesting legal implications, as I wrote recently in Greece Is A Nation Under Occupation, that few seem to even contemplate, will add to the entertainment.

There are 28 separate constitutions in the EU. Under which of these is it legal for a government to sign away control of its own borders? In how many of these countries will this be appealed at their own version of the Supreme Court? And how many of these courts will say: sure, sovereignty is way overrated anyway!?

The EU could have been a useful union. Not all those border checks, for one thing, not all those forms to fill out all the time. But with the advent of the euro, things got out of hand. You can have a functioning union between very different entities. But only as long as those differences are recognized and respected.

The euro is an idea that seeks to deny the differences between the people(s) of Europe, it seeks to claim that Germany IS Greece. To that end, it must then take away all nations’ sovereignty. The euro cannot exist without that. To function properly as a currency, it needs a banking union, a fiscal union. And then take it from there.

These are all things that nobody properly thought or talked about before it was introduced. Perhaps because everyone knew that these things would be unacceptable to the European people. And now the euro’s here, and all these things will have to be pushed through anyway. Brussels thinks it has plenty experience pushing things through despite the will of the people, so this one will work too.

But all it takes is for someone to point this out in clear language to people. Unfortunately, the only ones who do today connect this with resistance to refugees, to open societies, to all sorts of things that have nothing to do with why the euro is a failure.

Meanwhile, as I’ve written many times before, the EU is this body that self-selects for sociopaths in its hierarchy, being its undemocratic self. What few people recognize is that it also self-selects for the likes of Marine Le Pen.

And we haven’t seen anything yet. As I said before, all Le Pen has to do is for the economy to pine for the fjords. And looking at the current commodities slaughter, that might happen before anyone can look it up in the dictionary.

And Angela Merkel, after having pushed aside the Dublin accord on refugees and opened German doors, now wants to close them again. As if that works. The EU now wants to hand Greece tens of millions of euros just to keep refugees in the country.

But what happens when the recent projection of another 3 million arriving in Europe in 2016 comes to fruition? What happens when the refugees don’t listen to the Berlin/Brussels dictates? One can only imagine the chaos. The EU has offered Turkey €3+ billion to keep them there, but president Erdogan doesn’t look like the kind of guy you can make a deal with and expect him to live up to it.

Europe seriously risks being flooded with people, while its economy shrinks like a cotton jersey in an autumn rain storm. And who’s going to be looking at the wannabe dictators in Brussels for help then? Nations will end up deciding to decide for themselves. And because all politicians but the far right have unequivocally supported the Union for many years, guess who’ll be coming to dinner?

Today the victims are the Greeks and the refugees. And all those whose governments cut their benefits to ‘balance their budgets’. Tomorrow, those budgets must be balanced all over Europe, in this line of thinking.

As we witness the commodities plunge, and the stock market crash that must of necessity follow it, it becomes hard to see how countries like Italy, Spain, even France, could escape resembling Greece a whole lot more in 2016. And then Europe will be right back where it left off 70 years ago.

Home Forums Marine Le Pen Will Reap What The EU Has Sown

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  • #25639

    Dorothea Lange White Angel Breadline San Francisco 1933 Many people are cheering now that yesterday Marine Le Pen and her Front National (FN) party di
    [See the full post at: Marine Le Pen Will Reap What The EU Has Sown]

    #25641
    Nassim
    Participant

    Here is what is really going on in Syria:

    “The Western Press doesn’t have much to say about the military operations in Syria, except to affirm, without the slightest proof, that the Coalition is successfully bombing Daesh jihadists while the Russians continue to kill innocent civilians. It is in fact difficult to form a reasonable idea of the current situation, particularly since each side is readying its weapons in preparation for a wider conflict. Thierry Meyssan describes what is going on.”

    https://www.voltairenet.org/article189631.html

    It seems that American pilots are finally beginning to leak the truth about their “war against ISIS”

    “A story leaked out of Washington credits Senator John McCain, empowered by America’s corrupt congress to oversee Pentagon programs, with derailing the Obama administration’s “coalition bombing campaign” in Syria and Iraq. McCain and key right wing extremists, working in concert with Turkish, Israeli and Saudi intelligence, have placed a “political shield” over terrorist targets in Iraq and Syria, something that has frustrated American pilots, silenced by the threat of imprisonment or worse.”

    https://journal-neo.org/2015/12/14/how-john-mccain-crippled-obama-s-war-on-isis/

    #25643
    wrighttracks
    Participant

    I closely read what you have said and find it passionate and well informed. However, sitting over here in the states it is difficult for me to understand just what the hell is actually going to happen in Europe. Syria is in severe overshoot and hit by drought, not to mention gun totting troops and planes from all over the world. As pointed out in Limits to Growth and Caton’s, Overshoot, when the situation becomes dire, people migrate. So far only 4-5 million have left the country of some 25 million. They all would like to go to Europe, and one can not blame them. However, Europe is also “filled” and probably facing a deflationary recession (may be there already). Why would they want to take more people? Are they not sovereign nations? To top it off, the middle east is a powder keg filled with countries in overshoot, Egypt being the most obvious. What happens when they want to migrate? Offer me a solution rather than just being critical of the EU and member states. This is a mess beyond imagination, one that can only get ugly (Le Pen and many more of that ilk). What would you do if you were king?

    #25655
    Dr. Diablo
    Participant

    Again, they were feeding the 25 million without much trouble before now. What changed? Not overshoot. I wager if you leveled the entire infrastructure of even sparse countries like Canada or Australia, you would find that it has nothing whatsoever to do with population, unless they were Bedouin or !Kung. Humans build infrastructure. That’s what they do, at any level of development. If you annihilate that supporting infrastructure, the population dies. That’s true if you’re on a space station and cut the air scrubber, or if you’re a 13th century Hopi and destroy the wells and the corn cache.

    So what’s the real problem here? The population expanding as the inevitable process of nature? Or a few hundred trigger-happy interventionists bombing everything in that could support life within a 5-nation region? You can guess my answer.

    This is relevant because the discussion shifts from how humans are a scourge and it’s an inevitable consequence–a public service really–to kill millions of your fellow man, to pointing out how a few rogue elements have intentionally murdered and displaced a few million lives, and destroyed billions more with the cost of war. We don’t know what the earth and nearby planets can support, because so far no one’s tried anything but war. There are $2Trillion missing from the Pentagon budget alone–and that’s only the admitted. There was $23 Trillion doled out in the pan-TARP bailouts alone–and that’s only the admitted. Even the $700B original TARP would have paid off every mortgage in the U.S. You think maybe we could solve some human-scale problems of building a few flats with allotments for that money?

    All I’m saying is maybe we should try something before we resign ourselves to planetary warfare and the internecine fighting of a hundred million families. Deal?

    #25656

    I don’t want to be king. And there are plenty reasons to keep hammering on the inherent failures of the EU et al. Why that should come with a ready-made solution I don’t understand.

    Still, to prevent chaos, mayhem and warfare in Europe, first of all the EU must be abandoned and dismantled. But there’s so much interest vested in it, that won’t happen in time.

    Instead of a solution, I have earlier written of an approach: put the people first. Don’t let a single refugee child drown if you can prevent it. The best hope we have is human decency and the value of human life. If we can’t do that, we can rest assured there won’t be solution.

    #25659
    Hotrod
    Participant

    Raul,

    You have no need to provide a solution. It is enough to be a visionary who has an excellent track record.
    Unfortunately, you are correct, people who are filled with fear will turn to right wing authoritarians when the collapse comes. A few percentage points shift is all that is needed in many countries.

    #25667
    wrighttracks
    Participant

    Overshoot is part of the issue. While it is true Diablo, the infrastructure has been destroyed, maintaining it and rebuilding it cost energy and money. Syria’s population was growing at 2.6% a year, or doubling every 35 years. I suspect the country does not have the wealth to actually accommodate that many people in a comfortable way any more than Egypt does. Each country is a space station in a certain sense, the resources run out and the people die—or they migrate.

    Yes, there are rouge elements adding to the problem but drought and the movement of folks from the rural areas to cities created an unstable condition, one that could easily foster disruption and civil wars. This, I am afraid, is now a never ending problem one that Europe will not be able to solve.

    It is also true the amount of money squandered doing obviously very stupid things is unimaginable. That I can not argue. Using that money wisely certainly would have helped. The world’s wealth is shrinking and the ability to maintain the unmaintainable is becoming obvious.

    Raul: I understand your compassion and the tragedy we see every day is unexceptionable. The EU well may dismantle but that will only make matters worse because borders will be closed, and I don’t think some countries will do it nicely. Also many of the countries there are suffering badly now, more migrants only make their lives worse. I now suspect there are no solutions where everything turns out well. There simply are not enough resources to take care of every one. Unfortunately, as you have noted before, energy supplies will one day decline, if not already happening, and then these issue become compounded. The people of Greece are already cutting down their forests for heating—they can’t afford fuel.

    I do believe you are insightful and I enjoy this presentation but there is a certain reality here, in Europe and really the world, that is beginning to become unsettling. Nicole, and I have heard and talked to her, has gone over this unfolding tragedy many, many times. This is part of the unraveling. The most unstable will be victimized first. My thoughts are with you and I know your feelings are correct. Stay strong.

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